Demon Hunting In Dixie

by Lexi George

  Muddy twiddled her fingers at Brand. “See you later, Mr. Dalvahni.” She scooted up to Addy. “Enjoy your dance, darling,” she whispered. “That fellow of yours is positively scrumptious. Uh uh uh, take a whole loaf of bread to sop that up, if you know what I mean.”

  She knew exactly what she meant, but Muddy was wrong. Brand was at least a two-loafer.

  Muddy gave them another finger wave, and moved off with Mr. C. The orchestra began another waltz, and Brand took her in his arms. He was an excellent dancer, much better than she. That wasn’t saying much since she was born with two left feet. When she was thirteen, she nearly gave Mr. Fancher, the club dance instructor, a nervous breakdown during cotillion classes. He’d finally pronounced her hopeless.

  “So, tell me, where does a demon hunter learn to waltz?”

  He smiled down at her. Thwack! Instant brain freeze. The guy smiled at her, and she turned into a woozy floozy, a total doof.

  “The Dalvahni, of necessity, have many abilities that enable us to move from place to place and among differing races and species in pursuit of the djegrali. We are highly adaptable and learn quickly. I watched you dance with the Pootie human and picked up the steps.”

  He twirled her around to demonstrate.

  “Just like that, you learned to waltz?”

  He shrugged. “It is not hard. And I had excellent motivation.” His arm tightened around her waist. “As I was saying, Adara, I have been doing some thinking and I—”

  “There’s Evie. Let’s go talk to her.”

  Grabbing him by the hand, she dragged him off the dance floor.

  She threw her arms around her friend. “Evie, you look absolutely beautiful.”

  Evie hugged her back, her cheeks pink. “Thanks, babe. You, too.”

  Ansgar gave Addy a haughty bow. “Evangeline is correct. You are lovely tonight, Adara.”

  She dimpled at him. “Thanks, Blondy. You don’t clean up so bad yourself.”

  Addy studied him through her lashes. Like Brand, Blondy was very handsome in his evening duds. Brand was dark and brooding and dangerous, the perennial bad boy. In contrast, Ansgar was as cool and remote as a snow-capped mountain, unruffled and still, as full of hidden depths as an underground lake. He was always glacial, but tonight he seemed positively frosty. Probably sulking because Evie danced with Trey. She stole a glance at Evie. The voluptuous redhead in the revealing gown was an alien creature. Since puberty, Evie had been riddled with insecurity, hiding her body under baggy clothes, changing in the bathroom stall during P.E., and refusing to be seen, even by Addy, in shorts or a bathing suit. The teasing Evie endured from Meredith and her cronies made things worse, convincing her she was fat and unattractive. The joke was on the Death Starr, however, because girlfriend was stacked, a glamorous old-time pinup girl with large breasts, a tiny waist, and generous, curving hips. And inside all that voluptuousness was a loving, generous heart, not a dried-up prune like the undersized organ that beat inside Meredith’s narrow chest.

  And Blondy was behind this remarkable Cinderella transformation. The green gown fit Evie like a dream. No way she got that gown in Hannah. Ansgar and a generous dose of Dalvahni woo-woo were responsible, Addy suspected. But, the real magic he’d worked was in giving Evie the confidence to wear it.

  Suddenly, what she had to say didn’t seem so hard. “Thanks for taking care of my girl, Ansgar. I’ve always known she’s beautiful. It’s high time everybody else knows it, too.”

  “You are most welcome,” Ansgar said with his customary pain-in-the-ass hauteur.

  So much for that Hallmark moment. At least she tried.

  Instead of being thrilled at having gone from ugly duckling to swan, though, Evie seemed subdued and miserable; time for a little one-on-one with the BFF.

  Addy grabbed Evie by the hand. “I don’t know about you, but I’m dying of thirst. Let’s get some punch.”

  Brand and Ansgar moved to follow, but Addy stopped them with a bright smile. “Down boys, we’re going to get something to drink.” She pointed to the table in the opposite corner of the room. “See? We’ll be right over there.”

  “Hurry up”—she tugged Evie in the direction of the refreshment table.—“before they decide to come along.”

  She ladled punch into two cups and handed one to Evie. “Spill it. Why the long face? Is it Blondy? If he’s done something to upset you, I’ll thump him on the head, so help me, I will.”

