Demon Hunting with a Sexy Ex by Lexi George (20)

Cassie paced the hallway, worry and dread gnawing inside her. Toby was out there, hurt or dying or dead, and Duncan and Evan had gone into harm’s way to rescue him. She should have gone with them. The not knowing was driving her mad.

“How long do you think they’ll be gone?” she asked her huge protector.

“In truth, I cannot say,” said Grim. “We do not know for certain that your friend Toby is being held in the cave. The werewolves could have secreted him anywhere. If that is the case, the hunt may take longer.”

“How much longer?”

Grim shrugged. “An hour . . . a day . . . a week. It matters not. Duncan will find him.”

“A week? That settles it.” Cassie grabbed her bag off the hall tree and yelled up the stairs. “Verbena? Shag your butt down here. We’re leaving.”

“Yessum,” Verbena said, padding downstairs to join her.

Grim frowned. “This is unwise. I was instructed to be with you at all times.”

“So be with us, but I can’t—I won’t—hang around here doing nothing.” Cassie gave him a challenging look. “You coming or staying?”

“Very well,” Grim grumbled. “I will accompany you, if you insist, though I feel certain Duncan would wish you to remain here. If it is your worry that the Skinners and the Randalls may return, I can protect you from that riffraff.”

“This is about me keeping my sanity.” Cassie yanked open the back door. “If I don’t get out of this house, I am going to lose my mind.”

Grim followed her and Verbena outside and across the yard to the Silverado, bringing a funnel cloud of disapproval with him. He can get over it, Cassie thought. She meant what she’d said—she either moved or dissolved into a weeping mass of anxiety.

The sickly-sweet odor of decomp hit her as she neared the truck. “Oh, dear,” Cassie said. “I forgot about poor Mac. Hold on.”

Grim raised his hand. “I can remedy the issue in a trice, if you will permit.”

“No, thanks,” Cassie said quickly. “My truck, my problem.”

The Silverado was her baby, and no magical super being was going to monkey around with it. She hurried into the garden shed and pulled on rubber boots and a pair of thick gloves. Clomping back outside, she grabbed the garden hose and a deck brush and went to work. She power-washed the truck bed, applied Clorox Clean-Up to the liner, and rinsed. The truck bed still smelled faintly of eau de corpse, however, and so she emptied a gallon of white vinegar onto the bed, waited five minutes, and rinsed again.

She inhaled. Pickled cadaver. Fabulous.

“That’s all I got,” Cassie said, jumping down. “I see a new truck liner in my future.”

She stripped off the gloves and boots, put them back in the gardening shed, and washed her hands with a bar of Fiona Fix-it odor-removing soap.

“Ready?” she said, slipping back into her cowboy boots.

The three of them climbed in the truck, and Cassie took the wheel. At the end of the drive, she turned onto the paved road that ran parallel to the river. Grim was silent, and Cassie gave her hulking passenger a nervous gander. She remembered reading somewhere that in monitoring active volcanoes, scientists observed a period of quiescence right before they erupted. Pathways became sealed. Pressure built up. The greater the blockage, the longer the quiet period, the more powerful the resulting explosion.

On the surface, Mount Grim appeared dormant, but little fissures of anger cracked his stoic demeanor, and rage and hurt seeped from him in a pyroclastic flow. His twin brother was the rogue. Grim had blamed himself for Gryff’s death, ostracizing himself for centuries out of grief and guilt. To find out that it had been for nothing, a sham, and that Gryff was alive and the betrayer must have been a terrible blow.

Cassie felt bad for Grim, but she wished Conall had sent someone less volatile. She was riding around with two-hundred-plus pounds of rocket fuel in her truck. Grim was chlorine trifluoride, terrifyingly flammable and ready to explode.

Verbena felt it, too. She sat in the back of the extended cab, quiet as a mouse. Cassie glanced at the girl in the rearview mirror. The poor kid was chewing on her cuticles, her wide-eyed gaze fastened on the back of Grim’s head like he was a bomb she expected to detonate any minute.

“So,” Cassie said, breaking the tense silence, “how’s Sassy?”

