I checked Google maps on my iPhone while slowing to a stop at a four-way intersection. When I accelerated again, there was a definitive pop in the air and the smell of cigarette smoke filled the car. I glanced in the rear-view mirror to see Dan lounging in the backseat with a cigarette dangling between his pale lips. As always.
"You’re going to be late, brother.” He blew a perfect smoke ring, and it floated toward me with a happy face inside. The face winked.
For a demon, Dan had an incredibly upbeat personality.
"Go away.” I said. “You’re stinking up the car. Now she’ll think I smoke.”
He sat up and hung his arms between the two front seats. "Just tell her about me. Problem solved.”
"So not going to happen.”
"She’ll believe you, she is a necromancer.”
"Necromancer in training.”
"Whatever.” He waved his hand, scattering cigarette ashes on the seat.
“Watch it.” I brushed at my jacket. “I actually washed this with my own two hands, you know.”
“Mate, she’s totally not going to care. All she’ll be paying attention to are those big beautiful eyes of yours.” He ruffled my hair. Hair I’d spent exactly twenty minutes on to get that perfectly messy look.
I slapped at his hand. “Don’t you have some demon-like thing to do tonight?”
“I suppose I could go possess someone, but it’s only fun when you’re there to exorcize me out of them.”
Not only were Dan and I best friends -- well as much as an exorcist and a spawnling from hell could be friends -- we also worked together. He possessed them, and I saved them for a disgustingly large fee. Most of our clientele resided in the City of Angels, Hollywood. We didn’t con just anyone. We picked out marks carefully. Only those truly deserving of a little trickery and thievery. I’d seen true possession and the damage it did to people, so Dan and I limited our jobs to the real dickwads of the world.
“I’m sure there are plenty of other things you could be doing right about now.” I pulled to a stop in front of a small yellow bungalow and parked. “And I mean now.”
“Fine.” He sighed. “But if you need any help with…”
“Dan,” I warned.
There was another pop and he vanished. Cigarette smoke lingered in the air from where he’d just been sitting. Even after all these months, his sudden comings and goings still freaked me out.
I turned the car off, opened the door then slid out. While I made my way up the front walk to the door, my gut tightened. I was so nervous my knees shook. I’d performed dozens of exorcisms, stared down a multitude of nasty demons, heck I’d even spent a year in Hell, but girls were a whole different matter. I had no clue what I was doing.
When I reached the door, I did a quick breath-check then knocked. By the time the door opened, my heart was thumping hard. And when I saw Aspen outlined in the doorway, her blond curls framing an incredibly sharp face, it beat twice as fast. She was just as pretty as she’d been when I first saw her in the cemetery. More so because she didn’t have flecks of dirt on her face or spots of blood on her slim hands.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“Do you want to come in? My mom wants to say hey.”
“Um, okay.” Knowing I didn’t really have a choice.
I followed her into the kitchen, admiring the way her butt looked in her tight jeans. Her mom, Dina, was sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen island. Although she was smiling, her intense blue eyes still scrutinized me. Like being raked over hot coals. I couldn’t really blame her though. I did have a bit of a reputation. Well, my whole family did really. The Butchers were known to deal in the three D’s: danger, demons and death. In her opinion, I probably wasn’t the ideal candidate to be dating her daughter.
“Hi, Caden.” She tucked an ash blond curl behind her ear. A gesture that Aspen had obviously picked up.
“Hey, Ms. Spencer.”
“How’s your dad fairing?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable talking about my dad. I never knew exactly what to tell people. He was sad and angry all the time and drank way too much.
Instead of sharing that happy information, I said, “He’s all right.”
“Good to hear.”
I dropped my gaze, unsure of what to say next. I’d stared down a level two wrath demon and banished him back to Hell, but Dina Spencer, the most skilled necromancer in the Western hemisphere, was ten times more formidable and one hundred times scarier.
Aspen was next to me in a flash, tugging on my arm. “Okay, Mom, we’re going now.” She led me back to the front door. Dina followed us there.
