Midlife Demon Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 3

by Mayer, Shannon

  10

  I left the book of Gran’s spells on my bed and hurried out to the second-floor landing. “We are going to save Suzy.” I crouched beside her head and her eyes flicked open, flooding with tears. I smiled down at her and stroked her hair. “We are all in this together, and my gran’s book says it’s possible.”

  “How?” Suzy whispered, her lips blue. A trickle of water crept toward us, leaking out from around her and puddling on the floor as if she were dissolving in front of us.

  “You’re going to take energy from each of us. Not enough to kill us, but enough to get you through this. Okay?” I tightened my hand on her. I looked to Eric, already knowing his answer.

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  Feish bobbed her head. “Of course.”

  I smiled down at Suzy. “See? You’ve got family, and love will see us through this. Just don’t grab my boob, okay? I don’t swing that way.”

  Her smile was subtle, but I was relieved to see it. “Eric, you go first. When you pass out, Feish, you’ll take her hand next. I’ll go last.”

  I glanced at Crash and understanding flowed between us. He would get us out if this didn’t work. The fact that he didn’t argue with me, didn’t try to stop me when we both knew this was a crap shoot, meant everything to me.

  That man was so getting into my pants.

  I let go of Suzy and Feish sat back on her heels, her red kimono spilling around her like a big skirt. Eric scooped up both of Suzy’s hands in his own, engulfing them. “You can do this, Suzy.”

  Nothing happened. There was no change in the air around us, no flicker of discomfort on Eric’s face.

  “You have to kiss me,” Suzy whispered, her lips darkening farther to a blue so deep, they were nearly black.

  “Oh.” Eric swallowed hard, but he didn’t hesitate. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers. Her body arched under his mouth, and he clung to her hands, his body shaking. The air around us went from cool and damp to hot and humid like a jungle in the dead of summer blended with the peak of rainy season. Eric shivered despite the humid heat and his body slumped sideways after only a minute.

  Crash grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him off Suzy.

  Feish didn’t hesitate—she leaned over and put her lips to Suzy’s. The air changed again, and Suzy’s body shook once more as the air around us seemed to turn liquid. I found myself holding my breath as if we were underwater. I didn’t dare take a breath as Suzy drew from Feish, her throat working as if she were indeed gulping the river maid down.

  Feish held out longer than Eric, but even so, it wasn’t long before her shoulders sagged and Crash pulled her off.

  Suzy still had her eyes closed, but her skin had pinked a little and her lips were less blue.

  Crash stepped around her and put a hand on my shoulder. “Be careful.”

  I squeezed his fingers. “Just pull me off when I can’t hold out any longer. And it will be enough.” It had to be.

  I leaned over Suzy and put my mouth to hers, pressing our lips together. I closed my eyes, waiting for the pain, or whatever was coming for me. Instead, I blinked and found myself amid a swamp. Suzy lay in front of me on a bed of lily pads, pale pink and white flowers blooming all around her as if she were Sleeping Beauty.

  “We really have to stop meeting like this.”

  I twisted around and found myself grinning. “Robert. You just couldn’t wait to hold my hand again, huh?”

  His icy blue eyes glittered as he laughed at me. “Your friend is dying.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed.”

  “The energy the others have given her is not enough. It will only keep her alive for a while—it will not revive her. But you can pull her out, like you did for yourself.” Robert slogged through the swamp, his black pants and shirt clinging to his frame. He stopped next to her feet. “You will need to give her more energy than the others did. I’ll keep Crash from pulling you off her.”

  I looked at him and held out a hand. “You are a good friend, Robert. I don’t know why you chose to talk to me on the first night we met, but I’m glad for it.”

  He looked down at my hand and then took it in his own, linking our fingers for just a moment before he released me. “One day I’ll tell you why. And to be clear, I don’t think either of them is good enough for you.”

  I grinned as I stepped beside Suzy. “I’ll keep that in mind.” I took a breath. “So I just give her my energy?”

  “Yes, and you have to pull her through this swamp to the land of the living. This swamp is a place of the dead.” Robert’s voice petered out as he faded from view. Well, that explained why he could stand here with me.

