More Than Fiends (15 page)

“Ohmigod.” I couldn't believe it. I'd done it. Just the way Jasmine had said I would. I had actually pulled out the guy's heart.

“Oh, that's just disgusting.” I looked at my hand and made a mental note to dip it in boiling water as soon as I got home. Then I staggered to my feet, went into the hall closet and looked for a vacuum. When I found it, I plugged it in, sucked up the evidence, then gathered up my supplies and left.

I figured the demon who'd hired me to clean his house wouldn't really care if I did the windows or not.

I
was still shaky when I got home.

Having a demon dissolve into instant soup mix right in front of you was enough, I think, to make any woman need a quiet moment to hurl in private. But since my Big Mac was staying put, I used that private moment to grab a bag of Hershey's Kisses and eat my way to peace instead. After the sixth or seventh foil wrapper hit the coffee table, I felt a little better. Chocolate. The Wonder Drug.

I heard the mail slot open and turned in time to see a piece of paper drop onto the floor. I turned on the couch, grabbed the edge of a curtain and tugged it back, but didn't see anyone out there. Whoever had dropped the note was either Batman fast or was sneaking away, trying not to be seen and apparently excelling at the job. As soon as I picked up the paper and read it, I understood why.

Back off, Demon Duster, or your daughter will be ours.

Okay,
now
I wanted to hurl.

I yanked open the door, raced onto the porch and, looking for an enemy, stared at the familiar, comfy street where I'd grown up. But there was no one. The Marchetti boys were in the garage, Bon Jovi blasting from their radio. Our next-door neighbor, Harlan Cates, was working in the yard, probably setting bear traps to keep kids off his precious grass.

Everything looked normal. But nothing was.

Not anymore.

I crumpled the note in my hand and thought about the red-eyed guy with claws I'd dusted just an hour or so before. Imagining him going after Thea made me so sick I had to bolt for the bathroom. It was one thing to know that one day she'd be a Duster, too. But she'd be grown up then. Now she was just a kid. A kid more important to me than my own life.

I just barely made it to the bathroom in time, and when the disgusting festivities were over, I stared into the mirror and hardly recognized the pale, wild-eyed woman looking back at me.

I gripped the sides of the sink, and I'm pretty sure my fingers left indentations in the porcelain. I was so damn mad, so scared, I wanted to rip somebody's heart out. And, hey, now I
could
.

“Okay, demons, playtime's over,” I murmured to the crazed woman in the mirror. “Nobody threatens my baby.”

A half hour later, Thea was home, and I only just managed to keep from grabbing hold of her and dragging her into the house, where I could keep her locked up until she was thirty-two and had some demon-killing power of her own. Instead, I looked at her, standing next to Jett, and a niggling worry began to tug at the edges of my mind.

“Where were you guys?” I asked, stepping back to let both of the teenagers inside.

“God, MOTHER,” Thea said, with an eye roll toward Jett. (This is code for “Don't embarrass me in front of a guy.”) “We stopped for a Coke on the way home from school.”

“Uh-huh.” The worry was still there, poking at me, prodding at me to find out for sure if what I was thinking was true or not. Ordinarily, I was willing to cut Jett a little slack. Up till now, I'd always thought of the kid as just a thorn in my parental paw. But now I knew there were
demons
out there. Now I knew that someone was threatening my baby.

And Thea had been just a little too eager to campaign for demon rights. If I was right, Thea and I were due for another chat that would make me Public Enemy Number One again.

So when they went into the kitchen, I followed. Grabbing my trusty spray bottle off the table, I took careful aim and gave the kid a squirt right on top of his nose piercing.

Instantly, smoke curled from his face, and Jett screamed like he'd been shot. Which he had. Thea freaked out, running for a paper towel while shrieking at me, and Jett was wiping his face with the sleeves of his ratty flannel shirt. Sugar was howling, and I was standing there tapping my foot, waiting for a damn explanation.

When the noise finally faded away, I said, “You're a demon.”

The kid sniffed, wiped his face with the paper towel Thea was waving at him and said, “Well, yeah.”

“I can't BELIEVE you did that,” Thea shouted, clearly mortified.

I slanted her a look but kept one wary eye on the little demon in front of me as I asked her, “You knew, didn't you?”

“Of course I knew Jett's a demon. It's not exactly a SECRET.”

“It was to me,” I pointed out, then gave Mr. Piercings my full attention. “What're you up to?”

“Dude,” Jett said, lifting both hands in an as-innocent-as-he-could-get shrug. Which wasn't real impressive, considering his head was still smoking and his pants were on their way south. “I'm just chillin'.”

“Uh-huh.” Chilling with
my
daughter.

“Mother, you're being insulting.”

She says that like it's a big surprise. I've been embarrassing Thea for her whole life. No point in stopping now. “I'm asking questions.”

“Exactly.”

I was still watching Jett, not really sure, but half expecting his eyes to turn bright red like those of the guy I'd dispatched earlier. A few soft tendrils of smoke were still curling in the air over his head, and a part of me was feeling a little guilty about squirting a kid. Still, a demon was a demon. Right?

“Dude,” Jett said, taking a step back, as if reading my mind. “I'm cool, you know? The demon thing? That's just whatd'yacallit, my
heritage
. I'm not into the whole demon/ human war thing, you know? It's, like, so over. I'm, like, into music and doing whatever.”

I blinked, mentally translating lazy teenspeak into English, then asked, “What is ‘whatever,' and why're you doing it with my daughter?”

Jett shrugged again, reached down and tugged his baggy jeans up. They hung on narrow hips briefly and then drooped down to expose way too much of his pale blue boxers.

