by Julie Kenner
As a Demon Hunter, I’ve been exposed to some pretty exhausting situations. Days without sleep while I staked out a demon nest. Chasing after vamps down winding alleys in Budapest. All the usual stuff. But I’m here to tell you that none of that compares with the exhaustion and chaos of a playdate for four rambunctious two-year-olds.
An hour in, and the kids finally settled down (“settling down” being defined as “corralled in the den with enough toys to fill a Wal-Mart”) and the other moms and I gathered around the kitchen table with coffee and the last few cup-cakes that hadn’t been poked and prodded by sticky toddler fingers.
I’d just taken my first sip of coffee and was reveling in the normalcy of it all when Timmy’s familiar howl echoed from the den. I was on my feet in seconds, my first thought of demons dispelled the moment I entered the room.
There stood my little boy, arms akimbo, head tossed back, mouth wide open. And right beside him, little Danielle Cartright clutched Boo Bear and was grinning like a fiend. (I’m not big on criticizing kids, but Danielle is a pain in the patoot, and I feel sorry for whatever man she grows up and marries. I blame her mom, of course, and I do feel sorry for her dad. At the moment, though, I just felt sorry for Timmy.)
“Danielle,” I said, since her mother was noticeably silent, “why don’t you give Timmy back his bear, please.”
“NO!” Not only did she scream the response, she ran to the far side of the room, climbed into a chair, and sat on the bear. What a little charmer.
Her mother, Marissa, came up behind me. “She’s in a grabby stage,” she said, as if this would entirely solve the problem and dry my kid’s tears.
“Maybe you could ungrab her,” I said, trying very hard not to scream myself. Of course, I did have to scream a little, because Timmy’s howls had increased to an eardrumbursting decibel level, and he’d raced my way. I scooped him up, but even Mommy’s presence couldn’t stop the tears from flowing.
“He really shouldn’t be so attached to a toy,” Marissa said.
I bristled, muscles tensing as I imagined her fresh linen suit with a big old footprint about chest level. A hand closed over my shoulder, and a soft, “Hey, Timmy. Calm down, okay?”
Laura. She and Eddie had been on the computer in Stuart’s study, and she must have heard the commotion. Me being no dummy, I knew that the “calm down” comment was meant as much for me as it was for Timmy.
“We’re calm,” I said, aiming a get-the-bear-back-or-die-you-bitch smile toward Marissa.
“Let me see if I can convince Danielle that she should give the bear back,” Marissa said, apparently sensing danger.
“Great idea,” I said.
I then watched in fascinated horror as she spent fifteen minutes trying to negotiate with her two-year-old. The end result? No bear.
Play group was officially over by now, and the other moms (probably smelling blood) said their good-byes and rushed their offspring out. Marissa didn’t seem to clue in on either the inconvenience or my irritation. She was, however, still crouched in front of her kid trying gamely to recover Boo Bear. By this time Timmy had cried himself out, and I settled him on the sofa, promising that Boo Bear was just visiting Danielle and would return to him soon.
I wanted to shove Marissa out of the way and tear the bear from Danielle’s hot little hands, but I knew that wasn’t the Emily Post-approved solution. And so I waited, my fury with Marissa building as she wheedled and needled and generally trained her daughter to grow up to be a selfish little twit (poor kid). Finally, after a period of time resembling the length of your average ice age, Marissa promised the girl ice cream and a new toy and a pony ride at the zoo. After which, Danielle climbed out of her chair and, just as pretty as you please, marched over to Timmy and shoved Boo Bear in his face.
“Thank you,” Timmy said (and he said it without prompting, not that she deserved to be thanked).
I played polite hostess all the way to the door, but the second I closed and locked it, I turned to Laura. “That woman is a—”
“You can’t kill her.”
“If she were a demon, I could.” And boy, did I wish she were.
“She’s not a demon.”
I glanced back to where Timmy was sitting, curled on the couch, thumb in his mouth, a forlorn expression drawn across his face. My heart twisted in my chest. “She is to me,” I said. “She sure as hell is to me.”
