Hollywood Demon (The Collegium Book 6) (3 page)

Her grandma smiled. “I’ll save some and chill it.”

Minutes later they were all crunching into sourdough toast and quiet happiness filled the sunny room. It was disconcerting, then, for a memory to choose that moment to drift into her mind. Clancy stared at Mark as he checked something on his phone. What had he said as they crossed the ward around the estate?
There was a demon out there
.

Had there been?

At the time, she’d dismissed his comment as concussion-induced rambling, but he seemed okay, and he’d said he was okay, so if his brain wasn’t rattled from her throwing him…

Had there been a demon outside the neighbor’s house? Was there a demon in Hollywood?

Clancy finished her toast and licked strawberry jam off a finger. It was none of her business. Demons were part of the magical world she was leaving behind—and anyway, her magic had no connection to demonology. If there was a demon out there, Mark would handle it.

She recalled that he had only a minor trace of magic talent himself, just enough general magic for simple spells. She hesitated.

No. Still not my problem.
Mark had money and connections. He could hire a demonologist to exorcise any rogue demons. The Collegium would fall all over themselves to send someone out to help the great-grandson of the legendary Edgar Yarren. No, she could stick with her determination to have nothing more to do with magic.

Did I smell brimstone on the road, that sulfur-scented stench of Hell?

She sipped the last of her coffee, conscience fighting her desire to be ordinary. Ordinary people did
NOT
sense demons. She was probably re-writing her memories and imagining things in light of Mark’s comment.

But if I did smell brimstone
…at a minimum she ought to warn Doris, who had her own significant magical connections. “Grandma, outside on the road—”

Mark’s head snapped up. He discarded his phone, dropping it on the table. “I met Clancy while I was out running.”

Their gazes dueled. He obviously didn’t want her mentioning the demon—the
possible
demon—to Doris. But demons weren’t some minor pest. If one had been near the estate, Doris needed to be alerted to the danger.

“She arrived in a big rig,” Mark continued.

Clancy’s eyes widened in indignation. He had. He’d just thrown her under the Grandma bus!

“That was you?”

“I hitched a lift—”
Oops!
“With a friend!” And as Doris still looked ready to launch into a major lecture, Clancy hurriedly corrected herself. “Not
hitched
, as such. That’s dangerous. I shared the drive from New York. Stewart dropped me here.”

“Who is Stewart?” And that was Mark.

Clancy ignored him. “Grandma, you know Stewart. He’s the roadie for the Carnivale.”

“And you didn’t invite him in?” Doris’s scowl deepened, but she no longer looked ready to shake some sense into Clancy for hitch-hiking.

“He had to be on his way to catch up with his wife, Li-li.”

“Hmm.”

Clancy glared at Mark, who’d successfully shifted the conversation from the looming topic of demons.

He grimaced, possibly in apology and, as Doris took their empty toast plates to the sink, leaned forward and caught Clancy’s wrist before she could move to help. “I’ll explain,” he said under his voice. He released her wrist as he stood. “I think I know of a job you could do,” he added, louder, for Doris to hear. “I have a friend who runs a museum.”

Doris whirled around. Her mouth opened, then closed. She’d obviously bitten back a protest.

Mark was an incredibly relaxed employer, perhaps because the relationship between the Yarrens and the Ramirezs was more complicated than most such employer-employee relationships, but that didn’t mean Doris could tell him what to do.

She’d save that for Clancy.

Doris’s blue eyes lasered a warning at Clancy, who glanced away, pretending she hadn’t seen her grandma’s narrow-eyed frown. “A museum sounds interesting,” she said to Mark.

At the sink, Doris turned on the water with a rushing whoosh of annoyance that was a comment in itself.

Mark glanced at Doris warily. “It’s a sceptics’ museum.”

Clancy blinked. “Pardon?”

“I belong to a sceptics’ club, one which attempts to debunk paranormal happenings.” He lounged back in his chair, the picture of nonchalance with his legs sprawled and shoulders relaxed. But the skin at the corners of his mouth was taut: a reminder that he had plenty of actors in his lineage and could play a role.

“Paranormal happenings,” Clancy echoed. She wasn’t as good at acting. Her thoughts tended to show on her face. But she did her best to at least sound neutral. “Things like magic?” Magic being a reality that everyone in the room knew existed. They used it—although, of course, she’d foresworn hers. She was going to be ordinary, successfully ordinary.

Doris snorted.

Mark smiled; still seemingly relaxed, definitely charming. “Exactly like magic,” he said. “You’d be surprised at the information sceptics find. By joining their club…”

“You have access to their latest findings,” Clancy finished slowly. The question was, why would he care about random paranormal happenings?

