She opened the door and walked out of the apartment. The door closed behind her.
Eden was in shock. She’s just been abandoned. She was all on her own.
Well, not totally on her own. She had a sleeping demon inside of her. One she was going to have exorcised tomorrow even though the thought of it made her feel queasy.
Leena was gone.
Eden blinked.
Well, if there was a bright side to all of this, at least there wouldn’t be a cat hair problem anymore. That stuff was getting everywhere.
EIGHTEEN
Eden couldn’t sleep. She didn’t even try. She sat at her tiny dinette table all alone, waiting and watching the hours tick by.
The shapeshifter didn’t come back.
“Hey Darrak? Are you still here?” she whispered. She still couldn’t feel him. Maybe Selina had permanently dampened him. Maybe he was gone and wouldn’t come back.
Or maybe the piece of salt in her pocket that Malcolm had given her was enough to hold back his presence.
As long as she didn’t start foaming at the mouth again, it was a good thing to hold on to. Tightly.
She tried to stay awake, but despite the fact that she was worked up and stressed out… not to mention, scared to death… it was a lost cause. She was exhausted. The moment she rested her head on her folded arms a few hours later, she fell asleep.
When she woke, she opened up one eye and saw daylight. She swore out loud and tried to straighten up but she was so stiff from her sleeping position it took a moment.
“Ow.” She rubbed her sore neck.
The phone rang and she jumped with surprise, her heart thudding violently. Then she reached forward to grab the cordless phone on the table in front of her and held it to her ear.
“Yeah?”
“Eden?” Andy asked. “Why are you still at home?”
“Still?” She glanced at the clock. It was nearly eleven o’clock. “I didn’t realize the time. I’m… I’m not feeling so good. To put it extremely mildly. I don’t think I’ll be in today. Is that a problem?”
“I guess not. I need you healthy for our new caseload, so rest up while you still can. Should I bring over some chicken soup?”
“No soup required.” She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and stifled a yawn. “You do remember I’m not a licensed private investigator, right?”
“We can work around that.”
“But the law—”
“Eden, don’t be so literal. We’ll have you as my assistant for now and I’ll get the license for you. I know people.”
“But what about classes and tests and—”
“You are really nothing like your mother, are you?”
She sighed. “I’ll take that as a compliment, actually.”
“You’ve got Caroline’s looks, but not her taste for adventure. You need to open up to the idea of putting some danger and intrigue in your life. Shake things up a bit.”
Things were shaky enough as it is. “I’ll work on that.”
“I’m going to close shop early today and turn on the voice mail. I’m starting a case for a guy—wants me to look into somebody he feels is spying on his pack and interested in becoming… and I quote, ‘alpha.’ Weird way to put it, isn’t it?”
She blanched. Was this the werewolf client? “Just be careful.”
“Always. Now you take it easy today and get yourself healthy again, okay?”
“I’ll try my hardest.”
She hung up.
“So what happened last night?” Darrak asked wearily.
She froze and slowly turned to her right. Darrak sat on the couch ten feet away. His shoulders were hunched over.
“Last night…” It came out as a barely audible squeak. She cleared her throat. “Uh… Selina dampened you.”
“And then what happened? I don’t remember a damned thing.” He raked a hand through his dark hair, his expression alternately confused and concerned.
She wrung her hands nervously. “Then—then I got the hell out of there.”
“She didn’t try to stop you?”
“No.”
He leaned back and exhaled with relief. “Well, that’s good. I was worried.”
“About what she might tell me?”
“Actually, I was worried she might hurt you.”
This wasn’t good. She hadn’t been prepared to face the demon yet. She needed preparation time—to figure out what to say, how to act, what to do. Why did she have to fall asleep?
Eden got up from the table and went around to the fridge in the kitchenette and pulled out a bottle of water. She uncapped it and took a shaky swig.
“So you came back here?” Darrak asked.
“Uh-huh.”
He got up from the sofa but it seemed as if it took some effort.
She eyed him uneasily. “Not feeling so good?”
“I’ve felt better. Selina is just as powerful as she ever was. Her dampening ability is very admirable—witches are good at that sort of thing. I didn’t even come to until an hour ago. That’s way after sunrise.” He gave her a weak grin. “I notice that you weren’t in bed ready to molest me again. I won’t take it personally, really.”
That earned a vivid flashback to yesterday morning and the “dream” she’d said was about Ben. But it had been about Darrak. Fully and completely. And she’d wanted him badly.
But that was then and this was now.
She tried to look at him with her new eyes, her new information, but he seemed the same to her. He wasn’t acting any differently. He didn’t look any different.
But he was.
“Will you be okay?” She tried to sound as normal as possible.
“I’ll be fine. I think.” He was quiet for a moment, but then frowned. “You know, you’re acting very strangely right now.”
“Am I?”
He came into the kitchenette. She took a quick step back from him.
His frown deepened. “Yes, you are. What’s the problem?”
