A hesitant tap sounded on the door. “Boss?”
Derek hissed through gritted teeth. “Give us a minute, Hank.”
“Yes, sir.”
His hips bucked as I drew him into my mouth and explored him with my tongue.
Another knock.
“Boss? The Sheriff’s heading our way. There’s radio chatter about a big pile of bones, gunfire and bodies,” Ed advised.
With a moan, Derek pulled free of my mouth.
“Rain check?”
I glared at the door. “This is supposed to be my honeymoon.”
“How does two weeks in Maui sound?”
“Perfect. Just the two of us?”
“Yes ma’am.” His hot mouth moved over mine.
Granny Annabel popped into the bathroom and chided, “Children, there will be plenty of time for that later.”
I let out a long sigh. “Really? I find that hard to believe. I seem to be surrounded by demons, spirits and pesky relatives.”
“You must destroy the bones before the Sheriff arrives,” Granny instructed, floating around for a better look at my husband’s penis Derek quickly wrapped a towel around his hips.
“Can you stall him?”
An evil smile crossed Granny’s face. “With pleasure.” She vanished.
“Omigod, are you nuts?”
“No, I just want to spend time with my wife.”
Derek mouth closed over mine in a soul-rocking kiss.
A warm glow formed in my chest. He called me his wife.
Fabian banged on the door. “Don’t make me come in there.”
Derek roared, “Get away from the fucking door before I shoot you.”
My cousin laughed. “You do not have a gun.”
Derek pulled a Glock from under a towel and cocked it. “I’m always armed.”
I quickly grabbed his hand. “We’ll be out in a minute, Fabian, and I’ll need Excalibur.”
“Anything for you, bella.”
“C’mon, let’s get this wrapped up so we can spend a month in paradise.”
My husband dropped a quick kiss on my mouth.
“A month, huh?”
“At least.” Wrapping a towel around myself, I headed for the bedroom and some fresh clothing.
I came to an abrupt halt and stared at a twelve inch hand carved Aztec statue sitting on the dresser. It was the turquoise and gold statue from my vision. “How?”
“Granny Annabel had me retrieve it while you were in hell,” Fabian said from behind me.
“Wasn’t that a bit dangerous?”
“No,” Derek growled, “it wasn’t. Asmoday’s and Sophie’s attention was completely focused on you. He simply swam down and fetched it.”
“No Aztec booby traps?
Fabian gave Derek a shark-like smile and his grip tightened on Excalibur. “There were none, bella.”
“Evidently the Aztec thought eight thousand guardian spirits were enough protection,” Hank added from the doorway.
“And they’d be right.” I quickly took Excalibur from Fabian before he decided to stick the pointy
end in my husband. “I’m starving. Could I get you to fix me one of your wonderful Grinder subs?”
“Si, bella.” Shooting Derek a deadly look, he turned on his heel and left.
Hank’s professional gaze roamed over me.
“Geezus. Who beat the crap out of you?”
“My Aunt Sophie.” I sighed in relief as the sword’s magic flowed through me, taking away all my aches and pains.
“She hit you with her cane?”
“No. Her tail.” I grabbed some underwear from my bag.
“Right. She’s the one that became a demon.
You’ve got one weird ass family, ma’am.”
“Hank,” Derek growled in warning.
“He’s right, I do. Just wait until you meet the rest of them.”
“I live for the moment,” my husband quipped.
Hank’s eyes widen in astonishment as my bruises began disappearing right before his eyes.
“How?”
“Excalibur’s a magical sword.”
He touched a vanishing bruise on my shoulder.
“Trying to put me out of business, boss?”
“Nope, you’re an essential part of our team and the plan.”
I tugged up my slipping towel. “Plan? What plan?”
Derek grinned. “Dante and his band of terrorists were planning on releasing a hallucinogen at the Sun Dance Film Festival in Park City.”
“Oh and your team of…?”
“Homeland Security agents intercepted them outside of Kanab and during the firefight some of the hallucinogen was released.”
“This hallucinogen makes people see demons and spirits and things that go bump in the night?”
“Exactly and courtesy of your cousin, Sebastian, Dante and his gang of thugs now have ties to a Taliban group called Harakat Mujahidin,”
my husband added.
“Neat plan and it explains all the dead bodies you left littering the countryside.”
“That it does.”
“Since you don’t need my services, ma’am, I’ll let you get dressed,” Hank said and closed the door behind him.
