A low thud jarred me awake. Followed by a slow metallic rattle.
“Dimitri?” I rubbed my new husband’s shoulder while trying to sit up. He had me pinned in a love hug, one powerful arm securing me against his chest, a leg stretched over both of mine, keeping me safe.
Thud.
I definitely heard it that time.
My eyes strained against the absolute darkness. I rolled as far as I could to see the digital readout on our bedside clock. It was exactly 3:00 a.m.—the devil’s hour.
I shoved him harder. “Dimitri!”
He ground his hard, wonderfully naked body against mine. “Mmm.” He traced a hand over the curve of my hip. “Want to go again?” he murmured, his sexy Greek accent thick with sleep.
Okay, that might be why I usually woke him up, but I was beginning to think we had a situation. “I heard a noise.”
His lips brushed the top of my head. “Could be Pirate again,” he said against my hair, referring to my dog, who was not at all happy to be locked out of our bedroom.
“Maybe.”
Then again, I was a demon slayer. And even though life had been peaceful lately, that never lasted long.
I opened up my slayer senses. My powers kept me tuned in to any kind of trouble, whether it was from supernatural nasties, burglars, or lately, the nest of bunnies chewing through the siding under the deck.
Tonight, I picked up more than gnawing little teeth. I couldn’t pinpoint the source yet, but I knew it wasn’t anything cute and furry.
It sounded again. Another low thud. “Oh, hell.”
Dimitri didn’t even ask. In a single motion he rolled off the bed and onto his feet.
“What are you picking up?” he asked, finding a pair of boxers as my mind reached out like fingers through the mist.
“I’m not exactly sure.” But it felt wrong, like an angry dark tangle of emotions and…something else.
“I’ll check it out,” he said, moving quickly through the dark. Now that I’d woken up, I could make out the familiar shadows of our bedroom. But Dimitri was a shape-shifting griffin and his eyes could pick up things mine couldn’t.
He stood like a lone sentry to the side of a window overlooking the street. Light blue curtains covered the glass. He leaned his head against the wall and checked out the situation through a gap where the fabric didn’t quite reach.
Stiffness bit at the center of my back as I straightened. “Anybody out there?”
He watched for one long heartbeat. Then another.
“No.” He parted the curtains, letting in the light from the streetlamps.
I used it to try to find my nightshirt.
In the meantime, he reached into our closet and came out with a lacrosse stick.
Of all the… “Are you serious?”
The side of his mouth quirked. “You’d be surprised how well I handle a stick.”
I refused to say anything. It would be too easy.
When you got right down to it, his body was his weapon. I wasn’t so lucky. A few years ago, when I taught preschool, I considered it a good day when I had enough energy to hit the treadmill at the gym. That was before I learned I was a demon slayer. Maybe someday, I’d actually get used to my powers—and have the hard body, too.
Then again, Dimitri liked me exactly how I was.
“I’m coming with you.” I reached next to my nightstand for the utility belt that held the tools of my trade. I still couldn’t locate my sleep shirt, so I just grabbed the T-shirt Dimitri had worn to bed, the one I’d ripped off him and tossed onto the floor. Soft and navy blue, it reached down to my mid-thigh. It would have to do.
A shiver ran through me as I cinched my utility belt around my waist. The cracked and faded black leather hovered at a balmy eighty-six degrees, no matter what.
It held five switch stars, which were the weapon of demon slayers like me. They were round and flat, kind of like Chinese throwing stars. Only they were slightly larger and much, much more deadly. The blades would begin to churn as soon as I touched them.
I flicked on the hall light to reveal a basket of clean laundry we’d both neglected to fold and put away. A quick glance into the small spare bedroom/office showed a neatly made bed and a desk in need of a professional organizer. No change there.
“Is it demonic?” Dimitri asked, his voice low.
“It’s violent and in pain.” I didn’t know any more than that.
The night was completely silent, as if it were waiting too. I vowed to start keeping a flashlight next to the bed as we padded down the short carpeted hallway. Dimitri edged slightly ahead of me as we hit the stairs.
He raised the stick and I caught a movement at the bottom a split second after he did. Dimitri charged after it. I hurried right behind him and hit the light.
Good thing my husband was a look-first-and-bash-later type because my dog, Pirate, stood in the hardwood entryway, his tail wagging like it was three in the afternoon.
He gave a wet doggy snurfle. “What’s going on? Are we having breakfast?”
Dimitri scanned the room behind Pirate. “Lizzie heard a noise.”
“Ooh, fun!” My dog whipped his stubby tail hard enough to stir up a breeze. “What did it sound like?”
Interesting that he didn’t know. Pirate could hear the mailman from two blocks away.
My dog was mostly white, with a dollop of brown on his back that wound up his neck and over one eye. He had your typical Jack Russell terrier energy and attitude—and ever since I’d come into my powers, the little guy could speak to me…in real sentences.
