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

following—and he was a quick-minded guy. Way faster than me.

Laughing, sad in a way, Eve shook her head. “Look. I passed biology with flying colors. I know how genetics works.”

Tom nodded, but frowned, not quite getting it. “And?”

“Vimps are not a species,” Eve explained. “I am like a liger—the spawn of a lion and tiger. They’re basically incapable of breeding.”

Liger… liger… I had heard that word before. Was that really an animal?

“And to be frank, vampires have no ability to breed. Why would you expect a vimp to be able to?” Eve said. “I was conceived under a curse. That is the only reason my father was able to have me at all.”

“Oh,” Tom said, gazing at her rather pityingly. He understood. I didn’t quite yet. What did she mean by conceive? Breed? I honestly had no clue how that exactly worked.

“So if I ever do get married, my husband and I won’t be able to have kids. And I really doubt anyone would let me adopt,” she said.

A biology lesson from a demon. I never expected it. I was also feeling dizzy.

“Oh.” Tom sounded disappointed. “That’s too bad.” And he frowned more. “I wonder if it works the same for half-imps.”

She cast Tom a wry look. I had a feeling she thought he was being silly. I wondered faintly if it really mattered. Tom probably had never even thought about having kids. I know I never had. Who did when you are just trying to survive? Maybe I was like a liger.

“Rick really likes you, you know,” Tom said, his voice teasing.

“I know,” she sighed.

“He’s heard about Hanz, though.” Tom chuckled.

She sighed more heavily. “Good.”

“How serious are you two?”

She chuckled. “I’ve liked Hanz since…” She sighed.

“Wow. That bad huh?”

“What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Had. She dumped me. She was half siren. She had a crush on Rick, once too, you know.”

“Does Rick like her?”

“Not at all. She annoys him.”

They were silent for a bit. I was listening in on seriously private stuff. Then Eve said to me, “How do the shoes fit?”

I had barely tried on one. I quickly tried on the other and walked in them. To be quite frank, that moment was surreal. It felt like a dream—and I would soon wake up, damp, underneath the pier, with sand and salt all over me.

“Good,” I said, trying to keep my head level.

Eve smiled at me. She angled her head and smirked. “Now tell me the truth.”

I rolled my eyes and pried them off. “They feel funny. Kinda big.”

“Better,” she said, and reached out for them.

I liked her.

 

Lucky Hanz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Four

 

 

All of us were to meet up again at dinner after they had taken me shopping. I was overloaded with presents I know I didn’t deserve, but ‘needed’ anyway. Eve and Tom dragged me to a classy restaurant not far from the boardwalk where we met up with Rick Deacon again—who tersely reclaimed his wallet from Tom.

“Don’t you get paid enough in the CIA?” Rick asked as he tucked it away.

Tom chuckled. “I think I may be suspended because of that whole thing in China.”

Eve shot Rick a look, listening to their imps cackle over the craziness that had happened in China, as clearly the imps had enjoyed the mayhem her friends had caused there.

Dan and James silently smirked, clearly in the know.

“What happened in China?” Eve asked, curious.

Rick tried to wave it away. “Nothing. Long story.”

She shot him a chastening look. “Nothing?”

Resting his hand on her arm, Dan interjected, “We had to take care of a demon problem in China which, unfortunately the CIA was also involved in. Currently the agency is under internal investigation, and Tom had been the one who had outed the conspiracy.”

“He is currently on loan to the FBI,” Rick explained, “While the scandal gets sorted out.”

Eve pulled back, frowning at Tom. “Why do you work for the CIA in the first place?”

Grinning crookedly, Tom nearly laughed his answer. “The CIA’s got perks!”

Rick rolled his eyes, interpreting. “The Company really wanted him, but Tom joined to protect ghoulies from within.”

“Ghoulies?” Escaped my mouth before I could stop myself.

They looked to me as if remembering that I was there. Rick said, “People affected by the supernatural. You would be considered a ghoulie.”

New lingo. Ghoulie. Not a halfer. That was weird. Then I realized that this wolfman Rick was including me in a group which he, Tom, and Eve belonged to. I wondered about the pyromaniac and his friend, if they were also ghoulies. They may have been weird, but they did not seem supernatural in nature at all but entirely human—despite their fire trick.

Around this time we got seated at a table. And a little after, that blonde dude who had given me the twenty dollars the day before showed up and pecked Eve on the cheek. Then his eyes turned to me and then Tom. He stuck out his hand to Tom.

“Hello, I’m Hanz Johaansen.”

Tom Brown grinned wide, his orange eyes examining Hanz’s rather starved imps. He gripped Hanz’s hand and firmly shook it. “Tom Brown.”

I would could see Rick rise with his wolf eyes inspecting the man who apparently had won the heart of the girl he had been pining over. And in his eyes and in his imps I could see he was admitting defeat. And honestly, why not? Hanz was like a lean Nordic god. He exuded light. And he was entirely, one hundred percent human.

