“I think it was a demon. I think there’s a demon in your grandmother’s house.”
“Well, damn it,” she said.
“Exactly,” Emmett said.
*****
Emmett shone a flashlight over the formerly flawless skin between Jade’s collarbone and the pink lace trim of her tank top. She was sitting on the lid of his john so he could look for tiny shards of glass in the dozen or so cuts peppering her chest, neck, and cheek.
His molars ground together with rage. He had woken up that morning determined to put her firmly in the friend box. Now, just a few hours later, his gut ached with the urge to avenge this attack on her, and the urge went way deeper than simple chivalry.
She was his girl. He couldn’t believe he’d considered pushing her away.
If it had been a person that had done this to her, he’d have laid the bastard out cold in a heartbeat, but the thing that had attacked her wasn’t something he knew how to fight. He was going to need help. He had to call Nick.
But first, he had to take care of Jade.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” He knelt in front of her and used a razor blade to scrape a sparkling sliver of glass out of a cut below her collarbone.
She shook her head. “You’re fine. Thanks. I couldn’t get close enough to the mirror to see those little guys.” She sniffed.
A few minutes ago, he’d heard her quietly crying behind the closed and locked bathroom door. He’d knocked. She’d let him in, and he’d found her beautiful face anguished and her fingers slippery with blood.
She’d been through so much. As soon as he got her patched up, he was going to hold her and let her have a good cry on him. Maybe he’d have a good cry, too.
“No wonder you were sleeping in your car. I don’t blame you. I wish you had told me. I hate that you were facing this alone. Here, can you hold this for me?” He wiggled the flashlight.
When she wrapped her slender fingers around it, he guided the light to a suspicious red spot on her neck. She held it there while he worried another sparkling sliver from her flesh and wiped it on a piece of gauze.
“You would have thought I was out of my mind.”
He huffed a wry laugh. “Yeah, probably.” He directed the light onto her face and noticed a trace of yellow bruising around her eye. She’d covered it well with makeup on Friday night, but here it was, staring him in the face, making his stomach clench, proof that someone had hit her before she was his.
He wanted to ask her about it but figured she’d been through enough today. Besides, it probably wasn’t any of his business, although he sure wanted to make it his business.
His hand started to shake. He took a second to bring his anger under control.
Damn, he hated seeing her hurt. He hated knowing how alone she’d been since he’d ended their date so abruptly on Friday. Even more, he hated that she’d misunderstood the reason.
Clearing his throat, he focused his attention on a tiny flare of light on her cheekbone. More glass. “I’m sorry I was such a dick Friday night,” he said while he scraped it out.
“I know you didn’t mean it like that, now. We’re okay.”
Hearing her say we made his heart smile. But it didn’t stick. He had never fallen so hard and fast for anyone. They were only days in, if he counted their date Friday. Though he was absolutely committed to a relationship with Jade, it was just a matter of time before his fear of marriage collided with his raging hormones. Probably a very, very short time, given his reaction to her so far.
Something was going to have to give. The prospect of breaking his virginity vow was unthinkable. That left-gulp-marriage.
Oddly, the thought of marrying Jade didn’t fill him with dread like the thought of marrying Chelsea had. Jade triggered something primal in him that didn’t care about silly eventualities like irreconcilable differences. With her blood on his fingers and her sweet, coffee-scented breath on his face, he had a moment of thinking this beautiful, sensual, free-spirited woman could be enough for him. More than enough. He thought he’d be willing to stick with her no matter what. No disagreement could ever be bad enough to make him want to walk away. But as soon as he had the thought, he tamped it down because it was almost as terrifying as the thing they’d just fled.
He had no business considering anything long-term with this girl. She’d said it herself; she was only going to stick around Vermont for a year. Then she would go back to Boston.
Back to being an exotic dancer. Maybe back in the path of whoever had hit her.
