A Snake in the Grass (5 page)

I could still feel Axel’s spell if I thought
about it, though I tried very hard not to. It slid across my skin
like a faint sheen of baby oil, and it smelled like rancid butter.
I didn’t like it, and the souls under my skin had put me through
excruciating pain at first, trying to burn it off. I’d struggled
for days before I’d managed to wrestle them under control.

So far, though, it seemed to be working.

“So you’re still the only one that knows I
have them?” Every time we talked, I lived with the dread that the
secret was out. Because I knew what would happen then. Then, all
bets were off, and they’d come for me, and everyone I’d ever cared
about. It’s what they did.

“I, and I alone.” He idly thumbed through the
rack of shirts. “Though everyone’s pretty sure you know where they
are.”

I kept yanking shirts out of his hands before
he could litter the floor with them. “Well, you do whatever it is
you do, but let them know that I won’t be home for a while. I don’t
want anyone coming to the house while the girls are alone.”

“I still can’t talk you out of that, I
guess?” Axel sniffed in distaste. “Nothing good in Mexico, you
know. Cacti and big lizards. The occasional chupacabra. Dead
Mayans.”

“I thought they were Aztecs.”

“Whatever. You all look alike.”

“Still not coming with, hm?” For reasons
known only to him, Axel had adamantly refused to shadow me on my
trip south. The one time I’d mentioned it, he’d acted like I’d
tried to say the Lord’s prayer over him or something.
“You’re
going to have a sleepover with a family that has been banishing
demons since before the Europeans set foot on this soil. Do I
look
crazy?”
If I didn’t know better, I’d say Axel was
scared, which amused me greatly.

“I have other things to do. You’ll be
fine.”

I snorted softly. “If you really thought they
could get these things out of me, you’d be down there damn quick.”
He didn’t want to lose two hundred and seventy-five souls, and
keeping them in my skin was as good as a bank vault as far as he
was concerned. If he truly believed that Estéban’s mother could
release them, he’d be stuck to my side like glue.

Axel just smirked at me. “It’s my week to
wash my hair.”

I rolled my eyes. “God forbid I interrupt
your beauty regimen.” The mention of the G-word got a wince and a
glare from him. “You better go. Kristyn’s eyeing you like she just
knows you need a pair of pirate footie pjs.”

“I’ve worn worse. If something changes, I’ll
be in touch.” He waggled his fingers at my boss as he made his way
out of the store, and when he was gone, she raised a brow at me. I
just shook my head and went about straightening up the racks he’d
wrecked.

Axel was…Axel. He was an unrepentant demon –
though in all fairness, I’d never seen a repentant one – and never
did anything unless it directly benefitted himself in some way. It
galled me that I was dependent on him for information and
protection. It seemed that no matter how I played things, my life
just got more and more tangled up with stuff I wanted to leave
behind.

Later that night, I lay in bed with my arms
around my pregnant wife, and I tried not to think about what was
going to happen if Carlotta and Terrence
couldn’t
get these
souls out of me.

“If you think any louder, you’re going to
wake the house,” Mira murmured quietly, proving that she wasn’t any
more asleep than I was. She shifted a little, snuggling closer into
me, and I buried my face against her neck, just breathing in her
scent.

“Sorry. My brain is all buzzy.”

“I know.” Her hand found mine and drew it
down to her belly, pressing it flat so that I could feel the roll
of motion within. He was a kicker, our little one. Or she. Mira
refused to find out ahead of time, and when her doctor was her best
friend, there was no sneaking around behind her back. I just kept
thinking “he” like that would make it so.

Don’t get me wrong, my daughter is the
absolute center of my universe. She’s a tough kid and plays with
swords and trucks just as much as she does Barbies and toy ponies.
I’d had an equal number of tea parties and snowball fights, and
there wasn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for that little
girl.

But part of me wanted a son, too. A boy to
carry on my name when I was gone. I guess it didn’t help that “when
I was gone” felt like it was going to be sooner rather than
later.

My unborn child elbowed me square in the palm
at the same time that Mira said “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop brooding.” She laced her fingers
through mine. “We’ll get this fixed. I’ve talked to Carlotta, I’m
sure that she and Terrence can solve this.”

