Chapter 4
FOUR
Sometimes, I shock myself with the smart things I say and do.
Other times, I try to get out of the car with my seatbelt on.
—Bumper Sticker
Quentin tightened his hold to gain control of Amber completely and whirled around as the demon rushed them. The initial attack set fire to his back. He was thrust into the wall, barely able to brace himself with one hand, and knew he was out of his league. As the elfin queen struggled in his hold, he squeezed a fraction of an inch harder.
“Relax,” he said into her ear a microsecond before she went limp in his arms.
He lifted her and carried her downstairs toward the front door, police tape be damned.
“ Hurry ,” Rune said in his head, urging him faster.
“ Friend of yours ?”
“ Not hardly . But he saw us .”
Us meaning Rune. Quentin guessed that was bad. He got to the front door just as Amber started to come around. He fumbled with the doorknob but couldn’t get it unlocked. He turned back to the woman. Dora?
She hurried forward and tried to open it, forgetting she was incorporeal. Her hand slid through the knob, and she looked at him, confused. “I don’t understand why it won’t open. It’s not locked.”
Quentin bit down and took his now-struggling package back through the house to try the back door.
“I can’t leave,” the man said—the dead one carrying a clipboard. “There’s a barrier of some kind. I’m stuck!” The man was panicking, which was exactly what Quentin needed.
He ignored him and went to the door. It was immovable, too. Not locked. Closed from an outside force. Fuck.
“ Fuck is right ,” Rune said. “ Salt. Hurry. ”
Quentin felt Rune’s urgency like a tidal wave of apprehension inside him. Rune had looked up, and through the demon’s vision, Quentin could see the darkness descending around the house.
He looked at the woman. Her eyes were big and round, her fear palpable as his package began fighting him in earnest. He set the wildcat in a chair. Her hair had escaped the band on the top of her head. It fell in long, shimmering waves over her shoulders, and he stilled. She smelled like apples and felt like the sun on a winter’s day, radiating warmth. And her eyes. That crystal-clear blue that he’d dreamed of every night for five years. What had Rune called that color? Cerulean? She still had a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose and on her cheeks. Barely perceptible. But it was the heart-shaped mouth, pouty like a doll’s, that made his water in response.
Those lips thinned as she reared back and took a swing at him.
He easily dodged it, but she followed up with a left hook, clipping his chin. He grabbed her fist and glared at her.
“What the fuck was that?” she asked, forgetting to sign. He didn’t need it, but she didn’t know that. “You made me pass out.”
“Ms. Kowalski,” the man said to her.
She fought to get her fists back. “Kyle, now is not the time.”
“No, you need to see this.”
Quentin stood and turned on him, suspicion narrowing his eyes. But the minute he did, Amber gasped.
“Oh, my God,” she said, jumping up. He turned back toward her, and she urged him back around with her hands on his shoulders. Then she yanked him back to face her as she signed, “Your back. He hurt you.”
He was very aware. He just didn’t know how badly. He’d never seen a demon like that. He’d barely caught a glimpse, but its colors and markings were unusual. And it was angry. Very, very angry. What was the word? Enraged? “It’s okay,” he signed to Amber. “We have to get you out of here.”
“Me? What about you? You need medical attention.”
He frowned at her—how bad could it be?—then walked to a full-length mirror the woman had in a messy craft room next to the kitchen. Yep. Three slashes across his blood-soaked back. “Fuck. I love this shirt.”
Amber blinked up at him in surprise. “You’re worried about the shirt?”
He stared down at her, unable to believe that she was here. After all this time, she was right in front of him, so succulent he licked his lips involuntarily.
“ We understand now ,” Rune said. “ You did not tell us she is otherworld. We need to get her out of here .”
“ Otherworld ?”
“ She is of us. She is passed over and come back, so she is no longer human. She just doesn’t know that yet .”
Guilt assaulted Quentin so hard and fast, it knocked the breath from his lungs. He’d seen her attack. He’d done everything in his power to stop it, but the priest had been too strong. Too powerful. He’d felt like a fly fighting a Mack truck. “ Then what is she ?”
“ She is otherworld. A traveler .” Rune said the words like a lover. Or a stalker. Either way, he was getting far too familiar with the love of Quentin’s life. “ Salt! ” Rune reminded him. “ It will come for us. ”
Quentin felt it, too. The demon creeping closer. Which, again, was weird. The demon had killed several times over, and now it was slowly creeping toward them? When it could attack and kill Quentin and Amber with the snap of its fingers?
Then again, maybe Quentin’s reputation preceded him. That would be a nice change.
He pushed Amber onto the table, ignoring her appalled, “ Hey !” and grabbed the satchel he’d tossed onto the floor when he first came in. He took out a jar of black salt and sprinkled it on the floor around the table.
