Personal demons 2 orig.., p.6
Personal Demons 2 - Original Sin, page 6
“Your boyfriend’s crew is here,” I whisper in Frannie’s ear.
“Where?” she says, her eyes wide and darting.
“I don’t know, exactly, but there’s more than one. Go.” I give her a little shove, but she’s already moving.
She catches up to Luc. “Matt says we have to go,” she murmurs, her eyes darting around. Luc drops the beer and grabs her hand. We walk quickly back to the car, and just as we reach the road, I see three pairs of red eyes peering out from the darkness of the woods. The immense redheaded demon from Ricco’s steps out from the shadows and watches us pass. Though he doesn’t make a move to stop us, a sharp, electric current crackles through me.
Frannie’s in a defensive crouch, ready to strike out, but Luc grabs her hand and pulls her toward the car at a run.
The demon flashes me a menacing grin. Even though I’m invisible, he knows I’m here—just as I’d have known he was here if I were paying attention. Two others, shorter but just as stocky, step out of the shadows as I back toward Luc’s car.
What the Hell is going on? Did he come after Frannie?
I glance to Frannie and Luc as they dive into his car. I stare down the group of demons for a second longer, then phase into the backseat of the Shelby.
Luc looks Hellbent, knuckles white on the steering wheel, as he weaves around the potholes.
“You’re not going to outrun them,” I say, sinking into the backseat. My eyes shift to Frannie. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine.”
“Did they do anything to you?”
“No. Just what you saw.”
“It’s my fault.” Luc’s voice is faint, almost a whisper.
“Luc, stop.” Frannie lays her hand on his shoulder, her face all concern.
Luc continues to stare straight out the windshield, his face tight, jaw clenched. “I don’t think it’s safe for you to be around me.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
His eyes slide to the top of her head, where she’s resting her cheek on his shoulder, and he blows out a sigh before turning his attention back to the road. He still looks determined, both hands tight on the steering wheel, mouth set in a hard line. But in that brief glance, I saw it.
The answer.
I watched his eyes shift from tortured to resolved. Maybe he’s not beyond doing the right thing after all. If Luc believed he was putting Frannie in danger, I think he’d leave.
With that realization, I gain a little respect for the demon. As a matter of fact, if he weren’t a demon, I might even be able to tolerate him being with my sister.
But he is a demon.
So I know what I have to do.
Frannie
Luc is parked where he always is: under the ginormous maple tree near the fence across the street. I can just barely make out the front fender of the Shelby, shining through the flutter of the leaves in the moonlight. But I’ve been staring at it for hours, since Luc dropped me off, imagining being out there with him.
I lift my chin off my arms where they’re propped on the windowsill and rub the crimp out of my aching neck. I grab my cell phone from the nightstand, meaning to call Luc, but I stare at it in my hand for a long minute before speed-dialing Gabe instead.
It doesn’t even ring before the automated voice picks up, telling me what I already knew. I’m not gonna be able to reach Gabe by phone. It’s disconnected.
I think about calling to him with my mind—sending him a message that I need his help. Would he come?
I groan internally and pull myself off the bed. Gabe left for a reason. I could sit here and convince myself we need him to come back, but it’s really just me. It’s stupid and unfair for me to call him back here just because I miss him.
I sigh and pull jeans on under the baggy T-shirt I sleep in. Cracking open the door, I peek out into the quiet, dark hall. The hinges whine as I push the door slowly open, and I make a mental note to oil them. As I tiptoe down the stairs, I make more mental notes. I knew about the squeaky stair at the bottom, but there are others that protest more quietly under my weight.
My pulse pounds in my ears as I reach for the front door handle. With a final glance up the stairs, I pull it open and step quickly out onto the porch.
Luc climbs out of the car and races across the street when he sees me. He grabs my hand and hurries me toward the Shelby. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asks, his eyes darting wildly around my yard.
“I—”
“Is he here? Damn! How did I miss him?” He pushes me into the passenger seat of his car.
