His skull face went instantly sheepish, his nearly lipless mouth pouting. “You did it first.”
Rearing up in his face, she jabbed a finger into the socket where his red eye glowed. “I don’t give a shit. You watch your mouth around the kid. Feel me? And might I suggest a breath mint. Just because you have to be scary, it doesn’t mean you have to reek like the bowels of Hell while you do it.”
His nod was contrite, his sigh aggravated. “Fine. No more swearing. Now go away. I have a job to do.”
Marcella’s ears pricked to the tune of information. “Yeah, about that—who sent you and what’s the job?”
“You know the rules, Marcella. I ain’t tellin’ you nuthin’.”
“Listen here, you ass licker, spit it out.” For all the threatening she was doing, she was thankful he was too dense to realize there was absolutely nothing she could do but verbally knock him for a loop.
A mere second later, from the sudden clarity on his face, she realized that was a mistake. It was in that second that he laughed, all deep and demonic. Just like they’d taught them in class when they’d watched all those old
Omen
movies. “You can’t hurt me, Marcella. You’re not demon—now back off, bit—”
“Uh, uh, uh—you watch your mouth,” she warned with the click of her fingers.
“Back—off!”
he thundered, sending her transparent form across the room with the whistling blow of his stagnant breath.
But Kellen, stunned to silence in the moments while she’d lectured the demon, sprang into action, hurling the entire box of salt at Abbadon.
From the far corner of the room, Marcella admired the lean mass of muscle in Kellen’s arm when he lobbed the salt, all while still protectively holding Carlos. When she had seen women cooing over a man holding a child and saying how sexy it was, she’d never understood it. But she did now. It was rather late in the game, but she got it.
Squeals of agony nearly raised the roof as the fine crystals showered over Abbadon, the salt leaving gashes of deep, oozing welts all over his body before he sizzled to the floor.
Carlos buried his head in Kellen’s shoulder, fisting his hands over his ears until the screams were nothing more than a hushed moan of pain.
The woman who’d looked familiar to her when she’d seen her walking with Carlos lay slumped in the corner chair, her big, square, multicolored handbag clenched to her chest.
Silence, in all its bliss, settled over the trashed remains of the store.
Marcella fluttered to Mrs. Ramirez, whose chest rose and fell with a—thankfully—easy rhythm. “Is she okay?”
Kellen bent beside the older woman, pressing a fingertip to her neck. “I think she just passed out.”
Marcella was instantly beside Kellen and Carlos, tipping her head at an angle so he could see it was her. She smiled. “Hey, Carlos. You okay?”
Kellen’s sharp eyes took her in. “You know Carlos?”
“Sort of. Let’s just say we’re acquainted, right, Carlos?”
“He can
see
you?”
“And you thought you were the only one with divine passage to me. How is it that you know him?”
“He’s Mrs. Ramirez’s grandson. She’s the woman who helped Delaney out here, remember?”
Huh. She didn’t have time to think about it now, but it was too weird that Carlos was connected to Kellen and they’d both been able to summon her. “I laid low, remember? My visiting hours were limited due to my bad-assedness. Though, I remember D telling me Mrs. Ramirez was very religious and she didn’t want me to run into her in case she whipped out her rosary. So this is her grandson . . . Does she know he has the gift of sight?”
Kellen ruffled a hand over Carlos’s head with a soothing hand. “Well, if she didn’t know before, I think she might have some indication now.”
“Shit. What a way to find out.” Smiling down at Carlos, who’d lifted his head, she asked, “Carlos? Remember me?”
He nodded, but his lips made no effort to move.
“Are you okay, little man? Don’t be afraid of stupid old Abbadon. He’s just a big bully. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you again. Promise.”
Carlos shivered, but once more nodded, his fists clinging to the collar of Kellen’s shirt in tense balls. Fuck, fuck, fuck. If she ever had hellbound privileges again, she was going to kick Abbadon from here to Sunday. “Carlos, has this ever happened before? I mean, have you seen other things besides ghosts?”
When he finally spoke, it was staggered and hushed. “Some . . . sometimes.”
Marcella sent Kellen a look of deep concern.
“You wanna talk about it?” Kellen asked against the side of Carlos’s silky black hair.
