She gasped and tilted up to look at him, shocked by his words. "I can't do that! That's where they live. I could no more tell them that than I could my sisters."
Locke cast another scowl at the dolls and said, "I guess this isn't anything they haven't seen before, then."
Clara squeaked as he lifted her by the waist and deposited her on the bed. To Clara's horror, he started working on the knot of his bowtie. "No, stop! They haven't seen…this…before."
Locke tilted his head to the side. "This is your bedroom, Clara. Do you go elsewhere, then? Do you get a room for the night? That seems very tedious."
Clara chewed her lip, feeling a rare streak of discomfort over what she'd let her life be, the sacrifices she'd made for the sake of her ghosts. "I don't." She curled up slightly, her legs crossing and her arms hugging her chest, hiding herself from him. "I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, but I don't have any of…you know."
"Ever?"
She shook her head and forced herself to brighten up. "Oh, but I don't mind it one bit! My sisters have so much anger toward the men they've been with, and look at us, look at where it's gotten them. My life is much better than theirs, definitely."
Confusion shadowed Locke's face, as though his life was so far removed from Clara's that he couldn't see the perks here.
"Clara, I don't want to sound presumptuous, but—ahh!"
"That didn't sound very presumptuous."
Locke grabbed his skull between his hands. "Is Eloise your goddamn chastity belt?" he hissed.
Clara hopped to her feet to go ask Eloise to stop, but Locke kicked out one of her legs and sent her tumbling down. He pinned her there as he drew a square on the floor.
"Angel," he gasped, his purple eyes crossed. "That fucking seraph. I can see him."
She tried to bolt again, this time to help everyone downstairs, but he tightened his hold. "Stop! My sisters are in trouble!"
"They're fine," he hissed. "They're not his mission, and Hazel's a psychopath. I gotta get you out of here."
She looked up at the box, still just a chalk square on hardwood. "Where should I send us to?"
Locke huffed out a laugh. "Honey, you lost your rights when you took us back to your house. This time, we're going to my place." He slammed his hand in the middle of the square, and the wood dissipated. Clara pushed against him one last time, but a flicker of light under her bedroom door caught her attention.
A golden glow.
Locke clenched down on her arms and dove into the door, dragging her with him.
Hazel Jubilee enjoyed her solitude greatly.
The ghosts didn't hang out with her. They knew better. They didn't hate her or anything, but they were never going to be friends, and, if Hazel read the situation right, they were slightly scared of what she could do to them.
She didn't know what she could do to them. Everyone just assumed she could do something.
At midnight, the day was still young for Hazel. The candies she made were far more shelf stable than Clara's pastries, so she usually didn't roll into work until noon for the second shift. Having the demon and every single ghost in town in the house was making her twitchy, so it was a good night to go out.
She changed from her black tee shirt to a black net thing her purple bra showed through, changed from her black skirt to a shorter black skirt that flashed the top of her black thigh-high stockings, changed from her studded black boots to her studded black boots with the chunky, six-inch heels. Heavy black eyeliner and dark purple lipstick brutally contrasted her pale skin, just how she liked it. Some spiking of her hair, and she was ready to go to the one place White River would have her.
That was when Eloise screamed.
She bolted out of her room, her heavy boots slowing her but keeping her upright.
"Where is Clara Jubilee?" a voice boomed in an octave too low to be human.
Hazel skidded through the kitchen, grabbing the best weapon she could: a cast iron skillet. She turned the corner and saw him.
Jesus. Fuck. A Jesus-To-Fuck real angel. Not those pieces of shit cherubim. This man was fucking radiant, casting a golden glow throughout the foyer to match his gold skin and golden…frilly things. Angel wings weren't feathery, after all. They were swirls of light flapping slowly, brushing through the gigantic, gleaming white scythe tossed over his shoulder.
Eloise was at his feet, her eyes coated in the white film only Hazel could see, the one that only appeared when she was linking with a demon.
