The Unfortunate Story of Roddy Mayhem, Julie Steimle [i can read book club TXT] 📗

nod. “Good. Then your friend Wispy is in excellent hands.”

I smiled, tears welling up again, making my eyes hurt. But I didn’t care. I was just glad that this man-wolf cared. He actually, really, entirely, completely cared about us.

Lunch soon was brought out. Rick let me eat at my own pace, and he munched on his with looks at staring passersby, hardly bothered. Nearly all passersby eyed me and my horns. My hoodie had been down so my wings did not show. But their eyes on him has expressions of vague recollection, as if they thought they knew him but weren’t sure.

Rick finally gestured to my head. “Your horns are longer.”

I hunched my head between my shoulders.

“You did something really naughty, huh?” Rick asked, not a lick of condemnation in his voice. I could even see a smile in his eyes. Damn he was nearly imp sometimes.

I nodded. “Dangerous revenge.”

He chuckled, nodding to himself, musing on that. “Yeah.” After eating more, he said, “Try not to do that again. Even Hellboy had filed his horns down to keep from being too conspicuous.”

I remembered again now why I had liked the guy. Besides letting me keep his pajamas, he knew stuff that mattered. He didn’t think Hellboy too below his notice. And I nodded. He wasn’t angry. That as the best part. I guess he knew what it was like to make mistakes. Maybe even big ones.

“Most people are less forgiving than God,” Rick added, in case I did not understand his meaning. “And unfortunately you and I must make our way among ordinary judgmental humans rather than angels.”

I glanced over at the death angels who were watching us.

He looked that way also but did not see them. He peeked to me, weighing his words which seemed to feel heavy in his mouth. He finally said, “You see something other than imps, don’t you?”

I nodded stiffly, unable to take my eyes off that one death angel. He was in a dark jacket, crisp with angles in all his clothes as if he starched everything, clean as a whistle. His wings were a sharp gray—the kind of color you’d expect gangsters to wear in their suits. He had more of a clerk look about him, though. I hated those the most. They were merciless. Exacting. The shabby, bruised looking angels were kinder.

“Eve once told me she saw strange angels on occasion,” Rick murmured.

I stared at him. Eve called them strange angels? Of course she wasn’t scared to talk about them either. She was deadly.

“She would not elaborate, except to say they did not seem to be how she had imagined angels to be.” Rick shook his head. “In fact, they appeared to be hiding from her sight, she said.”

I nodded, knowing why. I whispered, “They don’t like her.”

Rick stared at me, blinking. “Really? Why?”

I cringed. The one death angel across the way glared at me.

But Rick then nodded to himself, adding it up. “Because she is the vimp.”

I shrugged. He was probably right. I knew so little about what a vimp was. I just knew she was so powerful that she rattled the nerves of the imps around her. Part vampire, she had said. But vampires were still not as scary as her.

Nodding more, Rick sighed. I peeked to the death angel again. Rick saw me and said, “What does that one want?”

Shaking my head, I hissed, “I don’t know. But they don’t seem to like you either.”

Rick stiffened. He looked in that direction with a frown. This time the death angel huffed and stalked away. I was glad. I also didn’t know that could happen. I stared after it, wondering what had changed.

“What happened?” Rick was curious, watching me. He could see something had changed.

“It left.”

He smirked. “Good.” He then went back to eating. “Sometimes I feel like death is always following me.”

Damn he was right. But how did he know? He could not see them. But what was the reason death would follow him aside from the pure prejudice those angels were showing?

Watching me, Rick explained with a sad sigh, “People die around me.”

I almost pulled back. But when I saw how much it grieved him, I asked, “How?”

Closing his eyes, Rick seemed to groan inwardly. Looking to me, he explained, “As I am what I am, there are those who try to kill me. And unfortunately people around me end up getting hurt instead. I do my best but…”

I felt a shiver go through me.

For a second I thought I saw Wispy’s pain. It was like his—an undying angst. A willingness to suffer in order to protect others around him, and a grief when none of it worked. I really didn’t have a clue what Wispy had gone through. I only knew she kept her agony from me (as Piranha put it) because she liked me.

It was then that I realized that I had to go back to the school. Wispy needed me. I didn’t know if she was coming back, but I had to be there if she did. And Spastic. Maybe he didn’t need me. Or maybe he also was not telling me things. What I did know was that both of them begged for me not to let my horns grow more.

“Are you ready to go back?” Rick could see what was going on in my head from my face apparently.

I leaned back from him, impressed. That was some kind of people skills. Though he was not psychic, this wolf was smart. But I also nodded at him. “Yes. I think I am now.”

He smiled. Then he called to the waitress to get a doggy bag for us both. While he also called for a car to pick us up, I noticed some of the death angels walk away. One looked perturbed that I was going back to Gulinger. He actually flipped me off.

I stared at him, raising my hands in disgust and shock. What kind of angel was that?

A fancy black car soon picked us up—one of his family’s own. Rick spoke personally to the driver, and it took a meandering route through New York City back to the school. However, Rick whispered to me, “Whenever you get the chance, explore your neighborhood. Know where the school is.”

