Kiss & Hell (36 page)

“Duck!” Clyde roared, throwing his body on top of Delaney’s as they crashed to the floor.

Delaney peeked out from under Clyde’s body to see Marcella roll her eyes at the demon’s effort like he’d just lobbed a beach ball at her.

Dayum, who’d gotten her demon on all of a sudden? Since when did Marcella go all 666?

Marcella flicked her wrist, letting her fingers splay apart; from their tips came a crackling bolt of light aimed directly at Clyve.

The demon dove for the far side of the bed, the zigzagging current nailing the picture above the headboard and splitting it in half. Clyve recovered quickly, bellowing a “this is war” cry. He rose on his knees, his rotted teeth clenched together, and raised his fists skyward. Grimy palms fell open and out of them came flecks of color, becoming a metamorphosis of rats, twitching and scurrying across the floor in a million directions.

Oh, no. Nuh-uh. No can do. She loved animals, but rats should always, in her humble opinion, be loved from afar—like, big afar. Delaney heaved upward as the ball of rats raced along the floor, forcing Clyde’s heavy weight off her. They jumped up together while Delaney made a beeline for his chest, throwing herself on him and wrapping her legs around his waist. Her ankles hooked behind his back and she wasn’t letting go.

The first gust of wind made even Clyde and his thickly muscled thighs wobble. He gripped her to him with protective hands while swirls of bone-chilling air picked up speed. The room grew instantly arctic, small particles of ice forming on Clyde’s eyebrows.

Marcella braced herself against the wind, turning her shoulder into it while she snapped her fingers once more. The velocity of sheer gale force pulled at the skin on her face, ripping through the room at warp speed.

From somewhere distant, over Clyde’s shoulders Delaney heard someone call to the demon in a persecuted, nasally whine. “Clyyyyyyve! Clyve, what have you done, sweet baby boy? Oh, Clyve, you’re so naughty!”

That this fuckwit had ever been anyone’s baby had never even been a consideration for Delaney. Yet, the wind instantly ceased, the rats and their squeaking screams disappearing with merely an echo left in place.

Silence fell on the room—deafening in its suddenness.

Marcella whirled her hair out of her face, eyeballing the confused Clyve with disdain. “Tsk, tsk, Clyve. You’ve been a bad
muchacho
. But I brought someone with me who can teach you a lesson.”

A sturdy, dark silhouette shaped into a rotund woman with several chins. Long hair, the color of a silvery moon, draped down her back, swishing across her wide, thick shoulders when she shook her head. The housecoat she wore had large red and blue flowers on it, and in her chubby hand, she held a rolling pin.

A big, wooden rolling pin.

Her eyes held pity when she gazed upon her baby boy, sorrow and pity. “Oh, Clyve . . .” she murmured with a cluck of her tongue, wrinkling her nose.

Clyve blanched from his place on the bed, sagging into it and cowering with fear. “Ma?” he said, weak and watery with a tremble he couldn’t conceal.

“You’ve been so naughty, Clyve. Why are you so naughty? You promised you’d be good when I was gone, and look at you. Running rackets for the devil himself.” She crooked her pudgy finger at him in her direction. “Come here, Clyve.”

Clyve skittered back on the bed, fear and awe interchangeable in his beady eyes.

His mother moved closer, pity and sorrow turning to disappointment and anger. “I said, come here, Clyve.
Now
.”

When it didn’t appear as though Clyve was going to bend to his mother’s will, she leaned forward, snatching his ear and dragging him to her.

Clyve’s howl lingered long after their disappearance.

Delaney dropped from Clyde’s embrace, speechless, her eyes wide when she caught Marcella’s gaze.

“You know, sometimes, D, you just need to trust me,” she remarked with dry sarcasm.

“I thought you were a level one demon,” Clyde pondered more to himself than anyone else.