“Exactly.” And as if to forestall her next and obvious question, he stood and crossed to the counter, opening a drawer and extracting a set of keys. “It’s hard to describe the sceptics’ museum. It’ll be easier if I show you.”

She studied him a moment. Alone together in the car, away from Doris, they could discuss the possible demon. But they could do that elsewhere on the estate. “Is there really a job at the museum? Doing what?”

“There’s really a job. Bryce Goodes, who started the sceptics’ club, needs someone to open and shut the museum, to chat with visitors and keep an eye on them so that exhibits aren’t broken or stolen. The last museum assistant got a role in a movie being shot in Arizona and quit.”

Ah.
Well, that sounded real for Hollywood. People worked casual jobs waiting for their big break. When they got a sniff of one, they abandoned everything (and everyone) to chase it.

Working at a sceptics’ museum could be Clancy’s big break. Sceptics, disbelievers in the magic she was trying to suppress, might be just what she needed to create her ordinary life. She smiled at Mark, and avoided looking at Doris. “That sounds more interesting than a retail job. Let’s roll.”

It wasn’t till they reached the garage that Mark thought to check which key he’d grabbed. The Rocinante. He frowned, and glanced at Clancy who walked quietly beside him, withdrawn in her own thoughts. He usually drove an unremarkable SUV. The Rocinante had been a gift from his mom. There were only ten in the world and she’d been given the one used in her last, mega-successful super-spy movie. The vehicle demanded attention with its sleek, showy lines and earth-shattering roar. Would Clancy think he was trying to impress her, to restore his ego after how shamefully easily she’d thrown him? The truth was, the Rocinante’s key had been at the top of the drawer because he’d taken it out for a spin yesterday to keep the engine ticking over.

He beeped the lock and the car’s lights flashed.

“From big rig to Rocinante.” Clancy recognized the car, and laughed. If the wealth, power and exclusiveness the super-car represented daunted her, it didn’t show.

He opened the passenger door for her. He had to remember there were different types of power. She had far more magic than his trickle of talent, and she’d grown up around wealth. Perhaps that inoculated you against being impressed by it. He knew he didn’t judge people by the money they possessed.

His mouth tightened as he slammed the passenger door closed, shutting Clancy inside the leather-rich interior. He did have a tendency to judge people by the magic they commanded, and that was a result of his own lack of it. An inferiority complex, of a kind. No, not inferiority. His lack of real magical power frustrated him. If only…

He contorted himself into the Rocinante’s low driver’s seat as the garage doors opened, then switched on the engine and let it roar. They snarled out of the garage, through the gate, and down the curving driveway to the road.

They passed through the ward that enclosed the estate. It was a shiver of loss against his skin, an awareness that out here lurked danger. He drove slowly past his neighbor’s wall where the demon had materialized—and vanished. The damned creature was taunting him.

“Was there a demon?” Clancy asked quietly. “I don’t have an affinity for demonology, so I’m wondering if I imagined that I smelled brimstone.”

“There was a demon.” He drove on, resisting the temptation to look in the rear vision mirror. The demon was gone. “But Doris won’t believe you when you tell her of the encounter. Even you aren’t sure if there was one or if my mention of it put the idea in your head.”

“But you saw it?”

“I saw a patch of fog, smelled sulfur, felt the cold of Hell…it’s all vague things that an active imagination could dream up.”

“Wow.” Her tone was dry. “You’re really into this sceptics thing.”

“On the contrary.” He turned too sharply, too fast, onto a busy street, taking advantage of a tiny break in the traffic. The super-car’s tires squealed. “It’s the fact that I believe in the demon’s presence that has everyone doubting me.”

“Why?”

He kept the Rocinante’s speed dead on the limit. He’d known he’d have to tell Clancy the full story—or let Doris do so. He concentrated on his driving so that he wouldn’t see dawn in her eyes the mix of pity and helplessness with which his family, and those few who knew his obsession, regarded him. “It began when Phoebe died.”

Clancy closed her eyes a moment in sorrow and sympathy for Mark. It had been seven years since his fiancée died. Apparently, the pain was still raw. Her grandma had never mentioned Mark becoming serious about another woman. Dates, yes. Commitment, no.

“Do you remember Phoebe?” he asked.

Clancy had to clear her throat. “Yeah. She was beautiful.”

