Demon Ex Machina: Tales of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom (26 page)

“They wanted to go patrolling. I said no.”

“You don’t think they’d go by themselves, do you?”

I considered it, remembered too clearly what Allie had asked. But I couldn’t believe she’d actually go through with it. “No,” I finally said. “Allie knows she’s not a match for a demon. She wouldn’t put Mindy in that kind of danger. She’d only go patrolling if I was with her. Or,” I added, realizing the awful truth, “if her dad was with her.”

“Allie has no idea why Eric’s dangerous,” Laura said.

“I know.” Stuart was beside me, the fear in my voice having brought him over. He clung tight to my hand and watched my face. “Get over here,” I said. “And in the meantime, I’ll call Eric.”

I dialed Eric’s cell as I climbed back into my clothes, and both Stuart and I managed to be dressed by the time Laura and Cutter arrived at my house. “Straight to voice mail,” I said. “His home phone and his cell.”

“What do we do?” Laura asked, clinging hard to Cutter’s hand. To his credit, he didn’t ask one question, though I knew he had to be baffled.

“You and Cutter go back to your house in case they come back. Stuart stays here. And I’m going to go see if I can find Eric.”

Her eyes were wide and worried, but she nodded.

“Be careful,” Stuart said as I slipped on my jacket, checked my stiletto, and made sure I had enough holy water in the vial in my purse.

“Trust me,” I said. “If he’s out patrolling with them, the only one who has to worry tonight is Eric.”

 

 

I kept trying
, constantly pushing the redial button on my phone as I sped over the San Diablo streets toward the beach.

“Hello?”

“Eric?” I almost slammed into the back of a Mercedes I was so surprised to hear his voice. “Where the hell are you?”

“At home. Why?”

“Mindy and Allie. Are they with you?”

“No.” He said, his voice sharpening. “Why?”

“You’re sure? Dammit, Eric, if you’ve taken them out patrolling, I’m—”

“I said they aren’t here. I’m not him. I’m not Odayne. And still you don’t fucking trust me.”

“Trust?” I snapped back, remembering his words at the mansion. Remembering the look in his eye. “Dammit, Eric, you’ve been lying to me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Never seen the dagger? No clue where it is or what it looks like? You’ve got drawings of it, Eric. A whole notebook of drawings and notes.”

“The hell I do,” he said, but the force had gone out of his voice, and I stayed quiet, realizing that he needed to process the words. “Jesus, Katie. I didn’t know.”

I drew in a breath and gripped the steering wheel tighter, desperately wanting to believe him, but not knowing if I should. And, yes, knowing that even if what he said was true, that in and of itself was terrifying.

“You really don’t know where the girls are?” I asked, this time more softly.

“I don’t,” he said. “But I’ll come over. I’ll help you look.”

“Thanks, but—”

My phone beeped and I pulled it away from my ear long enough to look at it, then let out a relieved breath when I saw that the call was coming from Allie.

“It’s her,” I said.

“If there’s trouble, call me.”

I promised I would, then clicked over to my daughter, and was immediately blasted by a stream of “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“They’re safe,” Stuart said, taking the phone from Allie. “Come home.”

I did, cutting over the streets in record time to find both girls sitting quiet and forlorn on the sofa. Laura and Cutter had come back, and now they were pacing the living room with Stuart.

“We weren’t going to patrol on our own,” Allie said the moment I came in. “Honest. And so we headed to Daddy’s.”

I saw Cutter’s brow furrow at that, but decided that now wasn’t the time to worry about it.

“I talked to him,” I said, anger rising. “He swore he hadn’t seen you.”

“He didn’t,” Allie said, quickly rising to his defense. “We saw him.”

“And Nadia,” Mindy added.

“They were going upstairs. You know. To his apartment.”

“And we didn’t figure it would be a good idea to interrupt.”

“No,” I said, forcing my voice to stay calm. “I don’t expect it would be.”

“So we came back.”

“How?” Stuart asked. “Neither of you has a car.”

“Joann,” Allie said. “She was going to the beach to meet some guy, and we tagged along. And then when we said we weren’t staying at Daddy’s, she brought us back. I think she decided to blow off her date.”

