Demons are Forever: Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom (2 page)

As if to prove to me that some things never change, my teenage daughter rolled her eyes. “Mo-ther,” she said, as if she were talking to an idiot. “I mean,
dub.
Monsters, demons, boogymen from Hell. I was there, you know. I kinda grasp the concept.”

Under the circumstances, the kid had a point. After all, there are only so many things that a sulfur-scented creature with paws and claws climbing its way out of a portal to Hell can be. And none of them are good.

“But what about you?” she continued, before I could say anything else. “I mean, you were like Wonder Woman in there. It was pretty cool, Mom. But it was also pretty weird, too. And you said you were going to tell me.”

That I had. I’d rushed to her rescue, just like any mom would. But by doing that, I’d shown her a side of me I’d carefully kept hidden. So when she’d asked me point-blank if I had a few secrets, I’d had no choice but to admit that I did.

I’d hoped to ease a bit more slowly into my revelation. Allie, though, wanted answers now.

“Let’s walk,” I said, standing up.

“But what about Stuart?”

I glanced down the road and didn’t see any cars coming. Within the cluster of people still in the parking lot, I saw David Long talking with a uniformed officer. He noticed me and turned, a question in his eyes. I indicated Allie and made a walking motion with my fingers. He nodded, and I knew he understood. If Stuart came while we were walking the museum grounds, David would let my husband know.

The irony of the situation didn’t escape me. Because I was pretty sure that David was my husband, or that he had been at one time. Which sounds a bit weird when you say it that way, but it was true: I was reasonably certain that the soul of my first husband had taken up residence in the body of Coronado High chemistry teacher David Long. I wasn’t positive, though, and today wasn’t the day to find out for sure. Someday, maybe. But not today.

Allie didn’t miss our exchange. “Something’s up with Mr. Long, too,” she said. “If you were Wonder Woman, then he was totally Superman.”

I had to laugh at the image, but the truth is that she was right. Telling my secrets meant giving some of his away, too.

“Come on,” I said, taking her hand as I led us down the stairs and over to the gravel walking path that twisted through the museum’s landscaped grounds. She didn’t try to pull away, which left me feeling both surprised and nostalgic for the long-ago years when I could reach out and expect her little hand to close around mine immediately.

“You know I grew up in Italy,” I began, looking sideways at her. “In an orphanage?”

She nodded, because that part of my past had never been a secret. She didn’t know how I ended up in an orphanage, or who my parents were, or why an obviously American kid ended up wandering the streets, lost and abandoned, in Rome. But I didn’t know those answers either. And for years, I’d told myself that I didn’t care. To my mind, my life started the day I met Father Corletti. Everything before that was white noise.

“Well, I wasn’t raised in a Church-sponsored orphanage,” I said. “I was raised by the Church itself. By a small group within the Church, actually.”

“Daddy, too, right?”

“Daddy, too,” I said. Allie had more than once heard the story about how I had a crush on my first husband, Eric, when I was barely thirteen. But he—much more wise and mature at almost fifteen—hadn’t been the least bit interested in a kid like me. Not at first, anyway.

What Allie didn’t know was that Eric had finally come around during our training sessions. He’d been assigned to help me with my pathetic knife-throwing skills, and after a few months of one-on-one time, Eric was just as much in love with me as I was with him. Plus, I could hit the target dead-on every time.

“Okay,” she said. “And?”

“You’re getting an awful lot of mileage out of that word today,” I countered.

To which my drama queen daughter responded by stopping on the path, tapping her foot, and asking me if she was going to have to repeat the word another time.

“Once was fine,” I said, managing not to laugh. “But remind me when you grew up?”

“About an hour ago,” she said, then turned and pointed back toward the museum. “In there.”

Point taken.

“Forza
Scura,” I said. “It’s Latin. Translates roughly to the Dark Force. And,” I continued, before she could toss the word at me one more time, “it’s the name of the organization within the Church that your father and I were trained to work for.”

“Trained,” she repeated. I nodded, then watched as she processed that new bit of information. “Okay,” she finally said. “But trained to do what?”

Now it was my turn to point back toward the museum. “Take a guess.”

