The Accidental Gatekeeper (The Accidental Midlife Trilogy Book 1)

by Carla Rehse

  “I had to!” I snapped. “Mike had gotten in too deep and started storing cocaine at the clinic. Using it, also. He even hired some of the thugs to act as custodians, but of course they weren’t there to clean, just to guard their product. Then Mike fired his nurse when she asked some questions. It was just … things would’ve been worse if we were raided. And I have Sadie to think about.”

  To my shame, it had taken me several years to get the courage to go to the FBI, who contacted the DEA. Years of battling the guilt of betraying my husband versus the guilt of not doing the right thing. I didn’t take the concept of betrayal or my wedding vows lightly. But I found myself in a no-win situation. In the end, Sadie’s safety mattered the most, though I had a deep fear my decision was putting her in more danger than if I’d just left things alone.

  A part of me wanted to give Mama the simple, glossed-over version I handed to Sadie the night the Feds hauled off her father. Another part of me wanted to confess how messy, confusing, and harrowing the last year had been. Like yesterday when an SUV pulled alongside my truck, and the passenger pointed a semi-automatic rifle at me while giving me the “shush gesture” of a finger on his lips. At the moment, I just didn’t have the energy to explain anything further.

  Tears burned my eyes, which made me angry ’cause I’d never been a crier. I was a fighter, damn it, not this timid, cringing mouse. It was one thing that I’d allowed a few pounds here and there to creep in, as yoga pants were far preferable to skinny jeans, but this wimpiness shamed me.

  Mama patted my shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetheart. After supper, we’ll go home. I’ll make huge mugs of hot cocoa, Irish’d up, then we’ll talk. I just finished knitting a soft blanket that’ll help too.”

  I sighed. “Sounds great. Tell me what’s new in town?”

  “Well, the biggest news is the Gatekeeper. Jack Russo? He’s been very, very sick.”

  “Old Jack?” He’d been a salty old bastard when I was a kid and always looked like he had a severe case of constipation. And that was before he became Gatekeeper in 2001. The Saints knew that having to be in constant contact with Hell would change a person for the worse, so I couldn’t imagine how curmudgeonly he was now.

  Mama grimaced. “Old? He’s a year younger than me!”

  Oops. “You’ve … uh, always aged gracefully, Mama. Who’s slated to take over for him?” I couldn’t remember how many Russos still lived here as the three High Marked families tended to move between the ten Hell Gates spread across the globe. At the moment, Mama was the only Popa living in town, mainly because the Archivist was considered a High Marked position with no retirement plan. I did have second and third cousins coming out of my ears in the area.

  Delilah arrived with a huge tray before Mama responded. “A friendly warning—these are hot.”

  She placed a steaming cast-iron skillet in front of me. I reached for my wine glass just as she centered the skillet, and like an idiot, my wrist brushed the hot handle. “Ow!” Being left-handed in a right-handed world had painful downsides.

  Delilah gasped. “I am so sorry! Here, use this.” She pulled out a small salve tin from her apron pocket.

  I waved my hand, then instantly regretted it as the air made the burn sting even more. “It’s my own stupid fault. Don’t worry about it.”

  “This really will help,” she insisted as she slid open the top. A strong herbal aroma—lavender with something I couldn’t name—wafted over the smell of the steaks.

  “Is that something new from the Apothecary?” Mama asked. And yeah, she said Apothecary. Border towns relied on herbal treatments versus modern medicine.

  Torn between the societal expectation of accepting help and my skepticism of anything medicinal that didn’t have a million-dollar advertising budget, I reluctantly stuck my pinkie into the thick, purplish salve. I smeared it on the reddened skin just above my wrist, and the pain faded almost immediately. “Oooh. That’s nice.”

  “Once again, I am so sorry.” Delilah returned the tin to her pocket. “Need anything else?”

  Mama smiled. “We’re fine, dear. Thanks.” She waited until Delilah went inside, then waved her fork holding a chunk of bloody steak. “That poor girl. Did I tell you her fiancé was killed by vampires? Nick, the Bakers’ son? Then she miscarried, and you know how precious Marked children are. So much death lately. But back to Jack. His grandniece Heather was named a candidate at fifteen and has been training to replace him for the last ten years or so. You went to school with her mother, Janice?”

