Earthbound

by Melora Johnson

  I didn’t know what to think of it. “Mattheus?” I said quizzically.

  He grinned, sat on my bed, cupped my face, and kissed me. He looked like a child on Christmas Day. “You remembered.”

  In a way, I hated to take it away from him, but I felt wary too. I’d had a dream. I didn’t know if it really meant anything. If it really meant something, then what? Considering I seemed to be dying of wounds in the dream, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. “What did I remember?”

  “You remembered my angelic name. What else do you remember?”

  “Angelic?”

  “I’m an angel. We’re angels, or we were, before we became human.”

  I studied him for a minute. He seemed serious, but he couldn’t be. I laughed.

  Giddiness gone, he sat back. “What did you remember?”

  I told him about the dream. He nodded several times during my narrative. “That was not a dream.”

  I put up a hand. “Wait. Are you serious? You can’t be.”

  He gave a half shrug. “Think about what has taken place the last couple days. You know I’m serious, and you know I’m not alone. At least, not anymore. I’ve suspected there were others like me in the world. My memories of the other side are vague at best. I remember some things; others are hidden behind a veil. I know what I am, what I’m here to do. I’ve had to study and figure out things by trial and error and instinct.” His lips quirked up. “You have the benefit of my prior experience at your disposal.”

  I smiled back. I was leaning forward. We were less than a foot away. The electricity arcing between us made the room feel too small. I could so easily fall into the wilds of his green eyes. It was overwhelming.

  “I don’t know.” I drew the comforter up and hugged it to my chest. “I don’t know if it was a memory or just a dream.”

  All expression on his face drained away. “Okay.”

  It clearly wasn’t what he wanted to hear, yet he seemed willing to back off if that was what I needed. It warmed my heart. It also made it easier to share my dream with him, made me more comfortable doing so.

  I was also very aware we were sitting on my bed, very close together. I touched his arm, and he met my eyes. His lips parted. He moved just a tiny bit toward me, then abruptly stood up. “I’ll make us some tea. Let’s sit in the living room to talk.”

  He was out the door before I could reply.

  I threw on a light blue, fluffy chenille sweater that was like a cloud and joined Matt in the living room, where he brought two cups of tea.

  As he sat there on the couch, in something as simple as a T-shirt and jeans, he was magnificent. Our eyes met. There was longing written all over his face, but he quickly looked away.

  Utterly frustrated, I picked up my cup of tea from the coffee table. We weren’t touching, but with the way his energy reached out to me when he simply looked in my direction, we might as well have been.

  “Sometimes, you make me remember I’m living this life as a human,” he said.

  I flushed. He turned me on and scared me half to death at the same time. I laughed weakly. “Would that be bad? Would it violate some kind of natural law if we’re angels?” I still didn’t really quite believe him, I guess. “Like, would we get hit with lightning if we, ya know, did the nasty?”

  He flashed a strained smile in my direction. “I don’t know. I’m pretty close to being willing to find out.”

  I’d take it, for now. “There was something I wanted to ask you.”

  “Ask away. I’m an open book for you.”

  Heat rose up my neck into my cheeks at the implied intimacy. “How did you start demon hunting?”

  He picked up his tea, his hands wrapped around the mug. “I started with… on, my friend Horton.”

  Horton Hears a Who sprang to mind, and I had a terrible urge to giggle. I restrained myself somehow.

  Matt cocked an eyebrow at me. “Go ahead.”

  “Who?” I asked, eyes wide in mock innocence, then giggled so hard I sloshed tea onto the pillow.

  Matt took the pillow, shook it off, then tossed it into the chair.

  I was quickly losing my layers of defense.

  “Yes, his name was Horton. Horton Howard. His parents had a bad sense of humor or something.” He shrugged. “Anyway, we grew up together, Horton and me. We did everything together, went to movies, swimming, got odd jobs. It happened when we were fifteen. Horton was supposed to meet me out at our place, a sort of self-sufficiency farm my parents had. He was going to help me with my chores so we could go swimming. When he didn’t show up, I started walking into town, thinking I’d meet him. I just had a feeling something was wrong, you know?”