  Evie shook her head. “No, Ansgar has been great, getting me this dress and bringing me to my first ball. We danced together, and oh, Addy, it was wonderful.” Excitement glowed in her eyes and faded. “It’s Trey.” She glanced about the room. “He’s always looking at me and touching me. He makes me so uncomfortable.”

  “The creep. Why didn’t you tell me he was bothering you?”

  “What could you have done, Addy? And besides, I need my job.”

  “How long’s this been going on?”

  “A while. I try not to be alone with him.”

  “Why’d you dance with him then?”

  “I didn’t want to,” Evie protested. “He was waiting for me when I came out of the ladies’ room. He dragged me out on the dance floor. I couldn’t get out of it without making a scene.”

  Evie, the shy wallflower, would hate that. She’d wondered how Trey managed to snag a dance with Evie when Ansgar guarded her like she was the last drink before Prohibition.

  Evie took a deep breath. “I always thought it was my imagination.” She made a face. “I mean, who would be interested in Whaley Douglass, right?”

  “Wrong. Take a good look in the mirror, girl. Half the guys in this place have a boner just looking at you.”

  “Addy,” Evie said in a scandalized whisper.

  Addy set her glass down. “I don’t want to hear it, Evie. You’ve been out-ed. You’re beautiful, and it’s time you accepted it.”

  “Maybe.” Evie worried her bottom lip. “How do I get Trey to leave me alone?”

  “Kick him in the bean bags. Guys hate that.”

  Evie giggled. “Oh, Addy, you are so bad. You always know how to make me laugh.”

  “That’s what friends do.”

  Addy looked around. Trey was on the other side of the ballroom. Meredith stood beside him, looking stylish in a pale blue strapless gown that probably cost more than the combined gross national incomes of several third world countries. Her pixie features were pinched in an expression of unhappiness. She spoke to her husband. He ignored her, his gaze fastened with unnatural intensity on Evie. Meredith put her hand on Trey’s arm. He shrugged it off and strode toward them.

  “Here comes Trey,” Addy murmured.

  “Oh, no.” Evie looked frantically around the room. “What do I do?”

  “Relax. The Death Starr’s right behind him, and she looks mad as a hornet.”

  Trey Peterson moved across the dance floor toward them with the grace of a natural athlete. He was all that and a bag of chips in high school; quarterback, class president, prom king. The Petersons were old money, having made a fortune buying and selling timber at the turn of the twentieth century . . . some people claimed by less than legal means. The Petersons were a Big Deal in Hannah, and that made Trey Peterson a big deal, too.

  Tall and fit, with dark blue eyes and light brown hair that was slightly thinning on top, Trey was still a handsome man. He wore his custom-made tuxedo with the unconscious arrogance of the terminally rich.

  “Ladies,” he said, sauntering up to them. The watchful, hungry way he looked at Evie reminded Addy of a snake sizing up its next meal. “Evie, would you honor me with another dance?”

  “I-I,” Evie stuttered.

  Meredith charged up behind him, her size five silver designer evening shoes pumping up and down with the hammer-blow force of the driving wheels of a steam locomotive.

  “Trey Peterson, how dare you humiliate me in front of the whole town like this!” Evie’s soap must have worked. Meredith’s pale, powdered compl
exion, though mottled with anger, had returned to its former smooth glory. “You haven’t danced with me once all night, and here you are asking that fat sow to dance for the second time. I won’t have it, I tell you. I won’t!”

  Her voice rose to a shriek, drawing attention.

  Addy shook her head. “You should watch what you say, Meredith. All that negativity could bring on a relapse. Seems to me I warned you about being ugly to Evie.”

  “You don’t scare me, Addy Corwin,” Meredith said. “I won’t stand idly by and let Whaley Douglass steal my husband.”

  Suddenly, Brand and Ansgar were there. Brand slipped his arm around Addy’s waist, and Ansgar drew a trembling Evie to his side.

  Ansgar eyed Meredith with icy distaste. “Adara is right. Sheath that tongue of yours, woman, lest it cut your own throat.”

  Meredith gasped. “Are you going to let him talk to me like that, Trey?”

  “For God’s sake, shut up, Meredith,” Trey said. He turned and stomped off.

