FIVE
.
Nayda twisted the towel around her wet hair, bundling it up on top of her head. She wrapped a fresh towel round her and opened the bathroom door. "Shower's all yours, John," she said. She checked how she looked in the mirror before turning to the motel room. "Unless you want me to scrub your—"
The room was empty, the window slightly open. She let her mouth slap shut. She wandered out into the room to find his bag and coat similarly missing. Her arms folded over her towel and she leant back against the doorjamb. She huffed, annoyance creeping up on her. Then she looked at the pile of her clothes on the floor. She shook her head and smiled.
.
ooOoo
.
John flew down the iron staircase, surprising Chas, who turned at the noise. "Where have you been?" he asked. "It's nearly six thirty, John. I thought we had lots of important demon-tracking stuff to do." His eyes narrowed. "Is that a clean shirt?"
John walked straight past him to the table. He put his large bag on it and opened it up. "So this Elena Ashmore bird. She's into horses," he said, just a tad irritably.
Chas came up to the table, watching him carefully. "Oh-kay," he said, with a slowness born of caution.
"You said on the phone - Zed saw horses." John stopped and looked around. "Where is Zed?"
"Taking a nap," he said flatly. "What's eating you?"
"Nothing."
"Really?"
"Leave off, Chas," he grumped, going back to the bag. "Elena Ashmore has a brilliant motive for wanting to bump Nayda's missus off. What I can't work out is how she got it into her head to get a demon to do it."
Chas lifted his hands in surrender. "Alright, whatever," he breezed, going round the table to be opposite him. He watched John take out a few small items from the bag and put them on the table.
John didn't look at him. "Are you sure Zed's sleeping and not taking on a few biker gangs single-handed?"
"She's in her room," Chas smiled. "The last few times I've seen her around the place, she's been listening to music."
"Right," John nodded. He looked up, directly at Chas, then hesitated and his eyes swept off to the wall behind him.
"What?" Chas asked.
John pursed his lip for a long moment. Then he shook his head as if freeing it of some fanciful notion. "Nothing."
"If you say so," Chas said. "But if you keep this up, Zed's going to grill you when she finally does appear." He paused. "Is this because I let her do her psychic thing?"
"That was wrong and you know it."
"I'm not going to apologise for her being able to help us," Chas said firmly.
John looked at the table. His hands withdrew from the table and ran for the safety of his pockets. "Uh… It's possible I've…"
Chas waited, a small smile on his face. "What? Misjudged her? Again?"
"Nah, it's…" John scratched at the back of his head, then turned a concerned pout on the table top. "It may be possible that there's a slim chance I might have done something… I shouldn't have." His eyes went up at Chas - who knew a plea for help when he saw it.
"Like what?" he asked with trepidation. "Tell me you didn't summon the demon."
"Relax, Chas. I didn't do anything that stupid."
"Then what?"
He sniffed, then went into his bag again for his trenchcoat. He pulled it out and fished through the pockets, eventually finding a packet of cigarettes. "I dropped by to see Nayda, to bring her up to speed, like."
"You didn't tell her you knew who killed her ex-wife, did you?" he demanded. "John, that was stupid. How do we know she's not going to try to bypass us and get revenge herself?"
"I didn't give her details, Chas. She's not going to do this herself." He paused, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. "I just said I had reason to believe I knew who it was and asked her a few questions about her missus to confirm a few things."
"And then you left and came straight here?" he asked. He looked at his watch. "Wait - it took you two hours to explain that to her?"
"I had to walk across town, too."
"Two hours. You sure took your time explaining this whole thing."
"Kinda," John said weakly. He avoided Chas' gaze, instead taking a long drag on his Silk Cut. "Well, that and a few other - uh - things."
Chas stared at him, lost. And then the penny dropped. "John - you didn't."
"What can I say? She was gagging for it, mate. She was all over me as soon as I got in that motel room."
"And you just couldn't say no," Chas groaned. "Perfect, John. Nice move. I hope you're happy."
