“Why would he reveal himself?” I asked.
“Sorry,” Larson said drolly, “I didn’t think to ask before I killed him. Perhaps he was new to the form, and the excitement of his first kill was more than he could bear and his true revelation appeared unintentionally. Or perhaps he controlled the mastiff, and hadn’t yet learned to speak to it from his human guise. The next time we’re in such a situation, I’ll remember to make that query so we can satisfy your curiosity.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
“But we won’t have a situation like this again, will we?”
My wounded pride was fast recovering, especially now that he was reminding me of why I was here in the first place. “No,” I said, “we won’t. In the future I’ll keep you better informed, and you’ll keep me better informed. Won’t you?”
He lifted his eyebrows as he looked at me over the curve of his nose. “You’re referring to Mr. Lohmann, I presume?”
“
Edward
Lohmann? Retired Hunter? Living in San Diablo? Yeah,” I said snippily. “I’m referring to him.”
“Go home, Kate,” he said, which really wasn’t the response I was looking for. “I assure you I withheld no useful information from you.”
“Larson—”
He held up a hand and I shut up, but continued to glare at him, feeling a bit like a petulant child. “I’ll tell you everything I know about Eddie Lohmann tomorrow. Right now, it’s late. I have a trial commencing at nine, and I’d like to conduct a bit of research before I turn in. Besides, you have a family to attend to in the morning. I presume you’d like to sleep.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. He was right, but I wasn’t going to say it out loud.
“Trust me, Kate,” he said. “Edward Lohmann is at least forty years your senior, feeble, and of no use to anyone, much less himself. I’m happy to give you the details tomorrow, but right now I think we should leave.”
I nodded, albeit somewhat grudgingly.
“Good. And I suppose I don’t need to say that you shouldn’t have come tonight. That your skills are not up to snuff and that you could have come to harm.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t need to say that.”
Despite the shadows, I’m pretty sure I saw him smile.
I cocked my head toward the demon carcass. “What shall we do with that?”
He waved a hand. “I’ll take care of it. Go. Go home, Kate.”
I swallowed, wanting to argue, but somehow not finding the words. I left him to deal with the body and headed back through the dark to the van. I drove home on autopilot, not even thinking about where I was going, and when I pulled into my garage twenty minutes later, his words still echoed in my head.
He was right, of course. My skills sucked (although I think I’ve been doing pretty darn well). But I’d had no other choice. Knowing the dog was out there, I couldn’t have not come.
I parked the van and reached over to grab my purse, pausing in mid-reach as I realized I’d forgotten to pick up milk to replace the gallon I’d dumped down the drain.
Damn.
I was just about to start the van up again and head down to the 7-Eleven when there was a tap at the passenger window. I actually yelped, wondering what I was going to tell Stuart.
Turns out it wasn’t a problem. Laura, not Stuart, was standing next to the van. I turned automatically to look behind me, and for the first time noticed her car parked across the street. How long had she been waiting there?
I clicked the lock and waited for her to climb in, concerned by the expression on her face. Not anger or fear. Betrayal, maybe? “Laura? What is it?”
She lifted her eyes to meet mine, and my heart skipped a beat.
“That boy,” she whispered, and I realized she’d been following me. “Oh, God, Kate. Judge Larson killed that boy.”
As soon as I had
Laura seated on the sofa in Stuart’s study, I poured us each a glass of red wine, then shut the door, taking one last listen to the house before I did so. All quiet. Good.
I turned back to her and passed her the glass. She downed half of it, then closed her eyes. For a moment I thought she’d fallen asleep on me (it
was
almost two), but then she lifted her head and drew in a breath. “What’s going on, Kate?”
“It’s kind of complicated.” I squinted at her. “Why were you there?”
“Kate! I saw a boy murdered.
What in the hell is going on?
”
“Right,” I said. “You’re right.” I ran my fingers through my hair, not sure where to begin. “Why don’t you tell me what you saw?”
