Chapter 4

He was nothing like I had envisioned. He was compact and dark, in a very sexy Antonio Banderas way. His black hair reached down past his shoulders and his eyes were the color of caramels. I felt myself caught in their hypnotic gaze while he studied me.

My type had always run along the lines of blonde, blue-eyed surfer dudes, but I suddenly found my blood rise to a silent challenge that seemed to form in the air between us.

I matched him look for look, slowly taking in the strong hands and muscular forearms. He was dressed in a brown T-shirt, blue jeans, and black cowboy boots.

I waited for him to say something.

He didn't.

I wasn't about to be the first to break the silence. I don't know how long we would have stood there staring at each other if his grandmother hadn't broken the spell.

"Good, you're back. Did you get everything on the list?"

He reached down and picked up a bag next to his feet and handed it to her. "I found everything but the nightshade."

I recognized the name. "Nightshade, that's poisonous, isn't it?
Claire turned towards me and smiled. "It can be deadly yes, especially in the wrong hands, but it's something I have found over the years helps with the burning."

My hands automatically went to my eyes.

"No Child, for your eyes I used a healing salve."

"Are you Wiccan?"

"My religion is much older—though some call my kind witch."
She turned and left the room. It was barely in my nature to be social, let alone nosey, but there were some puzzles swimming around in my head I needed to find the pieces for. It was time for straight answers to what I considered to be fairly simple questions.

My Mother would have been so proud, her years of social training finally kicked in. I stepped forward and reached out my hand, introducing myself, "I'm Friday Malone."

My hand was engulfed in his. "Van."

I waited for him to add his last name. Waited for him to comment on the fact I could now see. I would have even been happy with a general weather statement. Instead, we were back to staring and silence.
Only this time I realized he hadn't released my hand.

People have complained in the past about my lack of small talk skills but compared to this man I was a chatterbox.

The silence was really starting to get on my nerves. I let go of his hand and caved and asked, "So, Van. How's tricks?"

The question brought a smile to his lips, and I found myself smiling in return.

He took a step forward and brushed the hair from my eyes. "The burns look much better."

Up close those dark eyes were sprinkled with streaks of gold.

"I have something of yours." He held out a silver cross necklace and my dagger.

I took them and waited for him to step back.
He didn't.

So, I did. I took two steps backwards and tilted my head, considering him through narrowed eyes. I normally don't like people in my personal space. Especially not the mysterious, silent type, even if the touch of his hand had made my pulse beat a little faster than normal.

Something had been bugging me since I woke up.

"How did you kill the demons?" I asked, my gaze now back on those caramel eyes. My tone was a little more accusatory than I had intended and I felt a little guilty. After all, he had saved my life, but it was a fair question.

He took his time answering. "With your knife."

"No, I mean the ones on the roof. I tried my dagger. Silver wasn't enough to kill it." Then I realized what had been really bothering me.
"On the roof you were unarmed, so how'd you do it?"

He didn't answer.

I wanted straight answers, but it didn't look like I was going to get them. I was really fucken tired of playing games. "Who are you? And none of that good Samaritan crap."

"I'm no one important."

"What kind of answer is that?"

"The only kind you are going to get."

We stared at each other in silence again, but this time instead of feeling all warm and fuzzy about those caramel eyes boring into me, I suddenly had the inclination to smack dark and hunky upside the head. "You killed the demons on the roof?" I demanded.

"Yes."

Now we were getting somewhere. "How?"

He looked away.

I could see the family resemblance in his answers. Apparently, the evasion of questions was genetic. My eyes scanned his body. No burn marks visible around his neck or arms.

I lifted my shirt and exposed my stomach. Angry red welts crisscrossed my skin. "I have burn marks all over me, everywhere those things touched me. Why aren't you burned?"

When he still didn't answer I went on, my voice getting louder with anger, "It wouldn't burn one of its own."

"What the hell does that mean? You think I'm some evil bastard, with a kinship to those things?" He was now angry.

"Do you have a better explanation?"

"I think you better go."