Grim’s stern countenance measurably softened at his wife’s name. “She is well, thank you. She is visiting her mother at present, planning our upcoming espousal.”

“I thought you two were already married.”

“We are,” Grim rumbled, “but Sassy’s mother is most insistent we repeat the process in church with a human priest. I do not mind. I would gladly marry Sassy a thousand times—nay, a thousand times a thousand—if she so desired.”

“That would be a lot of cake,” Cassie said. She kept her tone light, but she was more than a little envious. Grim Dalvahni loved him some Sassy Peterson. Must be nice, she thought with a twinge of wistfulness.

Once, she’d thought Duncan loved her like that, but he’d turned tail and run the first time they’d hit a rut. To be fair, it had been more of a ditch than a rut. She could still see his expression when he’d learned that she was a demonoid, revulsion and disgust etched upon his handsome face.

Looking back at it dispassionately and with the maturity of the intervening years, Cassie could see his side of things. It must have been a terrible shock to discover the woman you loved was the offspring of your age-old enemy. Scratch that. A different species.

Still, if he’d loved her, if he’d really loved her, it wouldn’t have mattered.

You got it wrong, toots, said the squeam. At the end of the day, you’ll be judged by how well YOU loved, not the other way around.

The thought made Cassie squirm. Duncan had told her that he’d returned to Hannah many times through the years in search of her. The Dalvahni were arrogant, implacable, autocratic, and supremely annoying, but they didn’t lie. If Duncan said he’d come back for her, it was the truth.

Duncan didn’t find her—couldn’t find her—because she wasn’t there.

Yep, you took off, the squeam said. Soon as you buried the children, you were out of here like a shot and across the pond.

Cassie had fled to Europe. She’d stayed there for decades, traveling here and there, apprenticing herself to various wizards to perfect her craft and licking her wounds. She’d returned sporadically to Hannah through the years on business matters, posing as this or that relative so the norms wouldn’t glom on to her, but she’d never stayed long.

No, it wasn’t. The Great Wall of Denial Cassie had built around herself was crumbling, and she could see things clearly now. The farm and Hannah represented loss and unspeakable pain. Home reminded her of Jimbo, Maggie, and Rose, and the fact that she’d failed them, failed her brother, and failed herself. Home reminded her of Duncan and the great aching void he’d left when he departed.

Staying away had allowed her to pretend that the children’s deaths were his fault, not hers. If she kept moving, ran fast enough and far enough, the past and guilt wouldn’t catch up with her.

When she did return, it wasn’t to the old place. She’d bought the land and house on the river, miles from the farm, insulating herself from her failings and the bitter memories. Cassie swallowed and faced a difficult truth. She’d run because she was a coward, plain and simple, and that made her ashamed.

Maybe if she’d loved more, loved better, things would have been different. Love is patient. Love is kind. Always hopes . . . always perseveres.

Duncan’s words shone in her mind, bright as neon. I was a fool, he’d said. I returned within a fortnight to beg your pardon . . . to tell you that I love you. That I was wrong to leave.

Duncan had used the present tense—“love,” not “loved.” With characteristic Dalvahni stubbornness and commitment to a quest, he’d never given up on her.

Two weeks. Two lousy, miserable weeks, that’s how long he was gone.

If she’d stayed, if she’d had the fortitude to face her grief and Duncan’s rejection, they might have been apart a few days instead of more than a century and a half. Oh, sure, they’d have had one humdinger of a fight. Cassie would have raged and cursed, and blamed him for the children’s deaths. She might have even sent him packing.

But he would have come back, the squeam said. Duncan will always come back. He would have besieged you, warrior that he is, returning again and again. Until he broke down the walls of your wounded pride and bitterness, until your grief and guilt were spent and you forgave him.

And herself. Cassie swallowed the lump in her throat. The squeam was right. Eventually, she would have forgiven Duncan. She wouldn’t have had a choice—love keeps no record of wrongs.

