A Demon in Waiting (Crimson Romance) (15 page)

“You’ll be here when I get back? You won’t take off?”

He shifted his weight. He was still upholding the pretense that there was a job waiting on him down in — where had he said? Myrtle Beach? What would happen when she really did have time to drive him there, only to find there was nothing?

“Yeah, I’ll be here. Going to try to get that gutter back up and fix that section of shingles.”

“You’re wonderful for doing this for Momma.”

“Hey, it was the only thing I was good for back at the compound.”

He stooped low and kissed her lips. “You’d better get going. Don’t want to be late on your first day.”

“I’ll be home by seven.”

“I’ll be watching the clock.”

She stood on tiptoes and gave him one last peck before disappearing through the sliding door, passing Clarissa on the way back in.

Clarissa grinned at her and bid her farewell, then crossed her arms over her voluminous chest and narrowed her eyes at John.

It was an odd expression from her. Her countenance had always been so pleasant up until that point. Well, except for that night she’d caught him ogling her crosses.

Ariel’s car door slammed, then there was the sound of her ignition starting, and her backing down the gravel driveway to the country road.

“I should be finished with the coop in a couple of hours,” he said. He pulled his work gloves from his jeans pockets and crammed his hands inside.

“That’s great. It’ll be nice having fresh eggs again.” Her voice was utterly flat. She sounded like she could care less about the eggs or anything else for that matter.

John nodded and bounded down the stairs. He picked up the roll of chicken wire and reached into his pocket for some poultry staples.

Clarissa followed him across the dewy yard in her house shoes and stood some distance from him, scowling.

“Did you want this done a bit differently or … ?”

“What are you?” she said in response.

“I’m sorry?” His stomach dropped, but somehow he managed to keep his expression emotion-free. He still wasn’t sure what she was asking. Maybe she was asking him about his occupation or his religious affiliation.

“What are you? What side are you on?”

The coffee he’d poured down his throat that morning felt like acid burning its way back up right then. “What
side
?”

“Don’t play dumb. Ariel may not know about this stuff, but I do. I know it too well. Lost a sister and more to it.”

He squatted and wrapped his fingers around hammer with his free hand. Then he started tacking chicken wire into place as if he hadn’t heard her.

“You a demon?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you want?”

“I want Ariel.” He kept hammering.

“That much is obvious. What do you want her for?”

He stilled his tapping and studied the grain of the wood post in front of him. “What do I want her for? I want her to love me.” He knocked the next tack in and stood.

“Why?” Clarissa walked over and put a steadying hand on the wire roll while he fastened it.

“Because that’s the way it works, right? You love someone and you want them to love you back. It hurts when it’s only one way.”

“Why her? Why haven’t you moved on?”

“She’s my first. My only.”

“So, a novelty, then.”

“No. A major inconvenience.” He sighed and ferreted a pocket bible he’d found in Clarissa’s kitchen drawer out of his back pocket. “I think right now, this is the only thing keeping my father from appearing here. And the crosses you have inside.”

“What kind of sorry half-breed are you?”

He scoffed and leaned against the post, shaking his head. “The kind who was at rock bottom because he had absolutely nothing going for him in life. My father offered me a way out — a way to see the world, and I took it. I thought I could handle what it meant to be a cambion, an
incubus
. But, I don’t want to be either of those things. I just want to be normal.”

“I believe you.”

“Why?”

“Because only an idiot like you could pick up the one book in the house that has a demon-repelling charm inside and not be affected by it. I don’t know why you’re not, but you’re
not
. You think I don’t know how many of you half-breeds are moving around? I suspect there were a few at Ariel’s high school. They left her alone, though, probably because they knew what happened to the last one who came here.”

“What happened to him?”

“Oh, that’s a family secret. Even Ariel doesn’t know. Suffice it to say, it’s part of the reason her parents aren’t around. It’s for their own safety. They’ve got targets, you know. They keep moving.”

Jeez. And all this time she thought they were bad eggs.

John unrolled the wire a bit more. “I’m trying to get help. My brother says I might be able to suppress it. I’m biding my time. But tell me, how could you tell I wasn’t quite human?”

