by P. C. Cast
“Yes. I must. I do not understand why I did not see it before.”
“Because you were too busy jumping Thad’s bones?” Scornful suggested.
“And learning how to pick up a spare?” Derisive added.
“I suspect,” she said, kindly enough, “it is because I was confused about exactly where my responsibilities lie. But I can no longer return to Earth Prime, no matter how noble my intentions, if it means leaving my town exposed to any demon with a whim to take the crown.”
“Where’d Char and the baby go?” Thad asked, seeming to realize their absence all of a sudden.
“To our house, where they remain.”
“You better go tell them they can come back, that Withering took care of their little infestation problem.”
“Little?” Scornful snorted as they started down the street.
“Oh, he just wants to mack on her in private.”
“Perv.”
“Double perv.”
“I can hear you!” Thad called after them. Then he turned to Withering. “Although they have a point.”
“That you are a double perv?”
“No. That I want to do this.” And he took her in his arms, no pretense of looking for injury this time, no indeed, and kissed her, a long, bruising, possessive kiss.
When they came up for air, Thad said, “Don’t even think about leaving this town without me.”
“I won’t even think of leaving this town, if you find that helpful.”
“My front door!” someone wailed, and they turned to see Char and her husband coming up the sidewalk. The baby, Withering presumed, had been left in Mrs. Desdaine’s care. “All smashed up!”
“Wait till you see the inside!” Rae called, though it was difficult to hear her outside the house. “Also, I’ve taken a lover, and he’ll be moving in as soon as I get an extension built.”
“Fine, Rae, fine.” Char and her husband were staring at the corpse on their front lawn. “That’ll be—wait. What?”
“Oh, like you two aren’t doing it every half hour of every day,” Rae snapped. “Don’t judge me, honey!”
“I wasn’t. I just—” Charlene gestured vaguely: at the corpse, at the van parked in her begonias. “This is a lot to take in at once.”
“Welcome,” Withering said dryly, “to Mysteria.”
THE NANNY FROM HELL
Susan Grant
For three amazing, talented women:
MaryJanice, P. C., and Gena.
What an absolute pleasure to revisit
Mysteria with you all.
Prologue
Once upon a time there lived a demon
with a secret wish to be human.
It made Satan very, very unhappy . . .
CIRCUS MAXIMUS, ANCIENT ROME
One hundred and fifty thousand spectators lunged to their feet, cheering as the chariots flew out of the starting gate. Everyone from the lowliest slave to the emperor himself added to the deafening applause. The attention, the excitement, the anticipation: Shay reveled in it, savoring every aspect of the races from the dust churned up by chariot wheels to the dizzying sensation of sheer speed. Most racers conserved energy in the early laps in order to give it their all in the final stretches. Bah! Rules were for mortals. Full speed ahead!
Four powerful horses tugged on the reins wrapped around Shay’s fist and down her arm to her waist. If she were to crash, she doubted she’d have time to cut free with her dagger before being trampled or dragged to her death. Not that she worried about such frivolous things as dying.
Shay threw back her head and laughed. Dust billowed into the air and settled like fine powder over her toned, slender arms and her black racing colors. The fabric fluttered around her breasts, barely concealing them. She heard shouts of surprise. “A woman!” they cried.
“A she-demon, actually,” she murmured smugly. Not that they’d care. Men never seemed to mind as long as they thought they were getting what they wanted from her.
In particular, she noted the emperor’s hot, interested gaze, dismissing it as a mere annoyance. Warlords were sometimes diverting, yes; chieftains, too. But emperors? All pomp and little circumstance. She wouldn’t bother with this one unless she was very, very bored. And she doubted she’d be bored today. There was much to be done.
A blink of her eyes, and two chariots collided. Spectacular! Ooh, and a trampling, too. Score!
Shay couldn’t remember the last time she had so much fun. She was sent by Lucifer all over the world—a plague here, a fire there—but she’d rather be here. Something about racing made her feel so alive. So . . . real.
