“But…”
He broke its neck with a quick snap and jumped up. Someone would find the dead demon. There would be an investigation. But they wouldn’t be able to locate an identity for the demon and, as with so many other creature kills, eventually they would determine the doctor unidentifiable as anyone having ever existed.
As it turned out this particular takedown didn’t take much effort. He spun around. Jonah leaned against the wall. His lifelong friend grinned at him.
“All for one incubus? Really?”
He shrugged. “I know and Incubi don’t usually come with so many sightings. They don’t bring on quite so much delusion.”
Jonah walked forward. He stared down at the ground where the Incubus lay, unmoving. “I guess the proof is in the pudding.”
“I caught him.” Christian rubbed his forehead. “And they lie—every other word they say is false.”
“That is true.”
But what if this one had told the truth? And had the Incubus really brought so much ill will into town with him that he’d caused a crime spree the likes of which had turned Mindy’s hair white?
“What are you thinking about, bro?” Jonah punched him in the arm and they both started walking away from the body. Before they went too far, Jonah held up his hand and Christian saw he grasped several small discs. “I got the surveillance. No one is going to identify you.”
“Thanks.” Should he tell Jonah nothing about his takedown felt right to him? He shook his head. He’d killed the demon. It had to be over. How many of them could be running around Austin at once?
“So am I going to get to see you strip?” Jonah laughed.
“Do you want to?” Christian smiled back. Jonah waited tables to make ends meet. Nothing wrong with that but not nearly the cash Christian got every night.
“Only because I have to see it with my own eyes. Straight-as-an-arrow Christian taking off his clothes for screaming women.”
The idea held less appeal than usual. He really only wanted Dodie to see him that way. He’d have to make do for a while longer. Christian had almost gotten where he needed to go. Almost. The Incubus haunted his steps.
Chapter Five
Dodie sat in her childhood bedroom. The one she’d had after her parents had died, located at her grandparents’ house. She could hear the ocean outside, a sound she’d come to identify both with sadness and with safety. It was why she’d moved inland, to Austin. They had lakes but no ocean. She didn’t like how much emotion that one noise of the water lapping against the sand could evoke inside her.
Better to leave it and never visit any coastlines.
“What the hell am I doing here?” She stood up. Her bed, the pink sheet set she’d hated but not complained about because her grandmother tried so hard, had been made, the corners tucked in neatly. Her desk looked straightened. She’d never had it that neat, not even when she’d tried so hard to get it that way.
I must be dreaming. She looked all around. Bizarre seemed the best description of the sensation of being completely aware she wasn’t really awake.
“Hello, Dorothy.”
She jumped and turned around. A full-sized clown sat on her childhood bed, staring at her. He waved at her, one finger at a time until his hand looked more like a fan that an appendage.
She opened and closed her mouth before settling on something to say. “How bizarre. A clown. What psychological mumbo jumbo caused this break?”
As far as she could remember, she’d never had a clown at any of the gigantic parties her grandparents threw to try to make up for the lack of living parents on her birthdays.
“I’ve come to play with you, Dorothy.” The red circles on his face were raised when he smiled. Many different colors streaked the body of the clown, in various shapes and sizes. If he’d been real, the face paint alone would take hours to accomplish. Her imagination had really gone all out.
“Dodie. No one calls me Dorothy.” They never had, not even her parents.
“Okay, Dodie.” The clown got off the bed, laughing hysterically while he did as if he’d just made a joke.
She shook her head. Odd didn’t begin to describe him. He walked toward her and placed his maroon gloved hand on her shoulder. “I’ve come to play with you, Dodie.”
She shuddered. “So you said…” He didn’t seem so amusing now. His eyes were red except for in the middle where his pupils appeared black. Up close she could see how the paint on his face cracked, as if it needed to have been washed off and redone long ago. His breath smelled foul.
Dodie tried to take a step backward, but his hand held her in place. “I’ve been waiting for a chance like this, Dodie. To play with a girl like you.”
She shook her head. “Let go of my arm.”
“But we’re going to play together.”
“No.” She gritted her teeth. “I don’t want to play with you. I’m done with you. Let me go.”
“You’ll come with me to where I live. You’ll be with the others there. We’ll all play together. Forever.”
“Listen, buddy. You’re not real. None of this is.”
Except that it started to feel kind of real. She knew, intellectually, he was a figment of her imagination. When she woke up, he’d be gone. Only, he’d started to feel very real.
“I’m very real, Dodie. And no one, not any Chaser, is going to save you from me. Not now that I want you. When you see me in the world out there, you won’t be able to get away.”
She wrenched her arm from him and stumbled backward. “I would like to wake up now.”
He laughed, a giggle that started in his low register and continued into a full-bodied snort. When he finished, he pulled a knife out of his pocket.
“Oh look at this. I have a knife for us to play with.” He swung it around in the air as someone might fling a baton if they conducted a symphony.
“Stay away from me.” She fled the room. Although it had been five years since she’d last set foot in her grandparents’ home she remembered the layout perfectly. Down the hall and to the right, she’d get to the stairs. Then she could run out the front door and find her way onto the street.