“No. It’s not that. I just—”
“What did he do, Frannie?” He crouches next to me and looks me over with panicked eyes.
I taste the coffee on his lips as I lean forward, twist my hand into his hair, and press my lips into his. His wired muscles don’t relax, but the tension changes. His attention shifts from out there to right here. To me. Which is where I want it. After a minute, he presses into me and cups the back of my neck with his hand, pulling me deeper into the kiss. Finally, I push back.
“I didn’t want to be alone.”
Luc pulls me out of the car by my hand and crushes me into the curve of his body. “It’s not safe for you to be out here,” he says softly into my hair. “You need to stay in the house, behind your dad’s field.”
I push back from him. “My dad’s what?”
His lips press into a line as he contemplates how he wants to answer that. “There’s something about your father, Frannie. I don’t know what it is, but I couldn’t read him…when I was a demon.” His eyes slide over the street then back to me. “I also couldn’t phase into your house, which can happen only if there’s a celestial field.”
I think about Dad: Mr. Apple Pie and Baseball. “You think there’s something wrong with my dad?”
He shakes his head, but his brow is creased, still contemplating. “Not wrong, but he’s connected upstairs. You don’t know of any reason—?”
“No. There’s nothing weird about my dad…well, except that he actually likes brussels sprouts.” I feel my face involuntarily scrunch.
Luc’s black eyes sparkle in the silver moonlight as he smiles and loops his arm around my waist, guiding me back to the house. “What time is it?”
“I don’t know…maybe four.”
“You should be asleep.”
I smile up at him. “So should you. Your first day on the job starts in, what, six hours? Don’t want to fall asleep and drool on the books.”
He turns concerned eyes on me. “Not after what happened at the Gallaghers’ tonight. Rhenorian is lurking. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
We reach my doorstep and he pushes the door slowly open. He pulls me into a kiss and when he tries to pull back, I don’t let him. When I smooth my hands over his chest, I can feel the thrum of his heart under my fingers, almost as fast as mine. His lips trace a path from my mouth to my ear and down my neck.
I peel myself away and look into his eyes. “I think that means you have to come upstairs with me,” I whisper.
I twine my trembling fingers into his and pull him through the door. He hesitates at the threshold and shakes his head.
Please. Please. Please come in.
He draws a deep breath. A guilty smile curls one side of his lips as he steps through. His eyes question me and I answer by turning and leading him quickly up the stairs to my room, hoping the creaking stairs aren’t really as loud as they seem.
I close my door and press into him, listening for any sound in the hall. After a minute, when all stays quiet, I relax and look up at Luc.
In the pale silver light of the moon, his eyes sparkle. An electric tingle whispers over my skin when he leans in and kisses me again, raising goose bumps. I pull him to the bed and slide my jeans off. He lets out a shaky sigh as I climb in and hold an arm out to him.
“Frannie…,” he whispers, his hand reaching back for the doorknob.
I hold a finger to my lips, then hold my arm out again.
He shoots a glance to the door, then kicks off his boots and slides into my bed. I burrow into him, nuzzling into his neck.
“This is a really bad idea,” he whispers into my hair. But as I glide my hands along his chest, his stomach, lower, I can tell his body likes the idea just fine.
I nibble my way up to his ear. “I think it’s the best idea I’ve ever had.” I press into him and kiss him hard. “You have way too many clothes on,” I whisper into his lips. He props up on an elbow and I pull his T-shirt over his head, then my own. He just stares at my near nakedness for a minute, and I try not to let him see me shake.
“Frannie…,” he whispers again, and I realize I’m not the only one who’s shaking.
I twist my fist into his hair and bring his lips back to mine. His mouth slides to my ear. “So much for not using your Sway on people.”
I shudder at his hot breath in my ear and smile. “You’re the one who told me I need to practice.”
