Chapter 11
ELEVEN
Visited hell.
Crazy shit went down.
Not allowed back.
—True story
Even after everything Quentin had put her through, Amber had still cared enough to search for his father. He didn’t deserve her. He’d never deserved her. And yet, here she was. The elfin queen. Showering him with a love he’d craved for so long that he’d forgotten what it felt like to be happy. To be content.
As soon as this demon was dealt with, provided he survived, he was quitting La Guardia Segreta and going home. They wouldn’t be thrilled about it, but they’d taken everything from him so he really didn’t give a shit either way.
But first, he had a demon to see to.
He held onto the elfin for as long as he could. The feel of her both alleviating the agony inside him and aggravating it. He wanted more of her. Ached for more of her.
“ We have loved her for so long, ” Rune said.
“ I know. ” Rune had loved her through him. He’d known it for years.
“ This demon will not be easily defeated .”
“ Are they ever? ” Quentin asked.
“ It will kill you to get to us. ”
“ That’s not going to happen. ”
“ Precisely. You must release us. You must hand us over. We can be the distraction you need to get the upper hand. ”
“ Fuck off. ”
“ It’s the only way. ”
“ It’s too dangerous. ”
“ The demon is too fast, even for you. ”
“ Thanks for the vote of confidence. ”
“ I call ’em like I see ’em, human. ”
“ And how many of you will die in the process? ”
“ How many of you will die if we do not stop it? ”
In all the years Rune had been hitching a ride, Quentin never knew exactly who he was talking to. The leader, surely. But what was his name?
“ Don’t go there, human. ”
Unfortunately, he couldn’t have a single fucking thought without the whole of Rune knowing about it.
“ Exactly. So, stop thinking and kiss her again. ”
Quentin laughed. His relationship with the elfin could get awkward. Ménage à million. They’d have to deal with that later. For now, he asked anyway. “ What’s your name? ”
“ What do you mean? We are Rune. ”
He pulled Amber tighter. “ If this goes south, I’d like to know who I’ve been talking to all this time. ”
“ You’ve been talking to Rune. We are one. We’re like the Borg that way. ”
“ Really? Star Trek references? ”
“ Really. Star Trek references. ”
Okay, then. It would have to do for now. They had to get on with this before someone accidentally freed the demon. He loosened his hold, and Amber leaned back, her gaze so full of love it physically hurt. She had changed so much, and yet not at all. He brushed a thumb over her bow-shaped lips, and she leaned in and kissed him. He buried his hands in her hair and tilted his head to deepen the kiss. To breathe her in. To memorize her taste.
When she finished the kiss with several soft pecks over his face and drew back, a look of guilt had shadowed her features. “I’m sorry. About raking through your memories like that.”
“Don’t be. They’ve been left to their own devices for far too long. They probably needed to be raked. Maybe even weeded.”
She laughed softly. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
He pulled on an old canvas windbreaker and pushed the sleeves up to his elbows. A windbreaker with deep pockets that had been preloaded with black salt. She shrugged into the same jacket she’d worn before.
“I have a hoodie in there somewhere.”
“No,” she said, hugging the jacket to her. “I like this one.”
“The rip down the center does give it that, what did you call it, hobo look?”
She giggled, the sound like sparkling water, and kissed him on the cheek. The fact that he’d never heard her giggle before today broke his heart. He’d been missing out.
“Let’s go kick some demon ass,” she said.
“Yeah, you get to stay in the truck, Rambo.”
“What? I’m the one who told you about Sarah.”
“You can help with her. Maybe knowing why all of this is happening will give us an edge. But when I have to face the demon, I need to know you’re safe. Thinking otherwise will only distract me.”
She blinked as she considered his words. “I guess. I certainly can’t move like you can. But maybe it won’t come to that. Maybe we can stop it through the website or whatever they’re using to learn how to summon it, which, seriously, what the hell?”
“Maybe,” he said, not believing that for a minute. “But I do agree. What the hell?”
“Can I bring the crossbow?”
“No.”
They went back inside the Tavern and spotted their table. Kyle had come back in, and both he and Dora sat there, but the lunch crowd had cleared out. Most of them, anyway. The man in the Hawaiian shirt was still there, reading a paper.
Dora waved excitedly.
Kyle sent him a glare and asked. “You okay, boss?”
