Chapter 4 #2
Until now, I’d been keeping Laura in the loop about my demon-hunting adventures.
Even though my status as an official Forza Demon Hunter is supposed to be a deep, dark secret, I’d been relieved back when she’d stumbled onto the truth.
I’d been unceremoniously pulled out of retirement, and I’d desperately needed a confidante.
At the time, no one else knew, and it had been like lifting an emotional weight when I told her everything.
Now, I was struggling under a different weight, and once again I wanted to share everything with Laura and lift it right off my chest. But how could I? I want to believe that Laura wouldn’t treat Allie differently, or even think about her differently. I want to think it—but how can I know for sure?
And even if I were one hundred percent positive, at the end of the day, it’s Allie’s secret, not mine. And that means that she gets to decide who knows.
“—all of it.”
“What? Sorry.”
“I said that I really do want to hear about all of it, but if you want to wait that’s fine, too. It’s just that with everything—and you being all the way across the globe—I haven’t even heard the details of how Eliza found you. She seems like a great kid, though.”
“She is,” I agreed, feeling a bit more guilty as I realized that they hadn’t even met until earlier when Eliza and Allie went to Laura’s house to get Mindy and head to the beach.
Granted, we only got home this morning, but my guilt isn’t limited to one little incident.
The truth is, that I should have taken the time to bring Laura up to speed during one of our many phone calls between Rome and San Diablo in the days following the near-apocalypse.
But those calls had mostly been quick check-ins, since I’d been running around like a crazy person.
Eliza had been in the hospital, Allie had filled entire days training with Marcus Giatti at Forza, and Stuart and I had worked hard to squeeze in a few hours of actual vacation.
On top of all of that, we’d each—all of use including Eliza—spent time with Father Corletti individually and as a group for the sole purpose of talking about Allie and what this new revelation meant for both her and our family.
I’m not sure if any of us had a major breakthrough—my takeaway was pretty much love my kid like I’ve always loved my kid, and expect the teen years to be a tad more dramatic than the version of hell I’d been anticipating—but it helped having Father to talk to.
In other words, I’d been both incredibly busy and emotionally drained.
Not to mention exhausted. Battling demons takes a lot out of a girl.
Add in a series of unexpected familial revelations, and I was craving neighborhood gossip during my calls with Laura, not a deep-dive into my own family’s craziness.
So, yeah, maybe my guilt about staying silent from half a world away was misplaced.
Now though…
Well, now I knew that the friendship rules required catching up, even if I did intend to keep a few secrets to myself.
For now, anyway…
“You’re telling me she got away?” Laura sat across from me at the kitchen table, her eyes wide with both shock and loyalty. “From you? How is that even possible? I’ve seen you in action.”
“Right? I could barely believe it myself, but she grabbed it and sprinted. Beautiful leather. Perfect stitching. And the strap was just the right width, you know?”
“So it doesn’t cut into your shoulder,” she added, nodding knowingly. “It sounds amazing.”
“It was the most perfect shoulder bag ever,” I said, still mourning the loss of the bag that Allie had spotted in one of the leather good stores we’d stumbled across during an afternoon of exploring.
“I seriously considered taking her down before she paid—I had my stiletto right there—and she was chewing gum. I could have totally justified it as honest confusion…”
“You’re a strong woman, Kate.”
“The sacrifices we make,” I said, and we both nodded sagely, then grinned at each other.
“Harumph.” Eddie’s snort drifted the short distance from his recliner in the living room. “You two aren’t nearly as clever as you think you are.”
“We aren’t? Are you sure?”
He made a noise that might have been a laugh, and I took another sip of wine.
Across from me, Laura was examining the purse I ended up buying for her without the aid of bloodshed. “As far as I’m concerned, this bag is brilliant,” she said. “It’s the perfect size, and the leather is so soft I’m tempted to use it as a pillow.”
“You haven’t looked inside yet,” I told her.
