Nope. Not even an inkling. Not with her tongue down Clyde’s throat she hadn’t. Bad medium. Bad. Bad. Which called for some defensive action on her part. Like deny, deny, deny. “Well, it wasn’t like I had time to assess the situation with you all up on me like that for reasons known only to you at the time.” Again, weak, but it was all she had in the way of justification for turning into a total ho. Lawd. She’d clung to a demon—a demon—like he was the last bottle of Saint-John’s-wort on the island. She was rattled—discombobulated—all shook up over a kiss. A demon’s kiss. The bowels of Hell were on their feet and cheering.
Clyde’s brow rose with a sardonic lift. “I’m sure that was it, and there was definitely a reason for that kiss. FYI, that demon was sent here to check up on me. I was just doing my job so he wouldn’t rat me out.”
What did his job have to do with kissing her? Her addled, hormone-driven brain was recovering in slow increments, though her lips still tingled and her heart still had an erratic moment or two. “I thought you were sent here to make me want to end it all.”
His expression said annoyed. “Here we are again.”
“Where are we again?”
“Doing that damned circle dance.”
“I thought we’d moved on to our finale—sort of like the last waltz?”
“Engelbert Humperdinck, 1968. And no, we’re not waltzing at all. We’re still circling each other.”
“How so?”
“Because there’s still more. But you’re always chasing me away with the threat of eyeball bleed before I can get you to listen. You never let me finish what I start.”
“That’s because you take light-years to get to the point, for Christ’s sake.”
He gave her a disapproving, sour look. “You take the Almighty’s name in vain a lot. Doesn’t that pose a problem for someone who’s shipping people upstairs? Aren’t you, like, a vessel of all things righteous?”
“I figure He’ll forgive me that small sin if I don’t do something way bigger. Like murder you. Besides, there’s no law that says mediums have the market cornered on Mother Teresa-ish behavior. I am only human, and this gift can be akin to waxing your bikini line sometimes. I’m hoping He’ll cut me some slack because of it.”
“Presumptuous much?”
“We’re getting off topic. We were circling another point at the airport. Land or I’m getting the prism. How is kissing me a part of this job you mentioned?” Because job well done. Bra-freakin’-vo.
The line of his mouth, so easily led to a smile, thinned again with a grim slant to it. “The assignment meant for Clyve was worse than you think, Delaney.”
“Uh, how much worse does it get than trying to get me to off myself?”
“Much worse. Well, worse in that the plan was to get you to do something else before you ended your life.”
“I can’t even imagine what’s left after suicide. Murder, maybe? Serial killing?”
“Okay, you’re right, that probably tops suicide. Definitely commandment breakers.”
Her hand slid to the back of her neck to massage it. The day was only a few hours old, but it felt like they’d been getting to this point for an eternity. Add in that kiss and she was ass fried. “Clyde? Heads up. I think my patience has worn thin. We’ve been around the block and back again and while I get your dilemma, we really need to wrap this up. Put it in the can, so to speak. Lay this shit to rest so I can get on with the business of living. So if you have any compassion at all for this weary medium, tell me what else there is and why it had to include macking on me.” Because the macking was some of the best she’d ever experienced and while she’d like to chalk that up to her irresistibility, she knew she’d only be conning herself. There’d been a purpose for that kiss. Clyde’s face had it written all over it in black and white.
He smiled, the grin spreading from one end of his face to the other. “Me.”
“You?”
“Me. I’m what else there is.”
Delaney’s response was dry, her defeat evident. “I don’t know if anyone ever told you this while you were alive, Clyde, but you’re the most infuriating man I’ve ever known.”
He smirked, though clearly from his tone he didn’t harbor any resentments. “There was Tia. She said my lack of focus on anything else but my work was sometimes infuriating, if that makes you feel less alone.”
Tia. There was a Tia. That’s right—he’d mentioned a Tia. Who was Tia? Why should she care who Tia was? Did he kiss Tia like he’d kissed her? Kee-rist. “Good to know. Now quit with the unsolved mysteries and tell me ‘what else there is’ means and how that had to involve your lips on mine. Please, before the devil gets his way and I OD on green tea or something.”
