More Than Fiends

by Maureen Child

  “You have no say over Cassidy.”

  “Yeah? You keep moving in on her, and see how much I have to say.”

  “Back off,” Devlin said tightly.

  “Like hell,” Logan countered and balled his fists as if getting ready for a first strike.

  Hell. How was I supposed to stop this before it got completely out of hand? Shriek at both of them? Punch them both out and walk away from their unconscious bodies? Hmm. Tempting.

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Rachel came up out of nowhere, clearly ready to make the decision I was still angsting over. She carried a pitcher of iced tea, and as the two morons circled each other like bears, she tossed the contents onto both of them. “This is a party. Behave or go home.”

  Stunned, both men stared at her in stupefaction. Hell, even I was speechless, and by now you should know how seldom something like that happens. Both men were dripping, but they weren’t snarling and snapping at each other anymore. A lemon slice was stuck in Logan’s hair, and a couple of seeds were clinging to the front of Devlin’s shirt. Looked like the brewing fight was finished.

  I glanced at Rachel, smiling smugly, and had to smile back. “Okay, I won’t kill you after all.”

  “Thanks. You want some cake?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  The rest of the party was pretty uneventful. I managed to have a good time in spite of Logan and Devlin. Neither of the men had left—not wanting to give the other guy the satisfaction, probably. So they wandered the crowd, avoiding each other and slowly drip-drying. I avoided both of them.

  But, after a couple of hours of sugar consumption, I was feeling magnanimous. They couldn’t help being idiots. It was a chromosome thing. Besides, I think it’s a proven fact that testosterone makes idiots out of all males. Apparently, even in the demon world.

  Still, I wasn’t ready to forgive either one of them, so when it was time for the fireworks, I went looking for Thea, instead of the two men in my life. Spotting Zoe, talking to one of the Marchetti boys (and wouldn’t Rachel have a heart attack if she saw that), I went up to her and asked, “Hey, sweetie. Seen Thea?”

  Zoe turned big brown eyes on me and grinned. “Yeah. She was with Jett. They went over to your house to get Thea a sweatshirt.”

  “Thanks.” I headed off that way at a quick march. Not that I didn’t trust Thea alone with that kid. But I sure as hell didn’t trust Jett. And I wasn’t talking about him being a half demon here, either. I wouldn’t trust any teenage boy with my daughter, alone in my house. Hey, I was in a better position than most moms to know just what could happen when hormones were left unchaperoned.

  I kept looking for Thea in the crowd as I went, but didn’t see her anywhere. So, she was probably still at the house. I’d just go in and get her and slap Jett around a little if he needed it.

  “Thea!” I walked into the house, called her name and frowned when there was no response. Lights were on, but the rooms were empty. You know that feeling you get in a deserted house? Like it’s holding its breath, waiting for its people to come home? That’s what my house felt like.

  I knew Thea wasn’t there, but I kept looking. I went from room to room, my steps getting a little faster, my breath hitching a little more in my throat. Where was she? A dark, terrifying feeling started scratching in the pit of my stomach, filling me with dread and an inescapable sense of darkness.

  She wasn’t at the party.

  Wasn’t at the house.

  Backyard?

  I ran out and checked, but there was nothing. Only the dark. More emptiness.

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t feel my own heart beating. I fought desperately to find a flicker of hope. To argue with myself silently. She’s here. Somewhere, she’s here. She wouldn’t just leave. She loves fireworks. She loves this party. She wouldn’t go anywhere without telling me. She’s probably just lost in the crowd out there, and you didn’t see her. But she wasn’t. I knew she wasn’t.

  Bolting through the house, I staggered out onto the front porch and swept the crowd again, my gaze seeing every familiar face and reading new meaning into their innocent expressions. Did one of them know where Thea was? Had one of them done something to her? Someone I’d known my whole life? A person I trusted and thought I knew?

  Thea.

  My brain was racing and my stomach lurched.

  “Oh God.”

  “Cassidy?” Devlin approached at a run. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “Thea.” I looked up at him and knew by the sudden jolt of tension in him that I hadn’t managed to hide the desperation I was feeling. “I can’t find Thea.”

