Demon Slayer

by R W Thorn

  Jack wasn’t satisfied. “Got to question him,” he said.

  “No, you have to rest. And that’s an order,” Deedee responded, her voice firm and resolute enough to get through to Jack despite his stubbornness. “There are things in play we need to deal with, and I need you back on your feet for that.”

  Deedee’s words brought to mind the theft of the Daemonicon, but Jack must have faded away again because the next thing he knew, he was in the Lair’s infirmary, with one of the brotherhood doctors, a rotund, older man with a cheerful disposition, examining him.

  “You’re a tough one, aren’t you?” the doctor said. “Multiple contusions, some strange burn marks that aren’t really burns, compression injuries. But nothing’s broken. Nothing has been damaged beyond repair. If anything, I’d say your brain got a bit rattled, but we’ll fix you up and you should be fine after a bit of rest.”

  Despite Jack’s normally stoic demeanor, he was happy to hear the doctor’s assessment. He had things to do, and fully intended to do them.

  But not just at that moment. Before Jack could convince his tongue to work, he felt a small sting on his arm. Sedative, his mind supplied, and moments later he was lost in a world of dreams.

  Lex

  Jack didn’t know exactly how long he slept. It felt like a while. The remainder of the night and a few hours more, perhaps. In that time, he dreamed not of demons and death, but of Amelia and Lennox instead.

  For the first time in what felt like forever, the screams of loved ones long dead didn’t jolt him awake. Rather, he drifted to wakefulness naturally, without pain or regret, and found himself in one of the infirmary rooms surrounded in white, partially propped up in a hospital bed.

  There was a wall of medical monitoring equipment behind him, but he wasn’t hooked up to any of it.

  “About time you woke up,” said Amelia.

  Her gentle, ghostly voice in Jack’s mind surprised him. She didn’t usually speak to him within the walls of the Lair. He started to ask her about it, but she cut him off, either anticipating his question or simply reading his mind.

  “The Daemonicon. Many items of the occult give off evil like a stink. It’s painful for me to be around. Within these walls are many such items, but that was the worst.”

  Jack had wondered if the Singed Grimoire had something to do with Amelia’s disappearance whenever he was in the Lair. It was good to get the confirmation.

  He breathed deeply just because it was the first time in a while the air hadn’t been tainted with the stench of sulfur and rot, and felt an unfamiliar constraint around his chest. “What the Hell?” he muttered, and Amelia once again laughed in his head.

  “Bandages,” she supplied. “You were pretty banged up.”

  Jack shifted the bed coverings down and saw she was right. His arms were tightly bound in thick bandages, and he could see the same around his chest beneath a flimsy, pink hospital gown that seemed to be his only apparel. Even his legs felt bandaged in places.

  As he examined himself, he noticed another change. He was clean. As if someone had spent time and effort sponging him down.

  Jack couldn’t remember anything like that happening, but also couldn’t remember getting his clothes removed or being bandaged. He figured it must have all happened while he slept, and put it out of his mind.

  He had more important things to think about.

  “Lex,” he said out loud.

  “Yes. Lex,” Amelia responded. “She slept in the chair beside you. Didn’t want to leave even when the doctor said you’d likely be out for hours.” Jack’s wife paused for a moment, then continued. “She’s a good one. We talked for quite a while,” she said.

  “Huh?” Jack said. He couldn’t help himself. “How?” he managed.

  He felt Amelia chuckle in his mind. “She borrowed your ring while you were sleeping.”

  Jack automatically glanced at his hand even though Amelia’s presence should have told him he had his ring back already. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his wife and Lennox chatting together. He faced demons and monsters with confidence and courage, but the thought of that conversation made him uncomfortable.

  “What … what did you talk about?” he asked.

  Amelia laughed again. “You, of course. What did you think?”

  Jack’s eyebrows knitted into a frown. He started to ask a follow-up question, but then wondered if he really wanted to know the answer. Before he could decide one way or the other, the door to the infirmary room opened and Lennox strode in.

  She took one look at Jack and offered a broad, playful grin. “Typical. I step out for five minutes, and that’s when you decide to wake up,” she said.

  Jack couldn’t help it. He gazed at her in open admiration. Somehow, Lennox had emerged from the trials over the past day completely unscathed. She was as beautiful as ever, without a hair out of place, and looked as bright and fresh as if she’d spent a week at a spa. Even her motorcycle leathers seemed somehow clean and new.

  Lennox’s grin grew even broader. “Like what you see?” she said, raising a teasing eyebrow. Normally, she might have added the words, ‘old man’ to her question, but on this occasion, she didn’t. Perhaps that was part of what she and Amelia had discussed.

  On another day, Jack might have grunted or made some sort of gruff, dismissive comment. But that was before.

  He allowed a slow smile to twist his lips. “Yes,” he said. “Very much so.”

  Lennox beamed at him. She nodded as if pleased with herself, and Jack couldn’t be sure, but it felt like Amelia was actually purring in his mind.

