Demon Ex Machina: Tales of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom (17 page)

He took another step toward me. “Back!” I cried again, but this time I followed with a dose of holy water from the vial in my jacket pocket. Eric howled in pain, his body bucking so hard I feared he would break. But that wasn’t really what caught my attention. No, what intrigued me was the telling fact that not a millimeter of his skin was scarred or in any way marred by the holy water.

“I’m sorry,” he wailed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”

“Eric,” I whispered, horrified, but he pushed past me, running out of the house blindly toward the street. I followed, my mind whirling, my only goal to stop him. To let him know that I knew the truth—that it hadn’t been him, but the demon inside.

At the core, Eric was still Eric.

How much longer he would stay that way, I didn’t know. I feared that now that it had started, the change would come faster and faster, spinning him round and round like a whirlpool until Eric and the demon were one, individuality lost along with any hope of getting back the man I loved.

I frowned, the mental image of the demon and Eric’s increasingly frenetic spinning dance playing at my mind. We’d been trying so hard to find a way to bind the demon or force him out of Eric, and while that definitely needed to be our game plan, maybe we should spend some time searching for a way to simply slow the process. Because if we could gum up the works and keep the demon’s tentacles from tightening faster and faster, then maybe we could buy some time to find answers.

It was worth discussing with Eddie, I thought, as I raced after Eric, stumbling to a halt as I reached the playground where we used to take Allie.

He had settled into a swing, his heels lost in the sand as he swung mildly back and forth. He turned as I approached: I saw nothing of the demon in his eyes. Instead, I saw regret. And fear.

“Did I hurt you?”

I took his hand, pressed it tight in mine. “No,” I said firmly, then followed it with a smile, because I knew he needed that. “Absolutely not. Although if your balls feel a bit black-and-blue, I’m afraid you’ve got me to thank for that.”

“Thank you,” he said, with such sincerity it made me wince.

“Eric—”

“No.” He climbed to his feet. “I mean it.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“Under the circumstances, I think beating the crap out of me would be completely justified. A smack in the groin hardly seems sufficient.”

“You remember?” I asked.

“Every lousy second.” He inhaled deeply through his nose, pressed the heels of his hands to his temples as if warding off a killer headache. “It’s like being trapped in a dream you can’t wake from, only it’s much worse than seeing yourself walk around naked. There’s no control. There’s only consciousness. And impotence.” The air between us seemed to hang silent and heavy before he spoke again, and when he did, it was with infinite regret. “I would never hurt you, Kate. You know that, right?”

“I do,” I said, though I feared that in the end, Eric would be the one who hurt me most of all. “We really should go,” I said, hesitant this time, as my last attempt to leave had ended with me pressed against a wall, panting.

He nodded, then started moving toward the street, his cane tapping the way.

We walked in silence until the weight of the quiet turned unbearable and I had no choice but to speak. “What are we going to do, Eric?” I considered telling him about the dagger, but the truth was that I couldn’t bring myself to. If it came to that, then I suppose I would learn whether or not I had the strength to wield the thing. But I saw no reason to torment Eric with the knowledge that the people he loved were now spending their time searching for a weapon that will kill him, even though it wouldn’t save him.

Apparently, though, my worry was for nothing, because it was Eric who raised the subject, surprising me with his soft, whispered declaration that, “There’s a dagger, and it can end this for me. For us both.”

My breath hitched. “Do you have it?”

He stopped walking to look at me, his face bland. “I’ve spent years looking for it, and I haven’t found a single clue. I don’t even know what it’s supposed to look like, much less where to search for it. For all I know it’s a myth. Maybe it doesn’t even exist at all.”

“I almost hope it doesn’t,” I said, my words a whisper as I moved on.

He matched my stride. “If it comes down to it, you can’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Feel sorry for me. Fight foolishly for me.”

“I’m not a foolish fighter,” I said lightly, but he grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop and looking at me hard, his eyes burning, and not with the light of demon fire.

“I mean it, Katie. If it comes to it, you end this thing. With the dagger, with a sharp stick, with a fucking car key. It doesn’t matter. But you end it.”

