Merry Clem-mas: A Clem Starr Christmas story (Clem Starr: Demon Fighter) Read online

  Merry Clem-mas

  Clem Starr: Demon Fighter

  Kat Cotton

  Published by Kat Cotton, 2017.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  MERRY CLEM-MAS

  First edition. November 6, 2017.

  Copyright © 2017 Kat Cotton.

  Written by Kat Cotton.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 Trainees

  Chapter 2 Pie

  Chapter 3 Orphan

  Chapter 4 Shopping

  Chapter 5 Basement

  Chapter 6 Plans

  Chapter 7 T-shirts

  Chapter 8 Market

  Chapter 9 Photo

  Chapter 10 Christmas Eve

  Chapter 11 Christmas

  Chapter 12 Gym

  Chapter 13 Unicorn

  Further Reading: Demon Child

  Chapter 1 Trainees

  “REMEMBER THE MOST IMPORTANT thing?” I whispered to Francine.

  She nodded. “Stick it in him before he sticks it in you.”

  I’d trained her well.

  The four of us had gone to a cheap hotel room with a particularly nasty incubus. The light of the neon sign outside flashed through the cracks in the curtains. The cover on the bed looked like it’d seen better days and hadn’t been washed since then. The carpet had been trodden down to a threadbare sludgy brown.

  Francine and I stood behind the incubus, waiting for our moment to strike.

  This stupid incubus had been only too willing to come us when we mentioned the orgy thing. As if. The only orgy going on here would be an orgy of incubus slaying.

  Well, there was some girl-on-girl action happening on the sofa. I’d told Rose and Leesa to fake it to get the demon distracted and aroused – after all, they couldn’t rely on my sexual aura to do that when I wasn’t with them – but I wasn’t so sure how much of the activity between them was fake. There was definitely tongue action and more than a bit of saliva being exchanged. Rose had her hand high on Leesa’s thigh, and Leesa fondled Rose’s breast.

  That incubus sat on the filthy bed, watching them with a puddle of drool at his feet. I sure as hell didn’t need to use my sexual aura on him. This guy was all cock and no brains.

  “Okay, get ready,” I told her.

  Francine moved in on him, wrapped her arms around his neck and stroked his face.

  “Hey, big boy, I think we need to get this party started.”

  He just grunted. He turned to her, his hard-on tenting his pants.

  She slipped the knife out of her waistband and plunged it into his heart. That was the perfect stab, not missing by even an inch. Francine was the best of the trainees when it came to targeting.

  He gave a surprised gurgle before turning to dust.

  “Nice work,” I said, high-fiving her.

  She grinned. “Thanks. That was easier than I thought it’d be.”

  “Let’s get out of here. I’ll ring the client and let him know it’s time to pay up. Rose, Leesa, we can go now.”

  Francine and I walked to the door.

  “Rose? Leesa?” I called.

  The two of them hadn’t broken their embrace. I didn’t think they’d even heard me. I looked at Francine and rolled my eyes.

  Francine walked over and grabbed them by the arms.

  “Time to go!”

  “Huh?” Leesa looked dazed.

  “You girls can continue that in your own time,” I said. “For now, we have to go back to the office for a debriefing.”

  Leesa giggled. “Debriefing…”

  That was pretty childish of her. But then, “debriefing” – who the hell came up with that term?

  It was a short walk back to my office. Even in that distance, you could see the difference in the city since we’d defeated the Vampire King. The place no longer looked like a war zone. Businesses had reopened. People had returned home. Traffic buzzed. Reconstruction had begun. But, in between the activity, there were still signs of the destruction. Buildings that had been burnt out, shops still boarded up.

  “So, when do we start getting paid?” Rose asked as we walked.

  “I told you. You’re getting free training. That should be enough. Think of this as an internship. If you trained with the Demon Fighters Council, you’d be doing shitty book learning and theory for a year before you even got to the physical stuff. Then another year of training before you got to work with a real demon. This is, like, the boot camp of demon fighting.”

