Demon Hunting In the Deep South (33 page)

A wave of dizziness swept over her. She closed her eyes. It was a mistake. It made the spinning and the queasiness worse.

She opened her eyes and gasped. The river and woods glistened with drops of light, thousands of fireflies pulsing in the darkness like tiny, living stars.

A dragonfly fluttered in her face, lacy wings whirring. Evie blinked. No, not a dragonfly, she realized with a fierce stab of joy, a fairy. And the fireflies, too. They were all fairies. She could see them again, and they were all around her.

The radiant creature hovering in front of her clapped her tiny hands in annoyance. Pink and gold sparkles flew into the air.

“Take heed, child.” The fairy’s voice was thin and reedy. “The demons are coming.”

Chapter Thirty-three

T
he tiny messenger darted off in a splash of glitter, and the lights dusting the river and woods winked out.

“Wait, come back,” Evie cried, but the fairies were gone.

The frogs and crickets in the woods fell silent. Something was coming. Something bad.

A low growl drew her attention to the pier. Hackles raised, Toby stood at the end of the dock barking at something on the water.

A chill raced down Evie’s spine. “Toby, come here, boy,” she called. Her voice sounded weak and shaky. She edged away from the railing and closer to the door.

A boat slid out of the darkness and bumped against the pier. Two burly men and a woman climbed out of the vessel, their movements slow and clumsy. Three drunks at a bar, that’s what the fairy was warning her about?

The woman paused under a light at the end of the pier. Evie’s heart stuttered when she got a good look at the woman’s face. Her eyes were black pools of melted licorice above her grinning mouth.

Not drunks, demon-possessed humans.

The dog backed away, still barking. The darkness seemed to fragment as a dozen or more ragged black shapes joined the humans on the dock. Demons, Evie realized with a stab of terror, like the wraith that had attacked her in the bathroom, and there was no one to protect her.

Toby tucked his tail and ran. “Run,” he said, shifting into man form as he hit the porch steps.

He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her through the screen doors. Evie caught a flashing impression of heat and moving bodies and the dancing ribbons of the thrall’s string dress as they rushed into the bar, before Toby’s shout of warning brought Lenora’s little party to a screeching halt.

“Demons,” Toby said, shoving Evie across the room to where the thrall gyrated on the glass counter.

Lenora stopped shimmying, and everyone turned and looked as the porch door opened and the demon-possessed woman stepped inside. Or what was left of her. In spite of the chill in the air, she wore a grimy sleeveless top, a blue jean skirt that exposed her dirty, knobby knees, and a pair of scuffed flats. She might once have been pretty, but it was hard to tell from the wreckage that was left. Most of her teeth were gone. She was emaciated, a used-up shrunken thing, her features as drawn as a meth addict’s. Behind her on the other side of the screen door, Evie saw the swollen outline of the two men on the porch. The djegrali floated behind the two thugs like tattered black scarves.

Evie tried to guess the woman’s age and gave up. She could have been twenty, but she looked a hundred. And she
stunk,
like rotting garbage tossed on a burning trash pile. The smell poured off her in waves.

Evie felt sick to her stomach. But for the grace of God and Ansgar, this would have been her, trapped in her own body as the demon consumed her from within, bending her to its evil will.

The demon woman sauntered closer. “Happy Halloween,” she said with a toothless smile. “Or maybe I should say trick or treat?”

Beck hefted the vodka bottle in her right hand. “Get out. Your kind’s not welcome here.”

“We have no quarrel with you.” The woman coughed, a horrible rattling sound, and spat a glob of something black, like old blood, on the floor. She pointed a bony finger at Evie. “The morkyn wants her. Give her to us and we will go.”

“I don’t know any morkyn, and I don’t take orders from riffraff in my bar,” Beck said.

“Foolish halfling, the morkyn are the oldest and most powerful of our kind.” The woman shambled closer. “Drakthal, the morkyn I serve, wants the Douglass woman. You would do well to hand her over. The djegrali have set their sights on this place. You cannot defeat them. Riches are in store for those who aid them. Death awaits those who do not.”

“Drakthal can kiss my ass,” Beck said. “You won’t take Hannah without a fight, and I’m starting with you, bitch.” In a swift, fluid movement, Beck leaped across the bar at the woman.

