“The demon spirit. You couldn’t see him?”
“I didn’t see anything.” I looked around, pressing myself smaller into the booth.
“All Neph have the ability to see them. You must not be willing.”
Our waitress came to us with undisguised impatience.
“Anything else?”
“No, thank you,” I told her. “Everything was good.”
She smacked the check on the table and took away our dishes without another word. Kaidan dug his wallet from his back pocket and laid a twenty on top of the check.
“Do you think she’s mad at us?” I asked. Although I could see emotions, I had no way of knowing their source.
“Why would she be? She’s frustrated because she can’t comprehend why she’s feeling a surge of dark emotion out of nowhere. She’ll most likely try to place the blame on something—usually another person, lack of sleep, hormones, anything—rather than dealing with the emotion. And thus begins the cycle.”
“So you’re saying”—I leaned toward him to whisper across the table—“that our waitress was just visited by a demon?”
He nodded, arranging the salt, pepper, sugars, and condiments in a neat row.
I thought about our bill and did the math in my head. She was getting about a five-dollar tip. Something told me her troubles began with money. I dug a ten-dollar bill from the savings I kept in my pocketbook and placed it on top of Kaidan’s twenty.
“You know you can’t buy happiness,” he said to me. He was so devilishly handsome that I shivered and cleared my throat. I looked back at our waitress, whose guardian angel seemed to be embracing her.
“Are the guardian angels always with them?” I asked, still watching it.
“Yup. They’re with their humans when they visit the loo... even when they’re having sex.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “You just had to go there.”
“You asked. And don’t worry. They’re way too pure and obedient to be voyeurs.”
It felt disrespectful, talking about the angels like that. I tried to think of another question.
“So the demons who visit people are in spirit form?”
“That’s right. Good thing this is a long trip. I have a lot to teach you.”
He stood, so I followed, just as our waitress came over. She eyed the two bills on the table.
“I’ll get your change,” she said.
“No, it’s yours,” Kaidan purred. He looked at her too long and her colors went from the pale green of gratitude to a rush of red.
“Yes, thank you again!” I said, louder than I’d meant to. “Have a great day!”
I nudged Kaidan’s ankle with my foot and he moved. We walked out into a beautiful Shawnee, Oklahoma, morning with our feet crunching loose pebbles in the pavement.
“This is going to be a long trip if you give girls the bedroom eyes every time we stop.” I tried to keep my tone light.
“Bedroom eyes?” he asked. We were climbing up into his car now. He sat in the driver’s seat and turned toward me. His hair flopped over his forehead, curling up at the ends against his brows. There was no roundness to his face—it was all squared-off edges. But it was those blue eyes that did it for me.
“As if you don’t know what you’re doing,” I said.
“I’m working.”
Hmph. Well.
“That poor girl has had a bad enough day without you filling her head with ideas, too.” I pulled on my seat belt with more than the necessary force and he started the car.
“I think she’s perfectly capable of coming up with ideas on her own. One might think you’re jealous, talking like that, but I can see you’re not. It’s uncanny. You’re actually concerned for her?”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“You don’t even know her,” he pointed out.
“It is possible to feel compassion for strangers.”
“She’s gotten herself pregnant out of wedlock,” he said. “She made her own choice.”
“We don’t know her circumstances.”
He followed the signs back onto I-40 west, and I could sense the argument was over.
“Why did you say I’m unwilling to see the demons?” I asked.
“I’d venture to say you’ve not opened yourself to evil. You have to be willing to really see it and accept it for what it is.”
“I don’t want to be open to evil. I don’t even like to watch the news. I know it’s out there, but the details hurt too much—feeling all of those people’s suffering.”
He gave me a quizzical glance. “What do you mean, ‘feeling their suffering’?”
“I’m not always good at blocking their emotions, especially if it’s a big group of people with a lot of dark emotion. I try to push it away, but sometimes it still seeps in, and it hurts.”
“You mean you actually feel the emotions they emit? Not just see it?”
“Yeah,” I said, “don’t you?”
“No! I can only see their colors. Feeling them must be an attribute from your mother.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say to that.
“Wait,” he said, the threat of a smile on his face. “Does that mean you feel lustful every time somebody near you feels it?”
“No, pervo. It’s not like that—it’s more like an unsatisfied longing for something. It’s uncomfortable.”
“Hmm. Too bad. Well, no offense,” he said, “but you’ll need to toughen up a bit. It would benefit you to see demons and know what they’re up to.”
He was right. I knew I would have to deal with it, but right now I was focused on getting information.
“What exactly do the demon spirits do?” I asked.
“They whisper not-so-sweet nothings into human ears.” He drove with one hand. The other hand twirled a pen back and forth between his fingers without much attention to it.
“What do you mean?”
“You know the little voice in your head?” he asked. “The one humans like to call their ‘conscience’?” I nodded. “It’s actually the messages people are receiving from their guardian angels. You see, the demon spirits whisper thoughts into a person’s mind, and the demon thoughts battle it out with the human’s own feelings, along with the messages their guardian angels are trying to instill. The old cliché about a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other is not far off. A demon might whisper to a girl that she’s unattractive and unworthy of love. Then he’s gone. His job is done. He moves on to the next victim. The girl’s angel then whispers that she is beautiful and she is worthy, blah, blah, blah. Which do you think she’ll choose to believe?”