“And if they can’t?”

“They will.”

I sighed and leaned up on my elbow so that I
could look down at her. “But if they
can’t
.”

She rolled over onto her back so that she
could look me square in the eyes, the green of her own impossible
to see in the darkness. “Then we try something else. I refuse to
believe that this is a permanent situation. And once the baby gets
here, maybe I can…do something.”

I knew it was killing her that she could do
literally nothing to help me, at least in a magical sense. Mira was
not the type of woman who waited around for someone else to do the
rescuing. The fact that she’d been benched ate at her, even if it
was for the best of reasons. “A few more months. Let’s get him here
safely, then we’ll worry about…other things.”

“Or her.”

“Or her,” I agreed, and lay back down,
cuddling together as we felt our child move inside her. “While I’m
gone, if you need anything, call the guys, okay?”

Mira sighed and rolled her eyes. “Cameron for
magic, Cole for anything else. I know. We’ve talked about this
about twenty times now.”

“Sorry. Pre-travel jitters.” The little alien
in her belly rolled against my hand again, as if to assure me that
everything would be all right. “You probably won’t be able to get
ahold of me, ‘cause cell reception is crappy down there, but I’ll
call whenever we go down into town.”

“Jesse Dawson, I swear to the goddess, if you
go over all this crap again, I will punch you in the throat.” She’d
do it too. I believed that.

I sat up again, resting my elbows on my knees
and running a hand through my hair. It was getting longer again,
hanging past my shoulders now. I should have gotten it cut before
we left. I’d learned the hard way that long hair was a liability in
a fight. “Sorry, Mir. I just… I hate this. You know how frustrating
it is to not be able to work magic to help out… Well I can’t do
any
thing. I can’t stay here, because sooner or later they’re
going to come for me, and I can’t endanger you and Anna. And even
when they
do
come after me, I can’t risk fighting. I can’t
risk all these people’s lives, and I feel so damn
helpless.
”

“I know. It’s not in your nature to stand by
and let others fight your battles for you.” I heard a ghost of a
smile in her voice, even if I wasn’t looking at her. Her hand came
to rest on my back, one of the rare times she’d touched me there
since…since. The extra souls made her uncomfortable. In response to
her touch, they flexed a little, stretching maybe, but didn’t
become agitated. I think they knew her, they knew she wasn’t a
threat.

“You’ll be safe, down there. If I had to rely
on someone else’s magic to protect you, it would be Carlotta’s. The
very land they live on is blessed after so many centuries of magic
being worked there.”

Like Axel had said, the Perez clan had been
challenging demons for longer than written memory. Sure, now they
used an odd combination of native magic and Catholic prayer, but
the power was the same. Only a suicidal demon would think of coming
after me there. Suicidal, or one that had just been tempted beyond
the limits of endurance. I guess it remained to be seen if two
hundred and seventy-five souls qualified as such a temptation.

Sleep wasn’t going to come easy, I could tell
that already. Leaning down, I kissed Mira on the head. “Go to
sleep. I’m gonna go watch TV or something. I don’t want to keep you
up.”

“Hey.” She grabbed my hand as I slid from the
bed, halting my retreat. “I love you.”

Words I never got tired of hearing, ever. “I
love you, too.” We squeezed hands, than I slipped into my sweat
pants and out into the darkened house.

Ducking my head into my daughter’s room, I
was pleased to note that she was sound asleep, sprawled in some
impossible position. Chunk, sleeping on the floor beside the bed,
raised his head curiously, tilting it so that one ear flopped over.
Good dog.

At just over nine months old, the English
mastiff was still a puppy at heart, but he was already tipping the
scales well over a hundred and twenty-five pounds. If he turned out
like his dam and sire, he promised to grow into the size of a small
buffalo before it was all said and done, which was just fine with
me.

His sole purpose was to protect my daughter
from the nasty things that I knew were out there, and the bigger he
was, the better. I’d stood my ground against some of the worst the
demon world had to offer with one of Chunk’s relatives at my side,
and there was no better guardian I could ask for. He’d watch after
my Annabelle when I no longer could.

