Chapter Seven
“There’s my girl!”
Aunt Kate was speaking to either me or a puffy white cloud in the sky that looked a lot like Jack Nicholson. It was hard to tell which she stared at, but I was ninety-nine percent certain no one had ever accused Jack Nicholson of resembling a girl. Odds were in my favor, she spoke to me. Yet Aunt Kate looked straight up as she sat sprawled on a patio chair sitting on my parents’ front porch. Usually, that chair was located in the back of the house, on the patio. Hence, patio chair, not front porch chair… part of a matching set.
The pants of Aunt Kate’s sleeveless black jumpsuit were yanked up to her knees, and one of her three-inch red heels had apparently fled in terror because a set of bright orange painted toenails peeked up at me instead.
“Are you drunk?” Fumes could be smelled the closer I stepped. “Never mind, don’t answer that.”
“Don’t answer what?” Aunt Kate’s face tilted in my direction, but the focus in her eyes remained questionable as she said, “Kiara, my girl. There you are.”
“What’s going on?” I picked up an empty glass sitting beside her chair and took a sniff. Vodka and cranberry. “How much have you had to drink? It’s not even six o’clock.”
“I couldn’t take it anymore.” She stretched back and closed her eyes. Just when I thought she’d fallen asleep, she sprang to her feet with no shortage of wobble to that spring. “Don’t take it personally.”
“Take what personally?”
“Her.”
“Okkkkkay.” I pushed at Aunt Kate’s shoulders until her butt once again met the chair. “You sit here, all right? Try to not get a ticket for public intoxication. I’ll go find you some water, or coffee, or a sledgehammer to knock you out.”
She smiled. “You’re such a sweet girl.”
“Yeah, you remember that.” Thank goodness alcohol had obliterated her short-term memory and Officer Menendez and my not-so-subtle age reminder were left forgotten.
“If that hottie from the precinct is around, he can arrest me all he wants.”
Or maybe not.
The smell of pot roast greeted me when I opened the front door to my parents’ house. Me and pot roast, we didn’t get along. I thought it gross, and it thought me picky. I’d communicated my feelings about it to my mother in precise actions at the age of seven. It was best served in the kitchen trash. By the time I was eight, my mother had realized her cooking skills held no match for my stubbornness, and the kitchen had remained blissfully pot roast free.
Until now.
Chatter and laughter drifted from her kitchen, which was strange because I spotted the wiry six-foot frame of my father asleep on the couch in the den. It couldn’t be my mother standing inside the kitchen alone, talking to herself. She had this thing about how only crazy people talked to themselves. Kiara, she had said after every eavesdropped conversation between Addie and me, only crazy people talk to themselves. Of course, that was before the g-word became outright illegal to say inside the house. I’d soon learned to take my conversations with Addie outside.
No, whoever stood in the kitchen laughing couldn’t be my mother. Between Buster, the deaf Basset hound asleep by my father’s sock-clad feet, and my intoxicated aunt sitting on the front porch, anyone could have walked through the front door.
Detouring to the sofa, I slid an open book off my father’s lap. No flickers of movement came from behind his closed eyelids as I hovered over him, which was fine because he was rather useless in anything physical. The only muscle my father had going for him was his brain, which he put to good use teaching physics at the local university. Buster snorted and flopped onto his back. Never once did an eye crack. Some guard dog.
I clutched the book tight and crept down the hallway. Fortunately, my father preferred his reading material to be hardback and six hundred pages minimum. Evil radiated in waves from the kitchen as I approached its threshold. The heavy book slipped in my now sweaty grip. I tightened my hold in a last ditch effort for protection. My hands felt weirdly hot while something ice cold squeezed my heart.
Gut informed me I was about to meet the devil himself. Explanations for why Mr. Logan Bradley still enjoyed the cool climates of Earth instead of the hot saunas of Hell was a work-in-progress—as in, I’d done no work to make any progress. Hopefully, A’s were given for effort since capturing Logan had originally been part of that night’s agenda.
One nervous step inside the kitchen was all it took for the devil to come into my line of sight. The demon wore a yellow sundress, platinum blond hair, and looked remarkably like Lacey Briggs.
