by Angie Fox
Maybe I was lucky enough to have nobody looking out their back windows. Or maybe they'd think I was eccentric. I didn't care at the moment.
The portal began crackling to life once more. I stayed where I was. It was too late to jump in. No. Now was the time to deal with who or what might come out.
I drew a switch star.
Please don't let her come back evil.
I really didn't want to slay the little blonde she-demon.
The energy expanded, going from orange to the color of blood. Then Shiloh burst through, running like a sprinter. She was actually on top of the water for a few seconds. Her eyes blazed red. Her hair was a mass of tangles. Her teeth had sharpened to razor points, and cripes—she had a double set. The ocean roiled around her. The portal snapped and hissed.
She ran straight for me.
She was crazed, wild. My fingers tightened on the handles of my switch star. I didn't want to use it, but I'd aim for the head if she attacked.
"Run! Run! Run!" she hollered, grabbing my hand.
What the—?
Her grip was like iron, her strength astounding as she dragged me away from the portal and onto the beach.
"What's coming?" I demanded, craning my neck to see, loath to turn my back on an opening to God-knew-where.
The portal crackled and began to fall in on itself. The energy suctioned at my very life force, like a black hole collapsing. We kept running as the gateway was swallowed by the waves.
Hell, it might have disintegrated altogether.
Shiloh released my hand and collapsed onto the sand, frazzled. Her hair was fried. Her skin flushed orange. At least her eyes had returned to a somewhat muted blue. She was back.
Mostly.
I half fell, half sat next to her.
I was wet and freezing and had sand in places I'd rather not think about. I sheathed my switch star, but kept a hand on it, just in case. "What happened?"
She blinked a few times, keeping watch on where we'd last seen the portal. She flexed her jaw and, yep, she had a double row of sharp dagger teeth. "The portal sucked me in and I popped up in the middle of some guy's office." Shock filled her voice, even as she spoke with a hiss and a lisp. "He was at his desk. Sleeping." She was shaking as badly as me. "He woke up and flipped out on me."
I supposed a stranger coming through a portal could incite that kind of a reaction. And Shiloh certainly didn't look like her usual alluring self, even to full humans. I was sure of it.
Okay. I shoved my frazzled brain into thinking mode. "Did you recognize him?"
With supreme effort, she forced her talons and teeth to retract. "Ow," she said to herself. She waved a hand in front of her face, fighting the sting. "No. He had dark hair. Tall. He had dark powers. Tasty ones. But then he had light ones, too. It didn't mix. It almost tasted like"—she tried to think—"oranges," she finally said. "Oranges and toothpaste."
I'd fought a lot of baddies, but I'd never had a bite of that. "What'd you do when he saw you?"
She used both hands to smooth her hair, to get a grip. "I thought about going out the window, but it was a window on the inside of a building."
Maybe she'd remembered wrong. "That doesn't make sense."
"I know." Her eyes locked on the place where we'd last seen the portal.
The portal remained still, inert. Shiloh's panic flared. "What will I do if he reports me? I don't want to be enslaved to a master demon anymore. I mean, he wasn't a demon master, but I could tell he knows one. Maybe more. I could feel it on him. Oh my gosh. Damien had a terrible time killing the last one." She gripped me by the upper arms. "That portal tasted so yummy. Even with that goody-two-shoes toothpaste flavor." She flung herself off me. "Oh, I am such a horrible person."
"Okay. Look," I said, needing her to get a grip. "Nothing's coming after you." I glanced back at the ocean. Yet.
I staggered to my feet.
"Flappy!" I called up to the dragon. He reluctantly turned from his vigil at the sliding glass door. "Flappy! I need you."
"Come on," I said to Shiloh, giving her a hand up.
The dragon moaned. Like the put-upon adolescent he was, Flappy took to the air and landed with a huff and a spray of sand.
"Guard the portal," I told him.
He yowled and looked back at the town house with the tasty fenris inside.
"Do it," I ordered.