She shook her head just slightly. “Oh, no. I want the whole story. I can’t just sit back and—”
“You’ll get it,” I said. “I promise.” I meant it, too. Now that my initial shock had worn off, I realized I wanted to tell her. More than that, I think I
needed
to tell her. I needed a confidante, a friend. Larson couldn’t really fill that role, and for a lot of reasons, I couldn’t turn to Stuart. I didn’t want him to look at me and see a woman who wrestled demons; I just wanted him to see his wife.
Laura didn’t look convinced. I took a seat next to her and held her hand. “I promise,” I repeated, in the same calm and reassuring voice I’d used when I’d had the sex talk with Allie. “I just need to know where to begin. Why were you even there?”
“I followed you,” she said after a brief hesitation.
“I guessed as much,” I said. “But why?”
She turned away, as if suddenly fascinated by the collection of windup toys Stuart kept on the end table. “I don’t know, exactly. You’ve been acting off, I guess. That fighting thing with the judge. And thinking more and more about Eric. And . . .” She trailed off with a shrug. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” I thought it probably mattered a lot, but I didn’t interrupt. “But then I was coming over here earlier, and I saw you backing out—”
“Wait.” I held up a hand, interrupting. “You were coming here? In the middle of the night? Why?”
Her cheeks flushed. “I was on my way to 7-Eleven to get some ice cream.” She avoided my eyes, and her cheeks seemed to flame even more. “I decided to swing by and see if your light was on, and right as I pulled up, you pulled out. I thought you might be going to the 7-Eleven yourself, so I followed, and then when you kept going, so did I. Mindy and Paul were already asleep, so I figured why not.”
I stifled a wince. If I hadn’t been so lost in thoughts about Eddie Lohmann, I surely would have noticed I had a tail. As it was, Laura’s were probably the footsteps I’d heard—then forgotten about the second I heard the screams.
“Okay,” I said. “I understand how you got to the alley, but I still don’t understand why you followed in the first place.”
She answered, but her voice was so low I couldn’t hear her.
“Come on, Laura. You know you can tell me anything. Just spit it out.”
“I-thought-you-were-having-an-affair,” she said, so fast her words almost sounded foreign.
“An affair?” I turned the word over in my head. “What is it with you? That’s the
second
time you’ve said that, and
no
. What started this?”
She picked at a threadbare spot on her jeans. “Late nights out of the house. Change in behavior. You know.”
“You saw me doing the fighting thing
once
. I left the house late at night
once
.” My voice was getting shrill, but I couldn’t seem to bring it down a notch. “That’s hardly a pattern. Why did ‘affair’ suddenly pop into your brain? It’s not as if—”
And that’s when I realized. I sat back. “Oh, no, don’t tell me. Is Paul . . . ?” I trailed off. I couldn’t bear to ask the question.
“I think so,” she whispered. She drew in a breath, then rubbed the back of her hand under her eyes. After a second she flashed me a shaky smile. “Of course, I haven’t managed to catch the bastard yet. He’s too clever a business-man for that. But a woman knows these things.”
“You could be wrong,” I said. “You were wrong about me.”
“Yes, but I’m not sleeping with you.” She laughed then, the sound harsh. “Of course, I’m not sleeping with Paul, either. And as for you, you might not be having an affair, but you are up to something. What?”
“Laura, come on.” I shifted on the couch, crossing one leg under me so that I was facing her straight on. “I said I’d tell you, and I will. But if you need to talk . . .”
“No.” She shook her head as if she needed to reinforce the idea. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve already talked about it to myself ad nauseum. All I want now is something that will take my mind off of it. Honestly, I think the story behind a federal judge murdering a boy in an alley will do the trick. Add in the fact that my best friend was right there wrestling some freak-of-nature dog, and I’m perfectly willing to believe I won’t give a shit about Paul or his little whore for at least twelve more hours.”
“Actually,” I said, “the judge didn’t murder a boy. It’s something completely different. In fact, I think my story may well earn you a full twenty-four hours of non-Paul thoughts. Maybe even more.”
“At last,” she said, “some good news. Bring it on.” And for the first time that night, Laura actually smiled.
By the time I finished
telling her my story, Laura was no longer smiling. In fact, she looked a little shell-shocked. Also, though, she looked intrigued. “You’re kidding me, right?”
