More Than Fiends (21 page)

“I'll kill you and he'll reward me.”

“What? You're doing this for credit?” I shouted, throwing both hands high. “I thought this was a demon jealousy thing.”

She choked a laugh.

“So you get brownie points for killing me?”

Jasmine shouted, “Stop talking and kill it!”

But this was just getting interesting.

Demon Woman snorted and tossed her hair back. Pretty hair. Good highlights. “He'll give me San Diego for this.”

I glanced at Jasmine. “They can have whole cities all to themselves?”

Jasmine only shouted, “Will you simply
kill
it?
Now.
”

The demon charged again, and this time, I remembered the demon spray on the patio table. I grabbed it and whirled around, dropping into a crouch as I moved. She sailed past me, landing right in front of Jasmine. The old woman kicked her dead in the face, tossing her back at me. She landed on her feet this time and was preparing another pounce when I gave her a long squirt of the bottle, the liquid splashing over her face and across the top of her head.

“You shouldn't have come here,” I said, just before I slapped my hand through that ugly dress, ripped out her heart and watched her wide, surprised eyes as she poofed.

I was actually feeling pretty good.

Until I looked at Jasmine.

Her head was smoking.

“N
o. Fucking. Way.”

Jasmine didn't move. She just stood there, her head smoking, twists of gray spiraling in the cold, ocean wind, her gaze never leaving my face. Was she afraid to move? Afraid I might leap at her and rip out her heart? Damn it, a part of me
wanted
to.

She'd lied to me. Made me trust her as the one person with answers in my strange new world, and now I find out she's one of the monsters?

“You're a
demon
.”

“Yes,” she said.

“That's it? Just
yes
?” Why wasn't she spilling her guts? Trying to explain away her lies and keep me from killing her?

Because she knew I wouldn't. A real pisser for somebody to know you that well. I tossed the demon spray at a nearby chair and yanked at my own hair in frustration. “For chrissakes, Jasmine, don't you think I deserve a little more than that?” I was shouting by then and didn't really give a damn who heard me. “Maybe an explanation? Something along the lines of ‘Hey, did I forget to mention I'm from South Hell?'”

Her lips pursed. Serious lipstick lines. “You're becoming agitated.”

“Boy howdy.”

“There is no need.”

“Hah!” I gave my hair another yank, then winced at the pain and told myself to knock it off. Being a Demon Duster was bad enough. Being a
bald
Demon Duster would just be ugly. So I walked off the mounting aggravation by stomping around my backyard until Sugar slunk away up to the porch and huddled next to the door. Great. Now I was scaring cowardly dogs.

I stopped and faced the little old lady who looked more like a woman ready for a hot night of bingo than an ambassador from a Hell dimension. “You can't be a demon. That's not how it works. I can handle Devlin being a demon because, well, I just can, and the sex was pretty incredible—”

Jasmine shuddered.

“Hey, demon lovers are
acceptable
. It's even been on TV and in the movies. But not
you
. You're my
guide
. In the movies, you're the wise old man who can read all the weird books written in a language nobody's ever seen before! You can't be a demon. That's not how this is supposed to work. You're supposed to be on
my
side.”

Jasmine sighed, pulled an embroidered hanky out of the cuff of her long-sleeved gray shirtdress and wiped what was left of the demon spray off her forehead.

“Cassidy, I am on your side,” she said, moving over to perch gingerly on one of the lawn chairs. “I have been a guide to the women in your family for more than a hundred years.”

“But—”

“I'm also a demon.”

“So you're a good demon.”

She smiled slightly. No more than a twist of her lips, really. “I wouldn't go so far as to say
good,
but certainly not evil.”

Well, that had the ring of truth to it, at least. Had to admit, she'd never struck me as the Pollyanna, goody-two-shoes type. Anyway, Jasmine was no saintly figure. More like a really determined drill sergeant.

“Okay,” I said, taking the seat opposite her. “That's honest.”

“Of course it's honest. I haven't lied to you.”