"Pretty happy, yeah," he said with sudden cheer. "I don't remember the last time I got two shags in one month, never mind one day."
Chas put his hands up in surrender, turning away from him. "Stop. I do not need details." He paused. "This is going to backfire."
"Well of course it is; this is me we're talking about." He puffed on the cigarette. "Forget it. I'll handle it, ok?"
Chas turned back to him. "Then why did you bother telling me?"
John shrugged rather self-consciously, looking at the table. Chas noticed the way all of John's attention went to his cigarette, and then reflected on how fortuitous it had been that John had lit one in the first place. He went to walk past him but stopped at the last minute. He laid a heavy hand on John's shoulder, right by his neck, and squeezed for a moment. "Well don't worry. I won't let you do anything else stupid today."
"Oh piss off and get me Elena Ashmore's home address," John muttered, the wind well and truly gone from his sails.
Chas smiled. He patted once and walked off.
.
ooOoo
.
"Right - Chas. You're with me, and Zed stays here, yeah?" John called from the table as he rummaged through his bag.
Chas pulled on his jacket, magically producing his hat from the side pocket. "All ready to go."
"Uhm, John?" came a call from above.
They looked up to see Zed watching them from the upper landing. "Is Nayda supposed to be here?" The head of the woman in question appeared next to Zed's.
"She is not coming with us, John," Chas urged under his breath.
John glared at him, then spun to go to the iron stairs. He hauled himself up them and stood on the landing. "Uh, Zed - give Chas a hand, will you?"
Zed looked at him, then Nayda, then him again. "Uh-huh," she said sarcastically. John's eyes shrunk to veritable piss-holes in snow and his mouth squirrelled to one side as he turned to watch her leave. She went down the stairs without a word.
John turned back to Nayda. "Look, love—"
"John, stop," she sighed. She looked over the balustrade to the two figures talking amongst themselves below. "About earlier. Uh… How do I put this?"
"It was fun, I ran off with my tail between my legs, you're angry, but we're kind of busy, so—"
"Stop," she said sternly. "I know you're not in this to make friends, or… attachments. Believe me, I get that. Neither am I. —I don't do attachments any more."
He nodded professionally before he swayed round to aim back at the stairs. "Right. Good talk. Let's go and—"
She grabbed his arm. "I'm not finished." She waited and he turned back to look at her, his face one of intense sheepishness. "John… There's no guilt here, no shame."
"We did have a good time, didn't we?" he said ruefully.
She grinned. "I think the people in the room next door know we both did."
"But…"
"But?" she prompted.
"But we both know it was a one-time deal." He paused, trying to identify the emotion on her face. "Right?"
Her smile faded as she considered his tie. "That's not what I came here for."
"Then what?"
"I'm coming with you."
He studied her face for a long moment. She let go of his arm. "No," he said dismissively.
"Excuse me?"
"Stay here; make sure Zed doesn't get into trouble."
"No."
"You're not coming with us, pet."
"Don't you 'pet' me in that cute accent," she warned, glaring up at him. "I married Roberta, I divorced her, and when the police give up on their pointless investigation, I'll bury her. So don't you think for one minute I can't be in the same room as whoever this bitch is who caused her to die." She ran out of ire, calming herself somewhat. "The worst I'll do is compose weather spells in my head that I'll never actually use."
He sniffed as if he cared neither way. "I don't doubt your intentions, Nayda. But once you're standing in the same room as them, and once we set about sending the demon home, you're going to wish you were anywhere else - trust me."
"You're not listening to me, John—"
"No, you're not listening to me," he snapped. "Remember how I go round telling people what's best for them and they just don't listen? And then bad things happen? This is shaping up to be one of those times. So leave it out - you're staying here."
"You stubborn bastard."
"Never said I wasn't."
She fumed. "I'll just wait until you've left and then call a cab. You can't stop me, John!"
He put his hands to the sides of her shoulders, holding her still. His eyes turned apologetic. "Yes, I can," he said quietly. "Don't make me."
