Demon Hunting In a Dive Bar (12 page)

Jeez Louise, she really needed to get laid more often. If she had a normal sex life, Captain Orgasm wouldn’t have this effect on her.

Yeah, right.

She added a couple of extra marshmallows to the mug and took a sip of melted, sugary fluff off the top. A series of sharp yips from the woods behind her house startled her. Hot chocolate sloshed over the edge of the cup, burning her hand.

“Dang it,” she swore, sucking on her scalded fingers.

A harsh grunt outside drew her to the window. She peeked through the blinds at the yellowed rectangle of grass behind her house.

A shaggy black bear sat on his haunches, the bulky centerpiece in a circle of tawny gray coyotes. The bear flung back his head and growled a rumbling ode to the moon. Tipping their noses skyward, the coyotes joined in.

The mystery of the missing cook and the runaway musicians was solved. Hank and the band were holding a concert in her backyard, and it looked like they’d settled in for the night.

T
he alarm buzzed and Beck aimed a bleary eye at the clock. The wild kingdom jamboree behind her house had gone on until after two. Four hours of sleep and a full day of cleanup ahead, plus a to-do list that included getting the broken window replaced.

Ugh.

She groaned and pulled the covers over her head. Her rest—what little there’d been of it—had been disturbed by torrid dreams starring a certain black-eyed demon hunter. She was wide awake and horny as hell.

Her brain might accept that her steamy interlude with Conall was a one-time thing, but the rest of her body had missed the memo.

Just her luck the one guy she wanted to scratch her itch was a big fat no-no.

Something heavy hit the mattress, and she felt the tread of kitty paws across the coverlet.

“Brrrp,” Mr. Cat said, batting the blanket over her face with his paw.

“Let me guess. You want breakfast.”

“Meow,” Mr. Cat said.

Beck stuck her head out of the covers. “I don’t suppose it’s occurred to you that I might be smothering.”

Mr. Cat stalked across her chest.

“I can feel your concern,” Beck said. “Way to show the love, pussycat.”

Dragging herself out of bed and into the bathroom, she washed her face and brushed her teeth. No point in taking a shower when she’d spend the day mopping up God knows what-all. She’d clean up later, after the job was done. Going to the walk-in closet, she threw on a pair of old jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, and scraped her hair into a ponytail. She found her work boots on the porch and put them on, gave Mr. Cat his morning spoonful of wet food, and headed out.

It was Sunday and Beck’s was closed. If she busted her hump and got things tidied up, maybe she could spend the afternoon reading on her porch. Quiet time was precious to her, and the thought cheered her.

Her little bubble of happiness burst when she pulled into the parking lot and spotted Earl Skinner waiting near the back entrance of the bar. He wore a sweatshirt and dirty jeans. Patches of hair bristled on his unshaven, receding chin, and his stringy hair was oily and matted.

The temperature was in the low forties, but in spite of the chill Earl’s face was slick with sweat and his complexion held a greenish tinge. Whatever Earl had been on the night before had worn off, and he felt like hell. As for that thing he called a beard, it looked like somebody had glued pubic hair on his face.

An older man she did not recognize stood beside him. He was roughly the same height as Earl, but there the resemblance ended. Earl was a wormy thing, and the older man had obviously never missed a trip to the trough. He was jowly, and his belly jutted over the waistband of his jeans. His thick silver hair was poofed in the “higher the hair, the closer to God” hairstyle favored by Jimbo Swafford, a televangelist out of Mobile. Silver sideburns bracketed his ruddy face.

He was dressed nicer than Earl, too. For starters, he was clean and the plaid button snap shirt he wore looked new. His small feet were stuffed into a pair of bright red and yellow boots with swirling black inlay.

An old rhyme about coral snakes went through her head.
Red on yellow, kill a fellow. Red on black, friend of Jack.
Instinct told her this guy wasn’t a friend.

“What now?” she muttered, sliding out of her truck.

Fancy Boots swaggered up to her. His eyes were more blue than purple and he was showing his age, which told Beck the demon in him was pretty watered down. Halfsies like her didn’t age. Cassie Fergusson had once confided to Beck that she was over a hundred years old, and Cassie didn’t look a day over twenty.

“Beck Damian?” Fancy Boots said.

“Yeah?”

“Name’s Charlie Skinner.” He pulled a small envelope out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Trey Peterson asked me to give this to you.”

The initials
WBP
were embossed in raised script on the front of the cream-colored stationery.

“What’s this about?” Beck asked, turning the envelope over in her hand.