She actually had the nerve to look
offended
. Like I'd hurt her little demon feelings by not trusting her. Believing her. For God's sake, bizzaro much?

“I don't see why you get to be the cranky one. You know,
I'm
the one with the list of complaints here, Jasmine.”

“As you insist on reminding me every day of your training.”

Fine. So I whined a little once in a while. I thought I was due. “There's no reason to get nasty.”

“You're only upset because this is coming as a surprise to you.”

“You think?” I countered and heard the really annoying shrieky tone to my voice but couldn't seem to stop it. “So what you're saying is, I shouldn't be pissed or ripping out your heart because you didn't
lie
to me. You just didn't
tell
me stuff!”

I could pretty much feel the top of my head getting ready to fly off, so I took a deep breath and tried to calm down, because what good would that do me?

Sugar sneaked (at least, she considered it sneaking, but nobody could miss a dog of that size moving) down the steps and across the lawn to take a seat beside Jasmine. I glared at her. Apparently the dog had forgotten just who was in charge of the kibble around here.

Jasmine, though, blew out an irritated breath aimed at me and dropped one hand to the top of Sugar's head. The traitorous hug addict snuggled up to the old woman/demon and dropped her head in Jasmine's lap.

“I would have told you eventually,” Jasmine said.

“Gee, that's great. Thanks,” I said, flopping back in my seat and hitting the back of my head on the top of the Adirondack chair. I winced and straightened, giving her a glare. “That makes it all better. Hell, that's right up there with Noah treading water and God saying, ‘I was going to tell you about building a boat eventually—and, hey, meant to tell you about the flood.'”

“You are a trial,” Jasmine muttered, her black eyes narrowing a bit. “Your grandmother was never this much trouble.”

“
Excuuuuussse
me.”

“There is no need,” she said, as if I'd actually
meant
that sarcastic apology. “It's not your fault entirely. You were unprepared for your duty. Your grandmother should have prepared you, and if your mother had survived—”

“Back off, Bertha,” I snapped and got her attention in a flash. “Stop trying to make my mother sound like a deadbeat for dying and ruining your demon-killing plans.”

“I didn't mean to—”

“Yeah, you did,” I said and pushed my hair back out of my eyes. “And it's not the first time you've done it. Maybe Gram should have told me, but the point is, she didn't. So as soon as you knew I was in the dark,
you
should have told me everything.”

I watched her for a long moment, wondering if she was actually going to try to defend herself, but finally, she nodded. “You're quite right,” she said, and I wondered why in the hell a
demon
sounded like a Sunday school teacher. “I should have told you everything right from the beginning. I meant only to ease you into your duties.”

“Fine,” I said. Hey, I can be magnanimous in victory. “I'm officially
eased
. So tell me now. And start with why a demon is helping me to kill demons.”

The storm clouds were rushing in overhead. California didn't have four actual seasons like most places, but when fall finally decided to arrive, it could get cool and rainy. Looked as if we were going to see a good storm for a change. All around us, the yard seemed to quiet, as though nature were taking a breath before the rain hit. As if maybe even the trees and bedraggled chrysanthemums in my garden were waiting to hear what Jasmine had to say.

“I do what I do,” she said softly, “because there must be balance.”

I blew out a breath and wished for a beer. “Oh man, are you going to go all Zen-like on me? Cause I don't think I can handle a Master/Grasshopper talk right now.”

“You watch far too much television.”

“Guilty,” I agreed. “But not the point. Now explain what you meant.”

Jasmine's gaze caught mine. “Balance in all things is necessary. When demons attain too much power, that balance is disrupted and the world suffers.”

This was just too weird. I was sitting in my backyard (it really needed mowing), watching a storm roll in and listening to an ancient woman talk to me about balance in the demon world.

“I chose this duty,” she was saying in that plain, no-nonsense tone she always used, “because some of my kind feel it is important to maintain stable ties with the mortal world.”

“Hah! And I'm stable?”

