Demon Ex Machina: Tales of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Read online

  As it turned out, she’d selected the old Palace Theater, a classy choice with a rental price that included a cleanup crew. Bonus all the way around.

  “We did salt and holy water and then we scattered a powder made from the bones of saints,” Allie was saying, her comments directed more to Stuart than to me.

  “Powder?”

  She shrugged. “I guess they have barrels full of the stuff in the Vatican.”

  “Probably an overstatement,” I inserted.

  “Dunno,” she admitted to me, then turned back to Stuart. “But Father Corletti overnighted us a couple of pounds, and Daddy and I used your fertilizer spreader to—What?” She leaned in, peering at his face, which did look a little queasy. “It’s just ground-up bones. It’s not like they pulverized living—”

  He held up his hand, and she had the grace to stop. “You’re telling me that you and your father came out here to the cemetery with my lawn tools and spread salt and saint bones?”

  Allie glanced at me, her brow furrowed in confusion. I stared back at her, equally confused. And Stuart looked between the two of us, then sighed. “I’m seriously considering scheduling time every day,” he said. “A few moments, all by myself, where I do nothing but sit and ponder the ramifications of what you do and what goes on around here.”

  I tensed, listening for warning bells in his voice. Signs he was scared or fed up or otherwise ready to bolt on me again. But all I heard was quiet resignation. And, surprisingly, a hint of respect, too.

  He met my eyes. “She took a fertilizer spreader,” he said, as if I hadn’t already picked up on that little fact. “And because of that, no zombie is rising out of this cemetery.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Allie asked, voicing my exact question.

  “It’s a hell of a lot more than I’ve managed with the thing. I can’t even get the dandelions to stop sprouting. So no vampires rising either, right?”

  “Right,” I said. “But I already told you I haven’t seen any vampires in San Diablo.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” he said stiffly, and I again regretted the way I’d boasted one night, telling him about the time I’d fried a few vamps with a Bic lighter and a travel-sized can of Aqua Net. “Come on, guys,” I said. “Timmy’s going to a birthday party at ten tomorrow, and I’d like to get at least a few hours’ sleep before I spend two hours with fifteen screaming kiddos.”

  “One more go,” Stuart said, and I nodded in agreement.

  “I want you focused,” I said to him as Allie pulled the black hood back over her face. Serious eyes peered out from a sea of black, and I turned my attention to my daughter. “You’re in the shadows. Use your discretion when to attack, but don’t pounce again. I don’t think Stuart’s ribs can take it.”

  “Probably not manly of me to admit, but your mother’s right. I’d consider it a personal favor if you didn’t break any bones tonight.”

  “No prob, Stuart,” she said, then melted into the dark.

  “You’re on your own,” I said, then took a step toward the shadows. The sharp clang of metal against rock stopped me, and I froze, trying to discern the direction from which the sound had come. “Allie?” I whispered, then jumped as she materialized a few feet in front of me.

  “Not me,” she said, her voice so low I could barely hear it.

  I gestured for her to come closer even as I approached Stuart, my muscles tense, my senses hyperalert.

  What is it? Stuart mouthed. I shook my head and held up my hand, palm flat, hoping to silently indicate that not only did I not know, but he needed to stay put while I figured it out.

  I signaled again to Allie, and she correctly interpreted my hand flapping as orders to get closer to Stuart. I wasn’t sure how keen Stuart would be on the concept of a fourteen-year-old girl helping to protect him, but right then I wasn’t inclined to tread daintily on his masculine ego. To Allie’s credit, she got right next to him and took his hand, as if to suggest that he was the one protecting her.

  As for me, I moved slowly and silently out of the circle of light. I considered moving them to the dark as well, but decided against it. I’d rather be able to see them and know they were safe. In the shadows, anything could happen. A fact of which I was only too aware as I moved through the dark. The night seemed to close in on me, and I shivered, unable to shake the feeling that something was out there. Something other than us. Something watching.

  Something waiting.

  But waiting for what, I didn’t know.

