Split at the Seams (14 page)

I peered at her backpack, sitting faithfully beside her on the booth. “So, what have you got in there this time?” I took a small sip of my coffee. Not as good as Ebony made it, but it was growing on me.

“Just a couple of hands,” Lavie answered, as if it was the most common thing in the world to carry around. She grinned and sucked some of her milkshake through the pink straw in front of her.

I lowered my coffee cup before I dropped it. “Are you serious?”

I’d been joking. I really hadn’t expected her to confirm she was in fact carrying any demonic, severed body parts.

“Of course,” she said.

How could someone who carried demonic limbs in her backpack appear so innocent? Her red, choppy hair barely reached her shoulders and hung around her moon-shaped face. Her hazel eyes looked too big for her face and always seemed to twinkle, like a character in a Disney movie. She was cute, rather than pretty. She always wore long sleeves, and dresses, or pants, lengthy enough to cover her legs.

Lavie had several demonic seeds travelling beneath her skin and made sure they were permanently hidden beneath her clothes. She’d contracted an unfortunate sexually transmitted disease long ago, and still hadn’t figured out how to get rid of it. I hoped to help her one day.

“What are you going to do with the hands?” I asked.

Lavie leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Demonic hands can fetch heaps of money. Lots of people like to use them as a stronger, more potent Hand of Glory. It’s very popular with witches. In fact, the two I have here are for your friend, Oren McKee. He requested them several weeks ago but it took me this long to actually hunt down the particular demon he was after.” She sighed, sitting back again. “It’s hard enough finding an appropriate human hand, but with demons, not only does it have to be a demon that killed with its bare hands…it’s also a particular breed. They like to hang around the seedier part of town, trying to pass themselves off as drug dealers and pimps. It took some planning to get these. Do you want to see them?”

“No, thanks, I’ll take your word for it.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

“If you’re sure…” She obviously wanted to show me but I wasn’t going to budge. She’d already hinted—several times—about us doing a sort of exchange-tutoring thing where I accompanied her during one of her sewer-hunting stints, and then took her on one of my spook-catching rounds.

She wouldn’t see much with me, but I had to admit I was curious about her bit. But right now, the way things were with spooks, the Council, and the catchers, I didn’t particularly want to involve anyone else and make them a possible target.

“I’m positive.” I reinforced it with a nod. “So, there are a lot of different types of demons, huh?” Maybe we’d finally discuss Jonathan now.

“There sure are—some corporeal, some incorporeal. There are minions and lords, lots of nasty stuff that can be conjured and used for gain. As well as others who haunt people’s dreams, or possess them. They’re the hardest to get rid of, and most of the time even harder to spot. It’s why I need to speak to you.”

“You need my help with finding one of these demons?”

“Not exactly, I think I’ve already found one…but you’re not going to like what I’ve got to say, because it’s about your boyfriend.” She avoided my eyes.

With the amount of people who referred to both Jonathan and Papan as my boyfriend, I wasn’t sure who she meant.

“Are you talking about Jonathan?” It had to be him. She hadn’t even met Papan. She hadn’t visited my house yet, and he’d never been in the office when she came to ours.

She nodded, polishing off the rest of her strawberry milkshake with a loud sucking sound. “I don’t want to scare you, or sound like I’m interfering in your personal business, but like I told you before, there’s something not quite right about him.”

The elongated shadow, the mysterious phone calls, his knowing Troy and then lying about him going back to Europe, not to mention his odd and overly jealous behavior, all played through my mind in an endless loop. I knew something was amiss about him but I never thought it was serious or dark enough to attract the attention of a person who hunted demons for a living.

“What do you mean?” Better to play this out like I would a clairvoyant, by giving away as little about what I knew as possible. Let her tell me what she suspected, rather than drop my own suspicions in her lap.

“Well, it’s hard to explain.” Lavie toyed with her straw as she stared into space, almost like she was reading off a checklist.

“You said he was a…demon.” It sounded strange to say it out loud. How could I not have noticed he was demonic? Then again, the signs had been there for a while now. Why else would I have slipped into the dark patch several times with him? Denial was no longer an option.

“Well, not exactly a demon.” Lavie sighed. “There’s something weird about his aura.”

“You can read auras?”

“Not read them as much as I can feel when a demonic aura has touched someone, or is actually living within them.” Lavie twirled the straw around the bottom of her empty glass. “Sometimes they can piggyback a person without them even knowing, which could possibly be what’s going on with him.”

“Are you saying Jonathan is possessed?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t say that exactly, but he has
definitely
come into some sort of contact with a demon lately. It might be hovering around him or trying to find its way into his psyche. I don’t know for sure unless I look into it. Like I said, he might not even have a clue this is happening to him.”

“How do you look into it?” And when had Jonathan been exposed to demonic activity? A sense of dread trickled down the base of my spine.

“I’d have to get him into a protective circle and perform a ritual to find out which demon is hovering around him,” she answered, lost in thought. “For all I know, it could already have taken over. He seems very violent and acts like the demonic.”

“He has been acting more…volatile lately.”

“Either way, I’ve got several other smaller things I can do to test my theory.”

“Do you need my help?”

“No, I can manage on my own. I know he owns a bookshop in the city and I’m always in need of a new, dusty tome, so I’ll surprise him one of these days.” She dropped the straw and looked up. “You should stay away from him, though. He seems to lose his grip a lot more when you’re around.”

“Lavie, I need to tell you something I haven’t mentioned to anyone else yet. Can you promise to keep it to yourself?” Well, except for Papan. He knew because he was there at the time.

She sat forward. “I love secrets, and I’m like a vault. I’ll never tell a single, living soul. You can trust me.”

