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  “I thoughts I seen him watchin’ her from across the field so I was payin’ close attention to him,” Leroy beamed with pride.

  Buck was right. Leroy caught everything.

  “Now, Big George, yous know better than to look at a white woman, don’t ‘cha?”

  I kept my eyes focused ahead. You can’t look at them, just be their darn horsey or whatever else they want in the moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the satisfaction in Miss Charlotte’s eyes as the whip snapped and whistled, cutting through the air. I could feel it wrap around my body from my shoulder to my hip.

  I woke up and shoved Kiri from me. I stormed across the room and looked at her in disgust, until she settled herself from the sudden awakening.

  “What happened?” she asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  She got up and stumbled weakly on her injured leg. That made me feel worse about taking out my anger on her. I shouldn’t have woken her. She started vomiting into the toilet. The vomit was black. The poison was finally finding its own way out of her body. Thank God. I held her hair back and knew she wasn’t Miss Charlotte.

  “I’m sorry I pushed you.”

  “I don’t…” she said as she vomited again. “…think it’s related.”

  “I had a nightmare.”

  She leaned against the cabinet and I handed her a cup of water.

  “I suppose it’s an occupational hazard, working with demons and all. I’m sorry I never asked how the hunt went.”

  “We never found the bantling, but I’m sure it’s locked up safe now.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” she said as her hand went back to her forehead and she tried to put on a brave face. “My head’s still spinning.”

  “The poison’s working its way up and out.”

  “Mmmmm. What did you give me before?”

  “Ibuprofen.”

  Even half drugged she could tell I was lying.

  “Vicodin.”

  “Well, it got the poison out. Narcotics make me puke.”

  She smiled and used my shoulder to steady herself so she’d only have to take two steps to the bed. Flopping on her stomach, she stretched in the middle. She buried her face in the covers.

  “Nye…how much longer?”

  “I don’t know. You’re not fighting the poison as well as I thought you would.”

  “That makes sense. Don’t drug me again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Kiri rolled over.

  “Was it about demons?”

  “Me drugging you?”

  “No, the nightmare.”

  “Um…in a way, I suppose.”

  “How long did I sleep?”

  “Not too long, but it’s already nine.”

  “Does the poison make me sleepy?”

  “Fighting death will do that. Sleep allows your body to heal.”

  “Do you think I’ll make it?”

  “I pray you do.”

  “Why? To avoid punishment?”

  “I think the world is a better place because you are in it. Your death would darken it.”

  A smile came to her face that made me heat up from inside.

  “Do you believe in the butterfly effect?”

  I paused, trying to think about what were the chances a butterfly in Japan flapped its wings making the air around Dilana’s first arrow arc and miss the bantling, only to hit Kiri.

  “Do you know about that? You said you don’t get out much.”

  “Yes, I’ve read about it. It’d take a lot of butterflies to get us to this situation.”

  I had to chuckle a little thinking of hundreds of butterflies over the years each adding to the situation.

  “Could our meeting be destiny or fate?”

  Chapter 6

  Kiriana

  My leg was stiff and sore, but the color was finally returning. The room I was in had to be a living room. I sat in the middle of a large open space, extended my right leg and curled in my left. Leaning over, I reached for my toes only to have my hamstring scream at me for trying to stretch it. My head fell back and I looked up at the ceiling. Nye must have lied to me or he was projecting his hope that he could return me whole. How could I get my leg back? I really was useless without it.

  Heavy footsteps brought me back from my wallowing. Stretching my neck, I looked behind me to see the entryway upside down. It was Dilana loading arrows into a small leather case, which she then stuck into a strap on her leg.

  Nye would be leaving again. He’d walked me to this room while we were talking so we could both be comfortable. He said he’d have to hunt again. I was annoyed I couldn’t control my sleeping. Every time he was free, I’d pass out. When I woke, he’d have to hunt again.

  “My love.”

  An Asian man walked into view and I rolled over onto my stomach to avoid the headache that was sure to follow from looking at the world upside down.

  The man was tall like Dilana. His features were sharp and angular. He appeared Japanese, his skin paler and eyes almond shaped, but rounder. His slick ponytail was taut to his neck.

  He caressed Dilana’s face, and I could not believe Dilana softened when he touched her. Her smile made me wonder how much Dilana fought this part of her. Dilana fell into his arms and I realized I was intruding on a very private moment.

  I pulled myself up and flopped in the green Lazy-boy beside me. Exhausted by the effort, I closed my eyes.

  “You ready?” Nye asked from the other room. The sound of his voice made my eyes snap open.

  “Always,” Dilana replied, and I heard the door close.

  “Hello.”

  I turned my head to see the Asian man. “Oh…hello.”

  “I am Kiyoshi.”

  “Nice to meet you. The tree guy?”

  “In a way. May I?” he asked, extending his hand over the chair beside me.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I have your medication,” Kiyoshi said as he sat and handed me the bottles and a glass of water.

  I eyed the bottles then scanned his face wondering if he knew what they were for, but he didn’t seem to care.

  “Thank you.”

  “It was nothing.”

