Six Times a Charm

by Deanna Chase

  I raised an eyebrow and stayed silent.

  “Or we can do it some other time.”

  “Yes,” I said with a winning smile. “Some other time sounds fine.”

  “Great. No problem.”

  That’s another thing I love about Stuart. He’s trainable. “So who’s Judge Larson?” I asked. “Do I know him?”

  “Newly appointed,” Stuart said. “Federal district court. He just moved up from Los Angeles.”

  “Oh.” Keeping track of all the judges and attorneys that cross Stuart’s path is next to impossible. “You can show him the kitchen and the study if it’s important to you. But don’t take him upstairs.” I bent down and moved the fruit plate slightly to the left, so it lined up nicely with the row of forks I’d set out.

  We didn’t decide whether a downstairs tour was on the agenda or not, because that’s when the doorbell rang. “Go,” I ordered. “I still need to put out the wineglasses.” I started running down a list in my head. Appetizers—check, wine—check, napkins—

  Oh, shit. Napkins.

  I knew I had cocktail napkins somewhere in this house, but I had absolutely no idea where. And what about tiny plates for the appetizers? How could I have forgotten the tiny plates?

  My pulse increased, gearing up to a rhythm that more or less mimicked my earlier heart rate when I’d fought the demon. This was why I hated entertaining. I always forgot something. Nothing ever went smoothly. Stuart was going to lose the election, and his entire political demise could be traced to right here. This moment. The night his wife completely screwed up a dinner party.

  And forget using demons as an excuse. No, I would have forgotten the napkins and plates even without Pops. That’s just the way I—

  “Hey.” Stuart was suddenly beside me, his lips brushing my hair, his soft voice pulling me out of my funk. “Have I told you yet how amazing you are, pulling all this together on such short notice?”

  I looked up at him, warmed by the love I saw in his face. “Yeah,” I said. “You already told me.”

  “Well, I meant it.”

  I blinked furiously. My husband might be the sweetest man on the planet, but I was not going to run my mascara. “I don’t know where the cocktail napkins are,” I admitted, sounding a little sniffly.

  “I think we’ll survive the tragedy,” he said. The doorbell rang again. “Pull yourself together, then meet me at the door.”

  I nodded, calmed somewhat by the knowledge that my husband loved me even though I was a total domestic failure.

  “And, Kate,” he called as he moved toward the foyer, “check the buffet, second drawer from the left, behind the silver salad tongs.”

  ***

  Clark arrived first, of course. And while he and Stuart did the political he-man thing—dishing about the upcoming campaign, bitching about various idiocies being implemented by the newly installed city council—I took the opportunity to round out my role as a domestic goddess.

  I hauled out the cocktail napkins (right where Stuart said they’d be), brought in seven wineglasses (I’d used the eighth to kill the demon), and checked on the dessert.

  Throughout all of this, I kept looking toward the flimsily repaired window, half-expecting to see a demon army come crashing through. But all seemed quiet. Too quiet, maybe?

  I frowned. On a normal day I’d say I was being melodramatic. But I no longer knew what normal was. For fourteen years, normal had been diapers and bake sales and Bactine and PTA meetings. Demons—especially the kind that are ballsy enough to just out-and-out attack—were not normal. Not by a long shot.

  And yet years ago, that had been my life.

  It wasn’t a life I wanted back. Wasn’t a life I had any intention of letting my husband or kids see.

  But here that life was. Or, rather, there it was—in my pantry, dead behind the cat food.

  It wasn’t the dead demon that bothered me so much (okay, that’s not entirely true), but it was its words that had really thrown me—You may as well die, Hunter. You surely will when my master’s army rises to claim victory in his name.

  I rubbed my bare arms, fighting goose bumps. Something was happening here, something I didn’t want to be a part of. But want to or not, I had a feeling I was already in it up to my eyeballs.

  “Kate?” Stuart’s voice drifted in from the living room. “Do you need help, sweetheart?” Elizabeth Needham, another assistant county attorney in Stuart’s division, had arrived a few minutes ago, and now she and Clark and Stuart were doing the war-stories thing. Stuart’s offer was genuine, I’m sure. But I could tell from his tone that he was also voicing a request that I get my butt in there and join them.