“Because I’m equipped to. I made it my business after one took my sister and made my daughter run. I know the signs. I can feel the charge in my body. Made my damn ankles swell up.”

“Sorry.”

She flicked a hand at him. “What are your intentions toward my Ariel?”

He blew out a breath and dragged his shirtsleeve across his sweaty forehead. “I just want to be so good to her and never stop. If she’ll have me. The only money I have to my name is courtesy of a certain demon, and I think once he figures out what I’m up to I’ll be eternally cut off from the cash flow.”

“Being broke sucks.” She held out a tack to him. “They started as angels, you know.”

“Yeah, my mother used to always tell me. Again and again as a kid. I didn’t understand why she used to harp on it. Seemed like an obsession.”

“Maybe she knows something she can’t say in plain language.”

That simple statement rang very true to John for some reason. “Maybe so. Unfortunately, I don’t really have a way to contact her. She’s in a cult.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You want some coffee?”

“What is it with you, Ariel, and the coffee?” He grinned. Ariel had said as long as Clarissa offered food, it meant she was okay. That she’d tolerate him.

Clarissa shrugged and shuffled through the damp grass. “It’s genetic.”

John took a break from outside chores at around eleven and sat down to a lunch of cold cut sandwiches and chips. While Clarissa chattered to the television screening soap operas in the living room, he scrolled through his notifications. There was a missed call and message from a number he didn’t recognize. He queued up the message and put the phone to his ear.

“Hello, number three. That’s your new name, all right? I can’t keep up with all these goddamned nicknames. Claude’s one. I’m two. You’re three. All right, this is my new number. I’m passing through the desert wasteland in Arizona and thought of you. I only have a couple of minutes. I’m in this chick’s truck about to handle business. Let me know how you’re making out.”

Charles disconnected.

John immediately returned his call. He saw the opportunity there. Like Clarissa had said, where there was a will, there was a way.

“Hey, number two. It’s three. I need your help. I need to get a message to my mother if you’re still in the area. I’m not sure how you’d manage it. They don’t let strange men get too close to the compound, but if you’re near Kofa, let me know. I might be able to come up with something.” He pressed
End
and hoped Charles was still in the area.

After a whomping bite of his sandwich, he returned Claude’s earlier text message.

“Little problem here in North Carolina. I’ve been outed, sort of, by Ariel’s grandmother. She can identify us, but she’s tolerating me for the moment. I’d like to keep it that way. Have you found anything else about my mark? I have three full siblings. I’d like to figure this out before Gulielmus reins them in. Clarissa brought up the angel thing again and I suspect Ariel’s being watched by one or two.”

It was all he could do for the time being. So, he finished his sandwiches and when Clarissa called to him, suggesting he check out the silliness occurring in her favorite soap opera, he did.

He had to pick a team, and right then, Clarissa was the stronger captain. Best he do what she said.

• • •

Ariel wasn’t sure how she felt about her first day of work. It hadn’t been especially productive, though she hadn’t expected it to be. Mostly, she filled out stacks of paperwork, set up her office — which she was grateful to have, even if she had to share it with a copywriter who started the same day — took a tour of the converted warehouse the agency was set up in, and met all the critical personnel.

Many of them were actually excited to meet her, having anticipated her arrival. One surly creative director named Agatha had peered at her over the top frame of her reading glasses, studied her from head to toe, and said, “Thank goodness you’re here,” in a flat monotone that was so devoid of inflection, Ariel wasn’t sure if she should laugh.

The human resources flunky leading her around had whispered, “Don’t mind her. She’s the one who told us to recruit you. She likes your style. You’re the first woman she’s personally suggested, and she’s been here for fifteen years, the old battleaxe.”

“Good to know,” Ariel had said.

Work may have been a little weird so far, but it felt damned good to be home. Already, she could tell the atmosphere was far more in sync with her Southern instincts. When she said she wanted “sweet tea,” people knew what that meant and didn’t try to give her that fancy fruity crap. No one gave her a sideways look for wearing flip-flops instead of pumps with her slacks.

She felt like she’d made the right decision.

