“What a psychopath.”
“And a traitor. Desperate, I rushed over to where the woman lay and ripped off my shirt. I pressed the material against the wound but it didn’t do any good. The knife had slit an artery. When I turned around to give my friend a piece of my mind, the Priest of Santeria stood in his place. He told me that there was no other choice but to give up my soul, or else I would spend the next 100 years in jail. I found out later my friend and the Priest orchestrated the whole thing. They killed an innocent woman to trick me into joining their enclave.”
“Shit,” I breathed. After a short heady pause, I spoke. “So you really don’t have a soul?”
Daemon, eyes still closed, shrugged. “Well I do, but it’s trapped in a jar like all the other zombies’ souls the voodoo priest stole. They are used as leverage. If we do his bidding, we might get our humanity back along with our freedom.”
My heart reached out to Daemon in sympathy. I couldn’t imagine living a life I was tricked into with my own soul used as a dangling carrot. A strong urge to hug him washed over me.
“Come here,” I whispered.
Daemon’s eyelids snapped open. “What?”
My arms widened, inviting him into an embrace that had an eighty percent chance of being awkward. Still, whenever I was upset, I wanted to be held and even though Daemon wasn’t human, I was guessing he wanted comfort. Daemon’s unflinching gaze roamed over my body. I squirmed under the scrutiny; a red-hot blush heated my cheeks.
“You want me to hug you?” Daemon said slowly as if it was the world’s dumbest idea. “Just minutes ago you thought I wanted to kill you.”
Humiliation churned in my stomach. I dropped my arms to my side and got to my feet. Remind me to never be nice to Daemon again. He was a class-A douche canoe and didn’t deserve my sympathy.
“What can I say? Melodramatic stories get to me, but forget it. I’m leaving.”
I attempted to step around his feet, however, his large stature was taking up a majority of the storage closet. Not to mention, his body was blocking the exit.
“Don’t you want to know if I am still part of the enclave? Or if I am, why I haven’t hurt you?” Daemon’s questions tumbled over each other. “Or why the Priest of Santeria wants to kill….” I held up my hand, cutting him off.
Information overload was about to result in my brain exploding. Of course I had thought of those questions plus a dozen more, but I needed a break.
“Look, it seems like you haven’t talked about this with anyone for awhile…”
“Sixty years,” Daemon chimed in.
Gob smacked, my mouth hung open. “You have been dead for sixty years?” He nodded. “How old were you when you died?”
“Seventeen.”
After a quick calculation, it dawned on me Daemon was seventy-seven years old. In the dim light, I examined his unlined features. Full lips, eyes as green as emeralds, and scruff on his cheeks that made me think impure thoughts. He was a damn good-looking old dude, to put it mildly. Daemon rose to his full height, dwarfing me and everything else in the storage closet.
A sly smile titled his mouth. “Crazy, huh? I’m exactly the same as I was when I died.”
“There are a thousand other words I would use but why are you in high school?”
He leaned in and our eyes locked. The electricity in the room escalated until you could almost feel it. My breath caught in my throat as I fought the urge to kiss him.
“Aw, the thousand dollar question,” he said huskily. I licked my lips, causing a spark of lust to light in his eyes. “I am here because of you. It has always been about you,” he breathed.
“What do you mean?”
Light as feather, his finger brushed down my cheek. Entranced, I felt myself get lost in his gaze. Time slowed and everything around us ceased to exist as I tumbled further into the rabbit hole. I nearly groaned in anticipation when his finger inched closer to my lips. No other man had ever had this effect on me before. My whole body was on fire. A blinding white light enveloped us. Did I die and go to heaven?
“Hey kids, stop dry humping and get to class.”
Blinking, I saw the janitor over Daemon’s shoulder. The fog lifted from my brain and I stumbled away from Daemon.
“Did you hear me?” the janitor growled. “Move.”
“We weren’t doing anything,” I cried in defense.
