More Than Fiends (22 page)

Right?

“You're enjoying this,” I accused.

“Is that wrong?” she asked, smiling.

Bitch.

Not that I was considering having sex with Devlin again, but when I did, I was going to make sure he was wearing
two
condoms. Hell. Maybe
three
.

I just couldn't take much more.

 

For the next couple of days, I carried that demon spray with me
everywhere
. If Jasmine could be a demon, everybody in town was suspect.

No matter whom I ran into, I gave 'em a squirt.

The paperboy—
no
.

The guy at the car wash—
yes
.

My favorite teller at the bank—
no
.

Joey Paretti's best mechanic—
yes
. When the little guy with the handlebar mustache started smoking, Joey jumped in front of him, arms wide in protection and shouted, “Don't kill him! Fabrizio's the best mechanic I've ever had. Besides, he's a Firenzi demon—they're car specialists, not evil. He came here all the way from Italy. I paid his way over.”

Car-specialist demons?

God, everybody had a specialty these days.

Truth to tell, ol' Fabrizio didn't look too dangerous. He was practically quivering. So, being brilliant and, oh yes, financially challenged at the moment, I proposed a deal.

“If I don't kill him,” I said, liking the thrill of power, “I get free tune-ups and oil changes for a year.”

Joey gritted his teeth. “Fine.”

“And”
—I was on a roll and kept right on rolling—“I don't have to pay for the bodywork you did on my Bug.”

“Damn it, Cass!” Joey glared at me, glanced over at Fabrizio, who was looking a little worried, then finally caved and said, “Fine. You got a deal. But just so you know? This sucks.”

Not from where I was standing.

Anyway, the squirt-a-thon continued.

Carmen—
no
.

Her cousin Yolanda—
yes
. (That was an eye-opener, but Carmen insisted that Yolanda was only half demon and that she was a really good worker.) Since phone calls for jobs were still pouring in, how could I dust a good worker?

But the half-demon thing was still worrying me—for all I knew, Devlin's sperm had found a way through that thin layer of latex and were already laying siege to my eggs! That thought creeped me out enough that I gave my hoo-hah a squirt just in case.

Then I took my spray over to the high school and, once class was out for the day, squirted all of Thea's teachers. No point in taking chances.

I was really hoping the principal, Mr. Richards, was a demon, because I never had liked that guy. Such a wimp. But no…everyone was clear except for Mr. Mondaca, the biology teacher who had flunked me sophomore year. When he lunged at me across his desk…Gotta say, it was a real pleasure ripping out that particular heart.

Basically, I discovered La Sombra was so not the quiet little town I'd always believed it to be. There were freaking demons
everywhere
.

When I met Rachel for coffee at the Starbucks near Simon's dental office, I spritzed the barista who told me the perfume had a really cool “earth-vibe” to it. Probably the oregano. Then, when Rachel came out onto the patio and sat down next to me, I gave her a quick shot.

“What the hell was that for?” she asked, whipping a compact out of her Prada bag. (Rachel has excellent taste in purses.)

“Just a new perfume I'm trying out,” I said.

“Well, it smells like pizza. Not a bad scent, but I think it's gonna clash with the Beautiful I splashed on this morning.” She blotted her face with a napkin, shooting me do-it-again-and-I-slap-you looks.

“Sorry,” I said, but inside I was sighing in relief. No smoke lifting off of Rachel. Which meant at least one little corner of my world was staying sane. Well, as sane as Rachel could get, anyway.

“So,” she said, putting the compact away and picking up her cup, “Simon says I should get out of the office before Mrs. Eisen comes in for her cleaning, and I thought, ‘Thank you, God.' That woman makes me want to pick up his drill and see how thick her skull really is.”

“So you're free for a while?”

She grinned at me, took a sip of her mocha latte, then swallowed with a grimace. “God, how hard is it to mix a little chocolate with some steamed milk and a shot of espresso?” She pushed up from her chair and stalked away. “I'll be back.”

My latte was just fine, so I picked at my chocolate doughnut, (give me a break—they're baked, not fried; Starbucks knows how to take care of female customers), took a sip of my hot coffee and idly squirted the guy sitting next to me on the patio.

Smoke lifted from the top of his head, and he looked at me, wide-eyed and horrified as he dropped the paper he'd been reading and bolted. I watched him run for it, slapping at his smoking head just as Leo had, what seemed years ago, now.

I let him go without bothering to chase him down like a dog. I'd figured out something in the last couple of days. Squirting everyone I came into contact with not only told me who was a demon and who wasn't, it also told me who was a
good
demon and who wasn't.

Pretty simple, really. The good ones took off running, hoping I wouldn't bother to chase 'em. (Which I wouldn't. I don't do exercise willingly, remember?) The bad ones attacked, trying to kill me before I could dust them.

