Accidentally Demonic (24 page)

Darnell rose, backing away, the clunk of his high-tops echoing against the hardwood floor. “Means you gonna get your demon form, I think.”

“Why do I get the feeling this won’t be like a favorable case of
Extreme Makeover
?”

“Oh, it’s extreme, aight,” he muttered, looking down at his rings.

“Spit it out, Darnell,” Clay demanded, still holding on to her, raising her temperature in a much different way than the microwave experience earlier. But his concern touched her, and it probably shouldn’t, but there it was, touching her.

“Weeeellll, it’s like this, man. When you become a demon, you turn into, well, a demon.You know, scales, talons, claws, whatever your demon form ’sposed to be.”

“Hang the hell on,” Casey cried, her spine now rigidly pressed to Clay’s chest while he kept her securely in his grasp. “You said I could take on any form I wanted, once I practiced, or whatever. How did I go from choosing human forms—which, if you ask me, is fun and sort of exciting to anticipate—like anticipating a new outfit—to turning into some scaly beast in a fairy tale gone awry?”

“I dunno, Casey. Like I told ya when I last saw ya, I ain’t never met nobody like you before. I just know now you showin’ all the signs of a normal shift from human to demon.”

“So in the end, the probability that I’ll be just like you is likely.”

Darnell’s glance was sheepish. “Looks that way.”

Turning her body, she stared at Clay straight on. “And all this because you couldn’t resist the temptation of demon’s blood.”

His expression went sheepish. “Yeah. Angry?”

She let her head bend low, pushing her forehead against his. “No. Not at all. I’m struggling to find new and innovative ways to thank you for my pending scales and talons. It’s not easy to express that kind of gratitude, you know.”

“We’ve arrived at the blame portion of our relationship, then?”

Casey’s eyes narrowed. “Buddy, you have no idea.”

His gorgeous, “get lost in the depths of ” eyes met hers. “Apologizing again would probably seem disingenuous, I suppose.”

Tucking the towel between her breasts, she pushed off with a jarring jolt to his scrump- dilly-cious chest. “Ya think?” Turning to Darnell, she forced a smile she didn’t feel. “I appreciate that you came so quickly. I just have one more question. Will this happen again? I hate to be a complainer, because the good Lord knows, this demon gig has been an LOL ass load of fun, but what just happened hurt. A lot. So if I need to prepare to be split in half, I’d like a heads-up.”

Darnell’s face was riddled with sympathy. “Won’t be so bad time number two—gets easier and easier. Hard part is learning how to get back to your human form. But I’ll show ya, Casey. And if you need me, all ya gotta do is think me up. Us demons can contact each other through our minds. Picture me in your head, and I’ll come runnin’.”

Stellar.

Composure, despite her nekidity, took over. “Thank you, Darnell. You’ve been very
honest
and
upstanding
. Traits I value in a
man
.” She shot a pointed glare at Clay. “And now, I’m going to go clean up the mess I’ve made of Marty’s bathroom. I’m here only a day, and I’ve already torched the place. So woo- hoo fireballs.” She pumped her fist in the air, turning on her heel, fighting to maintain her dignity.

She had the letter
L
on her ass.

Where was the dignity in that?

“Oh, c’mon, Casey!” Clay yelled. “Don’t be mad. Why can’t you just admit how cool fireballs are?”

If the letter on her ass didn’t fuel her anger, his idea of joking did.

In the bedroom, she closed the door, without slamming it, then patted herself on the back for avoiding a fit of rage. Letting the towels fall to the floor, she stood before the mirror on the dresser, looking over her shoulder at her ass, something she’d avoided for the better part of her adult years.

And indeed, there it was. An
L
.

In a scribbly kind of script normally used for wedding invitations.

She’d been branded like so much cattle.

Squeee Lucifer.

Searching for some clothes, she dragged on a pair of old jeans and a sweatshirt, but she stopped cold when she heard raised voices. Running to the door, Casey pressed her ear against it like she once did when Wanda had her friends over, and they’d excluded her from their sleepover. It was childish, but stopping herself would have been like stopping a screaming freight train.

“You better tell her, Clay. I told ya she deserves to know whose blood’s runnin’ through her veins. I knew there’d be trouble. Knew it, man!”

Hmm.

