Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series
Page 48
“Sorry. I got into a conversation with a guy in the parking lot at Rooster’s. He scared the shit out of me.” She turned right toward the newest building and scanned her mirror again. He was still there, following closely.
“Scared you how?”
“Well, he’d been eating there every night for the past few weeks. I didn’t notice at first because I don’t generally take orders out, but we got so backed up with one of the waitresses being out sick that I had to start clearing the counter. He came in every night when we opened and stayed until close. Never danced, never abandoned his table for more than a few minutes at a time. Spent a lot of time on his phone.”
“And he gave you the willies? Why? I thought you had a lot of repeat customers.”
“We do, but he was different.” She swung her car into its assigned space right beside the building’s path, motored down her window, and put her hand out to point to the visitor’s space on the other side of the lot. Claude nodded and backed his Jeep into it. Asshole. She hated people who could back into things. She couldn’t do that or parallel park, not even in her little convertible, and that thing was so low to the ground she felt a close, personal relationship with every rock she happened to drive over.
“Different how?” Ellery asked.
Gail put the window back up and killed the ignition. “For one thing, in a room filled with good ol’ boys, you’d notice the man who … well, isn’t one.”
“And?”
“Second, he seemed to have a purpose there. He wasn’t people-watching like some people come to do, and he never seemed like he was waiting for anyone. He was too comfortable. I started thinking maybe Shaun sent another one of those investigators out to watch me.”
“But that wouldn’t make any sense. The divorce is final now. It’s not like you have any new dirt on him, do you?”
“No, I don’t, and I’m legally gagged from speaking publicly about what I do know about that Ponzi scheme he tried before he took the city manager job, but that’s where my mind went. When it was time to close tonight and I’d walked out into the parking lot, the guy came out from the side of the building. I had my earbuds in as always, so I ignored him and walked faster, but I could hear his footsteps getting closer behind me.”
The knock on the window at Gail’s left made her startle and clutch her chest. She whipped her head around to see a grinning Claude holding up a bottle of Bombay Sapphire.
She swallowed down her nerves and nodded at him. She mouthed, “It’s my sister. Give me a sec.”
He gave her a thumbs-up, walked to the building’s exterior stairway, and sat. He set the bottle between his sneaker-shod feet and wrested his own phone from his plaid shirt’s pocket. Looking at him now, she didn’t know how she could have thought he was dangerous. He seemed far too at ease with his circumstances, relaxed, as if he had nothing planned that would require his vigilance.
With the locked car door and a sidewalk between them, she could appreciate a bit more just how stupidly attractive he was. “Approachable handsomeness” would have been a good way to put it, even with his wrinkled clothes and untidy hair. It looked to have not seen a comb in a couple of days. The look suited him, though, as did the blue eyes. Genetics were such an odd thing. She wondered what else he had in the mix beyond Haitian.
“Gail, you there?” Ellery asked. She must have been near the nurse’s station now, because Gail could hear Ellery’s favorite coworker barking orders to some poor orderly in the background.
“I’m here. Look, I gotta go. He’s waiting on me.”
“Wait, wait, wait! Don’t you dare end this call and leave me on the lurch. You skipped from C all the way to Z, and I want you to go back and tell me all the letters in between.”
“You’re going to get in trouble. You should be working.”
“Manager’s not here yet, so spill it quick.”
“Okay, well, to make a long story short—” Ellery didn’t really need to know about that pitiful little scuffle in the parking lot. She’d make her big sister buy a Taser or something. Who was she kidding with that pepper spray? “He’s like us.”
“Meaning what? Lactose intolerant?”
“A witch, you strumpet.”
“Squash that noise. You’re shitting me.”
“I’m not. He’s waiting to get into my apartment now, and I’m going to go talk to him. I want to find out what he’s about.”
“No, no, no. Nope. We don’t do that. Send him away and tell him to come back another day when you have a chaperone.”
Gail laughed, and could imagine Ellery’s typically stoic face turning red with anger on the other end of the connection. The poor woman’s eyes must have been bulging. “Um, you know what? Not this time. You’re just going to have to trust me on this. I don’t think he’s going to hurt me, and I’m curious about him.”
“You don’t think he’s going to hurt you?” Ellery’s voice careened to a stratospheric pitch. If she kept that up, she’d pop a vocal cord.
“Hey, remember that I’m older than you by almost a year. I’m the trailblazer for doing stupid shit that you can learn from and not repeat. Or do repeat.”
“Don’t have sex with him.”
Gail laughed again, and stabbed her seatbelt release with her thumb. “Hey, if he’s single, which I doubt, I probably will. Wait. Let me take a picture of him.” She pressed her phone’s camera against the windshield, with Ellery yapping all the while, and sneaked a shot. She sent it to her sister and put the phone back to her ear.
“I can’t believe you’d be flippant about such a thing. Wait, what’s that? Did you send me something? Hold on.”
She must have pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at the screen, because a moment later, she said, “He’s a bum! And I can’t even see his face. And do you not watch the news? Women get abducted every day, and some are never again found. I’d really like for you to not be included in that statistic, especially if you’re just trying to squelch curiosity. Meet him at a library or something one day if you insist on knowing what he’s about.”
