by Julie Kenner
A metallic screech rang out, echoing through the silent house like a shot and making me jump. Upstairs. Someone— or something—was upstairs.
I kept a firm grip on the ice pick as I eased up the stairs, careful to avoid the creaky third step. With any luck, my uninvited guest didn’t realize I’d come home. Surprise, I hoped, would work in my favor.
I checked the master bedroom first, but found nothing there except a few dust bunnies huddling in terror under the bed. I assured them they weren’t my priority for the day and moved on to Timmy’s room.
The place was a disaster. Clothes and toys strewn everywhere. Broken crayons. Ripped bits of paper. Bedding on the floor.
In other words, it looked exactly like it always did.
I frowned, made a mental note to play off of Stuart’s guilt and assign him room-cleaning duty. I paused midway to the door, a low, rhythmic thump, thud attracting my attention.
I turned in a slow circle, trying to find the source of the sound, but it was gone. And then, just when I was about to give up, I heard it again. A low reverb noise, and it was coming from the interior wall—the one Timmy shared with Allie.
In an instant I was back in the hall, my shoulders pressed flat against the wall outside of Allie’s room. The door was cracked slightly open, and I could see that the light was off. From my limited perspective, I could also make out a variety of T-shirts littering the floor. Again, that wasn’t exactly earth-shattering news.
That steady thumping, though . . .
I could hear it more clearly now, and I had no idea what it was. Someone opening and closing drawers, maybe?
Didn’t much matter, because whoever they were, I was going to nail them. I drew in a breath, counted to three, and then burst through the door, the ice pick high and ready.
Allie’s shrill scream just about shattered my eardrums.
Immediately, I dropped my arm, my heart pounding wildly.
“Shit, Mom!” she shrieked, and for once I didn’t correct her language.
“Sorry! Sorry!” I eased the ice pick into my back pocket, but I knew it was too late.
She’d been laying on her back, her feet flat against the wall, tapping in time to some music I couldn’t hear. Now she whipped her legs around until she was sitting upright, glaring hard at me with her hand at her throat.
“Sorry! I heard a noise upstairs and I didn’t realize anyone was home.”
“Jesus, Mom.” She jerked the earpieces out and then exhaled loudly and dramatically. “You scared me to death. Haven’t you been listening to all those lectures you and Stuart gave me? If you think someone’s in the house you leave. You call nine-one-one. You don’t creep upstairs with a freaking ice pick and terrorize your daughter! I mean, come on!”
“Right. You’re right.” What else could I say?
I took a couple of deep breaths, waiting until my heart slowed. “So, where’s Stuart.”
“Office,” she said. “He left about three seconds after we got back.” She gestured at the tiny gizmo she’d been tethered to only seconds before. “He didn’t even want to see how it works!”
“Unbelievable,” I said. “I’m going to go get Timmy from Laura’s house. You want to stay here or come with me?”
She pointed toward her computer. “Busy, Mom.”
“Right. No problem.” Silly me. There was an entire Internet worth of songs out there, just waiting to be downloaded. Apparently my daughter wanted to get a head start. At this rate, if we saw her again before college, it would be a miracle.
I bustled back down the stairs, giddy with relief. I collapsed on the couch and sat happily. Or, at least, I sat happily until my mind started whirling again. Then I sat in a sludge of random thoughts. The mess in Timmy’s room, the mysterious book, my unfinished Christmas shopping, and the vast emptiness that was our refrigerator. The first, I’d assign to Stuart. The last, I could handle by ordering pizza. The Christmas shopping and decorating could wait until school let out. The book, though. That one still had me baffled.
Since Timmy would be perfectly happy at Laura’s unless the cable went out, I decided to leave him there for a bit while I called Father Ben to see if he’d learned anything new. (Granted, I hadn’t left him that long ago, but I was a teensy bit anxious. So sue me.)