“There’s a gathering this afternoon at Peterson’s hunting cabin. All of the kith have been invited. You and Littleton ought to be there. You ain’t gonna want to miss this.”

“Kind of short notice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m hand-delivering the invite.”

“I had no idea you and Peterson knew one another.”

Charlie hooked his thumbs in his front pockets and leaned back on the heels of his boots. “We’re closer than you might think. When he couldn’t reach you by phone, he asked if I minded running an invite out here. I said, ‘Sure, why not?’ Anything for my good buddy Trey.”

“Uh-huh.” Beck eyed him warily, her Oh Crap-o-meter on full alert. Trey Peterson was heir to the richest fortune in Behr County. Since when did he get chummy with the Skinners? “I’ll think about it.”

She turned to go and Charlie grabbed her by the arm. “Hold on. Earl says he started a fight here last night. We’ve come to make amends.”

“That so?” Since it was common knowledge the Skinners didn’t have a pot to pee in, just how did he plan to make amends? “I appreciate it.” She pulled free and stepped away. “Keep him away from here and we’ll call it even.”

“Got me a better idea.” Charlie stepped in front of her. “I want you to put him to work. Time the boy learned responsibility.”

The “boy” had to be forty years old, if he was a day, and had been raising hell in Behr County as long as Beck could remember.

“Way I figure it, you could use a man around here,” Charlie said with a toothy smile.

“Men I got.”

She was
drowning
in testosterone. There was Toby, of course, and Hank. And, as of yesterday, Tommy and a certain sexy beast of a demon hunter. Conall was male with a capital M. Heck, she even had a male ghost hanging around the place.

“You talking about that partner of yours? He don’t count.” Charlie sniffed and tugged at the waist of his jeans, revealing a large silver buckle buried beneath his belly fat. “I done some checking. Littleton pert near raised you, but you two ain’t a couple.” His gaze roved over Beck in a way that made her skin crawl. “Good-looking woman like you needs a man in your bed. Might as well be Earl. Like to like, I always say. Us Skinners are always on the lookout for good stock, and you look like a healthy breeder.”

“Wow,” Beck said. “I’m speechless.”

Charlie grunted and looked around, a calculating gleam in his eyes. Sarcasm, it seemed, was wasted on Mr. Skinner.

“Nice place you got here,” he said. “Be a good thing if you hooked up with my boy.” He shoved Earl at her. “Don’t fret about him being littler’n you. He may be a runt, but he’s carrying where it counts, if you know what I mean.”

Spots danced in front of Beck’s eyes. She knew exactly what he meant, and it made her want to gag.

“Well, don’t stand there like a knot on a log, boy.” Charlie shoved Earl on the shoulder. “Talk to the gal.”

“Uh,” Earl said. His throat worked and he looked like he wanted to hurl. Beck put some space between them, just in case. “Got me a new bird dog. Brittany spaniel name of Huckleberry. Good nose and the prettiest pointer you ever seen.”

Charlie slapped Earl upside the head. “Idjut. She don’t care about your stupid dawg. Tell her something about yourself, something that’ll get her interested in you.”

“I got tricks in my jeans,” Earl said, reaching for his zipper. “I got a shape-shifting penis. Wanna see?”

That did it. Beck grabbed Earl by the shirt and lifted him in the air. It was easy. Earl was a string bean and her demon blood was up.

“I don’t care if you got a whale penis eight feet long,” she said, giving him a shake. “I don’t want to hear about it. Ever. Again. Is that clear?”

“Here now, no need to get riled,” Charlie said in alarm. “We come here peaceable like to make you a respectable offer. If you don’t cotton to Earl, there’s plenty more Skinners to choose from.”

“I’m not interested,” Beck said.

Conall materialized without warning. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and he looked lean, mean, and dangerous. And hot, majorly hot. Lord, how had she ever missed that fact? Her eyeballs and her brain must have been on vacation.

Conall’s flat, black gaze moved from Earl to Charlie. “Is there a problem?”

Beck dropped Earl to the ground. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Who are you?” Charlie demanded.

“I am Dalvahni.”

Charlie sucked on his bottom lip. “Dalvahni, huh? I don’t remember nobody around here with that name. You from Hannah?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so.” Charlie gave Conall the once-over. “You talk funny. You a Yankee?”

“No,” Conall said.

Good grief, this fun little conversation could go on forever.

“He works for me,” Beck said.