“Good,” I said, wondering if all the teenagers in town had gone insane. Maybe there was a full moon or something.

“This conversation isn’t over,” Laura said to Mindy. “Home. Now.”

“And you,” I said to Allie. “Upstairs.”

As soon as they all left, I looked at Stuart, my head shaking. “It’s all spiraling out of control,” I said.

“You need to tell her,” Stuart said. “She needs to understand the truth about her father.”

“I know,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “But it’s two different issues, isn’t it? And even if everything was peachy keen with Eric—hell, even if none of us in this house knew a damn thing about demons—she still shouldn’t have done this. She shouldn’t have gone out on her own. She knows better,” I said, thinking back to the last—and only other time—that she’d snuck out of the house. A time when she’d nearly gotten killed.

“I know,” said Stuart gently. “But keep in mind that she came back on her own. Allie’s a good kid.”

At that, I raised my eyebrows.

“The operative word being
kid
,” he admitted. “But she reined it in. That’s more than a lot of fourteen-year-olds would do.”

I nodded, but I didn’t say anything. Because the truth was, that was what worried me. Because fourteen became fifteen and that became sixteen.

And with each year came more independence. More defiance. And definitely more danger.

 

 

I woke to the
sound of someone moving stealthily through the house, and without even realizing I was moving, I was out of bed with my stiletto in my hand.

“Whasgoinon?” Stuart mumbled as he pulled my now-empty pillow toward him.

“Just getting a snack. Go back to sleep.” If there was a demon downstairs, Stuart would be pissed in the morning. But I’d rather deal with his irritation about missing the action than have to watch his back while I checked out our house.

I moved slowly down the hall, avoiding the creaky spot as I peeked my head in Timmy’s room. He’d managed to maneuver himself completely upside down, and now his feet were on his pillow, and Boo Bear was clutched tight in his arms. He snored softly as he slept, sounding a little snotty and wheezy, and I made a mental note to put him to bed tomorrow with a humidifier and some Vick’s VapoRub. Until then, I’d cover him with an extra blanket, but I’d do it after I checked the rest of the house.

I pulled the door closed and moved on to Allie’s room, which was bathed in the soft pink glow of the wall flowers she’d picked up from Ikea. Plastic blooms with lights behind them, six of which now outlined her window in stark contrast to the opposing wall with its martial arts posters and display cases for swords and knives. The latter were new, as Allie had only recently started haunting thrift stores and flea markets for bits of antique weaponry. On the whole, I had no objections; after all, if she wanted to be a Hunter, I wanted her to be the best, most focused Hunter she could be. The combination of focus and training and interest translated to skill.

But at the same time, I’ll admit I missed the posters of the boy band of the moment and the hours on the telephone in the evening talking with her friends about absolutely nothing. I’d never had the high school experience; I’d never really had the chance to be a teenage girl. And I’d desperately wanted my daughter to have a different kind of childhood.

Sometimes things don’t turn out the way you planned. And though I mourned my daughter’s lost innocence, I’m honest enough to admit, privately, to a hum of self-satisfaction and pride, that she wanted to be like me.

Right then, I feared she might be doing exactly that.

She wasn’t in her bed, which meant that either it was Allie I had heard moving quietly through the house, or else she’d heard the sound, too, and had slipped out of bed to go battle our intruder.

Not an option I cared for, and I was back out the door and moving quietly down the stairs even as the possibility occurred to me. I told myself she was simply restless; after all, the alarm hadn’t tripped, and I was certain I’d set it. Probably she was curled up on the couch reading a romance, or sitting at the kitchen table stuffing her face with forbidden ice cream, and when I saw her I was going to feel downright foolish for getting so worked up over nothing.

That was it, I told myself. Nothing major. Just a teenager.

Even so, I moved with care, watching my back as I slipped through the living room, peering into shadows as I made my way toward the darkened kitchen.

Not one light was on downstairs, the only illumination coming from the light under the stovetop vent hood that I keep on as a matter of habit. It glowed a muted yellow, the anorexic light barely illuminating the kitchen beyond.