  He reached for a remote and scanned the channels on the sixty-inch plasma screen over the fireplace. Without speaking we sat and watched The Soup on E!. By the first commercial I couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “You don’t go out?”

  “Not for fighting.”

  His face looked drawn. He reached for a notebook and started to sketch. Then he picked up a laptop that had been charging beside the chair. It whistled as it powered up.

  “Why not? Or can you not tell me?”

  “I’m not frozen, at least not in the traditional sense.”

  He typed, then traced his finger along a page in the notebook.

  “What are you? Sorry. That sounded rude.”

  My stomach knotted instantly while my hands shot up doing the wild, crazy talking they always tried to do.

  “I am Dilana’s other,” he replied, not looking up from his work.

  “Other what?”

  “Half, I assume. You would refer to me as her husband.”

  “So you didn’t…” I said as I twirled my hand trying to remember how they became demon hunters and realized Nye never said.

  “No. I appealed to Gabriel to allow me to be with her always. The rule is her sentence shall never term, but if she were to die, so would I. Without reincarnation.”

  “Your soul just evaporates?”

  “Turned into cosmic dust. And I am not allowed to fight. So I sit home like…” he said as he moved his pencil at a record pace. His thumb smudged the drawing. “At least I’m with her.”

  “Did you say sentence?”

  “Yes. Sentence. You think people want to be frozen in time, making their life’s work hunting demons?”

  “It seems noble.”

  “It’s suicidal. But I suppos
e that’s how Gabriel picks them, now isn’t it.” This wasn’t a question.

  “What, the craziest people?”

  “Something like that. Look…” Kiyoshi said as he set down his notebook and actually looked me in the eye. “They have made a deal with Gabriel and God that they will complete their sentence in return for eternal salvation.”

  “But Dilana’s sentence will never term?”

  “No. Her choice was to do this forever as long as I was by her side. At least during the downtime.”

  “She must really love you.”

  “Only as much as I love her.”

  “How did you meet?”

  Kiyoshi breathed in deep.

  “You don’t have to…”

  “No. It’s not that. Um…she was in my village of Abashiri. It’s on the biggest northern island of Japan. Our priests had been praying for a resolution because we knew something was off. I remember my mother telling me she named me for the light to save me from the darkness of the village.”

  “Didn’t Dilana stick out?”

  “The Frozen are not seen. Much like the demons that emerge. You are an exception. You’d be amazed at how wrapped up people become in their world that they don’t notice things happening right in front of them. Growing our ranks externally, opposed through Gabriel’s natural means can cause…problems.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  I didn’t get an answer to my question, which in this place was all the answer I needed.

  I turned back to the TV. Chelsea Lately came on and I got a chill at the thought I was going to get Nye in trouble. Maybe that was why Dilana was so against me being there.

  “Do you mind?” I asked. “Staying home?”

  “I’m a man. My woman, my love, is fighting for her life every day and I am not there to protect her. I was a warrior when we met. Mind is an understatement.” He cursed in Japanese and started to erase his mistake on the paper.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s nothing,” he said.

  “What are you…”

  “We used to have a cat,” he snipped. “Used to.”

  His brown eyes glared at me, and I felt another chill. I wasn’t sure if he had the ability to freeze me out like Nye, but I could feel a foreboding that told me to leave.

  “I think I’m going to lie down.”

  “That’d be a good idea. Sleep should help your body heal.”

  “I’m sensing that’s the mantra around here.”

  I pulled myself up with the cane and walked to the room Nye had provided for me. Any weight on my leg was sending pain shooting through my hip up to my ribs. I still felt chills going through my body. A hot shower would warm me up.

  I crawled into bed and figured a shower was out, the thick goose down quilt would be my salvation from the cold. There was no way I could stand up. Laying on my right side, I curled up into a ball and held back the scream I wanted to let out. Tears rolled down my cheeks as the pain coursing through my body finally hit my head, and I passed out.

  * * * *

  Nye

  “Are you prepared?” Dilana asked.

  We were crouched in a park at the edge of town. The small lake had had more than one demon escape from it.

  “I’m always prepared,” I replied, feeling my weapons on my hips and chest.

  “Not for this. For death.”

  “You threaten?”

  “You need to send her home. Gabriel could show up any day.”

  “You’re one to talk.”

  The leaves rustled and I pulled my blade to see an average sized rabbit cut across the field.

  “You think he’ll add years? Is that why you’re keepin’ her here? So Gabriel can catch you and punish you more?”

  “No.”

  My fingers ran over the etching on my claustranima and recalled the last time Gabriel had smoothed out over twenty years of kills. Now I knew it would take me less than seven years to reach the top of the diamond handle, releasing my soul for reincarnation.

  “He’d kill me this time anyway. Straight down for me. Ya want me to give your ex a big old, wet sloppy kiss when I see him?”

  Dilana’s jaw clenched and her lips turned white. I felt the cold Kiri had been talking about.

  “Look. You and I know if she goes to the hospital she’ll die.”

  “So?”

  “Hostile much?”

  “What is she to us? Nothin’ but problems. You’re goin’ down for this, not me.”

