A Shot in the Dark (3 page)

When it lunged at me again, I sidestepped and flicked my sword, slicing off another thin layer of . . . whatever it was made out of. The wound just filled in, leaving no trace, but that wasn’t the point. The second tiny wisp of blight vanished, but I knew it wasn’t gone. When there was enough of it, free-floating demon essence, we’d have a portal, and then I could get rid of Monty here.

Y’know, Monty? As in Python? ’Cause he’s like a snake? Oh come on, that was funny.

To the untrained observer, it looked like I wasn’t doing much at all. A slice here, a nick there, dodge, duck, parry. To a trained observer, it was blatantly obvious that I wasn’t doing much at all. The damage I was inflicting was healing up as soon as the blade came free, and the blight I was draining out was minimal at best.

But the sun kept setting, and the wall’s shadow kept advancing. I lurked at that edge, careful to never dart into the darkness for more than the length of a thrust, retreating across the carefully manicured grass one step at a time.

The Snot demon left a trail across the greenery, burned dead and brown like a snail trail from Hell. (Mrs. Effingham wasn’t going to be pleased at all when she saw that.) Twice, it braved the waning sun to try to wrap me up in its slimy coils, but I was too fast and it was too wussy to handle the light. Bubbles rose to its oily surface, bursting against the air with the stench of sulfur, the sound creating a distinctive hiss of frustration. It was getting pissed off.

Good.

The sky was sunset red when my heels hit the tile border around the koi pond, and I had to grin. Sure, I had no more room to retreat, and in about ten seconds, the sun was going to drop down below the top edge of the wall, casting the entire yard in darkness and giving the demon free rein. I had Monty right where I wanted him.

In an eyeblink, the sunlight was gone, and the angry demon rose above me, swaying as it towered. The face at the end was pocked by bursting bubbles of agitation, but there was no mistaking the snarl on the mockery of a mouth.

Come get some, bitch.
I took one step back, into thin air, holding my sword safely to the side as I fell back.

I hit the water hard enough to almost knock my carefully gasped air from my lungs and sank straight to the bottom. From there, I watched through the riled waters as the enraged oil serpent dove headfirst after me.

It intended to crush me, I think, the heavy mass of black sludge spreading out to fill the shape of the pond, its entire body pouring into the water. For a split second, I thought it was going to succeed, and I know I felt my ribs creak under protest. The natural human demand for “Air!” registered in my brain, certain I was about to be smothered or drowned, or both, but before I could even think of flailing in panic, the weight suddenly lifted, and the demon launched itself out of the koi pond with an inhuman shriek.

I fought to the surface despite the weight of my armor (and the padding beneath that had soaked up its own weight in water), to see the Snot demon writhing on the grass like a salted earthworm. Over and over the coils rolled, like it would tie itself in knots, and a thick oily smoke rolled off its transparent skin.

I’d be lying if I pretended I wasn’t a little smug. “That’s right. Holy water, bitch. Suck it.” The glint of gold caught my eye, and I bent to retrieve my coin from the bottom of the pool. My fake, absolutely worthless, magically blessed coin.
Thank you, my love.
One of my wife’s brilliant ideas. I couldn’t wait to tell her it had worked.

A hand entered my vision, and I looked up to find Elliot offering to help me out of the koi pond. Probably not a bad idea, considering how much heavier I was now than when I’d gone in. “Thanks, kid.”

I grabbed his forearm, intending to haul myself out, when I heard it. It was the sound of bacon sizzling, the sound of water boiling furiously. I looked over, dreading what I already knew I was going to see.

There was Monty, swelling up like the world’s biggest blood blister, its surface straining to contain the rolling boil within. Even as I watched, a thin slit appeared, and the oil slick spurted from it, driven by the unbelievable internal pressure. Monty was about to blow.

“Fire in the hole!” I grabbed the kid by the front of his shirt and dragged him into the water, falling on top of him to protect him further. Problem being, there was room for one man at the bottom of the pool, but not two. Half submerged as I was, the explosion was enough to deafen me, the sound wave skipping across the top of the water to smack me upside my very thick skull.

I waited as long as I could, until bits-o-Monty stopped raining down on me, before I fought my way into standing, letting Elliot scramble for air. Drowning the client would be bad, m’kay?