She glared up at him for a long moment. Her gaze went over his shoulder, then down to his shirt as she apparently fought with something. At last she huffed. "Then I'll stay. But I won't like it."
"No-one's asking you to."
She stepped forward abruptly and kissed him.
The sounds of Zed and Chas' conversation floated up from the basement floor, the house creaked and settled, somewhere a fridge clicked on and hummed.
Eventually she eased him away from her, sliding a hand down his face. "Go."
John looked down over the landing to see Chas and Zed debating the merits of something going into John's bag. He looked back at her. He nodded and turned to the stairs.
Nayda watched him weave his way down as if most of him were held together by rubber bands. Then she slapped a hand to her face, shook her head, and pushed all worry from her mind.
Well, most of it.
.
ooOoo
.
Chas pulled his cab up at the kerb, killing the engine quickly. "A few houses down - across the street," he said.
John was already fishing through the bag between his feet in the passenger footwell. "Right. All we need from her is the summoning ritual."
"I thought you got it from that book?" Chas asked, surprised.
"It wasn't in there. Bloody Aleister Crowley and his blanks," he grumped. He secreted various small items in the inside pockets of his trenchcoat before looking at Chas. "Ready?"
"Oh, you're letting me come along this time?"
"Well you're a big boy, Chas. I'm sure you can handle a one hundred and ten pound woman if she throws herself at me."
"You mean, another woman who throws herself at you?"
John flashed him a smug grin. "It's hard being me."
"Get out of the car before I throw you out," Chas warned.
John opened the door onto the empty road. The stretch of high streetlamps and wide tarmac between him and the other side of the road seemed very lonely. He looked up and down the road before closing the door behind him.
Chas slid out and shut his door, locking the cab before following John across the street. "So what's the angle?" he asked.
"She thinks I'm from this big communications firm," he said over his shoulder. "We get in there, I distract her with more background stuff, and you go snooping round her house. You know, do the whole 'where's your loo, darling?' thing. As soon as you find anything dodgy, you come get me and we get her to come clean."
They stopped at the end of the concrete path to the front door. Chas looked down at him. "What if she summons the demon to get rid of us?"
"That's why you're going to go searching whilst I keep an eye on whatever she prepares in the front room. If we fail and she tries to brings it here, we stop her - or we just bind it and send it home," John shrugged.
"When you say 'we', you mean 'you', right?" Chas asked. John walked off down the path. "Right?" Chas prompted. "John?" He hurried after him.
John had stopped at the front door. He pushed a firm finger into the doorbell and stood back one.
The door opened and Elena looked out. "Oh. Hi," she said, bemused. "Mr… Constantine, wasn't it?"
"That's me," he nodded with a wide smile. "Is this a bad time? Just wanted to go over a few more things with you."
"That depends," she said, folding her arms. "Are you serious about offering me some kind of position at Vertigo Communications?"
"Very," he said earnestly.
She tilted her head, as if thinking it over. "Then you can come in."
"This is my associate, Mr Chandler," he said, putting a hand out and grabbing Chas' elbow. He yanked him closer to the front door.
"And what does he do?" she asked, her nose very close to wrinkling as she perused Chas' appearance.
"He's indispensable, love. He's my driver, my fact-checker, and he also covers most tabs I leave behind in bars."
Elena smiled. "You are an interesting man, Mr Constantine."
"I've always thought so."
"Come on in. Oh, Mr Chandler, mind your head," she said, stepping back and opening the door wider for them.
John waved a hand out and Chas went in first, snatching off his hat to shove it in his pocket. John followed, his hand out behind him. He shut the door behind them and looked around the modest landing. "Very nice," he nodded. "Been here long, then?"
"Nearly a year," she said. "Please, come through to the TV room. Coffee?"
"I'll take one," Chas smiled.
They walked down the hallway to a door on their left. She led them through to an open room with a three man sofa that shared the space with two plush armchairs.