  I nodded, set my tea aside, and drew my legs up. I didn’t like where this story was going.

  “When I found Horton, he had the classic signs of possession. Oh, not like you see in most of the movies, spinning heads or anything—he was in a human body after all—but he was foaming at the mouth. He was more like an animal. It was like there were two people in the one body—Horton and someone, something, else.

  “It was horrifying to watch the confusion on his face change to animal rage when the monster was manifesting, then back again. He tried to bite me. Something stopped him, though. When I realized it was my silver cross he was shying away from, I grabbed it and ground it into his forehead, saying as much of the casting out of demons stuff as I could remember from all those movies Horton and I had watched. I got lucky. According to my mentor, later on, it wasn’t so much the words as the intention behind them that had the desired effect, nor the actual silver or cross, but the belief I had imbued it with.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t go in for crosses much these days, silver or otherwise, though they can be useful.”

  Thinking back to how my parents had taken care of the body of the man I had killed, I shuddered. “What did you do with Horton?”

  “I ran back home and got my Dad. He took one look at the body and suggested it had been rabies, then decided that explanation wouldn’t fit. We buried the body out in the woods, and I kept my mouth shut when people came searching for Horton. It was terrible to see the fear and confusion on his parents’ faces, wondering where their son was. I knew there was nothing I could do. I hadn’t really killed Horton, the demon had. I had just cast out the demon.”

  I placed a hand on his arm. He knew it wasn’t his fault, but he still looked so sad.

  Matt gave me a lopsided smile. “I found out the next day there had been a cave in at a mine, and apparently one of the guys was killed. I suspect he was possessed. The cave in killed the body, but the spirit had ventured out searching for another host. Somehow, the story of the cave in and the missing boy caught the attention of Juan DeMunoz, another demon hunter, from South America. He came asking questions. He wanted to talk to me because I’d been Horton’s friend, but then he decided I was one of them, the demon hunters. He taught me everything I know about the history and what to do when I find one. It was a great time for me. I was learning to fence and fight,” he misquoted The Princess Bride with a cheeky grin.

  “So, what happens now?” I asked.

  He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, his cheeks puffing out. “Oh, well, we should probably get some sleep. Lots to do tomorrow,” he said evasively.

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “I need to train you to protect yourself.”

  “More guns?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. I could appreciate the need to shoot accurately, but my hands had buzzed from the shooting we’d done for a long time afterward.

  “No, this time we’ll start with the more… esoteric solutions.”

  Chapter 10

  The next morning the sun shone into my bedroom and woke me at first light, regardless of how late I had been up the night before talking with Matt, or what I had gone through during the day, being attacked by something supernatural and my best friend being nearly burned to death.

  Oh, for the love of… For a moment I was tempted
to get up, yank the shade down, climb back into bed and pull the covers over my head. But Matt was just down the hall, he would expect me to get up and soldier on. Then another thought took control of my brain.

  I threw back the covers, stuck my feet into my slippers. After leaving my bedroom, I turned right and walked quietly down the hallway to the guest room. Should I knock? Hey, he watched me sleeping. Granted, I had been fully clothed at the time, and now I was thinking of sneaking in, hoping to find out he didn’t sleep quite so fully clothed. I bit my lip and put my hand on the doorknob.

  “Ahem.” A throat cleared behind me.

  I snatched my hand back and whipped around to find Matt standing next to my bedroom door with a mug of coffee in each of his hands. He was dressed in jeans and a dark green polo shirt, his feet bare. Probably how he snuck up on me. My cheeks burned. “Oh, hi, you’re already up.”

  “I’m an early riser. Coffee?”

  “Yeah, thanks.” I took the mug he offered. “I’m just going to grab my robe.” I focused past him to my bedroom door, still feeling flustered.

  “You mean the one that got torn yesterday? I think it was beyond help. I torched it.”

