Demon Hunting In Dixie

by Lexi George

  Addy glared at him. “You wouldn’t understand. Go away. It’s a great big planet with lots of foliage. Go find your own tree.”

  “No.”

  “What’s that, dear?”

  “I-uh-said I’m rescuing a kitten, Miss Mamie.”

  No sooner had the words left her mouth than Addy heard a soft mewl. A fluffy white kitten with blue eyes and orange markings scrabbled down the tree and crawled into her lap. The kitten purred and began to make biscuits, punching holes in Addy’s skirt with its sharp little claws.

  She stared at the fur ball in her lap. She said “kitten” and one showed up. How freakazoid was that?

  “That so?” Miss Mamie sounded disappointed. No doubt she expected something a bit more out of left field from the Flying Cat Lady’s great niece. “Shall I call the fire department?”

  “N-no. I think I can handle it.”

  “You’ve got your young man with you. I’m sure he knows how to handle it.”

  With an irritating titter, the old lady shuffled away.

  “You are angry with me,” Brand said.

  Addy stroked the velvety top of the kitten’s head with the tip of her finger. Still purring, the kitten curled up in her lap and went to sleep. “No, you think?”

  “What have I done to make you wroth with me?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Certainly I will not understand if you do not explain it to me.”

  Addy sighed. “Look, bub, let’s say we’re from different worlds and leave it at that. Go away. This tree ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

  “I will not leave you, so it would be more logical if you told me what I have done to distress you.”

  “This is my home. You let people think that we . . . that I . . .” Her face went hot. She waved her arms around. “And we haven’t. If we had . . . um, you know what I mean, that’s not something to share with anybody and everybody. I sure as shoot don’t talk about my sex life on the street! I own a business in this town. I have roots here. I have to live here after you sail off to Valhalla or Hunky Warriorsville or wherever it is you live. And I have my family to think of. I don’t want them hurt by idle gossip.”

  Admit it Addy, she scolded herself, you don’t want to be hurt. You’ve never felt this way before, and it scares the crap out of you.

  “I am sorry if I hurt you, Adara. I assure you it was not my intention. It is not my nature to dissemble, particularly when it comes to my desire for you. I want you. I have lived a long time—a very long time—and I have never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

  “You see, that’s part of the problem. You’re a ten-thousand-year-old demon hunter, and I’m a small-town girl with a flower shop. We have nothing in common. We’re apples and oranges on a great big galactic scale, which makes us big apples and oranges. Planet-sized apples and oranges, with our own moons and—”

  “Adara, you digress.”

  “Yeah, I digress.” She felt like crying. “So I think it would be better for both of us if we said toodle-loo.”

  “I do not understand this toodle-loo.”

  “It means good-bye, so long, see you later, pal.”

  “You do not want me?”

  “No.”

  “Little liar.” He jerked her into his arms. With a meow of protest, the kitten slid into Brand’s lap. “I can feel your heat.”

  He kissed her. Again. The guy sure needed to work on his conflict resolution skills . . . or maybe not.

  Addy sighed and gave herself up to the hot ecstasy of his mouth. He had a little heat of his own. Sort of like a supernova. Maybe she was the teensiest bit of a liar. She wanted him. Big time. She was royally ticked off with the guy, and she still wanted him. She’d known him less than a day, and she wanted to monkey hump him in a tree—on Main Street, for Pete’s sake— that’s how much she wanted him. If she was a superhero, she’d be Super Slut Puppy able to leap a guy’s bones in a single bound, wearing a cape and nothing else, ’cause Super Slut Puppy was always ready for action.

  He dragged his mouth away from hers. Tangling his hands in her hair, he bent her head back. “You want me, Adara. Look me in the eye and say it. Tell me you want me. Tell me I do not burn alone.”

  “I won’t! Because this is going nowhere, and I refuse to have my heart smashed into itty bitty pieces by Conan the Demon-Chaser dude.”

  “Conan is a fictional character. Mistress Evie told me. I am quite real, I promise you.”

  “But what else can you promise me? Can you promise if I sleep with you it won’t be wham bam, thank you, ma’am?”

  “Are you asking me in your somewhat perplexing fashion if I will stay with you?”