As Aspen slipped on her runners, I looked at everything but her mom. Making eye contact with a hostile entity was always a bad decision.
“Be home by midnight.”
“Yes, Mom.” Aspen sighed, rolling her eyes.
“Don’t give me that look, Aspen. You know as well as I do what comes lurking after dark.”
“I know. You don’t have to worry.” She wrapped her hand around my arm. “I’m with Caden, exorcist extraordinary. What could possibly happen?”
Dina didn’t answer; she just looked at me. Her gaze was withering. It was obvious I’d just been measured and found extremely lacking.
“I’ll take care of her, Ms. Spencer. Trust me.” I gave her my winningest smile, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Dina Spencer didn’t trust me one iota.
Once we were in the car and had pulled away from the house, I relaxed a little.
“Sorry about my mom. I know she can be a bit scary.”
“No worries. I wasn’t afraid.”
She gave me a knowing look. “Liar.” She laughed.
I laughed with her. “Okay, maybe a little.”
Smiling, she looked around the car, taking in everything including me. Her blue eyes were intense, and looking into them made my gut clench. “So, where are we going?”
“I thought the Young Street spring fair?” Nervous she was going to hate my suggestion and think I was a complete loser for suggesting it, I watched her face, waiting for a positive reaction.
Meeting my gaze, she nodded. “Cool.”
After I parked the car, we made our way to the street carnival. There were game stalls, food carts, a few rides, jugglers, mimes and clowns. It was a smorgasbord of harmless fun and frivolity. My plan was to eat some corn dogs, win a big stuffed animal for Aspen at the ball toss, then make out on the Ferris wheel.
But before we could make our way to the corn dog stand, a tall, rail-thin clown with bright blue hair stepped in our path. Smiling, he twisted some balloons into a wiener dog and presented it to Aspen.
She laughed. “Thank you.”
He took a deep sweeping bow, but his gaze never left mine. He creeped me out. I grabbed Aspen’s hand and pulled her away.
Twenty minutes later I was making good on the second part of my three-part plan. I had one ball left and only two more bottles to knock down to win the big panda bear Aspen was eyeing. Just as I wound up to throw, Dan sidled up next to me, and I missed the tower of bottles.
“Oh bad shot, dude.”
“What are you doing here?” I turned to glare at him.
Thankfully he was looking like his innocuous teenage persona, with unkempt brown hair, brown eyes, two-day scruff, and not like Sid Vicious, which was his preferred character skin. They’d been close friends way back when.
He grinned that devil grin of his and turned his attention on Aspen. “Just wanted to meet this girl of yours.” He pushed past me and offered his hand to her. “Hi, I’m Dan. Caden’s better looking and more charming friend.”
Looking at me for help, she shook his hand. “Aspen.”
“Fantastic to meet you Aspen.” Then he glanced at me. “You’re right, brother, she is hot.”
I shook my head in exasperation. “Don’t worry. He’s harmless.”
“Speak for yourself.” He slung an arm around her shoulders, th
en mine. “So, what’s on the agenda?”
“Well, Aspen and I are going to go on the Ferris wheel.”
“Can three people fit in that seat?”
I stopped walking and shrugged Dan’s arm off. To Aspen I said, “Will you excuse us for a sec?”
“Sure.” She shrugged.
I pulled Dan away from her. “What the hell dude? Are you trying to ruin things for me?”
“Nah. I’m just bored. You’re my only source of entertainment on this plane.”
“That’s just sad, you know?”
He shrugged. “It is what it is, man.”
“What about that girl in Calgary? The one we met on our road trip to the Stampede. Why don’t you zip over there and see her?”
He pulled out a smoke from his pack, put it in his mouth and lit it. “Nah. She’s getting too clingy.”
“Whatever dude, you gotta go and do something, because you are not hanging with us. I like this girl and I’m not letting you screw it up for me.”
“When have I ever screwed it up?”
“Every time.”
Dan nodded then one brow went up. “Speaking of girls. Where did yours go?”