  A thick layer of clouds hid a crescent moon, reducing the ambient light to next to nothing. I could barely see my hand in front of my face, and if a demon were crouched in waiting, it was quite likely he’d see me before I’d see him.

  And that realization was my cue to get my family the hell out of there.

  I stepped around a tall monument, planning to call to Stuart and Allie. I never got the words out, though, because of the sharp crack of a twig somewhere from the dark in front of Stuart.

  I saw him tense and reach out, his hand going for the knife at Allie’s back even as the figure appeared in front of him, just outside the circumference of light.

  Stuart snatched the knife, then hauled back, taking aim even as I raced forward, a sharp cry of “No!” bursting from my lungs as I recognized the apparition for what it really was.

  But it was too late. And all I could do was stand there as the lethal blade flew straight for Eddie’s heart.

  Two

  Allie’s scream joined mine, and I heard Stuart’s sharp intake of breath even as the knife whipped, blade over hilt, toward the retired Demon Hunter.

  I watched, helpless, as Eddie thrust his arm up in an effort to deflect the impact. But while he still had it going on at eighty-something, those reflexes weren’t what they used to be, and he missed the knife by a solid two inches, then stumbled back as it connected—hard—with his chest.

  “No!” Allie shouted, racing toward him with me right behind her. Stuart stood frozen, his eyes wide, his hand held in front of him as if it were something contaminated that he’d never seen before.

  “Goddamn, that smarts.” The voice, slightly irritated, came from the prone figure of Eddie on the ground, and those curmudgeonly tones danced on my ears like bells tolling my relief.

  Allie skidded to a stop at his side, then helped him up, his Oscar the Grouch face more grumpy than usual, though I supposed that was to be expected. He grunted, coughed, and proceeded to rub his head with gusto while Allie made soft noises, as if she were trying to calm an angry dog.

  Dressed in black jeans, a black turtleneck, and a black knit cap, Eddie was the very picture of an octogenarian grave robber, and despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help my smile. He aimed a gimlet eye at Stuart. “You trying to get your guest room back by offing me, pansy boy?”

  “I didn’t mean—” Stuart began, the fact that he was overlooking the “pansy” part of the equation underscoring exactly how freaked out he was.

  Eddie, however, only chuckled. “Guess I’ll have to quit calling you that, huh?” He rubbed his chest. “Got something of an arm on you there, slugger. Just gotta learn to hit ’em with the blade, not the hilt.”

  “It’s from lifting all those pansy-ass legal tomes,” Stuart said, and Eddie’s mirth-filled chuckle filled the air. “Builds muscle tone.”

  “Little more practice, and you’ll have the pointy end of those things sliding through demon flesh in no time.”

  “Just so long as I don’t take down any raggedly old men.”

  “Heh. I may be old, but I’m still spry.”

  How nice. After months of tension-filled coexistence, the two adult men in my household had finally connected. And all it had taken was for one to almost kill the other. If I’d known that, I could have shoved them in the backyard with a handful of knives weeks ago.

  “You sure you’re okay, Gramps?” Allie asked, her forehead crinkled with concern. “That hit really hard. You coulda broken some ribs.”<
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  Eddie thumbed himself on his chest. “Rock solid,” he said, then held out his hand for her. She took it, leaning in next to him as he swung his arm around her shoulder and allowed her to help haul him to his feet. Dressed as they both were in head-to-toe black, I had to laugh. They looked like an advertisement for multi-generational ninja training, an image with added irony when you considered that they weren’t actually related, though neither Allie nor Stuart knew that.

  And, the truth was, Eddie had truly become Gramps. No, he wasn’t Eric’s grandfather, like I’d told Stuart so many months ago before I’d settled the then-loopy and involuntarily medicated former Hunter in our guest room. But somewhere between then and now, the fiction had become our reality. Eddie was family. A fact evidenced most strongly by Stuart’s recent agreement to have his room wired for cable.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” I said, lifting my hand up and down as I gestured to Eddie’s midnight black outfit. “But why are you here?”

