Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend (Good Girls & Demons)

by Allyson J. Myers

  “No rush,” he said.

  I thought it would be nice to relax a little after all we had been through.

  A little while later, we were both sitting at the small table in the kitchen with bowls of my homemade stew sitting in front of us. All things considered, it hadn’t turned out too bad. It could have used a few extra spices, but it wasn’t as if I had access to my organic rosemary, thyme, or basil. This was more like what we had in the field at the ranch. Yet another piece of nostalgia to fill my head.

  At this rate, I could easily forget that we were being hunted by damned demons who wanted to kill me. I wanted time to hold its breath for a little while. Best laid plans of mice and mortals. I indulged in reminiscence for a few bites of stew then forced by brain back to the task at hand.

  “What sort of place are you looking for to hide the diamond in?” I asked between one spoonful and the next.

  I was fairly good with geography because part of being an Archaeogemologist included knowing locations and landscape. I had done a little field work during my undergraduate, enough to know what to look up. If I knew more, I could make a few suggestions.

  “Someplace remote,” he said around a mouthful. I refrained from wrinkling my nose at his bad manners. “Hard to get to. When I originally hid them in Mount Asgard nobody had climbed it yet.” He grimaced in annoyance. It was different than other scowls he gave. I was becoming adept at identifying their nuances. “I didn’t think anyone would be able to. Even I had a hard time getting up there.”

  All those pieces of information gave me a very incomplete picture that didn’t have anything to do with where the next hiding spot should be. This time when I stared at him it was with my growing curiosity.

  What was he?

  I set my spoon down as I tilted my head. “The tests on the sediment found along with the box indicated that it had been put there thousands of years ago. It hadn’t even been named let alone climbed.” It was almost an accusation, but it certainly was a challenge I wanted him to answer. “I saw the photographs of the site. The excavators were practically clinging to the side of the mountain.” I didn’t bother to hide the once over I gave him. He was born to play sports and perform physical activites, but rock climbing was not one of them. He was too big and too heavy.

  “Why don’t you go take your shower,” he said abruptly. He even got up from the table and took our bowls, even though neither of us was finished. I watched him walk away from the table. “Don’t worry about this. I’ll clean up and store away what’s left in the pot.”

  My brows knit together as I frowned at him. He wasn’t anywhere near as slick about avoiding the conversation as he had been before. There was something about the answer he didn’t want to give that would probably tell me more than he wanted me to know. The reason why was anyone’s guess, but I had a feeling it had to do with that brand on his shoulder. I didn’t know enough about Hebrew symbols to even guess at what it meant, but I made a promise to myself that I sure as hell would find out.

  “Fine,” I said as I got up from the table. I didn’t bother to hide the disapproval from my voice, nor the suspicious expression on my face as I passed by him on my way to take the bathroom. If either bothered him, he didn’t show it.

  Now all I wanted was a cold shower to cool my irritation instead of my libido. Men could be stubborn jerks, but March was their king.

  That claim was backed up when I came back out from the small bedroom that the bathroom was attached to. The cold water dripped from my hair down my back under my shirt, but that wasn’t what caused me to shudder. March had used my notebook to leave me a message. He’d gone out again. The note read:

  Went to cut up the rest of the meat. I’ll be gone a while. Don’t wait up for me. You can have the bed.

  I crumbled up the paper then threw it into the fireplace. Grumbling under my breath I crouched there to stoke up, then bank, the fire against the back wall. Maybe I prodded the wood a little more than necessary with the poker, but I felt better. There wasn’t a grate, but a chain curtain which I drew across the fireplace just in case of sudden pops.

  Still cursing about idiot men under my breath, I stormed back to the bedroom. Let him sleep on the lumpy couch then. It was petty, but I was satisfied as I slammed the bedroom door.

  SIX

  MARCH

  Days passed, and we fell into an easy rhythm.

  Almost too easy.

  It seemed to me as if Brenna and I had done things together before. I knew we hadn’t. Not just because she was mortal, but because there was nobody in my lengthy past that had been like her.

  Reincarnation was a fact that was difficult to prove if you weren’t immortal. I had met mortals I had known in other incarnations. They never remembered, but I recognized their souls.

  Brenna was not one of them, and yet there was a familiarity about her I couldn’t explain. There were times when she seemed to anticipate what was needed. She cooked, handwashed our clothes in the kitchen sink, and tended to the fire. I never felt cold so that was for the best. I was likely to not make it warm enough or too hot. For her sake, I was glad she knew what she was doing.

  Meanwhile, I patrolled the island and kept an eye out for any unwanted visitors. Human or Fallen.

  The island had a supply of electricity, and with that, a DSL connection to the internet. Brenna had been pleased when I told her and immediately opened her laptop to get online. I warned her not to use it too often. Excessive use would alert the supplier who could then contact the cabin’s owner. When they learned no one was supposed to be here there was a very good chance they would send the authorities to investigate. I had teased that I didn’t want to kill a Mountie.

