Demon Ex Machina: Tales of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom (6 page)

The demon’s wail echoed through the neighborhood, the blade piercing the palm of his hand and extending out the back. A defensive wound, since I was certain that Eric had been aiming for the beast’s eye.

Now Eric yanked his blade back, and the demon came along for the ride, ending up nose to nose with Eric.

I was right behind, grabbing for the beast’s shoulder, ready to jerk it around and thrust my chopstick deep into its eye, when I saw its back go rigid and heard its low, terrified voice. “Odayne!” it whispered, then backed away, bowing. “Forgive! Forgive!”

From my angle, I could see Eric’s face, and he looked as baffled as I felt. An emotion that did neither of us any good, as it gave the demon time to back farther away, managing to both bow and run at the same time. “Do not tell her,” it said. “I do not wish to invoke her wrath. Please, sire, do not tell her. Do not tell.” And then it turned and faced me dead-on. Its lips curled into a snarl, and before I even had time to draw a breath, it took off running toward the back of my yard. In the dim light, I saw it leap the fence, then race westward along the easement.

I didn’t even think about going after it. Tonight, the demon could live. Right then, I had more important things to worry about.

I knelt down beside Eric then took his hand. He met my eyes, only to flinch and look away again, focusing on something over my shoulder rather than on me. “It’s out,” I said. “It’s visible. This demon inside you—he saw it. He
named
it.”

Eric nodded, looking as miserable as I’d ever seen him.

“How long?” I whispered. “How long has it been that close to the surface?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“What about its name?” I pressed. “Did you know the demon’s name?” I was flipping through my mental little black book of demons, trying to remember where I’d heard that name before, or even if I had. After decades of hunting, many of the demon names started to blur together and, in truth, I was always more interested in killing them than inviting them over for tea.

The research and study of particular demons had always interested Eric more, and he and our first
alimentatore
, Wilson Endicott, used to spend hours discussing the various patterns of demons throughout the ages. A demon might manifest in one decade, sliding into the body of a ruler or other important person. The beast could set something vile in motion that would survive even the death of the demon’s host body. Then the demon might wait another decade or two to manifest again, sliding into another body and continuing the project.

Eric and Wilson had always found the demon’s endgame fascinating. Me, I’d been more interested in my own endgame: getting rid of the beasts and making the world safe for, well, everyone.

Shortsighted, maybe, but at least it kept me focused.

“Eric,” I demanded, realizing he hadn’t answered my question. “Did you know the demon’s name?”

His brow creased, and he shook his head slowly, but there was no firm reassurance. Instead, he looked slightly baffled, as if there was something familiar about all that was happening, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

I frowned, not liking that idea any more than I liked the idea of a named demon living inside him.

I started pacing, ripping the elastic off my ponytail so I could run my hands through my hair. “This is new,” I said. “The name’s bad enough, but just the fact that Thor there recognized you is bad. New and bad.” We’d been patrolling together, and Eric had taken out his share of demons without hesitation or pretense.

And not once during our weeks of patrols had any demon shaken his hand and called him brother.

“What’s changed?” I asked, kneeling back down in front of him. “Dammit, Eric, what’s changed?”

“Nothing,” he said, and I could hear the fire in his temper. Now he climbed to his own feet, paced in front of me. “What do you want me to say? That I have dark, evil thoughts? That my vision turns red? That I stand in front of the mirror practicing my evil laugh?”

“Eric—”

“Because I don’t. It’s slow and it’s subtle and it’s terrifying.”

I licked my lips, watching him, seeing the changes in him, trying to measure them as the anger began to rage.
That was the trigger,
I thought. At least for now. Anger. Frustration. Maybe even fear. All emotions that brought the demon closer to the surface.

How long did we have before the demon needed no trigger at all?

