by Julie Kenner
The smuggling part was actually easy since Stuart was tucked away in his study. The waiting, though, was hard. Allie was such a bundle of nervous energy I thought she’d spontaneously combust before we made it out the door. I was on edge, too, especially since I finally decided that this was important enough to break my no-David rule. But when I called him, I got no answer, which left me both worried and irritated.
Finally, the house was quiet. I snuck out of bed and then tapped on Allie’s door. She flew out immediately, her face a mix of anticipation and excitement.
“Quiet,” I whispered, which was pretty useless, really, since our garage-door opener makes enough noise to wake the house.
We stood in the kitchen as the door opened, listening for any telltale signs of life. Nothing.
“Okay,” I said. “Come on.”
The drive to the alley was uneventful, and the alley itself was drab and uninteresting. Instead of groups of kids milling around, there was nobody. Not even a homeless person. I shot Allie a questioning look, but she just shrugged. “This is where they said. Honest.”
I pulled the van in until we were about twenty yards from the back door to the club, then killed the engine and turned off the lights. As I did, the door to the club opened, and I could see a sliver of blackish-blue light. Two figures stepped out and Allie leaned forward, pressing her hands to the dash as she angled for a better look.
“That’s him!” she said, pointing to the burly teenager on the left. He was talking with a tall, pale skinny guy, and although I peered hard at the fellow, I couldn’t tell if he was human or demon. Which, frankly, is one of those little demon quirks that makes my job so hard.
Tyrone pulled something from his pocket and showed it to Skinny.
“That’s got to be the ring,” I said to Allie, grabbing my stiletto. I had two other knives hidden on my person, but the crossbow I was leaving in the car. If there were no demons, it would be hard to explain a medieval weapon in a dark California alley.
I was about fifteen steps from the car when all hell broke loose. Skinny jumped Tyrone, his body shimmering red as the true demon shone through. Tyrone screamed and I raced forward, determined both to save this kid’s life and get the ring back.
Behind me, a huge clatter seemed to shake the alley. A metallic bang was followed by a growl and a scream. I turned, terror filling me at the sight I confronted—a hellhound on top of the van, snarling down and battering the front windshield so hard that the glass shattered.
Inside, my daughter was screaming, but she’d grabbed the crossbow and held it at the ready.
I abandoned the quest for the ring, racing back toward Allie even as the creature broke through the window, then started trying to wriggle inside to get my daughter.
“Allie,” I screamed. “Shoot! Shoot now!” She did, but the shot went wild, barely scraping the hellhound, which seemed only to become more aggressive now that she’d injured it.
The canine leaped and then, suddenly, someone jumped from the fire escape above to land on top of my van. It was a woman, tall and thin and dressed all in black leather.
From a scabbard on her back, she pulled out a sword, the blade glinting in the moonlight, then slammed it down into the hellhound’s body.
“Go!” she yelled. “I’ll take care of the kid. Get that demon.”
I hesitated, but as I did, she reared back with the blade once again, this time crashing it through the hound’s skull. An inhuman wail as the creature died, its body sucked into a spinning, hellish vortex, leaving a stain of oil all over the top and sides of the van.
At the other end of the alley, the demon kicked Tyrone in the gut, knocking him to the ground. The demon snatched the ring, then held it high in the sky, his body stock still. I reared back, knife at the ready, my aim on his left eye. I let the knife fly and it spun over and over, landing with a squish in the demon’s eye just as a jet-black crow materialized from the night sky, snatching the ring in its beak.
The demon escaped into the ether, its host body collapsing in a heap on the ground. Tyrone grunted something unintelligible, then took off running. And the ring disappeared into the sky.
I drew in a breath and prayed for strength. The ring was with the demons now. Andramelech would be released. And as far as I knew, there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about that.
Right now, though, my concern was for my daughter, and as I hurried back to the van I saw her sitting on the pavement, her expression a bit shell-shocked, and the mystery woman standing over her, the sword still tight in her hand.
