by Renee George
Jared got in on the driver’s side. “Buckle up,” he said and started the engine.
I obliged. “Why are you helping me?”
“I don’t know really. There’s something about you that makes me want to help.”
“You have white knight syndrome.” I raised my eyebrows. “Whatever I might look like, I am not a damsel in distress.”
“I don’t think that at all.”
I could hear a sputtering sound coming from his engine. “You should get that checked.”
“I’ve been meaning to.”
“It’s probably a bad distributor cap or rotor. It feels like your engine is missing as well.”
He pulled to stop at a red light. “Are you a mechanic?”
“It doesn’t take a mechanic to diagnose a faulty distributor.” His truck lurched. “I’m happy to take a look under the hood if you want.”
He laughed. “You really are something else. How ‘bout if we just worry about the truck tomorrow after we get you to bed.”
I stiffened as my brain took offense, my heart skipped a beat, and my lower bits stood up and applauded. “Why, sir, we barely know each other.”
“I meant, you need a good night’s sleep is all, Charlotte. I’m not trying to get under your skirt.” He cast me a sideways glance. “At least, not tonight.”
Oh, my. I resisted the urge to fan myself. I pointed up ahead at the strip of restaurants on Gretna. “There’s Vasken’s.”
Jared chuckled. “I know.” He flipped on his blinker and pulled in.
He got out of his truck the same time I did. I held up my hand. “I can manage. Just give me a minute.”
“I don’t like the idea of you alone in a dark parking lot.”
“Considering I’m the one who got arrested mere hours ago, I think it’s safe to say that it’s anyone who might jump out at me that needs to be worried.”
Jared held up his hand. “Fair point. But I’m still going with you.”
He wasn’t going to take no for an answer, so I relented. “Do what you will.”
Waving his arm in a flourish toward the alley, Jared said, “After you.”
I rounded the corner of the building and hurried to the Dumpster. My heart dropped. Oh, no. My teal bag was gone. My purse, my money, all my demon banishing supplies, they were gone. I choked on a sob and realized I was crying.
“It’s all right, Charlotte.”
“It’s not,” I sniffled. “All my things.”
“Your things?”
“I…uh threw my bag behind the garbage can when…er, things went down with that awful man.” I couldn’t stop crying, and I felt my throat knot. Jared embraced me, and lord above, I needed that hug. Being enclosed by his muscular arms felt like coming home. My runny nose and tears smeared his really tight tee-shirt. Suddenly, I was consciously aware of the tightly compacted muscles in Jared’s chest and his bulging biceps as he held me tight. “My money and credit cards were in that bag.”
“You probably ought to call your bank and cancel your cards.” He petted my hair now, and I couldn’t help but noticed just how good Jared smelled. Spicy, woodsy, and masculine.
“You smell real nice,” I said dreamily.
He leaned back to meet my gaze, the corner of his mouth crooked up into a half-smile. “I’m sure you usually smell real nice, too.”
“Oh,” I backed out of his arms and put a little distance between us. “I’m so sorry. I’m sure I smell like Eau de Prison with strong accents of garbage.”
A warm breeze lifted my unkempt hair and blew several strands across my face. Jared reached up, his fingers remarkably deft and mesmerizing as he moved the hair away. “You have remarkable eyes.”
I averted my gaze and reminded myself that while we might be alone in the moonlight, we were standing next to a Dumpster. Decidedly not romantic. But still, I couldn’t quell the butterflies I got every time I met his gaze. “You’re too kind.”
“Charlotte,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse and low. “I think you are the most—”
“Idiotic minion I’ve ever met,” said the voice of Demon Roger. I whirled around and watched the demon scurry from behind the other end of the Dumpster. “I knew you’d come back,” he said. He held out my duffle bag. “I believe you’re looking for this?” In his other hand, he held a machete.
I positioned myself between Jared and Willis. Jared might be bigger and stronger than me, but he was still human, a mortal, and in a fight with a lesser demon, and one that was no longer playing by the rules, he had very little chance of surviving.