“Oh, there are a lot of problems. And Leena left. She… decided she didn’t want to stay here anymore.”
“Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.” He grinned and took another step toward her, then braced a hand against the refrigerator. “So it’s just the two of us now?”
She staggered back from him, hitting the stove behind her and bit her bottom lip, refusing to meet his eyes. “So… how do you plan to convince Selina to break your curse if the moment she senses you, she dampens you? Doesn’t exactly seem like she’s all that open to discussion on the topic.”
Eden originally believed that Darrak meant to reason with the witch to get her to agree to help. But now she knew Darrak had probably planned to kill her to get what he wanted.
“You’re shivering,” Darrak said, his brows drawing together. “Eden, what the hell is going on? Something bad happened last night. What was it?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Everything’s super. Fabulous, r eally.”
“You’re lying. Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Don’t come any closer.” Her hand curled around the crystal of salt in her pocket.
He didn’t listen to her and came within two feet before he stopped in his tracks. His forehead creased. Then he swore under his breath. “Who gave you that?”
“Who gave me what?” she asked innocently.
“The big-ass piece of salt you have there.”
“You mean this?” She pulled it out of her pocket and thrust it at him.
Darrak stumbled back a foot, his eyes narrowing. “That would be the big-ass piece of salt I was referring to, yes.”
Eden watched him carefully. “No foaming at your mouth.”
“The day is young. Also, I’m not sucking on it, so that makes the situation much less foamy.” His eyes narrowed further. “What’s going on, Eden?”
“Just trying to protect myself. You know, with a big piece of salt.”
He pointed at his chest. “Protect yourself from me?”
“No, from the ice monster who moved in next door.”
“Okay, so let me take a wild guess here. You were lying before about what happened with Selina.”
“Me, lying?” She let out a short humorless laugh at that. “Interesting. I guess it takes a liar to know a liar, doesn’t it?”
He sighed. “Are we going to play word games, or are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“I’m okay with word games. Scrabble, crosswords, Boggle. You name it.”
“Did Selina give you that?” He nodded at the salt.
“No. Malcolm did.”
“What?” His jaw clenched. “Did he try to hurt you again?”
Not the reaction she’d expected. “No, just the opposite actually. The drifter you threatened to tear apart yesterday jumped into another body and tried to kill me. Malcolm saved me.”
“Kill you?” he repeated harshly. His brow was lowered over his blue eyes. “Are you okay?”
“I’m standing here in one piece, aren’t I?”
“Something’s different, though. Very different.” He studied her face with a growing distress in his expression. “Please. Tell me what happened last night. What did that evil bitch say about me?”
She was breathing so fast now that she felt ready to hyper-ventilate. “Actually, she said that you’re an evil, powerful, ex-incubus archdemon and to break the curse you need to kill her and tear out her heart and that everything you’ve told me has been lies so you could get me to do what you want. In a nutshell.”
He stared at her stonily. “What else did she say?”
“That she tried to destroy you out of self-defense and also to redeem herself. But she failed.”
“Oh, she failed, all right.”
She searched his face, which looked more upset than pissed off at her fast-forward recount of last night’s events. “Tell me she’s the one who’s lying.”
He let out a long exhale. “Is that all it would take? Would you believe me again then?” His jaw clenched. “I knew you shouldn’t have gotten too close to her.”
“You’re not denying anything.”
“No, I’m not, am I?”
Her chest hitched. “You said you were a good demon dispatched to get the bad things that escaped the Netherworld. That you protected humans. That was a lie?”
He swallowed hard, then shook his head. “Busted.”
“What?”
“I lied to you,” he said softly. “Selina told you the truth. I am an archdemon. Or, at least, I was.”
Chills broke out down her arms. She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say. At the very least, she expected him to deny it.
She could barely breathe now. “The fire I see in your eyes… that’s part of your demon visage.”
“Yes.”
“The only type of demon who can be good is a former human.”
His jaw clenched. “Somebody’s been doing their home-work, haven’t they?” He swore again and looked away. When he turned his gaze to hers again his eyes were fiery. “I know how this looks. It’s bad. But I’m not going to lie to you anymore. I only lied in the beginning because I didn’t want you to be afraid of me.”
Her back hurt from pressing up against the stove edge, but her kitchen was so small, and she didn’t want to move any closer to him.
“No, you lied so I wouldn’t exorcise you.”
“Well, yeah. That, too. But I am not going to hurt you. I swear it.”
“You swear it?” she repeated incredulously. “You swear it? On what? A Bible?”
He sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to say to make you believe.”
“You don’t have to say anything. You know what the craziest thing is? Even after Selina told me all of that, I still didn’t believe her. Not really. But now… it’s over, Darrak. It’s over.”
“Which means what?”
Her throat was tight. “Exactly what it sounds like.”