“What?!” I spun around and my heart froze. Aspen wasn’t in the spot we’d left her. And she wasn’t at the nearby hotdog vendor or the shooting game booth either.
“Maybe she went to use the bathroom.” He gestured toward one of the porta-potties.
Despite the growing sense of dread in my gut, I knocked on the facility door. “Aspen?”
“Get lost jerk,” came a very masculine voice from inside.
I looked at Dan. He must’ve seen the worry on my face because he clapped me on the back. “Maybe she just hooked up with another guy, a better looking one.”
The unease was intensifying. I had a lot of enemies. Most of them made during my year-long hiatus in Hell. If one of those demons wanted to jack me upwhile topside, kidnapping Aspen would be high on the list of the worst things to do to me. That and messing with my dad.
That’s when I saw the clown, the one who’d accosted us earlier. In front of him I caught a glimpse of blond curls. He had Aspen and was taking her to the fun house.
“Come on,” I said to Dan pointing. “Follow that clown.”
“Why would a clown kidnap your girlfriend?”
“I don’t know. Clowns are always doing something evil.”
Dan nodded. “True dat.”
We ran after the clown, weaving around the steady stream of carnival goers, reaching the funhouse just as he, with Aspen in tow, ducked inside.
“So, what’s the plan?” Dan asked, blocking me from rushing in.
“To get Aspen back, duh.”
“Yeah I know that genius, but you realize if one of my kin is wearing that clown like a meat suit I can’t interfere.”
“What do you mean you can’t interfere?”
“I mean I can’t like pulverize the dude or anything.”
“I thought you had my back?”
“I do, man, in usual circumstances, like if that clown was just some regular old creepy molester clown. But if he’s possessed I can only do so much.”
I shook my head. Now he tells me. “Well, what can you do for me?”
As an answer, he grabbed me and we zipped through the ether and popped up inside the fun house right in the middle of the hall of mirrors. The clown’s maniacal reflection stared me right in the face. I swung around to see him standing there, grinning at me, his arm crushing Aspen in a headlock.
“Caden Butcher.” The clown glanced at Dan. “And his faithful dog Dantalion.”
Dan put his hands up. “Hey, I just brought him here. I know the damn rules.” Then he pulled out his cigarette pack and lit up. I was beginning to wonder if that was a nervous habit of his or if he really was that carefree about the whole situation.
“Let her go.” I didn’t have my bag of tricks with me, my regular arsenal of amped up holy water, blessed chalk and anise, but I didn’t go anywhere without an iron cross blessed by the pope and a small vial of holy water. I fiddled with the vial in the pocket of my jacket.
If I could somehow get it out, splash it on him for a distraction, then press the cross to his forehead and recite the Rituale Romanum, I might be able to exorcize him back to Hell.
The clown glanced down at Aspen struggling in his hold. He patted her on top of the head. “Her? Really? Why? She’s not all that pretty.”
“Screw you,” Aspen grunted.
This made him laugh.
“She’s got nothing to do with this. This is between you and me.”
“Actually my beef is with your dear old dad. He ended my playtime in that old Russian man with the knife collection. I was just having some fun. Then he comes along and poof. Sends me back to Hell. But your dad’s usually so protected, I can’t get to him. So I thought hey, what the heck, I’ll see if I can play with Baby Butcher. And voila! Here you are.” He waved his red-gloved hand around and indicated the fun house. His reflection danced around like a marionette in the other mirrors. It unsettled me, and I had a difficult time concentrating on the real clown. I had to tamp down the urge to turn and look at the moving images in the other mirrors. Which was exactly what he wanted me to do.
“Well, why don’t you tell me your name so I can tell my dad you said hi when I see him next.” Names had power. If I could get his, it would make his exodus down under a lot easier for me.
The clown frowned. “The only person you’ll be seeing next is the coroner.”
He tossed Aspen to the side like trash. She flew into one of the mirrors, hitting it hard, knocking her head and cracking the glass. Like a rag doll, she slumped to the ground. I didn’t have a chance to go to her before the clown was charging at me.
