Demon Ex Machina: Tales of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom (22 page)

My step hesitated as the reality struck me—my baby was growing up.

“I always knew they’d only grow in one direction. I just never expected fast-forward.”

I turned to find Laura standing beside me, with Mindy bounding past to catch up with Allie. Thomas was holding one of the glass doors open, patiently waiting for me to get with the program. I did, matching Laura’s step as she headed inside. “I could just ground her until she’s twenty-one. Keep her inside. Keep her my baby.”

“You could,” Laura agreed mildly. “But you don’t really want to.”

No, I didn’t. My little girl was growing up, and doing it well. And damned if that didn’t make me proud.

It also made me want to cry, which was a little embarrassing with Thomas looking on.

“Right,” I said, snapping out of it. I turned to Thomas. “You’ve got things to do, and we need to get the lay of the land and figure out what to buy for decorations. Do you need to stay with us, or can we wander?”

“Wander all you want,” he said. “Let me just show you a few highlights.” We started in the lobby, with Thomas pointing out the main entertainment center, from which we could pipe music into the rest of the theater. “And, of course, you can use the concession stand however you want.” It was empty now, but I saw from the gleam in Laura’s eyes that she had big plans for it.

“What?” she said, catching me eyeing her. “Put out a few party favors, some extra snacks. We could even sell them. Optional, of course,” she added when she saw my raised eyebrows.

“But that’s a great idea,” Allie put in. “’Cause I already told everyone that I didn’t want presents and that we were gonna put together a basket for charity. I’m thinking literacy, you know? So if we sell extra snacks and silly party favors, then all that money can go to the literacy fund, too.” She nodded firmly to Laura and then turned to me. “What do you think?”

“I think you’re an exceptional kid,” I said, feeling a little like the Grinch when his heart swelled in the end.

“Exceptional enough to get a car on my next birthday?”

“No,” I said, “but nice try.”

She harrumphed, but her heart wasn’t in it, and she and Mindy flounced off to explore the rest of the theater.

Laura and I followed more leisurely. The inside was exceptional, with gold leaf over plaster carvings showing angels and lions and birds surrounding the stage, which was set up for either movies or live performances. Six boxes protruded over the audience, three on each side, and in the back a balcony looked down on the action. Once filled with seats, the balcony area was now a dance floor, and Stuart and I had arranged for a DJ to be tucked in a corner and play the days’ popular music, as well as a few oldies to satisfy the grown-ups.

While Laura wandered around taking snapshots, I headed onto the actual stage, looking up at the intricate system of flies and counterweights. Allie and Mindy were in the audience, and though I couldn’t see them, I could hear them, currently engaged in an involved discussion of the proper proportion of games to disorganized mingling required for the ultimate party. That quickly shifted to the guests, and Allie’s excited announcement that Charlie had agreed to come.

I frowned, trying to remember if I knew Charlie, and couldn’t help but smile when Allie trilled on and on about how he’d actually asked her to tell him her favorite color. I was still smiling when something lashed out and caught me across the neck, slamming me back against the wall. An arm. And it was attached to a woman.

“Hello, Kate,” she said. “You’re looking well.”

“Hello, Nadia,” I said, slipping my hand into my purse and curling my fingers around my knife. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but I’d be lying.”

She stepped back, her laughter low and silky. She looked much the same as she had the last time I’d seen her—sexy as hell and absolutely lethal.

“Shall I call Allie back here? Give her a little kiss, too? Honestly, it’s hardly been any time at all, but already she’s so grown up.” She leaned in close, her mouth close to my ear. “But here’s the big question for you. Is she more like Mommy or Daddy? Darkness or light?”

“Any closer, and you’re going to feel my knife in your eye,” I said, hatred pounding in my chest. “You hang with the demons, you damn well better bet I’m going to treat you like one.”

Her hand went to her mouth, fingers covering pursed lips. “Why, Kate, I’m shocked. Such strong language. What would your children think?”

“You want strong language? I’ll be happy to demonstrate some for you,” I said, taking a step closer, and gratified to see she took a corresponding step back.

“Tsk-tsk,” she said, her eyes burning into mine. “So serious. Calm yourself, dearest. There’s no need for fisticuffs. Not yet, anyway. I’m only here to deliver a message.”

