The Demon’s In the Details (Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom #9)

Chapter 1 Kate

KATE

I’d told myself it wouldn’t happen again.

For that matter, I’d told Eric it wouldn’t happen again.

And yet there I was in a cemetery, pinned against a tomb at two in the morning with my dead husband’s hands pressing me back against the stone, his lips dangerously close to mine—and my living husband’s ring still on my finger.

To be fair, the situation wasn’t quite as scandalous as it sounds. For one, Eric isn’t actually dead anymore. Well, technically, his body is dead and buried, but his soul has taken up residence in the very alive body of David Long, a former high school chemistry teacher turned fellow Demon Hunter.

So while the man currently pinning my wrists above my head might not look like my first husband, he’s not a rotting corpse. Far from it, actually, since David’s the kind of dreamy teacher who’d been the subject of many a student crush.

For another, this isn’t a romantic encounter.

This is work. Or it had started that way.

We’d gone out just before midnight to follow up on a lead about a nest of demons set up in an apartment complex near the beach.

We’d found the nest. And, yes, it was full of demons.

To be precise, the nest had been comprised of six demons who—as the self-described leader told us—weren’t interested in that “whole rampagey scene.” On the contrary, these demons wanted only to chill.

More specifically, they wanted to chill with gummies and old episodes of SpongeBob.

We could have killed them just for being useless, but when you got right down to it, who among us had never gotten sucked into the dramatic allure of Bikini Bottom? So, much like a benevolent cop, we’d given them a pass, then decided to take advantage of being out to do some training.

That’s how we’d ended up in the cemetery behind the Greatwater Mansion.

As for how I’d ended up with Eric pinning me tight?

Well, that’s my own damn fault. We’d been running scenarios, with me playing the role of hunter and Eric playing the somewhat ironic role of demon.

I’d sworn I wouldn’t let him catch me, but I screwed up and ended up trapped.

And the fact that my heart was now pounding, and my breath was becoming more and more shallow had absolutely nothing to do with forbidden desire and everything to do with these impromptu training exercises.

Really.

My name is Kate Connor, and I’m a newly promoted Level 7 Demon Hunter with Forza Scura, a secret arm of the Vatican tasked with hunting demons and other nasties.

I used to be a stay-at-home mom to my teenager and my preschooler, but that life went haywire several years ago after a demon burst through my kitchen window and pulled me back in from retirement.

I’m still Mom, and I still stay at home, but now I’m the headmistress at Forza’s California-based, first not-on-site-at-the-Vatican school for Demon Hunters in Training, and home is the spooky old mansion overlooking a cemetery that serves as Forza West.

Eric and I had met and grown up together in the original Forza training center hidden deep under the Vatican, and it’s both an honor and a still somewhat terrifying reality that I’m now in charge of training the next generation.

That, however, is not my immediate problem.

“Yield,” Eric said, his warm breath tickling my ear.

I tilted my head back to meet his eyes, then pushed forward. I saw raw heat light his expression and felt that familiar wave of delicious tension cut through me.

“Kate,” he murmured.

“Eric,” I whispered at the same time as I hooked my ankle behind his knee and twisted hard to the left, an action that broke his grip and sent us both tumbling onto the damp grass between the Whitmore family plot and a crumbling angel who’d seen better days.

We rolled twice before I ended up on top, my forearm pressed against his throat.

“You were saying?”

He grinned up at me, not even slightly concerned about his compromised position. “I was saying that you fight dirty. I like it.”

I smirked. “I fight to win. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” His eyes searched my face in the moonlight. “I guess that depends on what you’re trying to win.”

I pressed harder against his windpipe. “We’re sparring, David. Not philosophizing.” I used his new name as a reminder—to both of us—that we are no longer a couple. His whole dying thing—and my second marriage—had firmly put the kibosh on that. Well, except for that one little fall off the wagon...

In one quick move, he grabbed my hips and easily flipped me, reversing our positions with the kind of move that would’ve made Marcus—the head trainer at the school—assign me hours of extra defensive practice.

Because now Eric was the one on top, his body aligned with mine in a way that felt victorious on a number of disturbing levels.

