Demon Child

by Kat Cotton

  She held on to me softly, running her finger over my palm.

  “There are two men in your life. They both represent danger. You’d do well to stay away from them.”

  “Ha, you could say that about all the men in my life. Can you describe them?”

  “I can’t see clearly. Just that there are two men. They are close but also distant from each other.”

  Shit, did she mean Nic and Kisho, or the mayor and that guy from the warehouse? This old witch wasn’t making anything clearer, and she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know.

  “You should pay your parking fines, and also be more careful with your money. You’re a spendthrift, but you should be saving.”

  Yeah, yeah, I knew all that. It wasn’t like I was going to change anytime soon, though.

  “You have a choice to make. An important choice. It may impact the rest of your life,” she said in a wispy, psychic voice.

  Again, not really helpful. People have choices like that all the time. You could say that to anyone at any point in their lives.

  Hellhound barked at a seagull, tugging his leash, which rocked my stool, but the woman held my hand tight.

  “Soon, you’ll be looking for something. The person who took it is close to you. He is the one in your heart, but be careful. He took that thing because it has information about the secret he hides.”

  She looked up at me, her deep-set eyes twinkling. “There’s a lot of sex here. You get around, don’t you?”

  I pulled my hand away. I didn’t want that woman seeing all my sex through my hand. It was none of her business.

  The wind blew down the promenade. The sooner she got to the point, the sooner I could get out of this cold.

  “I see something else,” she said, her eyes crinkling. “I see you have a delicious cake. Maybe this reading would go better if you shared that cake.”

  She reached under the table and pulled out a knife. But it was my cake. I didn’t want to share it. The witch stared at me so intently, though, that I unwrapped my cake and cut her off a slice. I cut myself one too. Since Hellhound kept trying to jump at the seagulls, I gave him some so he’d sit down and be quiet.

  “When you get back to your office, do a protection charm. I have some sage sticks for sale.”

  Yeah, she did. She wanted my cake and she wanted my dollars.

  “I’m not fooling you. There has been evil in your office.”

  Evil? Kisho? It’s not like anybody else had been in there lately. Sure as hell no clients. The only other person who’d been in my office was Bob. I think she was messing with me. Other than that, there was just the general evil of demon fighting. I guessed doing a little sage cleansing ritual wouldn’t go astray.

  “You won’t have that dog for long,” she said.

  Mean woman. Even if I’d only had him for a little while, he was a cute little guy. A shiver went through me, as through her words spelled doom for my poor dog.

  “Yes, I will. I’ll be a good dog owner.”

  “He’ll desert you for someone else.”

  She was doubly mean. The dog loved me. Anyone could tell that. This fortune-telling business bugged me. No one could see the future. Maybe I’d imagined the ring flashing. Maybe it’d caught the light and that had made it seem to flash. Except we’d been under a desk with no light.

  “The ring?” I asked her.

  “Ah, yes. Let me see your hand again.”

  She held out her hand and I placed mine on top of it. She waved the fingers of her other hand over the ring and then reeled back in a dramatic gesture, dropping my hand onto the table.

  “No! No!”

  Was she really concerned, or was this more theatrics? Her eyes rolled back in her head and she seemed to gurgle a little. Nice show if she was faking it. The dog pulled at his lead, giving a mournful howl. I leaned down to pat him, trying to get him quiet. Even the wind seemed to get colder.

  “The man, did you see him?” she hissed, turning my attention back to her.

  I nodded.

  “His voice?”

  “Deep, soothing. Like something springing from deep in the earth.”

  Her body trembled. She pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. The dog’s howling got louder, but that was probably in response to her extreme overreaction.

  Still, something about it disturbed me.

  “Get away. Get away, and take your cursed cake with you. I don’t want this evil rubbing off on me. I’m just an old lady. I don’t need to get involved with the Vampire King.”

  I stood up. That was less than helpful. I picked up my cake and my sage sticks.

  “How much for the sage, old lady?”

  She put her hands up to cover her face. “Take them, just take them. Why did you let me touch your hand when you knew?”

  “I knew nothing. I still know nothing. The Vampire King? Is he even real? It was just some poncy old vampire.”

  “So much still hidden. Now, go.”

  She shooed me away, her eyes like saucers. Weird old lady. It wasn’t like that guy had even touched my ring. Sure, he’d seemed dark and evil, but it wasn’t like he was going to jump out from behind me and grab her. She just wanted to act all mysterious.

  If she was going to be like that, I would go. Vampire King, indeed. I’d written the book on paranormal, and I’d heard of no Vampire King. There was nothing at all like that. Vampires wanted to be free and unruled. But, hey, I got some free sage sticks out of it, so the old lady could ramble on with her bullshit all she liked.

  When I got back to my office, I googled Vampire King. There was a lot of books, fiction, and movies, fiction, and other stuff, but nothing close to fact. I got down my books and flipped through them, not expecting to find anything. I’d been through a huge pile when I remembered there was a book on vampire lore I’d picked up in a bookshop in Prague. I’d been planning to read it, but it was so boring that I’d put it back on the shelf. I specifically remembered it was bound in red leather and should’ve been on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, lying flat because it was too tall to sit upright. Where the hell was that book?