“Is that a fact?” I shifted, my knife hand at the ready. “What’s the message?”

Nadia glanced down at my knife, sighed a little. “After all we’ve been through, and you don’t trust me. It saddens me, Kate.”

“Message, Nadia.”

“It’s for Eric,” she said. “Not for you. Tell him she’s waiting. Tell him she’s wanting.”

“Who?” I snapped. “Who is she?”

“Tut, tut, Kate. Aren’t you the inquisitive little one?”

“I’m warning you, Nadia.”

“You? Warn me? I’m shaking. I’m positively petrified.” She leaned back and smiled. “But there’s no need to threaten. All will be revealed in good time. And until then, I think we should avoid playing Twenty Questions, don’t you?” I remained silent, seething, and she cocked her head, as if just realizing something. “Isn’t it ironic that when I was here last I was trying to put a demon inside him. Silly of me, since there was already one in there with him.” Her brow furrowed even as my hand tightened around my knife. “I wonder if they would have duked it out in there. Bam! Bam!” she said, jabbing out with her fists. “Honestly, it would have been something different in the demon trade. Usually all we see is the same old, same old.”

“Not true, Nadia,” I said. “I get to see pathetic, simpering bitches like you, who’ve taken the skills
Forza
gave them and turned them on their ass, and for what? Some fake sense of power? You’re an idiot, Nadia. And more, I don’t like you.”

“Oh, now I’m hurt, truly, and on so many levels. Honestly, how do I respond? Let’s try this,” she said, her voice hardening. “One, I do not simper. Ever. Two, my power is not fake. Three, my IQ puts me significantly higher than the idiot range, and I’m confident I’ve made the most of my superior intellect. As for the bitch comment, I’ll cop to that. It’s part of my charm.”

“Whatever you’re up to,” I said, “you’re not going to manage.”

“Is that a fact? And I suppose you have time to stop me while you’re running around like a headless chicken trying to figure out how to save Eric from something he doesn’t want stopped anyway.”

“Get out,” I said, her words pissing me off more than they should.

“Does darling daughter know? Maybe I should tell her.” She took a sideways step, as if she was going to call out for Allie, and I took a forward step, to keep her from doing just that.

What I hadn’t expected, but should have, was the leg that whipped out and caught me across the chest as I approached. She knocked me back, then was on top of me before I could blink. She grabbed me by the collar, pressed a kiss to my forehead, and then shoved me back so hard I was certain a Kate-shaped imprint would show in the backstage wall.

“Mom!” Allie called as I bounced forward, determined to get in a blow of my own. But she was gone. She was gone, and I’d been whipped, but good.
“Mom!”
Allie called again, rushing toward me. “What happened?”

“What?” I scoped out the room, searching for Nadia, but she’d disappeared.

“Your forehead,” Allie said. “Is that blood?” She rubbed her finger on my forehead, then looked at it, her brow crinkling in confusion. “Lipstick?”

I considered making something up, then decided she had the right to know. She had a history with Nadia, after all. The bitch had started out as hero material to my daughter and nosedived to a position of utter contempt. If anyone deserved to know that Nadia was back, I thought, it was Allie.

She tensed when I told her, her entire body going stiff and her hands clenching into fists at her sides.

“Who’s Nadia?” Mindy asked.

“The queen bee bitch of all time,” Allie said, and when I didn’t bother to chastise her about the language, Mindy’s eyes went wide.

“Wow. So it’s, like, personal, huh?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You could say that.”

“It makes sense, though,” Allie said. “I mean if anyone’s going to work for some hotshot She-Demon, it would be Nadia.”

“You have a point,” I agreed, as thoughts of Eric and Nadia and vengeful She-Demons filled my mind.

Honestly, I missed the days when all I had to do was go out and hunt demons.

Nowadays, everything was too damn personal.

I spent the rest of
Monday alternating between reading through Eric’s old books and trying to get in touch with the man himself. Unfortunately, I was having absolutely no luck on either front. And although the inability to find anything in the books bothered me, the lack of communication with Eric was making me positively frantic, especially now that I knew the She-Demon was “waiting” and “wanting.” For all I knew, she wasn’t waiting anymore, and Eric was being quiet because the demon inside had taken over, and now it was off on holiday with She-Ra.

