Dime a Demon

  Dime A Demon

  ORDINARY MAGIC - BOOK FIVE

  Devon Monk

  Odd House Press

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Also by Devon Monk

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Dime a Demon

  Copyright © 2019 by Devon Monk

  ISBN: 9781939853165

  Publisher: Odd House Press

  Cover Art: Lou Harper

  Interior Design: Odd House Press

  Print Design: Indigo Chick Designs

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or book reviews.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  To my family, and all those who believe in ordinary magic…

  Dime a Demon

  Myra Reed’s life is going great…

  Being a cop is great. Guarding the library of arcane secrets is great. Even dealing with the monsters and gods vacationing in the little beach town of Ordinary, Oregon is great.

  Then the demon, Bathin, strolls into town and steals Myra’s sister’s soul.

  So much for great.

  Luckily, Myra has a plan to evict the demon and save her sister’s soul. Step one: shut down the portals to hell popping up in town. Step two: get rid of the pink know-it-all unicorn. Step three: don’t die while teaching Death how to be a cop.

  Oh, and there’s a step four. Absolutely, positively, no matter what, do not fall in love with the handsome, charming, jerk of a demon she’s trying to kick out of town.

  Logically, it’s a good plan. But when it comes to Bathin, Myra’s very illogical heart has some plans of its own.

  Great.

  Chapter 1

  I rolled over, soft sheets slipping away from my shoulders as I snuggled into my pillow. A heat shifted behind me, the mattress bending beneath another body’s weight. A heavy arm slipped around my waist.

  “Morning, Myra,” Bathin’s sleepy grumble rumbled in my ear.

  Bathin? No, that wasn’t right.

  I opened my eyes, blinked. Bathin leaned and kissed the back of my shoulder, his arm tightening to position me fully against him.

  “What are you doing in my bed?” I couldn’t have invited him. I didn’t like him. As a matter of fact, I wanted him to leave Ordinary forever. He was the demon who had taken my sister, Delaney’s, soul and wouldn’t give it back.

  He’d been using her soul to stay in town for over a year, and for over a year, I’d been trying to find a way to get her soul back and throw him out.

  But the heat of him behind me, the strength of his body, was tempting, soothing. I might not have invited him here, but my untrustworthy heart didn’t want him to leave.

  “Bathin?”

  He hummed as he placed a kiss in the curve of my shoulder and neck.

  I moaned just a little.

  “This is a dream, isn’t it?” I tried to stop my body from reacting to him. Tried to stick with logic and facts, which had never let me down.

  “It could be,” he said.

  “It must be.”

  “Must?” His lips pressed gently up my neck, beneath my jaw.

  “I don’t like you.” My shiver betrayed my words, and he chuckled.

  “No?”

  “No.”

  He stopped, his mouth near my ear, his breath warm. I still hadn’t turned to look at him. Didn’t know if I’d be able to look away once I did.

  My family gift meant I was always in the right place at the right time. It was handy for living in a town full of vacationing gods, and supernatural creatures, handy for being a police officer here. That gift had never let me down.

  But my heart, well, that was another matter. I’d followed my heart instead of my head before. Fallen in love.

  And unlike my gift, my heart had been wrong, and then it’d been broken. I knew better than to trust it now.

  “This is a dream,” I said again.

  “Mmmm.” His thumb rubbed a small stripe across my stomach.

  “I’m dreaming. I know I’m dreaming. You’re not really here.”

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “If you’re dreaming, and I’m not really here, then you can do anything you want. Anything at all. No one’s going to know. This is just a dream.”

  He pressed another kiss at my temple, then bent to gently bite my earlobe. “It will be our little secret.”

  I pushed his arm off my waist, twisted quickly, and sat up. The covers didn’t tangle with my pajama pants at all, so, yeah, this was a dream.

  He was outlandishly handsome, this demon who could choose to look any way he wanted. Of course he’d gone with tall, dark, and devastating. He probably thought those good looks would make me forget what he was really made of: fire, brimstone, and treachery.

  “Get out.”

  “But I’m just a dream,” he said with fake innocence. “I’m here because you want me to be.”

  “This,” I waved a hand to indicate the bedroom, fuzzy at the edges, the house that didn’t have any lingering scent of the cinnamon rolls I’d baked last night in a gift-induced frenzy, and the blankets that had settled properly around me instead of knotting up my legs, “is a dream. But you’re real.”

  “Real dreamy?” He propped his arms behind his head so his wide, muscled chest and washboard six-pack were on full display. Bathin was not a small individual. He was well over six feet tall, and the width of his shoulders took more than half of the space of my queen-size bed.

  Too bad he was a lying jerk.