He threw himself facedown at the side of the pool, gasping and coughing, while I examined the state of my demon-splattered self. Already, the boiling droplets had eaten through my leather bracers, and were currently burning into the skin beneath. With a hiss, I plunged my forearms into the water, sighing at the soothing relief. I dunked the rest of me for good measure, surfacing with a splutter and shaking myself like a wet dog.

“You okay, kid?” I glanced at Elliot who had become strangely quiet, then turned to follow his stunned line of sight.

The portal was there, hovering just against the back wall, swirling in shades of black and blacker. All over the yard, tiny gobbets of Snot demon were dissolving into their base component, blight, and drifting through the planar tear. It looked like an eerie black river running uphill, finally slowing to a trickle before the portal snapped shut with an audible pop and the reek of ozone.

Just to be sure, I stripped off my right bracer, and scrubbed the remnants of the tattoo flakes off with the blessed water. “There we are, Elliot, all nice and shiny again.”

He examined his left arm, bare now too, then bent to scour it off as well. He scrubbed and scraped until the skin of his arm was blistering pink and I was afraid he’d draw blood. I caught his hand. “Hey. It’s cool, okay? It’s all over.”

He stared at me with wide, shock-filled eyes for a long moment, then nodded. There were tears glimmering in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall, and I pretended I didn’t see.

Instead, I turned to eye the destruction left in the wake of my battle. The yard was essentially burned barren, the grass withered and downright charred in places. I was still standing knee-deep in the once-pristine koi pond, which would probably never support life again. Already, the large ornamental fish were starting to float to the surface, eyes gone cloudy in death.

I managed to clamber out of the pool, flopping on the dead grass with a wet squishing sound. It was going to be days before the padding under my mail dried. Hell, it might be days before I decided to stand up again.

The arrival of my archnemesis, Mitzi the poodle, was heralded with a string of high pitched yips and yaps that threatened to burst my eardrums. The vicious little rat came streaking out of its doggy door, tiny needle fangs bared and aimed right for my face now that it was within its short little reach.

I waited until it was almost on me, then roared “Boo!” at it. The pink dog almost flipped itself completely over, scrambling to reverse direction, and it disappeared back inside with the high, “yi! yi! yi!” of fear. I laid my head back on the ground, folded my hands across my chest, and just watched the dim light of the stars appear overhead.

I hate poodles.

2

Now . . .

N
othing says the end of summer like the annual Dawson family barbecue and snarky T-shirt contest. I won, by the way. I always win. It’s my contest. (We used to have a dirty T-shirt contest, but that got awkward once the kids started learning to read.)

My own little five-year-old censor, Annabelle, was playing on the patio with her cousin Nicky, closely supervised by my brother’s wife, Stephanie. Mira, the light of my life, and Melanie sat close by, the women no doubt having some in-depth and disgusting discussion about Mel’s very large belly, due to pop in about three months.

The sire of said impending spawn, Marty, hovered in a small protective circle of other males, made up of myself, my brother Cole, our friend Will, and my live-in student Estéban. The general theme seemed to be making sure Marty knew just how that happened, and much off-color advice on how to prevent it again. But really, we teased. Marty was gonna be an amazing dad.

He wasn’t what you’d think of as the quintessential “dad” figure. Short and squat with biceps the size of my damn thighs, Celtic tattoos from wrist to shoulder on both arms, scruffy black beard and a shaved head . . . Honestly, if we lived in some fantasy world, he’d be the surly dwarf character and that’s the truth. He’s even a blacksmith, an honest-to-God blacksmith. How’s that for a stereotype?

But what most people didn’t see was the genuinely good heart and fierce loyalty he could show. Marty was good people.

He’d dragged me aside earlier in the day to get some of my deep thoughts on being a daddy. Personally, when I’m being held up as the bastion of fatherhood, the world’s in sad shape, but I did what I could, and he seemed grateful. Nervous as hell, but grateful.

The winning T-shirt of the day proudly proclaimed MEAT IS MURDER. TASTY, TASTY MURDER. Evidence of my convictions was sizzling on the grill, and I stood over it like a king over his domain. Or something.

Estéban reached out a hand toward the lid and I swatted him with the flat of my spatula. “Ahht! No touchy the burgers!”