Although the way Willis was waving that blade made me wonder how well I’d be able to do my job without a head. Yikes. “Why don’t you put that thing down? Let’s talk about this like civilized people.”
“I think we both know that I’m not civilized, and neither of us is people.”
“Charlotte.” Jared grabbed my arm. “What is going on here?”
How could I explain to a nice normal man that I might be nice, but I was far from a normal woman? “Jared, you better go. This isn’t your fight.”
“You’re nuts if you think I’m leaving you.”
“You two are sweet. I’m certain your entrails will give me a mouth full of cavities.”
Lesser demons were gross. “You are messing with the wrong person,” I told him.
“Oh, I’ve done my research. I’m definitely messing with the right Madder sister. I’m going to have fun taking you down.” Willis’s eyes flashed from human brown to devil red.
Jared let go of my arm. “What the…did you see his eyes?”
“Yep.” I tapped my wrist out of habit and lamented the confiscation of my weapons by the law. “I can’t wait until I sink a rod in your head, you evil bastard.”
“You won’t get the chance, Madder bitch.” He eyeballed Jared. “And when I’m done with you, I think I’ll try on your boyfriend. Roger Willis is a turd, but that guy, I could do a lot of things in his body.”
“This is getting really weird.” Jared pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the police.”
Roger screamed as he lunged at me, his large machete swinging wildly in my direction.
I swiped the inside of my cowboy boot against the side of the other boot, triggering the silver blade in the tip, ready to castrate the demon with a swift kick between his pudgy legs. But at that same time, Jared shouted, “Look out!” as a bright flash of light blinded me and Willis, and I was shoved sideways into the metal bin. The rusty exterior Dumpster bit into my cheek as my vision cleared enough to for me to watch Jared tackle the surprised demon to the ground.
Roger had dropped my bag in the scuffle, and I scrambled to where it lay. I unzipped it, relieved to find all the contents there, including an ice pick I’d quadruple dipped in molten silver as a backup spike. I grabbed it and turned to the struggling men.
“Don’t let him go,” I yelled to Jared as I rounded them to get a better angle on Willis. Jared knelt on the demon’s shoulders and punched him in the face. I grabbed his hair to hold him steady and, in one smooth stroke, plunged the ice pick right between Roger’s eyes.
When the body beneath him went limp, Jared stood up and staggered backward. “What did you do?” he asked. “You just…you just killed him.”
I grimaced. Yeah, sticking a guy with an ice pick between the eyes was probably a dating deal breaker. “He’s not dead,” I said. “Well, the demon inside him isn’t dead. The real Roger Willis died two years ago.”
“You’re crazy.”
I laughed and tried hard not to make it sound maniacal. “I feel a little crazy right now.” I pulled the bag over and took out the silver chains, the candle, the incense, the salt, the liquid cyanide and a syringe, and lastly, grabbed the peanut lighter I’d shoved in my skirt pocket.
“What are you doing?” He looked around. “We should call the police. This was a clear case of self-defense. I mean, the guy had a weapon.”
I snorted. “I was arrested for atta
cking him earlier. You think the police are going to take my word for it that it was self-defense?”
“I’m your witness.”
“You held him down while I spiked him. Is that the statement you plan to make?”
“Well, then we should get out of here before someone else calls the cops.”
“In a minute,” I said. “First, I need to send this bastard back to hell where he belongs.”
I poured a circle of salt around Roger so that his demon-y soul would stay put. Next, I draped his arms legs and neck with the silver chains to keep him in place. I set up the candle and the incense on either side of his head, lit both, then drew up half a syringe of cyanide.
“Do you belong to a cult?” Jared asked. I didn’t blame him for being wary, but to his credit, at least he hadn’t gone running for the hills.
“Hush now,” I told him. I held up my hand. “Watch.” I pulled the ice pick from Demon Roger’s forehead.
Roger’s eyes opened instantly, and he let loose with a stream of expletives that, as a lady, I am too polite to repeat. He ended with, “That hurts, you stupid pink cow!”