By Tuesday morning, my nerves were positively raw, and although I told myself I needed to keep the faith, I feared that I’d lost Eric before we’d even had a chance to save him.

“Give it a rest,” Eddie said, as I dialed Eric’s number for the five hundred and seventy-fifth million time. He downed one last slug of coffee as Rita honked three times outside our front door. “He’s probably out boinking some other woman. Probably Nadia, eh? She sure as hell wanted to boink him last time, and what red-blooded male wouldn’t want to take a bounce on her?” He glanced toward Stuart as if for help. Stuart, being the smart guy that he is, ignored Eddie, turning instead to me.

“If this is it,” Stuart said, “we’ll deal with it. We’ll figure it out. And you will be okay.”

I nodded, not worried about me, but about Eric. Worried that if this was it, then I was going to have to shove a dagger through the eye of a man that I loved.

And, yes, worried that if that was what I needed to do, that I’d be unable to bring myself to do it.

“You’re going to worry yourself sick,” Stuart said, getting up and brushing a hand over my hair. He kissed my head, then tilted it back so he could look in my eyes. “Don’t make it worse in your head than it really is.”

Good advice. The same kind of good advice I’d probably dish out to my kids. And yet I was finding it damn hard to take it.

With a promise that I could reach him anytime, Stuart rushed out, hurrying to meet Bernie and a bevy of craftsmen who were descending on the mansion with a flurry of bids.

Allie had already left for school with Laura, Timmy was parked on the sofa watching
Dora the Explorer
, and I was lost in the kitchen with my fears and Eric’s phone numbers on speed dial.

To distract myself, I returned to the attic and brought down a stack of Eric’s books. I spread them out over the table, making silent deals with myself—review one hundred pages and make a call to Eric’s cell, another hundred pages and I could call his home. Finish a stack of five books and I’d call from Stuart’s private line in the study. The one with the caller ID block, just in case Eric was avoiding my phone numbers.

By Tuesday afternoon, I’d dialed Eric’s home and cell phone numbers so many times and from so many phones my speed-dial finger had a callous, and my voice was raw from leaving pleading messages for him to call me.

Completely frantic, I finally broke down and called Stuart to tell him how worried I was, and the fact that Stuart didn’t hesitate before dropping whatever project he was working on at the mansion was a testament to how much the fear had crept into my voice. It was he who suggested we drop Timmy at Laura’s and then go by Eric’s apartment. “We’ll look,” he said, reasonably. “And maybe then we’ll know what’s really going on.”

Neither of us spoke on the way; how could we with the thickness of my fear sucking up all the useable air in the car? And as soon as Stuart pulled up in front of the building, I was out the door and running up the stairs.

“He’s not answering,” I told Stuart when he joined me outside Eric’s door. I’m not entirely sure why that surprised me. I hadn’t really figured he’d be in. After all, Eric was a thorough man, and if he was avoiding me, I would expect him to do a good job of it.

“Do you have a key?” Stuart asked. I nodded, then saw a flicker of something that might be pain flash in his eyes.

“He gave it to me for Allie,” I said, pushed by a need to explain.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Just open the door.”

I wanted to argue until the chill left his voice—even red-hot anger was better than the ice I heard—but now wasn’t the time. I slipped the key in the lock, tried to turn it, and found that it didn’t do a damn thing.

I looked at Stuart and shrugged. “Apparently I was mistaken. I don’t have a key after all.”

“Back door?”

I shook my head. “Sliding glass, no outside lock, and we’re on the third floor.”

“Then we break the window,” he said. “And hope he doesn’t have an alarm.”

He took off his shirt, wrapped it around his hand, and smashed in the side window. Then he carefully pushed the shards of glass away, unlocked the window, and shoved up the sash. “Back in a minute,” he said, then disappeared inside while I stood there alternating between feeling extraneous and being impressed with Stuart’s breaking-and-entering skills.

He opened the door for me and I stepped inside. The apartment smelled musty, as if it had been closed up for days after someone cooked onions, and my nose wrinkled as I poked around, rifling through Eric’s papers as I tried to find something—anything—that would give me a sense of where he was right then. And of how far out the demon had pushed.