It was sort of comforting in a weird way, to at least have that much figured out.

By the time Rachel came back to the table, muttering about teenage airheads working around hot machinery not being good for anyone's health, I was settled into my chair and ready for some good gossip.

“You had sex with him, didn't you?”

I choked on a sip of latte, and when I got my breath back, I managed, “Huh?”

“Don't make me have to kill you.”

I laughed. Rachel really was good. “You mean Devlin.”

“I'm reaching for my gun.”

“Yes,” I said and couldn't quite keep the sigh of reflection out of my voice. “I had sex with him.”

“Oh dear God,” Rachel said, doing a little sighing of her own. “The look on your face is making me so damn envious I can't stand it. Tell me everything. Don't leave out a thing. I can't believe it's been
days
and I don't know about this yet.”

“Jesus, Rach.
You're
the one who told
me
I would have sex with him. Why sound so surprised?”

“Not surprised. Crabby. I need details.” Rachel reached out one hand, squeezed mine briefly, then settled back. “I feel like I haven't seen you in
years
. You've been so busy lately—Well, since Logan came back to town, we never talk anymore.”

It wasn't only Logan. Every spare minute I had was spent training with Jasmine, but Rachel didn't know that, did she? “I know. Things have been—”

“Weird?”

“Absolutely.”

That one pitiful word couldn't come close to summing up what my life had turned into in the last week or two. There were some details Rachel would
never
hear. I was thinking she wouldn't be too happy to hear about all the demons in town.

Rachel broke off a piece of her crumble coffee cake, popped it into her mouth and then set her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. She was watching me as if I were the trailer for the next big summer blockbuster.

I caved pretty quickly. “It was
amazing
.”

She sighed again, and I grinned. After all the strangeness of the last couple of weeks, being myself with Rachel felt damn good.

“More,” she demanded.

“Six times,” I said.

“Jesus.” She fanned herself with a napkin.

“I could hardly walk after.”

“I think I just had an orgasm,” she said, eyes wide, mouth a perfect
O
.

“I know I did,” I said, taking another piece of doughnut and chewing despite my satisfied grin. “Several.”

Rachel slurped up some mocha, grabbed a new napkin and dabbed away imaginary sweat from her forehead. “Keep going.”

“He turned me every which way but loose,” I said, leaning in toward her, watching her eyes sparkle with imagination as she mentally filled in the blanks. I ticked them off on my fingers for her. “On the couch, the floor, against the wall, on the terrace, over a table—”

“Wow.” She sucked in a gulp of breath, blew it out and said, “That's only five.”

I shrugged. “And the bed.”

“After all of that? How disappointing.”

Disappointing
was one word I would never use to describe that night. Amazing. Electric. Overpowering. Orgasmic. Now,
those
were words. “Trust me. So not.”

“God. When I go back to the office, I'm taking Simon for a ride in one of his chairs.”

I laughed and leaned back, lifting my latte for a long sip. It was so good to be with Rachel. To feel—God help me—
balance
in my life. I could deal with the demons and Logan and Devlin and Thea, as long as I had Rachel. My one remaining thread to normal.

“So,” Rachel asked, “is Thea still hanging out with that little demon?”

Y
ou know how many times I've read books where the heroine thinks,
I couldn't hear over the roaring in my ears?
That always sounded so stupid. So implausible. Until just that moment.

I blinked.

I had to shake my head to get rid of that roaring, which was making the whole world sound muffled and strange, before I could clear my throat and say, “Demon?”

“Come on,” Rachel said, chuckling as she lifted her mocha in a salute. “Have you
looked
at that kid?”

So she didn't know. She was just talking about the weird bolt through Jett's nose and the spiky hair and, well, the whole package. “Yeah, but—”

“Oh God.” She set her cup down and leaned back, staring at me in stunned surprise. “You didn't know about the demon thing, did you?”

Crap.
She really did know the truth about the kid. How? How was that possible? Even
Rachel
knew about demons in La Sombra? What? Was I the only person in town who hadn't known? Wasn't I the Demon Duster? Wasn't I the
one
person who
should
have known?

The theme music to
The Twilight Zone
was repeating over and over in my head. Maybe Jasmine was right. I did watch too much TV. But you try to avoid watching
The Twilight Zone
marathon every year.

“I shouldn't have said anything. I just assumed that Thea told you.” Rachel groaned, grabbed her mocha and took a long gulp. “God, I'm an idiot.”

The roaring was back, and Rachel sounded like she'd been put on mute. “What do you mean, you assumed Thea told me?”