Of course, that didn’t always work out for him. The first time he asked why Dimitri and I were jumping on the bed, the poor doggy was banned from our room.
Dimitri moved past Pirate and through the living room.
“Let’s attack!” my dog said, following.
“Where?” I asked. I sure didn’t see anyone down here.
“No idea!” he said, not letting it deter him in the least.
We didn’t exactly have the largest town house on the block. We had a main living room and then a dining area with a kitchen behind it. It would be hard for someone to hide.
Dimitri headed over to investigate the closet that held our water heater and a few cleaning supplies. Pirate stopped at the refrigerator.
“Help me out here,” I said to the dog who had barked at a cricket not too long ago.
Pirate turned in a circle and sat. “Don’t look at me. I just heard you getting up. Thought you might be in the mood for a late-night snack. If you listen real close, you can hear my stomach almost growling.”
Unbelievable. “You have dog food,” I told him.
“Yeah, but that’s just for emergencies.”
Dimitri walked past Pirate, completely ignoring him. “Where’s Flappy?”
“He’s sleeping,” Pirate said, leading us to the sliding glass door overlooking the deck.
Last year, Pirate had adopted a dragon. Because a pet should have a pet.
I couldn’t believe I let him get away with that.
We peered out and spotted the darkened form of a mottled white-and-gray dragon. He sprawled on his back, with his legs splayed open and his arms curled out in front of him like a dead bug. His massive head rested on a stack of my nice, new deck chair cushions, and his mouth hung open, drooling on them.
Dimitri cursed under his breath. “I told him to stay off the deck. He’s too heavy.”
Besides, we’d built him a very nice dragon lair in our parking space.
“He wants to be close to us,” Pirate said fondly.
Yes, well, I didn’t regret our “no dragons in the house” rule.
Thud.
“There!” I hissed. “Did you hear that?” Pirate’s ears quirked. Dimitri cocked his head and concentrated. After the thud, we heard a metallic clatter, like something being dragged. That was what I’d heard upstairs.
It ended almost as soon as it began. But it was enough. “It came from outside.” I was sure of it.
Strange the dragon hadn’t moved.
A muscle worked in Dimitri’s jaw. “I didn’t hear anything,” he said cautiously.
Pirate’s nails clacked against the hardwood as he paced in front of the door. “I didn’t either, but I say we go outside and I’ll bark anyway.”
Why me, then?
Maybe I’d been relying on my powers more than I realized.
Dimitri slid open the glass door. Cool air blew in, along with the sounds of the waves pounding against the shore. We lived on the California coast, just south of Los Angeles. Normally, I loved it. Now? “I can’t see much past Flappy.”
I reached for the back porch light.
“Wait,” Dimitri said quickly. He glanced at me over his shoulder, and in that moment I could tell he was all about the challenge, the hunt. His eyes shone with it as he cocked a grin. “Do you want to scare whatever’s out there, or do you want to try to catch it?”
Ah, yes, reason number 412 why I fell in love with this man.
I couldn’t help but return his smile. “Let’s catch it.”
He ducked back inside, running a quick, affectionate hand along my side as he located a pair of black dress pants he’d discarded under the kitchen table. I grabbed a pair of undies that had gotten tangled up in one of the chair legs. We had our choice of things to wear, seeing as we’d broken in that table earlier this evening and had neglected to clean up.
I loved my new life. Mostly, I reminded myself as the dragon sighed out a loud, throaty mmmrfle and rolled over.
The boards of the deck creaked and I had a sudden vision of the whole thing collapsing. While non-magical people couldn’t see Flappy, they would notice if our entire deck fell apart underneath him.
“Quickly,” Dimitri said as he buttoned his pants. A leather belt sheath held a dagger.
“Just a sec.” I opened one of the upper kitchen cabinets to reveal a shelf full of recycled glass baby-food jars. Each one held a different spell I’d been working on. My biker witch grandma had been teaching me how to brew protective wards, although her recipes left a lot to be desired. Exactly how was one supposed to measure a pinch of white sage? Or a sprinkle of graveyard dirt? And did that mean dirt from an actual grave, or could you just scoop something out of one of the flower beds near the front gates?
Plus, I’d been forced to halve the recipes because I couldn’t fit full-size jars onto my utility belt. I grabbed two of my new anti-demonic spells, which looked a lot like jars filled with brackish green and brown sludge, and hoped I was better at spell work than I was at making chicken potpie.
Dimitri gave me a lingering look when he spied his undershirt hanging from our kitchen light. Lucky for me, he didn’t bother putting it on. He just grabbed it and stuffed one end of it in his pocket. “Ready?”