“Kiara, I expected you here earlier.” My mother yanked the foul-smelling pot roast free from the oven. “Lacey’s been waiting thirty minutes for you to arrive.”
Wow. Lacey really was the devil. It explained so much. My gaze held on her while I searched for my voice. “It’s five forty-five, Mom. You said six.”
“You should have come early for our guest.” My mother wrapped an arm around Lacey’s shoulders and glowed like the proud parent she never was with me. “I’ve worked all week to make certain this welcome to the family dinner is special for our Lacey.”
Except someone forgot to inform me that Lacey was now part of our family. I bit back my unwanted retort.
“Kiara, why look at you!” Lacey lanced me with her Homecoming Queen smile, the same one that graced the cover of our senior yearbook. It was also the same smirk that was bestowed upon me when I confronted her about the senior prom date she stole from me twenty minutes before the start of the dance. “It’s been too long. Tell me, how have you been?”
“She’s been working as a secretary for some fraudulent psychic. That’s how she’s been,” my mother interjected. Some parents were simply happy their children were contributing members of society. Then there was my mother. Her head shook as she turned back to the stove. “I don’t know why we wasted so much money for college when she doesn’t even put the degree to use.”
“I’m a receptionist,” and stalker, coffee runner, and personal slave, “but you can use the word office assistant,” I informed my mother. “The word secretary is quite outdated, especially since plenty of men work in these positions now.”
“Well, I don’t care what the appropriate word is these days,” my mother said. “We paid good money for you to do something with your life, and instead, you’re wasting it on a dead-end job.”
“I work at the top CPA firm in the city,” Lacey said. “We value our receptionist very much. I don’t know how I’d make it through each morning if she hadn’t brewed a fabulous pot of coffee.” Lacey’s superior smile had tightened into pure smirk. Hadley was right, she was still a hundred percent bitch.
“What’s for dinner, Mom?” I asked. Maybe the cosmos would take pity on me, leaving that pot roast as an illusion while a lasagna remained buried inside the oven.
Lacey’s lips pressed into a thin line above her now tightened jaw at the sudden change of topic, but I refused to play Who Has the Better Job. Besides, with as air-headed as she’d been in high school, I had to question the reputability of any accounting firm listing her on its payroll.
“Pot roast. Lacey’s favorite.”
Figured. Wait—what? She already knew Lacey’s favorites? How many family dinner invitations had I missed?
“Aww, Mrs. Blake. You shouldn’t have made it just because of me,” Lacey cooed.
Cooed? The woman cooed?
“I’ve told you,” my mother said. “Please call me Claire.”
“Yeah, sorry about that late thing.” I bit back the sting of my mother’s traitorous smile and felt only a smidgen of guilt for interrupting their special bonding moment. The twenty-six-year-old adult inside me said to shrug it off, but the forever fifteen-year-old who refused to let go still hurt from my mother’s disappointment. I headed to the liquor cabinet on the back wall of the kitchen. Aunt Kate was on to something, and who was I to question genius? “The next time I try leaving the cit
y at four thirty on a Friday afternoon, I’ll tell traffic to get out of my way.”
“Kiara Abigail Blake.” My mother’s voice scolded. The use of my full name was never a good sign. “That was rude.”
It was rude, but I felt no guilt, especially with her back turned as she continued stirring a pot over the stovetop. Stares of condemnation weren’t her thing. Not looking at the person who disappointed her was. She hadn’t looked at me much since I was fifteen.
“Kiara’s timing was perfect,” Lacey said. Warning bells played a full track in my ears. Her end game wasn’t to come to my defense. It never had been. “My mom doesn’t cook, and I’ve really enjoyed learning to make dinner tonight with you, Claire. Maybe we could spend time together, and you can teach me to cook?”
“Of course, we can. I’ve loved spending time with you.”
Now she was teaching my high school nemesis how to cook while I still waited for the later promised to me at age seventeen for making her apple strudel? I shifted through the bottles in the liquor cabinet. Bitter? Hell, yes, I was. “So, Mom, you’ve learned how to text?”
“Oh, yes. Lacey taught me.”
