by Мишель Роуэн
Somebody who’ll appreciate your efforts more than I will.”
He regarded her for a moment, and propped himself up on one arm against her pillow.
“Because I care about what happens to you. I don’t want to see you here in the earthly realm.
You despise it. I can tell. Say the word and I can make it all better. You will be treated like a queen where I take you, you will serve no one but yourself.”
“No.”
The grin fell slowly from his face. “No?”
“That’s right.” Val swallowed hard and tried to keep her face expressionless. “And don’t bother trying any of your demon mojo on me. It won’t work. Alexa says you’re next to impossible to resist, but I’m resisting just fine, thanks so much.”
A shadow crossed his expression. “You’ve been talking to Alexa, have you? Why am I not surprised?”
“What do you care? I’d think anyone would want the rumor that they’re hard to resist spread about themselves. It’s sort of like the rumor about men with big feet.” Val refused to look down at Nathaniel’s shoes. “She said you’re hard to resist when you try to be. What’s that supposed to mean? Does it take a lot of effort?”
He ignored the question. “Is she still fixated on Bartholomew Barlow?”
Val crossed her arms. “Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Now, let’s recap, shall we? I want you to leave. Right now. And don’t come back. Ever.”
He lay back on the bed and laughed, but it didn’t sound happy. It sounded scary. “And what makes you think that anything I do is up to me?”
She frowned. “What?”
He sat up suddenly and met her eyes directly with a fierceness that made her take a step back.
“Why are you being so difficult? It’s never been like this in the past. Why now, when it’s so important that you come with me?”
“So important? What are you talking about?”
There was a long moment when he said nothing, just stared at her so intently and silently that
Val could hear her heart drumming wildly in her chest. Then finally, “This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, my little angel.”
“Yes it does. And don’t call me that.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “Why not?”
“I’m not an angel anymore.” Well, not until tomorrow, she thought absently.
His mouth twisted into an unpleasant grin. “Oh, I’m well aware of that. You’re a bad, bad girl. That’s why you got sent down here. And that’s why you’re getting a visit from your friendly neighborhood demon. And I don’t give up that easily, angel. Not when it counts.”
She frowned. “Something wrong?”
“Pardon me?”
“You don’t seem to be in a very good mood. In fact, I’m not feeling tempted in the slightest tonight. Is your concentration off? Did somebody pee in your brimstone this morning?”
His eyes narrowed, but after another long moment of silence between them he started to laugh again. This time it didn’t sound scary at all. It sounded very good and made her stomach tingle warmly.
“We’re a lot alike, you and I,” he said. “I think I have an idea of what you’re going through right now. What you’re feeling. That’s why I can help you.”
“Is that right? How so?”
“I used to be human. A long, long time ago. Then I was given a chance to be something . . .”
He paused and seemed to search for the right word. “. . .Better. And it is much, much better.
And what Alexa said about every woman unable to resist me? It’s all true. I was chosen for this job for very specific reasons. I’m very good at it.”
The warm tingles in her stomach began to travel downward. Was it the sexy tone of his voice?
Was it the fact that he seemed so interested in her, even if it was only a lie? Or was he using that demon mojo again to influence her?
Tomorrow. She clung to the word. It would get her through tonight.
She gave the demon a sour look and ignored the tingles. “That leaving thing I mentioned earlier? How about that?”
His confident expression slipped slightly, and he stood. Their gazes locked.
“What makes you so different from the others?” he mused aloud.
Val stood her ground and held his gaze. She wasn’t going to be anything but cool, calm, and collected. After tomorrow, she’d never have to see him again. Bye-bye, demon-boy.
“No one can resist forever,” he said, his words fierce, as if he was trying to convince himself as well as her.
“Go”—Val’s eyes widened as he came toward her—“away.”
Then he kissed her, hard enough that her lips felt bruised, and moved his hand to the back of her head to tangle it in her long blond hair. Val’s hands were free so she could start fighting against him.
Any minute now.
Why wasn’t she fighting him?
Damn.
Her first human kiss. Right there in her motel room, with a handsome demon who crushed her body against his as if it were going to be the last kiss for either of them. And it was. This was the last time she’d ever kiss him, kiss anybody. She was going back to . . . back to . . .
Where was she going again?
Her lips parted to him, and she felt his tongue against hers as she kissed him desperately, giving in to it totally and completely. She melted against his firm body, wrapping her arms around him, just as he broke off the kiss and backed away from her. Val blinked up at him, feeling dazed.
“See what I told you?” he said, and she could have sworn his voice caught on the words.
“Even you can’t resist me. Till next time, little angel.”
He vanished in a column of fire.
Even as she cursed him, her lips still tingled with the warmth from the kiss. She tried to wipe the feel of him away with the back of her hand.
Evil bastard.
The next morning, after spending the night tossing and turning and subsequently having very strange dreams about herself, Nathaniel, and Barney the purple dinosaur, Val woke to somebody yelling her name. She sat up and stared around the empty motel room. The chicken soup Nathaniel brought had tipped over and leaked out onto the carpet. Crap. The digital clock on top of the television read 11:15 A.M.
