Staring at the photographs wasn’t going to yield any more insights than it had already in the past hour. Anton had already scrutinised them with every mortal and magical means at his disposal – magnifying glasses, books on body language, tracking spells – and they had yet to tell him anything of particular use.
Perhaps he should have expected that. Being thousands of years old, both demons and immortals had all learned to control the usual indicators like body language and vocal tone. Humans were easy to read, even the best liars among them weren’t practised enough to truly mask themselves, but somebody like Charmian wasn’t going to give anything away while she was on duty. All Timberlake’s poses were saying was that he was nervous and ill at ease, but then that was to be expected. Wherever they were keeping him was probably cloaked from any and all demonic tricks. For all his concentration and trouble, the sole result had been a thumping headache; it told him nothing new.
Finally he tossed the magazines aside, leaning back in his chair and staring pensively into space. His desk was littered with notes, photographs and articles detailing Justin Timberlake’s life, but none of them were any use unless he could actually make contact with the guy. The avengers were doing an infuriatingly good job of preventing that but this public outing with their alpha female was new, unexpected and needling away at him. What did it mean? Was it a message, was there something else afoot, or was it simply the avengers trying to make sure he didn’t get reported as a missing person?
Whatever else might be behind it, Anton now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the avengers were taking this seriously. That Justin was being personally guarded by Charmian was no small matter. Carmel did most bodyguard details, Lucas if they were particularly important. For the main lady herself to do it was something else and it was something extremely worrying. Had they caught wind of the true plan or were they simply being over cautious on the basis that if the demons wanted him it couldn’t be good? Anton didn’t know, and he didn’t like not knowing. He could feel a stirring in his gut that stank of trouble.
“Don’t you knock?” He said irritably without turning around.
“Apologies,” Mastema said brightly. “Bad time?”
“Cut the pleasantries and tell me what you want,” Anton sneered, finally twisting in his seat to view his visitor. Once upon a time, before his unfortunate demotion, they had been colleagues. Mastema commanded the young demons that possessed mortals, tempting them along the path until they reached damnation. The pair of them had been constantly fighting for supremacy and had it not been for his unfortunate run in with the avengers Anton would probably still have been winning.
“Your help.”
Anton tipped his head back and laughed. “Funny.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?”
“You look constipated as usual,” he shot back, but it was true enough that Mastema looked uncharacteristically serious all of a sudden.
“The avengers are out in force. My demons are dying practically before I can find them hosts. They’re on the rampage for something and my sources tell me it’s got something to do with this target of yours. Timberlake, I believe the name is?”
“And you are coming to me why?” Anton drawled out slowly, mockingly. “Your sources can’t cover a little avenger activity?”
“Not when Lucas is dispatching them with such… enthusiasm, no. Slowing the boy down seems to be rather impossible, he’s clearly on a mission. I even tested our new poisons on him.”
“And what exactly is the point of trying to poison an immortal? Being that they can’t die and all?” He rolled his eyes.
“Of course we never expected to kill him, but we hoped to slow him down. Apparently we were unsuccessful.”
“Still not seeing how this is my problem, but I wish you all the best with that. Ta ta.” Anton swung up from the chair and started heading for the door. Quick as a flash Mastema flung a forceful arm out, halting him in his tracks.
“Something bigger is happening here and you know it, Anton. I need to know what you know so I can prepare and deploy around it. As it is, I’m just wasting demons.”
Letting out an annoyed and frustrated sigh, Anton shrugged. “I don’t know what they’re up to any more than you do. I can’t find them or my target. Clearly they’ve worked out we’re up to no good as usual and in the absence of any specifics have decided that if you don’t know which tree to cut down you could just burn the forest and cover all the possibilities. Something that would be obvious to you if you were capable of employing a brain cell for five consecutive seconds.”
“Why? What’s so special about this target?”
“They know we’re after him.”
“Not a first occurrence and yet I don’t recall them reacting like an apocalypse was impeding. Bullshit, Anton. You know something more significant is behind this and if you withhold information from me I will see you back on that rack.”
“Like I haven’t heard that before.” Suddenly a hand was at his throat and he was being slammed into the wall. “Okay, oww.”
“This is not one of your jokes, fucker,” Mastema snarled. “I want whatever you have. And if you don’t have it you’re going to get it for me.”