Clara always looked like that to Hazel. She was always seeing ghosts, so she always had that white film over her eyes.
The angel swung the scythe, and Hazel's heart stopped as she saw it slicing through Eloise.
Only, it didn't. He swung wide. For a single blink of an eye, Hazel saw one of the ghosts, cleaved in half, before the fog of a woman dissipated.
Reaped.
Hazel screamed. She didn't mean to, not when she was hoping to get the element of surprise on the angel, but she couldn't help it. She barreled down the hallway, screaming, and the angel looked up at her.
His eyes were gold, too. And actually, he did look really surprised as one hundred ten pounds of insane female plowed him over and wailed on him with a frying pan.
"Stay! Away! From my! Sisters!" she shrieked, punctuating her words with swings, blind to everything around her. "You! Piss fuck!"
Instead of fighting her away, the angel swiped his hand across his chest, swiping the layer of gold away and revealing natural skin. A wave of that hand stopped the skillet. It froze in the air between them, and nothing Hazel did could make it move.
"So weak," the angel said, his voice a more normal pitch but with a vibration to it that made Hazel's entire body tremble. "You'll desist before I have to grow another new head."
Hazel had no idea what that meant, but the palm that had stopped the pan now stroked her cheek, and she went very sleepy.
"Don't…hurt…my sister," she moaned, but damn, her eyes were heavy.
"That is not my decision to make." He rolled onto his side, taking Hazel with him, but the position she was in remained locked. Gravity didn't affect it; neither did any signals her brain attempted to send to her muscles.
She watched in horror as the angel stepped over Eloise and headed for the stairs to Clara's room.
Eloise dropped her demon link and scrambled after him, reaching for his feet and grabbing—
—Nothing. The seraph simply vanished.
Eloise collapsed back down in a heap at the base of the stairs. "Hazel," she croaked, crawling back. "Are you okay?"
Hazel couldn't speak. She could only close her eyes.
So tired.
So.
Very.
Tired—
She awoke with a jolt. "Clara!" she screamed, tripping over her boots as she attempted to get to her feet.
"It's okay," Eloise said from behind her. She had a hand on Hazel's arm, rubbing it absently.
Hazel groaned and rolled onto her back. "What happened?"
"He got her out—the demon did. She's safe in Hell."
"That doesn't sound very safe at all."
Chapter 8
Clara landed atop Locke, who grunted at the impact but was gentlemanly enough not to complain further as she assessed their location. Nowhere she'd been before, but not as bad as anywhere she could have expected.
A gigantic, cavernous kitchen, in fact, its lighting dimmed but the details impressive nonetheless. Dual ranges, twice as many convection ovens. The island was at least eight feet long and four feet deep, a line of stools on one side for guests to sit at. There was a traditional refrigerator as well as two sealed doors, indicating a walk-in cooler and freezer. A gigantic sink with three compartments, good for even an industrial kitchen.
Was this an industrial kitchen? No, too much was still missing. And the dishes, stacked high in their doorless cupboards, were too far away from the prep area for
a chef rapidly plating for a dinner service.
"Whose home is this?" she asked as she lifted herself up, foundering on the hurt ankle she'd forgotten about. Had Locke made her forget?
Had Locke used some demon power to make her forget herself entirely? It didn't seem right, not with the little she knew about him, but she couldn't explain how easily she'd forgotten both her ankle and her constant audience.
"My home," he said.
Impossible.
She hobbled to the island and peered through the window over the sink several feet away. The ambient light in the kitchen was dim enough that she could see a barren wasteland and a foul stream beyond, exactly the sort of thing Eloise had described to her. Her eyes strayed from the window only to confirm that he wasn't playing a trick on her.
Locke stood next to her, but he was transformed. At least a foot taller. His skin darker and mottled, a tone slightly too ruddy to be human. Sprouted just above his ears were twin horns, twisted and scaled an iridescence that shimmered in reds and burgundies.
