by May Dawson
The sound of nails slipping on linoleum and the barking were loud before the dogs even turned the corner of the aisle. The Rottweiler suddenly crashed through the glass door in the front. It scrambled up to its feet, blood spiking its dark coat.
As the first dog jumped up at Jacob, he threw up his arm protectively. It wrapped its jaws around his forearm as he tripped back, falling against the doors. I could hear his voice, low and seductive, talking to the dog, and then he shook it off easily. The dog fell to the floor, catching itself on its four paws, and whined.
The other dogs were growling and circling him, and Jacob held out a hand placatingly, palm out, as he talked to them in that slow and gentle tone. The Rottweiler barreled toward him.
The Rottweiler jumped, and Jacob caught it in mid-air as best he could, holding those locking jaws back from his throat. Man and dog fell together, wrestling across the floor.
Beside me, Nimshi had pulled a necklace out from under his shirt and held it tightly in one hand, incanting softly and steadily in Latin.
Jacob grabbed the Rottweiler's muzzle, holding it closed as it snapped at him. I could hear him still talking to the dog, his tone urgent.
The Rottweiler slipped Jacob's grip and lunged toward him again.
I threw open the door, determined to help him, and from my peripheral vision I could see Ryker and Levi doing the same.
The Rottweiler licked Jacob's cheek. Jacob grinned. He pet the dog, rubbing behind its ears, his shoulders slumping forward in a relieved sigh before he straightened.
"Sleep," Jacob told them all. "Go to sleep. Good dogs."
The dogs cocked their heads at him and then began to circle, laying down.
"You persuasive bastard," Levi grinned at him.
"It doesn't just work on humans." Jacob ran his hand through his hair. "That felt pretty dicey for a while there. They were so keyed up, I couldn't get through to them except one-on-one."
"You're welcome." Nimshi stepped out of the display case. "There's a spell I think you all need to learn. Takes the demon out of the dog."
"How can demons possess dogs?" I looked around at the shambles of the gas station around us. The shelves had fallen, and there were bags and bottles of convenience foods scattered brightly all over the white linoleum floors. Dogs slept everywhere. If the gas station attendant had just stepped away to the men's room, he was going to be surprised when he came back to find a dozen dogs sprawled between the chaos. "I thought they couldn't affect the world."
"They don't like possessing dogs," Nimshi said. "They think it's beneath them. But apparently, it's worth it to get to me."
"They can possess any animal," Jacob told me. He wiped his cheek off, looking slightly horrified by the dog drool. "So not a good time for us to visit a zoo, for instance."
"I'll cross it off my list of potential dates." I said.
"Thanks," Jacob said to Nimshi. "Now teach us the spell."
"Most of these I know using a talisman," Nimshi said. He picked his way across the chaos, stepping over the bodies of dogs carefully. He stopped at a display of souvenir items full of fake-looking shark teeth necklaces and mood rings. "Who calls shark teeth?"
34
Later that night, I twisted in my seat and held my hand out to him. "Let me see your necklace."
Next to me, Jacob was asleep, his tall body canted awkwardly in the seat so he could rest his head against the glass. I had already taken a shift driving, and now Levi was in the driver's seat, despite all his brother's complaining. Ryker slept with his feet up on the dash in the passenger seat, his broad arms crossed across his black t-shirt.
Instead of taking the necklace off and handing it to me, Nimshi released his seatbelt so he could sit forward on the edge of his seat.
"We call it a talisman." He leaned toward me, pulling the silver chain out from under his shirt.
He put a bulky silver square into my hand. The motion brought our heads close together. I breathed in the faint scent of cedar and incense, cinnamon and ginger. Nimshi smelled like dark magic or spicy Christmas cookies, I wasn't sure which. Either way some mad part of me wanted to close what distance there was between us.
"I call it a necklace," I told him.
He smiled faintly. "This part here is my patron demon. My godfather, so to say." He rubbed his thumb over a figure etched beautifully into the square, the body and face made of sparkling red, green and yellow jewels. Beneath the figure was an inscription in a language I couldn't read.
