by Michele Hauf
Kill all the demons? Sounded like a dream. But Blade was trying to turn his life around and be less violent. And he could do it.
If he could get beyond the need for revenge.
One week later...
Zenia parked the olive-green Chevy truck at the end of the block where she’d been hit by the bus. Hopping out, she skipped across the grassy road verge to the sidewalk. A wind-strewn newspaper lay on the ground, and she recognized the faded ad she’d seen a week earlier. A pharmaceutical ad touted something called Zenia. A word she’d liked so much she’d taken it as her name. It conveyed mystery. Just like her.
Which was about the only thing she did know about herself. That she was a mystery. The term used to describe her condition was amnesia, and she had it. And it had started in this neighborhood.
The street and houses were quaint. A smooth, narrow sidewalk stretched before neat yards, and most of those yards were fenced with white pickets. Bright yellow marigolds, pink-and-white roses and orange zinnias bloomed in profusion. Butterflies and bees fluttered from bloom to bloom.
The bus must have been cruising this quiet neighborhood so slowly that if someone had been hit by it, they wouldn’t have sustained a serious injury. And the bus driver may have never noticed the casualty.
Zenia strode down the sidewalk, a long floral skirt flitting between her legs. Her pink T-shirt was encrusted with rhinestones in the shape of a heart. She loved anything that sparkled. That much she did know about herself.
Summer sun warmed her skin and she flipped her long, midback hair over a shoulder. She brushed at an insect that briefly landed on her arm, and took note of the faint design on the inside of her elbow. Barely there, it looked as though someone had taken a white marker and drawn an arabesque. It was also on her other inner elbow, and had faded, but perhaps still needed a few more showers to completely wash away. It resembled the mehndi designs she knew were a Vedic custom in India.
How she knew about that baffled her. She seemed to know quite a bit about many things—except personal details. Had someone drawn these marks on her? Or perhaps she’d scrawled it during a lazy afternoon doing...what?
She wanted to know what she’d done in life, if only so she could resume doing that for survival. It had been a week since the accident and she had no money, had stolen clothes from a donation box on a street corner, and had only managed a handful of meals by chatting up lone men in the local diners and then dashing before they could ask her out.
And while remembering who she was would be terrific, perhaps she didn’t know for a reason?
Weird thoughts. But what else was there to think about?
A lot actually. Everything. From the solid feel of the sidewalk beneath the pink flip-flop sandals she wore to the warmth of the air embracing her shoulders. The sensory details were immense in this world. And it was almost as if she was experiencing touch, sight, smell and sound for the first time. There, a bird chirp sounded like a song she must know the words to, but unfortunately had—like her identity—forgotten.
Forgetting was frustrating. So she had returned, determined to trace her steps to learn where she had come from and what she had been doing before the accident.
Zenia stopped walking. A warm sensation blossomed in her chest. A visceral feeling of memory. She studied the pink, two-story house in front of her. White paint decorated the window frames and front door as if it were a confection under glass at a bakery. It looked familiar.
She walked up to the picket fence and darted her gaze over the yard, which was overgrown with brushy emerald grass and dotted with yellow dandelions. It smelled lush and wild. Didn’t look as though anyone lived on this lot. Did she live here?
“I walked through this yard,” she said with definite knowing.
She turned and eyed the street. The bus stop sign was thirty yards to the left, and the grass around the sign had been worn to dirt where she assumed people waited while sipping their morning coffees. “And there is where I got hit.”
Turning and wandering into the yard, she had to lift her skirt so that she didn’t get tangled in the long grass. Had she been walking out from behind the house? She could see an open backyard. No trees. And beyond that a field stretched quite a distance before it ended at a forest’s dark, jagged tree line.
Paralleling the side of the pink house, she walked around to the back and let out a gasp when someone stepped right in front of her. The woman couldn’t be younger than ninety, and her posture curled her spine forward so she had to lift her head to look up at Zenia. She smelled smoky. And a little too ripe for Zenia’s heightened senses.
