Ever.
six
Catalina stomped through the ultraswank men’s clothing store, leaving a trail of muddy work boot footprints in her wake, oblivious to the snobbishly outraged gasps and stares that followed her.
She eyed her mark at twenty paces and went in for the kill with a hand to the gun at her belt. “Got any thoughts on where Dameal is?” Catalina asked her sometime nemesis, sometime ally, all-around burr in her saddle, Vassago.
He brushed the shoulder of his immaculate black suit, pretending he wasn’t intimidated. “Oh, silly. How should I know where Dameal is? And why, pray tell, do you care?”
Her jaw clenched as she rounded on him, cornering him against a rack of men’s silk trousers. “I don’t care about
him
. I care about what he knows.”
Vassago wrinkled his nose at her and gave her a deliberately facetious smile, cocking his carefully waxed eyebrow. “Oh, you do, too, care about him. Don’t play coy with me. Are you planning on reconciliation? How romantic. But wait. You can’t reconcile. You do remember that little clause in your relationship, don’t you? Of course you do. Though, I have to say, not having the two of you screaming down the halls of Hell has been a blessing. So what gives? Spill, sister.”
Her right eye twitched in irritation. “V, I’ll only warn you once and then I’ll start at your knees, and while I might not kill you, I’ll jack you up so you won’t be attending any possessions for at least a month. So spew, demon.”
He held his hands up in resignation, his human form turning a chalky white. “What do you want to know?”
“Dameal is Abbadon’s level boss, right?”
He nodded his sleek, black head while he straightened a pair of gray slacks. “Yes, indeedy. So?”
“So I need to know why he ordered him to terrorize some little kid.”
“Oooh,” he cooed with twisted glee, clapping his hands together. “Who’s the kid?”
She snorted, startling the few patrons in the cool interior of the store with the sharp escape from her throat. “I’d rather be bathed in salt while prisms are dangled over my eyeballs than tell you. Just tell me if you’ve seen Dameal, and I’m off your back.”
“Will you stay out of my possessions?” he baited.
“Not likely. But I will set your superfly man-pants with the perfect crease in ’em on fire right here in front of everyone in Barneys if you don’t tell me.”
He looked down at that very perfect crease in his trousers and cringed. “Fine. The last time I saw him was about a month ago. I don’t know what good knowing where he is will do you anyway. Didn’t we just go over this? He can’t talk to you. Like, literally, and that’s no one’s fault but your own.”
Fuck. That was true. In her anger over little Carlos, she’d forgotten her predicament with Dameal. The predicament that had left her a demon. The one that that lying, cheating, Lucifer-loving fuck had left her in. “Then send him a message—tell him to tell his freaky fucks if they come near the kid, they’ll deal with me and my righteous indignation.”
“Shhh, Catalina!” Vassago warned. “We’re in public. Behave as such. Do you want to get me fired?”
“Since when do you need a job?”
“FYI, Miss Traitor, do you have any clue the kind of corruption you can find in a clothing store of this caliber? It’s a virtual playground of sin and iniquity with jaded monkey bars and a seesaw just dripping with wickedness. You’d know that if you were a proper demon. I won’t let you spoil it for me because you have no class.” He flapped a hand in the direction of the exit. “Now go stalk some other demon just trying to get ahead on the ladder of success. Your trail of muddy footprints will lead you back to the door.”
Standing on her toes, she whispered up at him, “You remember what I said. Tell Dameal to order his lackeys to back off, or the next possession I thwart won’t be with some prissy box of salt.”
“Very
Terminator 2
,” he said dryly. “I’ll tell him. Now go away.”
Catalina stomped her way back out of the store with an angry growl at anyone who dared to look in her direction.
Dameal was her only connection to this mess with Carlos. He ran the ninth level of Hell, and Abbadon was most definitely on his watch.
To her knowledge, as vile, despicable, and bathed from head to toe in scum as Dameal was, he never fucked with the heads of little kids.
But maybe he’d sunk further than even she could have anticipated. And while that shouldn’t still sting—it did.
It damned well did.
“Marcella?”
“Surprise.”
“Do me a favor, would you?”