The janitor aimed his mop at us. “That’s what they all say.”
Daemon grabbed my hand, directing me into the hallway. As soon as the artificial lights buzzed overhead, I put an end to our physical contact and dropped his hand. Hopefully, the janitor wasn’t a gossip queen because the last thing I needed right now was to fuel the rumor mill.
“You need to stop this behavior, Daemon,” I said, sounding like a schoolteacher.
He arched an eyebrow. “What behavior?”
I jerked my head toward the hall closet where I had been locked inside for the past hour. The small space almost tipped me over the edge of sanity because anywhere else I would have not given in to Daemon’s advances so easily. Although, his superior seduction skills made sense since he had sixty years of practice at it.
“To be fair, you wouldn’t have talked to me anywhere else. You basically made me kidnap you,” Daemon responded as he took a step toward me. His eyes smoldered. “And as far as the sexual tension between us, that will never go away.”
I laid my hands on his chest and stood on my tippy toes. My mouth brushed his ear. “You don’t stand a chance with me.” Shoving Daemon away, I spun around on my heels and walked toward my history class. His laughter rang out behind me as if he knew my statement was all bark with no bite.
When I got home from school, my mom was still at work and the house was blissfully empty, except for Frank. I rounded the corner to the living room where I found him on the couch, asleep. He let out a whimper, snorted, and then rolled onto his back. Laughing, I went into the kitchen to bake out my stress. Chocolate chip cookies were desperately needed after a day like today. So far nobody had found out about the storage closet incident but it was only a matter of time. The entire student body was as small as my eighth grade class back in Los Angeles. Gossip was rampant. I yanked open the fridge, grabbed the butter, then gathered the rest of the ingredients, and laid everything out onto the table. My hands worked mindlessly as I turned over Daemon’s questions. Cleary, he wasn’t under the voodoo priest’s reign anymore, or else my life would have ended back in the storage closet. Still, that didn’t answer why he was posing as a high school student.
I am here because of you. It has always been about you.
Daemon’s words washed over me. The man was a riddle without an answer. Shaking my head, I dumped the bag of chocolate chips into the dough. I studied the contents of the bowl then went to grab a bar of chocolate from my secret stash. Rooting around, I picked out one with seventy-five percent cocoa and a caramel filled one. At this point, the cookies would be more chocolate than actual cookie but who was I to complain? Melissa had taught me the number one rule of baking: More was always better. Yielding a butcher knife, I chopped the two different chocolate bars into chunks and added them to the dough. Frank came trotting into the kitchen, looking for scraps.
I bent down and scratched his head. “Sorry boy, you can’t have any.” He snorted his dislike. “I know, but I’ll feed you soon.”
The sound of the doorbell bounced off the empty walls. I glanced in the direction of the entryway, confused. Who could be outside this late? There was only one person who came to mind. Daemon, but he didn’t know where I lived. I hesitated until the doorbell rang again, loud and persistent.
“Hold your horses,” I yelled.
Frank followed close on my heels as I went to go answer the door. Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the door handle and turned it.
“I don’t know who you think you…” My words died in my throat.
My mom’s friend Laura was on the front porch surrounded by five tatt
ered suitcases and a birdcage with a colorful scarf thrown over it.
“Hello, hello,” Laura chirped. “I hope I am not intruding.”
Laura was my mom’s friend from high school. They were like how Melissa and I were, attached at the hip. That is until they took two completely different paths. My mom got knocked up and became a beauty mortician while Laura embraced life. She moved from city to city, boyfriend to boyfriend, never staying with anybody or anywhere for long. My mom described her as a glamorous nomad. Tonight, Laura was dressed in a floor length black maxi dress, cinched at the waist with a Chanel belt.
“Not at all.” I glanced at the luggage. “My mom didn’t tell me you were moving in.” Or that you were even coming, I added silently.
