by J E McDonald
He’d been so close to getting that dog food on his head, could have gotten a concussion or worse. She knew it was her fault.
She’d almost killed him. Twice.
Panic rose, her breaths becoming short and fast. When he skimmed his gloves down her arms to her elbows, awareness shot through her, causing some of the panic to ebb away. He was hard—everywhere. And her body liked it.
But she was lying on top of a man in the middle of the store, the shoppers in nearby aisles gathering around.
“Um. Sorry,” she said to him, her words hoarse and her gaze glued to his. “The bag. There.” She licked her lips when she realized she wasn’t making any sense.
His eyes flicked down to her mouth for a moment. It looked like he wanted to say something, when heavy footsteps came to a halt beside them, employees of the super-mart investigating the commotion.
With ease, Roman rolled them to standing, setting her on her feet as gracefully as if they partnered in a pas de deux. She hadn’t known such a big guy could move so quickly—or lift her as if she was light as a feather. Which she wasn’t. Not even close.
The sight of the broken bag of dog food had her looking up at the top shelf. It had to be at least twelve feet up, and it was one of the big ones, forty pounds. The near miss made her limbs weak.
Employees kept looking at them like they wondered if they had something to with it. And who could blame them? All the other bags of dog food were set a safe distance from the edge of the shelf.
That bag had moved on its own.
It had been sitting still and then moved on its own
It could have landed on his head.
It could have knocked him out.
It could have broken his neck.
Her chest squeezed, making her breaths come out short and fast. Her vision blurred. She had to get out of there. “Sorry,” she whispered to no one in particular. Roman’s eyes met hers for a second, his sharp gaze making her stomach churn. Aubrey headed to the cashiers without looking back.
As she paid for her cat food, her hands began to shake. When she took her purchases outside into the fresh air, her fingers tingled and her lips felt numb. A panic attack was about to consume her, and she needed to get to her car before she couldn’t walk anymore.
Opening the door to her Civic with shaky limbs, she threw her purchases on the passenger seat, climbed inside, and slammed the door. “What the fuck, Finn?” she screamed, her chest about to burst from the emotions she’d been trying to keep at bay. “You could have killed him!”
She gripped the steering wheel in front of her like she wanted to grip Finn’s neck. The second the bag moved on its own, she’d known Finn was behind it. She’d known. All day he’d voiced his displeasure at her new employee. But he’d never gone out of his way to harm someone before. The shock of it created a layer of sweat all over her body.
Her ghost tried to hurt someone.
The front windshield fogged, and a sad face appeared. A moment later, three letters: idk.
I don’t know. So now Finn didn’t even know why he almost murdered someone?
She took slow breaths, trying to calm her racing heart, to get a handle on the pain in her chest as it tightened. “What the fuck?” she whispered and pressed her forehead to her steering wheel.
Knock, knock, knock.
Her spine jerked straight at the sound. Roman stood beside her car, his brow furrowed with concern, the dog bed still under his arm. She turned the key in the ignition to lower the window.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes examining the interior of the car before returning to her face.
“I’m okay. Sure. Just needed some air.” Her words came out thready.
He scanned her features, like he searched for something. She hoped he didn’t find whatever he was looking for.
“I should be the one asking if you’re okay,” she murmured. Her ghost had almost killed him after all.
He didn’t answer, but his frown intensified. A question pulled at his eyebrows, and she knew she wouldn’t want to answer it.
“Look,” she said before he could speak, “I’ve got to get going, but I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
As soon as she said the words, misgivings assaulted her. Maybe hiring him hadn’t been a good idea after all. If Finn tried to kill Roman in a pet super-mart, what would he do in her store tomorrow? She shivered thinking about the pair of decorative swords hanging behind the front counter.
But would she allow Finn to influence those sorts of decisions for her? He’d never shown such an all-consuming opinion of how she’d led her life before. Even after Lina and Charles died, and she’d been on her own again at the age of eighteen, when she let partying numb her grief, he’d never judged her harshly. She might have made a few bad choices, but Finn had never taken it upon himself to attack any of her boyfriends or random hookups. He’d never made his presence known to a stranger or caused a scene. He’d never put someone’s wellbeing in danger. Until now.
Swallowing, she looked up into Roman’s assessing eyes. Should she tell him she changed her mind about the part-time job before Finn could do any real damage? But if she did that, then she conceded to Finn, condoning his bad behavior.
It wasn’t lost on her that she thought of Finn as a child, one who needed discipline. But he was a child, the endless age of twelve no matter how long he’d been with her.
After a minute of studying her, Roman stepped away with a nod. Aubrey rolled up her window and let out a slow breath. Her heart rate had lowered, but every part of her still felt shaky from the incident. Knowing the stages of her panic attacks, from mild to hyperventilating, she thought she should be okay to drive home.
Carefully, she backed out of the parking space, aware of Roman watching her the entire time. She lifted a hand in a wave, then pulled out of the lot.
As the pet store got smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror, a new sadness overcame her. Maybe she should finally take Stella up on her offer of aiding Finn to other side. Maybe it was time to let go of the ghost who’d been her friend since she was ten. Her chest tightened with renewed force. Finn had been with her through the thick and thin of it, always silently supporting her. The thought of encouraging him to leave, to pass to the other side, had her hurting all over.