“Well, Thea told Zoe about Jett, and Zoe told me, so I thought for sure Thea had told you about that spiny-headed little creep being a demon. The kid tells you
everything,
Cass. Have I ever mentioned before just how jealous I am of that? I have to pry information out of Zoe with bribes and sheer trickery.”

A cloud slipped across the sun, and a chill crawled up my spine. Okay, that was a little too horror movie-ish, but the truth was, I had a creepy feeling. I mean, I should have been feeling better, knowing I could talk to Rachel about this demon stuff. But in a weird way, it just separated us more. I mean, she knew they existed and, that was nice and all. But she didn't know that her best friend was the one assigned to
kill
'em.

I wanted to tell her and almost did, but changed my mind at the last minute. If Judge Jenks, aka Head Demon, was trying to use Thea against me, what was to say he wouldn't use Rachel? Or Zoe? Or anyone else I cared about?

Damn it. Why did my life have to keep getting more complicated? Wasn't there a saturation point? Wouldn't I reach a level where the universe would say,
Okay, Cassidy, that's enough for one incarnation. You've done all you could. Live long and prosper.
I gave my head a mental slap. More TV quotes. From Vulcans, no less.

“Cass?” Rachel snapped her fingers in front of my face, and I jolted, startled. “Jeeezzz,” she said, her eyes glittering with worry and frown lines working on her forehead. (The Botox must have been wearing off.) “You were, like, in outer space or something. I really messed this up, didn't I? You didn't know about Jett, or the whole demon thing at all, did you? Oh crap. I'm a rotten human being. I should be shot.”

As much as I was enjoying Rachel's guilt-a-palooza, I couldn't let her think my zoning out was all her fault. (Although Rachel's skill with guilt was second only to my own.)

“You didn't mess anything up. I knew about Jett,” I said, taking a drink of my now-lukewarm latte. “Thea told me.” Of course I didn't add that she'd only told me because I'd squirted the little creep with my magic elixir.

Which made me a little pissy, now that I thought about it. Why
hadn't
Thea told me about Jett being a demon? We told each other everything. Always had. Thea and me. The Two Musketeers.

Was one little half demon really enough to split up the team?

I shook my head and put that question aside for later. At the moment, I wanted to find out what else Rachel knew. “Anyway, I sort of knew about the whole demon population before she told me about Jett.”

“Really?” Rachel slumped dramatically and caught my attention. “Thank God.” She slapped one hand to her cream silk blouse and grinned. “I mean it. Thank God. I swear, it's been so hard to not talk to you about this.”

“Why didn't you?”

She tilted her head to one side and smirked. “I could ask you the same thing. Jeez, how'd you find out?”

“I asked you first,” I reminded her, since I had no idea how to answer the question.

“I found out at work.”

“The dental office?”

“Why sound so surprised?” she asked. “Do I work somewhere else?”

“Fine, fine. So, why didn't you tell me?”

“Simon.” Rachel stuck her tongue out at her presently not-there husband. “He's so fussy about patient confidentiality.”

There was that roaring again.

“Patients?”

“Well, yeah,” Rachel said, her brows coming together over puzzled eyes. The Botox definitely was wearing off. “How else would we know demons are out there? Honest to God, Cass. You should see the
teeth
on some of those things. If it were up to me, we wouldn't be working on any of 'em. But, you know Simon. He takes one look at a set of fangs and starts picturing a ski cabin in Park City.”

I laughed. It surprised the hell out of me, but it all seemed so stupid and silly. Rachel knew about demons because her husband was drilling their fangs? “Simon is dentist to the demons?”

“Uh-huh,” Rachel nodded and checked her watch. “He's really popular. Gets all kinds of referrals. Yeesh. I swear, there was a guy in the office last week—he was like a
shark
. He had
three
rows of teeth! Took Sandy nearly two hours to do a cleaning. I swear he ate one of the angelfish out of the aquarium while he was waiting. He says he didn't, but it's not like the fish could jump out of the tank and escape, right?”

Forget
The Twilight Zone
. We were skipping straight into
The Outer Limits
. (The old ones they play on Nick at Nite—not the newer ones. They were just stupid.)

Yep.
Way
too much television.

“God, honey, I've gotta go,” Rachel said suddenly, grabbing her bag and her coffee before standing up. “Mrs. Eisen should be about finished, and we've got people lined up out the wazoo today. Not to mention a couple of
them
. If I'm not there to kick people around, they'll pick on Simon until he makes like the dentist in
Marathon Man
.”

“There's an image.” I shivered. Except for Simon, I hated
all
dentists. I'd rather face another red-eyed, pissed-off demon than sit in a chair—trapped—while somebody shoved a drill in my mouth. And, no, it wasn't, as Thea once suggested, because I couldn't talk while the dentist was working on me.

