by Julie Kenner
There was nothing particularly ominous about either of the sounds. Even so, the air itself seemed off. Tainted. Evil. (Okay, okay, so maybe that’s a tad melodramatic. But I did have a bad feeling.) I had no specific reason to think the demon dog was still around, but I wasn’t going to leave without warning those kids, and telling them to take the party inside.
I reached up and switched the overhead light to the Off position, then pulled the keys out of the ignition. I didn’t want the van lighting up like a birthday cake any more than I wanted its annoying bing bong to announce to the world that Kate Connor was about to go strolling down a dark alley.
I slid my purse under the seat, but only after first retrieving the little spritzer bottle I’d filled with holy water and the barbeque skewer I’d swiped from our backyard grill.
I pushed the door open and slid out of the van. I’d changed back into jeans and running shoes, and now I bounced a little in my Reeboks. If there was a demon out there, this time I was the one doing the hunting, and I hadn’t experienced the thrill of the hunt in a long, long time.
Two long rows of boarded-up warehouses sat perpendicular to the street, a narrow alleyway running between them. I headed that way, drawn by the low buzz of voices in the distance. Just past midnight and the students were sitting around partying, which is exactly what college kids should be able to do. Party and stay up all night and drink and cram for exams and generally go a little wild—all without the overhanging worry that a demonic band of roving dogs might suddenly decide to call them lunch.
I hurried forward, intending to tell them in my best maternal voice to quit hanging around dark alleys and move their party inside. I thought I heard footsteps behind me—and was about to whip around to take a look—when I heard a new sound. A low, guttural howl, like a wolf in pain. Screams followed, and I raced forward, ignoring whoever might be following me. I found the source of the screams in a parking area, huddled behind a Dumpster. Three kids, probably students, backed into a corner by a giant black mastiff, its bare teeth gleaming with drool.
“Oh, God, lady,” one of the guys called, his voice rough with fear. “Do something. Get it away from us.” From the way the dog was eyeing that guy, I assumed he was the primary target. One look at the fear-frozen girl told me why—she wore a gold cross as a necklace. Might just be fashion, but the demon wouldn’t want to take that chance. If she were devout, killing her wouldn’t do any good. Her soul would leave, but the demon wouldn’t be able to get inside. The other guy had pressed himself so far into the shadows I could barely get a look at him, and I wondered if he wore a cross as well.
“Come here, puppy,” I called in a sickly sweet tone. “Come on. Don’t you know who I am? A much tastier morsel . . .” I wasn’t actually talking to the dog, of course. Somewhere up there, hovering in the ether, was its demonic master. As soon as the dog killed, the demon would swoop in, taking over the body just as pretty as you please.
The dog cocked his head, just enough to bring me into his view without giving the kids any room to run. He snarled, and when I saw his eyes, my heart pounded in my chest, adrenaline surging in a primal effort to get me to flee, to run, to get out of that place once and for all.
Looking into his eyes was like looking into Hell. Red on black, and behind that a maelstrom of evil so thick it seemed to coagulate like blood. I said a silent apology to dogs everywhere. This was no dog. This was simply . . . bad. Not a demon itself, but a manifestation of pure evil conjured by a demon to do its bidding.
The thing growled, low in its throat, and I saw muscles tensing beneath the sleek, black fur. I held up the holy-water spritzer as I tried to look fearless. But I wasn’t. At the moment I was scared out of my mind.
As the beast lunged at me, I knew with sudden clarity that Larson was right. I wasn’t back in fighting shape, and I had no business pretending I was seventeen again.
Too late now.
I sprang forward, squirting with one hand and jabbing the barbeque skewer with the other. The dog howled as the mist settled on its fur, but kept coming. As the distance between us closed, my head no longer filled with self-recrimination but with the desire to stay alive and to kill this creature. “Run!” I screamed to the kids. “Get out of here now!”
I didn’t waste time watching to see if they did, I was too busy being knocked to the ground by two hundred pounds of dog. The holy water went flying, and it was all I could do to keep the dog off all my soft, vulnerable parts.