  Either I was not good at making jokes or she had taken me seriously since she had given me a horrified look.

  As the days passed, I watched her as covertly as possible. She was strong. Stronger than I originally gave her credit for. Brenna had acclimated to our remote location easily. Her explanation of growing up on a ranch showed. She would explore the grounds around the cabin for herbs she could add to the dinners she cooked for us. I didn’t need to eat, just as I didn’t need to sleep, but I did enjoy the taste of good food.

  Brenna’s was exceptional for what she had to work with, so I ate without hesitation or in need of a ruse to seem more human. Anything else that she didn’t already know she would ask about. I would answer then she would take in the information, mull it around in that beautiful head and only then act. She wasn’t impulsive but thought things through. Not many humans could do that while in crisis. I admired her more for being able to keep her wits about her during our current situation.

  Nights were difficult for me. I had always been a loner, so normally I would pass the time while she slept enjoying the silence.

  Strangely, this was not the case. I missed her voice at night, her laughter. The silence that I had always relished in, I now resented. Dawn was something I looked forward to, and the creak of the bedroom door as she opened it was like a switch that activated the life of my day.

  I felt these things so overwhelmingly that some nights I found myself in the bedroom watching her as she slept. She was beautiful to begin with, but when she slept in peace, she was angelic. That was not a word I used lightly. Her hair sprayed out over the pillows in a way that made it look like a photograph of her standing in the wind. Sleep parted her lips just a little, but also plumped them. They looked utterly kissable, and there were moments when temptation almost overtook me.

  I would have to leave the room when such moments came. I would not betray her trust like that, and I also didn’t want her to know what I was doing.

  There were times when her sleep was not peaceful. Some nightmare or disturbing dream would make her whimper or rustle. Those times pierced my heart in a way that scared me. Not for her, but for myself.

  Without thought I would reach out to calm her either with just a touch of my hand, or a stroke to her hair. I had felt protective of her before,
but this was something new. Something I had never felt before for anyone or anything. After so many millennia of existence there wasn’t much I hadn’t experienced, but the universe proved that it could still surprise me.

  I knew what it was. I cared for Brenna, not just about her.

  That was dangerous. It could make me distracted and sloppy. Not only that, but if any of my enemies learned about my feelings for her, they could use that against me. That would put Brenna in more danger than I cared to think about, and I knew I would do anything to get her back.

  This was foreign ground.

  The saying you fear most what you don’t understand was just as true for me as it was for anyone else.

  While I knew what I felt, I didn’t know why. How had Brenna gotten into my head and heart so quickly and so easily? I wanted to fight it. I had even tried. I found that the more I tried the deeper my feelings became.

  What did that mean? Was that even possible? It shouldn’t be. Not for me.

  My kind were cursed. Damned. None of us cared about anything except ourselves. We bemoaned our failure and took it out on whatever we could, more often than not, mortals. I had taken another path eventually.

  While I didn’t exactly fight against my brethren, recent events notwithstanding, I did what I could to disrupt their plans. That was why I hid The Ingress. The fallen wanted to use it to invade humanity and take over the mortal world.

  No one from The Golden City had done anything to stop it, so I had. It wasn’t the first thing I had ever done, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Some might say that my actions deserved a reward. I knew better than that. I was one of the Unforgiven. The Fallen. And regardless of my deeds, I did not deserve…whatever this was that I was feeling for Brenna.

  But if my feelings were real, I couldn’t act on them. She deserved a lot better than me. I couldn’t offer her anything. I was a traitor who was being hunted by both sides. I had pissed off the fallen so many times that I was sure Hell had a bounty on my head.

  Those from The Golden City? They couldn’t care less, but there was no doubt in my mind that they would make an appearance if I dared to touch Brenna inappropriately. I hadn’t seen any of them since the war, and I didn’t want to. If there was bad blood between me and my fellow fallen there was oceans of it between me and those who remained above.

  All of that meant I couldn’t put Brenna into that kind of danger. Our current situation was bad enough. She would have to be on the run for the rest of her life. Mortals were not made for that.

  When she had managed to get online, she learned that she was considered missing and a person of interest. The museum filed a report when she didn’t show up for work the next day and that she and the diamond were missing. Initially, they thought she had taken advantage of their trust and made off with it, but there was doubt cast on that when they investigated the signs of violence in the parking garage.

  There wasn’t a word in the articles about the blood that would have been found there. That told me that they were still trying to identify it. I wished them luck. It would never happen. We covered our tracks better than that. Any samples that had ever been collected disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

  Brenna’s car was found hours later in the parking lot for the Staten Island Ferry. That was where the trail went dead. The cops were offering a reward for any information leading to her location and the recovery of the diamond.

  The photograph for her museum I.D. was everywhere. That would be a mess to clean up later, but better that than spend the rest of her life on the run. She could even give them most of the truth, put the blame on me. No one would ever find me, and if I got my way, The Ingress. I would become one of this century’s great criminals. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  No one has found the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail yet.

  I just had to stop Brenna from hyperventilating long enough to explain these little details to her.