Marcella flapped a hand at them. “I am, but I’ve been practicing because whatever the frig’s going on with you and Delaney here made me think I might need to. It also helps to have a connection or two and to know a demon’s weakness. Clyve’s being snakes and his mother—not necessarily in that order. So I learned a thing or two—and don’t ask how, D. Just know there are ways around doing those things to poor innocents. So don’t go all moral and righteous on me. And now, you can thank me for saving your asses. Oh, and P.S., do you have any idea how freakin’ hard that snake thing was? Christ, Delaney—it took me four days just to conjure something that wasn’t cold and lifeless. If you only knew how many goldfish lives I’m responsible for. I’m exhausted here,
guapa
.”

Delaney lunged at Marcella, hugging her hard and giving her a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you. You’re the most awesome friend I’ve ever had. You’re like a demon queen. I’d be a puddle of shit without you. Now go home.”

Marcella disentangled herself from Delaney, then smoothed her clothing. “Stop already. And I’m not going home. If I kept doing what you keep telling me to do, you’d be french-fried right now, and we couldn’t take care of the biz at hand.”

“The business at hand?” Clyde asked, coming to put an arm around Delaney’s waist, rubbing her still frozen hands.

Marcella eyed him, her green eyes glittering with bits of suspicion. “Yes, lover. I admit, I didn’t believe you, Clyde Atwell. I’m sure Delaney told you I thought you were full of shit. All that innocence and light was a little hard to believe, but we’re good now after what I heard.”

Delaney crossed her arms over her chest. “Spill.”

“It ain’t good.”

“I don’t imagine it could be any worse than it already is.” Clyde’s comment was wry.

“You”—Marcella pointed a finger at him—“are having a really bad week. Crazy bad. And Vincent’s only part of the problem here.”

Clyde looked down at Delaney. “She knows about Vincent?”

“She knows
of
him.”

“Now I know
all
of him,” Marcella interrupted, “and believe me when I tell you, this info about him and Clyde was some seriously guarded shit. Three demon bar hot spots and a carefully placed threat to a green, just-fell-off-the-turnip-truck noob or so later, here I am.”

“So you know he was my half brother . . .” Delaney choked on those words. That label, in connection with her, disgusted her on so many levels she could yark over it.

Marcella squeezed Delaney’s forearm. “I do—they always say you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your family. Vincent lived up to that. I also know that he had a contract with Satan, originating with his father—this contract his father, Richard, signed was handed down to him—sort of an all-in-the-family deal. It had details, stipulations of which I’m still not entirely clear. The only thing I do know for sure is this—the heart that beats in Clyde’s body, wherever the frig his body is, was Vincent’s.”

Confirmation her suspicions had been correct. Delaney’s nod was curt. “It’s what we figured. What
I
figured, anyway. I’m betting it’s at Lang Memorial Hospital. We haven’t checked yet, and it’s too much to go into now, but that’s where Clyde had the heart transplant to begin with. I bet his body’s there.”

Marcella cupped Delaney’s chin with cool fingers. “Wherever it is, D, we have to find it in order to set Clyde free. His soul’s in limbo. How he got to Hell leaves me beyond mind-fucked now that I know the kind of person he was. I only know he has to be cut from the ties that bind him here on Earth in order for him to find any peace and free himself of Satan. Maybe the paperwork got screwed up or maybe it’s because Clyde had
Vincent’s
heart, and a person’s heart, according to some tales of old, is the essence of your being. If that’s the case, essentially, because Vincent’s heart is still beating, his soul hasn’t been collected. If that’s the case, then you beat Satan by donating that prick’s heart—big—and I’m pretty damned sure he didn’t much like that. Basically, you stole from him. I still don’t get what went wrong with Clyde’s soul, but something did, and we have to make it right. That means we have to find Clyde’s body.”

Terror, real and like a living entity, gripped Delaney’s insides, finally having confirmation of the suspicion she’d shared with Clyde earlier. “I knew it.” She glanced up at Clyde, whose lips were compressed into a thin line. “I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing by donating Vincent’s organs and now . . .”

“You didn’t know, D. How could you possibly know the extent of that kind of evil or that it would ever harm an innocent soul like Clyde? Now, no time for regrets,
chica
,” Marcella said, grazing Delaney’s cheek with her thumb.