  “Not in the least,” I said. “You are invading my dream. Somehow. With your demon tricks.”

  “I see.”

  “And you need to stop it.”

  “My demon tricks?”

  “Invading my dream. Go. Leave. Go away.”

  He smiled, the laugh lines crinkling at the corners of his eyes. He was gorgeous, spread half-naked in my bed. Even though I knew he had somehow found a way to get into my dream just to mess with me, there was a moment—a heartbeat or two—where I wished he wasn’t really here. That I could have this dream, my dream.

  No matter how much I knew it was wrong, I was attracted to him. To what he wanted me to think he was.

  A warm breeze stirred the curtains, mixing the warm air with the salty scent of the nearby ocean.

  It was September, and the beach-going swarms of tourists had been thinning even though the weather was still mild. A lot of the gods had returned from their forced exit a year ago, and still more were arriving at a fairly steady rate.

  But this demon showed no signs of leaving.

  I bit my bottom lip, wondering if there were any
spells in the library Dad had left in my keeping that might solve my problem.

  Bathin’s gaze ticked down to my mouth and stayed there, focused. “I thought you said I was your dream.”

  “What?”

  His gaze slipped up, held mine. “This is a dream, Myra. You’ve already decided it is, though I don’t know why.”

  “No cinnamon.”

  One eyebrow twitched. “Cinnamon?”

  “I baked last night. Cinnamon rolls for Roy’s retirement party.”

  “And you…store them in your bedroom?”

  “No, but I should be able to smell cinnamon.”

  “The door’s closed.”

  “Still.” I shrugged.

  “I could make it smell like cinnamon.”

  “To prove this is real?”

  “Or to prove it’s a dream. Which would you prefer? To think you have invited me into your bedroom? Or to think this is a fantasy? Something secret, dark, forbidden?”

  “I would prefer for you to get out of my bed.”

  “Happy to oblige.” He grinned and threw back the covers.

  He lay there naked. Very naked.

  His chest and stomach I had already seen, hairless, and stone hard. But he stretched like a cat, slowly and languidly (the bastard), and every muscle of his thick thighs, stomach, chest, and arms contracted and flexed. My gaze traveled down and down, from the hard muscled V at his hips pointing down to his…

  “Okay,” I said. “Now I know this is a dream.”

  “Because I’m everything you’ve ever desired? Because my body is even better than your dirty, secret fantasies? Because you want what you see?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, it’s none of those things.”

  “Then?”

  “This is a dream, and you’ve found a way to get into it from the waking world because there is no way I would dream you so conceited, egotistical, or large.”

  His smile slipped to a scowl. “Large? You’ve seen me almost every day. I am exactly this large.” He waved at his entire body.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. No padding the truth a little here and,” I tipped my gaze down, “there, since we’re in dreamland?”

  The most amazing thing happened: He blushed. Or maybe it was anger that flushed his naturally olive skin darker.

  “I am a prince of Hell! I don’t pad anything!”

  I waved my hand back and forth to cover the “anything” in question and pursed my lips as if I were unconvinced.

  The scowl went hard, fury just pouring off of him. “You are the most frustrating, maddening, infuriating woman I have ever had the misfortune to meet!”

  He stood and turned toward me, hands on his now-pants-clad hips.

  “You should add not gullible to your list. Get out of my dream, demon. I don’t have time or a care to spare you.”

  He inhaled, his nostrils flaring, then he smiled, all the anger melting away. “How do you feel about angry sex?”

  “Opposed.”

  I shifted around, fluffing my pillow and shoving the one he had been using to the floor. I propped myself against the headboard. “You aren’t gone yet?”

  I plucked an imaginary fluff from my sleeve, ignoring him.

  “Until next time,” he said, “remember I can see you when you sleep, and I know what you’re dreaming.”

  “Stalk me in my sleep again, and I’ll find a spell that staples your tongue to your balls.”

  He laughed. Deep, loud, from-the-gut, making me think of barbarians and beer. It was a good sound, and it took some work to remind myself that he was not a good man.

  “Fair enough,” he chuckled.

  “And Bathin?” I finally looked up. He cocked one eyebrow. “If you enter anyone else’s dream, if you stalk them in a dream or outside a dream, if you stalk me, in a dream or outside a dream, I will throw you in a hole so deep, not even the gods will hear you scream.”

  He was still smiling when he raised his hand. “Promises, promises.” He snapped his fingers and was gone.

  I jerked and opened my eyes. I was in my bed—my real bed. The house smelled of cinnamon, vanilla, and warm butter. The bed beside me was cool and undisturbed, the sky beyond the curtained window still dark.