  Yeah, that’s what she was asking. She’d known the guy less than a day, and already she was making demands. She ought to laugh the whole thing off, pretend it was a joke. That would be the cool thing to do. But she was a small-town girl, not sophisticated or worldly. She wanted Brand with an intensity that frightened her. It all happened so fast. It had to be hormones, right? What else could it be? The scary four-letter “L” word flashed through her mind. No way. Still, one night of passion with Brand or a few precious stolen moments weren’t going to be enough. Addy knew it in her bones. If she gave herself to this man, she would never be the same.

  Pride urged her to pretend she didn’t care. She raised her chin. She would not play games. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I’m asking.”

  “I will not lie to you, Adara. I do not know if I can stay. Sexual congress with humans is forbidden the Dalvahni. For ten thousand years, the way of the warrior is all I have known. I do not know the consequences if I break my vows. To my knowledge, it has not been done.” He raised her hand and brushed her palm with his lips. A shiver of longing danced down her spine. “Yet break them I will, for given the choice of forsaking my warrior’s vows and not knowing your sweetness, I choose you. For however long we have together, I choose you.” His voice darkened to that smoky timbre that melted her bones and left her a panting little mess. “Choose me, little one. I beg you, choose me.”

  Addy sighed. The man had her at such a disadvantage. Sign her up for a room at Heart Break Hotel, ’cause here she came barreling down Ruination Highway at breakneck speed.

  “How can I possibly stay mad at you when you talk like that?”

  Brand’s eyes darkened. Wowza, talk about your hot looks. And she thought Mama was a thermonuclear device. Oh, Lord, she was a goner.

  “Adara,” Brand said. He reached for her. “I—”

  “Climbing trees at your age, brother?” A familiar and annoying voice came from below.

  Addy almost fell off the branch. Brand draped an arm across her shoulders to steady her. “I do what I have to in pursuit of the djegrali, Ansgar.”

  “I see no demons.” Ansgar arched a brow at them, an affectation Addy was starting to hate. “All I see is a certain bothersome female dangling from a branch of this rather impressive woody perennial.”

  Bothersome? Of all the nerve.

  “I have a name, Blondy. It’s Addy. Wear yourself out using it, why don’t you?”

  Evie stepped in front of Ansgar, an anxious expression on her face. “Addy, are you all right? We went to the funeral home, but you were gone. I’ve been so worried about you.”

  Good old Evie, Addy thought warmly. She found Addy playing patty-cake in a tree with Captain Orgasm, and no odd looks or smart-ass remarks, nothing but genuine concern for Addy’s well-being. What a keeper.

  Addy leaped out of the tree and onto the sidewalk. Brand landed beside her, the kitten clinging to his shoulder.

  “I’m fine, Evie, though it has been a strange morning. I guess you heard about Mr. Farris? Somebody took his body. Mrs. Farris and Bessie Mae had a throwdown at Corwin’s. I thought Mama and Shep were going to die. Mrs. Farris seems to think Bessie Mae snatched ol’ Dwight for a little farewell hokey-pokey, but I don’t know. If you ask me, Shirley’s the one gone round the bend. She cut off Mr. Farr
is’s mister and put it in a Ziploc, like it was last night’s meat loaf. Eww, forget I said that. Bad analogy. Waved it around at the funeral home, hollering about de-germing the thing. Sca-ary.”

  Addy didn’t know what she expected, but she sure as heck expected something. Life in Hannah proceeded at a pace roughly that of a snail on sticky fly paper. Orin Schneider’s two-headed calf and Lorraine Bradberry’s prize-winning squash casserole were big news in Hannah. On the juicy tidbit scale, the scene at the funeral parlor was a ten. It darn sure wasn’t every day a widow sliced off her husband’s cock-a-doodle-doo and stuffed it in a press-and-seal. But, Evie didn’t say anything. She stared at Addy all googly-eyed, like she’d grown another head or something.

  “Something wrong, Evie?”

  “Addy, you jumped out of the tree.”

  “Yeah, well a dress and heels are not what I call climbing clothes.”

  “You were twenty feet up.”

  “What? No way.”