Anton smiled, then with one quick movement he had slammed his elbow into Mastema’s gut and taken his momentary surprise to send him crashing into the opposite bookcase. Dropping the flippancy, he stomped his foot into his rival’s face and grinned with malevolent glee as the blood coursed down it.
“I may be out of favour, but I could still crush your sorry ass like a bug and believe me, when I finally get the opportunity I will take sublime pleasure in doing so and then making you my bitch for all eternity. Do not, for even a teeny tiny micro second, think that you have even a fraction of the power it would take to stop me. Now, you worthless little piece of shit, you can stop bothering me with your incompetence and go do your job. I see you here again, that pretty ceremonial sword in my closet is going to get a whole lot less ceremonial. That clear?”
Glowering, silently plotting his revenge, Mastema disappeared. Dusting his hands off, Anton surveyed the damage. Damn it, he was going to have to get housekeeping in again. If this happened too much more often they might start asking questions, and he did so hate having to kill the help. There were only so many cleaning firms in town.
Still, irritating gnat though he might be, his unwelcome visitor had a point. Between Charmian taking babysitting duty and the general zeal the avengers were displaying lately, perhaps there was something a little deeper going on. The last person they’d tried so hard to protect was Michael and that certainly hadn’t been insignificant.
Michael.
Anton sat back down at his desk and sighed, frowning as he remembered that mistake. Going after Michael had been what put him on Charmian’s radar in the first place. He’d known it was risky, going after an avenger’s honey, but orders were orders. Michael apparently had some great ability to reach out to large groups and as such he would make a perfect tool for the demons. They’d had great successes in the past leading humans to hell through some charismatic figure they idolised and would do anything for. All they had to do was corrupt them first and then they practically did all the demonic work for them.
Sadly, however, his ongoing love affair with Charmian had kept him far too honest. Many attempts had been made to abduct him over the centuries, remove him from her influence, but inevitably they failed and Michael was killed in the crossfire. In his case, a fight with Charmian had gone horribly wrong when Michael had thrown himself in front of Anton’s sword – an entirely preventable occurrence had Anton not become so wrapped up in beating Charmian that he’d forgotten to keep watch on his true target. Why the boy felt the need to sacrifice himself to save a woman who couldn’t die and was in no danger even if she did take a slice to the gut was beyond him. It was a huge waste, and had become even more of an abject failure when finally the avengers had managed to convince their superiors to halt Michael’s reincarnation. They should have seen him again long before now, yet there had been no sight of him so they’d had to give him up for lost.
It had been a bitter blow, and Anton had taken the heat for it. The fact that numerous others had tried and failed before didn’t seem to count for anything, because on the final occasion it had been him he had been blamed. Anton had tried to point out that it was probably the weight of the previous seven lives which had convinced them to remove Michael’s soul, but nobody listened to such reasonable comments when they were full of fiery wrath and wanting to torture their frustration out on someone.
Justin represented redemption. Celebrities always had potential to corrupt others, but most of them were unsuitable or too unstable and chock full of their own inner demons to be of much use in the grand plan. Justin Timberlake though had as much or even more potential than Michael had. Michael had never quite managed to hit it big, though given a little assistance Anton had been sure he could bring such things about; Justin already was big; he was huge in fact. A far wider audience than Michael in any of his forms could have brought.
And yet here was Charmian, again, getting in the mix and blocking his path. Picking up a pen and tapping out a slow, steady rhythm against the desk Anton disappeared deep into thought. Was it possible that the avengers had also recognised Justin’s potential and they’d guessed at another Michael-type plan? It might explain Charmian’s conspicuous involvement; after managing to get your boyfriend killed so many time residual issues were to be expected, naturally. Or was he overanalysing and her appearance had simply been intended to intimidate any demons who were on the case? Her mere presence was enough to send half of them fleeing for the nearest hell-gate and the immortals all knew it, so he couldn’t overlook the possibility that it was a mere scare tactic.
They were both reasonable, plausible ideas, and Anton was a big fan of taking the Occam’s Razor explanation. Yet for some reason this time there was something else nagging at his brain. Something deep in his instinct was telling him that there was more to this, and he needed to find out for sure.
Of course, until the avengers loosened the leash on Justin that was going to be impossible. It might be that he was in for a very long and mentally taxing wait – and Anton despised waiting.
