Demons are Forever: Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom (31 page)

Not that I had time to think about it. David had reached one of the guard demons already, and as I rushed to help Nadia, the third barreled toward me.

“Get back, you son of a bitch,” I shouted, pulling the crossbow into ready position. He didn’t even slow down. Just raced pell-mell toward me, arms wide out at his sides, his chest exposed.

I fired, nailing him right in the heart. The shot didn’t kill him, of course, but it did fell him, and as he tumbled, I leaped on him, then stabbed my stiletto through his eye before he even had time to react.

As the demon was sucked out of the body, I sprang back up. He might have been an easy kill, but there were two more demons to worry about, and I could see that David and Nadia had their hands full.

Unlike the demon I’d killed, the creature David was fighting was armed with a serious-looking machete. David was holding his own, but as I watched, the demon caught David’s saber right at the handle, splitting the metal at the joint and sending the blade flying.

As I screamed and raced toward them, the demon thrust the blade down, aiming for David’s heart. David kicked up, his leg intercepting the blade, knocking it off course, but slicing his leg in the process.

He howled in pain, then collapsed as the demon kicked his good leg out from under him. I’d reached them by now, and as the demon lunged again for David, I intercepted, managing to get a good kick of my own in and knock the machete out of his hand.

It went tumbling to the ground, and as the demon scrambled to retrieve it, I leaped to nail him. I caught him off balance and we rolled over and over. My stiletto jerked free in the confusion.

We ended with him on top of me, both of us unarmed. He had his fingers on my throat, and I used one hand to try to force his fingers away and keep my air passage open. With my other hand, I grappled for my lost blade.

I couldn’t find it, and as the pressure of his fingers increased, I knew I couldn’t afford to scrabble for it for too long. I needed both hands to pry the demon off if I wanted to stay conscious.

“Kate!”

I turned my head and saw David limping toward me. With his bad leg, he couldn’t move fast enough to reach me, but he did the next best thing, kicking the machete and sending it spinning over the trampled ground until it stopped just close enough for my fingers to reach it.

As I did, the demon’s grip tightened, and the world turned inside out as my body used up the last of the oxygen in my lungs. I fought through the haze, focusing all my effort on my arm and the hand that held the demon’s machete. I swung up and over, not aiming so much as trying to make contact. Anything to get the bastard to loosen his grip.

I felt a thud as the machete connected, then the tension as I sliced through flesh and cartilage. A single thump, and the pressure on my neck loosened. The demon collapsed on top of me. I squirmed sideways, my vision clearing even as I did.

That’s when I saw it. The demon’s body, but without a head.

I found the head quickly enough, and as it babbled at me in a language surely known only in Hell, I used the machete for one more bit of dirty work—stabbing the damn thing through the eye so that the demon—as well as the body-was dead.

“David!” I called, turning to find him back on the ground. I rushed to his side, terrified by how pale he looked.

“It’s not an artery,” he said, tightening a tourniquet he’d manufactured from his own belt. “I’ll be fine. Nadia needs help.”

I gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, then sprang back up. The stone table had cracked down the middle, and now it was merely rubble. They were battling on it, though, and I was once again impressed by the woman’s skills.

Even so, she was no match for an angry, resurrected demon, and I got the feeling he was toying with her. I struggled forward, still lightheaded, and scooped up my knife along the way. As I got closer, Andramelech looked straight at me. “Little Hunter,” he said. “You will not win.”

“I think I will,” I said, and as I did, I let my knife fly. It landed square in his eye, and the demon—the great Andramelech, who had caused us all so much worry and trouble—was sucked out of the body and disappeared into the ether.

Honestly, the whole thing was rather anticlimactic.

“Eric!” Nadia yelled as she leaped from the table and sprinted toward him. “Thank God you’re safe. Thank God, thank God.”

She pulled him to her and pressed a kiss to his lips even as I stood there seething. David looked more than a little uncomfortable, but whether it was because she was kissing him or because I was standing right there, I didn’t know.