  I went back to the bookcase. Some of my books had been rearranged when Kisho had tidied my office, but surely he wouldn’t have moved it anywhere else. The damn book was nowhere to be found, though. I did find some overdue parking tickets and that lipstick I’d been searching for. There were thirteen red leather books, but not one of them was the red leather book.

  Maybe he had put it somewhere strange. I went through my desk drawers, even the locked one. Even the secret one underneath. No book. Then I searched through the drawers in my office. Nothing.

  The dog jumped around. Maybe he thought “find the book” was a fun game. It wasn’t.

  I went out to the reception area. Maybe Kisho had been reading it.

  Not a thing. I had a bunch of bills to pay. He’d actually put them in order. I threw the parking tickets on top. I guessed I needed to pay things like that now that I’d gotten on the mayor’s bad side. There were papers and a couple of other books, but not the one I wanted.

  I went back into my office to double-check. That book couldn’t just disappear. I even got on my hands and knees and crawled around on the floor. No books hiding in the corners or under the chairs. I needed to find it. I bet it had something on the Vampire King. The more I thought about it, the more he was the key to the whole thing. The one who had woken the Demon Child, the one who’d been behind the demon attack at the car lot. And definitely the one who’d been at the club.

  The dog kept trying to lick my ear. I pushed him away, but he thought it was a fun game.

  “Can you find the book?” I asked him. I thought dogs were good at that kind of thing. He acted a bit crazy. Obviously, I should not have given him cake.

  I crawled under my desk.

  No book, but there was something strange. I reached up and brushed my hand under the desk. A tiny little device, so small I’d never have found it if I hadn’t crawled unde
r there. A fucking bug. Someone had bugged my office. I bet the same someone had stolen my vampire book too.

  Kisho? Was that what the fortune-teller had been talking about?

  Chapter 21: Liar

  I needed answers, and I’d damn well get them. I’d confront those damn vampires. I got to the house and left my finger on the doorbell until someone answered it. Kisho could avoid my calls, but he couldn’t avoid me in person. It wasn’t like Nic ever left the house either.

  “What’s with the noise?” Nic flung the door open. “Can’t you ring once like a normal person.”

  I pushed through into the living room.

  Kisho lounged on the floor near the coffee table. They were playing Monopoly. Goddamn Monopoly. He looked so innocent too, but that innocence hid an office-bugging book-stealer. I’d been angry enough about his freakouts, but now I was ready to tell Kisho to get out of my life, and my office, forever.

  “Where’s my book?”

  “What book?”

  He didn’t look up. Guilty as hell.

  “You know as well as I do. It’s missing, and my office has been bugged.”

  Nic walked into the room and stood in front of me, as though trying to protect Kisho from my anger.

  He could stand there, looking all perfect with his glowing skin and his brown eyes—wait, his eyes were brown now? That wouldn’t sway my anger one little bit. Even the white t-shirt that would’ve looked ordinary on anyone else only highlighted his beauty. There was something unnatural about that guy, and I didn’t just mean his undeadness.

  “Why would he bug your office? He’s there all the time and he has vampire hearing.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe Kisho wasn’t responsible for the bug. How long had that bug even been there?

  “Well, someone did…”

  “Wow, that’d be really embarrassing if you had sex in your office.” His voice became caressing.

  “I haven’t, not for months—”

  Nic smirked. He’d totally led me into that. Bastard.

  “What’s with the Monopoly? You did tell him about that thing we overheard? You know, about the war and all that?” I asked Kisho.

  It made me so angry that they were playing board games. I expected them to be doing something important, like working out a strategy for the impending war.

  “Yes, he told me.”

  “What the hell happened there anyway?” I asked Kisho, hands on my hips. “At the warehouse? Are you going to give me some kind of explanation?”

  “Huh?”

  “What was with that freakout?”

  Nic didn’t seem to know about that. He glared at Kisho.

  “I…I… claustrophobia.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit. That was no claustrophobia. You have more secrets. I want to know everything. Spill the beans. Spill all the beans. All the dirty secrets. If I’m going to work with you to catch the Demon Child, I need to know. And I need you to NOT freak on me at vital moments.”

  “Would you like a cup of tea? I was about to make one,” Nic said.

  I spun around, ready to slap him. That smug look on his face didn’t help.

  “No, I don’t want a motherfucking cup of tea. Unless it’s a cup of giving-me-some-answers tea.”

  “I think chamomile might help.”

  Then he actually went into the kitchen.

  “Get back here and talk to me,” I yelled after him. “There’s plans of a war coming, and a fuck ton of danger. You should be doing something, not making cups of tea and playing Monopoly.”

  “I’m not talking to you while you’re like that. Go back in the living room and try to calm down.”

  I slumped on the sofa. This was not going to plan.

  “Why is he sitting around, playing games, when there’s this threat of danger hanging over us all?”

