by Julie Kenner
How, I wondered, had I gotten to Rome in the first place?
“My parents,” I said, the topic bubbling back to the surface. “Someone saw them. Someone knows them. Someone at Forza touched their things. A hotel owner spoke with them.” I looked at him, saw the sadness on his face, and knew that despite everything happening to him, his heart was breaking for me a little, too. “Do you think it’s in the archives? Their stuff, I mean. Do you think Forza kept it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t. Why don’t you tell Father what you’ve learned? It’ll help you to know.” What he didn’t say was why it would help. If I was losing Eric, it would be nice to gain some history. To have some other piece of my life returned when one was amputated.
I managed a quick smile, though I didn’t really feel like smiling. “I’ll do that,” I said, although I wasn’t certain I ever would. A part of me was curious, yes. But another part felt kicked in the gut. I’d never been one to fantasize about my parents, but what little imagining I’d done had cast them as loving people who’d wandered astray during their tourist days in Rome and gotten mugged. Probably injured while trying to save me, and then there I was, alone and lost.
Never once had I imagined they’d left me alone to go off playing superhero. It was one thing to fight, I thought. Another completely to risk making your kid an orphan.
I frowned, realizing that I did that, too. I did it every single day. Maybe my kids wouldn’t be orphaned, but—
I pushed myself to my feet, maternal instincts warring with the need to protect, to fight, to do what I was trained to do. What so few people could do.
What was it Allie had said when she’d first found out I was a Demon Hunter? That I was like a cop. Or a soldier.
And she’d been right.
What I did—what I was doing every single day—was right.
But if that was true, then why did it hurt so bad? Why did it feel like the parents I never knew had kicked me in the gut, said a big screw you, and run off to get themselves killed.
“Shit,” I held up a hand, warding off Eric’s questions and sympathy. “I think we’re done here.” I stood to go.
“Katie.” His voice was so soft. So Eric. And damned if the tears didn’t start flowing.
“Don’t do this,” I said as he stood, too. “I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to cry on your shoulder. I don’t want to cry at all.”
He moved a step closer, his eyes dark and full of purpose. “What’s wrong with my shoulder?”
I managed a whisper of a smile. “It’s not mine anymore.” If I was going to cry on anyone’s shoulder, it should be Stuart’s.
“You’re not your parents,” he said, moving closer and backing me against the wall.
I couldn’t help my smile. “How do you do that? How do you always know what I’m thinking?”
“You’re part of me, Katie,” he said. “You always have been.”
And because I saw him leaning closer—because I saw what he wanted and wanted it myself—I shook my head. “No.”
“We’re not connected?” he asked, his lips brushing mine. “You can’t say no any more than you can stop breathing.”
“Eric,” I repeated, “no.”
“Hush,” he said. And then he took my mouth in his, his lips soft but firm.
I pushed him away, shaking my head, not willing to go there again. “I said no.”
“And I said yes,” he spat, then jerked me closer. I gasped, surprised by the fierceness of his touch. “Dammit, Kate, you’re mine.” And then he was on me again, his mouth crushing against mine, his teeth tugging at my lip, biting and claiming, and his hands owning me, touching me.
I tried to speak, tried to find words, but I couldn’t, and when his hand dipped under my shirt and found my breast, I gasped not in arousal but in fear.
I bit down hard on his lip, then yanked my head back when he groaned. “Let me go,” I said, my voice firm, my fear absolutely hidden.
“The hell I will,” and then his leg was behind mine, pulling me off balance, knocking me to the ground. His shirt had come untucked from his jeans, and as he twisted around, I saw a flash of red, angry scar—and it was in the shape of a serpent, fangs bared and tongue forked.
I couldn’t even gasp, couldn’t process that horrible image, because he was on top of me, his hands at the button of my jeans, and all I could think was that this was not happening.
It was not happening.
I kicked up, not catching him as hard as I wanted in the balls, but managing enough of a whack that he jerked up, and I got a good look at his face.
I gasped as I looked into his eyes.
I gasped, because I’d expected to see the beast, the demon.
But it wasn’t there. The man looking at me—the man attacking me—was Eric.
Eight
For the first time in my life, I was terrified of this man, and I rolled over, clawing at the ground as I tried to scoot out from under him and climb to my feet. I caught another glimpse of his face and the shock I now saw there calmed me some. I’d fought Eric before, and although I’m strong, he’s stronger, and the one thing—the single thing—that kept me from smashing a punch into his jaw and sending him hurtling into unconsciousness was the fact that I knew that if he wanted to, he could take me down in an instant.
He’d stopped, though, and now he was backing off, his eyes dark and lost and telling.
But that didn’t mean I felt safe. On the contrary, I felt sick. Nauseated and, yes, afraid.
He moved forward, something dangerous flaring again in those beautiful eyes.
“Get back,” I hissed. “Pull back, or I swear to God I will end this now.” Despite my jumbled emotions, I pulled out the very blade that Eric had given me on our third anniversary. I watched him, forcing my hand to remain steady, as I searched his face, desperate for even a glimmer of the Eric I knew.