“Eric—”

“Eric, please—” I knew I had to, but the thought ripped me to shreds.

“You’ve done it before,” he said, and he was right. At the time, though, I’d been confident that he’d be free, his soul leaving this plane and finally, thankfully, coming to rest in heaven.

Now, I knew differently. Unless we found a way to untangle Eric from the beast, he would have no reward. He would, for all intents and purposes, become a demon himself. And what would that do to him? I wondered. Over decades, over millennia? Though his soul might start out pure, and though I believed in Eric’s strength, I didn’t know if that strength would last for an eternity. And the thought of Eric sliding into the abyss—the thought of the father of my daughter becoming truly evil—it was more than I could bear.

Eric didn’t see all that on my face, of that I was certain. But he saw enough, and his own expression softened. “You can’t make this about me,” he said.

“I’m not making it anything,” I countered. “It is about you.”

“I mean it, Kate. You can’t let the demon live because you think that sometime, down the road, you’ll find a way to separate us. You kill that son of a bitch. Kill him, and let me worry about how I’ll get free. Because I will. Somehow, eventually, I’ll find a way.”

I nodded, my throat too thick to talk. I didn’t believe him—hell, I didn’t know what I believed—but I knew that he needed to believe I was there, his backup plan in case his internal struggle against the demon failed.

The hell of it was, though, I didn’t want to be the backup. I couldn’t, in fact, think of anything I wanted less. “You fight, dammit,” I said. “You fight, and you don’t stop fighting.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” he said, and his grin was so very Eric that I couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out, only to be cut off in a strangled sort of yelp as a small torpedo rocketed at me from around a shrub and knocked me onto my ass.

Except, of course, it wasn’t a rocket. It was a toddler. A demonic toddler to be exact, and its strong, stubby fingers gripped me tight around my neck even as I tried to get my arms under it so I could thrust up and out and break its hold on me.

“Off!” I tried to shout, but it sounded more like a strangled “Urlf!” Not that I was worrying about my personal sound track; I was more inclined to worry about breathing. The fact that my attacker was a toddler didn’t even faze me right then—when hands are closing off your windpipe, the age of those hands is not at the forefront of your mind.

But once I’d managed to get some leverage and pry him off with a huge shove that sent him hurtling back onto the sidewalk, the similarities between him and Timmy washed over me. The little bastard was wearing a Disneyland T-shirt, for God’s sake! I’d put Timmy in one exactly like that this morning, and while I had my knife ready, and my mind was telling me to take out the lying little bastard, those damned maternal hormones were slowing my hand.

Eric, I saw, had no such compunction.

He leaped, tackling the toddler with every ounce of strength in his body, and then beating on the thing with fists that wouldn’t stop no matter how much I yelled out for him to do just that. His shirt rode up as he pummeled the kid, and the scar I’d seen earlier seemed to pulse in the thin light of the streetlamps.

My eyes scanned the area as lights came on from nearby houses, and I feared that we’d soon hear the shrill siren of police cars, and see the red-and-white flash of lights filling the alley.

“Dammit, Eric! Stop!” Though right then, I wasn’t at all certain whether I was speaking to Eric or the beast inside him.

I was in tears by the time he’d finished tormenting the demon, and finally did what he should have done right off—slide the razor-sharp point of his favorite stiletto into the demon child’s eye.

He let go of the body, watching with flat eyes as it dropped to the ground. He toed the body over so that it lay facedown, and I shivered, colder still when he lifted his face to look dispassionately at me.

“Eric,” I whispered. “Please. It was a child.”

“It was a demon,” he said. And then he turned and walked away, leaving me alone with the body and my thoughts.

 

 

A California coastal town
, San Diablo boasts both beaches and mountains. Or, more specifically, beaches and craggy foot-hills of mountains. The town’s origin dates back to the California missions, and even before San Diablo took that name, the cathedral sat tall and proud at the top of the cliffs, a focal point for what later became the rather artsy, sleepy town of San Diablo.

