The Demon in Me (29 page)

She was breathing so fast now that she felt ready to hyper-ventilate. “Actually, she said that you’re an evil, powerful, ex-incubus archdemon and to break the curse you need to kill her and tear out her heart and that everything you’ve told me has been lies so you could get me to do what you want. In a nutshell.”

He stared at her stonily. “What else did she say?”

“That she tried to destroy you out of self-defense and also to redeem herself. But she failed.”

“Oh, she failed, all right.”

She searched his face, which looked more upset than pissed off at her fast-forward recount of last night’s events. “Tell me she’s the one who’s lying.”

He let out a long exhale. “Is that all it would take? Would you believe me again then?” His jaw clenched. “I knew you shouldn’t have gotten too close to her.”

“You’re not denying anything.”

“No, I’m not, am I?”

Her chest hitched. “You said you were a good demon dispatched to get the bad things that escaped the Netherworld. That you protected humans. That was a lie?”

He swallowed hard, then shook his head. “Busted.”

“What?”

“I lied to you,” he said softly. “Selina told you the truth. I am an archdemon. Or, at least, I
was
.”

Chills broke out down her arms. She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say. At the very least, she expected him to deny it.

She could barely breathe now. “The fire I see in your eyes… that’s part of your demon visage.”

“Yes.”

“The only type of demon who can be good is a former human.”

His jaw clenched. “Somebody’s been doing their home-work, haven’t they?” He swore again and looked away. When he turned his gaze to hers again his eyes were fiery. “I know how this looks. It’s bad. But I’m not going to lie to you anymore. I only lied in the beginning because I didn’t want you to be afraid of me.”

Her back hurt from pressing up against the stove edge, but her kitchen was so small, and she didn’t want to move any closer to him.

“No, you lied so I wouldn’t exorcise you.”

“Well, yeah. That, too. But I am not going to hurt you. I swear it.”

“You swear it?” she repeated incredulously. “You
swear
it? On what? A Bible?”

He sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to say to make you believe.”

“You don’t have to say anything. You know what the craziest thing is? Even after Selina told me all of that, I still didn’t believe her. Not really. But now… it’s over, Darrak. It’s
over
.”

“Which means what?”

Her throat was tight. “Exactly what it sounds like.”

Darrak nodded. “Normally if you’re planning on exorcising a demon, it’s best not to give him a heads-up about it first. The surprise factor works best.” He swallowed and raised his gaze from the floor to hers again. His eyes had returned again to their ice blue shade. “I know you won’t believe anything that comes out of my mouth anymore, but I’m going to try anyhow.”

“Try what?”

“I was a very powerful demon, and I did what I wanted to do for a very long time. But do you want to hear the real truth and nothing but?”

“More than you know.”

“I’ve changed.”

“Bullshit.”

He shook his head. “For three hundred years I’ve been trapped inside a succession of humans. Do you know what that’s done to me?”

“Made you into a lying, evil sack of shit?”

He huffed out a small laugh. “Other than that.”

“What, then?”

“It’s changed me. The humanity has infused me.”

“Humanity?”
She held onto the piece of salt so hard she was sure it would leave a permanent mark.

“That’s right. I didn’t know what it meant to feel like a human back then—to love and fear and want things that weren’t totally selfish. That has bled into me from the humans I’ve possessed. Now I feel
everything
. Even the things I don’t want to feel.”

She didn’t think she could be any more confused by Darrak than she already was. She’d been wrong. “But… you said you possessed bad people. Was that a lie, too? How can you claim to have absorbed their humanity if they were scumbags like you said they were?”

“I wasn’t lying about that. But it didn’t matter if the humans were good or bad, they were still human. That alone has given me some of that intrinsic humanity.”

She brought a hand up to her aching head. There was not enough aspirin in her medicine cabinet—or, possibly, the entire world—to deal with her current headache. “But you were an archdemon. Why would you even care if you chose a bad or good human?”

