Battle With Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

“Yes, of course.” He looked back at the bookshelf. I will read every one of these books, he thought, and I knew it wasn’t a comment for me. He just wasn’t shielding the thought.

I rolled my eyes and couldn’t help a soft smile, my heart glowing despite the circumstances. He’d do it because he wanted to learn more about my past in a way he knew I loved. And I’d read along with him to share the moment.

“I hate you,” I said, just because it was a nice change from saying, I love you.

“Ditto,” he replied, coming my way, playing along.

He gave me a poignant look as he took my hand.

Here we go, I thought, and made sure to keep a very tight lockdown on my emotions. He was blameless. He deserved none of my ill mood.

I pushed through the door-less frame into the teeny-tiny kitchen, the countertops a relic from the sixties, the cupboards not big enough to hold half the food Darius’s people brought to my current house. Everything looked as I’d left it, except for the badly worn circular table.

My mouth dropped open.

A stack of gold bricks covered the four-person table, arranged in the form of a pyramid, reaching up toward the ceiling. I could still see dirt clinging to their edges.

The sliding glass doors leading out to the garden were covered with heavy drapes, and the kitchen window barely let any light past the hanging sheet that we’d meant to replace with actual shades for years. I couldn’t tell if it was real gold.

“I’ll explain that in a moment,” Darius whispered into the hush. He tried to pull me toward the sliding glass door.

“Is that…gold?” I asked, trying to get closer and peer through the gloom.

“Yes. Please, let me explain in a moment.”

I let him pull me along, craning my head to stare at the table.

“Who… Did you put that there?” I asked softly. “Was that left by the guy that was going to tear this place down?”

“Neither.” He waved his hand and then reached into the drapery and pulled open the sliding glass door. Fresh air fluttered the fabric, washing across my face. “Come.”

I frowned and followed him out. This was not like him. He might subtly stuff my bank account with funds or leave money out where he knew I’d find and likely steal it, but he did not leave stacks of precious commodities out for me to deal with. He’d think it lazy. If he wanted to give me gold, he’d establish a safety deposit box or something, furnish me with the key, directions to it, and probably a market report on the price of gold.

Actually, come to think of it, nothing about this was his normal way of doing things. I wasn’t surprised he’d kept the old furniture—he’d understand my sentimental need for it to be the same—but it wasn’t like him to leave it dirty.

Perplexed by his behavior and his choice to leave the drapes closed, I nonetheless stepped through with him. A face full of dust and a musty smell that broke my heart later, we stepped onto the creaky back porch. The boards should’ve been changed out years ago. Years and years ago. It was a safety hazard at this point, not that it mattered.

A thatch of gnarled bushes rose just beyond the porch, choking the backyard. They looked unchanged, other than their size. This had never been the part of the yard my mother had cared about.

He sauntered with me to the edge of the porch, apparently not worried that one wrong footfall might send him plummeting through the boards. The stairs at the side had crumbled away, leaving gaping holes of jagged wooden teeth hellbent on breaking an ankle.

“Get us down?” Darius asked.

“Why are we here?” I asked again, hovering us to the weed-covered dirt.

He didn’t answer as we strolled along the little path toward the tree line. A million memories pushed to the forefront of my mind, jockeying for position. My mother and I strolling down this very path, similar to what Darius and I were doing. Sometimes bickering about what was going wrong with my magic. Me running and tripping, skinning my knee and crying. Mom hadn’t kissed it better and cooed—she’d made me walk into the bathroom and then sit still while she applied stinging antiseptic.

“She never coddled me,” I said as we wound along the path. It seemed strange that the overgrown bushes hadn’t impinged on the path and crowded our progress. “She never babied me. As far back as I can remember, she was mostly indifferent to my cuts and scrapes. She patched them up like a doctor and marshaled me on.”

“She probably knew you’d need to be tough for the life ahead of you.”

A lump formed in my throat. Hindsight, as they said. Even while hiding me, she’d been training me for the life that she knew I was bound to walk into. I wondered if she’d known how special my magic would be. Or that I would be adaptable to the Underworld.