I took the bull by the horns and demanded to know how Abbott had ended up uninvited to a fight.
“I saw the explosions from my living room window and realized what they were,” he told me, his voice imperious and distant.
“Where’s your car?”
He glanced at Aaron and then looked back to me. “I flew.”
I thought about that a minute and decided not to comment on the flight part, but to stick to my questions on why he’d come. From his spot on the mountain he likely could have seen the explosions, or at least the smoke. I finally asked, “Could you tell it was demonic fire? Or did you just assume it probably was since it was in the battlefield?”
He said it was the latter, and then he tore into Aaron about bringing me into the face of danger. I was shocked. He was really angry, his voice full of venom as he ranted with his voice low enough to keep the employees from hearing.
“You were so all-fired worried about her the other night you were prepared to start a species war, and tonight you drag her into a fight with demon-kind? She’s a mere human, a fragile mortal, and she has no business facing this kind of danger.”
Aaron knew how I would feel about this kind of talk, and I’m sure it’s why he let Abbott keep talking. I heated my hand and reached out to rest it on Abbott’s arm. I’m not sure exactly how, but I can make my hand feel as hot as an iron to other people, but the heat doesn’t hurt me. Supernatural beings have very fast reflexes and they heal quickly, so they aren’t damaged when I touch them, but it does get their attention.
Abbott’s reflexes kicked in and he was immediately on the other side of the restaurant. I didn’t even see him move.
He glared at me as he walked back to us, but I was certain no one in the restaurant noticed. It was so fast, it was as if he disappeared and reappeared.
Actually, I wasn’t sure if he’d moved quickly or had actually disappeared and reappeared.
He was obviously angry, and he bit out the words, “What was the purpose of that?”
I didn’t let his anger affect me, and answered, “To make the point that I’m perfectly capable of holding my own in a fight. Aaron brought me in tonight because this is what I’m good at. We’ve fought hundreds of things from that plane of existence and I’m still standing before you, scaring the crap out of you. I have the ability to kill these things, not just injure them. So, put a lid on the male chauvinist crap and let us figure out what happened in case we run into the shielding bastard with the ability to zap my laser again.”
We were all speaking very, very low. I could talk below the level of human hearing, and they aimed their words my direction and kept it low, so I was using a combination of hearing and lip reading. But, I was sure the Waffle House employees and other customers weren’t hearing us.
“Actually, Kirsten,” Aaron told me. “Abbott was speaking more to your status as human, rather than your gender, and if the demon we encountered is who I think he may be, then I am going to need to keep you away from him. I’ll pull people together who can send him back, but I don’t want you trying to kill him.”
I shook my head. No way was I stepping down. “If we send him back he’ll just return again, and where will that leave us? No, I need to take this guy out. I have other tricks,” I reminded him. “I won’t give him a chance to zap my laser again.” I thought a second and asked, “What are the odds this dude is in on the disappearing women?”
We’d kept most of my abilities secret because, since I’m human and I’m usually up against beings that aren’t, I need every element of surprise I can muster. I generally only use my other skills when no one is around who’ll live to tell about what I can do. This way, when I’m attacked out of the blue, the attackers only think I have the laser thing, so they try to restrict my hands. They don’t know I have what amounts to a thought weapon, and it doesn’t matter that my hands are tied behind my back.
Aaron’s phone rang — Denny had a possible line on where the humans were who had called these things. We got in the car, minus Abbott, who I guessed was going to fly again.
The food had helped and I was no longer in danger of collapse. Aaron and I sat in the back again, but this time we only held hands, with power trickling slowly from Aaron’s right hand into my left — palm to palm.
Denny was a few miles away in his unmarked car that looked like an unmarked police car, completely defeating whatever purpose the lack of identification was supposed to provide. We followed him to the house, and when I got out of the car I had to stop a few seconds to brace myself. I could feel the hurt and chaos coming from the house, and I knew it would only get worse when we went in. This didn’t mean these were our bad guys, but it meant they were somebody’s bad guys.
I looked at Aaron to see if he felt it, and I knew he could without asking. His face was drawn, his body turned sideways to the house, protecting his chakras from the hatred and violence emanating from the small run-down house.
Aaron looked at Denny, his face grim. “You should let us handle this one. Drive one street north and sit in your car with your gun and salt out. Do not unlock your doors until you see us again, and should an unknown person threaten you, don’t try to be a hero, just drive away and don’t look back.” He turned his head and added, “Panda, you’re with us this time, let’s go in the back.”
The house was tiny, and likely built in the fifties or earlier. We walked around it and into the backyard, easy enough with the gate standing wide open. Aaron didn’t even slow down at the back door, he kicked as we approached and it disintegrated into small pieces. Abbott had been waiting for us in the back yard and he went in with us.
There were six men in the kitchen, and we had them all subdued in less than about ten seconds. I didn’t do a thing, and let the guys handle this one. Sometimes I don’t argue with the fact that I’m a girl and a human, and I’m weaker than they are. I insist they let me do what I’m good at, and to be fair that means I stand back and let them do what they’re good at.