“I’m sorry,” Zenia said, stepping back a pace. “I didn’t mean to trespass. I’m trying to track down a path I took a week ago. Would it be all right if I walked through your backyard to that field?”
“Never seen you before, young lady. Why would you walk through my yard?”
“I don’t know. I’ve lost my memory. I’m trying to piece things together, and I recall walking from back here. Maybe even through that field. Though I’m not sure why I would be in a field. I won’t do any harm to your property. I’ll walk straight through and on to the field.”
“Very well. You go find yourself. And I’ll go, uh...find myself.”
The old woman gestured dismissively with a swing of her arm then made a surprisingly hasty retreat into her house through the back door.
“Yes, find myself,” Zenia muttered. “But out in a field?”
And the old lady needed to find herself? Curious. But old people were some kind of curiosity, for sure. If not badly in need of a shower.
Zenia strode onward, her sandals stomping down the grass until she landed on the soft black earth of the freshly plowed field. Didn’t feel familiar to walk across the uneven surface. Hmm...
“This is the closest I’ve come to finding myself. I won’t give up.”
She walked onward.
* * *
Blade Saint-Pierre shoved the Craftsman toolbox into his truck box and pushed up the creaky metal gate to close it. He’d helped old man Larson fix the trellis that had come detached from the back of his house. Squirrels had been nibbling at the trusses. Now it was secure and the violet morning glories that reminded Larson of his dead wife, Gloria, showed through his bedroom window.
These neighborly fix-it stops were fast becoming an enjoyable way to spend the day for Blade. It made him feel better to help someone he didn’t know. But he was sure it would never counter all the guilt that weighed down his heart. It certainly wouldn’t grant him redemption.
But neither would slaying a rage of demons. He hadn’t seen the stranger, Sim, since that night in the forest a few days ago. Probably for the better.
Opening the driver’s door, he paused to eye the stunning beauty walking down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. He’d not seen her in Tangle Lake before. Blade had seen a lot of pretty women pass through this tiny Minnesota town. Most visitors hailed from the big city. Some liked to do an antiques run through the smaller towns along the highway that stretched from the Twin Cities north to the shipping harbor of Duluth.
So he was unusually curious about this beauty who looked as out of place as a demon in a salt factory.
Long red hair spilled down her back. He wouldn’t exactly call it red, more like copper that caught the sun in glints much like polished metal. Her skin resembled creamy caramel. A flowery skirt flitted between long legs as she strode the sidewalk, her attention taking in the house fronts and tidy yards. A faded T-shirt with an obvious hole at the back hem topped off the bohemian look. She scampered through an overgrown yard, which Blade wondered if he should offer to mow the lawn. Could be a hazard to an elder person trying to navigate the long grass.
He observed the sexy bohemian chick speak to an elder woman who seemed a bit too spry as she bounced back into her house. Blade could see the old woman’s shadow through the front window that wasn’t obscured by drapes. He kept her in peripheral vision while
he satisfied his need for beauty.
The woman in the skirt scampered toward a dirt field. Did she have something to do back there? It was a big empty expanse. And across the stretch of black dirt was forest, which, after dozens of acres, backed up to Tangle Lake. Maybe she owned a strip of the black earth and intended to plant a garden? It was a little late in the season for that and she hadn’t any gardening tools on her.
An odd commotion inside the house made Blade turn his attention to the front window. The old woman’s silhouette was...changing. One moment she stood hunched, her head hanging and shoulders curved forward and down. The next moment, she’d grown another head. And another.
Instincts kicked in and Blade tugged out the silver bowie knife he kept stuffed in his combat boot. He closed the truck door. He knew better than to doubt his instincts.
The silhouettes in the house were now three separate entities, and big, and...
Blade sniffed. A faint trace of sulfur curled into his nostrils.
