The Demon Hunters (2 page)

He sniffed at the doorstep and his
ears perked a little. He must have found the scent.

I kept urging him, trying
to get him excited. “Cat, Mac!
Big
cat!”

After a few minutes, he was whining at
the door.

“
Yes! Cat, Mac! Get the
cat!”

Little yips interspersed the whining
and snuffling, and he started scratching. Not one of those painted
metal types, but good old-fashioned wood, the door didn’t stand a
chance. Tiny slivers of paint and wood peeled off under Mac’s
attack. The more I encouraged him, the louder and more frantic he
got until he made quite a racket. I hoped the guy upstairs would
not turn on his intercom and hear my voice, but there’s a specific
sound to an active intercom even when no person speaks, a dead-air
sound, and I didn’t hear that.

The door at the top of the stairs
opened and a pair of feet in gray slippers appeared on the top
step. I backed away across the alley, into the doorway of a corner
boutique in the next block.

I didn’t like the next stage. Mac was
on his own. Sure, Royal could do the speed-demon thing, whip in and
take Mac out of here, but I don’t like to take chances where my dog
is concerned.

Peering around the corner, I watched
as the door opened and a man came out. Five-eight, long red hair
and a goatee, he wore a pair of blue and white checkered pajamas.
Mac tried to get past him, but he blocked the dog with his foot.
“What the fucking. . . ?”

Mac pushed his head between the legs
and doorframe. The guy stepped away, edging out in the street,
pulling the door ajar behind him. “Get out of here, you little
rat!”

Mac took no notice, the guy might not
have existed. He focused on the cat he believed to be his
legitimate prey. He lunged at the door.

The redhead stepped back, bumping the
door open a little more. He yelled at my dog. “Get the fuck out of
here, you stupid mutt!”

If there’s one thing Mac hates worse
than cats, it’s being threatened. He recognized the tone. Terriers
are fearless. They literally do not perceive any distinction in
size or bulk. Something stood between him and a cat and that
something threatened him. Mac didn’t hesitate, he
attacked.

“
Oh my god, I am so sorry!”
I exclaimed, trying to sound sincere as I rushed across the alley.
“I only took my eyes off him for a second!”

The guy clung to the doorframe with
both hands and Mac attached to his ankle, wobbling as he tried to
keep his balance, swearing up a storm. He tried to shake Mac off.
That must have hurt.

“
Get it off me!”

“
Calm down and hold still.
I can’t do anything with you shaking him around.”

I squatted next to Mac. “Mac, bad boy.
Let him go.”

Mac didn’t know what I talked about.
Tell him “drop it!” and he’ll eventually open his mouth, but he
didn’t hear those words from me. He snarled, a deep throaty snarl
muffled by the guy’s thick socks.

“
Get him off me you stupid
bitch or you’ll both be sorry!”

I anticipated anger and I’ve been
called a lot worse, so my affront was pure pretense. I straightened
to my full height and put ice in my voice as well as my eyes. “Are
you threatening me?”

He calmed a little and stood still.
“No. But if I have to hurt him to get him off, I will,” he said
through gritted teeth. “I have a right to defend
myself.”

Something went between me and the
redhead. If you saw a demon move at full speed, it would be just a
blur, then you’d tell yourself you imagined it. The door banged
open and the guy staggered. I swayed a little.

I squatted beside Mac again. “You’re
right, and I apologize. If you stand still I’ll get him
off.”

I talked to Mac, who still took
absolutely no notice of me.

Another waft of air. I glanced over my
shoulder. Royal stood across the street holding a Day-Glo-pink cat
carrier.

“
Mac, drop it!”

MacKlutzy slowly opened his mouth. I
scooped him up in my arms.

The guy backed in the doorway. He
hoisted his leg by the ankle and peeled back the sock. “I could sue
you.”

I picked tiny bits of sock fluff from
out of Mac’s teeth. “Oh, sorry, did he ruin your sock?” I didn’t
try to sound apologetic. I didn’t care how angry he was. Royal had
the cat.

He glared at me. “Keep your fucking
dog on a leash, lady!” Then he backed in and slammed the
door.

I walked across the street
with Mac in my arms. I didn’t hurry. Any second now the redhead
would discover his prize missing, but what could he do, report a
stolen, stolen cat to the cops? Come after us?
Yeah, bring it on, baby.

I stopped beneath the sputtering neon
sign.

“
Thanks,
Freddie.”

“
Up yours y . . . fuck. . .
.”

I looked up and presented my finger
before I walked away. To think, I was going to talk to the pharmacy
about getting that sign fixed. . . .

***

I ruffled the wad of
bills.
One
thousand
, in cash! Ecstatic to see
Pussywillow, Gertrude Hackenbacher doubled the reward.
And
she took half a dozen
business cards,
and
swore she’d refer us to her friends and
acquaintance.

Not a bad morning’s work.

Chapter Two

I watched Royal’s big red pickup drive
out of sight as it rounded the bend, and took a moment to look out
over Clarion, the town filling half the mountain valley I call
home. Clarion is technically a city, but “town” sounds homelier.
House lights were blinking on all over, and traffic made glittering
lines along Madison. The fading daylight let me see a few small
boats speeding over Long Meadow Lake, their wakes making patterns
in the distinctive turquoise-blue water, and I could just make out
the narrow sandy beach surrounding Hangman’s Point. The Black River
wound a gleaming trail across the valley, in some places the banks
just a mile apart where it contorted like a sidewinder.