When he lies back on the pillow, his expression is strained. “I was hoping you might choose a different target. You already know your Sway works on me.” He covers me with the sheet, tucking it around me, and sweeps my tangled hair from my face with a finger.
Rolling onto my back, I blow out a frustrated breath. “You want me to use my Sway to lure someone else into my bed? Most guys wouldn’t need to be talked into sleeping with their girlfriends.”
“I would think by now you would know I’m not ‘most guys.’” His finger traces the line of my eyebrow. “I’ve spent seven millennia doing the wrong thing. This is one thing I want to do right.”
“But I love you. It’s not wrong to want to be with you.”
His face darkens and his eyes go distant. “I’m fairly certain that everything about you being with me is wrong.”
“Don’t make me use my Sway on you again,” I say, touching his cheek and bringing him back to the room.
When his eyes lock on mine, they’re deep. “Frannie…” He trails off and shifts onto an elbow above me, still gazing into my eyes. “You don’t have to use your Sway on me to make me want you. In all my existence, I’ve never wanted anything more. But I need this,” he gestures between us, “to be about more than sex.” He cups my cheek in his palm. “I don’t want to mess this up by doing something rash.”
I shove him. “Are you implying I have some communicable disease?”
He stifles a laugh and tucks in next to me on the bed, wrapping his arms around me and nuzzling his face into my hair.
I want to be mad, but I feel strangely content as I settle into the crook of his shoulder and lose myself in the silk of his skin.
Until there’s a crash in the hall.
In a flash, Luc is over the side of the bed and onto the floor, between the bed and the window. I grab my T-shirt off the floor, but when I pull it over my head, I smell cinnamon. I’ve got Luc’s instead. I yank it on anyway and pull the sheet tight around me.
The light in the hall flips on and I hear doors opening as my whole family empties into the hall. After a minute, there’s a knock on my door.
“Huh,” I say, trying to appear groggy even though my heart is hammering and I can barely breathe. I’m about as far from sleepy as I can possibly get. I’ve never been this wired in my life.
The door cracks open and Dad peeks through. He looks around and says, “You okay?”
“Uh-huh. What was that?”
“The mirror in the hall fell off the wall. The nail must have given way.”
“’Kay,” I say, rolling away from him and pretending to be mostly asleep. After a long moment, the door closes.
I lie perfectly still as the house quiets back down and the light in the hall is turned off. After forever, Luc pokes his head up over the edge of the bed. “I told you this was a bad idea,” he whispers with a nervous smirk. “If your parents caught me in here…”
He doesn’t need to finish the thought. We’ve just started making some headway with my parents. They don’t really like Luc, but they don’t seem to hate him anymore either.
I sit up in the bed and he notices my T-shirt. “I like the look.”
“Sorry,” I say, and start to lift it over my head.
He holds up a hand, a hint of panic in his expression. “Don’t. I have my button-down in the car.”
I smile, liking the way he looks without it. I hold my arm up to him again, but he shakes his head even as a slow smile creeps across his face. “I think we’ve pressed our luck as far as it will go.”
He moves to the window, looks down, and hesitates. “This would be so much easier if I could phase out of here.”
I climb out of bed and move to his side. “You’re gonna break your neck. You should stay.” I take his hand and wrap his arm around me.
Stay with me.
“Frannie, please. It was your Sway that got me up here in the first place, against my better judgment, I might add. But I really have to go.”
He kisses me, then looks back out into the tree. With a hammering heart, I watch him pull the screen from the window and climb onto the window frame. He reaches up for a branch and tugs it a few times, then grasps it with both hands and swings away from the house. The branch sags under his weight. I gasp when I hear a crack, but it holds him long enough for his foot to catch a larger branch lower down and closer to the trunk. He reminds me of a lithe black cat as he shifts from one branch to another, sure-footed and steady, and eventually swings himself to the ground. I realize I’m holding my breath and let it out in a slow, shaky puff as he steps back to look up at me. And God, he’s beautiful.