"Just you?" John asked. His eyes went over the photographs on the long side table against the far wall.
She nodded. "There was someone, but like I said—"
"Don't want to pry, love," he said, one hand up. "It's strictly work."
"Well. I'll get you that coffee, Mr Chandler. Tea for you, Mr Constantine?"
"Oh no, you're alright," he said, finding a chair and settling himself in it.
Elena looked at Chas hopelessly. "He means no thanks," he said with a smile.
She smiled back and left the room. Chas immediately went to the tall bookcase by the sofa. He was reading the spines as John got up and began sniffing at random spots along the wall.
Chas noticed. "What are you doing?"
"No sulphur in here, mate. Nothing at all."
"Would it still be here? I mean, you're assuming the demon was here at some point, right?"
"She would have had to dictate terms before she let it loose on poor Roberta," he mused. He turned and surveyed the room slowly, spinning slowly on the balls of his feet, his hands going back into his pockets. "Nice place for someone who lives alone."
"Not all of us simply sleep in a base of operations, John. Some of us actually make homes out them."
John's face screwed up in confusion before something on the table caught his eye. He went over and bent down to scrutinise a photo. "Well, well, well," he breathed. "We may have found more than just a business connection."
Chas looked round as John picked up a photo frame. He turned it to show Chas. "I've seen her before," Chas said. He came closer to look. "That's Roberta - the dead ex."
"Maybe it wasn't just Elena's promotion that didn't work out," John said brightly. He put the photo down again. "So Roberta moves out here to be boss of the new place, calls Elena back in New York and offers her a job, and then when Elena gets here, someone gets Roberta to start playing around with ouija boards. Roberta starts spending all her time at work, probably with Elena here, and ends up cooling it with her missus. Next thing you know, they're divorced and Elena's getting more than just overtime pay off her boss."
Chas shook his head. "Then why would Elena kill her?"
"Maybe Roberta broke it off."
"Seriously?" Chas asked flatly. "You have a lot to learn about women."
"I know which end is which. Everything else is just a complication," he said off-hand, crossing the room to sit back in the chair.
Chas gawped. "You know, every time I think I've learnt just about every shocking thing there is about you, you come up with something new." He paused. "Wait - where does the demon come into it?"
"Better question: where's that bastard ouija board? And did Elena just make up the whole Nayda-having-an-affair thing to get Roberta to break things off with her wife?"
They heard a squeak of the floor and looked over to see Elena carrying a tray into the room. She smiled nervously and put it down on the table by John's chair. "I brought cream and sugar for the coffee, Mr Chandler. I forgot to ask how you wanted it."
"Oh that's fine," he said, in his friendliest tone. He went to the sofa to sit and Elena parked herself at the other end.
She added sugar to her own mug, stirring as her attention went to John. "So," she said bravely. "What do you need to know?"
"We do background checks on all our prospective employees, Ms Ashmore," John said with a relaxed smile. "It's come to our attention that someone at your place of work was omitting… certain interests and rather odd out-of-work activities from their HR department forms. Specifically, you."
Elena's face went white. "Oh." She put down her coffee. "I can see how you'd… uhm… Oh this is awkward. I knew I'd be found out."
"It's best just to come clean, love," John said. "We're not here to harm you. We just need to know what you did."
Elena closed her eyes in discomfort. "I… I had no idea anyone knew. I kept it such a secret from my colleagues. Nothing on my desk, nothing out of the ordinary on my phone…" She put her head in her hands. "I knew I never should have touched that stupid board."
John and Chas shared a glance. "The ouija board?" John asked.
"Yes," she muttered. "Damned thing has ruined everything."
John gestured to Chas with his chin. He got up and went out of the room. Elena didn't even lift her hands to watch. John sat forwards, his hands laced together. "Start from the beginning, Ms Ashmore. Tell me everything. This is only going to come back and bite you in the arse. I might be able to help you."
