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

eyes. We could feel it, watching his eyebrows lift behind his glasses.

“Queen Maeve herself—”

“Oh, please,” Tom moaned, his eyes raking over me and the others with calculating comprehension. “Queen Maeve can go screw a—”

“Don’t you say that!” Dervish pointed a sharp finger into Tom’s pale face.

“I say what I like,” Tom replied, hardly bothered.

I got a good look at this Tom Brown—the infamous halfer the imps all loved—as he pulled off his sunglasses revealing his darkening orange eyes. The guy was in a classy suit with no indication that he had wings on his back. His suit was really nice too. Men in black quality. And it didn’t look stolen. He owned it. He had a peculiar strength around him. Even a calmness that just did not exists in halfers, and—by the way—he had no horns. For all practical purposes, he looked assimilated as a human. How in the blazes did the imps love him? ‘Cause I could see they did.

“You are favored by her!” Dervish shouted, poking Tom in the chest. His eyes were nearly bloodshot. Spit flew from his mouth at this utter betrayal which Dervish clearly took personally. I started to wonder if he had tried to hit on this Maeve lady and if she had snubbed him or something.

Tom gazed down at Dervish’s finger then at Dervish’s face. I knew then that Dervish had made a huge mistake. This Tom was dangerous. I felt it in the ripple of imps in the room. They were chattering with excitement, like people watching a pro-wrestling match—and they already had their favorite.

Tom said. “It’s called a fetish. She can’t get enough of me, which is really annoying.”

“Why are you here?” Skunk asked, jerking up his chin. He has stepped forward a lot like a little brother telling some big kid not to pick on his big brother. If only he knew how pathetic he looked.

Leaning back, Tom replied frankly, “Well, I’ll tell you, Stinky. While I was in China, I learned that the Unseelie Court isn’t just minding their own business anymore. And after talking it over with the Monkey King, I realized that I was in a unique position to deal with that problem.”

A thousand of things rattled through my brain at once. He was in China? How and why was he in China? And now I really wanted to know what this Unseelie Court was. Who were they? What business were they not minding? What was their regular business?

Dervish snorted with huge whopping skepticism, “Monkey King…. Look. What are you planning to do? Overthrow the Unseelie Court all by yourself?”

Tom shook his head. “No. Don’t be silly. That’s end of the world stuff, and won’t happen until then. Ragnarok you know?”

“The movie?” Jester asked, confused.

Tom laughed, pointing to him. “No. But I’m glad you know the reference.” He then looked to Dervish. “I’m here because I hear some folk from the Unseelie Court come by this place on occasion, and I need to give Maeve a message.”

“Queen Maeve,” Dervish bit out. He looked like he wanted to bite Tom, actually. Then he looked to the undercover cops. “What do you plan to do? Arrest them?”

Laughing more, Tom shook his head. “Nah. They need supernatural power for that. And though I know a guy working on a training program for that sort of thing, I’m gonna have to resort to old fashioned tactics.”

“Get out,” Dervish said. I could tell he had had enough. “This is my establishment. You are not welcome here.”

Chuckling, Tom looked unlikely to budge. He opened his mouth to say so.

“Say Tom…” In walked a nicely-dressed young man in a business suit with rust-brown hair and unusual gray eyes who gave off the bizarre impression of a wolf. “Did you find my…?” He halted. His eyes widened as he took in the room and all of us. He nodded to himself and thumbed back to the door. “Is this a bad time? Should I leave?”

“You can find a corner and stay in it,” Tom said without even looking back at the new arrival.

But the wolfish man whose imps were shouting for him to bite Tom for his remark, set his eyes on the card players and waved. “How about this corner?”

The card players rose, nodding to him.

“Hey ya, Rick. Want us to deal you in?” the tallish thin one with the short goatee asked. His imps were still shouting for him to torch the place, but he was ignoring them with hardly a flinch. Thing was, those imps looked well-fed. That meant he had probably torched a lot of places before.

“Sure…” Rick the fancy wolf-like man said, drawing up a chair. However, he sat so that his back was to the wall and his gray eyes could take in the entire room. I knew that stance. I used that stance. This man was like me, constantly on his guard—and not the fancy weakling as I had first assumed.

Dervish shoved me to the side. I staggered to keep my footing, yet I was glad I was no longer the center of his wrath. The pattern was clear. This Tom Brown may have been the imps’ favorite—but Tom had spoken true about the side he was on. He was not an ally of the Unseelie Court.

“You’re a traitor to your kind,” Dervish snarled.

Tom snorted, hands on hips. “My kind? What do you mean? A halfer like you? Or imp kind? ‘Cause you know, I kinda like my human side. It’s got privileges no Unseelie-folk can brag of.”

I stared. How could he say that? And those words just came out of me: “How can you say that? Humans hate us halfers. Are you a masochist?”

His eyes drifted toward me. There was a heap of pity in his gaze. He pointed at me, about to respond.

“We’re the castaways,” Dervish agreed, nodding to me. So did the other halfers. “Nobody wants us.”

Tom shrugged, lowering his finger. “So?”

We all stared. This was the halfer all imps loved? This? This selfish, apathetic, white boy?

“Why is it you don’t get it?” Dervish growled at him. “Why are you such a traitor?”