Double crap. She’d slept in.
“Valerie!”
She rubbed her eyes and swung her legs out of bed, moving as fast as she could to the door.
She unhooked the chain, turned the lock, and opened it up to peer outside.
Nothing.
Val rubbed her eyes again and stretched into a big yawn, chalking the sound up to her imagination.
Then she felt something rub against her bare foot. She looked down.
It was a rat, whiskers twitching, looking up at her with little black, beady eyes. She screamed, scrambled back from it, and slammed the door shut.
How disgusting! It was enough that she had to deal with the two cockroaches that had set up house in room eighteen the other day, but now the Paradise Inn was infested with rodents?
Add that to the list of things about being human that sucked, she thought. Near the top.
She cracked the door open again and looked out. The rat was gone. She sighed with relief.
“Get back here, you bastard!” a female voice yelled from her right.
A girl in a McDonald’s uniform, no coat, was tearing through the motel’s courtyard, narrowly missing falling into the leaf-covered pool. She held a baseball bat, two-handed, and didn’t look like she was off to the ballpark.
Val recognized her immediately, mostly due to the fast-food uniform since her face was wrapped in a big orange scarf. It was Reggie’s girlfriend, Claire.
Oh no, Val thought. With her current bat-wielding stance she was probably looking for
Reggie, furious about his slight indiscretion. She’d planned to talk to Claire girl-to-girl today and try to help smooth things over before she did anything crazy, but it looked like it might be a bit
late for that.
In a way it was good. Any later and Val might have already been gone. This way she could help smooth things over between the two before she and Barlow used the key.
Val slid into her fuzzy pink slippers, pulled a thin green jacket on over her pajamas, and emerged into the bright, but not too cold outdoors.
“Claire,” she called out, but was ignored. Claire had gone over to the small, black Dumpster near the manager’s office and was hitting it with the bat, which made a resounding gong sound each time.
Val pulled the jacket closer to her and, nimbly as she could, made her way over to the woman.
The last thing she wanted to do was get Claire more agitated. She could do without getting inadvertently hit in the mouth with a baseball bat. She stayed back a few feet.
“Claire!” she said louder. “What are you doing?”
Claire’s shoulders tensed, and she stopped banging on the Dumpster for a moment. She turned around, a tense smile in place, breathing hard.
“Hi, Val. How’s it going?”
“Okay. You?”
“Great, just great.”
“So, uh . . . what are you doing?”
She sniffed, and Val noticed her eyes were red. “What does it look like?”
“It looks like you’re beating up the garbage.”
She laughed. “Good way to put it.”
“O-kay. Listen, why don’t you and me go get a coffee or something?”
“Can’t. Have to work. I start at noon.” Her gaze left Val and tracked down to the ground.
“There you are, you little prick . . . trying to sneak away? Ha!”
Val frowned at her. “What are you—”
“Coward!” she cried out. “Get back here and face me like a man!”
She took off toward the pool.
Obviously Claire had gone insane. Sad, really. Val watched her run a circle around the pool twice before she spotted what the woman was after.
The rat. It was running like a miniature race horse, staying just a few steps ahead of her.
Every now and then she’d bring down the bat with a loud crack, then shriek with dismay when she missed her mark.
The rat broke its circle and started coming toward Val. Right toward her. She tried to step out of the way, but it darted behind her slipper. She turned and it followed, one paw on the fuzzy pink material.
“Get away from him,” Claire said and Val looked to see she was directly in front of her with the bat raised above her head.
She held up her hand. “Claire, take it easy. We’ll put out a trap. One of those humane traps, of course, and maybe we’ll take it someplace where it can have a nice long and happy life. Do you know if they accept rats at the Toronto Zoo?”
Her eyes were wild. “I’m going to kill him. Move away now.”
“No!” the rat said. “Don’t let her hurt me, Val!”
Okay. Hold on, Val thought.
The rat said what?
“He cheated on me,” Claire said. “And now I’m going to kill him.”
Val looked down, eyes wide. “Reggie? Is that you?”
The rat was practically hugging her slipper. He looked up, whiskers trembling. “See? I told you she was a witch.”
“Oh, wait a minute.” Claire lowered the bat. “I think I understand what’s going on here.”
Val blinked at her. “Well, that makes one of us. Please explain.”
“You’re the other woman.”
“I’m the what?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m going to kill both of you.”
Claire raised the bat again. Val opened her mouth but all that came out was a little ahhh sound. Then Claire dropped the bat, put her hands over her scarf-covered face, and started to sob.
Val let out a long sigh of relief and looked down at Reggie.
“I told her I was a rat.” He shrugged his rat shoulders. “She agreed with me.”
“Obviously.”
He scurried away from them without another word.
Val kicked the baseball bat away, and crouched down next to Claire. “It’s going to be okay.
And just for the record, it was only a kiss. And it wasn’t with me.” She put her hand on
Claire’s shoulder and she tensed, pulled her scarf away so she could wipe her face, and stood up.