  “Oh, right.” I squinted. “You really burned it?”

  “Along with the chickens.”

  “Ah, okay.” I wrapped my hands around the mug for warmth and took a sip. Just a little cream and sweetener, exactly the way I liked it. He really burned my robe. “Why?”

  Matt leaned against the door jamb. “Your blood was on it. I didn’t want to risk one of the demons getting a hold of it.”

  I tried to imagine the potential risks. Was it like voodoo? Could people be controlled with blood or hair? “What could they do with it?”

  “Hard to say. Maybe I’m being overly cautious, but better safe than sorry. Besides…” His eyes flicked down and away. “It was a lot of blood, hard to get it completely clean, there would have been stains.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, I’ll just get a sweater then.”

  His eyes swept down my body, the corners of his mouth ever so slightly turned up. He slowly straightened and moved to the side. “Of course.”

  I glanced down as I moved toward my bedroom, suddenly shy. Damn that man. I felt an attraction between us. Did he? He frequently seemed to be teasing me, then every time we got closer than arm’s length, he held me off. Which was it? He turned me every which way but right side up. At the same time, I felt so safe with him around, like nothing could touch me. He simply wouldn’t let it.

  In my bedroom, I set down my coffee and got out a thick, cream-colored cardigan with a geometric Native American style design and slipped it on, then buttoned the extra-large buttons and picked up my coffee. “Have you had breakfast yet?” I called out. There was no answer. When I stepped out into the hallway, it was empty. He’d already gone back downstairs. I shook my head. What was I going to do about him? I didn’t see a ring on his finger, and he never said anything about a wife. A girlfriend? Oh, crap and damn. No. No, I’d never heard him call anyone, and there hadn’t been any sign of anyone like that in Ithaca. Surely Shelly would have known.

  They do say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I headed downstairs and into the kitchen. The table was already set. The man himself was at the counter with the eggs out, whisking a bowl of something. “You’re going to need a good breakfast for what we’re doing today,” he said.

  “Oh?” I sniffed. Did I smell bacon? I didn’t think I even had any in the house. I walked over to the counter and flipped back a piece of paper towel covering a plate. Huh. Don’t look gift bacon in the snout. There were also fried eggs on the plate next to the bacon.

  I leaned over to check the bowl he was whisking. “Pancakes? Cool.” I almost never made pancakes. “Why are they orange?”

  “Pumpkin pancakes.”

  I noticed he had an array of spice bottles on the counter and watched as he opened each one and dumped a little bit of the contents into the palm of his hand, measuring by eye—cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and a tiny pinch of cloves.

  I wasn’t a big fan of cloves. I could live without them easily.

  “You want to grease the skillet and turn it on to heat?”

  “Sure,” I said, grabbing the coconut oil and a spoon. I scooped a chunk of oil in and spread it around the pan with my fingers, then turned the heat on and rubbed the excess into my hands. I glanced up to see him watching me intently.

  “Coconut oil—best moisturizer around and full of medium chain triglycerides.”

  He swallowed and said huskily, “I know.” He looked back down at the batter he’d been mixing.

  I got the orange juice out of the fridge. I had a feeling I might need the extra vitamins today. “Orange juice?” I asked.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  I opened the cupboard. “Juice-size glass or big glass?”

  “Big glass.”

  I poured us a couple glasses of sunshine and set one on the counter next to him while he poured a measure of pancake batter into the cast iron frying pan.

  “Thanks,” he murmured, not looking at me.

  I shook my head.

  He must have caught the back and forth of my head in his peripheral vision because he asked, “What?”

  My face turned red. “Nothing,” I mumbled and went into the living room to check on something. I couldn’t remember what when I walked in there, so I came back out. “I’m going to go check on the chicken coop. See what it’s going to take to get it ready for new chickens.”

  “You’re probably going to need to burn it down and rebuild,” he replied.

  “What? Really?”