"So, does it actually do anything?" I asked. It felt heavy and cool in my hand. "Does it help you focus your thoughts? Like when we chant?"
"I don't know." He tucked it back into his shirt. "I used to believe."
"Used to believe in patron demons?"
"Used to believe in the whole thing." He tugged on his collar, adjusting his clothes again so the medallion was hidden. "I used to believe that God was a trickster, holding man and angels back from being like him. From being powerful, too. I used to believe that demons were necessary to hold the world in balance. There's no light without the dark."
His black eyes were steady on mine. His lips quirked up a second too late, taking on his usual teasing note, but it was too late. I knew he had been serious with me for once.
"Demons don't see themselves as evil," I said, making sure I understood.
"Of course not. Just like humans. Every damn one thinking they're the hero of the story, no matter what they do."
"But now you aren't so sure?" I asked.
"Humans seem to be pretty skilled at keeping the darkness in the world," Nimshi said. "I don't think you need any of us."
I wondered what the world would look like without any demons.
I wondered what it would look like without my demon.
"Except for me," he added, that devilish twinkle in his eye. "You definitely need me. These guys seem like a boring lot."
"Watch it," Levi said from the driver's seat.
"Especially that one," Nimshi said. "He seems like the nice guy type."
"I like nice men," I warned Nimshi. "I love him. And Ryker and Jacob. If you want to stay on my good side, you'll stop trying to be cool and get to know your brothers."
He bit down on his lower lip, just for a second, as if he were biting back a grin. "I'm on your good side?"
"Barely." I teased him. "It helps that you helped Jacob back there."
Jacob roused slightly. He picked his head up off the glass, running his hand through his curls and squinting at us as if he were confused. "What?"
"You just want to learn all my demon magic before you kill me," Nimshi said, but there was something in his eyes, behind the smile, that made me think he really didn't trust us.
"No one's going to hurt you," I said.
"Sure," Nimshi said. He half-shrugged.
Jacob settled back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
"No back-up?" I asked, glancing around the car. "Leaving me hanging?"
"It doesn't need to be said," Levi said. "We've never hurt anyone without good reason."
Nimshi snorted. "So you've never slayed a geist or a vamp that was just peacefully haunting some house?"
"We find out about them because they hurt people," Levi said. "We help ghosts that get trapped here. Letting them move on, to the Far."
"Such a treat," Nim said. "On to the Far. And then maybe on to eternal torment."
There was a pause in the car for a second. I was lost in my own thoughts about Hell, but then Levi said, "You don't have to go back to Hell one day, Nimshi."
I replayed what Nim had just said and how Levi had answered, realizing that Levi had picked up on something I hadn't. Nimshi was scared.
"I've been doing the math," Nim said. "Jacob's the one with the power of persuasion. I know Ryker can project. So either you or I have the immortality thing. And I have to admit, I'm strong but not magically so—"
"You're the immortal," Levi admitted.
"So I just won't ever die
." Nimshi said.
"You'll want to," Levi said. "I've read the Verses a few times now. The Immortal always chooses to die without his Lilith."
"The Immortal sounds like kind of a sap," Nimshi said.
"Give her some time," Levi said, his lips arching up slightly in a faint smile as he caught my eye in the rearview mirror. "Life would be too dull without her."
"I hate being bored, believe me. But I'll take bored over Hell with a bunch of angry demons," Nimshi said.
"But you won't go to Hell," Levi said. "You can do good things, Nim. You can win your way back into Heaven."
"Not without a soul," Nim said bitterly.
"We'll get it back." Levi said. "And hey, what you've done before, without it, shouldn't be held against you. It's like starting over."
Nim leaned back in his seat. There was a spark of something in his eyes, relief or hope, but it was gone before I could figure out just what he was feeling. He smirked. "You really are just such a nice guy, aren't you?"