It made her sad, to think how things could have been had she been stronger, loved more deeply and had more faith, but it was too late. Time marched on. Things changed. She couldn’t go back. But there was Here and Now, and that was something. Cassie had learned to find joy in the day by scooping up little bits of happiness when and where she found them. Otherwise, she’d have drowned in sorrow.

Great sex wasn’t love, but it was something, right?

She waited for the squeam to argue with her. To tell her to go for broke and entrust her heart to Duncan one more time.

Nada. Radio silence. Superego out to lunch.

“What is our direction?” Grim asked suddenly, startling Cassie.

“I thought we’d run by Chez Beck’s so Verbena can get her things,” she said. “And I need to check on something while I’m there. The restaurant is a client.”

“What sort of trade are you in?”

“Supernatural security, mostly. I do other things—love, healing, and money-luck spells, road openers for people seeking a new path or job, and banishing spells for the troubled—but security’s my bread and butter. I offer plans for home and retail security. Anti-norm spells, disturbance alarms, and kith repellent are my biggest sellers.”

“Kith repellent?” Grim gave her a curious look. “Are not most norms ignorant of the kith’s existence?”

“The kith repellent is for the kith, not the norms.” She grinned. “We are the things that go bump in the night, and we know it. The kith pay good money to keep the booger bears out. Beck and Toby have been my customers for years, starting with the bar.”

“The watering hole formerly known as Beck’s?” Grim asked.

“That’s the one. The shifter bar was kith only. I installed anti-norm wards and spells to misdirect them so they couldn’t find the joint.”

“And your precautions worked?”

“Yep,” Cassie said with undisguised pride. “Toby did the rest. He was the bouncer. Nobody got past the Great Snozzola.”

“I do not understand this term.”

“Toby can smell talent.” Cassie guided the truck around a curve. “Or in the case of a norm, the lack of it.”

“I can see how that would be beneficial when one runs an establishment for supernatural clientele. Have you placed similar wards around the restaurant?”

Cassie shook her head. “No, Chez Beck’s caters to kith and norms.”

“Is that wise?” Grim asked. “It seems to me a combustive combination.”

“It is worrisome,” Cassie admitted. “Most norms don’t know about the kith, and we want to keep it that way. No shifting is allowed at the restaurant, and no magical shenanigans.”

“Prudent, but easier said than done. Your solution?”

“I’ve created a sort of dead zone around the property where magic doesn’t work.”

“Ingenious.”

“Thanks,” Cassie said. “It was a challenging job. Kith talent comes in all shapes and sizes, and the spells require constant maintenance and upgrades.”

“Your spells have no effect upon the Dalvahni,” Grim pointed out. “We come and go as we please.”

“All built into the program. Conall wanted it that way, and what the customer wants, the customer gets.”

“I misdoubt you could have done it, at any rate,” Grim said with casual arrogance. “The Dal are tricksome.”

Cassie would have dearly loved to burst his balloon, but he was right, dammit. The Dal were a magical law unto themselves, more demigods than supers. Take Duncan, for example. In one morning, he’d conjured new clothes out of the ozone and bitch-slapped an angry troop of weres and shifters out of their forms without breaking so much as a sweat. Impressive and damn sexy.

Grim’s stomach growled, and he shifted on the seat. “I am loath to trouble you, but would comestibles be out of order? I have not broken my fast.”

Cassie glanced at the clock on the dashboard and was surprised to see that it was almost noon. “Sure.” Executing a three-point turn, she headed toward town. “You hungry, Verbena?”

Verbena made a small noise from the back that Cassie took as assent, and in no time, they were crossing the river bridge and toodling down Main Street. Downtown Hannah was picturesque and neat. Oak trees lined the pristine sidewalks, the storefronts were freshly painted, and wrought-iron streetlamps dotted every corner.

She pulled into a parking place a few doors down from the Sweet Shop, and the three of them piled out. A bell jangled over the door as they entered. Viola Williams, the Junoesque owner, welcomed them with a smile. Miss Vi knew how to cook Southern, and she prided herself on serving the freshest locally grown vegetables. Her desserts were homemade: banana pudding, moist cakes with fluffy icing made from scratch, and pies piled high with toasted meringue. Her husband, Del, was a darn good cook, too, known three counties wide for his barbecue and the drunk sauce served on the side.

