The_Demons_Wife_ARC (22 page)

At least that
was her justification back then. She regretted it now, but she didn’t think
she’d go to Hell for it.

Samael’s
comment was something like that was perfectly understandable, but what did she
expect, coming from a demon?

When they
slowed for the Houlton exit off I-95, her heart began to race a little faster,
and she steeled herself mentally for the onslaught she expected—no, she knew
was coming when her folks—especially her father—met Samael. She was confident
that Samael could hold his own with them, but still—she was nervous.

Hell, she
thought, all he has to do is use The Voice, and it’ll be done and over with.

But she was
looking forward to presenting Samael as her future husband. She prayed they’d
be happy she was—finally—getting married and to see that she had caught a good
one…who even had money.

“You think
your parents will like me?” Samael asked as he took a left-hand turn off the
exit ramp.

“How’d you
know to turn left here?” Claire asked, suddenly suspicious.

Samael smiled
and said, “What, you don’t think I Googled Callaghan Road before we left?
Besides—”

With a nod of
the head, he indicated the on-board GPS that displayed their position and
destination even though the sound had been turned off for much of the drive.

“You know,
Claire, if this is going to work, you really do have to start trusting me.”

Claire choked
back any protestation and nodded.

“I do,” she
said. “I really do. It’s just that…sometimes I—”

She wanted to
tell him that he seemed distant and aloof today…more than usual. It was
probably because he, too, might be nervous about meeting her parents, but what
did he have to worry about?

“I know,”
Samael said with a mild laugh. “I don’t blame you in the least. To be quite
honest, it’s taking me some time getting used to this new way of looking at
life.”

Satisfied,
Claire settled into her seat and decided that worrying about this visit with
her parents was worry enough for now. She was sure Samael would impress the
Hell out of them, and she chuckled at the thought.

~ * ~

“Nice to meet
yah, young fella’,” Gus McMullen said, extending his hand and shaking with
Samael after giving Claire a quick kiss on the forehead. Claire thought he was
putting on the “Old Man Act” a little too thick. He was, after all, only
sixty-two, but he still had a fine crop of hair, and his green eyes sparkled
like sunlight on a stream.

But as
welcoming as he was, Claire thought the tone in her father’s voice subtly
communicated the exact opposite. And she caught her father staring intently at
Samael as if challenging him for possession of his daughter. Regardless, she
was determined to make this encounter slide by as easily as possible. No
upsets. No arguments. They planned to be on the Interstate heading back to
Portland within a few hours.

“Nice to meet
you, too, sir,” Samael said, his voice as oily smooth as a late-night FM disk
jockey…or a used- car salesman, as he shook her father’s hand and did a quick
bow.

Putting it on
a bit thick, there, don’t you think?
Claire thought, grinning.

When her
mother joined them on the front porch, she gave Claire a bear hug that almost
stopped her breath. She’d always gotten along much better with her mother than
her dad, but he had always been protective of her. She knew it had been for her
own good, but still—she had rebelled.

“Oh, my
Heavens—what a pleasant surprise,” Anne McMullen said, wiping her hands on her
tattered and faded apron. Her long gray hair was tied back in a loose bun on the
back of her head. Her eyes, unlike her husband’s, looked dim and tired behind
round glasses that gave her face an owlish look.

Claire had
noticed Samael’s slight wince when she said the word “Heavens” and
wondered—briefly—why that would bother him when he was getting comfortable
saying the names God and Jesus.

“You should
have called and told us you were on your way,” her mother said.

“We wanted to
surprise you. Besides, we can’t stay very long.”

“Nonsense.
You’re not going to drive all this way and not stay for supper,” her father
said.

“You should
have let me know,” her mother said. “I’m a frightful mess. I wasn’t expecting
company today.” She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and adjusted
her glasses.

“It was kind
of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Claire said, glancing over at Samael and
smiling.

“A five hour
road trip is ‘spur-of-the-moment’?” her father said.

As usual, he
had a cigar going and, as usual, the smell both repelled Claire and filled her
with nostalgia, reminding her she was truly home. He held the door open for
them, and they all entered the foyer.

“I don’t see
any luggage,” her mother said. “Surely you’re going to stay the night.”

Claire and
Samael exchanged glances. They had already agreed what they would say when this
subject came up.

“Sorry, but we
can’t,” Claire said simply. “Samael has to get back to the office first thing
in the morning for an important meeting.”

“Oh?” her
father said, turning to Samael. “And what is your line of work?”

Samael smiled
but said nothing.

“He’s a
businessman,” Claire said, realizing that she still wasn’t sure exactly what he
did. How could she explain that he gathered—or used to gather—souls? She didn’t
see how getting people to sell their souls could be profitable, but she wasn’t
about to bring it up now.

Clair’s father
squinted around a wreath of cigar smoke and said, “What exactly might that
business be?”

“Shipping and
receiving…business equipment.”

“Your business
ever bring you up here? You look kinda familiar, like maybe I’ve seen you ‘round
town.”

“My territory
covers all of Northern New England,” Samael said smoothly, “but I don’t come up
this way often…Not enough customers to make it worthwhile.”

“And
what—exactly—is it that you sell?”

“Buy and
sell…Business equipment. Photocopiers, computers, office furniture. The whole
gamut.” He waved his hand as if displaying his inventory.

“Sounds
fascinating,” Claire’s mother said before turning and heading back into the
kitchen. “Let me put on some coffee. And I’ll get you a little something to
eat. Sandwiches? You must be famished after such a long drive.”

“We’re all
right for now. We stopped along the way,” Claire said.

