by Jenn Bennett
“Wait!” I squeaked, leaning down to pry open the metal buckles on the straps of my shoes. I got them off in record time, grasped them by the straps, and sprinted in my bare feet. The sand was cold and damp beneath my toes.
We stuck to the shadows and trailed a line of beach shrubs that curved around the back of a large dune stretching away from the base of the cliffs. Voices faded behind us. From this distance, I could barely see the crowd outlined against the distant light of the bonfire. But I was still able to identify one person: the bald guy Spooner had sicced on us earlier. His flaming gold halo stood out in the darkness. At least we had a considerable head start on him. No way could he catch up. I hoped.
“How—are we going—to get to the car?” I asked haltingly between breaths as I ran.
“Forget it. We can’t go back that way. Sengal is a hyperosmiac. Preternatural sense of smell. He can hunt us.”
“What? The bald guy following us?”
“Yes. We’ll get the car later. Keep running.”
Away from the caves, we headed deeper into the dark coast, trudging through sand until we cleared the massive dune and were forced to slow our pace along the edge of the incoming tide. Chilly water broke around my feet.
We continued running along the water’s edge until I thought I was going to die from exhaustion. I peered over my shoulder for the millionth time, but couldn’t see anyone behind us. “Stop, please,” I begged. My sides were cramping. We slowed to a brisk walk. “These are your people … What will they do to you? Don’t they know where you live?”
“Tomorrow they’ll have sobered up. And David will be reprimanded by the head of the Hellfire Club.” He paused, then murmured, “I’ll make sure of that.”
“I heard some people talking about Mr. Dare.”
He looked down at me and nodded. His chest rose and fell as he caught his breath. “That’s right. He started the club with my father. Practically runs this town. So I’ll be fine.” He gestured toward the caves in the distance. “They just need to cool off. Especially David. Right now they are all drunk and unreasonable.”
“Fucking insane is more like it.”
“Contained insanity,” he corrected. “That’s the whole purpose of the Hellfire Club. Most of these people are okay in the real world, but at these parties …”
I nodded. He was right. I’d seen perfectly normal, up-standing demons walk into my bar and after several drinks turn ornery and out of control. I wondered what Lon would be like if he ever got that crazy.
“Look,” Lon said immediately, in response to my roving thoughts, “I used to go to these things religiously until Yvonne got out of control, then I quit. Except for a brief backsliding period a few years ago when I got depressed, I don’t go anymore. I’ve seen and done my share of immoral things inside that place, but that whole demon-fight-club thing is new.”
He touched the stripe of coagulated blood on his cheek and winced. “First you clocked me in the eye … now this. It’s not my night.”
I couldn’t see him smiling, but humor lightened his voice, and this softened my panic. His spiraling horns were dark against the golden light of his halo. Just when I thought I’d gotten used to them … but there I was, staring like a fool. I pushed away the urge to touch them again, just to be certain that they were still real.
“I don’t mind,” he murmured.
Mildly embarrassed, I twined my fingers around his and we resumed our walk, shoulder pressed against shoulder. The farther away from the Hellfire caves we got, the better I felt. Inside, at least. Though his hand was warm in mine, my feet were Popsicles. Occasionally I stepped on a piece of shell or rock that broke the numbness. I’d never hated the beach so much.
After we’d walked for a good fifteen minutes, Lon stopped.
“Shit.”
“What?” I asked, turning back to look. I didn’t see anything.
“I can hear Sengal again. He’s not going to give up.”
I scanned the shoreline and spotted a tiny speck of gold up on a low hill in the distance. It floated down the hill and toward the water, following our tracks. Hovering, it turned and began moving toward us.
“I can’t run anymore!” I complained. “We can’t just keep plowing down the length of the whole damn beach. How are we going to get away from him? Isn’t there anything out this way?”
Lon scanned the beach ahead of us. “Over there. See those?”