His shoulders tensed. Some inner caveman part of him wanted to shake his club and say, “Woman, you will not go back to that life. You’re mine, now.”
Like that would go over well with his Boston beauty. She’d shake her club right back, or smack him over the head with it. And that feistiness of hers made him want to keep her locked up in his cave even more.
Finished with the slivers, he shoved away all thoughts of his future, or lack thereof, with Jade, and determined to be the best boyfriend he could be for the time being.
“Lean over the sink,” he instructed. When she did, he dabbed alcohol over her cuts.
She winced and gritted her teeth but didn’t make a peep.
He couldn’t contain his proud smile. She might be wearing a sweatshirt with “Drama Queen” spangled across the chest in glittery letters, but his girl was as tough as the most stoic New Englander.
“I think they’re small enough not to need bandages,” he said. “The air will help them scab up.” He blotted her chest dry with a clean towel then led her out of the bathroom and to the sofa. He sat down and pulled her against him in a fierce embrace. “Come here. Let it all out, sweetheart.”
She gave a single heart-wrenching sob. But instead of crying, she took a deep breath as if to steady herself and said, “You’re way too good for me, you know.”
“That’s funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
She shook her head, her full, kissable mouth compressed in a line. “Please. I’m such a coward.”
“That’s the craziest thing anyone in the history of the world has ever said.” He lifted her chin so she would meet his gaze. “You’ve been living in the same house with that thing for a week. You’ve tried standing up to it the only way you could think how. You jumped on it when it attacked me. You’re my hero. I’m so proud of you. And look at you now. You’re shaken and hurt but still composed. You’ve got a spine on you, honey.” He couldn’t help stroking his thumb over her cheek, right over the old bruise he wasn’t going to bring up. She closed her eyes, and her lips parted around an exhale. She was so beautiful. And she trusted him. He wouldn’t let her down.
“I’m going to call my friend, Nick. He’s in seminary and knows a lot about this kind of thing. He’ll know what to do. And until then, you’re going to stay right here with me.”
She relaxed by degrees into his embrace. After a while of just holding each other, she said, “I’m glad you came by this morning, but I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” With the top of her head warming his cheek, he prayed it would be.
*****
Draonius beat the wings of his avian vessel against an invisible wall surrounding Emmett Herald’s home.
Blessed, he snarled. So, the man was a believer, as Joshua had been.
It didn’t change his plans. No believer could be possessed with the power of a lord’s ring, but he had never had a ring, and that hadn’t stopped him from taking Joshua’s essence and his body, for a short time. He’d failed to hold his chosen vessel then. This time he would succeed.
He would prove to his prince it had been no mistake to free him. After all, he was a century older and wiser, and he had his devoted Mercy to serve him with her witchery. And he had Jade-or at least he would if not for that bedamned blessing.
He drew his precious few remaining essences tight around him, as he settled in an azalea bush to eye his quarry through a
window. Emmett held her, cradled her face in his hand, petted her sleek, tiger-eye hair.
Jealousy tinged his vision in shades of crimson.
His hands had caressed her only a few nights ago. His lips had kissed her. He had mated with her, and it had been but a breath away from reality in the most elevated of dream states, that place where an enterprising demon could manipulate a mortal’s consciousness in order to feed. He had fed well that eve.
Jade wouldn’t remember, of course, because Mercy had proven surprisingly strong in overpowering the mortal’s mind. Even so, he’d laid claim to the woman. He did not appreciate a mortal man putting his hands all over his property.
No doubt, Emmett thought to protect her. Like Joshua, his faith would make him overconfident. Once Draonius gave Mercy control of Jade’s body, no amount of faith would save Emmett. A simple seduction, a ritual blade placed deep in his heart, and Draonius would be a possessor at last.
He would be free from the pull of the abyss. He would have a fine, strong, human vessel to inhabit and a lovely sensual body to take his pleasure with whenever he wished and to feed on each time she dreamed.