Flappy ker-snuffled and set about positioning himself on the beach, right where the joggers usually liked to run. I let him stay there. It was rare for a non-magical person to collide with Flappy. More often than not, full humans would sense something in the air and detour around him. And if they didn't? Well, I had other problems.
Shiloh stood droop-shouldered, both arms crossed in front of her chest. "I'm a good girl," she said to me. I could tell she didn't quite believe it. She began repeating it to herself, "I'm a good girl. I'm a good girl."
"You are," I said, ushering her up off the beach. The portal was still dark. "There's nothing following you. And if something does come through, Flappy will let us know. He's the best guard dragon around," I added, hoping I wasn't adding to her worries—or stretching the truth too much. "Let's get back to the house."
She didn't resist at all as I got her to the house and into some dry clothes. My bathrobe and sweats didn't fit her at all, but she'd freaked out a little when I'd tried to give her leather pants.
"I need to calm down," she said as I deposited her on our living room couch. "Do you have any yarn and some needles? Oh! Yarn and needles!" Before I could react, she'd already begun scrambling for her yellow bag. "I think I have some." She tossed out a bunch of alfalfa, which got the fenris howling. "I always carry yarn for emergencies." She tossed out Kleenex, breath mints, and more lipsticks than I even owned. They clanked all over my kitchen floor. "Aha!" She drew out a skein the size of my head.
I watched her retreat to the couch. "Knitting?" I asked, as she tied off a knot and loaded up her needle. In the meantime, I unwrapped the alfalfa and tossed it to the fenris. I also picked up Shiloh's purse contents from the floor.
She perched on the edge of a cushion, furiously working yarn around the needle. "Oh my God, Lizzie," she said, "I liked it. What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing." Thank heaven. We'd dodged a bullet. "I shouldn't have asked you to get so close to a bad portal." At least we learned something.
She gave me a wide-eyed look of horror. "If you let me, I'd turn around. I'd walk straight back into it." She shivered. "How am I going to tell Damien?"
"Do you want me to call him?" Maybe he'd know how to help her. He'd pulled her over from their side in the first place.
"No," she started knitting furiously. "I'm a good girl. Besides, Damien is down in purgatory. He can't tell me more than that. Probably because I'm so evil. Damn it." She dropped a stitch as her hands began to glow orange.
Yikes. I eased down next to her. We didn't need Shiloh losing control. Chances were, Damien did some work that could put her in danger if she knew the details. I wanted to tell her that it would probably be the same for any wife, but I wasn't sure that was true. After all, I told my spouse everything. I settled for the truth as I knew it. "Damien loves you." We'd work out the rest.
She huffed out a nervous response while she attempted to smooth her hair with a shaking hand. "I'm just a little freaked out right now. Knitting helps me cope." She resumed her furious attack on the yarn. "Would you like me to knit you something? I can make you an afghan, or a scarf, or a poncho—or maybe you and Dimitri want matching vests?"
"Whatever you do best." I'd wear knit mukluks if it would keep her sane.
I heard the front door open. "Dimitri?" I called. I sure hoped it was him.
"Yeah," he said, still shirtless as he entered from the hallway. He stopped cold when he saw us. "Are you two all right?"
I glanced at the she-demon. "I think so."
"I'm knitting," Shiloh said.
"Sure," he said, eyeing me for an explanation. "Wh
at do we have on the portal?"
"Shiloh went in." As for the rest, "I think we should let her tell you."
"It led to an office in this dimension," she said quickly. "I don't even think it was far." Shiloh hunched her shoulders and worked faster. "That's what's so strange. It's coming from northeast of here. All that yummy dark power. I could probably even be there in twenty minutes. But I'm not going to," she added, with way too much forced cheer.
Wow. "I can't feel it," I said. It could be that it was too far away. Maybe Shiloh was more sensitive than me. "Can you think of anything specific that could give us a location?"
Shiloh shook her head. She already had about four inches of pink and orange and yellow knitted. "There was a flask on the desk. I stay away from vices. I'm a good girl."
I tried to tune in and failed. She hadn't given me much to go on.
"We should be okay," Shiloh said, refusing to look up from her knitting. "There wasn't anything Egyptian in there."