“What are you doing?” Amber asked.
“Black salt,” he signed. “And brimstone.” He had to fingerspell brimstone .
“Brimstone?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Sulfur. Brimstone sounds cooler.” It was another favorite word of his. He remembered it from when Amber had died. When hell rose to get the priest attacking her. He’d never forget the scent. Rune had told him years later that it was brimstone, and it had stuck. He’d written it down and prayed the priest was still choking on it to this day.
“Salt really works?” she asked.
“Depends on how my luck is going.”
She raised a wing-shaped brow. “Have you seen your back?”
He tossed her a playful glare. It was like they’d never been apart. Life with Amber was always so easy. Comfortable yet intense. Joking in between longing looks over steaming cups of coffee. And even now, he fell right back into their routine. Their banter.
“You want in here?” he asked the two departed.
They stepped into the circle before he closed it and then hopped onto the table with Amber. The man with the clipboard—Kyle?—had to push his glasses up his nose after the jump.
The woman looked at Amber. “I’m sorry I got you into this, Amber.”
“What? Dora, this is not your fault. This was a horrible thing that happened to you.”
The woman nodded, unconvinced, then looked up, her face full of concern.
Amber pulled her knees up under her chin, and Quentin longed to tell her the floor was lava like he used to. They were kids then, and now was hardly the time, but it had been a favorite game of theirs.
“Quentin?”
He stopped setting items on the table and turned toward her. She looked like a little girl, hugging her knees. She started to say something then seemed to change her mind.
Worried the rickety table wouldn’t take their weight, Quentin sat on it anyway, scrounging up the courage to do what he had to do next.
Amber turned to him and signed, “At least your shirt matches your jeans now.”
He looked down. “I like these jeans.”
“I do, too.” When he tossed a curious gaze, she said, “I mean, I like jeans. You know, in general. It’s just, yours have seen better days.” She poked a finger into a hole, her touch igniting him instantly. It was the wrong thing to do, and she knew it. She jerked back her hand and continued hugging her knees.
He gave his jeans another once-over.
“ She is a traveler. The demon will crave her .”
He stilled and asked Rune, “ In what way? ”
“ Her soul would taste like forbidden fruit to him. ”
Quentin didn’t quite understand. “ So, like illegal fruit? ”
“ No, it would taste like something succulent he can’t have. He shouldn’t have. But he will not be able to help himself .”
Quentin hopped off the table again, frustrated. “ Fucking English. Just say that, then. ” He took out what amounted to his only two weapons. The compass, which did way more than just give directions, and the dagger. “ Is she what is luring him closer? ”
“ Hard to say. He has seen us, too. And he has no reason to leave yet. He’s looking for something. ”
“ What? ”
“ His car keys. How should I know? ”
Quentin ground his teeth. “ You don’t have to be a smartass about it. ”
“ Sure, we do. We are frustrated. And this demon is a dick. ”
“ Aren’t you all? ” Quentin could practically feel the glare coming from his rideshare.
“What are you going to do with that?” Amber asked, her voice more lyrical than he imagined it could’ve been. It was soft and tinkling like wind chimes. She gestured toward the knife.
He decided to play Russian roulette by balancing it on his palm, flipping it, then sliding it back into its sheath. “Hopefully, not a damned thing.”
“How are you hearing me?”
He tripped over her words, then asked, “What do you mean?”
She tilted her head to one side to look into his face. “I didn’t sign that. You heard me.”
He tensed and chastised himself. He hadn’t even noticed. He was so shaken by her. So stunned. Like that kid Charley Davidson had rescued that dark night over a decade ago. The first time he saw Amber, he fell. She was gorgeous even then. Even as a skinny kid with tangles down her back. But it was her personality. Her… He dug out his notebook and flipped to the page he wanted. Her effervescence .
She frowned and tried to read the notebook, so he slapped it closed and returned it to his back pocket. “And how can you talk so well now?” she asked, undeterred.
“Speech therapy,” he said, signing the words.
“Bullshit.” She signed it. Of course, she signed it. It was one of the first words he’d taught her.
“What did you mean earlier,” he asked, changing the subject, “when you said Mrs. Rod…” He stumbled over the woman’s name and gestured toward her. “She is your client?”
“Mrs. Rodriguez, Dora, came to me this morning. I’m a PI now. She hired me to look into her case.”
“Like Charley?” Quentin asked, his surprise evident on his face, he was certain.
Amber beamed at him. “Maybe someday. She helped a lot of people.”
“She’s a god. Or have you forgotten?”
“No, I haven’t. But thanks for reminding me how inadequate I am.” Before he could reply, she said, “You couldn’t have cordoned off an area with access to a bathroom?”