“Whoa,” she said. “No shit?” And then, “Sorry, Mom.”

I smiled and gave her hand a squeeze. “No shit,” I said. “Forza trained us to hunt demons. And that’s what we did for years, and then we retired about a year before you were born.”

“Oh, okay.” She nodded slowly, as if she was still trying to process our discussion.

“Anything else you want to ask?” There’s a lot I could tell her at this point. I could describe traveling Europe with Eric and chasing down the types of creatures she’d met in the museum. I could talk about living in the Forza dorms, staying up all night and sharing the kinds of scary stories that all kids tell. Only the stories we told were true. I could tell her about Wilson Endicott, my first alimentatore, who helped Eric and me by doing the research even as we went out armed to the teeth.

I could tell her all of that, but I wasn’t going to. Not unless she asked. Because this was Big Stuff. And I knew she had to take it in at her own pace.

At least that was what I told myself. And I really think that I was mostly being honest. But even so, I have to admit that a small part of me hoped that she wouldn’t be too curious. Because once you truly know about evil, it’s hard to be a kid anymore. And I didn’t want to be the mother who’d ripped what was left of childhood out from under her daughter.

She took a look around the grounds, taking in the wooden gazebo and the crushed stone paths. Birds-of-paradise and other tropical flowers that thrive in California lined the walkways, marking the way back to the museum in one direction and the San Diablo City Park in the other. Except for us, there was no one to be seen, and after a few moments of silence, I guess Allie decided we had time to hit a few more of the high points.

“So Gramps and Mr. Long,” she began. “How come they were with you? Are they with that Forza thing?”

“Gramps was,” I said, referring to Eddie Lohmann, an eighty-something retired Demon Hunter who had taken up temporary residence in our guest bedroom and permanent residence in our life. Allie was under the impression that Eddie was her long-lost great-grandfather, and that wasn’t an illusion I felt compelled to dissolve. “He’s been retired for quite a while.”

“And Mr. Long?”

Wasn’t that a loaded question? But I fielded it the best I could, explaining that David Long was not just a mild-mannered high school teacher, but also a rogue demon hunter. In other words, a hunter not affiliated with Forza. He was also, I added, a friend of Allie’s father. Which, for all I knew, was the God’s honest truth. Because as much as I might suspect that Eric was somehow hiding in David’s body, at the same time, I might simply be grasping at straws, desperate to believe that my first love hadn’t really perished that foggy night in San Francisco. That somehow the man who’d been my lover and my partner for so many years could still be alive.

It was almost too much to hope for, and at the same time, if David was Eric, what would that mean for me? For my kids? For my marriage?

I didn’t know, and every time I tried to think about it, I got lost in a quagmire of emotion so thick that I was certain I could drown in it if I wasn’t careful.

Allie started walking again, and I shoved the melancholy aside and moved into step beside her, forcing my thoughts back to my daughter and away from Eric.

“Al?” She was hugging herself, her gaze directed back toward the museum. As I watched, she shivered, her back and shoulders spasming as if the cold finger of Death himself had traced its way up her spine. “Al!” I repeated, this time more urgently, and with my hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

She turned to look at me, her eyes haunted. “You aren’t still ... I mean, that thing could have killed you, Mom.”

“But it didn’t,” I said gently, trying desperately not to cry. My daughter had lost a father only too recently; the idea that she now feared losing her mother about broke my heart.

“You’re retired now, right?” she asked with an unfamiliar urgency in her voice. “Like you said. You and Daddy retired before I was born.”

I hesitated, knowing that I should tell her the truth. That I’d come out of retirement a few months ago and that lately I’d been neck-deep in demons. My head told me to say the words, but my heart wouldn’t cooperate.

So I lied. Or, to be technical, I repeated one truth and neglected to mention another. “Right,” I said. “Daddy and I retired.”

Her whole body relaxed and I knew that I’d made the right decision. Yes, I needed to tell her the truth. But considering what she’d just been through, the truth could wait a while. It was one thing for Allie to know the truth about my past—and to know I survived it. It was another thing altogether to have her worry about me every time I went out at night. Since I already worried about her every second she was out of my sight, I knew what a burden that could be. And it wasn’t something I intended to dump on my kid. Not so long as I could help it, anyway.