My eyes followed his finger, but I saw nothing but night and the shifting glisten of the moon on the surface of the ocean. Darker cliffs towered in the distance. Then I spotted blocky shapes up the beach. They stood in a long row, farther away from the water.
“We’re headed away from the Village. Those are rental cottages,” Lon explained. “That inlet area out there will be a popular surfing spot next month when the waves get better. Right now it’s dead.” He then pointed toward the cliffs in the distance, several miles away. “And see those? My house is up there on the other side.”
The thought of walking miles on a cold beach was disheartening at best. Impossible was more like it.
“Too bad there’s not a way around the cliffs,” he added. “We’d have to swim a mile out around Mermaid Point to get to a place we could climb.”
“Nuh-uh. No way, José,” I said, shaking my head, just in case he was considering it.
He grunted in amusement. “Let’s just try to make it to the cottages.”
Fifteen minutes later, the first of the small houses came into full sight. No lights inside. That could have been because it was off-season, or maybe because it was after midnight.
“For fuck’s sake!” Lon mumbled.
“He’s still back there?” I studied the dark beach behind us. “Shouldn’t you shift back down to your human form? Can’t he see your halo? I can see his.”
“His eyesight and hearing are shit when he’s trans-mutated. It’s our scent—we’re going to have to get rid of it.”
“What? How?”
He looked toward the ocean.
“You’ve got to be joking! We’ve already been walking in the water. Isn’t that enough?”
“Up to our ankles.”
“Lon—”
“You see any people out here who can give us a lift? Any cars you can hot-wire?”
I squinted and desperately searched the row of seemingly empty cottages. “No, no, no,” I whined. “We’ll freeze to death.”
Lon glanced back at Sengal. “I’d rather freeze to death than go back.”
“Can’t we take him?” I suggested. “He can’t be that strong.”
“Strong enough, especially with the two armed men accompanying him.”
I cursed under my breath.
We stumbled across the wet sand until the tide hit our shins. I was already shivering. We walked farther in. The water came up to my knees and lapped at the hem of my dress. Lon sighed dramatically, machismo quickly draining away. “Come on,” he said without fervor. “Count of three.”
“One,” I said, faking a sob.
Without warning, he pulled me forward and plunged me underwater. My protest drowned beneath the icy waves. Salt stung my eyes as my mouth and nose filled with water.
As quickly as we went under, we emerged. As I gasped for air, Lon gurgled, “Quiet!” He was holding one hand up in surrender. I panicked, then realized that he was just holding his cell phone above his head. Smart man.
My entire body shook as we sloshed out of the tide. I pushed dripping hair out of my face. My dress clung to my body like a wet suit as water streamed down over my legs. I held my arms to my chest in a futile attempt to regain warmth.
Was it worth it? Where the hell was Sengal? A fiery halo danced in the distance. I wanted to cry, but I was too cold.
“C-come on.” Lon’s suit squished as he walked, but I could barely hear it over the sound of my teeth knocking together faster and faster. It took all of my willpower to force my cramped muscles to move; I halfheartedly jogged alongside Lon u
ntil we got to the first cottage.
“Around back,” Lon instructed.
We trotted around the side of the tiny house, where packed sand substituted for a green lawn, all of it surrounded by beach shrubs and a low picket fence. An empty paved driveway led up a steep hill to the small street. I became hopeful until I realized that there was nothing there. No streetlights, no cars, no sounds but the ocean. Nothing at all, really. Just cliffs beyond the road, and darkness.
We exited the sandy yard and continued on to the next cottage, only a hundred or so feet away. No car there either. As we plodded past the fourth house, I saw several more ahead of us.
The near-full moon that gave us a small amount of dusky light darkened with cloud cover. A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. We were already cold and wet; a storm on the beach was the last thing I wanted. A streak of lightning cracked near the cliffs ahead.
“Good.” Lon picked up speed to head to the next cottage.
“Good? What’s good about it? If it rains, then we just dove into the ocean for no good reason.”