I’d just picked up the phone when I noticed that the pantry door was slightly ajar. I shot a frustrated glance toward the upstairs. Our cat, Kabit, must be part raccoon, because he can chew through any and all bags of kitty food. Which means that unless we want Purina Cat Chow scattered on the floor like confetti, we have to keep the pantry door closed at all times. I remember. Stuart remembers. Even Eddie remembers.
My daughter, however, is physically incapable of latching a simple wooden door.
Frustrated, I moved to the pantry. Kabit was probably in there, gorging his little kitty face.
I tugged open the door to check, and—“Aaaaaaayyyyy aaaaaaaa!!!”
Something hard and fast hit me in a full-body blow, slamming me backwards against the granite countertops.
I grunted and tried to regain my footing, but the demon was on me, her eyes flashing and her red hair sticking out wild in a hundred directions. She looked deranged and vile and more than happy to kill me on the spot.
She thrust her arm forward, going for my neck, and I reacted immediately, my right arm whipping up to block hers, and my left hand smashing out to land a hard punch to her gut.
She stumbled backwards, then lunged for me again. This time, though, I was prepared and easily sideswiped her, adding my own shove to send her entire midsection slamming against the counter. She exhaled with an ooph, then whipped around to face me, a cookie sheet from my dish drainer tight in her hands.
She smacked me over the head, and I went sprawling, the wind knocked completely out of me.
As I gasped, she leaped, sending us both crashing down onto the floor. Despite the searing pain in my chest, I sprang to my feet, sending silent kudos to Cutter for sharpening my once-atrophied reflexes.
I kicked up and out as the woman tried to stand, catching her just below the chin and sending her head snapping back. A pretty nifty move, and one that would have laid a human flat. Instead, I was the one who ended up splayed out on the floor. In a movement that can only be described as preternaturally fast, the bitch reached up, grabbed my ankle as I was pulling in from the kick, and gave it a good, hard tug.
I went tumbling, crashing to the floor with a yelp that surely rattled the rafters and alerted my daughter. I didn’t have time to worry about that, though, because the demon was on me, leaping on my chest with all the enthusiasm of a toddler on a trampoline. Her knees pounded my ribs, and I struggled to breathe as her hands closed around my neck.
“The book,” she hissed, rancid breath washing over me. “Master needs the book.”
“Tough luck for Master,” I managed, snapping my knee up and into her groin in the hope that I’d get her off of me. No such luck.
“Where?” she said. “Tell. Or die.”
I wasn’t crazy about either option, but I didn’t have a lot of choices here. I wheezed, trying to draw in enough air to think clearly, then turned my head, staring hard at the warming drawer beneath the oven. I closed my eyes, then looked back up at her. “No,” I said. “No.”
And then—because some demons are smarter than they look—she turned toward the warming drawer, too. And as a slow smile crept over her face, she shifted her stance. Not much, but it was enough. More, I was ready.
She kept one hand tight around my neck, but to reach the drawer, she had to shift her weight off of me. When she did, I twisted, then managed to get my hand out from under her and around to my back pocket.
By the time she realized what I was doing, it was too late. I had the ice pick out and aimed. And in one snap movement, I drew on all my strength and slammed the thing home.
She yowled, then went suddenly silent. And as the demon slipped out of the body, I let my head fall back onto the t
ile floor as I coughed and gasped for air. I needed to get rid of the body before Allie came downstairs and found a dead woman on the kitchen floor.
First, though, I needed to breathe.
Seven
I laid there A moment longer, sucking in glorious oxygen, and then I forced myself to my feet. The house was silent. “Stupid bitch,” I whispered, leaning over the body. “You don’t put paper in a warming drawer.” I may not be much of a cook, but even I know that.
I scowled at her again, just because she was making my life miserable. Or, more specifically, her master was making my life miserable. And who was that? One of the Tartarus demons? Had they been talking to their minions through the book, and now the minions were desperate since I’d shut down their handy little intercom system?
