by Julie Kenner
I’d stooped to hug her, and now I balanced on my heels, one hand holding the side of the table so that we both wouldn’t topple over. With my free hand I stroked her hair while I made soothing mommy noises, all the while mentally racing through the various possibilities that had brought on such histrionics.
This, I knew, was more than the fact that she’d gotten into trouble earlier. True, Allie was a good kid and rarely got into the kind of trouble she’d seen last night, but she also had a thick skin. More than that, she was smart enough to know when she deserved the trouble that came her way. If she was mad about her dressing-down, it was because she knew she deserved it. But these weren’t the sobs of a kid who was angry at herself. These were the sobs of a breaking heart.
I remembered the conversation I’d overheard at the theater, and wondered if I needed to go out and kick Charlie’s butt. But even that didn’t feel right. This wasn’t about a boy.
And as my heart twisted in my chest, I had the low, sinking feeling that I did know why her heart was breaking.
“Allie.” Gently, I pushed her head off of me and scooted back, releasing myself from her hold. I took her hands in mine, then tugged another chair out with my foot. I sat down, still holding her hands and looking into her miserable, tear-streaked face. “What is it?”
“You shoulda told me, Mom,” she said, then wiped her dripping nose with the sleeve of her baseball-style jersey. “God, Mom, why didn’t you tell me?”
I winced, wanting to pull her close again and tell her I’d kept secrets only because I wanted to protect her. But I couldn’t go there yet. Not without knowing exactly what was upsetting her. “What is it you think you know, Allie? What haven’t I told you?” I swallowed, praying she didn’t know the truth about her father.
But even before she spoke, I knew from the pain in her eyes that my prayers would go unanswered today. She knew.
So help me, somehow, she’d learned the truth about Eric.
“Allie,” I repeated, this time with more urgency. “Tell me.”
“It’s Daddy,” she said, her words sucking all my hope from the room. “There’s a demon inside my dad.” The words came out barely intelligible, strangled with sobs, and she was back in my arms again, my hands stroking, my voice murmuring, and my mind thinking murderous thoughts about Eric’s parents for what they had done to their son. For what they were doing to my family.
I don’t know how long we stayed like that, me holding her, stroking her, loving her. And wishing like hell I could make the hurt go away. When she was little, I’d nursed her with kisses, smiley-face bandages and Bactine. Somehow, I didn’t think that would work tonight.
When her sobs finally gave way to sniffles and then struggled, gasping breaths, I leaned back, one hand still touching, but trying to give her some space. She looked up at me with red, puffy eyes that held nothing but sadness.
“You knew all along,” she said, her voice as flat as cardboard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
A thousand lies sprang to mind, but I settled for the truth. “This,” I said, nodding at her. “I wanted to spare you this.”
“How? It’s there. It’s in him.”
“Maybe not forever,” I said, and saw the tiniest bit of hope in her eyes. “Maybe not if I can help it.”
“And me,” she said. “You have to let me help.”
“Could I stop you?”
That earned me a smile. “No way.”
“Didn’t think so.” I brushed her hair out of her eyes and forced myself not to pull her close again. She was growing up, my girl, and she’d proved numerous times that she could stand on her own. “How did you find out?”
“I guess I didn’t really know until right now. But it was all there, you know? I’d seen all the signs, but I hadn’t really started putting them together until I was doing this research. But it made sense. Daddy’s temper lately. It’s kinda sharp, you know?”
I did know. I wasn’t certain that Allie had noticed, but apparently, she had.
“And you didn’t want me to patrol with him alone, and every time I said I was going over there, you freaked.”
“I didn’t freak,” I said indignantly.
“Like, duh. You so totally did.”
“Maybe a slight discomfort,” I said, “but not a freak-out.”
She shrugged. “And then I started this research, about Odayne. And there’s all this stuff about how he’s bound inside a person until the time when he bursts forth. And I thought about the Alien movies, and how the creature bursts out and how in the last one it was like Ripley was the creature’s mom or something and—”
I held up a hand. “Allie, sweetheart, I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.”