Darrak nodded. “Normally if you’re planning on exorcising a demon, it’s best not to give him a heads-up about it first. The surprise factor works best.” He swallowed and raised his gaze from the floor to hers again. His eyes had returned again to their ice blue shade. “I know you won’t believe anything that comes out of my mouth anymore, but I’m going to try anyhow.”
“Try what?”
“I was a very powerful demon, and I did what I wanted to do for a very long time. But do you want to hear the real truth and nothing but?”
“More than you know.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Bullshit.”
He shook his head. “For three hundred years I’ve been trapped inside a succession of humans. Do you know what that’s done to me?”
“Made you into a lying, evil sack of shit?”
He huffed out a small laugh. “Other than that.”
“What, then?”
“It’s changed me. The humanity has infused me.”
“Humanity?” She held onto the piece of salt so hard she was sure it would leave a permanent mark.
“That’s right. I didn’t know what it meant to feel like a human back then—to love and fear and want things that weren’t totally selfish. That has bled into me from the humans I’ve possessed. Now I feel everything. Even the things I don’t want to feel.”
She didn’t think she could be any more confused by Darrak than she already was. She’d been wrong. “But… you said you possessed bad people. Was that a lie, too? How can you claim to have absorbed their humanity if they were scumbags like you said they were?”
“I wasn’t lying about that. But it didn’t matter if the humans were good or bad, they were still human. That alone has given me some of that intrinsic humanity.”
She brought a hand up to her aching head. There was not enough aspirin in her medicine cabinet—or, possibly, the entire world—to deal with her current headache. “But you were an archdemon. Why would you even care if you chose a bad or good human?”
“In the beginning I didn’t. As an archdemon I thought of humans as insects—less than worthy of life. Pests to be played with or squashed.” He actually winced at whatever horrified expression moved across her face at that statement. “But I’m different now. It was slow, but it happened. My former existence as an archdemon has been permanently dampened for me.”
She shook her head. “Dampened?”
“I remember well enough what I was like and what all I was responsible for, but it’s as if I’m watching from afar, seeing the horrible things I considered fun and games as if they happened to someone else. I wasn’t a very nice guy back then. Selina wasn’t the only one over the centuries to summon me and have me do her unpleasant bidding—but she was the only one to escape my wrath.”
“You killed the others?” Her voice was very quiet.
“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. His jaw tensed and he looked down at the ground again. “Even after I changed, my single goal has been survival. I’ve only been able to observe.” He went silent for a moment. “But when you could hear me, and when you were able to help give me form, that gave me so much hope for the future. That I even had a future.” A smile stretched his lips, but it didn’t seem like a happy one. “Hope. There’s another human emotion I never would have felt as a full-strength archdemon. It would have amused me then to see myself now. See how weak I’ve become. How human.”
So Darrak was saying he was all kinds of evil in the past but ever since the curse he’d become steadily more like a human? More lies? Or was he finally telling her the truth? Part of her was still desperate to believe he had changed.
“You’ve been using me,” she said.
“Of course I have.” His lips curled with an unpleasantness that seemed directed toward himself rather than her. “My first chance in three centuries to fix this mess I’d gotten myself into? How could I possibly resist?”
“And then what would you do? Go back to the Netherworld?”
His brows drew together.
“No. They’re not very open to change in Hell—especially when that change includes lessening the so-called evil inside of their high-ranking demons. Good is the one thing that scares them—it’s very unpredictable. If I didn’t go back to the way I was before I’d probably be destroyed. In fact, I’m sure of it.”
She repressed a shudder as well as a sliver of concern for him. “So what would you do?”
“I’d try to stay here in the human world for as long as I could. But as soon as my presence was detected they would send agents after me.”
Further confusion only caused the fog in her brain to thicken. “Then why try to break the curse at all? It might be a prison, being stuck inside a human, but at least you’re relatively safe.”
He swallowed and then met her eyes. “If I don’t break the curse, you’ll die.”
Her mouth dropped open. “So you were planning on becoming the hunted, on the run from the hordes of Hell on your ass, so you wouldn’t kill me?”
“Basically.”
“What happened to your pledge of self-protection?”
“It’s still very much intact. I don’t want to be exorcised. Being on the run is different from being destroyed all at once. At least I have a chance—even if it’s not a very good one.” He inhaled deeply. “So there you have it, Eden. The ugly truth about yours truly.”
She tried to process everything Darrak had told her. It was difficult. But what Selina had told her last night had rung really true for her. She’d felt in her gut that the witch had been honest with her. She had a similar feeling right now.
It was the truth. The bad parts and the good parts.
She’d opened up the can of worms and she still wanted to pick around at the gruesome contents. “I still don’t know what you really look like.”
His jaw tensed. “This is what I look like.”
“Maybe part of the time.”
“I never have to look any different from this if I don’t want to.”
“Show me,” she said firmly.
He shook his head. “I don’t want to scare you.”
“Way too freaking late for that.”
“You’re afraid of me.”
That much would be obvious even if she was trying to hide it. And she wasn’t. “You’re a demon. How can I not be afraid of you?”
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