THE ALLEY BEHIND OUR DELI STANK. WORSE THAN usual, I mean. A putrid, hot stench lay as thick as syrup. Funny that I hadn’t noticed it a few minutes ago, when I’d entered through the back door. Had a sewer pipe burst or something?
Flies swarmed over the food that had spilled out of two torn-open garbage bags. Rotten vegetables carpeted the bare concrete and maggot-infested meat smeared the brick walls. I heard movement from within the dumpster.
I crept closer and almost slipped on a half-eaten rat. Yeah, that was exactly as disgusting as it sounds.
A feral-looking tabby cat watched me from the fire escape. It had scars across its body and one completely white eye, which, I swear, winked at me. Then it sprang up and hissed as a guy stuck his head up from inside the dumpster, waving a wedge of old pizza. “Maggot topping, all slimy and nice! I shall devour it in a trice!”
I ducked behind a trash can as the tabby leaped away into the darkness.
I say guy, but I mean it in the loosest sense of the word. He had a head and two arms, but aside from that…
His dented top hat did nothing to hide the deformed length of his skull, or his long, hairy ears. A pair of cracked pince-nez balanced on the end of his twitching nose. Wiry black whiskers sprouted from either side of a mouth crowded with yellow teeth that jutted out at all angles. He heaved the slice into his mouth and chewed loudly, his beady red eyes rolling in delight.
His companion rose beside him. He wore a battered bowler hat, pulled down low over his huge toadlike eyes, and he licked his wide lips with a tongue as thick as my arm. His belly rumbled loudly as he chewed on a length of rotten sausage. “Leave room, chum. There are plenty of tasty morsels to be had.”
More flies gathered. Ugly, shiny bluebottles darted by me, as if trying to determine whether I was a tasty morsel, too.
These dudes were seriously into their roles. Were they cosplayers gone bad? Or burglars in seriously weird disguises? I should have gotten Daoud or woken Baba before coming out here. I couldn’t run for help now. Messrs. Strange and Unusual would see me the moment I raised my head from behind the trash can. So I crouched lower and tightened my fingers around the wok handle. It wasn’t exactly Thor’s hammer, but it was big and heavy and would leave a big dent in their faces if need be.
The rat-faced rhymer picked at his teeth with a dirty claw as he turned his attention to the darkened windows of our upstairs apartment. “The family sleeps up there. Shall we two give them a scare?”
That didn’t sound friendly.
Toady licked his lips with a disgustingly long and slimy tongue. “We only need the boy.”
“Oh, him we shall take with ease. The rest, handle as we please.” Ratty straightened his top hat and reached for the lip of the dumpster.
Not friendly at all.
Did the boy mean me?
I was afraid, verging on terrified. I wanted to run and hide. I wanted to be anywhere but here, but they were threatening Mo’s and I wasn’t going to let that happen, not now, not ever. So even though the wok trembled in my sweaty grip, even though I could hardly breathe for the fear gripping my chest, I charged.
I swung the wok—missing them both—but they ducked, and that was good enough. I grabbed the lid of the dumpster and slammed it down onto their hatted heads. I flipped the latch just as one of them tried to shoulder the lid back open.
I smacked the wok on the side of the metal container. “You freaks stay right in there!”
The dumpster rocked as the pair crashed against it. I could hear their muffled, furious shouts from inside.
“Daoud!” I yelled. “Call the cops!”
Where was he?
“Daoud!”
The dumpster hopped, and bumps appeared in its steel lid. But that didn’t matter—as long as the latch was secured, the lid was going to stay exactly where it was.
Then there was a flapping, and a wet whistling. A stomach-churning stench hissed through the narrow gap between the dumpster’s lid and rim. I held my breath to avoid inhaling it.
A pair of beady crimson eyes peered out through the gap. “Sikander Aziz? Well, well. For this I’ll see you in hell,” he said with a snarl.
I stepped back. “You know who I am?”
Ratty snickered. “Know you? That would be a yes. You’re famous, we must confess.”
A fist slammed against the inside of the dumpster wall. “You, mate, are gonna suffer when Sidana and me get outta here,” said Toady. “I promise you that.”
“Sidana?” I asked Ratty. “What sort of name is that?”