Behind him, a tail to match the horns swished lightly across the floor.
She shifted her gaze back to the window, not wanting to gawk, and limped over to get a better view of the landscape beyond.
Locke swept her right up and turned her away. "Curiosity kills everything," he warned her. "It's best if you get settled in for the evening, get yourself some rest."
That sounded good, especially if rest was right here, in the warmth of Locke's arms. She could fall right to sleep here if she—
"Rest? But my sisters!" Everything hit her, that the monster had come to her house and Eloise had grabbed Locke's attention, but it was Hazel's scream that got her panicking again. "Locke, we have to go back and help them. There must be something you can do."
He snorted. "What, murder an angel? The penalty for that is…not something I wish to incur." At the look she gave him, making sure she made her eyes as big and sad as possible, he sighed and said, "I'll talk to some people. See if I can figure out what's going on. But we are staying here. That seraph, he won't harm your sisters. He can't. They have a lot of rules, and they're all really good at following them. They reap souls, and you've got a hit out on you, and I'm a demon so free pass there. But living humans who haven't flagged anyone upstairs? Can't lay a hand on them." He ended with a faint chuff.
"You think this is funny?" She shoved at his chest to be set back down, not at all wanting to be held by a man who thought her sisters' safety was something to laugh about.
He laughed again. And again, this time his whole body shaking. His tail pounded on the floor. "It's not that!" He gave himself a moment to catch his breath, still not setting her down. "It's only, that Hazel of yours. Eloise shared her sight with me, and you should have seen Hazel going total apefuck on that angel with a frying pan. And he couldn't do anything with it because he's an angel. So she's just wailing on…" He dissolved into laughter again. "I hope she ruins his asshead face again."
The laughter was contagious, after all. She could picture it perfectly, had seen it enough times in their squabbles to know how ballistic Hazel went when she got pushed too far. Her spat with Eloise today was nothing. "I suppose we can wait the night for him clear out. But I do need to get back soon. Busy day tomorrow."
He leveled a serious look on her, very stern and authoritative with a scowl and popped eyebrows. "You're not going back tomorrow, Clara. This could take a while to sort out, and you still owe me lemon bars."
"I can't make you lemon bars here." She peeked over his shoulder, taking one more inspection of the kitchen. Actually, she could make lemon bars here if she had the right ingredients. She could make anything here.
She could make everything here.
She looked the other way, to the dining room with its settings for at least a dozen. There were hallways branching in both directions, too, to an entertainment room on one side and a utility room on the other. An average home in a wealthy neighborhood, if she ignored the neighborhood being literal Hell.
And in none of the directions did she see a ghost. They were all alone. If she could only get Locke to put her down and let her explore on her own—or sit her in a chair and go away—she'd be alone as she never had been in her entire life.
"I…I suppose I could do tomorrow's bake from here. You'd have to take it to my sisters, though. They need it. There's a big Christmas party at City Hall and the Lowell christening. And the store's really busy this time of year."
He nodded to all of this, but she'd never been in a situation before where she'd had to trust a demon. She had no idea if they were trustworthy. "You'll bake my lemon bars, too, so I won't have to hold you here forever?"
She chuckled. "Did that not sound like a full day? I'll get to your bars when I can, but not yet."
He adjusted his hold on her as he headed through the dining room and on to the grand foyer. "You don't sound in too big a rush to get out of Hell."
Clara shrugged and glanced at the front doors with their side lights. Everything was contorted by the cut of the glass, and she saw little more than some flares of fire in the distance. "Ellie told us about it. She can see here. Now that she's met you, she can see what you see. I'm surprised she hasn't yet." Her eyebrows pulled together as she thought about that. "You're sure she hasn't been hurt, right?"
Locke pressed his lips on her forehead, and she shooed him away.
"What are you doing?"
