The Demon Hunters Read Online Free

This early in
the morning?” I checked my wristwatch. “At seven in the
morning?”
    An audible sigh. “Clients. They will
be here any minute.”
    “ Clients? I didn’t know we
had clients. In particular, clients who make appointments at the
crack of dawn.”
    “ Prospective clients, then.
I can explain when you get here. Or would you rather we come to
your place?”
    “ Uh, no. I’ll be there in
an hour.”
    “ I’ll save you a
donut.”
    “ Aw,” I crooned into the
phone. “You do know how to treat a girl.”
    I pocketed the phone and started down.
The sun crested behind me, hot on the nape of my neck, then
traveled down to envelop my entire body. Its golden light swathed
the mountainside, casting my shadow crookedly before me. Chickadee
flitted through the branches of scrub oak and tiny pine siskin
pecked in the long grasses for last year’s wild flax seeds. A hawk
drifted lazily above, the sun making its underside a bright, almost
dazzling metallic copper, the color of Royal’s hair.

Chapter Three
     
     
    “ What’s the big hurry?” Mel
asked.
    “ Off to Royal’s for donuts
and mysterious visitors,” I sang out, charging through the kitchen,
making quotation marks in the air with my fingers. I headed up the
stairs to the bathroom with Jack and Mel trailing me.
    “ Mysterious visitors? Ooh,
can I come?” Jack asked.
    I walked into the bathroom. “Be my
guest.”
    ” That’s our Tiff, always
the comedian.”
    I slammed the door on him.
    “ What’s this about
mysterious visitors?” Mel asked.
    “ Don’t do that!”
    “ Do what?”
    “ Your disappearing from one
room and reappearing in another act.”
    I stripped off my top and slung it at
her where she sat on the toilet, or seemed to sit. Mel and Jack
can’t sit on solid objects, but they like to pretend they can. I
suppose they actually kind of hover. She ducked reflexively and it
missed her to land on the lip of the sink.
    She stood and walked through the tub
to the window, turned and put her back to the small square panes.
“So who are these visitors?”
    “ Yeah, who?” Jack
asked.
    I spun on my heel and glared at him.
“You, out of here, mister!”
    He looked me up and down as I stood in
front of him in my sports bra. It’s funny, but although a dead
person’s expression doesn’t change, when I look at Jack and Mel I
imagine one I expect them to wear. I could almost see the twitch of
Jack’s eyebrows, the blatant leer.
    “ I mean it,
Jack!”
    He faded back through the door,
muttering, “I can hear from out here anyway.”
    “ And you,” I told Mel as I
started unbraiding my hair.
    She flipped her hands out. “You sure
are testy this morning.”
    I struggled out of my sweatpants and
tossed them in the laundry basket next my treadmill. “No
kidding.”
    She tried to sound solicitous. “What’s
wrong, honey?”
    I spoke through gritted teeth. “You
are irritating me. Go away.” I checked behind me before I unsnapped
my bra and wriggled out my panties. I didn’t trust Jack one
iota.
    “ But we’re bored!” he
whined through the door.
    “ And it’s my fault? Go get
an afterlife!”
    They were still mad at me for quitting
my consulting job with Clarion PD. They missed all the gory little
details and inside information on the police cases I worked.
Rescuing a catnapped puss just didn’t cut it.
    Sharing your home with a couple of
dead people has its drawbacks. Lack of privacy is one. And when you
are their only contact with the outside world and what is happening
there, when they pester you for attention, you get to feel like a
babysitter tending a couple of needy brats.
    The benefits? They don’t use all your
hot water, they don’t eat your food, they don’t leave their dirty
laundry lying about, they don’t play their music too loud and they
don’t borrow money from you.
    On the other hand, they don’t help
with the rent or utilities, yard work, errands, or snow
removal.
    They’re just there.
    I toweled my