The girls may have gone upstairs together, but only Allie came down dressed to work out. Mindy was still in her school clothes, and both Laura and I examined her quizzically. “Going for the realistic approach?” I asked. “You’re more likely to get mugged in your street clothes, but I think you’ll learn better in shorts and a T-shirt.”
Mindy became suddenly fascinated with my carpeting. “I’m not sure I want to go.”
“Not go?” Laura said. “What do you mean you’re not going to go?”
Mindy shrugged, her eyes wide, obviously not understanding her mother’s sudden fascination with the wonderful world of kickboxing.
Allie had sidled over toward me, and I raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “She’s scared of looking stupid in front of Cutter,” Allie whispered. “She thinks he’s cute.”
“Mindy Jo Dupont.” Laura prompted. “Kate put a lot of effort into getting you signed up for this class. Now, why don’t you want to go?”
“I just have so much homework.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “You know.”
“What I know, young lady, is that there are all kinds of creeps and weirdos out there in the world.” Laura spoke with a force I barely recognized, but I knew its source well enough. I’d tainted her safe little world. And that was something I could never change back.
“You’re going to class and you’re going to learn how to defend yourself.” She turned around to look at me, her face glowing from her maternal power trip. “In fact, if there’s room in the class, I think I’ll join you.”
Mindy and Allie didn’t even attempt to hide their amazement. For my part, I wasn’t so much amazed as surprised. I’d been firmly of the belief that neither hell nor high water would get Laura to anything remotely resembling an exercise class.
Apparently I’d been wrong about the hell part of the equation.
“I’m impressed,” I whispered to her later as the girls clambered into the van. “You. Exercising. In public.”
She made a face. “You laugh, but I know the score. It’s always the comic relief who gets nailed. I’ve seen enough movies to know that.” She adjusted her purse on her shoulder. “And this is one sidekick who isn’t going down without a fight.”
“Good going there, girlie!” From the sidelines, Eddie cheered Allie on. Beside him, Timmy was turning somersaults on a mat Cutter had spread out for him.
After warming up, Cutter had moved on to the nitty-gritty, showing the class how to break free if someone grabs your wrist. Allie managed the maneuver (pulling your arm up and away so that you take advantage of the attacker’s thumb, the weakest link) and I was applauding wildly as well.
“Now let’s try your mom,” Cutter said.
I shook my head. He was baiting me, but I wasn’t about to fall for it. As much as I wanted to hit someone (thank you, Marissa), as far as Allie was concerned, I was a novice here, too.
Cutter caught me from behind and I pushed off, using a stance and a move that—had I done it right—would have tossed him over my shoulder and landed him on the mat. Not so today.
“Come on, Mom! You nailed him last time.”
“Beginner’s luck,” I said as Cutter wrestled me down to the mat.
“Beginner’s luck, my ass,” Cutter said. “I’m going to figure this out, you know.”
He spoke in a whisper, and I answered the same way. “Not unless I want you to, you won’t.”
From his grimace, I knew he believed me. “Focus on the girls and Laura,” I said. “I can take care of myself.”
To his credit, he did (with Eddie shouting encouragement from
the sidelines, including the occasional “Oh, yeah, that one’ll make one hell of a Hunter”). Fortunately, Allie was too busy sweating to concentrate on Eddie’s bizarre comments. Either that, or she’d learned to take him in stride.
By the end of the hour I thought the girls had a pretty good start. At the very least they’d each gotten the yell down. (Which, actually, is a key component of any self-defense move. The yell strengthens your abs and puts more force behind the kick. It’s all about the abs, you know.)
After the lesson the girls were bouncy and glowing (girls glow, boys sweat), chattering on about how cool Cutter was, and how cool they were, and how they’d beat the crap out of anyone who messed with them. Another mom might think this was a bad thing. I was all for it.
Because the glow really was sweat, we had to head home before going to the mall so the girls could shower and primp. Usually the dressing to meet a boy process takes upward of two hours, but since we were working under a deadline here (the mall closes at nine on weekdays), the girls allotted themselves an unheard-of thirty minutes.