  I grimaced. “Janice.” I wouldn’t call her my high school nemesis or anything that exaggerated, but she did once tell me if a demon set me on fire, she wouldn’t even pee on me to put it out. “Well, better a Russo than—”

  A shrill howl sent a shiver down my spine.

  “Did you hear that?”

  Mama, in the midst of masticating a chunk of steak, raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  Traditionally, border towns discouraged pets for practical purposes—Shifters. No one wanted their fluffy kitten to turn out not to be Calico Jane but Pervy Stanley, the local fifty-year-old peeping tom. The same went for dogs. So, what howled? It was too high pitched for a werewolf or any other were-canine. Unless my memory wasn’t as clear as I thought.

  I scanned the area and realized I’d been right. It wasn’t a werewolf. Rather, a truck-sized, foaming-at-the-mouth, Hellhound.

  My first thought: “Huh. Damn that thing’s huge with its spooky Hellfire eyes.”

  My second: “Um, aren’t Hellhounds invisible except to their prey?”

  My third: “Holy shit on toast! That thing is headed for us!”

  THREE

  Hellhounds really don’t make great pets

  I jumped up, knocking my chair to the ground with a clang of metal hitting concrete pavers. “Hellhound!”

  The Hellhound leaped over the knee-high fence surrounding the patio without breaking its stride. It growled, deep and low. Strands of disgusting gray drool dripped from its mouth.

  Mama stood. “What? There can’t be a Hellhound here.”

  My heart pounded in my chest as I backpedaled, running into the next table so hard I knew I’d bruise. If Mama couldn’t see it, then the cursed thing was here for me. “Are you sure you can’t see it?”

  “Where?” Mama turned in a slow circle, clutching her steak knife.

  Should I go for my knife, or would that cause it to charge? “It’s by the patio’s entrance.”

  Damn my luck!

  I tried to recall everything else I knew about them but only remembered they worked with specially trained Hunters. Where in the blazes was the Hunter?

  Mama reached into her handbag and grabbed her phone. “I don’t see it. Let me get the Hunter-in-Charge over here.”

  “Wonderful.” My voice came out a little squeakier than I liked, but at least she didn’t accuse me of hallucinating or recreational drug use. Something weird in Crossing Shadows? Must be Tuesday.

  Now to figure out what to do with a roving Hellhound. Border towns didn’t have animal control. Or a police force, for that matter. Fires were controlled by a pyro-psychic witch, and trash collection was on a rotating volunteer basis. A Hunter was the best shot at controlling a Hellhound, besides a Seraph. But angels were like an extra phone charger—never around when you really needed one.

  The Hellhound stopped and tilted its head. Black, oily fur rippled as it sniffed at Mama, then at me. The yellow fire in its eyes grew brighter, and I couldn’t make myself look away. Fear, stronger than anything I ever felt before, hit me. But it wasn’t death that frightened me. And I wasn’t sure if it was my fear I felt, as it seemed like an alien emotion drilling into my head.

  The Hellhound howled, and I swore even my soul shivered.

  It jumped an impossible amount of distance and knocked me down. Though I felt none of its weight on my legs, I couldn’t move my lower body. Hot drool that stank of rotten eggs burned my neck.

  I screamed as I punched th
e creature square in its rock-hard nose. A futile gesture, but a Popa went down fighting. “Mama! Protect Sadie!”

  The Hellhound sniffed me. I tried to punch it again, but it nipped my left arm. Closing my eyes and envisioning my daughter’s face, I waited for it to rip out my throat.

  Instead, it licked my nose with a cactus-needle rough tongue. Then it bounded away into the dark.

  Mama knelt next to me. “Everly!”

  I sat up. “The Hellhound? Did you see it? Can’t believe it didn’t kill—” A sharp pain pierced my wrist where the blasted thing had nipped me, causing the burn below the bite to begin aching again. “What the?”

  Pain boiled up my arm then spread across my body. And I’m not talking about I-stubbed-a-toe pain, but holy shit-the epidural-wore-off-so-yank-this-baby-out-NOW agony. Every nerve in my body felt as if it had burned to ash, regenerated, then caught fire again.

  The Hellhound, somewhere behind me, howled. It sounded joyous … not mocking my pain, more like it was welcoming me to its pack. Which made no sense. How could I know what the stupid hound was thinking and feeling?

