Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Read Online Free PDF

watching me. “I’m, uh, sure he won’t mind if the place is in some disarray.”
    I raised an eyebrow and stayed silent.
    “Or we can do it some other time.”
    “Yes,” I said with a winning smile. “Some other time sounds fine.”
    “Great. No problem.”
    That’s another thing I love about Stuart. He’s trainable. “So who’s Judge Larson?” I asked. “Do I know him?”
    “Newly appointed,” Stuart said. “Federal district court. He just moved up from Los Angeles.”
    “Oh.” Keeping track of all the judges and attorneys that cross Stuart’s path is next to impossible. “You can show him the kitchen and the study if it’s important to you. But don’t take him upstairs.” I bent down and moved the fruit plate slightly to the left, so it lined up nicely with the row of forks I’d set out.
    We didn’t decide whether a downstairs tour was on the agenda or not, because that’s when the doorbell rang. “Go,” I ordered. “I still need to put out the wineglasses.” I started running down a list in my head. Appetizers— check ; wine— check ; napkins—
    Oh, shit . Napkins.
    I knew I had cocktail napkins somewhere in this house, but I had absolutely no idea where . And what about tiny plates for the appetizers? How could I have forgotten the tiny plates?
    My pulse increased, gearing up to a rhythm that more or less mimicked my earlier heart rate when I’d fought the demon. This was why I hated entertaining. I always forgot something. Nothing ever went smoothly. Stuart was going to lose the election, and his entire political demise could be traced to right here. This moment. The night his wife completely screwed up a dinner party.
    And forget using demons as an excuse. No, I would have forgotten the napkins and plates even without Pops. That’s just the way I—
    “Hey.” Stuart was suddenly beside me, his lips brushing my hair, his soft voice pulling me out of my funk. “Have I told you yet how amazing you are, pulling all this together on such short notice?”
    I looked up at him, warmed by the love I saw in his face. “Yeah,” I said. “You already told me.”
    “Well, I meant it.”
    I blinked furiously. My husband might be the sweetest man on the planet, but I was not going to run my mascara. “I don’t know where the cocktail napkins are,” I admitted, sounding a little sniffly.
    “I think we’ll survive the tragedy,” he said. The doorbell rang again. “Pull yourself together, then meet me at the door.”
    I nodded, calmed somewhat by the knowledge that my husband loved me even though I was a total domestic failure.
    “And, Kate,” he called as he moved toward the foyer, “check the buffet, second drawer from the left, behind the silver salad tongs.”
     
     
    Clark arrived first, of course. And while he and Stuart did the political he-man thing—dishing about the upcoming campaign, bitching about various idiocies being implemented by the newly installed city council—I took the opportunity to round out my role as a domestic goddess.
    I hauled out the cocktail napkins (right where Stuart said they’d be), brought in seven wineglasses (I’d used the eighth to kill the demon), and checked on the dessert.
    Throughout all of this, I kept looking toward the flimsily repaired window, half-expecting to see a demon army come crashing through. But all seemed quiet. Too quiet, maybe?
    I frowned. On a normal day I’d say I was being melodramatic. But I no longer knew what normal was. For fourteen years, normal had been diapers and bake sales and Bactine and PTA meetings. Demons—especially the kind that are ballsy enough to just out-and-out attack —were not normal. Not by a long shot.
    And yet years ago, that had been my life.
    It wasn’t a life I wanted back. Wasn’t a life I had any intention of letting my husband or kids see.
    But here that life was. Or, rather, there it was—in my pantry, dead behind the cat food.
    It wasn’t the dead demon that bothered me so much