“Some bastard in a Miata cut me off yesterday,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “I floored it and tailed him all the way to the county line. Sideswiped him twice. He almost lost control on the narrows,” he said, referring to a portion of the Pacific Coast Highway that skimmed a mountain pass, a sheer cliff on one side and a hefty drop down to the Pacific on the other. “Fucker managed to pull it out at the last second. One inch more and he’d be a stain on the rocks beneath PCH.”

I swallowed, stayed perfectly still, and tried to gauge the distance between me and my stiletto, still forlorn in our unkempt yard.

He lifted his eyes to mine and I saw both rationality and regret. “I remember that one,” he said. “I don’t think I remember them all.”

“Jesus, Eric.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I could certainly use His help right about now.”

I managed a smile, though I wanted to cry. “Will I do?”

He looked at me, his eyes dark and unreadable. Then he turned and righted the chaise lounge that had been knocked over in the fight. He sat on it, the movement casual, but his expression far from it. “I’d give anything,” he finally said, “to keep you away from this.”

I flinched, even though I understood the sentiment. He wanted to protect me. To protect my memories of him. I got that. Understood it. And yet there’d been a time in our lives when we’d been everything to each other, and even the worst secrets had been shared.

Or at least I’d thought so.

Without a word, I sank into the chair next to him. “But I am here,” I said, “and I’m not going away.” I reached over to take his hand. “Let me help, Eric. Bring me in. Don’t push me back. Bring me in before it’s too late.”

He said nothing.

As for me, I pretty much wanted to scream. Instead, I relied on my toddler-wrangling skills, counted to ten, and tried a different tack altogether.

“Her,” I said, and saw his head tilt toward me with interest. “The demon said you weren’t supposed to tell
her
. That he didn’t want to invoke her wrath. Who? Who is she?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking at me dead-on. “I swear.”

And the horrible, awful truth? I didn’t believe him.

The man I’d once trusted with my life. With my soul. With my body and my secrets.

My first love. My soul mate.

I didn’t trust him.

And I swear the pain of that realization pretty much ripped me to shreds.

I saw the flare of anger flash in his eyes and knew he’d seen my disloyalty. I cut my gaze away, ashamed. “I told you, Katie. I don’t know. I’m not in control here, or had that little fact escaped your attention?”

“You are,” I said, believing that with all my heart. What I didn’t know was how long he could keep control.

So far, I’d seen only small signs of the demon. Bursts of temper. Unnecessary risks.

I shivered, remembering how he’d almost killed a human recently. Granted, the man had attacked him, but Eric had lost control. He’d reined it in, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d gone wild in the first place.

That encounter had been my first clue, actually. My first glimpse of the blackness within.

“What have you learned?” I asked.

He climbed to his feet, then dusted off his pants. “Not enough.”

“Dammit, Eric, look at me.” I got up, too, shifting around so that I was right in front of him. “You promised me you had a plan. You didn’t need help figuring this out, remember? That’s what you said.”

“I said I didn’t
want
help,” he said, his voice like ice.

I flinched, but forced myself not to show it. To lose my emotions in objective practicality. “Then what’s the plan? What do we have to do to get you back? You. Free and clear.” I drew in a ragged breath and cursed myself for the tears that threatened. “Dammit, Eric, I need you. You have to know how much I still need you.”

“Oh, Kate.” He pulled me close and held me tight, his touch so familiar it made me want to cry. I clung to him, guilty that I still wanted him so badly, and yet absolutely certain I would feel equally guilty if I didn’t.

“It’ll be okay,” I said. “
Forza
managed twice, right?” I said, referring to the fact that, in his youth, the demon had been bound inside Eric. There, yes, but impotent.

At least, that’s what I’d been told. When Eric was a small child,
Forza
had locked the demon up, deep inside of him, where it had remained dormant until Eric had unwittingly set it free when he’d used Cardinal Fire to destroy a demon we’d been hunting deep within the catacombs under the city of Rome.

At the time, I hadn’t understood how we’d not only escaped from an army of demonic minions, but had also managed to destroy the High Demon who’d tortured and killed the other ten members of our team. A demon who’d been intent on becoming not only corporeal, but also invincible.

