
Chapter 26
Oregon is the only state where the term “Civil
War” refers to a game involving Beavers (Oregon State University),
Ducks (University of Oregon), four quarters, and a
football.
ONE SHOT REVERBERATED around the
parking lot. Allie shot into the air, a deliberate miss and a
warning.
“That the best you can do, lady?” one of the gang
bangers sneered. He swung his barbed chain insolently.
“Go, Tess. Go! I’ve got the girls,” Gollum shouted
behind me.
“How’d he get here?”
The magic of the chat room. Your boyfriends got
caught up in the swirl, Scrap replied. He sounded tired already
and he hadn’t even tasted blood.
Without thinking further than taking down the guy
with the lethal chain, I launched forward in a flying leap.
I landed less than gracefully in the middle of a
gang of three. We all went down like I’d bowled a strike.
But I was on top.
I came up swinging the blade, right, left, low,
high. Twist and spin, catch a swinging chain on the tines. Wind
them tight and pull. The dark-haired boy didn’t want to let
go.
I twisted out of reach as I spun him past me, face
first into the blacktop. Another raised his gun, a stubby little
thing with a huge magazine of bullets.
Oops.
Allie chopped his wrist with the grip of her
weapon. He dropped it. Then she grabbed and twisted his arm up
behind him.
She was fully occupied holding his writhing body,
keeping him out of the action. Why had she even bothered with her
gun?
Another boy with a knife slid up behind her. He
caught my blade between the shoulders. He slumped to the ground in
a pool of his own blood.
The tattoo on his wrist pulsed red with black
undertones.
“That important?” I asked as I removed the tines of
the Celestial Blade from his rib cage.
Demon protection, Scrap gasped. Or was that
a slurp as he tasted the blood. He’d earn a wart or two from this
encounter.
The boy writhed. His wound closed. The bleeding
stopped. He dragged himself to his knees sluggishly. He stalled
there waiting to regain enough strength to heave himself upward. He
waited a long time.
“But they aren’t demons themselves. Therefore, they
are vulnerable!” I whacked another gang member behind the knees and
kicked the butt of the crouching boy. He hit the pavement nose
first.
Blood spurted.
He screamed.
The boys paused.
We were no longer easy prey.
As I watched them watch me, a blackberry vine full
of nasty little thorns snaked out of nowhere and wound around the
ankles of the boy farthest back in the pack. Then it
tightened.
His yowl as he tumbled to the ground sent the rest
of them scurrying for cover. Any cover.
But there wasn’t any in the nearly deserted parking
lot. Flashing blue and red lights followed by wailing sirens caught
them at the corner.
Six officers bailed out, weapons drawn, menace
filling their posture.
“I think there’s Chinese food in Sean’s car. Full
of MSG,” I whispered to Scrap. “Disappear and gorge
yourself.”
He left the bags inside your front
door.
In an eye blink, my weapon collapsed in on itself
and faded to invisibility, leaving me to answer a lot of questions
from authorities who didn’t understand the true meaning of demons
on the loose.
Goddess, how my leg hurt from the ill-planned leap
into the fray. No more adrenaline. No more strength.
I sank to the curb, head propped on my hands, and
waited.

“Tess,” Gollum gently prodded me with his
voice.
“Hm?” I looked up through a fog of weariness. The
activity around me didn’t keep my attention. For such a short
fight, I shouldn’t be this tired.
My leg ached terribly. I don’t think I could stand
up if I tried.
Gollum came down to my level, sitting beside me,
stretching his long legs straight out in front of him. “I’ve got to
take the girls home. They’ve talked to the police, all innocence,
and told them, ‘These guys just attacked us out of nowhere, tried
to grab our packages.’ That’s all they know and they are sticking
to it. I think they’ve done this before.”
“Oh.”
“I’m taking our daughters back to your place. I’ll
show them how to lock the door and dead bolt it, how to call you in
an emergency. Then I have to get back to Julia. Sean and Allie are
still here. They’ll see you get home.”
“Okay.” I roused a little. The reminder of his
wife felt like a slap in the face. “Thank you, Gollum.
Thanks for everything.” I dismissed him. I had to or I’d begin the
self-destructive grief all over again.
“You too.” He kissed the top of my head, squeezed
my shoulders, and stood up.
I wrapped my arms around myself, instantly chilled
by his absence. “Slow down and drive careful,” I called after
him.
“Of course. I have precious cargo.”
He passed beyond my focus distance.
Allie replaced him on the curb beside me. “How do
you want to explain the knife wounds?” she asked very
quietly.
“They had knives. I took one away from them and
used it to defend my daughters and their godmother?” I flashed her
a grin, a little energy and enthusiasm banishing the fog.
