Demon Hunting In a Dive Bar (33 page)

Two worn but comfortable brown couches formed a crooked L in front of the fireplace. Beck chose a seat near Latrisse’s mother, a tiny bird of a woman with black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and the wrinkled mouth of a smoker.

“Well, Song,” Beck said with a smile. “Our girl gave us quite a surprise, didn’t she?”

Song bobbed her head up and down. “A blessing, to be sure.”

Latrisse slipped off her pumps for the girls to admire and Darlene snatched them up.

“Me first,” she informed Annie, clutching her prize to her chest, “because
I’m
nine and you’re only eight.”

A storm gathered in Annie’s purple eyes. “But I saw them first and Latrisse said—”

“It’s my house and you’re my guest,” Darlene said in a lofty tone. “You have to do what I say.”

“But—” Annie protested.

“Annie,” Beck said.

Annie looked at Beck and sighed. “Okay.”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” Beck said, jumping up from the couch. God, this was going to be a long-ass, eternal, never-ending day.

She strode into the foyer and threw open the front door. Evan lounged on the concrete stoop, tattooed and studded, and wearing his patented pout.

“What are you doing here?” Beck said, frowning at him. “If you’ve come to make trouble, forget it. I’ll kick you into next week.”

Evan arched a pierced brow. “Cool your jets, sis. I was invited, same as you.” He opened his arms wide. “I’m here to spend Thanksgiving in the loving bosom of my fam.”

“Oh, shit,” Beck said.

B
eck picked at the food on her plate. Brenda had outdone herself. There was enough food to feed half of Behr County, and everything was delicious. The turkey and ham were moist and flavorful. The sweet potato casserole was a diabetic’s nightmare of brown sugar and pecans, and the green bean casserole was a creamy delight crusted with artery clogging, crunchy fried onions. But, Beck wasn’t hungry. Evan had taken care of that.

Not that she’d had much appetite to begin with. She forced herself to take a bite of giblet gravy and rice. Brenda made her gravy from scratch—starting with a caramel brown roux of flour and oil, and adding rich hen’s broth, sliced boiled eggs, and slivers of dark meat chicken and turkey—but it tasted like sawdust to Beck.
I’ll be thankful when this rat killing is over.

She’d taken Daddy out on the back patio before dinner to grill him about Evan. “Where’d you meet the prodigal son?” she’d demanded.

“He came in the restaurant a few days ago and introduced himself,” Daddy said. “Told me he’d hired someone to find you, and that you two have gotten close. Came as quite a shock, finding out I have a grown son.” He grinned. “Reckon I throw twins.”

“And just like that, you invite him to the house for Thanksgiving?”

Daddy lifted his shoulders. “He’s kin. He looks just like you and he’s got the Damian birthmark. He’s in town alone and he didn’t have plans for the holiday. What else could I do?”

“And Brenda’s okay with this?”

“Didn’t say that.” Turning his head, Daddy gazed through the storm door and into the kitchen, where Brenda bustled about. “She’ll come around. Give her time. I know you and your step-mama haven’t always gotten along, but Brenda’s a good woman.”

Daddy seemed to be ignoring the white elephant in the room, so Beck decided to point it out. “Evan is kith,” she said. “Like me.”

“Don’t know anything about that,” Daddy’d said, not meeting her gaze. “Don’t want to. I expect you both to behave while you’re in my home, and not do anything to upset Brenda or the twins.”

Daddy had gone back inside and that had been the end of it. Deny, deny, deny; that was the norm way, but Beck felt like she was sitting on a powder keg.

Beck glanced at Conall, sitting at the table beside her. Monsieur Demon Hunter seemed unfazed by the undercurrents of tension eddying about the room. Conall was calm as a Hindu cow, and on his third plate of food. The kids ate a little, maybe enough to keep a flea alive, and squirmed restlessly in their chairs. Jason and Toby were talking football with the determined zeal of two adult males doing their best to ignore a strained social situation, and Latrisse and Song were attempting to make conversation with Brenda. They weren’t having much luck. Brenda might be here in the physical sense, but mentally she was out to lunch. She was pale and green around the gills, and she couldn’t stop staring at Evan. If a caravan of carnies had trooped into Brenda’s dining room and copped a squat at her table, she couldn’t have looked more shocked and appalled. Her lips moved constantly, but she wasn’t talking or eating.

Beck suspected she was reciting the Twenty-third Psalm. Nonstop.

On the bright side, compared to Evan, Beck was Jesus’ little lamb. It should have made her feel better, but it didn’t. She kept waiting for the shit to hit the fan.