“Okay.” I licked my lips. “I broke up with him the other day, but he keeps trying to gloss over it. I’m going to his bookstore tomorrow, or later today since it’s already past midnight, to make sure he gets the message.”

“I think it’s for the best,” she said with a nod. “But you shouldn’t go alone. Just in case.”

“Would you like to come with me?” It made sense. “That way you can try and zone in on whatever’s going on with him, and I’ll have backup.”

“That sounds great!”

“Lavie, is that why he has a physical effect on you?”

“So you’ve noticed, huh?”

“It’s hard to miss. You always take a step back when he gets anywhere near you. You also seemed pretty freaked out tonight,” I said.

“That’s because I saw his shadow.”

My heart stopped for a second.

“It’s the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

I nodded.

“Listen, I better get home before my aunt starts to worry. Besides, I have to prepare these demon hands for Oren. He has some very specific instructions.” She started sliding out of the booth. “Your secret’s safe with me, but you need to be careful. If he does have a demon shadowing or possessing him, you have to make sure it doesn’t get agitated enough to make him act out against you.”

“After he finally gets the message, I hopefully won’t ever have to see him again.”

“Well, except for during our hunter meetings.”

Of course! I was never really going to get rid of him, was I? “I’ll pick you up at seven. I’ll be downstairs waiting for you.”

“Sure thing, thanks.”

“No, thank you.”

“Well, I better get going.”

“Wait a sec…don’t you want me to drive you home?”

“Oh no, I can walk from here. You know my aunt’s place is just around the corner.”

“Yeah, but it might be dangerous—”

“Nah, I’ll be okay.” Lavie turned to leave. “Before I go, you don’t have a demonic shadow attached to your aura, but something dark’s definitely touched you.”

I nodded. Her words didn’t surprise me. A lot of dark things had been invading my life lately. “Bye, Lavie. See you soon!”

She nodded and made her way out of the diner.

I couldn’t help but feel freaked out by our conversation. We’d exchanged so little, yet so much. My biggest fears about Jonathan were turning into something much, much worse. When had something demonic touched him, and why? Did I have something to do with it because we’d had sex after I’d obliterated a demon? No, it couldn’t be me.

My head was starting to throb. With the amount of bad things going on around me at the moment, and my still not being fully recovered after the attack a few nights ago, it was starting to take a toll on me.

Instead of leaving, I ordered another coffee and a jam donut. I took my time eating it, washing the sugar-sweetened taste down with the lukewarm liquid. Just before polishing off the last of my coffee, I swallowed two more headache tablets. Maybe I should’ve gone to the doctor and had something a little stronger prescribed, but the last thing I needed right now was to add drugs to my list of delirious complications.

Sitting in the booth by myself, I could sense a dark stain creeping into the wound on my clavicle. It might not itch or sting any longer, but I knew this wasn’t a regular bite. Whatever monster jumped me definitely had some sort of dark attachment, and had probably infected me with it.

Something tickled the recesses of my mind, something that seemed to fit my bewildered thoughts, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

The
Ghostbusters
theme song echoed out of nowhere and my phone vibrated in my pocket. The ringtone had been Ebony’s idea of a joke. I didn’t bother to check who was calling.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Foxy Lady, where are you?”

“Having coffee with Lavie,” I lied. I didn’t want him to worry.

“Okay, call me when you’re on your way.”

“Why?”

A sigh filled my ear. “I’m not going to take any chances. I’ll be waiting by the door, so don’t leave the car until I get to you.” He paused. “Actually, just call me when you’ve parked the car.”

“Uh…okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m on my way home now. I should be there in fifteen minutes, tops.”

“Okay, good.” He sounded relieved. “What are you wearing?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “The same thing I was wearing when I left the house.”

“Oh, damn. I keep hoping for that trench coat—”

“See you soon, Papan.”

A giggle escaped me and I didn’t bother to finish off what was left in my cup. Instead, I paid and left. Walking to my car took me seconds because I was parked right outside the diner. As soon as I was inside, I locked the door and headed for home as quickly as I could.

The streets were pretty quiet and as much as I tried not to get nervous, I did. Papan’s call had reminded me that dangerous monstrosities could be lurking in the dark.

As soon as I hit the driveway of my house, the front door opened and Papan jogged over to the car before I had a chance to call him. He waited patiently while I switched off the ignition and unlocked the driver-side door. He actually opened it for me and took my hand as I slammed it shut.

Even with Papan walking beside me and Oren’s protection spell heavy in the air, my heart was beating a little too fast. I half expected to be pushed down at any moment.

“Are you all right?” he said as soon as he’d locked the front door behind us.

I managed a nod, and released a heavy breath.

He pushed the sweaty strands of my hair away from my face. “Come on, I’m going to make you a cup of coffee.”

“I just had coffee.” I wasn’t going to get any sleep if I had more caffeine.

“I doubt it had a shot of whiskey in it, which is just what you need.”

I smiled at him. “You sure know how to make a girl feel better.”

“Wait until you see how good I am at making a woman feel better.” He winked at me and headed for the kitchen.

I pressed my back against the door, grateful for Papan’s insistence to be there for me, and for Oren’s magical defenses.

As I dumped my wallet, keys and phone on the hall table near the door, I refused to let some monster scare me enough to feel unsafe in my own home.

I would overcome this.

Chapter Seven

After a quick shower, I got dressed, downed two cups of coffee, ate two slices of toast, and slipped out of the house before Papan woke up. We’d enjoyed a cup of Irish coffee together before the whiskey kicked in and I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up in my bed, but barely remembered him carrying me up there.