Laughing a
little too loudly, her father said, “Still have to stop every twenty miles or
so to hit the restroom?” And then to Samael, “She has the smallest bladder I
ever heard of.”

“Da-ad,”
Claire said. Someday she’d tell him that he embarrasses himself more than he
embarrasses her with comments like that. She wished he would stop teasing her
like she was still twelve years old.

Today, though,
wasn’t the day for that conversation. She wanted to get through this visit as
smoothly as possible, and then get back to Portland. She was looking forward to
sleeping in her new bed—Samael’s bed—tonight…if you could call it “sleeping.”

It didn’t take
long for her mother to get a pot of coffee brewed. Since her father had such a
sweet tooth—and it showed both in his girth and his blood sugar levels—she had
cookies and half a blueberry pie to serve. They gathered around the kitchen
table and talked as they ate snacks and drank coffee.

While they
were chatting, Claire picked what she thought was the right moment and held out
her hand to show the ring. Her mother started crying and then gave her a hug
and a kiss. When she kissed Samael, his discomfort was far too obvious. Her
father, on the other hand, examined the ring carefully…as if he could tell
whether or not it was a fake. When he shook Samael’s hand and said, “You’d
better take good care of my little girl,” his eyes were cold and distant.

“Oh, Dad,”
Claire said, swatting him on the arm.

After about an
hour of being alternately fawned over and interrogated, Samael eased back in
his chair and gave Claire a look of desperation that all but screamed: Get me
out of here!

“Weren’t you
going to show me around, Claire?” he asked, scanning the kitchen with a faint
air of disdain.

Feeling
protective of her childhood home, Claire took slight offense, but she got up
and conducted him on a quick tour of the house. She told herself not to be
embarrassed in any way by the home she grew up in. A lot more people lived in
modest homes like this than in mansions like Samael’s. Still, she was bothered
by his patronizing attitude. It hurt, and she meant to talk to him about that
later. It wasn’t like him to be so openly snarky.

They spent
quite a bit of time in her bedroom, going through the childhood things her
mother had kept as though—someday—the little girl she had been before college
would miraculously return and pick up her life right where she had left off.
She was never going to want any of the clothes or other mementos—dolls and
posters and such; and she doubted she’d ever have children who would be
interested in them. Maybe her grandchildren would like them for nostalgia’s
sake. She wondered who was having the harder time letting go—her or her
parents, and she decided she should clean out the rest of this junk sometime
soon.

Not today,
though.

“It’s…modest,
I know,” she said, “but it was a nice place to grow up. Certainly better than a
lot of my friends.”

“I’m sure,”
was all Samael said. He sounded a bit bored by the whole adventure, and that
bothered Claire, too. He barely glanced at her childhood mementos, and she
couldn’t help but wonder if something was wrong.

This had been
his idea, so where was the charm and elegance that swept me off my feet?

Claire
suddenly had an idea. Brightening and casting a look out her bedroom window at
an all too familiar landscape, she said, “There’s something else I need to show
you.”

She caught
Samael looking at her like he was studying her. His expression was flat,
impossible to read.

“This was a
mistake, coming here, wasn’t it?” she said.

Samael’s
expression didn’t change as he shook his head and said, “No. I’m having fun.”

You’re sure as
Hell not showing it
,
Claire thought but didn’t say.

She took his
hand, noticing but not commenting on how uncharacteristically cold it was, and
they went downstairs together. Claire’s mother was still in the kitchen,
tidying things up. She turned to them as Claire led Samael toward the back
door. They grabbed their coats, hats, and gloves. Claire wrapped a scarf around
her neck and pulled it tight.

“Where are you
off to?” she asked.

“I want to
show Samael ‘The Pond.’”

An odd
expression crossed her mother’s face, but she and Samael left before she could
say anything more. They were out onto the back porch, the screen door slamming
shut behind them, when Claire’s mother yelled, “Your dad’s gone to the store to
buy steaks for supper. You’ll stay for supper, won’t you?”

Feeling
exactly like she had when she was a child, racing off to meet up with her
friends at “The Pond,” Claire shouted back, “Don’t know yet.”

And with that,
they walked down the steps and across the field, which was still covered with a
good six inches of snow. They were silent as they headed into the woods.

~ * ~

Claire could
follow the trail to  “The Pond” even if she was blindfolded. Every twist and
turn of the path, every change in elevation, every tree, rock, and shrub was
burned into her memory. But on this particular March afternoon, with the sun
already slanting down in the sky, Claire felt a subtle change in…everything.

The woods
seemed smaller than she remembered, and the trail had somehow lost its mystery
and magic for her. Trees and underbrush had taken over the land, and places
where she had played with her friends and imagined all sorts of mystical
fantasy creatures now seemed—somehow—dull…lifeless…as if something—its life
force—had been sucked out of everything.

A shiver ran
up her back, and not just from the cold air. She squeezed his hand tighter, but
the feeling didn’t pass. Even his hand felt cold and lifeless instead of the
intense warmth she was used to. She might just as well be holding a dead fish.
She kept glancing at him as they walked, his profile etched against the
deepening blue sky, and the thought of explaining to her parents what he really
was sent a stabbing chill through her.  She wanted to say something to him, to
talk about what she was feeling, but she was afraid, and she had no idea where
or how to start.

Instead, she
began a running narrative of the paths and the woods and, especially, “The
Pond” where she used to play, even though—now—it seemed so far away.

“We’d swim
here all the time, me and my friends. And I can show you the exact spot under
the tree where I used to sit and read.
Alice in Wonderland
was my
favorite. I’d come out here by myself sometimes—a lot of times—and just sit and
think. You know?”