Read Online Demon 04 - Deja Demon by Julie Kenner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Julie Kenner
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it—revitalized as a demon. Him on a board and me on foot—it made for an exciting chase. Not to mention an exhausting one.
Was it any wonder I was in a groggy haze when Marybeth Allen, our association president, had called to rope me into the committee chair position?
Seriously, I should learn not to answer the phone.
I didn’t want to dump all my Easter purchases out onto the dusty shed floor, so I grabbed one of the paper lawn bags Stuart keeps for clippings and transferred the contents of the tub into the sack. Tomorrow I could transfer everything back to the tub—after a good dosing with laundry soap, bleach, and Lysol.
Next, I headed toward the dinosaur and transferred the wiggling, jiggling, apparently very pissed-off limbs into the tub. The fingers were the worst. Like maggots, they inched along the bottom, glowing slightly in the dim light.
I slammed the lid on tight, then carried the tub back to the shed. Despite holding all the parts to build a complete zombie, the tub wasn’t heavy. Zombies are odd creatures—no personality, no blood, next to no weight, and unimaginably strong.
The strong part of the equation could be rather unnerving. The featherweight characteristic, however, came in quite handy.
I slid the tub back into the shed, planning to move it to my car after Stuart left for the office. Then I’d take it to Father Ben at the cathedral. Father, I’m sure, would be thrilled to know that among his many exciting duties as my alimentatore , the disposal of zombie parts ranked high.
He’d already engaged in plenty of demon disposal, so this new addition to his Forza résumé shouldn’t be too much of a burden. And, hey, it was better than me dealing with it.
Speaking of demon disposal, I grabbed a tarp from one of the pegs right inside the shed door. Meant to cover piles of dirt during landscaping, I’d recently discovered that they make great covers for dead demons. That, frankly, is the key to running an efficient household—finding multiple uses for everyday items.
I headed around the shed, tarp in hand, planning to toss a cover over my dead demon. Unfortunately, I stumbled across a little flaw in that plan: I couldn’t cover the demon with the tarp, primarily because there was no demon to cover.
Instead, I was looking at a big, empty space. A space where—less than an hour ago—I’d crammed a dead demon. Now there was nothing.
And I had no idea where he’d gone.
Four
By the time breakfast rolled around, I realized who must have moved my demon: Eddie.
That made perfect sense, of course. Unless he’d been sleepwalking, he had to realize what I’d been doing outside before Stuart’s untimely interruption. And Eddie wasn’t a stupid man; surely he’d picked up on the fact that I hadn’t exactly been free to clean up my own mess.
My only question now was where had he hidden the body.
When I’d first started hunting, demon disposal wasn’t an issue. Hunters were trained to exterminate the beasts, not clean up the mess left behind. We’d do our part, then call in a disposal team, a specially trained arm of Forza dedicated to making the empty demon shells disappear. Much like Roto-Rooter, one call did it all.
Because there were no disposal teams operating in California—much less San Diablo—I was pretty much on my own. Which meant that as soon as I retrieved the body Eddie had hidden, I needed to get it to Father Ben to hide. Either that or to David to work his high school chemistry magic on it—the details of which I hadn’t yet brought myself to ask about.
First, though, I had to feed my tiny little eating machine. I’d been awakened at five forty-five (who needs sleep, really?) by a rousing chorus of “Mommy-mom! Mommy-mom! Mommy, Mommy, Mom,” sung more or less to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” Despite the little devil standing right at the side of our bed, Stuart managed to sleep through the concert. I, however, came immediately
Was it any wonder I was in a groggy haze when Marybeth Allen, our association president, had called to rope me into the committee chair position?
Seriously, I should learn not to answer the phone.
I didn’t want to dump all my Easter purchases out onto the dusty shed floor, so I grabbed one of the paper lawn bags Stuart keeps for clippings and transferred the contents of the tub into the sack. Tomorrow I could transfer everything back to the tub—after a good dosing with laundry soap, bleach, and Lysol.
Next, I headed toward the dinosaur and transferred the wiggling, jiggling, apparently very pissed-off limbs into the tub. The fingers were the worst. Like maggots, they inched along the bottom, glowing slightly in the dim light.
I slammed the lid on tight, then carried the tub back to the shed. Despite holding all the parts to build a complete zombie, the tub wasn’t heavy. Zombies are odd creatures—no personality, no blood, next to no weight, and unimaginably strong.
The strong part of the equation could be rather unnerving. The featherweight characteristic, however, came in quite handy.
I slid the tub back into the shed, planning to move it to my car after Stuart left for the office. Then I’d take it to Father Ben at the cathedral. Father, I’m sure, would be thrilled to know that among his many exciting duties as my alimentatore , the disposal of zombie parts ranked high.
He’d already engaged in plenty of demon disposal, so this new addition to his Forza résumé shouldn’t be too much of a burden. And, hey, it was better than me dealing with it.
Speaking of demon disposal, I grabbed a tarp from one of the pegs right inside the shed door. Meant to cover piles of dirt during landscaping, I’d recently discovered that they make great covers for dead demons. That, frankly, is the key to running an efficient household—finding multiple uses for everyday items.
I headed around the shed, tarp in hand, planning to toss a cover over my dead demon. Unfortunately, I stumbled across a little flaw in that plan: I couldn’t cover the demon with the tarp, primarily because there was no demon to cover.
Instead, I was looking at a big, empty space. A space where—less than an hour ago—I’d crammed a dead demon. Now there was nothing.
And I had no idea where he’d gone.
Four
By the time breakfast rolled around, I realized who must have moved my demon: Eddie.
That made perfect sense, of course. Unless he’d been sleepwalking, he had to realize what I’d been doing outside before Stuart’s untimely interruption. And Eddie wasn’t a stupid man; surely he’d picked up on the fact that I hadn’t exactly been free to clean up my own mess.
My only question now was where had he hidden the body.
When I’d first started hunting, demon disposal wasn’t an issue. Hunters were trained to exterminate the beasts, not clean up the mess left behind. We’d do our part, then call in a disposal team, a specially trained arm of Forza dedicated to making the empty demon shells disappear. Much like Roto-Rooter, one call did it all.
Because there were no disposal teams operating in California—much less San Diablo—I was pretty much on my own. Which meant that as soon as I retrieved the body Eddie had hidden, I needed to get it to Father Ben to hide. Either that or to David to work his high school chemistry magic on it—the details of which I hadn’t yet brought myself to ask about.
First, though, I had to feed my tiny little eating machine. I’d been awakened at five forty-five (who needs sleep, really?) by a rousing chorus of “Mommy-mom! Mommy-mom! Mommy, Mommy, Mom,” sung more or less to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” Despite the little devil standing right at the side of our bed, Stuart managed to sleep through the concert. I, however, came immediately
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