Laura tilted her head back and laughed. “You are hilarious, child. Now if you don’t mind I’m going to freshen up.” She walked around me, leaving the luggage. “I had the most dreadful flight from New York. There were a thousand sick people coughing all over me.” Her voice floated down from the staircase, until it vanished all together. A second later, I heard the shower turn on. Sighing, I looked at the suitcases with disdain. The bird in the cage let out a low chirp. Frank barked, overjoyed at the possibility of having a new friend to play with.
I pointed my finger at him. “Ok, you get the bird, I’ll get the suitcases. Deal?” Frank spun around in the air. “Good enough for me.”
Using my measly amount of strength, I hauled the luggage in one by one until sweat dotted my hairline. Frank didn’t fulfill his end of the bargain so I took the birdcage and set it on a high table. Laura would kill me if anything happened to her precious parakeet. The clock over the mantle read 9:30 p.m. When my mom came home in thirty minutes, she would have a lot of explaining to do. I retreated back to the kitchen and doled out the cookie dough onto a baking sheet. Popping the cookies in the oven, I set the timer for ten minutes, and leaned against the counter. The book, The Darkness, stared at me from the dining room table. My mom said everything I needed to know was in there but honestly; I would rather play naïve for a bit longer. It was comfortable in the dark.
Laura’s perfume hit me like a toxic cloud. Turning, I saw her under the archway that lead from the kitchen to the living room. A towel was wrapped around her head and she had exchanged the maxi dress for a colorful kimono.
“Do I smell cookies?” Laura peered into the oven. “Ohh! Chocolate chip, my favorite.”
“Yeah if I believe correctly, it’s the recipe you passed down to my mom.”
In order to support her nomadic lifestyle, Laura had worked at various high-end bakeries. Every year for the holidays, my mom and I received a box of treats from her with a handwritten recipe. They were always delicious, save a few misses, like the recipe for Tomato Soup Cake. That one was disgusting.
Laura lowered herself into a chair, sighing dramatically. “Yes. Ariane, the owner of the bakery I worked at gave it to me when I was living in Paris. He was so tragically beautiful. Unfortunately, he was married.”
Her eyes wandered over to the book. Shit, I should have hid it before she came downstairs. Laura ran a hand over the cover, than gently opened it to the first page. A tense silence shrouded the room.
“It’s a book for my history class.” I jumped in. “We are learning about different religions.”
Laura looked up. “I know what this book contains, Sky, and there is no way in hell any history class would give this to their students.
The first thought that popped in my head was, “You do? Can you please tell me then? Because I don’t have a clue.” Followed by, “Are you freaking kidding me?” I must have said that line out loud though, because Laura grinned.
“I am not kidding you. Your mom confessed to me what religion she belonged to early on in our friendship. Along with the underlining darkness that comes with it.”
“But I don’t understand...plenty of people don’t practice the same religion as their ancestors. Why do mom and I have to?”
Laura closed the book with a loud whack. “I’m not sure I should discuss this with you. Your mom would kill me.”
I pulled up a chair across from her and gathered her hands in mine. “Please, Laura. I love my mom but she threw this whole thing on me without any notice. Any answers would be helpful.”
Now that I knew Laura was more informed about my gift than I was, a strong urge to whip off the blindfold came over me. Staying in the dark was comfortable but also dangerous. If the voodoo priest was after my blood like Daemon said, I needed to pull my head out of the sand.
Laura bit her bottom lip, skeptically. The thirst she had for storytelling overrode my mom’s wishes and she threw her arms in the air. “Why not? Ask away and I’ll try to answer.”
“How ‘bout the last one I asked?”
“Why do you practice this religion?” I nodded. “You don’t, not really at least. If you did, there would be dead animals buried in your backyard.” She laughed at my expression of horror. “It’s awful but that’s how rituals work. To be honest though, your mom would have completely buried Santeria under the rug if it weren’t for you.
I recoiled into my chair as if I had been punched. “Because of my gift? Because I am the chosen one?”
