Had demons gone to the sensitive side since she’d last encountered them? Last she’d seen a demon, he was anything but warm and squishy, and he sure hadn’t given a shit about how he’d presented his very evil wishes.
So huh on that.
And while Clyde was working on his verbal dissertation of wicked intent—she was going to hit it while she could. With the merest of squeaks, Delaney inched from the bed, landing on the foot that hadn’t gone numb and ignoring the shot of pain that rippled along her thigh.
She hurled herself at her dresser, blessedly close to the bed, threw open the top drawer, and let her fingers land on a geometrically shaped piece of glass there, blessed by a holy figure, and something she should probably think about making a necklace out of in the very near future.
Whirling around, she held it up under Clyde’s nose, her chest heaving with victory.
His head cocked to the left with obvious confusion. Wherever he’d chosen his human form from—maybe a magazine or an advertisement he’d seen hanging in the subway—she had to admit, he’d done good. He had this mad, sexy, geeky professor appeal. The glasses he wore screamed pocket protector-wearing president of his former high school’s chess club, and so did his haircut, but his granite cheekbones, his wide blue eyes with a healthy fringe of lashes, and his thickly corded neck hollered mancake.
But Delaney knew demons like whores knew a potential john. Trickery, deceit, lies; whatever it took to weave their deceptive webs were all familiar traits for a demon. And he was killa good at the innocent look.
His eyes squinted, drops of water forming in their corners. “Uh, could you put that down?”
Delaney inhaled a deep gulp of air. “Not on your life, er, unlife.”
“But it’s making my eyes water.”
How entertaining. A pansy-ass, whiny demon. “Boo-hoo.”
Clyde stuck a finger beneath the rim of his glasses, rubbing at his left eye. “What if I said please?”
Her eyes narrowed in his direction, her face screaming disdain. “I’d laugh and laugh, and then I’d tell you to shove it right up your demonic ass. I know why you’re here and the fuck I’ll take this lying down!” She shook the prism under his nose once more with a frantic flick of her wrist, like she was shaking a saltshaker over a piece of meat.
Clyde thwapped the air blindly at her hand without success. “I doubt there’s much you take lying down, but I have no clue what you mean when you say you won’t take whatever it is you’re supposedly taking lying down.” He paused, dragging his other hand across his temple. “What is that and why’s it making my eyes burn?” His face, now a summer radish’s shade of red, remained perplexed.
Ahhhh. If he’d been good at playing charming, he was even better at pretending to be a dimwit.
Delaney smiled coquettishly, the upward turn of her lips gleaming with menace. “Oh, stop, already. You know damned well what this is and why it’s burning your eyes, you ass-licking devil worshipper. Now here’s where the bullshit stops and we get down to the business at hand. I want you gone—ASAP. And if you think your eyes burn now, just wait until I get the Morton salt. I’ve got a box of it, you know—like, a Costco-sized box. Big—very big. The shit will fly, and I’ll fry you like I’m a short-order cook.” She moved in just a bit closer, swishing the prism while she went.
Clyde clenched his perfect white teeth together, his breathing becoming ragged, emphasized by the sharp lift and drop of her pink bathrobe on his shoulders. “I think it’s worth mentioning, I’ve been nothing but nice about this. The least you can do is hear me out.”
Delaney drew the prism but a hairsbreadth from his cheek. If she merely grazed him with it, she’d burn him, and, while she was all about ditching this dude, she hated what it took to rid yourself of a demonic presence. It was always so violent, and sometimes very, very messy. She didn’t have much experience in it, but if what she’d figured out about him was true, that he was a noob, he shouldn’t be too difficult to expel. “I think it’s worth mentioning that I’ve been nothing but nice, too. I did sacrifice Ghost Whisperer , not to mention the eight hundred bucks you cost me to hear you out. And I let you nab my favorite Friday night ensemble while I did it. And now I find you don’t need to cross over to anything. Your crossing days are ovah, pal, aren’t they?”
Clyde’s body grew rigid, patches of ugly crimson scurrying up his long torso while he fought to maintain his human form. “I don’t know what crossing over is. I just know I need you to lisss—li—sssssten!” he hissed while the ugly transformation of his real form began to emerge.
