Dodie shook her head. “Honey, you can’t do anything about it. The people who did it are dead and you have to work tonight.”
“Shit.” He shook his head. “No, I’m not going. Hold on.”
In a few seconds, he’d let Beth know he couldn’t come in and, despite the fact his boss was clearly not happy about it, they didn’t give him too hard of a time. His girlfriend had been held hostage, they were going to give him some slack whether they liked it or not.
“You didn’t have to cancel.” She wiped at her eyes. “I could have waited for you.”
“No. That wasn’t going to happen.” He bent over to kiss. “I need you to listen to me, though, and some of it isn’t going to make a lot of sense. I wish we could have known each other a little longer before I had to tell you this. Then you would know more completely that I told you only the truth.”
“Christian.” Dodie’s voice sounded husky. “Whatever you have to say, say it. My head is hurting. I can’t have the whole runaround. How are you going to manage to take down people who are already dead?”
“Because the person—the thing—really behind all of this is a demon who has come to Austin and has to be killed.” He rubbed his eyes. This was so much harder than he’d thought it would be. How did you explain to someone you cared about something that was so important and had the power to destroy their relationship?
“A demon.” She got out of her seat. “That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.” He moved toward her. “I need to explain. My parents were killed by a demon and Master Foy trained me to fight them. Jonah too. There are five of us and we are all fighters of evil. That’s why I need to open my studio, so I can train the next generation. I know this sounds crazy. I get it. But I’m asking you to trust me.”
“Um.” Dodie turned and sat back down. “I’m sorry. I really can’t handle this right now. I just can’t. I was in an actual near-death experience today. I don’t know why you’re making up this stuff right now. I don’t want to know. Whatever you want to go do, go do it.”
Her words burned. He’d secretly been hoping she would simply believe him. The right woman could look at him and know he spoke the truth. He shook his head. “I wish you could believe in what I said, but for right now I will settle for you just staying in your apartment tonight. Will you do that for me?” He tugged her against him. “Okay?”
She nodded against his chest. “Okay. Whatever you’re doing tonight, you’ll be careful, all right?”
Dodie didn’t believe him. That was fine, for now. Right now she cared that he not get hurt. That would be enough.
“Come with me. You can lock yourself in and don’t open your door for anyone other than Jonah or me. Okay?”
They walked across the hall together. “Christian?”
“Yes?” He stroked the side of her face. When he got finished with the demon who did this to her, he’d come home and ravish her until she couldn’t see straight.
“Is it possible you hit your head today? Are you having some kind of mental break?”
“No.” He opened the door to let her into her apartment. “Although sometimes I wish it was that simple.” Because a head injury would be a lot easier to digest than the things he had seen and done, the horrors that existed in the world around them unseen and unknown by most.
Chapter Nine
Dodie and Mindy sat together on Dodie’s couch with the television on. For Dodie’s part, she wasn’t really paying attention to what was playing. They’d blocked the door with her ottoman, not that it would have kept out the crazies who’d taken over their office, but for now it was the best they could do.
“Why isn’t it possible?” Mindy’s bobbed her leg up and down. She’d been jittery all afternoon. “I mean, trust me, having been through hell this week here on earth, I’m willing to believe there’s a whole place down there running that show. Jonah and Christian don’t seem crazy to me.”
Dodie’s head ached. “It is weird that they both share the same idea that stuff is real. I mean one of them thinking he’s chasing demons is one thing. Both of them? Unless they both broke out of mental institutions earlier this year I don’t see it happening.”
“So then what? Are we agreeing that Christian and Jonah demon hunt when they’re not doing their other jobs? Stripper-slash-model-slash monster killer for Christian and waiter-slash-teacher-slash-student for Jonah?” Mindy stood up.
“I guess we’re agreeing to keep an open mind about the subject?” Dodie responded, giving the only answer she could manage.
Truth was, she wanted him here with her right now, not out there fighting or doing whatever he did. She put her head in her hands and let the tears she’d been holding back slip down her cheeks. In her imagination, he’d come and gotten her, brought her home, made love to her and then held her all night while she threw off the day.
Now? He was off doing god knew what and she’d been barricaded in her apartment hiding from some sort of creatures she’d always thought of as fictional.
The CEO of their company and the nice lady she hadn’t known that well who manned the front desk were both dead, Brian had been butchered, a family she’d never known but felt as if she had were slaughtered in their home and countless others had been gunned down in another office building. Mindy was traumatized and Dodie had no idea how to help her.
“Dodie.” Mindy called her attention and Dodie raised her head.
“I’m sorry. I’m just having a moment.” She sniffed. “I won’t be weeping all night.”
“Listen, I don’t care if you cry. I’ve been doing it almost constantly for days. No, um, I just want you to see what I’m seeing.”
“What?”
Mindy pointed at the wall that separated the living room from the second bedroom where Mindy slept.
It took Dodie a minute to realize what she saw. For several months she’d wondered if she should see about getting glasses. At first, it looked like a ton of small black dots moved on her wall. Then her eyes cleared and she had no doubt what those moving specks were. Spiders. Her back wall was covered in eight-legged horror.
Spiders.