As its jaws clamped down, I rolled to the right, just in time to feel its teeth sink into my jeans rather than my ankle. I reared back with the other leg and kicked, but that only seemed to piss it off more. It growled and snarled and snapped at my face, as all the while I scrabbled backward on the asphalt, tiny rocks digging into my back and shoulders.
The belly of the beast pressed against my foot, and its weight pushed my leg and knee against my chest, bringing the animal closer despite my efforts to keep him at a distance. I struggled to straighten my leg and toss him off, but I couldn’t do it. Not at this angle. And, sadly, not in my current shape.
Shit.
I still had the skewer, and I slashed at the beast, the protrusion a sufficient threat to keep him at bay for now, but probably not for long. I needed to get close enough to sink the skewer into his head, neck, anywhere. I really wasn’t picky. (Unlike a demon, stabbing through the eye or actual beheading wasn’t necessary. I just had to kill the thing.)
Beside me, I heard a scuffle where I should be hearing nothing—the kids should be long gone by now. I lashed out with the skewer, rocking back at the same time and kicking sideways with my free leg. The beast backed off again, and that gave me a split second to look to my right. The girl was gone, but the two guys were still there—one with a knife pressed to the other one’s breast.
Shit, shit, shit!
“Fun’s over, bud,” I said to the beast, with more bravado than I actually felt. I had one shot left before my strength—not to mention my luck—ran out. And I needed it to work if I was going to help that kid.
This time, when the beast lunged, I rose to meet it, rolling forward as if we were doing some perverse dance and sinking the skewer deep into the only place I could actually reach—the dog’s nose. The creature howled, shaking his head in a violent motion to dislodge the skewer. I rolled back, tucking both knees into my chest and then thrusting them out again with every ounce of strength I possessed.
I caught the beast just at the breastbone, and it toppled backward, still unsteady from the stick in its nose. I scrambled to my knees, not wasting a moment as I lunged for the skewer, yanked it out, then thrust it down again—hard—through the creature’s heart.
There was no blood. Instead, the creature oozed a thick oil that ignited, bursting into black and orange flames that seemed to consume the beast, until all that was left was the echo of its howls.
I scrabbled away, breathing hard, then rolled over and climbed to my feet, ready to race toward the men.
Too late.
I saw the attacker draw his arm back, preparing to gain enough momentum to thrust it up between his victim’s rib cage. I cried out—a totally useless response. Far more helpful was the silver blade, spinning through the air, seemingly from out of nowhere. A split second later the metal pierced the attacker’s eye. The body sagged, and I saw a familiar shimmer in the air as the demon escaped to the ether.
The knife he’d been holding clattered to the ground. The terrified student still stood there, breathing hard. He looked at me, looked at the body on the pavement, then ran off into the night.
“A demon,” I said, speaking to no one. “That boy was a demon.”
“You would have realized eventually,” Larson said, emerging from the shadows. He reached down, offering a hand to help me up. “But by then the other boy would have been dead, his body a vessel for the demon controlling the beast.”
I ignored his hand, content to keep my butt on the ground, nursing my sore thighs and
my bruised confidence. “I never got a good look at him. The dog had them cornered. It didn’t even occur to me to think. I blew it. I completely blew it.” And I was going to continue kicking myself about that for a while. If Larson hadn’t been there, that boy would have been toast. And so, frankly, would I. Already tired out by battling the demon’s best friend, I don’t know that I could have subdued the knifing demon, much less survived once demon number two inhabited the knifed boy’s body.
“You were otherwise engaged,” Larson said, calmly unwrapping a piece of Nicorette and popping it into his mouth. I grimaced, empathizing a bit. I didn’t smoke, but after that encounter even I could have used a cigarette.
With a hefty grunt, I got up and dusted my butt off.
“In truth, I can’t take credit for having exercised any particular skill in the identification of demons,” he said.
I’ll admit I cracked a smile at that. The man was too formal by half. “Well, you showed more particular skill than I have.”
“The demon revealed itself.”
