A Demon in Waiting (Crimson Romance) (16 page)

If that’s where all the cult’s money was going, no wonder the women and children were starving.

Be nice, Ariel.
She held out her hand to shake. “I’m Ariel. John’s friend.”

“Yes,
John
.” He said it as if the name was distasteful and stared at her hand without taking it.

She was starting to feel a bit silly there with her hand out, so she drew it back right as he flattened his back into a low bow. “Ariel, I’m Bill.”

Like Dollar Bill? This guy’s gotta be loaded.

Or maybe, just maybe, John had lied. Maybe he wasn’t from some secret cult. Maybe he was some rich, spoiled kid who’d decided to strike out for adventure and let the first stupid woman gullible enough to pick his sorry ass up be his mark.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel so bad about him falling off the roof. Good for him.

When John stepped into the threshold, Ariel climbed the porch and brushed passed him, giving him a nasty glower.

He furrowed his forehead at her.

“Same to you, bud,” she said. Then she turned, poked her head around John, and said to Bill, “Pleasure meeting you.”

He did that bow again. “Likewise, my dear.”

This time when she spun around, Momma had appeared. She sat on the piano bench, facing the door, and watched the spectacle with her arms crossed over her chest.

Ariel stormed past her into the kitchen and made a beeline for the coffeemaker. She blew a raspberry. “Shit. Left the bag in the car.” She about-faced once more to fetch it.

Unfortunately, John was still leaning in the doorway when she returned to the living room. Momma was still watching.

“Why doesn’t he just go outside? Or invite Bill in?” she asked, not caring if she sounded peeved.

Momma shook her head. “Hush.”

“I need to go to the car. I’ll go out the back door.”

“No!” Momma stood, wincing at the stress it put on her swollen ankles.

Maybe Momma ought to give up salt for a while.

“You just wait in here. He’ll be gone soon enough.” She shuffled over in her floppy house shoes and pointed to the book Ariel held. “Where’d you find that?”

“Oh.” She handed it over. “It was on the ground near where John fell.”

Momma flipped through the pages and paused at one in particular. When Ariel stepped around to see what she was peering at so closely, Momma closed it. “Must have fallen out of his pocket when he tumbled over.”

“Why would he have a bible in his pocket while working on a roof?”

“Maybe he was reading it during breaks. You could probably do with some scripture yourself,” Momma chided.

Ariel had no response for that. Just as well, because now John was locking the screen door and putting his back against the inner wood door.

Seemingly satisfied, Momma trekked to the kitchen, probably to see to dinner.

John stole a look through the peephole, and apparently satisfied his father was gone, blew out a deep breath.

When he turned to her, offering a wan grin, she shook her head.

“What’s wrong, sweetpea?”

“Huh.
Sweetpea
. Outside, you said you’d never lie to me. If that’s true, who was that man?”

His smile wilted and Ariel could see a lump travel down his throat. “What did he tell you?”

“He said he was your father.”

“Well then.”

“Not going to deny it? You look just like him, give or take six inches and a few thousand dollars.”

“You don’t want to know how he makes his money.”

“Ariel,” Momma sniped from the kitchen. “Drop it.”

“Drop what?”

“It’s none of your business.”

“And how would you know if it’s my business or not? You know something I don’t?”

Her only response was the clashing of some pot lids on the stove.

John took a step toward her and reached for her shoulder, but she drew back. “You come from money, John? You out here slumming? Sowing your oats? What are you really running from?”

He blew out a ragged breath and pressed his dirty palms against his eyelids, rubbing.

“You must come here and think that I’m nothing, right? That I’m beneath you? Well, guess what? I’m not ashamed of anything I have or don’t have. I had a good and honest upbringing. We may not be millionaires, but we’ve always had everything we’ve needed.”

“Ariel, you don’t understand the relationship between my father and me.”

“You’re right. I don’t. But I could just tell by the way he looked at me like I was so far beneath him that it’s probably a very loving relationship indeed. Do you feel that way about me too, John?”

“Ariel!” Now Momma sounded annoyed. “You don’t know what you’re stepping in.”

