Demon Can’t Help It (24 page)

And the truth was, he loved her. He wanted her, but he was going to do the first unselfish thing of his life. He was going to let her go. She could never accept what he was, and he didn’t want her to accept it, she deserved better.

He had to let her go.

J
o stared at the picture in the back of her book. That was her! That black-haired woman with the pale eyes. She was seeing Maksim’s sister. Jo’s first thought was that she needed to tell him. But then her excitement vanished. If she was seeing Ellina, then she must be dead.

How could she tell Maksim that?

She stared at the picture again. But that was definitely her. Just then, she heard a noise at the study window. Jo started as Erika’s cat hopped up onto a flowerbox outside the glass. He pawed the window.

Ellina and that cat. Jo hadn’t ever seen one without the other. Again she toyed with the idea that somehow Maksim’s sister and the black cat were one and the same.

You’re nuts, she informed herself. But then she was seeing her dead sister. So why couldn’t her boyfriend’s sibling be a cat? Nothing was out of the realm of possibility at this point.

Jo set aside the book and crossed to the window. The cat batted a paw against the glass again, the action distinctly impatient.

Jo unlocked the window and struggled to push it up, the old and swollen wood not making it easy. Finally she raised it enough for the cat to slip inside.

“Are you Maksim’s sister?” she asked the golden-eyed feline, then felt decidedly stupid. But the cat meowed, making her consider the animal understood.

“How can I help you?” Again this behavior was going to get her committed, but she had to know.

The cat meowed again.

Then the feeling in the room seemed to shift. The same feeling she’d experienced in Erika’s apartment. The air snapped with electrical current. The hair on her arms stood on end, and she felt like the air was somehow closing in on her.

She waited, trying to stay calm.

Then it happened. The woman appeared. Ellina appeared, standing next to her desk. She smiled at Jo, and Jo instantly felt calmer. Even though she was seeing something she shouldn’t be.

“Ellina?”

The woman nodded, relief clear on her face.

“Are you dead?”

She shook her head.

“Are you in the cat?”

Ellina pulled an almost comical face, then nodded.

Jo felt another rush of relief. Maksim’s sister wasn’t dead. She was just stuck in a cat. Wow, that was beyond weird.

“How can I help you?”

Ellina glided across the room and pointed at a book on the shelves. Jo followed her, keeping a little distance between them. After all, could you ever really trust a spirit or whatever trapped in an animal?

Jo wasn’t sure. But she followed Ellina’s ghostly finger. She pointed at a book entitled
The Tricks and Trade of Being A Demon
. Jo carefully moved forward to pull it off the shelf.

She found the index, reading through the topics.

“Possession. Inciting lust. Transporting souls to Hell. Stealing souls. Placing souls into inanimate objects.”

Ellina waved her hands, gesturing for Jo to continue.

“Placing souls into other living beings.”

Ellina clapped, although it made no sound.

Jo smiled at her excitement. At least she seemed to be a good-natured trapped soul.

“Page 139.” Jo flipped through the pages, finding the excerpt they needed to rescue Ellina. She read it aloud, fumbling through a lot of Latin and finally getting to the main point.

“This says you need a demon to do this spell or curse or whatever. And you need one to reverse it, too.”

Ellina nodded, rapidly. Then she mouthed something.

Jo frowned, not understanding. “Again?”

Ellina mouthed the word again, and Jo said what she thought she saw. “Maksim?”

Ellina nodded.

“Maksim knows a demon?” Okay, this was getting weirder by the minute. And if she was making all this up, Jo realized she had one hell of an imagination.

Ellina shook her head.

“Maksim—is a demon?”

Ellina’s eyes widened and she nodded. Jo grinned, glad she’d guessed right so quickly, then her smiled disappeared.

“Maksim is a demon?”

Ellina gave her a pained look and nodded again.

Great, she’d managed to go from a relationship with a married man to a demon. What was next? A vampire?

“Okay,” Jo said, deciding if she was going to be crazy she might as well give it her all, “I’ll go get Maksim. You stay here.”

Ellina nodded.

Jo ran back to her bedroom and threw on some clothes. Then she hurried toward the Community Center.

Maksim was just finishing up lunch with the kids when Jo raced into the daycare room.

“Jo, what’s going on?”

“You have to come with me.” She grabbed his hand, tugging on him to follow her.

“What’s going on?” he asked, even as he allowed her to lead him out of the center.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Well, maybe you would.”

Maksim shook his head, not following. “Where are we going?”

“To your sister’s apartment. Hurry. I found your sister.”

“What?” Maksim stopped, forcing Jo to stumble to a halt too.

“You heard me. I found her. Come on.”

Both of them broke into a sprint, reaching the shotgun cottage in no time.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“In her study.”

