Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) (24 page)

“
Kill
—but
y
ou shouldn’
t
—you
can
’
t
—”

“
I
can
, but I’m not going to
yet
.
” She interrupted my panicked
blubbering, raising her voice above mine until I’d quieted.
“I wouldn’t have bothered waking you up just to cut you in half
.
”

“Really?” I squeaked, relief
washing through me. She didn’t assure me again, simply watching me with a
knowing smile on her face. I took a few moments to calm my breathing, to back
away from the fear and force myself to take stock of the situation. I wasn’t
about to die, so that was something.

Although, as somethings go,
it wasn’t much. I was still trapped in a garage with a psycho who looked like
she should be fighting with teenagers on Tumblr over Benedict Cumberbatch being
hotter than Chris Evans. I was still bound and paralyzed, slightly light-headed
from blood loss.

I was still going to die,
just not right at that moment.

The realization made me sad
and angry all at the same time. What had my life come to that I was patting
myself on the back for not being dead
yet?

Something must have shown in
my face because the girl started laughing.

“That’s better! Now we can
chat.
You
’
ve got
spirit
, at least when you’re not whining or freaking out
.
”
She rolled her eyes and it reminded me of the looks I
’
d gotten
from my big sister when she’
d
been at that “too cool”
age.
“The vampire’s
been holed up alone in a house for fifteen years and he’
s so
boring
. He doesn’t know how to listen and he gets
distracted, like, really easily. But, since you’re here for awhile,
you might as well
entertain
me.
”

Her immaturity was bordering
on offensive and it was driving away my panic, filling me with me a bitchy
bravado. My rational mind knew it was a bad idea to mouth off, that she could
probably kill me in an instant, but it was still smarting from the hit it had
taken before and that made it easy for me to ignore its advice to stay quiet
.

“
I
’m not really in
a
position to juggle for you,
but you could untie me and give me some flaming
knives
and
we
’ll see what happens
.
”

“
See! Spirit.
” Something seemed to occur
to her then and she snorted out a laugh as she clapped her hands once
.
“
Spirit.
”

I just watched her, lost and
frustrated that I wasn’t in on the joke. I didn’t feel like giggling along with
her like two friends splitting a bottle of wine, but she seemed to be laughing
at me rather than with me and that’s never a good feeling.

“
Spirit!
” she repeated, really hitting the word as if that
would make me get it. “
Like
soul? You
’
re
—
I give up. Let
’s talk about me instead, what
I
’
ve
been up to. I’ve already
told the vampire and he
so
wasn’t impressed once he started to feel
better. Now
all
he
wants to
do is
run around the city sucking
on virgins and terrorizing his old high school teachers. He never wants to talk
about me.”

“How sad for you,” I
deadpanned. She took it as if I was serious.

“I know! So how much do you
know about me? It doesn’t seem like much from what I can tell.” The thing in my
mind shifted again, getting comfortable in the folds of my brain. I cringed,
shaking my head as if I could knock it out through my ears
.
The sensation wasn’t much different from the fizzy feeling of getting
soda backed up in my sinuses.
 

“
You
’
re a demon,
” I offered, hoping she’d
back off whatever mojo was bubbling through my skull.

“
Excellent!
” She clapped again
.
“Do you know what demons
do
?
”

“Are you going to make me
guess?”
I
asked,
irritated
by how excited she seemed. I’d never faced a maniacal villain before; I wasn’t
sure if I wanted to hear her blather out a monologue about how great she was. I
don’t have James Bond’s skills. Time would not reveal an escape for me.

“
You
’re right. I’m giving you too much credit. Your powers are weak enough
that no one’s ever bothered to school you. You were, what, four when the scouts
showed up?” I didn't answer, but the question was probably rhetorical, anyway. “When
you’
re
judged
useless,
they let you be. It's only when you're of interest to them, when you could be
used against them in some way
,
that they would bother to
pluck you out of obscurity. I wasn’t useless.
”

Despite myself, I found I was
curious.
Hardy had mentioned something similar when we’d
met, but I’d been so distracted by their sudden appearance and by the raucous
feeling of standing too close to Laurel that I hadn’t taken much of it in.
Sensing I was now interested in participating in her one-demon show, she paused
to watch me expectantly. I considered that she’d known before I had what I was
about to ask, but I went ahead anyway.

“Are demons and fairies...
like, buddies?”

Once again pleased with me,
she pointed her finger like a weapon, jabbing it forward as if she’d spear my
chest
.
I flinched.

“Not a bad question for a
nitwit. We are not friends, no. They would have wanted me bad for what I could
do, but they never got the chance. Someone else got to me first, much like I
got to little…
”
She waved her hand. “What’s
the kid’s name, Andy? With the fire starting?”

“
Ashley?
” I asked. Rage boiled inside me at her attitude, at
the fact that she couldn’t even be bothered to learn the names of the children
she’d kidnapped and held hostage.

