Demon Hunting with a Sexy Ex by Lexi George (9)

Cassie awoke the next morning, sandy-eyed and exhausted. Her churning thoughts and the unceasing tapping from Duncan’s property had kept her awake long past her usual bedtime. When she’d finally fallen to sleep, her slumber had been fitful and filled with tremulous visions.

She’d dreamed of the dead werewolf. He’d been standing at the foot of her bed, his severed head in one paw, dripping blood on her floor and white quilt. “Burns,” he’d whined as he was swallowed in a white-hot glow.

The dream had shifted, and the werewolf was Zeb, chasing Cassie across a nightmare landscape. “Your fault, healer. Your fault,” Zeb growled at her heels. “Mac is dead . . . your fault.”

His hot breath scorched the back of her calves, and she ran faster. Clawed hands reached for her . . . and she jerked awake, panting and sweating.

Shaken, she’d risen to check the doors and windows. All was as it should be. Grabbing an ash staff from the rack in the hall for protection, she’d returned to bed, but it was a long time before she’d fallen asleep again.

When she finally did drift off again, the dreams had returned, but this time it was Duncan who’d disturbed her repose. The harsh, beautiful planes and angles of his face tormented her. Firm mouth with a sensuous bottom lip. Chiseled jaw. High, broad cheekbones. Eyes the color of sunlight through scotch that were set beneath slashing tawny brows. Eyes that warmed when he was amused and darkened when he was angry . . . or aroused.

She should not remember that. She did not want to remember that.

Tossing and turning, she’d entangled herself in the sheets in her effort to escape him, but it was no use. His sexy, rumbling voice pursued her, his reproachful words echoing through her fevered thoughts.

Duncan was gone, and judging from the look on his face when he’d left, he wouldn’t be back. Probably headed for a galaxy far, far away, never to return. Off saving princesses from dragons and slaying giants.

Or in the House of Pleasure working off his “frustration.” She sat up in bed and rubbed her chest to banish the hollow ache. Good riddance, right? The thralls could have his sexy ass. She didn’t give a flying hoot in Hades what he did. She’d been fine before His Hotness showed back up, and she’d be fine now he was gone again.

Liar. The knowing whisper was back. You’re consumed with jealousy.

“Oh, be quiet. Nobody asked you.”

She glanced at the clock on the nightstand and gasped. Merciful heavens, it was past six. Toby had said he’d deliver her message, and deliver it he would. Toby was reliable as daybreak. The Randalls could arrive at any moment.

She jumped out of bed and hurried into the bathroom, her mind wrestling with the Randall boy’s death.

Could a demon be responsible for the young werewolf’s strange behavior? The kith couldn’t be possessed, but Cassie had no idea if the same held true for werewolves. She rolled the idea around in her mind. If a demon had possessed Mac, that would explain a lot. Demons went through bodies like a hot knife through butter, and they controlled their hosts. Possession would account for the young were’s maniacal behavior and his diseased, half-formed appearance. Demons consumed their hosts from within, sapping them of vitality. Weakened by possession, Mac might not have had the strength to fully shift.

The boy had certainly acted possessed. His eyes had been crazy and she recalled his labored breathing and the hot huff of his breath on her skin as he’d closed in for the kill . . .

If Duncan hadn’t been there . . .

Nope. Not going to think about that. Or Duncan. Most of all, Duncan.

Atta girl, the squeam said with a bored yawn. You keep telling yourself that.

Cassie took a quick shower and padded into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. While the tea steeped, she took Verbena’s clothes out of the dryer and folded them. Carrying the neat pile upstairs, she placed it outside Verbena’s door. Tiptoeing back into the kitchen, she stirred a generous dollop of honey into her tea and carried the steaming mug down the hall. She slid the lock on the door and stepped out onto the porch, bracing herself for the ceaseless knocking of hammers. To her delight, the early-morning peace and tranquility of the river was undisturbed. Duncan’s construction workers had finally taken a break. Glory be, and hallelujah.

Silver mist kissed the mirrored surface of the water, and the trees on the far bank were blue-green in the pearly light. Birds rustled and sang among the greenery, and the herb garden on the side of the house perfumed the air with rosemary and thyme. It was a lovely morning, but Cassie hardly noticed. The mug in her hand dropped to the floor, unheeded, and rolled away, leaving a sticky puddle in its wake.