She cringed. Cease that drivel! If the Dark Lord ever got wind of her addiction to earthly life, he’d snuff out her existence like a boot crushed a flickering ash. He’d told her as much, countless centuries ago when he’d suspected she was hanging around an Ice Age settlement because she’d taken a fancy to nights spent cuddling in the furs with one of its hunters, Swift River. Master had been right, of course. With the fear of permanent extermination hanging over her head, she ended the affair with a good-bye kiss and an avalanche and went on her way.
Shay pushed the painful memory away. Her job was to break hearts and tear families apart, not to pretend she was human. Not to pretend love. Especially not at the risk of her own existence. Something about ceasing to be frightened her. She’d do everything she could to avoid that fate.
Snarling, Shay punched her fist to the side. The horses pulling the chariot next to hers went wild, yanking their rider toward the wall with a snapping of wood and the scraping of metal. The champion’s scream was cut short. “Buh-bye, Scorpus.” He’d won far too many races, anyway. It was time he retired.
Dust rose from the wrecks as the remaining racers plunged down the straightaway. Easily, Shay commanded the lead. Only one other racer had the stamina to keep her pace. Aquila. The shaggy-haired upand-coming champion seemed to have it all: looks, youth, a beautiful wife and child, and all of Rome at his feet. Sensing she was pulling ahead, Aquila slid his narrowed eyes in her direction, sizing up her chariot, her horses, and her technique. Roman sunshine gleamed on his sweating skin. My, but he was nicely muscled. She could tell by his glance that he saw her as simply another competitor and not a potential lover. Probably because of his pretty little wife and baby. Aw, he was in love. How easy that would be to change. In fact, she’d keep him alive just to prove the point!
Laughing, Shay urged her horses on ahead, just like she’d urge on Aquila in bed after the race. Feeling generous, she’d even let him win. What did it matter? He’d lose later. They always did.
Neck and neck, they careened around the last turn. Who would win? Who would lose? In those final, breathless, exhilarating moments, Shay allowed him to drift into the lead. He beat her by a length. The crowd’s applause was thunderous. They had a new champion!
Magnificent in his crimson racing colors, Aquila beamed as he received his palm branch and wreath from the magistrate. Shay shook out her hair as she jumped down from her chariot. As the silly Romans fawned over him, she undulated her hips as she sashayed past, brushing her finger down his arm. In his mind was planted a vivid image of her moaning and naked, submitting to his every desire. His dark eyes flashed with sudden awareness. It was done.
Away from the circus, she’d barely breezed into her tent when he came striding after her, stripping her out of her clothes before she reached the bed. He threw her on her back, impaling her with his body, pumping with sweaty, dusty, postvictory vigor. Mentally, she took control, making him believe it was the best sex he’d ever had, and that she was first in his heart. You’ll love me to the end of time, Aquila.
“To the end of time . . .” he breathed in her ear.
Stupid mortal.
The tent flap eased open, and a woman stepped in. A babe on her hip, she took a moment to let her eyes adjust to the shade and to the sight of Aquila’s pumping bottom. Then she met Shay’s amused gaze.
He loves me. S
hay planted the realization in the woman’s mind. One startled sob, and the wife was gone.
Shay vanished herself—at the very moment of Aquila’s release. He spilled his seed on an empty bed, not knowing what had happened to her, to him—or to his little wife when he returned to an empty house later.
Love, Shay thought with disdain. It was her mission to destroy it. It was her entire reason for existence. When all was said and done, she had to say she was very, very good at her job.
One
Wanted: Loving, live-in nanny to care for working couple’s only child. Must be willing to relocate to Mysteria. Private bedroom in home. Call for salary and details.
“Demon!” Lucifer bellowed loud enough to shake the depths of Hell. Molten rocks fell from the walls, sending shrieking banshees into the shadows and waking every manner of dark creature.
Head bowed, her hands clasped in submission, Shay scurried forward to answer her master’s bidding.
“You’re late!” Lucifer tugged on his black goatee. “What’s your excuse this time?”