Glee buttressed his jealous heart as he settled into his perch, content to watch and wait. Eventually Jade would have to leave the house. Or, even better, she would tempt Emmett to sin and the blessing would fall.
It would just be a matter of time before he owned them both.
Chapter Sixteen
Nick wasn’t at all what Jade had been expecting. From everything Emmett had told her about his best friend, she’d expected someone as flirtatious and athletic as him. It wasn’t that Nick wasn’t attractive in his way, and he did have a confident charm about him that could loosely be interpreted as flirtatiousness, but athletic was definitely a no-go.
Nick wore a Hawaiian shirt that could have fit three of her inside. With skull-and-crossbones high-tops, and a checkered pageboy cap over wispy, white-blond hair, he was the loner antithesis to Emmett’s popular jock. But when Emmett welcomed him with a broad smile and a one-armed guy hug, she could tell whatever they had in common ran more than skin-deep.
The three of them tucked in to spaghetti with meat sauce for dinner-Emmett had whipped it together while he and Nick caught up.
“Nick and I played football in high school,” Emmett said right after she had taken a sip of wine. She almost did one of those cartoon spit takes, but managed to swallow with a minimal amount of throat clearing. So much for her not-a-jock assumption.
“Yeah,” Nick said with a self-deprecating smile, “I get that reaction a lot. I’ve had to learn the Heimlich for my own peace of mind.” An enormous wad of expertly-twirled pasta disappeared from his fork into his mouth. “I’ve even used it on myself a time or two.” A wink told her he was joking.
“Smart ass,” she croaked, a little wine still needing to be coaxed out of the wrong tube.
“I was about eighty pounds lighter then,” Nick said, justifying his former prowess on the football field. “It was before I discovered beer.”
When she was reasonably certain she could talk without starting up the coughing again, she said, “How does that work? Drinking enough beer to gain eighty pounds while you’re in seminary?”
“Hey, I’ve been holding steady at Go-Crom. This is all from undergrad.” He patted his belly affectionately. “And there’s nothing in the Bible against drinking. Jesus drank wine.” He raised his glass. “And the founding fathers were mostly all Christians, and they drank. Some of them even operated their own breweries. Only drunkenness is a sin.”
“And the bigger you are, the more beer you can drink without getting drunk,” Emmett said. He and Nick clinked glasses.
She shook her head. “Boys.”
After dinner, Emmett went to the fridge and passed Nick a bottle of beer. When he held one out to her, she said, “No thanks.” She never drank beer and rarely wine. Too many calories, especially for a girl who liked her sweets.
They all moved to Emmett’s comfortable living room. Nick settled into a black leather recliner and said, “Tell me about this morning, Jade.”
She shrugged as she took the cushion next to Emmett on his big leather couch. “Emmett already told you everything over the phone.” He’d held her hand while he called Nick and recounted their morning. Then they’d eaten sandwiches, popped some popcorn, and curled up on the couch together to watch cheesy action flicks the rest of the day. It had been one of the best afternoons of her life.
“I want to hear it from you. What details did you notice? How did the entity make you feel?”
She told him everything she remembered. Then he asked her about her recent sightings of the shadow man. He sat back and listened intently, occasionally jotting something in a dog eared, wire-bound notebook. After she finished, he looked pensive, then confused.
Finally he shook his head and said, “This is so weird. Some aspects of what you told me make me think this is an intelligent-human haunting. But other aspects make me think it’s something much more sinister. A human spirit wouldn’t appear to you as a large, winged thing, and most of the time, human hauntings are fairly innocuous. This thing definitely attacked. It wanted to scare you, maybe even to hurt you, though, you said when you tripped on your computer cord, you didn’t land hard on the floor?”
She nodded. “It was like something caught me before I hit and then lowered me the last few inches.” Remembering the enveloping cold, she shivered and leaned into Emmett’s embrace.
Emmett said, “But the coffee pot left her with cuts. She’s lucky it was mostly empty or she might have been burned, too.”