With an evil hiss, the possessed woman morphed into something out of a bad dream. Bones cracked and sinews split as her arms stretched into a pair of grotesque, leathery wings. Her legs lengthened, her feet sprouted talons, and her jaws became a cruel beak.

“Look out,” Evie cried as the winged monster attacked. Clutching the vodka bottle in one hand, Beck danced from side to side, avoiding the thing’s vicious blows. What did she think she was going to do with an empty bottle? Evie wondered. Bean the thing over the head with it?

A shadow streaked across the room and placed itself between Beck and the monster. It was the grim, dark-haired man from the corner table. Evie had forgotten all about him in the excitement. He was tall and heavily muscled, like Ansgar, and wore the same impassive expression. Unless she was sadly mistaken, Beck’s admirer was Dalvahni.

“Stay back,” he commanded in a harsh voice. “This is warrior’s work.” Drawing a short sword, he attacked the winged nightmare.

“Oh, hell no, you don’t,” Beck said, charging around him to get at the monster.

The doors burst off the hinges, and the rest of the demons poured into the bar. A few patrons hesitated, either high on the sex bomb Lenora had detonated earlier, or eager for a throw down. Most scattered, though, or ran in mindless circles as they tried to find their way out.

The she demon’s two goony friends lurched across the bar toward Evie, their Jell-O-pudding eyes wobbling. They moved awkwardly, as though trying to remember how to walk. The demons inside them had sucked their brains dry or fried them on drugs and alcohol, Evie decided, taking in their vacuous expressions.

Or all three. These poor saps would have to go up fifty IQ points to be dumb as a bag of hammers.

A chilling cry made her look up. Three demons circled above her, dementor-like. She screamed and threw her arms over her head as the wraiths dive-bombed her.

Ansgar, she thought with a flash of despair, waiting for the bone-chilling touch of the djegrali or the clammy grasp of one of the goons.
I’ll never see him again.

Nothing happened.

She opened her eyes. A greenish-gold shield enclosed her like a protective bubble. The fairies, Evie thought, blinking back tears of gratitude. She looked around but didn’t see them. An angry hiss drew her gaze back to the glowing shield. The wraiths darted above her like angry wasps. One of the goons, his moronic features twisted in frustration, slammed his fist into the barrier. Green fire shot up his arm. He jerked back with a howl of agony and sat down hard on the floor, cradling his injured arm against his chest, a look of stupid surprise on his swollen face.

The second goon shambled up, grasped a heavy wooden table by the leg, and swung it like a mace, hammering the shield with mindless ferocity. The sound was deafening, like being inside a bass drum. He was going to break through, Evie realized with despair. The fairies’ shield would not hold.

The goon struck another blow, and the barrier shattered. Evie and the dull creature stared at each other for a moment, and then the goon’s drooling mouth stretched in a slack grin. He reached for her, and Evie screamed. His grin faded, and he staggered back with a grunt of surprise, staring in blank astonishment at the four arrows that protruded from his chest. He groaned and crashed to the floor.

Something dark rose from the body and shattered into black powder. The djegrali, Evie thought, her mind dull with terror and revulsion. The goon’s body, freed of the demon, collapsed in on itself and melted into a viscous puddle.

The circling wraiths howled in fury and attacked. Scaly, leprous hands reached for her, and Evie screamed and shrank back. The nearest djegrali fell away, pierced by a shining arrow. A second and a third arrow found their marks. The wraiths wailed and disintegrated into black dust.

Ansgar, Evie thought, shivering with relief.

He materialized before her, his chest heaving and his eyes glowing with silver light. Cold poured off him, harsh and unforgiving as winter. He was furious, she realized, shivering for an entirely different reason.

“You are unharmed?” he asked. His voice was flat, and a white nimbus of power surrounded him.

“Yes,” she said. “Ansgar, I’m so glad—”

He picked her up and set her on top of the bar beside the thrall. The air hummed as he muttered something in a strange language.

“I have placed a shield spell around you,” he said in the same monotone. “Stay here where it is safe.”

“But, Ansgar, I—”

“Not now, Evangeline,” he said. “You have tested both my patience and my temper to the limit tonight.”

Turning on his heel, he strode back into the fight.

Evie watched him walk off. Of all the nerve. She had tested
his
temper and patience? Was he serious? Mr. Love’em and Leave’em?

