Free Demons in My Driveway by R.L. Naquin Page B

so Darius was still in human form. This would have been a whole lot more convenient if it had been night already. Then Darius would be full-on mothman and would have wings. Instead, he was stuck chasing this thing on foot.
    Talia took a scowling step toward the portal and stuck her head inside to look around. After a moment, she pulled out again.
    “There’s no one near the portal on that side.” Anger rolled off of her in waves. “I don’t know what happened to my guard, and there will be nine kinds of hell to pay when I find out.”
    So far, I wasn’t impressed with how the queen of the demons ran her world. Forgetting the fiasco with Sebastian, we’d seen unsupervised portals, rogue demons she couldn’t identify and missing guards in the last few hours alone.
    Tight ship
,
my ass.
Maybe less time coming up with skimpy clothes and more time making your people behave.
    Kam touched my sleeve. “Hey. Shouldn’t you be over there?” She jerked her chin toward the porch.
    “If I’m not safe while Talia is here, I’m doomed,” I said. I squinted in the direction of the end of the driveway and frowned. “Is somebody down there?” Without thinking, I charged past everyone, churning up gravel in my wake. From the end of driveway, I saw
her.
    Pansy stood on the neighbor’s roof across the street, motionless.
    Someone needed to give her a lesson in architecture. While she might have blended well enough on a French provincial design, the neighbor’s house was a two-story fisherman’s cottage with driftwood repurposed to create the porch. She stuck out like—well—like a gargoyle on the roof of a fisherman’s cottage.
    “Hey,” I shouted across the street. “I thought Maurice told you to get your gravelly ass out of here.”
    Her body remained motionless, but her lips quivered then pulled into a sly smile. Reaching out with my empath powers, I connected with her. Her smugness puffed around her in filthy clouds, and her glee sprayed in citrusy spurts.
    Bitch.
You want to play?
Let’s see how sassy you are with an angry mothman tossing your ass off the roof.
    As I turned to go, the mail truck came around the bend in the street and stopped right in front of me. I shifted from foot to foot, a fake smile pasted across my face. My gaze flicked to the roof across the street to the grinning gargoyle, then back to the mailman as he leaned from his truck to hand me the bills and flyers.
    “Hey, thanks, Rick.” I took the mail, feeling my facial muscles objecting to the extreme pressure I was putting them under.
    He gave me an uneasy smile in return, as if my nerves were freaking him out a little. “Haven’t seen you around in awhile. You okay, Zoey?”
    “Sure. Sure. Just been really busy lately.” It took everything in my power to maintain eye contact with him. I detected movement behind him and was sure Pansy was flapping her arms to get his attention just to mess with me.
    Somehow sensing my aversion to looking at the house across the street, Rick turned his head to look. “Something going on at the Millers?”
    In desperation, I twitched my arm and sent my mail flying into the air. “Oh, no!” I dropped to my knees, cringing at the tiny rock indentations pressing into my skin. “I’m such an idiot.”
    Rick came to my aid, jumping out of his truck and gathering the junk mail scattered on the ground.
    Once he got the clumsy girl situated, Rick climbed back in his truck.
    “Thanks a lot, Rick. Have a great day!” My face hurt from grinning. He had to think I was a complete moron.
    “Back at ya!” He waved and drove off to the next house. I watched as he made his delivery into their mailbox, then moved on down the street far enough away that he couldn’t see me anymore.
    Poor guy probably thinks I’ve got a crush on him
,
now.
Awesome.
    To be fair, I could do a lot worse—if, of course, I hadn’t been nursing a broken heart. The guy was charming as hell, always helpful and had a steady job. He’d