One Handsome Devil (30 page)

"How come it never happened to me?” She paused. “Or did it? You could use this to just erase things from my brain and I'd never know what happened."

The beefiest of the assistant producers, accompanied by two security guards and the female professor had started walking toward them and Katra decided it was time to cut the bickering. “Maybe you two can have this out back in Texas."

"If we could stop on the way, I need to pick up some more hair spray,” Maura added.

"Let's go.” Jack pointed toward a fire escape door held ajar by an old shoe. Being an ex-smoker, Katra recognized it instantly. It would be where the smoking members of the crew hung out.

"Hurry,” she added. Only once, when she'd been in college and taken a wild spring break vacation, had she ended up spending the night in jail. That one time had been plenty.

The sunlight nearly blinded Katra as she stepped onto a rickety steel fire escape. She led them down with Jack bringing up the rear, doubtless casting some sort of magic to keep all of them invisible.

They'd just hit the sidewalk when a taxi rolled up. Jack addressed him in Spanish so fast, Katra couldn't keep up, and they piled into the cab, Jack sitting in front.

"LaGuardia,” Jack told the driver. “Hurry. I'll have Craig at the hotel forward our luggage."

Sara stared out the airplane window watching as huge clouds banked up the sun's energy and waited for the moment to unleash it on an unexpected world. Ever since Jack had appeared on the scene, she'd been caught up in exactly that type of storm. Her job, Katra's problems with Derrick, the trivia game and the fight afterwards, being possessed by a demon, they weren't the type of things that happened to Sara Slocum.

"These clouds will dissipate by around seven this evening,” Jack told her. He was sitting across the aisle next to Maura. Katra had the aisle seat on Sara's side.

How could he be so goddamn sure all the time? He wasn't God. Annoyance flared up in her although she knew she wasn't just annoyed about his weather comments. “Did I ask about them?"

"You looked concerned."

She had concerns all right but the weather was somewhere below the top fifty. Jack, on the other hand, headed the list.

"We need to talk."

Jack looked about as comfortable with those words as any male she'd ever known. Probably, she realized, because
we need to talk
is girl-code for
you're in trouble, Mister.

"Hum. I think the flight attendants would be concerned if I created a privacy zone here. It just might black out the pilot's instruments."

He was right, as usual, damn him. Shouting with her lover across her best friend and in front of one hundred and fifty bored passengers didn't seem like the smartest choice. “We'll talk when we get home."

Katra nudged her, then bent toward her ear. “Or you could sneak back to the bathroom and join the mile-high club, then talk later."

Despite everything, Sara couldn't help giggling. “I can't believe you said that. Do you ever think of anything besides sex?"

"Uh, I can't remember. How about you?"

Sara wondered if that could be the problem. Had she gotten so fixated on her physical desire that she'd lost track of everything that was important?

"You're right. I need to get back in control of my life."

Katra shook her head. “That wasn't want I said. Now that you and Jack won that contest, you've got enough money that you can build your business, Jack can pursue his dreams, and the two of you can sneak away for romantic trips to the French Riviera or wherever jet setters go."

The plane began its long descent into DFW airport.

LaGuardia had been full of New Yorkers whose civic pride had been offended by having their team lose to a couple of yokels from Texas. Sara didn't expect that type of negative reaction when they landed in DFW. For that matter, she didn't expect any reaction. They weren't the Dallas Cowboys, for goodness sake, and a televised bar trivia game hardly amounted to something of national importance.

The jet's loudspeaker crackled. “This is the captain. We've been advised that there is a large crowd gathered at the terminal gate area. Apparently we have some celebrities on board. Please use a little extra caution in leaving the plane."

"Do you think he means us?” she asked Katra.

Katra shrugged. “Maybe it's me. My mother always told me I would get in trouble if I wore that kind of panties."

"Your mother wears crotchless underwear."

Katra laughed. “That's what I mean. Too conservative."

The plane fought through a set of low hanging clouds that appeared ready to burst into rain at any moment, and bumped to a rough landing.