But what else was she supposed to do?
7
Roman watched the blue Civic as it pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the street. What had happened in there? The more he thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense.
His military training made him aware of everything around him, constantly alert. Then a decade of killing demons on his own had honed those instincts, making them razor sharp.
But he’d been so distracted by the woman in front of him he’d nearly received a concussion from a bag of dog food.
It hadn’t been a demon. The scar on his wrist burned in a certain way when one was near, and it had been silent during the entire encounter. Moe hadn’t even been in the building, still on his reconnaissance mission from the morning. Not that he would have taken the demon to a pet store in the first place. The phrase “fox in a hen house” came to mind.
For some reason, he thought Aubrey knew the reason the bag fell. She’d been so shaken, she hadn’t been able to look at him as she’d left the store, and avoided talking to him just now.
Her soul might be pure, but there was something else going on here. And tomorrow, when he was at the store, he needed to find out what that was. Could the prophecy be right after all? The thought sent a chill through him. If Aubrey was the reason the gates of Hell would be opened here on Earth, then he needed to put a stop to it. No matter what.
With that promise to himself making his jaw clench so hard it ached, he made his way to his truck. He tossed the dog bed into the back, then hopped inside.
The whole drive back to the rental house, he kept thinking about Aubrey Karle. He couldn’t wrap his head around the dichotomy of who she was as a person an
d what the prophecy predicted she was going to do. It didn’t make sense. So much in his life didn’t make sense. Ever since Gusion spoke the prophecy in a crappy little bar in Marseilles three weeks ago, Roman had felt led on a wild goose chase.
No, it was even before that. His life had taken an odd turn when he’d almost died in the Aegean Sea and he’d heard an ethereal voice in his head telling him to find Gusion. Never before had he needed to search out a soothsayer. Why had he trusted that dream-like voice months earlier?
If it wasn’t for the promises he’d made to Robertson, he’d walk away from it all.
He pulled into the graveled parking space behind the house in the quiet residential neighborhood. The place wasn’t well kept, the landlord doing the bare minimum for maintenance. Roman didn’t care that much. He only needed a cheap place for him and Moe to crash for a little while, then he’d move onto the next job—hopefully as far away from Wickwood as possible. He knew enough about home improvement to fix the leaky faucet and clean out the gutters that had gushed overflowing the night it rained. Everything else was tolerable.
“Moe?” he called when he opened the back door and stepped into the kitchen. He hadn’t seen the demon all day. He should have been more specific about a return-to-home time but never thought the demon would be gone so long.
Kicking the door closed behind him, Roman made his way through the house, searching for signs of the demon. He sidestepped the double bed in Moe’s bedroom, the sheets untouched. Moe would never sleep there. Half earth demon, he preferred to sleep in the darkest, deepest corner of a room. Sure enough, when Roman opened the door to the closet, he found a rumpled-up blanket, his tattered teddy bear, and candy wrappers. He picked up all the candy wrappers so Moe wouldn’t be tempted by the plastic, then set the dog bed inside the closet.
It was too big. The door wouldn’t shut properly now. Should he return it and get another one? He’d wanted Moe to have enough space to stretch out in, even though the demon preferred to curl into himself. Roman sighed. He should have gone with one of the smaller beds.
Leaving the dog bed where it was, he headed to the kitchen to prepare dinner. He took out vegetables and chicken from the fridge, poured rice into the rice cooker, then got to cutting everything for a stir fry.
Worry for Moe’s late return was interrupted by thoughts of his new boss. The demon knew how to take care of himself, even if Wickwood’s pet population was at risk. He’d turn up eventually.
Aubrey, on the other hand…
When she’d pushed him out of the way and landed on top of him, all her softness and curves pressed into him. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on much else. The urge to grab her ass, to settle her against him in the exact right spot, had removed every other thought from his head, including the need to figure out how the accident had happened.
Her face had been so close, he could have kissed her.
Roman shook himself, concentrating on not burning the chicken in the pan. The back door opened and closed, and he didn’t need to turn his head to know Moe was nearby.
“What did you find?” he asked, taking each piece of cooked meat out to set onto a plate lined with a paper towel.
“Yes. Found much. Found many things. Yes.”
When he turned, Moe was perched on the corner of the table like an adolescent frog, his hands in front of him, his knees beside his armpits. His skin was a mauve shade that revealed his contentment, the hair on his body unmoving.
“Like what?”
“The candy aisle. Yes. All candy. Twenty-four hours. One-stop candy, yes.”
Roman closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, counting to ten. “I meant,” he said, his tone low, “what did you find out about the man you were following? Did he go anywhere? Meet up with anyone?” If Moe had spent the whole day stealing candy from grocery stores, his eyelid would start twitching again.
“Tall man. Yes. He met with a giant. Then a professor. Then Lara Croft. Yes.”
Roman blinked. “Lara Croft?”
“Yes. The tomb raider. Very nice. Yes.”