Evan wasn’t eating much, either—whether out of habit or because he was uncomfortable, Beck couldn’t say. His burns had healed, but there were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept, and he seemed tense and jumpy. He wore black jeans, black pointy-toe boots, and a black zipper shirt with drawstrings and eyelets and long, dangling fringe. With Elgdrek dead, half of Evan’s tattoos had disappeared. But Haggy was still alive and kicking, though imprisoned in a djevel flaskke, which meant Evan still looked like the Illustrated Man. His black hair was mussed and spiked, sticking up every which a-way in a feathery crown, and his purple eyes were rimmed with kohl.

“What happened to you?” Toby had asked when Beck walked into the kitchen with Evan. “Yo’ mama hump a rooster?”

Things went downhill from there.

Annie stood up from her folding chair. “I need to go to the bathroom,” she declared in the dulcet tones of a rodeo announcer.

“You may be excused,” Beck said.

Annie disappeared down the hall. Embarrassed, Beck glanced at Brenda, but her stepmother wasn’t paying any attention.

“W-what did you say you do for a living?” Brenda asked Evan. Her food sat untouched on her plate, and she clutched the plastic beads around her neck like a rosary. Beck didn’t have the heart to remind her that she and Jason weren’t Catholic.

“I helped run the family business,” Evan said just as smooth as you please.

Brenda stared at the long earring dangling from Evan’s ear and the stud in his lip. “What sort of business did you say your parents were in?”

“Acquisitions.”

“Oh, please,” Beck said under her breath. “Don’t make me throw up in my mouth.”

“A-acquisitions?” Brenda repeated, looking slightly mollified. “That sounds respectable.”

Oh, yeah?
Beck wanted to say.
Only if you consider death, depravity, and degradation respectable.

“It wasn’t a walk in the park,” Evan said. “To be frank, I’m sort of at loose ends, with my dad dead and my mother gone.” He gave Beck a hard look. “I can’t really make any kind of decision until I know whether Mommy dearest is going to return.”

“Where did you say she went again?” Brenda asked, eyeing his ink. In Brenda’s world, tattoos were the mark of the devil and Evan was clearly possessed. If she only knew . . .

“I’m not sure,” Evan said. “She flits here and there.”

Beck choked on a swallow of tea.

“Rebekah?” Conall asked. His voice was full of concern. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine. I just—”

“Look, Mama, a kitty,” Darlene cried, pointing to the living room window.

A black cat sat on the windowsill. The cat arched its back and yowled. The sound rattled the glass. The dog yelped and squeezed under the sideboard. Jason and Toby stopped talking football. Darlene and Jay dove under the card table, and Brenda turned white as her napkin.

Conall kept eating.

“What the hell was that, a mountain lion?” Evan asked.

“Ak ma,”
Song clutched Latrisse in fright.
“Ak ma.”

A toilet flushed somewhere in the back of the house. Annie walked into the dining room and resumed her place at the kids’ table, innocent as you please. Beck gave her an “I will deal with you later” look and turned her attention back to her stepmother. She was worried about Brenda. She wasn’t acting herself. Hazel the ghost of Sardine Bridge and Brenda Damian had one thing in common: both could be counted on to lambast anyone who cussed around them. Evan had said
hell,
and Brenda hadn’t uttered a peep of protest.

Granted, the sudden and unexpected appearance of the Wampus Kitty was enough to startle anybody, but now that things had calmed down, Beck expected Brenda to whip out a Bible verse or three and use them on Evan, something from Colossians or Ephesians denouncing obscene talk and corruptive words. But, Brenda just sat there.

Beck gave her a worried frown. “Brenda, are you okay?”

Her stepmother pushed her shoulder blades against the back of her chair. “My back hurts, probably from standing on my feet too long.”

Meredith Peterson appeared on a gust of icy, perfumed air, a vision of petite chic in an orange poplin shirt with cuffed, three-quarter sleeves, a flowered pencil skirt, and hot pink stilettos.

“Your back hurts because you’re
fat,
you cow,” she said to Brenda. “Take the feedbag off once in a while. It’ll do you good.” Her furious gaze turned to Evan. “As for
you,
I’m not finished with you.”

“Oh, no, not again,” Evan groaned as Meredith launched into a vicious tirade.

“What’s the matter?” Brenda asked. Her anxious gaze moved around the table. “Is the turkey dry?”

“The turkey’s just fine, Mama,” Daddy said.

Brenda jumped as the dachshund exploded in a frenzy of barking under the sideboard.

“Gracious, Boo, what’s gotten into you?” Brenda turned her head. “I feel a draft. The kids must have left the back door open.” She pushed to her feet and dragged the yapping dog out of its hiding place. “I declare, Boo Lily, you don’t have a brain in your head. You are going outside right this minute.”

Clucking at the snarling pooch, Brenda walked through Meredith and into the kitchen.