Maksim strode down the hallway, a smile on his lips, expecting to see her in her chair grinning at him. Happy-go-lucky Ellina home with some crazy story of travel for her research or some silly thing.

Instead he was greeted by Erika’s stupid cat. It sat on Ellina’s desk, looking like some sort of Egyptian statue.

“Where is my sister?” Maksim asked, confused, when Jo entered the room.

“She’s in the cat.”

“What?”

Jo pointed at the animal. “The cat. She’s in there.”

Maksim frowned. Maybe Jo was losing it. Did pregnancy cause bout of—hopefully—temporary insanity?

“You’re a demon, and you’re looking at me like I’m the one who’s nutty.”

Maksim gaped at her. “You know I’m a demon?”

Jo nodded. “Yeah, Ellina told me, which really you should have done.”

Maksim blinked, then shook his head. “Wait. You talked to Ellina?” He turned to look at the cat. “Does it talk?”

“No. Apparently not only can I see ghosts, I can see people trapped in animals.”

Maksim looked back at Jo. “You are taking this all very well.”

“Yeah,” Jo agreed, “I’m thinking I’m probably going to freak out afterward.”

“I’m thinking you’re right.”

Maksim tilted his head, studying the cat. “So how do we get her out?”

Jo walked to the desk and handed him the book. “It looks pretty simple actually. Page 139.”

Maksim took the book and found the correct page. He raised an eyebrow. “Hmm, I had no idea demons could do this.”

“Oddly, I find it reassuring you haven’t put anyone’s soul in a house pet before.”

“You really are taking this remarkably well,” Maksim said, a little shaken by her unruffled reaction.

“It will sink in eventually.”

Maksim didn’t doubt that. And perhaps sooner than she thought.

“Okay,” he said. “I can do this.”

“Good.”

“But—”

“Oh no,” Jo groaned, “is this going to be something else disturbing?”

Maksim nodded. “I have to transform into my demon self to undo this curse.”

Jo stared at him for a moment. “You don’t turn into a thing like the Incredible Hulk or something? Like, you know, I have to run for cover, because you get all crazed and violent.”

“No. I just don’t look as good.”

Jo made a face. “You don’t look at good? You are quite conceited, you know that?”

“I’m supposed to be. I’m a demon, and my sins are seduction, deceit, and treachery.”

Jo didn’t respond to that, which didn’t surprise him. She may be able to accept that his home address was Hell, but she couldn’t accept what he really was. A deceiver, a seducer, and disloyal. All the things the man who broke her heart and left her pregnant had been. Except to the extreme.

A loud meow brought both of their attention back to the task at hand.

“Jo, maybe you should leave the room.” He suddenly didn’t want her to see him in his true form. She was already getting too much of the truth at the moment.

But she shook her head. “No. I want to see you.”

He hesitated, then nodded. He closed his eyes, and willed his true nature to appear.

He heard Jo’s gasp, his first clue that he’d changed.

When he opened his eyes, Jo was staring at him, her jaw dropped, her dark eyes like obsidian orbs.

He glanced down at himself. Red scaled skin, bulging muscles, his spine popped out like blunt barbs. Small horns curved out from just above his temples.

She took a step toward him, reaching out a tentative hand to touch the skin on his arm.

She shook her head. “Amazing.”

It was Maksim’s turn to gape at her. “The ghost of your dead sister terrifies you, but I don’t faze you.”

She blinked at the guttural, unnatural change of his voice, then she said, “I know.”

She appeared as confused as he was. “I guess I don’t understand her intent. I don’t understand what she wants, and I’m afraid she hates me because I didn’t save her.”

He understood that, but he still couldn’t understand her lack of fear of him.

As if she’d read his mind, she said, “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”

He stared at her for a moment longer, wondering how she could be so sure. Then he turned to the book.

He started to recite the Latin curse, willing the words to work. To restore his sister to him.

Jo watched Maksim, her mind not really wrapping around what she was seeing. Anything that she’d seen since wandering in here this morning. Part of her still thought it had to be a dream. That was the only explanation.

But she wasn’t sure. She touched Maksim, felt his thick, scaly skin, his rock-hard muscles. For someone who had always pooh-poohed the occult, she was sure getting thrust headlong into it today.

Yet, she wasn’t scared. Which as Maksim pointed out, made no sense. Kara terrified her.

Maksim finished the incantation, then closed the book and waited. Jo frowned. Nothing seemed to be happening. No flash of lightning. No eerie green smoke. No choking scent of brimstone.

“Did it work?” she asked.

Suddenly, Ellina was just there. Sitting cross-legged on the desk. Boris beside her, looking downright miffed. The cat leapt down off the table, found a patch of sun, and began to clean himself.