“I had to kiss you.”
“Because?”
“Because that’s what lovers do.”
Just the thought made her shiver. Lovers. Oh, Gawd. If she didn’t go to Hell with the help of some demon, she was going there for even thinking about them in a very nonbiblical sense—like the limbs-all-tangled sense—like the sweat gluing their naked bodies together from the motion of the ocean sense—like . . . “How’d we get all carnal in the space of a mere twenty-four hours?”
“We didn’t. Not literally speaking—just figuratively.”
Around and around they went. “We figuratively were lovers, and I missed it? Damn. You know what? I hate when that happens. I haven’t figuratively boinked anyone in forevah and when I do, I, like, sleep through it. I. Suck.”
Clyde gave her another smart-assed grin. “I mean, I wanted that demon to think we were lovers, but we’re really just lovers on a figurative level.”
“I’m lost. You play the guide role this time.”
“That demon was sent to check up on me. I kissed you so he’d think we’re involved.”
“And the reason for that is . . . ?”
“Because I’m your new boyfriend.”
Tight.
Look at the medium all gettin’ herself a main squeeze without even trying after all these dry, dry years.
Way. To. Score.
seven
“You know what talking to you is like, Clyde?”
“No, what?”
“It’s like going through one of those corn mazes at Halloween. You know, the ones you go to to humor your stupid college friends, but you really just want to get the fuck out of because it’s time wasted that you could have spent having bamboo stuck under your nails—yet you keep wandering in and out of rows of corn because you’re lost and you have no choice but to keep wandering aimlessly ’cause if you don’t, you’ll never frickin’ get to the end?”
“I’ve never been in a corn maze, so I can’t say,” he said with all seriousness.
Delaney fought back the scream she wanted to shout. Instead, she stuffed her fist in her mouth while she composed herself. “That’s not the point! The point is, you take forever to get to it—the point, that is—and when you do, it makes no sense to me at all. How did you go from handing me some information about me directly from Hell to being my boyfriend?” Because for real, if that was all it took . . .
Clyde’s sigh was one of a man dealing with a small child—fighting to keep his patience, but coming close to taking her Fruit Roll-Up away. “The man who just came into your store was a demon—one you didn’t recognize. He was checking up on me, and I guarantee it’ll happen again. The worst part of this assignment was what Clyve had to do to get you to agree to sign a contract with the devil.”
There was more. Foreboding skittered along her spine. “I thought the plan was to get me to hack a vein.”
Clyde grimaced. “It was how he was going to do it that’s the most fucked-up part in all of this, and excuse my foul language, but that’s just what it is—fucked up. And it’s also why I kissed you.”
Her stomach turned, tying her intestines into knots. Dread called her name to stop, but she’d come this far, she may as well not stop now. “How was he going to do it?”
Ludicrous, that’s what that notion was. “And he was going to do that how? Even if I’m a little off my game today, and I missed this demon, I know a malicious entity. I can feel them. So how did he plan to make me hot for him when I get the skeeves just breathing the same air?”
Clyde ran a hand over his short hair with an open hand. “I’m guessing there are much bigger fish to fry than the demons you’ve come across so far. Clyve was assigned to you because he’s capable of some huge deceit, and his experience with those who possess a sixth sense, or are mediums as you call yourself, is renowned in Hell. I’m guessing there are some demons that can get past this antenna of yours—you’ve just been lucky till now. Clyve was, for lack of a better word, a sociopath. A real prick without a conscience. He was made for an assignment like this, Delaney. Satan said to step up the game where you were concerned—he was doing that by sending Clyve in to win your trust, your heart. I was pretending to be Clyve when our demon spy dropped in. To do that I had to behave as though we were becoming romantically involved. He’ll go back to Hell and tell the level boss I’m right on track. That’s what we want.”
