Miss Nobody

Chapter 52

CRAZY BITCH

Later Evening Day 26

Jess skipped ahead of all the waiting women in line, none of them protesting when they looked at her. She locked the bathroom door and turned to me.

I wretched into the sink, a bright green liquid like my drink. The food we had ordered never arrived and I had too much alcohol on an empty stomach.

Jess held my frizzy hair back and sighed. "I need your help, Ruby."

I nodded but I wasn't sure she could tell. My stomach emptied and I rinsed my mouth out with water from the sink faucet. I inhaled several deep cleansing breaths and my body was back to a tolerable level of intoxication. I'd still remember all this tomorrow. I looked at Jess in the mirror.

"You're not going to do it willingly though." Her bloody tears pooled in her bottom eyelids but didn't fall.

"Then it will backfire." I shrugged.

She nodded and wiped the tears gingerly. She fixed her lipstick, a bright red like blood and I flashed back to holding the deputy's ears in my hands. Ripping them from his head as he tried to attack Jess, Cherry, and myself. The camera that live-streamed the entire thing. The bright red blood that dried all over my hands. My dress.

"That's the point." The lights flickered and dimmed to a sickly green. Jess flashed from a grisly decaying skeleton, flesh falling from her in clumps with smacks to the floor, to the beautiful young woman I had known at the Lodge.

I swallowed back my scream as the lights went dark.

The door swung open and bounced off the wall before slamming shut. Leaving me alone in the restroom.

The lights turned on too bright and the door was pulled open by a tiny but stern-looking woman, her dark hair pulled back into a slick ponytail. She had multiple weapons on her. Two swords behind her shoulders. A leather hip belt with at least two guns and various sizes of knives hung around her waist. A leather pocket strapped around her thigh which held only the goddesses knew what.

I didn't want to be on this woman's bad side.

"Mr. Lopez would like to speak with you." Her tone gave no room to argue.

I nodded and wiped my mouth and hands with a paper towel. Throwing it in the trash before I followed her down a thin hallway away from the crowded club. I sobered more and more as we went deeper under Caballero's which meant no windows. I tried not to think about it.

I opened my mind to find Keiran being escorted by several of Jonny's men on their way to the club. Jonny and his brother, Diego, ahead of them and already on their way.

I relayed my location to him quickly, along with my drunkenness.

Alejandro sat behind a stately redwood desk as I entered his office. He stood and poured a drink from a small matching bar cart and lifted the glass to me in offering.

I shook my head. "No thanks, I've had enough for the night."

He shot the amber liquid back and placed the glass down. He walked over to me and studied my face. "I meant what I said earlier."

At first, I was confused but remembered on the dance floor. "You'd pay that much money for me, just to let me go?" I didn't believe him.

He smirked. "Humans shouldn't be for sale."

I laughed. "Yet, there you were, buying them. Like that was your first time at Elenora's people auction." I scoffed.

He chuckled. "I'm not here to convince you."

I shook my head, this time slower. "Why are any of us here?" I asked lowly but now was not the time to ask rhetorical, philosophical questions. I rephrased, "Then why are we here?"

His face was neutral as he looked me over. "Men like Mr. Zantana and myself have a strict code of conduct we follow. I will not tolerate anything otherwise in my territory. Even if it was done by a woman. Elenora Caswell selling humans will not be overlooked."

I couldn't hide the surprise on my face. Was Alejandro Jonny's Boss? Did he know Martin? Did he know Elenora was dead, her house burned to ashes? I sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to tell him.

He undid the button on his suit jacket and sat casually on the arm of a fluffy red chair. "I've been watching you...Ruby."

I thought about the cameras all over the club but that didn't explain how he knew my birth name. "Jane." I corrected him.

He nodded. "I have a problem I'm hoping you can help me with, Jane."

"I don't work at the whore house anymore." I shrugged thinking he wanted an Orgasm Blessing or help getting it up. I eyed his crotch.

He chuckled and shook his head. "I was hoping to find out who's handing out pills in my club but you telling the Sheriff about them floating around is a bigger problem. I'm glad you enjoyed one. Maybe it will make it easier for you to find the dealer." He stood in front of me. "Who gave you the pill?"

The putrid aroma filled my nose, like everything rotting, moldy, sour, and decaying. I coughed. "Demon."

He laughed. "I didn't think you'd be the religious type but I guess some would call drug dealers Demons." He wrinkled his nose as he smelled it too.

"I'll need some salt and matches." I headed back through the door and up the long narrow hallway, Alejandro and the small woman following me. The lights turned off and echoes of screams from the dance floor sounded like it was directly above us.

"You'll help?" The woman seemed surprised.

"I don't have a choice anymore. They know I'm here." I should have studied Demon Magic. It would have been more practical than Sex Magic.