“It doesn’t change what’s happening to her, Darnell. So what’s the point?”

“Aww, c’mon,” Darnell said with such gruff irritation, it took Casey by surprise. “The point is, that she-beast knows some unsavory dudes, and they gonna come callin’ on Casey. One already did. You can’t watch her forever.”

Yeah. What Darnell said
. Then a thought occurred to her. The
Matrix
guy in the coffee shop must’ve thought she was the demon whose blood ran through her veins. He’d mentioned how different she looked. If he wasn’t unsavory, then she didn’t know who was better qualified. So who was the owner of said demon blood? She jammed her ear against the door.

“Damn it, Darnell, Casey’s demonic origins don’t matter as long as I’m here to protect her.”

“The hell you say, brotha! You better tell her she got that crazy-assed bitch Hildegard’s blood runnin’ through her veins, or I will! I can’t hardly sleep knowin’ that shit, thinkin’ one of those really accomplished, fucked-up demons might come callin’ on her. Hildegard plays with the big boys. Now you do it, Clay, or I will!”

Casey gasped—shrill and raspy.

It had been Hildegard’s blood Clayton had spilled on her.

The plot thickened. So that was why the
Matrix
guy in the coffee shop had thought she was capable of sexual acts reserved only for circus employees. He thought she was Hildegard in another form. And then, like a thunderbolt of awareness, everything was clear. Hildegard obviously wasn’t afraid to take her sexual needs into her own hands—scratch that, she was clearly a slut, which meant Casey now had slutty breezing through her bloodstream—and that was why she was having hormonal attacks to challenge any nympho.

The son of a bitch had known all along. Knew the kind of danger he was putting her in because Hildegard had nefarious connections.

And he’d lied.

Thus, the fuming began. Clenching her fists, shoving one into her mouth, she battled for self-control. Oh, she’d kill him. Yep, yep, yep. Set him on fire—rub garlic all over his hotter-than- lava body—turn on the church channel and superglue his eyes open so he was forced to watch a full Catholic mass.

“I know you heard us, Casey.” Clay’s voice from behind the door didn’t hold a hint of resignation, or even an apology. He was merely stating a fact.

Flinging open the door, she poked a finger into his wet chest. “Oh, you bet your dark and dreary ass I heard you.You know something, Clayton Gunnersson, I’ve taken this pretty well thus far, don’t you think? I haven’t cried or carried on or blamed, not much anyway. I’ve been a real peach. A total champ. In the meantime, I lost my job because I could barely keep my clothes on while I humped a stripper’s pole like it was my reason for living. I’m doing and saying things the old Casey never would have done or said. I’m ready to take on anyone and anything without thinking it through before I blow a gasket. I’m hot and cold—cold and hot with no in between. And all because I have your promiscuous, schizophrenic wife’s blood running through my veins!” Flicking his shirt collar, she stomped to the dresser, grabbing her purse.

Flying past Clayton and a very concerned- looking Darnell, she rushed to the front door. “I just knew something else was going on, and all I asked for was your honesty. I mean, really, how much worse can it be than horns and levitation? So no more playing nice, quiet, noncomplaining Casey.You got that, you demon maker! You dumped that blond, very angry, very jealous, homicidal nutcase’s blood on me. Now all of her partners in felonious acts could crawl out of the woodwork, looking for me, and you didn’t have the common courtesy to tell me. Nice. Very nice. So hear this: I almost don’t give a rat’s ass why you were carrying around Hildegard’s blood. It’s probably just another wing- nut paranormal ritual I’m better off not knowing about. In fact, you can stick your demon blood up your lying ass! I’m going out for some personal time—away from you and your hokey bullshit. And I warn you, stay far away—far, far away!”

With a grind of her teeth, and a tingle in her fingertips, she rushed out the door, pumping her knees high to get to the elevator and escape Clay.

Punching the button, she seethed while she waited, not caring where she ended up, not caring who she ran into on the way. So help her God, if she came up against one of Hildegard’s sexual liaisons, she’d fry his jingle bells.

Out the lobby door and into the frosty night air, Casey clomped along the sidewalk, and headed straight for the nearest bar.

