Page 18 of Dreaming of the Demon

The Ogre stared at the Incubus uncertainly. He was still taller but despite his size, he was clearly mostly flab and hair. If it came to a fight, I didn’t know who would win but I thought even if Malik lost he would make the other Creature pay dearly in the process.

The Ogre must have thought the same thing because at last I felt the magical grip on my legs loosening. He pointed one finger with a long, dirty fingernail at Malik and me.

“For now go free, but you will see that you can run but we’re not done!”

Malik glared at him.

“Stay away from my woman,” he growled. “If you threaten her again, you’ll be picking your teeth out of your asshole because I’ll fucking turn you inside out you hairy bastard! Oh, and take a bath—you smell like sewage.”

Then he put an arm around me and urged me forward on the path.

I found that I could move my feet again and I set off at a steady trot, still clutching the basket of pears. I dared to toss one quick look over my shoulder, only because Malik was at my side. What I saw wasn’t exactly comforting. The Ogre was staring at me with a look of such hatred it made my blood run cold.

Hatred and something else. Was it…hunger?

As he saw me looking, the long red tongue I had seen behind the curving daggers of his teeth shot out and licked sloppily around his thick, rubbery lips.

I felt my stomach turn over queasily and I turned quickly away. But I couldn’t get that hungry expression out of my head or forget how close I had come to dying right there on the path behind my house.

CHAPTER NINE

Somehow I waited until I got in the door of my house to break down.

Please don’t misunderstand—I’m not the kind of woman who cries easily or often but having a near brush with death will puncture anyone’s cool. And I had no illusions about what the Ogre wanted to do to me.

You know all those fairytales where the innocent children get eaten by the monster? Well, they’re popular for a reason. Back before there was a barrier between the Creature World and the Mortal Realm, children actuallydidget eaten by monsters—or Creatures with evil tendencies. Those fairytales were there to warn people not to get too close to the dark side of magic that lurked in the gloomy heart of the forest or the silent caves deep under the mountains.

People see the old stories as fiction now, but there’s a kernel of truth in every single one of them. Evil Creatures reallydohunger for human flesh and drink human blood when they can get it. That’s why they can’t be trusted to live in a town like Hidden Hollow where Creatures and human magic users intermingle.

So yes, as soon as I got into the house with the door shut behind me, I started crying because I’d had a near death experience and part of me was certain I was still in danger.

“Hey, hey, it’s all right. Come on now, put these down.” Malik carefully extracted the basket of pears, which I was holding in a death grip, from my grasp and put it down on the kitchen table. Then he looked down at me anxiously. “It’s all right now, Celia. Everything will be fine.”

“N-no it won’t!” I sang-cried. (And if you’ve never heard anyone sing while they were crying, all I can say is that it sounds really strange.) “W-what if he comes to the house?”

“He won’t—this house is well warded,” Malik assured me. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have been able to get in myself if you hadn’t opened the door to Goody Albright and let her bring my portrait inside.”

His words calmed me somewhat—I had forgotten about the magical wards around the house that Great Aunt Gertrude had put in place. Honestly, I had never had to think of them before because I’d never had an evil Creature come after me.

“I thought…thought he would kill me or eat me or both!” I sang-cried, swiping at my streaming eyes.

“I’m sure he’d like to try, but no one is getting anywhere near you while I’m here,” Malik said grimly. “I might have been too late to save Hester, but I’m here for you.” He pulled me against his chest and wrapped his arms around me. “Take some deep breaths, baby—you’re safe now. I promise.”

Though I told myself I still didn’t know him—not outside my dreams anyway—being held against his broad, warm chest was comforting. As I breathed in his smoke and spice scent, I felt my heart rate slowing and my breathing evening out. I had a deep, primal feeling that I was in the arms of a man who would kill or die to protect me—if Demons could die, that was—and somehow that calmed me down most of all.

“That’s right, just breathe,” Malik rumbled, rubbing my back and shoulders soothingly. “Just relax and tell me all about it—tell me what happened.”

“Do I have to?” I sang in a low voice, looking up at him. The whole incident had been so nasty and viscerally frightening I just wanted to forget it.

But Malik gave me a stern look.

“I’m afraid you do. I need to know everything so I can protect you.”

Part of me—the independent part who owned her own business—wanted to protest that I didn’t need protection. Luckily the sensible part of me recognized that I absolutely did.

Taking a deep breath, I told him everything—singing sadly in a minor key about the pear tree and how it only bore fruit once a year and how I always harvested it and made tarts for the whole town.

“I didn’t think anyone lived in the haunted mansion—the old house on the other side of the hedge,” I sang. “But I guess the Ogre must and I just never saw him before.”

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