"I'm not following," Dimitri said.
Shiloh kept at it. "No temple of the moon. No tombs. No line in the sand."
"And those things are bad," I said, trying to understand where she was going.
She shuddered. "Very." She glanced up at me, afraid. "I shouldn't even be telling you. But before you burned up all the sex demons in Vegas, they were working with a really powerful demon. They were feeding him power, and wow, it was intoxicating the way he was growing stronger."
Dimitri stood over her. "In what way?" he pressed.
Shiloh swallowed, intimidated. She crushed her work in her hands and didn't even notice. "It was changing our vibration as a group. We could feel him all the time." She shook her head. "We weren't the only ones. There were others. Again, we could feel it." She said it as if sensing demonic creatures were as natural as knowing a family member was in the next room. "If and when he gathered enough soul ties to rise up," she said, squaring her shoulders, "we were going be rewarded quite generously."
I wasn't sure I was following. "What do you mean soul ties?"
Shiloh bit her lip. "They didn't let me do it. Not that I would have. I'm only a half born. But I think they get mortals"—she took a deep breath—"people to bind part of themselves to the demon."
"Voluntarily?" Dimitri asked, as if he couldn't imagine it.
I couldn't either. "What was the demon going to reward you with?" I asked. "People?"
"Oh, no." She looked from Dimitri to me, as if she were afraid of how we'd see her, that we wouldn't understand. "Black souls," she said, meekly.
I exchanged a glance with Dimitri. Black souls were trapped spirits—too bad for heaven, too good for hell. The demons would capture them and use them. These were nasty entities. But still human. Some could even be redeemed. I could see why they'd be quite tasty to succubi.
"You don't hate me, do you?" Shiloh asked.
I wasn't crazy about her past. Or what she was. But, "We get that you're on our side," I told her. "It's your husband's side too, right?" Not only had she turned her life around, she'd probably broken some dark code by telling us what she had.
Dimitri sat next to her. "How did you learn about the signs?"
She winced. "We wanted to know when the dark lord would come. He forbade it, of course. But patience was never one of our nest's virtues," Shiloh added quickly. "Our second in command had the gift of sight. It's rare." She gave an embarrassed laugh. "Succubi tend to live in the moment." She shook off her rumination. "Anyway, our seer looked into the future said the demon's rise would come to pass with the appearance of a fenris on Earth, a temple reborn, and from the power generated from the tomb." She looked from me to Dimitri. "Still, we can't get too carried away. I mean, a fenris is just a fenris, right?"
Dimitri studied her.
Her eyes took on a reddish hue. "It's not Babydoll's fault she's here."
"Hey," I told her. "Relax. We're not going to do anything to Babydoll." Unless she tried to eat someone.
Dimitri didn't look so convinced. He stood. "Let's check it out. We'll head northeast and see what we find."
"Agreed." We'd better hope we didn't uncover any temples, or tombs, or other kind of trouble. I was still trying to wrap my head around it. I mean, "Northeast of here, that's Beverly Hills." Land of building codes and round-the-clock security. Designer shops and mega-mansions.
What could go wrong there?
Chapter Six
"Are you going to be okay, here by yourself?" I asked the she-demon. Most of her second row of teeth had retracted and she'd stopped glowing. That had to be a positive sign.
She gave me a long look before hastily gathering up her knitting. "I've been through a lot worse." She lowered her hand and began a new row of stitches.
I didn't doubt it. "Fine. I'm going to go get ready, then."
While Dimitri scrounged up a shirt, I changed into a dry pair of black leather pants with a matching bustier—all the better for butt kicking—and added silver dagger earrings and a chainmail choker that Grandma had given me as a wedding gift. My usual black work boots were soaking wet, so I slipped on a pair of higher-heeled ones that zipped up past my knees. Sexy. My hair was drying into crinkles from the salt water, but there was nothing to be done about it. I brushed it out and looked forward to covering it with a motorcycle helmet.
When I came back downstairs, Shiloh had two more inches of knitting done, and had also gained a dog in her lap. Pirate curled up with his head under her arm.