He took another step toward me. “Back!” I cried again, but this time I followed with a dose of holy water from the vial in my jacket pocket. Eric howled in pain, his body bucking so hard I feared he would break. But that wasn’t really what caught my attention. No, what intrigued me was the telling fact that not a millimeter of his skin was scarred or in any way marred by the holy water.
“I’m sorry,” he wailed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
“Eric,” I whispered, horrified, but he pushed past me, running out of the house blindly toward the street. I followed, my mind whirling, my only goal to stop him. To let him know that I knew the truth—that it hadn’t been him, but the demon inside.
At the core, Eric was still Eric.
How much longer he would stay that way, I didn’t know. I feared that now that it had started, the change would come faster and faster, spinning him round and round like a whirlpool until Eric and the demon were one, individuality lost along with any hope of getting back the man I loved.
I frowned, the mental image of the demon and Eric’s increasingly frenetic spinning dance playing at my mind. We’d been trying so hard to find a way to bind the demon or force him out of Eric, and while that definitely needed to be our game plan, maybe we should spend some time searching for a way to simply slow the process. Because if we could gum up the works and keep the demon’s tentacles from tightening faster and faster, then maybe we could buy some time to find answers.
It was worth discussing with Eddie, I thought, as I raced after Eric, stumbling to a halt as I reached the playground where we used to take Allie.
He had settled into a swing, his heels lost in the sand as he swung mildly back and forth. He turned as I approached: I saw nothing of the demon in his eyes. Instead, I saw regret. And fear.
“Did I hurt you?”
I took his hand, pressed it tight in mine. “No,” I said firmly, then followed it with a smile, because I knew he needed that. “Absolutely not. Although if your balls feel a bit black-and-blue, I’m afraid you’ve got me to thank for that.”
“Thank you,” he said, with such sincerity it made me wince.
“Eric—”
“No.” He climbed to his feet. “I mean it.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
“Under the circumstances, I think beating the crap out of me would be completely justified. A smack in the groin hardly seems sufficient.”
“You remember?” I asked.
“Every lousy second.” He inhaled deeply through his nose, pressed the heels of his hands to his temples as if warding off a killer headache. “It’s like being trapped in a dream you can’t wake from, only it’s much worse than seeing yourself walk around naked. There’s no control. There’s only consciousness. And impotence.” The air between us seemed to hang silent and heavy before he spoke again, and when he did, it was with infinite regret. “I would never hurt you, Kate. You know that, right?”
“I do,” I said, though I feared that in the end, Eric would be the one who hurt me most of all. “We really should go,” I said, hesitant this time, as my last attempt to leave had ended with me pressed against a wall, panting.
He nodded, then started moving toward the street, his cane tapping the way.
We walked in silence until the weight of the quiet turned unbearable and I had no choice but to speak. “What are we going to do, Eric?” I considered telling him about the dagger, but the truth was that I couldn’t bring myself to. If it came to that, then I suppose I would learn whether or not I had the strength to wield the thing. But I saw no reason to torment Eric with the knowledge that the people he loved were now spending their time searching for a weapon that will kill him, even though it wouldn’t save him.
Apparently, though, my worry was for nothing, because it was Eric who raised the subject, surprising me with his soft, whispered declaration that, “There’s a dagger, and it can end this for me. For us both.”
My breath hitched. “Do you have it?”
He stopped walking to look at me, his face bland. “I’ve spent years looking for it, and I haven’t found a single clue. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to look like, much less where to search for it. For all I know it’s a myth. Maybe it doesn’t even exist at all.”
“I almost hope it doesn’t,” I said, my words a whisper as I moved on.
He matched my stride. “If it comes down to it, you can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Feel sorry for me. Fight foolishly for me.”
“I’m not a foolish fighter,” I said lightly, but he grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop and looking at me hard, his eyes burning, and not with the light of demon fire.
“I mean it, Katie. If it comes to it, you end this thing. With the dagger, with a sharp stick, with a fucking car key. It doesn’t matter. But you end it.”
“Eric—”
“Promise me.”
“Eric, please—” I knew I had to, but the thought ripped me to shreds.
“You’ve done it before,” he said, and he was right. At the time, though, I’d been confident that he’d be free, his soul leaving this plane and finally, thankfully, coming to rest in heaven.
Now, I knew differently. Unless we found a way to untangle Eric from the beast, he would have no reward. He would, for all intents and purposes, become a demon himself. And what would that do to him? I wondered. Over decades, over millennia? Though his soul might start out pure, and though I believed in Eric’s strength, I didn’t know if that strength would last for an eternity. And the thought of Eric sliding into the abyss—the thought of the father of my daughter becoming truly evil—it was more than I could bear.
Eric didn’t see all that on my face, of that I was certain. But he saw enough, and his own expression softened. “You can’t make this about me,” he said.
“I’m not making it anything,” I countered. “It is about you.”
“I mean it, Kate. You can’t let the demon live because you think that sometime, down the road, you’ll find a way to separate us. You kill that son of a bitch. Kill him, and let me worry about how I’ll get free. Because I will. Somehow, eventually, I’ll find a way.”
