Authors: Sydney Bristow
She did as requested and stood off to the side but continued her sonic outbursts.
I unlocked the front door and cracked it open a few inches, expecting to see Kendall walking across the grass, headed for the sidewalk, but instead I saw a petite woman with curly black hair that reached past the straps of a yellow sundress and sitting on my front porch.
Lulu squiggled between the heavy oak door and my leg. She pressed her nose against the screen door and barked ferociously.
“Who are you?” I asked, keeping my guard up, prepared for whatever might happen. “What do you want? This is private property.”
She turned around, revealing a petite Latina in her late-twenties with flawless skin the color of caramel corn. Her thin lips appeared as though she’d been grimacing until they turned upwards and stretched into a gorgeous smile. “Hi. Serena?”
“Yes,” I said, snagging a finger into Lulu’s collar to keep her from leaping through the screen door. The woman didn’t look familiar, so I heeded Lulu’s extrasensory intuition, and half closed the door.
In one quick, fluid motion, the woman hopped to her feet and faced me. The smile didn’t waver from her face. When she blinked, her eyes turned black…and remained that color.
A demon had stopped over to visit.
I whipped the door shut, locked it, and whirled towards Brandon. “Call Kendall. Get her over here. We’ve got a demon problem.”
Brandon hustled into the second bedroom to follow up on my command.
The spring door flung open, and the woman knocked without the least bit of urgency. “Serena? Please let me in. I just stopped over to kill you.”
I stared at the closed door. How did the demon know my name? I’d expected her to pound her fists in an attempt to knock down the door. After all, demons had inhuman strength, despite inhabiting a human host.
Lulu stood her ground, torn between wanting to attack and uncertain whether she should run in the opposite direction. All the while, she kept yapping and snarling at the closed door. Dogs had extra sensory perception. I figured that’s how Lulu had identified Darius, and now this demon, as evil.
The woman knocked again. “Serena? I’m normally the non-violent type, but I can get scrappy if I need to go there.”
“But you want to kill me,” I said.
“True, but that’s no reason to damage anyone other than you.” Silence stretched for a few seconds. “Serena? Will you let me in?”
“No!”
“Look, I promise to make it quick. I just need your head.”
Startled by that response, I tried to get a handle on the situation as fright made my veins turn cold. “How do you know my name?”
“Zephora. She offered a management position and title for anyone who brings your head to her.”
“Management position?” Did this woman think Zephora was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company? What the hell!
“
And
…title!” the demon added. “I know, I know. I’d rather not get caught up in the rat race, because well, it reeks of humanity, but it’s every demon for himself in the underworld.”
“But you’re a woman,” I said.
“Semantics,” she said in a placating manner. “Well, we’ve kinda established who I am and what I want. Will you open up now?”
“No!” Weren’t demons supposed to be duplicitous and not reveal their intentions? Weren’t they supposed to resort to violence at every turn in hopes of killing others and wreaking as much havoc as possible? So what made this demon so different? What persuaded her to tell the truth, albeit in such a cold, distant tone?
“If you give me no choice,” the demon continued, “I’ll have to break down the door. And as I said, I’m kind of a pacifist, so—”
“Pacifism is a refusal to harm another person.” How did this conversation turn so bizarre so quickly? Was it an attempt to catch me off guard? If so, mission accomplished!
Brandon appeared in the hallway. “Kendall didn’t answer. I left her a message.”
I recalled every moment of my fight with the demon a couple days ago to avoid tactics that didn’t work and only use those that were effective. That demon had laughed at my every kick and punch. Clinching his pressure points had elicited a smile. Only one maneuver had somewhat worked: rendering his limbs ineffective.
Brandon hurried over. “Do you have something big or solid? What can I use to defend us?”
“Serena?” A heavy fist slammed against the door. “I hope you’re not ignoring me. That would be impolite!”
“No,” I said to Brandon. I tried to keep my voice from shaking as I addressed the demon. “I’m here.”
“So, should I bust the door down? It’s your call. I feel bad coming here so late and all. You’re probably disoriented. Hmm. What if I gave you thirty seconds to think it over? That’s more than fair, am I right?”
I couldn’t allow the demon to walk away. I needed to end its life or it would prey on others.