“Alone at last,” I said and dropped my towel.
Fabian pounded on the door, “I have your sub, bella.”
Crap. That was quick. “Okay, thanks, I’ll be right out.”
Lights flashing and siren wailing, a patrol car skidded to a stop in front of the Airstream. The Sheriff bolted from the car with a gun in one hand and looked around wildly. I let the curtains drop and turned an accusing gaze on my husband. “You just had to sic Granny on him.”
He gave me an unrepentant grin. “I needed some time with my wife.”
An answering grin pulled at my mouth. “We do have to keep Mister Happy satisfied.”
“That we do.”
The Sheriff screamed, “Stay away from me!
Stay away from me!”
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed Excalibur and headed for the door. “You get to calm that poor guy down, sugar.”
Derek saluted me sharply. “Yes, ma’am.”
I couldn’t wait to see my husband’s face when he finally saw Granny in her big, scary monster form. I hurried down the steps and took a quick look.
Granny Annabel had taken on Asmoday’s true form. An enormous horned serpent with glittering red scales and a mouth full of awesome fangs.
Grinning, I watched Derek and Ed come to a complete stop and stare in utter disbelief.
Welcome to my world.
A hand on his blessed cross, Derek dropped the screaming Sheriff with a quick blow to the neck.
The air rippled around Asmoday and an instant later my grandmother stood there with an amused smile on her face. “This is so much fun.”
Ed sputtered in disbelief, “Fun?”
“Granny’s got a mean streak.”
With an indignant huff, Granny Annabel vanished.
Hank peered cautiously around the Hummer.
“Is it safe to come out?”
“Yes, Granny won’t hurt you.”
Ed glanced around warily. “You’re sure about that?”
“Yes. She just loves scaring the living bejeesus out of people.”
Fabian sauntered up. “Was she doing Asmoday again?”
“Yep.”
Derek wrapped a protective arm around me.
“That’s what Asmoday looks like?”
“Pretty scary, huh?”
“Geezus. He’s the size of a house,” Hank added.
“Sending the demon king back to the Ninth Hell won’t be easy.” I pointed Excalibur at the skeletal remains of the Aztec warriors. “Dominus unus morsellus vindolan.”
Blue flames danced over the bones and they crumbled to dust.
Turning to my husband, I asked, “Now what are we going to do with the Sheriff?”
“We give him the antidote,” Derek answered.
“We have a mystical antidote?”
Hank grinned and held up a vial. “One shot and they’re as good as new.”
I took the vial. “It’s B.”
“Yes, ma’am, and it works like magic.” Hank bent down and injected the sheriff as he began to regain consciousness.
“Do I get a Homeland Security badge, too?”
“You get anything you want, Angel,” Derek answered, his eyes full of love.
“Cool. I want the biggest box of Godiva chocolate you can find.”
The Fates must be laughing their asses off. The gold and turquoise statue of the Aztec moon goddess Coyotxauhqui led us right back to the Superstition Mountains. Go figure.
Now I got to add the Thunder God to my list of things to kill. Did the powers to be really think I didn’t have enough to do? I mean, c’mon, give me a fucking break. There was no way I could kill two demons at the same time.
I glared at Derek in the driver’s seat. “Where’s my chocolate?”
He patted my leg absently. “It’s coming.”
“By Carrier pigeon?” I closed my eyes and sighed. God, was I such a cranky butt.
Derek wrapped a big hand around my neck.
“It’s going to be okay.”
Was it? The thought of facing Asmoday again gave me the willies. If I didn’t get some chocolate soon, I was going to have a meltdown of biblical proportions.
The rising sun spilled over the jagged edge of the mountains revealing the trash covered parking lot of the Lost Dutchman’s Park. A semi-truck and Black Hawk helicopter waited for us.
Derek brought the Hummer to a stop by the semi.
I looked around the nearly empty lot. “What happened to my Sonata?”
“It’s in the impound lot,” my husband answered.
“Gee bailing it out is gonna cost you.”
“What makes you think I’m paying for it?”
“It’s what husbands do, snookums.”
Hank chortled, “Snookums?”
“Shut it,” Derek commanded.
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll get your car out of impound if you stop with the snookums crap.”
“Deal,” I said, grinning.
My husband pointed to a picnic table. “I want you to sit there and stay out of trouble.”
Fabian laughed. “That’s not possible.”