“At some point, I have to wake up.” She shuddered, her breath rushing in and out while she ran. Yes, she’d be going to the gym a lot more. She rounded the corner and came to an abrupt halt. Dodie searched, looking left and right. Where were the stairs? Where were the stairs?
The clown walked down the hall toward her, his steps even with his too-large, meant-to-be-amusing plastic shoes slapping on the wood floors, making a sloshing sound.
She stared down at his feet while she backed into the wall where the stairs should be, except that they weren’t. They. Were. Not. There.
The sloshing noise of his feet got louder as he got closer and she could see his footprints on the wood floor. Red, bloody footprints.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Hee hee.” He scratched his chin. “Because I’m a sad clown. You care about sad clowns, don’t you, Dodie?”
“No. I don’t care about sad clowns. I’ve never thought about clowns. Ever.” She shook her head. “I have to get out of here. I have to wake up. Now.”
He waved his hand. “This is not the day you die. Make sure you tell Mindy I said hello. How do you like her hair color? Tee hee. Tell the Chaser I’m coming for him and before I gut him like a pig,” he swung the knife in the air, “he’ll know the true meaning of pain.”
* * * * *
Dodie jolted awake and jumped from the bed, her head spinning as all the blood rushed into it.
“Whoa.” Mindy darted back a few steps. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you. I’m just so confused and I hoped you could tell me what’s going on.”
Dodie swallowed. The dream, the weird clown—it moved away from her like a tendril of smoke traveling from a campfire, into the wind where she couldn’t follow it.
Her friend needed her. Weird images, probably brought on from her first real orgasm, wou
ld have to wait to be analyzed later.
“Yes.” She nodded. “Mindy. Of course I can explain things. Yes.”
“Sweetie,” Mindy’s eyes traveled downward before she grinned. “You’re naked. Do you always sleep naked?”
Dodie’s cheeks heated up as she dashed for a bed sheet. “Go wait in the living room. Please.”
This couldn’t get worse.
* * * * *
Dodie stroked Mindy’s white hair. Her friend sipped at a cup of tea. She seemed calm, but her shaking left hand gave away the trauma of the night before. Dodie loved Mindy as family. She’d do anything for her. “It chopped him into small pieces.”
“It?” Dodie picked up a graham cracker and nibbled on it. Mindy hadn’t uttered word one about the murder all morning and Dodie hadn’t wanted to push her.
“I guess I should say he, since for some reason when I try to bring it to focus in my mind, all I can think about is how inhuman he seemed. I guess I can’t process what happened. Or something.”
“What do you remember? I never saw the police. By the time I got to the hospital, all the doctors wanted to do was release you. They were swamped.” And the room had been freezing. She shuddered thinking about it.
“I’m actually extraordinarily guilt ridden.” Mindy shook her head. “I had decided, just then, that night, right before…the man came and did what he did…that I needed to break things off with Brian.”
Really? This was the first she’d heard of Mindy being unhappy in her relationship. “What made you decide that? Did he do something to you?”
“No. You knew Brian.” Mindy’s voice shook with the past tense. “He was a real sweetheart. He’d started talking about getting married. I should have felt really lucky.”
“But you didn’t?” Dodie had no experience to relate. She could feel Mindy’s pain radiating off her in waves as if the emotion became a palpable entity in the room with them.
“No. Oh Dodie. This is going to sound awful, but the sex was so bad.” She put her head in her hands before she sat back up and wiped her eyes. “I tried to make it better, to work on it, but he was always done in five minutes or so. How could I do that for the rest of my life?”
Dodie nodded. In this, she could actually understand. Christian had given her such tremendous pleasure, had taken the time to really see that she’d been satisfied—several times. Now it had to be impossible to maintain that kind of passion every time over a marriage that lasted a lifetime—or maybe not. Christian probably gathered enough tricks in his years to be adventurous for years to come, but what it would mean to start out with the sex only mediocre at best?
“You have the right to be happy. Sex matters. If you really tried to get it better, then you can’t beat yourself up over this, sweetie. Did he know you meant to end it?”
“No. For that, I’m really grateful. He died thinking we were secure. But the thing—the man—who slaughtered him, he really tortured Brian with talk about killing me. I think Brian held on as long as he could while that clown cut him up just to keep me safe. I didn’t warrant that kind of bravery when I didn’t love him like that in return.”
The clown? Why did that thought make Dodie’s head feel itchy?
“Listen. I have a lot of personal days saved up.” She hugged Mindy tight. “I’m going to call the office and have them transferred to you. It’s not a problem. You are going to get better, feel safe again. We’re going to see to that.”
* * * * *
The lights dimmed and Christian stepped out onto the stage. He wore jeans and a white sleeveless tank top that stopped right before the top of his pants—just enough to show some skin if he moved the right way. He planned to move the right way several times before he removed the shirt entirely.
Had Dodie come to see the show? Probably not. He pushed the thought from his mind. She had Mindy with her and the ladies wouldn’t need a night in Brass to make her feel better. Maybe someday she’d come back and he could show her what he meant about dancing just for her.