“In the beginning I didn’t. As an archdemon I thought of humans as insects—less than worthy of life. Pests to be played with or squashed.” He actually winced at whatever horrified expression moved across her face at that statement. “But I’m different now. It was slow, but it happened. My former existence as an archdemon has been permanently dampened for me.”

She shook her head. “Dampened?”

“I remember well enough what I was like and what all I was responsible for, but it’s as if I’m watching from afar, seeing the horrible things I considered fun and games as if they happened to someone else. I wasn’t a very nice guy back then. Selina wasn’t the only one over the centuries to summon me and have me do her unpleasant bidding—but she was the only one to escape my wrath.”

“You killed the others?” Her voice was very quiet.

“Yes,” he replied without hesitation. His jaw tensed and he looked down at the ground again. “Even after I changed, my single goal has been survival. I’ve only been able to observe.” He went silent for a moment. “But when you could hear me, and when you were able to help give me form, that gave me so much hope for the future. That I even had a future.” A smile stretched his lips, but it didn’t seem like a happy one. “
Hope
. There’s another human emotion I never would have felt as a full-strength archdemon. It would have amused me then to see myself now. See how weak I’ve become. How
human
.”

So Darrak was saying he was all kinds of evil in the past but ever since the curse he’d become steadily more like a human? More lies? Or was he finally telling her the truth? Part of her was still desperate to believe he had changed.

“You’ve been using me,” she said.

“Of course I have.” His lips curled with an unpleasantness that seemed directed toward himself rather than her. “My first chance in three centuries to fix this mess I’d gotten myself into? How could I possibly resist?”

“And then what would you do? Go back to the Netherworld?”

His brows drew together. “No. They’re not very open to change in Hell—especially when that change includes lessening the so-called evil inside of their high-ranking demons. Good is the one thing that scares them—it’s very unpredictable. If I didn’t go back to the way I was before I’d probably be destroyed. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

She repressed a shudder as well as a sliver of concern for him. “So what would you do?”

“I’d try to stay here in the human world for as long as I could. But as soon as my presence was detected they would send agents after me.”

Further confusion only caused the fog in her brain to thicken. “Then why try to break the curse at all? It might be a prison, being stuck inside a human, but at least you’re relatively safe.”

He swallowed and then met her eyes. “If I don’t break the curse, you’ll die.”

Her mouth dropped open. “So you were planning on becoming the hunted, on the run from the hordes of Hell on your ass, so you wouldn’t kill me?”

“Basically.”

“What happened to your pledge of self-protection?”

“It’s still very much intact. I don’t want to be exorcised. Being on the run is different from being destroyed all at once. At least I have a chance—even if it’s not a very good one.” He inhaled deeply. “So there you have it, Eden. The ugly truth about yours truly.”

She tried to process everything Darrak had told her. It was difficult. But what Selina had told her last night had rung really true for her. She’d felt in her gut that the witch had been honest with her. She had a similar feeling right now.

It was the truth. The bad parts and the good parts.

She’d opened up the can of worms and she still wanted to pick around at the gruesome contents. “I still don’t know what you really look like.”

His jaw tensed. “This is what I look like.”

“Maybe part of the time.”

“I never have to look any different from this if I don’t want to.”

“Show me,” she said firmly.

He shook his head. “I don’t want to scare you.”

“Way too freaking late for that.”

“You’re afraid of me.”

That much would be obvious even if she was trying to hide it. And she wasn’t. “You’re a demon. How can I
not
be afraid of you?”

The very next moment he stormed toward her and knocked the salt out of her hand. It skittered across the kitchen counter. She gasped as he pressed up against her and held her wrists firmly against the counter on either side of the stove.

“If I wanted to harm you,” he breathed against the side of her face, “I would have already done it. I don’t want you hurt because of me. Ever.”

Her heart slammed against her chest. “Let me go.”

He brought her hands up to touch his face. “I’m the same man you knew yesterday. The one you said you trusted. Nothing’s changed.”

“You’re not a man.”

But he did feel like one. The rasp of his slight growth of beard, the hard edge of his jaw, his full lips. The silk of his hair slipping through her fingers. His skin against her skin. So real. So human.