Sweet, fancy Moses. “So Clyve was supposed to be like some kind of love decoy?”
“Love. Or the promise of it.”
That stopped her cold. It was the one thing she knew she might never achieve because of her ability to talk to people no one else could see. Love. Children. Cookies and milk. Crock-Pot dinners. Soccer games and tutus. And Satan wanted to mock her for it. Fucktard. “Okay. Give me the details and don’t stop until you’ve told me everything.”
Clyde’s face darkened, and that told her she wasn’t going to like hearing the details. He moved the chair, motioning her to sit. “Please, sit. I’m just going to get this all off my chest at once, okay? Do me a favor and don’t stop me until I have. It’s enough I’ve been carrying this shit around with me, feeling as crappy as I have about it, but I have to just say it—and then we’ll attack, okay?”
Delaney nodded, mute and slow, backing up to the chair, grateful for the support it gave her. She just wanted this over with. “Okay, I’m ready. Just say it.”
Clyde stood in front of her, ridiculously handsome in the throw still wrapped around his chest. “Clyve’s assignment was to come here and make you fall in love with him, Delaney. Fall in love with him, and then he’d promise you all the things couples promise each other when they fall in love—children, white picket fences, whatever it is that couples want to share when they commit. Then Clyve was supposed to either drive you to hurt yourself or make you an offer to sign a contract with him to keep him from some kind of harm. If you know anything about Satan, you don’t ever want to sign a contract with him because there’s always some loophole that’ll leave your neck on the block. I don’t know the exact details of the assignment—I only skimmed the files. What I do know is he wanted you wrecked emotionally. In Satan’s mind, a relationship, children, are the one thing you’ve always wanted, but can’t seem to find due to your gift. You said as much yourself when you talked about your last date and your dogs. It’s your Achilles’ heel—a weakness in an otherwise strong resistance to Lucifer. A resistance he wants to come to an end. He wanted you so broken at the idea of losing something you were so close to but yet so far from, that you’d do anything to keep it. What you might do as a result of that kind of emotional turmoil was left open-ended.”
The air in her lungs evaporated. She felt naked, exposed. If she had a moment alone, she’d break things. As many things as she could possibly touch. Things that would shatter into thousands of pieces with satisfyingly obliterating crashes to her floor. Her cheeks grew scarlet, first with humiliation that Lucifer had her deepest desires so rightly nailed, then with infuriated, flaming anger that he was preying on the one thing in the world she might never find with someone as long as she had this gift and his threat hanging over her head. Love, a family, and yes, children.
And no, she didn’t need an episode of Oprah to tell her that beyond her love for animals, and her hatred of any kind of suffering, she adopted pets with no futures because by nature, she was a nurturer—she needed to be needed. So she filled up her longing for children with pets who wore BeDazzled diapers and had missing parts. That Satan was trying to make her feel pathetic because she wanted something that was so simple made him a sorry piece of shit.
If she had something breakable on hand, she’d hurl it.
But the luxury of ravaging a pantry full of dishes wasn’t something she was going to be afforded right now. Not with Clyde here to witness it. Not with the possibility that he might still be full of crap and he’d skip on off to Lucifer with maniacal glee in his black heart.
Clyde spoke her name, deep and low. His tone held pity, and that was something she just wasn’t into. “Delaney?”
She turned away from him, letting her hair fall around her face. “Don’t say anything, Clyde, okay? Don’t apologize anymore. Don’t rationalize. Just go do what you have to, and let me figure this out.”
The timbre of his voice was deep, his words sober. “I’m sorry, Delaney. There really wasn’t any other way to tell you.”
True that. “I know. So thanks for telling me all of it. That was all of it, wasn’t it?”
“That’s everything I know.”
Her gut tightened. Wasn’t that enough? “Hookay, then. Like I said before, we’re golden; and obviously I have some stuff I’m going to have to deal with. So you go deal with your stuff and I’ll deal with mine. Free and clear, okay? No more prisms and salt and whatever else I have in my bag of tricks. Promise.”