“I’ll take it into consideration.”
“Could you not hover? It’s unnerving when I’m trying to sleep.”
“Could you not keep visualizing me every time you close your eyes? But thank you for at least putting me in something better than cotton while you do it.”
He grunted from beneath his pillow, muffled and low.
“Is Carlos all right? Did Catalina get back to you with any information?” She hadn’t been able to breathe since leaving him behind earlier. This foreign emotion troubled her even more than crying did. But she had to know.
Moving the pillow aside, he gazed up at her with heavy-lidded eyes. Sleepy, and yummily sexy. “Everything’s okay for now, I think. He was pretty shook up, but I told him Catalina would make sure no one bothered him. She offered to keep an eye on him for me while I figure this out. But Mrs. Ramirez . . . I don’t know. I think she wore a hole through her rosary in blessings alone.”
For someone without the gift, and who was as religious as Mrs. Ramirez, something as devastating and frightening as a demon showing up meant a surefire trip to church to light candles. “Does she understand what’s happening with Carlos? Is she a believer? Or is there going to have to be some serious convincing on your part?”
“She’s always known Delaney ‘thought’ she talked to ghosts. I know she’s seen some odd things because Delaney told me she has, but they were ghost things—cute pranks, moving stuff around the room—not lightning-hurling, red-eyed glowing monsters showing up out of nowhere. Today I think she became a whole lot less skeptical. Though she attributed none of what went down today to Carlos’s having a gift. She’s put that blame squarely on me, and I didn’t tell her otherwise or she’d be dragging Carlos to the nearest church to have a proper exorcism before you could say ‘enchilada.’
“I’m not hip to the idea that we should give her the big picture just yet. At least not until we can figure out what a demon wants with Carlos. He’s frightened enough as it is. His grandmother’s reaction may only make an already dramatic situation that much scarier for him. Right now my priority is to find out why a demon showed up with the specific intent of getting hold of Carlos.”
Marcella’s head shook, still in disbelief. “I wish I had more to give you than I did earlier, but I don’t. My contact has apparently dried up, and I can’t summon so much as a good manicurist, let alone some of my old demon acquaintances. If they were reluctant to talk to me before, they’ll definitely stay as far away as they can once Abbadon tattles like the candy-ass he is.” Her sigh was forlorn. She’d been unable to find Darwin again, the only hope she had for more information at this point. “So have you been able to find anything out? Any ghosts showing up to maybe pass on a message from the great beyond?”
“Nope. It’s been eerily quiet.”
That statement irritated her. If he were the sensitive medium D had been, ghosts would be showing up left and right to help, thus allowing her to grill them mercilessly. “That’s because you’re no Delaney. If you were more like her, we’d have a leg up on helping that poor child.”
Kellen eyeballed her from his place on the bed, letting the covers fall to his waist as he rose on his elbows, stirring Vern and Shirley who lay curled together in a big ball of multicolored fur. Instead of taking the shot she’d so graciously offered him, he said, “You’re right. D was a much better medium.”
Damn right. Wait, had he agreed with her? Wasn’t that the second time in a matter of days? Oh, God. For sure they were doomed.
“Are you okay after today?”
And now he was inquiring after her? Her head tilted to the right. “I’ve never been better. There’s nothing like drifting aimlessly with absolutely no purpose and no way to get back home in a dress meant for Holly Hobbie while I look for clues as to why demons are literally hunting a small child. But that doesn’t trouble me nearly as much as this. I want to know what the hell’s gotten into you. You’ve never asked me, in all the time you’ve known me, if I was okay. Has communicating with the dead made you go soft and squishy, or what? You’re not nearly the snark-o-rama you once were.”
His response, easy and calm, left her worried. “I’m not nearly as motivated as I once was.”
Her glance was skeptical and discomfited. “Because?”
The shrug of his taut shoulders covered in nothing but his ruddy skin made her mouth water. “Like I said, things change. People change.”
She didn’t like this new Kellen. The old one was less of a mystery and way more fun to rile. “Well, stop it. I don’t like change, and I definitely don’t like you asking me if I’m okay. It screws up my natural order of things. I like you much better when you’re being a toad.”