Her brow furrowed. “I thought it was empty.” She plunked the bag on the tabletop and peered in.
“Interior side pocket,” I said, then sat back feeling smug when she gasped.
“Kate,” she said, her voice low and a little awed as she pulled out the beautiful glass bottle, about the size of an airplane offering of whiskey, with a tiny gold screw top. “It’s lovely.”
“Back before my time, the bottles had cork stoppers. Screw tops are more practical. Less spillage.”
“Your time?” She held the glass up to the light, tilting it so the liquid inside moved back and forth. “I’m guessing this isn’t a sample of Rome’s finest grappa?”
“More like the Vatican’s finest. You’re holding an official Forza holy water flask.”
“Oh.”
I saw her hand tighten around it, and her face took on a reverential glow. “Is that okay? For me to have one? I mean, I’m not officially with Forza. Plus, not Catholic.”
“Father Corletti himself suggested it.”
“He did? Really?”
“Yup. He suggested I get one for myself too.”
Her brow furrowed. “You didn’t already have one?”
“Broke. Last assignment before I retired, actually.” I’d been heartbroken, but as I was leaving Forza, it felt symbolic, and I’d never asked to have it replaced. That Father Corletti both knew and suggested it had felt like a blanket of warm fuzzies around my shoulders.
“This is—wow. Thank you.”
“You earned it,” I said, humbled by how much the gift obviously meant to her. “Honestly, if you’d started a few years earlier, you could have trained as an alimentatore.”
“Yeah?” She leaned back, her finger tracing the lines of the bottle. “I’m always afraid I’m in the way. I mean, Cutter’s helping me with the fighting, but let’s get real, Lara Croft I’m not.” She tapped the bottle. “But this—Father Corletti thinking of me like it matters…”
“It does matter,” I said, as she trailed off in a shrug.
“You two getting sappy in there?” Eddie called.
“Maybe a little,” Laura answered, then lifted her wine as if to toast him.
“Phht. A little bottle? You get a silver stiletto with a flask in the hilt—now that’s a gift that matters.”
Laura almost choked on her wine, but recovered well. “You’re the man, Eddie.”
“And don’t you be forgetting it.”
I polished off the last of my wine, then topped it off, ridiculously pleased that Eddie liked his gift enough to get competitive with Laura. “Mindy got a bottle, too,” I told her. “Allie got it from the Vatican gift shop and filled it there. She put it in the inside pocket of the jacket.”
“That jacket is gorgeous,” Laura said, and I had to agree. We’d bought a far-too-expensive leather jacket for Allie after she saved the world, even though we’d previously told her the jacket was way too pricey and wouldn’t be coming home with us.
The store had a second almost identical one, and since Allie begged to get it for Mindy, we’d caved. Because, well … Saved. The. World.
Laura reached across the table and took my hand. “I should know better than to drink in the afternoon because it always makes me emotional, but I just have to say thanks.”
I knew she wasn’t talking about the gifts, and I could feel that guilt start to bubble up. “Laura, you don’t have to—”
“You could have made something up. That first night I mean, when I followed you. Or you could have told me the truth and then told me to stay away. But you pulled me in. You confided in me. And—and well, I get how much pressure you’ve been under, and it means a lot to me that—oh, hell, you know what I’m saying, right?
It’s just that I’ve got your back because you let me have your back, and I guess I’m honored.
Because your job comes with a lot of secrets, and you’ve let me in and shared them with me. ”
She grabbed a napkin and dabbed her eyes. “And now I’m going to smear.”
“I love you,” I said, because it was true. But the secret I was still keeping sat heavy in my gut. “You’re part of the team.”
That was true—I really, truly believed it.
Even Father Corletti did, taking it upon himself to praise Laura when he could have just as easily told me to discourage her involvement.
We were a team. And I couldn’t help but wonder if an NFL team would have a shot in hell of winning the Super Bowl if the quarterback kept vital information to himself.