"I've got a soft spot for my little brothers," Levi said, glancing over at Ryker, who was still asleep. "Even though they're all idiots."
35
We arrived in Connecticut as dawn washed the sky with soft gray light.
"We can hunker down in this haunted house I know," Nimshi said. "Hell hounds won't follow us there. They're skittish."
"Great. Loving this plan," Ryker said.
"I'll take Ellis and meet the fortune teller we talked about while you set up," Nimshi said.
"We didn't discuss you taking Ellis," Ryker said.
"This is as close as I can get to a date with my fated girlfriend," Nimshi said bluntly. "Give me an hour without you eavesdropping."
Ryker glanced to the back of the SUV, his eyes flinty.
"I'll go," I cut Ryker off before he could dig in his heels. "Someone has to keep an eye on him."
"What if he makes a run for it?"
"I'll take the baton." I leaned forward and punched Ryker in the shoulder. "I know you brought it."
Ryker pulled it out from between his seat and the center console. "You wouldn't use it. You're all sweetness and light."
"Ha," I said.
When we pulled into the driveway of the haunted house, Nimshi said, "The ghost lives on the third floor. Shouldn't bother you if you stay downstairs. I used this place as a hide-out when I ran from my family."
I cocked my head, but Nimshi said it briskly, like he didn't intend for us to linger on the details.
"Take Jake," Levi said. "He can stay in the car, but you'll need him if you run into hell hounds."
"All right," Nim said.
Ryker's jaw was set as he pulled the keys out of the ignition and turned back to hand them to Jacob. As much as he didn't like it, he kept his protests to himself.
The guys quickly unloaded our bags from the cars and hauled them up the deteriorating steps of a rickety Victorian. When the bags were piled up on the front porch, I waved goodbye at Ryker and Levi brightly as I climbed into the passenger seat.
"Is this a friend of yours?" I asked as we drove through a picturesque New England town.
"Not exactly," he said. "But she knew what I was before I did."
"Didn't you remember your life before your adoptive family?"
He shook his head. "I didn't remember what I was when I was a kid. I just knew that I was smart, that things came easy for me, that people liked to do what I told them to do. This weird lady came skulking around, trying to kill me."
"And she's still alive?" I asked.
"She did me a favor," Nimshi said. "I needed to know who I was. Let's hope she'll do us another. I haven't kept tabs on my family, but I bet she has."
"Why's that?"
"Because they run this town," he said. "And they don't much care for her."
"Because she tried to kill you?"
"They don't know about that." He shook his head faintly. His eyes seemed distant under those long, dark lashes, as if he were lost in another time. "They would've killed her."
"So, someone tried to kill you and you kept it a secret? How old were you?"
"I was ten." He half-shrugged. "You tell your mom everything?"
"That's different."
"My parents are witches. They don't much care for other witches, and they definitely don't care for good witches. I loved them, but I realized early I couldn't trust them."
I stared at his handsome face, which betrayed no emotion as he talked about murder attempts and evil witches in the family. Was it because without his soul, he didn't have much in the way of feeling? Or because he'd learned to hide any feelings?
Jacob pulled into the driveway of a small Cape Cod style house, with a steeply pitched roof and a hand-lettered sign outside that advertised Palm Reading-Tarot Reading-Crystal Ball. He put the car into park and turned, his elbow on my seat-back, to tell Nimshi, "I'll be out here. Don't make me regret this."
"What do you think I'm going to do?" Nimshi asked. "She's a harmless crazy woman. Mostly bullshit with a few sparks of real intuition."
"I can't imagine," Jacob said. "And that's exactly what worries me."
Nimshi said, "I'll be on my very best behavior."
It was the very best behavior from a demon that worried us.
Together, Nimshi and I climbed out of the car and headed toward the fortune teller's porch. There was an old green Honda Accord parked in the driveway. It had been in an accident, and one bumper had been replaced with a red one.
"Does this make anyone else feel skeptical about the crystal-ball thing?" I asked, tapping the cool rubber of the bumper.