Moaning, Tom rolled his eyes. “To be honest, you guys are the first other half-imps I’ve ever met.”

That hit me hard. I was shocked.

So was everyone else. He had admitted to going to China for pity’s sake. The ‘world traveler’. He had never met another halfer in his life? Ever?

“And though I think it is cool that you found each other,” Tom continued as if he were having a light conversation. He shook his head. “But making a gang and living a life of crime isn’t the way to go.”

We all rolled our eyes. How did he not understand?

“Your mother kept you, didn’t she?” Dervish ground out, eying him.

Tom nodded, grinning cheerfully. “Yep!” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, rocking on his heels.

I was immediately jealous.

“You’re kidding,” Piranha said, breathless, not believing it.

“Nope,” Tom replied. He smiled rather happily. Then he eyed us all. “I know you are all seeking family with the Unseelie Court. Everybody innately wants one, whether they want to admit to it nor not.”

I was about to object—but with a peek to Piranha, I realized I was wrong. Of course I wanted something like that. Everybody wanted to be accepted and validated at some point or another. It was why I never entirely left the area. I could have walked up the beach away from this place. But I had friends in Piranha and I felt sorry for Spastic. I wanted to do something. Escape with them. I had plans, you know. I just never mentioned it to them in case word got back to Dervish.

But my thoughts were interrupted by Dervish’s words. “Where is Mutton, Speed, Ricotta, and Thug?”

Tom automatically laughed, clearly amused by their names. He then pointed to Piranha—“What’s your name, hot stuff?”

Piranha bristled, coloring. He had to have been at least ten years older than her.

“Where are they?” Dervish demanded, his face growing darker. His horns seemed to curl.

Tom shrugged. “I dunno.” He then looked back to his card-playing friends—as clearly they were friends of his. The wolf guy, Mr. Arsonist and the other one who for some reason gave the imps nothing to work with except to encourage him to drink more beer, stared back. “Do you guys know?”

Mr. Arsonist lifted a finger. “Later. We’ll talk about it later.”

His imps were shouting for him to make a fireball in his hands to scare Dervish. I stared at him, as that would have been a sight to see. I mean, who can make a fireball in his hands? What kind of human was he?

“Holy cow, they can all hear what’s going on in your head, Swift,” his buddy said.

Mr. Wolf-guy rolled his eyes and whispered rather loudly, “You’re not thinking about fire again, are you?”

“I am not an arsonist,” Mr. Arsonist protested.

Dervish stared at him. “Oh no?”

The man rose. “I can’t be blamed for what I am tempted to do. I didn’t actually set this place on fire, did I?”

It was an interesting, yet useless point. Imps only repeatedly tempted you on things that you would be likely to do.

“Oh yeah?” Dervish headed towards him. Tom followed Dervish, though I was not sure whom he was guarding. I got the feeling that Mr. Arsonist was extremely dangerous.

And sure enough, fire licked up in the palm of that man, almost automatically. The imps didn’t even tell him to. But fire also formed in the hand of the other guy as well.

That’s when I realized that I needed to get out of that place fast. I inched toward a wall.

Skunk grabbed my arm. “Not so fast. Our conversation isn’t over.”

“Dude,” I said, my heart racing as I moaned, “Don’t you think you have more pressing matters now? I mean, Trouble is here right when you are conveniently supposed to be meeting with folk from the Unseelie Court—and he brought along three weirdoes as well as a couple of cops. We all should just scatter, man.”

That seemed to hit Skunk hard.

“I mean, where are Mutton and the rest?” I added, as my own mind was calculating their disappearance as no coincidence. They were taken out—the question was, out of the room or out of this world.

Skunk’s eyes shot to the Arsonist’s table. In the dark corner, where we could hardly see for some reason, was the shadow outline of Mutton’s stupid hat and Ricotta’s frizzy hair. They didn’t seem to be moving.

I shuddered.

“Dervish! Over there! In that corner!” Skunk drew a knife from his pocket and swung out his blade toward Tom.

In a flash instant, with the fastest hands I ever saw from any halfer— Tom received the knife and twisted the weapon out from Skunk’s fingers like an adult would take a toy from a naughty child. He then tossed the knife to Mr. Arsonist who easily caught it and tucked it into his belt. Then he threw Skunk to his pals with a flip—Skunk flipping, not Tom.

Dervish let out a yowl, drawing his gun.

As the pals in the corner seized Skunk, wrangling for his wings with a heavy wrestling thump to the ground to pin him, Tom kicked Dervish in the gut then somersaulted so that he was now standing on the ceiling, running upside down on it. He grabbed Dervish by the horns and flipped him.

A shot went off from the gun.

“Dag nab it, Tom!” the wolf guy shouted out. “I thought you unloaded every gun you came across!” The guy was ducking behind something for shelter.

“My bad!” Tom called out with a cackle as if it were nothing.

And the imps were cheering.

Tom immediately ordered them about, telling them to throw things around in the room.

He ordered them!

I mean, Ok, I’ve done that. I’ve told imps to steal stuff for me—but he ordered imps to make a mess of Dervish’s bar. And they obeyed like little gleeful minions, partying as they scampered all over everything with a heave-ho. Did imps have no loyalty at