“Daddy’s still sick, kiddo,” I said as I scooped him up and settled him on my lap. I hugged him close as I bent down to smell his freshly shampooed hair and soak up the sweet relief as everyone stopped shouting questions at me.
And I do mean everyone. They were all sitting right there.Everyone.
Or, at least, everyone who counted in my demon-hunting world. Because unless they were hiding in the kitchen, there was no one from the PTA or the mom group from Timmy’s day care, or the growing group of women enrolled in the self-defense class I taught at Cutter’s studio. And thank goodness for that. My living room really couldn’t hold any more people.
“I want Daddy.” Timmy squirmed in my lap, his voice small and his little arms tight around my neck. At three, he didn’t understand what was going on. All he knew was that his father hadn’t been home for a very long time.
“I know, baby,” I said. “I want him home, too.”
I blinked back tears as I looked over his head at my best friend, Laura, who was sitting on the sofa next to her daughter Mindy, with Allie right there with them. Laura had been my cohort in all things domestic back before my demon-hunting past turned into my demon-hunting present. Thankfully, our daughters became besties, and while Mindy and Allie bonded over boys and weird video games and more boys, Laura and I had bonded over carpools, PTA, domestic drama, and large glasses of white wine after the kids fell asleep.
That was then. These days we bonded over deciphering demonic texts and trying to figure out new and efficient ways to tell if the new guy behind the dry-cleaning counter really was a demon or if he just had exceptionally poor oral hygiene.
Honestly, it’s nice that our relationship keeps evolving. And that our girls are still besties, even after all they’ve been through.
I’d called Laura from the car on the way home from the hospital to ask her to gather everyone at my house. I’d made the mistake of telling her a few of the high points, which she’d obviously passed onto the group.
Thus the barrage of questions before I’d barely even had a chance to gather my thoughts.
I took a moment to glance around the room at the rest of my ragtag team. Eddie, the curmudgeonly octogenarian ex-demon-hunter who’d become a mentor to me and a grandfather to my kids. Eliza, the nineteen-year-old cousin I never knew existed until she tracked me down in Rome on my vacation this past summer. Cutter, the ex-military martial arts instructor with action-hero good looks who’s now dating Laura. And Jared, the dark-haired seventeen-year-old vampire—give or take a hundred years—who both fell for my daughter and betrayed her.
I’d forgiven him, though. He was protecting his sister, after all. And, in the end, he’s the reason Stuart’s still alive.
Finally, there’s Eric. Allie’s father. My first love. My demon-hunting partner atForza.And my friend. Honestly, when kids say their relationships are complicated, they really have no idea…
“Kate?” Laura’s gentle voice prods me from my thoughts. “What did the doctor say? Does he think it’s a sign that Stuart’s going to wake up?”
“We should start from the top,” Eric said, stepping into the role of co-chair for this meeting. Un-retired from demon hunting like me, that made him my unofficial second in command.
Not that he’d ever meant to retire. More like involuntarily pulled out when he’d been killed back when Allie was nine. Back when he was my husband, Eric Crowe, and before he returned to life in the body of another man five years later.
Now the world knew him as former high school chemistry teacher David Long. Allie finally knew him again as Daddy (though never in public), Timmy called him Uncle David (and maybe one day we’d explain that he was really Eric) and despite a recent and shaky detente, Stuart didn’t call him much at all.
Honestly, their lack of communication was fine by me. Or it had been. Right then, I’d happily have them yelling at each other, if only because that would mean that Stuart was alive and well.
I heard a little sobbing noise and realized it came from me. “Sorry.”
“Katie,” Eric said gently. “It’s okay. Take your time. Or I can tell the story if you’d rather.”
I shook my head. “I’m good. I’ve got this.” I looked around at the faces in the room. With the exception of Laura, Mindy, and Eliza, everyone in the room had been present at the ceremony where the High Demon Lilith had tried to enter Allie. It had been a hellish battle, but in the end, Stuart had saved her.
But that victory hadn’t been without a price.
“You all know he’s been in a coma since that fight at the stone table,” I began, then reminded them of the rest. How he’d sacrificed himself to save Allie, knowing full well that if it worked, he would either die or go insane. He only survived because Jared had pulled him free at the last minute.
Survived, yes. But he wasn’t truly alive. Instead, he was trapped in his body, and for all I knew he really had gone insane. Maybe he was suffering a horrible Lovecraftian kind of madness that tormented him day in and day out.
I couldn’t let myself believe that, though. Jared had bought him time. And Stuart would come back, well and whole. At least I hoped so.
Once again, I wiped away a tear, then drew a breath and continued. “We visit him every day and talk to him. Today, he squeezed my—”
“Hold up there, girlie. You skipped a bit.”
I glanced toward Eddie and shook my head. “No, I—”
“What were you talking about when he squeezed?”
Even in his eighties, Eddie was as sharp as they came. Except when he wanted to be intentionally obtuse. Right then, though, he was right. “The school,” I admitted. “I was talking about being nervous. Because I am,” I added defensively, looking at everyone in turn and silently daring them to judge me for being freaked out by the prospect of taking responsibility for the training of youngForzaDemon Hunters. And, yes, I knew perfectly well that it wasn’t all on me.