  “I’ve got it, hon,” I said. “I’ll be right there. I just want to call Allie and say good night.”

  Stuart didn’t answer, so I couldn’t tell if he thought that was odd or not. It was. Allie stayed with Mindy and Mindy stayed with us on such a regular basis that Laura and I were basically surrogate parents for the other’s kid. I knew Laura would call if anything was out of the ordinary.

  Reason, however, was not part of the equation. I wanted to talk to my daughter, and I wanted to do it right then.

  I dialed and waited. One ring. Two rings. Three, and then the familiar click of Laura’s answering machine. I waited through the message, tapping my fingers on the counter as Laura spelled out her family’s vital statistics— name, phone number, can’t get to the phone right now, yada yada—and then finally I heard the high-pitched little beep. “Laura? You there? Give Cary Grant a rest and pick up. I want to tell Allie something.”

  I waited, still tapping on the countertop. “Laura?” I stopped tapping, noticing that I’d now chipped the manicure that had managed to survive a demon attack.

  Still no answer, and I could feel that cold rush of panic growing in my chest. Surely demons hadn’t gone after my daughter …

  “Come on, girl,” I said to the machine, fighting to keep the panic out of my voice. “I need—”

  I shut my mouth and my eyes, exhaling deeply as I realized what a fool I was being. Not demons. Ice cream. Makeup might keep Mindy occupied for hours, but my daughter was a different breed. Forty-five minutes, tops.

  “Never mind,” I told the still-open line. “Just have Allie call me when you guys get back.”

  I checked the clock. Seven-ten. If they went to the mall, they wouldn’t be back until at least eight. I could keep my paranoia in check for fifty minutes.

  Stuart stepped into the kitchen just as I was hanging up the phone. “Anything wrong?” He said it in a tone that suggested he almost hoped there’d been some horrific tragedy—because that would explain why his hostess wife was camped out in the kitchen ignoring her guests.

  “I’m sorry.” I slammed the phone down. “Just mommy paranoia.”

  “But everything’s all right?”

  “Fine,” I said brightly. He was angling for an explanation and I didn’t have one to give. The oven timer dinged and I lunged for a hot pad. Saved by baked Brie.

  I’d just slid the Brie onto a plate and passed it off to Stuart when the doorbell rang again.

  “Well,” I said. “We’d better go see to our guests.”

  I led the way out of the kitchen, my baffled husband following. In the living room, Stuart slid the plate onto the coffee table next to the fruit as I breezed past on my way to the front door, an efficient hostess smile plastered to my face.

  I opened the door to reveal one of the most distinguished men I’d ever seen. Despite his years—I guessed he was at least sixty—he had the bearing of a self-confident forty-year-old. His salt-and-pepper hair gave him an air of distinction, and I was absolutely certain that this was a man who never second-guessed his decisions.

  “Judge Larson,” Stuart said from behind me. “So glad you could come.”

  I held the door open wider and ushered him in. “Welcome to our home. I’m Kate, Stuart’s wife.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, my dear,”
he said. His voice had a gravelly Sean Connery-esque tone. I may be only thirty-eight, but I’ll confess to a tiny bit of debonair-lust. I could only hope that Stuart would be that sexy and sophisticated when he hit sixty.

  “You have a beautiful home,” he added. We were still in the entrance hall, and as he spoke, he was passing me, close enough that I could smell the cologne he’d apparently bathed in. I wrinkled my nose. Sexy, maybe. But I think age must have degenerated his olfactory nerves.

  And that’s when I caught it—a foul, garlicky stench hidden under wave after wave of Old Spice. Holy shit.

  Forget attraction. Forget sophistication. Forget the fact that I had a party to host.

  The judge in my foyer was a demon—and there was no way he was getting out of my house alive.

  Chapter 3

  Instinct and long-ignored training took hold, my muscles springing into action. I twisted at the waist, planning to kick back and ram my heel into the demon’s gut.