Amber gave him a thumbs-up just as Sarah saw them.
“You’re back,” she said as she wiped the table down. “I kept your food warm, but mostly you owe me forty bucks.”
Quentin grinned. “Sorry. We had an emergency.”
Sarah eyed Amber, clearly noting her change of clothes. Her mussed hair. Her pinkened cheeks. “I can see that.”
Quentin took out a fifty and handed it to her as Amber asked, “Sarah, can we talk to you?”
She straightened in surprise. “Sure thing. Want to sit?” She gestured toward their table. The one that still had an old pair of sunglasses sitting on it. The ones Amber had put on Quentin. His eyes must’ve been black when she delved into his head. That would take some getting used to.
Instead of sitting in one of the empty seats, Sarah pulled up a fifth chair. Amber had been right. She could see Kyle and Dora, at least to some degree. They sat, and she looked between them, askance. “What’s up?”
Quentin decided to leave the diplomacies to Amber. He’d never been good at tact.
“Sarah, did you summon a demon to kill Billy Tibbets, Angela Morrisey, and Dora Rodriguez?”
Okay, then. Maybe the elfin wasn’t the best at diplomacy either.
Dora gasped and stared wide-eyed.
Sarah stilled for a long moment before sinking back in her chair.
A blonde woman came around the bar, combing through her bag as she walked toward the door. “I have a few errands to run. You okay for a bit, Sarah?”
Sarah nodded, her response automated.
The woman stopped and studied the group curiously. “Is everything okay?”
Sarah snapped out of it and turned to her. “It’s all good, Lori. We’re just catching up.”
Not entirely convinced given the look on her face, the woman pulled the strap over her shoulder and headed out. “I won’t be long.”
Sarah waved and then turned back to them. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course, you do. We know it was you. We just don’t know how. Or why.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “What does it matter? It’s not like you can prosecute me for summoning a demon.”
Dora made the sign of the cross.
Amber tilted her head in thought. “Technically true. But you need to be honest with us. Did you sic it on anyone else?”
She pressed her lips together to fight a grin, then shook her head. “No. Is that who’s here?” She pointed to the only two departed people in the room. “Are they going to haunt me or something?”
“Dora’s here,” Amber said. “Billy and Angela must’ve crossed over.”
Sarah laughed and shook her head. “So, they get to go to heaven? Is that it?”
Quentin noted her distaste. “You didn’t want them to?”
“No. I did not want them to bask in eternal bliss. If that’s even real.”
Amber leaned forward. “Sarah, what did they do? Dora honestly doesn’t know.”
“The fuck she doesn’t.” The woman Quentin had once thought so pretty became little more than a demon herself in his eyes. Ugly with hatred and vitriol.
Dora pressed both hands to her chest. “I don’t understand, Amber. I don’t even know her. What could I have done to her to make her hate me so much?”
Amber turned back to Sarah. “She doesn’t know you. What is it you think she did?”
A cryptic smile spread across the woman’s face. One filtered through resentment and cruelty. “Madeline Kemp.”
Dora’s expression morphed from confusion to doubt then finally to realization. “She’s Madeline? The little girl who disappeared on my bus route? But that was…that was over twenty years ago.” She clasped her hands at her mouth. “She’s alive? All this time, she’s been alive?”
Quentin and Amber watched as Dora’s emotions ran the gamut. At first, she was filled with joy, thrilled that the little girl who’d disappeared years ago was alive and well. Then the stark reality hit her. The fact that Sarah hated her so much that she’d summoned a demon to kill her. Tears pooled between her lashes.
“What happened, Sarah?” Amber asked.
“I was abducted that day, and that bitch knows it.”
Dora shook her head. “I don’t understand how she could believe such a thing.”
“You were abducted?”
“Of course, I was abducted. And my own mother set it up.”
Amber seemed taken aback. “How do you know?”
“Because I found the letters between her and the Gladwells.”
“The Gladwells?”
“The couple who abducted me. They told me my mother was sick and I had to go live with them. But my mother practically sold me to that crazy old couple as cheap labor.”
“No,” Dora said. “Pauline would never do that. And she really was sick. She died of cancer not long after Madeline disappeared.”
“Wait.” Amber held up a hand in a timeout. “What does any of this have to do with Billy and Angela?”
