Accidentally Demonic (13 page)

Casey’s cheeks flamed while her head fell in shame. “And I don’t even know why. I’m not prone to fits of temper, and I’m anything but confrontational. I’m always reasonable—always. I just remember thinking I wanted to make Nina angry. Wait, that’s not entirely true—I enjoyed poking her. I’ve never wanted to seriously hurt another person in my life, but it’s like I suddenly have this switch that turns on and off, and when it’s on, well . . .”

“It’s on,” Darnell confirmed.

“In all senses of the word,” she agreed. It was on in a million other ways, too, but how could she possibly ask Darnell why her libido was all but doing basket tosses? He was a man. A demon man. He didn’t have ovaries.

“There’s somethin’ else you should know, Casey.” Darnell’s tone held a warning she wasn’t much liking.

“If your next statement revolves around a pitchfork, I’m out.” She only half joked, pressing a shaking hand to her abdomen.

“Nah. They banned pitchforks in Hell sixty years ago. This has to do with your . . . it has to do with your—your, um . . . I hope you know I don’t mean to offend, but I told Clay here I’d just be straight with ya, and this is important while you get used to bein’ a demon. So here goes.” He paused, running his fingers along his bulldoglike jaw, obviously preparing next his words with care. “You know when you’re feelin’ amorous? Like you need a little visit from . . . uh, the doctor of love?”

Wanda, silent since they’d begun this, ran one hand over her face, clamping her purse with the other closer to her side. Her lips pinched and her shoulders squared as though she were bracing herself for something.

But Clayton was the first to speak through lips that fought a curl of a smile. “Doctor of love?”

Darnell popped his mouth, giving Clay a secretive glance. The man-card secretive look. “C’mon, man, you know what I’m gettin’ at. Like when you gotta get your groove on. When you have needs that
need
meetin’.”

Everyone went silent.

Clay winced again.

Darnell’s head dipped down and back up. “Yeahhh, that’s what I’m gettin’ at. If you think the fireballs are powerful, your womanly desires will knock you on yo ass.”

Swell. This just got sweller by the second. So she wasn’t imagining her hormones had grown to monstrous proportions. They had. Fighting the tremble of her lower lip, she asked, “So not only can I start my own backyard barbecue with my fingertips, but up next for me is hunting penis?” Instantly, two fingers went to her lips, tugging at them in strange wonder, as if they belonged to someone else entirely, and she was just borrowing them momentarily.

“Casey!” Wanda nudged her with a sharp elbow to her ribs.

Her knees grew rubbery. She leaned on the arm of the couch for support. “I’m sorry! Obviously, I have more than just my fingertips and levitating to control.” The sigh that followed was shaky and ragged. “So what do I do about it? You keep talking about control. How can I control my hormones and my fingertips and my sudden rages? I don’t get a lot of warning. Things I wouldn’t dream of saying spill out of my mouth before I can stop them.”

“Demons have strong sex drives, Miss Casey. I can only hope you ain’t got some succubus blood runnin’ through your veins. Lawd, that’d be bad.”

Was that like the equivalent of a deviant demon? Mary, Mother of God, how many subspecies of these loons were running around? “Succubus? There’s more than just one kind of demon?”

“That’s a sex demon. We got all types. Just like humans. But even if you ain’t, your drive will still be bigger than it ever was. It’s like bein’ sixteen again times a million. I can’t help ya with that part, ’cause I’m a man, and men don’t get the bad rap women do when they fulfill their . . .
needs.
” He whispered the word like it would burn his tongue if he said it any louder. “But that’s not everything. This is really important. You gotta be real careful now, too. Bein’ a demon means you gonna attract others who’re like you—some not so good. You have to learn to smell the difference—feel the vibe of a bad dude and a good dude. You gotta get you more skills.”

Oh, thank Jesus and all twelve
that
hadn’t come out of her mouth.

Clay, though still silent, put the back of his hand over his mouth to obviously fight a bout of laughter, but he straightened when she scowled at him, slapping a serious look on his face.

“It’s real important that you remember you don’t know what kind of demon blood you got in ya. If the demon was a bad one, there’ll be other demons that smell your scent and maybe mistake you for somebody else. Somebody they caused a ruckus with, maybe even, you know, had
relations
with.” Again, he whispered the word.

That was absurd. “How can they mistake me for someone else when they see I’m
not
someone else?”