“Definitely not philosophizing,” he said in a soft murmur. “This is something else entirely.” His lips were so close to my ear I felt the tickle of his breath all through me.

“Get off me,” I said, my voice shakier than I wanted.

“Make me.”

I could have. We both knew I could have. A sharp knee to the groin, an elbow to the temple, a strategic bite if things got desperate. But I didn’t move, and that was the problem, wasn’t it? That was the whole damn problem.

“Eric.” His name came out half-warning, half-plea. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” He lowered his head, his lips brushing my ear. “Don’t tell you the truth? Don’t remind you of how good it felt being together last year?”

I shook my head. “That was a mistake, and we both know it.” Last school year, my husband Stuart had been in a coma-like state after throwing himself into the middle of a demonic ritual to save my and Eric’s daughter, Allie, from being taken over by Lilith, a seriously dangerous demon who—at least for now—seemed to have disappeared back into the ether to lick her wounds.

Hopefully, she’ll stay hidden under her covers for at least a century. God knows, I’ve had enough of her.

Stuart had been like that for months, but he’s come out of the coma now, albeit a bit different.

Sure, he’s doing a stellar job as the school’s Bursar and top admin guy, but when he’s not working, he drifts.

Sits in a room and stares at nothing. He responds when spoken to, but always with that half-second delay—like he has to come back from somewhere far away just to hear me.

I tell myself it’s because the prophetic visions take a huge toll on him, and I believe it.

But I also worry about our marriage. Because despite being awake and healthy for months now, he hasn’t made a move to touch me and barely returns my kisses.

I’ve called him out on it—and he admits it—but he says he’s in “a different place.” That it has nothing to do with me, and he’s “trying to get his head on straight.”

All of which breaks my heart. And which I never, ever, should have told Eric. We’d had one lapse—one—when I’d been certain Stuart would never come out of the coma. It had been warm and wonderful—and at the moment I very much regretted it. Mostly because Eric wants more.

And yeah, so do I.

But it’s not happening. It is so not happening.

“He’s still my husband,” I said, giving Eric’s chest a shove, but it was a pathetic effort. “The visions are hard on him. You have no idea what it’s like to have that kind of thing suddenly thrust on you.”

Eric laughed—actually laughed—and the sound vibrated through both our bodies, making me scurry to stand up.

“Katie. Sweetheart,” he said, rising, too.

“I had a demon inside me for most of my life. I’m living in the body of another man.

And I was pretty much controlled—and seduced—by one of the vilest demons to ever exist. Trust me when I say that I sympathize with Stuart.

But that doesn’t mean I’m conceding his victory. ”

I crossed my arms and stared him down. “He’s my husband. I think that makes him the winner by default.”

“I had that title first,” he said, taking a step closer.

“And maybe you’d still be cast in that part if you hadn’t kept so many damn secrets and, you know, died.”

He put a finger under my chin and tilted my head up so that I was forced to look him straight in the eye. “Fair enough,” he said. “But the competition isn’t over.”

“It is,” I shot back. “And so is tonight’s training.” I pressed my palms against his chest and shoved him backward.

Atop the cliff on the far side of the cemetery, the spooky old Greatwater Mansion—now the Forza West Academy—loomed over us, its smattering of lit windows giving it an eerie glow in the coastal fog.

“Kate.”

I shook my head. “No. This conversation is over. Stuart is my husband, and he’s literally going through hell. I’m not going to leave him.”

“Not even if you wanted to,” Eric said, and my stomach twisted from the truth buried in those words.

“Maybe we can find time to train again tomorrow before the new kids arrive,” I said. “Then we can pick it back up on a daily basis once they’re all settled in.”

After a forced semi-closure of the school following a harrowing—and educationally disruptive—demonic showdown, we were finally back in business, and the semester would officially start in just a few days.

“He isn’t, you know,” Eric said, his voice low.

“What are you talking about?”

“Stuart,” he said, the tone in his voice making me shiver. “He’s not your husband anymore. Hell, he’s not even Stuart Connor. Not really. And you know it, too. This world changed him. I know a bit about what that’s like.”

I shook my head. “He’s not you. No one experimented on him. He sacrificed himself for Allie.” I blinked back tears. “He doesn’t deserve what he got.”