Nick tapped his pen against his leg. “It’s almost like there are two different entities, or a single one that can’t make up its mind what it wants from you.”
“What do you mean, what it wants from me? What could it possibly want? It’s dead, isn’t it?”
Nick tossed his notebook and pen on the coffee table. “If it’s a human haunting, then yes, it’s most likely the spirit of someone who used to be alive. But if it’s an elemental-a demon-it was never alive as we think of life.” He rolled his beer bottle between his palms. “Regardless of what it is, it clearly wants something. Human entities are often simply curious. They want to observe or interact, but they’re not powerful enough to be more than a minor nuisance, in most cases. Demons, on the other hand, are all about power. To grow in power, they tempt, and then feed off the resulting sin, or at least that’s my mentor’s theory.”
She frowned. “Like how vampires feed off blood?”
Emmett arched an eyebrow at her.
“What? Vampires are demons, aren’t they? They were on Buffy.” Maxi had gotten her hooked on the old Joss Whedon show. They’d Netflixed all seven seasons in a single weekend after final exams.
Nick appeared thoughtful. “I don’t know of any actual proof of vampires, but yeah, I suppose. There’s plenty of cultures where blood was used in ceremonial demon worship. It’s not a huge stretch to think it could sustain them. But from my studies, they seem to prefer feeding on sin and strong emotions, like fear or lust. The classic example is a succubus, a demon with female qualities who gains strength by inciting lust in their male victims.”
“Ew.” Shaking off that disturbing thought, she said, “You mentioned fear. Could we have made it stronger, today? We were pretty scared this morning.”
Emmett nodded his agreement. It gave her a little thrill that he wasn’t ashamed to admit how scared he’d been. Everything about him was honest. Refreshing.
“Maybe,” Nick said. “But to pull off that kind of stunt, it must have been building up power for a while, maybe years, unless it found a really potent source or something. There’s also the electronics theory. Have you noticed batteries draining faster than usual? Laptop, cell phone, camera?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how it’s getting energy, but I don’t think it’s been getting it from my grandmother. I mean, saw it when I would spend the night at the house as
a kid, but when I tried to tell her, she scolded me for making up stories. She didn’t believe her house was haunted. She would know about it if it’s been feeding from her, right?” The thought of that thing scaring her grandmother made her fists clench.
Nick shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I do know one thing. It expended a lot of energy today, so you’re probably safe for now.”
“Yeah, she’s safe.” Emmett pulled her tighter against him.
If she had had feathers, she would have preened at his protectiveness.
“She’s not going back there until this is taken care of. You can take care of it, can’t you?”
“I’m no exorcist,” Nick said, “but I’ll go over there tonight with some equipment and check it out. Don’t get your hopes up, though. Whether human or demon, the entity most likely needs time to recharge. If I can gather any data, I’ll be able to form a plan of attack. But it might take time to pinpoint what this thing is and how to get it out.”
Time she would be spending in Emmett’s house. Good thing there was no demon here, because…talk about temptation.
*****
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jade asked Emmett. Her amazing hazel eyes were tight with worry.
“No.” Understatement. His hands were clammy, and his heart was racing at the mere possibility of running into that winged thing again. “But I can’t let Nick go in there alone.”
The three of them were in his living room, standing at the door. He hugged her tight and long, gaining courage from her warmth. It was only the determination to back up his buddy and help his girl that made him eventually let go.
“You make yourself at home here. If you’re in bed when we get back, I’ll come up and give you a kiss goodnight.”
He’d shown her his room, a long space with a pitched ceiling that took up the whole second story of his 1920’s house. Since it was the nicest and most private place to sleep, he’d decreed it would be her room as long as she was here. Nick would take the futon in the man-cave, a.k.a. the game room in the finished basement, and he would take the couch in the living room.
Passionate Kisses 2 Boxed Set: Love in Bloom Page 155