  I felt a dip in my own energy, enough so that I wanted to lie down beside her and take a nap, but I took a deep breath, then said, “Okay, Suze, time to go.”

  I grabbed her hand and tugged on her. She didn’t move. “Shit. Please don’t tell me I have to carry you.”

  I tried pushing her off the lily pads, which didn’t work, and yanking her to the side, which was equally ineffective. “Suzy. You’re lucky I love you, girl.”

  A pulse of energy blasted between us, and she opened her eyes, turned her head, and looked at me. “Hey.”

  “Okay, that was weird, but let’s go.” I held my hand out to her and she took it. I locked my fingers around her hand and started to walk forward. Ahead of us was a doorway that looked suspiciously like the doorway to her bedroom. She staggered to a stop behind me, and it was like tugging on Artax in the middle of the swamps of sadness in The Neverending Story.

  Not an analogy I appreciated in that moment. The horse died.

  “I don’t think I can make it,” Suzy whispered. “My feet are stuck.”

  I took both her hands and tugged harder. Nothing. “Let’s try piggyback. I can’t carry you in a fireman hold like Feish can.”

  I sloshed toward her and turned. Her arms went around my neck and I was able to get her feet out of the water.

  But the minute I did, the swamp changed, the water around my legs shifting from lukewarm to so cold that my skin felt as though it were being jammed with a million little needles. “Duck, that’s cold!”

  Yup, still managing autocorrect.

  Suzy clung to my back as I stumbled forward through the water. With each step, the door drew closer, yet it still seemed so far away. I was breathing hard, and I heard yelling in the distance on the other side of the closed door.

  “She’s draining her!” Crash roared, and Robert yelled right back, “FRIENDS!”

  I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. “Hold him off, Robert, we’re almost there!” The idea of the skeleton fighting off a man of Crash’s size and power was too much for my quirky sense of humor.

  The doorframe was within reach. I grabbed the knob, turned it and yanked the door open. I stumbled to my knees, throwing Suzy forward off my back and through the doorway.

  “She did it,” Crash said in wonder.

  Suzy groaned. “She’s still in there.”

  I struggled to stand, using the doorframe to pull me to my feet as water sloshed over me. A big splash behind me. I dared to look over my shoulder to see something reptilian looking at me with unblinking, bright yellow eyes. Its mottled skin was a color that would have camouflaged it anywhere in the jungle. Ears that should not have been on a reptile stuck out the sides of its head, giving it a goofy look even though the rest of it was terrifyingly awful.

  “Just leaving.” I took a step but was unable to look away from those canny eyes. “So you stay there, okay?” Because that’s the way to make monsters behave—you offer a rational argument and hope for the best.

  Yeah, I didn’t think so either.

  The reptile shot forward through the water, and I screamed as I fell through the doorway.

  Something tangled around my arms. Eyes scrunched closed, I bucked and kicked, my body running on fumes but empowered by my fierce urge to live.

  “You’re back, you’re back.” Cras
h’s voice rumbled through me, and I immediately eased off. I opened one eye and peeked around. Suzy was sitting against the far wall, Eric holding her carefully while Feish stood with one hand on Suzy’s shoulder, and they were all watching me with wide eyes.

  “I didn’t die again, did I?” I whispered.

  Crash’s arms tightened around me. “No, you did not.”

  A sigh slid out of me. “Okay. Well, that’s a step up from last time. There was a giant yellow-eyed snake in there.”

  Crash stiffened. “What?”

  “A snake. Or at least it looked like one. It was huge with scales in all different greens and big buttery eyes,” I said. “He almost had me at the end.”

  We all sat there on the sopping wet floor, the swamp from Suzy’s room leaking a little, but mostly self-contained. The swamp had not left. Minutes ticked by and no one said anything. Maybe it was here for good?

  “Anyone else want tea?” I said, and Eric startled like I’d shot off a gun into his ass cheek. “I mean, it’s obvious no one’s going to sleep well after this.” Despite the bone-deep, aching fatigue that tugged at me, I didn’t think I could close my eyes any time soon.