Or at least he hoped he could demonstrate. He’d never really done it before, not having a special lady to perform for until he met Dodie.
“And now, ladies,” Beth’s smoke filled voice rasped over the microphone. “We have a crowd favorite. We know some of you came here tonight just to see him and I can’t blame you. This man gives a new definition to the word hot. The one, the only…Christian!”
He rolled his eyes as the spotlight focused on him. Facing away from the stage, he put weight on his toes and whirled around until he faced the audience. His hand on his hat, he nodded to the ladies who escaped their lives for one evening of fantasy and pleasure.
Of course, this time he had to dance knowing Jonah sat at the bar somewhere, probably laughing his ass off at him. No. Those thoughts weren’t going to help anything and he had a job to do. People spent their hard-earned money to see him. They would have a good time and fund his dreams with one dollar bills they offered up in exchange for his skill at providing them an evening to indulge in their forbidden fantasies.
He stalked farther onto the stage, timing his steps to the heavy thrum of music, and winked at a crowd of middle-aged women at the table closest to the stage. The music boomed in his ears and he moved, his hips going first. Yeah…four more months of this. For the first time, it really seemed like a long time.
* * * * *
The text on his phone beeped when he shoved his T-shirt over his head. Usually he went home to shower, but he didn’t want to run into Dodie covered in oil again. Tonight, he wanted her to see him and feel him the way he really looked and felt. With a flick of his wrist, he put his hair back in a ponytail. When he opened the school, he would shave his head. A whole new life.
He stared at the phone. Can you come tomorrow for a shoot?
It was his agent who occasionally booked cover model photography shoots for him. Maybe he would only have to dance for three months, instead of four. He could make some serious dough in a short period of time with the added salary from a cover shoot.
If only it could be a permanent gig.
Yes, he texted back. He’d make it work. The Incubus had been dealt with and Dodie probably had to go back to work, even if Mindy couldn’t yet. Saturday he’d convince her to spend the whole day with him.
Or he’d never let her out of the bed.
He threw his bag together and walked to the exit. Two of his fellow dancers were making plans with some of the women who’d watched the show. He smiled at them while he scanned the room for Jonah.
“Come with us, Christian.” A blonde with blue eyes reached out to grab him and he moved just enough away so she couldn’t touch. They put their hands on him when they stuffed money down his pants. After the show, he preferred not to have their fingers on his body.
He spotted Jonah lounging against the bar and, with a faked regretful smile at the blonde, crossed the room to join him.
His friend looked up and shook his head. “How many of those dollars did you get shoved down your underwear tonight?”
“About a thousand bucks.”
“What?” Jonah slammed down his beer. “Is that standard?”
Christian smiled. “Still want to make fun of me for dancing?”
“No. Shit. I don’t make that in months.” They walked out together. “Gotta learn to dance.”
Christian snickered. Jonah would never learn how to dance. He’d never even seen the man rock to a slow song in a club. Jonah was more the stand in the corner and stare at the crowd type.
“Why are you leaving with me when that hot young Nicole Eggert clone tried to grab you?”
“I have a girl.” He liked saying it aloud. “She lives across the hall. And she puts every other woman on the planet to shame. Red hair. Blue eyes.”
“Oh so you have it for her bad.”
“Yeah.” He and Jonah didn’t usually talk about this kind of stuff. Most of their conversations involved fighting, demons, and the general strangeness of their l
ives.
“Does she know about you? About us? About what it means to fight the darkness as we do? Do you think she’s the type to handle it?”
Christian sucked in his breath. Those were exactly the questions Master Foy asked all the time when they talked about real-life relationships outside their work. The Master did not believe they could live half-lives. He had personal experience trying to do it and lived as an example for the rest of them. They’d all been there when Foy’s wife divorced him, unable to stay with him while secrets carved a chasm in their lives because he’d not believed she could live with the knowledge of what he did.
Foy had loved his wife and he’d kept his charge to fight evil from her to protect her from knowing. That had ended things. As his students, they’d all made a pact to only marry women who could handle the reality, to whom they could come home and speak the truth of their lives at the end of the day.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed at his arms. Goose bumps had popped out and he didn’t know what that indicated. “I only got together with her last night.”
“I feel it too. Could just be the residual evil leftover in the atmosphere from the Incubus. So, a really new girl.” Jonah laughed. “And here I thought you might have something serious going on.”
“It is.” And Christian did not like Jonah acting as if it wasn’t. “When have you ever heard me talk about anyone at all?”
“Listen, I’m glad she’s making you happy, but until you tell me that you’ve looked her in the eyes, told her what you really do for a living, and she has managed not to flee from you in either fear or because she thinks you’re a whack-job, I’m not going to start planning your bachelor party.” Jonah shrugged. “No offense, but I’ve never met a woman who could handle it. They like their paranormal scary shit to be on television and handled by Jensen Ackles.”
Now Jonah lost him. “Who is Jensen Ackles?”
“You really don’t watch television, do you?”
Christian laughed, slapping Jonah on the back. Their easy camaraderie had always been there. Out of their group of five trainees, they had always been a pair. Christian kept Jonah serious and Jonah kept Christian light.