Once the men were subdued I asked, “Who’s in charge?”
None of them answered.
Without looking around to find him I calmly said, “Nathan?”
Nathan stepped forward and partially changed. He’s a beautiful man and a beautiful lion, but he has this half and half thing that’s creepy-scary. Still beautiful in its own way, but it would also fit well into any horror movie and scare the crap out of audiences everywhere. His face has both human and feline characteristics, but they’re horribly warped into the same face. He stands on legs with feline muscles and human joints. He can choose to have either hands or claws, and right now he had claws. He was completely furred, with his lion’s mane around his face and a long tail with a poof on the end, swishing in irritation behind him. His clothes shredded when he changed, so he was nude, with a pile of rags on the floor at his feet.
Two of the men pointed to the man who’d been leaning against the counter when we came in, wordlessly telling us he was in charge. Progress. I decided not to ask if they’d been calling demons and just assume they had.
I looked at the leader and asked, “Do you have control over the beings you called?”
“If’n I’d a had control, d’ya think I’d a let ‘em make a ruckus?”
“Maybe. Isn’t that the purpose of bringing demons here? To create a mess? Lots of chaos? All of them have been sent back except one, I need you to call him here.”
“No.”
“No? Do you want to rethink that?”
Nathan stepped forward and reached for him, and while the idiot redneck shied away physically, he still refused to call the demon back. He was more afraid of the demon than he was Nathan. This didn’t bode well.
Abbott stepped up and vamped out. He went all translucent and, well, evil looking. His fangs grew really long, his eyes somehow changed and sank into his face and grew darker, and I could see networks of veins through his skin. Even I was a little scared.
Our demon caller looked from Nathan t
o Abbott and changed his mind, agreeing to call the demon.
Abbott saw me looking at him, and he held my gaze without changing his face back to his human look. I wasn’t sure how he could speak with those long fangs, but he did. “This, too, is who I am. Thank you for not shying away.”
His voice was guttural, inhuman, but I reminded myself it was still Abbott. I nodded, and then looked around the room, noting the men Abbott had used his gaze on were all subdued, sitting as if in a stupor.
“We’ll wipe their memory,” he told me. “They won’t remember Nathan or I looking anything other than human.”
“Sure,” I said with a small shake of my head. I wasn’t used to the option of wiping people’s memory, and didn’t especially like the idea of supernaturals with that particular power. I was thankful I seemed to be immune, and promised myself I’d work with Lauren until she would also be impervious to having her mind fucked with.
Panda remained upstairs with the mostly catatonic men while the rest of us went to the basement with the ringleader. He had a circle already mostly formed, and he lit some candles and did some stuff with what I assumed were herbs. I had no idea how this worked, though I knew Aaron would call foul if something didn’t look right.
I had to work to keep from running upstairs and out of the house as the ringleader chanted what I assumed was Latin and his voice assaulted the portion of my aura outside my shields. The room vibrated with evil before he started, but his words added to the sense of terror and dread, even though I couldn’t understand them.
When he finished, Aaron said, “Since the demon is already in our realm, this won’t pull him into the circle but towards it. It’ll draw him back to the house physically, probably on foot. We should go back upstairs to wait.”
Before we’d all made it back up, I heard fighting noises.
The demon came through the already shattered back door as we topped the steps, and Aaron practically flew across the room and engaged him in a fight. I pulled as much energy into me as I could and focused it to the inside of the demon’s head. It takes me about two seconds to put enough heat in to make someone’s head explode, but the demon figured it out at one second and managed a split-second of eye contact with me as he vaporized. He’d gone back home before I could kill him, and now he knew I could explode heads.
Not good.
I looked at Aaron, and he didn’t look happy either, but said, “What’s done is done. We’ll deal with it.”
Everyone looked at me, apparently realizing I was the reason he’d vaporized, but I wasn’t up for much conversation. “I want to go home now,” I told the room in general, then looked at Aaron. “If you can find out the demon’s name, that’d be great.”
I walked out the front door, sat on the front steps, and saw Denny drive up a few minutes later. He saw me and pulled to the side of the road to park. He must’ve been slowly circling the block. So much for hoping he’d follow instructions.
I stood and walked towards him, and heard the doors click as he unlocked them. I accepted the invitation, sank into the passenger seat, and softly closed the door. I knew the guys inside would still hear, but I wanted them to do whatever they needed in order to finish up without coming to check on me.
“Everything okay, Kirsten?” Denny asked.
I didn’t look at him, just stared out the front window. “I don’t know anymore, Eddie. Sometimes it seems that for every bad thing we take out, three more take its place.”
“You haven’t called me Eddie in more than a decade.”
I felt my eyes slowly close, and I forced them open but kept looking forward, “Shit, and I didn’t even realize I did. Sorry ‘bout that. It’s been a long night.”
The weight of his hand rested on my leg, the heat soaking through my jeans. “No need to apologize, I miss hearing it coming from your mouth. We were so close, and we had something special. I’m sorry I messed it up.”
I was so tired, I couldn’t even be angry with him. Just tired and sad. I shifted in the seat and he pulled his hand back.