“But I’m starving!” My seventeen-year-old protégé had hit a growth spurt sometime over the summer, topping my own six feet by a good couple of inches now, and it was entirely possible that he was about to faint dead away from not eating in the last thirty seconds.

“They’re not done, but if you think you can get past me, by all means, take one.” I smirked and picked up a pair of long tongs in my other hand, dropping into a fighting stance.

Will started up a chant of “Fight, fight, fight!” and Estéban made a grab for the long grill brush, arming himself. We moved out into the yard, never taking our eyes off one another. This was not the first time we’d done this. Hell, this wasn’t even the first time we’d done this
today
, much to my wife’s annoyance.

Right from the start, I had Estéban at a disadvantage. Sure, he had the longer reach on me, and both of my “weapons” were much shorter than my preferred katana. But I had two weapons to his one, and I hadn’t even started teaching him how to counter a dual-wielding opponent. Not many demons used swords; it didn’t seem a priority skill to teach.

The teen eyed me for a moment, trying to figure out the best way around my double threat. I stood, balanced on the balls of my feet, and just waited. He had no patience; it was one of his key flaws. He’d make the first move.

He tried to go on the offensive, I’ll give him that. But there was no way I was gonna let the upstart get the jump on me. He feigned a lunge that I pretended to fall for, and when he tried to reverse under my guard, I whacked the brush aside with the tongs and went for his throat with the spatula.

Just like that, it was over. He blinked, feeling the edge of the utensil pressed just below his jaw. If I’d put any force behind it at all, I could have drawn blood. I wouldn’t, of course, and that wasn’t the point. He understood the lesson. In a real fight, he’d be dead by now, just that quick. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he dropped his eyes to his sneakers.

“Hey.” He looked up. “You can’t be expected to know everything yet. We’ll work on dual-wielding next week, okay?”

After a moment, he nodded, and I pulled him into a headlock to noogie him good. Trying not to laugh, he pushed free and rolled his eyes, pretending to be too cool for such antics.

It had taken us the better part of the summer to get to this point, where he didn’t get all pissy and butt-hurt when I beat him and where I realized how to work around his stiff pride. I hadn’t killed him yet. Things were looking up. Now if I could just repair things with the rest of my crew.

Jesse hadn’t been the most jolly of sorts this summer for a variety of reasons. Okay, really, I’d been a right bastard for a lot of it. My temper flared at weird times, and even I’ll admit I was surly on my good days. Part of the object of this party was to convince the guys I really wasn’t a raging asshole. Maybe to convince me, too. It had been a rough six months, since that mess back in March.

I guess, no matter what kind of badass you think you are, having someone try to murder you kinda takes a toll on your mental processes. More than one person had mentioned PTSD, but never where they thought I could hear.

I caught Cole handing Will a five-dollar bill as we came back to the patio, and raised a brow at my little brother. “Et tu, Bruté?”

“Someday, that kid’s gonna take you.”

“Not today.” I wiped the tongs on a towel and went about flipping the burgers over. “Hey, can you grab me the—” A chorus of new voices interrupted my train of thought, and I looked up to find Dr. Bridget arriving with date in tow.

At least, I assumed it was a date. It was a strange person of the male persuasion. A date? Since when was she dating? Granted, she was my wife’s best friend, but only my doctor. I guess she wasn’t required to file her itinerary with me, but . . . A date? Really?

“Who the hell’s that?” Will asked as we all turned to watch this new male in our territory.

“No clue. She didn’t say she was bringing anyone . . .”

This new fellow was . . . not like us. That much was obvious. We were proudly part of the long-hair-andtattoos club, my brother excluded. Marty had a kilt on and his tattooed arms were proudly displayed. Will’s mop of curly hair was barely confined under his ball cap, and my own ponytail was there only to keep my hair out of the grill.

This new guy was clean cut (okay, I can’t hold that against him given that Cole keeps his hair cop-short too) and there was gel in his dark hair. And a polo shirt? Khaki shorts? Loafers, for the love of little fishes! The moment he accepted a mango daiquiri from my wife, we knew this was a creature unlike any we knew. I mean, no straight guy drinks a daiquiri, let alone anything in mango. Not in Kansas City, the most “mid” of Midwestern cities.