Elena made her hands drop. She reached out and picked up her coffee. A few slow sips and she was sitting straighter, looking John in the eye. "We thought it was a joke. This woman in HR - she brought it to the office party. Some of us tried out the board, laughed at it telling us silly things like our long-dead grandmas were happy in heaven, and all that crap," she said weakly.
"And then?"
"And then… Then it started to get weird. It said…" She sipped her coffee. "It said that Mr Moors - the company director… He had died of natural causes, but he'd always wanted his daughter to take over from him. Roberta was… really upset." She cleared her throat. "I said we should stop it there, just put the damn thing away. Roberta asked it questions - it told her that her wife up in New York was seeing someone else. Then she got really angry."
"What did you do, Elena?" John asked. "Did you offer to help her with that? Offer to find a way to make her wife pay for hurting your boss? And then it went wrong and Roberta died instead… Is that what happened?"
"What? No!" she gasped. "What are you, crazy? I calmed her down, told her not to believe that stupid game board! But once it was in her head she couldn't stop thinking about it. She went over and over it - her wife flew up here to see her. Roberta came in on Monday saying they'd had a massive break-up and it was all over. She was… so sad." She tutted. "That evil board started all of this."
John frowned. "I don't get it. What did the ouija board ever do to you?"
"It made me… It put me - everyone - in a position to do something really stupid," Elena sighed. She looked up at John. "Do you know what it's like to work with someone for so long, and not realise how you feel about them? Then one day they're inconsolable and you just… You comfort them. Only…" She sipped her coffee.
"Go on," he said, curious.
"I was so sad for Roberta. She didn't deserve to have her father die and then her wife cheat on her. We talked more, got closer, and then…" She paused and looked at him in defiance. "I slept with her. We liked it, so we kept doing it," she announced. "There. Secret's out. Tell HR. I don't care. I loved Roberta. Probably more than her wife did, considering how she was having an affair with her next door neighbour. How she could do that to Roberta I will never understand."
"What?" John asked. "What's that got to do with the ouija board telling you to summon a demon?"
"A demon?" she cried. "What the hell?"
"Sorry," he said abruptly, "you've lost me. What was this big thing, this big secret thing that was so dangerous you had to hide it from your colleagues at work?"
"You are kidding," she said flatly, fixing him with a glare.
He waved his hands out in mystification. "Spell it out for me."
"You can't hook up with other workers in the same office," she snapped. "It's against HR rules. If anyone found out I was dating the boss of all people - I'd be sacked, for one. My career would be over - you don't come back from being fired from a major firm like Moors Inc. - I'd never work in communications again. And I don't know what it would have done to Roberta's reputation as the head of the friggin' company - she'd be a joke."
"Oh," John managed. His hand came up and rubbed across his forehead. "So… nothing to do with demons, then?"
"What are you talking about?"
Chas appeared in the doorway. John and Elena looked up to see him brandish a stiff cardboard box at them both. "Hasbro, like you said, John. It's unmarked."
John scratched his head. "None of this makes any sense."
"Tell me about it," Chas said.
"Excuse me - have you been through my things?" Elena demanded. She got to her feet. "Who are you?"
Chas put his free hand up. "I'm sorry, I really am. It was on top of the wardrobe - it was the first thing I saw when I walked into the room, I swear."
"In my bedroom," she fumed. "Get out of my house! Both of you!" She turned on John. "And you!You're crazy, talking about demons like they're real!" She turned and grabbed the box from Chas. Her hand went into his arm and pushed him toward the door. "Get out! Get out of my house!"
"Alright, love! Ok!" John cried, his hands out in surrender. "We're going!"
"Faster!" she cried angrily. "If you're not out in five seconds I'm calling the police - and don't even think about coming to the office!"
John and Chas bundled themselves out of the house and onto the path. She slammed the front door behind them.
Chas looked down at John. "That went well."
"At least we didn't get arrested." He put his hands in his pockets and ambled down the path.
Chas looked back at the house, then followed John. Quickly.
.
Thanks for reading, folks! More to come...