Slack-jawed, Cassie stared at the statue of Jebediah Hannah sitting on her lawn.

Jeb, a hero of the Spanish-American War, had saved Behr County farmers from ruination during the disastrous cotton blight of 1915. Grow goobers had been his battle cry, and his leguminous wisdom had won the day. Behr County farmers had survived the blight and prospered. In grateful recognition, the community had commissioned a statue in his honor, and Jeb’s likeness stood in the town square, a four-ton marvel of bronze brandishing a two-foot peanut like the sword of retribution.

Cassie closed her mouth and swallowed. Apparently, Jeb had wearied of town life and decided to ruralize. He faced the river, giant peanut raised in challenge to any would-be interloper.

As Cassie considered the ginormous lawn ornament, a thousand disjointed thoughts flitted through her head. Should she call the sheriff? And tell him what? What possible explanation could she give him that wouldn’t get her locked up? The sheriff would think she’d stolen it.

Reason reasserted itself. No, he wouldn’t. Sheriff Whitsun was no dummy. It would take some heavy-duty equipment to move a statue that size, equipment she didn’t have access to.

Which begged the question, who had planted Jeb in her yard?

Someone powerful, for sure.

Someone possessed of extraordinary strength and magic. Not a werewolf or a shifter. Whoever had done this was practically a demigod or—

The answer to her conundrum dawned, and she stiffened. Oh, no, he didn’t.

She marched across the porch to the top of the steps. “Okay, Duncan, you’ve had your little joke.” She glared at the woods on the far side of the river. “Now put it back where it belongs.”

Her challenge was met with silence.

“I mean it, Duncan. This isn’t funny.”

A robin called hip hip hip, but there was no other answer.

Seething, she started down the stairs, coming to an abrupt halt as a warrior materialized at Jeb’s sculpted feet. Tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully muscled, the warrior had raggedly shorn golden hair and the face of an Adonis. Dalvahni, without a doubt—that much she knew at a glance—but he wasn’t Duncan. Or any other demon hunter of her acquaintance, for that matter.

The stranger’s appearance shocked her to the core. There was something different about him, something horribly wrong. The Dalvahni were impassive—stoic and unemotional to a fault—but this guy was an automaton. His face was slack, his eyes blank and dull. Shoulders hunched, head down, he moved without the athletic grace of his kind. He was dressed in rags, shirtless and barefoot, the remnants of a pair of leather breeches clinging to his muscular thighs. Intricate black tattoos wound from the bottom of his left foot up his ankle and strong calf, disappeared beneath the tattered cloth that fluttered around his knees, and reappeared at his waist. The ink sleeved his left arm and torso, climbed up his neck and face like strangling vines, and vanished into his hairline.

And the swirling designs moved, writhing across his flesh like worms, but if the warrior noticed, he gave no sign.

The door opened, and Verbena stepped onto the porch, looking frail and willowy in Cassie’s nightgown, and impossibly young.

She was young, Cassie thought, remembering her younger self at twenty. Gracious, she had underwear older than Verbena Van Pelt— much older—two vintage chiffon teddies, a silk bra, and tap pants were sacheted, tissue-papered, and safely tucked away in her closet for safekeeping. She had roared during the twenties—bobbed hair, hot jazz, fast cars, and illegal hooch. It had been the cat’s meow.

The Great Depression that followed? Eh, not so much.

Rubbing her eyes, Verbena joined Cassie on the steps. “Rabbit runned over my grave and woke me up.”

The warrior’s head snapped up at Verbena’s sleepy murmur, and he stared at her, his eyes suddenly ablaze in his lean face.

“Lord a-mercy, whozzat?” Verbena said with a hiss of surprise.

“Dalvahni, but there’s something off about him,” Cassie said in a low voice. “Very off.”

“Why’s he a-staring at me like ’at? I ain’t done nothing to him.”

“No idea. What I’d like to know is what he’s—”

Cassie’s voice trailed off as a cold wave of dread washed over her, a feeling of hopelessness and absolute evil.

A pulsing black streak appeared over the sandy beach on the far side of the river and widened, and an oily, revolting smell poured out of the gaping hole.

Like microwaved death, Cassie thought, gagging at the noxious stench.