“And calling me a stupid pink cow hurts, too, but you don’t see me getting nasty about it.”
“Oh my God,” Jared said. “He’s alive. We should call an ambulance.”
“He won’t be for long,” I said, sounding more homicidal than I meant to. I picked up the syringe and stuck it in Roger’s neck as he fought against the restraints of the silver chains.
“Let me go, bitch! I will eat your heart, vomit it up and eat it again.”
I glared at the demon. “Shut up, Roger Lite.” I depressed the plunger on the syringe and watch the beady red eyes of the monster beside me turn a milky white.
Demon gone.
I looked up at Jared whose expression was a mixture of horror and fascination.
“What the hell was that thing?”
“A demon,” I told him. “And a really bad one.”
“Are there any good ones?”
“Nope.” I grabbed a new plastic tarp, still in the bag, from my pack. “Can you roll him over while I get this under him.”
“You want me to help you hide the body?”
“Only if you want to.”
Jared barely hesitated before he crouched on the other side of the corpse and rolled him away from me. I pulled the tarp out, unfolded it, scrunched up half and tucked it under Roger. “Okay, roll him back toward me.”
Jared obliged. I reached around and grabbed the bunched tarp from behind the body and pulled it up and over him. “We’ll have to find a place to bury him where he won’t be found. The police already have their eye on me. If Willis shows up dead, they are going to blame me.”
“They wouldn’t be wrong,” he said.
“Are you judging me? Because if you’re judging me, this date is over.”
Jared grinned. “So this is a date with you? I’m not sure I’ll survive a second one.”
I snorted. “If you’re lucky enough to get a second one.”
Chapter 4
Jared brought his truck around to the back. He left the engine running while we shoved the body inside the bed, and Jared shut the tailgate. It was almost two o'clock in the morning now, and Branson was mostly dead. I wasn't too worried about anyone seeing a body wrapped in the back of the truck, but it was better to act with a sense of urgency, so we jumped into the cab and got on the road.
“You sure are taking this well,” I said.
“I’m glad you think so. Inside, I’m kind of freaking out.” He looked to the right and left before pulling out on Gretna. “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know the area.” I shrugged. “Do you have any ideas?”
“You want me to not only help you dispose of a corpse, you want me to pick the place?”
I laughed because it was either that or cry. “I don’t suppose you know of any acid baths or piranha ponds around here?”
“Yeah. Just down the street at Acid Baths ‘R Us.” Jared shook his head. “Look, I know he needs to disappear. So, we can bury him in the woods outside my house in Kimberling City.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry you got involved with this whole mess.”
“I’ve had worse first dates.”
I peered at him. “You have?”
He glanced at me and grinned. “No, not really.”
Brrrr-ing. Brrrr-ing. Brrrr-ing.
“Your bag is ringing,” Jared said.
I glanced at the pink duffel. Brrr-ing. “Oh, my phone is in my purse.” I unzipped and dug it out. I hit the accept button and put the phone to my ear. “Hello.”
“Where are you?” Olivia said.
I looked at Jared. “It’s my sister,” I mouthed. “Hey, Liv. I’m, uhm, in a truck heading toward Kimberling City.”
“I’m at the county jail, standing in the parking lot, wondering what the hell happened to my sister.” She paused. “Why are you in a truck headed toward Kimberling City?”
“I sent Moloch’s lesser demon to Hell, and now we have to go bury the body.”
“We? Who the hell is we?”
“Well, you see, this nice gentleman posted my bail, and I’d left my phone in my duffle bag in the alley, behind the Dumpster. And, oh my, the bag was gone, and then Roger Willis—”
“The demon guy?”
“Yes,” I said. “Would you keep up, please? He showed up with my bag and then tried to kill me and the nice gentleman with a really big knife.”
“Does the nice gentleman have a name?” I could hear Liv gritting her teeth, and I realized she’d probably been sick with worry. Guilt nipped at me.