  He instantly swept the crowd, as if hoping he could find her where I hadn’t. Then he looked at me and asked, “Does she have a cell phone?”

  “Yes,” I muttered, trying to focus my blurry vision on the people in the street. Then his words hit me, and I grabbed for my own cell, tucked in my jeans pocket. Why hadn’t I thought of that myself? Of course. I’ll call her and she’ll answer and tell me she went on a little walk with the Jett demon, and then I’d only have to throttle her and hug her to death and then bitch-slap Jett until I felt better. Good, good, I thought, flipping my phone open and hitting the speed dial. I waited for what felt like forever to hear Thea’s phone ring.

  “What’s going on?” Logan came up and stood at the bottom of the steps, looking from me to Devlin and back again.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t talk. Could hardly breathe. Had to listen. Had to focus on the ringing phone and telepathically force Thea to answer it.

  “Damn it, Cassie,” Logan demanded, shoving past Devlin to come to my side. “What the hell’s going on? You look like you just saw a ghost.” Comprehension dawned on him as his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched and flexed. “Thea? Is something wrong with Thea? Damn it, answer me.”

  “Logan, wait,” I managed to say around the hard knot of terror lodged in my throat.

  “We can’t find Thea,” Devlin said.

  Logan shot him a glare, then focused on me. “It’s that damn kid. I know it is.” He flashed a quick look around the crowd as if he could spot Jett and set him on fire. Then he looked back at me. “You calling her?”

  Impatient, I nodded and held up a hand.

  A phone rang.

  In the flower bed.

  I turned my head slowly to look toward the sound. I stumbled off the porch, stepped into the chrysanthemums and reached down to pick up my daughter’s phone.

  “It’s Thea’s,” I said, looking at the two men watching me. “She’s gone.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “Gone?” Logan demanded. “What do you mean, gone?”

  I glared at him, too furious, too scared to be patient. “How many things can I mean, Logan? She’s not here.”

  He frowned, glanced around at the party still raging in front of us and said, “She could be anywhere out there in that crowd.”

  “Her phone’s here,” I pointed out, shaking it at him like a maraca.

  “So she didn’t take her phone. Doesn’t mean anything.”

  See, this just proved that he hadn’t been a parent for long.

  “It’s a physical impossibility for a teenage girl to leave her phone behind,” I muttered and looked at Devlin. His black eyes glittered in the soft glow of the porch light. He knew where Thea was—and looking at his tight, furious features, I suddenly knew, too.

  “Oh God.” It came out as a whisper as the realization that the judge really had snatched Thea settled into me.

  “What?” Logan looked from me to Devlin, saw something he didn’t like and charged Devlin like a bull on drugs. Grabbing hold of Devlin’s shirt, Logan pushed his face into the other man’s and shouted, “Where the hell is my kid?”

  “What’s happened?”

  I looked at Jasmine as she hurried up to us, and for the first time since all this had started, I was grateful to see her. She had the experience I was so going to need. “Thea’s gone. Her phone’s here, so she didn’t
leave willingly.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Logan shouted, still clutching Devlin’s shirt like he wanted to drag him down to the station and book him for something.

  “For God’s sake, let go of him,” I snapped and took the steps down to meet Jasmine on the lawn. “You know where she is.”

  “Yes.” Her mouth was grim, her eyes steely. “He’s taken her.”

  “He who?” Logan asked as Devlin brushed away his hold on him.

  “A demon.” I didn’t have time to explain or to listen to Logan laugh me off again. He didn’t want to believe, fine. I could give a shit. But if he got in my way, I’d dust him.

  “Demons again,” Logan looked like he wanted to bite through a stick. Well, join the club.

  “We can get her back,” Jasmine said.

  “From the demon?” Logan asked, sarcasm so thick it was impossible to miss. “For God’s sake, Cassie, she’s probably just off with that little thug.”

  Jett.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, wishing I’d dusted the little twerp the first time I’d squirted him. “Of course it was Jett. She’d go with him. Wouldn’t question it. Damn it, when I find her…”

  Jasmine walked to Devlin, and the two of them whispered something I couldn’t quite catch.