Laura and Mindy crossed the yard to their house, and while Timmy watched a Blue’s Clues video, I waited with Eddie in the kitchen for Allie to come back downstairs. Eddie’s outbursts had slowed down, and he seemed less fuzzy. I’d been wanting to ask him questions—What exactly was going on at Coastal Mists? Did he have any expertise on Goramesh? Did he have any clue as to what Goramesh was looking for?—but this was the first time we’d really had any privacy.
I puttered around making tea, trying to figure out the best way to start the conversation.
“Earl Grey,” Eddie said. “None of that sissy herbal tea for me.”
“No problem.”
“Don’t know why anyone drinks that stuff,” he said, muttering to the tabletop. “Damn pansy-ass drink.” He looked up at me. “What are you drinking?”
“Nothing pansy-assed, that’s for sure.”
“Hmmph.” His eyes narrowed, the bushy eyebrows drawing down to form a V over his nose. “No pansy drink, but you got a pansy-ass life.”
I started. “Excuse me?”
“You told me you were a Hunter. You’re no Hunter. Family. House. All the trappings.” He spoke as if that were a bad thing. “I thought it all might be a façade—that you might be training the girl—but no, you’re out of the game.”
“I’m retired, thank you very much.”
He snorted. “Like I said. Pansy-ass.”
“Watch it, Lohmann,” I said. “I can drive you back to Coastal Mists just as fast as I got you out of there.”
He snorted. “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I said, but there wasn’t a lot of force behind my words.
“So why’s a retired Hunter looking for me?” He waggled his eyebrows shamelessly. “A little noogie?”
I laughed, my irritation with him fading. “You’re a lot of things, Eddie, but boring, you’re not.”
He adjusted his glasses on his nose, then leaned back in his chair. “Story time, girlie. What are you doing back in the game?”
As openings went, I couldn’t really expect much better, and I gave him the rundown, starting with Wal-Mart and moving more or less chronologically to the present. “Any ideas?” I asked after I finished. Above us, the shower had stopped. I’d talked fast, but not that fast. Any minute Allie might magically appear beside us. I hoped he had some answers. Even more, I hoped they were quick.
“Ideas . . .” He trailed off, smacking his lips. “Nope. Not a single idea.”
I deflated a bit. I’d been hoping so hard. But at least that answer was quick. “That’s okay. It was worth a shot.”
He snorted again. “Got ants in your pants, girl? I’m not finished. I said I don’t have an idea, but I don’t need one, either. Nope. I don’t need ideas because I already know exactly what that damn demon wants.”
He shut up, then, and took a sip of his tea.
I wanted to smack the china cup right out of his hand. “What?” I hissed, frantic for answers. “If you know, for God’s sake, tell me!”
“The Lazarus Bones,” he said, as if that were the only possible answer.
I just looked at him and blinked. What the hell were the Lazarus Bones?
Naturally I didn’t have time to ask before Laura and Mindy reappeared. I considered steering Eddie into Stuart’s study, closing the door, and demanding answers. But that would have left me open to severe bodily harm by the girls, who were desperate to get to the mall before they missed Stan’s break.
Fine. Whatever.
I left a note for Stuart (who was working late on what I no longer necessarily assumed was legal or political stuff), and then we all piled into the van. Because Allie insisted, I parked near the food court and we headed there first. Since I’d had nothing to eat all day except for one overly iced cupcake, the food court sounded pretty darn appealing.
Not that I was going to be allowed food. I soon learned that Timmy, Eddie, Laura, and I were supposed to sit at a faraway table, trying our best not to look toward the girls’ table in case Stan realized we were checking him out. “Look casual,” Allie said. “Just some shoppers who aren’t in the least bit related to us.”
“Right,” Mindy added. “We don’t want him to know we came with our moms.”
“Perish the thought,” Laura said dryly.
“Exactly,” Mindy answered, completely serious.
And so we waited. And waited. And waited some more. I wanted to get up to get some French fries, but I was under strict instructions from my daughter to stay where I could keep her and Mindy in view for when Stan came by. I might lack a coolness factor of my own, but she still wanted to show the boy off to me.