Gail rubbed her chin and gave Claude a little wave when he looked up. He returned a lopsided grin that could have set her poly-cotton-blend panties ablaze under the right climate conditions.
“Sweet Jesus.” Where’d he been all her life? All the male witches she knew personally, and there were only a few, were plain, mousy accountant types. Claude looked like he couldn’t balance his own checkbook, much less file taxes. “That’s okay, I’ll do it for you,” she whispered.
“Gail? You’re getting weird over there. Don’t do this to me. Oh, God.” Ellery wheezed, sputtered, and coughed. “Oh, God. Where’s my inhaler?”
Claude stood and wedged his phone into his shirt pocket. Nice and tall. Gave her more to climb.
Screwing her eyes shut, she shook her head. All of a sudden, she felt like her brain had been swapped out for potted meat or scrapple or something.
This was just a meeting about witch stuff. That was all. “I’ll be careful. I promise. Good night, Ellery.”
Her sister blew an exaggerated sigh. “Call me during my break.”
“I will. If I’m not busy.”
“Busy doing what? Nope, never mind. Oh my God, my stomach is churning now. I might not make it through this shift.”
“You’re in a hospital. I’m almost positive you can find an antacid nearby. Bye.” Gail ended the call, grabbed her keys, and unlocked the door.
“Looked like your sister amuses you almost as much as my brothers amuse me,” Claude said. He swatted the dirt off his rear and bent for the gin bottle.
“Understatement. It’s in her nature to drive me a little nuts, so I’m rarely surprised at anything she says.” Gail crooked her thumb toward the staircase. “Third floor, rear. After you.”
He raised one eyebrow. “Don’t like having …” Whatever he was going to say fell off, and he fixed his stare on something to the right in the lot, way back toward the pond.
“Don’t like having what?” She gave his free hand a nudge, and he wrapped his hand around hers, seemingly reflexively.
When he moved his body around hers, blocking her view of the lot, and scanned the area, some of Ellery’s panic washed over her.
“Claude, what’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer for a long while, and when he turned, still holding her hand, his smile was grim. He slowly raised her hand to his lips.
At the press of his lips, tiny prickles danced up her arm, raising the fine hair there, and spread upward to her heart, her cheeks. Soon, every inch of her skin tingled from his attention, and it wasn’t panic she felt now, but calm.
She drew in a breath and leaned into him, pressing her forehead against his shoulder, and letting him wrap his arms around her as she swayed.
“What’d you do to me?”
“It’s one of my gifts. I can turn panic into pleasure. Helps when I need to diffuse a situation.”
“I think that was overkill.”
“I didn’t want you to be scared.”
“So, you did see something.”
“Don’t mind me. I was in the military for a while and saw some pretty nasty combat situations. I’m overly sensitive to sudden noises, and I’m sure it was just an animal. We’re rural enough for deer out here. Shall we go upstairs?”
She wasn’t sure if she really believed him—that his fright had been sparked by an overactive imagination—but if there really was something out there, they’d be better off indoors than out.
“Okay. Sure.” She didn’t bother teasing him with an after you this time, and just bounded up the stairs, her keys at the ready.
Claude was still on ground level by the time she made it up to the landing, and he was looking toward that sound he may or may not have heard again.
“Claude?”
“I’m coming.” He joined her at the landing and walked the remaining three flights of stairs at her side with his hand pressed to the small of her back.
That casual touch imparted a sense of calm, safety. She didn’t know if it was due to his magic again, or just his proximity in general, but she liked it. It’d been so long since she’d walked side by side with any man in this way. Shaun had always walked in front of her at his usual aggressive pace, or behind her, lagging while he pounded out one text message after another. At times she’d felt like they weren’t even a couple, or that perhaps her expectations were misaligned. That maybe she was trying to feel things that weren’t possible.
No. She felt it more now from a stranger whose name she’d known for an hour than she had in three years with her ex.
Something was very wrong—or very right. She didn’t know which, but as she slipped her key into the lock, she vowed to find out.
CHAPTER THREE
Claude stepped across the threshold into the quiet, air-conditioned living room and froze there on the doormat.
He could smell it. Brimstone and ozone. But whose? The scent was similar to the one his father left when he teleported out of a place, but somehow the signature was off. Besides, what would he have been doing there? Even if Papa had learned about Gail that quickly, he would have stayed put until he’d confronted her—or Claude.
This had to be someone else—someone who’d gotten too close to Gail, and probably for no good reason.
Gail gave him a little nudge. “Move, please. I don’t want to air condition the entire complex.”
“Sorry.” He moved farther into the room, only because the person who’d left evidence of the visit was no longer there. Claude would be able to feel him or her. If it’d been Papa, he wouldn’t have been able to get close without Claude knowing. That was part of the parent-child bond between demons and their spawn. Most of the time, Papa could psychically track his children and teleport to wherever they were. He did it all the time to his dozens of half-breed children who still toed the line and performed their assigned tasks. They were all incubi and succubi, including Claude, and they were supposed to be out seducing bodies and blackening souls.
