A Steak, Out

As Apothonomy left the shop, his two purchases swinging in the bag he carried, Grayson pulled up to the kerb in a gleaming white Ford Explorer. She leaned over and opened the passenger door but Apothonomy could only stand and gape at her.

‘What’s wrong, Honour?’ the fallen angel asked. Her wings hugged the back of the driver’s seat.

‘I can’t believe you arrived on time,’ Apothonomy answered.

‘I know,’ Grayson said, her green eyes gleaming with pride. ‘There’s a first time for everything I suppose.’

Apothonomy climbed into the vehicle and placed the bag by his feet.

‘Nice ride. Where did you get it?’

‘There’s a place a couple of blocks away,’ Grayson answered as she pulled out into traffic. ‘A showroom full of shiny new cars, all different models and colours.’

‘And they just let you take one?’

‘Of course not, silly. I’m just borrowing it.’

‘Test driving it.’

Apothonomy turned at the new voice, noticing for the first time the man in the back seat. Middle-aged, with a plump belly and rosy cheeks, the man wore a suit which was almost as shiny as his bald head.

‘Honour, this is Mike,’ Grayson said. ‘Salesman extraordinaire.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Mike said, smiling at a spot over Apothonomy’s left shoulder. As with most humans, Mike’s brain refused to accept that he was looking at a scarlet-skinned demon so ignored the red irises, talons and expressive tail. Instead, he simply looked in Apothonomy’s general direction or forgot he was there altogether.

‘Where to?’ Grayson asked, recapturing Mike’s attention.

‘Sort of… eastish,’ Apothonomy answered.

Two weeks ago, a human had mistakenly invoked a Summoning. As no one demon had been named during the ritual, a tricky she-devil named Daen-el-Zharthus had taken the opportunity to sneak onto the Earthly plane. Apothonomy had been charged with finding Daen-el and returning her to the Lords of Hell.

At the location she had materialised, Apothonomy had been able to detect her aura. As demons were few and far between on the Earthy Realm, no matter what the evangelists might say, Apothonomy knew he could locate Daen-el by homing in on her essence.

‘Eastish?’ Grayson repeated. ‘Can’t you just pinpoint her location? You know, like: Acacia Avenue, number twenty-two, living room, left side of the sofa?’

Apothonomy rolled his eyes.

‘I’m not a GPS, Grace. There’s no bead directly to Daen-el’s location. It’s more…’ He thought for a while, trying to find the words to explain the feeling.

‘Like following a smell?’ Grayson offered.

‘What smell?’ Mike asked. He had obviously forgotten about Apothonomy and thought Grayson was speaking to him. ‘That new car smell? Intoxicating, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not a blood hound,’ Apothonomy said. ‘It’s like I have a vague recollection of where she’s been. The closer we get, or the more time she spends in one place, the stronger the memory.’

‘Okay,’ Grayson replied. ‘Eastish it is.’

As she drove, Apothonomy’s spouted out vague directions: ‘Left here.’ ‘No, the other left.’ ‘That way.’ ‘Back there, I think.’

After some time, and much frustration, he eventually led them to a quiet road and told her to pull over. Across the street sat a large four-storey building. Beside the gate, an ornate wooden sign announced there were still rooms to let at Martha’s Guest House.

‘This is where she’s staying,’ Apothonomy announced. ‘But she’s not here right now.’

‘What do we do?’ Grayson asked. ‘Just sit here and wait?’

Unsure of their next step, Apothonomy did not answer.

Mike did: ‘We really should get the car back to the showroom.’

*

Three hours later, they were still waiting.

Apothonomy had given Grayson one of the phones he’d bought and was currently fiddling with his own.

While they each had their own mobiles from back home, those devices couldn’t connect to the humans’ networks. As every supernatural creature knew, survival on modern-day Earth required having some interface to the internet on one’s person at all times. It was unlikely that any humans they met would see their true appearances, but the lack of some kind of electronic device in their grip was sure to arouse suspicion.

Right now, Apothonomy was struggling to set up his voicemail.

‘We really should get the car back to the showroom,’ Mike said for the seventh time. His words were slurred as though he was talking in his sleep.

‘The glamour’s wearing off,’ Apothonomy said.

‘It’s your turn.’

Apothonomy sighed. He placed the phone down on the spacious armrest between them, muttering something about ‘an infernal machine,’ and twisted in his seat to face Mike.

The human looked at the demon’s left earlobe and released a bubbling grumble.

‘He’s not done that before,’ Grayson said, turning to peer in the back seat. ‘Was that a growl or something?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Apothonomy replied. ‘It didn’t come from his throat.’

The noise occurred again. It sounded like a muffled peel of thunder rolling around the man’s intestines.