“If you do … ” Ariel walked into the kitchen and leaned against the sink where Momma couldn’t help but to see her. “Please let me know so I understand how best to clean it off.”

John followed her in. “You have a right to ask questions, Ariel. I haven’t told you a lot about me, but pretty much everything I’ve told you up to now is the honest-to-God truth. That man — yes, he’s my father. My biological father. I met him for the first time last week.”

“Last
week
.”

“Yes. He’s … ” John rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and shoved his hands into his loose jeans’ pockets. “I guess it’d be most accurate to say he’s trying to make up for lost time.”

“And?”

“And while there’s a certain appeal to what he wants to give me, I don’t want it at the expense of it turning me into someone I’m not.”

“So, you’re telling me he followed you all the way across the country to sweeten the pot?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Ariel, why don’t you go on outside and get whatever it was you left in the car?” Momma said from the doorway.

“Why now? I’m a little busy asking my boyfriend the hobo some questions.”

If what Ariel said affected Momma at all, she didn’t act on it beyond blinking. Maybe Momma really did know something she didn’t.

“Go get your stuff, little girl. You’re being a brat. And dinner’s almost ready.”

Momma had effectively dismissed her by turning her back and John was tight-lipped, so Ariel figured it was just as well she drop the conversation.

She stormed out the back door, turning her head once and seeing Momma hand the bible to John.

She didn’t like feeling out of the loop. She’d spent years in Los Angeles feeling that way, and she never wanted to be in that place again. Grown women always knew what was going on, even if they had to demand clarity.

Well, maybe she should do that. She clicked the door locks open and grabbed her bag from the front passenger seat.

Yeah, she would do it. Demand they tell her whatever it was that was such a secret.

Right after she had a cup of coffee.

Avoiding Ariel was a bit like trying not to get sand in your shorts at the beach. No matter where he went, she was there, eyeing him. Judging him. Angry at him.

He didn’t blame her for being angry, but what could he do? Tell her everything? Have her tell him he was fucking nuts and send him on his way?

No, he wouldn’t risk that. So, instead, he took Clarissa’s advice for the evening and checked into a motel in nearby Jacksonville. As he sat perched on the end of the inadequate bed, picking at his pepperoni pizza, Claude paced in front of him, rubbing his scrubby chin with his hand.

“He’s going to do to you what he did to me with the Haitian woman,” he said.

“I’m sure she had a name. What was her name, Claude?”

He exhaled and stopped pacing. “Laurette. Her name was Laurette. The last name I bothered remembering. The rest … they’re all … ”

“Disposable.”

Claude lifted his shoulders and resumed pacing.

John tossed his unfinished pizza slice back into the box. “You’re agitating me with all the walking.”

“Sorry. It’s just, I worry about you. You’re residing, at least temporarily, with a woman whose daughter was partially responsible for smiting a very important demon and you’ve got angel taint.
Papa
may harass your woman just from spite. You’re in a bad, bad place, boy.”

Angel taint. John scoffed. Turned out his metaphor about the fruit punch being diluted wasn’t so far off-base. Somewhere not too far up the line in his mother’s family tree, an angel had fallen for a human woman. Literally and figuratively. They spawned a nephilim back in Norway. That nephilim went on to have children of his own. Those children’s children migrated to the U.S. and eventually, there was John. His mother had always known the oral history, but there was no way John could have known she was being truthful.

It was a wonder Charles had gotten the information out of her at all with how scattered she was. She could rarely tell a story in a straight line.

He’d ended up dressing in a wig and prairie dress, and sneaking into the compound with a fresh milk delivery. Mrs. Tate had vented her spleen, giving Charles the information he sought and then some. She’d welcomed the demon to her body figuring that was as close as she was ever going to get at reclaiming some of that angel heritage. Even she thought it was silly, but she’d thought since men had free will, maybe her cambion children could
choose
to be good — closer to angels than demons. It wasn’t a well-thought-out plan, but her heart had been in the right place.

Sort of.

Charles had informed Claude that he didn’t know why Mrs. Tate had provided all that unnecessary back-story. Perhaps she just needed a confessional. When she’d finished, she told Charles he was a nice-looking lady, and carted the milk to the main house.