As I padded down the hallway, I heard him
slip from Anna’s room, his nails clicking against the hardwood
floor. By the time I got to the kitchen, I had a big square head
shoved up under my hand, those liquid doggy eyes begging me for the
treats he knew we kept in the cabinet.

“You giant mooch,” I whispered, but slipped
him a biscuit anyway. What can I say, I’m a softie.

Chunk took his treasure and disappeared with
it back into the depths of the house.

Night had settled over the back yard, and I
stood at the sliding door and looked out over my patio, resting my
forehead against the cool glass. Things looked so peaceful out
there, and at an earlier time in my life, I could have found peace
out there, just meditating to the sounds of the fountain running
into our little decorative pond.

Now, I knew the second I opened the door,
Sveta would be on my heels – she had awakened the moment I left my
room, and was currently lurking in the kitchen doorway while I
pretended not to notice – and it was impossible to relax while an
armed woman paced a track in the grass behind you. Not to mention
that the sheer amount of magic wafting around through my yard was
enough to set the souls in my skin jangling like a four alarm fire.
My sanctuary had turned into my prison, it seemed.

I guess lack of sleep makes me a bit
melodramatic.

“We have a long flight tomorrow. You should
sleep.” Hunh. Didn’t expect her to break the silence first. I
glanced over my shoulder to see her leaning against the door jamb,
gun hanging loosely against her bare thigh.

“I can sleep on the flight.” She made some
kind of vaguely agreeing noise. “You should crash while you can.
I’ll just hang out in here a while.”

“All right. Call if you need me.”

“Hey, Sveta?” She paused, only the tilt of
her head telling me that she was listening. “Do you ever think of
quitting? Of not…doing this anymore?”

There was no hesitation in her answer.
“No.”

“Why not?”

She turned just enough that she could look
directly at me. “Because I do not know how to be anything but
this.”

I had to wonder if I did.

Chapter 4

Morning came all too early, as those
following sleepless nights are wont to do, and there wasn’t enough
coffee in the
world
to help me deal with the small whirlwind
of chaos that settled over my household.

Surprisingly, the problem wasn’t Sveta and
Terrence, who set about loading everyone’s gear into the rental van
with quiet military efficiency. No, the herding of the cats was
related directly to my family, and their desire to say a proper
goodbye to Estéban.

His packing job had to be checked and
rechecked. His room was searched at least twice to make sure he
hadn’t forgotten anything. Annabelle’s hair had to be put up in
pigtails, and only Estéban’s skill would do. Chunk, sensing that
something major was happening, anxiously kept getting underfoot,
and the debate over what snacks Estéban was allowed to take on the
plane in his carryon nearly started World War III.

“Take your coat.” Mira pressed the heavy
winter parka in to his arms, and he gave me a helpless look.

“It does not really get cold at my mother’s,
Miss Mira.” He put the coat down.

She picked the coat up. “Take it anyway. Just
in case.” Back into his hands it went.

“I do not have room in my bags for it.” The
coat was down.

The coat was up. “But…”

“Mira!” Finally, I stood up, taking
possession of the much-contested garment. “He can leave it here for
now. If he needs it later, we can ship it to him. I promise, I will
not let him freeze to death in Mexico in the middle of summer.”

She gave me the same helpless look the kid
had just shot me, and I sighed. “Baby, he’ll be fine. I
promise.”

Tears glimmered in her eyes, and she ducked
her head under the pretense of adjusting her ponytail. “All right,
but when I get a phone call saying ‘please send me my coat’, don’t
say I didn’t warn you.”

I swear, my wife isn’t normally crazy. But
the pregnancy had her maternal instincts in overdrive, and whether
we’d intended it or not, Estéban truly felt like one of our own
kids. In the year or so that he’d lived with us, he’d become
family, and he was the first child to leave the nest. Mira wasn’t
dealing well. I wasn’t sure I was either.

And as far as Annabelle was concerned, we
were taking away the big brother she’d always wanted. She fixed
those devastating blue eyes on him and let the tears spill forth,
clinging to the teenager’s knees with all her might. “I don’t want
you to gooooo!”