I shook my head. “Sorry.”
She closed her eyes and drew in a breath, then let it out slowly.
“Laura?”
“I’m okay. I just . . .” She shook her head. “So that shimmer I saw above the boy? That was the demon leaving?”
I nodded.
“Wow.” She licked her lips. “When that dog—that thing—died . . . I guess I knew then that something pretty freaky was going on.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d lived with this knowledge almost my whole life, and I’d never told anyone before. To me, this was just the status quo, and while I tried to see this new reality through Laura’s eyes, I was pretty sure I was failing miserably.
She pulled her feet up onto the couch and hugged her knees. “So Judge Larson is a Demon Hunter, too?”
“Not exactly. He’s like a mentor. He does the research while I do the dirty work.” I grimaced, thinking of the bugs in the cathedral basement. So long as Larson kept his day job, my definition of “dirty work” was expanding.
Her brows lifted. “He looked pretty down and dirty in the alley.”
She had a point. “Some
alimentatores
have the street skills to go along with the book skills. I guess Larson’s of that ilk.”
“You guess? Haven’t you worked with him before?”
I shook my head. “I only met him after the demon came through my window.” I made an apology face. “I lied about meeting one of Eric’s friends. As far as I know, Eric never laid eyes on Larson.”
She didn’t seem too perturbed by the lie. “Okay, so the guy that Larson killed was a demon living in the body of a dead person.”
“Right.” I’d given her the brief rundown of how it works, and now she was giving it back to me just like a prize pupil.
“And you were fighting with what?”
“Mythology calls them hellhounds. Huge mastiffs that do a demon’s bidding. Nasty creatures. Smell bad, too.”
“When you stabbed it . . .” She trailed off with a shiver.
“Laura?”
“I’m fine.” She finished off her wine. I filled her glass back up. “It’s all a little much.”
“For me, too,” I said. “I thought the most I’d have to deal with this year was boyfriends and potty training.”
“God, I don’t know which is worse. Demons, or trying to get a toddler out of diapers without losing your sanity.” She half-laughed, but it died quickly enough. “That dog . . . um, where exactly did it go when it . . . when it . . .” She waved her hand. “You know. When it went away.”
I knew what she meant. The dog had disappeared in a swirl of flame. No ashes. No charred bones. Just gone. “I’m not sure. Hell, I assume. Thankfully, I have no personal knowledge.”
Her laugh sounded a little nervous. “Yeah. That’s good.”
“Laura.” I took a sip of my wine before taking a deep breath. “Are we okay? I mean, Stuart doesn’t know because . . . well, because it’s a rule that I’m not supposed to tell. But obviously, I’m not strictly adhering to the rules here. I just don’t want him to see me as some sort of ninja mom, you know? And I don’t want you to see me that way, either. You’re my best friend. Without you I’d have no one to talk to during the days except a two-year-old, and all my cultural references would be from Disney or Nickelodeon.”
“Nice to know where I rate,” she said, but she was smiling.
“You know what I mean.”
“We’re fine,” she said. She took my hand and squeezed. “This is going to take some getting used to, but you’re still the same Kate. Although . . .”
“What?” I asked, instantly alarmed.
Her smile was devious. “You’re no longer a stay-at-home mom. Kate Connor, you have a day job.” She frowned. “Or a night job. I’m not really sure about that.”
“Either,” I said. “Demons come out during the day, too. They just like the night better. Besides, I’m filling the days with research.”
“Right. To figure out what Gildamish is looking for.”
“Goramesh.”
“Yeah, him. Do you have any leads?”
“Nothing concrete. We know the other locations Goramesh ravaged looking for whatever. And we think that bones may be involved. We just don’t know exactly what ‘whatever’ is.”
“I could help.”
I raised my eyebrows. “What? How? For that matter, why?”
“I want to,” she said. “I need a day job, too. Otherwise, what else am I going to do all day except sit around thinking up creative ways to castrate Paul?”
She had a point. “I don’t know what you could do,” I said. “I could use the research help, sure, but if you go with me to the archives, I’m afraid . . .” I shrugged, not wanting to voice my fear.