I squatted beside Allie and pulled her close as she snuggled against me. I kissed her hair, inspected every inch of her to make sure she was safe, then lifted my head up to her defender, who stood right there, impassively staring down at us.
“Nadia Aiken, I presume?”
“Got it in one,” she said, then sheathed the blade.
Seventeen
“And you’re Katherine Crowe,” Nadia said.
“Katherine Connor,” I corrected.
“Oh, yeah. Right.” She bent down to retrieve a slim cigarette case from the top of her thigh-high boot, then pulled out a hand-rolled cigarette. She offered one to me, and then to Allie. I declined for both of us, thank you very much.
I hugged my daughter closer, stroking her hair and wishing I could make all the bad things go away. “Thank you,” I said to Nadia. “If you hadn’t come when you did ...” I trailed off, my mind not even capable of processing the potential horror.
She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, then lit her cigarette. “But I did,” she said, as her exhaled smoke drifted lazily around her. She looked from Allie to me. “Come on, Crowe,” Nadia said. “Let’s get off the street and go someplace where we can talk.”
“Give us a minute more,” I said, still holding Allie.
From her vantage point above us, Nadia kicked at the toe of Allie’s tennis shoe. “Buck up there, kid. You fall apart every time you get into a scrape, and you’ll never make it as a Hunter.”
“She isn’t a Hunter.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Nadia said.
In my arms, Allie shifted then sat up, pulling out of my embrace. “I’m okay, Mom,” she said firmly. She looked up at Nadia. “I’m not falling apart.”
“Good for you, kid.” She gave Allie her hand and then helped her to her feet. Me, she left to get up by myself.
“So why are you here?” Allie asked, and I had to give my kid points. She’d bounced back, and now she was back on track. In my heart, I knew it was only teenage stubbornness reacting to Nadia’s little digs, but that didn’t change the fact that she was resilient. And as much as I didn’t care for Nadia’s less-than-maternal method, I had to admit she was right. Allie might not be a Hunter-not yet, and maybe not ever—but she was in the fray. And falling apart was a luxury left only to the dead.
“I got your message,” Nadia said. “I was in L.A., so I thought I’d drive up. See what you needed.” She looked at me. “Glad I did.”
“Me, too,” I said. “But how did you find us here?”
“Drove by your house,” she said. “I saw you pulling out so I decided to follow. Scope you out, you know? Make sure you weren’t leading me into a trap.”
“Why would we do that?” Allie asked.
She took another draw on her cigarette. “No idea, kid. But I’ve been living off the grid for years now. And everyone I gave that answering service number to is dead.”
Allie looked at me, as if I could explain that oddity. I couldn’t. I asked, “Why not cancel the service?”
“If I had, I never would have heard from you,” she said. She dropped her cigarette and stubbed it out with her toe. In front of us, two college-age boys came out of the back door of the Dime Box, their laughter drunken and raucous. Nadia watched them, her eyes cool. They saw her and gave a low, appreciative whistle. She smiled sweetly, then flipped them the bird before turning back to Allie and me.
“Let’s get out
of here.”
I debated what to do about the Odyssey, and decided that I couldn’t take it home. If Stuart noticed its absence in the morning, I could say I ran out of gas while running to get cold medicine for Timmy at the 7-Eleven. Not the best of stories, but it would work.
If he actually saw the windshield smashed in, though? That would be a bit harder to explain.
I ended up leaving it at the auto body shop we’d used a year ago after a minor fender bender. I locked it up, left a note and the key in the drop box, and then Allie and I headed for Nadia’s car. She’d followed us there in a cherry-red Lotus that had Allie’s mouth hanging open. She spent the ride turned sideways in the passenger seat, gaping at Nadia, and giving me a running commentary on how hot the Lotus was, and wasn’t Nadia cool, and did I have a scabbard like that to keep slung over my back?
