The Accidental Kiss (The Kiss Book 1) (29 page)

Before I could offer any comfort our time together had expired. I heard Emily’s screams of protest as the phone was taken away from her. It broke my heart into a million pieces. Even if it killed me, Emily would come out of the priest’s clutches alive.

The voodoo priest came back on the line. “See, she’s fine and well. Now what’s your end of the bargain?”

I couldn’t believe I was about to offer myself on a silver platter. Nonetheless, another one of my friends shouldn’t die because of me. “If you let Emily go, I’ll give you what you want.”

“Your blood?”

The greed in his voice made my stomach turn over. Our agreement had holes in it and wasn’t thoroughly thought out. Things could go wrong and the stakes were high. I didn’t see another option in sight though. My blood was my only bargaining chip.

“Yes,” I gulped. “My blood.”

“Delightful. I knew you would come around.”

“Only because you kidnapped my friend.”

“The semantics are not important. You have until tomorrow night. We will be waiting for you at the warehouse closest to the end in downtown Castor,” he directed.

“Awesome,” I said sarcastically.

“And, Sky? I’ll be looking forward to it.”

The last thing I heard before the phone call ended was the sound of his maniacal laughter, which would haunt my dreams for nights to come. I stared at the device and debated calling my mom. Her worry was probably at sky-high levels right now. Still, there was a lot to do before tomorrow night and every second counted. Nonetheless, to guarantee my mom didn’t alert the police, my fingers flew over the keyboard as I sent her a quick text. With that taken care of, I placed the phone in my pocket and returned to the bedroom.

Daemon’s taut expression met mine when I entered. “I don’t appreciate being kept in the dark.”

“Sorry, but it was the voodoo priest.”

Both Daemon and Mrs. Ruth were taken aback at this curveball I had thrown at them. They quickly recovered though and started to talk at once.

Their overlapping voices broke the thin thread of my sanity. “SHUTUP,” I screamed. My eyelids squeezed shut as I said it again, quieter. “Just shut the hell up.”

They were stunned into silence. These last few days had been a rollercoaster ride and I felt as if we were about to reach the peak. Except instead of exhilaration, I felt a profound sense of doom. There was a third life to save now and countless others on the line. I couldn’t believe this whole messed up situation was over my blood. My mom shouldn’t have given birth to me. It was a painful truth to face but as soon as I entered this world, destruction was painted on my forehead. I heard the covers ruffle on the bed and Daemon’s heavy footprints walk across the hardwood floors. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders, bringing me into him. I buried my face against his chest. Daemon’s clothes smelled like a cool crisp fall day in the woods.

“Everything will be ok,” he soothed.

“Say it again.”

Daemon repeated the mantra and each time he did, the tension eased from my body, the self-deprecating thoughts lessened and I started to believe the words he spoke.

Everything will be ok. It had to be.

Letting out a shaky breath, I untwined myself from his embrace and began to tell Mrs. Ruth and Daemon what the voodoo priest had said. Once I was done, Daemon was obviously not happy about the bargain I had agreed upon with the voodoo priest.

While on the contrary, Mrs. Ruth thought it was a fabulous idea. “He may think he has the upper hand but he doesn’t. You hold the power.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Because you’re coming to him.”

Her reasoning was lost on me. “Yeah, but I’m meeting him at a warehouse he chose.”

She gave me a look as if I was a stupid mortal who didn’t understand anything. Mrs. Ruth dropped her point and moved on. “Tomorrow night does not leave you a lot of time to prepare.”

“I disagree,” Daemon said. “I’ve been preparing for this moment since the day I cut the ties that bound me.”

His unshakable confidence seeped into my blood, giving me strength. “And I’ve been preparing for this moment since the day Melissa was taken off this earth.”

“Revenge doesn’t equal an automatic win,” Mrs. Ruth argued.

“Yes, but when we do win, I won’t feel an ounce of regret.” Daemon’s expression clouded. “He’s given me too many regrets already.”

“Well then, I guess I should explain the second vial.” Mrs. Ruth picked up the bottle filled with green liquid and handed it to Daemon. His fingers closed over it. “Since your soul is slowly evaporating, the green liquid will act like a strength serum.”

Daemon’s mouth pulled into a tight line. “I don’t do green juice. Never will.”

“It’s not like green juice. It won’t make you act like a mindless zombie, no pun intended. Instead think of it as a energy boost, like coffee.” When she saw he still wasn’t sold on the serum, Mrs. Ruth snatched the vial back. “You will not be able to save Sky or anybody else if you only have half a soul. You will be weak, unable to fight, and useless. If you don’t want the green potion then stay home.”

Calling his masculinity into question worked. Daemon growled, reclaimed the vial and slipped it into his pocket for safekeeping.

A self-satisfied smile lit up Mrs. Ruth’s face as she turned to me. “We have everything checked off for tomorrow night unless there’s something you forgot to mention.”

“He likes playing games.” The thought occurred to me suddenly. “What if this is another one of his games?”

“If it is, I have no clue what game he’s getting at,” Mrs. Ruth said.

“Me neither. Then again, I would rather not know what sick awful things go on in his head,” Daemon shuddered. “It’s probably like a rendition of
Saw
part one, two, and three.”