His head moved from side to side.
And who could blame him?
Kellen pulled out a chair that hadn’t been ruined from the corner where Delaney had once held story time for the neighborhood children. He sat, planting Carlos firmly on his lap. “I have a secret, Carlos. Wanna know what it is?”
Marcella’s heart shifted in her chest when his shoulders shrugged, but he’d stirred, meaning Kellen had caught his attention.
“I can see ghosts, too.”
She held her breath, waiting for Carlos to react, intentionally shoving aside the kind of grateful she felt for Kellen’s experience with children. Finally, he lifted his head. “Really?”
Kellen smiled, warm, reassuring, and heart-stoppingly sexy. “Yep. It’s true. That’s why I can see Marcella just like you. So I just want you to know, I understand what it’s like to feel different from everyone else and not want to talk about it. But if you do decide you want to talk about it, anytime day or night, you just have your grandma bring you over here. Okay?”
Carlos said nothing, but his eyes cleared a bit, most likely in relief. Then he laid his head on Kellen’s shoulder and closed his eyes once more, sending Marcella one last sleepy gaze before he yawned and fell asleep.
“You’re really great with kids,” she remarked, fighting a stab of jealousy.
“My job required it.”
Her eyes softened when she saw his jaw stiffen. “You miss it, don’t you?”
“Every day. But this ghost gig’s made it almost impossible to function.”
“Because they can touch you.”
“Yeah. I can’t very well preach to the kids about talking things out if I’m showing up to class with black eyes and lumps the size of Detroit on my head. The PTA just wasn’t buying my bullshit about boxing lessons,” he said with a sarcastic tint to his words, tucking Carlos closer to him.
Marcella bit the inside of her lip. So maybe the sexy man baby-holding thing had merit. Kellen was like a different person with Carlos. He related to him in a way she not only admired but aspired to.
Oh. God. She had not just wished she could relate to a child.
Ah, but you did. In fact, you felt a feeling quite natural for all women. Say it isn’t so, Marcella. Say you’re not growing a sensitive bone.
The hell. She was just being decent. Yet when she looked at Carlos, snuggled against the hard muscle of Kellen’s chest, she wanted to throw her arms around them both, take protective measures so no one would ever harm them. Feed them milk and cookies she’d baked, watch them throw a baseball back and forth in the park . . .
Out, out, out! She needed to get the fuck out of here.
As she pondered what to do about Carlos, and how to do it before she could run back to Plane Dismal as fast as her ghostliness would allow her, someone burst through the door of the store.
“What the hell happened?”
“Oh. Look. G.I. Joe Demon,” Marcella remarked with wooden sarcasm.
Kellen’s face brightened in the way it had when he’d seen Catalina earlier, piercing Marcella’s heart as though he’d shot an arrow directly through it. “How did you know anything at all happened?” he asked, clearly surprised.
She stomped in her work boots, none too ladylike, Marcella noted, toward Kellen and Carlos. “I told you how it works, Kell. I get this sort of eerie vibe going. Sometimes it wakes me up out of a sound sleep. I can sense the intent for”—she leaned in to Kellen’s ear and whispered, for Carlos’s benefit—“demonic possession. So what can I do to help?”
Move to the Ukraine?
Marcella rolled her eyes upward.
Catalina gazed down at Carlos and gave a half smile, ruffling his hair. “So what happened?”
“I think Carlos has the gift. In fact, I know he does because he can see Marcella, too. Though I haven’t exactly pinpointed when he saw her.”
Catalina gave Kellen a cocky grin. “Isn’t it funny how just about everything in your life leads back to Marcella? Before, I might have been inclined to think it just had to do with your fantas—”
Kellen was up and on his feet in a split second, interrupting Catalina. He cocked his head in Marcella’s direction. “She’s here,” he said, and it sounded like a warning.
“Oh. Cool.” Catalina’s mouth clamped shut, but her gorgeous eyes scanned the room. “So, uh, heyyy,” she called out.
Yeah. Hey
. Marcella flipped her the bird from behind the hutch.
Kellen gave her his stern teacher’s face before returning his attention to Catalina. “Anyway, it seems Carlos can see ghosts, but what just happened here was no ghost. Marcella called him Abbadon.”