Still, I saw nothing moving in the dark and heard nothing rustling in the shadows. And as I moved closer, my worry spiked. My daughter wasn’t in her bedroom, she wasn’t in the living room, and the kitchen was too dark and too quiet.

I told myself it was nothing. That I was unreasonably worried. That I would have heard a struggle if a demon had broken in and gotten to my daughter.

And I was damn certain that she wasn’t going to be sneaking out again. Not after what had happened earlier in the evening.

So what was going on?

I didn’t know, and that scared me, the tempo of my heart accentuating my fear. Training, however, took over and I moved with purpose and stealth into the breakfast area.

I was, honestly, prepared for anything.

Anything, that is, but what I saw: my daughter, head down at the table, shoulders shaking with muted sobs.

I was at her side in a heartbeat. “Allie.” I put my arms around her and she jumped, her eyes wild, then focused as she looked at me. She gasped, then threw her arms around me, pressed her face to my chest, and cried and cried and cried.

I’d stooped to hug her, and now I balanced on my heels, one hand holding the side of the table so that we both wouldn’t topple over. With my free hand I stroked her hair while I made soothing mommy noises, all the while mentally racing through the various possibilities that had brought on such histrionics.

This, I knew, was more than the fact that she’d gotten into trouble earlier. True, Allie was a good kid and rarely got into the kind of trouble she’d seen last night, but she also had a thick skin. More than that, she was smart enough to know when she deserved the trouble that came her way. If she was mad about her dressing-down, it was because she knew she deserved it. But these weren’t the sobs of a kid who was angry at herself. These were the sobs of a breaking heart.

I remembered the conversation I’d overheard at the theater, and wondered if I needed to go out and kick Charlie’s butt. But even that didn’t feel right. This wasn’t about a boy.

And as my heart twisted in my chest, I had the low, sinking feeling that I did know why her heart was breaking.

“Allie.” Gently, I pushed her head off of me and scooted back, releasing myself from her hold. I took her hands in mine, then tugged another chair out with my foot. I sat down, still holding her hands and looking into her miserable, tear-streaked face. “What is it?”

“You shoulda told me, Mom,” she said, then wiped her dripping nose with the sleeve of her baseball-style jersey. “God, Mom, why didn’t you tell me?”

I winced, wanting to pull her close again and tell her I’d kept secrets only because I wanted to protect her. But I couldn’t go there yet. Not without knowing exactly what was upsetting her. “What is it you think you know, Allie? What haven’t I told you?” I swallowed, praying she didn’t know the truth about her father.

But even before she spoke, I knew from the pain in her eyes that my prayers would go unanswered today. She knew.

So help me, somehow, she’d learned the truth about Eric.

“Allie,” I repeated, this time with more urgency. “Tell me.”

“It’s Daddy,” she said, her words sucking all my hope from the room. “There’s a demon inside my dad.” The words came out barely intelligible, strangled with sobs, and she was back in my arms again, my hands stroking, my voice murmuring, and my mind thinking murderous thoughts about Eric’s parents for what they had done to their son. For what they were doing to my family.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that, me holding her, stroking her, loving her. And wishing like hell I could make the hurt go away. When she was little, I’d nursed her with kisses, smiley-face bandages and Bactine. Somehow, I didn’t think that would work tonight.

When her sobs finally gave way to sniffles and then struggled, gasping breaths, I leaned back, one hand still touching, but trying to give her some space. She looked up at me with red, puffy eyes that held nothing but sadness.

“You knew all along,” she said, her voice as flat as cardboard. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

A thousand lies sprang to mind, but I settled for the truth. “This,” I said, nodding at her. “I wanted to spare you this.”

“How? It’s there. It’s in him.”

“Maybe not forever,” I said, and saw the tiniest bit of hope in her eyes. “Maybe not if I can help it.”

“And me,” she said. “You have to let me help.”

“Could I stop you?”

That earned me a smile. “No way.”

“Didn’t think so.” I brushed her hair out of her eyes and forced myself not to pull her close again. She was growing up, my girl, and she’d proved numerous times that she could stand on her own. “How did you find out?”