The words came fast and furious as the people pressed against me, and I struggled not to lash out at them. I would hurt them badly without even trying if I wasn’t careful.
“Stop it! What are you doing?” I tried to push through, but the throng of people was thick, and I couldn’t make them move without hurting them.
“You’re a freak, get out of here,” a man in a gruesome zombie mask yelled.
There were even some children in the mix, and they were as mean as the adults as the children picked up loose stones and threw them at me. I dodged the stones, and several bounced off my car. I’d seen this before, I’d even been a part of a mob or two like this, which made the guilt all that much stronger.
“You should have died! God called your soul home, and you denied him!” That was from a woman wearing a long drab gray dress that covered her from ankle to wrist, and a witch’s mask.
Her words only confirmed what I already suspected. I wasn’t facing just some random crowd of people who were irritated by my existence as a Super Duper. I was facing those people I’d once called friends, people who’d been my extended family, who’d shared the same beliefs.
As a supernatural, I was facing my first mob of Firstamentalists determined to send my soul to hell.
CHAPTER 3
My initial thought about the mob of religious nuts was to wonder if my mother had organized the group. That might not sound fair; I mean, who would think that badly of her mother, right?
Me. I would, and it was warranted too. She’d denied me the second I’d been turned. She’d said it then; it would have been better that I died than to live on as a monster.
“Mom, are you here?” I stood on my tiptoes as I scanned the crowd.
“Look at her, she’s calling for her mother. Your mother doesn’t want you!”
“You’re dead to her!”
Okay, that was not nice to hear out loud, even if it was kinda true.
They jostled me, not really hurting me, but I didn’t know how to get around them without actually hurting them. How to get away from the words, to get away from the brutal truths they hurled . . . unless I scared them so badly they left. I looked up at Ernie as he flew over all our heads. “Back me up,” I said.
He cocked his head to one side, confusion clouding his eyes.
“What?”
I doubled over at the waist and coughed violently until I almost choked, forcing myself to gag.
“Oh no!” Ernie yelled, right on cue. “She’s got the Aegrus virus!”
The crowd shifted away from me at a speed that almost made me smile. I kept coughing, forcing myself to wheeze and clutch at my belly, really putting the act out there for all I was worth. “Oh, I think I’m so, so sick. I think I’m going to vomit.” I put my hands on my knees and hunched my back. Ernie cleared his throat. “Empty stage, girlfriend.”
I looked up, and my eyes widened. The back alley had cleared; there wasn’t a single trace of the mob that had been there. I’d not even heard them go over my coughing and gagging.
“Damn, that’s a good trick.” Ernie floated with his hands on his chubby hips like a miniature Peter Pan. “But don’t overdo it, though, or they’ll catch on.”
“You say that like they’ll be back.” I brushed my skirt flat, knocking off a few clots of dirt from the stones that were thrown.
He grunted. “You say that like they won’t.”
I sighed, knowing he had a point—again—and grabbed my keys. I pushed the “Lock” button, and the beep of my Charger acknowledged that it was indeed locked. I did it a second time just to make sure.
What Ernie said, though, was truer than maybe even he realized, and it was something I didn’t want to think much about. Once the Firstamentalists decided they were going to run someone out of town, they were unrelenting until they got what they wanted. I didn’t know of a single case where they’d backed down. Where they’d let anyone get away with what they thought of as sinning, or evil. I knew; I’d been a part of them for so long.
It seemed fitting that I was now one of the monsters that they were trying to cast out. But I knew their tricks; I would find a way to make sure the Firstamentalists didn’t get what they wanted this time.
I let us into the bakery, closed the door, and leaned against it. “Could this night get any worse?”
“Oh, don’t say that out loud,” Ernie groaned. “Rule number one of the pantheon, don’t ask for trouble.”
A loud knock on the door behind me made me cringe, and Ernie flew backward. “Don’t open it.”
“It’s probably Tad.” Mind you, I whispered that. Just in case.
“Be sure,” Ernie whispered back.
I nodded and then tipped my head back to listen for a heartbeat. I picked one up on the other side of the door, steady and solid. So, not a vampire at least, and I refused to acknowledge that a part of me was disappointed Remo hadn’t followed me. I drew in a breath, and my mouth dried up as I recognized the smell.
I moved back away from the door as he knocked again.
Ernie drew close to me, still keeping his voice low. “Not Tad?”
I shook my head, debating if I wanted to open the door. I licked my lips, uncertainty flowing through me. No. I wouldn’t buckle. I wouldn’t hide from him no matter what. But I wasn’t going to just open the door for him either.
“We aren’t open. If you’d like some baked goods, we open at six tomorrow morning. Or you can place an order on our website for pickup.” My store manager, Diana, had insisted that a website ordering service would work. She was right. In the first week, we’d almost doubled our sales.