Lulu hopped toward the door like a rabbit and stopped eight inches from it. She barked and bounced backwards, only to stare at the door and bark again.
I felt Lulu scratching at my pajama-clad leg while barking fiercely, begging me to leave my momentary paralysis behind. I looked down at her, helpless to respond.
My dog stepped back, placed her weight on her back legs, and growled, drawing back her lips to show me her teeth, as though she wanted to tear my limbs from my body. She snapped at me and began barking, not with the shrill sound I’d heard before, but with a vehemence that sounded reminiscent of a pit bull, a dog bent on destroying anything in its path.
A heavy fist hit the door three times in a row.
“There’s a bat in the second bedroom closet,” I said over my shoulder to Brandon.
Lulu leapt at me and banged into my shins, sending me back a couple feet, shocked that she’d attacked me. I looked at Lulu’s vicious expression, while she growled at me to act.
Here sat a little dog I loved, who despite having only had her for a couple days, urged me to take action. If a small little “toy” as Darius once put it, could become vicious and determined, surely I could do likewise. Besides, I had magical powers. Lulu had a fierce bark and sharp teeth, nothing more. She backed up a few paces, no longer barking, no longer revealing her teeth. She angled her head toward the door once, twice, telling me to face the demon behind the door.
The woman rammed a fist on the door. “Time’s up, Serena! Hey, you know what? I should just break a window and enter. It works wonders for the common criminal.”
Rather than fight in public at this late hour, and potentially awaken the neighbors and permit them to see a fight, they might call the police. Or even worse, they might see someone with inhuman strength and speed, not to mention the ability to withstand an unbelievable tolerance for pain – if I was lucky enough to do some damage. To avoid those scenarios, I decided to claim home-field advantage. I rushed to the door and whipped it open.
The demon had been leaning against the door and fell forward, obviously having not expected my sudden appearance.
I wouldn’t get another chance to catch her by surprise, so I swept my right arm around her head, locking it in place to prevent her from moving, and then wrestled her to the ground. Because I’d caught her by surprise, I refused to give her even one second to regain her bearings, so I leapt onto her back, slipped both of her elbows just beyond my knees, and cradled her chin with my palms, while arching her backwards. If I pulled back too far, I’d crack her spine.
The demon grunted in excruciating pain. “Is this…any way to treat a guest?”
I turned to Brandon. “Get my sword.” I hadn’t expected to inflict so much agony. The demon I fought last week had laughed whenever I caused pain. It didn’t add up, and my suspicion grew.
“A sword?” the demon asked, incredulous. “You don’t have me at a big enough advantage already? Now you want to cut my head off?” She blew out a breath in disbelief. “And I’m the bad guy?”
When Brandon left to retrieve the Soul Sword, I asked, “When did Zephora put out a hit on me?”
“Fifteen minutes ago.”
At the time, I’d been in Alexis’s home. How was that possible? “You spoke to her?”
“Damn,” said the demon in a wispy yet aching tone. “My body isn’t reacting well to so much pain. My bones will probably start popping like bed springs soon. What do you say, maybe, releasing the pressure a tad?”
Although she sounded like she reacted out of pain, she may have spoken those words to make me feel guilty so I couldn’t trust her.
Growling, Lulu approached the demon and then jumped backwards, unsure how to deal with the unwanted visitor. All the while, she watched with a wary eye and waited for our enemy to take action, which apparently would help her decide how to respond.
“Good girl, Lulu,” I said as anger made my voice turn husky. “When I give you the word, I want you to bit her nose off. Okay?”
Lulu sniffed in acknowledgment and growled even louder, her sharp teeth gleaming. She dug her back paws into the carpet, prepared to pounce on the demon once I gave the order.
“You are
definitely
not a very hospitable host!” the demon said.
“Cut the shit. How did you know where to find me?”
The demon grimaced, looking disappointed not to have lured me into falling for such a weak attempt to catch me off guard. “Well, to start, Zephora has a direct line to each of us.”
“What do you mean?” I cranked her chin back a bit, forcing her to wave her hands in momentary surrender. Even though she couldn’t move without me splintering her spine, the demon I’d faced in the alley had proven that even broken bones couldn’t stop him from fighting back, so even if this one seemed oddly affected by the anguish I administered, I didn’t intend to slacken the pressure.