I glanced at him before turning my head to look forward again, my eyes unfocused as they looked out the windshield. “I used to hate you, but you know what? Your fourth wife just left you, and now I consider it a favor that you lied and cheated in such a fabulously hurtful and embarrassing fashion, because it means at least I didn’t make the mistake of marrying you. You’re an asshole, but when your work day is over you’re a lonely, sad, asshole, and all I can muster for you now is pity. I hope you’re happy with your career, because you’ll likely have a hard time finding someone willing to be your fifth wife.”
Okay, that was probably more than enough personal venom. I was better than this — being tired, sad, and disheartened didn’t give me license to be mean. I sighed and added, “I appreciate you calling Aaron when there’s something you know your department isn’t equipped to handle, and I’ll continue to be professional around you so we can work together, but that’s as far as things are ever going to go.”
I’d said it all in a tired, monotone voice. No anger, no emotion. Just fact. He responded in a way I hadn’t expected — honest curiosity with no shades of anger.
“Why am I an asshole? What can I do to stop chasing the women I love away from me?”
I thought carefully before giving him the flippant “stop being a lying and cheating bastard” comment on the tip of my tongue. I didn’t owe him anything, and I also didn’t know what had happened with wives three or four, but he’d asked nice so I decided to give him an answer. It should be obvious, but if he didn’t know then maybe someone should point it out to him.
“You’re only worried about yourself, your career. You’re more concerned about what the general public — strangers — think of you than you are about the people who love you. You put your image and reputation above the feelings of those around you, and you’re willing to sacrifice friends and family in order to increase your political clout.”
I paused, realized he wasn’t understanding, and tried again. “You’re supposed to put the feelings of the people you love you first, above everything else. However, your career and your political image are the most important thing in your life, which is why those are the only things you have left. I don’t think a personal relationship will ever be more important than your career, or more important than what people think of you.”
This, of course, wasn’t his only shortcoming, so I added, “I’m also not sure you’ll ever be able to keep your cock in your pants, and there are just too many opportunities for people to want to ride your power in whatever way they can, and you’re all too ready to let them try.”
The old hurt came back, and almost as an afterthought, I added, “When you hurt your girlfriend in order to further your career, there really isn’t any way to recover from it. Once trust is broken in such a cruel and public way, you can’t get it back.”
He’d hurt me bad, not just by cheating on me, but by making me look bad so he could look good. He’d made promises he didn’t keep, and I’d altered my life in order to be with him because of those promises. It’d been a train wreck, and it had taken me a long time to stop hating him.
My guys were coming out of the house now, so I got out of Denny’s car without saying goodbye. Aaron raised an eyebrow at me, but I averted my gaze and slogged back to his car, waited for the doors to unlock, and then climbed into the passenger seat. Aaron spoke with Denny a few minutes and then we were off. I was tired enough that if Nathan and Panda hadn’t been in the back seat, I’d have sat back there so I could lay down and sleep on the way home.
Aaron touched my arm once we were under way, and said, “Abbott wanted to talk to you tonight but I told him you’d need to go home and get as much sleep as possible since you’d have to wake at six tomorrow morning to get ready for your day.”
“Yeah, by the time you get me home I should have time for around four hours of sleep. I can survive on that okay, but not three. Should I give him a call to tell him myse
lf?”
“Totally up to you.”
“Great. I’ll just see him tomorrow night.”
Chapter Ten
Wednesday’s workday was uneventful, thank goodness. I wished I could go to bed when Lauren did, but Abbott was supposed to arrive shortly after I got home.
I’d been thinking that we’d had several fires in the battlefield in the past from icky things, and Abbott had never shown up before. So why now? I didn’t think he knew about me hunting and fighting, so my guess was he knew Aaron would be called in and he wanted to watch him handle it, or perhaps just wanted an excuse for a conversation that might involve his learning something else about me?
I had let Lauren and Xiaolan know this morning that I was expecting company this evening and would need the family room. I’d rather entertain in the formal living room, but it was at the base of the stairs and they’d be able to hear our conversation from upstairs. So, it was in our very eclectic and casual family room that I’d be entertaining this ancient vampire who reeked of aristocracy.
He arrived around ten minutes after seven, and I walked him through the downstairs, to the back of the house, and into the family room.
I love my house. It’s a fairly large house with four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. Or rather, it’s large compared to most homes. Just not his.
My huge kitchen is light and airy, with a large round glass table capable of seating ten. My formal dining room is richly decorated in a Tuscan style, with a table capable of easily seating sixteen people, though we’ve fit more than twenty around it for Thanksgiving.
However, my family room is designed for comfort and leisure. Half of it’s set up as a home office — my desk has three monitors, and Lauren and Xiaolan’s desks each have a single twenty-four inch monitor.
The rest of the room is a grouping of two sofas and a couple of chairs facing a flat screen, eighty inch television built into the far wall. The room is done in earth tones, with a nice homey feel. It isn’t a fancy room, but it would have to do.
Only Human (Kirsten O'Shea Book 1) Page 9