I didn’t know the first thing about football, but even I was pretty sure of the answer.
Definitely not.
I frowned.
“What’s wrong?” Laura asked, as Eddie snorted in the next room, undoubtedly understanding exactly what I was thinking.
I shook my head, trying to scatter my errant thoughts. “Just wondering if any NFL players are demons. I mean think about that speed. That strength.”
Laura squinted at me. “I’d say that your conversational shift surprises me, but honestly, you stopped surprising me long ago.”
“Just a random thought,” I said, then pointed to her glass. “More?”
“If I do that I’ll end up on my couch watching an endless stream of TV for the rest of the evening.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“Unfortunately, I promised myself I was going to make a dent in the laundry and plan next week’s meals.”
The miraculous thing is that she meant it.
“What a coincidence,” I said. “That’s my plan for the evening, too.”
We both had a good laugh at that, since I’m pretty sure that me planning a week’s worth of meals really is one of the signs of the apocalypse.
“They’ll probably end up at your place first,” I said, referring to the kids as we headed to the back door.
Unless she happens to arrive in her car, Laura rarely enters and leaves from the front.
She and Mindy live one street behind us, and our properties are separated only by a fenced utility easement, gated on both sides for easier access.
Between Mindy and Allie and me and Laura, we’ve created a well-worn path between our two yards. “Remind Allie to text me.”
“Will do,” Laura promised as I hesitated by the French-style doors that lead into our back yard.
I was expecting Eddie to say goodbye, too, but when I turned back toward his recliner, I realized that he and Timmy had both left the living room.
I frowned, then heard a thud in the upstairs playroom followed by an “atta boy.”
“That man pretends to be a curmudgeon better than anyone,” Laura says. “But his sweet spots tell the real story.”
“True enough.” And every time I see my kids interacting with their faux great-grandfather, I say a little prayer of thanks for that day when I found the drugged up and crazy old man in the nursing home and brought him safely home.
“Is it okay if Allie sleeps over?” Laura asked. “Eliza, too, of course. Mindy mentioned they might come back and do a movie marathon. I guess Allie’s in withdrawal from lack of TV in English?
“Sure,” I said as Laura tugged open the door, and I followed her onto the patio. “Just tell them—”
Yeaaaarrrrrhhhhooooooowwwwww!!!!!!!!!
The hellish scream was accompanied by a fast moving, furry blob that brushed past my legs and tore into the house.
“What the—”
I ignored Laura, primarily because I’d been knocked flat on my back by another fast-moving creature, and my sharp, hunterly-attuned senses had already figured that out that I’d been attacked by a demon. The same demon that had scared Kabit, our cat, back into the house.
Now, the demon hovered over me, his putrid breath right in my face and his long, greasy hair brushing my forehead.
Even as I mentally kicked myself for not having a weapon—I really should know better by now—I physically kicked the demon.
Or tried to. He was straddling my hips, and my efforts to spin him over were less than effective, especially since he had his hands around my throat.
I brought my arms in and up in an attempt to break his hold, only to be surprised when he let out an earth shattering howl, slammed his palms onto the top of his head, then lurched up took off running across the yard.
Above me, Laura proudly held up the small bottle of holy water. “This stuff packs a serious—aaaaaah!”
I managed a kip-up, bringing me to my feet as another demon—this one of the spry geriatric variety—yanked her close, its bulbous nose wrinkling as it sniffed, then said, “It is not you—you are not the one who is new.”
He shoved her aside, and Laura landed with a thud on the gravel as I lunged, grabbing the demon’s upper arm so that I could spin it around and shove my finger—ick—right through its eye, releasing the demon and sending it back into the ether.
I didn’t even wait for now-unoccupied body to hit the ground. Instead, I took off running after the greasy-haired demon, all the while sternly reminding myself to keep a weapon on my person at all times. Either that, or get acrylic nails.