Page 1 of Twisted
CHAPTER1
This is, by far, the most boring funeral I’ve ever been to.And as a member of the Order of the Mystic Realm, I’ve been to my fair share.This is no demon hunter’s funeral, as evidenced by the middle-aged women sitting in the front row, shoulders shaking as they silently cry.
There’s no crying at a hunter’s funeral.Instead, there are at least two drunken fights, tales of fighting monsters with someone trying to top whatever story was just told.Usually, some sort of knife-throwing competition starts followed by another drunken fight before the mood turns somber and we gather around our fallen comrade in a silent reverie, remembering the good times while trying not to process the fact that it could very easily be us lying there in a wooden coffin, about to be set ablaze.
But no, this is just a boring, run of the mill Christian service taking place in an outdated funeral home with one too many Febreze scented plug-ins trying to cover up the smell of water-damaged carpet and the sewage-leaking toilet in the reception area.
Yawning, I roll my neck and look around at the crowd gathered to honor Robert Henderson, who died “too soon” at the young age of fifty-four, leaving behind his wife and two kids.Part of me wants to put my hand over my stomach, go up to the casket and cry about how Bobby will never get to meet his unborn child or leave his wife like he promised, just to add some excitement to this joint.
Deciding that I’d rather just get through this service as fast as I can with no distractions, I let out a bored sigh, earning a glare from an elderly woman in the row in front of me.She quickly darts her gaze from my face to my body, no doubt taking in the fact that I’m wearing workout clothes to a funeral.But hey, my pants and matching crop top are black at least, a very respectable color if you ask me.
My expression changes from one of someone watching paint dry to that of someone sad to have lost such a good running buddy as Bobby.Which is my cover story for how I know him.It’s ironic, really, that Robert Henderson—known as Bobby to his friends—joined a running club three months ago only to drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of his office on a random Tuesday.The cleaning lady found him three hours after the office closed for the night, slumped over his desk.
I wonder if his wife thought he was having an affair.Did she have his location shared on her phone?Was she cursing his name and sending him nasty text messages, accusing him of doing something wrong when really he was face down in a puddle of dried drool, dead as a doornail?She probably wished it was an affair when she got the news he was dead.Though if he were my husband, a heart attack would be better than cheating on me.No man hurts me and gets away unscathed.
And I also wonder if the demon residing in Bobby’s body is as bored as I am, listening to the sermon droning on and on for what feels like forever.I have to suppress a laugh as I imagine the stiff, embalmed body suddenly sitting up.Normally, the most startling part about a person possessed by a demon is how their eyes are inked over from demonic energy.But if Bobby was properly embalmed, then eyelid caps would be over whatever is left of his eyeballs.Would the demon flick them off?Maybe they’d just fall off on their own.
I’ve encountered demons who have possessed dead bodies—which is lazy, if you ask me—but not a body that’s been laid out for a viewing like this.It was smart, perhaps, for the demon to slip into a body as it was being wheeled to the morgue.And it was smarter to lay low, waiting through the whole embalming process, laying still inside the empty body as it was washed and dressed for today.Smart, but not smart enough to evade my locator spell.
My phone dings with a text, and I make a face, silently apologizing to the same woman who judged me for wearing workout clothes.Really, they’re practicalandcomfortable, which is a winning combination in my book.And talk about unassuming.Did I just come back from a Pilates class and now I’m on my way to meet the other housewives for organic, gluten-free, non GMO, sugar-free, low carb smoothies or did I just cut the heart out of a forest hag who’s been terrorizing a small village in the Appalachian backwoods, where everyone knows the myths but not how to kill the monsters that lurk in the dark?
My only complaint is that these tight clothes leave little room for hiding weapons, though I really don’t need any.Being proficient with all sorts of blades, daggers, and knives has been ingrained in me as part of my training.After all, I’m the only witch in the Order.
Ever.
And I’m reminded of that pretty much daily, mostly by my adoptive sister, Larissa.She, like the rest of the Russos, comes from a long line of demon hunters who grew up thinking witches are bad and that we get our powers from the Devil himself.I made a lot of higher-ups in the Order pretty fucking pissed when they realized that wasn’t true.
Turning my phone on silent, I open my texts and see that Antonio, my oldest brother, is asking for a status update in our sibling group chat.
Any sign of the demon?
In the corpse.Waiting for a less busy time, I’m guessing.Then it’ll jump bodies.
Okay.Keep me posted.
Will do.
I shove my phone back into the pocket on my thigh and look around the funeral.Robert Henderson might have lived a boring, mundane life, but he seems to have made an impact.There are a lot of people here, and his wife has a big group of supportive friends and family around her.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, to sit back and look without any sort of emotional attachment to the legacy left behind.We all die, there’s no way around it.Most people hope to go peacefully after a long life, feeling fulfilled, surrounded by adult children, their kids, and maybe even some great-grandchildren.No one anticipates leaving early and unplanned like this.It makes me stop and think about the meaning of life, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s different for all of us.
Some people—the lucky ones—are meant to fall in love.They’re meant to build another person up with that love and make their partner’s life better.They’re meant to be happy and spread that happiness like a fucking disease.They have kids they should raise right so they can go on and repeat the cycle, leaving the world a little better with each generation.
Then there are others who deviate from the plan the universe has and will live a life that, well, sucks.Maybe not for them, but for others.Bad people get away with a lot of shit, and good people get their hearts torn out and stomped on again and again and again.
But then there’s the majority of us: we’re not bad and we know we’re supposed to fall in love, find our other half, so to speak…but we just don’t.And the empty ache inside is a fate we just have to accept and hope and pray it doesn’t eat us alive.
* * *
“Something doesn’t feel right,”I whisper as I wave my hand over the lock of the funeral home, magically unlocking it so we can sneak inside and take care of the demon.It’s nighttime, and I’ve just arrived back at the funeral home with my siblings to try and find the demon.
“What do you mean?”Larissa huffs, shaking her head as she raises her hands, looking annoyed already.“You said the demon was here.”
“I did, and it is.”I step to the side and let Leo go in first so he can disarm the alarm system.“But the energy is…” I hold up my hands, getting a read on the air around us.“Different.”
“In what way?”Antonio asks, pulling a long, silver dagger from his side.
“More intense,” I answer.