“It was all their fault. They lied to everyone. Said they saw me skinning a coyote.”
“Were you?”
“Yes, but they said it was still alive.”
Amber raised her chin, clearly upset by the thought. “Was it?”
The woman scoffed. “How is that even remotely relevant?”
“You thought they deserved to die because they lied about a coyote?”
“They also said I broke a little girl’s arm.”
“Did you?”
Sarah glared at her. “She took my doll. Damn straight, I did.”
“ Ay, Dios mio ,” Dora said. “Pauline was afraid of her. She tried to tell me, but… I just couldn’t imagine it.”
Amber went to grab the woman’s hand, then remembered she couldn’t. “I saw Dora’s memories, Sarah. I don’t know what you think happened, or how you think she was involved, but she did her job correctly. The cattle guard was down. She couldn’t get across.”
“It was a setup. I know damned well she was in on it. The cattle guard just happened to be down when the Gladwells were waiting for me? Not likely.”
Amber leaned forward. “Did they…were you hurt?”
“No. They just kept me on the farm. Didn’t let me go to school or have any friends. I… They died when I was sixteen. That’s when I found the letters. My mother set it all up. Said she was worried I would hurt someone.”
“How did they die?”
“That’s not the point!” Sarah slammed a hand on the table.
Amber blanched, and Quentin almost came unglued. He steeled himself, biding his time.
“No, I don’t suppose it is,” Amber said.
“ Ay, Dios mio ,” Dora repeated, then hugged herself and rocked.
“Are you okay, hon?” Amber asked her.
“What’s she saying?” Sarah asked. “How is she here?”
Quentin scrubbed his face. “This still doesn’t tell us how you did it.”
“Thinking about using it yourself?”
Amber pressed her nails into the palms of her hands and drew blood. It disturbed him, but she was focused on the psychopath in front of her. “You need to tell us, Sarah.”
“Why?”
“Because the demon doesn’t just kill the people you summoned it for. It kills the summoner, too.”
She stilled. “You’re fucking with me.”
“It’s a tad angry about being controlled.”
The fear on her face was genuine. “Yeah, but it’s not just me. Lots of people have used it.”
“Yes, and they’ve all died,” Quentin said.
She looked at him. “Are you even Deaf, or was that a ruse, too?”
“Sarah, how did you contact it?” Amber asked. “How did you summon it?”
“On the dark web. There’s a group that worships this demon named Sadeet. For five hundred bucks, they tell you how to summon it. How to basically get away with murder.”
Quentin took out his phone. “I’ll let La Guardia know. They can take down the site and figure out who’s behind it so they don’t do something like this again with another demon.”
“And how will they do that?” Amber asked. “Considering how gentle they were with you.”
He looked up at her, surprised. “You’re worried about the people who sell an all-access pass to a demon assassin?”
“No.” She crossed her arms. “I guess not.”
“ The house, human ,” Rune said.
Quentin watched through Rune’s eyes. Someone, a girl, opened the front door of Dora’s house. She pushed the salt aside.
“ Get ready, ” Rune said. “It’s coming .”
Quentin retrieved the dagger from the sheath he’d slipped into the back of his pants. He felt rather than saw the tendrils of ink slide across his eyes and slowly fill them. Unable to help that now, he took Amber by the arm and lifted her out of the chair. “It’s coming.”
“What?” Startled, she glanced around.
“My niece,” Dora said, looking out the window.
“She broke the circle.” He shoved her toward the door. “Get out. Get inside my truck. It’s protected.”
“ Release us, human. ”
“ No. ”
“ You will not survive. ”
Quentin drew in a deep breath and said out loud, “You fucking say that every time.”
“ And one day, we will be right. ”
“Yeah, well, today’s not that day.”
“Quentin?” Amber said.
He pulled her to him with one arm, keeping the dagger far away from her. It was much sharper than it looked and infused with an ancient and powerful curse. One slice could kill her. Or him, for that matter.
Despite his eyes, she rose onto her tiptoes, cupped his face, and pressed her mouth to his.
The kiss was magical. He drew power from it. Energy and warmth and light. Like the electric company, only hotter. Much, much hotter.
With a reluctance forfeited by urgency, he broke off the kiss, pressed his mouth to her ear, and whispered, “Run.”