  “So, when do we start getting paid?” Rose repeated.

  I sighed. She just didn’t get it.

  “When you bring in your own clients.” That might shut her up for a bit.

  “Got it.”

  “It’s not like you did anything today except rolling around on the sofa, getting it on with Leesa, anyway.”

  Leesa turned and shot Rose a sly grin. Rose didn’t acknowledge it. I wasn’t going to get started on what was happening between those two. Rose ran hot and cold with everyone.

  We’d reached the office building. I pressed the button for the elevator.

  “Out of service. Again. Hell, we have to walk those stairs,” Leesa said. “And I’m wearing my demon-seducing shoes.”

  We all sighed and started climbing the stairs.

  When I got to the office, I noticed that the sign on my door had changed – that sign I’d had made when I first set up shop that said, “Clem Starr: Demon Fighter.” It now read “Clem Starr ^and associates: Demon Fighters.”

  While I really liked the sound of “and associates”, I wished Tabia hadn’t changed the sign using a cheap marker pen. It looked a bit tacky. That was the thing about working with other people: you had to take their feelings into account. They wanted input into things, and sometimes their input was just wrong. On the other hand, there was the whole doing nothing while other people did the work part of it that I really enjoyed.

  Tabia sat at the reception desk, waiting for us. After one bungled mission, she’d decided demon slaying wasn’t for her.

  “I’m happy to work in the office, but I’m not comfortable with dusting demons,” she’d said.

  “But…” Kisho had not looked happy about that.

  It wasn’t like I was trying to kick Kisho out of the business. Personally, I’d much rather have him working for me than Tabia. Kisho made better coffee and cleaned like a pro. Also, he was much prettier. But working together and living in the same house while we were dating did not bode well. And, okay, at the moment, if Kisho was in the office, we’d do nothing but have sex.

  “How did the job go?” Tabia asked.

  I could barely speak after walking up those stairs. I really needed to work out more. My level of fitness wasn’t up to scratch.

  “We dusted that bastard,” Rose said.

  “It was fun,” Francine added.

  “Tab, can you ring the maintenance company and tell them the elevator is shot again? Ask them what the hell I’m paying them for. It’s the middle of summer, and the air conditioning is dodgy as fuck at the best of times. I’m sweating like a hog.”

  I took the girls into my office and gave them feedback on what had worked and where they needed to improve. That was a pivotal part of their training. Mostly, the slaying had gone well. There were just a few finer points we needed to work on.

  Hell, I needed to get another chair. I sat at the desk. Leesa and Francine took the visitor chairs, which left Rose pacing around the room.r />
  “Next time, let the demon suggest the hotel room,” I said. “That guy was a fool, but they aren’t always that eager. If they think it’s their idea, they’ll have their guard down, and they’ll offer to pay for it. Of course, a back alley is quick and easy. Or even a bathroom stall.”

  Francine and Leesa nodded.

  “If I bring in a client, do I get the full payment?” Rose asked.

  I sighed. Why did she keep asking these questions? You didn’t need to be Einstein to work out that I had no money. Jeez, if I made enough money to pay them, I’d buy a chair for her to sit on.

  “No. Of course not. You’re using my office, my reputation. You get to keep 30% of the fees.”

  “Bull-fucking-shit.” She crossed her arms. “You’re trying to fleece me. I should get at least 80%.”

  “Not going to happen. You’re an unlicensed fighter. You can’t work on your own.” I didn’t mention that, officially, I wasn’t licensed either.

  “Well, 60%.”

  I glared at her. I didn’t talk, I just did the intense stare thing. Rose had a pretty intense stare herself, but the other girls were great. They never bought up annoying things like being paid. Francine and Tabia had other jobs. I wasn’t sure about Leesa. But Rose never shut up about money.

  “Nothing less than 50%,” Rose finally said.

  Ha, she’d cracked. She lost.