“Great and we’re walking into his house of horrors,” I uttered.

Daemon and I didn’t say what we were thinking, that Emily was currently living in it. Mrs. Ruth crawled to the edge of the bed, and peeked underneath the bed skirt.

I looked at Daemon, bewildered. “What is she doing?”

“Searching for gold?”

“Ha, very funny.” Her voice came out muffled as she slid a large suitcase out from under the bed skirt and placed it on the bed. “This is a lot better than gold.”

She popped the latches and the suitcase sprung open to reveal…weapons? I took a step closer, gasping when I saw, sure enough; it was weapons unlike any I’d ever seen before. They looked like medieval torture devices.

“You can’t walk in two against fifty without some kind of protection,” Mrs. Ruth quipped.

Daemon eyed the suitcase, wearily. “I think you’re forgetting the voodoo priest zombies are immortal. These weapons won’t be any good to us.”

“Give me some credit. They’re cast in Rhodium.”

I jumped into the conversation, asking the unspoken question in the room. “How did you go about acquiring these? There has to be at least 500,000 dollars worth of weapons in there.”

Mrs. Ruth’s lips lifted in a mysterious smirk. “I would rather not tell but it was totally legal.”

“Good enough answer for me.” Daemon gestured to the suitcase. “Ladies go first. Take your pick.”

I hesitantly stepped up to the suitcase and was overwhelmed at my choices. Due to my mother’s job, she was opposed to any objects that could kill. Once, we had to live in the dark for a year because a man had ended up on her table, head bashed to pieces from a lamp. So you could imagine how she felt about actual weapons. It was drilled into my head to feel the same way. My hand hovered over a stick with spikes on it but I withdrew. I couldn’t pick out something that would evidently end up in somebody’s chest.

“I’m sorry…this is weird. Picking out my weapon of death.”

“If I remember correctly, you said you wanted to watch the voodoo priest bleed out onto the sidewalk while the life drained from his eyes.”

I cringed at the words Daemon remembered so clearly. The old me wouldn’t have said anything like that in a million years. Just like the old me didn’t believe in zombies or witchcraft. I was so far removed from who I was it was remarkable.

Daemon picked up a dagger and placed it in my hands. His gaze held me captive. “Sky, this man took away your best friend, kidnapped Emily, robbed you of a normal teenage upbringing, and wants to kill YOU. Should I go on?”

There were countless reasons why the voodoo priest deserved to be dead but there were actions and there were words. I had the word part down, but intentionally committing harm to somebody was a different realm.

Mrs. Ruth gently nudged Daemon aside. “I got this,” she whispered to him. He grudgingly walked over to the corner of the room to give us our privacy. Mrs. Ruth removed the dagger from my outstretched palms and looked at me gently. “You might not have to use anything except the potion I’ve given you.”

“That’s highly unlikely.”

Mrs. Ruth bobbed her head. “Which is exactly why you need to go into the warehouse armed. There’s a lot riding on this.”

She didn’t need to tell me that; I was putting enough pressure on myself alone. Still, I saw how Mrs. Ruth perceived me. As a scared little girl who didn’t have an ounce of bravery in her and she was about to be proven wrong.

As soon as I figured out what weapon to claim as my own, Mrs. Ruth gave us a run down on how the red tinted potion worked. Basically as long as it touched bare skin, the evil should be sucked from the voodoo priest’s body, along with his magic. It sounded simple enough but as I had learned long ago, nothing was as simple as it sounded.

Daemon slung a bag equipped with everything we needed plus some over his shoulder while I carried the food Mrs. Ruth had gratefully prepared for us to the truck.

Like a proud aunt, she stood in the doorway and waved rapidly to us. “Good Luck!”

Daemon threw the gear into the back as I climbed into the passenger seat. Through the rearview mirror, I watched him gallop back up the steps to Mrs. Ruth. He wrapped her in a tight hug and whispered something in her ear. She threw her head back laughing and wiped at her eyes. My heart squeezed. He was saying his final goodbyes in case his soul wasn’t reclaimed. I hoped we didn’t have to do the same tomorrow night. The truck’s door opened and Daemon slid into the driver’s seat.

“Are you ok?” I asked.

He gave me a smile to hide the sadness in his eyes. “Peachy keen.”

Before any more questions could be asked, he punched on the radio and The Killers blared out of the speakers. We turned onto the cobblestone streets toward home. Daemon drummed his fingertips on the steering wheel, his gaze unwavering. The first hours blurred by without a word spoken from either of us. A few times I looked over, mouth opened, ready to say something but my brain would draw a blank. Talking about the weather or some other bland topic seemed silly in the scheme of things. So, I stared out the window and tried not to think about Emily, the voodoo priest, or how in a few hours I could be dead along with Daemon. Yet that proved impossible. Weird, huh?

Abruptly, Daemon yanked the wheel and my body slammed into the car door. “What the hell?” I rubbed my arm, pissed off. “Who taught you to drive? A video game?”

The car came to rest on the shoulder of the road next to an open field. Daemon sheepishly glanced over at me. “Sorry.”

Who was I kidding? I could never be mad at him longer than five seconds underneath those puppy dog eyes. They were bewitching. “It’s fine. Why did you pull over?”