“Did you know that a toad can catch as many as ten thousand insects in one summer?” He smiled, all friendly and conversational.
“I think I’ve waited all my life to know that, Bill Nye.”
“Then it’s been a long time coming, eh?” he teased, but again, without the hard edge to it of snarks gone by, thus baffling her. What could have happened in just a couple of days to change an opinion he’d had for a decade?
“Yeah. And I’m pretty hot for seventy-six. You know it, and I know it. Which is why I’m here, I’m guessing. Because I’m hot and you obviously can’t stop thinking about me.”
“That’s true,” he admitted, folding his arms behind his head without a hint of malice.
His statement left her crashing to the bed. A bed she didn’t fall through, but instead landed directly on top of. She’d only been bluffing because it soothed her ego to make him uncomfortable. He might think she was hot, but he
liked
that floozy Catalina. The like in the equation had become more important to her than the hot.
She clenched her fists against the cool cotton of his broadly striped bedspread. The feel of Kellen’s sheets was euphoric and not just because they were his, but because she could touch them, run her fingers over the stiff cotton.
Heh.
Things were looking up.
Sliding up to the head of the bed, Kellen moved over to allow her room to sit beside him. He patted the edge of the bed, where she planted her doubtful ass. Cocking his head, he acknowledged her fists clenched around the sheets. “So I see things are improving.”
“In leaps and bounds. Soon I’ll be able to clutch a Pier 1 candlestick in my grubby paws and clobber you over the head with it,” she drawled, letting her eyes go all challenging.
“I’d deserve it.”
Such a givah
. Her jaw lifted. “Did Delaney threaten you?”
“Why would she threaten me?”
“Did she tell you you have to play nice until she can figure out how to get me earthbound again or she’d take away your Discovery Channel privileges? Maybe your Bunsen burner?”
His chuckle came out in a husky, sleepy rumble, lifting the sheet that was rapidly falling to his tapered waist. “Nope. I haven’t spoken to Delaney since we saw her the other day.”
“Then what’s with all the understanding, sympathetic mumbo jumbo? You hate me. I hate you. Like Barney in reverse. We go a few rounds, retreat, only to do it again in the future. Fight back, already.”
Raising his knees, he laid his elbows on them and shook his head, the chestnut gleam of his hair highlighted by the moon spilling in from the bedroom window. “I’m not interested in fighting anymore, Marcella.”
How unfun. She couldn’t keep her distance if he was nice. “We always fight, Kellen. It’s what we do. I call you an old, cranky man. You call me a whore with fireballs. It’s what defines us.” She circled the circumference of their space with a finger.
Kellen leaned forward, pinning her with his gaze. “That’s not what defines you, Marcella. And if it’s what defines
us
, our relationship, then that’s going to change. At least on my behalf.”
“Weenie.”
“Are we free-associating?”
Now it wasn’t just important to rile him, it was her mission. Whatever had brought about this change in his attitude toward her was unsettling her to the core. If he was kind to her, generous even, she’d never be able to go back to Plane Dismal and summon up the kind of hatred she’d need to sustain her for eternity. Unpleasant memories were always much easier to grudge with. Though she’d crushed on him, she’d taken solace in the idea that he despised her, and there was no changing that. This new, gooey soft center he’d acquired would leave her with visuals of his smile, warm and with perfectly straight teeth. It would make her heart ache if she had to remember his eyes going all gentle and understanding instead of hard like chips of granite.
And she wouldn’t have it.
Marcella knelt on the bed, pushing his knees down, bracketing his shoulders with her hands until they were eye to eye. “Whatever this is about, knock it off. You know as well as I do it can’t last. I’ll do something so heinous you’ll only end up disappointed. So let’s get it on. We had a rhythm of snark. I don’t want to miss a beat.”
His steady intake of breath hitched when she sunk the heels of her hands into the bed, leaving her cleavage just beneath his chin. She sent him a cocky glance as if to prove she had him right where she wanted him.
But then his hands wrapped around her wrists in a steel grip, twisting them behind her waist, and he flipped her to her back with the ease of a trained wrestler.