Or was the master someone else entirely? A High Demon, not bound by the chains of Hell? Maybe a demon who wanted the Tartarus demons free. After all, those Tartarus dudes sounded pretty powerful. And they’d probably be pretty grateful to be set free. If you’re a High Demon looking to build an army, a demon who’d served time in Tartarus would be a fine addition to the team.
I pondered the questions a bit longer, frustrated because I had no answers to throw into the mix. Worse, I had a body to deal with, and I stared down at her, trying to decide what to do. (Honestly, I understand that Forza’s not the organization it used to be, but a little more focus on assisting the Hunters with the disposal of demonic carcasses would be very much appreciated.)
I decided on the garage. For one thing, I could drag the body there without going through the living room (and possibly running into Allie, who I couldn’t believe had been deaf to the scuffle). For another, Stuart had shoved several paint tarps in the corner of the garage, supposedly for when he repainted the master bathroom. Since I figured that my husband wouldn’t be seeing the inside of a Home Depot until well after the election, I could get away with hiding the body under the tarps. At least until I could come up with a better plan.
I’d just hooked my hands under the dead demon’s armpits when Allie’s cry of “Mom!” rang out through the house.
“Hang on!” I dropped the body, letting the head land on my foot so as to not make too much noise, then hustled into the living room. No Allie. “What do you need?” I shouted up the stairs.
Her head appeared around the corner, her forehead creased. “What was that noise?”
“Noise?” I repeated, utterly unimpressed with my daughter’s reaction time.
“Yeah. I heard something. A minute or so ago.” She started down the stairs. “You didn’t hear it?”
“Oh!” I held a hand out, motioning for her to stop. “Right. That. No big deal. I just dropped a cookie sheet. Makes an awful clatter on the tile floor.”
“You’re making cookies? Mom! You know I’m not eating anything with trans fat!”
“I was just moving some things around,” I lied. “And you ate pancakes this morning, smothered in butter and syrup.”
“Extenuating circumstances.”
“Mmmm.”
She held on to the banister and half hung there, swinging a little. “So, like, you don’t need help then, right?”
“Nope,” I said, cheerily. “Totally under control.”
“So I can go back up?”
“Far be it for me to keep a girl from her iPod.”
She rolled her eyes, then pounded back up the stairs.
I gave her enough time to get settled, then moved back into the kitchen. The demon was still there, staring blindly at me with the one intact eye. I looked away. I’ve done this countless times—and I get a nice little buzz of satisfaction every time a demon bites the dust—but there’s still a definite ick factor involved.
Once again, I got a grip on the demon, and once again, I was interrupted. This time by the shrill ring of the telephone. I left the demon where I’d dragged her—halfway into the garage, the door banging up against her shoulders— and ran to snatch up the handset. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” Laura said. “I was starting to get worried.”
“Everything’s fine now,” I said. Then I looked at the body. “Although, there is one little thing you could help me with . . .”
“YOU’re sure about this?” I asked, as we bent down to grab the tarp-wrapped body, me at the head and Laura hoisting the feet.
“Oh yeah,” Laura said. “I’m positive.”
She and Tim had come over about fifteen minutes ago. After we’d settled the munchkin in the living room with a box of Legos and a Dora the Explorer video, I’d dragged Laura into the garage, where I’d left the demon in a heap in front of our stand-alone freezer.
“I need to get her to the cathedral,” I’d said, pointing to the body. Father Ben might be new, but he’d already proved his worth by coming up with a workable demon disposal plan. And now the crypts beneath the cathedral were being put to good use hiding demon carcasses.
The trouble with that system was that the families of the truly dead person (the one who’d had the body the demon had invaded) were left believing their loved one had up and disappeared. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much choice. We could dump the body somewhere, true. But there wasn’t any way to repair the damage from a spike to the eye. And cops tend to get all antsy about things like that. They’d investigate. And if their questions led back to me—well, what could I do then? I really didn’t want Christmas with my kids spent in the visiting room at San Quentin. And I didn’t want Mindy visiting Laura there, either.