  Another wave of horrendous agony slammed into me. Every part of my body hurt, from my pinkie toes to my eyebrows to my lungs struggling to draw in air.

  Mama yelled my name again, but I pushed away from her.

  With my jaw clenched against the building screams in my chest, I flopped around like a fish out of water with no escape from the torment.

  People jabbered around me, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. It was as if all the adults from the Charlie Brown TV shows had converged around me in a screechy, useless circle. Someone touched my forehead, and mercifully the pain dulled to a bearable roar. Or maybe I passed out for a few seconds.

  “Everly, honey, can you hear me?” Mama asked. “The Hellhound. We just heard it. And it seems to have bitten you.”

  “We?” Another fierce wave of agony slammed into me, constricting my lungs even more. I clawed at the concrete paver, panting for air. “Dying,” I moaned. “S-Sadie.”

  Maybe I never made it out of Houston. Those gangster friends of my husband must’ve caught up with me again. Yeah. That had to be it. They broadsided me, flipped my truck off a bridge, then I got completely smashed by a semi-truck like in one of those absurd action movies I snarked about but really loved. That made tragic sense. Though why was I still enduring this unrelenting torment? God. Sadie must be so crushed.

  “It’s okay,” a man said, brushing strands of hair from my face. His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember why. “You’re not dying, I promise. The Saints be with you.”

  The man had a kind, calm voice. But I swore on everything holy that if he were lying, I’d freaking haunt him until the end of his days. I tried to focus my eyes but lost the battle as the pain began revving up again. A memory swam to the top of my mind.

  “W-w … why?” Hellhounds didn’t roam around attacking people. They worked for the Hunters. Why would I be hunted?

  “Sebastian wants us to bring you to the Celestial Building.” The man lifted me in his arms, and once again the pain lessened. “Hang in there, Neverly.”

  Neverly?

  My hated schoolyard nickname. Only one person in this entire world had called me that and survived to brag about it—Lawson Valencia. My neighbor. Preacher Valencia’s boy. We were thick as thieves when we were little. He was also the first guy I dated. Kissed. And, well, other unmentionable things. I hadn’t spoken to that boy—man—since I broke his heart on graduation night.

  “Lawson?” My ears popped, and the pain diminished to a slow-roasting level of misery. I blinked and managed to open both eyes at the same time.

  It was Lawson. Gray highlighted the edges of his goatee and peppered his short, black hair. But his smoldering dark-brown eyes and that evil dimple in his left cheek remained the same. Tingling hit certain body parts that I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Married parts that had no business getting all tingly, no matter how criminal my spouse was.

  So, a rogue, random Hellhound bit me. Then an old flame—that I hadn’t seen in nearly thirty years and who was still sexy as ever and who really cranked my motor—was now holding me in his arms. This was the strangest hallucination I’d ever had. What was next? A purple polka-dotted cat, juggling apples while skateboarding?

  Though, truthfully, that would be pretty cool.

  Lawson whispered in my ear. “I wouldn’t call me old, but a juggling cat would be cool.”

  Damn, did I say all of that out loud?

  FOUR

  Decisions, decisions, decisions

  Lawson—or, as I decided to call him, the most mortifying thing to recently happen—held me tightly as he rose to his feet. A new wave of burning agony crashed over me. I would’ve thrashed around as if starring in a 90s grunge video, but the pain stole my energy. It should’ve also distracted me from reliving my embarrassing loose-lip moment, but I was forty-something and a mother. Multi-tasking was my jam.

  “I’ve filed for divorce!” I blurted out through gritted teeth. It seemed the appropriate thing to say. Maybe I oughta throw in something about how menopause revved up the sex drive?

  Mama touched the back of her hand to my forehead. “Why don’t we focus on getting you fixed up? I think you’re feverish. Sebastian really wants her in front of the Council? Now?”

  Lawson settled me against his chest while I did my best impression of an overcooked noodle. Or maybe a Victorian heroine suffering from the vapors.

  “This isn’t good,” he muttered.

  Mrs. Baker, who was married to the town’s actual baker and who always smelled of cinnamon and nutmeg, patted my shoulder. “Hellhounds running loose. Unthinkable! We need to get her to the Apothecary for the fever and get that wound cleaned out. Good thing it’s close by. That’s if Mrs. Kennedy will let y’all in. You know she hates deviating from her schedule, and it’s nearly midnight!”