She sighed, and I felt like the most clueless mother on the planet. “There’s Odayne,” she said curtly. “Bound in a human. Then there’s Daddy. And his temper, your freakoutishness, and it all just came together.” She blinked owlishly at me. “But I still wasn’t sure. I still didn’t really know. And I hated myself for even thinking it. But now . . . you’re here . . . and you said . . . and there’s no way to avoid it. Because it’s true. Oh, God. It’s really true.”
It was my turn to sigh. “Oh, baby,” I said, stroking her hair. “I’m so sorry.” I managed a small smile. “But there’s one thing you got wrong. I didn’t freak out.”
She rolled her eyes. “Delude yourself all you want. You totally freaked.”
“Maybe a little,” I admitted. “Don’t tell? It’ll tarnish my kick-ass Demon Hunter persona.”
“My lips are sealed,” she said, following that up with the genuine smile I’d been hoping for.
We sat in silence for a moment, watching Kabit stalk around, probably wondering why no one was hopping up to get him a kitty treat.
“How?” she asked. “How can he have . . . you know . . . inside him?”
I considered telling her that I didn’t know and that it didn’t matter, but I couldn’t manage it. Instead, I got up and went to the freezer, then returned with two frozen Snickers bars.
“It’s bad, huh?” she asked.
“It’s definitely not good,” I agreed. “And I don’t know everything. But I do know that it started with Eric’s parents. With your grandparents,” I said. And then I drew in a breath and told her exactly what I knew.
She didn’t speak a word while I told her the story I’d parsed together from what Eric had told me, from Father Corletti’s input, and from my own experience. And when I finished the story, she dried her tears, nodded, and whispered, “Thank you.”
I held tight to her hand. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, no. Not really. But I guess I will be. I guess I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
I shook my head, more proud and more sad than I could ever remember being. And never had I felt more exhausted.
“It’s not even four,” I said, after I was pretty certain the tears had passed and weren’t coming back. “You can still catch a few hours before school.”
She nodded then pushed back from the table and stood. I pulled her down for a quick kiss, but stayed there as she moved toward the living room. She stopped in the doorway and turned back to me. “We’ll save him, right? Odayne’s not going to win, is he? We’re going to get Daddy back?”
I felt the tears well in my eyes as I looked back at my daughter, wishing I could lie and tell her that I knew everything would be all right.
I couldn’t, though. Not to Allie. Not anymore.
So I said the truth, which was the best I could do.
“I hope so, kiddo. We’re going to try like hell, and I really, really hope so.”
I found Eddie already in the living room recliner when I stumbled, blinking, down the stairs. I hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep, but the dishwasher repair guy was supposed to be coming sometime between eight and noon, and if I wasn’t awake, he’d be there at eight. If I was awake, of course, he’d pull into the driveway at eleven-fifty. That’s why I
prefer demons; with repairmen, you can never win.
The pull of coffee was dragging me toward the kitchen, but the little black-and-white composition book in Eddie’s lap snagged my attention and halted my progress. And why wouldn’t it? The little book contained my notes; all the experiences I’d had as a Demon Hunter in San Diablo.
“Light reading?” I asked, dryly.
He glanced up, peering at me from half-moon reading glasses. “I never talked to my Rice Krispies,” he said, giving the page a thump with his thumb and forefinger. “Defamation of character. That’s what this is. Talk to my cereal. Phhhbt.”
I stared at him for a moment, considered arguing with him, and decided that without coffee, I’d only lose the battle. So I left him and continued on.
Not surprisingly, he shuffled into the kitchen after me. “Honestly, woman. These reports read like a diary. Where’s the detail? The analysis?”