There was a twenty-four-hour diner next door to the auto-body place, and so we popped in there, ordering pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream for me and Allie, and plain black coffee for Nadia, who chain-smoked the entire meal despite the No Smoking signs and nasty looks from the staff.
She’d left her weapons in her car—the visible ones, anyway—but I think they could tell she was dangerous, and no one came by to ask her to put out her light.
“So give me the run-down,” she said. “Your message was pretty cryptic, but it sounds like you’ve clued in to Andramelech?”
“Looks that way,” I said, trying to walk a fine line of getting information without revealing too much. I trusted her—she’d saved Allie, after all. But only to a point.
“You can’t know much,” she said, exhaling toward the ceiling. “Andramelech disappeared five years ago. He must have been bound. That’s the only explanation.”
“Agreed,” I said. “And we have—”
“The ring,” Allie put in. “He’s trapped in King Solomon’s ring.”
I kept my expression bland, but gave her knee a quick squeeze. She looked up at me, confused, and I shook my head, just a little. I could see from her face that she still didn’t understand.
Across the booth, Nadia laughed. “Your mom wants to take this slowly,” she said. “You don’t know me and I don’t know you, and this is dangerous business.”
“But Mom,” Allie said, apparently not understanding the finer nuances. I decided that now wasn’t the time to explain them to her. Considering she was drowning in leather-clad hero worship, I doubted anything I said would make an impact anyway.
“We found the ring,” I said, taking the plunge. “Eric had it. I inherited it.”
Her expression didn’t waver. Her eyes didn’t blink. But after a beat, she did pick up her fork and tap the tines against her thumb. I tried to decide if that meant anything from a grand psychological perspective, realized I had no knack for psychoanalysis at all, and simply waited for her to speak.
“I’m surprised the demons didn’t take it after he died. I had no idea the ring had ended up with you.”
“Neither did I,” I admitted. “We found it only recently.”
“It’s not something to be toyed with, you know. Once Wilson realized what he had, he sent it to Eric, but told me to track it down. He wanted me to work with Eric to nail the son of a bitch.”
“What happened?”
Nadia leaned back against the booth’s worn upholstery. “I’m not sure your husband completely trusted me, Kate.” The corner of her mouth twitched just slightly, and she focused on me. “Maybe he believed I wanted more from him than just the ring.”
My chest tightened, and I wanted to ask why he would believe that. Wanted to ask what had happened between them, what they had discussed during their phone calls, and why she’d come to San Diablo. And, most important, why neither Eric nor David had seen fit to tell me that she’d been here.
Betty’s innuendoes skittered through my brain, and I felt my throat clog with tears. I didn’t want to believe the worst of my husband, and yet I couldn’t help the doubts and fears that were easing in around the cracks.
I thought about what David had said, about how in the end he hadn’t trusted Nadia. Why, I wondered. Had he gotten too close to her? Close enough to get burned?
“We should get the ring,” she said, her focus wider and encompassing Allie, too. “It needs to be in the Vatican, safe on holy ground.” She smiled at Allie. “Have you ever seen Rome? It’s fabulous.”
“Mom?”
“We can’t,” I said, realizing that all my mental meanderings added up to nothing. Whatever happened between Eric and Nadia was ancient history, no matter how much that history might hurt me now. And whatever Eric’s reasons for not telling her he still had the ring, they didn’t matter now. “The ring is gone.”
She blinked. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You were there,” I said, my voice calm even though I was screaming inside. I’d lost the damn ring, and I’d almost lost that boy as well. “The ring could be anywhere now.”
“The crow,” she said. “Are you telling me the goddamn crow took the ring?”
“We’d gone to the alley to try to get it back,” Allie said. “It’s my fault. I took it to school and then it got stolen.” She continued on from there, spilling the story to Nadia even as tears spilled from her cheeks.
“Don’t cry,” Nadia said. “Never cry about your mistakes. Just fix them.”