  I’d asked Eddie to join our little training mission, with both him and Allie playing the role of wandering demons to Stuart’s Hunter-in-training. He’d declined. Or, more accurately, he’d turned me down flat with a snort and a chuckle and the uniquely unhelpful comment that training Stuart was too little, too late, and if I was going to let my husband go out into the field, then I damn well better be training him to heel.

  The sad part? I actually feared Eddie was right.

  “Eh, Tammy’s cable’s down,” he said. “Decided to call it an early night and see how lawyer-boy’s training was going. Figured if you wanted me and the kid playing demon, it was the least I could do.”

  “You left a date with your girlfriend because her cable was down?” I repeated.

  “Hell, yeah,” he said. “Her DVD collection is crap.”

  Stuart and I exchanged a glance, and I caught the ever-so subtle shake of his head. I exhaled, backing down from my instinctive response to challenge Eddie’s less-than-romantic approach to dating.

  “We appreciate the help,” I said, “but I think we’re calling it a night.”

  A snort of protest from Eddie underscored Allie’s anguished cry of, “But!” Even Stuart muttered protests.

  Although I was probably being paranoid, I didn’t back down. I’d felt something out there that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle, something other than Eddie lumbering through the dark.

  As Eric had recently reminded me before all hell broke loose, I’d developed a Hunter’s instincts over the years. Which meant that my vague sense of paranoia could very well be the minions of hell lining us all up in their sights.

  I bit back a sigh, battle weary and tired, but knowing better than to ignore the inevitable. Something was brewing in San Diablo.

  So what else was new?

  I cocked my head vaguely in the direction of the parking lot. “Come on, guys. I’m serious. We’ll do this again next week.”

  Stuart looked like he was going to join in the protests, but then he took one look at my face and nodded. “Good idea. I have some things I need to take care of tonight anyway.” I’m not sure if he saw the resolve in my eyes or if he was simply backing his wife. Either way, I appreciated it.

  “Follow us home?” I asked. We’d arrived in separate cars, as Stuart had come straight from a dinner meeting.

  “About an hour behind you,” he said. “I want to check something at the house.” He didn’t mean our house, and all of us standing there knew it. Our heads swiveled in unison to the western edge of the cemetery and the cliff face that led up to the Greatwater Mansion, now owned by Dorsey-Connor Development, though the down payment had been so minuscule, I think it was fair to say the bank owned the house more than my husband or his new business partner, Bernie Dorsey.

  They’d owned the place for sixteen days now, the plan being that they’d fix it up, flip it, and make a huge profit. So far, they’d barely dipped their toes in the fix-it-up stage, and even Allie and I had been recruited to help with cleanup and basic upgrades.

  Me. The woman who gets flat-head and Phillips screwdrivers confused.

  Honestly, there are times when I think that Stuart still doesn’t know the woman he married.

  The mansion had a checkered history, some colorful owners, and ties to the Golden Age of Hollywood. And though it had fallen onto serious hard times, the extent of the work required had ensured the price was right. Now the trick was to get it back in shape without spending so much money that it ate into the profit potential.

  “Want to come?” he added.

  Tempting, but I shook my head. “I want to get Timmy,” I said. “I’ll meet you at home.” I shot a glance at Eddie. “Need a lift?”

  Eddie knows how to drive, but hasn’t bothered to renew his license. For a while, I’d been his exclusive chauffeur. Now Tammy had joined the party, and I appreciated the help. Tonight, though, I was guessing he’d taken a cab. His girlfriend hadn’t struck me as the pushover type.

  “Heck no,” he said, waving toward Stuart. “I’m going with your boy. Want to see this shack you two keep chattering on about.”

  “Can I come?” Allie said. “Please? It’s not a school night.”

  “Fine by me,” Stuart said.

  I hesitated, remembering that cold inkling of fear. But the truth was that in my life—in my world—fear had become part of the natural order of things.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” my too-wise daughter said. “Go get the Timster. We’ll be fine.”