It was so unfair. I pushed on with my questions.
“How often do the demons visit people?”
“It depends on the need. Once a month. Once a year. It varies from person to person.”
“Why are they allowed to do this?” I couldn’t help but feel betrayed on behalf of humanity. I was jolted by the bitter edge in Kaidan’s response.
“Maybe because the Creator is not as good and loving as you give Him credit for.”
“You’re angry at Him?” I wasn’t sure why it surprised me.
“He’s never done me any favors. I was damned from the moment of conception, and you probably were, too, with or without your bit of angel.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He ran a hand through his hair and stared hard at the road. “I mean there’s no chance of redemption for the Neph. It’s the first lesson we learn during training. We go to hell, just like our fathers.”
Wait. What? He had to be mistaken.
“I don’t see how that can be possible,” I said. “Maybe your father didn’t want you getting any lofty ideas about not being the prodigy lust boy.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “Ask your own father when you meet him.”
I tried to focus on the landscape and not the confused feelings inside me. I couldn’t even bring myself to get excited at the Texa
s state line. All I could think about was the possibility of being condemned to hell. It couldn’t be true. I would find out the truth, although I wished it didn’t have to be from the demon who fathered me.
I leaned against the door, zoning out at the flat expanse of land in every direction, and let my eyes close.
A nudge against my arm made me crack my bleary eyes and look around. I sat up and smoothed my hair back as my vision adjusted. We were out in the middle of nowhere. Miles of flat nothingness.
“Sorry to wake you, but I have to stop for petrol.”
We got gas at a small country store, along with sandwiches, apples, drinks, and rocky-road fudge made by the owner’s wife.
Kaidan had been captivated by the store owner’s deep Texas accent. He asked a ridiculous number of questions just to keep the man talking. He then tried to repeat the man’s accent when we got in the car: “‘Where are y’all young’uns headed? We got us some maps over yonder by them there h-apples.’”
I laughed out loud as he butchered the man’s beautiful drawl.
“He did not say ‘over yonder’!”
“I’ve always wanted to say that. I love Americans. You’ve got a nice little accent, though not nearly as wicked as his.”
“I do?”
He nodded.
Aside from the occasional y’all, I didn’t think I sounded Southern, but I guess it’s hard to say about your own self.
“Tell me about the places you’ve lived.” I angled in my seat toward him and unwrapped the first of his two sandwiches, winding a napkin around the bottom half and handing it to him.
“Thanks.” He took a huge bite and began talking after he swallowed. “I was born in London. My mother also died in childbirth, like all mothers of Nephilim.” He took another bite as I pondered this.
“I grew up back and forth between the British Isles: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales. I spent short periods of time in France, Italy, and South Africa. This is my first time in the States. I was disappointed by Atlanta at first—I’d wanted to live in New York—but it’s grown on me.”
Everything about Kaidan was exciting and exotic. This was my first time traveling away from home, and he’d already seen so much. I ate my apple, glad it was crisp and not soft.
“Which was your favorite place?” I asked.
“I’ve never been terribly attached to any place. I guess it would have to be... here.”
I stopped midchew and examined his face. He wouldn’t look at me. He was clenching his jaw, tense. Was he serious or was he teasing me? I swallowed my bite.
“The Texas panhandle?” I asked.
“No.” He seemed to choose each word with deliberate care. “I mean here in this car. With you.”
Covered in goose bumps, I looked away from him and stared straight ahead at the road, letting my hand with the apple fall to my lap.
He cleared his throat and tried to explain. “I’ve not talked like this with anyone, not since I started working, not even to the only four people in the world who I call friends. You have Patti, and even that boyfriend of yours. So this has been a relief of sorts. Kind of... nice.” He cleared his throat again.
Oh, my gosh. Did we just have a moment? I proceeded with caution, hoping not to ruin it.
“It’s been nice for me, too,” I said. “I’ve never told Jay anything. He has no idea. You’re the only one I’ve talked to about it all, except Patti, but it’s not the same. She learned the basics from the nun at the convent where I was born.”
“You were born in a convent,” he stated.
“Yes.”
“Naturally.”
“Anyway,” I continued, “I didn’t talk to Patti about any of the changes in me or the things I could do when I was growing up. So I do understand the loneliness.”
“Even so,” he said. “Her love for you...”
And there it was.
I had grown up with love, and nothing else. Kaidan had grown up with all of the knowledge of who he is, and all the material things in the world, but no love.
“What about all of the girls you’ve dated?” I knew I was reaching. “I’m sure there’ve been some who loved you, and maybe some who you could have loved, too?”
“No girl has ever loved me. You have to know someone to love them. They’ve all been infatuations. They wanted to own me. That’s the nature of lust.”
My gut wrenched with guilt as I recognized the feeling he described. And just when I was afraid he would notice, Jamie Moore’s face flashed into my mind. She would have been capable of loving him, given the chance. As much as I did not want to think about her, I felt a pull in that direction.