“We text all the time,” Lacey said.
“Kiara, what are you doing?” my mother asked.
“Searching for the vodka.”
“Your aunt doesn’t need anymore. Put it back.”
“Oh, the vodka’s not for her,” I said, and held up a bottle of Beefeater 24. “She gets the gin. The vodka’s for me.”
I hightailed it out of the kitchen before my mother could browbeat me over the booty I’d confiscated. She was holding a wooden spoon, after all. At my age, I had no desire to be introduced to it—either figuratively or literally.
“You were right,” I said to Aunt Kate as I collapsed into a deflated pile on the front porch beside her chair.
“About what?”
“Drinking.” I handed her the bottle of gin. “And everything else.”
We sat in silence listening to the birds chirp. For all I knew, Aunt Kate had simply passed out so her next words took me by surprise.
“Your mam loves you. In her own way.”
“I’m a… disappointment.” The word was harsh on my tongue. “She’s never forgiven me.”
“That was eleven years ago, Kiara.” Aunt Kate’s gaze seemed more focused. “I’m sure she’s gotten over it by now.”
I wasn’t so certain.
“So, I’m gifted?” I asked, well aware that was the exact same question I’d brought up two days before. Then I hadn’t been ready to listen, but the possibility still nagged me. I wondered if my crazy aunt wasn’t so crazy after all. But to be honest, right then I’d believe anything to get that stolen pendant back, and perhaps my mother’s respect along with it.
“Why do you question your gift?”
“Do you believe in the devil, Aunt Kate?”
“I believe in lots of things,” she said. “He’s one of them.”
“Do you know what a cambion is?”
“Course I do, but that ain’t what ya are.”
“What am I?”
“A descendant of a cambion,” Aunt Kate said. Her tug at my arm drew my face up until I could see the determined flecks of green in her round eyes. “Ye are the descendant of Aerowen, a powerful Celtic bandrui. She was gifted with sight, and she foretold of you, young one. It was her daughter who was half demon and half Celt. She was a powerful bein’ in her time. It is said that you’ll be a powerful bein’ in yours.”
And back to the demon and Druid stuff. If I didn’t have Aunt Kate around, I never would have thought the two mixed. “That had to be hundreds of years ago. If we really did have a cambion ancestor, could there be any demon blood left in our bloodline? I’d think it’d be diluted. And why is it only me in the family who’s cursed with seeing dead people?”
“Because ya are part of the prophecy.”
“Ah, yes. Prophecy.” Always prophecies. We were Irish, after all.
“Ya pokin’ fun at me?” Aunt Kate’s voice hardened. I’d spent my growing up years blowing off her tales, but Aunt Kate honestly believed in what she said.
“No, sorry.” I twisted the vodka bottle in my hands. Common sense dictated I should go dig out a can of my father’s Sprite from the fridge instead of going straight up, but sense became irrational at the thought of seeing Lacey all chummy with my mother. What the hell? I took a swig, then paused. The bottle was raised high as I faced my aunt. “Here’s to demon blood and prophecies.”
“Here, here.” My aunt’s bottle joined mine.
The forgotten hellhound sat at my front door. Damn alcohol. It left blanks in my brain where all important facts were to be filled.
“Good doggy,” I cooed. Hey, cooing had worked for Lacey. Desperation was a great motivator for trying anything in order to not be eaten. Anything. Except climbing up the fire escape. I was still sober enough to not have death wishes. Right then my alcohol-filled veins declared the fire escape a suicide mission. My tombstone did not need to be marked with head splatting into a pile of goo as my way to go. But getting eaten by a beast the size of a miniature pony didn’t need to be carved into it either. Nothing handy was available to bribe the beast. The sad contents of my purse consisted of a pack of gum, a transit card, two dollars in change, sunglasses, and my apparent lack of wit.
The hound growled. Loud, but it was a large hound. Were beasts that size capable of being reasoned with? “Please, don’t eat me. Please—”
“Kiara? Why are you standing outside your front door?”
“Good evening, Mrs. Tidwell.” Strange. The woman had grown an extra head. Now which one should I speak to? The right or the left? I chose left. “How are you tonight?”