All I knew was that Andramelech was gone, and with him my last reason to work with David.

Eric, I thought, was truly dead to me now.

“Honestly, Crowe, I didn’t mean
to hurt you,” Nadia said, as she shoved a few more things deep into her duffel bag. “I mean, it’s been almost six years, you know? And you’re married. So why should you care what happened between Eric and me all that time ago?”

“I guess I’m just a silly suburban mom,” I said coldly. “It’s so hard for us to rein in our emotions.”

“Jesus, Crowe. I thought you’d be a little bit more rational about this.”

“About the fact that you’re telling me you had an affair with my husband?”

“I never said that,” she said with a tiny smile. “Not exactly.”

I leaned against Stuart’s desk and watched her cram a few more pairs of underwear into her bag, still not sure what to think. I trusted Eric, I did. And yet what possible motive would Nadia have for pretending to have had an affair? I couldn’t think of one, and that made me nervous. Very, very nervous.

Finally she finished packing and turned back to me. “Okay, look,” she said. “I came here without any idea that Eric was around. Honest. But after you told me about David, I wanted to go have a little talk with him. About leaving you to patrol alone, you know?” She was chewing gum—I’d refused to let her smoke in the house—and she paused to smack it.

“Go on.”

“I got there, all ready to rip him a new one, but he seemed so familiar. And he was staring at me like he’d seen a ghost. And that’s when he told me who he was. I mean, this is a man I really, deeply cared for.” She shrugged, not meeting my eyes. “Anyway, that’s when you came in, and—”

“You lying little bitch,” I said, the words coming out as a whisper, a defense against her onslaught. As soon as I spoke them, though, I knew they were true. I didn’t know Nadia’s reason, but I was certain she was lying.

A quick thrust of guilt slammed into my gut. I’d known Eric my whole life, and still I’d doubted. What kind of a fool was I?

She looked up at me, her head angled as she tied the knot at the top of her bag. “It’s easier to think that, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” I said honestly. “It is.”

The look she gave me was both cold and pitying, but I held my ground, fighting the urge to slap her as I indicated the door. She hoisted her duffel and headed out of Stuart’s office, toward the front door. She paused there, then, and looked back at me.

“In the end, it doesn’t matter what you think,” she said. “Andramelech’s gone, at least for now. It’s over. I know the truth, and so does Eric. And now you can go back to folding laundry and making meat loaf. Have a nice life in suburbia, Crowe.”

“Thanks,” I said sweetly as she stepped out onto the porch. I slammed the door hard, hoping it burst her eardrums, and then I leaned against the closed door. “I will,” I said, looking down the hall at the house that I loved, that was my home. “I do.”

The phone rang
while I was still fuming about Nadia. I had rewound and rerun the conversation in my head so that I had a variety of different endings, ranging from me being incredibly polite but sharp-tongued, to me forgoing chitchat all the way and simply mowing her down with her own Lotus.

Satisfying, and yet ... not.

I checked the caller ID, saw that it was David, and immediately froze. Part of me desperately wanted to answer. The other part wanted to run away and hide.

Finally, the grown-up part decided to take over, and I pushed the talk button.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “She’s lying.”

“I know,” I said. I took a deep breath. “So how’s the leg?” I asked brightly.

“Not good,” he admitted. “But it will heal. But Kate, about Nadia ...”

“That will heal, too,” I said. “I was ... Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. Because I trust you. I do. I’m sorry I didn’t, even for a moment.”

“Kate,” he said, the edge in his voice scaring me. “I didn’t tell you everything. That night in my apartment when you came over. When I told you what happened in San Francisco. I left a few things out.”

“What?” I whispered, moving to one of the kitchen chairs because my legs were suddenly weak.

“We hadn’t just talked by phone. She’d come to San Diablo, too. She came to the library twice, I think. She hit on me, pretty hard.”

“And did you ... ?”

“No,” he said. “I told her I was married. I told her I loved my wife.”

“But she didn’t leave it alone.”

“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t trust her,” he admitted. “Why I didn’t tell her I still had the ring.”