  She turned and looked at the tree. There, that mossy branch high above with the crook in it, like a giant’s elbow. That was where she and Brand were sitting. Addy blinked in confusion. Twenty feet, at least, maybe more. She’d jumped from a height of a two-story building onto pavement, and the bottoms of her feet didn’t even sting. She should be dead or at the very least have a broken bone. Several, in fact. The day’s bizarre events played through her head. The platinum-blond hair she’d mysteriously acquired above and below deck, the rapid and remarkable improvement in her vision, and the disappearance of decades-old scars, along with the instantaneous healing of her slightest boo-boo. The timely and glorious pimply retribution visited upon the Death Starr’s munchkin-size ass, not to mention the F-22 Raptor fighter jet trip she’d taken that morning from the flower shop to the funeral home. She tried to process it all, but her brain seemed to have turned to mush and her legs felt noodly. She swayed.

  Brand caught her. “Easy, little one.”

  “Brand, what have you done to me?”

  “I told you, Adara. We exchanged essences.”

  “You keep saying that, but what does it mean?”

  “I will tell you what it means.” Ansgar’s usually cool, unruffled voice held a note of irritation, or anger, perhaps. “It means my brother has done the forbidden. Broken his vows and called down untold retribution upon his head to save you. I hope you are worth it, human, although, to be precise, the term ‘human’ no longer applies to you.”

  Addy bristled. Boy, Prince Flaxen Fart got under her skin with his sneering manner and condescending “I am so much better than you my poop don’t stink” tone. “Spit it out, Blondy. What are you trying to say?”

  “It means that in saving your miserable hide Brand has given you a portion of his powers and immortality,” Ansgar said. “It means, Adara Jean Corwin, you are no longer human.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Addy chuckled. “Not human? You on something, Blondy?” She looked at Brand. “Hear that? Your buddy thinks I’m not human. What a maroon. Reckon he got him some of Dinky’s cow pie mushrooms?”

  Brand’s impassive expression did not change. Jeez, the guy was a real heartbreaker, but he seriously needed to develop a sense of humor.

  “Ansgar is not intoxicated,” he said. “The Dalvahni are impervious to the effects of alcohol and drugs. We cannot get drunk like lesser species. To answer your question, Ansgar is not under the influence of a mind-altering substance. And I must remind you, Adara, that you fabricated the entire ‘bovine dung fungi’ story to appease the mama.”

  “Yeah, well, I—”

  “Ansgar is correct. Strictly speaking, you are no longer human.”

  Addy snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “If you will remember, I told you this morning when I pleasured you—”

  Whoosh, all the blood rushed to Addy’s face. Pleasured her? Stuck his hand up her skirt and made her sing notes only dogs could hear, that’s what he did. “Hold it right there,” she said. “Not another word, or so help me . . .”

  “—that we merged and that you received some of my powers,” Brand finished.

  “Yeah, but I thought it was temporary,” she wailed. “Like a rash or something.”

  “No, Adara, the change is permanent. You are part Dalvahni and part human. We have already discussed this.”

  “And you thought I believed you? Who could believe something like that? That’s nuts.”

  Brand seemed to contemplate this statement. After a moment, he nodded. “I think I understand. This is an expression of your confusion with the situation, and not a reference to a large, hard-shelled seed or the ancient Egyptian goddess of the sky.”

  “Huh?”

  “The circumstances are unusual, Adara.” His patient tone set Addy’s teeth on edge. “Naturally, you are somewhat bewildered.”

  “Bewildered? You’ve turned me into some kind of mutant freak, and you tell me it’s okay if I’m bewildered? You’ve got a talent for understatement, bub.” Addy pointed to her face. “Do you see this? This is not a bewildered face. Oh, no. This is a seriously pissed-off face.” She poked Brand in his broad, muscled chest. “Kind of goes with the rest of me that would love to kick your gorgeous Dalvahni ass all the way from here to Canada.”

  Evie gave a little gasp. “Addy, lower your voice. You said the ‘a’ word on the street. If your mama finds out you been cussing in public, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “What do you think Mama’s going to do when she finds out I’ve gone and changed species without her permission? Talk about a hissy fit!”

  “Calm yourself, Adara,” Brand said. “You are upset.”

  “You bet your bippy I’m upset.” Addy’s voice rose. “I’m Mount Vesuvius, and I’m fixing to go Pompeii on your ass.”

  “Addy.” Evie’s whisper was anguished. “You said it again.”