Brandon returned holding the Soul Sword gingerly as though he feared fiddling with it might result in cutting off an upper extremity. “I seem to remember Serena saying something about Zephora.”
“She commands us through mind control,” the demon said. “No matter where we are, she asks us to do whatever she wants.”
That didn’t make sense. If witches could only extend their influence by three times their height, how could Zephora contact this demon from miles away?
“She gave us an address, and well, here I am.”
“But only Satan can control demons,” I said.
“We have free will, but who would dare refuse him?”
“So how could Zephora control you?”
The demon looked sincerely puzzled. “I…don’t know!”
The door swung open, eliciting a barrage of barking by Lulu, who leaped in that direction. But seeing Kendall, my dog backed up a bit, but still appeared wary because my friend had a crazed look in her eyes. She glanced at Brandon and I before settling her eyes on the woman I had captured. She swallowed and placed a couple fingers against her lips, breathing heavy, obviously starving.
That explained why she left a short while ago. She needed to feed. She wouldn’t take blood from Brandon or myself, at least not after the moment a couple days ago when I’d found her about to attack Brandon, so she went hunting. I appreciated that she wouldn’t turn on us, but it meant she went looking to victimize someone else. I didn’t expect her to tear into someone’s throat and kill another person. We’d talked about feeding, followed by compelling the person to forget they’d removed a pint or two…But it didn’t mean Kendall had followed that mandate. It meant I’d have to keep a closer eye on her at all times.
“Who is that?” Kendall asked.
“A demon,” I said. “She was just saying Zephora instructed her to kill me. It seems Zephora might not be bound by the rules that witches have lived over the past few centuries.” I returned my attention to the demon. “How many demons are in this realm?”
“I don’t know.” She hung her head in sorrow. “Look, this is really embarrassing.” She motioned with her head toward the couch. “It looks pretty comfy. What do you say?”
“No.”
“You’re not going to let me go, are you?” she asked, her voice quivering as she quaked in place. “You’re going to kill me.”
I glanced at Kendall before setting my gaze on the demon once more. “I promise not to kill you…if you tell me everything you know about Zephora.”
“I told you everything. Every kind of paranormal entity will be knocking on your door at all hours of the day to kill you. Now, come on, I’ve played fair.” Once more, she directed her head toward the sofa. “Whattya say you help me out?”
I had a difficult time trying to get a handle on this demon, who had a low threshold for pain, appeared cowardly despite talking tough, and had wonderful manners.
“Zephora can find you wherever you go,” the demon said. “Wouldn’t you rather deal with me than someone who…isn’t as much of a delightful conversationalist?”
When Kendall and Brandon looked my way with uncertainty, I said, “Zephora can read my soul signature. It tells her where to find me at all times.” Where could we go for safe haven? My thoughts immediately turned to Nolan. Darius had sent his vampire minions there, which meant he could pass along information to Zephora...if he visited her in spectral form. It seemed I had to find a new place to live.
Then another thought racked my brain. “Why did you keep knocking on my door? Why didn’t you break it down?” I asked the demon.
“I was given an address, but I couldn’t tell one address from another.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Because it was dark out?”
“No. The addresses on each house on this street are missing.”
Earlier today, I’d noticed street numbers of every given house. Not that I looked often, but because I would have noticed them missing.
“I tried thirteen houses before I knocked on your door,” the demon said, “and I could only tell it was you when you answered to your name.”
Someone, most likely a witch, had put a spell on the homes on this block, preventing anyone with supernatural powers from identifying the home with which I lived in. Only one person would have been so thoughtful. Grams! My heart burst with love for my
true
mother.
The demon had spoken the truth. Creatures would visit my neighborhood around the clock, but they would need to knock on each door to determine which one I owned. In that instance, I could just pretend no one was home, and they would move on to the next house. If these monsters followed through with this plan of action, my neighbors would grow suspicious and contact the police, whose presence would dissuade supernatural beings from visiting the area again to avoid disclosing their existence, since Zephora would have revealed their presence by now if that had been her intention. It meant I wouldn’t have to move…unless Celestina changed her mind about my honesty and lifted whatever spell she created to prohibit paranormal creatures from detecting the physical address of any given home on my street.