  “Tea would be good,” Feish said.

  I pointed a finger at her. “Not that tea.”

  Her wide mouth curled into a smile. “Oh fine. Regular tea then.”

  There was no chance she’d have given us the tea that turned your bowels into liquid fire, but it was just the joke needed to break the quiet.

  Eric and Suzy stood carefully and he helped her down the stairs, not taking a hand off her once. He was as wobbly as she appeared to be.

  I didn’t try to move out of Crash’s arms. “Corb kissed me tonight.”

  “Used his magic, did he?” Crash’s chuckle vibrated through his chest, against my back. “He’s pulling out the big guns. I’m not surprised.”

  I tipped my head back and looked at him. “How did you know that?”

  “You’ve never said anything about him kissing you before, and I know he has. Which tells me he’s amped up his game.” Crash let out a big breath, not a sigh so much as exhaustion flowing through him. “If Robert hadn’t stopped me, Suzy wouldn’t have survived.”

  “Where is Robert?”

  “I threw him out the window,” Crash said.

  A cool breeze from across the landing shifted my attention to the upper windows. One of them had shattered. We’d have to fix that in the morning. “Damn it.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Crash said. “He’s a skeleton.”

  A skeleton with pretty blue eyes. That thought sunk into me as shockingly as anything else. I shook my head. “Yes, I know, but he’s saved my butt more than once.”

  “He’s a good friend to you,” Crash said, pulling himself to his feet and taking me with him. “I don’t think anyone should sleep alone tonight. Everyone should hunker down in the living room.”

  I took a step, winced at the pain in my legs but forced myself to keep moving, using the banister to help me get down the stairs. “Yes, that’s a good idea. Like a sleepover gone terribly wrong.”

  He grunted. “I’ve never been to a sleepover like this one.”

  “I don’t think any of us have had a sleepover like this either.”

  I reached the bottom of the stairs and headed straight for the bright lights of the kitchen, the smell of warming pastries, and the sound of a tea kettle boiling. “Gran, you coming?” I paused in the doorway, fully expecting her to come out to talk to me right then.

  She appeared in the kitchen and looked us over, her eyes at half-mast as though she were sleepy. “What happened?”

  Crash stood just out of her way. “Someone triggered Suzy’s siren.”

  Gran put a hand to her head. “I feel like my brain is full of cotton. Who did this?”

  “I don’t know,” Eric said. “No one was up there. But I could smell something, or someone. I didn’t put it together right away.”

  Gran slowly paced the kitchen, one hand to her head, one hand on her hip. “This is ridiculous, I feel like I’m . . . fading.”

  My head snapped around so I could stare at her. “You aren’t though? You just feel off?”

  “Very,” she said. “Very off. Whoever did this has an ability with the dead. They stuffed me in a corner, I think, so I wouldn’t see them, then . . . did they leave something, Eric?”

  I grabbed a chair and slid into it, stifling a groan. Everything hurt—every muscle, every limb—and I didn’t have the energy to pretend otherwise.

  Eric engulfed one of the mugs with his hands. “There was a beautiful box on her bed, carved from wood with metal hinges and a latch that had an engraving on it.”

  I really didn’t want to get out of the chair. “Is the box still there?”

  Eric pursed his lips. “Yes, I think so. It held the spell that triggered Suzy’s siren.”

  With difficulty, I made myself get up and go back up the stairs. No one followed, and I didn’t blame them.

  Into Suzy’s room I went, not caring that the water was still there because I was already soaked. I slogged to where her bed had been, and sure enough, a nondescript box sat in the middle of what was now a bundle of vines.

  I pulled one of my knives and pushed the box over using the tip. There was no hiss of magic or anything else so I dared to pick up the box. The spell had been used; there was nothing left in it as far as I could tell.

  Rolling the box over in my hands, I looked for something that would give a hint as to who had ambushed Suzy.

  I shut the lid and looked at the hinged pieces that clipped it shut, and my breath caught in my throat.