“Is that how we’re playing this?”
“Got the birth certificates to prove it.”
“Okay.” She sounded skeptical.
And then a policeman with a notebook in hand was in
front of us, looming and trying to intimidate us both.
Allie flashed him her ID—her resignation from the
force wasn’t official for another two weeks—and stood up. Cop to
cop. Cut us some slack as a professional courtesy.
“Those gang tattoos are new. You seen them back
east?” the officer asked her when he’d finished taking our
statements.
“They consider themselves demon protected,” I piped
up. “I don’t know an official name for them.”
“Multiracial and multi ethnic. Unusual.” The cop
shook his head. “They got enough marijuana on them and in their
vehicle to put them away for a long time without the added charges
of assault and battery, attempted robbery, and possession of
illegal weapons.” He shook his head and made a few more
notes.
“I’ve never seen any of these guys before. I
thought I knew all the gangs in the area. You hurt them bad. Maybe
they’ll think twice about staking out territory in this town.” He
wandered off to supervise the loading of two lightly injured and
one nearly dead into appropriate vehicles. The uninjured had been
bundled off to jail sometime ago.
I noticed Sean handling IVs for the guy who fell to
a blackberry vine and broke his nose.
Once the ambulance doors closed, he joined Allie
and me on the curb. “Is this why you end up in my ER so often?” he
asked casually.
I had to think a moment.
“Unlikely,” Allie snorted.
“Oh?” Sean cocked an eyebrow.
“You saw how she tackled those guys with a weak
leg. She’s graceful and self-assured. She only gets hurt by mundane
things.”
“Oh?” This time I questioned the statement. “I
didn’t feel graceful when I landed on top of the pig pile.” My hand
massaged my aching calf absently. Sean stripped off his bloody
surgical gloves and took over the job. He did a better job.
“The point is, you landed on top and knocked three
guys out of the action in one blow,” Allie insisted.
“Actually, she’s only mostly right,” I sighed.
“I’ve been almost self-destructive in the last year, trying to kill
my grief with action, getting overtired and careless. But the last
time was in pursuit of a demon.”
“From what I read in your book, the Celestial Blade
only manifests in the presence of a demon or tremendous evil. Which
were these gang bangers?” Sean asked. He wadded up the soiled
gloves and tossed them into a nearby trash can basketball style.
Then he resumed his massage.
“Both. The tats on their wrists didn’t originate in
this world,” I said cautiously.
“That explains some things,” he mused.
“Like?”
“Like some victims I’ve seen in the ER screaming
about black tattoos on their attackers that glowed red with the
fires of hell.”
“The otherworlds are bleeding into this one, more
and more. I’m surprised everyone hasn’t figured out that demons
walk among us on a daily basis,” Allie said. “God, I want to go
home and have this day be over.” She lay back on the
sidewalk.
The store had closed and only security lights cast
baleful shadows on her face.
“The populace at large is very good at denying the
obvious,” Sean said. He stood up and offered me a hand. “I think
I’ve still got Chinese food back at your condo. You up for a
mundane drive home?”
I laughed. “What? You didn’t enjoy a trip through
purgatory?” I let him pull me to my feet, bringing me very close to
him. Allie got up on her own, dusting off her jeans.
“Is that what you call it?” Sean let his hand
linger on my back as he escorted us toward my little hybrid car,
the only civilian vehicle left in the parking lot. I leaned into
him, just a little. Time to move on. Time to give up on my
fantasies of a life with Gollum. He’d always have to go home to
take care of his wife.
“Scrap calls it the chat room,” Allie added fishing
for her set of keys. “Hey, what happened to all the stuff we
bought?” She looked around for signs of plastic bags, full or
empty.
“Gollum took them with the girls,” I said.
“So, how often do you have to do this?” Sean asked
on a smile.
“Not as often as you might think,” I hedged.
“Depends on who’s in town and how aggressive they are.” I eyed him
cautiously. This could be the beginning of something special or the
end before we got started.
“I can see life with you wouldn’t be boring.”
“Most of the time it is. I hole up in my office for
days writing and thinking and researching and thinking.”
“Well, I have to say, that after the initial
disorientation I had fun. When do we go after the bad guys again?
And I really should do a full work-up on the girls so I have a base
line if they ever get sick or hurt. And has anyone done an MRI on
your brain since you had the imp flu? And ...”
I shut him up by pulling his face down to my level
and planting my mouth firmly on his.
He stilled in surprise, then drew me tight within
the circle of his arms. A little thrill curled my toes. His mouth
softened on mine, became more mobile.
We deepened the kiss, relishing the tingles and
pressure and the joy of beginning something new and
wonderful.
Even if I was settling for second best, I’d never
let him know that.