“There’s a girl at my school who you were with last year. I guess it was when you first moved here. She was really nice. Jamie Moore?”
He nodded in acknowledgment, but kept his eyes on the road. I didn’t continue. I was afraid I’d pushed my luck too far, and the topic made me nervous anyway.
“Look, here’s the deal,” Kaidan said. “They all know up front I’m not interested in a relationship. I never lie to any of them. I don’t need to. The truth hurts worse than a lie. Jamie thought she could change me. It was a foolish notion.”
It seemed that he wanted me to believe he was hardened, but I didn’t. I had seen cracks, glimpses of something softer hiding under it all. So I went for it.
“Do you ever feel sorry for them, or sad to see them hurting?” I rushed on before he could answer. “Please, I don’t mean that as a judgment. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel, turning his knuckles white.
“What if I say no, hmm? What if I have no compassion for the ones I’ve hurt—no, better yet, the ones who have allowed themselves to be hurt, even sought out the pain?”
I held my hands in my lap and stared down at the half-eaten apple turning brown at the edges.
“Then I would feel bad for you,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because that’s a sad way to live, and... I care about you.”
“Don’t say that.” His tone was edgy, almost angry. “You shouldn’t say that, about caring. You hardly know me.”
“And you hardly know me, but here we are. You offered to take me on this trip. You’ve answered my gazillion questions. You haven’t forced me to do anything, and you haven’t exposed me to your father. I’m glad to be here with you.”
There. I’d said it. We searched each other’s eyes for a moment before he turned back to the road and his grip on the steering wheel loosened. My pulse slowed to normal.
“Once I get a girl to be with me, it’s a onetime thing,” he began. “Now and then we’ll hook up twice, three times max. But I try not to think of them as individuals. It’s purely physical. I make no promises to call. I don’t even give out my number; they get it from other people. They’ll come see the band or show up at a party where I am and give me gifts—I’m sure you can imagine.”
I wished I couldn’t.
“But on my third time seeing Jamie, she gave me something different than anyone ever had. She made me a CD. I could see she’d put thought into it. She said each song had a killer drum solo or unique drum riff. It was an excellent collection. We saw each other for three weeks, quite often. But when she told me she loved me, I had to break it off. In the end I needed her to hate me. So I left my phone out at band practice one day with a picture she’d sent me of herself.”
He gave me a quick look of defiance, and then his eyes were on the road again. I guess I had needed to hear all of that. I was knotted up inside.
“Were you falling in love with her?” I asked.
He groaned and shook his head.
“Christ, Anna.” I flinched. “Right. Forgot I was riding with a saint.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before going on. “No. I was not in love with her. I’ve never been in love with anyone. I was merely answering your question about whether or not I ever feel bad about hurting someone. The answer is
yes. I felt bad about her. God, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you.”
I leaned back into my seat and stared out my window at the last stretch of Texas as the sun sank lower, hoping Kaidan wouldn’t notice me wiping away the lone tear that slid down my face for him.
“Don’t pity me, Anna, and don’t think well of me for that small revelation. Don’t fool yourself into believing I haven’t enjoyed the work I’ve done, because I have. You should know who you’re dealing with.”
It was time to find out more about this person I was dealing with.
“Have you ever drugged a girl or spiked her drink?” I asked, still staring out at Texas.
“No. That’s for those who lack confidence.”
“Have you taken advantage of a girl who was wasted or passed out?”
“No. What’s the use if she can’t remember?”
“Forced a girl to do something she didn’t want to?”
“No. Are you training to be a psychologist?”
“I don’t doubt that you’ve physically enjoyed yourself, Kaidan. If you want me to know who I’m dealing with, then answer me this: Do you take pleasure in hurting people?”
I watched his chest rise and sink with a silent sigh. He spoke devoid of feeling, bordering on impatience.
“I feel nothing for them. I ignore their pain. I don’t let it into my thoughts. It brings me no pleasure or pain to see them hurting, with the one exception that we already spoke of. Is that touchy-feely enough for you?”
I would have to read between the lines when it came to Kaidan. To know him, I would need to know why he ignored their pain, and what would happen if he did let their suffering into his thoughts. If he took pleasure in hurting others, he would bask in their pain, not deflect it.
“Why are you trying so hard to make me think you’re a bad person?” I asked.
“Because it would be best for you to have a healthy fear of me so you can’t say you weren’t warned. I’m not like boys at your school. Think of the pull you feel toward drugs. That is how I feel about sex.”
Oh.
“Starting to get it now? Let me be even clearer.” His voice lowered as he walked me through his work. “I can feel out someone within five minutes of conversation to know what I would have to say and do to lure her into bed. That includes you, though I admit I was off my game last night. With some people it’s a matter of simple flattery and attention. With others it takes more time and energy. I do whatever it takes to get their clothes off, and then I attempt to make it so they’ll never be with another person and not think of me. I know secrets of the human body most people don’t even know about themselves. And when I leave, I know they’re ruined when they’re begging me to stay.”
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