“I’d do anything to prove myself to you.” His mouth was very close to hers and she didn’t turn her head or pull away from him. “What can I do?”

“Tell me your true name,” she replied without missing a beat. It was a chance for him to be completely truthful with her.

He tensed. “Eden… you don’t know what you’re asking me.”

“Sure I do. If I knew your true name I could make you tell me everything. I could make you show me what you really look like when you’re a demon, right?”

“You could also make me eviscerate someone you didn’t like. Or… juggle. Or sing karaoke. Or throw myself off a cliff. If you knew my true name you could make me your puppet.”

Karaoke? Normally, that might sound like fun. “But what if I promised not to do any of that?”

His jaw tensed. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“How does someone find out your true name?”

He finally let go of her and stepped backward. “They have to be very determined. And very deceitful, and willing to face the consequences when I’m finished doing what they’ve forced me to do.”

She studied him. “Is that really why Selina tried to destroy you? Because you were pissed off that she summoned you and forced you to make her into a black witch?”

His expression closed off. “What did she tell you about that specifically?”

She crossed her arms again. “Not much, actually. She used some sort of a spell to have you give power to her instead of you taking power from her. That was around the same time my head blew up.”

“I can imagine.” He walked to the other side of the kitchenette, which was only a few feet away, and clutched the side of the laminate countertop over the dishwasher. “Selina received too much power from me on multiple occasions because of that little spell of hers. It nearly destroyed her. She had to learn how to curb it so the black magic didn’t corrupt her soul completely.” He raised his troubled gaze to hers. “So what’s next, Eden?”

Where were they supposed to go from here? She was torn. He’d admitted that he was a liar, an archdemon, a total nightmarepalooza, and yet she still wasn’t running away from him while screaming her head off. She couldn’t get away even if she wanted to. Evil or not, he was still supernaturally super-glued to her at the moment.

And there was more than that. A deep sense of wanting to trust him again, despite everything she now knew to be the truth.

Before she could say anything else, there was a knock on the door and Eden’s shoulders tensed.

“Expecting somebody?” Darrak asked.

Eden shook her head. He didn’t look as if he believed her. He walked toward the door and glanced out through the peephole. After a moment, he surprised her by unlocking the door.

“What is it?” he asked unpleasantly.

“You’re still here?” It was Ben. A breath caught in her throat.

“Obviously.”

“Is Eden in?”

“She is.” Darrak turned with a frozen smile on his face. “Great timing, by the way. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were psychic.”

Ben entered the apartment. “I called the office and Andy said you weren’t in yet. I was in the area anyhow, so I thought I’d try my luck and see if you were still at home.”

“Oh,” she said. “Uh… great. Here I am.”

He grinned at her. “Somebody let me in the door downstairs so I came right up.”

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence.

“Listen, Darrak,” Ben said. “Do you think I can talk to your sister alone for a moment?”

Darrak laughed hollowly. “My sister, huh?”

“That’s right.”

He cocked his head to the side. “And what would you say if I told you that I’m not really her brother?”

Eden looked at the demon sharply but his full attention was on the cop.

Ben frowned. “I’d probably wonder why you would have told me that in the first place. And why you’re staying with her.”

“That’s very complicated, actually.”

“Can you go somewhere else so I can talk to her in private?”

“Afraid not. I need to stay close to her.”

“You’re very stubborn.”

“You could say that.” Darrak glanced at her. “Eden?”

Eden’s stomach churned. She didn’t want to involve Ben in this. “Ben, this isn’t really a good time. Can we talk later?”

Confusion was plain on the cop’s face. “No, we can’t. I want to know what the hell is going on here. Why did you tell me Darrak’s your brother when he’s not?”

“She was trying to protect you from the truth, of course,” Darrak said.

Eden clenched her fists. “Darrak. Stop.”

“And what truth is that?” Ben’s eyes narrowed on the demon. “That you’re her lover? Her ex? Her overprotective gay roommate? Stop me any time I’m getting close here.”