Demon Fire (Angel Fire #3) - Marie Johnston Page 0,36
hit his head on the table as he went down and knocked himself out, thank goodness.” Her gaze went to Jim, up to Boone, then to Alma. She shoved a lock of hair behind her ear and put a hand on her hip. “What are you doing here, Boone?”
Alma cackled. “Your boyfriend was trying to rescue you.”
“Shut it, demon.”
“I thought the demon was in Jim.” The sentence sounded crazy as it came out. Was Sierra insane? Did she suffer from a mental condition and had lost touch with reality?
He didn’t want that to be the case, but it’d explain a lot.
“Is it, Sandeen?”
“Well, that cat’s out of the bag. Gerzon and his big mouth.” Alma crept closer, hunched down, and peered at Jim. “No. Gerzon’s gone.”
“What the hell is going on?” Boone roared. He jerked the screen door closed behind him and by the grace of God, it actually stayed latched. He swung the main door closed, but he doubted there was anything left to latch after Jim had busted in.
No one said anything. The two stared at him.
“Start talking.”
If Sierra was in another reality, then Alma was too.
Alma’s mouth curved into a toothy grin. “Good thing you’ve already fallen, Sierra.”
“Shut it, demon.”
“Why do you keep calling him demon?” Boone gritted out.
Sierra pointed to Jim and addressed Alma. “Tie him up.”
Alma lifted her hands. “With these arthritic hands?” She shifted her gaze to Boone. “I’m a demon possessing Alma, but don’t hold that against me. I’m really not that bad. Sierra here is an angel who’s lost her wings because she was worse than she looks. And the one you call Jim was also possessed by a wicked motherfucker called Gerzon.”
Silence echoed through the house.
“Are you kidding me?” He wanted it to be a joke, but his gut, the intuition he’d relied on most of his career before it had failed him in the worst possible way, said no. They weren’t joking. That left two possibilities: They were insane. Or they were telling the truth.
Sierra let out a sigh. “Dead serious. For once, Sandeen’s not lying.”
He’d seen a lot of evil shit in his life. When he’d lain in the hospital bed, recovering and wishing he had died with his family, he’d wanted a reason. An answer. Someone or something to blame that wasn’t his wife or himself.
He wasn’t going to go off the deep end just because fantasy made him feel better than reality. “Who’s Sandeen?”
She pointed to Alma. “The demon possessing Alma.”
“Alma’s dead?” He’d charged into this house like a white knight rescuing a damsel in distress. Sierra was no damsel, he’d seen that with his own eyes. But if Alma had suffered because of her, he would have to face the thought that Sierra wasn’t his to save, that he might have to save others from her.
“Alma’s just fine.” The elderly woman waved him off. “She loves the excitement. Sierra, we should show him.”
“You’re not getting more of my blood,” she growled.
The levels of weird shit in this situation continued to mount, and Boone still didn’t have any satisfying answers. “You took down Jim?”
She winced. “I disarmed him and kicked his feet out from under him. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt, but it’s for the best that he’s out cold.” She pulled open another drawer. “Twine. Perfect.”
She withdrew a ball of twine and scissors from a clutter of items in what must be a catch-all drawer.
When she crouched to tie his hands, Boone said, “We have to call the police.”
“You can when we leave. Sandeen and I need to go before anything comes after us.”
Anything, not anyone. “Demons are after you?”
“I guess,” she said as she worked a figure eight around Jim’s hands and knotted it. “When we were in the store, I saw that he was getting hounded by sylphs.”
“By what?”
“Little demonic creatures that disrupt a person’s life. Leaves them open for possession by archmasters like Sandeen.” She jerked her head toward Alma.
“You’re saying Alma was hounded by sylphs?” He’d have to look up what those were, if they were even real.
“No,” Alma answered. Or Sandeen. Or, fuck, he didn’t know anymore.
“We have to go.” Sierra cut the twine and went to work on his feet. “Gerzon is going to come back and this time he’ll be prepared.”
Alma rocked in the recliner. “We were lucky it was just him in the first place. Zanda would’ve shot first and asked questions later.”
“How much money does Alma have? We need a computer so I can