However, Delaney couldn’t hear Marcella—she couldn’t hear anything about freeing anyone. Free Willy, for fuck’s sake, but leave Clyde alone. Clyde was alive, God damn it.
Alive.
He didn’t need to be freed. She looked up at Clyde. “But wait, your neighbor’s maid said you were alive. In a hospital. Why do we have to free anything if Clyde’s still alive?”

Marcella’s face expressed a million different things in one glance. “That’s true, D. He is technically still alive.” She grabbed at Delaney’s hand, crushing it in her cooler one. “But it’s only his body, honey. He’s not really there, and that’s because his soul is here, with us.”

Delaney couldn’t connect the dots. She gave both Clyde and Marcella a blank stare.

“I’m probably on life support,” Clyde said, making the statement with such cold indifference, Delaney shivered, clinging to Marcella’s hand. “And I had no will—no one to sign a DNR. It explains why there was no obituary for me. I’m lingering and probably pretty hacked up while I do it after what we saw at my house today.”

No. No. That couldn’t be true.
No
. “But the spirits said
coma
—they said you were in a coma—not on life fucking support!”

Clyde knelt in front of her, placing his big hands on her knees. “Listen to me, Delaney. You said yourself they get confused. Maybe they were confused, but if it’s like Marcella said, that has to be what’s keeping my heart, Vincent’s, whoever’s heart, beating.”

Delaney’s head shot up, her eyes pinning Clyde and his oh so logical, all about the rational self. Souls didn’t just up and leave bodies before their bodies were good and dead. And Clyde wasn’t dead. “Then how are you here—with me?” she yelled, in anger—in outrage—that yet again, the fucking devil would win. He’d win Clyde. He’d managed to steal her from him as indirectly as he’d killed Gary, and that made her so infuriated she wanted to break things—hurt something so she wouldn’t hurt.

Marcella cleared her throat, brushing wispy strands of Delaney’s hair from her face. “I told you. I don’t know how Clyde’s soul broke free from his body, sweetie. I don’t know how in breaking free, that landed him in Hell. I do know he shouldn’t be there, and I’ve spread the word far and wide that he’s been unjustly placed. I’m hoping someone will come and fix that. I don’t even know where his body is, but we have to find it so he can be free, and we have to do it before Satan gets wind of what he’s done. If Clyde doesn’t cross, and no one’s there to stop it, his soul’s fair game.” Marcella averted her gaze to meet Clyde’s. “You did a good thing by switching those assignments, Clyde. I know it didn’t start out the way it’s ended up—you needed to figure out how you ended up in Hell, and the only way to do that was a pass here to this plane, but you were also looking out for Delaney, indirectly at first, I know . . .” Marcella shook her head. “Anyway, that’s admirable, considering the shit you’d get if you got caught.”

Clyde’s expression turned to concrete. “I don’t care about the shit, and I’m not leaving until I know Delaney’s safe. Lucifer wanted her trashed, belittled, humiliated. That won’t happen while I’m still here, even if it’s only in spirit.”

Marcella was quick to shoot him down. “Your gig’s up, Clyde. Think of Clyve finding you two. You don’t suppose a suck-ass like that didn’t tell Satan what you two were up to for brownie points, do you? You’d be foolish to believe that. Lucifer knows about what you did, and you can bet your fine, sculpted bippy, he’ll come collect you. You have to go, and you have to do it before Satan comes calling.”

“Let him call,” Clyde dared, his shoulders squaring off.

“It’ll be okay. I promise. I have friends, some who sympathize with my plight,” Marcella replied. “They’ll help Delaney. She’ll be okay. You have my word. Nothing will hurt her—
no one
will hurt her. Swear it, but you can’t go on free-falling, Clyde. If anyone knows that, Delaney does. Your soul needs to find peace, and we need to do that before Satan decides he wants to play. You have to cross.”

Clyde nodded his head with resolution—unbearable acceptance written all over his face. “So we have to pull my plug.”

Marcella’s nod of agreement was silent—foreboding—but definitely a confirmation.

And if his heart—Vincent’s former heart—stopped beating, that meant so did Clyde.

twenty