Pauline, their bony waitress, trotted over, her bun so unforgiving that she appeared to have given herself a face-lift. She showed them to a booth and plunked a huge glass of tea in front of each of them. “What’ll it be?” she asked, giving them a skinny-eyed glare.

“Ribs. High on the hog, no herbs,” Grim said without hesitation.

“Herbs? You mean you don’t want no vegetables?”

“That is correct.”

“Humph,” said Pauline, jotting down his order. She spun on the toes of her orthopedic shoes, sharply addressing a man in overalls at another table. “Jim Bob Watson, you tump over another glass of tea, I’m gon’ knock you into next week, and no lie.” She turned back to glare at Cassie and Verbena. “Well? I ain’t got all day. You two?”

Verbena squeaked out an order for fried chicken, dark meat.

“Just tea for me,” Cassie said. Her stomach was roiling with unease, and the thought of food made her nauseous.

“Humph,” Pauline grumped again, swelling in offense. “You one of them women don’t eat?”

“I had a big breakfast,” Cassie said, giving the waitress a placating smile.

Pauline, however, was not appeased. She gave Cassie a glare and stomped off, returning shortly with their food. Grim ate with the same deftness and attention to detail as Duncan, demolishing two slabs of ribs in short order. Verbena tucked away a surprising amount of food for one so elfin: two drumsticks and a thigh, field peas with snaps, macaroni and cheese, and a corn muffin.

Pauline returned to take their dessert orders, and Grim declined her suggestion that he sample the chocolate pie. “I thank you, good damsel, but I will have the butterscotch instead,” he told her.

“Fine, don’t listen to me. I just work here,” Pauline said with a snarl, and flounced away.

Cassie ordered a piece of strawberry cake, mostly because she was afraid Pauline would thump her on the head if she declined dessert, too, but she couldn’t eat it. She was too worried.

She was toying with a bit of icing when the door of the Sweet Shop banged open and a woman rushed inside. She was a vision in a fire-engine-red bandana top, black pleather leggings, and strappy red high-heel pumps with cheetah accents. She’d piled her mass of dark, curly hair up and away from her face with a banana clip. A gunmetal gray Chihuahua was clutched to her generous bosom. The dog was extremely ugly, with teeth like an alligator and malevolent black eyes. A puff of curly hair sat atop his tiny head, and nestled in the thatch of curls was a bow that matched the woman’s bandana.

“Mothertrucker,” the woman gasped, her blue eyes bulging. “They’s after me.”

Cassie recognized the woman at once. Her name was Nicole Eubanks, and she’d paid the “witch” of Devil River a call some weeks back, seeking help with a personal matter.

“You get that dog out of here, Nicole.” Miss Vi hefted her zaftig body around the front desk to intercept her. “I done tole you a million times, you can’t bring him in here. That animal’s a menace. He should be put down.”

Cassie wanted to shout hell-to-the-yes on that one. Frodo the hellhound had nearly taken her arm off during Nicole’s recent visit. His mistress had driven out to Cassie’s house and tracked her down on the porch, demanding her help. “Man troubles,” she’d announced, gazing up at Cassie from the lawn with anxious blue eyes.

Nicole had been wearing stilettos that day, too, and the heels had sunk into the sod. She’d teetered drunkenly for a moment, then toppled to the ground like a demoed skyscraper. Cassie had hurried down the steps to help her up, but Frodo had objected. Strenuously. One look down Frodo’s razor-lined gullet, and Cassie had backpedaled, leaving Nicole and her alligator Chihuahua to fend for themselves. Nicole had floundered to her feet, unaided, and after much coaxing, Cassie had reluctantly agreed to help her with her “problem.”

And here she was again. What sort of pickle had Nicole gotten into now?

“Frodo wouldn’t bite his own fleas,” Nicole was saying to Miss Vi. “He’s my precious baby.”