I pulled out the carafe and found it empty, which caused me to silently curse my husband. He’d rolled out of bed and into the shower at seven, and I’d heard the garage door rise forty-five minutes later. He’d had plenty of time to make coffee, but did he? Noooo. Probably planning to drive by Starbucks, which was all good and well except that it would have been nice if he’d made a pot for me.
I stomped to the freezer to pull out the bag of ground coffee as Eddie droned on about the lack of quality in my accounts. Neither the lack of coffee nor Eddie did much to improve my mood. I tend to wake up needing an infusion of caffeine. Couple that with a lack of sleep, and I’m pretty much a walking nightmare until the first brewed cup.
I shuffled back to Mr. Coffee, dumped the grounds into the basket, and pushed the button to start, then turned around and faced Eddie, who was muttering about my “embarrassing lack of details.” Fueled or not, I figured I didn’t have a choice. “In case you forgot, I’d been retired for fifteen years when I put that report together.” I’d only done it out of habit, too, pulling a composition book out of the box of miscellaneous school supplies I pick up every August on the cheap. “I didn’t even consider it a report. More like notes to myself. Besides, it’s not like you weren’t there for most of that stuff.”
“Ain’t even like you were keeping accurate notes.” He snorted. “Rice Krispies, my fanny.”
I hid my smile, both amused by his reaction and also pleased that he truly didn’t seem to recall just how loopy he’d been when I’d found him drugged up in the Coastal Mists Nursing Home.
“Don’t know what you’re smiling about,” he said, and I made a valiant effort to wipe the smirk from my mouth. “Now this here’s a bit more helpful,” he said, holding up a more recent book.
I groaned. “You’re actually reading all of my reports?”
“Hey now, girlie. As your alimentatore, I have to warn you that impudence will not be tolerated.”
“I’ll make a note of it.”
“And damn straight I am. Every single one of them. We got a situation here with Eric, and nobody in the world’s closer to that boy than you are. So I’m reading and I’m learning.” He tapped the composition book, then tapped his head. “It’s all bubbling away in here, mixing together like a soup. If there’s a link, a fact, something we overlooked, I’ll find it. You can count on Eddie.”
I believed him. Despite the fact that he looked absolutely harmless standing there in faded blue flannel pajamas, his chin as bristly as a cactus and his eyebrows like caterpillars about to crawl away, I absolutely believed him. And to prove it, I tossed my arms around him and gave him a big hug, satisfied when I pulled away to find him blushing.
“You’re distracting me, woman,” he said. “I got questions for you.”
“Shoot,” I said.
“Right here,” he said, flipping pages and finally tapping the pages. “This bit about you and Eric tied together. What did Father C mean by that?”
I frowned, remembering how Father Corletti had dropped that little bomb on me. “Remember when I was afraid that maybe I’d opened the way for a demon to move into Eric by using the Lazarus Bones?”
He snorted. “I remember. Not much to worry about after all, seeing as the beastie was already inside him.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, well, Father Corletti told me that I didn’t open the door for anything new and bad to come back down into Eric. But he did tell me one thing that happened. And it’s a big thing.”
“Tied together,” Eddie said, tapping the page. “Spit it out, girl.”
“It’s just what it sounds like,” I said. “Or at least Father Corletti says so. We’re tied to each other. Or, rather, he’s tied to me. It’s like I made him a part of me or something. If I die, he dies.”
Eddie leaned back in his chair, looking smug. “And there you go.”
I gaped at him, confused. “And there I—Oh! Why didn’t I see it before?”
“You really do have a free pass, girlie girl. They kill you, they kill your boy, too.”
“But why would they care? The demon can still live in Eric’s body, right?”
“Didn’t before,” Eddie said. “Eric died in San Francisco. Body was buried and Eric’s soul and the demon shot out into the ether.”
I frowned, because he was absolutely right. “But the first demon tried to kill me. So did Lisa.”
“Maybe they weren’t following the party line. You said yourself Eric told you he didn’t want a hair on your head harmed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But he’s Eric.”
“Is he? Was he that day? Right then?”