Darnell shook a beefy finger at her. “Don’t matter what you look like on the outside, Missy. Demons can take on lots of different human forms. I don’t know if you can do that because you’re only half a demon, but if you can, you can look like whoever you wanna look like. When I was alive, I was maybe a hundred and ten soaking wet.” He looked down at his belly, spilling over the top of his low- cut pants, with a grin. “But look at me now. Lookin’ like this helps me livin’ here in these parts. Nobody messes with old Darnell, and that keeps me from havin’ ta mess with them back. Keeps me on the right path.”

Wanda brushed her hands together, clearly ready to attack this head-on. “All righty, then. Fireballs, levitation, horns, and a killa sex drive. I think it’s obvious you’ll need someone to stay with you while you—you—”

“Adjust,” Clayton offered helpfully with evident forced cheer in his tone.

“Right,” Wanda agreed. “So I’ll call Heath and tell him what’s going on, and have him send me some clothes.”

Casey shook her head. “Wanda—no. You’re newlyweds. You can’t leave your life to come and babysit me. It’ll be okay.” Or not. But she was a big girl, and she couldn’t ask Wanda to come and stay with her while she tried not to set things on fire and fought off these wild urges for some dick.

“Oh, the hell I won’t, Casey. No way am I leaving you on your own. Not until I know for sure you have a grip on this. I can’t impress upon you enough exactly how many changes you’re going to experience, and if what Darnell says is true about you attracting demons that are—”

“Bad dudes,” Darnell cut her off.

Wanda’s head bobbed up and down with purpose. “Right, bad dudes. You’ll need someone who knows how to take care of business. That someone is me.”

“And me,” Clayton said, his eyes finding Casey’s and penetrating them with his dark gaze, making her shiver. And then they lightened again. “You don’t seriously think I’d let you do the testimonial thing alone, do you?”

Oh, sure. He’d be the perfect babysitter. It was like having your older brother’s hot friend come over and babysit you. Except, she wasn’t little, and neither were her womanly desires. No. They were big and loud and begging for attention. Casey threw a hand up between them. “I can’t have you at the apartment.” She pointed to Clayton’s broad, appealing, oh so wide chest. “My agreement with the Castalanos is clear—no men. My job is to be available to the twins at all times. I get phone calls in the middle of the night, early in the morning, at all hours about the girls. My job is pretty demanding, and the two of you definitely don’t want to have to go to some of the places I do because of the girls and their . . . antics.”

Darnell came to stand in the middle of the small group. “I hate to be rude again, Casey, but your sister’s right. You need babysitin’. It ain’t gonna be easy without help. I already told you, you ain’t startin’ at the bottom like the rest of us. You at the top. It’s like givin’ an AK-47 to a preschooler who had too much Mountain Dew at snack time. In fact, I think it’d be good to have Clay here with ya. He knows what to expect when it comes to demons.” Darnell finished his statement with a sly look at Clayton, whose face all at once was visibly strained and unreadable, yet defiantly agreeing with Darnell.

And that left Casey suspicious. “Okay—so how do you suppose I’m going to keep you hidden from my boss? The girls? I can’t lose my job. It affords me that thing called food and electricity.”
And ulcers and headaches.

Wanda and Clay glanced at each other. “They’ll never know we’re there,” Clay assured her. He held up one hand in a Scout’s honor. “I promise. I do stealthy like nobody’s business.”

Well, if he excelled at stealthy the way he excelled at demon making, it was good. But Casey was skeptical. “How can you be stealthy in a tiny apartment like mine?”

Clay’s face went cocky. “Just trust me when I tell you, I got it.”

“Please don’t tell me you have the ability to be invisible. I really don’t think there’s a whole lot more I have left in me in the way of comprehension.”

Wanda rubbed Casey’s back with slow circles and a sisterly smile. “Don’t be silly, honey. We just know how to lay low. So it’s settled. Clayton and I will keep you company. Now, we need to get back because”—she yawned—“I’m due for some shut-eye and so is Clay. And just because I’m nosy, on the drive home, I think I want to hear all about the kind of boss who won’t let you have a man in your own apartment. Not to mention the kind of things you do for this family.” She turned to Clay. “Do we have everything we need here? Or is there more?”

Darnell stuck his fist, knuckles facing out, toward Wanda and chuckled. “I think you all good for now, but if you got problems you don’t know what to do with, you call ole Darnell, and we’ll see what we can see. There might be times she’ll be too far gone to think to get in touch with me. I feel better knowin’ you’re with her, it’ll help to have someone to talk her down. Don’t be afraid to call me. Aiiight?”