  “Katie will open up, or I’ll kick down that door,” Mama growled.

  I groaned and closed my eyes. The Apothecary meant two things: drinking some disgusting tincture and/or rubbing an equally disgusting ointment over various body parts. I needed an all-hours emergency clinic with modern antibiotics and morphine. Lots and lots of morphine. Not that I didn’t appreciate my mother going all Mama Bear for me.

  “Oh, hang in there, Everly.” Mrs. Baker patted my shoulder again. “If you survive this, I’ll make you a burnt-sugar-topped pavlova with poached gingered pears!”

  Since I had no idea what a pava-whatever was and Mrs. Baker had raised her voice, I assumed that was more of an advertisement to the crowd muttering around me than a real offer of comfort. She always did have an excellent head for business.

  I had enough of this. “Put me down.”

  Lawson raised an eyebrow but did as I requested. To my immense relief, I managed not to face-plant in front of what looked like half the town. “Thanks for your h—” Another surge of pain smashed over me. I leaned against a table to avoid falling over.

  “Your arm!” Mrs. Baker pointed at me.

  Like an idiot, I looked. Blood no longer dripped from the wounds on my wrist or palm, but my forearm had swollen like an over-ripe plum, pushing puffy, purplish-red tissue through the rents in my sleeve.

  Lawson bent to pick me up again. I stepped back and shook my head. He frowned. “Still hardheaded, I see.”

  Mama put her shoulder under my good arm. “Apothecary—now.”

  How I managed to walk a half block, I couldn’t explain. Lawson led the way, with Mrs. Baker trailing us. He began banging on the ornately carved, wooden door of the Antiqua Apothecary before we got there.

  “Katie. It’s the Archivist. Open the door!” Mama yelled.

  “I heard Hellhounds howling!”

  Mama groaned. “There was one Hellhound. Which is gone. Open the damn door!”

  Mrs. Kennedy cracked the door just enough for Mama, Lawson, and me to squeeze in, then shut it on Mrs. Baker.
/>
  Nothing had changed inside since my childhood. Beeswax candles, held in curved iron sconces, illuminated the small room. Black wire shelves lined all the walls and held various-sized bottles of herbs and oils. Some of the stuff had a commonality with the human world, like arnica oil, while others were so rare most human herbalists wouldn’t know them. The shadowy, flickering light and the strong, earthy scent of the herbs gave off an ethereal feel.

  “What’s wrong?” Mrs. Kennedy touched the gold Chi-Rho emblem around her neck that denoted her profession. Only the apothecaries could wear gold, as their secret herb knowledge protected them against demons and spirits. The rest of the humans in town wore or carried iron.

  I held up my arm. “A … uh, Hellhound … bit me.” It was so unbelievable that I expected her to laugh.

  “You were bitten? You?” Mrs. Kennedy threw her hands up. “Don’t know what y’all think I can do for a Hellhound bite. Besides, they only bite humans for one reason, as you well know.”

  I glanced at Mama and Lawson, who both averted their eyes. “Reason? What reason?” Panic swelled through me as my mind raced to remember everything about the Hounds. They worked with Hunters to drag the damned back to Hell. I wasn’t dead. At least, I was mostly sure I wasn’t. There was something else about them, but my mind didn’t recall facts as quickly as when I was a kid.

  The deep clanging of church bells interrupted Mrs. Kennedy’s reply.

  Lawson grimaced. “Jack Russo must’ve died. Explains why a Hellhound was running around without its handler.”

  “Jack was that sick?” I felt myself blush as I met Lawson’s eye, which irked me to no end. I was a forty-five-year-old, mostly married woman, not some starry-eyed tween. People my age didn’t blush. Unless I was actually having a hot flash. Yeah, I’d just roll with that.

  White light flashed, then Sebastian appeared. “Everly Popa, you are needed by the Council.”

  He held out his hand, and a small orb of light flew toward me. I instinctively swatted at it like chasing away a horsefly. The orb touched the tip of my thumb. Light sped across my body, forcing my eyes to close against the glare. I opened them and found myself standing at the entrance to the Celestial Building. That didn’t surprise me, but the absence of pain did. Who knew hitching an angel ride took away pain faster than a fifth of whiskey?