  I didn’t make it.

  At the same moment that my foot left the floor, common sense flooded my brain, and I jerked to a stop. Too late. My sudden shift in direction threw off my equilibrium, and I landed with a plunk on my rump, the ceramic tile cool through the thin material of my dress.

  Stuart cried out my name, but it was Judge Larson who bent down and extended a hand. I stared at him, blinking, mentally reminding myself that I had demons on the brain and not everyone who desperately needed a Certs was Satan’s henchman.

  “Mrs. Connor? Are you okay?”

  “Fine. I’m fine.” Wary, I took his hand, encouraged when he didn’t immediately yank me to my feet and try to rip off my head. That had to be a good sign, right?

  With Judge Larson holding my hand and Stuart gripping my elbow, the men helped me to my feet. “I’m so sorry,” I mumbled, my cheeks on fire. “I must have slipped on something. I’m terribly embarrassed.”

  “Please,” the judge said. “Don’t be.”

  By this time, Clark and Elizabeth had come in from the living room to see what all the commotion was about, and two more guests were coming up the walkway. How lovely. The entire gang was there to witness my mortification.

  I tugged my hand free from Larson and focused on my husband. “I’m okay. Really.”

  The worry I saw on Stuart’s face appeased my fear that my acrobatics had made a farce of the evening. “You’re sure? Is your ankle sprained?”

  “It’s fine,” I said again.

  It wasn’t fine, of course. It wasn’t fine at all. For all I knew, I was about to serve my famous rigatoni (famous because it’s the only dish I do well) to a demon. And right at the moment, I had no way to confirm Larson’s humanity.

  I cast a sidelong glance Larson’s way as Stuart led us all toward the living room. I’d figure it out, though. He couldn’t keep his identity from me forever.

  And if Larson turned out to be a demon, then there really would be hell to pay.

  ***

  “More Brie?” I held the tray in front of Larson, leaning forward like some little flirt showing off cleavage. If he wasn’t a demon, he probably thought I was hitting on him. Stuart, bless his heart, probably assumed I was having a psychotic episode.

  But I was determined to get another whiff of the man’s breath. At the moment it was all I had to go on.

  “No, thank you,” he said as I inhaled through my nose. No use. He’d already helped himself to quite a bit of the Brie, and now the pungent cheese odor masked whatever other stench might linger on his breath. Frustrated, I slid the Brie back onto the table and took my seat next to Stuart. He and Judge Robertson, one of the late arrivals, were deep in a scintillating discussion of California’s three-strikes law.

  “So, what do you think of three strikes?” I asked Judge Larson. “I’m all for it,” I went on, “except for those truly evil creatures that just deserve to be taken out, no matter what the cost.” I could see that I’d caught Stuart’s attention, and he was looking at me with some surprise. His platform was tough on crime, but not that tough.

  “Vigilante justice?’ Larson asked.

  “In certain circumstances, yes.”

  “Kate …” Stuart’s voice held a What are you doing? tone.

  I smiled at him, but directed my words at Larson. “Just playing Devil’s advocate, honey.”

  “Kate can debate with the best of them,” he said to the group. “And she’s got very firm views on crime.”

  “Good and evil,” I said. “Black and white.”

  “No shades of gray?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Some things are uncertain, sure,” I admitted with a glance toward Larson. “I just find those things supremely frustrating.”

  They all laughed. “Maybe your wife’s the politician, Stuart,” Judge Westin, a newly elected state court judge, said. “Be careful or she’ll be the new county attorney.”

  Stuart rubbed my shoulder, then leaned over and planted a light kiss on my cheek. “She’d keep a tight rein on crime, that’s for sure.” He smiled broadly at the group, and I knew the politician had returned. “Of course, so will I.”

  “All I intend to keep a tight rein on is some pasta” I stood up, gesturing for the guests to stay seated. “I need to go finish dinner. If you’ll excuse me …”

  In the kitchen I sagged against the counter, my heart beating wildly. I never used to be such a ditz about demon-hunting. Of course, I’d never entertained demons in my house before, either. In the past I’d been given an assignment and I’d carried it out. Simple. I never had to actually locate the demons; my alimentatore handled that part. I just did the dirty work.

