Where Demons Dare

Marshal shifted his weight back. “The guy that went over the bridge?” he asked quizzically. “I thought you didn’t like him.”

“Not him,” I said, flicking my eyes to his and away. “My boyfriend after him. Kisten was … important to both Ivy and me. He died to prevent an undead vampire from binding me to him … I don’t remember it, but I know he did. And I still …” I closed my eyes, a lump in my throat. “I still miss him,” I said miserably.

I looked at Marshal, needing to see what he thought. His face was carefully blank of expression. “He died?” he said, and I nodded, looking away.

“I think I understand,” he said as he reached to touch my shoulder, and guilt tweaked through me as I soaked in the support radiating from him. “I’m really sorry about your boyfriend. Um … I didn’t know. I should have called before coming over. I’ll just, uh, go.”

His hand slipped away, and my head came up. “Marshal,” I said, reaching to take his sleeve, and he stopped. I let go, then glanced behind me at the empty church, then back to him. I loved Kisten, but I had to try to start living again. The pain would ebb only if I pushed it out with something good. Marshal patiently waited, and I took a deep breath.

“I’d like to see you again,” I said, miserable. “If you want. I mean, I really can’t handle having a boyfriend right now, but I’ve got to get out of this church. Do something.” His eyes widened, and I blurted, “Never mind.”

“No, no!” he said. “That’s cool.” He hesitated, then shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not looking for a girlfriend either.”

I kind of doubted that, but I nodded, grateful he pretended to understand.

“There used to be a place by the waterfront that had really good pizza,” he offered.

“Piscary’s?” I almost panicked. Not Kisten’s old dance club. “Uh, it’s closed,” I said, which was the truth. The elaborate apartments underground were now the property of Rynn Cormel. And since he wasn’t a partier, he had gutted the upper rooms and turned them into a day residence for his living guests and staff. But it still had one hell of a kitchen. Or so Ivy said.

Weight shifting to one foot, Marshal frowned in thought. “Don’t the Howlers have an exhibition game this week? I haven’t seen them play in years.”

“I’m banned,” I said, and he looked at me as if he thought I was joking.

“From the Howlers?” he said. “Maybe we could just have lunch or something.”

“Okay,” I said slowly, not knowing if I could actually do this.

His smile widened and he opened the door. “I have that interview tomorrow, but I was going to go look at some apartments before that. If I treat you to coffee, will you tell me which ones are overcharging me? Unless you’re working …”

“Two days before Halloween?” I clasped my arms about me in the sudden chill. I hadn’t expected to do anything this soon, and now I was having second thoughts. I thought of backing out on the excuse of needing to track down a demon summoner before sundown tomorrow, but I had to give my sources time to work. I stunk at research, and I knew enough people who enjoyed it to pass it off on them. “Sure,” I reluctantly said. It was coffee. How bad could it be?

“Perfect,” he said, and I froze when he eased forward. Before it could become a hug, or worse, a kiss, I stuck out my hand. Marshal tried to make his shift to my hand natural, but it was kind of obvious, and his fingers slipped from mine almost immediately. Embarrassed by my guilt and misery, I looked down.

“I’m sorry you’re still hurting,” he said sincerely as he stepped back onto the stoop. The light from the sign above the door made shadows on him. His eyes, when I met them, held a soft emotion, black from the low light, nothing more. “I’ll see you tomorrow. About noon?”

I nodded as I tried to think of something to say—but my mind was empty. Marshal smiled one last time before taking the steps lightly and heading for the new-model, chrome-plated sport utility at the curb. Numb, I backed up into the church, my shoulder thumping painfully into the doorjamb and startling me back into reality. Heartache swelled as I shut the door and leaned back against it to stare into the sanctuary.

I had to start living again, even if it killed me.

Five (#u88fd9f3a-caa6-50ee-9b26-689f033b058e)

The soft click of teeth on the knob of my bedroom door stirred me, but it wasn’t until a wet nose snuffled in my ear that I truly woke up, with a pulse of adrenaline that was better than chugging three cups of coffee.

“David!” I exclaimed, jerking upright and scooting back to the headboard, my covers pulled to my neck. “How did you get in here?” Pulse hammering, my panic subsided, turning to irritation when I saw his pricked ears and his doggy smile. My gaze slid to my clock. Eleven? Damn it, I had a good hour left before the alarm was going to ring. Irritated, I flicked the alarm off. No way would I get back to sleep now. Not after a Were’s version of a wet willy.

“What’s the matter? Your car not starting?” I asked the large, gangly wolf, but he only sat on his haunches and let his tongue loll as he stared at me with his luscious brown eyes. “Get out of my room. I have to get up. I’m meeting someone for coffee,” I said, making shooing motions with one hand.

At that, David snuffed a negation, and I hesitated.

“I’m not meeting someone for coffee?” I said, ready to believe him. “Is Ivy okay? Is it Jenks?” Worried, I swung my feet to the floor.

David put his front paws, each as big as a saucer, to either side of me to keep me sitting. His breath was warm, and he gave me a comforting lick. He wouldn’t get this close in his people skin, but wearing fur seemed to bring out the softer side of most Weres.

I eased back, deciding everything was okay. He didn’t look worried. “Talking to you is like talking to a fish,” I complained, and David huffed, his claws clicking on the hardwood floor as he got off my bed. “You want some clothes?” I asked, seeing as he probably hadn’t woken me up for the hell of it. If it wasn’t car problems, maybe he had forgotten to bring something to change into. “You might fit in Jenks’s old stuff.”