Charlie swelled. “You hired a foreigner, but my boy ain’t good enough for you? Folks hear about this, might be bad for business.”

“Is that a threat?” Beck said. “ ’Cause I don’t take kindly to threats.”

“It’s a fact.” Charlie spat on the ground. “The kith are funny about strangers.”

“If the kith don’t like it, they can kiss my go to hell,” she said. “Nobody tells me what to do in my place.”

Something rustled in the underbrush and Hank stepped out of the woods. He was back in human form, and he was naked. He lumbered across the gravel lot on bare feet shaped like cinderblocks. He had toes like a mountain troll and more body hair than a gorilla on Rogaine.

“Morning,” he said to Beck.

Stalking past the Skinners without a sideways glance, he trudged through the employees’ entrance.

Charlie edged away from Conall. Probably had something to do with the “I will remove your entrails through your nose and strangle you with them” vibe Conall was projecting loud and clear.

“Well, I done what I come here to do, so I guess me and Earl will be moseying along,” Charlie said. “Think about my offer. The Skinners are on their way up. You play your cards right, and you could move up, too.”

Oh, she’d think about it, all right. The thought of “hooking” up with Earl Skinner would give her nightmares for weeks.

Toby stuck his head out the back door. “You better get in here. Hank and Tommy are going at it.”

“Oh, crap.”

She’d forgotten about the zombie in the fridge.

 

The kitchen was empty. The walk-in refrigerator stood open. Empty tofu boxes lay scattered on the floor. Somebody had been eating their curds and whey. Not that she was complaining, considering what Tommy could have been noshing on. What was she going to do about him anyway? Even if he never ate anybody’s brains, sooner or later he’d start to fall apart. Zombies have a finite shelf life.

“—can’t have a dead guy in with the food,” Hank bellowed in the next room. “It’s unsanitary and plain old gross.”

“I’ll tell you what’s gross, Chewbacca,” she heard Tommy answer in his crème brulée voice. “You walking around with your johnson hanging out, that’s what. Who you think wanna see that?
I
sure as hell don’t. Take a lawnmower to that ass of yours. You could stuff a mattress with that shit.”

“Uh-oh,” Beck said, hurrying from the kitchen.

She halted, staring about in shock. The bar was clean. It was better than clean. It was good as new. No sticky floors, broken furniture, or shattered glass. No broken, boarded-up window. No skunky odor clinging to everything. It was like the bar fight had never happened.

“What the . . . ?” She shook her head, her sleep-deprived, caffeine-deficient brain unable to take it in. Who could have done this? There was only one person left at the bar last night.

Her gaze moved to Tommy. He clutched a bottle of Fabreeze in one hand. A wad of gauzy white rectangles protruded from his shirt pocket, and a half dozen more fluttered from his belt loops. Dryer sheets, Beck realized, catching a whiff of Tropical Breeze. Tommy smelled like the laundry detergent aisle at the Piggly Wiggly.

“Did you clean up the bar?” she asked him.

Tommy shook his head.

“You know anything about this?” she said, turning to Hank.

“Nope.” Hank looked around at the immaculate room and scratched his belly in thought. “Weren’t me.”

Conall materialized without warning, which was his MO. “Clothe thyself,” he told Hank in a voice as cold as the heart of winter. “There is a lady present.”

Hank stopped in mid-scratch. “Where?”

Conall’s jaw tightened. “Rebekah.”

“Beck don’t mind,” Hank said. “She’s used to shifters. It ain’t no big thing.”

Tommy snorted. “You can say that again.”

“Why you—” Hank began.

“I mind,” Conall said, silencing Hank. “Cover your manhood or lose it.”

Hank drew himself up. “Beck?”

Beck searched for a way to be diplomatic. “Naked happens when you run a demonoid bar, but most people look better with their clothes on.”

That included Hank, although she didn’t say so.

Hank turned on his heel and stomped off without a word.

“Damn,” Beck said. “I think he’s mad.”

Conall shrugged. “His mood is oft more foul than fair.”

This from Mr. Sweetness and Light? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

“He may be cranky, but he’s a darn good cook. What am I supposed to do if he up and quits?”

“If the cook does not return, I will take his place,” Conall said. “I can roast a capon or a haunch of venison as well as the next fellow.”

“Yeah, but do you know how to operate a grill and a deep fat fryer?”

“No.”

Beck sighed. “I didn’t think so.”

The screen door swung open and Ora Mae Luker trotted into the room. She wore a baggy mauve sweater, a long flowered skirt, and brown orthopedic shoes.