  “You get 40% while you’re training. Once you’ve got enough experience under your belt, then we’ll talk about an increase.”

  She huffed but didn’t answer back. I wasn’t sure where she thought she’d find clients. Most of them found this place by accident or through my web site. I never actively sought them out.

  Finally, she nodded. Fool. I’d have gone up to 50%.

  “Anyway, I have to head home. Same time tomorrow.”

  Before I left the office, Tabia called out to me.

  “Hey, Clem, are we having an office party?”

  “Huh?” Where had she got this party idea from?

  “A Christmas party. It’s a thing most people do, you know.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure if we have the budget for it. Business has not been good this year.” That was an understatement. The damn Vampire King had killed profits for me. “But if you and the other girls want to bring a few drinks in, I guess it’s okay.”

  I hadn’t celebrated Christmas in — I didn’t know how long. It wasn’t a thing I did, but if other people got some fun out of it, I wasn’t about to stop them.

  Chapter 2 Pie

  “CLEM STARR! WHAT ARE you doing here?”

  Nic said that every single night when I got home from the office. It’d stopped being funny about — wait, it had never even started being funny. I ignored him and threw my arms around Kisho. We’d been apart all day. I needed to touch him.

  “I made your favorite for dinner,” he said.

  He might need to be a bit more specific, because everything Kisho made was my favorite.

  “Hey, who’s paying for this human food you’re making for her? Because it’s bad enough that she lives here rent-free without you cooking her food you bought with my money. I’m not running a charity here, and she’s working again. She should be paying rent.”

  Nic sat in his wingback chair near the window. Since summer had started, the curtains were never drawn, but he made sure the light inside spotlighted him.

  I couldn’t ignore him any longer.

  “Nic, we discussed this. I live in Kisho’s room. His rent includes me.”

  “Kisho doesn’t pay rent. You know that.”

  “Well, that’s between you and Kisho. Not my issue.”

  “I made lemon meringue pie,” Kisho said. “If you don’t stop picking on Clem, you won’t get any.”

  Nic narrowed his eyes. He was definitely weighing up the pros and cons. Like anyone would doubt he’d come down on the side of lemon meringue pie.

  “Okay, I’ll lay off her. For tonight. But this situation is becoming untenable.”

  I sat down on the sofa, close enough to Nic’s chair that our knees were almost touching, while Kisho went back into the kitchen.

  “Nic, it really hurts me that you’ve forgotten being saved from the Vampire King so quickly. Remember when you were trussed up like a piñata? Maybe I should’ve left you like that.”

  He knocked his knee against mine.

  “That’s wearing very thin, Clem Starr. You don’t have to keep bringing it up.”

  I slumped back and grinned at Nic. If he thought there would ever be a time I’d forget that, he was a fool.

  Jeb walked through the room with his hair slicked back and a fancy jacket on.

  “Are you going out?” Nic said. “Date night?”

  “I told Tab I’d take her out for dinner.”

  “Ha, that’s hilarious,” Nic said.

  Jeb frowned at him.

  “Because she used to be our dinner,” Nic said. “Back when she was one of our groupies.”

  Jeb went on frowning. “It wasn’t that I didn’t get it, Nic. It was that I wasn’t amused. I think you should forget about those days. Tabia and I are exclusive now.”

  “Yeah, and the other girls are getting exhausted, running around fighting for Clem. This is a dire situation. I need to find new food sources.” Nic frowned at me.

  Before I could say any more to Nic, Kisho came to tell me that dinner was ready.

  Nic got up as well.

  “I think this is a private dinner,” I told him.

  “But—”

  “We’ll save you some pie.”

  Nic frowned. I ruffled his hair, and he looked like he wanted to kill me.

  “Poor Nic. All alone. Jeb’s on a date, Shelley and Luis are watching Twilight again, Andre’s out man-whoring around town, and now you can’t join Kisho and me.” I gave him an exaggerated pout. “At least you have Hellhound.”