"I thought you told me the clouds were going to dissipate,” she said to Jack.

He nodded, serene in his confidence. “They will."

"Yeah, sure."

"If I could suggest that Katra and Maura go on ahead, I don't like what I see in the auras in the crowd waiting for us."

"They are waiting for us, then?"

"So it seems. I'm not picking everything up. It's as if the auras are muffled."

"Probably because we've got an aluminum plane and a couple of masonry walls between us and them,” Sara told him. “Besides, if it might be dangerous, I won't send Maura and Katra into it on their own."

"We can take care of ourselves.” Maura slapped her purse significantly. “I can't believe that airport shop wanted ten dollars for this can of hair spray but if I need it, it'll be worth it. The day I back down to anybody is the day I join Sara's dear grandfather."

Since her grandfather had worked as a roustabout and then one of Texas's truly legendary and crazy wildcatters, Maura rarely heard him referred to as anything like
dear
. He certainly hadn't had much time for Maura's religion nor for his daughter. Sara remembered him only as a powerful man who told stories of the old days of oil exploration, then swatted her bottom and told her to mind her grandmother.

Sara realized she'd learned more from his tall tales than she had from his discipline. She still wasn't much good at minding her grandmother.

They were the last to emerge from the plane.

When the pilot had made his announcement, Sara had envisioned a dozen or so Bar Trivia fans angry, perhaps, because Sara and Jack had been selected on the basis of one night's success. Her worst nightmares wouldn't have prepared her for reality.

Close to a thousand angry faces met her as she emerged. They were chanting something although it was difficult to interpret the words. Security guards had stretched out barrier tape and were speaking into bullhorns urging the crowd to disperse.

Half a second later, someone in the crowd screamed “there they are."

The ugly chant trailed off, but Sara's relief was short-lived. It was replaced by a low, feral growling.

Maura reached into her purse and brandished her hair spray. “Nobody had better get close to us."

A couple of Texas flags waved toward the back of the crowd but Sara couldn't tell whether they were supporters or part of the protest.

"Please disperse,” the security guard with the bullhorn ordered. “We have notified the police. Anyone not leaving the gate area at once will be subject to arrest."

If anything, the roar got louder.

Instinctively, Sara sidled closer to Jack. “What's going on?"

"Going on television was a mistake. Look at the signs."

Sara couldn't imagine how she had missed them for as long as she had.
Psalms 106:37—They sacrifice your sons and daughters to demons
, one read.
Exodus 22:18—Do not suffer a witch to live
, read another.

"When I saw the horns on television, everything fell into place.” A new bullhorn had joined the old. This one came complete with a familiar voice. The Reverend Bob.

"Repent, if you can,” Bob repeated at full amplification.

"I don't think Maura's hair spray is going to keep all of them away,” Katra said.

"Reverend Bob, is that you?” Maura strode toward Bob, now standing on one of the seats in the waiting area.

"Let the older one through. She is one of us."

The crowd created a passage and Maura stepped toward Bob, then closed it when Katra tried to dart after her.

"I can do little.” Jack's voice seemed forced and his face was pale, as it had been when Derrick had shot him.

"Can you make us invisible?"

"No. They are too focused on us."

"So if we had a distraction?"

That got a small grin. “I don't believe that Katra will be able to pull off the Texas panty trick again."

"We saw your tricks on television,” one of the protesters shouted. “Why don't you go back to New York with your sin and harlotry."

"There seems to be a certain amount of antipathy between your states,” Jack observed. He removed his jacket freeing is wings.

"Can you zap them like you did that creep in New York?” Sara asked.

"One or two, only. Contact with them would drain me before I could do much."

"All right, it's up to me.” Sara marched up to a guard leaving Jack and Katra to fend for themselves. “Are you just going to stand there and let them tear us to pieces?"

"We've phoned the police. Perhaps if you went back into the plane."

"Oh, great. Let them take us hostage in a plane.” She bit her tongue before she asked if there was an intelligence test required to become a security guard. She wanted his help, not another enemy.