Hanz slid into a seat next to Eve with a fond arm around her waist and a friendly eye to all as Eve introduced him to everyone, and everyone to him.

“This is my good friend Rick Deacon—uh—Howard Richard Deacon the Third actually, but he prefers to be called Rick.”

Rick gave Hanz a firm handshake.

I could tell from Hanz’s imps that he knew about Rick—all about Rick, including that he was a werewolf and super rich. Hanz’s imps desperately pled for Hanz to run away, to not shake Rick’s hand, to order food with garlic, to do all sorts of things that would definitely cause trouble between him and Eve’s old friend. I could tell from his imps that Eve had explained her friendship with Rick Deacon in detail and that he knew Eve had a high regard for the werewolf.

“Nice to meet you,” Rick said. And he actually did mean it. In fact, Rick’s resignation to the fact that his gal friend had chosen well rested so solidly in his gaze that his smile reached his eyes. Yet his imps were shouting at him to find some girl named Daisy, and I could tell it gave him a degree of pain.

 When Eve overheard that girl’s name again, she glanced once at Rick who colored. But she didn’t openly ask about this Daisy. I think, of course, she knew this Daisy was trouble for Rick. Probably the trouble he had mentioned earlier that made him feel so unworthy to look Eve in the eye—like an addiction. But everyone had their temptations after all. Her imps were constantly shouting at her to bite Hanz. Just a little nip. A small taste. It was a weird kind of attraction. But of course she never did listen to them. The imps around her were cranky that she was not willing to play.

Hanz took the entire meal and interactions between us all in stride. In fact, as Eve introduced him to the rest of the group, starting with Dan (whom she called ‘Daniel Smith, one of the Seven’) and following with James (whom she said was James Peterson, another of the Seven) the chatter of all the imps was a deafening. Dan’s imps kept telling him to set various things on fire. His pal James had imps urging him to order more than he could eat. Rick’s were telling him to bite Hanz for honing in on the girl he had really liked. And Hanz’s imps were screaming for him to run from all these strange people… including me. And that was when I realized that Hanz was truly the only normal human being there.

I laughed, patting Hanz on the back. I couldn’t help it.

Hanz glanced over at me as if my reaction was entirely out of the blue. And it probably was, for someone who could not hear imps. Dan and James stared at me. Yet Rick smirked, and so did Eve. However Tom out and out cackled. They understood.

And eventually so did Dan who whispered to James. They then chuckled—and Daniel broached the subject to Hanz, “You are taking all of this and us in stride, Hanz. He was just appreciating it.”

Hanz remained dazed in his expression, not quite comprehending what was happening. I kind of felt sorry for him.

“Don’t worry about it,” Eve said, grinning proudly at how well Hanz was holding up. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or Hanz. I suppose both.

We ordered food. I even got to pick what I wanted from the menu, though Tom told me to only order for one meal—as I was inclined to order a lot and stock up in my pockets.

The others asked Hanz some simple questions as I ate steak and a wonderfully thick and creamy pot of stewed potatoes.

“So… you’re a Mormon,” Dan said, watching Hanz as if he were the strangest curiosity. “How does that work exactly?”

Hanz laughed. He looked genuinely amused with a peek to Eve. “What do you mean how does that work? It is a religion. It is what I believe.”

“But how do you reconcile what Eve is with your religion?” Dan asked. “I mean, I don’t think your church believes in demons like the Catholics do.”

A slightly grave expression settled on Hanz’s usually serene face as he quietly contemplated Dan’s words. I noticed Hanz was often slow to answer while his imps shouted all sorts of knee-jerk responses, including rather witty ones which would undoubtedly spark up an argument. However, Hanz said, “We believe there are many things that we, as human beings do not yet understand—many things which God has not yet revealed. In my faith we have a saying—and article of faith. ‘We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God.’ I generally stick by that and assume I don’t know everything.”

For some reason, that made Dan smile. He nodded. “Good answer.”

He was about to then change the subject when Rick asked, “I heard your church requires the men to go on religious missions. Is that true? Did you do that?”

Hanz nodded smartly. “Sure did.”

“Hanz served his mission in Denmark,” Eve cut in, smiling. She seemed proud that Hanz had done that and was all churchy and stuff.

Hanz blushed with a shrug. “It’s where my ancestors are from.”

“Oh,” Rick said, not quite ready for a follow up. But then he said, “Was that hard?”

Nodding, Hanz replied, “I had to learn a foreign language in six weeks—I only knew English before that—and I had to speak to total strangers who mostly were not interested. I got a lot of doors slammed in my face.”

Rick chuckled, nodding to himself. “Basically like sales.”

“Which I don’t really have the personality for,” Hanz