Mindy shuddered next to her. “There are hundreds of them.”
That wasn’t, unfortunately, an exaggeration. As they stood and watched the wall became covered in the arachnids. It started with a few and soon she’d lost track. They rushed out of the AC vent on the wall and soon there were larger spiders following the path the smaller ones had made.
They moved fast, traveling from one wall to the next, covering all the space available when they did.
Dodie cried out. Oh god, she hated bugs and she particularly detested spiders. She stumbled backward, hitting the couch when she did, and falling to the side before she landed on her shoulder. It throbbed but she didn’t care because all she could think was that the spiders were coming right for her.
Mindy grabbed her arm. “We have to get out.” Her friend sounded calm whereas Dodie thought her heart might explode if those things got near her. “Do you have your phone?”
It took Dodie a minute to make sense of the word since her brain whirled in panic. Then she felt her pocket. The telltale bulge of the cell phone told her she did actually have it. Turning to Mindy, Dodie nodded.
“Then help me move this ottoman before the creepy-crawlies get all over us.”
Some of them had gotten even closer. They were zapping around, left, right—everywhere. Soon there wouldn’t be a place in her beloved haven that hadn’t been bugified.
Together they pushed until, a few seconds later, they were out the door. Mindy dragged her down the hall by her arm. As terror surged through Dodie’s veins, she seemed to be less and less capable of movement.
They reached the stairs. “Get your phone out. Call Christian.”
“How are you so calm?” Dodie managed the words past the terror clogging her throat. Her fingers moved slow and clumsy, as if the clamor in her mind confused the directions she gave them. Fin
ally, she’d pulled up the name and punched send on the screen.
“I’ve reached saturation point. I can either implode and stop functioning altogether or I can get it together and fight. Jonah is right. I need to be able to defend myself, to not be powerless anymore.” She led the way and Dodie followed into the dark hallway. “This is where I say no more. I’m drawing a line. No longer will I be terrified.”
She applauded Mindy’s ability to overcome, but given her own level of rising terror, she barely functioned well enough to use the phone. It rang once and he picked it up.
“What’s going on?” She could hear the concern in his tone and took a deep breath, knowing he would care that this had happened.
“Bugs. Everywhere. Spiders. Running.” She might not be coherent, but hopefully he got the gist.
“Shit.” He muttered something off to the side, she assumed to Jonah. He could have been talking to the tooth fairy for all she knew, all she cared about was getting to him. At some point while the spiders swarmed out of her vents, she decided she believed in demons. If it made her superstitious or fanciful, then so be it.
“Where are you girls now?” He came back to the phone.
“Running down the dark staircase, trying to get to the lobby.”
“You’re in an unlit stairway?”
As if his words made it happen, tingles traveled up her back. She whirled around, almost falling down the stairs when she did.
Mindy grabbed her arm. “What is it?”
Something was in the dark with them. She just knew it. Maybe it was primitive instincts left over from the time the cavemen had to run from bears or maybe human beings were not supposed to be in the room with demons. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
“Dodie.” Mindy shook her. “We need to run. Something is wrong.”
“Go.” Dodie couldn’t move. Her legs had locked up and her head felt fuzzy. “Run, Mindy. Don’t stay here with me.”
“Dodie.” Christian’s voice in her ear. She still held the phone there. “What is happening? Talk to me, baby. I’m not far away.”
“Too far.” She knew she uttered nonsense, but in her own head it made sense. Christian, wherever he happened to be, was too far away to be any help in this situation.
“Shit.” Mindy ran down the stairs. Part of Dodie felt relieved her best friend listened, the other part couldn’t help but be surprised she’d been left all alone to deal with whatever was about to come down those stairs.
“Hee hee.” A giggle resounded in the air, bouncing off the walls in the near empty stairwell.
Something about that sound triggered her memory. She knew who made that noise. How could she have ever forgotten it? “You.”
“Who, Dodie? Talk to me. Tell me, who is in the hall with you? Whatever is there is the reason you can’t move. Do you understand? They do that to some people. Knowing that can sometimes help you remove their power.” Christian sounded so sure. How could she ever have doubted him? Even for a minute?
“It’s a clown, Christian. And I’ve seen him before. He’s been haunting my dreams. He killed the people in that house and threatened me.”
“Tell the Chaser BoBo the Clown says hello and it’s been a long time.” His voice sounded closer and then he appeared before her. A light flickered over his head and what had been sheer pitch darkness now showed his face in as much light as if he’d lit a candle. He wanted her to see him. The fucker.
“Did you hear that, Christian, or do I need to repeat?” Her head felt clearer when she spoke. The little trick he’d just pulled with the light made her fist her hands. How dare he play around as if this whole thing were some kind of sick game?
“Oh, I heard him, Dodie.” Christian spoke in her ear. “You can tell BoBo that neither me, Jonah nor any of the five have forgotten him. He’s made a big mistake coming here and I’m going to enjoy tearing him to shreds.”
“Christian.” She shook her head. “I’m not going to repeat that to him if it’s all the same to you.” BoBo laughed, his knife appearing in his hand out of thin air. “Of course you’re a demon.”