  The beautiful blonde woman who had been Jack’s platonic partner for too long came closer and sat down on the edge of his bed without asking. Her expression became serious. “I was worried about you,” she said. “I tried to reach you in time, but it happened so fast. That blast –”

  “I’m fine,” Jack said, interrupting. Without thinking, he reached out for her, but hesitated with his hand hovering over her arm. He took his hand away again.

  “But what about you?” he said. “Your demon? It’s under control?”

  Surprisingly, Lennox actually blushed and turned slightly away. “Yes. Turns out it’s easier to stay in control if you have a reason to do so. If there are people you’re anchored to.” She looked at him directly, like a challenge. “Like you.”

  Not for the first time since he’d woken, Jack didn’t know what to say. He’d been worried during the final battle with the tar man that Lennox might be losing control again. He’d thought her demon had been close to breaking free.

  “It was,” said Amelia. “But only because she needed its power. Because of her connection with you, she could control it better than ever.”

  Jack just looked at Lennox. “I’m glad,” he said. Then, because Lennox hadn’t looked away, he sought to change the subject.

  “What about Madame Brigette?” he asked.

  “Your girlfriend? She was outside the blast, so she’s fine. Just recovering from those evil spawn that had her. She ought to be okay in a day or two.”

  Jack grunted. He still needed to speak with the woman, to find out what she might know. “And the tar man?”

  Lennox made a rude noise. “He survived, although I don’t know how,” she said. “They brought him here as well.”

  Jack remembered Deedee had said the same thing, and when she did, his response was much the same. He felt the hate start to surge in his veins and he sat up, ready to find the loathsome man and beat answers from his vile hide.

  But Lennox placed a firm hand on Jack’s chest and held him in place.

  “And just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked, one eyebrow raised like she was teasing. Yet she didn’t let him go.

  “The tar man – ” Jack began.

  “Isn’t going anywhere,” Lennox finished for him. “Think about it. The Daemonicon has been stolen by a powerful warlock who we don’t know anything about. The number of demonic attacks has
increased dramatically. It’s got to be linked, and that means it’s only going to get worse. You and I are probably going to have our hands full, at least until the Daemonicon is recovered, whenever that might be.”

  She stopped and looked at him, but Jack didn’t yet understand. “All the more reason to get on with it,” he grated.

  Lennox just grinned. “No, you big doofus. Think a little harder. This might be our last chance to spend some time together without having to fight for our lives for some time. Is there anything at all you can think of that might be more fun than running off to question the tar man?”

  Finally, Jack thought he understood. He looked at her, took in her confident smile and the way she was leaning over him. He breathed in her delicate scent of jasmine, and then wondered if he might be reading too much into her words.

  “No,” said Amelia in his mind. “You understand what she means. That’s one of the things we were talking about.”

  Jack thought about everything that had happened over the past day or so. Everything that had transpired between him and Lennox. And he thought that maybe he had been on his own for too long.

  “You don’t mind?” he said out loud. Lennox gave him a puzzled expression, then understood he was talking to Amelia.

  “Of course not. This was my idea!”

  Of course it was.

  Lennox hadn’t moved. Still holding him down, she offered a half-shrug. “I mean, there’s even a bed,” she said.

  Slowly, Jack started to smile. He reached for her again, but this time didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his hands around her narrow waist, and, as if he’d never had an awkward moment in his life, lifted Lennox up so that she let out a gasp of surprise mixed with delight. In moments, instead of sitting on the edge of the bed leaning over him, she straddled him.

  Lennox smiled in quiet triumph as she looked down at him. “So,” she said, her voice suddenly husky. “You’ve figured out something better to do, have you?”

  In answer, he brought her closer and kissed her on the lips.

  Even though it was Lennox he kissed this time and not her demon, he felt the same explosion of pleasure he’d felt before, the same warmth and joy that lit every nerve he had on fire. The kiss lasted longer than he intended, and when Lennox pulled away, her cheeks had turned pink and she was panting a little.

  Then she let out a small whoop of joy and peeled out of her top, exposing a perfection beneath far greater than Jack ever envisaged in his dreams.

  As all thoughts of questioning the tar man, the Daemonicon, and even Madam Brigette fled from Jack’s mind, he heard Amelia say quite clearly, “About time.”

  Then he drew Lennox back toward him and, for the longest time, indulged in every pleasure he’d denied himself for so long.

  Author’s Note

  THANK YOU! for reading Demon Slayer. I hope you enjoyed reading it very much more than I enjoyed writing it, because writing is hard!

  If you did enjoy my book (and I really hope you did), it really, really helps if you write a review on Amazon. Go on, I know you want to. Head back to where you got this book and let others know what you thought. And remember, please don’t include any spoilers. :-)

  I understand that Amazon is making it harder for people to leave a review, so if you can’t, I understand, but if you can, a short sentence or two is as useful as a full-on, in-depth analysis.

  Thanks again, and until next time,

  RY Thorn.