I gave him the one fingered salute.
“Angel,” Derek growled in warning. “Behave yourself and go sit down.”
“And if I don’t?”
“No chocolate.”
Shit! That was just mean. I gave him a sharp salute. “Yes, sir.”
Derek swatted my butt as I sashayed off.
“Brat.”
Perched on the table, I watched Derek, Ed, Hank and Fabian carry our special Vatican delivery of holy water grenades, blessed weapons, silver and salt bullets to the helicopter. We were going in loaded for big bad demons. Didn’t that sound like fun?
A FedEx van pulled to a stop and the driver hurried over with a large gold wrapped box.
Derek signed for it and brought me my special delivery. “The biggest box of Godiva chocolate money can buy, Angel.”
About fucking time. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. “It’s a truly wonderful wedding gift, sugar.”
“Only the best for you, my love.”
My jaw dropped. Derek had said the L word.
A hint of nervousness in his gaze, my husband said, “You stole my heart when…”
“Boss, we’ve got a problem,” Hank called from inside the semi.
Letting out a frustrated sigh, Derek yelled, “I’ll be right there.”
“We can talk later,” I reassured him.
“Wouldn’t bet on it.” Dropping a hard kiss on my mouth, he stalked over to the semi-truck.
“What’s so fucking important?”
“This,” Hank replied and Derek climbed into the truck.
Hopping back on the table, I tore the pretty gold wrapping off and opened the box of chocolate.
I let my eyes wander over the contents.
Decisions.
Decisions.
I grabbed my favorite roasted almond truffle and took a bite. My eyes rolled back in my head.
Omigod, orgasm by chocolate.
“I need to find a woman like you,” Fabian groused, throwing his backpack in the helicopter.
“Short and fat?”
Derek walked back and dropped a kiss on my head. “You’re not fat. You’re curvy.”
“Aw, you’re so sweet.”
“It is as I said. You are easily pleased,” Fabian said.
“So?”
My cousin plopped down next to me. “The women I date all want champagne, caviar and diamonds. You are happy with a bullet-proof vest and chocolate.”
“I like chocolate and people keep shooting at me.”
“You need to stop dating super models,” Derek added, plucking a chocolate from the box.
“I like beautiful women.”
“You like the Barbie doll type who wears a size zero and has breast implants bigger than her IQ,” I corrected.
Fabian thought about it for a moment and shrugged. “I will endeavor to find an ugly woman.”
“You do that.” I turned my attention to Derek.
“What’s the problem?”
“A safe and no combination.”
“Not a problem,” Fabian and I said in unison.
Color me freaked out. The safe contained an ancient manuscript and a vial of Lucifer’s blood.
The holy document gave us step by step instructions on how to close an entrance to the
underworld. The Apaches did call the Superstition Mountains the Devil’s playground. But, damn, an entrance to the nine hells?
“In exchange for the holy weapons Aldo had to promise the Pope we would close the entrance,”
Granny Annabel disembodied voice advised.
“We live to serve the Vatican,” I grumbled.
“What I want to know is how in the hell did they get a vial of Lucifer’s blood?”
Fabian shuddered. “No, you do not.”
“I have to agree with him,” Ed said.
“Better not to know,” Hank added.
“Let’s get a move on it, we’re wasting daylight,” Derek ordered and we all trooped over to the helicopter.
The morning sun cast a golden glow over the one thousand foot column of volcanic rock called Weaver’s Needle. The needle’s shadow would supposedly lead you right to the Lost Dutchman’s gold. What a bunch of hooey. The majority of the idiots who searched for the mine usually ended up dead or mad as a Hatter.
The hunt for the gold started way back in when Conquistador Francisco Coronado tramped across the southwest for four years searching for the fabled seven cities of gold, Cibola. What he and the other treasure hunters didn’t realize was there were no seven cities of gold. There were seven caverns of gold.
Aztlan, the Aztec’s legendry homeland, was located beneath the mountains in these caverns.
All I had to do was find the entrance.
The Black Hawk hovered alongside Weaver’s Needle.
“Ready to do your woo-woo stuff?” Derek asked over the headphones.
“You betcha.” Spreading the map across my lap, I opened my psychic eye and reached out. An icy devouring cold touched me and nightmare images of the people being slaughtered whirled through my brain. There. The entrance to the lost cities was at Painted Rock and only a short ten minute flight away.