David bobbed his head, and after a brief thought of my almost-nakedness, I got out of bed and snagged my robe from the back of a chair. “I kept a pair of his sweats,” I said as I shrugged into the blue terry cloth and tied it closed with an abrupt, embarrassed haste, but David had turned to the hallway, the perfect gentleman. Feeling awkward, I dragged a box down from my closet shelf and dropped it on my bed. Not that we had a lot of naked men in our church, but I wasn’t going to throw out Jenks’s old clothes from when he had been people-size.

The scent of Queen Anne’s lace came to me when I wrestled the box open. Fingers searching through the cool fabric, my slight headache eased and the smell of growing things and sunshine rose high. Jenks smelled good, and it hadn’t washed out.

“Here you go,” I said when I found the sweats and extended them to him.

His brown eyes sheepish, David carefully took them in his mouth before padding to the dim hallway, the oak floorboards glowing with morning sun reflecting in from the living room and kitchen. Shuffling to the bathroom, I decided he had probably locked himself out of his car and change of clothes—which left me curious as to where the ladies were. David didn’t seem to be distressed, and I knew he would be if either one of them had a problem.

Wondering how David knew I didn’t have a coffee date when I hadn’t even told him I had one to begin with, I shuffled into the bathroom and quietly shut the door to keep everyone who was sleeping, sleeping. It was nearing the golden hour of noon when the church went silent—Ivy and me asleep and the pixies just settling down for their four-hour nap.

Hanging on the back of the door, my costume thumped, and I quieted it, listening for the hum of pixy wings. I fingered the supple leather in the silence, hoping I would get a chance to wear it. I was pretty much churchbound after dark until I nailed whoever was sending Al after me. And Halloween wasn’t a holiday to be missed.

Since the Turn—the nightmarish three years following the supernatural species coming out of the closet—the holiday had been gaining strength until now it was celebrated for an entire week, becoming the unofficial celebration for the Turn itself.

The Turn actually began in the late summer of sixty-six when humanity began dying of a virus carried by a bioengineered tomato that was supposed to feed the growing populations of the third-world countries, but it was on Halloween that we celebrated it. That was the day Inderland had decided to come out of the closet before humanity found us by way of the “why aren’t these people dying?” question. It had been thought that Halloween might ease the panic, and it had. Most of the surviving human population thought it was a joke, easing the chaos for a day or two until they realized that we hadn’t eaten them yesterday, so why would we today?

They still threw a bloody-hell tantrum, but at least it had been aimed at the bioengineers who designed the accidentally lethal fruit instead of us. No one had been so tactless as to make the holiday official, but everyone took the week off. Human bosses didn’t say, er, boo when their Inderland employees called in sick, and no one even mentioned the Turn. We did throw tomatoes instead of eggs, though, put peeled ones in bowls and called them eyeballs, stacked them up on our porches along with carved pumpkins, and generally tried to gross-out the human population that wouldn’t touch the no-longer-lethal red fruit.

If I was stuck in my church for the night, I was going to be ticked.

By the time I finished a quick morning prep and was headed for the kitchen, David was changed and at the table, with coffee brewing and two empty mugs waiting. The hat he had forgotten yesterday was beside him, and he looked good sitting there with a thick black stubble heavy on him and his long black hair loose and flowing. I’d never seen him so casual before, and it was nice.

“’Morning,” I said around a yawn, and he turned to acknowledge me. “Did you and the ladies have a good run?”

He was smiling, his brown eyes showing his pleasure. “Mmmm. They headed home from here on paws, confident enough without me. That’s why I’m here, actually.”

I sat at my spot at the table, the bright sun and the scent of coffee making my head hurt. There was a stack of late-night newspapers opened to the obituaries that I’d gone through before bed. There had been nothing obvious, but Glenn, my FIB contact, was running the three young witches I’d found there through their database to see if they were known acquaintances. One had died of a heart attack at age thirty, another of a brain aneurism, and the third of sudden appendicitis—which had once been a common, pre-Turn expression for a magic misfire. Soon as I got this morning’s edition, I’d pass any more likely candidates on to Glenn. He was working Halloween since he was a human and didn’t celebrate it; he policed it.

“I thought you’d locked yourself out of your car,” I said, and he chuckled.

“No. I would have just run the rest of the way home if I had. I wanted to ask you about a pack tattoo.”

My eyebrows rose. “Oh?” Most Were packs had a registered tattoo, but I hadn’t seen the need, and David was used to standing alone.

Seeing my reluctance, David shrugged. “It’s time. Serena and Kally are confident enough to be on their own in fur, and if they don’t have a sign of pack recognition, someone might think they’re curs.” He hesitated. “Serena especially is getting cocky. And there’s nothing wrong with that. She has every right, but unless she has an obvious way to show her status and affiliation, someone will challenge her.”

The coffeemaker finished with a hiss. I got up, eager for the distraction. I’d never given it much thought, but the tattoos that Weres decorated themselves with had a real and significant purpose. They probably prevented hundreds of skirmishes and potential injuries, allowing the multitude of packs that lived in Cincy to get along with minimal friction.

“Okay,” I said slowly, pouring out the coffee into his mug first. “What were you thinking of?” I don’t want a tattoo. The damn things hurt!

Clearly pleased, David took a mug when I came back and offered it. “They’ve put their heads together and came up with something with you in mind.”

Images of broomsticks and crescent moons danced in my head, and I cringed.