“So, can I get rid of the mark or not?”

“Of course you can. It’ll just take some time to leach it out. Problem will be keeping
Papa
away from you in the meantime, ’cause you’re gonna be lit up like a Fourth of July sky. At least to supernatural types.”

“Do it.”

“You do realize that it’s not going to fix
everything
?”

“Meaning what?”

“That power you got? That’s not just
Papa
. You had your own before he came around.”

That was news. John scratched his palm idly. “What’s going to be left?”

“How should I know? Trust me when I say there are no angels or anything of the sort anywhere in my family tree. I suspect you’ll figure it out soon enough.”

“Well, I gotta say, being able to fall on my goddamned neck and walk away without a scratch is a pretty handy trick.”

“I’m sure that was easy to explain to your girl.”

“I didn’t explain it. That’s why I’m here.”

“
Mon dieu.
” Claude shook his head and knelt to unzip his overstuffed duffel bag. He pulled out an odd assortment of books, canisters, vials, and a few syringes.

When John gave him a questioning look, his big brother grinned and said, “This’ll only hurt a little.”

• • •

The next day when Ariel was storming out the front door in a huff, Momma intercepted her and asked, blithely, “Ariel, where’s that pretty cross you used to wear? The one with all the filigree?”

Ariel patted her neck. She’d forgotten it hadn’t been there for a while. “Oh. I broke the chain a few days ago. I forgot to find the pliers and bend the clasp back into shape.”

“Here. Wear mine.” Momma took her own antique necklace off and held it out.

Ariel pushed it back. “I’ve never seen you take that thing off in twenty-six years. It’s yours. Do I really need the jewelry that bad?” She stared down at her blouse. She would have kept the pendant tucked inside, anyway.

“No … ” Momma shifted her weight and stared at the chain in her palm. “I guess this old lady’s just a bit superstitious.”

“In that case, you wear it.” Ariel nudged it back to her with a grin. “I gotta go. I’ll probably be home late. I’m supposed to go look at an apartment at five-thirty down in Wilmington.”

“I really don’t like you out and about by yourself at night.”

“Momma, it’ll still be light out. It’s summer. Besides, I’m a grown-up. I’ve been living alone for a lot of years now, right? I can take care of myself.”

“Wouldn’t you rather wait and take John along?”

John?
Ariel counted down backward from ten in her head and ground her teeth before responding. “Why would I do that?”

“I just know he’ll watch out for you, is all. I know his type.”

“Mm-hmm.” Now she was just annoyed. She and Momma had always been on the same team, so she felt a bit like her grandmother had wedged a knife in her back and twisted it. And for what? Some spoiled little boy who wouldn’t know the truth if it bit him in the butt?

“I’ll call you when I’m on my way home.”

“Okay.” Momma shrugged and raised her necklace over her head.

Ariel spent most of the day in a state of distraction, only tuning in to nod and smile when there was a lull in conversation. Fortunately, her officemate Mark spent most of his work hours with headphones on and didn’t try to engage her. So, she mostly slumped behind her computer, pushing her mouse around and trying to mock up some ideas for an interactive website.

Around two, Agatha poked her head into the office and said, “Meeting. Fifteen minutes. New client. Beer company.” And then she was gone.

Ariel and Mark shared a look and as neither had an answer, they both shrugged.

Sixteen minutes later, they sat at the conference table with seven of their peers, about thirty bottles of Belgian beer, and a PowerPoint presentation ticking. Ariel fought hard, but tuned out again. She knew she needed to know about the client’s history and what their company culture was, but it was hard to concentrate given how poorly she’d slept without John the night before.

It wasn’t so much having a warm body in the bed, because without air conditioning in that part of the house, sleeping solo was a very good idea. No. She’d worried because she didn’t know where he was or whether he was coming back. It was irrational of her, and she knew it, but she was woman enough to admit when her feelings were bruised. And hers were. She just didn’t know if it was because she’d pegged him wrong or because maybe he might have been out of her league. Too good for her. She didn’t want to be there again.