  “Well, you blasted a hole in the demon, based on the ichor it spilled, and you’re not going to be able to clean it out sufficiently so that chickens are happy in there. Maybe if you left it for a few years after you cleaned it, the scent would fade sufficiently. Animals are very sensitive to these kinds of things, though, you probably wouldn’t get them to lay eggs in there.”

  “Ichor? What’s that?”

  “Demon blood.”

  “Right.” I wondered what kind of story I could come up with to get the fire department to do a controlled burn on the shed. I couldn’t imagine. It was a good shed. On the other hand, I’d seen some really neat chicken coops on Pinterest. Maybe I’d just clean it out and keep it for gardening tools then build a new coop across the yard. Yeah, that made the most sense.

  “Pancakes are ready,” Matt said, joining me at the table with a stack of tan and orange pancakes.

  “They smell fantastic.”

  He grinned. “Found the recipe on Pinterest.”

  I raised an eyebrow. A man who cooked and used Pinterest? Maybe he was gay, after all. And maybe he just wasn’t attracted to me.

  “Okay, what?” He sat down and stared straight at me.

  Shit. Should I just blurt it out? Should I ask him if he was attracted to me or not? Maybe the kiss the other night had just been because he was happy that I had remembered something in the dream.

  “Pinterest and cooking skills - are you sure you’re not gay?” I asked bluntly.

  He quirked an eyebrow and picked up his fork. “No. Not that I think there’s anything wrong with being gay. I learned to cook because I’ve been by myself most of my life.” He shrugged. “You want nice things, you have to learn to make them yourself. I stumbled on Pinterest one night while doing other research. It’s amazing how much searching for angels and demons takes you back to Pinterest. I like to cook, I found recipes, I get on there occasionally.”

  “Okay,” I said. It didn’t quite satisfy what was really bothering me—why the arm’s length policy? I glanced over at him but held my tongue. I had exhausted my courage for the moment.

  “Syrup?” Matt asked, holding the bottle out to me.

  “Sure, thanks.” I poured syrup on the pancakes I’d dotted with thin pieces of butter. “So, how exactly do you plan to train me to protect myself?”

  “There ar
e a few things we need to go over,” he said, glancing up, then dishing fried eggs onto his plate and passing them to me before picking up the plate of bacon.

  “Okay, but I do want to go into town and see Jen later today. It’s my fault she’s there; I need to support her as she recuperates. I want to find out how I can help and be as involved as I can.” Guilt pooled in my stomach.

  Matt’s gaze flicked up momentarily from his food. “I understand you wanting to be there for her, but you didn’t do this. Don’t take that on yourself.”

  I shrugged and didn’t reply, just kept eating.

  Matt sighed. “I hope you don’t plan to heal her.”

  I looked up at him in surprise. “Why not?”

  He laid his fork on his plate. “A miracle healing? Think about the publicity it would create. Every demon would be down on this town in a heartbeat.”

  “Oh, no, I plan to give her little doses frequently. Just to help her healing along, not enough to call attention.”

  “Good plan,” Matt agreed. “Small doses shouldn’t be noticeable.”

  I was glad he approved. It was my fault, she was my friend, and the demons were here because of me. I had to do something to help her. I’d rather concentrate on eating than fighting at present. The pancakes were spicy and savory, yet sweet. “These are amazing,” I marveled. “I could eat a whole batch by myself.” I found myself full though after a couple eggs, bacon, and just one pancake.

  I picked up my coffee cup and took a swallow, then grimaced. It had gone cold. I got up to put it in the microwave for thirty seconds.

  I started clearing the table while I waited. As I picked up the plate of bacon, Matt’s hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, holding the plate still while he forked another couple strips off it. My lips curved up, but then I noted his hand on my arm and felt the warmth of it, the rasp of his calloused fingers on my tender skin. I couldn’t help thinking how I’d love to feel that elsewhere on my body. Get your mind out of the gutter, girl.

  A myriad of little white scars dotted his hand. I tilted my head. “What are those from?”

  He let go of my wrist. “What?”