Page 9 of Becoming Effrijim
I leaned down to meet his gaze. His eyes grew huge when I said softly, “And yet, sorrow is wrapped so deep around you I can see its stain leaching out to your soul. The fact that you, a demon, have a soul is in itself a contradiction, but regardless, your pain is palpable.”
He sucked in a breath, and for an instant, the light in his eyes dimmed, but his head snapped up as he gave me a long look. “I just want revenge, OK?”
“You know, sugar, I am many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. It’s clear that you’ve suffered a grievous loss, and you want to strike back in return. The question is, How far are you willing to go to obtain that revenge?”
“Whatever it takes,” he answered, his voice oddly flat before he cleared his throat and continued in a normal tone. “I’m all over revenge, babe. If I can help you with anything to make that happen, then I’ll do it.”
“Very well.” I thought for a moment. “I don’t normally indulge in the visions that my predecessors relied on for insight, but I will see to it that you are set onto the path that will lead—if you take it—to the revenge you seek. Be warned, demon Effrijim, that result may not happen anytime soon. Several pieces need to fall into place, and I’m not entirely sure they will do so. Unfortunately, my better half will not let me manipulate things outright, which is just enraging, don’t you think? What’s the point of being half of the Sovereign if you aren’t allowed to fix things? But Terrin insists that we give everyone the ability to make their own choices and respect their free will. It’s all poppycock, of course, but I live to make Terrin happy, so I do as he insists.”
The dog blinked at me a couple of times. “Gotcha. What happens now?”
“Now,” I said, standing up and dusting off ice-cream-cone crumbs from my front. I made a mental note to do a bit of snooping around Abaddon. I’d need a culpable demon lord if my plan was to bear fruit. “You survive.”
“Yeah, but what—”
I returned to the Court before the demon could finish his question, the grass of the park changing underfoot to black-and-white tile as I strode down the hall of the administrative wing of our main building, pausing to poke my head into Terrin’s office. “Sugar, do you remember a demon lord who used to abide in the mortal world about eighty or so years ago? He made some sort of splash in the silent-movie scene.”
Terrin was clearly dealing with some issue or other with a cherub who perched opposite him on the edge of a hard wooden chair. When he glanced up at my question, his forehead was furrowed. “I believe so. I think you’re right that he was a silent-film star.” He offered a name that had me nodding.
“That’s the one. What was his real name?”
He thought for a moment. “I believe it’s Magoth,” he finally said. “I can look it up if it’s really important.”
“It’s not at all necessary, sweet one. That’s the demon lord I was thinking of. You are the best seneschal in all the Otherworld,” I told him, blowing a kiss, and casting a glance toward the cherub before looking back at him.
He gave the slightest shake of his head, which let me know I wasn’t needed to deal with this particular problem.
I headed off to my office, planning many things, but most of all, I started to pull together in my mind the sort of industrial-strength glamour I was going to need in order to get by undetected in Abaddon.
DAY 366,162
19 June 2004
“And, I’m like, it’s been four years! They said they’d help me with my big project four years ago, but there’s been nada coming out of the Court in all that time. You’d think four years would be enough to get things kicked into high, wouldn’t you?” I took a big slurp of coffee (heavy on the cream and sugar, because a demon has to keep his strength up). “I mean, you go to all the trouble to locate this very important person whose name I can’t tell you, and get them to say they’ll help you, and then blammo. Radio silence for four years. Four years!”
Oblitton, one of my coworkers, who was also a troll with tendencies toward kleptomania, sidled away and murmured, “It’s a shame, it’s definitely a shame. Uh. I have to get back to the phones. You know how Sam is.”
I dropped my now-empty cup into the sink, pretending not to hear the crack of ceramic hitting the metal sink. “How someone as powerful as the important person whose name I can’t tell you can loll around for four years—four!—doing nothing while I’m waiting for vengeance is beyond me.”
Oblitton slipped into his cubicle and immediately slapped on his headset.
I stood outside my cubicle, wondering if I’d been wrong to put my trust in Sally. I thought for a moment of Camio, my spirits sinking until I felt the urge to go sit in a closet and cry.
“Dalmatians don’t cry,” I told myself, looking down at my spotty legs. I’d tried out the form a few days ago, but already I was finding it lacking. “I just gotta have faith that Sally will do what she said she’d do.”
No one else in the office paid me any attention, so with a sigh that I felt down to my toenails, I got back into my seat. “Hi, you’ve reached Whiskey Sam’s Genuine Psychic Guidance Hotline, Jim speaking. How can I help?”
“Yeah, hi, I ... um ... wait, if you’re a psychic, aren’t you supposed to know what I want?” The voice was filled with suspicion.
I consulted the script that Sam insisted we follow. Per instructions, I chuckled, which isn’t easy when you’re in the form of a Dalmatian. I don’t know if those dogs just don’t have great vocal cords, or if chuckling is alien to them, but the resulting sound wasn’t at all mirthful. I made a decision right then and there that just as soon as I had a quiet moment, I’d switch my form to that of a glorious black Newfoundland dog. I’d seen pictures of one earlier, and the sheer magnificence of it blew me away. “I know, right? It seems like I should, but you know how it is with psychic abilities—you don’t want to blow all your power on trivial stuff, right? You got to save it for the big guns.”
“Oh.” The woman on the phone sounded disappointed. “I guess that makes sense. What do I need to tell you?”
“Whatever you want.” I nosed the script aside. I never felt comfortable sticking to it, even though Sam said it made life much easier. “What’s on your mind?”
“My husband.” Her voice had dropped to an intimate level, and I imagined she was glancing around furtively to make sure she wasn’t overheard. “I think he’s cheating on me, and I need you to tell me if he is.”
“Yup,” I said, knowing most of the unhappy people who called were likely in relationships that, if not outright abusive, were probably at best dysfunctional. “He sure is.”