“This demon offers exquisite apologies, my lord. This demon had a raft full of orphans to set adrift in shark-infested waters.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, Master.” She chanced a peek at him. “Is something amiss, Master?”
His horns pulsed as he sank his pitchfork into solid rock and bellowed once more in rage. It was clear that something had made him very, very angry. Shay hoped it wasn’t anything she’d done. How quickly he could change her back into what she was at the beginning of time: nothing. “I will never surrender to the spawn of a demon whose ass I fired for committing random acts of kindness!” He jerked a claw at the cave wall. The stones shimmered and opened up to a view of a charming town.
A tall man of dark good looks strode down a road leading to a cottage and a small church. “Damon of Mysteria . . .” Shay narrowed her eyes, scanning the scene with slitted pupils. She was starting to understand the reason for her summons. For ten centuries Damon had served as Lucifer’s Demon High Lord of Self-Doubt and Second Thoughts . . . until he was caught, red-handed, committing random acts of kindness. After a couple of hundred years of torture, Lucifer made him mortal, sentencing him to live out his days in Mysteria, the very town he’d saved hundreds of years before. Such a mundane, pitiful existence was every demon’s worst nightmare.
Except that Damon didn’t seem to be suffering at all. He’d fallen in love, not only with his sorry life but with a human woman. A woman of God, no less: Harmony Faithfull, who presided over Mysteria’s silly little house of worship.
Not that Lucifer had taken it sitting down. Rumors circulating around the lava pools reported that the Devil had been acting downright petulant about Damon’s—dare she say it?—contentment. The Dark Lord had sent wave after wave of subdemons and other obnoxious creatures up through the gates of Hell to torment Damon and his new wife, along with the residents of Mysteria, many of whom were undead themselves. Each time, the town fought back. No one was quite sure how or even why they could, but the matter was being investigated.
Now the couple was married. Harmony was said to adore the former demon beyond all reason. Shay snorted. No man was worth that kind of dreamy, addle-brained worship. If that wasn’t bad enough, they’d spawned a child.
It was all so revolting! Shay made a face. Clearly, Lucifer wanted the family broken apart. “I’ll bed him as soon as I arrive there, Master. Or, perhaps, her. I can do them both.”
“No, you stupid creature!” He hoisted her off her feet. “I do not want you to bed them. I want you to destroy their child!”
Shay hung, trembling, from her master’s clawed hands. His crimson eyes were whirlpools of lava, threatening to suck her in, luring her deeper and deeper. If she lost herself in those eyes, she’d be trapped, unable to free herself. She would . . . end.
A slow smile revealed his glittering fangs. “You fear the end of your existence.”
He knows.
Of course, he did. Did she think she could keep her deepest fears secret? “Answer me, Demon!” He shook her hard. Goblins and gargoyles somersaulted through the shadows, fleeing the chamber and Lucifer’s wrath.
“Yes,” she wheezed in his grip. “This humble demon fears being no more.”
His fanged smile widened. His glowing eyes sparked with malice. “Then you will not fail me.”
“No, Master.”
“Win their trust so they let you near the child.”
“Yes, Master.”
“And stay away from the fountain,” he growled.
“What fountain?”
“What fountain?” He shook her, fire erupting in his eyes. “If only you were as smart as you are evil! Mysteria’s fountain, stupid demon. The wishing fountain. Do not go near it.”
“Why?” Even as she asked, she knew it was a mistake to do so.
He shook her so hard that her ears rang. “My word is law! It is not to be questioned. Go earthward and win the trust of the family. Then kill the child and bring its bones back to me. Fail and . . .” He brought her face-to-face with him. “I will erase you, eradicate you, stamp you out—for all eternity!” His roar shook the entire cave. “No matter where you run, no matter where you hide, I will find you, and end you. You will never escape your fate.”