Mark had come back from college, fallen in love with the young actress, and they’d gotten engaged. Phoebe and Mark had been the glamour couple of the year. They’d been chased by the paparazzi, photographed kissing on the famous Hollywood sign. They’d been feted and envied. Phoebe had been preparing for the wedding of the decade.

“The camera loved her,” he said quietly. “When you watch
Chime of Red
, her last movie, she is luminous.”

Clancy sought for a tribute, one she could offer honestly. The truth was, she hadn’t liked Phoebe Shannon. She’d envied Phoebe her beauty, confidence, and Mark. But she hadn’t liked her. Which was fair enough. Phoebe hadn’t even noticed Clancy. To the actress, Clancy had been a skinny kid; someone to dismiss as of no account. She’d always looked impatient and called Mark away when he’d taken the time to ask Clancy about her schoolwork or exams. “Phoebe was a star.”

“She was.” He shifted gears and the Rocinante growled. “She sold her soul for it.”

Clancy stared at him.

He focused on the road. His profile was hawk-sharp, all masculine angles and stern distance.

“You mean that literally, don’t you?” she asked slowly.

He flexed his hands on the steering wheel. “Yes.”

The Los Angeles traffic gathered strength around them. People were on their way to work, resigned to travelling two hours or more just to get there. “Where is the sceptics’ museum?”

Mark cast her a quick, incredulous glance.

He’d just told her that his tragically dead fiancée had sold her soul, and she’d asked the location of her potential employment. But she needed time to think. Did people sell their souls in the twenty first century? It sounded medieval.

“Just off Hollywood Boulevard,” he answered her question.

“Right. Okay.” Even with LA traffic they were only ten to twenty minutes away. Her mind bounced from practicalities she could handle—jeans and sweatshirt with a leather jacket weren’t exactly job interview dress, but this was LA so maybe it was okay?—to the literally unthinkable. “Why on earth would you think Phoebe sold her soul? She had everything.”

He stopped at a red light and turned to her. “That ‘everything’—her movie roles, her incredible beauty, her star quality—were part of the contract. Phoebe sold her soul to a demon. When the demon came to collect it, at the site of the car crash, she tried to give him my soul, instead.”

“No,” Clancy protested instinctively. Mark and Phoebe had been in love. Phoebe couldn’t possibly have tried to trade his soul for hers. It couldn’t be true.

The light turned green. Mark shifted gear and the Rocinante accelerated smoothly. He had himself and the powerful car under control. “Believe me, I remember it vividly. And I wasn’t hallucinating, as people have tried to suggest. I was cut up, my leg was broken, but I didn’t have concussion and I wasn’t dreaming. Phoebe was hurt, badly. There was blood coming out of her mouth. Her face was perfect, but her body crushed. The blood bubbled when she spoke.”

Clancy shuddered.

He was expressionless, all emotion locked down. Outside the car’s tinted windows, the sun shone in a near cloudless sky, as if it was summer and they travelled in a forever season of joy. However, inside the car, it felt ominous, the atmosphere heavy with a suppressed emotional storm. “The demon appeared among the car’s wreckage. Phoebe had been driving. Speeding. She was laughing and reckless. The roads were wet. She skidded. I shouted for her to turn into the slide, but she fought the wheels. We went off the road and hit a tree.”

A eucalyptus tree. Clancy remembered the details. She remembered all too vividly the footage of the crash all over the news media. Phoebe’s expensive sports car had been mangled and crushed.

“The windscreen exploded. There was nothing between Phoebe, me, and the concertinaed hood of the car. The demon appeared on the hood. It appeared about a foot high, like a garden gnome statue, but glowing orange, and then, it grew larger and larger, till it was man-height and man-shaped. It stopped glowing—except for its eyes.”

He stopped for another red light. They were nearly at Hollywood Boulevard, the exclusive wealth of Beverly Hills giving way to gritty real life.

“‘I have come for my soul,’ the demon said.” Mark stared straight ahead at the rusting, white delivery van in front of them. “It stretched out its hand to Phoebe and she said, ‘Take Mark’s.’ The demon laughed. It shrank down to gnome-sized again, sat on the wrecked hood, and laughed while I listened to Phoebe’s bubbling breathing, and tried not to believe any of it was happening.”

Around them, people did the ordinary things people did when stuck in traffic. They talked on their phones, bopped their heads to music, applied make-up.

He squeezed the steering wheel. “When the demon stopped laughing, it said, ‘Phoebe Shannon, you are a hellish delight. I’m glad we made our contract.’ Then its arm extended like stretched toffee and it put its hand to her throat. She managed one word.”

The traffic surged forward as the lights went green.

“What did she say?”

“She said its name. Faust.”