P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

She snorted. “What do you know about angels? You’re a demon.”

“Was a demon, lass. I was fired. Terminated without benefits.” Crash . Thwap . A little red hat sailed down to the grass. “Benefits. Oh, please. Hell has a retirement plan?”

“They did, once,” he muttered. “No longer, it seems.”

“Is nothing sacred anymore?” Her sarcasm was as sharp as a blade. “Well, there’s always social security.” Thump . Another subdemon dropped from the sky.

Water erupted from the grass, engulfing them in a drenching cold spray. Shrieking accompanied the deluge, but human shrieking this time. Semihuman, Damon qualified. Mrs. O’Cleary’s great-grandchildren had somehow turned on the sprinklers. Any subdemon unlucky enough to be hit hissed and sizzled, screaming as they dissolved into little piles of doll-sized clothing.

“Who turned the sprinklers on?” Jeanie Tortellini ran across the churchyard, yelling, trying to regain control. The preteen Desdaine triplets, Withering, Scornful, and Derisive, whooped in delight. “How come no one’s watching these kids?” she demanded of the parents who were wisely hiding behind some lawn chairs.

“Wait!” Harmony yelled to the woman. “Leave the water on! It’s . . . it’s killing them.” She swung her glare around to Damon. “Just like what happened to the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz . She melted. You knew this all along; you prepared for it by installing these sprinklers. And here I thought you were just a fan of irrigation!”

At that moment, Damon again understood that the best answer was no answer.

The lawn turned into a sea of mud. Children squealed with laughter as they grabbed the sprinkler heads and aimed water at the subdemons. Harmony’s pumps made sucking noises. She snarled and threw her shoes one at a time at the creatures, striking one and knocking off its little red-and-gold hat. A jet of water clanged off the handle of Damon’s pitchfork. He lost his balance. Harmony tried to steady him, but she slipped. They went down hard in the mud.

He turned to find her lips an inch away from his. His body was wrapped around hers as they lay sprawled on the ground, the same body that now reacted rather briskly to that pleasant discovery. He’d come to enjoy the sensations of his new body—advantages to being mortal that he’d never realized. But also disadvantages, one of which was poor timing, he decided quite quickly upon noting the fury contorting Harmony’s face. “I should have been happy talking to the dog!”

Damon shook his head. “I dinna follow, lass . . .”

“I should have been satisfied with the simple things, the solitude, but no, I had to want more. A full house on Sundays.” She gulped several breaths. “But what did I get? Demons and flying monkeys!” She threw down the shovel.

Her face was streaked with mud. He reached up to wipe her cheek with his thumb, but she recoiled as if she feared him. Feared what he was. He couldn’t blame her.

“I kissed you, Damon!” she accused. “I kissed you!”

Aye, and he’d not stopped thinking about it, either.

“I cooked for you. I bought you underwear. I . . . I wanted to make love with you!”

You could have heard a pin drop in the sudden silence. Damon wasn’t sure which one of them looked more shocked by her confession.

Then there was a loud whoosh. Water gushed out of a hijacked sprinkler and, aimed by mischievous little hands, ricocheted off a metal fence post, zinged overhead, and clipped off one of the chains holding the Mysteria Community Church banner over the church door. As if in surrender, the banner slid off the wall.

A fitting end to a terrible day.

Harmony watched the sign fall. Looking as if she were about to cry, she stopped herself and dashed the heel of her palm across her eyes. Muddy water streamed from her hair and dribbled down her ruined dress.

“Lass . . . ,” he tried, lifting a hand to her. Then he hesitated, fearing her vulnerable stance was deceptive, that if he touched her, tried to hold her, she’d snap like a too taut spring and fly away from him. As it was, she pushed to her feet without another word and went to join Jeanie in restoring order.

Damon watched her go. So much had changed since he’d come to Mysteria, and yet so little. He was as much a reason for doubt and second thoughts as he ever was.

An oddly pitched scream tore into his self-pitying thoughts. He saw an O’Cleary child go down under the weight of several angry subdemons, a situation missed by others in the chaos. Subdemons were dark creatures with little power, but enough of them could kill a small human. Could kill a child.

Damon surged to his feet, the pitchfork in hand. A half-dozen strides brought him to where the child’s thin legs kicked. Damon grabbed one beastie by its collar and threw it to the ground. Then he dragged the remaining creatures off the frightened child.

The little girl’s face was without color, her blue eyes wide and tearfilled. “Are you hurt, little one?”

She shook her head, but her lower lip trembled. “Scared?” he asked gently, coming down on one knee.

She nodded, her mouth wobbling. Damon lifted her fist, which was still clamping a plastic water gun. He smiled. “Would ye like to get them back?”

She grinned. “Yeah!”

“Then let’s do it.” He hoisted her under his arm. “Fire away!” With the child pumping water out of the little toy gun, he chased fleeing subdemons to the Hell hole, followed enthusiastically by a wildly barking Bubba and a herd of miniature O’Clearys. When every last one had either melted or vanished into the depths of Hell, Damon lowered the little girl to the ground. Her skinny shoulders felt so delicate under his hands. A sudden rush of emotion threatened to swamp him, a sensation still so new. This child encapsulated all that was fragile and good on this earth; all that he’d hoped to protect, to cherish. “What is your name?”

“Annabelle,” she answered in a tremulous voice.

“Bullies, that’s all they are, Annabelle. Ye canna be afraid. Your goodness, ’twill always win out. Ye are stronger than them. Far stronger. Do ye understand?”

Annabelle nodded, and he touched a fingertip to her little freckled nose before rising to his feet. His breath caught in his throat when he realized Harmony had been watching him the entire time, her face so full of pain that he had to turn away from her horrified gaze.

Damon trudged to the sprinkler timer box to shut off the water, but before he reached the shutoff valve, and as everyone began to come up from the basement and from behind chairs and under tables—just as everyone thought it was safe—little Annabelle O’Cleary fired off one last salvo with the hose, aiming the water at her parents as her brothers and sisters, not appearing a wee bit sorry, fled the scene.

Damon wrested the hose from Annabelle’s little hands. “Off with ye now, little hell-raiser.” With grudging admiration, he sent her on her way. Then he tended to the shaken townspeople, working his charm as best he could to coax assurances that they’d return to church the next week. All the while he felt Harmony’s gaze on him, and his face burned in shame.

Jeanie sauntered up to him. “I’ve seen a lot of unusual goings-on in this town, but not this. What were those animals?”

“Are they not from Mysteria?” Damon tried charming the sheriff with one of his smiles, but her gaze sharpened.

“It won’t work, Damon. Not with me. And just for your information”—she bobbed her chin in Harmony’s direction—“it won’t work with her, either. I want the facts, not the glossed-over version.”

“Aye, I know,” he said with a sigh. “I’d tried to keep it from her so I wouldn’t lose her, but now that I have, secrets do me no good. In Satan’s army, there is a hierarchy. At the apex are the demon high lords, Lucifer’s commanders. Then there are the foot soldiers, the scores of classes of underlords, demon worker-bees, and subdemons. They can take the form of almost any monster, from ant-size on up, and with more ways to intimidate, frighten, and kill than can be counted. New versions are created every day.”