  Brenna was scouring the internet and the depths of her own mind for where I could hide The Ingress. I had some ideas but hadn’t mentioned them. They were locations I had looked at before but had never used. Most of them were still valid. Some had been razed, paved over, or otherwise destroyed. There was one that was under an apartment complex in China. Not exactly accessible anymore. I kept them in mind, but I wanted to see what Brenna came up with.

  Ultimately, I would make the choice, and I did not plan on telling her which one I picked. The less she knew the better.

  Once The Ingress was hidden and I returned her to her life, she could still be in danger. The fallen would want to know where it had gone, and they would stop at nothing to get the information from her. If she honestly didn’t know, they wouldn’t waste their time with her once they realized her ignorance. Until a choice was made, we would remain here on the island, or at least as long as we could before we were discovered.

  SEVEN

  BRENNA

  I knew he watched me. March wasn’t as clever as he liked to believe he was. I even caught him watching me sleep a couple of times. His excuse had been that he needed the bathroom, but I knew better.

  It didn’t bother me. It only made me curious. More often than not, March was gruff, stoic, and quiet. He preferred to keep his thoughts to himself. In that, we were a lot alike. As a research scientist, I kept my thoughts and presumptions close to the vest until they became facts and results. That practice carried over to my personal life and was one reason why none of my relationships had ever lasted longer than a month or two.

  Most men expected their significant other to share pieces of herself with him. When that didn’t happen, they assumed I lacked interest in a committed relationship. That was far from the truth but being closed mouth was a difficult habit to break when you dealt with speculation until proven true in your choice of career. If I presented half formed evidence as an archaeologist, I would be laughed out of the field.

  I could present conjecture but typically that was when you were applying for a grant. I was fairly sure my reason for being private wasn’t the same as March’s, though. But whatever the reason, we were comfortable with not sharing with each other.

  The only problem I had with March watching me like he did was how much I enjoyed it.

  I found a man’s comb in the bathroom, and after thoroughly washing it I went to work on unknotting my hair. Which was fine as far as it went. It had been necessary, but I made an extra effort to comb my hair more than necessary, braid it, tie it up, whatever it took to look nice. I hadn’t even realized I was primping until I had done so for a few days in a row. As if that wasn’t bad enough, I recognized that I was doing this because I knew March watched.

  Good lord, I want to look good for him! What was wrong with me?!

  I tried to keep busy. Cooking was a good distraction since it took time to make a meal under these conditions. My pride in my work was stung a little with the lack of ingredients, so I had gone out to look around for herbs I could use. There were more than I expected to find, and our dinners got better. I hadn’t realized this was anything out of the ordinary until March complimented my skills. It reminded me that most people who live in cities would have no idea how to survive like this. His compliment flattered me, and his praise was always unexpected. Yet another thing I wanted from him. I felt like I was turning into a sap. I didn’t need anyone’s approval or admiration. I didn’t need to look pretty for anyone. But dammit I wanted it. All of it. And only from and for March.

  My logical mind liked to interrupt these thoughts and feelings to inform me of some scientific facts. He was a man. I was a woman. We were in a crisis situation. My body knew that it was in danger and sent out certain chemical reactions in response.

  Breed! Replenish the species before you die! And oh, look! There was a male on hand who had all the attributes that indicated healthy reproduction.

  Stupid body. Stupid science.

  But they did have a point. March was hot. Wide shoulders. Narrow waist. Abs
for days. Thick hair. Firm jaw. I could go on and on about what I noticed of his assets, but my point was made. I found him incredibly attractive. I would just have to remind myself of the science so I wouldn’t act on it and make a fool of myself.

  There was something other than the physical that attracted me to March, though. Something a lot more personal. He seemed lonely. Sad. I saw it when he thought I wasn’t looking. It was during those times when he looked at me as I was cooking or…well…doing anything, really.

  There was a longing in his eyes that seemed foreign compared with the façade he preferred to show. It was as if he wanted to do or say something, but he kept himself in check. I wanted to ask him about it, wanted to offer something, but just when I would gather up the nerve, he would return to that closed off demeanor I was more used to from him. But I knew it was there. Maybe a moment would come when I didn’t remind myself of science and I would blurt out the question that burned on my tongue. If nothing else, it would be interesting to watch his reaction.

  Meanwhile, I had been doing as much research as I could. The DSL connection, aside from not wanting to alert anyone to our presence, was sketchy at best. I was too used to the highspeed internet available anywhere near the city. Cooking and gathering took up a lot of my time.

  Sometimes I missed the window with the best time to access the web. I was looking for locations for March, but also answers to the mystery that was the Black Orlov. Correction. The Ingress. I suppose I had accepted all this paranormal, supernatural, mumbo jumbo. If I wanted an end to this mess I had to.

  To continue to argue the improbability of it all would just waste time. But to really accept it, I needed answers. What did the cuneiform translate to? What did the Seal of Seven Archangels do? What were the Fallen, and what could they do?