Demon Hunting In the Deep South (32 page)

And you’re drunk as Cooter Brown, Evie thought with a stab of envy. At least one of them was having a good time.

Evie regarded the stretch of muddy water between them and the bar with misgiving. This part of the Devil River appeared deceptively calm and slow, but the water was deep and probably full of critters. As if on cue, something splashed in the river. Something big.

“I can try and get us over there, but I’m new at the warp thing,” Evie said. “We might end up in the water.”

“Would it not be simpler to take the boat?”

“Huh?”

Lenora indicated a spot a few yards away. Evie saw an aluminum fishing boat partially hidden in the underbrush.

“You want to steal somebody’s boat?”

Lenora shrugged. “They are not using it.”

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Evie muttered, making her way barefoot down the steep clay bank. “If I step on a snake, I am
not
going to be happy.”

“Neither, I suspect, will the snake.”

All the supernaturals in the universe and she had to go barhopping with a smartass. It made Evie think of Addy, and that made her sad. And mad at her best friend all over again. She should have told her. About Ansgar. About
everything.
A friend didn’t let a friend walk around for months
knowing
she’d changed species and not tell her. It had to be somewhere in the girl handbook. Adara Jean Corwin had some serious explaining to do.

If she ever spoke to her again, and that was a big if.

Chapter Thirty-two

E
vie hadn’t handled a boat in years, but the current in this part of the river was slow and she still remembered the basics. Five minutes later, they were tied off and climbing up the steps to the landing. Evie eyed the bar at the other end of the dock. She could see people moving back and forth in front of the porch windows, like fleas crawling around a dog’s eyes. The buzz of activity should have made her feel better, but it didn’t. Beck’s looked creepier and more menacing on this side of the river.

She was about to suggest they get back in the boat and leave, when a lean, rough-coated dog trotted up to them. The dog was enormous, and his eyes gleamed in the lantern light. One was golden, the other a darker color. Blue, maybe; hard to tell in the dim light.

“Hey there, big guy,” Evie said, giving the dog’s shaggy head a friendly rub.

The dog sniffed and trotted off, his tail waving like a flag.

“Guess he’s our escort,” Evie said, feeling a little better. No place with a dog like that could be all bad.

In spite of the advanced hour, Beck’s was still hopping. Beer bottles and plastic Solo cups lined the wooden railing of the porch where people mingled in small groups. In the shadows at the far end of the overhang, a man showed off a baby alligator to a group of squealing women. Through the porch windows, Evie could see the inside of the bar. A band was playing, and people crowded the dance floor. She and Lenora stepped inside to noise and warmth, and the smell of spilled beer and fried food. In the center of the murky room was a circular bar made of clear glass blocks. Inside the bar, lights swam back and forth like schools of brightly colored fish moving restlessly through a glass sea.

Lenora took a deep breath and frowned. “Something is different. Perhaps we should not have come here.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Evie said. “We stole a boat to get to this dive. At least let me get a drink. Some of us are still sober.”

Leaving Lenora sniffing the air, Evie took a seat at the bar. The blobs of light oozing inside the hollow glass shell reminded her of a giant lava lamp. She thought about what she wanted to drink. There must be
something
she hadn’t tried.

Blip!
A wiry man with a grizzled ponytail and a long nose appeared in front of her. One eye was hazel, the other one was a glowing purple. He was dressed in a pair of worn jeans and a Buckingham Nicks T-shirt.

“What’ll it be?” he said.

The guy had come out of nowhere. Evie rubbed her eyes. She must be tired. She was seeing things.

“You look familiar,” she said. “Do I know you?”

“Ever been in Beck’s before?”

“Nope.”

“Then I don’t know you. What’s your poison?”

“That’s my problem. I don’t know.” She studied the rows of liquor bottles on the shelves. “There,” she said, pointing to a squat, dark decanter with a gold seal. “There’s one I haven’t tried. What is it?”

The bartender tucked his thumbs in the top of his jeans. “Godiva. It’s a chocolate liqueur.”

Chocolate.
The word seared across Evie’s brain. Her mouth watered. She was like Rapunzel’s mother, craving the watercress in the witch’s garden. She wanted chocolate. Now.

“Chocolate sounds good,” she said, trying to curb her impatience. Good was an understatement. Chocolate seemed
essential.
“I’ll have the liqueur.”

