Kinky Boots(14)

‘Your ward? Well, Finn, I’d say you’re not doing a very good job keeping track of your ward, are you?’

‘Oh, but I’ll be ever so easy to keep track of now that the two of us are together, Jill,’ Eleanor said.

‘Eleanor’s the last of the lust demons, as far as we can tell,’ Finn said. ‘And I’m not exactly her minder. It’s more like an agreement between equals. It’s an agreement between her and the Sole Alliance, an arrangement I was able to broker. So naturally when anything goes wrong, I get the blame for it.’

‘Oh, poor you,’ Eleanor said. Once again it was only Finn’s raised eyebrow that made Jill aware she’d spoken out loud.

‘Sole Alliance?’ Jill asked. ‘What’s a Sole Alliance?’

‘They’re a nasty coven of mean witches and rabble intent on spoiling my fun.’ Again Eleanor spoke out loud.

‘Bloody hell, can’t you make her stop doing that?’ Jill said. But before Finn could respond, she said, ‘A coven of witches? Oh, give me a break! What’s next, ogres and trolls?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ came Eleanor’s response, ‘there are no ogres and trolls, at least not in London.’

‘Make her stop that, damn it!’ Jill fought back the urge to get hysterical. ‘And get her out of me. Being possessed is not on the list of ways I planned to screw up my life. You get the blame from this Sole Alliance coven thingy, and now I’m blaming you too. I want her out. Can you do an exorcism?’ Even as she said it she felt as though someone had just hurt her feelings in the most inconsiderate way. ‘Look, I don’t want to upset you, Eleanor –’ and sure enough, she’d said it out loud ‘– but you came uninvited. The one thing I don’t need in my life right now is a demon.’ The word felt strange as it slipped from her lips, and she felt like a part of her was suddenly pouting. Then she turned her attention back to Finn. ‘This is crazy. I don’t know what’s going on or how the hell you know about demon possession and all, or how you know about this Eleanor, but I want her out, do you understand? I want her out.’

Strangely enough, Eleanor made no comment, and for the moment, at least, Jill felt alone in her head. Before she could dwell on it there was a knock on the door, and a man the size of a mountain shoved his way in followed by a woman who was his total opposite, tiny and small of bone.

‘This is Chelsea and Meinrad, the rest of Sole Alliance,’ Finn said.

Meinrad, who had an unruly mane of white-blond hair and a colourful network of dragon and Celtic-knot tattoos ascending from his ham-hock-sized hands up both enormous biceps, gave her a nod and a grunt. He dwarfed her in his nearness, and in that close encounter it was easy to see there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man.

The tiny Chelsea was as dark as he was pale. She wore her hair in dreadlocks that hung to her shoulders, and her small braless breasts pressed enthusiastically against a thin green T-shirt. One hand was covered in silver rings, and one wrist was armoured in bangle bracelets halfway up to her elbow. She squeezed in next to the big man and nearly crushed Jill’s fingers in her firm handshake. ‘Pleasure,’ she said in a gravelly voice that sounded as though it should belong to a much larger, much rougher-looking woman. ‘We’re here to do the exorcism,’ she added. Then she offered a tight-shouldered shrug. ‘Hopefully it’s not too late.’

Before Jill could question further, Chelsea motioned to her to get up. ‘Come on, come on. Time’s wasting. Meinrad’s prepared the space. If we’re gonna do it, we need to do it now.’

Finn helped Jill to her feet and before she knew it Meinrad had thrown open a door next to a bookcase full of leather-bound volumes, a door she could have sworn hadn’t been there before. The next thing she knew, she was being led down a steep wooden staircase into a cavernous cellar that looked hewn out of solid rock.

‘Normally we would have a full coven, but the rest of the gang is on summer hols,’ Finn explained, as though it were just a part of everyday conversation. Oh, the rest of the gang couldn’t make the exorcism tonight. Shame, really, them missing out. Christ! Had she just dropped into Nutterville?

‘Eleanor’s usually quite well satisfied with sharing the three of us,’ he continued. ‘I don’t know what came over her last night.’

‘Full moon,’ Meinrad said. ‘That’s what came over her.’

‘She shares the three of you?’ Jill said. ‘As in possesses all of you?’

Meinrad blinked and looked at her as though she had just asked the stupidest question ever. ‘Not at the same time.’