Dating for Demons (19 page)

Read Dating for Demons Online

Authors: Serena Robar

Tags: #Vampires, #Fiction, #Horror, #Best friends, #Dating & Sex, #Horror & Ghost Stories, #Juvenile Fiction, #Social Issues, #Love & Romance, #School & Education, #Friendship, #Dating (Social customs), #Fantasy & Magic, #Horror stories, #Education, #Family & Relationships, #Universities and colleges, #Demoniac possession, #Higher

“How are they?” Hunter wanted to know, rushing tenderly to Piper’s side. I noted how he touched her hair in concern. He loved her. He might not know it yet, but he did. Piper was too wrapped up in my wound to notice.
I pulled away, directing my attention to the man I loved. “Get up, Thomas,” I begged softly. “You’ve got to get up.” I became increasingly more agitated when his body remained lifeless.
I got right into his face and screamed, “Dammit, Thomas, get up! Do you have any idea what I had to do in order to save you? I had to kiss a demon. Twice. Now I have this big, ugly tattoo on my chest.” I yanked on his shoulders, shaking him.
“Get up. Get up. Get up!” I demanded, over and over again. I was unaware of the room filling with Tribunal Security until Mr. Holloway laid a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s over, Colby,” he said sadly. It was the way he said it, with such finality, that broke something inside of me. No, it wasn’t over. It wasn’t over until I said it was over. I reached back and slapped Thomas, hard. His head snapped to one side and I heard Piper gasp.
“Get up!” I screamed and slapped him again. Mr. Holloway tried to restrain me but I slapped once more. This time, it was Thomas’s hand that stopped the blow.
“It’s bad enough you were kissing a demon, do you have to beat me senseless too?” he whispered through cracked lips.
Piper squealed. I pulled him into my arms and kissed his face all over. He was okay. He was alive. Well, he wasn’t technically alive but he was back and that was all I wanted.
I helped him into a sitting position and checked out the tattoo on his chest. It was a big, ugly brand that matched mine. Blech, we would no longer be attending any pool parties, that’s for sure.
“Anyone want to tell me why I’m sitting in the middle of a house that smells like cats?” he asked weakly.
I gave Piper a look. Where did we start?
“You were slowly being possessed by an Avarice Demon named Barnaby,” I began. Piper nodded in agreement.
“How did you know that?” He was incredulous.
“You had bad dreams, couldn’t sleep and were irritable. You did irrational things like send Carl away to New York and one time, Barnaby actually possessed you in your sleep and talked to me. That was kind of the clincher.”
He nodded. “Yeah, that would do it. You saved me?”
“Of course. It was really the new library exhibit that gave me the idea how.”
“What library exhibit?” he asked. Mr. Holloway looked bewildered as well.
“The one you brought back to the library, Thomas—you don’t remember that?”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t really remember much of anything. I suspected I was having bad dreams but I think I’ve been blacking out as well. I’d remember going to bed but I’d wake up in strange places. Places I didn’t remember going to. I wondered if I was going crazy.
“I do remember a fire of some sort. In catacombs filled with books. It’s like I was watching someone else. I—I don’t really remember the details.”
Hunter seemed to be agitated and backed away from us. Piper followed but I was more concerned with Thomas.
“When it was obvious you were being possessed, I did some research and discovered that Demon Slayers used a symbol to protect their body from being possessed if they died. I found the ingredients for the tattoo ink and made some up. Then Piper helped me tattoo it on my chest. I had to wait until Barnaby was in our world before I could put the symbol on you. That way you would be protected and he couldn’t escape back to his own world to try again later.”
“Where is he now?” Thomas wanted to know.
“Up there, with his followers.” I nodded toward the electrical activity in the sky, which was abating. “Once the storm is gone, they won’t be able to survive here. The only thing keeping them going is the electricity.”
“We should get you to Psi Phi House, Thomas,” Mr. Holloway stated. “You did a fine job, Colby, I knew I could count on you.”
Praise. Who doesn’t love it? “Thank you, sir, but I couldn’t have done it without Piper. Where did she go, anyway?” I looked around for her but she and Hunter were gone.
Thomas groaned while I helped him up. He clutched his chest. “This thing hurts. Even more than demon possession.”
I decided the explanation about soul mates should wait until we got him back to the House. I knew about Hunter’s family and the fire. Piper had told me when we were doing the tattoo thing.
I hoped Hunter realized that it wasn’t Thomas who’d done that terrible thing, but Barnaby. He probably needed some time to think. I was glad Piper went with him.
We arrived at Psi Phi House to the usual bustle of activity. No one had suspected Thomas was being possessed by a demon—except Ileana, of course. The girls had no idea they were almost destroyed in a demon invasion, which was as it should be. My job as Protector was to keep them from danger.
Although they’d hear about it eventually. Mr. Holloway was having a bulletin sent to all vampires about the situation. We needed to be vigilant to keep this from happening again.
“So it worked,” Ileana murmured in approval while I was getting Thomas a warm washcloth.
“Yeah, and check out this ugly brand.” I unzipped my sweatshirt and showed her.
She nodded. “Does he know what the brand means, other than demon protection?”
“No, I’m not sure how to bring that up. I mean, what do I say? ‘Hey, honey, when you were possessed by a demon, I fused our souls together and now we’re entwined for all eternity. Hope you don’t mind’?” I shook my head. “It’s totally insane.”
“Now he will never again have to worry about being possessed by a demon. That is a great fear for full-bloods. I’m sure he’ll be grateful for that. As for being entwined with
you