I’d hoped to see Eric at Mass, as his presence there would mean that the demon had fully retreated inside of him. And that, of course, was the reason I kept twisting in my seat to scour the crowded pews. After the third such acrobatic move, Stuart elbowed me and asked me what I was up to. Since I didn’t want to remind him of Eric’s condition (not that I expected him to forget) I muttered an apology and fixed my eyes on the bishop.

The truth was, though, that I’d rather be distracted than listen to Mass. Not a particularly devout state of mind, I’ll admit, but not one I could shake, not when I used to sit on these very pews and listen to Father Ben celebrate the Mass and deliver his homily. I closed my eyes tight, and felt Allie squeeze my hand. Even Timmy hugged me, his little hands pressing against my face, and though I held my breath and waited for the tantrum, it didn’t come.

Little miracles, I thought. They were around me every day.

But it wasn’t a little miracle I needed in my life right then.

It was a big one.

And since I was in a church, I closed my eyes and prayed.

After communion, Timmy’s good behavior wore out, little miracles being limited by their very definition. Fortunately, the tantrum didn’t come, but the squirming did. Along with the kicking and the whispering and the whining. In light of a few rotating heads giving me the evil eye (the nondemonic sort), I decided to take Timmy out. I hauled him up so that he clung like a monkey, walked gingerly over Allie’s feet, and made my way up the aisle, quietly shooshing my little boy, who now insisted that he didn’t want to leave.

The moment I stepped through the heavy doors and into the narthex, I saw Eddie, lounging by a bulletin board announcing a fellowship brunch after Mass in the Bishop’s Hall. Though Catholic, Mass hasn’t been tops on Eddie’s priority list in a long while, definitely not since I’ve known him. My immediate reaction was fear, and I hurried to him with a “What? What’s happened?”

“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” he said. “Just trying to do my job. Both of ’em.”

“Both of them?”

He hooked a finger toward the parking lot. “Got Rita out there. She’s gonna give me a lift to work.”

“Rita? You mean Fran’s mother?”

“Don’t know any Fran, but Rita said she was in your class yesterday. Dropped by the shop after. Said she was window-shopping, but didn’t buy anything.” He leaned in closer, his brows waggling. “Personally, I think she just wanted to pick me up.”

I agreed, but didn’t tell him so.

“And now she’s giving you lifts around town? You two only met yesterday.”

He snorted. “At our age, you think we want to waste time?” He waggled his brows. “Gonna take her for dinner and a walk on the beach after. So don’t wait up.”

I swallowed a laugh, but had to give Rita credit. The woman knew what she wanted, that was for sure.

Ushers pushed open the doors to the sanctuary, and the parishioners started filing out. I eased closer to Eddie as Timmy wiggled to get down, then spread his arms wide and started zooming around me in an impression of a jet. “So what have you learned?” I asked, because as fascinated as I was by both Rita and Eddie’s mysterious new job, I was primarily interested in his new employment as my
alimentatore
.

Eddie, however, wasn’t talking. At least not to me. Instead, he addressed the air over my shoulder, telling “Blintz boy” to head on outside and take the rugrat with him.

I turned to find Stuart standing behind me, a scowl on his face. “I asked Eddie to be my temporary
alimentatore
,” I explained.

“And I got business to discuss with your lady. And a schedule to keep. You want to get a move on?”

“Kate—” Stuart began.

I pushed Timmy toward him. “Just—please.”

I’m not sure if it was the plea in my voice, the exasperation on my face, or his irritation with Eddie in general, but Stuart kissed me on the cheek, scooped up Timmy so that his plane became airborne, and headed toward the main door to shake the bishop’s hand. I crossed my arms over my chest and silently dared Eddie not to get straight to the point.

“This dagger,” he began. “
Forza
’s just started looking for that, right?”

“Right,” I said. “Father Corletti told me that they didn’t know the name of the demon within Eric until now. And apparently this dagger’s unique to Odayne. So no one would have been searching for it before.” A problem, of course, since millennia-old daggers don’t tend to be easily discoverable on eBay. Not that I particularly wanted the dagger—I still wasn’t convinced I’d be able to use it—but I was smart enough to know that no matter what was going to happen, I at least needed to have every known weapon in my arsenal.