‘Is he possessed?’ Apothonomy asked.

Grayson worked in Curse Creations, an entirely different department, but they shared the same office block so she had often spoken with Possessions employees on breaks. As far as she knew, demons could occupy humans’ heads or hearts. She had never heard of a spirit settling in somebody’s gut before.

‘I’m hungry,’ Mike sleepily explained as his belly rumbled again.

‘Ah,’ Grayson said. Looking at Apothonomy, she asked, ‘Do you want to get some food.’

‘It’ll pass the time,’ he answered with a shrug. He looked back to Martha’s Guest House. ‘But we might miss Daen-el.’

‘Uber eats.’

As one, they turned to Mike again.

‘Pardon?’ Grayson said.

‘Uber eats,’ Mike repeated.

‘Eyelids and toenails,’ Apothonomy said, ‘if you mean Uber Gretchenstein. I think Uber Karthlix is partial to beard clippings and gallbladders. But I fail to understand how the dietary preferences of our colleagues can help us here.’

Moving sluggishly, Mike pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘Uber Eats. Deliver food.’

‘A food delivery?’ Grayson said, incredulously. ‘This world is amazing.’

‘How does it work?’ Apothonomy asked.

‘App,’ Mike slurred. He gave his phone a little shake to indicate the magic of technology. The mobile fell from his bewitched fingers.

With a twist of her hands, Grayson released the human from the last of her glamour.

Puzzlement flooded Mike’s face as his senses returned. His eyes widened as he took in Apothonomy. When awakening from an enchantment, the human brain is too busy asking the usual questions (Where am I? Who am I? What embarrassing thing did I do last night?) to defend itself from seeing the world as it really is. He opened his mouth to scream-

‘Order food,’ Apothonomy commanded.

-then blinked in silent confusion at Grayson.

‘For a minute there, I thought there was a third person in the car,’ he said.

‘You’re just hungry,’ Grayson reassured him.

*

As the cyclist rode away, Grayson knew she would be telling tales of this encounter for years to come. It was not unusual that she was delivering three meals to two people. Nor was it so strange that she was dropping off food to a parked car. The one thing that would bug her for the remainder of her life was the fact that the food parcels she had passed through the window had rested above the passenger seat and not on the upholstery itself.

Apothonomy pulled a carton from the bag on his lap and passed it to Grayson. He took another for himself then gave the bag to Mike.

Grayson opened the cardboard box and peeled back the soggy bread bun. Under a mountain of browning lettuce and a sliver of tomato sat a perfectly circular piece of… meat seem too generous a word. The look on Apothonomy’s face told her he, too, was disappointed with the offering.

‘It’s not like the pictures on the website,’ he moaned.

Lifting the box to her nose, Grayson gave it a sniff. ‘There’s definitely some animal in here,’ she said, ‘unless one of the chefs lost a finger in the mincer.’

Mike chuckled from the backseat. ‘Chefs,’ he said to himself.

‘Dear Satan in Hell,’ Grayson swore as she fished out a limp green morsel from her burger. Her nose creased in disgust. ‘A gherkin.’

‘I was expecting better,’ Apothonomy admitted. ‘This is inedible.’

‘We don’t have to eat this,’ Grayson said. ‘You’re a demon. I’m a fallen angel. We can just, you know,’ she flexed her fingers in an imitation of spellcasting, ‘create something nicer.’

‘But the balance,’ Apothonomy reminded her.

Grayson pursed her lips and thought.

For almost two centuries, humans had understood that energy cannot be created nor destroyed, that it is always converted into another form of energy. This was a fundamental rule of the universe and also applied to altering matter. For Grayson or Apothonomy to change their ‘food’ into something more palatable, some other organic material would be required.

Slowly, she swivelled in her seat until she was looking at Mike.

‘No,’ Apothonomy said sternly.

‘But I can’t eat this.’

‘Well, I’m not going to let you eat a human.’

‘Not all of him,’ Grayson said.

‘What do you mean?’

To Mike, she asked, ‘Tell me, have you ever had your appendix out?’

*

As he finished the last piece of his tender rump steak, apothonomy felt the thrum of Daen-el-Zharthus’s essence grow stronger. It was like a pulse he sensed in his ears, getting faster and louder.

‘She’s coming,’ he announced.

Grayson placed her half-eaten ribeye into the now undersized cardboard container and reached out to touch Apothonomy’s arm. When he looked at her, he saw a strange expression in her eyes.

‘Before she gets here,’ she started, ‘I need to know what happens next.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Once we snare her and have her ready to return to Bell…’ Grayson drifted off. She seemed afraid to put what she was thinking into words.

‘Tell me, Grace,’ Apothonomy said softly. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘Will we have to go back with her straight away? Is the end of our adventure?’