He didn't owe me anything. He had saved my butt, but I didn't know him from Adam. That still didn't mean I had a right to stand there and interrogate him.

I slipped the necklace around my neck, tucked the dagger into the waist of the jeans, and headed towards the door. At the door I paused. I didn't want to believe this guy who had risked so much was one of my sworn enemies, but it was the only thing that made sense. I turned and watched him standing like a statue, arms folded in front of him. He was not looking at me, but everything about his body language shouted that he was still mad.

"Thanks, for saving my life."

"Sure, anytime," he answered, not bothering to look in my direction.

"Tell your grandmother thanks for breakfast." There was really nothing else to say, so I took my beat up, burned, and tattered ass, and headed out the door.

* * *

Headquarters was always an older house in some run-down part of the city. The constant late-night stream of people in and out would be nothing new to neighbors used to streets full of crime and drug trafficking. It was the type of place where people didn't stick their nose into your business. A far cry from Mayberry. The sad thing was I could use a little Mayberry in my life right now.

I took the time to check out the neighborhood before I risked heading in.

Most of the traffic was on foot, with the occasional bicycle. The few cars that were on the streets cruised slowly by with rumbling music causing sympathetic vibrations all the way to my hiding spot between a dumpster and a broken fence. The normal dirt and trash populated the streets. Groups of young men loitered on the corner by the liquor store heckling an obviously drunk older man.

Everything seemed completely normal.

I closed my eyes and muttered an invocation against evil, and the effects of my prayer echoed out from me. Like throwing a rock into a pond, the ripples expanded out away from me until they met resistance and bounced back towards me. What bounced back was full of a thoughtless cruelty that seemed to characterize neighborhoods such as this one, but none of the pure devotion to evil that meant there was a demon presence.

Gathering courage, I stepped out from behind my cover and casually approached the run-down white and green trimmed house which sat in the middle of the block.

The youths on the corner turned towards me and shouted half-heard japes, but when they saw where I was headed, they turned their attention back to the hapless drunk. The neighborhood residents had, long ago, learned to leave the visitors to that house alone.

I knocked on the door and was, in an instant, ushered into the safety of our chapter headquarters.

"Malone, where the hell have you been? You look like hell."

"Thanks, Brant." Brant, one of my DK compatriots, had been killing demons for ten years and it showed—from his premature salt and pepper hair to his tanned and lined face. For a man of thirty he looked fifty. His hazel eyes had a haunted quality to them. It was as though facing down evil too many times had sucked all joy and optimism from his soul.

Brant motioned to the left with his hand. "Coffee's that–a-way."
My addiction to caffeine was well known amongst my peers. I hadn't bothered to go home and change. I had made a beeline for the one place I knew I would feel safe.

I limped across the room and poured myself a cup of java. It would be my third cup for the morning, but honestly, I could have used a pot of the stuff. I still felt like shit. For a moment I just closed my eyes and took in the aroma, it didn't matter it had probably been brewing for hours. I took a sip and smiled. Brant had made it, which meant it was strong enough to kill a horse, but it was exactly what I needed. My body had been running on adrenalin too long and I felt weak and disoriented.

"No rude comments about drinking battery acid?" A puzzled expression appeared on Brant's face as he took in my appearance. The T-shirt was too big, and I had rolled up the jeans and cinched them around my waist.

He suddenly demanded, "What have you been doing?"

"Not much Brant. Just spent the night evading and killing demons."
His mouth dropped open and when he didn't say anything I continued almost out of habit, "How about your night? Watch any good shows on TV? Hey, do we have a paper? Me thinks I need to scope out the help wanted section." I didn't wait for his response. I pushed past him and headed into the office.

"Hey, Aunt Bea, how's goes it?" More normal smart-ass just rolled off my tongue. It was true a part of me was bathing in the normalcy and reluctant to talk about in detail what happened last night.

"Did you just call me Aunt Bea?" Lacey asked, a frown forming between her perfectly shaped eyebrows. She had always reminded me of a china doll with her golden hair, flawless skin, and tailored clothes, but I had seen this doll take down a man twice her size with no more than a flick of her hand.