He stuffed the compass into one pocket and a handful of black salt into the other.
“What does that do?” She pointed to the pocket with the compass.
“I have a few tricks up my sleeve. Just what were you planning on doing with the demon when you got here?”
Amber crossed her arms over her knees again. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve, as well.”
He leaned closer. “Unless you have a rocket launcher in your pocket, I’d say you were screwed from second one.” He held out the sheathed knife to her.
She straightened in alarm. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Use it, but only as a last resort. And whatever you do, don’t cut yourself with it. It’ll kill you.” He leaned closer. “The goal is to kill him first. Then sheath the dagger.”
“ Ay, Dios mio ,” Dora said, making the sign of the cross.
He’d seen a lot of that at the Vatican. He’d never seen proof that it actually worked, though—unlike the dagger he was trying to give the elfin queen. It was a cursed dagger, but still.
“Why?” Amber asked. “What are you going to do?”
“Get us out of here.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
He took out the rest of the black salt, pushed up his sleeves, and stepped out of the circle.
Amber jumped off the table and grabbed his arm, her skin warm against his. “Wait. What are you doing?”
“I’m going to try to contain the demon inside the house, then create a pathway for us to get out.”
“You can do that?”
Her blue eyes gazing up at him stopped his heart. In all the years he’d known her, he’d rarely seen her wear black. It looked good on her, but he got the feeling it meant something much deeper. He could only imagine what his sudden departure had done to her. How it’d changed her, especially after all their plans. And how she was risking her life for a departed woman—someone who was already dead.
They would talk more, but right now, he needed to get her out of this house. He looked down at the hands clutching his arm, then backed up. “I can try.”
She let go as if she’d been burned and wiped her palms on her pants. Straightening to her full height, she looked back at the dagger and then said, “You have five minutes.”
“Then what?”
She grabbed the dagger. “Then I’m coming for you.”
“I’ll only need three.”
Amber nodded as Quentin poured a salt trail around the entire kitchen. He did the same all the way around the first floor, creating one continuous line. He didn’t know if his plan would work since the demon was upstairs and not down, but he had to try, even if it used the last of his black salt.
“He’s…intense,” he heard Kyle say to Amber. Rune could eavesdrop from several yards away. He waited to hear Amber’s reply, but she said nothing.
Served him right. He’d hurt her, and she was taking his presence better than he would’ve thought. Then again, she was the most level-headed girl he’d ever met.
“I can’t believe this,” Dora said. “Why is there a demon in my house? How did it get in?”
Amber blinked and turned to the woman, dumbfounded. “Exactly.”
Quentin wanted to tell Rune to stop spying, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from Amber if he tried.
“What are you thinking, boss?” the man asked.
Boss? Amber was his boss?
“Why is there a demon here?” she asked. “Of all places. What lured him?”
Dora gasped softly. “I cheated at dominos the other night, but only because that trollop Harriet Clooney cheats every week. I just thought I’d give her a taste of her own medicine. Do you think that was it?” She pressed both hands to her chest in horror as Quentin rounded a corner in the hall.
Amber fought a grin. She lost. “No, Dora. I don’t think a demon has taken up residence in your house because you cheated at dominos. Unless, you know, the dominos were made from the bones of your enemies.”
She cocked her head. “I don’t think so.”
Amber laughed softly then sobered. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Dora.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
Quentin stepped back into the kitchen, using the last of the salt in the jar. His shirt was soaked through, and he could feel blood dripping underneath it. He watched Amber watch him, her expression grim when she looked at his back.
She tore her gaze away and focused on Dora. “Can you think of any connection you might have to the other two victims? No matter how minute. How strange you might think it.”
“Victims?”
“Yes, the other two deaths.”
“Do you mean Billy Tibbets and Angela Morrisey?” She eased off the table. “But those were accidents. Wait. So was mine. Are you saying they were killed by the demon, as well?”
“No!” Amber jumped off, too. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just saying there could be a connection.”
“Ms. Kowalski,” Kyle said as Amber inched closer to the circle, “be careful.”
Dora put her hands over her mouth in horror and tried to step out of it. When she couldn’t, she turned in a panic and started beating the invisible barrier with her fist. “Let me out! I want out!”
“Dora, please.” Amber eased closer, showing her palms but not touching the woman, as though she were approaching a wounded animal. If Amber were anything like Quentin, the woman’s panic would overcome her as well if she touched her. The emotions would transfer. “You have to stay inside.”
Quentin inched closer. The situation could turn volatile in a heartbeat. The demon must’ve figured out that something was up. A blur swooped into the room and frightened the woman. She turned to Amber, her eyes wide with fear, and shoved with all of her energy.
And the elfin queen flew out of the circle and into the teeth of an ancient, angry demon.