by Julie Kenner
I flashed him a simpering smile and silently seethed. The things I put up with . . .
“More coffee?” I asked Laura as Stuart headed away.
“One more cup. And then I should get home. Theoretically, I have things to do.”
“Theoretically?”
“Laundry, vacuuming, dusting,” she said, ticking them off on her fingers. “But I’ll probably end up researching for you.”
“Good girl,” I said, half listening as Stuart greeted someone at the door. I could hear the deep murmur of his voice, followed by higher-pitched tones. A woman, though I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
What I did make out was Timmy’s high-pitched yelp and Stuart’s controlled shout for me to get my ass in there.
It took me about two seconds to arrive, but that was two seconds too many. Lisa was inside, her hands tight on Timmy’s head—hands I knew were strong enough to snap his neck with no effort at all.
“I’m sorry,” Stuart said, talking to me though his eyes never left Lisa.
“You didn’t know what she looked like,” I said.
“I should have figured it out.”
“Hush,” Lisa said, pushing Timmy ahead of her as she urged us all toward the living room. I wanted to fight back, to attack, but until I could figure a way to keep Timmy safe through all of this, I was in total cooperation mode.
“I should kill him right now,” Lisa said. “Retribution for your destruction of John-John.”
“Kill him, and there’s nothing shielding you. How long do you think you’ll last in here without my little boy to hide behind?”
“I’m not worried about a pitiful attack from a human,” she said. But she made no move to harm Timmy, and I could only hope that she realized just how much she needed him to keep her alive in that body.
Behind her, I saw Allie step quietly along the upstairs hall to pause at the top of the stairs. She turned and signaled for Mindy to stay back and quiet. I couldn’t risk looking at her more directly, not so long as I wanted to keep her presence a secret.
I did, however, risk a glance toward Stuart. He also stood facing Lisa, which meant he was facing Allie as well. I sent him silent instructions to be careful. To keep his eyes on Lisa and to only watch Allie in his peripheral vision.
Fortunately, Allie’s movements were big enough. She thrust her arms out, mimicking Lisa, then used one arm to smash the other away. I pressed my lips together, terrified of the plan she was suggesting, made all the more dangerous because it required both Stuart and I, and I had no way of knowing if he was understanding Allie’s spastic gestures.
“Such a nice little boy,” Lisa was saying, her thumbs stroking his hair. “And now that my John-John is gone, I do require a replacement. I think he’ll do very nicely.”
“Not in a million,” I said, even as Allie counted down with her fingers. Three, two, one—
She screamed, the sound so high and piercing I’m amazed glass didn’t shatter. It didn’t need to, though, because the scream itself did the job, causing Lisa to jerk around, loosening her grip on Timmy.
At that moment, I slammed into her at the elbow, then immediately grabbed Timmy by the waist, pulling him down out of Lisa’s hands as she grappled for him, a split second too late.
As I did that, Stuart tackled her, his high school football days coming in handy. She slammed backward on the floor, and I heard Laura cry out. “Stuart! Here!” and then a kitchen knife was skidding toward him along the wooden floor. He snatched it up and then thrust it down toward her eye.
But Lisa cried out, “No!” and damned if Stuart didn’t hesitate.
That was all it took. She twisted, knocking him off and then bending his wrist back until his hand opened and she could snatch the knife.
I let go of Timmy and was moving in their direction, but Allie got there first. And as Lisa thrust the knife toward Stuart, Allie kicked out, sending the blade skittering back across the floor toward Laura. Then she reached into her back pocket and pulled out a yellow pencil. With a warlike cry, she thrust it forward, slamming it into Lisa’s eye before leaping back and breathing hard.
Lisa’s body wavered, and then flopped sideways off of Stuart, who kicked his way out from under the body and sat there staring at it as the familiar shimmer broke the air—the demon escaping back into the ether.