Catalina’s tongue clucked. “Hoo, shit. He’s a scary bastard, but mostly a minion. He appears in the most disgusting of ways, but he’s not winning any contests for most demonic. I will say this was probably some kind of warning. What about or why they’d be stalking a little kid, I have no clue.”
“Do you think you can find something out?”
“Oh, I’m definitely in. None of those fuckers’ll be scaring little kids on my watch, if I can help it.”
How philanthropic. Mother Teresa demon. She had a closet full of hats. But in the interest of helping Carlos, Marcella decided she was all about sharing info. “Tell her I got a warning from another ghost earlier, too, about Carlos. All he said was they want him. I don’t know who they are or what it means.”
Kellen relayed Marcella’s words to Catalina while she listened with a frown marring her beautifully smooth forehead. “Who gave you this message, Marcella?”
“He’s someone I know on the plane I’ve been forced to roam and very reliable. The problem is, when he’s earthbound, he can’t talk unless he possesses a body. Unfortunately, he possessed a drunk and couldn’t get a whole thought out without falling into a drunken stupor.”
As Kellen passed the message on, he swayed to and fro, rubbing Carlos’s back with the palm of his hand in a circular motion. Marcella found herself swaying with him, fighting a sigh of contentment.
Catalina swung her arms back and forth, smacking her fists together, her mouth becoming a thin line. “Okay, then. I’m on this. Let me see what I can see. In the meantime, keep track of the kid. Abbadon is a clear message. He showed up and no one summoned him. Carlos has something those ass lickers in Hell want. That, my friend, scares the shit out of me. So I’m out. I’ll be in touch.” Jamming her unmanicured fingers into the pockets of her jeans, Catalina disappeared.
Marcella’s stomach sank like a rock thrown carelessly in a pond. Catalina obviously knew her way around the demon world and, just as she’d surmised, Abbadon showing up was a bad sign.
Kellen nudged her from her worry with his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. It’s not me we should worry about. It’s Carlos here. What could Lucifer want with a child?”
His look was fierce when he returned her gaze. “I don’t know, but I can tell you this much, I’ll be damned if I’ll let him get his hands on him.”
“I’m right there with you,” she agreed, her eyes softening when they fell on Carlos’s sleeping form.
“So the ex-demon has a heart.”
“No. Having a heart would mean I cared, and we both know your views on that, now, don’t we?” She knew she was being petty and spiteful, but it was what worked for them. There was no reason it shouldn’t keep right on working.
But Kellen didn’t fire back. “Views change. Opinions do, too.”
How deflating. “Did you find Jesus?”
“I don’t get your meaning.”
“Have you gone all spiritual on me?”
“No.”
“Drugs? Pharmaceuticals?”
“Not today. Though I think after what just happened, I wouldn’t knock drowning myself in a bottle of booze.”
“Are you doing some sort of lame find-your-center exercises, like yoga?”
“Get to the point.”
“Lay off the do-gooder crap. It’s knocking me off balance, and I think it’s obvious”—she spread her arms wide, looking down at her sandal-clad feet hovering two feet above the floor—“I could use some balance.”
“I’m just pointing out that time and perspective can change an opinion.”
Where was this coming from? This sudden understanding? “Thank you, Gandhi. Now lay off the introspective malarkey. It’s born out of pity, and I don’t need your pity.”
Kellen’s hazel eyes pinned hers, but they didn’t have the usual hint of malice in them, making her insides go all marshmallowy. “I don’t pity you, Marcella.”
Well, I pity me.
Who wouldn’t pity this hot mess? “I’m elated. And now I’m out. I’m going to see if I can find out something more about what’s going down with Carlos—so stop dreaming me up. And if you can’t manage to keep from visualizing me, can I at least have on something in silk when you do?”
Those eyes, which had a softer shade to them a moment ago, once more narrowed.
Nice.
They were back on the path of mutually satisfying mutilation.
With that, she floated out of the store and away.
Yet as she slipped through the front of the store, her last look at Carlos sleeping on Kellen’s shoulder grabbed at her heart once more. If she had to pinpoint the emotion eating a hole in her heart, she’d call it longing.
She’d also call it ridiculous. Marcella Acosta didn’t long.
Wouldn’t.