Read Online Demons in My Driveway by R.L. Naquin - Free Book Online Page A

Monterey. Darius and I had a contract to chase down the soul of a businessman who’d slipped off to finish a big housing contract after he died. His spirit caused all sorts of trouble in an abandoned warehouse, and Lionel’s team was out there to help.” She paused. “He’s pretty.”
    Riley snorted, and I turned to look at him. “What?” I asked.
    He smirked. “Of course he’s pretty. Why wouldn’t he be?”
    Maurice walked into the living room from the hallway. “What are we talking about? That guy Lionel?”
    Riley nodded. “Yeah. The girls think he’s good looking.”
    Maurice laughed. “Of course he is. Duh. Why would he be an uggo?”
    Kam folded her arms under her breasts. “So, what? I don’t care
why
he’s pretty. I can appreciate it, just the same.”
    I scowled and stomped my foot like a petulant child. “Would somebody please tell me what I’m missing?”
    Mom walked out of the kitchen sipping a cup of tea, wandered to the window and glanced outside. “Who’s the skinwalker?” she asked. “He seems to be giving orders. Is that the O.G.R.E. squad from Petaluma?”
    I rolled my eyes. “Clearly I’m missing a valuable skill set. How the hell do you all know what he is and I don’t? For that matter, what’s a skinwalker?”
    “He’s a shapeshifter, sort of,” Kam said. “And you’ve only been in our world for about a year. Give it some time. You’ll start getting it.”
    Mom gave Kam an amused look. “Not exactly a shapeshifter. The shape remains the same. It’s the skin that changes.”
    I had a bad feeling that I didn’t want to know the particulars in this, but I asked anyway. “How exactly do they change their skin?”
    “Like a suit.” Kam grinned, as if putting on a new skin were a trick she admired and wished she could duplicate. “They get them from the morgue. Dead people don’t need their skins anymore.”
    I swallowed hard, feeling queasy. “You’re kidding me. And the Board allows this?”
    Mom put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “The Board arranges it. I’m sorry, baby. I thought keeping you in the dark all those years would protect you. Turns out, it’s handicapped you.”
    To be fair, it had also given me strengths she’d never understand. I hadn’t been whisked away for training like she had. Everything I’d learned, I’d learned on my own. And every battle I’d fought, I’d done without the aid of a government entity calling the shots behind me.
    For that matter, I’d fought battles, period. Until she got herself kidnapped, Mom had spent eighteen years living in a cottage in the woods, being something of a caretaker to whoever showed up at her door. She was more like a country doctor to the Hidden than a protector.
    Clearly, I was doing this whole Aegis thing wrong. I went on rescue missions, helped rebuild a broken government, policed rogue Hidden, and took in some of the Hidden as permanent members of my household. According to my mother, I should have been staying home tying bandages and bottle-feeding orphaned swamp bogies, not trying to save the world.
    Handicapped? My ass. From the first day I’d been exposed to this, I’d embraced it as a new identity rather than a job.
    So what if I couldn’t classify a skinwalker when I saw one? I had half a dozen loyal people—minimum—around at any given moment to step in with the information.
    I swallowed the thought and forced a smile. “It’s okay, Mom. You did what you could.” The inside of my house felt stifling and too full of people. “I’m going out back for awhile.”
    “Want company?” Kam asked.
    I shook my head. “I just need some air. You guys sort out how you want to integrate with Lionel and his guys. I want one of
us
on that portal at all times, regardless of what he’s doing.”
    I walked away before anyone had a chance to ask me questions. I needed quiet to think. I needed a break from other people’s expectations.
    The backyard was isolated from anything