“Jared,” I said. “I am sorry I didn’t call you right away, Liv.”
“I get it,” said my sister. “Demon hunting isn’t for sissies. Are you okay?”
“I swear, I’m right as rain.”
“Good. I won’t feel bad for throttling you when I see you next. Give me the address, Char, and we’ll meet you there.”
I could hear Elise say, "Tell Char she had us worried sick!"
I shook my head. "I heard her," I told Liv. I glanced at Jared again. “What’s your address. My sisters are coming to help.”
“Christ, it’s a family business?”
I nodded. Jared had no idea that I’d been a non-corporeal being for nigh on one hundred and forty-seven years, much less that I was currently an immortal. I figured it was probably best to work up to those revelations at a later time.
“Five-Twenty-Six Southeast Five Hundred road, Kimberling City.”
I relayed the address to Liv.
“Are you sure you can trust this guy?” Olivia asked.
“The fact that he’s helping me to ditch a body should tell you something.”
“That he’s a serial killer who’s met his true love match,” she said sarcastically.
“Are you a serial killer?” I asked Jared.
“Nope.” He turned on the highway.
“He says he’s not a serial killer,” I reassured my sister.
“That’s exactly what a serial killer would say,” Olivia countered. “I’ll meet you there. Text me every few minutes, so I know he’s not chopping you up into little pieces.”
“Don’t be silly.” A minion had to be a serial killer’s wet dream. Impossible to kill, so lots of ways for them to have fun without ever having to get another victim. On the other hand, as a minion, I could certainly handle a human predator if I could fight and banish demons. You know, after parts grew back and such.
You found him! A voice in my head trilled with joy. My head moved around without my controlling it as Kobal used me to look side to side. Where is he?
“I haven’t seen your stupid magician,” I said. Out loud.
Jared narrowed his gaze at me as we traveled down the hilly highway. “Excuse me?”
I grinned sheepishly at my handsome partner in crime and shrugged.
I felt him. Briefly. Kobal’s irritation felt like a
n unscratchable itch in my brain. What were you doing about an hour ago?
I thought about the demon in the back of the truck.
Speak up, Charlotte. I can’t read your mind.
Kobal could project his thoughts in my head, but he couldn’t hear my thoughts, unlike the way Moloch could with Liv. Eliza's demon couldn't read her thoughts either, but he could use her to speak to others. Our friend Ray deduced that all demons had powers, but they weren't all the same. At least with Kobal, I always knew when he was in there rattling around. He exerted pressure on me when I didn’t answer, making my insides feel like they wanted to be on my outside. “I was killing a demon, jeez!”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Jared asked.
“I’m fine,” I said with way too much sugar. “Just having a conversation with my inner demon lord.”
He put on the blinker. “Is that a euphemism?”
I’ll check in with you soon, Charlotte. Find me Aloysius!
“Nope.” I sighed. Now that Kobal was gone I could speak freely. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? “The reason I knew Roger was a demon—and I have banishing tools—is that I’m a minion.”
“Like those little yellow dudes from the movies?” He flashed me a smile.
I wondered again about his ability to take all this craziness in without batting an eyelash. “I made a deal with one of the twenty-seven lords of hell. Well, now it’s twenty-six because my sister Liv imprisoned one. But the deal, you see, makes me immortal.”
“Immortal. Right.” He turned off the main highway and took us down a more rural road loaded with trees on either side.
I straightened my skirt and picked at the hem. Well, Jared had watched me stab a man in the forehead, and he was still around, so I might as well tell him everything. “You see, shortly after the War of Northern Aggression—”
“The what?”
“The Civil War. You know, the north versus the south, 1861 to 1865? I was pretty young then, so I don’t remember too much, other than Poppa trying to keep the war off our front porch.” I stared out the window as I remember my father. He was a kind man, and he taught me a lot about fixing farming equipment and building structures. My love of engineering had started on our modest farm, and frankly, I missed Poppa awfully much “He died about ten years after the war. My sister Olivia tried to hold us all together, but four women—”