“What else would I be, silly girl? And as I told you, I’ve come to play with you. And there is nothing you can do about it.”
Dodie knew he meant to kill her with that weapon. As he had done with the father in the family he’d butchered in front of her, he would jab that pointy end of the blade into her gut until she bled to death on the floor. She looked at her phone. This was going to happen. She still couldn’t move her legs, so running away would not be an option.
Christian didn’t need to hear her being murdered. She could spare him that. Clearing her throat, because her vocal cords did not want to work, she spoke into the phone. “I know this is too early for me to be feeling this way. But I just want to tell you that I’ve fallen in love with you. Be careful and get this son-of-a-bitch.”
Before he could answer, she hung up. Whatever he would have said would be too much to bear.
“Okay, clown. Do your worst. I’m not afraid of you.”
“No, Dodie, I’m afraid the clown is going to be too soaked to hurt you.” Mindy’s voice sounded in the stairwell. Seconds later the clown was covered in a white substance and Mindy appeared next to her holding a fire extinguisher. The demon looked so ridiculous clothed in the white foam that Dodie laughed aloud.
Mindy shoved her. “Run. Or I’ll carry you somehow, but we’re getting out of here.”
Her feet worked again and she took off down the stairway, listening to BoBo roar behind her.
“Sorry it took me so long. I had to improvise.”
“I thought you left me. You are a sight for sore eyes.” Dodie’s head throbbed, but they made it out the door and into the night air.
“Never.” Mindy panted behind her. “We’re in this together.”
Dodie hugged her for one brief second before they ran again. “Where are we going?”
A car slammed on its brakes in front of them. It took her one second to realize it was Christian driving before Jonah jumped out and yanked open the back door. She sagged with relief when she got in the car. Too much. There was far too much to process. If she ever could, she’d be shocked.
* * * * *
Christian had not been able to utter one single word since Jonah had gotten them in the car. For five minutes, the longest of his life, he’d really thought his girl was dead. She loved him and she was dead. He’d been too late.
But then, like some kind of miracle there they were standing on the street. Alone, vulnerable and shaking. The single best sight he’d ever beheld. Mindy had saved them using a fire extinguisher. It wouldn’t have stopped the demon except for the shock value of the whole thing.
BoBo, as it liked to call itself, must have been temporarily stunned and in those moments released Dodie from her stupor.
They pulled into the parking lot of Brass. This place would be as good as any to hide. Lots of people. BoBo would never be able to show up himself to cause damage. For now, while he figured out his next move, that had to be enough.
Dodie sniffed. “Are you working?”
“No.” He got out of the car and yanked Dodie’s door open so hard it vibrated in his hand. Somehow he had to chill out—he just had no idea how to make that happen.
As if she were a child who couldn’t do it herself, and she felt that vulnerable to him at the moment, he undid her seat belt and carried her out of the car.
“Are we just going to hang out here for a while then, bro?” Jonah opened Mindy’s door and let her get out.
“I can walk,” Dodie whispered.
“No.” One-word answers would have to do for a while.
Mindy turned to Jonah. “What is the matter with him?”
“Christian’s terrified and he’s not used to it. Been a long time since anyone mattered enough for any of us to lose.”
Jonah’s psychobabble could wait for another time. He stormed toward the club.
Using his key for the back
door, he ignored the looks some of his fellow dancers gave him when they walked inside. He knew for a fact his carrying a hot woman through the backdoor wouldn’t be the weirdest thing any of them had seen. Most of them would probably do odder things themselves that very night.
“I need a minute with Dodie,” Christian called over his shoulder. “Wait for me in the bar.”
He didn’t wait to hear what Jonah replied, he just stormed through the door into Mitt’s private office. Even if his boss were in the building, at that moment he would be out on the floor and not in the office he never used.
Christian closed the door behind them and locked it. He set Dodie on the desk and, for good measure, jammed a chair under the door handle to keep it from opening.
He whirled around to look at his girl. She waited, eyes huge, staring at him. “I thought you were dead. You said you loved me and hung up the phone.”
His hands shook. The pent-up emotion he kept under control from the moment he’d realized they’d left the women in danger threatened to floor him. Now it exploded outward.
He leapt forward until he straddled her on the desk. She lay backward and he knocked all of Mitt’s things on the floor when he climbed on top of her. With absolutely no finesse, he tore her shirt from her body and tossed it over his shoulder.
“You know what, Dodie?”
She shook her head, staring up at him for a second before stroking her hand under his shirt. “What?”
“I fucking love you too. Okay? I don’t care that it’s too fast. Sometimes things just work out that way. So you aren’t allowed to die. Ever. I’m going to find some place to lock you up where you’ll always be safe and you’re going to have to deal with that.”
Even in his current state he knew that couldn’t happen. But spitting out exactly what he thought, even if in calmer moments he’d think his thought process insane, had to be what happened right now.
His cock ached as if they’d been embracing for a much longer period of time. He couldn’t help his desperation. Almost losing Dodie brought out the Neanderthal in him. All he wanted was to mark her, claim her, take her, hit her over the head and carry her home to his cave. Short of that, he had to fuck her. Now.