A couple of the younger protesters got closer to Jack and Katra. One flung a Coke can in Jack's direction.

Jack raised a hand and the Coke can, along with the spray of soda that emerged as it flew, slowed, veered, and missed both himself and Katra.

Sara, too far away to do anything, knew it was a mistake. Despite their chants, despite their signs, few among the crowd would really believe that Jack was a demon. Demons are fantasies out of books and grandmothers’ tales, or perhaps symbolic expressions of human failings. What they weren't was tall handsome men who wore business suits and cowboy boots. But Jack had broken the spell.

The silence lasted a full five second, broken only by the clatter as the Coke can landed and dumped its contents all over the carpet.

"They're going to charge,” Sara whispered to the guard.

"How did he do that thing with the Coke?"

"He's trained in the martial arts.” It wasn't completely a lie.

"I don't think so. I think that minister was right all along."

More soda cans started to fly and several protesters stripped the signs off the hardened wood of their placards. “Let's get him."

She faced the guard. “Stop them."

He couldn't have been over twenty-five and was as terrified as she was. “They'll kill me too."

So much for doing your job when the going gets tough.

"Be careful of the women.” The Reverend Bob's amplifier-enhanced voice overpowered the roar of the crowd. “They may have weapons."

So much for the idea that he'd be merciful. The quote about killing witches should have been a sign.

Bob spoke again, but this time his voice was drowned out in feedback. He adjusted one of the knobs on the megaphone, then brought it to his mouth again. “I tell you, the last days are at hand,” he began.

Reverend Bob's microphone gave Sara an idea. She spun to the guard, grasped the bullhorn he'd been using to ineffectively control the crowd, and yanked it away from him.

While the security guard looked at her with an open-mouthed stare, she turned the bullhorn's power to maximum, and tossed it over the crowd to where Maura was being held next to Bob.

Bob continued to speak but his words were drowned out by the shrill squeal of feedbacks as the two powerful microphones echoed one another building into a scream that threatened to deafen everyone in the room.

Rather than rush Jack, the mob backed off holding their ears.

"Now,” Sara mouthed. She took off at a run hoping that Katra and Jack would manage to follow

Katra followed her friend, pinballing from one angry protester to another. Misspent teenage years hanging out at rock concerts, followed by more years listening to screaming children must have reduced her sensitivity to noise.

A space opened before her and she lunged for it. With any luck, she could outpace the mostly overweight crowd that had greeted the plane.

A firm grasp on her elbow dispelled any overly optimistic hopes and spun her around just as the terminal was plunged into absolute silence.

A tall man with a buzz-cut, thirty extra pounds around his waist, breath that could only be created by combining a determined lack of oral hygiene and a habit of dipping snuff, and a greasy t-shirt that read
Home Schooling: No More Socialist Teachers
, held her elbow in a death grip.

"Got one,” he shouted.

"I don't think so.” She brought a knee into his groin and followed it by a left backfist to his nose. The teachers union would be proud.

With snuff-man distracted by the difficulty of bringing his hands to two affected areas at once, Katra took off again.

The momentary delay had been too long, though. Now that Sara's distraction with the speakers had worn off, Bob shouted out directions, organizing his troops. A handful had a better angle on the door and headed Katra off there.

"Call the police, she shouted to Sara who ducked out in front of this second wave.

Katra backed away from the crowd hoping to find the security guards who had been holding them back.

A warm hand on her back stopped her.

"Jack?"

"No, darling. Better.” Derrick wrapped an arm around her neck, avoided her attempt to slam a heel into his instep, and twisted one of her arms.

"Let me go."

"And let you handle me like you handled poor Wayne? I don't think so."

"I'll take her from here.” The Reverend Bob held out a hand.

"You get the man. I've got what I want."

"Oh, don't worry, you'll get her back."

"I'd better.” Derrick translated decision to action, shoving Katra into Bob's grasp.

Katra rebounded from Bob's chest. She wouldn't have guessed it would be so hard, so well developed. She also didn't remember his eyes being that shade of sapphire blue. “Jack?"