He shook his head. “No. While I appreciate the fact that you won’t be burning my eyeballs at the stake, I’m not going anywhere. And if you’ll just skip the histrionics, I’ll tell you why.”
She had no histrionics left in her. What she did have—or at least needed—was a plan. Lucifer had sent in what he thought was a serious player to make good on his longtime threat to punish her.
Delaney closed her eyes to stave off the gruesome memory of a rainy night long ago—and Vincent. Simply thinking his name made her skin crawl. She’d stolen something from Vincent that Satan thought was rightfully his—and he wanted it back. Yet, to this day, she still didn’t understand what she’d stolen. And why did he want revenge now? What had taken him so long to come calling?
Clyde’s arrival meant one way or the other, she and Satan were bound to mix it up—soon. “But I can’t help you. You’re not stuck here. My job is to cross you over. I can’t cross what isn’t available for crossing.”
“But I do want to cross,” was his bullish reply.
“Tell me something, Clyde.”
“Okay.”
“Do you see a light—like, anywhere? And I’m not talking like football stadium lights, maybe just a dim light far off in the distance? Or maybe a lab filled with every desirable item for a brainiac like yourself, maybe?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then my job here is done. If you don’t see anything that even remotely looks like something you’d consider your eternal paradise, I really can’t help. And I’m sorry, but that’s just how it goes.”
“But you can help me. Don’t forget why I’m supposedly here. To win your heart, remember?”
Her stomach sank again. “Well, that’s not happening.” Not even to keep Hell’s minions at bay. Not even. That was a game she just couldn’t play.
“Again, maybe not literally, but we can shoot for the figurative. We’ll just pretend.”
Which was probably about as close to a committed relationship as she was getting. “So play house?”
“That’s right. Look, Delaney, I’m being watched. I’ve been here a whole day and my level boss has already sent in someone to check up on me. I have to, for all outward appearances, make like we’re—we’re—you know . . .”
“Hooking up.”
Clyde’s brow furrowed again. �
�Yeah. That. Besides, I have nowhere else to go.”
“And this benefits me how, Clyde? I’m not seeing what I’ll be getting out of this but another body taking up my limited space.”
“I’ll look out for you.”
Delaney barked a skeptical laugh then covered her mouth with her hand. She didn’t want to openly debase his manhood, but hellloooo—he had been secured in duct tape by a woman who hated to even chip a nail. “Look out for me? How do you suppose you’re going to do that? With your one fireball? You’re a one-trick pony, my friend.”
“Maybe. But might I point out, it was just me who spotted the demon, wasn’t it? Before you, all knowing and all seeing, I might add,” he volleyed back.
“Smug much? Yes, you spotted the demon, but like I said, my radar’s all wonky. I was distracted. It’ll get better if you go away.”
“I just can’t do that. I know my motives aren’t totally altruistic. I do have an investment in this, like covering my own ass, but I don’t want anyone hurt while I do it. You need someone to look out for you, and maybe I’m not exactly the best demon, but that should just prove to you that I shouldn’t be a demon to begin with. Now that I’ve told you everything, I can’t just leave you all alone to fend off demons who’re much bigger than I’ll ever be. So how about we strike up a deal? You let me stay here, and I’ll keep whoever my level boss sends in to check up on me from getting to you until we can figure out what to do.”
“Why can’t you just go back to wherever it is you go when you disappear?”
Clyde gave her another grim glance. “Do you have any idea what that place is like? It’s just a prettier version of Hell. Lots and lots of doomed souls wandering around, crying, bemoaning their fates, and wringing their hands. Best I can figure is it’s some sort of holding room—or plane, as you call it—for those who’ve led questionable lives. Very depressing. You don’t want me to be depressed, do you?” He flashed her a grin—one that made her pulse jump. “Aren’t you all about spiritual wellness? My spirit would be sucking wind in that place. And besides, for some reason, I couldn’t keep myself there—I kept ending up back here.” He pointed to the ground by his bare feet.
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