“Then you got a sho-nuff ugly baby,” said Miss Vi. “Now get him out of here. I mean it. I run a clean business, and I ain’t getting no health code citation ’cause of that hid-juss mutt.”

There was a shout from outside, and a small herd of men charged past the plate glass window at the front of the Sweet Shop.

“There they is,” Nicole shrieked, glancing around wild-eyed for someplace to hide.

She spied Cassie sitting in the booth and froze, a look of incredulity and outrage on her chubby face.

“You,” she said in a voice of deepest umbrage. “This is all your fault.”

“What’s my fault?” Cassie asked, stunned.

The other customers in the restaurant sat like mannequins, watching the tableau in horrified fascination. Cassie spotted Robyn James from the Hannah Herald at a nearby table. She groaned. Robyn was always looking for tidbits to liven up the paper. Local flavor, he called them. This little farce would make Wednesday’s edition for sure.

“I come to you for help,” Nicole said, trembling with ill usage, “and you done cursed me. The Bible says, ‘Do not turn to mediums.’ I done sinned, I reckon, and that’s what I get for trucking with a maleficent being.”

“Melody who?” a man whispered in a stage voice.

His companions shushed him.

Cassie rose from the booth. “Why don’t we talk about this outside?” She handed Verbena two twenty-dollar bills. “Pay for our food, Verbena, please, while I have a word with Ms. Eubanks. I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding.”

Nicole hesitated, and it hit Cassie that the woman was afraid. Of her. Nicole lived with a crazed velociraptor in a dog suit, and she was afraid of Cassie.

Cassie was appalled. “I won’t hurt you,” she told Nicole in a low voice. “If I’ve done something, I’ll make it right, I promise. Please don’t be afraid.”

Nicole wavered, and Frodo decided the matter by wriggling free of his mistress’s grasp. Snapping and snarling, he attacked the ankles of the diners. Customers scattered to the winds or scrambled on top of tables to escape the ravening canine. Dishes and glasses crashed to the floor, adding to the confusion.

Snatching up a broom, Miss Vi swung it at the dog, but the Chihuahua shredded it like a wood chipper. Miss Vi threw what was left of the broom handle at the dog and scrambled onto the checkout counter. “Out,” she bellowed, pointing at Nicole in righteous wrath. “Out of my restaurant, before I call the police.”

Nicole plucked the raging animal off the chair it was chewing to bits. “Come on, Frodo.” She planted a kiss on the merkin crowning the dog’s head. “We’s leaving.”

Cassie followed Nicole outside. She found her hovering on the sidewalk, her eyes twitching this way and that. “Now,” Cassie said, staying well out of Frodo’s reach, “what’s this about a curse?”

Nicole sobbed, tears streaming down her face. The Chihuahua made a noise of distress that sounded like a miniature buzz saw and lapped at Nicole’s wet cheeks. Nicole gave a watery chuckle. “Sweet boy,” she said, stroking the malformed creature. She glared at Cassie. “I been dating Dan Curtis, one of Hannah’s finest. His mama and sisters ain’t been happy about us from the get-go, on account of I’m eight years older than him. A-and because they’s skinny minnies and they say I’m fat.” Her chin wobbled. “Dan likes my figure. H-he asked me to marry him. His mama started snooping around when he told her he’d proposed, and found out I’m divorced . . . a-and that I used to dance at the Booby Trap.” Her voice broke. “They’s Baptist, see? And Baptists don’t even have sex standing up—too close to dancing.” A tear dripped off her chin and into Frodo’s waiting maw. “I come to you for a charm. Something to make Dan fall out of love with me.”

“I remember,” Cassie said. “I told you not to let those spiteful women spoil your happiness, but you wouldn’t listen, so I gave you what you asked for.”

“Never did no such thing.” Nicole’s bosom heaved. “I asked you for a repelling charm. What you give me attracts ’em.”

“What?”

Cassie stared at Nicole in horror. “Oh, dear. I’ve been a little out of sorts lately. Something must have gone wrong.”

“You damn straight something went wrong.” Nicole’s plump face was flushed with righteous indignation. “You whammied me.”