She smiled again, so briefly that if I hadn't been watching her, I never would have noticed it. “You have a good soul, Cassidy. A heart big enough to accept that not everything in the world is black and white, or good and evil.”

“Oh sure,” I said, calmer now as I admitted that though it was damn weird finding out my “guide” was a demon, I was pretty sure she was still trustworthy. Leaning back in my chair, I kicked my feet out in front of me and added, “You say that now so I can't get all frosted and rip your heart out without feeling like a jerk.”

She smiled, and even her dark eyes glittered with humor and…relief? Maybe she felt good getting her secret out in the open.

“I will be with you for as long as you need me,” she said, “which I must say, I fear will be quite some time—”

“Hey! No insulting the Demon Duster when she's just forgiven you!”

“—and,” she continued, lifting her voice to drown me out, “when it is Thea's time to inherit her powers, I will be there for her as well.”

“God,” I muttered, thinking about that for a second. “Thea.”

“Of course, we've talked about this. The Duster legacy is passed along from mother to daughter. Your own mother—”

“I know,” I said, interrupting her because I really didn't want to think about my mom now and how we'd both been gypped when she died too young. “I know it'll be Thea's turn one day. I already told her, actually, and let me tell you, if you think
I'm
a pain in the ass about this, just wait till Thea's up at bat.”

Jasmine actually shuddered.

Me, I was worried. It gave me chills thinking about Thea going up against nasty-ass demons who wanted her dead. But the real scary part was, she'd never get to be a Duster at all unless I was able to protect her
now
.

Jasmine shrugged after a minute and scratched Sugar behind her ears, making the dog actually moan in ecstasy. “It may not be Thea, you know. If you have another child and it is a daughter,
she
may be the one to inherit the power.”

“Oh, you can put a lid on that plan,” I said hastily. I mean, sure, sometimes when Thea was being all sweet or we were laughing together, I halfway considered maybe someday, at some far-off point in the distant, still-foggy and ambiguous future, that I might, maybe consider maybe thinking about another child. But in case you didn't notice, the chance of that happening was real iffy.

Which meant, of course, that Thea would be the one stuck with this “duty” sooner or later.
Let's vote for later,
I told myself, and put that thought out of my mind for the moment.

“Besides,” I said, with a sigh of great relief, “I'm practicing
realllllllyyyyy
safe sex these days. I mean, interspecies sex has got to be totally safe. Can't reproduce if you're not even in the same gene pool—hell, same gene
ocean
—right?”

Jasmine didn't say a word.

“Right?” I repeated and heard the shrill, nails-on-a-chalkboard quality of my voice.
“Right?”

“Our species are not so very different,” she said. “At least, that can be said for a great many of us. There are, of course, many different types of demons. Each with their own quirks—”

I snorted. “Quirks? Like claws and fangs and wild, red eyes and, I don't know, trying to
kill
me?”

“Some of them are far from human,” Jasmine went on, disregarding both my indelicate snort and my abbreviated rant. “Others are very close to human, and until they choose to show their demon natures, you would have no way of knowing their true heritage.”

Well, I'd seen that for myself, hadn't I? Look at Devlin, for Pete's sake. He looked like a guy. A big, gorgeous guy, but human through and through. And yet…Then I wondered what his “demon” self looked like and wondered again if I really wanted to know. Did I want to see him go all fangy and clawy? (Yes, not words. I know.) And the honest answer was, nope. Didn't really want to see the “real” him.

Hell, I didn't even want to know what Jasmine looked like when she was kicked back with a demon crowd.

“Okay,” I said, turning my head on the back of the chair to look at her. “But we're talking about reproduction here. It can't be possible.”

“Thea's friend Jett is only half demon,” Jasmine went on, eyes gleaming with—Was that
humor
? “His father was human.”

“I didn't know that.
Half
demon? Oh crap.” So sex with the demon world wasn't exactly
safe
. The meaning of that sank in fast, and I immediately thought about my wild night with Devlin, but I was safe. For sure. We'd used condoms. Every time. So, unless demons had, like, supersperm or something, I should be covered.