When Jo looked back from Ellina and the cat to Maksim, he, too, had returned to the Maksim she knew—and despite all the intense weirdness—loved.

“Ellina.” Maksim stepped toward her. Ellina hopped down and flung herself into her brother’s arms.

“Oh, I was really beginning to believe I’d never see you again,” she said, her voice matching her beauty. Lilting and lovely.

“Me, too,” he said, and Jo heard deep emotion in his voice.

Jo started to slip out of the room. The siblings need time alone. Ellina had been gone a long time, and surely she wanted to tell Maksim what had happened to her to get her in that predicament.

But Ellina stopped her. “Jo. Thank you.”

“I didn’t do anything. Just saw you.”

“Which is more than anyone else could do.”

Ellina hugged Jo, and Jo found herself hugging her back as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Okay, I really am going to leave now and give you two some time to catch up.” Jo looked at Maksim, but he didn’t look at her in return.

She knew what she’d just seen was insane and she should be terrified of the man—or the demon—or whatever he was, but she wasn’t. She just recalled what she’d shared with him. How many times he’d protected her. He’d helped her. He’d made love to her with such tenderness and caring. She didn’t care what he claimed to be. She’d already seen the real Maksim. Many times.

“I love you,” she said to him, knowing he wouldn’t answer her. But also knowing she couldn’t leave it unsaid.

Then she left.

“I
like her,” Ellina said, after Jo exited.

Maksim didn’t respond, nor did he look toward the empty doorway, though every fiber of his being wanted to look. To go after Jo. To tell her he loved her, too.

“So you have gone and fallen in love while I was away. I can’t believe it.” Ellina giggled, thoroughly pleased.

“Don’t believe it, then,” Maksim said. His sister was always annoyingly perceptive.

“So you are denying it?”

“Yep.”

Ellina sighed. “That’s silly.”

“Well, you know me, silly to the bitter end.”

“You are going to have a bitter end, if you don’t get a clue.”

“Where’s that cat?” Maksim said, pretending to search for the animal. “I’m going to put you back in him.”

She laughed, undaunted by his threat.

“How did you end up in a cat anyway?” he asked, glad for another topic than his feelings for Jo.

“I’m not sure, honestly. I was on my way to find Vittorio, to warn him about his mother. Do you know this woman, Orabella? She’s Vittorio’s mother and she’s crazy.”

Maksim nodded, albeit noncommittally. He wasn’t about to reveal he’d had a relationship of sorts with the woman. Of course, only to find out what happened to Ellina, but that hadn’t worked out terribly well.

“Anyway, I was on my way to find Vittorio, to warn him his mother had learned how to make demons do her bidding, when I suddenly found myself in a cat. And a male one at that. Not pleasant.”

“Do you think this person is still a threat to you?” he asked.

Ellina shrugged with her usual blithe spirit. “No. I think it was a practical joke. Probably those twin brothers of ours.”

Maksim had his doubts about that, but didn’t bother to say anything.

“So are you going to go find Jo and tell her you love her, too?” Ellina asked casually.

“No.”

“Well, that’s silly, because it’s clear you do love her.”

“No, I don’t.”

Ellina placed her hands on her hips, suddenly reminding him of Cherise. The realization he wouldn’t see her again made his chest ache.

“Okay. I do love Jo.”

“Ha! I knew it.”

“But for the first time in my existence, I’m going to do something unselfish. I’m going to walk away. Jo deserves better than me.”

“How can you say that?”

“She does. I can’t be a father to her child. Not a good father.”

“Jo’s pregnant? I’m going to be an aunt?” Ellina’s eyes lit up.

“It’s not mine. It’s a long story.”

“Oh.” She seemed slightly disappointed, and he understood that feeling all too well.

“Why do you think demons can’t be fathers? Our father was a demon.” Ellina pointed out.

“And would you call him a good one?”

Ellina shrugged, giving him a look that said he had a point.

“Besides, I can’t even read Jo’s thoughts to tell whether she really wants me or not.”

Ellina made a face at him, stating she thought he was a moron. “You don’t need to jump in her head. She told you how she feels. And after seeing you all red and in need of serious lotion.”

Maksim shook his head. “That’s the other thing. I jumped in her head once, which was selfish enough given what I knew it could do to her. I knew I couldn’t read her thoughts. Yet, I did it again—and for the same damned selfish reasons. I’ve hurt her. I’m the reason she could see you. And she’s seeing her sister because of me. How can I tell her that I did that to her?”

“Easy. Just tell her.”

Ellina had a way of making things sound so simple. But how could Jo forgive him for making her see the sister whose loss devastated her once. Now it was devastating her all over again.

“No. I’m doing this. It’s what is right.”

With that he focused, willing himself back to Hell, back to where he belonged. He disappeared in a puff of smoke and lingering scent of sulfur.