While probably not the wisest choice when one was tweaked beyond reason, reason wasn’t involved in her decision making at this point. Though, the farther she walked, the less appealing getting snockered seemed. It would be stupid to get shitfaced if she needed to have her wits about her should one of Hildegard’s former partners show up. Jesus, it sucked to always be the one with your head on straight.

Well, for the moment anyway. Who knew if there wasn’t another demon delight she had yet to experience, and her head wouldn’t be crooked from spinning around on her neck.

So she settled on a diner instead. The neon flash of its sign hurt her tired, gritty eyes. This demon business was work.

Reaching for the glass door, a hand stopped her. Clinging to her purse, she lifted it high in the air, preparing to clock the living shit out of a man she thought surely was Clay. But a long-ago-familiar voice stopped her.

“Casey?”

When she heard his voice, throwing herself on the ground and kicking her feet became very appealing. “Rick?”

Rick’s chuckle had that same old deep timbre to it. Like it’d been washed with a warm cinnamon glaze over freshly baked buns. “In the flesh.”

Her eyes rose, meeting his, green and fringed with thick, dark lashes. The gray at his temples had spread, but not enough to make him anything less than distinguished—as was the usual for Rick Mason. College professor, teacher of all things pre-law, not to mention bed-sport-like, liar, married with two-point-five kids, a golden retriever named Winston, and a fucking cheat.

She’d had lots of time to think over a meeting like this. Years of creating scenarios in her head where she told him to crawl back to the hole he’d crawled out of for humiliating her. “Does your
wife
know you’re here in the flesh? Because as I recall, she wasn’t too happy about your flesh being around my flesh.”

Rick laughed, the amusement reaching his eyes where they crinkled at the corners. “You’ve grown spirited, Casey. I like that.”

“And you’ve grown old, Rick. I’m not so much into that.”

Thumping his chest with a closed fist, he shot her a mockingly pained look. “You hurt me. I wasn’t too old for you back when.”

With eyes filled with venom, she cast him a cool glance. “No. You were too married for me back when. You just forgot to mention that.”
And the devastating humiliation I’d suffer all over campus because of it.

His reply was as smooth as he’d been. “Why don’t we let bygones be bygones and start over? I’m not married anymore.” To prove it, he held up his now- barren left hand. He said it as though she’d waited all these years to hear exactly those words.

As if.

“Did the wife catch you at the dorm panty raid?”

“Why so angry, sugarplum?”

The use of his old endearment for her made her skin crawl. “Look, I’m not much for revisiting the past. How did you find me and what do you want?”

“I have old friends at the private school you ran away to.They led me to your prior place of employment. After that it was cake.”

But no one knew where she’d gone once Calvin Castalano had booted her out on her ass. . . . She kept her body rigid, shrinking away from the warmth he offered. “Which still begs the question, what do you want?”

Rick’s smile was wide, infectiously so. “You, of course. I’ve never stopped thinking about you in all these years.”

Tipping her head back, she feigned disinterest. “I can’t see how I could possibly interest you now, Rick. I’m not a nubile college student anymore. I’m much too old for the likes of you. You like ’em virginal, right?”

“You’ve grown sassy, too.”

Yeah. And I can float
. “I’ve grown up. The grown-up me doesn’t like the same old you. So go back to whatever college dorm you hang your tighty whities in now, and leave me the hell alone.”

“Now don’t be like that, Casey,” he teased, reaching out a hand to gather hers up in his warm one. He pulled her to him, taking her by surprise when he clamped his lips on hers, pushing his tongue between her teeth with a vigorous thrust.

One hard shove later, and he was almost across the street. Next, she’d set all that distinguished hair on fire.

Casey ran the back of her hand over her lips, stalking him. Cornering him against a tree, she lifted him by the lapels of his smart tweed jacket and rammed him hard against the base of the trunk. “If you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you. You trashed my entire fucking life back when, you lying puke. So go the fuck back from whatever hole you slithered out of, and leave me alone. Feel me,
Rick
?”

“Caseyyyy,” a low, husky warning called.

A roll of her eyes left her forgetting about Rick, who she dropped like she’d just been caught with her hand in the secret money jar. He slumped to the ground at her feet at an awkward angle, mashed up against the tree. Jamming her hands into her hair in utter frustration, she said, “Didn’t I tell you I needed some personal space? Personal has only one meaning, and it has nothing to do with together time.”