  Nic was trying too hard to act cool. I’d been expecting him to go all out. Gather weapons, get prepared, make plans. He seemed to be in denial about the whole thing.

  “It’s how he copes. He might look like he’s ignoring the danger, but it’s ticking away in his head. He’s got to work out what’s best for the whole pack, not just himself. It’s a huge responsibility being pack leader.”

  I’d never really thought about that. I’d never actually seen him with the rest of the pack, so I had no concept of him in the leadership role. Other than being bossy and annoying, that was.

  “Who was that guy at the warehouse?” I asked Kisho. “The Vampire King?”

  When I said the name, he flinched. He knew who that guy was. He just wasn’t letting on. Not only did he know who he was, there was a lot more going on there.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. He fiddled with his little dog token as he said it, though. Not meeting my eyes. He might as well have screamed, “I’m avoiding your question.”

  “How did you even know about that warehouse?” I hadn’t thought about that until now. I’d figured he’d gotten a lucky break, but it went deeper. You don’t just stumble upon a warehouse that holds the very thing you’re looking for. “You’d been to that place before.”

  He shrugged, a gentle shrug that normally would’ve melted my heart, but he’d run out of chances with me.

  “You lied to me. You lied to me and you stole from me.”

  He stood up. “I need to go help Nic,” he said.

  Screw vampires and their being mysterious and secretive. Nic might want to protect his pack, but I needed to be protected too.

  With both of them out of the room, I thought about snooping around to find my book, but then Nic came back with the tea.

  He had really made me a chamomile tea. No way was I drinking that shit. He set the cups down on the table, then he reached over and tugged the hem of my dress.

  “Keep yourself nice,” he said.

  I hadn’t noticed that my dress had ridden up, showing way more of myself that I should’ve. It was a pretty short dress to begin with. He didn’t have to talk like he was my freakin’ grandmother. The look on his face was far from grandmotherly, though. If he’d been anyone else, I’d have said it was lust. But he’d told me often enough that he wasn’t attracted to me. The fact that I had a vagina probably didn’t help.

  The last thing I needed was these weird Nic feels. His attention had left me now anyway. He stared into space.

  “Get back here, Kisho,” he called. “We need to finish this game.”

  Kisho sat back down in the same position.

  When Kisho moved his little dog around the board, you really noticed how big his hands were. He struggled to hold that token. He had a ring on his pinkie finger and a leather braid around his wrist. He had such nice hands, but they were deceiving hands that stole your books.

  Nic moved around the board and picked up a card. “I won second prize in a beauty contest. Hardly. It’d have to be first prize. Stupid card.”

  He flicked the card back on the board.

  “My book?” I wasn’t going to let them get away with distraction techniques.

  “I don’t have it.”

  “You have it. What’s in that book that you don’t want me to see?”

  “Why would Kisho have your stupid book? You probably put it somewhere and can’t find it and want someone to blame.”

  “That book has information about the Vampire King.”

  “Kisho, did you cheat? My top hat wasn’t there,” Nic said.

  “Maybe…”

  He moved the top hat forward two spaces.

  “You were on community chest. You got that beauty contest card, remember? Then got shitty about it.”

  I glared at him, thinking how satisfying it would be to punch him. Maybe break that nose so that it ruined the perfection of his face. He glared back as though daring me to do it. I wouldn’t, though, because even though he looked so pretty and shimmering, he was still a vampire and he’d have no qualms about hitting me back. With all that super vampire strength.

  But I would not sit here, watching them pla
y Monopoly. Especially while Nic cheated. And Kisho had my precious book. And the whole world was about to be fucked up by the mayor. I jumped up and grabbed hold of the board and upended it, sending cards and houses all over the floor.

  “Well, that was a bit temperamental.”

  “This isn’t working out for me.” These guys didn’t seem to realize that I was going way, way out on a limb working with them. I’d put my whole livelihood at risk. And now that things were getting really intense, they just bummed around, playing games and hiding things from me.

  “Who is the Vampire King?”

  Nic shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Don’t lie to me. You might be the vainest, most pompous, overbearing vampire in existence, but the only thing you have going in your favor is that you haven’t lied to me before. Don’t start now. I need to know the truth.”

  “Okay, but settle down. Sit down and stop throwing things around. Maybe take a deep breath or two.”

  I sat back on the edge of the sofa.

  “Start with my book. Where is it?”

  “I borrowed it. I didn’t think you’d mind. I wanted to do some research,” Kisho said.

  “I don’t believe you. There’s something in that book you don’t want me to see.”

  I was even more sure of that since he’d lied about it.

  “Sorry,” he said. He crawled around the floor, picking up the cards I’d scattered.

  But that cute look wasn’t going to cut it. Not now. Not about this.

  “Tell me what’s going on. I mean, him being half-human might’ve been something I needed to know.”

  Nic’s mouth hung open. “He told you that?”

  “Yeah, it was kind of important at the time. I don’t like surprises, and I don’t like being kept in the dark.”

  Kisho stopped picking up the cards and looked up.