  Meredith watched him leave, anger, hurt, and humiliation flickering across her face. For a moment, Addy felt sorry for her. It didn’t last, though. Quick as a flash, Meredith pounced on Evie.

  “You think you can take Trey away from me? But you’re wrong. He won’t divorce me. I know too many Peterson secrets, secrets they don’t want to get out. Do you hear me?”

  “I’m pretty sure people in the next county heard you, my dear.” Blake Peterson, Trey’s grandfather, appeared at Meredith’s side. Distinguished and handsome, with gray hair at his temples and a physique kept trim by daily walks and golf, rain or shine, Mr. Peterson had always amazed Addy. He had to be in his midseventies, but looked and acted decades younger. “I think it’s time I took you home.”

  “No!” Meredith shrank back. “I mean, I . . . I’d rather wait for Trey.”

  “Trey has gone.” Taking Meredith by the elbow, he gave them an apologetic smile. A smile that did not quite reach his dark blue eyes, eyes so very like Trey’s. “If you’ll excuse us, Meredith is a little overwrought.”

  Meredith seemed to wilt. “I didn’t mean—I won’t tell, I promise,” she babbled as Mr. Peterson led her away.

  His voice drifted back to them, smooth and cultured with a hint of underlying steel. “Of course you won’t, my dear. You’re a Peterson now, and Petersons take care of their own.”

  Addy watched them leave. “Whew, that was uncomfortable. Wonder what she meant by secrets?”

  “That man . . .” Brand’s gaze followed Blake Peterson as he steered Meredith toward the lobby. “There was something about him . . .”

  Mr. Collier rushed up to Brand. “Did you see him? Blake Peterson, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Brand said.

  “He’s one of them, the demonoids.”

  Brand frowned. “What is this demonoid?”

  Amasa made an impatient gesture. “Half human, half demon. Blake’s daddy had him a demon. Cole Peterson was his name. I defended him against a murder charge when I first started practicing law. Got him off, too. Whole case was circumstantial, and half the men on the jury owed Cole money. I was right full of myself. Thought I was some kind of lawyer. Then I had that car wreck and started seeing demons. Ran into Cole a few weeks afterward and realized what he was. Got to worrying maybe he’d killed that woman after all. Couldn’t get it out of my mind. Confronted him about it, and he admitted the whole thing. I think he enjoyed telling me about it. Wasn’t a damn thing I could do, and he knew it. Double jeopardy had attached. He cut that poor woman into a million pieces, and I helped get him off. That’s when I started drinking.”

  Addy stared at him. “You mean to say Trey’s great-granddaddy was possessed by a demon?”

  “Hell yeah,” Amasa said. “ ’Scuse my French. Town’s full of demonoids.”

  “Wow.” Addy tried to wrap her mind around this new revelation. Was nothing in Hannah what it seemed? “That would make Trey an eighth demon.”

  “Yep, more if he’s got demonoid on his mama’s side.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  People she’d known all her life, gone to school and church with, done business with, and greeted at the grocery store and pharmacy and on the street were part demon. She did a quick mental tally and counted half a dozen people of her acquaintance who had violet eyes, including Cassy Ferguson, the town “witch.” Another dozen, including Trey and his father and grandfather had eyes so blue they looked deep purple.

  Good God, Hannah was demon central.

  There was a commotion on the far side of the room. Shep and Lenora had arrived. The thrall wore a slinky, blood-red gown. Shep looked dashing in his formal attire. The room buzzed with whispers and conjecture regarding the identity of the mysterious raven-haired seductress clinging to Shep’s arm.

  Apparently, the Dalvahni weren’t the only ones who could bend space and time, because Bitsy appeared out of nowhere at Addy’s side.

  “Addy, who is that woman with your brother? Where is Marilee, and what’s Shep done to his hair? He’s a little old to be sporting Bama Bangs, don’t you think? I swear, what is it with my children and their hair lately?”

  “Mama, Shep does not have Bama Bangs. He doesn’t have it lacquered to his head like he normally does, that’s all. I think he looks handsome and younger.”

  “I guess I’m not used to it hanging on his forehead like that,” Bitsy said, frowning. “It looks messy, like he just rolled out of bed.”

  Uh huh, or just rolled off somebody, say, for instance, a sex pot emotion-sucking vampire from another dimension.