Claude scoffed and scanned each corner of the small studio apartment.
Wanton, meaningless sex. He’d been sick of that for years, even before he’d known Laurette. Since he didn’t have to resort to intercourse to mark a soul, most of the time he’d do his job without his pants ever coming off. He’d never tell Charles or John, but the truth was Claude hadn’t gotten laid in about five years. The more years that passed, the more discriminating he became. Less desperate.
Most of his legion of siblings weren’t so picky, but lately he’d learned he wasn’t the only one so thoroughly plagued by discontent. He’d assumed that all cambions went dark almost immediately—that they got that taste of power and didn’t want to change. He’d thought Charles was the only other one fighting it. But it turned out there were many others like them, terrified of what they could become and worried that if they fully embraced their demonic sides, there’d be no turning back.
Gail turned on the lights in the small kitchen and paused in front of the counter. She pressed a flashing button on her cordless phone’s base, and when a man’s voice boomed through the speakers, she deleted it, mumbling, “Give up, fucker,” two words into the message: “Hi, Gail …”
She deleted the rest of the messages unheard and pulled the refrigerator door open. “You sure about that Cheerwine?”
Maybe she didn’t care about her voicemails, but his curiosity sure as shit was piqued. There were only a few types of people who got the delete-unheard treatment: telemarketers, bill collectors, and estranged family members. Somehow, she’d been conditioned to not even listen.
Interesting.
She put a fist on her hip and smirked. “If Cheerwine really won’t do it for you, I might have some Crystal Light packets left over from my last failed dieting effort.”
He eyed her from ankles to neck, admiring some parts longer than others. It was all quite nice, but there was something to be said about a woman with a cinched waist and generous hips. Those indentations above her hipbones were the perfect place to rest his hands as he …
Letting the thought flit away, he dragged his hand across his brow and took a deep breath. Fuck. She was going to have him hard as a flagpole and just as upright in under a minute, and he did not want to go there.
He leaned against the island, effectively hiding his arousal.
“I’m glad you failed,” he said. “I happen to like skin and bones, but only on my fried chicken.” He held up the bottle of gin. “Cheerwine. I won’t back out if you don’t.”
“Brave man. I like it,” she said with a chuckle, and pulled a two-liter bottle from the shelf.
No, not brave. Maybe a little reckless, but that wasn’t just in regards to soda. He set the gin bottle on the counter and stuffed his hands into his pockets, watching her flit about the kitchen. She pulled out an ice tray and glasses, and he pulled at the psychic tethers between him and his father. Maybe Papa would know who’d breached Gail’s space.
Papa wasn’t close. Not even a little close. Claude pushed his mental shield back up and watched her pour the dark red soda into the cups.
About fifty percent of his half-demon half-siblings had defected from the demonic ranks recently. Word about John’s act of rebellion had spread. People heard about how Charles, arguably Papa’s favorite son, had given the old demon a figurative fuck-you. He’d married a woman from a family known to be enemies to demons, and then taunted Papa about it. Just like Claude, Charles had run out of fucks to give.
And one by one, their siblings were giving up the jobs they’d done competently for so long, choosing to go into hiding instead of corrupting innocents for power. But a cambion couldn’t just walk away from his or he
r Hellish obligations. There wasn’t a contract that could be broken, no out clause. If they quit and were tracked down, they’d be killed. Defectors paid a high penance for choosing to be good—or, at least, better. There was no turning back for people from that side. Angels and minor gods could go “neutral” if they gave up their stations, but not demons.
He didn’t make the rules, but he damn sure tried to stay ahead of them.
“Why did you have a bottle of Bombay in your Jeep, anyway?” Gail pushed the glasses toward him, and he uncapped the bottle. “You seem more like a Wild Turkey kind of guy.”
She was insightful, but Laurette had been, too. A soul couldn’t just turn off the intuition it’d fought so hard to earn over eons.
“My brother-in-law left it in there the last time I gave him a lift. He’s got money to burn, so I doubt he misses it.”
“Brother-in-law, huh? Does that mean you have a sister in addition to the brothers you mentioned, or a wife with a brother?”
He managed to turn his back before he chuckled. He couldn’t put an exact figure on how many half-sisters he had, and he only spoke to three of the girls with any regularity—John’s full sisters.
“Don’t beat around the bush, chéri. No wife, no girlfriend. The woman I spend the most time with lately is my niece Ruby. She likes me far more than I deserve, and I must say, being someone’s favorite is nice. And yeah, this particular sister is married to a werewolf.” An alpha werewolf that turned downright vicious when it came to protecting his extended family, demons and all. Calvin Wolff had been instrumental in helping Claude, Charles, and John relocate their defecting siblings to safety. He’d taken time off from his busy baseball schedule to do it because it’d meant that much to his wife.
“You’re shitting me.”
He turned in time to see her shudder. “What’s wrong?”
“Witches and wolves don’t play nice. When wolves are around us, they go into some sort of vicious killing spree.”