Sputtering, he threw her to the ground. She scrabbled backward to her feet, stumbling away from his threat: “I will find you, and end you.” Humans had their Heaven (or Hell). Angels, also, could look forward to Heaven. As well, all matter of undead creatures had a future ahead of them, whether they were vampires, shape-shifters, or even ghosts. But for a ruined demon, eternity meant nothing, zero, zilch. She simply would no longer be.
The prospect frightened Shay more than anything else. She would find the child and kill it. There was no other choice. Failure was simply not an option.
Damon, new father and ex-demon, climbed the porch stairs to the home he shared with his wife, Harmony, Mysteria’s minister. Their black Lab Bubba bounced around his heels, barking happily. Before Damon reached the top of the stairs, Dr. Fogg burst out, juggling his black medical bag and his ever-present BlackBerry as he pushed his glasses up his nose.
Damon’s heart rolled over. His wife, his babe—he couldn’t bear the thought of any harm coming to them. “Is everything all right, Doctor?”
“In your house, yes. My visit with your wife was interrupted. They need me at the high school. Fighting Fairies practice was a little rougher than usual today.”
“I do like American football,” Damon admitted.
“Football? It was the cheerleaders.” Fogg ran a finger around the inside of his collar as he trotted the rest of the way down the stairs.
Despite his intellectual outward appearance, Fogg had taken a wildelf princess as a wife. Wild-elves lived outside Mysteria and outside the law. When they mated with humans it was usually by force. A month into the surprise marriage, the elf left him. The mild-mannered doctor had referred himself to Harmony for spiritual counseling. Today had been the first session.
Harmony stood in the doorway. “Well,” she said with a sigh, “that was interesting.”
Damon lifted a brow at his worried-looking wife. “He doesn’t look well, lass.”
“He’s not, the poor man. He’s been through a hard time. I think today helped—a lot. He’ll be back. As for you, come here, honey. I need a kiss.”
The lass knew how to do things with her mouth no woman of God should know how to do, but he was glad of it. He took a moment to hold her close, cupping her sweet face in his hand, savoring the feel of her skin and the love shining in her eyes as she smiled up at him. He’d existed ten thousand years before Harmony. In his mind, life had only just begun.
He brushed one more kiss across her lips and took her hand. “Damon Junior misses his daddy,” she said, leading him inside.
In the kitchen, little Damon sat in his highchair. He squealed in delight, seeing his father. “Papa!” The vase of
flowers on the kitchen table jumped, took two hops, and stopped.
“Omigosh,” Harmony cried, running for a dish towel to mop up the spill as Damon said sternly, “Son, I told you no moving furniture—or any other items—without my or your mother’s permission.”
Harmony paled, the damp cloth dangling from her hand. “Are you saying little Damon moved that vase?”
“Aye. I saw him do it for the first time the other day. When you came home from the store and the lamp fell.”
“That was the wind.”
“Nay,” he said quietly.
“You mean our baby has . . . powers?” she practically squeaked.
He tried to reach for her hand, but she’d shoved it through her hair. “We talked about that possibility when you were pregnant, love.”
“I know, but . . .” She sighed. “We thought the chance of your demon powers being passed on in your DNA was remote if not impossible.”
“Impossible is a woman of God falling in love with an ex-demon,” he said tenderly. “Impossible is a former minion of Lucifer finding out he has a soul. And yet, both happened. Aye, love, who are we to say what is possible and what is not? Besides, I’m not the only one with powers in this relationship.” Harmony was a powerful seer, a talent she’d inherited from her great-grandmother. She hadn’t yet fully come to terms with what she was. He wasn’t surprised she’d “forgotten” that he wasn’t the only one supplying their offspring’s supernatural genes.
The vase jumped again. Harmony turned to their son, shaking her finger at him. “Damon Junior! You heard your father, no . . . no telekinesis !” She made a face. “I can’t believe I just said that.”
The babe flashed a blinding grin, and Harmony melted. “The little charmer. He has your smile, honey. I’m going to have to become immune to it if I’m ever going to effectively discipline this kid. Oh, Damon, what are we going to do?”