“We got trouble,” she told Verbena, backing slowly up the steps. “Demons.”

“D-demons? What we gon’ do?”

“They’re like bees. Don’t move, and try not to irritate them. If that doesn’t work, we go to Plan B.”

“What’s Plan B?”

“Run like hell.”

Scores of undulating black forms boiled out of the portal. Screeching and gibbering, the demons flew across the river and circled the immobile warrior like a merle of frenzied blackbirds. One of the foul creatures noticed Cassie and Verbena, and shrieked the alarm. The flume of demons froze in midflight, then swept toward the porch.

The warrior jerked, as though waking from a trance, and uttered a harsh caw. Answering in their loathsome tongue, the demons turned aside. Without a backward glance, the warrior lurched across the lawn in the direction of Cassie’s truck, and the demons fluttered after him.

“They left.” Cassie heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank God. That was close.”

Verbena shook her head. “Didn’t leave. He called ’em off. Why’d he do that, you reckon?”

“Don’t know and don’t care. C’mon. Let’s get inside.”

Cassie’s brain whirled furiously. She’d go to Conall at once and tell him what she’d seen. The demons. The portal. The warrior with the blank expression and the writhing tattoos.

A Dalvahni warrior was running with demons. No way to spin that and make it look good. Conall was going to blow a gasket.

Yay. Another fun conversation to look forward to. The good times never ended.

Verbena turned and scurried for the door. Cassie started after her, looking back at the sound of a deep, guttural grunt. Her heart did a slow somersault as a demon stepped out of the yawning opening and onto the sandy bank of the river.

Unlike the others, this demon was solid, a huge thing of twisted limbs, scales and claws, with a misshapen head that ended in a cruel, narrow snout. Half wyvern, half crocodile, the demon stood upright on armored legs the size of tree trunks, a pair of bony wings sprouting from its spiked back.

A second wave of wraiths flowed out of the hole behind him.

“You coming?” Verbena asked, looking back with her hand on the doorknob.

She saw the monster and screamed, and the draco-croc whipped around. The demon had a multitude of wet, gelatinous eyes. The wobbly eyes focused on them and the demon roared. Lashing its tail, the draco-croc spread its wings and launched its heavy body at the house. The wraiths followed, flitting through the air like dirty rags.

Time seemed to slow. In the space of a frozen moment, Cassie was bombarded with a strange overload of sensory information. She heard the languid music of the river and the rustle of a bird in the gardenia bushes on the side of her house, smelled earth and grass and water, and was intensely aware of the delicate brush of the morning breeze against her skin.

An orange and black butterfly flitted past, oblivious to the approaching nightmare. The striations on the insect’s checkered wings were a rich, golden-brown color, the same shimmering copper as Duncan’s eyes. His laughing face rose before her, and she tasted the bitterness of regret.

Her conscience was right. She owed Duncan an apology. Too bad she wouldn’t live long enough to deliver it.

True dat, if you keep standing here like a knot on a log, the inner voice whispered. Move it. Now. That thing’s coming for you. It’s pissed and it has minions.

Coming to her senses, Cassie grabbed the oaken staff she kept by the back rail. “Get,” she barked, stepping in front of Verbena. “Go out the back and hide in the woods. I’ll hold them off.”

It was an out-and-out lie. Cassie’s hands were shaking, and she wanted to throw up. A few wraiths she could handle—maybe—but there must be a hundred of the damn things. And then there was the nightmare. What was she supposed to do about that?

“Can’t.” Panting with fright, Verbena clutched the back of Cassie’s shirt. “Mr. Duncan ’ud have my hide if’n I was to leave you.”

Duncan. God, she wished Duncan were here. That was one BFD—big fugly demon—coming for them. He’d know what to do. All in a day’s work for a Dalvahni demon hunter.

But Duncan was gone, and it was up to her to get them out of this.

Alive, preferably.

Cassie hefted the staff. “He would, huh? Then I guess this is where we find out whether you really are the enhancer.”

She studied the metal figure on her lawn. A knight in shining armor, that’s what they needed, an old-fashioned champion.

“Vivere,” she murmured, pointing her staff at Jeb Hannah.

A bolt of lightning shot from the cloudless sky and struck the bronze figure on the lawn.

The statue moved.