“That masked our body scent. The rain will wipe our trail.”
Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. I wanted to strangle him, and I hoped like hell he “heard” me; if he did, he didn’t show it. After a few feet, he slowed and headed toward the back of the cottage. A small cypress tree grew in the side of the yard near the driveway. The small beach rental mimicked the old-world storybook architecture back in the Village: wood shingles, gingerbread trim, cheerily painted shutters framing each window. Almost large enough to accommodate a small family of gnomes.
Lon reached over the wiry brush that grew around the house and tried to jimmy the back window open as it thundered again. No luck.
“What if there’s an alarm?” I asked.
“There’s not.” He pounded on the window in demonstration as lightning lit up the night sky. The storm was getting closer. I was betting that Sengal was too.
I shadowed Lon around the side of the cottage, beneath a tiny carport. The door was locked, so he tested the window next to it. The frame protested with a harsh creak, then the window gave way and slid open.
“Hell yeah,” he said with smug grin, pushing the window up as far as it would go. “Come on, I’ll help you.” He held out a hand to me as the sky opened wide and an angry surge of rain fell.
30
“He’s out of range,” Lon said as we stared from behind the curtained window of the cottage. He lowered the blinds and pulled the curtain tight.
Finally. Half an hour had passed while we stood in the dark living room, watching Sengal and his men snake up and down the beach in the thunderstorm. I never would have imagined that shivering from cold and anxiety could be so physically exhausting.
I’d already given the cottage a cursory inspection while we waited. Nothing more than a sparsely furnished living room, open kitchen, one bedroom and bath. And no electricity. Either the storm had killed it, or the rental agency had temporarily shut it off. The house had running water, though it was warm, not hot. “Gas water heater,” Lon had guessed. “Probably on a vacation setting.” The closet door to the water heater was locked, so we couldn’t change it.
Gas water heater, and gas fireplace with tacky fake logs. Now that Lon was certain that Sengal and his goons were long gone, he made a beeline for the fireplace and told me to keep my fingers crossed. I did. It worked.
“Woo hoo!” Instant heat. I’d never been so thankful. We hovered in front of it, trying to get warm. “Is it up as high as it will go?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
I ditched the knitted afghan that I’d stripped from an orange-striped couch. Now that my clothes had soaked through the scratchy yarn, it wasn’t helping my shivering.
“Why don’t you take a shower?” Lon suggested. “It’ll warm you up. We can’t sit around here in sopping wet clothes all night. Are there more towels?”
We’d already used up two of them drying our hair. “Still four more under the sink,” I reported.
“Put your wet clothes outside the bathroom door and I’ll try to rig up something by the fireplace and hang them up to dry,” he said, rubbing his hands together.
“Hey, Lon? What are we going to do?”
He cracked his neck, then started taking off his shoes. “I’ve been thinking about that. There’s a road that leads around the cliffs, but we’re a few miles from one that gets any real traffic. Hitchhiking is a long shot, and we can’t just wander around out there in the storm.”
“Please, no. Your phone?” I asked, remembering that he’d held it out of the water.
“No service.” He glanced down at the coffee table. “We’re at least a couple of miles from the Hellfire caves. The club members usually stay through the night—most people end up passing out around sunrise and leave at noon. If we head back over there after the sun comes up, we can probably sneak our way over to my car while they’re sleeping.”
“What about Jupe?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Holiday are staying in the guest room tonight. I told them I’d be out late. Maybe a little later than I planned, but … what about your charge?”
“Riley? She knows how to use the microwave.”
He nodded, exhaling through his nose. “As far as the talon goes, I figure we can’t just show up at Craig Bailey’s house at this hour anyway. If we can ride this out until morning and get my car, we can go straight over there.”
Thinking that was as good a plan as any, I headed to the bathroom after grabbing a small candle in a glass jar from the kitchen. We had to light it in the fireplace; Lon’s trusty cigarette lighter was sea-logged.
