Demon Fire (The Angel Fire Book 3) by Marie Johnston (top 10 novels of all time TXT) 📕

Chairs scraping across a floor. Another giant crash propelled him forward.

He swept through the door, wishing he had more than his bare hands, and took in the scene. Alma stood in the living room, her hands on her knees as she peered into the kitchen, saying, “Is he dead?”

Sierra stood over an unconscious Jim. Her cheeks were flushed, but she appeared unhurt. “Nope. Can you tell if the demon’s still in him?” She pushed the magazine release on a Beretta and pulled open the slide, locking it open as a round flew out and tinged on the floor. The moves were fast and efficient. He barely had time to register the danger of a firearm. She tossed the gun on the counter and stilled. She swung her head toward him.

This was more than a man breaking into a house. It was more than two women taking on an intruder. Alma’s calm inspection of Jim. Sierra’s efficiency with the Beretta. Demons? And Jim. Alma wasn’t the one who’d incapacitated him.

“Shut the door before the world sees,” Sierra said and went through the drawers of the kitchen. “We need rope.”

He stared at her. “Why?” Of all the questions, finding out why she needed rope at the same time there was an unconscious man on the floor of a house that wasn’t hers seemed priority.

“To tie Jim up. He hit his head on the table as he went down and knocked himself out, thank goodness.” Her gaze went to Jim, up to Boone, then to Alma. She shoved a lock of hair behind her ear and put a hand on her hip. “What are you doing here, Boone?”

Alma cackled. “Your boyfriend was trying to rescue you.”

“Shut it, demon.”

“I thought the demon was in Jim.” The sentence sounded crazy as it came out. Was Sierra insane? Did she suffer from a mental condition and had lost touch with reality?

He didn’t want that to be the case, but it’d explain a lot.

“Is it, Sandeen?”

“Well, that cat’s out of the bag. Gerzon and his big mouth.” Alma crept closer, hunched down, and peered at Jim. “No. Gerzon’s gone.”

“What the hell is going on?” Boone roared. He jerked the screen door closed behind him and by the grace of God, it actually stayed latched. He swung the main door closed, but he doubted there was anything left to latch after Jim had busted in.

No one said anything. The two stared at him.

“Start talking.”

If Sierra was in another reality, then Alma was too.

Alma’s mouth curved into a toothy grin. “Good thing you’ve already fallen, Sierra.”

“Shut it, demon.”

“Why do you keep calling him demon?” Boone gritted out.

Sierra pointed to Jim and addressed Alma. “Tie him up.”

Alma lifted her hands. “With these arthritic hands?” She shifted her gaze to Boone. “I’m a demon possessing Alma, but don’t hold that against me. I’m really not that bad. Sierra here is an angel who’s lost her wings because she was worse than she looks. And the one you call Jim was also possessed by a wicked motherfucker called Gerzon.”

Silence echoed through the house.

“Are you kidding me?” He wanted it to be a joke, but his gut, the intuition he’d relied on most of his career before it had failed him in the worst possible way, said no. They weren’t joking. That left two possibilities: They were insane. Or they were telling the truth.

Sierra let out a sigh. “Dead serious. For once, Sandeen’s not lying.”

He’d seen a lot of evil shit in his life. When he’d lain in the hospital bed, recovering and wishing he had died with his family, he’d wanted a reason. An answer. Someone or something to blame that wasn’t his wife or himself.

He wasn’t going to go off the deep end just because fantasy made him feel better than reality. “Who’s Sandeen?”

She pointed to Alma. “The demon possessing Alma.”

“Alma’s dead?” He’d charged into this house like a white knight rescuing a damsel in distress. Sierra was no damsel, he’d seen that with his own eyes. But if Alma had suffered because of her, he would have to face the thought that Sierra wasn’t his to save, that he might have to save others from her.

“Alma’s just fine.” The elderly woman waved him off. “She loves the excitement. Sierra, we should show him.”

“You’re not getting more of my blood,” she growled.

The levels of weird shit in this situation continued to mount, and Boone still didn’t have any satisfying answers. “You took down Jim?”

She winced. “I disarmed him and kicked his feet out from under him. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt, but it’s for the best that he’s out cold.” She pulled open another drawer. “Twine. Perfect.”

She withdrew a ball of twine and scissors from a clutter of items in what must be a catch-all drawer.

When she crouched to tie his hands, Boone said, “We have to call the police.”

“You can when we leave. Sandeen and I need to go before anything comes after us.”

Anything, not anyone. “Demons are after you?”

“I guess,” she said as she worked a figure eight around Jim’s hands and knotted it. “When we were in the store, I saw that he was getting hounded by sylphs.”

“By what?”

“Little demonic creatures that disrupt a person’s life. Leaves them open for possession by archmasters like Sandeen.” She jerked her head toward Alma.

“You’re saying Alma was hounded by sylphs?” He’d have to look up what those were, if they were even real.

“No,” Alma answered. Or Sandeen. Or, fuck, he didn’t know anymore.

“We have to go.” Sierra cut the twine and went to work on his feet. “Gerzon is going to come back and this time he’ll be prepared.”

Alma rocked in the recliner. “We were lucky it was just him in the first place. Zanda would’ve shot first and asked questions later.”

“How much money does Alma have? We need a computer so I can send a report. A tablet might do. Something that’ll connect to Wi-Fi. Alma’s is too old.”

“If I pay for it—”

“If Alma pays for it.”

Boone