That caught my attention. “What?” Once in human form, a demon rarely shows off any of the bells and whistles that look, well, demonish. (You know, the theatrical stuff like horns or glowing orange eyes or a pig nose. The effort it takes for a demon to manifest itself like that is extreme unless the location is particularly evil—your basic spooky mansion built over a portal to Hell, for example. Otherwise, a revealed demon is a ninety-eight-pound weakling. And in that form, once killed, a demon is really and truly dead.)
“Why would he reveal himself?” I asked.
“Sorry,” Larson said drolly, “I didn’t think to ask before I killed him. Perhaps he was new to the form, and the excitement of his first kill was more than he could bear and his true revelation appeared unintentionally. Or perhaps he controlled the mastiff, and hadn’t yet learned to speak to it from his human guise. The next time we’re in such a situation, I’ll remember to make that query so we can satisfy your curiosity.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
“But we won’t have a situation like this again, will we?”
My wounded pride was fast recovering, especially now that he was reminding me of why I was here in the first place. “No,” I said, “we won’t. In the future I’ll keep you better informed, and you’ll keep me better informed. Won’t you?”
He lifted his eyebrows as he looked at me over the curve of his nose. “You’re referring to Mr. Lohmann, I presume?”
“Edward Lohmann? Retired Hunter? Living in San Diablo? Yeah,” I said snippily. “I’m referring to him.”
“Go home, Kate,” he said, which really wasn’t the response I was looking for. “I assure you I withheld no useful information from you.”
“Larson—”
He held up a hand and I shut up, but continued to glare at him, feeling a bit like a petulant child. “I’ll tell you everything I know about Eddie Lohmann tomorrow. Right now, it’s late. I have a trial commencing at nine, and I’d like to conduct a bit of research before I turn in. Besides, you have a family to attend to in the morning. I presume you’d like to sleep.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. He was right, but I wasn’t going to say it out loud.
“Trust me, Kate,” he said. “Edward Lohmann is at least forty years your senior, feeble, and of no use to anyone, much less himself. I’m happy to give you the details tomorrow, but right now I think we should leave.”
I nodded, albeit somewhat grudgingly.
“Good. And I suppose I don’t need to say that you shouldn’t have come tonight. That your skills are not up to snuff and that you could have come to harm.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t need to say that.”
Despite the shadows, I’m pretty sure I saw him smile.
I cocked my head toward the demon carcass. “What shall we do with that?”
He waved a hand. “I’ll take care of it. Go. Go home, Kate.”
I swallowed, wanting to argue, but somehow not finding the words. I left him to deal with the body and headed back through the dark to the van. I drove home on autopilot, not even thinking about where I was going, and when I pulled into my garage twenty minutes later, his words still echoed in my head.
He was right, of course. My skills sucked (although I think I’ve been doing pretty darn well). But I’d had no other choice. Knowing the dog was out there, I couldn’t have not come.
I parked the van and reached over to grab my purse, pausing in mid-reach as I realized I’d forgotten to pick up milk to replace the gallon I’d dumped down the drain. Damn. I was just about to start the van up again and head down to the 7-Eleven when there was a tap at the passenger window. I actually yelped, wondering what I was going to tell Stuart.
Turns out it wasn’t a problem. Laura, not Stuart, was standing next to the van. I turned automatically to look behind me, and for the first time noticed her car parked across the street. How long had she been waiting there?
I clicked the lock and waited for her to climb in, concerned by the expression on her face. Not anger or fear. Betrayal, maybe? “Laura? What is it?”
She lifted her eyes to meet mine, and my heart skipped a beat.
“That boy,” she whispered, and I realized she’d been following me. “Oh, God, Kate. Judge Larson killed that boy.”
As soon as I had Laura seated on the sofa in Stuart’s study, I poured us each a glass of red wine, then shut the door, taking one last listen to the house before I did so. All quiet. Good.
I turned back to her and passed her the glass. She downed half of it, then closed her eyes. For a moment I thought she’d fallen asleep on me (it was almost two), but then she lifted her head and drew in a breath. “What’s going on, Kate?”
“It’s kind of complicated.” I squinted at her. “Why were you there?”