Nimshi grinned. "You'll see."
He took my hand in his confidently. His touch surprised me, his palm warm and firm, his fingers wrapping around mine surely. I breathed in ginger and cloves and incense, and I resisted the impulse to step even closer to him. My fingers closed around his, faster than thought.
"We're holding hands now?" I asked.
"Play along," he said. "See what she picks up."
"Play along?" I repeated.
He pushed open the front door of her house without knocking, and I fell silent. I fixed my best smile on my face.
"Hey, Maria!" he called.
We entered a dimly lit room. Heavy purple curtains blocked the sunlight, so the room felt dim and stuffy. In front of a long purple couch stood a table covered in flickering candles and stacks of tarot cards.
Nimshi led me confidently through the room and pushed aside a curtain revealing a door. We stepped through it into a bright white-and-oak kitchen, a stark contrast to the room behind us. To our right was a living room, with a normal tan sectional and a television playing the morning show.
"I've told her not to go out and leave the candles lit," he said. "I used to worry that my dad was going to burn her place down and make it look like an accident. It's the twenty-first century...she really doesn't need all those candles."
"Your dad? Hedron?"
He shook his head. "My dad, Stephen. Stephen and Cindy took me in when Hedron was killed. He'd made a deal with them before, I guess. He always knew eventually some Hunter would catch up to him."
Some Hunter. Nimshi didn't know it was Wendy and Levi who had killed his father. I felt an ache for him, imagining how hurt and furious he would be when he knew. Right now, I desperately wanted him to get to know his brothers and for them to accept him. If he knew now, those fragile relationships would fall apart.
But I still felt sick when I remembered those stone statues edging around Hedron in the garden.
I shook my head, trying to clear away the dreams that dogged me. If Nimshi didn't know, then surely he hadn't made that dream? So where the hell had my vision of the Far come from?
Nimshi was staring at me. I asked, "Stephen is human?"
"More or less." Nimshi said. He caught my look of concern—we needed to know if we were facing a threat that was more than human—and added, "Okay, he's human. He's just an asshole. Like, he's supernaturally
gifted at being an asshole."
Nimshi tugged me back into the fortune-teller's room. He picked up a deck of tarot cards and began to shuffle them. As lazy as his shuffling looked, his fingers were quick and adept when he cut the cards and handed them to me.
"Lay out your cards, Ellis," he said. "I'll tell your fortune."
"I don't think I can bear to know," I said dryly.
"Nim, I've told you not to play with my things." Maria stood in the doorway. I don't know what I had expected, but it wasn't this tall, slender blond woman, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
"Maria!" He held his arms around, and she hugged him.
"You seem to have made quite the turn-around from trying to kill each other," I said.
"Did Nim tell you that story?" She rolled her eyes. "He likes to play it up for dramatic effect. I didn't know how to kill a demon, despite my best efforts. And a half-demon child...I intended to kill him, sure, but I never had it in me. He was so darned cute." She tweaked his nose.
"I really should have murdered you," Nimshi said.
"Big talk," she said fondly.
"Have you kept track of Mom and Dad?" he asked. "Are they here in town?"
She nodded. "You know them. They're never leaving their power zone."
Nimshi said to me, "Maria here is like a good witch. Holding the balance."
"Aw," she said.
"And apparently being a good witch doesn't pay well," Nimshi said. "I saw your Honda. What happened?"
"Slid on black ice last winter."
Nimshi's eyebrows rose. "You didn't see that coming? Crystal ball or weather forecast?"
"You know it doesn't work that way," she chided. She held out a hand to me, smiling broadly. "Who is this?"
"My girlfriend, Ellis."
"She's a whole lot more than someone's girlfriend," Maria said. "And I don't just mean that as a feminist anthem. She's clearly a powerful being in her own right."
"I'm not his girlfriend," I said, because it was easier to deflect than to explain the whole Lilith thing.
"Better," Nimshi said, "She's going to help me steal my soul back."