Thea was actually simmering. I could feel waves of humiliation and fury rippling off her and didn't even risk another glance her way. I figured there would be plenty of time for us to get into this later. Right now, I wanted to lay down some ground rules for Hell Spawn Junior.

“Thea's cool,” he muttered, dipping his still-smoking head and looking up at me. “And she's, like, pretty and everything. I, you know, like her and everything.”

Thea sighed.

Good God. Demon poet.

“Okay, Jett,” I said, idly shaking my spray bottle. It had his attention. He watched the brown liquid sloshing around with a dread fascination, which cheered me right up. “Some ground rules.”

“That's cool,” he said, nodding, and I figured he'd be willing to agree to just about anything while I was holding that bottle.

“One. You hang around with Thea, you keep your hands to yourself.”

“MOTHER!”

Bigger nod. Gaze still fixed to the demon mixture. “Cool, dude. Cool.”

“Thea,” I said, still watching Jett, “go to the living room.”

“But—”

“Now, please.” I didn't use the “mother” tone very often, so when I did, it really got results. Thea stomped off into the other room, and when we were alone, I leaned toward Jett and stared him right in the eye. “Listen up, Jett. I don't know if the word's gotten out to all of the demons in town, but do you know who I am?”

He nodded and swallowed hard. “Demon Duster.”

“Right.” I gave him a tight smile that didn't have a single thing to do with good humor. “But just so you know? The Demon Duster isn't
half
as scary as Thea's
mom
. And that's who's talking to you right now.”

“Got it.” He nodded so hard, one of his hair spikes fell over.

“Good.” I caressed the trigger of the spray bottle, just to make sure he knew who was in charge around here. Was I enjoying this a little too much? Probably. But give me a break. I'd been putting up with the kid for six months now. There are limits. “I'm glad you get it. Because when you're with Thea, you're going to keep your spiny little demon fingers to yourself, or I'm going to chop them off for you. At the shoulder.”

He gulped.

I leaned in closer. “Then I'm going to beat you to death with the bloody stump. And
then
I'm going to rip out your heart and store your ashes in Tupperware.”

His eyes went wide, and he nodded again.

“Clear?” I asked.

“Dude.”

“Good.”

“We done?”

“For now.”

He scuttled past me for the living room, moving faster than I'd ever seen him move before, and I congratulated myself silently on a threat well delivered.

 

The minute Jasmine showed up the next day, I hit her with, “Did you know Thea's boyfriend is a demon?”

She smiled and straightened the collar of her sea green dress. “Of course.”

I saw sparks flying at the edges of my vision and had to blink them away to see her clearly. She looked…smug. God, I hated a smug guide. “You didn't think maybe you should
tell
me?”

Jasmine sighed, then wandered to the white Adirondack chair in the only shaded spot in the yard. Perching herself daintily on the edge, she looked up at me and said in a
very
patient tone (the same tone usually reserved for challenged three-year-olds), “Jett is harmless.”

“He's a
demon
!” I waved both arms in the air like I was trying to get her attention. “Hello? Aren't you spending, like, every day here trying to teach me to
kill
demons?”

“Cassidy, not all demons are dangerous.”

“They're demons. Doesn't
dangerous
describe them?”

“No.”

“That's it?” I asked, tapping the toe of my sneaker against the grass. “That's all I get?
No?
”

She gave me a small smile that was anything but kindly. “As you spend more time practicing your duty, you will find that demons, much like people, come in all shapes and sizes.”

“Contrary to popular opinion, it isn't always about size,” I snapped, but she clearly didn't get my sad, sad attempt at humor.

“Simply put, there are evil demons and good demons,” she said.

“
Good
demons?”

“Yes. Despite what you may think, that is not a contradiction in terms. Just as humans are divided into good and evil, so are the demons.” She sighed again and suddenly looked every one of her, like, two hundred years. “Not
all
demons are at war with humanity. Some simply want to live their lives and do what they can to blend into human society.”

I huffed out a breath. “Well,” I muttered, “Jett should try harder.”

“He's young,” she said with a lift of one shoulder.

I couldn't believe it. My own guide wasn't giving me all the facts. Jett was a “good” demon? I was just getting used to the idea of demons at all. Now I find out there are good ones and bad ones?

“Just how the hell am I supposed to tell the difference without a damn scorecard?” I asked, but Jasmine didn't have an answer.

 

Saturday evening and all was good. Joey had called to say I could pick up my car in the morning. My new outfit looked terrific—except for the thong Rachel had talked me into. Just couldn't wear it. Drove me nuts. Later, I'd tell Rachel I
had
worn it, and she'd be happy. I had killed a demon and survived and was well on my way to figuring out how to deal with Logan. And the cherry on top of my personal sundae?

My date.

“I can't believe you have a DATE.”

I only glanced at Thea. To be honest, I didn't have time to get involved in one of our long “discussions” that always happened whenever she wasn't speaking to me.

Especially since she'd been at me for a half hour, ever since Jett suddenly decided he'd rather be in the safety of his own home. Hey, I'm reasonable. I hadn't been crazy about the kid
before
I knew he was a demon. I was even willing to let him keep coming around. Hadn't Jasmine herself told me that not
all
demons were evil? Some, like Jett, apparently were just annoying.

But, like I said, no time for this. Devlin would be by to pick me up at any minute, and I was having hair issues. Not to mention I was still shaky—and this long after I'd showered, shampooed and showered some more, just to make sure I'd washed off all the demon dust.
Yeesh.

I poofed my hair with my fingers and frowned as the few waves I'd been able to produce flattened out a moment later. Screw it. I'd just have to dazzle the man enough that he didn't notice my hair. I almost laughed. Sure. Dazzle. Although, had to say, my outfit was excellent.