  And as dangerous and as messy as my old job had been, I think I preferred it to my current situation.

  I pulled a wooden spoon from the drawer by the stove and stirred the sauce, feeling a little guilty that I wasn’t playing the perfect wife role to a T. At least the sauce had turned out great. Maybe a really kick-ass meal would make up for the fact that Stuart’s wife was a nutcase. (Just how important was a sane wife to a politician, anyway?)

  I ran the evening’s events back through my mind and decided that Stuart’s career was still on track. Our guests probably just thought I had a little color and was tough on crime. I could live with that. More important, Stuart could live with that. Keep acting like a space case, though, and I’d blow his shot before he’d even announced his candidacy.

  Think, Kate, think. There had to be a way to figure out for sure if Larson was a demon without ruining my marriage, Stuart’s political aspirations, or the dinner party.

  I turned the heat down under the sauce, then dumped the pasta into the boiling water, all the while considering my options. Unfortunately, there are very few foolproof litmus tests for identifying demons. If a demon has possessed a human while the human is still alive, it’s easy. Then you have a Linda Blair situation and there’s this whole raging battle inside the person. Very messy. Very easy to spot. And very not my job (former job, that is).

  If you’re possessed, don’t call a Hunter. For that, you need a priest. It’s a painful, ugly, scary proposition involving lots of nasty invectives by the possessing demon, a multitude of body fluids, and utter and complete exhaustion. I know. I watched two as part of my training. (There’s nothing like a possession to get a Hunter in tune with exactly why we want to eradicate the nasty little demon bugs from the face of the earth.) It’s not something I want to see again.

  But there wasn’t any battle raging inside Judge Larson. No, if I’d guessed right, Larson wasn’t possessed. Instead, he actually was a demon. Or, rather, a demon had moved in and the real Larson’s soul, like Elvis, had left the building.

  It’s a sad fact that there are lots of demons inhabiting our world. Thankfully, most of them can’t do much in the way of annoying or harming humans. They’re just out there, floating around in a disembodied state, spending eternity looking for a human body to fill. A lot of them want to be human so badly that they go the possession route.
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br />   But it’s the ones with more patience that I worry about. Those demons inhabit a body at the moment of death. As the person’s soul leaves, the demon slips in, just like Pops in my pantry. You’ve heard the stories of folks who couldn’t possibly survive a car wreck…but did? Or the person on the operating table who against all odds managed to pull through? Or the heart attack victim who collapsed…and then got right back up again with no apparent damage whatsoever?

  Well, now you know.

  Of course, it’s not as easy as all that. The timing has to be just right. Once the soul is gone, the entry point closes and, poof, no more opportunity. (That’s not entirely accurate. There’s a later point where the body is once again ripe for takeover. I think the decay opens a portal or something. I’m not a theologian. All I know is by that time, there are issues of rigor and worms and all sorts of gross stuff. Demons do resort to that on occasion, and I’ve fought a few zombies in my time. But since Larson clearly wasn’t a zombie, that really wasn’t my concern.)

  The other thing about using a human body is that demons can’t inhabit the faithful. Those souls fight. So it’s not like a demon can just hang around a hospital waiting for folks to head out to the Great Beyond. It’s a lot harder than that. Which, when you think about it, is good news for all of us. So, while there aren’t that many demons walking around in human shells, the ones that are out there are hard to spot. They blend in perfectly. (Well, there is the bad-breath thing, but how many non-Hunters clue in to that?) And disposing of them is a real pain in the butt.

  But those demons do have certain idiosyncrasies that are useful to Hunters for identification purposes. I’d already tried the breath test on Larson. And while I thought he’d failed, I couldn’t get a good enough second whiff to confirm. And, frankly, even if his breath was so bad it knocked me over, that really wasn’t reason enough to stab him in the eye. It’s difficult enough covering up a demon killing. The accidental death of a nondemon judge was not something I wanted to explain.