Room 344
“And you’re quite sure that you she would never have just… taken off?” Covet asked, valiantly attempting not to sound remotely irritated, condescending, bored or all of the above, as she sat across from the sobbing woman on the sofa. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat; the pencil skirt she wore (along with a matching suit jacket) was incredibly itchy – no doubt from the friction between the tights and the cheap material.
“Of course not!” the woman squawked between a hiccup and a sniff. “She’s only sixteen, she doesn’t even have a car!”
“Well, ma’am, I’m afraid that, given the situation, I’m going to advise that you take this up with your local law enforcement. As a private detective, I can’t help you as well as they can. If you like, I’ll drop off the notes I’ve made with the police and – excuse me a moment, please.” Covet stood, vibrating mobile already fished from the gaudy purse she was carrying with her as she strode out of the room, heels clacking on the hardwood floor, and into the hallway.
The moment the door closed behind her, Covet’s friendly, soothing demeanour changed.
“What the hell do you want, Johannes?” she spat into the receiver, voice hissing with the effort in keeping her volume down. “Johannes? ‘Nes! Are you sitting on your phone again?”
“God, help me…” Liza frowned; his voice was low and rough. Humourless. Entirely unlike the witch Covet had known for years. “Covet, please.”
“Johannes? ‘Nes, where are you? Tell me where you are.”
“Hotel… swings…”
“Johannes!”
“Covet, please – help me, I – I…” The hunter looked at her phone, disbelief in her expression. The call had cut off.
Liza left without a word.
***
“So, I said to the ‘psychic’,” Johannes Rocha sniggered, aloof tone and air quotations accompanying his speech charismatically, “go ahead and tell me about my future wife. Next thing I know, she’s describing Liza Covet because she saw her picture in my wallet! When I tell Covet, she’s gonna flip out and hunt the psychic down!”
The group surrounding him at the bar dissolved into snickers, all eyeing one another knowingly. “I cannae see Liza Covet settling down any time soon, an’ certainly no’ with a curly-headed runt like you!” the barman laughed, setting out another round of beers and tonics. The hunters all paused at a loud ringtone (some form of generic pop band blaring about love) coming from the witch.
“Speak of the devil,” he smiled, holding up his mobile. “Hello, Wicked Witch of the West speaking, how may I defy your gravity?” His companions frowned at the confused expression spreading across the witch’s face. “Liza? You there? I swear I didn’t do whatever you think I’ve done, honest.”
“’Nes?” The voice is dark, tired and hoarse. “’Nes, God, help me…”
“Liza?” The panic in his tone has the attention of every other being in the room. “Where are you? Love, tell me where you are.”
“Swings… ‘Nes, help me, please. Help me!”
A scream, then dead silence. The call ended.
“Annie, what’s wrong?” the bartender asked, (literally) reading the minds of the other hunters.
“Liza. They – someone or something’s hurt her. She needs help; I’ve got to go,” he breathed out, gathering his phone and jacket to his chest.
“Where is she?” another asked, also pulling out his mobile. Johannes knew they were all going to spot-check every hunter in the area for information.
“At the hotel where we met. Off the interstate, with the swingset.” He doesn’t need to say anything else. They all know the story of When Johannes Met Liza.
“I’ll phone around to see if there’s any sign of her, okay? I’ll phone you – don’t get yourself into a trap.”
“I won’t,” Johannes insisted, already heading towards the door. “If… if I text you 344, you need to come get our bodies.”
Under the watchful gaze of twelve sombre hunters, the witch left the bar.
***
“I need to go – for any sake, hurry up – I need to go to room 344. I don’t know who’s already there, I just really – will you bloody listen?”
“Sir, I am very sorry. However, I cannot let you go up to someone else’s room,” the receptionist insisted, not for the first time in the past ten minutes. “Sir, please, I can’t allow it at all.”
“Fine,” Johannes muttered, shaking his head and ignoring the rigorous curls that flopped across his forehead. “Just… just let me book into another room; I have a meeting tomorrow morning. Must’ve just been some strange dream, got me spooked.”
To give the son-of-a-witch credit, he was a good actor. The receptionist smiled sympathetically.
“We all have those days, sir,” she murmured apologetically as she handed over the room key. “Enjoy your stay!”
The transaction had passed in the blind of an eye, and the witch was soon heading upstairs, passing by the floors for rooms one-hundred through two-hundred (including his own room) to head for the third floor.
This had to be the room Liza had called from. Room 344. The room they had shared the night they met.
“Liza?” The sight that met Johannes the moment he turned the corner onto the corridor containing rooms 340 through 360 was not quite what he had expected.
Not what he had expected at all, in fact.
“Open up, you demon bitch! I know he’s fucking in there! I can smell the sulphur!”
“I’m calling security!” a frail voice replied, muffled by walls and a wooden door (346) that the irate (downright pissed off) woman was pounding on with a fist.
“Covet!” He was confused, to say the very least. She’d sounded so weak. It’d only taken him a couple of hours to get here – there was no way that she should be this energetic, this conscious after what he heard… and who was she trying to find?
“Johannes! Oh, Christ, ‘Nes, are you alright?” The woman immediately abandoned her post at the door to throw herself at the witch, muttering oaths and lifting her hands to inspect his face for injuries. “Johannes, are you okay? What happened?”