Small hotel soaps and shampoo were stocked inside the bathroom, so I helped myself. The shower halted my shivering until it went cold; I promptly got out at that point. I towel-dried my hair again. No comb or brush. At least I’d warmed up. I wrapped myself in a second towel and gathered up the candle
The rain pattered on the roof of the small cottage as I made my way down the cramped hall to the living room. Lon had removed two sofa cushions; he sat on one in front of the fireplace, huddled to the neck inside the blanket he’d stripped off the bed. He was nothing but a mass of damp golden brown waves poking out from the top.
Our shoes sat together on the hearth beside his pocket-knife, my silver bangle bracelet, and the car keys from my pocket. Wet clothes dangled down from the mantel, held in place by small stacks of books. My bra and panties hung from two nails like Christmas stockings. Lovely, I thought with a ripple of embarrassment.
Lon had washed the Hellfire Club’s red mark from his forehead. He’d also reverted to his normal form. No more horns, no fiery halo … no more reading my thoughts. I set the candle down on the hearth and smiled as he looked up at me.
“What?” he asked.
“I used up all the hot water, sorry.”
He grunted. “What else?”
“Is that the real reason you were kicked out of the seminary? You said one of the teachers suspected you were a demon—did someone see you in your transmutated form? Humans can see your horns, right?”
His cheeks were ruddy from the fire. He gave me a devilish grin.
“Uh-huh. No wonder you got booted. That makes more sense now.”
He motioned toward the floor beside him. “I found another blanket.”
Not a scratchy one, much to my relief. I draped it over my shoulders. He politely kept his eyes down, so I shimmied out of the wet towel beneath it. Much better. I kicked away the towel and plopped down on the cushion next to him.
“They took my deflector charm,” I said.
“I’m sorry. I might be able to get it back for you later.”
I nodded, but we both knew it meant that I was now open to magical attack. At least Jupe was far away from me right now, safe at home; I wondered if Lon was thinking the same thing.
“So,” I said. “Are you mad at me again?”
He narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously. “Should I be?”
&n
bsp; “I thought you might be because of what started all this. The incubus incident.”
His face relaxed. “That sounds like a bad movie, and no. But what happened?”
I drew my knees up to my chest under the blanket. “I have no idea.” I explained the strange event as best I could and he was equally puzzled.
“Maybe something in that particular room?” he suggested.
“Like a vein of alien metal running through the walls? Some sort of antikryptonite?”
He shrugged. “Vermilion? Or maybe gypsum?”
“No, that wouldn’t be it.”
“Some other kind, a magical moon rock for the Moon-girl?”
“Moonchild, not Moongirl.” I propped my forearms on my knees and rested my chin on them. “I definitely think I should be concerned, but at this point, I don’t have the strength to care anymore. My life is in total disarray. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.” I lazily watched the gas flames lick at the ceramic logs. “I’m just glad you’re not angry.”
“If anyone’s to blame for tonight, it’s me, for hauling you over to that damn place. I should’ve just gone by myself like I originally planned.”
I sniffled and wiped my nose as the fire loosened my sinuses. “Why did you bring me?”
It took him a while to answer, but I didn’t rush him. “I wanted to know how you’d react to me transmutating. And, more selfishly, I wanted to experience you from that perspective.”
Embarrassment flared through me as I remembered all the random thoughts he overheard.
“Stop. It was … nice.”
I scrunched up my face and turned to look at him. “Nice, huh?” It was his favorite word.
“I liked the way you saw me.” His eyes darted toward mine as he stretched out his legs until his toes peeked out from the edge of the blanket. “Yvonne never saw me that way.”
“I’m sorry.”
He grunted and shook his head once, as if it was of little consequence. “As much as she keeps coming up, I want you to know that I am over her. If it weren’t for Jupe—well, it’s just harder to work through issues with him in the picture.” His toes curled and flexed several times in succession.