“We’re not supposed to leave the school, though,” I said, almost gaping at him in shock. This was supposed to be a responsible adult. What was he encouraging me to do?

He laughed, staring at me. “Wow. I thought I would never hear a thing like that come out of the mouth of an imp. Roddy, break some rules. Protect your friends.”

The dude who practically owned our school had just told me to break school rules. My head felt dizzy. It was surreal.

I closed one eye and peered at him. “Are you really Mr. Deacon?”

Laughing, Rick nodded, “Only at business conventions, Roddy. I used to climb out school windows when no one was looking.”

Mind blown.

Seriously.

His imps looked so normal. But they smirked back at me, winking as if to say Rick’s mischief was a special flavor. They just didn’t gorge. That’s why they weren’t fat.

Rick walked into the school with me.

When we reached the main office hall, Ms. Amherst spotted me while she was in the middle of a biting conversation with Capt. Eifert, both of them standing in the hallway not far from Mr. Wilderman’s office.

“There he is! Detention young man!” Ms. Amherst snapped, her finger pointing like a cattle prod.

“Oh, no,” Rick said immediately, putting an arm around my shoulder. “He was out with me. I needed to have a moment with him.”

“All morning? And without permission, let alone notifying anyone? And who are you anyway?” Ms. Amherst protested, all those thoughts rushing out angrily.

Capt. Eifert choked on a laugh, clearly recognizing Rick. Ms. Amherst shot her a hard look.

“Hello Captain,” Rick saluted Capt. Eifert with a grin. Then he said to Ms. Amherst, “Pardon me. I didn’t introduce myself properly. My name is Howard Richard Deacon the Third—but I go by Rick.”

Ms. Amherst took an involuntary step back from him, going pale. Her eyes raked over his face and especially his gray eyes. I wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for—perhaps signs of wolfishness. Honestly I thought Rick carried the wolf about him so obviously anyone with a brain would have known. But Rick smiled genially back.

“Now,” he continued on his way to Mr. Wilderman’s office, pulling me along as the two teachers followed us, “I’ve recently heard about a number of disturbing things that are currently happening at Gulinger—things which would have been inexcusable in my day—”

“Such as his sexual harassment of his classmates?” Ms. Amherst’s eyes whipped on me.

Rick lifted his eyebrows, turning to face her. “He’s told me his side, yes.”

“And you believe him?” She flustered. “Without even seeing the evidence?”

He peeked to me then said, “I happen to know a great deal about a half-imp’s character. I roomed with Tom Brown while I was a student here.”

That remark slapped her hard. She was red while she struggled to recover. “And you think an imp wouldn’t do such a thing?” she bristled, coloring more. “Have you even heard what those imps did to their own in that gang of theirs?”

Rick lowered his eyes to the floor. “Roddy told me about that as well.”

The teacher was getting almost to beet grade red, flustering with each step we took.

Capt. Eifert folded her arms, leaning back silently to listen to the rest.

“What I think, is that Roddy needs a fair trial,” Rick said. He nodded to me. “The school can arrange that, right?”

I wondered what he was thinking, what he was planning. His imps were grinning—almost plotting. I had told Rick everything, including my suspicions that one of my schoolmates had manhandled with Wispy. All of it had upset him, and I could tell the cogs in his mind were working to fix it. He was that kind of wolf. He would hunt down his prey to the end—and what a slaughter it would be once he pounced on it.

“But in the meantime, I think Roddy deserves a day off,” Rick said.

“A day off!?” Ms. Amherst balked.

“Agreed,” Capt. Eifert spoke up, nodding to him. “I think finding his friend yesterday in that condition and going to the hospital was traumatizing, and he needs time to recuperate.”

“Recuperate?” Ms. Amherst continued to balk at the idea. “For what? To cause more mischief? You know he and those other imps drew all over the walls of the detention hall with those whiteboard markers.”

“Really?” Rick grinned, looking to me.

I shrugged, not denying it or admitting it.

He patted me on that back. “Great. You should let loose and be a little more creative like that.”

“Are you encouraging him?” Ms. Amherst now was going livid—white in her anger as she nearly shouted.

Rick rocked on his heels and stuffed his hands into his pockets good naturedly. “Why not? This place has gotten so stuffy. Besides, Tom used to flood the bathrooms.”

Capt. Eifert shook her head, but she was laughing with a look to me. “Please don’t encourage him. That was always a mess to clean up.”

“Which Tom always had to clean up,” Rick added with a wink to her. He also glanced to me as if to let me know.

“Which means you and Spastic are cleaning up your marker mess,” Capt. Eifert said to me, joining his gaze.

I nodded wearily, sighing. But then I asked, “But what about Piranha? She did it too.”

“Did she?” Ms. Amherst said, raising her chin indignantly. “Well then, I guess we will have the whole gang in there cleaning it up.”

But I stiffened, hating her more. “Not the whole gang. Wispy is still in the hospital.”

Her look on me was deadly. To her, I could see that Wispy was already eliminated. I could see it. ‘One down. Three to go,’ her mind was saying. Her imps seemed to be counting also, enjoying it.

Rick patted my shoulder, nodding. “Don’t worry. If Matt and Jessica were there at the