  Pulling my hip bag around, I dug around inside until I found the coin that belonged to Grimm. I held it up next to the box. The same etched design of feathers spread out around the edges, along with the lines of Goblinese.

  This was no coincidence.

  I backed out of the room and headed downstairs. I wanted to tell them what I knew. But Crash was still here.

  And Grimm . . . he’d been adamant that Crash be kept in the dark.

  At the kitchen table, I took my tea without a word.

  I put far too much sugar into mine, plus enough milk to make it look less like tea and more like pale chocolate milk. I took a sip and added two more teaspoons of sugar. I didn’t care if I rotted my teeth out. I just wanted to let my brain numb for a bit.

  Crash sat beside me and slid a hand under the table and over my thigh, giving me a squeeze. I dropped my hand on top of his.

  I put my tea down, leaving my other hand in Crash’s grip. I didn’t want to pull away. He turned his hand over, linking his fingers with mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and that simple gesture warmed me more than anything he could have done right then. “Suzy, will you be okay now?”

  Her big blue eyes blinked up from her teacup. “I think so. Honestly, I don’t know. No one ever expected me to amount to more than a middling siren with very basic abilities. Corb himself told me that after he found me trying to use my powers in the swamp. He said I wouldn’t get much more out of my skill set so I needed to put effort into doing what I could and learn everything possible from the Hollows.” She shrugged. “And we know how that went.”

  Yeah, we all knew how that went.

  “Who did this?” Suzy asked. “I mean, I get that it was coming anyway, but why would they want to hurt Eric?”

  Eric shrugged. “Hattie’s crew might be gone, but my cousin was still killed in New Orleans. Could someone else want a bigfoot dead? Or maybe someone has taken up their mission?”

  The thing was we didn’t really know the answer to that. All the trails that led from Hattie had dead ended. Something told me this attack wasn’t directed at Eric. Their love affair was hours old at best. Not even a day.

  “Before today, who has Suzy been spending the most time with?” I said. Of course, I already knew the answer.

  Everyone looked at me.

  Yeah, that was my
thought too. The hit hadn’t been aimed at Eric at all, but at yours truly.

  I wrapped my hands around my cup and took a sip. Damn it, I was too old for this shit.

  11

  After midnight, fresh out of a fight for our lives, the realization that the attack on Suzy and Eric had been meant for me just left me feeling tired. I couldn’t even be that upset, not really.

  Just too damn tired to care. Maybe in the morning I’d feel differently. Feish opened her mouth, and I gave her a subtle headshake, even frowned at her, trying to convey that we should say nothing about the Marshall House.

  Feish, despite her best efforts at reading my face, couldn’t seem to help herself. “Bree, do you think it’s because of the goblin?”

  “Goblin?” Crash was the one to echo the word. “What are you doing messing with goblins?”

  Feish shot a look at me and made a face. Like oops, maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

  At least I knew better than to throw her under the bus.

  “Jinx gave me a lead on a job,” I said. “Feish and I went to check it out at the Marshall House. We got there about nine, I would say. We bumped into a goblin.” I yawned to cover any weird vibes I might be throwing off. I wasn’t a good liar at the best of times, and I didn’t like lying, so this was a tough spot.

  Eric and Suzy shared a look. “That was about when we went upstairs to talk.”

  Sure . . . talk. I’m sure that was what they’d planned on doing. A slight buzzing like an oversized mosquito filled the air, and Kinkly landed in the middle of the table. “What’s going on? Robert came flying through the window and woke me up when he crashed down through the oak tree. And he was pissed. Growling and snapping his teeth.”

  Eric gave her a quick rundown of what had happened. And he didn’t blush once. I think that Kinkly noticed the change in him too. Her eyes drifted over him and Suzy sitting hip to hip, his arm across her shoulders.

  I drew a slow breath and looked at Crash. “Would you mind giving us a few minutes? The information I need to share with my team is for them alone.”

  Again, I thought he’d be pissed, but he just stood. “I’ll go check on Robert and make my apologies.” He stood and left the room. As soon as the front door shut, I leaned forward.