“Covet!” Johannes eventually interjected loudly, his own hands curling around her wrists to still the (incredibly steady, not a tremble within them) fingers at his throat. “I’m fine. You called me – Liza, you screamed and the call went dead. Are you okay? What happened to you?”
The pair blinked at one another, confusion mirrored in their expressions. The witch had lowered his hands to wrap his arms around her waist, a cursory glance informing him that she didn’t appear to be injured at all – she seemed to be perfectly healthy. Liza had lowered her hands to his shoulders, disbelief inking its way through the confusion.
“I never called you,” she stated eventually. “I got a call from you. You said –“
“God, help me, swings.’ I got the same thing – but it was your number, Covet, your phone.”
“Same to you… Someone hijacked our lines? Mimicked our voices – this reeks of demonic intervention, ‘Nes. Only hunters and demons know we were ever here, and nothing but a demon could use our voices like that.”
“Well… This is a bit cosy for my liking,” another voice drawled behind Johannes. The witch frowned, ready to tell whatever nosey bastard present to sod off and mind his own damn business, but Liza tensed and stifled a groan.
“Good grief…”
“Ah, Liza Covet. If I hadn’t seen that utterly disgusting excuse for a car outside, I wouldn’t have recognised you in a skirt…”
Both Johannes and Covet moved at that point, shifting as one so that they were eye-to-eye with a tall, curly-haired man. Of course, eye-to-eye meant that the unnatural colour of the man’s sclera was all too visible.
“Hello, Nora,” Liza greeted, almost casually.
“Oh, recognise me, do you, love?” the demon giggled, lifting a hand in an oddly feminine and coquettish manner to cover his mouth. “I thought you’d have forgotten all about little old me.”
“I’m sure we’re all enjoying this soirée, but I don’t understand this at all,” Johannes stated. “What is going on?”
“Nora was the literal monster in my closet,” Covet said, amusement tingeing her tone as ‘Nora’ twitched his fingers in greeting. “Day I turned fifteen, remember, the Father at my church told me what really goes on in this little slice of paradise we call Earth. I’d gone back to get my jacket –“
The demon coughed. “Cigarettes.”
“In my jacket,” the hunter insisted. “From that point on, the Father started teaching me about hunting, what to do, when to do it and how to help save as many lives as possible… One day, I’m sitting innocently on my bed and reading from the Father’s Bible – remind me to show that to you, ‘Nes – and Nora comes slithering out of my closet in the sluttiest dress I’ve ever seen, insults my clothing and then tells me not to get into hunting.”
“Liza Covet!” Nora sounded aghast at what was coming from the woman’s mouth. “Don’t you paint me into a monster! All I said was that doing anything to involve yourself in matters of heaven and hell would result in your untimely demise.”
“She did that every night for a month. She left when I exorcised her. At least, I thought I had.”
Johannes was torn between surprise at Liza’s first encounter with a demon (at fifteen) ending in nothing more than a bruised ego, and being angered at their situation. “But what about today?” he asked, gesturing to Covet. “What is all this about?”
“We’re getting there, curly!” Nora chided sweetly. “I certainly got dragged back to hell. Not by a fifteen-year-old’s poor attempt at exorcism, however. Another demon pulled me back. Apparently he was not at all pleased by my initiative to kill you before I became irritated by that salt line you placed.”
“So why are you back?” Johannes’ tone is sharp and Liza’s mouth curls into a smirk. She knew that, given enough incentive and anger, Johannes could very well end up accidentally sending Nora back to hell.
“Well, I felt a little guilty afterwards. Sweet young thing, you were just scared and a bit fashion-dumb. So, I left off and kept an eye on you – nice job meeting curly here, by the way. Hoped you might get a bit more fashion sense, which unfortunately hasn’t happened… I don’t suppose all dreams come true. Anyway,” Nora continued hastily after having caught the look on Johannes’ face. “I need to warn you. That’s why I’m here, loves. That’s why you’re both here.”
The hunter and the witch shared a momentary glance.
“The demon that stopped me killing you has had a change of heart. He wants you dead. Now, I don’t know his name, I don’t know who he was or who he’s borrowed for crawling around on your Godforsaken planet. I just know that he’s a black-eye –“ Liza pretended not to feel the way Johannes physically tensed beside her. “—And that he knows exactly where you, lover-boy and all, are.”
“Why are you helping?” Covet asked, brows furrowing slightly as Nora’s story grew in her mind. “Why now?”
“You never forget your first haunt, love. We make a big deal about our firsts and lasts, us demons. Nothing else to do, really. Most demons take to looking after their firsts – assuming we haven’t accidentally killed them at the time, of course.”
Covet spent a moment considering this, but her response was cut off as the elevator door chimed loudly, revealing two security officers, eyes alert and bodies tense, straying into the corridor.
“You loves had best run off. I booked that room there for you both – I’ll deal with these two,” Nora smiled, strolling past the pair and intercepting the two security guards just as they turned the corner. “Excuse me, gentlemen! I do believe you’ll want to see this.”
Johannes saw Nora’s borrowed body slump to the floor just before he closed the door quietly behind himself.
“Strange,” Covet commented idly as she observed the interior of the hotel room.
“What?” Johannes asked, heaving a sigh and turning to lean back against the door. Adrenaline had flooded through him since stepping out of his car, and the coursing in his veins hadn’t slowed at all when the demon appeared. Now, he just felt tired.
“It’s just… we’re in 344 again… and there’s still only the one bed.”