On the way to Momma’s, she made a quick stop at Target for coffee and men’s pajamas, thinking of how funny it was that Momma hadn’t given John the third degree yet. At least, not really. She must have been wearing down with old age. Had he been any other man, he would have already made his apologies and left on the first thing smoking.

She could see John on the little house’s roof half a mile down the country road, his white T-shirt standing out in stark contrast to the ochre shingles. Just as her heart began to race at seeing him still there — reminding her that this wasn’t a dream after all — her stomach sank. Instinct said, “He’s going to fall.”

And he did.

Just as she reached the driveway, he had a misstep, caught his foot in the gutter tray, and tumbled off the roof edge, headfirst.

She barreled down the driveway, spinning up gravel and not caring what it was doing to her paint. At the porch, she parked haphazardly and ran from the car, leaving the engine running and door wide open.

“Momma!” she shouted through the screen door as she ran past the porch. “Momma, call an ambulance.”

She heard movement inside the house, but didn’t wait to see if Momma was on her way or if she’d heard at all. John was hurt, and she had to help.

When she made to his body — prone in the three-inch grass, neck at an awkward angle — his face had colored bright red.

Eyes closed tight, he hissed through clenched teeth. “Shit,” he said.

“Don’t move, John. We’re going to call the paramedics.”

“Don’t — don’t.” He peeled one eye open and lifted an arm, flexing his fingers and determining the feeling did indeed go all the way to the ends.

Momma stepped onto the porch with the cordless phone. “What happened?”

“He fell off the roof. I saw it driving up.”

“Oh.” She tucked the phone into her apron pocket.

“Are they coming? Did you call?”

“Ariel, I’m okay.” With a grunt, he straightened his neck, and methodically tested all his limbs. All functional.

“Don’t try to get up. What if you hurt something in your back?”

“I think I’m okay.”

“You fell on your head!”

“Sweetpea, I’m
fine
. See?” He shoved his elbows against the grass and sat up, slowly, but surely. He didn’t even wince. “It wasn’t that far a fall. Just one story.”

“You fell on your
head
.”

“I have a hard head.”

“Obviously. Momma, tell him. He needs to see a doctor.”

Momma shifted her weight and clasped her hands behind her back. “I think he’ll be okay. We’ll just wait and see. If he can walk, he’ll survive.”

Why is she being so passive? If it were me, she would be shrieking into the phone and demanding they airlift me to the best hospital.
“Momma — ”

While Ariel had been preparing to do battle with her recalcitrant grandmother, behind her, John stood. He clamped his hands on his jeans and walked stiffly to the porch. As he climbed the stairs, he said to Ariel, “I wouldn’t lie to you Ariel. I’m okay. Probably be good as new after a hot shower and a few aspirin.”

She didn’t believe him, but since he had already shuffled through the door with Momma behind him, she couldn’t argue.

She sighed and squatted low to pick up the little bible that lay on the ground near where John had laid. Clapping off the dirt, she looked up to see a large man leaning against the porch stair rail.

“I didn’t hear you come up,” she said, clutching her chest. Between the scare from John and the stranger seeming to just pop into the yard, she was at her day’s limit of surprise. Her heart would probably give out soon.

The tall, broad blond grinned at her and blinked ocean blue eyes that were just like John’s. She froze. She didn’t know why. He didn’t
seem
like he was going to do her any harm, but something about him set her spidey-sense off.

“Sorry to give you a fright. I parked on the road.” He hooked his thumb toward a large, black, beast of an SUV she hadn’t seen there before. “I think my son is expecting me. I hope you don’t mind me dropping in.”

“Oh. Um.” She eased toward the porch and stopped several feet from him.

The solicitous grin he’d been wearing wilted a bit at the edges, but was still suitably flirtatious. Or
un
suitably.

“John?” she called into the screen door. “A man is here to see you. Says he’s your father.”

His father the polygamist from an isolated cult. Funny, he didn’t look like the cult type. His long hair was styled too modern. His grooming too careful. His linen suit had to cost a small fortune. And his shoes? The leather seats in her car — which were heated — probably didn’t come close to matching the value of those shoes.