  “Fine. I’d rather be done with this whole damn thing anyway.”

  Dilana looked at me. Her eyes were solemn.

  “What? No, Nye. Please. You’re the only one that’s kept me safe.”

  I thought about that. No, she was the one that had kept me safe. I hadn’t been stabbed, beaten, and, aside from yesterday, I’d not even been caught within five feet of a demon since she had become my partner. She was a natural. It was her calling.

  “What do you even know about her?” Dilana questioned. “She could be dangerous.”

  “How? She weighs…never mind,” I stopped myself because Dilana didn’t weigh a thing and she could kick my ass.

  “When Kiyoshi got her medicine, at her apartment…he smelled something.”

  “Smelled something?”

  “Maybe it was just garbage, but it smelled rotten.”

  “It’s hot out. Did the place have AC?”

  “It was…Nye…it smelled like them,” she said, looking at me with solace.

  I stood up, no longer caring if a Deumos was tracking.

  “She’s not a Deumos.”

  “I never said she was,” Dilana said, jumping up. “But she’s connected to them, somehow.”

  “No, she’s not,” I snapped, wanting to kick myself.

  What if she was? What did I know about her besides the fact I found her backside to be perfect and she looked at me like I was a man.

  “Nye…”

  “Dilana, your other doesn’t deal with them on a daily basis. He doesn’t know…”

  “What they smell like? Bullshit!” she said, looking as if she was going to punch me. “I’ve been covered in them more than once. He knows the smell. The lingering, festering…”

  “She just moved here. Less than a month ago. What if the coven was set up in the building?”

  Dilana just stared at me. It was a stupid thing to say. Where would the bantlings mature? It can’t be right. She can’t be friends with…I stormed off. I know the smell she spoke of. I’ve smelled it lingering in stores, but we never knew how long it had been there.

  “What if she was seduced?” Dilana offered. “Does she seem possessed at all?”

  “No, she’s…” Perfect. I thought about the way she stared at me when I was arguing her theories. The way she smiled and bit her bottom lip when I agreed she had a point.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I flipped it open to hear Frick’s voice screaming, “Nye, for the love of all things holy, help us!”

  This was followed by a god-awful sound. The screams on the other end were hard for me to stomach. I had heard them too many times before. The phone clattered to the ground and I knew Frick and Frack were gone. There was no reason to even try to save them.

  I snapped my phone shut and looked at D.

  “Where was Jeremy stationed?” I asked.

  Dilana had been on me to learn their names. I told her it was a waste of time. Sometimes I hated being right.

  “Who? Oh, you mean Frick and Frack? Wait, was? As in past tense? They were stationed by the fair grounds.”

  “Let’s head out,” I ordered. “Call Lars.”

  Dilana dialed as we ran across the field to where our vehicles were. Racing to the other side of town, I dreaded what I’d find…not the bantling or Deumos that probably brought Frick and Frack down, but what was left of their corpses.

  Driving onto the fairgrounds, I had one hand on my blade, the other on my Indian. I hid it near the grandstand. Si
lence. Stealth. That was what I needed then. Breathing in, I could smell a trace of sulfur. A low whistle told me Dilana was to my right. We walked in concert, not wanting to make any additional sounds. A twig snapped to the left of us, we took off, and Dilana held her crossbow at the ready.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. My heart was beating hard enough for me to feel it in my chest. That wasn’t like me. Just then an image flashed through my mind of Kiri alone in her room. Schmitty entered and she curled up in a ball. She was afraid like when I first brought her home.

  “Nye.”

  My blade was at Dilana’s neck. I dropped the knife back to my side.

  “The demons don’t know your name,” she growled and shoved my chest.

  “I felt a gust behind me.”

  “I’ll give you a gust of wind,” she growled as she pushed me harder. “Lars just texted the animal was running to the southeast side of town. Its tracker is having a hard time corralling it.”

  “K. Let’s head out.”

  “Go home.”

  “What? We still have a chance to catch it.”

  “You. Go. Home. I’ll hook up with Lars and Schmitty.”

  “Dilana, I’m not leaving you.”

  “Nye, you haven’t been here. You’re at home. With her. The demon lover.”

  Before I knew what happened, my hand was around Dilana’s throat as I pinned her against the closest building. The pounding from my heart was echoing in my ears as my breathing increased. Dilana didn’t try to fight me as my fingers tightened around her neck.

  “You’re proving my point,” she gasped, and I dropped her back down to the ground.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You’ve tried to kill me, twice, since I mentioned it. Third time’s the charm.”

  She had a point. I had already almost sliced her neck off. But Frick and Frack were around here somewhere. They at least deserved a burial and I needed to find their claustranima.

  “We need to find them. They were too new to not leave remnants.”

  “Find them and load them in the truck. Then you leave.”

  “Dilana…”

  “Don’t. I told you I had a bad feeling about her from the start.”

  “You have bad feelings about everyone.”

  “Look here, Aristotle, if I wanted intelligent conversation, I’d talk to Yosh.”

  “The smell was latent. Trapped in the walls from years past.”