“Polar bear, German Cherry Bomb, or Naked Girl Scout?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He gave a growl of impatience. “What kind of drink you want?”

“Oh,” Evie said, flushing at her own ignorance. She handed him a wadded-up ten-dollar bill from her pocket. “Give it to me straight.”

“Suit yourself.” The man shrugged and poured her a glass of the Godiva on the rocks.

She took a sip and nearly wept it was so good, rich, and creamy; sweet, silken indulgence on the tongue. She drained the glass, closing her eyes momentarily as the chocolate hit her brain. Smiling, she set the shot glass on the bar. To her surprise, the guy with the gray ponytail was gone and a young woman with dark hair stood in his place.

“Where’d he go?” Evie asked, looking around.

“Toby had to get back to the door. He was covering for me while I took care of something.”

The woman’s voice was as smooth and rich as the liqueur Evie had just finished. Tall and athletically built, she wore her black jeans and a matching scoop-necked tee with a kind of natural elegance. A panther, Evie realized, the woman reminded her of a panther. She was young, early twenties maybe, and wore no makeup. But that only served to emphasize the smooth perfection of her skin and the clean, strong lines of her face. And her eyes . . .

Her eyes were like amethysts.

“So, you like the Godiva?”

With a start, Evie dragged her gaze from the bartender’s violet eyes. “Yes, it’s delicious,” she said. “Best drink I’ve had all night.”

“A shot of liqueur?” The woman’s tone was scornful. “There’s no artistry in that.”

“It doesn’t have to be art. It just has to be chocolate.”

The bartender gave a rich, throaty chuckle. “Chocoholic, huh?”

“So it would seem. I’m Evie, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you. Name’s Beck. I own the place.”

“Really? You don’t look old enough to serve alcohol, much less run a bar.”

“Yeah,” Beck said. “I get that a lot. Tell you what, if you like chocolate, I’ve got something that’ll knock your socks off.” She set a bowl in front of Evie. “Nosh on these while I fix that drink.” Her eyes twinkled. “Chocolate Bugles. I think you’ll like ’em.”

Evie ate a chip. It was the perfect crunchy mixture of salty and sweet. Most important of all, it was
chocolate.
She smiled. Chocolate was wonderful. Chocolate was exhilarating. She felt light and floaty and free.

She ate another one, and another. Delicious.

By the time Beck set the cocktail glass in front of Evie, the bowl was empty.

Beck chuckled again. “I take it you liked the Bugles.”

Evie gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence. “What Bugles?”

She went to prop her chin on her fist and missed. Oops, she was tiddly, and on chocolate of all things. All that money spent on alcohol, and she could’ve gotten snockered on a Hershey’s bar.

Now that her memory had been restored, she should have realized the consequences of consuming chocolate. She remembered that Ansgar and Brand had gotten loaded on chocolate pie last summer in the Sweet Shop, and she and Addy had a dickens of a time getting them out of there.

Ansgar
. Evie’s bottom lip trembled. There he went, invading her thoughts again and making her heart ache.

Maybe you would have remembered about the chocolate sooner if you hadn’t been so busy being all pissy with a certain demon hunter,
her smarmy inner voice said.

“Oh, go away,” Evie said, irritably.

Beck raised her dark brows. “This is my bar. You go away.”

Evie blushed. “Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you.” She inspected the frosted glass on the counter. “What is it?”

“A chocolate martini,” Beck said. “Chocolate vodka and crème de cacao. Thought it would be right up your alley.”

She shouldn’t drink it. She was already drunk on the Godiva and Bugles. But she didn’t want to be rude or hurt Beck’s feelings, and that martini looked so
good.
One little sip wouldn’t hurt.

She paid Beck for the drink and took a swig. The chocolate rush was immediate and intense. She was flying.

She gave Beck a woozy smile. “Hot diggity dog.”

Beck grinned. “I thought you might—” She stared across the bar. “Damn, he’s back.”

Evie was tipsy, but not too tipsy to miss the undercurrent of nervous tension in Beck’s husky voice. Beck exuded an air of tough confidence. She ran a dive bar, for Pete’s sake. What could make her uneasy?