I’d been fifteen, Eric almost seventeen. And though neither of us knew it, what happened in the vault that night would color our lives forever.

Afterward, we’d been separated for debriefing. Father Corletti and our
alimentatore
Wilson had asked me the usual array of questions, and I’d assumed that Eric was in the boys’ dorm receiving the same careful going-over. As it turns out, it had been a little more complicated than that. Wilson had given Eric the Cardinal Fire as a weapon of last resort, and he’d broken about a thousand
Forza
rules when he’d done so.

The Cardinal Fire, I’d later learned, destroyed the demons in the chamber with us. But because the demon inside Eric was shielded, it wasn’t destroyed. Instead, the bindings were, making the demon free to move, to grow, to thrive.

So whereas my debriefing had been tape recorders and paperwork, Eric’s had been candles and ceremonies and a dozen priests chanting from ancient texts, calling upon the power of God to bind the demon once again.

It worked. The demon retreated.

But this time, not as deep.

This time, the demon waited, biding time for the opportunity to come forth. And opportunity had knocked when Eric had died when Allie was only nine, his soul and the demon’s essence thrust into the ether, still bound together. And it was the demon who had led them back to Earth to now reside in another man’s body.

While Eric tried to forge a new life, the demon inside grew ever stronger. So strong, in fact, that the binding rituals used twice before no longer worked. I still held out hope that we’d find some obscure procedure. Some heretical incantation. Something, anything, that would lock back inside the demon that I’d played a part in making stronger.

Because I had indeed played a part—a key part—in accelerating the demon’s attack on Eric. After all, I was the one who’d used the Lazarus Bones.

I wasn’t proud of the way I’d played God that night, but I couldn’t deny what I’d done. After only recently learning that Eric had returned in David’s body, I’d been faced with the horror of watching him die again, made worse because I’d played such a vivid role in his demise. Because I’d been the one who killed him.

I’d killed him because I had to. Because he’d begged me to. And I’d done it in order to prevent a demon from moving in and taking over his body.

Ironic, I thought, now that I knew there’d been another demon inside him all along.

I shivered, remembering that night. The way that bitch Nadia had believed she’d won. The way the blood had flowed out of Eric as death approached.

At the time, I’d only just gotten Eric back, and the thought that he was gone again had ripped me apart.

But I’d had the means—I’d had the Lazarus Bones—and so help me, I’d used them. I’d brought him back. Or, as Father Corletti would say, I’d provided the path for Eric to follow back to life.

And he had, guided for a second time back to corporeal life by that demon inside him.

And in returning to the body—in again using that demonic trick—he’d given the demon within a little bit more power.

Father Corletti had told me I didn’t cause a demon to be inside Eric, and I knew that was true. But there was no denying that I’d helped the demon gain strength.

That was something I’d have to live with forever.

As if sensing my need, Eric pushed me back and looked me in the eye. “It’s going to be okay,” he said.

“I want to believe that,” I said. “Even more, I want to help.”

“You do help,” he said. “Knowing you’re there. Knowing what I’m fighting for. That’s more help than you can know.”

I started to shake my head, to argue, to insist that I had to do more, but he brushed his finger against my lips and shook his head, silencing me. He reached up and twisted a stray strand of hair around his finger, then leaned in closer, the warmth of his breath teasing my lips until those lips actually touched mine. I gasped, and so help me, I opened my mouth to him.

He groaned, accepting the unspoken invitation and deepening the kiss.

I melted against him, my fingers knotting in the material of his shirt, every ounce of me desperate for what we’d once shared, longing for the time when we’d truly been partners and he wouldn’t shut me out.

Except . . .

I pushed gently away, peering into his eyes. Because I knew now that such a time had never really existed. Not to the extent I’d once believed. I’d opened my life and my heart to Eric—my partner, my lover, my best friend—and I’d assumed that he’d done the same.

He hadn’t.