“Oh my God. Oh my God!” Mindy pounded down the stairs, her eyes wide. “It’s true,” she said, as I moved back to Timmy, to gather him in my arms. “It’s really true.”
“It’s true,” I confirmed. I looked at Allie. “You okay?”
She rotated her shoulders, then glanced toward Lisa. For a moment, she looked vaguely ill, then it cleared and she nodded. “She was going to kill Timmy and Stuart. Yeah. I’m fine.”
Mindy looked between Allie and me, her own expression shifting between horror and fear and amazement. From the kitchen, Laura called to her, and she bolted in that direction, losing herself in her mother’s embrace.
“How about you?” I asked Stuart.
“Not so good,” he admitted. “Maybe I’m not ready to go patrolling.”
“Maybe it’s time I worked harder to make you ready,” I said.
“I couldn’t do it.” I could hear the tinge of self-loathing in his voice. “She would have killed Timmy. She’s a creature from hell. I know all of that, and I still couldn’t manage to shove a knife through her eye.”
“It’s hard,” I told him. “Harder than you think it will be.” I exhaled loudly and caught Allie’s eye. “You did good, kid. Made me proud.”
A wisp of a smile touched her mouth. “Told you I can handle myself.” She cocked her head. “And if we start saving now, I can handle myself with a car when I’m sixteen.”
“Dream on,” I said, but I’ll admit I was smiling.
“So what do we do about the body?” Stuart asked. “We’ve got company in just a few hours.”
“Well, Stuart,” I said. “Fortunately, we have a really big pantry.”
In the end, we decided that the trunk of Stuart’s car was a better demon hiding place than the pantry, and with help from Laura and Allie, we had Lisa wrapped up in an old sheet and dumped in the car in no time.
Mindy offered to help—which I considered a good sign that we hadn’t scarred her for life—but we all declined her offer. There are some things you don’t need to be doing the first time you learn that demons are real, and disposing of the body is one of them.
After dealing with the body, Laura and the girls headed over to Laura’s house, taking Timmy with them, because my best friend is a saint. Once the house was empty, Stuart and I turned to the next matter on the agenda, something significantly more scary than demons, at least in my book: cooking.
“Do you want to tell me again why we’re doing this?”
“Two reasons,” Stuart said easily. “One, I want my new boss and my partner to know each other socially. It makes it easier if I have to divert time from one of my obligations to another. Makes them seem involved. Like they have a stake in my success in both arenas. And, of course, I want them to know my wife.”
“I already know them both.”
“And now they’ll know you better.”
“Are you sure you made the right decision quitting the campaign?” I asked. “You’re a born politician.”
“I’m not entirely sure that’s a compliment.”
I only smiled, figuring it was best not to comment.
The corner of his mouth twitched knowingly.
“And the second reason?” I asked.
“Normalcy,” he said. “This is what normal people do. They have friends over. They drink coffee and eat blintzes and sip wine.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a blintz at someone’s house.”
“Trust me. Blintzes are mandatory. Along with bad jokes and gossip about coworkers.”
“Patrolling for demons after dark?”
“Usually not.”
“Regular weapons t
raining?”
“As a rule, no.”
I shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “Sounds like a dull existence, but I suppose we can try it for the night.”
He slid his arms around my waist and nuzzled my neck. “How many of these have we had, with only you knowing what kind of evil might decide to crash the party?”
“Several,” I admitted.
“And I never knew.” He stated that as fact, without a hint of regret or disapproval. Nonetheless, I stiffened, my own mind voicing his unspoken accusation.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I did what I thought was best.”
“And tonight?”
I drew in a breath, knowing he was worried. So was I, but I had no intention of letting it show. “Tonight, I have you to help me.”
“Does that make it better or worse?” he asked. “I don’t have your skill. I’m a liability, not an asset.” He paused, and I saw the muscle in his cheek working. “I’m not Eric.”
I drew him close, kissed him hard. “You’re not,” I agreed. “And I love you.”