“She must hate you for lying to her.”

“Maybe,” he admitted. “If so, she has a funny way of showing it.”

“I saw,” I said dryly.

He chuckled, the sound teasing my heart and soul and conjuring up so many memories of his laugh. “When she came by this morning,” he said, “it was to chew me out for not helping you patrol. Then she looked at me and—”

“Knew who you were. Yes, I’ve heard the story.”

“I had the impression she’d known all along, actually,” he said. “Not that it matters. And not that I could prove it.”

I frowned at that. If she knew, why the song and dance?

“At any rate, she said that she missed me and that now that time had passed and you were married, the door was open.”

“She’s right,” I said, forcing the words out, and hating the truth of them. And it was true. David was single. He could date—even marry—anyone he wanted.

The thought made me more than a little queasy.

“She’s not,” he said, his voice tender. “The door’s not open, Katie. Not to her.”

I shivered, hearing the words that he didn’t say: It wasn’t open to her, but it was open to me.

“Eric, I ...”

“I know,” he said. “We’ve already been there, haven’t we?”

“Eric?”

“After the semester is up,” he said. “After that, I’ll move away. It will be easier on both of us.”

I swear I could feel my heart breaking. “Allie?”

“I’m dead to her,” he said, his voice cracking. “This way is probably how it should be.”

When Stuart came home,
he found me red-eyed and puffy-faced, still at the kitchen table. “Hey,” he said, sliding his hands over my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just ... Nadia,” I said, deciding that half-truth was better than no truth at all.

“She’s gone, I take it?”

“And good riddance.” I looked up at him and saw him smile. “What?”

“I’m just echoing the sentiment.”

“Oh really?” I said, lifting an eyebrow. “I would have thought you’d be sad to see her go. Or, at least, to see her wardrobe go.”

“Nonsense,” he said. “I can always buy you a red leather bustier.”

My mood was lightening by the second. “Yes, but could you make me wear it?”

“Wouldn’t matter,” he countered. “Since the goal would be to get you out of it anyway.”

“Thanks,” I said, squeezing his hand.

“What for this time?”

“Just for being there. For making me feel better. I love you, you know.”

“I know,” he said, and I could see in his eyes that he meant it.

“So where have you been?”

“Took Timmy out for McDonald’s, and then Laura offered to babysit. I took her up on it.”

My smile broadened. “Good idea.”

“Why don’t we take a walk?”

“A walk?” I repeated.

“Sure. Like we used to. On the beach. Under the stars.” He pressed a kiss to my fingertips. “Could be romantic.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I suppose it could.”

We drove there at a much more relaxed pace than my last trip to the beach, and Stuart parked near my usual space when I come for patrols. We left our shoes in the car, then walked north toward the rocky area and the secluded sandy inlets that you can find at low tide.

We walked hand in hand, talking, but at the same time not saying much of anything. The kids. The night. Plans for the house, for our life.

At one point I shivered, thinking about the ocean and this place and this man. Because the last time I’d walked along the beach, I’d been with Eric, although I hadn’t realized it at the time. So I supposed it was fitting that now I walked here again with my husband.

We’d reached a secluded area near the base of the cliffs, and Stuart pulled me close, then kissed me deep. “I love you,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I love you, too.”

He kissed me again, harder, the kiss wild and possessive as he pulled me down with him.

“We’ll get sand in our hair,” I said, my voice breathy and my hands never leaving my husband. “In our clothes.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “Do you?”

And you know what? I didn’t.

Nineteen

Sunday Mass came and went,
followed by brunch at the Coronado Hotel, a nice surprise courtesy of Stuart, who apparently was still in a bit of a romantic mood. Timmy could sense that this wasn’t the usual Denny’s fare, and was on his best behavior, and Allie spent the morning looking down at the beach from our patio vantage point and commenting about the guys playing volleyball in the sand.

It was chilly for San Diablo—in the low seventies—and we were all wearing sweaters. All except Allie, who sported a black leather jacket.