  “Here they come.” Bitsy dug her nails into Addy’s arm. “Who is that woman, Adara Jean? You know something, I can tell.”

  Addy pulled away. “No freaking way, Mama. This is Shep’s mess.”

  Bitsy bowed up. “That’s another way of saying the ‘F’ word. You know I cannot abide vulgarity, young lady.”

  The “F” word? Good Lord, Hibiscus Corwin had acknowledged the existence of the “F” bomb.

  “Adara is right, Mrs. Corwin. A man should handle his own affairs,” Brand said. “It is Shep’s place to tell you.”

  Addy gave him a grateful smile.

  “Tell her what?” Shep asked, coming up to them with Lenora.

  The wrinkle between Bitsy’s eyes smoothed as if by magic. At once, she became the picture of Southern feminine gentility.

  “I was asking Addy about your new friend, Shepton.” Her voice was sweeter than cane syrup. She gave Lenora a sugary smile. “I don’t believe I know this young lady.”

  “This is Lenora, Mama,” Shep said. “She’s my muse. I love her, and I want to marry her.”

  “Whoo.” Bitsy gave a brittle little laugh and fanned herself with one hand. “I imagine Marilee might have something to say about that.”

  “Marilee can’t say a damn thing to anybody. She’s run off with that tennis coach from the club and filed for divorce.”

  “Oh, Shepton, that’s so unlike her! What did you do to make her so unhappy?”

  “I didn’t do anything, except go to work and come home,” Shep said indignantly. “What about me, Mama? Don’t you want to know whether I’m happy?”

  “Well, of course you’re happy. Why wouldn’t you be? You’ve got a home and a family and a business that you love.”

  “That’s just it, Mama. I don’t love Corwin’s. I want to sell it.”

  “Sell Corwin’s? Have you lost your mind, Shepton? And do what, pray tell?”

  “I want to paint, Mama.”

  “Oh, fudge,” Bitsy said.

  Except that Mama didn’t say fudge. Fudge was the word Addy’s battered psyche supplied because it could not accept the truth. Her mother said fuh—

  Addy’s brain screeched to a halt. She took a mental breath and tried again. Bitsy Corwin said fuh . . . fuh . . . fff . . .

  Nope, no way. It simply did not compute.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The next morning as Addy waited in the parade line
with Pootie and Brand, she still could not believe her mother had said the T. rex of swear words. And at the Grand Goober Ball, of all places, shattering at once two rules of Lady-tude; namely, that a lady doesn’t swear and always behaves herself in public.

  So what if she was no longer entirely human and her brother, the Rock of Gibraltar, was having a flaming affair with the hussy from hell and wanted to quit the family funeral business to paint nekked pictures of his new girlfriend? She could adjust.

  So what if she had a talking dog and a flying cat, and a great-aunt with a psychic connection to her freezer and her front door bell? A little weird, but she could handle it.

  Her best friend saw fairies, and her boring little hometown was populated by violet-eyed demonoids. No problem. Piece of cake. Chunk it in with the rest of the weirdness.

  A crazed demon with a hard-on for her had threatened to kill her this very day. Death by demon? Puh-leeze.

  But this . . .

  Hibiscus Hamilton Corwin saying the mother of all cusswords? It boggled Addy’s mind.

  She had still been wrestling with the shock of it that morning when she and Brand went by City Hall to settle with the mayor. The silent auction raised twenty-five thousand dollars and Brand made good on his promise to match it. At the mayor’s office, he produced a leather pouch and counted out 250 one-hundred-dollar bills, plus fifteen more to pay for the peanut head Pootie lost in the river.

  Funny thing about that pouch. It sure didn’t seem big enough to hold all that money, but Brand kept pulling hundred-dollar bills out of it anyway. Addy had a notion he could have kept it up forever. That pouch was the money equivalent of the wishing mill that turned the sea to salt, grinding out an endless stream of Benjamins. Good thing Florence was too busy planting her double-D’s on her desk and making goo-goo eyes at Brand to notice.

  The mayor toddled in as they were winding things up.

  “This is fine, mighty fine.” He shook Brand’s hand. “All the big contributors will get their names on a brass plaque in the lobby of the new building. You sure you don’t want this donation in your name?”