But no amount of scales and forked tongues was all that big of a thang for her.
Not a lot, anyway. She’d seen some heinous shit—she’d probably see more before all was said and done.
Delaney moved in just a smidge closer, refusing to acknowledge the pain she knew he was in. “Pay attention, Lucifer lover. The listening part of this conversation is over. It’s time for you to go,” she whispered with a harsh spit in his face.
“But I can’t go.”
“But you can, and you will.”
“If you’d just—”
“Zip. It.”
“But—”
Again she whirled the prism at him. “Pffft! I said shut up and get the fuck out—nooooow!” she howled all loud and screechy for effect, fighting a grin.
Clyde backed up, using his arms to push him up over the bed and against the pile of pillows. The veins in his neck popped out, his fingers clenched the sheets with a tight, white-knuckled grip, perspiration began to drench his disappearing, sleekly dark hair. Each word he spoke was from between a locked jaw and clenched teeth. “If you’ll just listen to me, I—can—explain,” he gritted out, harsh and panting.
“Oh, the hell, you fucking Hades-loving groupie. Now get out!”
The dogs began to whine collectively, yet they didn’t move to her aid at the end of the bed, where she was swinging the prism in wild arcs. Instead, they all, every last mutinous one of them, plastered themselves against Clyde’s hard body. Her blind dog had managed to stumble nearer to Clyde, burrowing his head against the width of his now scaly chest and whimpering.
Well, that was just fucking that. The Dog Whisperer’s book was totally going back to the bookstore. She’d spent twenty bucks on a book that was supposed to inspire obedience, yet her pack had turned on her because of just one brawny man? A demon man at that. Cesar was totally getting hate mail from her—right after she got rid of the demon.
“Delaney—pleassssse, just lisssssten!” he growled with a rasp, a poke of his forked tongue slipping from his lips. Then he doubled over, bending at his lean waist to clutch his abdomen.
His grip on the sheets began to loosen; his hold on this plane began to wan. Which meant he was a lesser demon. Any demon worth his weight in fire and brimstone wouldn’t be as troubled by a little old prism as Clyde was.
And that gave her an advantage she sorely needed.
Delaney crawled to the very tip of the bed, holding the prism high above her head while the dogs howled their discontent, drowning out the sound of the TV. “Get—out—of—my—house!” she roared. The frustration that had begun to well in her chest over losing her rent, coupled with the incredible disturbance he’d created for a perfectly good Friday night, finally spilled out from her throat in harsh gasps.
Plus, the carrying on made for überdrama and maybe that just might make Clyde understand exactly whom he was fucking with.
Clyde’s head arched backward, his lips pulling back from his teeth in a howl of agony as his form shimmered with a quiver and a buzzing sound that made the dogs’ frantic squeals escalate zinged through her tiny bedroom.
And then he was gone with nothing but a pink lump of comfy, Friday night bathrobe left in his place.
Jesus Christ in a miniskirt.
She yawned.
What a wuss.
But her thoughts turned to what Clyde had said about taking her back to Hell with him.
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Lucifer had promised someday he’d come calling.
Dude obviously didn’t front.
The tinkle of the bell on her door had Delaney rushing to the front of her now darkened store so the dogs wouldn’t bark. She ran smack into her brother Kellen’s solid chest. Delaney gave him a hard hug around his waist, inhaling his scent while the puppies all vied for his attention, jumping and scratching at his ankles and knees.
Kellen kissed the top of her head, tilting her chin upward. His eyes, hazel like hers, held that worried look he always had when it came to Delaney and the supernatural cards she’d been dealt. “You okay?”
She jerked her chin away from his fingers, laying her cheek on his shoulder and letting her nose bury itself in the cool leather of his black jacket. “I’m fine, Kellen,” she muttered, her words muffled by his coat. Now that Clyde’s dust had settled, she found herself a little worried. Not so much that she was breaking out the Bible and holy water, but enough that she was on alert. “I’m not hurt or anything, but I’m definitely very, very . . . aware.”