for eternity, well, that’s another matter.”
“Nice. Remind me never to choose you to write a toast in my honor.”
She smirked and wandered back toward the living room, where Thomas was relaxing on one of the fluffy couches.
I returned with washcloth in hand and gently washed his neck and face. At first, he put up a fight about all the fussing but it didn’t take long for him to enjoy the extra attention. I waited until we were finally alone before I broached the subject.
“Thomas, how worried were you about demon possession before this happened?”
He thought a long moment. “It’s a concern most older vampires have. The ones who have been around a long while. They tend to get paranoid and that’s part of the process. I honestly didn’t worry about it until I started having those crazy dreams. By then, I guess it was too late. I wasn’t in full control and I couldn’t remember large blocks of time.”
“The symbol on your chest will protect you from demon possession but it has an extra, let’s call it, feature as well,” I told him.
He looked puzzled. “Really? What’s that?”
“I sort of fixed your whole missing piece of essence problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“You see, vampires can’t really get tattoos. We heal so quickly that a traditional tattoo disappears right away. We sort of stay the way we looked when we became Undead.”
He nodded impatiently. Every vampire knew that.
I struggled with a tactful way to put the next part. I felt like I was about to confess a shotgun wedding. “The only way for my plan to work was to create a potion that lasted on the Undead. It required the help of a witch, er, a Magick Engineer.”
His furrowed brow was a great indication that he was still clueless as to where I was taking this.
“So, the potion doesn’t just make a permanent tattoo. It’s a spell that filled the empty hole of your soul with mine and kind of fused them so we are sort of one. Entwined. Soul mates.”
I waited for the full implication of what I was saying to register with him. Did he realize that we were, in essence, married forever? If we separated or left each other, we would be incomplete.
He looked at me carefully. “And you were aware of this when you created the plan?”
“Yes.”
“How did you feel about it?” His voice was carefully neutral.
“I was fine with it. I mean, I didn’t really think it mattered since we were, you know, in love, but it occurred to me that you might not want to be saddled with me through eternity. I mean, you love me but that doesn’t mean you want my soul replacing your missing essence.” I was wringing the washcloth in my hands.
“Colby, you saved my life. And this isn’t the first time. The minute I met you, I knew you were the one. Every vampire dreams of finding someone they can love; the fact that you were already Undead, that I wouldn’t lose you to aging, was more than I could hope for.” He sat up, swung his legs off the couch and took the washcloth from me.
“I knew the first time we met that my soul belonged to you.” He took my hands in his. “We belong to each other, Colby. I’m yours forever and it seems you’re stuck with me forever as well.”
I smiled at his joke. “You’re not mad?” I whispered.
“Are you?” he countered. I was shocked.
“How could I be mad? You would have done it for me. You wouldn’t even have hesitated. I love you.”
“So there was hesitation?” he teased.
I rolled my eyes. “Uh, yeah. Did you not see my new ugly tattoo? But I did it for you. Now that’s true love, baby.”
Sixteen
PIPER
“H
unter, please wait up. I know you’re upset but can’t you see it wasn’t Thomas but Barnaby?” I tried to chase him down as he hurried out of the house.
I caught up to him and we walked down the street, away from Mrs. Murphy’s house. We came to the park outside the University and Hunter sat at the first bench he came to. I joined him.
“I had to leave,” he whispered when I didn’t say anything more to him.
“I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” He shook his head. “I had to leave, not because Barnaby torched the archive,” he said, looking into my eyes. “And I do recognize it wasn’t Thomas but Barnaby.”
I was relieved.
“I should have been there. I should have saved my grandfather. I quit being a Demon Slayer because I didn’t like that it was forced upon me and now what? I’m still a Demon Slayer. I’ll always be a Demon Slayer. But now I’m alone.”
I thought about what he said. True, his family was gone, but he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t the last Demon Slayer. I was here. Maybe I wasn’t born to it and raised with it, but I was a Demon Slayer nonetheless. I reached over and put my hand in his.
Mr. Whiskers found us sitting in contemplative silence.
“Word on the street is you took out Barnaby.” He sat down in front of us.
“Not now, Mr. Whiskers,” I said.
He ignored me. “And my buddy who used to live at Mrs. Murphy’s has a new pad courtesy of the Huntress here.” I’d forgotten about the gray cat that warned me about the plot to attack Aunt Chloe using the blood van.
“You know, it was pretty smart of you to call the animal police. They rounded up all those demons and really put a kink in Barnaby’s plans. You saved the day, girlie. Thanks to my friend. You won’t be forgettin’ a promise, now will you?”
“I never promised. I said I’d see what I could do.”
The cat snorted. “A promise is a promise.”
“Look, can’t this wait? We’re kind of in the middle of something.” I looked meaningfully at Hunter.
The cat licked its right paw. “Sorry to hear about the family, Hunter, I liked your granddad. He was a great ol’ Slayer. I missed him after he quit.”
“He didn’t quit, he retired,” Hunter corrected.
The cat snorted again. “Hardly. A Slayer doesn’t retire. Ever. You should know that. He quit. Plain and simple. He thought he could play with his books and study the journals but that’s not what a Slayer does. He let Barnaby get the drop on him. Wouldn’t fight him. Said he wasn’t a Slayer anymore.” The cat shook his head. “I’ve seen a fair amount of Slayers in my day but one thing is constant through them all. You can’t quit who you are. To do anything else is suicide.”

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