The back of Evie’s neck prickled. She turned to look. A man sat at a table in a far corner of the room, his dark hair and clothes blending in with the shadows. He sat quietly, cloaked in stillness and menace. Predator, she thought with a shiver.

The man’s dark gaze did not waver from Beck.

“He’s watching you,” Evie said.

“I know.” Beck lowered her head and made a business of wiping down the countertop. “Third time this week. He comes in, sits at that same table, and stares at me. For hours.” She slid a paper coaster under Evie’s sweaty glass. “He makes me jumpy, and I don’t like being jumpy, especially in my own place. I think it’s because I can’t figure him out. I know he’s not human—he couldn’t get past Toby if he was—but he’s not kith, either.”

“Kith?” Evie took a quick sip of her martini and then another. The chocolate vodka barreled through her bloodstream and shot straight to her brain.

Beck made an impatient gesture. “Half human, half demon, like me. No normals allowed in here.”

Evie set down her martini glass with deliberate care. The chocolate rush had dulled her thinking, but she was pretty sure Beck had just admitted she was a demonoid and that the guy with the gray ponytail was some kind of super bouncer.

A memory stirred.
Purple-eyed whoozits,
that’s what Addy called demonoids. She’d never paid much attention to it. Addy was always being funny. Beck had purple eyes . . .

“How exactly does Toby tell if a person is . . . er . . . human?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

Beck tapped the end of her nose with her index finger. “Dog nose. Dogs have a keen sense of smell. Something like a thousand times more sensitive than a human’s. He can tell a human from a supernatural a mile off.”

The big dog that had inspected them at the end of the pier . . .

Evie’s eyes widened. “Are you saying Toby’s a
dog
?”

“He’s a shifter.” Beck gave her a hard stare. “Toby said you checked out. How come you don’t know this?”

“I only found out tonight I’m not human. I’m still adjusting.”

“Bummer,” Beck said. “I’ve had my whole life to get used to it, and it still sucks ass. So, what are you?”

Evie considered lying, but she was no good at it. “I was an ordinary human until a few months ago when a demon attacked me.”

Beck’s eyes narrowed, and she wrapped her hand around an empty vodka bottle with a silver pour spout. “You’re possessed? You don’t stink like one of them.”

Something about the way Beck clutched that bottle and said “one of them” made Evie’s blood run cold. “No!” Evie said. “I-I was, but this demon hunter saved me.”

“A demon hunter, huh? That’s a new one on me. Saved you how?”

“He shot me with an arrow. See, if a human dies while possessed, the demon dies, too.” Evie fiddled with the stem of her martini glass, not meeting Beck’s gaze. “This . . . uh . . . demon hunter shot me in the heart so the demon would leave, and then he healed me.” She lifted her shoulders. “And that’s why I’m not human anymore.”

“Uh huh.” To Evie’s relief, Beck’s grip on the bottle eased. “I don’t know from demon hunters, but your boyfriend did a number on you, sweetheart. There are easier ways to extract a demon than—”

“I have decided I like this place,” Lenora announced, gliding up to them. She traced the moving lights inside the bar with the tip of one slender finger. “Ooh, pretty. I want to dance.”

Blip!
She was on top of the bar, the string dress shimmying around her in pornographic splendor.
Whoosh!
People rushed up to the bar, surrounding Evie like a herd of cattle pushing through a crowded pen. Evie heard a collective
ooh
and looked up. Lenora had picked up speed and so had the string dress.

Looking at the thrall and her fluttering dress made Evie light-headed and woozy. The room was hot, and there were too many bodies in close proximity. She felt trapped and claustrophobic. She couldn’t breathe. Away, she had to get away from the crush of ecstatic people and the undulating, dizzying figure on the bar before she urped.

Sliding down off the bar stool, she staggered through the crowd and out the screen doors. The porch was empty. Everyone was inside hooting and hollering at Lenora’s impromptu ’ho down. The cool breeze off the river felt like heaven after the stuffy bar. Evie wobbled over to the wooden rail and looked out into the night. The blackness pressed against the fuzzy lights along the boardwalk like a heavy woolen blanket. Toby the dog paced at the end of the pier, stopping every so often to sniff the air. A fish hit the water with a dull
plop
. Frogs and crickets
dee-deeped
in steady rhythm in the trees. Moths fluttered around the porch lights. Nearby, Evie heard the insistent buzz of a large insect.