If Brenda noticed the chill or Meredith’s citrusy scent, she didn’t show it. As for Meredith, she was in full harangue. She stood over Evan pouring out a steady stream of abuse. Evan, for his part, looked miserable.

Beck cleared her throat. “Um, Daddy?”

“Yes, sugar bear?”

“We have a situation.”

“What kind of situation? Are we out of ham? You need more ice?”

She glanced at the twins and lowered her voice. “We have a ghost. Why don’t you take the kids and go outside? Brenda, too. We’ll handle this.”

“A ghost?” Daddy jumped to his feet. “In the yard, kids. Now.”

“But, Beck, I wanna—” Annie said.

“Now, Annie,” Beck said, doing her best to imitate Brenda’s Mom glare.

“Oh, man,” Annie said as Jason herded her and the twins out of the room.

Toby pushed back his chair. “I’m gone. I can’t take this caterwauling.”

“Candyass,” Meredith sneered as he left, taking Song and Latrisse with him.

“This is not a good time, Meredith,” Beck said, once they were alone. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

“Like I give a flying camel fart about your stupid holiday,” Meredith said. “I’m on a job.”

“She keeps saying that, but what does she
want
?” Evan dropped his head in his hands. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t think for the noise.”

Meredith let out another deafening shriek.

Conall set down his fork. “I grow weary of your antics, shade. You are disturbing my enjoyment of this most excellent repast. State your business and be gone.”

Meredith made a face at him. “Joysuck.” She turned to Evan. “Very well, if you must know, I’m here on behalf of my client, Thomas Crispus Henderson.”

Evan lifted his head from his hands. “Who?”

“The zombie,” Beck said. “She wants you to let Tommy go.”

“Well, why didn’t she say so?” Evan said. “I could have gotten some sleep.”

“I’m a professional. I wanted to make an impression.” Meredith smirked. “And, besides, it’s fun.”

Conall picked up his fork again. “He will release your client. You may go.”

“I will?” Evan’s eyes narrowed. “What’s in it for me?”

“Comply with the virago’s demands or continue to suffer her ministrations.” Conall shrugged. “The choice is yours.”

“Okay, okay,” Evan said. “I’ll let the damn zombie go. Jeez.”

“Hold on,” Beck said. “If you take the spell off him now, can you find him again?”

“No.”

“Then you need to do it later,” Beck said. “Tommy wants to go home. We can’t send him back to New Orleans if we don’t know where he is.”

“I’ll tell him to come to me,” Evan said. “There, happy?”

“I should wait, were I you,” Conall said, spearing another piece of ham off the platter. “Unless you wish to explain the undead to the humans over dessert?”

“Oh,” Evan said. “I didn’t think of that.”

Meredith flounced into the living room and plopped on the sofa. “I’m not leaving until my client gets satisfaction.” Conall gave her a cold stare, and she added, ”But I’ll quit howling. For now.”

The back door crashed against the wall and Daddy rushed inside. “Becky,” he shouted. “I need you to stay with the kids. I’m taking Brenda to the hospital. She’s having a heart attack.”

 

Beck stood at the living room window and watched her father bundle Brenda into his truck and screech out of the driveway. The nearest hospital was thirty miles away in Paulsberg, the county seat. In the other room, she heard Conall talking to the twins. He’d been wonderful with them, calm and soothing. The guy could sell swampland. You’d think a big, stern-looking guy like him would intimidate children, but he had the opposite effect. He exuded authority and confidence, and he was gentle and patient with them.

He’d make a wonderful father.

Whoa, where had that thought come from?

She wandered into the den and settled Annie and the twins down to watch a movie with Conall while she cleaned up. He offered to help, but she declined.

“There are five of us to handle the kitchen,” she told him. “I need you to stay with the kids. They like you.”

“Yes, please.” Darlene hung on Conall’s arm. “We want you to watch
Barbie and the Diamond Castle
with us.”

“No, we don’t,” Jay said with brotherly disgust. “That’s a stupid old girl movie.”

“I’m talking about me and Annie,” Darlene said. “We want him to watch it with us, right Annie?”

Annie shrugged, her face closed. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”

Beck’s heart squeezed. Of course Annie had never seen it. She’d been too busy trying to stay alive.

“Oh, then we
have
to watch it.” Darlene looked up at Conall with pleading eyes. “Please?” She shot her brother a look. “Jay watches it with me all the time. He’s just being a
boy.
It’s got a dragon in it, like Killer.”

“Killer?” Conall asked.

Jay pointed to the glass aquarium on one wall. “My Bearded Dragon. He’s not a real dragon. He’s a lizard.”

“You say this tale has a dragon in it?” Conall rubbed his jaw. “Methinks this sounds interesting. What say you, Sir Jay? Shall we prove our gallantry and cede to the ladies?”