“Oh, good heavens. Are you drunk?” Her apartment door hinges squeaked as the door pulled wide and she stepped outside. A talkative mood day it was. Where was the plotting old murderess when you needed her? Although Mrs. Tidwell’s voice did sound quite homicidal when she said, “There are laws about loitering and public intoxication.”
“I know,” I assured her. “I told Aunt Kate that many times tonight.”
“What did your aunt do?”
“Outdrink me.”
“Well, I never.”
Why did people say that? Never what? Drink?
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Tidwell. I think I’m having problems with my door.” The large fiery mass blocking it was a huge problem. “I’ll go inside as soon as it’s fixed.”
“Are you on drugs?”
What? I looked at Mrs. Tidwell. Too fast. My head spun. Actually, everything spun. “What?”
“Are you on drugs?”
“What?” Wait, I’d said that. “No.”
“Are you sure?”
The Mrs. Tidwell head that I spoke with did not seem to listen so I focused attention on the right head instead. That Mrs. Tidwell’s frown seemed sterner, and Mrs. Tidwell had a stern frown. “I say no to drugs.”
Wasn’t that how the old ad campaign went? Just say no?
“No, no, no.” I giggled. Mrs. Tidwell didn’t laugh back. The old grouch.
“Drunk and wielding weapons.” A trembling hand rose to her extra-wide chest. At least I was pretty certain it trembled. “Why, I should call the police.”
It didn’t matter how much alcohol I’d drunk, calling the police was never good. Especially if that sour Wilcox showed up. Did detectives even show up to those calls?
I refocused on Mrs. Tidwell’s right head. “I don’t have a weapon.”
“A sword is a weapon, and don’t you think for one minute I wouldn’t put it past you to use it,” she huffed. “You kids these days, and your violence, are a menace to society.”
My befuddled mind was stuck on the word sword. What sword? Both of Mrs. Tidwell’s heads stared at the hellhound. Except Mrs. Tidwell couldn’t see the beast.
Peeping out from under one massive paw was the tip of a sword. The loud slam of a door caused me to stumble, and I glanced
toward Mrs. Tidwell. Except she was gone. She must have been standing behind her closed door. Hopefully, she wasn’t calling the police.
I looked back at the hellhound. It stared at me. I took a step forward. Its large tail thumped in excitement. I squinted, trying to gain focus on the fiery mass. Why, it was just a big puppy dog.
“Do you have something for me? Good boy,” I said in my best good boy voice. Its tail thumped faster. “Do you? Do you?”
The beast’s mouth dropped open, and a large pink tongue rolled out. It both panted and whined while shifting back onto its hind legs. The sword fully appeared in my view. “Is this for me?”
I took both the thumping tail and soft whines as a yes. The sword slid out easily from underneath the beast, and with a wobbly hand, I held it up. Thanks to Mr. Vodka, my vision remained off. It had taken several squints before the blade took shape. The hilt was designed like a serpent—the same design I recalled on Red Coat’s weapon. Wait a sec… did the devil expect me to wield a sword?
Well, crap.
Chapter Eight
After seventy-two hours of stalking, coldness, death, and half-demons—and for all I knew, maybe even a full-demon—I decided it was well past time for a treat. My somewhat boring, but dependable, life had taken a wrong turn and landed straight in hell. Okay, so maybe not literally. Now that I sorta-kinda-maybe worked for Mr. Fire and Brimstone, that word took on an entirely new meaning. If the hellhound was any indication, it was hot and flamey down below. Where I currently sat, outside of Modern Café, it was just hot and steamy, and sadly, only ten o’clock in the morning. The steam could have been from the coffee I held inches from my nose. Ever the optimist… I wasn’t. I took in a whiff of pure java bliss. The good kind. Not the brewed kind from Mr. Coffee at home who took every Saturday—and sometimes Wednesdays—off. This coffee came from a fully functional machine and was topped with whipped cream. And sprinkles. Since I was still on Maude’s payroll, I told Checking Account to shove it as I purchased my treat.
Reaping Havoc: Kiara Blake Book 1 Page 8