“Demons,” he muttered. “I do hate demons.”
Chapter 2
Running along the side of the house, Blade veered around the corner and toward the back door, noting that the woman with the copper hair stood three hundred yards away in the field, her back to him. Unaware of the weirdness brewing within the house. Or so he hoped.
He opened the door and dodged to avoid the slash of obsidian talons. Pulling the door shut behind him, Blade hoped to keep the demons contained. And the beautiful woman safe.
The threesome of demons growled and spat at him, and lunged. Blade leaped to the top of a laundry machine, and jumped, flipping in the air and landing behind the nasty trio. Bowie knife at the ready, he defied them with a come-on gesture of his fingers.
“Are you the rage Sim spoke about?”
In a rare pause from attack, the demons glanced at one another. Black-hooded red eyes blinked. It was obvious they knew nothing about what he’d just asked. And really, a rage of demons would blacken the sky with their numbers. These three were barely a denizen.
“Is the woman one of your own?” he asked. He knew some demons could take on human form, many of them, actually, but he doubted the woman in the field had anything to do with this bunch.
“She is ours,” one of them hissed. “Keep away!”
“I don’t take orders from demons.” He twirled the knife and caught it, blade pointing toward the speaker. “Want to try asking nicely?”
The next hiss was accompanied by burning spittle that sizzled on Blade’s wrist. Wrong move.
The best way to kill a demon was with a blast of salt to its black heart. Blade did have a salt knife, but rarely carried it. In lieu of salt, he’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Leaping to the left, he feinted right, ducking to avoid attack. With that demon occupied in missing him, Blade slid under a groping talon and stood before Thing #2. He jammed up his knife, catching it deep in the rib cage of the surprised demon. A knife wound wouldn’t take out a demon. Unless it was more than a wound, and the weapon had been warded against demons. Dragging the blade upward, he cut open the creature from gut to throat and flung its spasming body aside to scatter in a spray of black ash.
Grabbed by the shoulders, the creature’s talons pierced his skin. Blade growled, and slashed blindly, feeling resistance and tasting a spatter of black demon blood. He lashed out his tongue, even as he bent to fling the one on his back toward Thing #3. The taste of blood frenzied his faery’s wicked craving. His fangs descended as he snarled. He tightened his grip on the knife.
“Now I’m angry,” he muttered.
Standing tall, Blade turned to face the two, who actually cowered at the sight of the vampire with black blood dripping from his mouth.
Charging, he continued his assault. Catching one demon about the neck in a clothesline, the other demon he stabbed with the knife. He gouged his hand upward, tearing the warded steel through the shrieking demon. As the blade tore out of viscera, he curled his hand around to land the other thing through the skull. Both demons scattered in ash behind him.
Blade licked the side of his hand, coated with black blood, and growled in satisfaction. Nasty stuff, but it hit him with a jolt of power and comforting darkness. And that was an irresistible high. Mmm... He could feel it move down his throat. Delicious strength shimmered in his muscles. His wings trembled for release, to allow the wicked blood to course through their very structure like cocaine to an addict’s soul.
“Hello?”
Kicked back to reality by the female call from outside the back door, Blade shook his head and stopped his wings before they could unfurl. Right. Keep your head, buddy. He shoved the knife down the side of his boot and stepped out the door and marched across the unkempt backyard. The woman in the long skirt strolled toward him, oblivious to what had just gone down inside the pink house.
Demons didn’t follow humans around. Not that he was aware of. And the woman had purposely gone to this one; he had seen her speak with it. Had she known it was demon? And if so, what was out in the field that the demon had directed her to?
Blade wiped the blood from his mouth and retracted his fangs. The woman’s face brightened as she neared, and she lifted her long skirt to run toward him. “Hello! Do you live in the house? I didn’t find what I thought I would find—”
Blade grabbed her by the upper arms and growled. “What are you?”