A piercing screech emanated throughout the entire building before the music resumed, blasting over the inhuman noises.

I collapsed to the floor as my bones turned to jelly and my stomach churned with the sickening sensation. "I need a knife." I managed to tell Alejandro from the floor.

He nodded and his bodyguard appeared with a large knife in her hand.

I took it from her and quickly jabbed the sharp tip into my finger. A bead of blood appeared and my bones felt normal again. I didn't know how it worked but trading a taste of my blood eased the discomfort. I didn't believe the Demon that told me he taught me the trick.

Demons lied.

I stood quickly, wiped my blood from her blade on my dress, and handed her back the knife, ignoring Alejandro's outstretched hand.

I pushed the swinging doors open, my vision shifting. The purples and silver shimmers spotted and spun. I grabbed the table next to me to steady myself. Eyes open or closed I was seeing the same thing. I never had to banish a Demon drunk before. Or in front of this many people. When was the last time you banished a Demon? Never.

Security guards surrounded Bishop and Keiran as they sat at a VIP booth against the wall.

I looked at Alejandro questioningly.

"Just keeping them...safe, while you get rid of my...problem."

"I thought you didn't know about the Demon?"

He glanced at his guard before looking over his club. "I thought you were acting in the videos."

"The videos? The ones on the dark web?" I was going to throw up again.

The woman next to him said, "There may be more than one. Demon."

Alejandro's jaw clenched. "How much are you going to charge me for this?"

I paused. I could charge for this? "How much are they costing you?"

"Thousands."

"A night?" I was shocked.

He didn't reply but his eyes darted to his bodyguard.

She smirked and nodded her head ever so slightly.

I smiled.

"If business doesn't tank after this...show, I'll send you a check. Minus damages." Alejandro looked around his club. Most everyone continued dancing, the flashing lights and odd sounds just added to the spooky atmosphere. The employees looked worried and nervously went about their tasks.

I was handed a box of salt and matches by a man with a green mohawk and looked at him closer. "Nen?" He didn't sparkle with purples and silver lights like the humans did.

He smiled, winked, and headed back to wherever he came from.

I brought my supplies behind the DJ Booth, where it was private and no one would be able to see me. The music was playing on its own and there was enough space for a six-foot circle, big enough to hold a Demon or two. Just needed to entice them inside.

I stuck three matches in my mouth, dampening them with my saliva. The familiar taste of the wooden sticks comforted me. You know how to do Magic, I reminded myself. Magic was all the same anyway, right? When the matches dampened enough I put them in the pocket of my dress and placed another three in my mouth. I tucked the small box of matches into my bra, keeping them close.

I opened the box of salt and started at the North, because this was a banishing circle I worked widdershins and moved counterclockwise with a line of salt. I made it to the East of the circle and paused to switch the matches in my mouth.

A force grabbed me around the neck and pulled me backward over the DJ stand. I landed on my back, unable to breathe in the middle of the dance floor, the box of salt ripped open next to me.

The crowd screamed louder than the music and moved to the edges to get away from the fiery rope around my neck.

I grabbed a handful of salt and smashed it into the fire wrapped around my neck. A painful scream shook the building as the fire whip loosened and pulled back.

I lay there stunned and tried to catch my breath. I expected a wound around my neck and felt around with my hands, but there was no pain and no marks left. My hair was still intact.

A deluge of hot wind blew around the room, forcefully slamming the doors and windows shut. The DJ Booth silenced and the remaining patrons screamed as a large shadow hung over the dance floor.

Alejandro spoke to a few of the waitresses and they spread out in different directions. It wasn't long before murmurs of this being part of the Halloween Show were quickly spreading.

A woman pushed her way through the crowd and stood next to me. "Brigid?" She knelt by my head, her hair obscuring the colorful lights on the ceiling "I knew it was you."

Brigid had been my name at the brothel and memories of our friendship flooded my brain. I laughed, still drunk and forgetting about the Demons I needed to banish. "I love you." I meant it differently but that's what came out.

She laughed, her white teeth bright under her black lipstick. "Still a crazy Bitch." She grabbed the front of my dress in her fists and lifted me to my feet like the Domme she was. She was taller than me, even without her platform boots.

The shadow took solid form and turned into the pigtailed goth woman that slipped me the star-shaped pill. She pouted out her lower lip. "Snitches get stitches." She lashed out, her arm lengthening like a rope unfurling. Her hand ended in a sharp, unnatural claw and sliced across my belly from hip to hip.

I covered the gash quickly with my arm before my insides fell out and looked at Destiny. "Are the others with you?"

The women would always go clubbing together when the Brothel was slow. She nodded, eyeing the Demon licking my blood from her talon.