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Authors: Julie Kenner

BOOK: Demon 04 - Deja Demon
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I couldn’t, though. And I wouldn’t risk what I already had.
“The body,” I said, stepping away from him and clicking the button to unlock the van. “It’s in that tub right there.”
“Right,” he said, following my lead to drop the subject like an extremely hot potato. He handed me his cane, then hefted the tub, and as he did I heard little scratching noises, like fingernails scraping against plastic. For the record, I really despise zombies.
“I’m one block over,” David said.
“Should we drive?” I asked, looking pointedly at the cane I was holding.
His brows rose. “You’ve seen me fight, Kate. It helps, but I can manage without it.”
“Right. Of course.” Eric had had a high tolerance for pain, too. Of course, I didn’t know how well that translated now that he was in another man’s body. For a moment, I considered asking, then decided that was one of those questions best left for another day.
“Walk with me?” he asked, stepping off the curb.
I hesitated, debating whether that was the best idea under the circumstances.
“I promise to be a complete gentleman,” he said. “No attacks upon your virtue at all.”
I looked at him dubiously, and he laughed.
“Come on, Kate. Don’t you trust me?”
“That’s the trouble,” I teased. “I trust you too much.”
“Ah, but you have the cane. You can gut me if I step out of line,” he added, referring to the sword hidden inside the innocent-looking crutch.
“True enough,” I said, then fell in step beside him, grateful that he understood enough to tease me. Not that I expected any different. Eric had been my best friend as much as my husband and lover. Of all the people in the world, he knew me better than anyone.
“Have you taken Allie patrolling yet?” he asked.
I looked up, startled. “No, and I don’t plan to. She’s only fourteen.”
His brows lifted and the corner of his mouth twitched.
“Fourteen, not raised in
Forza
, and with about five seconds of training under her belt. No. I haven’t taken her patrolling. ”
“And yet she’s still battling demons,” he said, looking pointedly at the tub.
“Technically, that’s a zombie.”
“She’s ready, Kate. And she can use the experience. Let me take her out one night. Hell, let
us
take her out one night.”
“Absolutely not,” I said, in the same tone I use when the kids beg for snacks before dinner. “Not happening, don’t ask me again.”
“I’m her father, Kate.”
“Eric,” I said, a warning in my voice. “I mean it. She doesn’t patrol. Not now. Not with me. Not with you.” I looked him in the eye. “You weren’t talking with her about patrolling when you two were shooting ducks back there, were you?”
“She’s ready, Kate.”
“Answer the question,
David
.”
He drew in a breath, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “No,” he said. “We weren’t talking about patrolling.”
“Good,” I said. “Because she’s not going.” I shot a sideways glance his direction and saw him stiffen, his shoulders tight with irritation or anger.
I told myself not to take it personally. Why wouldn’t he be ticked? I’d just vetoed him, after all. One more reminder that he’s not part of the decision-making process anymore. It’s all on me now, no matter how hard that might be—for me and for David.
“David, look,” I said, wanting to make peace. “I’m not saying no forever. Just for now. She needs to train more. Become more comfortable with her skills. It’s one thing to throw a cat in her own backyard. It’s something completely different to walk into harm’s way in a dark alley.”
“Right. You’re right.”
The words were agreeable, but the tension I felt wasn’t.
“You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad,” he said. “I’m preoccupied.”
“With Allie.”
“With whatever’s watching us,” he retorted, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Remember the night in the alley?”
“And earlier today,” I said. “On the carnival grounds. See anything?”
“No, and it’s possible there’s nothing to see. I’ve felt eyes on me since we left your car.”
He turned, whipping around so fast the body parts in the tub slammed against the inside, then scrambled and slithered again, the bits and pieces all stirred up.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m not liking this.”
“I’m not much liking it, either,” I said, now also feeling watched, though whether my feeling was genuine or a reflection of his I really couldn’t tell. “Let’s drop this off and get back. I want to check on the kids.”
By the time we reached his car, secured the tub in the trunk, and headed back down the street toward the beach, the creepy sensation had dissipated. “Maybe we were imagining it,” I suggested.
“If it were Laura, I’d believe that. Us? We’ve been trained to tell the difference between real and paranoia. Which means the odds are good there really are things hiding in the shadows keeping tabs on us.”
The man had a point.
“They seem to have backed off for now, anyway.”
“Probably watching to see where I have this Sword of Caelum thing hidden.”
“Too bad you don’t have it. A sword that can strike down a demon and his cohorts forever would be pretty damn useful.”
“So would cardinal fire,” I said.
David stopped short. “Pardon?”
“The stuff you had when we fought Abaddon. That was the hell fire Sammy Watson was talking about.”
“I know,” David said. “But why do you want cardinal fire now?”
“Well, duh. You saw what it did. A whole army of demons, and
poof
. They were gone.”
He started walking again, his body stiff. “It’s dangerous stuff. Wilson didn’t tell me how dangerous when he gave it to me.”
“So Father Corletti said,” I admitted. “But I really don’t see how. The only ones who got hurt were the demons.”
“I risked our lives, Katie,” he said. “And I didn’t even know it. I would never have intentionally put you in harm’s way, and yet—” He cut himself off with a shake of the head.
“Hey, it’s okay. Twenty years later and going strong.”
I got a smile, but not as big as what I was trying for. “As I understand it, the danger is twofold. Yes, you destroy the demons who are already out, corporeal, and attacking you. But if there’s a hidden demon—in a talisman, say—all the fire does is destroy the shell. It makes the hidden demon vulnerable. Reveals it, if you will. But it doesn’t destroy it. So if you had a bad-ass demon trapped in a stone, for example, you could accidentally release it with cardinal fire.”