“It’s not a name—it’s a curse,” said Toady. “As is mine: Idiptu. Remember them well.”
“Sidana and Idiptu, eh?” I asked. “Think I’ll just stick with Ratty and Toady.”
Ratty—sorry, Sidana—hissed angrily. Clearly they were not fond of nicknames. “This will not bode well for you. We shall wreak revenge, we two.”
“Yeah? It’s boding okay so far.” Where was Daoud? Was he still checking his pores?
“You have courage,” admitted Idiptu.
“I have a wok.” I banged it hard on the lid, and it rang loud and proud.
“Who does this boy think he is, Gilgamesh reborn?” Sidana taunted. “We shall correct that, and leave him tattered and torn!”
Nice. It’s not every day you get compared to the world’s first and, IMHO, greatest hero. Just think King Arthur meets Heracles with a dash of Thor and multiply that by fifty thousand.
Toady pressed his face right up to the crack. “Do you know who we are, mate? What we are?”
“I find myself not caring a whole lot.” I glanced at the trash can. Could I use it to weigh down the lid of the dumpster so I could get inside to call 911?
“We are the Great Misfortunes of Mankind, the Asakku,” said Idiptu. “Or, in common parlance—”
“Demons,” I replied. I was up on my mythology. “Uh-huh, yeah. More like trick-or-treaters with no sense of time.”
Idiptu’s eyes glowed a sickly yellow. “We’ve come from Kurnugi.”
“Kurnugi?” I rolled the trash can toward them. “Is that near Michigan?” I knew he meant the netherworld, but I was enjoying having the upper hand.
Speaking of hands, mine were busying swatting the flies that swarmed all over. And not only flies—I slapped a mosquito on my neck. My palm came away smeared with blood.
“Bugs are quite nasty, my dear.” Sidana tutted. “They carry disease, I fear.”
“Is bad rhyme a thing in Kurnugi? Listen to this.” I started tapping a rap rhythm on the dumpster. “Sik’s my name, and I play a mean game/What makes you think you can bring your stink/To threaten my fam and our fine deli meat?/Get out now before I call the heat.”
Idiptu grunted. “Not bad.”
Why wasn’t Daoud out here already? Hadn’t he heard my banging?
No choice but to keep on vamping. “So, demons, eh? Nice angle. But I don’t think the cops are going to go for it. This is the real world, and here demons don’t exist. Neither does the Tooth Fairy. I’ve got a bad feeling about Santa, too.”
Sidana snarled as if I’d insulted his parentage. “No demons exist, you cry? Then pray tell me, what am I?”
“In need of some serious dental work?”
Despite the sass coming out of my mouth, my legs were shaking. Whatever these guys were, they were not the type you wanted to meet in a dark alley.
The swarm of flies around me grew thicker, buzzing in my ears, biting my skin. I swung the wok, splatting a few, but more and more gathered. “Bug off!”
“All yours, Idiptu, my love,” said Sidana. “Can’t you give the latch a shove?”
Idiptu unrolled his slimy tongue through the narrow gap. Three feet long, it slid down the side of the dumpster and began darting from side to side. It found the latch and flicked it open.
And then the falafel really hit the fan.
The lid crashed open. Idiptu sprang out and landed on the ground in front of me with a heavy thump. He was squat and barrel-chested, with thick bowed legs that strained the seams of his checked pants. Sidana, wearing a tattered old tuxedo jacket, scrambled out and limped over to Idiptu. He polished his pince-nez and fixed them to the end of his hairy snout. “Master Sikander, how do you do?” He grinned, giving me a good view of his crooked yellow fangs. “We have some cruelties prepared for you.”
This was bad, really bad. And I don’t just mean the verse. I backed away, waving the wok in front of me. “Don’t come any closer.”
“Or what? You’ll stir-fry us?” Idiptu gestured at a shifting black cloud at the far end of the alley. “It’s not us you need to worry about, mate.…”
An immense figure stood within the whining swarm. Over ten feet tall, even hunched over, he shuffled through the mass of insects. Instead of dispersing, they coalesced into him, clustering in the folds of his ragged cloak, disappearing into his mouth, and flying around his head like a screaming halo.
Idiptu doffed his bowler hat. “It’s the boss.”
