Demons are Forever: Confessions of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Read Online Free

that I couldn’t ignore, even though I wanted to. I’d seen fear in Allie’s eyes and so I’d lied about my hunting. I’d been trying to make things better, and by doing that, I’d probably made them ten times worse. “It will be okay,” I said firmly, more to convince myself than Laura.
    The corner of her mouth twitched.
    “What?” I demanded, feeling surly.
    She smiled into her cocoa. “Just picturing the battle between you and Allie when the truth comes out.”
    “And that’s funny?”
    A tiny shrug. “The odds. Because between you and a demon, my money’s on you any day of the week. But between you and Allie? Kate, you don’t stand a chance.”
    l’ve lived in San Diablo for over fifteen years now. Eric and I moved here from Los Angeles while I was pregnant with Allie. And although I know the town pretty well, it’s only been since last summer that I’ve really gotten a feel for it. For all of it—the good sections and the bad.
    For the most part, San Diablo is a nice little town. That’s why Eric and I came, after all. We were looking for a demon-free zone in which to live out our retirement and raise our baby. At the time, we thought San Diablo was just the ticket. After all, the historic cathedral that forms the focal point of the town is so infused with the blood and bones of saints that we were certain demons would want no part of the place.
    Clearly, we were wrong.
    I met my first San Diablo demon right before the school year started. Since then, I’d been spending much of my free time poking around dark alleys, strolling down the boardwalk long after most responsible humans have headed off to bed, and roaming the halls of the hospital and nursing home.
    Over the holidays, I’d cut back to about one patrol per week. To be honest, after battling the demon Asmodeus and his minions for the life of my daughter, I was experiencing a little touch of demon-hunter burnout. Moreover, I didn’t want Allie to wake up and not find me there. The cops had warned about post-traumatic stress resulting from the kidnapping. I figured they didn’t know the half of it. She might seem fine on the outside, but I was worried about her inside, too.
    On the Saturday before school started up again, though, Allie was spending the night at Mindy’s, and I was feeling the need to get back in the groove.
    I tend to approach patrolling from two directions. On the one hand, I’ll occasionally do sweeps through the town, simply keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. As you might expect, that method rarely produces results. I’ve gotten lucky once in a while, but for the most part the only purpose these broad-based patrols serve is to remind the demons that there’s a hunter in town. A subtle suggestion that they should hop on Charon’s ferry and sail back into Hades.
    I tend to have more luck with my second method. Every morning, I scour that day’s Herald for articles about recent near-misses—car wrecks that people miraculously survive, near-drownings, heart attack victims brought back to life after an astoundingly long bout of CPR.
    Most people celebrate those kinds of miracles. Me, I’m suspicious. Because newly dead bodies are a demon waiting to happen. The human soul moves out, the demon moves in. Trust me. It happens more than you’d think.
    I was pretty sure, in fact, that it had happened just the day before. That morning, I’d noticed a short article near the back of the Metro section. A local businessman named Jacob Tomlinson had recently downed a bottleful of sleeping pills, then decided to swim toward Hawaii. A fisherman had pulled his body out and managed to resuscitate the despondent Mr. Tomlinson. The newspaper called the rescue “miraculous.” I had a different perspective.
    Since it takes a demon a few days to get up to full strength once it’s moved into a fresh body, I always follow up on these articles. That’s why I decided to go to the beach Saturday night. Demons—like