Three weeks later…

Jo attempted to focus on her work, but she kept thinking about Maksim. She was furious with him, frankly. Every day she kept waiting for him to come to his senses, but so far he seemed determined to be stupid.

While Jo had learned so many things from her experience with him. Not the least to let go of her fears. Fears of failure, fears of losing control, fears of the past.

She’d even confronted seeing Kara again—with the help of Ellina. Kara had come to her because she’d known all this time Jo blamed herself. She’d just been trying to contact her, even though her attempts had seemed scary at the time. They were just a little girl’s way of trying to get her attention.

Now Kara was gone. Both of them at peace.

Well, except for the fact that the man she loved was being ridiculous.

“Hey,” Ellina appeared in the doorway of her office. Since Maksim’s departure, Ellina had stepped in to help Cherise. It was wonderful, but the kids still missed Maksim.

“Hey,” Jo greeted the exuberant woman. Ellina seemed to have the energy of three people.

“I discovered something in my research last night.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“You and Maksim are bonded.”

“Excuse me?” Jo said, confused and not sure she wanted to hear anything else that would make her feel awful about him letting their relationship go.

“You are bonded. That’s why he couldn’t read your mind. That’s one of the ways it manifests.”

Jo shook her head, still not understanding what Ellina was trying to say.

“You two are meant to be together.”

See, that was just what she didn’t want to hear. She already knew they were meant to be together. More validation did nothing to make the loss any easier.

“And since you are bonded, you can call him to you.”

“What good will that do if he doesn’t want to be with me?”

“Well, I can’t help you with that. All I can do is tell you how to get him there.” Ellina smiled a cute, naughty little smile. “You’ll have to do the work to make him stay.”

Jo considered that information, then nodded. “Okay.”

She was miserable. She had to try again.

Maksim sat in a bar on Bourbon. He’d gone back to Hell for a while, but couldn’t seem to stay away from Jo. Oh, he hadn’t seen her. That would have been too difficult for him, but being in the same city was enough.

Well, no, it wasn’t enough, but it was all he was going to allow himself. She was better off without him.

He sat in Lafitte’s drinking his usual whiskey on the rocks, when suddenly he felt very strange. Like he was dematerializing, except he wasn’t doing it.

Next thing he knew he was in Jo’s apartment. She stood in the living room wearing a dress that had a plunging neckline showing the gentle swells of her breasts. The high waist tightened over the swell of her belly, which he was surprised to see had grown noticeably since he last saw her. The material was covered in bright flowers, reminding her of the bouquet he’d bought her just a day before they were no more.

“Jo? What’s going on?” He frowned, trying to understand what was happening.

She walked up to him, the sway of her hips, the sight of her lush body all holding him captive. Especially the enigmatic smile curving her lips.

“I brought you here.”

“You? How?”

“Well,” she stopped in front of him. “It turns out that you and I are bonded.”

Bonded? He’d wondered if that could be the case, but it still didn’t matter.

“Jo, bonding doesn’t mean we have to be together. It just means we have a connection. You can be with anyone you want. I won’t stop that.”

Jo shook her head, laughing slightly. “You are the silliest demon I’ve ever met.”

He raised his eyebrow. “And how many demons have you met?”

“That’s not the point,” she touched him, her fingers running along his jaw, down his neck. The caress sent fiery raging need throughout his entire body.

“The point is,” she said slowly leaning up to kiss the same path her fingers just did. “Is that I want you. And as a bonded female, I can have you.”

Maksim groaned. “Ellina told you?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She nipped his neck and he groaned. Damn, he’d missed her. The smell of her, the feeling. He turned his head and caught her lips, kissing her hard.

She moaned, melting into him.

They kissed for several minutes, hours, hell, he didn’t know. Finally he managed to gain a little sense and pulled back.

“Jo, how can you really want to be with a demon? One who was created to embody all the traits of someone who has hurt you?”

She smiled, gently touching his face. “Because of that very reason. You were formed to exist only that way, yet you have been better to me than any man. You turned away from your old nature to be what I needed. That’s more than any woman could possibly ask for.”

“But what if old Maksim returns?”

“Has he yet?”

“No,” he admitted. He hadn’t seduced, deceived anyone. He really was turning out to be a failure in the demon department.

“I can’t be disloyal to you. I love you.”

“Well according to your sister, once a demon loves, all his sins reverse.”

Maksim raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

Jo nodded. “That’s what she said and she does research demons for a living.”

“Well, I think she may be mostly right. But I’m pretty sure my seduction techniques are still working fine.”

Jo laughed, the sound throaty and sexy as any sin he knew.

“As long as the seduction is only directed at me.”

“Only you.” He kissed her lingerly.

“I love you,” she murmured against his lips.

“God knows, I love you, too.”