“I’m not giving up,” I said savagely. “I
will
find a way to beat her.”
He let go of my hands. “Don’t you care at all about me?”
“About
you
?” Typical, arrogant William! “How is this about you?”
“Because you’ve made me care about you!” His angry expression softened. “And now that I…”
He was about to say the ‘L’ word, I just knew it. I held my breath.
“…that I have grown
fond
of you…”
I sighed, disappointed.
“…I can’t bear the idea of losing you.” He cupped my face in his hands. “If you care about me, then promise you won’t defy Helen.” He kissed me softly.
I broke off our kiss. “I can’t promise that.”
“You foolish, stubborn woman!” He jumped off the bed. “You’ve won your daughter’s freedom. Consider that good enough and move on!”
“You don’t understand! I saved Grace, but now Helen is forcing me to get…”
Drinking Tea let out a bloodcurdling yowl and raced into the room. A moment later, something scampered onto the bed and leapt upon my back.
I shrieked in alarm. In the mirror above the vanity, I saw a blue, lizard-like creature clinging to my shoulders. Pinpricks of pain stabbed me as the thing’s talons dug into my skin. I tried to bat it away. “Get it off! Get it off!!”
William yanked on the creature, but its nails were fastened to my silk blouse. He had to remove it one clawed foot at a time.
“Hurry,” I begged.
When William freed the creature from my blouse, he pinned it tightly behind the head so he wouldn’t get bitten. “It’s a minor demon,” he told me. The creature’s forked tail thrashed madly, and its globular eyes bulged with outraged. It hissed, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth.
I shrank away from it. “Did Helen send it after me?”
William laughed. “I doubt it. This thing is more like a puppy than a berserker. It probably saw a doorway and got curious.” He rubbed its head, making the little monster hiss again. “Although, they’re generally attracted to
new
doorways, not old ones.”
“There
is
a new doorway,” I said.
I dragged him to the living room. In the time since I’d last checked, the door had grown to full size. William frowned and looked around the room. “There’s your problem.” He pointed to the TV. “You blocked the old door, so a new one opened up. You can’t get rid of doorways simply by putting things in front of them.”
Terrific. Now my apartment had three doorways to Hell instead of two.
I eyed the new doorway suspiciously. “What if something else comes through there?”
William shrugged. “Just shove it back.”
The demon in William’s hands continued to hiss and writhe. “What do we do with that thing?” I asked.
“We could drown it I suppose.” William put the creature’s face dangerously close to his own and laughed when it snapped at him. “But I think I’ll keep it.”
“Are you
kidding
me?” I asked.
“You said I needed a pet.”
“A
cat
, William! Not a demon.”
“She’ll be good company.”
“How do you know it’s a her?”
“My incubus always knows when he’s in the presence of a lady.” He stroked the thing’s leathery back. It drooped in his hands.
I risked coming closer. “Is it falling asleep?”
“I think it may be dying!” He hustled through the otherworld doorway, and I followed him. Almost immediately, the creature perked up. Its pointed ears lifted, and it blinked. “It must be a very young demon,” William said. “The very young ones and the very old ones can’t survive in the human realm for very long.”
I tried touching its head with the tip of my finger, but it snapped at me, and I jerked back. “What about other demons?”
“Neither demons nor angels can stay on Earth for extended periods. Even our demons are weaker on this side of the doorways. “ So that explained why my succubus was so much stronger when we were in Hell. “It takes a surprising amount of energy for you and I to sustain our demons,” he continued. “Which is why we can eat whatever we want without gaining an ounce.”
As far as I was concerned, that was the
only
benefit of working for Helen.
William smiled at the small demon. “So do you mind if I take her? I mean, if you want to keep her, she’s technically yours.”
I held up my hands and backed away. “Please, be my guest.”
“Thank you.” He kissed my cheek. “Happy birthday, Lil,” he said, then walked away, murmuring to his new best friend.
The next morning, I awoke to the sound of cupboard doors slamming. Putting on my robe, I headed into the kitchen and found Jasmine attempting to make coffee. Paper filters, measuring spoons, and a spilled bag of coffee beans covered the countertop. Both taps to the kitchen sink were turned full on, overfilling the glass carafe sitting beneath the flowing water.
It wasn’t even seven. Normally, Jas didn’t get up before noon. “Did you go to bed last night?” I asked. Back when she’d been hitting the clubs, Jasmine wouldn’t go to sleep until the sun rose. It had been like living with a vampire.
“I have a second job interview today,” she snapped. She opened another cupboard. “Why can’t you buy ground coffee like a normal person? I can’t find the grinder anywhere.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re upset?”