I was both bemused and flattered. Mostly, though, I was hungry.
My curiosity, however, was even stronger than my hunger, and since Mindy and Allie were a good five tables away, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some answers from Eddie. So far, of course, he hadn’t said another word. (Correction, he’d said plenty of words, commenting randomly about anything and everything as we drove from my house to the mall. He had not, however, said another word about the Lazarus Bones.)
Now Eddie was just sitting there, his cane leaning against his thigh, his spritzer bottle of holy water on the table in front of him. Since I wasn’t into this coy bullshit, I asked him point blank. “What are the Lazarus Bones?”
Laura looked at me with curiosity, but she didn’t interrupt.
“The bones of Lazarus,” Eddie said. His face was deadly serious, but I thought I saw a twinkle in his eyes. He might be amused, but I wasn’t. I’d long passed the point of finding humor in the situation; I just wanted it over. And fast. And without anyone else (well, anyone human) getting hurt.
“That much I gathered,” I said. “Why does Goramesh want them?”
“He told you that,” Eddie said. He rested his palm on the top of his cane as he leaned forward. “The real question is for you, girl. Why are you looking for it?”
I leaned back, surprised by the question. “Well, to find it before Goramesh does, obviously. And then we’ll get it to the Vatican. It’ll be safe there.”
He nodded, his head bobbing and bobbing until I wasn’t quite sure he was going to stop. Then he smacked his lips. “Seems to me it’s pretty safe where it is.”
“Maybe now, but not for long. Look what Goramesh did to the monastery and that Mexican cathedral.”
“Eh.” This was accompanied by a very Gallic lifting of the shoulders.
“Eh, nothing,” I said. “This is my town. That’s my church. I’m not going to stand back and let it—”
“He can’t,” Eddie said.
“What?”
“If he could, he already would have.”
“Goramesh can’t attack the cathedral,” Laura said. Her voice held a bit of awe, and she was looking at Eddie with new respect. “That makes sense,” she said, this time to me. “The saints in the mortar. That’s got t
o be bad news for demons.”
She definitely had a point. “But that doesn’t mean Goramesh won’t find this thing, the Lazarus Bones.” It felt strange giving a name to the item. Before it had just been it or the bones. “He has human minions. We’re sure of it.” I didn’t tell him I feared that my husband might be a minion.
“If it’s been hidden, it will stay hidden,” he said stubbornly. “Don’t go messing with things you know nothing about.”
I decided to switch gears. “At least tell me why a High Demon wants the bones.”
“I already told you,” Eddie said. “What, you need to clean your ears out?”
“Right, right. The army rising up. What’s that got to do with Lazarus? Other than that he rose from the dead?”
Eddie reached into his mouth and removed his teeth, then sat them on the table next to the holy water spritzer. “Damn things cut into my gums,” he said, his voice now lispish and soft.
“Eddie,” I hissed. “Tell me.”
“I’m telling,” he said. “Don’t get your knickers in a snit.”
I held out my hands, twirling one in a come on already motion.
“Raising the dead,” he said. “The Lazarus Bones can raise the dead.”
The answer made sense, and I probably should have guessed it, but to hear it spoken out loud. . . . I drew in a sharp breath.
“That’s not all,” Eddie said. “The bones regenerate the flesh, too.”
“My master’s army . . .” I trailed off, thinking of the first demon.
“You mean, like dead dead?” This from Laura. “Six feet under for God knows how long? Bugs and creepy crawlies? Formaldehyde?”
“Yup,” Eddie said. “Fixes ’em right up. Soul’s long gone, so the bodies won’t put up a fight. And once the body rejuvenates, who’s going to know?”
“Holy shit,” Laura said, which summed up my sentiments nicely.
“But . . . but . . .” I floundered for something to say. This was bad. (How’s that for an understatement?) If Goramesh got his hands on the bones, he could become corporeal. His demonic minions could become corporeal. And suddenly they’d be able to do that without waiting for humans to die. Without fighting exiting souls. They just slip inside.