“You okay?” Rachel asked, staring. “You don't look so good. Are you
sure
you knew about the demon thing? I mean, I don't want to get Thea in trouble or anything, and if you go home and yell at her, she'll yell at Zoe, and then Zoe will shut me out and I'll never know anything again.”

Strangely enough, I followed all of that. “No, I'm fine. Really. I won't let Thea know you're a weak link.”

“Good. Thanks.” She swung her purse strap up onto her shoulder, took a step, then stopped. “So, are you going to be seeing Devlin again?”

“No way to avoid it. I am working for him now.” I knew that wasn't what she meant, but what the hell. I can stall with the best of them.

“Right, because I was really worried about you not getting to clean his club. Are you going out with him again?”

Good question. He hadn't actually asked me out again, so there was no way of knowing. Still, I flashed back to that brief moment with him in the hallway at Magic Nights and the feel of his hands on my breasts. Then in the next second I remembered demon sperm and fragile latex and had to talk myself down from a stroke.

“I don't know,” I finally said and picked up my own camel brown fabric Fossil bag and stood up. “But I'll keep you posted.”

 

I hit the grocery store next, since we were seriously out of all of life's staples. You know, cookies, salad in a bag, Pop Tarts and milk to drink with 'em, of course. I actually
can
cook, and do a couple of times a week, but Thea and I both prefer just dumping salad dressing into one of those bags of lettuce and veggies and calling it dinner.

Before I went into the supermarket, though, I took the time to refill my little purse-sized spritzer from the big bottle of liquid I kept in the car. Once inside, I grabbed a cart and wandered up and down aisles, filling my cart with whatever looked interesting. There was something almost soothing about the Muzak spilling out of speakers and the ready availability of food.

Right about then, I needed some soothing. There was too much to think about. Everything I'd ever believed about my sleepy little hometown was just not true. How had I managed to live thirty-two years without ever noticing a
demon,
for heaven's sake?

“What're you thinking?”

A deep, really familiar voice spoke up from behind me, and I slowly turned to face Devlin, holding one of those little baskets with the wire handles.

“You shop?” I asked, glancing into his basket to notice a bottle of chardonnay, some crackers and a wheel of cheese. Somebody was going to be having a good time, and I seriously wished it was going to be me.

“And eat. And dance. And…other things,” he said, giving me one of those all-too-rare smiles.

Oh man, I knew all about those “other things” he did. Wasn't I still having dreams about that one night with him every time I closed my eyes? Good thing I had the cart to hold on to. The man wielded some
serious
sexual power. At least over me.

Despite the excitement jittering through me, that annoying voice in the back of my mind started whispering again.
He's a demon,
it said.
He's admitted to working for Jenks. The guy who crashed into your car works for
him.
Sure, he's sexy as hell, but is he after your body? Or your death?

Stupid inner voice. I so didn't want to listen to it. I wanted to believe that Devlin was trying to help me. Mostly because protecting Thea would be a hell of a lot easier if I had some help I could trust.

Yes, I could trust Logan. But he had laughed at me when I told him about the demon situation, so he probably wasn't the go-to guy when it came to fighting one of them.

Boy, I needed a vacation from my life.

“You look worried.” He stepped up closer, and I could actually
feel
heat rippling off of him in waves so thick I could hardly breathe. It was like he was sucking all the air out of the store.

“I am,” I said and locked my knees, just so they wouldn't give out and leave me sprawled in the bread aisle. Grocery-shopping women have no mercy. They'd have rolled their carts right over my prone body in an attempt to get the chore of food shopping over with as soon as possible.

“About what?” he asked and lifted one hand to smooth my hair back behind my ear. Did he deliberately stroke my earlobe with a long sweep of his finger? Did he
know
what he was doing to me? Of course he knew. It was probably some weird-ass demon power—any minute now I'd start walking like Frankenstein's monster and follow him anywhere.

His lips quirked. “You're thinking about something else now. Me?”

I gulped and took a quick look around. Down the aisle from us, two women were grappling over the last box of Cheerios, but that wouldn't last long. Turning my gaze back to him, I said, “I was thinking about you and the judge. And how I can protect Thea.”

Okay, so I lied.

Big deal.

At least it would get the subject changed to one I could deal with a little easier.

“I told you I would help you with that.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, scooting my cart over as the two women walked past us, both of them giving Devlin looks hot enough to set him on fire. “When're you going to start that helping?”

He blew out a breath. “I told you it wouldn't be easy. The judge has a lot of friends—human and demon.”

“Yes, but I'm the Demon Duster, right?” I whispered, not sure who might be in the soup aisle right behind me. “I don't see why I can't just go to his courtroom and take him out.”