  Stuart’s forehead creased. “Am I missing something? Your Spidey-sense tingling?”

  I made a face. “No. I’m fine. I’m just—”

  “Being a mom,” Allie said, with one of her patented eye rolls. She turned to Eddie. “This is why I’m never gonna get a learner’s permit. She’s terrified the world’s gonna come crashing down or something once I’m behind the wheel of a car.”

  “Or something,” I confirmed.

  Eddie grunted, then leaned over and scooped up Allie’s dagger from where it had fallen to the ground. He handed it to Allie, who slid it easily into the holster at her back. Then he closed his hand over the hilt of his own knife and met my eye. “We’re good,” said the octogenarian Dirty Harry.

  I cast a quick glance toward Stuart, who nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said, deadpan. “I got their backs.”

  I suppressed a grin. “Well, okay then. I’ll see you guys at home. Don’t stay there all night peeling old wallpaper or something.”

  “And don’t you hang back to patrol,” Stuart said. “Get Timmy, go home, and get some rest.”

  In the parking lot, I kissed Stuart and Allie, hugged Eddie, and then watched as they all piled into Stuart’s Infiniti. I hesitated, my mood melancholy, before climbing into the Odyssey and firing the engine. They drove out first, and I realized I was smiling. For a moment, I didn’t know why. And then it hit me: No matter how many times Stuart had told me he was adjusting to the knowledge of my formerly secret life, I hadn’t quite believed him.

  Tonight, however, we’d been a family. A real family, albeit one that hangs out in cemeteries. But a family without secrets between us.

  And damned if I didn’t like the way that felt.

  “At least you know he’s got good reflexes,” Laura said. “Oh, to have seen the look on his face.”

  “He looked a little like he did when I told him I was pregnant with Timmy—terrified, surprised, and secretly proud of himself.” I reached for another muffin, smiling in earnest now. What had seemed serious in the cemetery now qualified as coffee-time gossip with my best friend. No one had been injured, Stuart had learned a lesson, and we had a great family story to tell around the table at Thanksgiving. At least on those years that Stuart’s parents didn’t join us.

  “Seriously, though,” Laura said as she refilled both our mugs, “is he doing okay?”

  “With which? Adjusting to his wife’s secret identity? Or learning to be sidekick boy?”

  “Both.” She slid
into the chair opposite me and took a long sip. “For that matter, how are you doing?”

  “Under the circumstances, I’m doing just great.”

  Laura lifted a brow, examining me over the rim of her coffee mug, obviously trying to decide if I was shooting straight or if I was shoving organic fertilizer her way.

  “Okay, fine,” I said, copping to a little bit of fertilizer. “On the family front things are going really well, actually. Stuart’s demonstrating an excessive amount of togetherness, but it’s such a novelty that I’m not yet teetering on the brink of insanity. And Allie’s actually keeping her room clean and helping around the house.”

  “Probably afraid that if she doesn’t, you’ll take away her dagger.”

  “Whatever works,” I said. “Although I am a little concerned about her schoolwork.”

  Laura nodded sympathetically. “I was afraid of that. Mindy said some things.”

  Warning bells clanged in my head. “What kind of things?”

  “What you’d expect. That Allie’s been distracted. Doing her homework, but not doing it well even though she’s spending a lot of time in the library.” She got up and pushed back from the table, then opened the cabinet above the sink—the one where she keeps the liquor. “Want something with more kick than caffeine?”

  “Do I need it?”

  “Probably not,” she said. “But I do. Hell of a day here, too.”

  “Oh, hon,” I said, the sympathy in my voice real despite the fact that I was not interested in shifting from Allie’s problems to Laura’s. Not just yet.

  Laura laughed, obviously reading my expression, then took down a bottle of Baileys Irish Cream, which happens to be one of my not-so-secret vices. “Don’t worry. It’s all about Kate until we’ve exhausted the subject or the bottle. Whichever comes first.”

  “And then all about Laura,” I said, loyally.