Pax Demonica by Julie Kenner Read Free Book Online

his lap. “Your husband?” I asked.
    “No, no. That is Signor Tagelli.” She offered no further information and, since it really wasn’t my business, I didn’t pry. “Sit,” she said, indicating a small table near the door with a white table cloth and a bowl of fruit on display. “You like the cream? The sugar?”
    “Just cream,” I said. Usually I drank my coffee black—demon hunting only burned so many calories, you know—but I was on vacation. Time to go a little wild and crazy.
    She bustled out through a set of swinging doors at the far end of the room, and I took the opportunity to take a look around. I liked what I saw. The place was warm and inviting. Knickknacks, flowers, and small framed photographs filled dozens of shelves, and yet the room didn’t look cluttered. There was no dust. No collections of knick-knacks. Either Mrs. Micari was a far better housekeeper than I was, or business was good enough that she could hire help. The second was better for my ego, but it was the first that I believed.
    “Coffee and biscotti,” Mrs. Micari said, returning to the room with a wooden tray laden with a small coffeepot and a large basket of the delicious Italian cookies. She slid the tray onto the table, took a mug from the nearby sideboard, and poured me a cup. I added cream, then used the biscotti to stir my coffee. I took a bite of the coffee-drenched treat, closed my eyes and sighed. St. Peter’s might be just around the corner, but I’d found heaven right there.
    I opened my eyes to find Mrs. Micari smiling down at me, and I realized a second too late for good manners that I should have invited her to join me. I covered my mouth so I wouldn’t spew her with crumbs and waved at the other chair.
    She sat, hands folded in front of her primly on the table.
    “Please,” I said. “Share.”
    “No, no,” she said. “I do not want coffee. I wish to speak to you.”
    “Oh. Sure.” Without thinking, I reached for the travel pouch I still wore around my neck and under my T-shirt. Had we underpaid the deposit? Did I need to find someplace else to store Timmy’s stroller? Had Timmy already broken something? “Um, what’s up?”
    She drew in a breath. “Katherine,” Mrs. Micari began, and I stiffened. No one called me Katherine. No one except Father Corletti, the head of Forza Scura . “You must be careful,” she continued as the little hairs on the back of my neck tingled a warning. “The city can be dangerous. For tourists. And for—for others as well.”
    “Others?” I said. I hesitated, then decided I had to take the plunge. “What kind of others?”
    “Your kind.”
    “And what kind is that?”
    The slightest of smiles tugged at the corner of her mouth, and I felt a cold chill run through me. “The kind that wouldn’t be shocked to learn that the young man at the airport was killed by a stiletto through the eye.”

Chapter 5
    I shoved back my chair. “Who are you?”
    “Ah, my child, the years truly are unkind. Have I changed so much?”
    I stared at her, confused. I didn’t know that face. And yet—and yet there was something familiar about her. My chest tightened, but this time not with fear but with the bittersweet tug of memory. “ Signorina Leone?”
    Her smile burst wide across her face, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “ Si . Although it has been Signora Micari for many years.”
    “But I don’t understand. You run a bed and breakfast? Why didn’t Father Corletti tell me?”
    Signorina Leone had been on the periphery of Forza . A maid, really. She’d done our laundry, cleaned our floors, helped make our meals. I’d never known her that well—she’d been quiet and observant but never involved in our teaching or our missions. But she’d always been there, and it was a bit like a miracle that she was here now.
    “My husband Leonardo and I open this place after I retire. He has gone to God now, and I continue the work without him. Father Corletti, he is one of my best