  “Are you trying to tell me Thea’s been kidnapped?” Logan asked. “By that creep I warned you about?”

  “Good time for I-told-you-sos, Logan. Thanks.”

  I dismissed him and turned to Devlin. “Where would he take her?”

  “The lair.”

  “Lair?” Logan repeated, shifting his gaze among the three of us. “Who the hell are we talking about?”

  “Judge Jenks,” I said tightly and saw the man’s icy blue eyes in my memory. Just the thought of that bastard anywhere near my little girl made me want to shove my hand into somebody’s chest.

  “Jenks?” Logan said on a wild laugh. “Judge Jenks? He’s your ‘demon’?”

  “Yeah, he is,” I said, staring him squarely in the eye and daring him to argue. “He’s the one who threatened Thea. And he’s the one who’s got her now.”

  “You have totally lost it, Cassie.” Logan’s mouth was a thin slash of disapproval, and his eyes flashed with disgusted fury. “I can see where that little creep might sweet-talk Thea into going with him somewhere, but there’s no way the judge is in this. For chrissakes, he’s a man, not a demon.”

  Jasmine faced him. “You don’t believe. You don’t have to,” she said. “But if you want to help save your daughter, you will have to do as we say.”

  “Bullshit, lady,” Logan growled, reaching for his own cell phone. “I’m calling this in. I can have a couple of units here inside ten minutes.”

  “And then what?” I whirled on him, and I know I looked scary, because he backed up a step instinctively. “You don’t know what we’re dealing with here. You don’t want to know. The cops can’t fix this, Logan. I have to.”

  “You?” He looked from me to Jasmine to Devlin and finally to me again. Grabbing hold of my arm, he pulled me away from the other two and said, “This is no time for your crazy-ass stories about demons, Cassie. If Thea’s in trouble—”

  “She is—”

  “—then we need the cops. I don’t buy this demon crap. We need backup and a plan and some manpower.”

  He was just getting started. I knew he loved Thea. I knew he was a good cop and believed in his job and what he was sworn to do. I also knew that if I let him drag the cops into this, Thea was lost to me, and no way was that going to happen.

  “Logan, listen to me.” I lowered my voice, but my fury, I think, came across loud and clear. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this. Either help us, or get the hell outta the way.”

  A couple of long minutes ticked past with us glaring at each other. Sort of like when I stared Sugar down to convince her who was in charge of the kibble. Finally, Logan caved. I wasn’t sure why and I didn’t care.

  “Fine. We’ll do it your way. For now. I’m going with you,” Logan said. “I won’t call for backup. Yet. But only because you’re wrong about all of this, and I want to see your face when we find Thea somewhere making out with that little thug. Next time, maybe you’ll listen to me. Demons. Jesus, Cassie.”

  “Whatever.” I shoved him away from me, turned to Jasmine and Devlin and said, “Come on. We’ll need supplies.”

  The caves on the beach were pretty during the day. But at night, the cave entrances yawned black and empty—like the gates to Hell. Of course, that could have been my mood.

  Moonlight shone down from a clear, star-speckled sky and didn’t even make a dent on the darkness waiting in those caves. I should have been scared. God knew, I was worried about Thea, but I wasn’t scared scared. Couldn’t afford to be. Besides, fighting the judge was starting to sound more and more like a good time. Nobody hurts my baby girl.

  Behind us, the ocean roared. The damn tide was in, which meant the ice-cold water was rushing for our feet and trying to drag us back into the open sea every time it receded.

  My sneakers were soaked and so were the hems of my jeans. I was so damn mad I didn’t even feel it.

  “Okay.” I looked at Devlin. “How far back in the cave will they be?”

  He shifted a look at the biggest cave, as if he could see through the shadows to where Thea was being held. “It’s all the way back. The cave is narrow up front, but it stretches for nearly a hundred yards, and at the back end, it’s big enough for him to have a whole cadre of demons with him for protection.”

  “He’s gonna need ’em,” I muttered.