I licked my lips, not wanting to answer. But Eddie was right. No matter how much I twisted it around to look at it, there was no escaping the fact that Eddie was right. I told him as much, too, then watched his smug expression broaden. “But you did talk to the Rice Krispies,” I said, unable to resist.
He snorted. “Don’t mean nothing. You’re only crazy if they talk back.”
“Who?” Allie asked, bounding into the kitchen in a knee-length T-shirt.
I glanced at the clock. Ten past eight.
“Cereal,” Eddie said.
“Oh,” she said, then looked to me for help.
I wasn’t biting. “Why aren’t you at school?”
“Hello? Up like half the night, remember? You were with me.” She eyed the hissing coffeemaker. “Is it ready?”
“Get in line,” I said. “Honestly, Allie, you can’t just decide to stay home and—”
“I’ve got a bead on Lilith,” she announced, effectively shutting me up and causing Eddie to put down the composition book he was undoubtedly about to begin cross-examining me with.
“Say again?” I said.
“Lilith,” she said, looking firmly at me and Eddie in turn. “I figured it out. I know where to find her. I know exactly who she is. More important, I know exactly what she wants.”
Thirteen
“She wants to be like her lover,” Allie said. “Like Odayne. Can I have a Pop-Tart?”
“Come again?” Eddie said, but I got it. I got it, and I didn’t like it.
“She wants humanity,” I said. “Not simply to be in a human body, but she wants a taste of a human soul. Oh, God.”
Allie nodded, and since I was making no progress toward her breakfast, she got up and went to the pantry herself.
“Nadia,” I said, feeling more than a little sick. “She’s time-sharing with Nadia.”
“That’s what I figured, too,” Allie said, from inside the pantry. “Don’t we have strawberry ones?” I ignored that, knowing that her mind wasn’t going to stay on tasty breakfast treats for long. “You said she was really strong in the theater, right?”
I grimaced and absently rubbed my shoulder. “I assumed she’d been working out. Apparently she was being a little more industrious than that.”
“But it’s not the same, right? She’s not inside Nadia the same way that Odayne’s inside Daddy?”
“No,” I agreed. “She’s not.”
When a demon possesses a huma
n, there’s a Linda Blair/ Exorcist thing going on. Spinning heads, frothing at the mouth. The whole Hollywood spiel. But if a human willingly allows a demon to move in and share the body, then there’s no external sign. Cooperation is key. It’s different from what was happening with Eric—his soul was involved, not the body—and Lilith and Nadia weren’t actually one. Not yet anyway.
“Time-sharing isn’t going to be enough for Lilith,” I said, standing and starting to pace. “She’s been around since before time began. She doesn’t understand humanity, but she wants to. And she’s not going to want to do it by halves.”
“She’ll want to merge. Entwine her essence with Nadia’s soul.”
“Nadia doesn’t know. She couldn’t possibly have gone willingly into this arrangement if she believed she was going to lose herself.”
Allie rolled her eyes. “Mom. Please. This is Nadia we’re talking about. For one, the bitch is totally delusional, and probably figures it’ll only turn out good for her. And for two, if there’s power at the end of it, she’s gonna be all over it.”
Once again, my kid was right. Rough around the edges, but right.
“How, though?” I asked, thinking aloud. “How would she manage?”
“Ceremony,” Eddie said. “What else.”
I gawked at him. “You know of a ceremony like that?”
“Hell no,” he said. “But you been around as long as I have, you learn one thing’s for certain. Someway, somewhere, someone’s gonna come up with another damn ceremony.”
I smiled, remembering that Laura had said something very similar.
Eddie shoved back from the table as the sharp beep of a horn sounded. “That’s Rita. You two get on that.”
“Us? You’re the alimentatore.”
“So I am, girlie. But it’s your man’s ass on the line, and between you two and the bitch, I think it’s personal.” He paused, his attention turning to Allie. “Call Forza first, though. Let ’em know what you got.”