“Tommy and I had another fight last night.” Jasmine huffed in annoyance. “I swear that’s all we do anymore.”
“Take a seat. I’ll make the coffee.” I turned off the water, found the grinder, added the beans, and started up the machine. “What was it this time?” I had to raise my voice to be heard above the racket.
“After the party yesterday, I dropped Tommy off at Metro Ink and finally saw that stupid couch he’s been sleeping on. The thing’s a piece of junk, and it’s giving him a terrible backache.”
Poor Tommy. As if he wasn’t in enough pain already. “Tell him to come back here.”
“Thank you, Queen Obvious, because I never thought of that.” She glared at me. “He won’t do it. Not even when I promised we’d leave him alone. I told him he was being ridiculous, and then he said I needed to relax, and well… ” She pressed her lips together.
I poured the ground coffee into the maker and added water. “Evelyn offered to let him stay there.”
“You saw how Daddy acted yesterday. I don’t think he’s up for company right now.”
Good point.
After Tommy’s heroic crossing of three continents to save Jasmine from a disastrous engagement, I’d hoped he and my stepsister would have a fairytale, happily-ever-after kind of ending. It broke my heart to see that wasn’t happening.
While Jasmine brooded, I poured two cups of coffee. “He probably needs some time to get his head straight. After all, he’s been through a lot lately.”
She bit her lower lip. “You know what I think?” She raised her miserable eyes to meet mine. “I think he’s still in love with you.”
“Jas, he was
never
in love with me!” We’d slept together only because Helen had ordered it, and because my succubus was very good at her job. As much as I wanted to reassure Jas, however, I couldn’t give away my secret. I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “He loves you Jas. I know he does. Just give it some time.”
Ariel came into the kitchen. She was already dressed, which surprised me because there was no basketball camp on Mondays. “You’re still in your robe,” she said, stricken. “We need to leave.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To get my ears pierced!”
I reminded her Metro Ink didn’t open until ten.
“Ten!” Ari flung herself into a chair. “That’s, like, forever.”
“Get used to disappointment,” Jasmine said, “because life is full of it.” She stared at her coffee mug. “Once you get your ears pierced, you’re going to find this perfect pair of earrings. You’ll want those earrings more than anything else in the world because they’re so amazing. They’ll have this beautiful spirit, and you’ll feel like you’ll
die
if you can’t wear them all the time. But then someone will steal those earrings away from you, and you’ll be forced to watch her wear them every day while you’ve got nothing.”
I cringed. “Maybe that woman knows stealing those earrings was a huge mistake. Maybe she’s really, really sorry, and she’s trying hard to give those earrings back.”
“Give them back? She shouldn’t have taken them in the first place!” Jasmine clenched her mug with both hands.
Ariel’s eyes traveled from me to Jasmine and back again.
My voice had been tuning itself tighter and tighter, so I forced it into a normal register. “I know for a fact that those earrings
want
to be with you,” I said. “But right now, they’re in a bad place. I think they feel awful that they ended up in the wrong pair of ears.”
Jas’s eyes brimmed. “Sometimes I hate those earrings as much as I hate the woman who took them.” I flinched. “But then I realize even the best earrings can make a mistake, and they’ve been working really hard to make things better.” Her eyes met mine. “And even though that woman flat out sucks, she also had a really, really bad year, so maybe she wasn’t thinking straight. Plus, she’s insane, and that doesn’t help.”
Ariel crossed her arms over her chest and looked at us in disgust. “Well, I think you
both
are insane, you know that? In. sane.” She stomped out of the kitchen.
“Thank you, Jas.” I touched her hand. “You can’t possibly know how much that means to me. I’ll do whatever I can to make things right.”
She nodded. “All I want is to have Tommy back.”
That made two of us.
The conversation with Jas had drained me, and I retreated into my bedroom to collect myself.
Everything I’d told her about Tommy was true. He wanted to be with her. I could feel it whenever the two of them were together. At the same time, however, something was bothering him. Maybe Jas was right; maybe my inner demon played into this.
Frustrated, I took the notebook from my nightstand and studied my list of goals. Seeing the reminder about birth control, I dialed my doctor. Since the divorce, I hadn’t been on the pill, but luckily, I’d already had my yearly physical, so I was able to get a refill over the phone.
Although crossing one item off the list made me feel better, the sight of all the others filled me with despair. I chewed my much-nibbled pen, thinking. If I was planning a holiday party instead of a way to thwart the Devil, I would tell myself that in order to succeed, my goals needed to be more manageable. After all, I was only mortal. So, I crossed out one task and wrote another in its place:
-
Keep Grace safe
-
Get out of the damned contract
-
Destroy Helen Spry
-
Get a Prescription for Birth Control