  “This is all bullshit, Cassie,” Logan whispered, still uneasy with not calling the cops. “This guy”—he jerked a nod at Devlin—“is probably in on this. He’s trying to get you into the caves with the tide coming in. Christ, we could all get trapped in there.”

  I took a second I didn’t really have and looked up at him. I could see he was worried. Well, join the club. “Logan, Thea’s in there, and I’m getting her out. Come or don’t come. Just don’t get in my way.”

  “You couldn’t stop me,” he said.

  “The ground rises.” Jasmine spoke up for the first time since we left the house. “The cave entrance is low, but the farther in you go, the higher. The water will not reach the back of the cave.”

  “And you know this how?” I asked, pinning her with my world-famous death glare, which bounced off her like bullets off Superman.

  She actually smiled. Widely. And that might have been the eeriest part of the whole evening. Trust me on this, Jasmine smiling is not something you want to see. The words curdle milk sprang to mind. “I’ve been in La Sombra many times over the years. The judge is not the first demon to claim these caves.”

  “Right.” I nodded, then scowled at her. “Next time, share.”

  Devlin gave me a smile and a supportive hand on my shoulder. Logan was giving me a headache. Still, I could see his point. A few weeks ago, if someone had told me demons were alive and well and living in my hometown, I would have thought they were nuts, too.

  “Everybody got their spray bottle?” I asked, not bothering to lower my voice, since the pound of the waves was loud enough to cover the invasion of Normandy.

  “Got it.” Logan held the spray bottle in his left hand, his .38 caliber in his right. “But the gun seems like a better call.”

  “Trust me on this,” I said. “The window cleaner will work way better.”

  He snorted.

  “The judge will have most of his minions with him, but he’ll have two or three sentries posted at different intervals in the cave,” Devlin said, already heading toward the mouth of the biggest of the three caves. “I’ll go first. They won’t try to stop me because the judge still thinks I’m working for him.”

  “He’s not the only one,” Logan muttered.

  “Whatever,” I said, falling into step behind Devlin and sparing only one quick glare at Logan. “But when the spray hits the
wind, you hit the dirt.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Devlin said.

  I wasn’t. He was a big demon. He could take care of himself. Besides, all of my worry was being used up on Thea. I didn’t have any worry left for anybody else. They’d have to take a number.

  Jasmine was bringing up the rear, and it was good to know she had Logan’s back. The man was ready to fight—he just didn’t believe what he’d be fighting and that could get ugly.

  The walls of the cave and even the ceiling seemed to be pressing down on me. The roar of the ocean was muted, like we were trapped in a giant conch shell—the kind you hold to your ear to listen to the sea. Now that we were inside the cave and close to the demons, I was trying to walk quietly, slowly, though every instinct I had was telling me to knock Devlin on his ass and sprint toward my daughter. Good thing I waited.

  A demon stepped out of the shadows to greet Devlin, then noticed us. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, and before I could move, Devlin squirted a stream of the liquid into the guy’s mouth. That shut him up quick and sent him into a gagging fit. I stepped around Devlin just long enough to do a little dusting.

  Logan came up behind me. “What the hell happened? I can hardly see a thing in here.”

  Devlin shrugged.

  I said, “Nothing. Thought I saw something, that’s all.”

  “Well, let’s concentrate, huh?” Logan said.

  I shot him in the face with my demon spray. It didn’t burn him, but it made me feel better.

  Then we were moving again, and my legs started to ache. Definitely walking uphill. Damn, I’d been training for two weeks and was still in rotten shape. Good thing I’d had all the brownies. At least I could ride a sugar rush.

  The next sentry was taken out just as quickly, and as we went forward, Devlin held one hand up for quiet. My breath was coming in small gasps, and it was just as well. The cave smelled like rotting seaweed. Ew.

  “He’s just ahead,” Devlin whispered, his mouth so close to my ear it felt like he was talking inside my head.

  I nodded and stepped around him. Staring off down into the shadowy blackness, I noticed the walls of the cave glistening with damp. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to pop free of my chest. I moved forward carefully and felt Devlin just behind me. I was really hoping that he was just who he said he was. A demon on my side. I didn’t want to have to fight the judge and Devlin.