  Nic’s pout was genuine. “Hellhound is on a play date with a poodle from his Doggie Dance group.”

  “You really are all alone. Maybe you should go on Tinder or something. Wait! You’re sending Hellhound to dance classes? Since when? I’ll take that dog back off you.”

  “He loves it. He has the sweetest little costume.” Nic grabbed his phone and showed me the photos.

  I wanted to give Nic more shit about this, but seriously, that was one cute dance costume.

  “Okay, you can have dinner with us.”

  I was such a sucker, but I hated to think of Nic sitting alone with only himself for company. That would be the worst company of all. What would he do? Make snarky little comments to himself, then snarl back?

  “Kisho, set another place for dinner.”

  Nic smiled. “At least you won’t get to guts down all that pie before I have any.”

  “Hey, was this all a scam to get my pie?”

  Nic just smiled. I hated that vampire.

  We sat down, and Kisho served my dinner. Meatloaf with mashed potatoes.

  “Oh my God. You are totally the best boyfriend ever.”

  Kisho smiled. I wasn’t kidding, though. I’d been out with a lot of guys, and none of them had even come close. Kisho was the full package. Gorgeous, fantastic in bed, great cook. What more could I ask for?

  “My pie?” Nic said.

  As soon as Nic spoke, Kisho jumped up. Okay, there was one flaw in that perfect boyfriend thing.

  “Nic can wait until I’ve finished. That’s just good manners. He’s only eating because he’s a piggy-guts and not because he needs to, anyway.”

  Kisho looked from Nic to me and back again, confused about whom to obey.

  “I’ll wait, but dish mine up first so Clem doesn’t hog it all.”

  “Nic, you really have trust issues.”

  “When it comes to you and desserts, I have good reason.”

  Kisho sat back down, and his leg touched mine under the table. I liked the reassurance of that. All those little touches and gestures had meant nothing to me with ot
her guys. If anything, they’d been annoying. But with Kisho, I finally understood the meaning of them.

  When I finished eating, Kisho took my empty plate.

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “You just want to go into the kitchen and get the bulk of that pie.” Nic put on that sickly sweet smile.

  “I was being helpful.”

  “I’ll just cut the pie straight down the center. You can have half each.”

  “Half a pie might be a bit excessive,” Nic said. “I don’t have a huge appetite.”

  “Ha, Nic. I scoff at you,” I said. “Scoff. You’re pretending you won’t eat half that pie, but you’re totally going to, and you’re the one making all the scammy pie plans. Just accept that you’ll bog down the whole lot.”

  He tried his charming smile on me. “Well, if you insist, I’ll have half the pie.”

  “I’m not insisting, I’m just stating facts.”

  Before Kisho got to the kitchen, Luis walked into the room.

  “That pie is fantastic. Thanks, Kisho.”

  Nic glared at him. He glared so hard, it shocked me that Luis didn’t combust.

  “You ate my pie?”

  “I just had a slice, and so did Shelley. It was sitting in the kitchen, so I assumed it was for everyone to share.”

  Nic and I exchanged looks. The pie situation didn’t look good.

  “You ate my pie.” Nic’s voice was sharp enough to kill a man.

  Luis took a step backwards.

  “Actually, it was my pie,” I said. “Kisho made it for me. And shouldn’t you vampires be sucking blood, not my pie?”

  “You ate Clem’s pie,” Nic said. “Her love pie that Kisho made especially for her. The pie that he poured his feelings into. The one that was the ultimate symbol of their relationship.”

  He’d laid it on a bit thick, but I wasn’t about to disagree when he put it like that. Love pie sounded incredibly dirty, though. I didn’t want Luis or Shelley eating my love pie, that’s for sure.

  “I can make another pie,” Kisho said.

  “No, you can’t. This pie was for us.” Nic frowned.

  He’d obviously moved on from the “love pie” business, or maybe he just assumed he was included in our love pie, which would actually be a fitting symbol for our relationship, in a way.