“You say the sweetest things,” he teased, but I was pleased to see that he looked genuinely relieved.
“Does that mean I can have a reprieve from cooking? I can put out plates and cups and napkins. I’m a great napkin putter-outter.”
“Togetherness,” he said. “Trust me.”
As it turns out, the cooking extravaganza wasn’t quite the horrific ordeal I’d expected. Stuart had gone a little crazy printing recipes from allrecipes.com, which I thought was incredibly cute, a fact that embarrassed him enough that he refused the apron I teased and taunted and tried to tie around his waist. After that playful interlude, though, we got down to business, and by the time we went upstairs to change for the evening, we’d managed not only blintzes but tiny little quiches, a selection of cheese and fruit, and cheesy biscuits with sausage that just about melted in your mouth.
I fully intended to abdicate kitchen duty altogether. There is no shame in passing the job off to the more prepared partner. Especially if it means we’d have meals more interesting than meat loaf and pot roast on a semi-regular basis.
I was dressed and ready and trying to convince myself not to dig into the little quiches when the first guest rang the doorbell.
At least, I assumed it was the first guest. After this morning’s debacle, I wasn’t taking chances, and I peered through the peephole before opening the door to Bernie. I gave him and Lila quick hugs, then sent them back to Stuart as I waited for Pete and his wife to park their car and walk up the drive to the front door.
Beyond them, on the far side of the street, a woman leaned against a sleek black Ferrari. She had dark hair and wore black pants and a black jacket. I couldn’t see her face in the dim light, but I didn’t need to. I knew her build and the way she moved.
Nadia Aiken.
I frowned, then forced my expression to clear as I welcomed Pete and his wife, now introduced to me as Angie, into my home. I did the kiss-kiss greet-greet thing, and when I turned to look back, the Ferrari and the woman were gone.
“Something wrong?” Pete asked. A reasonable question as I was still standing in the threshold, the door open wide.
“Sorry. Mind wandering.” I plastered on a smile and followed them in, wondering if I could have been mistaken. Why would Nadia come back to San Diablo, after all? A Demon Hunter turned bad, she’d messed my life up pretty good a few months back, and managed to get out of town before I could stop her, much less before I could drag her kicking and screaming into Forza for adjudication and punishment.
Surely the woman in the street must have been someone else.
But no matter how hard I tried to convince myself, the image of Nadia remained, dogging me through the evening despite my efforts to push her out of my head.
“Here’s something I think you’ll all find interesting,” Bernie said, when we were all settled in the living room with coffee and brandy. He reached into the tote bag filled with paint chips, fabric samples, and scale drawings of various rooms, then emerged with a small black book. “One of Theophilis Monroe’s journals,” he said. “He lived in the house, you know.”
I did know, actually. The mansion itself had been built in the twenties by a silent film producer. At one point, Theophilis Monroe, a rather nasty black-magic aficionado with ties to San Diablo’s founding family, had moved in and done some heavy remodeling, some of the details of which had played a key part in our recent defeat of Gora-don. What surprised me was that Bernie had one of Monroe’s journals. I’d been under the impression that they’d all found their way to the cathedral archives.
“Monroe incorporated all sorts of demonic symbolism into the house once he got his hands on it,” Bernie was telling Pete, who clearly wasn’t aware of the bad apple on the founding father’s family tree. “The guy was into black magic. A total nutcase, of course, but it’s fascinating to read about.”
“Where did you find it?” I asked, flipping through the little book.
“Under the floorboards of the eastern bedroom,” he said. “We were working in there this afternoon. Who knows how long it’s been there.”
I glanced up at Stuart, then back down at some of the drawings and phrases that popped out from the page.
“My wife’s first husband was a rare books expert,” he said, with that political smile. “And she’s developed a bit of an interest along those lines, too. Mind if we keep it for a while? We can skim through it and see what we can pull out to go in the ultimate sale brochure.”