We slipped out into the night, with Pirate on our heels. Flappy let out a loud brrwaaaaa-ker-snuffle. It sounded like a half snore, half god-knew-what. He rolled over, his tail flicking one of my pink seashell candleholders off the table by the barbecue pit. It landed with a soft thump on the sand below.
Lovely.
“Now I can hear it,” Pirate said.
“That’s not the noise.” I stepped over Flappy’s thick tail and tried to see down into the darkened area at the bottom of the steps. Beyond it stretched a rock retaining wall. A wooden pathway cut across it and led down to the beach. I couldn’t see too far past the smattering of tall sea grass beyond the wall. Still, it seemed there were very few lights out on the water.
“I thought we had a guard dragon,” Dimitri muttered, joining me.
He had a point. Flappy had stood vigil for us on numerous occasions and done a good job too. Maybe we’d made a mistake trusting him.
Pirate snorted behind us. “Flappy’s the best. When he’s awake. But you didn’t tell him to stay awake. So now, Flappy’s really good at resting up for our next adventure. Flappy!” he hollered, right against the dragon’s ear.
“Not so loud,” I whispered. Not for Flappy’s sake, but for ours. I didn’t want to draw the attention of whatever was down on the beach.
In the meantime, Flappy didn’t budge.
“Why don’t you guard him while he sleeps?” I suggested to the dog.
Pirate stood with his tail rigid. “Oh, no. I’m fierce. You need me out front.”
“I’ll yell if I need you to attack,” I assured him. No doubt he had it handled when it came to anything from the knees down.
“You got it.” The hair on his neck bristled. “In the meantime, I’ve got things covered here, too.”
“Good,” I said, glancing to the darkened beach behind me. Given the choice, I didn’t want Pirate anywhere near it.
Now that we were outside, I could sense the presence even stronger. “It’s out by the water,” I said to Dimitri. Almost as if I’d triggered it, a red glow appeared just beyond the sea grass. “There,” I said, pointing. Red vibrations were given by dark magic, or something worse.
“I see it,” Dimitri said under his breath.
I gave Pirate a loving stroke on his head with one hand and hooked a chain to his collar with the other. He didn’t notice. Maybe he was too busy guarding. “Good puppy,” I crooned.
We didn’t need him following us.
“Hey…” Pirate said, making his unpleasant discovery before I’d made it halfway down the stairs. “I’ve been had! I’ve been tied up! What am I? An animal?”
I ignored him, which was hard. He wasn’t the type to suffer in silence.
Dimitri and I crept down to the wooden walkway. Me, in measured steps. My husband moving like the silent predator I knew him to be. The red glow had grown brighter by the time the path emptied out onto the shoreline.
The deep sand silenced our footsteps, but also made it hard to walk—or make a quick escape if we needed one.
We made our way through the rustling sea grass. The loud noise made it difficult to pick up any sounds between that and the ocean. Dimitri drew his knife, and I kept a hand on my switch stars.
Dimitri leaned in close. “You smell that?” he asked.
I wrinkled my nose. “Yes.” The stench made me want to gag. Under other circumstances, I would think something dead had washed up on the beach.
The sea grass surrounded us on both sides and it occurred to me that the thick vegetation would offer a perfect cover for anything wishing to ambush us. Dimitri must have thought the same thing because he didn’t even try to pull ahead. He stayed at my side, his movements practiced, alert.
I touched the emerald at my neck. Dimitri had given it to me shortly after we met. He had laced the teardrop-shaped stone with protective magic and hung it on an enchanted bronze chain. In the past, it had morphed into body armor when I needed it, tied me to a tree when I didn’t, and fainted dead away at the sight of the Earl of Hell.
Smart necklace.
This time, it remained still. That worried me more than I would have liked to admit.
We broke out onto the shore and caught sight of a man about twenty feet down, on our left. I drew a switch star. At least we knew the origin of the red lights.
He stood like a shadow at the center of the crimson haze, his wrist manacled to a large wooden cage behind him. From inside came a loud thud, like a body smacking up against wood. The entire thing shook, and chains rattled. The glow around the edges grew brighter.
Dimitri snorted. “You have ten seconds to tell me what the hell you have there.”
He was right. We couldn’t just stand here on the beach, exposed.
The man began to take a step forward. One glance at Dimitri and he changed his mind. “It’s for you,” he said, his voice garbled. As if he’d crossed dimensions, which he probably had.
Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.
Still, his voice sounded familiar.
He reached into his torn jacket. I drew back, ready to fire my switch star. The man gave us a furtive glance, seemingly more afraid of what was in the cage than he was of us. He drew a marble-sized ball of light from his pocket and tossed it through the bars.
The snarling shadow of a black-furred, red-eyed beast shot forward and devoured the light with curved yellow teeth.
“That’s it.” Dimitri advanced, knife at the ready.
“Wait!” I started forward.
The man ducked his head and disappeared.