Wanda cracked his knuckles with hers. “Done.”

Too far gone. Where exactly would she go?

“Do you two mind giving me just a minute alone with Darnell?” Clayton’s request might not have appeared so out of place if it weren’t for the hooded gaze he sported or the evasive way he avoided their eyes.

Right now, she didn’t care if he was up to something. Exhaustion seeped into her bones with a fell swoop. She just wanted to lie on her bed with her patchwork quilt from a thrift store and not think about anything. She didn’t want to think about what
too far gone
meant, and what talking her down involved.

Casey stuck her hand out to Darnell, and he enveloped it, surrounding her smaller hand with his meaty one, then surprised her by yanking her against him and giving her a bear hug. “I’m sorry you got all mixed up in this, but I’ll do the best I can to help look out for ya.”

“Thank you.” Her reply, muffled against his armpit was almost weepy. Darnell so didn’t seem like the kind of guy who deserved eternal damnation.

Come to think of it, she wasn’t the kind of girl who deserved eternal damnation, either. But that was sort of up for grabs seeing as she was the first ever “accidental demon.” If what Darnell said was true, it was unclear whether she’d have an eternity, but it was apparently possible.

Which meant she was an overachiever. So take that, Maria Theresa Gambini. Miss Head Cheerleader, and a constant boil on her ass throughout her entire high school years. She’d always been one step behind Maria.

But not anymore.

Who needed a spot on the cheerleading squad when you could torch a pair of pom-poms from a hundred paces?

CHAPTER 7

“You thought about what’cha gonna do?”

Clayton ran a hand over the back of his neck to relieve the tension he could no longer feel but completely remembered from his human past. If there were ever a time that tension should be present, now was it. “Do?”

“Uh, yeah, man. What’cha gonna do about”—he cupped one hand to the side of his mouth—“you know—you know who?”

His nod was curt. He knew exactly
who
Darnell meant, and it wasn’t Casey. “There’s nothing to do, Darnell. ‘You know who’ doesn’t know anything’s any different than it ever was.”

“Yeah? Well, if I know ‘you know who’ like I know ‘you know who,’ won’t be long now ’fore ‘you know who’s up your ass like a bleedin’ hemorrhoid. Ain’t the name we ain’t sayin’ out loud due for a visit soon anyhow? Ain’t your year almost up?”

Jaw clenched, Clay fought the urge to put his fist through a wall. “Yup.”

“That’s all you got? Yup?” Darnell scrubbed a palm over his cropped head. “Maaan, you in some serious shit if what you told me on the phone’s true. ‘You know who’ ain’t gonna like what’s gone down. That ain’t fair to Casey, neither. She deserves to know what you mixed up in.
All of it.
Case ‘no name’ shows up. You know what that’s like—that’s some scary shit. ’Specially when the person we ain’t mentionin’ gets mad. Lawd, that ain’t nuthin’ I’m gonna forget anytime soon. Casey needs to be prepared, Clayton Gunnersson. ’S only fair.”

Yeah. It was definitely some scary shit. “You’re right. But I’m looking at it this way—she’s been in jail for the last two days, unintentionally set her sister’s friend on fire, levitated, sprouted some horns, found out her sister and her two friends are paranormal, then found out she’s half demon and it’s never going to be any other way. It’s been a helluva couple of days for her. Maybe the rest of this mess can sit until she’s had a good night’s sleep.” Which was utter and total bullshit. He knew it, and so did Darnell.

Though, if just saying it out loud might make his words true, then he wanted to offer that much to Casey. Casey, who’d caught him off guard with how innocently appealing she was. Casey, who looked at him with big brown eyes and soft, full lips while she attempted to piece together something practically that was completely impractical.

Darnell’s left eye scrunched up. “Maybe, but I’m thinkin’ not so much. I’m thinkin’ you buyin’ time, and you ain’t tellin’ ole Darnell the whole story. Like where you got that blood you spilled all over her. Shoot, man. You don’t drink no demon’s blood. So who you think you’re kiddin’? I know you wouldn’t drink from a demon just ’cause a where you been and how you got where you got to. What’chou doin’ with shit like that anyway?” Darnell’s forehead wrinkled just before his broad face lit up with realization. “Oh, hellz, no! You finally figured it out, didn’t you? After all this time . . . Oh, Jesus, save us all. That’s what you dumped on Casey, ain’t it?”