“Dan! Get her out of here!”
I thought he was going to object, but he sighed then said, “Fine.” He was next to her in a flash and vanishing them both into thin air in seconds.
Just as the clown’s hands reached for my neck, I got the vial uncorked and tossed the contents in his face. The moment the water touched his skin, wisps of thick black smoke curled into the air, burning his demon flesh like acid. Shrieking, the clown released me and brought his hands up to his face, but I was faster. I had the iron cross pressed to his forehead before he could even contemplate what I was doing.
“Dues, et Pater Domini nostril jesu Christi…”
He continued to shriek—the sound was like nails on a chalkboard—and writhe as I spoke the words. There was nothing he could do now but try and hold on to the soul he’d possessed as he was yanked back down into the fiery depths of his hellish prison. And trust me, hell was as fiery as the rumors made it out to be.
“….amen.”
The clown collapsed to the ground, me on top of him. I really hoped no one walked in on us. The cross stuck to his skin, burned into his flesh. Carefully, I peeled the iron off then stood, looking down at the now recovering clown.
His eyes fluttered open and he blinked up at me, confusion evident in the way his pupils dilated in and out. “What’s…what’s going on?”
I helped him sit up against one of the mirrors. “You should really lay off the drinking buddy. You could’ve really hurt someone.”
He glanced around, taking in the hall of mirrors and the broken glass on the ground beside him. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you stumbling around in here, mumbling to yourself. When I tried to help, you fell into one of the mirrors.”
He looked at me, and I knew he was trying to reconcile what I just told him to what he remembered. His mind was likely trying to hide those lingering images to protect his own sanity. I was just helping him out, giving him a more plausible reason he could cling to.
Finally he nodded to me. “Yeah. Yeah. You’re right, kid. Thanks for helping me.” He got to his feet, a little shaky, but he was able to stand.
“No worries.” I left him there to sort it all out.
Outside the fun house, I found Aspen sitting on the street curb and Dan handing her a bottle of water.
“Are you all right?” I sat beside her, wanting to put my arm around her, but not sure if she’d welcome it.
She rubbed the side of her head. “Yeah. I’m a little fuzzy about what happened though.”
I glanced at Dan, wondering if he’d messed with her head at all. He just shrugged. “Caden saved your life is what happened.”
She took a sip of water then looked at me. “Was that clown really possessed?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”
“Does this happen often when you take a girl out?”
“No. This is a new one for me.” I gave her a reassuring smile.
“Huh. Well, that’s messed up.”
“Yeah it is.” I stood then helped her to her feet. “Let me take you home.”
“That’s probably best.”
During the drive back to Aspen’s, the silence was deafening. In the backseat, even Dan was unnaturally quiet. I snuck a few peeks at Aspen as I drove, but she just stared out the side window the entire time. I imagined this was going to be our first and last date.
When I parked in front of her house, she looked at me then back at Dan. “The clown said some weird things in there. You’re not really a demon are you?”
For a second I was sure Dan was going to admit it but instead he shook his head. “Nah, I’m not a demon. That would be messed up, especially since Caden’s my best bud. Could you imagine what the International Order of Exorcists would do if that were true? It would be total and complete chaos for sure.”
I gave him the ‘Shut up while you’re ahead’ look. But as usual he ignored me.
She looked at him a moment longer, then as if appeased turned to open the door. “Walk me up.”
Quickly, I got out of the car and came around to shut the door for her. We slowly walked up the steps to the front door. Nerves made my gut churn and my throat constrict.
“I’m sorry about tonight. It’s not really the plan I had for us.” I looked down at my feet, too much of a coward to look her in the face. I didn’t want her to see how much it mattered to me that I had blown it. Dating me was definitely an extreme sport. The risks far outweighed the benefits. Even I could admit that.
She nudged her runner against mine. “Nah, it wasn’t all that bad.”
My head came up, shock probably making my eyes bug out. “But.”