“Sure, like that one. Like
how I got to them before the scouts could. It’s like that, but I’m not wasting
their time with deals and lies
.
I
’m just gonna
take what I want.”

“
You stupid
—” I didn’t get far with my tirade before she
held up a hand, her expression hard.

“This isn’t about you,” she
said,
squeezing her hand into a fist as if she was crushing
my heart.
I struggled for a millisecond, but whatever
power she held over me coursed through my body, slowing my
pulse
to the point where I started
to drift off. Consciousness ebbed away for a moment before the pressure in my
chest let up slightly and I opened my heavy eyes to find her considering me. “
You
’re gonna listen this time. No more
insults
, you go
t
it?”

“
Sure,
” I slurred, blinking against the desire to pass out.

“Excellent! Where was I?
Well, so,
d
emons, of course, have
existed for ages. We were all like you, once upon a time. We were all human,
all special.” Her eyes did a quick pass, taking all of me in. “Some more so
than others. We were all approached by the same man, though some of us
undoubtedly realized quickly he wasn’t a man at all.”

“He was an elephant!” I
interjected, the slowness of my brain making me feel silly. I giggled but the
demon was too wrapped up in her performance to notice my stupid joke. When she
spoke again, her voice boomed through the garage
like she
was on stage, speaking to thousands.

“He was a liar, one of the
most well-known, in fact. To those of us whom
he
found useful, he offered help, love, riches, whatever
we desired. All we needed to do was promise to come to him after a period of
time and agree to give him one thing. He would tell us what that one thing was
to be, but not before we promised to give it.”

She
sighed, shook her head, a bitter smile on her lips. “My
deal was different. My deal was special. Not many get
my
deal. I didn’t have to give him anything of my own. I
got all the riches, all the goodies, and I didn’t have to promise him my soul.
The souls of others, sure, but I
got
to keep my own. Until he got
stingy.” She caught my eye, her jaw tight like she’d suddenly decided her
miserly boss was my fault.
 
“I didn’t like the deal anymore, so I told him I was
out, I was done with him and his contracts.”

“Did you at least give your
two weeks’
notice?
”

Her eyes
narrowed to slits and, despite my fuzzy mind, I
winced.

“It probably goes without
saying, but he didn’t want to let me go. I mean, would you?”

“I think you should
definitely go,” I agreed, still trying to rouse
my
sluggish thoughts
. I
’d been high a few times in
college, but this was nothing like sucking at a bong and eating so much candy I
couldn’t move. I hadn’t done this to myself; it had been impressed upon me by
something
alien
inside my own mind.

My head lolled back and I
felt my eyes roll around in my head, out of control in their sockets, and I
squeezed them shut. I wanted to fight against her control, but my thoughts were
as paralyzed as my limbs. I needed help
.

“
You
’re not funny
,
” she said. After a moment,
she sighed and reached out to grab my chin. “
But
I liked you better when you were asking better questions
.
”
L
ife rushed into me, making me
yelp as the nerves in my neck, face, and scalp
sparked
to action. I swore, shook her
hand off
,
and looked back at her
,
my brain buzzed from her touch.

“
I
’m not sure if you’re better or worse than an energy drink.”

“Are you ready to listen now,
or are you too busy thinking stupid thoughts about your glory days getting
stoned in your boyfriend’s dirty apartment?”

I jolted,
trying to sort through the rapid stream of
thoughts zipping through my head. Most of them concentrated on my predicament,
trying to figure out if escape was possible, demanding I test my bonds again to
see if my arms or legs would work. The most logical thoughts, though,
concentrated on the fact that she was in my head, that she knew what I was
thinking at any moment, and that, if she really wanted to ruin my day, she
might bring up everything about those supposed glory days.

They had been anything but
glorious. I had a lot of bad memories from that period in my life and I didn’t
want her pulling them out of my head one by one and rubbing them in my face
like steel wool
.

“
I
’m ready to listen!” I insisted. “
Go on, keep talking. You
’re great and your boss was a
dick. Start from there.”

She eyed me for a moment, a
smile tugging at her lips before she stood straight and slipped back into her
performance.

“He
was
a dick! He
thought he had it al
l
figured out, that he could
control us if he just plied us with riches and pretty clothes. But it wasn’t
enough for me. I caught on to what was really going on behind the scenes, why
he really wanted all those contracts. I figured out that souls are more than just
wiggling little lines of energy. They’
re
power
. If you get souls, you have
power. I just need souls and I can boot him out and take over! It took me some
time to figure out how to do it, but I’m on it now. I’ve got it all planned
out.
With the right assistant—
say,
a desperate vampire who’
s
sick
of being confined to a sterile room—I can
gather more than enough souls to rock right up to the boss himself and
punch
him in his dick
face.
”