They’d watched the movie only a few days ago, so he’d interpret that as some type of military woman. Or someone dressed in tight-fighting black clothes. Or someone with dark hair. Roman pressed a finger to his temple, an ache forming there, and tossed the vegetables in the pan with some oil. With Moe, he just needed to ask the right questions to get the right answers.
“And the professor? What did you find out about him?”
“Very smart. Yes. Very smart.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he was wearing glasses. Yes.”
Roman closed his eyes, an ache forming on the other side of his head now. “And the giant?”
“A giant from the Fey. Yes. I recognize his kind. Yes.”
That gave Roman pause. Moe often had ingrained knowledge he’d never taught him. If Moe thought the giant was from the Fey, an alternate dimension, then he was probably right.
And that meant Agent Martinez was more than he seemed. Which made being followed by him even more interesting.
Seriously, what had Jude gotten himself into? The other demon hunter should know how to cover his tracks, since he’d been dispatching demons for longer than Roman had been alive. Or had the agent said that to distract him from his real target? His eyes strayed to Moe. “And did all these meetings occur in the street, or did he go to separate locations?”
“Yes. Locations. A black van. A building with yellow tape. A sad office. Yes.”
Roman tipped his head at him. “What building?”
“Tall. Yes. Very tall. Made of glass. Fancy letters on the side.”
Moe must be talking about the Langport Financial building. Roman had seen the news reports that the construction of the building had become unsound and it was slated for demolition next month. Maybe there was more to it if the FBI were sniffing around.
“And why was the office sad?”
“Because staring at it and not eating candy made Moe cry. Yes. So sad.”
“Let me guess, you went searching for candy after that.”
“Yes. Yes. Much candy. One-stop, twenty-four hour.”
The light on the rice cooker turned green, and Roman took off the lid, steam wafting upward, to scoop some out on two plates. Next he turned off the burner on the stove and heaped the stir fry on the mountains of rice. A plate in each hand, he headed to the kitchen table, setting one on either side.
Moe jumped down and slunk into the wooden chair. Sniffing at the plate, he upturned his face, his big eyes filling with tears, his skin darkening to deep purple. “Why, Ro? Why must the meat be cooked? Whyyyyyy?” the demon wailed, then muttered more words in demon speak.
Despite having lived with Moe for the past ten years, Roman still didn’t understand a lick of it and would have better luck conversing with a snake. Moe had tried to teach him the ingrained knowledge he’d been born with, but none of the sounds made any sense to Roman. Apparently, there were about two hundred dialects on top of that.
On a defeated sigh, he grabbed the rest of the raw meat, the half he’d reserved for Moe, and set it beside his plate. He kept hoping the demon would start to appreciate cooked food at some point.
Moe let out a pleased sound, his skin shifting back to mauve. While the demon stuffed the meat into his mouth, brown butcher paper and all, Roman sat opposite him. “You’re going to have to show me where this office is.”
“No,” the demon replied, licking his lips. “It’s too sad. It’ll bring Ro to tears. Moe can’t do that. No.”
“I’m sure I’ll be able to handle it,” he said, digging into his supper.
Moe stared at him, skepticism in his big yellow eyes. “It will need preparation. Yes. Much supplies.”
“Let me guess,” Roman said after he swallowed his mouthful. “Candy?”
“So smart,” Moe said, delighted, jumping up and down on his seat. “Yes. Ro is smarter than the professor. And brave. M
uch braver than Lara Croft. Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me I’m taller than the giant next?”
Moe stopped jumping. His eyes bulged as he shook his head. “He’s a giant, Ro. Not even close. No.”
8
Aubrey smoothed her short hair and checked the clocks clicking away on the back wall for the millionth time. Still too early to open the store. And Roman hadn’t shown up yet.
She’d arrived at nine as usual and hadn’t been able to concentrate since. She kept thinking about yesterday, about what Finn had done and what encore he’d perform today. As soon as she’d stepped into the store, she demanded he behave.
He hadn’t responded.
Stella was behind the front counter, drawing another plant in her Book of Shadows. When Aubrey had told her about hiring the scary hot guy as a part-time employee, she’d insisted on coming along this morning. They’d also talked about what happened with Finn, and Stella was concerned, to say the least. She’d suggested helping Finn along to the other side more than once. Aubrey always countered that he’d go when he was ready.
But it hadn’t happened yet. For eighteen years, Finn remained glued to her side.
Maybe it was time to let go.
The thought had her chest squeezing tight, a bit of the panic that had attacked her at the pet store returning. Stella shot her a glance, and she knew her friend sensed her distress. Aubrey breathed through it. In through her nose for four counts, out through her mouth for six. Repeating the technique over and over again, her heart rate eventually lowered.
Without saying anything, Stella returned her attention back to the book in front of her. Aubrey was grateful she didn’t ask questions. They’d already discussed Finn enough last night, and again this morning, and she didn’t want to talk about him when she knew he could be nearby. Their house had wards, ones Stella had placed herself, keeping ghosts out. The day they’d moved in together, Stella had insisted, saying she didn’t want a twelve-year-old watching her shower. But the protective wards Stella had placed on the antique store didn’t bar Finn.