“Kate! I saw a boy murdered. What in the hell is going on?”
“Right,” I said. “You’re right.” I ran my fingers through my hair, not sure where to begin. “Why don’t you tell me what you saw?”
She shook her head just slightly. “Oh, no. I want the whole story. I can’t just sit back and—”
“You’ll get it,” I said. “I promise.” I meant it, too. Now that my initial shock had worn off, I realized I wanted to tell her. More than that, I think I needed to tell her. I needed a confidante, a friend. Larson couldn’t really fill that role, and for a lot of reasons, I couldn’t turn to Stuart. I didn’t want him to look at me and see a woman who wrestled demons; I just wanted him to see his wife.
Laura didn’t look convinced. I took a seat next to her and held her hand. “I promise,” I repeated, in the same calm and reassuring voice I’d used when I’d had the sex talk with Allie. “I just need to know where to begin. Why were you even there?”
“I followed you,” she said after a brief hesitation.
“I guessed as much,” I said. “But why?”
She turned away, as if suddenly fascinated by the collection of windup toys Stuart kept on the end table. “I don’t know, exactly. You’ve been acting off, I guess. That fighting thing with the judge. And thinking more and more about Eric. And . . .” She trailed off with a shrug. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” I thought it probably mattered a lot, but I didn’t interrupt. “But then I was coming over here earlier, and I saw you backing out—”
“Wait.” I held up a hand, interrupting. “You were coming here? In the middle of the night? Why?”
Her cheeks flushed. “I was on my way to 7-Eleven to get some ice cream.” She avoided my eyes, and her cheeks seemed to flame even more. “I decided to swing by and see if your light was on, and right as I pulled up, you pulled out. I thought you might be going to the 7-Eleven yourself, so I followed, and then when you kept going, so did I. Mindy and Paul were already asleep, so I figured why not.”
I stifled a wince. If I hadn’t been so lost in thoughts about Eddie Lohmann, I surely would have noticed I had a tail. As it was, Laura’s we
re probably the footsteps I’d heard—then forgotten about the second I heard the screams.
“Okay,” I said. “I understand how you got to the alley, but I still don’t understand why you followed in the first place.”
She answered, but her voice was so low I couldn’t hear her.
“Come on, Laura. You know you can tell me anything. Just spit it out.”
“I-thought-you-were-having-an-affair,” she said, so fast her words almost sounded foreign.
“An affair?” I turned the word over in my head. “What is it with you? That’s the second time you’ve said that, and no. What started this?”
She picked at a threadbare spot on her jeans. “Late nights out of the house. Change in behavior. You know.”
“You saw me doing the fighting thing once. I left the house late at night once.” My voice was getting shrill, but I couldn’t seem to bring it down a notch. “That’s hardly a pattern. Why did ‘affair’ suddenly pop into your brain? It’s not as if—”
And that’s when I realized. I sat back. “Oh, no, don’t tell me. Is Paul . . . ?” I trailed off. I couldn’t bear to ask the question.
“I think so,” she whispered. She drew in a breath, then rubbed the back of her hand under her eyes. After a second she flashed me a shaky smile. “Of course, I haven’t managed to catch the bastard yet. He’s too clever a business-man for that. But a woman knows these things.”
“You could be wrong,” I said. “You were wrong about me.”
“Yes, but I’m not sleeping with you.” She laughed then, the sound harsh. “Of course, I’m not sleeping with Paul, either. And as for you, you might not be having an affair, but you are up to something. What?”
“Laura, come on.” I shifted on the couch, crossing one leg under me so that I was facing her straight on. “I said I’d tell you, and I will. But if you need to talk . . .”
“No.” She shook her head as if she needed to reinforce the idea. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve already talked about it to myself ad nauseum. All I want now is something that will take my mind off of it. Honestly, I think the story behind a federal judge murdering a boy in an alley will do the trick. Add in the fact that my best friend was right there wrestling some freak-of-nature dog, and I’m perfectly willing to believe I won’t give a shit about Paul or his little whore for at least twelve more hours.”