The light in Laura’s eyes dimmed. “Your mom was so scared to have a child but when she became pregnant, she couldn’t bear to get rid of you. She wished on every star you would be a boy because then you could live a normal life.”
“You mean only girls are born with this gift?”
“Afraid so, darling.”
That was news to my ears. The timer on the oven buzzed, shattering the heaviness in the room. I slipped on a pair of oven mitts and removed the cookies. They were gooey in the middle, golden brown on the outside.
“However, it’s not like it has been that bad. Having this little gift of yours.” Laura’s voice rose in a question. “Right?”
Considering my head was still squarely on my shoulders and nobody had died yet, no my gift wasn’t that bad. Although, it’s not like it has been activated and frankly, I was dreading the day my ability was brought to life.
“Sure,” I said.
Her sigh of relief was audible. A warm breeze floated through the window. I glanced outside and saw the full moon hanging low in the sky. Stars twinkled brightly against the inky black drop. My mom was right, this town might be weird but it was beautiful.
Laura’s chair scraped against the hardwood floors. “Sorry, Sky, but I’m beat. Can we pick up this line of questioning tomorrow?”
“Sure.” I dropped a few cookies on a plate and turned around to give them to her. “Sleep tight.”
“Thanks. You’re the best.”
While I was disappointed Laura didn’t answer all my questions, a majority of them could only be answered by Daemon himself. Too revved to sleep, I grabbed my jacket and went outside. The streetlights illuminated my path as I walked aimlessly. Back in Los Angeles, Melissa and I would sneak out of my bedroom window at night and go to the beach. The crashing waves, sea salt whipped hair, cold sand between my toes… it was heaven. Here in Louisiana, the closest thing to a beach was the bayou, which was great if you wanted to get your legs eaten off by alligators. Since I rather liked my bottom torso, I headed in the vague direction of the park. At this hour, the town was spookily deserted and I felt a growing sense of discomfort as I got farther from my house. I tugged my sweater tight around my body. Stupid Stephen King novels were making me paranoid. And so was the supposed voodoo priest after my blood. A black car with tinted windows slowed when it passed and then rolled to a complete stop a few feet away. What the hell? Two ordinary men got out of the vehicle, however, when they turned, I saw they weren’t ordinary at all. Their eyes glowed a pale green in the darkness. Entranced, I watched as they moved closer. Their gait was slow and calculating, like a cheetah pack about to pounce on its pray. Knowing I should run and being able to run were two different things. My legs were rooted to the spot. The streetlights flashed across
their translucent skin.
“Hey girly, you need a ride?” freak number one asked.
His voice was reminiscent of nails on a chalkboard, which was what it took to unstick my legs from the ground. I booked it in the opposite direction. The world blew past me until it somehow ended up underneath me. My head cracked on the cement and blinding white pain exploded in front of my eyes. I let out a low moan.
“You can’t run from us so don’t even try,” freak number two said above me. He grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. “Are you ready to go willingly now?”
I swung my head around and spit in his face. “Fuck you.”
“You bitch,” he screamed as he lunged toward me. I looked at him steely eyed, prepared to feel the smack of an open palm against my cheek but freak number one lurched him back.
“Calm down, Frederick,” freak number one said. “We need her alive. Fresh blood is of utmost importance.”
Right then everything clicked into place. Daemon wasn’t lying. There was a voodoo priest who would send his zombies out for blood and they currently had me in their evil talons. My future outcome wasn’t looking too good.
Frederick grabbed my jaw. “Be a good little girl or else this will be a lot more painful than it has to be.”
My voice cracked as I tried to conceal the fear written on my face. “You don’t scare me.”
“I beg to differ.” His fist reeled back and punched me in the stomach. I doubled over as a searing ache tore through my side. Frederick bent at the waist and his sour breath tickled my cheek. “I think you’re mighty scared and you have all the reason in the world to be.”
The Accidental Kiss Page 4