The horizon is beginning to turn pink with the start of a new day. He backs away slowly toward his car and my heart aches more with every step.
“What the Hell is wrong with you?” Matt’s hiss in my ear scares the hell out of me.
I bite back the yelp, then turn to look at him. He’s scowling at me, and when he sees my T-shirt, he rolls his eyes. “Here? You were going to do that here? With Mom and Dad just down the hall?”
My face is on fire and I have to fight to keep my voice a whisper. “You were watching?”
He backs off a few steps. “I’m an angel, not a voyeur. I wasn’t watching. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that you aren’t dragging your boyfriend into your room in the middle of the night to talk.”
“For your information, we were just talking, because Luc stopped.”
“Yeah. That’s why you’re wearing his T-shirt.” His smile is sour.
I turn to hide my flaming cheeks. “And anyway, it’s none of your business what Luc and I do. Or where.”
“It’s exactly my business. My job is to protect you, even if it is from your stupid self. I’m not going to let you do this, Frannie. I’m not going to let you ruin your life.”
Rage erupts out of my emotional black pit when it hits me…what he did. I stand up and shove him as hard as I can. “You ripped that mirror off the wall. Didn’t you?”
He staggers back a few steps, and a grim smile curls his lips.
“Jesus, Matt!” I grab fistfuls of my hair and yank before groaning and turning toward the window. I look out at the Shelby, still parked outside, and breathe deep, then turn back to Matt. “Can we talk about this later?”
His face softening, he nods and disappears.
I climb into bed and pull the sheet over my head. After a long minute, I lift my head out from under the sheet and scan the room. Still empty.
I trace the path of Luc’s lips with my hand, still feeling the tingle of my skin from his touch. Closing my eyes, I bring his T-shirt to my face, breathing my heart back to a normal rhythm.
I’m so glad to have Matt back, but who knew having a guardian angel would turn out to be such an epic buzz kill? He’s like my own personal chastity belt. Even though I swore I wouldn’t use my Sway on family, maybe I should try it on Matt, just to get him to lighten up a little. I need practice, after all.
I smile, remembering how well it almost worked on Luc. ’Course, I really didn’t mean to use it. I finally doze off with the smell of cinnamon in my nose and the tingle of fire under my skin. And in my dream, Matt doesn’t interrupt us.
6
A Deal with the Devil
Luc
The Haden branch of the Essex County Library is a gray granite monstrosity near the high school. It’s in what used to be the town hall, one of the older buildings in town, dating back to the mid-1700s. And like most buildings in Haden, it looks every day of it. I pull into the parking lot and jog across the street to the stone building. Glancing at the clock tower, I see I’m just on time. I’d meant to be early for my first day, but I dropped Frannie at Taylor’s on my way, and I couldn’t leave until I knew for sure that Matt was there.
I can’t help the smile as I peer through the glass panel in the carved wooden doors, then push them open and step inside. Even my human nose can appreciate the scents of the library—dust, old paper, and history. I scan the spines on the bookshelves as I make my way to the counter—a rather limited selection, but all the classics and some excellent obscure titles as well.
The tiny stick figure of a woman behind the curved counter in the center of the cavernous room is filing books off the cart onto a shelf labeled holding.
I stride over, lean across the counter, and clear my throat. When she turns, I hold out my hand. “Hello. I’m Luc Cain.”
She looks me over with appraising pale gray eyes. She can’t be a day less than one hundred, despite the jet-black curls framing her creased face. She takes my hand with her thin, bony one and grips it with surprising strength. “I’m Mavis Burnes. Head librarian. We spoke on the phone.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” she says in a quavering voice, releasing my hand. “I have to say, I was more than a little surprised by your knowledge of books and our system,” she says, looking me over again. “You’re obviously too young to have done any library work in the past.”
“But I’ve spent a lot of time reading.” I turn and scan the stacks again, wondering if there’s anything in them I haven’t read—that’s worth reading, anyway.
