Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Foster Morningstar ducked out of his shower stall to avoid hitting his head on the curtain rod, grabbing a fluffy towel and wrapping it securely around his waist. He paused a moment to inspect his appearance, frowning at the inky circles that had been lingering under his eyes for the past few weeks.
His dreams were constantly disrupted by his tossing and turning, but when he did manage to slip into uneasy sleep, Piper’s tired, sunken eyes regarded him with an understanding beyond her meager ten years. He saw the trust and desperate hope that gutted him over and over.
You’re doing the right thing, Foster, Gabe’s smooth, consoling voice drifted up from his memories. She’s suffering, and now her death can have a greater meaning. Don’t you want to help her? A sacrifice like this all but guarantees her a favored place in Heaven.
He closed his eyes tightly, trying to block out the words. Logic didn’t help him sleep at night, the same way it hadn’t made his actions any easier on that day. With a low growl, Foster turned away from his exhausted and angry reflection and yanked open the bathroom door.
Cool air swirled in, disrupting the warmth of the lingering steam and making him shiver as he stalked out and down the hall. Might as well start his coffee before getting dressed, with the day he had ahead of him.
Or not, he realized with a sigh, as he entered his kitchen and found a small, purple creature balanced on his counter, eating his coffee beans.
“Cwall, what the fuck?” Foster groaned. “Why do you always do this?”
The imp let out a loud belch and tossed down the decimated packet, leaning back against the checkered backsplash and picking his teeth with a long, yellowed fingernail. “Because ya got the real good Arabian shit.” He shrugged his skinny shoulders.
“First of all, it’s Arabica,” Foster launched into the familiar tirade, knowing full well that Cwall knew all of this, but unable to resist proving his point, “and secondly, that specific bag is an Arabica and Robusta blend imported from Hawaii, and it costs me twenty bucks a pound so cough up, asshat.”
“I’m good.” The tiny demon grinned, flaring his batlike wings in a stretch as he rolled over to lounge on his elbows. “We both know ya can afford it, and I was hungry.”
“And all you could find in my fully stocked kitchen was the last bag of my favorite coffee beans?”
“All I could find that I wanted ta eat.” He shrugged again, and Foster lunged. Cwall yelped and scrambled backwards, but Foster was faster, snagging a scrawny ankle in his fist and tugging the imp toward him.
“Stop struggling, or next time I grab for the tail!” He snapped, dangling the flailing creature upside down and giving him a little shake.
“Not my tail!” Cwall wailed. “You know it’s sensitive!”
“Why are you in my apartment, Cwall?”
“Ah, a guy can’t just come ta visit?”
“You never come just to visit anymore,” Foster deadpanned.
Cwall grumbled, “Not since ya started hangin’ out with that slimy angel.”
“Just because Gabe is an angel doesn’t mean you need to hate him.”
“I don’t hate ‘im for bein’ an angel,” Cwall protested. “I know lotsa angels, and I like them. Remi’s great, Cami’s fun, Glory’s easy on the eyes. I hate Gabe for bein’ a slimeball suckup, it’s different.”
“He’s pretty much the only person who actually gives a damn about me,” Foster snapped, “so forgive me if I’d prefer you respected him.”
“And what am I, chopped liver?”
“You show up randomly, eat me out of house and home, and insult my friends before disappearing again,” Foster said. “Not to mention you spy on me for my sperm donor, so fuck you for that.”
“I do not spy,” Cwall pouted. “I tell him you’re alive and it keeps ‘im off your back, so you’re welcome ya lil shit, ‘cause I know ya don’t wanna see ‘im.”
“Yeah, yeah, do all his work for him, give him even more excuses.”
“I just do my job.” Cwall looked somewhere between dizzy and affronted. “Can ya put me down now?”
“Sure,” Foster grinned and flung the imp towards the living room.
He flapped his wings frantically, righting himself just before hitting the far wall and hovering like an angry, oversized chicken. “Rude.”
“Not my fault you picked a form that’s easily tossed around.
” Foster rifled through his pantry for his backup coffee.
He found the bag, an unfortunately lesser quality he’d been given as a gift and only kept for emergencies—like when he forgot to stop by the store, or when Cwall made his random appearances to mooch.
“I like the purple and the wings.” Cwall settled on the back of the couch like an overgrown parrot. “But I don’t like being manhandled.”
He flared his wings then folded them, letting them melt into his back.
