Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) - By Killian McRae Page 0,21
for prom when you look like a reject from the Barney school gang. Look, Marc, there’s no problem letting you in here like this before we open, but it’s still a business and I got some stuff to take care of. You mind if I…?”
Marc gave him a go-ahead wave. “I don’t need babysitting, Mr. Zitka.” A wry wink resulted in Dee’s giving him an encore of As the Eyes Roll. Just to prove how capable he was and all responsible and stuff like a big boy, Marc stood as Dee exited, leaned over, and wrapped his hands tightly around the cool metal of the barbell. “I’m just going to do one more set… and then… hit…” grunt “…the…” groan “…showers. Ow! Motherfffff…fig tree!”
Ripping, burning, all-out pain overtook Marc as his muscles spontaneously formed a labor union and declared a strike. His right arm felt like it just been tossed to a pit bull to be used as a chew toy.
In a blur, Dee jumped back through the door. “What? What happened? Demon? Goblin? Scientologist?”
The good father massaged his ego and his arm, clutching at both and whining with a level of expertise often displayed only by teenage girls and Democrats. “Arm. Hurt.”
Some silent prayers may have been whispered as well. Though, frankly, Marc knew from a lack of winning lottery tickets and an inability to wake up without a hangover and a hard-on the fat lot of no good that did.
“Let me see it, you big baby.”
Dee eyed the injury up close. For a moment he sighed, then closed his eyes as his lips began to move in a silent invocation.
“Tried that already.”
“Shh!”
Venom filled his glare before Dee’s eyes closed again and his soundless recitation resumed. Marc obeyed, holding his tongue while Dee held his arm. Each moment, the pain grew more demanding, intense, until, before he knew what was happening, the flow reversed. Dee’s chanting became an audible chanson, the words ancient and obviously magical. Finally, after several minutes, all traces of pain subsided, leaving the priest relieved and more than a little mystified.
Marc’s arm fell back to his side, good as new. “Thank God.”
“Well, only a demigod, but you’re welcome anyways.” Dee grinned conspiratorially.
“How did you…? How did you do…?”
The demigod fingers planted themselves into Marc’s chest. “Shht! No one knows I can do that, okay? We demigods, we’re only supposed to have one gift. All part of the agreement with the Council of Seven not to lose our status, curb superhuman feats of power, etc. Mine’s my strength, but Dad had Panaceia sneak me the ability to heal on the side.”
As a promise, Marc mimicked locking his lips and throwing away the key. “Well, I’ll take that as a message from the divine that I probably should just hit the showers.”
“Yeah, Marc, it’s an immaculate suggestion.”
Dee groaned as he entered his office a few minutes later. What a mess, he thought. It wasn’t that Dee was an exceptionally disorganized person, but he did have a tendency to mark his territory in yellow: manila folders and sticky notes. Maybe being a Pure Soul had made him overly suspicious, but examining each and every new member file was an obsession, just to be sure no demons or other beasties masquerading as humans snuck their way onto his elliptical machines. Not that you could tell by a picture or an address, but street-class demons weren’t the brightest light bulbs. They normalized towards true stupidity, picking give-away human names. Like Damien. How freaking imbecilic were they that a third of them branded themselves with the archetypal moniker for evil?
The last handful of newbies cleared his suspicions, though. A Phoebe, a Rachel, a Joey… What the hell, had the cast from Friends just moved into town? There was a Lucien, but even the Big Bad Boss wouldn’t be so stupid to use anything so close to his real name. Not to mention, even a fallen angel didn’t have use for a gym. Angels altered their human forms to the purpose of their earthly missions, and if Lucifer wanted to fit in on Muscle Beach, it wasn’t a problem for him to look like a Kazakh weightlifter in his heyday on a whim.
“Personally, if I were you…”
Dee’s head shot up to find Riona Dade, disheveled and looking completely drained, leaning against his door frame.
“… I’d fire your secretary, or pay her a hell of a lot more.”
As she sauntered in and sat in the chair across the way, he took a good