“That wouldn’t be good,” I said, thinking of the bad-ass demon we’d recently seen released from a stone.
“The other risk is more personal. It’s purity. We survived because our faith and our bodies were pure.” He looked at me and licked his lips. “We wouldn’t survive another trip through the fire.”
“Oh.” I thought about that. “Wow,” I said, as the implications truly struck home. If Abaddon had been wrong—if I hadn’t been the vestal virgin he’d sought—I would have burned to death with Eric at my side.
The possibility made me shiver.
“You okay?”
“Just remembering,” I admitted. “Abaddon. I can’t say I ever thought I’d be tangling with him again.”
“Me neither.”
“That actually raises an interesting question,” I said. “Why come play in my backyard?”
“Come again?”
“Well, if the prophecy is that I can kill him, why not simply stay away? I mean, it’s pretty common knowledge I’m not globe-trotting these days. San Diablo is my turf. So if Abaddon thinks I can kill him, why not simply stay on the other side of the earth? Why come here?”
“You don’t know that he has,” David reminded me. “Minions, yes. Abaddon, no.”
“Fair enough. But it’s still a big deal to send his minions. Why bother? Why not simply torment the rest of the globe and leave my few square miles alone?”
“That’s actually a really good point. Why are the demons suddenly so concerned about this thing? You’re probably the most stagnant Hunter in
Forza
.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You know what I mean. But the demons aren’t stupid, and they know it, too.”
“Which means for some reason, Abaddon is planning to make a trip here,” I said. “Or else he’s already here.”
“Revenge?” David asked.
“So Sammy Watson said, but I don’t believe it. Why wait more than two decades for revenge?”
“No idea. But he’s definitely planning something, and his minions are trying to clear a path for him.”
“By taking me out. Always nice to be the center of attention. ”
“You always were such a diva,” he said, then ducked as I smacked him, because “diva” was about as far away from my personality as “lustrous and manageable” was from my hair.
“At least we know where to focus our research. Maybe we can figure out what’s so special about right here, right now that it would draw a demon with a death mark. Figure out what Abaddon’s planning on doing here, and we’ll be one step ahead of him.”
“Worth a shot,” David said, then caught me eyeing him. “What?”
“Nothing. Only how nice it was to be back in the groove, bouncing ideas off you.” I licked my lips, afraid I was revealing too much, but at the same time knowing that this was Eric I was talking about. And there really was nothing about me he didn’t already know. “I’ve missed that. I’ve missed you.”
“Me too,” he said, his tone more than his words underscoring the depth of feeling.
We walked a few more moments in comfortable silence before he nodded to a small Italian café. “Remember when we ate there?”
“How could I forget? That was the first time we ever hired a babysitter. You were so nervous.”
“Me?” he countered. “You were the one who kept calling the house every twenty minutes.”
“Only because I knew you wanted me to.”
“I remember the dinner was delicious,” he said, reaching out to take my hand.
“Not as delicious as dessert,” I said. And then, realizing that what had come out of my mouth qualified as blatant, unadulterated flirting, I tugged my hand away. “Um, anyway. It was a great evening.”
“Yeah,” he said, his warm eyes skimming over me. “It was.”
We’d reached the highway again, the carnival spread out on the parking lot across from us. “I should go find Allie,” I said as we crossed the street. “Rescue Laura from my hyperactive toddler.”
“Probably be the nice thing to do,” he agreed. “But I’ve got eight tickets burning a hole in my pocket, and that fun house right there takes four to enter.”
“Really? That’s very interesting news.”
“Remember when we brought Allie to a carnival? What was she? Seven?”
“And she threw up in the Tilt-A-Whirl? Believe me, I remember. ”
“Come on,” he said, nodding toward the fun house. “Laura will survive for three more minutes. Trust me. It’ll be fun.”
I hesitated only a second, telling myself that the kids weren’t around, and it did seem like fun. And, truth be told, I wasn’t ready to leave Eric—
David
—yet.
“One time through,” I said. “But if anything scary jumps out at me, you’re in for it, buster.”
He gave his tickets to a leather-faced old man in a blue apron, then ushered me to go ahead. At first, the fun house seemed less than accurately named. The floor moved ever so slightly, and the trick mirrors on the walls were so dirty it really didn’t much matter if your body was shortened or elongated.
As I rounded the corner to the next section, I aimed one of those looks at David. The kind that asks without words,
What the heck were you thinking?
He shrugged, then laughed, and I laughed, too. Lame as it was, it was still fun.
And, in fact, there was significantly more fun in the next section of the fun house. This part—which had a squishy floor and purple lighting—was lined with trick mirrors so that you had to tread carefully if you wanted to find your way to the exit. And each time you took a wrong turn, you stepped on a siren, which announced your mistake to everyone else in the house.
Behind me, David stepped on two sirens, while I managed to get through with none. Frankly, I think he did it on purpose, as he was laughing a heck of a lot harder than I was, and I knew perfectly well that he’d been trained better than that to watch reflections and see the patterns in mazes.
“It’s a
fun
house, Katie,” he said, taking my hand and urging me into the spinning tube that we had to run through if we were going to make it to the other side without falling. “Not one of
Forza
’s skill tests.”
I managed a
hmmph
ing sound—courtesy of Eddie—but was laughing by the time we reached the end of the tube. “Uh-oh,” I said, pointing to the black curtain in front of us. “A haunted section?”

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