I nodded, my throat too thick to talk. I didn’t believe him—hell, I didn’t know what I believed—but I knew that he needed to believe I was there, his backup plan in case his internal struggle against the demon failed.
The hell of it was, though, I didn’t want to be the backup. I couldn’t, in fact, think of anything I wanted less. “You fight, dammit,” I said. “You fight, and you don’t stop fighting.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” he said, and his grin was so very Eric that I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out, only to be cut off in a strangled sort of yelp as a small torpedo rocketed at me from around a shrub and knocked me onto my ass.
Except, of course, it wasn’t a rocket. It was a toddler. A demonic toddler to be exact, and its strong, stubby fingers gripped me tight around my neck even as I tried to get my arms under it so I could thrust up and out and break its hold on me.
“Off!” I tried to shout, but it sounded more like a strangled “Urlf!” Not that I was worrying about my personal sound track; I was more inclined to worry about breathing. The fact that my attacker was a toddler didn’t even faze me right then—when hands are closing off your windpipe, the age of those hands is not at the forefront of your mind.
But once I’d managed to get some leverage and pry him off with a huge shove that sent him hurtling back onto the sidewalk, the similarities between him and Timmy washed over me. The little bastard was wearing a Disneyland T-shirt, for God’s sake! I’d put Timmy in one exactly like that this morning, and while I had my knife ready, and my mind was telling me to take out the lying little bastard, those damned maternal hormones were slowing my hand.
Eric, I saw, had no such compunction.
He leaped, tackling the toddler with every ounce of strength in his body, and then beating on the thing with fists that wouldn’t stop no matter how much I yelled out for him to do just that. His shirt rode up as he pummeled the kid, and the scar I’d seen earlier seemed to pulse in the thin light of the streetlamps.
My eyes scanned the area as lights came on from nearby houses, and I feared that we’d soon hear the shrill siren of police cars, and see the red-and-white flash of lights filling the alley.
“Dammit, Eric! Stop!” Though right then, I wasn’t at all certain whether I was speaking to Eric or the beast inside him.
I was in tears by the time he’d finished tormenting the demon, and finally did what he should have done right off—slide the razor-sharp point of his favorite stiletto into the demon child’s eye.
He let go of the body, watching with flat eyes as it dropped to the ground. He toed the body over so that it lay facedown, and I shivered, colder still when he lifted his face to look dispassionately at me.
“Eric,” I whispered. “Please. It was a child.”
“It was a demon,” he said. And then he turned and walked away, leaving me alone with the body and my thoughts.
A California coastal town, San Diablo boasts both beaches and mountains. Or, more specifically, beaches and craggy foot-hills of mountains. The town’s origin dates back to the California missions, and even before San Diablo took that name, the cathedral sat tall and proud at the top of the cliffs, a focal point for what later became the rather artsy, sleepy town of San Diablo.
I’d hoped to see Eric at Mass, as his presence there would mean that the demon had fully retreated inside of him. And that, of course, was the reason I kept twisting in my seat to scour the crowded pews. After the third such acrobatic move, Stuart elbowed me and asked me what I was up to. Since I didn’t want to remind him of Eric’s condition (not that I expected him to forget) I muttered an apology and fixed my eyes on the bishop.
The truth was, though, that I’d rather be distracted than listen to Mass. Not a particularly devout state of mind, I’ll admit, but not one I could shake, not when I used to sit on these very pews and listen
to Father Ben celebrate the Mass and deliver his homily. I closed my eyes tight, and felt Allie squeeze my hand. Even Timmy hugged me, his little hands pressing against my face, and though I held my breath and waited for the tantrum, it didn’t come.
Little miracles, I thought. They were around me every day.
But it wasn’t a little miracle I needed in my life right then.
It was a big one.
And since I was in a church, I closed my eyes and prayed.
After communion, Timmy’s good behavior wore out, little miracles being limited by their very definition. Fortunately, the tantrum didn’t come, but the squirming did. Along with the kicking and the whispering and the whining. In light of a few rotating heads giving me the evil eye (the nondemonic sort), I decided to take Timmy out. I hauled him up so that he clung like a monkey, walked gingerly over Allie’s feet, and made my way up the aisle, quietly shooshing my little boy, who now insisted that he didn’t want to leave.
The moment I stepped through the heavy doors and into the narthex, I saw Eddie, lounging by a bulletin board announcing a fellowship brunch after Mass in the Bishop’s Hall. Though Catholic, Mass hasn’t been tops on Eddie’s priority list in a long while, definitely not since I’ve known him. My immediate reaction was fear, and I hurried to him with a “What? What’s happened?”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” he said. “Just trying to do my job. Both of ’em.”
“Both of them?”
He hooked a finger toward the parking lot. “Got Rita out there. She’s gonna give me a lift to work.”
“Rita? You mean Fran’s mother?”
“Don’t know any Fran, but Rita said she was in your class yesterday. Dropped by the shop after. Said she was window-shopping, but didn’t buy anything.” He leaned in closer, his brows waggling. “Personally, I think she just wanted to pick me up.”