He frowned. "I thought it might…comfort you? No? I'm only so-so on human interaction. And no, she's fine. I'm sure she just didn't want to give me a brain aneurysm after I just saved you again." He spun them around and headed up a picturesque flight of stairs wide enough for four people with intricately carved banisters and a runner with a Turkish pattern woven into it. Not quite the staircase she was used to back home. "Where did the two of you get your talents, anyway? Was your mom a witch?"
"Are witches real? That's the second time I've been accused of being one today!"
"No, no…well, yes, witches are real, but I'm not accusing you of being one. Witch moms have a tendency of zapping their kids with magic to see what will happen. Sometimes nothing, but sometimes…ghost sight. Demon aneurysms. And levitation. Also, I once met a woman who could fit an entire man inside her—"
"Stop!"
"—Stomach. What did you think I was going to say?"
She blushed hotly and shook her head, not about to say anything.
"You thought about sex," Locke purred. "Admit it."
She crossed her arms over her chest but it was hard to look miffed when she was being carried like a baby. For a really long time now, too. And she was still in only her bra and undies. "I know of sex. Ellie and Hazel love to talk about it, so I'm…aware…of the mechanics."
Locke continued down a long hall lit with dim sconces that mimicked fire but were electric. Most of the doors were closed, but she was able to peek into a couple to see a billiards room and a room with an assortment of musical instruments. One room had a steamed glass door, and she was delighted to see a wealth of plants through it. "You have a greenhouse."
"And a bedroom. With no ghosts."
"That's nice," she started to say, cutting herself off halfway through when she realized what he was hinting at. "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but that…what we did in my room? I didn't want that to happen."
He had his hand on the doorknob of the room at the end of the hall, but he froze there. "I didn't force you to do anything."
"You didn't." She wasn't going to lie her way out of this. That wasn't fair to either of them. "It's only…as I've said before, this isn't something I've done, and I'm happy to never do it."
"You liked the way I touched you." The doorknob spun silently in his grip.
"I did. You did nothing wrong."
"I did everything right. No, not quite. If I had, you'd be much happier to do it, as long as you're with me. I'll prove that to you."
He push
ed open the door, revealing a room that could only have been the master suite.
Locke's bed was a custom piece, one he'd acquired from a seventeenth century queen who was hurting for finances and didn't want human benefactors. Rumors and such. The queen was a bit of a slut, so he doubted financial instability could ruin her reputation, but no matter. She had a very nice bed frame so large that Locke had to get his mattresses custom-made, and with some frequency. The thing was twice the size of a king and Locke wore through mattresses so quickly.
Clara looked tiny on it. She was curled up in that modest, protective position, her eyes trailing not to any of the incredible furniture or art pieces he'd collected over the years or to the crates and crates of chalk. No, her eyes went straight for the door. "You have so many rooms."
"I've earned them. I know demon life is very different from yours, but I’ve worked for what I've built."
"But surely there are guest rooms?"
Ah. "You'll sleep here."
"And you'll sleep…?"
"Here."
That frown twisted into a far more serious scowl. "I said no. I thought that was clear."
"Make no mistakes, Clara. You are in Hell, and there are some monsters out there who cannot be stopped by walls. This is the safest place you can be, but I won’t have my brain sandblasted by your sister because I wasn't careful enough."
A tremble shook Clara's body.
"Just sleep, Clara. That's all I expect from you here." No mention of what he hoped for, which was far more, but not tonight.
She gestured to herself. "I don't have any clothes, Locke. I…I can't do this. I can't do any of this. I can't just walk around naked all day, even if it is only you here."
Another attempt at a warm smile, this time with a hand up for peace. He threw open the doors to his closet, hoping he'd get some gasp or whatever in amazement of the array clothing there, but nothing.
He dug through the racks for appropriate clothing, pausing when he found a chocolate bar in the pocket of a winter coat. He munched through it silently, feeling slightly more settled afterward.
A Christmas Demon for Clara Page 5