He set her from him, taking her by the hand and leading her to her couch. “Sit. You want me to make you some of that tea that smells like an elephant’s ass? It seems to calm you.” Kellen kneeled down in front of her, letting the dogs pile onto his lap.
Delaney chuckled, pulling a pillow to her chest and squeezing it tight while three of the dogs leaped up beside her. “Nah, I’m fine, really. He was a noob, I suspect. Didn’t even have the nads to fight off something as lame as a prism. I just figured I’d better give you the heads-up that Lucifer’d sent a calling card.” She’d called Kellen as a warning. If strange shit began to happen, it was imperative that he be very careful.
Kellen pinned her with one of his concerned, big brother gazes, jamming his hands into his faded blue jeans. “So let’s begin at the beginning. What happened, and are you sure this Clyde’s a demon?”
She used the heel of her hand to massage her forehead, trying to ease the headache forming at her temples. “I know demon when I see demon. Well, okay, so at first I didn’t know he was a demon. He interrupted me during a séance I was performing. Seemed perfectly harmless, and you know how often that shit goes down with me. Someone’s always popping into my head or showing up uninvited. It’s the nature of the beast. I tried to get him to wait until I was done with the Dabrowskis, but he just couldn’t hold on to his britches. He was typical ghost MO. Pushy, demanding that I stop my world from turning just for him.”
“And?”
“And we played the spirit game. Well, again, sort of. I gotta tell you, Kellen, all I kept thinking the entire time I was communicating with him was that he seemed way too oriented on this plane. He wasn’t at all confused; nothing he said was mangled or mixed up the way it is for most who’re stuck between planes. In fact, we carried on a perfectly normal conversation about the dogs and why they don’t have names, yadda, yadda, yadda. I didn’t even get the weird goose bump vibe I get when a demon shows up during a crossing. And do you think the medium in me might have found that at least a little out of the ordinary? No, instead the outgoing tard spirit lover in me who just wants world peace reigned supreme. I was all Miss Manners.” Of all the stupidity . . . For all the years she’d dealt with the other side, that she hadn’t seen the demonic signs Clyde presented left her breathless and none too comfy with her ghostie alarm clock.
One of Kellen’s dark eyebrows rose, his brow wrinkling. “So what tipped you off that he was a demon?”
Her lips formed a thin line of anger in hindsight. “That he was able to move physical matter made me suspicious. When I came out of the bathroom, he was wearing my pink bathrobe.”
Kellen snorted, his nostrils flaring, his lips flashing an amused smile. “Your bathrobe? Huh. Seems harmless enough. Maybe you’re just panicked over nothing. Maybe he’s just one of those ‘looking for a good time’ demons you’re always talking about. The ones who just like screwing with people versus possessing them or wreaking havoc.”
The inhalation of breath Delaney took shuddered. She shook her head. “Nope. He was very clear. He said I was supposed to come with him to Hell.”
Kellen’s intake of breath was crisp. “Jesus Christ . . .” he muttered. “So how’d you get rid of him?”
She let go of the pillow and grabbed a dog. While Clyde hadn’t been terribly frightening, she had a bad feeling in her gut this was just the beginning of things to come. No demon could just whack you and drag you back to Hell. They had to win you with a contract. It was simple, really. Minions from Hell preyed on the weak. Mostly those who had no sense of self-worth or those whose moral barometers were so skewed that even if a demon didn’t come along and strike a bargain with them, most likely they’d end up in Hell all on their own anyway.
Then a contract was drawn up, and typically that contract benefited the contracted for a time, and then—wham—the fine print in that binding contract came along and doused you with a bucket of cold water. Demons were masters of deceit—if you told one you had a headache, he’d offer to fix it, and while you’re all thinking aspirin and soothing gel eye packs, he whacks your head off.
“That’s the strange part. How I got rid of him, I mean. All it took was me waving a prism that had been blessed under his nose and he was writhing in pain. Which means he’s a weak demon—or a new one. So why the fuck would Lucifer send a noob? I’m no lightweight in the spirit world. I know spirits who can protect me—at least for a little while, anyway.”