  I was alone.

  I exhaled through the flicker of disappointment deep in my chest.

  Demons. We didn’t make every supernatural creature sign a contract to live in Ordinary, but in the case of gods and demons, we absolutely had papers drawn up and signed.

  Bathin had refused to sign a contract to stay in town.

  Which meant he had to leave. Without my sister’s soul.

  Just like I knew my family gift would never fail me, I knew I’d be the one who figured out how to save Delaney’s soul. And I’d be the one who kicked Bathin out of Ordinary for good.

  Banned, as all his lying, cheating, double-crossing kind were banned.

  He’d be furious.

  I smiled. I couldn’t wait.

  Chapter 2

  I leaned back on my heels, chewed on the end of the paint brush, and studied my handiwork. Not bad for my first demon trap. I hadn’t been able to fall back asleep.

  So I’d followed that instinctive tug in my chest, brewed some tea, and then ended up brewing a spell.

  Juice of thistle, oil of sassafras, kosher salt, and beet root stewed in a silver spoon. The tug in my chest had led me here, on my knees in front of the fireplace, drawing out ancient symbols on the hardwood floor.

  When the spell dried, becoming invisible against the wood, I waited for my family gift to tell me where I needed to be next.

  Nothing. No tug. No tingle. No need.

  Thank the gods. There was nothing else I should do with the trap. I could go about my own business.

  I pushed up to my feet and stretched out the kink in my back, wondering why it was so important to draw the trap in front of my fireplace. Unfortunately, my gift didn’t supply answers to my questions.

  I followed the gift and did what I instinctively knew I should do, what I felt I had to do, without always knowing the cause or the results.

  Which was why I preferred logic and facts when it came to the non-gift parts of my life. Logic and facts had never let me down.

  I took a sip of tea that had gone cold hours ago and gathered up the spellwork items. It was six o’clock in the morning. I had to be at work in about an hour.

  Lucky for me I had just enough time for a long shower and a quick stop at the drive-thru for a huge cup of strong, hot tea.

  ~~~

  Roy had been a fixture at the police station for years. After he retired from being a cop in LA, he moved here and decided to put on the badge again for our little town and our “quaint” crimes.

  Those crimes included monsters and ancient evils and yes, even murders, kidnappings, and shootings. So it wasn’t exactly the quiet beat he’d expected.

  But it wasn’t anywhere near the violence level found in a big city, so he had remained and given us his level head, steady advice, and love of Rubik’s Cubes for years.

  I was going to miss him, the elder in our mix. The human who didn’t stand for any kind of shenanigans on his shift, whether said shenanigans came from monster or god or one of us Reed sisters.

  I parked the cruiser next to Jean’s truck and strolled around to the trunk with my huge mug of tea. I retrieved the bag full of random things I’d felt the need to throw in there today: a turnip, a candy ring, a deck of cards, and a book I’d been hoping to take back to the library the next time I got out that way.

  I slung the bag crossways over my shoulders and juggled the bulky carriers of cinnamon rolls and little chocolate-dipped, cheesecake strawberries I’d made for Roy’s retirement party later today.

  I tucked the tea between my arm and ribs, lifted a carrier in each hand and carefully, one hand balancing the carrier on top of the trunk, closed the trunk with a thunk.

  Slow applause from the station made
me turn.

  Bathin stood up from a crouch, coming out of the shadows and into the pale morning light. A little black and white cat—one of the strays around town everyone fed—came out of the shadows with him.

  Had he just been petting that cat?

  Bathin leaned against the side of the building, green, green eyes bright, hair finger-combed back as if he’d just stepped out of a shower.

  I scowled.

  He smiled.

  “My morning just got better.” His voice was sex and sin and surrender.

  “And mine just got worse,” I replied cheerily.

  He shouldered off the wall and strolled toward me. The cat stopped licking its back and hurried to follow Bathin like he was a bag of treats. I lingered behind the car, waiting for a tug to tell me to go, be, move but nothing happened.

  I sighed.

  “Do I smell cinnamon?” He tried and failed to make that sound nonchalant. As if I didn’t notice those laughing eyes, that wicked mouth.

  “I know you were in my dream.”

  “What?” The surprise on his face was very good and very fake.

  “And I told you I’d kick your ass if you do it again.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but do go on. In your dreams, you say? Was I naked? Were you?”

  “Get out of my way, Bathin. I have a job to get to unlike a certain demon drifter.”

  He snorted. “Let me help you with those cinnamon rolls.”

  “No.”

  “Let me carry your tea.”

  “No. What’s up with the cat?”

  “What cat?”

  I made a point of staring at the cat rubbing along his calf.