Which was why I reiterated my original proposition. “We can put her in the Odyssey.”
But Laura shook her head. “No. Without a trunk, it’s too obvious.”
“She’s wrapped up,” I said, but Laura just looked at me. I shrugged. She was right. A body wrapped in a tarp pretty much resembles a body wrapped in a tarp.
“We’ll shove her in Paul’s trunk, and we can drive over to the cathedral after dark.”
“What if Paul wants his car?”
She made a face. “He won’t. He took his new Thunder-bird to San Diego. He’s got some sort of conference for all his franchisees. He won’t be home until late tomorrow.”
“It’s still a risk,” I said. “We’ve wrapped her up tight, but there’s no way we can be sure there won’t be trace evidence in the trunk.” Did I sound like a CSI buff or what? The truth is, once I realized that I was going to be responsible for demon disposal for the greater San Diablo metropolitan area, I’d started doing a little research on crimes and forensics and all that.
“Honestly, Kate,” Laura said. “Just pick her up already. If Paul ends up nailed for murder, at least I’ll know where he’s sleeping at night.”
She had a point. And since one of my strongest rules is to never argue with a pissed-off wife, I grabbed the demon’s head. Laura hoisted the feet, and we shuffle-walked the body the short distance to the Lexus’s trunk. Laura had pulled in backwards and popped it open, so all we had to do was squeeze between the front of the Odyssey and the stack of Christmas boxes Stuart had retrieved from the attic last week, but which I had yet to unpack.
“On three,” I said, as soon as we were in position. “One . . . two . . . three!” We swung our demon inside, where she landed with a thump.
At the same time, the door between the kitchen and the garage opened. “Mom?”
Yikes!
As Laura screamed, I slammed the trunk shut, then whipped around to face my daughter.
“Jeez, Mom! You guys scared me to death!”
“Scared you! What are you doing sneaking up on people like that?” I pointed to Laura. “You just took ten years off her life!”
Allie looked at me like I’d gone insane, not an unreasonable expression under the circumstances. “I wasn’t sneaking. I was looking for you.” She squinted at Laura’s car, her brow furrowing. “What are you guys doing, anyway?”
She took a step forward, and I moved quickly in to intercept. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
She raised an eyebrow, a challenge in her voice. “Doesn’t look like nothing to me. And what’s Mrs. Dupont’s car doing in our garage anyway.” She took another step, craning her neck as if she were trying to see into Laura’s trunk. I turned back around quickly, just in case. Yup, closed tight.
“You’re as bad as when you were six,” I said. “Remember when you found the Barbie playhouse?”
She glanced again at Laura’s car, comprehension playing across her face. “You went Christmas shopping!”
“Inside,” I said, making shooing noises. “And stay in there, or I’ll take everything back to the store.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, and I laughed. Allie only remembered to say “ma’am” when she wanted something. She opened the door to the kitchen and then paused, turning back to face me. “I completely forgot why I came looking for you in the first place. Someone left you a present, too.”
“What?”
“A package,” she said. “I found it on the front porch when Stuart dropped me off. I forgot to tell you earlier. You didn’t see it? I left it on the breakfast bar for you.”
Laura and I followed her back inside. Sure enough, among all the detritus, there was a small package, wrapped in brown paper, about the size of a juice box.
“Gee,” I said, glancing at the schoolbooks, CDs, Post-it notes, action figures, and Play-Doh sculptures scattered about. “I wonder why I didn’t see it.”
“Dunno,” Allie said, apparently not recognizing my sarcasm. “It’s been here all along.” She peered over my shoulder at it. “Who’s it from?”
“No return address,” I said. I hefted it in my hand, the weight minimal. “For that matter, there’s no address at all. Just my name.”
“So someone dropped it off themselves,” Laura said. “They didn’t mail it.”
“Maybe you have a secret admirer,” Allie said. “Stuart’s going to freak.”
“I don’t have a secret admirer.” Did I?