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” Evie muttered, watching through narrowed eyes as Ansgar fired a rapid volley of silver arrows at the djegrali with deadly accuracy.

He really was a fine shot and utterly magnificent. But that was beside the point.

Evie was still fuming when Shep Corwin strode up, his eyes gleaming with excitement and a nine iron gripped in one hand. He looked bigger, harder, and more dangerous. More
everything
.

“Shep?” Evie said with a yelp of surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Take care of Lenora for me,” Shep said, glancing up at the thrall on the bar. “She’s three sheets to the wind.”

Blip!
He disappeared and reemerged across the room, swinging his club at the swarming wraiths.
Splat!
The club connected with a demon. It disintegrated.
Splat, splat!
Two more wraiths shattered, then another and another. Pieces of demon floated around the room. Toby joined Shep in dog form. Leaping in the air, Toby caught a flying demon in his jaws and shook it. The dog released the demon, and Shep slammed the wraith with his club, finishing it off.

Evie shook her head in disbelief and confusion. Unless she was mistaken, Shep had just done the demon hunter bop and destroyed a bunch of demons.
With a golf club
. He was the valiant little undertaker that could. But that wasn’t possible. Shep was the salt of the earth, a regular guy—a good old Southern boy who just happened to have a sexpot succubus girlfriend.

According to Addy, Shep and Lenora had been doing it like bunnies for months, exchanging essences in the old-fashioned way.

Having sex with the thrall must have changed him, because one thing was clear. Shep Corwin was no longer human. She wondered if Lenora had any idea what she’d done. Probably not. She glanced up at Lenora. The thrall’s face was slack, and she hummed the theme song to
Loins of Lust
. Lenora was toasted on demonoid funk. As Evie watched, Lenora reached out, plucked a floating piece of djegrali out of the air, and put it in her mouth.

“Gross,” Evie said.

Lenora snagged another piece and ate it. “It is not gross. Leftover demon is delicious.”

“Shep’s here.”

“Tell him to go away,” Lenora said. “I am angry at him.”

“You should tell him how you feel,” Evie said. “He’s right over there.”

“I do not
know
how I feel! I cannot put it into words. It is terrible and consuming and altogether uncomfortable.”

Lenora sat down on the glass bar and burst into tears.

The thrall’s grief washed over Evie, and she burst into tears, too. She couldn’t help it. All the sadness in the world welled up inside her and had to come out, mountains and oceans of it. She heard a mournful howl.

Toby was back in man form. He had his head thrown back, and he was baying like a moon-sick dog.

She looked around. The fight was over, and everybody was crying. The few demonoids that hadn’t skedaddled were sobbing. The goony with the burned arm was bawling like a sick calf. Tears streamed down Beck’s face as she argued with the stern guy with the sword. Mr. Grimface was crying, too. A tear trickled down Ansgar’s cheek, although his expression remained stony.

The air was thick with misery and raw, unharnessed woe. Lenora might be thousands of years old, but when it came to feelings, she was as unpredictable as a teenage girl with PMS, and her moods, good or bad, were contagious.

Shep stepped up to the bar, his face twisted with grief. “Lenora, baby, stop crying,” he said hoarsely. “You’re killing me.”

“I will not stop crying. You are ashamed of me.” She wailed louder. “Oh, what is happening to me? Make it stop! This
hurts
.”

“I am
not
ashamed of you,” Shep said. “I love you. I’ve loved you from the first moment I saw you.”

“You do?” Lenora hiccupped and looked at Shep, eyes wide. “You love me?”

“Yes.” Shep stepped closer to the bar. “And you love me.”

Lenora drew herself up. “This I have not told you,” she said, haughty as any queen.

“No, you haven’t. Believe me, I’ve noticed. So tell me now. I want to hear it. I
need
to hear it.”

The ribbons of the string dress fluttered and hissed in agitation. “I will not. It is unnatural . . . a-an abomination. Thralls do not feel. Thralls do not
love
.”

“I see.” Shep’s shoulders drooped. “I suppose that’s why you’ve slept around so much since you met me, because you don’t have feelings for me. I’m nothing special, just another meal.” He shook his head. “Hell, I can see how drunk you are. I know what that means. You’ve probably had sex with a dozen guys tonight.”