I turned my back on Clarion, pulled a
sheaf of mail from my mailbox and walked the concrete path to my
front door. My house is a square of red brick, as plain outside as
in. The front door and wood window frames needed a new coat of
white paint, the grass either side of the house needed mowing and
would die if I didn’t water soon. I don’t worry about my half-acre
of land out back because the surrounding high brick wall hides it
from the street. The most I do out there is get the weed-whacker to
the grass and weeds now and then. I leave the wild flowers alone.
If they go to the trouble of seeding themselves back there, they
deserve a chance at survival. I do spray my fruit trees, because an
apple or pear every now and then is nice, and I love the Bing
cherries. My neighbors are happy to take what I don’t
use.

I unlocked the door, towed Mac inside
and slung my small overnight bag in the general direction of the
staircase. When I unlatched Mac’s leash and let him go, he
immediately charged into the kitchen.

“
Hello! I’m home!” I called
as I passed the stairs.

When nobody answered, I rolled my eyes
and went in the kitchen. Mac snuffled on the floor where his water
bowl should have been. I got it out the sink, filled it and put it
down for him. With a weary sigh, I sat at the kitchen table, adding
the mail to the pile already there. Most of them were bills, which
I could now pay thanks to Gertrude. I know people who don’t pay
their bills until they get red warning notes. I fret at the mere
notion of not paying mine.

I felt someone behind me. “Hi, guys.
Have fun while I was gone?”

Mac lifted his head from his bowl,
water dripping off his little beard, and snarled.

A
humph
noise behind me. I shrugged.
They were sulking and determined to let me know, but they’d come
around. I picked at a flake of paint on the edge of the table, a
big old thing with drawers under the table top on one side and
shelves on the other. I got it at a yard sale, but should have
tried my hand at refinishing instead of painting it white to match
the kitchen cabinets. The paint had worn through in some places and
chipped off around the edges.

I sorted through the mail, separating
bills from advertisements. I didn’t say another word. The silence
would eventually get to them.

The kitchen felt warm and stuffy, so I
got up, went to the big multipane windows and opened two of them. I
leaned on the sill, enjoying the cooler air on my face. Yet more of
the tiny green and white tiles, which cover the walls just above
the counters and surround the windows, needed re-grouting. If only
there weren’t so many of them. The damn things go all around the
kitchen.

“
Did you bring us
anything?” Mel asked.

I turned back and leaned against the
window sill. Mel stood on the other side of the table. Jack stood
near the refrigerator. You would not know from Mel’s tone she was
glad to see me, but I knew both of them were, no matter how they
pretended otherwise.

“
Bring you anything? From
the exotic metropolis of Merced?”

“
It’s what people do for
their friends when they take a trip,” Mel said.

“
Fine. Next time I go
anyplace, I’ll bring you back a snow globe or
something.”

“
Is that your attempt at
humor?” Jack said.

“
Yeah. We could stand all
day and look at the little white flakes on the bottom of the
globe,” from Mel.

Honestly, they were like a couple of
sulky little kids.

Jack sniffed. “Phil White let his dog
take a poop down the side of the house.”

I narrowed my eyes, not at Jack, but
because Phil thought I would not know his dog used my property as a
doggy dumping ground. And I couldn’t very well tell him my dead
roommate fingered him.

Yes, Jack is well and truly dead. So
is Mel. My dead and should-be-departed roomies, present in spirit
if not in flesh.

“
And I think Wanda Crebs is
having an affair,” from Mel.

Wanda and her trucker husband live
three houses down. “Really?”

“
The guy comes after dark,
parks outside the Patrick’s old house and walks to Wanda’s. Looks
real sneaky too,” Jack said.

“
How so,
sneaky?”

“
He looks up and down the
street, real careful, and comes up and around the back of Wanda’s
house. She must let him in the backdoor.”

What Wanda did was none of my
business, but I hoped Jack and Mel were mistaken because her
husband, Roland, worshipped the ground she walked on.

I yawned, looked over at the wall
clock. Almost eleven-thirty and my eyelids felt heavy as lead. “If
that’s all you got, I’m for bed. I’ll see you in the
morning.”

“
But you just got back!”
from Mel.

I headed for the stairs. “Night,” I
said over my shoulder, grinning, because I did bring them something
back from Merced.

Every time I returned from a trip,
they asked what I brought them, and I never had, but a couple of
things in Merced caught my eye. I knew I set myself up for future
harangues and sulks because now they’d expect a little gift every
time I left the state.

Maybe I tried to appease my
conscience. When I travel from home, I feel guilty, because I don’t
like leaving them alone for too long. They get depressed, and I
think they spend far too much time down in the basement, where
their killer buried their bodies beneath concrete and
dirt.

***

Of course I woke real early in the
morning, six in the morning to be precise. I peered blearily at the
alarm clock, trying to decide whether to roll over or get out of
bed. But the bathroom called me and my nose felt all stuffed up,
and when I got back in bed I couldn’t get comfortable. I rooted in
my dresser, found a halter top and pair of shorts, struggled into
them and padded barefoot downstairs. I’d take my shower later,
after my hike. For once, Jack and Mel were not down there waiting
for me. Probably still sulking.

I filled the carafe with water, the
filter with ground Columbian blend and started the coffee machine
burbling.

“
Hey, guys, I got
presents!”

I stiffened as Jack spoke from close
behind me. “What do we care if you got a present?”

I relaxed my muscles and inhaled the
wonderful aroma of perking coffee. “Not for me, idiot. For
you.”

“
You got Jack a
present!”

“
And you, Mel.” I walked
out to the hall and picked up my carryall. Back in the kitchen, the
terrible twosome stared at me from their position near the
coffeemaker. I jiggled the bag. “Honest.”

Jack dashed across the
kitchen and stopped short. His spectral form would have overlapped
my body if he’d been any closer. “
Don’t
tell me it’s a snow
globe.”