Demons are Forever: Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom by Julie Kenner Page B

turned my head sharply away at the same time that I thrust, risking choking if he tightened his grip on my neck, but deciding I’d rather gamble with my breath than with my eye.
    His scream of pain echoed my own, and I felt the fiery burn as the point of his knife grazed the soft tissue from the corner of my eye to my hairline.
    I could see, though. Better, I could breathe.
    Unfortunately, the point of my trowel had missed its mark, smashing against the occular bone rather than the eye itself. The demon wasn’t dead, but he did release his death grip on my throat as he howled in pain.
    I scrambled to keep the advantage, throwing myself on top of him, and upsetting the potting bench once again so that it finally collapsed in a clatter. I barely noticed. Instead, I was too busy aiming the silver point of the trowel once again at the demon’s eye.
    “Kate!”
    Fran’s voice. For a split second, I froze—and that was all it took. The demon twisted sideways, wrested the trowel from me, and put his extra hundred pounds of muscle to good use, shoving me down hard and holding the trowel against my throat.
    “Kate?” she tried again. “What was that noise? Are you okay?”
    I watched the demon, who nodded and let up on the pressure on the trowel.
    “I’m okay,” I yelled back. “I just knocked some stuff over.”
    “You need help?”
    “No, no,” I said, probably too quickly. “I’m fine.”
    In truth, I desperately needed help. I couldn’t believe I’d let myself be distracted like that, but the fact is that I still haven’t gotten used to hunting around civilians. But there was no way I was letting Fran come into the fray. My own life, I’d take responsibility for. The rest of my son’s play group? No way.
    “Well, okay,” she said, dubiously.
    “The others should be here any minute,” I said. “Grab the door for me, okay? I’ll only be a few more minutes.” I kept my voice cheery as my eyes stayed on the demon.
    He didn’t waste any time. The instant Fran shut the door, he was back in my face. “The stone,” he rasped. “You will release the stone.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, which happened to be the God’s honest truth. Considering the trowel he had pressed against my neck, I was hardly in any position to bargain. Still, though, I couldn’t resist. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
    I held my breath—not hard to do since he’d mostly cut off my air supply—and wondered if I’d gone one step too far. He obviously thought I had something he needed. I was banking on him wanting it badly enough that he kept me alive.
    “Foolish Hunter,” he hissed, the stench of his breath almost enough to kill me without the trowel. “His followers gather. We will free him from the shackles of his prison. We will make him whole.”
    Free him? My heart stuttered a bit as I remembered Tomlinson’s words. “Free who? Andramelech?”
    He bared his teeth in acknowledgment, his eyes burning red with fury.
    “Where is he?” I insisted. “Where is he imprisoned?” As I spoke, I twisted, trying to upset his balance or get free enough to grab Timmy’s green plastic rake, laying in the muck mere inches from my fingertips. But there are only so many things you can do with a sharp metal point pressed hard against your neck, and at the moment, escaping wasn’t one of them.
    “Give it to us,” he insisted. “Or vengeance will be ours.”
    He shifted the trowel then, so that the handle rather than the metal point pressed against my neck. He was still sitting on me, my hands and hips crushed under his weight. I struggled to breathe, the world turning a hazy red and then sharply gray, as if someone had flipped it inside out.
    I was losing consciousness, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hang on. I had no strength. No energy. No ...
    “Aaaaaaghhhh!”
    Suddenly, the trowel was off my neck, and as I gasped for breath, chocolate chip cookies rained down