Demon by Kristina Douglas

my hand brush the dark mahogany handrail in a strange kind of caress. It was almost as if I were saying good-bye.
    My tiny Holden was parked in the shade, and I climbed in, tossing both bags into the backseat. I started to back out, then turned to glance in front of me. Something was standing there, something dark and shimmering like a heat mirage, and without thinking I stomped on the gas, shooting into the street and narrowly missing my landlord’s parked car. I shoved the car into drive and took off, not looking back. Afraid to.
    My heart was slamming in my chest, sweat on my forehead and palms. I didn’t want to, but I glanced in the rearview mirror. The street was empty—there was no shadowy figure following me. No slippery horror-movie creatures looming up to take my soul. I slowly eased my foot off the accelerator as I headed down the hill toward thetraffic, stopping carefully. And then, like a complete idiot, I suddenly forgot I was in Australia, and I took a right turn directly into oncoming traffic.
    I heard the screech of tires, the slam of metal on metal, the grinding noise of cars crumpling. Oily smoke billowed into the air. Somehow the EMTs were already there, and I watched as they rushed to my tiny car, the driver’s-side door crushed in.
    “No one here!” one of the paramedics shouted. “Someone must have forgotten to put on the parking brake.”
    Odd. I didn’t remember getting out of the crushed car. And no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to me, when I would have thought everyone would be screaming at me for being such a stupid American.
    They were working on getting a woman out of the car I’d hit, but she was talking and looking relatively unscathed, so some of my guilt faded. I turned to the man standing behind me. “She looks okay.” And then I froze.
    I had turned to him automatically, knowing he was there, comfortable with it. Ugly reality came roaring back as I looked up into his cold blue eyes. “Azazel,” I said.
    He said nothing, simply watching me. I turnedand looked at the accident scene as they pulled the woman from the wrecked car. Maybe I could run for it once more. Where the hell was Rolf when I needed him?
    And how had I gotten out of the car? I finally turned my back on the accident. “Am I dead?” I asked, matter-of-fact.
    “Why should you think that?” His deep voice sent shivers through my body. I remembered that voice. I’d heard it in my dreams. The erotic, embarrassing dreams I’d rejected in the daylight.
    “You’re here again.”
    “You remember. That surprises me.” He didn’t look particularly surprised. Then again, he had never seemed to react to anything when we were together the last time.
    Strange way to put it. When he’d kidnapped me and tried to kill me, the son of a bitch.
    I glanced toward the police, who were now directing traffic, wondering if I had time to reach them, to scream for help. His gaze followed mine, but he didn’t move. “It won’t do you any good. They can’t see or hear you.”
    I think I knew that. I just didn’t want to believe it. I looked back at him. “I’ll ask you again—am I dead?”
    “It is not that easy to kill the Lilith.”
    “Don’t call me that,” I snapped as someonewalked right through me as if I weren’t standing there. “I’m Rachel.”
    His eyes narrowed. “It is not that easy to kill you. ”
    “I remember.” I was standing too close to him. Odd that I could feel his presence, practically feel his body heat, yet people were walking through us to get to the accident. I took a surreptitious step back from him. “Have you changed your mind again?”
    “It was not a permanent reprieve. But I’m here for another reason.”
    I took one more longing look at the police wandering around the accident, then turned back to him. Another step away. “Then explain.”
    “We have need of you.” He looked as if he were eating an unpleasant bug as he said it. “I’m taking you out of here.