“You can have him.”
“I don’t want him.”
“He’s all yours. The jerk.”
She turned away, giving Val her back.
“You need to change him back,” Val told her.
Claire spun back around, her tear-filled eyes full of pain. “But he’s exactly what he is now. A rat. Now he can’t fool anyone else into believing he’s a wonderful, caring man who loves them.” Her bottom lip quivered.
Val didn’t have a response for that. “I had no idea you were so powerful.”
“Neither did he. Maybe if he’d known what would happen he wouldn’t have been so stupid.”
“Well, maybe—”
“You tell him that.” Her voice cracked on the words. “That he was stupid. And now he has to live with his mistakes.”
Before Val could say another word, Claire turned her back and stormed out of the motel’s courtyard.
Super, she thought. Now a witch thought she’d slept with her boyfriend. That was one
McDonald’s she wouldn’t be able to go to anymore.
Val frowned. Not that it mattered since she was leaving. But she’d miss her McChicken sandwich. Another okay thing about being human. And the french fries were pretty good, too.
Reggie had disappeared, and she gave up looking for him after a few minutes. She went back to her room, mopped up the spilled chicken soup, which unfortunately made her think about
Nathaniel and his visit last night. Then she pulled on a pair of dark jeans, a plain white tank top, and a big, warm purple cardigan. She brushed her hair, washed her face, and wiped the sleep out of her eyes.
Time to go home, she told her slightly bleary-eyed reflection. She hoped Reggie would be able to sort out his bizarre girlfriend issues without her help.
She considered asking Barlow to wait a bit on their trip. To make sure everything worked out.
But decided against it. She didn’t want any possibility of seeing Nathaniel again. She didn’t even want to spend any more time thinking about the evil jerk. The fact that when she closed her eyes she could still feel his body against hers was definitely not a good thing.
She had to get out of there.
She pulled on a cream-colored winter coat, and the last thing she grabbed was the notebook with her pages upon pages of scrawled memories, lists, and reminders. She decided to take it along with her as a souvenir of the two months stuck on her earthly vacation.
Val left the motel room and headed to the manager’s office, hearing the bell jingle as she pushed open the door. Nobody was behind the counter so she started for the beaded curtain, but stopped when she heard voices. Raised, shouting voices. And then a loud cracking sound that made her jump.
The beaded curtain whipped to the side and she saw Alexa standing there with a wild look on her face.
“Valerie! Please. You have to help. You can’t let him have it.”
“Have what?”
She raised her clenched fist and opened it to reveal a small, golden key. She met Val’s gaze and shook her head. “This is all my fault. All of it. Protect Barty. Help him. Do whatever it takes to—”
There was another cracking sound. Alexa jerked forward and her eyes widened. Flames gathered at her feet, and slowly moved up her body. It was kind of like when Nathaniel chose to make his dramatic exit, only slower and somehow much, much scarier.
“No.” Alexa turned to look at whatever was behind her. “You backstabbing bastard. I won’t let you do this—”
But then the flames picked up speed and engulfed her. Val heard her scream; a loud, piercing, painful sound that was abruptly cut off. The key fell to the ground and came to rest i
n the middle of a circle of black ash. Alexa was gone.
Val couldn’t believe what she’d just witnessed. She’d heard stories of what it was like, but to see a demon vanquished—destroyed in front of her eyes, reduced to nothing but ash—chilled her right to the bone.
But who was responsible? Or what?
She looked up, eyes wide, as the curtain parted before her.
Chapter Seven
Val didn’t recognize him. He was medium height, thin, with blond hair and hollow cheeks.
Vivid blue eyes. He wore black leather pants and a tight blue shirt that showed off his sleekly toned upper body. He stared at her for a moment before a smile spread across his painfully handsome features—a cold, thin smile that froze her inside as fire lit up his eyes.
Another demon, she thought as fear washed over her.
The blond demon crouched down to pick up the golden key and brought it to his lips to blow off the bits of ash. Bits of Alexa. Then he rose to his feet.
Val didn’t move, couldn’t move, but her heart beat against her ribcage like a trapped animal.
He raised an eyebrow. “Valerie, right?”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out.
He held the key between his thumb and middle finger. “Do you know what this is?”
Val swallowed hard. “A key.”
“Such a small word, isn’t it? For such an important thing?” He grinned. “That Alexa, quite the wily one. Didn’t make even a mention that she had something so precious in her possession.
And to give it to her little fallen angel boyfriend. Cute, isn’t it? Love certainly works in mysterious ways.”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
His grin widened. “Well, isn’t that sweet of you to ask. My name is Julian. And I just got what I wanted.”
“You’re a demon.”
He looked down at himself. “Does it show?”
Val glanced at Alexa’s ashes and felt anger rise inside her. “Only in that you’re obviously evil and heartless.”
He mock pouted. “You wound me.”
“I’d like to.” The tremor in her voice didn’t give her words as much impact as she would have liked.