Kellen rose from his place on the floor, heaving her overweight pooch over his shoulder like a toddler, stroking his back. “So you think this has to do with Vincent?”
Delaney hauled her three-legged fur baby up into her lap and held him to her chest, burrowing her face in his neck, gulping to fight back her fears. “Well, when was the last time someone threatened to see me in Hell?”
Kellen’s nod was curt as he put the dog back on the floor and scooped up another. “When the shit went down with Vincent.” His tone was solemn, much the way it always was when they even vaguely touched upon what had happened just a month shy of fifteen years ago. The day she’d been handed this gift to yammer with people no one else could see but her.
A day so horrible, neither she nor Kellen had been able to take it out of its Pandora’s box and discuss it at length. Not in nearly fifteen years.
Her eyes instantly began to water, but she brushed at the corners of them impatiently. “Right. So would you do me a favor tonight?” Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have been much bothered by the expulsion of a demon. But those were random demons, few and far between. Clyde had been sent for her. Of all the demons she’d encountered in fifteen years, no one had ever come with a specific intent like that. So having another presence in the house, for all the good it’d do her, brought reassurance. False, but a modicum of security, anyway.
Kellen pointed to where she sat and grinned that disarming, charming grin that made women want to mother him. “Couch?”
Delaney nodded with a distant smile, pulling the sweater she’d thrown on closer to her chest to thwart the chills racing along her arms. “Hope you packed fresh man-panties. Do you mind?”
He returned her smile and winked. “Only if you promise to let me sleep with the one-eyed monster. There’s nothing like waking up to his googly-eyed, vacant stare while he breathes his stench on me.”
Delaney held out her hand, and Kellen took it, giving it a supportive squeeze. “Just tonight or at least until I can get in touch with Marcella. I’m not overly worried, because this Clyde was as lame as they get, but just for safety’s sake.”
Kellen’s eyes narrowed, glittering with his dislike for her friend Marcella Acosta. “Was she too busy fighting the bowels of Hell to bother to answer her demon hotline tonight?”
Delaney clucked her tongue in his direction, setting her three-legged wonder aside with a loving pat to the head and rising with a stretch of her arms. “I wouldn’t go knocking the on
ly connection I have to all things demonic, were I you, big brother. Marcella’s helped me more times than I can count. Do you have any idea the kind of help she can be when a demon possesses a lost spirit and is preventing me from crossing them? Not only that, but she’s kept hundreds of those very spirits from making a very bad eternal decision. And you know what I always say—one less freaky-deaky demon in the world is one less future possession in the making. Now get off her ass and lighten up. And no, I couldn’t get in touch with her. So lay off already.” With a finger, she pointed down at her blind dog, snapping her fingers so he’d know to follow her. “Punkin, come with Mommy—it’s time for your insulin.”
She trotted off to the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief that Kellen had agreed to stay. His beef with Marcella was valid on some levels. She was a demon. But she was a demon who’d made a very bad decision based on foolish emotion versus practicality.
Shit happened.
Marcella had spent a butt-assed long time trying to make it right on this plane. Not that it would ever do her any good. She’d turned her nose up at the Big Kahuna. Major bad juju. That wasn’t something you could ever take back, but take it back she tried each time she helped Delaney convince someone that the demon who had showed up at a crossing—as some occasionally did—and was offering them riches beyond compare and a sea of tanned, toned, naked twenty-year-olds as far as the eye could see, was all just bullshit. You might see tanned, toned twenty-year-olds, but they’d have scales, or snakes writhing on their heads.
No one knew that better than Marcella, and Delaney was grateful for her—even if Kellen thought she was a turbo bitch with an agenda that still remained unapparent to Delaney after ten years of friendship.
She’d be bitchy, too, if what Marcella said about what her demon form really looked like was true. Scales and horns and the like were so far from Marcella’s gorgeous human form. That alone was a good reason to be pissed off.
In Delaney’s opinion, Marcella’d been ripped off, and now she had no hope of redemption. Choosing sides when you left this Earth, and having no guidance from someone like Delaney—especially if you waffled at the wrong moment—was a scary prop.
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