  “Ass, ass, ass! Double ass, triple ass, horse’s ass. I don’t care. You hear me, Evie?” She was losing it, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. Suddenly, all the steam went out of her, and she groaned and dropped her face in her hands. “Oh, my God, did you hear what I said?”

  “Sure, Addy, I heard you.” Evie darted a worried look over her shoulder. “I’m pretty sure folks clear down to the Baptist church heard you. You said ass. Like a bunch of times.”

  Addy lifted her head. “Not that, Evie. I said bippy. Nobody says bippy anymore except Bitsy. It’s bad enough I’m a mutant. Now I’m channeling my mother.”

  Evie put her arms around her and gave her a quick hug. “Get a grip, Addy. I know you’re upset, but you’ve got bigger problems.”

  Addy raised her head to stare at her friend. “Evie, I just found out we’re not the same species. What could be worse than that?”

  “I saw Dwight Farris this morning.”

  “You did? Where?”

  “At the shop.”

  Addy wrinkled her nose. “Gross, somebody left a corpse at the shop? That’s great. I’ll have to de-cootie the whole place. And how am I going to explain this to the police?” Her eyes widened. “Or my mother? She’ll think I had something to do with it. Oh, man, I am so dead.”

  Evie put her hands on Addy’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. “You’ve got to listen to me, Addy. Mr. Farris wasn’t in the shop. He was at the shop. I saw him standing on the sidewalk peering through the front window. You hear me, Addy? There’s a dead guy running around town, and I’m pretty sure he’s looking for you.”

  Addy’s mouth dropped open. Guck, to borrow one from Bessie Mae. Double guck.

  Brand turned to Evie. “Mistress Evie, you are certain the creature you saw was the Farris human?”

  “It was him,” Evie said. “I’m sure of it. Eyeballed me right through the shop window.” She shuddered. “He looked real bad, Addy. All pasty and stiff and creepy, like something out of a movie.”

  “WHA-A-A-A-T?” Addy screeched, regaining the use of her tongue. “THERE’S A DEAD GUY LOOKING FOR ME? I HATE DEAD GUYS!”


  Brand and Ansgar winced, and Evie covered her ears. Pop, pop. Two nearby street lamps exploded in a shower of frosted glass. Addy heard an ominous crack as the glazed plate glass windows along the front of the Hannah Pharmacy cracked down the middle.

  There went another of Mama’s rules, busted all to hell and back. A lady did not raise her voice in public. A lady’s voice should be a soft, dulcet caress upon the ear, as languid and cool as a slow-winding stream, as pleasing to the senses as the sound of the wind playing through the blossom-heavy branches of a dogwood in spring. A lady did not yowl like a cat in heat or wail like a busted firehouse siren.

  “Why would Old Man Farris be looking for me?” She lowered her voice with an effort. “If he’s mad about . . . you know . . . he needs to take it up with Shirley. I don’t have his weenie.”

  “Calm yourself, Adara, the being you knew as Dwight Farris is no more,” Brand said. “In all likelihood, the creature Mistress Evie saw was a demon, the same djegrali, no doubt, that marked you.”

  Ansgar nodded. “My thoughts exactly, brother.”

  “Is that your way of trying to make me feel better? ’Cause if it is, I got to tell you it sucks.” Addy raised her hand to her forehead. “Whew, I feel lightheaded. Probably has something to do with finding out I’ve got a starring role in Night of the Living Deweenered Dead.”

  “You need to eat.” Brand took her by the arm. “You are not fully recovered from the djegrali attack or the transmutation you have undergone, and you have further weakened yourself by engaging your new powers. Where is the nearest pub or hostel where we can obtain sustenance?”

  Evie pointed down the street. “The Sweet Shop is down the block that a-ways. They serve the best BBQ in town and fried chicken that’ll make you want to slap yo’ mama.”

  Brand raised his brows. “A strange custom, especially in view of the apprehension with which Adara views the matriarchal vessel.”

  “She doesn’t mean my mother, Brand,” Addy said. “God, that would be like suicidal.”

  “Ah, I see.” Brand gave a nod of understanding. “Mistress Evie peppers her speech with strange sayings and colorful phrases in the same manner you do. Tell me, what is the meaning of this BBQ?”