Lacey motioned towards the kitchen. "We are out of supplies. It's Harry's turn to go shopping. Next time you're talking to the ape can you remind him to get his butt to the store?"

The name stopped me in my tracks. No more evading. Harry. I closed my eyes and finished off my coffee, but as I placed the cup down on the table, I realized my hands were trembling.

"Do you have a cigarette?" I asked trying to keep the tremble from moving its way up my hands and into my voice.

Lacey gave me an odd look. "You don't smoke."

"I do occasionally. Come on, I know you have a secret stash. I've seen you light up."

She reached inside her pocket and handed me a cigarette and a sterling silver lighter.

It's true I had technically given up smoking years ago, but I still smoked when I found myself under crushing levels of stress. I studied the pentagram engraved on the lighter and took a deep draw of tobacco. Did the Wiccan have a spell to ward off lung cancer? Cancer was the least of my worries at the moment.

I finally spit it out, "He's dead."

"Who?" Lacey asked.

"Harry."

She chuckled. "Why, did he try to feel you up? He did that to me last drills and I swore if he touched me again, I would kick his ass from here to Timbuktu."

"Lacey, he's dead. He crossed the river." In our line of work 'crossed the river' was an old term for the afterlife. I wondered if Harry had scored enough brownie points in this life to make it to the pearly gates. My mind shied away from any other possibility. "We were jumped by demons leaving the drills."

Lacey shook her head in disbelief. "That's impossible. We have safety measures."

I slammed my hand against the table. "Safety measures my ass. They didn't work for shit!" Since I started training, I had occasional nightmares of being attacked when I least expected it. Now here was my worst nightmare come true. "Was anyone hurt in the fire?"
"What fire?" Lacey demanded.

"After we were attacked, they torched the place."

"We don't know anything about a fire." Brant walked into the room and sat down. Really it was more as though his legs collapsed from under him.

"Why didn't anyone get word to you?" It didn't make sense. "Were Harry and I the only ones attacked? Why didn't someone call? Unless they couldn't get word out."

Lacey dove towards the phone and started punching in numbers. "No answer."

Thirty minutes of phoning and no success. There were forty-five members in our cell.

"Try Phil," Brant suggested.

She shook her head. "Voice mail."

"How many people went to drills last night?" Brant demanded.
I honestly had no idea. I closed my eyes and tried to envision myself back at practice. "Twenty, maybe twenty-five."

Lacey was now pacing the room, her hands at her temples. "If somehow they found out about the drills and they took out people on their way home, okay, but we just tried most of the list and no one is answering."

Brant exploded out of his chair. "Which means they somehow breached the whole cell!"

Lacey let out a breath. "Impossible."

Brant looked around. "So why are we alive?"

I answered with the only thought that came to mind, "Maybe, they haven't made their way here, yet."

Brant turned and picked up a pile of papers off the desk. He suddenly threw them across the room.

"What the hell," I demanded.

"Protocol. Scatter and destroy. We torch the place and go underground."

Lacey walked over to the window and picked up the black cat lounging on the sill. She cradled the animal in her arms, her eyes suddenly wide and if possible, her porcelain skin even paler than normal. "Brant, you can't set the place on fire, there are people next door."

I watched Brant get a can of gasoline out of the closet. He started to splash gasoline against the walls. "We'll bang on some doors on our way out. Our cell has been breached, we need to take immediate action."

In short order everything that would give any hint what really went on here, and the parties involved was in a gas-drenched pile on the floor. The computer had been scrambled and torn apart, the pieces added to the ominous pile in the middle of the room.

Brant herded Lacey towards the door and onto the stoop. I followed feeling like I had gotten out of one nightmare only to enter another. I was tired and exhausted. All I wanted to do was find a safe hole to crawl into.

Brant went back into the house. A few minutes later he came rushing out, followed by a billowing cloud of smoke.

He raised a hand to his forehead. "Do I have any eyebrows left?"
"Barely," I answered. I turned and scanned the street. It was completely deserted. No pedestrians, no young thugs at the corner, no thumping cars. Nobody but the old drunk sitting on the curb across the street grinning at us.