* * *
The man’s grip was too firm, Zenia thought. He actually looked angry, his dark brows narrowed, and the sun shone on his hair, bluing it around the one eye that was visible. A fathomless, gray eye. He had seen tribulation. Zenia knew that with certainty, as she knew so many odd facts.
And he was sexy. Devastatingly so. His broad chest stretched a charcoal-gray T-shirt in ripples, and thick veins corded his massive biceps. Combine his remarkable physique with a handsome face and he was the complete package.
Yet he did not relent his strong grip. Zenia struggled and finally managed to squirm out of his pinching grasp.
“What am I?” she asked, stepping back a few paces from him. “What do you mean? I’m a woman. A human. You think I’m some kind of alien?” She looked over his shoulder and noted the back door of the woman’s house hung open. “I should go up and close that door for her. She probably forgot. She’s old—”
“Don’t go near the house.” He gripped her by the arm, and again Zenia shoved his chest and struggled. She stumbled in the long grass and he helped her to stand. It was all she could do to step away from him without falling again.
“Who are you?” she demanded with an impertinent lift of chin. “You don’t live here. If you did, you might have taken care of the yard for your grandmother, or whoever she is to you.”
“She’s not my—” The man gestured a wide splay of fingers toward the street. “I was working across the street and saw you two talking. I just— I don’t need to explain myself. I asked first. Who, and what in particular, are you?”
Zenia crossed her arms and looked the man up and down. Dressed all in dark clothing from his loosely laced Dr. Martens to the black jeans and gray T-shirt, his muscled arms gave her pause, as did his broad chest. But the long black hair with a weirdly blue sheen to it screamed goth. Goths were skinny and morose. This man’s physique said, I work out—a lot.
“Well,” she provided, “I’m certainly not an alien.” Of that she was aware.
The nerve of the man. He hadn’t even offered a friendly how do you do. Perhaps this neighborhood wasn’t as friendly as she’d originally thought. And for as much as she enjoyed the view of him, she did know not to trust a complete stranger.
Zenia marched past him and up toward the house. He passed her and slammed the door shut, stepping before it as if to guard the contents. His anger was so palpable she felt shivers trace her arms. But it wasn’t warning enough to make her run away from the guy.
“I didn’t find anything here,” she offered, hoping to appeal to his compassionate side
. If such a thing existed. “This is where I came walking out and into the street before I lost my memory. I feel as though I was walking in from that field, but I haven’t a clue what I was doing out there. It’s just a bunch of dirt.”
“What the hell are you talking about, lady?”
“I, uh...” She raked her fingers through her long hair and splayed out her hand uncertainly before her. When she noted the cream-colored markings inside her elbow, she slapped a palm over them and offered with a shrug, “I have amnesia.”
This time when he raised his hand, perhaps to clutch her again, she flinched. That paused him. He put up both palms facing her, placatingly. And Zenia sensed whatever it was that had made him so tense and angry settled. Just a teensy bit.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. There was a commotion in the house while you were wandering in the field. I don’t think you should go inside.”
“What’s wrong with the old lady?” Zenia bobbed on her toes in an attempt to see over his broad shoulder and through the window near the back door. “Is she okay?”
He narrowed his gaze on her so intently that she felt as if he’d physically touched her. Over the heart. And she suddenly wanted to know that touch for real. She’d not been touched by a man before. Maybe. She couldn’t remember if she had. Oh, woe, if she had not.
“She’s...been better,” he offered.
Arms sliding defensively across her chest, she studied his eyes again. Both of them now, for his hair blew away from his face. A curious gray and some fleck of brighter color. Violet? They had softened, though she could see the sharpness in them as if a cut to her hope for his kindness.
When he asked, “Did the Darkwood denizen send you?” her mouth fell open.
Because Zenia knew what a denizen was. Yet that knowledge startled her. Why did she know the word for a group or gathering of demons?
Because there are demons in this world. As well as angels, vampires, witches and other things most didn’t believe in.