"Pirate," I said, half expecting him to ignore me, "are you sure you're not intruding?"
His head popped up. "This is called up-close guarding."
More like needy dog syndrome.
"He's fine," Shiloh said, reaching down to stroke him between the ears. "And I like how comfy he is in my lap. When I hold my hellhound, it's like having an electric blanket going."
"Gotcha." Not that I'd ever touched a hellhound. They were damned creatures, after all. But I did hear they ran warmer than most animals, seeing as hell was so frigid. "We shouldn't be gone more than a few hours," I said, making sure I had my keys. "I'm going to have my grandma check on you."
Shiloh gasped. Her back went ramrod straight. "The biker witch? She's not going to smite me, is she?"
"No," I said quickly. "Relax. You're my guest." If anything, Grandma might come bearing a spell to settle Shiloh's nerves. I'd have to tell her to leave her flask at home.
"The worst has to be over, right?" Shiloh said, glancing toward the beach. She gathered Pirate in her arms and began stroking him. Hard.
"Oh yeah." He leaned back into her. "Now get my ears."
He was such a shameless hussy.
I double-checked my weapons. "If something comes out of that portal, blast it. Or run. Do whatever works for you."
She nodded, and I took comfort in the fact that her incisors looked a little less pointy.
"Don't worry," Pirate said, giving her access to the soft furry spot under his neck. "I'll watch her. I'm a better guard dog than that thing in there." He cocked his head at the fenris, who lay on her back, legs straight up, sleeping.
I hated to leave the she-demon here. Alone. But Shiloh had fought her dark side with strength and courage. And it wasn't as if we could ask our neighbor Sarayh.
How sad was it when I counted a semi-evil succubus as my best dog-sitting option?
"Call us if you need us," I said. "There's food in the fridge. You have my cell."
As if on cue, my hunky husband sauntered down the stairs looking particularly handsome in black pants and a pink button-down dress shirt.
"You're going to wear that on a motorcycle," I said, more impressed than questioning.
He grinned. "I've worn this while fighting an ogre."
"I don't think I've heard that story yet," I said, kissing him on the cheek. Grandma was right. He'd never fully conform to biker witch standards. I slid my arms around him and leaned into him, enjoying his solid presence. "You ready to head out?" We had to learn where that da
rkness was coming from, and hopefully, what was behind it.
"I'm yours," he said, holding me close, his chin resting on my head. He held me like that for a moment and we simply enjoyed each other. He broke away first, a rueful twist to his lips. "Let's go."
***
We fired up our Harleys and headed for the 405. It gave us the most direct northeast route. Cars and trucks crowed five lanes of solid traffic, but I didn't feel anything else off-putting as we drove through West Los Angeles and exited at the Santa Monica.
As we inched through the city, sparse vegetation and fast-food joints gave way to towering palms and high-end shops.
I'd only been down this way once before, in search of a doggy salon for Pirate.
It hadn't gone well.
In the first few years I had Pirate, he went all the time to get his hair done and his nails clipped. But now that he could talk—and give his opinions on scented soap and rhinestone collars—that took some of the fun out of it.
Maybe Shiloh could talk him into a paw-dicure.
She'd better not teach him how to knit.
I shook my head as I slowed for a stoplight. My rational mind still couldn't quite believe that I'd left a she-demon back at our place, not to mention a dragon guarding a portal and a fenris chained to my fridge. At least the dragon had stopped nosing up my windows. I gripped my handlebars tighter and ignored the smell of exhaust from the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Sure, Shiloh wanted to be good, but still, I'd brought a creature of darkness into the neighborhood and told her to make herself at home. Her clothes were in my washing machine, probably on the spin cycle by now.
I went ahead and called Grandma's cell while we waited for a red light. It went straight to voice mail, so I left her a message telling her where we were headed, and asking her to check in on my guest.
The traffic opened up a bit near Century Park West and that's when I started feeling it—a pinging against my demon slayer senses. It had nothing to do with the ten-dollar latte bars or the woman in the lane next to me, wearing an all-gold jumpsuit. I sensed a shift on a spiritual level.