Something was definitely wrong. Every instinct inside me screamed to take cover. "I think we had better get the hell out of here." My eyes scanned the alleys looking for any movement. There was none. "The wildlife has gone to ground."

Lacey began to walk quickly down the sidewalk, "She's right Brant, something is very wrong here." Suddenly the hair on the cat's back rose, and the animal began to growl.

The old drunk rose from the curb and started heading towards us. He began to shout at us as he walked. His dry and rasping voice rattled across my nerves. "If you give yourselves over to us now, we will allow you to live to serve our dark lord. You are the last, no help will be coming for you. The only path left to you is to bow to him."

It was known that there were humans that worked with the demons, but I had never come across one of them before. I could not imagine the kind of crazy that must possess the old drunk to give his allegiance to a dark damned army intent on killing all of humankind.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash, and I turned to see two figures in dark coats and hats appear from behind the dumpster where I had been hiding earlier. "It's an ambush!"

The drunk laughed and raised his arms, "That's right bitch, and you took long enough to fall into it. Kill them!"

Brant's silver sword took the drunk in the center of its chest and then with a graceful movement Brant sliced the Demon's head off. Its smoldering body fell with a hollow thump to the pavement.

"That guy seemed rather chatty, we could've asked him what the hell was going on—no wait, that's right he's dead. Brant, did you ever hear of taking prisoners?" Lacey pulled out a black polished stick with a curved blue crystal at the top. A wand. A powerful weapon in the hands of a capable witch. "Ideas?"

"Someone better come up with something quick. Two more evil bastards three O'clock." One look at the oncoming army of darkness and I had to remind myself to breathe. Four more soulless had joined the hunt. They were circling us like a bunch of lions herding deer.
"Get to my ..." Before the words were out of Brant's mouth a shot of demon fire slammed into Brant's car parked just down the street.
"You were saying?" Lacey suddenly twirled, waved the wand, and threw her cat towards the closest demon. "Scatter!"

The cat made contact with the monster's right shoulder and dug his claws in. Both cat and demon howled as it swatted desperately trying to dislodge the feline. Nothing demons hated more than cats.

We were all in the open. The closest car was at least fifteen feet away. I could stay where I was and try to survive the raining fire coming down on our heads, wait for the demons to completely block us in, or I could get the hell out of there and preferably get behind something big enough to cover my ass while I tried to fight back. I turned and ran at full speed down the street. If nothing else, it would force the pack to separate.

I was so intent on moving as fast as possible towards the nearest cover, a big blue mailbox, that I ran into one of the demons. I was too close to do anything but tuck my shoulder in and charge. I don't know who was more surprised me or the creature. The move was completely unexpected and sent it reeling in the opposite direction.

Two more steps and I cleared the corner of the mailbox, slid to a stop, lifted my cross necklace, and instinctually pushed at the demon barreling down on Brant's blind spot. The demon flew into the street and fell flat onto its face.

Its partner turned towards me. The only thing visible beneath its dark hood was the odd reflective glitter of its black eyes. I raised the cross hanging again from around my neck and mentally fired. It went down.
Three more were crowding in on Lacey. She was fighting off the closest one, sparks flying from her wand while her clear voice sang out a lyrical phrase. I recognized it as one of her spells to ward off evil. The creature stopped and suddenly shimmered falling into a pool of ash at her feet.

Lacey turned to take on the next demon, and I realized she was going to need help with its friend. Whatever I was going to do, it was time to get my ass moving.

I stood and started towards her.

I got three steps when the shockwave thumped into my chest like a punch. I watched bits of glass and flaming wood rain down on the street. The house had exploded. Now between me and the others was a large chunk of the living room, complete with a burning couch. Through the flames I could see Lacey and Brant. No way I could make it back to their side without completely exposing myself. Whatever happened now I was on my own.

In the distance I could hear the fire trucks. I watched the creatures near me start to move towards the shadows, slinking back into the alleyways. The monsters began to scurry away. I figured it was a good time to get the hell out of dodge.

*****