His limbs stretched and swelled and rapidly lost color, elongating and turning to milky white.
His three fingers and toes split into the standard five, and his ratlike face blurred and grew, morphing into a humanoid skull.
Cwall groaned and rolled his joints, stretching his new skeletal form.
Lidless eye sockets lit with acid green flame as he offered Foster a ghastly smirk.
“Better?”
Foster shrugged. “More badass at least. You’re gonna need skin if you come outside with me though.”
“Where ya goin’?”
“Library,” Foster lied with a smile, knowing that answer was sure to get his Guardian Demon off his tail.
“Ew, no thanks.” Cwall shuddered. “You Morningstar men sure love to fuckin’ read.”
Foster laughed bitterly. “Well, at least he gave me one good thing.”
“More than one.” Cwall flashed that hideous rictus grin again. “Ya got your pretty face from ol’ Luci too.”
“Get out of my house, Cwall.”
“So testy,” Cwall clicked his teeth together. “All this time with the humans has made ya so tempermetal, Fostie.”
“Temperamental,” Foster corrected, rolling his eyes. “And I’ve always been this way.”
“No,” Cwall lost a bit of his jovial tone and his eyes flickered briefly. “Ya really weren’t like this before.”
He blinked out of sight, presumably gone back to whatever limbo he hung around in when he wasn’t bothering the Prince of Hell, and Foster relaxed a bit.
Something in the way Cwall watched him made him anxious sometimes, as if the strange demon was reading him more deeply than his lackadaisical nature suggested.
As if he was seeing parts of Foster that even the man himself didn’t like to look at.
Foster sighed and turned his attention back to measuring the beans into his grinder.
Coffee would help, even subpar coffee. He could analyze the motives of demons after he studied the next ritual.
When his mother was returned to his side, he’d have all the time in the world to reflect on Cwall’s cryptic judgements.
Foster closed the front door of his apartment building firmly behind him, jiggling the handle to make sure the latch caught the doorframe.
The last thing they needed was another homeless man sleeping in the entryway—it made it almost impossible to get to the mailboxes.
He straightened his jacket, raked his hands through his carefully tousled hair, and checked his pocket for the package he had almost forgotten to bring.
His fingers brushed the cloth wrapping and he stepped confidently off the cracked front stoop, crossing the yellowing front lawn in a few long strides.
He patted the stone columns that capped the old iron fence as he slipped through the gap where the gate used to hang, and a piece of the crumbling brick broke off the left side.
“I should probably fix that,” he muttered, tossing it into the grass and making a mental note to pick up some stone adhesive.
Their lazy, absentee ‘landlord’ wasn’t going to put in any effort.
Jeff was a balding, overweight sleaze who would probably put his back out lifting anything heavier than a slice of pizza.
Foster might have forgotten Jeff existed, if it weren’t for the way he came hounding everyone once a month to mail his rent checks on time.
“Hey, Foster!” A stout older man bustled out the door, silver handlebar mustache perfectly groomed as always, wearing an outrageous Hawaiian print button down. “When you have time, could you maybe look at my window? It’s jammed open and the rain keeps coming in.”
Foster offered him a smile, keeping his groans internal. He didn’t exactly love that repairs fell on his shoulders, but he couldn’t let the residents suffer when he could do something to help. “No problem, Mr. Ryan.”
“How many times have I said to call me Carter?”
“Fair enough. I’ll take a look once I get home.”
“You’re a saint, Foster.”
The younger man couldn’t contain his laugh as he turned away. “Hardly.”
Foster whistled to himself as he walked. Sure, he could’ve done the trip in a fraction of the time if he had made a portal, but some innately human part of him preferred these opportunities to people-watch.
One of his favorite things about where he lived was how little attention people paid to their surroundings.
Teenagers moved in small clusters, eyes glued to their phones or chattering away.
Young mothers pushed strollers while business professionals wove through with purposeful strides of their clicking heels.
Children giggled and yelped as they chased each other across the asphalt, the autumn sun still strong enough that warmth from the pavement radiated through the soles of his converse.
Everyone was intent on getting from one place to another, scurrying around like frantic little mice.
It made it so much easier to observe them without being noticed himself.
It didn’t hurt that he fit into the neighborhood.
Secoroya was a city of a thousand cultures—the food, architecture, and languages were never from any one discernable place.
Every corner was a new world of color and music and life.