“Sure, sure,” Bernie said affably.
“You’re going to push the black-magic connection when you put the house on the market?” Angie asked, her nose wrinkling.
“Don’t knock it,” Pete said, patting her hand. “The more they push it, the more inclined I am to invest.”
She laughed, but I could tell that Bernie realized Pete was serious. He leaned in closer and spoke directly to Angie. “You probably don’t believe in that kind of stuff, but trust me. People get a whiff of demons and danger, and prices start soaring. All that spookiness just makes a thing more interesting.” He shifted his gaze to take in me and Stuart. “Don’t you agree?”
I met Stuart’s eye and that was all it took. We burst out laughing, leaving Pete, Bernie, Angie, and Lila to stare at us and wonder what exactly it was about demons we found so funny.
If only they knew.
“I don’t think I’ve been so uncomfortable since I first decided to run for office,” Stuart said. “All I kept thinking was that there was a body in the garage. Did it show?”
“You were the epitome of cool,” I said. We’d changed into black slacks and T-shirts and called Allie back from Laura’s, since I wasn’t going patrolling with Stuart without backup. I’d left Timmy with Mindy and Laura with a promise to call me if so much as a stray dog ran into the yard. And, yes, to call Eric if for some reason they couldn’t reach me.
Eddie was a no-show on this adventure, which I assumed meant that his and Rita’s date had gone well. Now Stuart and I were creeping along the western edge of the Coastal Mists Nursing Home, while Allie was doing the same on the eastern side. “I’ll have Eric come by and pick the body up tomorrow.”
“I’m not entirely sure that’s the best idea,” Stuart said.
I shrugged. It wasn’t as if I had a lot of options. “So you choose. We dump it in the landfill, sneak into the crypts, or pass it off to Eric.” Now that Father Ben was dead, I was no longer able to easily hide dead bodies in the crypt under the cathedral. Fortunately Eric—or rather, David—had been able to step up to the plate. As the chemistry teacher at Coronado High, he had developed a foolproof way to dispose of the bodies. A way, frankly, that I didn’t care to think too much about.
I aimed a smile at Stuart. “Landfill or Eric. Your decision.”
“You’re cocky when you’re right,” he said, but he said it with a smile.
“I’m also right that you don’t need to be out patrolling toni
ght, either. You need more training before getting in the field.” We’d had this argument at home once already, but Stuart had won by pointing out that any newly made demon was undoubtedly going to be drawn into the service of Odayne and the She-Demon. While he’d been right about that, I’d been less inclined to agree with his assessment that he should help me track down and terminate the new demon.
In the end, though, I’d given in. I didn’t want to go alone, and I didn’t want to call Eric. And, yes, Stuart could use some practical training. And since newly made demons are more easily slain than their counterparts who’d had time to settle into a body, I figured this was as good a practice case as any.
“I know you’re worried about me,” Stuart said. “Don’t be.”
“You’re that confident?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Flexible,” he said. “If we don’t meet any demons, we can pick a spot with a view of the moon on the ocean and I can make out with my wife.” He nodded toward the rolling lawn that extended beyond Coastal Mists, ending at a sheer drop-off overlooking the Pacific.
“I can tell you’re going to be a very productive patrolling partner.”
“Depends on your definition of productive,” he said, and planted a kiss on me. “If we make out with our eyes open, the demons can’t sneak up on us.”
I laughed, feeling only slightly uncomfortable. Having never been on an official patrol with Stuart before, I hadn’t really known what to expect. But if this was a preview of coming attractions, I had to admit I liked the scenario.
The walkie-talkie on my hip buzzed, interrupting the moment. I snatched it up, still amused by the fact that Allie had presented it to me in the car and insisted I wear it. “We’ll be in constant communication,” she said. “And it even has a GPS chip. You know. In case we get separated.”
“Where’d you get this?” I’d asked, but she’d only smiled.