“That’s what we were trying to do,” Allie said with a sniff. “That’s why we came. To try to get the ring back.”
“Didn’t much work out, though, did it?” she asked, the question aimed at me.
“Allie’s alive,” I said. “And so is the boy. Right now, I’m willing to call that a victory.”
“That’s a crock of shit and you know it. It’s only a victory if we stop Andramelech’s minions from releasing him and the other imprisoned demons. I’ve spent my entire life trying to defeat that demon, and because of your fuck-up, now I’m set back for God only knows how long.” She took a breath. “He’s going to get free, Crowe. Do you realize what that means? Do you realize what kind of demon we’re dealing with here?”
I assured her I did.
“Goddamn it,” she said, slamming a fist onto the table and making the plates and silverware bang and clatter.
“So what now?” Allie asked. “I mean, now that they have the ring, the demons will leave San Diablo, right?”
“It’s a good bet,” I said. “Why stay in a town filled with Hunters?”
“Unless they need the town,” Nadia said.
Something in her voice gave me pause. “What do you know?”
“There’s a ritual,” she said. “For releasing the demons.”
“And they need something here,” I said, seeing where this was leading. “Something in San Diablo.”
“The ritual to release or destroy has to take place here,” she said.
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Not exactly. But I have my notes. Maybe your alimentatore can give us a hand reviewing them?”
“We’ll go right now,” I said, signaling for the check.
“Good.” She slid out of the booth and stretched, her breasts straining against the soft leather of her shirt. Every male in the diner strained for a better look.
She ignored them all, her attention focused solely on me. “We have one last chance to get the ring before his followers free Andramelech from the stone,” she said, looking at me intently. “And this time, let’s not blow it, okay?”
By the time we’d awakened Father Ben, brought him up to speed, and returned home, it was almost four in the morning. Nadia insisted that she could go to a motel, but considering the day was about to begin again in just a few hours, that seemed absurd.
“Stay here,” I said. “Sleep on the couch in Stuart’s study, and once the house is empty, we can talk some more.” Father Ben had promised to go over Nadia’s notes in detail. Maybe by the time we were all awake, he’d have found something out.
Thankfully, my husband didn’t question the houseguest or the child care. He did, however, notice the Lotus parked in the garage where the Odyssey used to be. The note he left for me—this one taped to the microwave—had an arrow aimed toward the garage and a very large exclamation point.
I grinned. He didn’t know the half of it.
I had the house to myself for one blissful hour, and then life began to stir. Eddie returned from his walk, hooked a thumb at the garage, and raised his eyebrows. I started to bring him up to speed, but at that moment, Nadia pranced in, wearing a T-shirt cut so low it was barely decent, and black leggings so tight they left nothing to the imagination.
And, yes, I admit I was impressed. She was probably only four or five years younger than me, but she clearly had no problem finding a dress that didn’t cling too tight to her thighs.
I looked down at my black yoga pants, ratty PTA T-shirt, and unpainted toenails and vowed to buy new pajamas. And give myself a manicure. Highlights, too, I thought.
“Oh, man,” she said, stretching so that the already revealing top revealed just a little more. “What a night. Thanks for letting me crash. I think my battery’s actually recharged now.”
“Looks like there’s some current flowing,” Eddie said, peering out at her from around the open door of the refrigerator.
She ignored him and looked to me. “Who’s Pops?”
“That would be Eddie Lohmann,” I said.
“No shit?” She held her hand out to him. “Heard rumors about you, Pops. Glad to see you’re not dead. Although ...” She trailed off with a shrug. “Well, this is the suburbs.”
Eddie made a rude noise and stuck his head back into the refrigerator, effectively absenting himself from the conversation.
Allie, who hadn’t gone to bed until a few hours before she usually woke up, finally stumbled into the kitchen. She gave Nadia’s outfit the kind of approving glance that makes a mother nervous, then turned to me. “I’m so late for school.”