We walked a bit more in silence before she turned to me again. “So, what I don’t get is how come you were there,” she said. “In the museum, I mean.”

“To rescue you, baby.”

She rolled her eyes again. “Yeah, that part I got. But if you’re not in this Forza thing anymore, then how did you know where to find me? And how’d you know that I’d been taken by demons and not just by a bunch of creepy guys?”

“We have David to thank for that,” I said, which wasn’t entirely true. But the truth would require admitting that I was back on active duty with Forza, and I’d already ruled that out.

“So what about Stuart?” she asked. “He doesn’t know, right?”

Astute kid. “No,” I admitted. “He doesn’t.”

“Why?”

Another big question, but this one I was prepared to answer. “Because when I met Stuart, my demon-hunting days were long behind me. He fell in love with a single mom with a great kid who happened to be a lousy cook and a mediocre housekeeper.”

“Mediocre? Puh-lease.”

“Compared to the way you keep your room,” I countered with a laugh, “I’m mediocre. And the point is that my past wasn’t part of the equation. So I’ve always thought it would be unfair to spring it on him now.”

“Yeah,” she said, after pondering that for a bit. “I guess that makes sense.”

I’m glad she thought so, because I needed her to help keep my secret. As it was, I expected that I’d soon have to come clean with Stuart anyway. As much as I feared that the truth would drive a wedge into our marriage, I was equally afraid that keeping secrets would do the exact same thing.

“The whole thing’s kinda freaky,” she said as we headed back toward the parking lot. “But it’s pretty cool, too,” she added, flashing a wide smile. “My mom, the superhero.”

A little trill of satisfaction caught me by surprise. Having your teenager say you’re cool is a rare treat, and one that must be savored.

“What about Aunt Laura? Does she know?”

Laura Dupont lives directly behind us and also happens to be my best friend.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Laura knows.” “Um.” She chewed a bit on her lower lip as she processed that tidbit of information. “So, then, I can tell Mindy?” she finally asked, referring to her best friend and, conveniently enough, Laura’s daughter.

“I don’t know. Let me think about it. And let me talk it over with Laura. It’s a big deal knowing demons are out there. That may be more than you want to lay on a friend.” It had been more than I’d wanted to share with Laura, but she’d stumbled across my secret and I’d had no choice. Now, I was glad she knew. Everyone needs a confidante, and even though the rules of Forza require ultimate secrecy, some rules scream to be broken.

We walked a bit more in silence until Allie stopped abruptly, anxiety coloring her face. “Oh, God, Mom,” she said, making me totally fear the worst. “I can still go back to Coronado after the Christmas break, right? I mean, just because there was a demon in the surf club, that doesn’t mean I have to switch to a private school or anything. Does it?”

“That’s it?” I said, completely unable to keep my amazement—and relief—to myself. I’d just told her that not only had demons infiltrated her school, but that her mother, her father, her (pseudo) great-grandfather, and her chemistry teacher had all been Demon Hunters by trade. And the primary question on her mind was whether or not she was going to stay at the same high school? “That’s what you’re worried about?”

Call me crazy, but I was expecting ... I don’t know. Fear, yes. But once that was quelled, I thought there would be more. Fireworks. Teenage angst. Huffing and stomping and storming about. Accusations about keeping secrets. Possibly even the silent treatment.

I’d been expecting that, prepared for it, even. And I’d also been expecting that at the end of all the shock, she’d beg to follow in her parents’ footsteps. I figured she’d plead for a trip to Rome. Want to meet Father Corletti. At the very least insist on keeping a stiletto and a vial of holy water in her purse.

Honestly, that was one of the reasons I’d held off so long on this talk. Because that’s not a life I want for my daughter. I want her safe, secure in her home, tucked into bed at night, and not worrying about monsters in the closet or walking the streets. I agreed to come out of retirement to make San Diablo a safer town, after all. Tossing my daughter into the fray wasn’t part of what I was hoping to accomplish.