Мишель Роуэн - The Demon in Me

“Do it,” Darrak urged.

“Ben,” she called just before he left.

He turned. “Yeah?”

She cleared her throat. “I know I kind of said no before, but listen, I want to change my mind.”

“About what?”

“Um… I was… uh, kind of wondering if you had any dinner plans tomorrow night?”

A glint of surprise entered his dark blue eyes. “Dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“With you?”

She faltered and felt her cheeks heat up. He was going to turn her down. This was Detective Ben Handsome, after all. She had no idea why he was single when any woman in the world would kill for the chance to date him. “Unless you don’t want to. I totally understand.”

Another smile touched his lips. “You’d understand, would you? Why, because I called you a troublemaker before? Or because that ass called you a dangerous woman?”

“Well… both. To start with.”

“I’d love to have dinner with you.”

She was honestly surprised by his answer. “Oh… well, good.”

“Good.”

Darrak groaned. “Sounds like you’re definitely going to need my help.”

She gritted her teeth.

“So I’ll call you?” Ben asked. “Tomorrow afternoon? And we’ll go from there?”

She grabbed a business card off her desk and gave it to him. “I’ll be here.”

He nodded and tucked the card into his jacket pocket. “Have a good night. And try to stay out of trouble, okay?”

She tried to think of a fantastically witty comeback for that, but came up blank. “Yeah, you, too.”

He grinned at her and left the office.

“ Yeah, you, too ?” Darrak repeated. “That was smooth. Why do you have such a hard time talking to him? Are you like this with every man you meet? You’re too attractive to be a spinster. Do you live alone with a great many cats?”

She pressed her lips together. “Shut up, please.”

He went silent. She still couldn’t feel him as much as she could earlier. Before, he’d been like a weight on her chest — not enough to hurt, but enough to be noticeable. Now there was nothing but his faint voice as if he was speaking from an adjoining room.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“You mean, did I survive your attempt to exorcise me? Obviously, or I wouldn’t be talking to you now, would I?”

“I didn’t know it was going to be like that.”

“Did you think they were going to lure me out with a bowl of warm milk and put a leash on me?”

“No. But I didn’t know it would cause you so much pain.” She swallowed, then crossed her arms and looked out of the broken door at the parking lot. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame you. You didn’t ask for this. You’re going through the five stages of demonic possession. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression… eventually you’ll finally reach acceptance.”

“Aren’t those the five stages of dying?”

“Same stages, different issue. Right now I think you’re still dealing with the anger. But we’ve moved into the bargaining stage because you agreed to help me out.”

She turned and went back to her desk, straightening her keyboard, which had detached from the computer during the attempted exorcism. “I look forward to my inevitable depression.”

“I think you’ve done great so far.”

“Great? I just spent fifteen hundred bucks on a crazy exorcist whose son slapped me around.” She held her hand against her cheek.

“Some people pay much more than that. For the exorcism, that is. Although some people also pay to be slapped around. Humans are strange.”

She concentrated on his voice. “You still don’t sound too good.”

“No, well… it was mostly from when he launched into the Latin. That part of an exorcism always tends to be a bit draining. Literally.”

“I thought you said you’ve never been faced with a real exorcism before.”

“I haven’t. But I’ve seen them performed — from a safe distance, of course. It’s not pretty. Another thirty seconds and I would have been only an unpleasant memory for you.”

She sat on the edge of her desk. “Sure, now you tell me.” He was quiet for a moment. “So you really like that cop?” She nodded. “That’s an understatement.”

“Fair enough. Tomorrow night we’ll make sure you look extremely gorgeous. You’ll go out for dinner with him. I’ll guide you into not saying anything too embarrassing—”

She frowned at that.

“And he’ll be eating out of your hand in under an hour. Guaranteed. Then we will focus on finding my witch. Deal?”

She still felt more than a little uncomfortable with the oddly helpful Darrak. “You’re asking me to officially make a deal with a devil?”

“I’m not a devil. I’m a demon.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Vast. Devils are small, purple, angry, and tend to poke things with their pitchforks. And that’s actually what they call their insanely pointy genitalia.”

That was an image she’d prefer to lose as soon as possible. “And all demons look like you?”

“Tall, dark, and handsome?” There was humor in his voice as he said it.

“I meant not small, purple, angry, or particularly pointy.”

“Demons… have varying appearances.”

Her mouth went dry just thinking about it. “That’s vague.”

“It is, isn’t it?” He was silent for a moment. “Now, unless you’d like to call Malcolm and his mom back…”

“I’ll pass.”

“Then I’m going to rest. I’m tired and my energy is very low right now.”

“That’s what happened when you lost form at sunset? You rested? I couldn’t hear you for a while.” Which is when she’d had the chance to consult the Yellow Pages and make the exorcism appointment.

“When I’m very weakened, I sink down to a deeper level of consciousness. To communicate with you like this I need a lot of energy to stay at the surface.”

Eden twisted a finger nervously through her long hair. “Did you hear what that woman said about me not being completely human?”

“I did.”

“What do you think she meant by that?” She leaned over to pick up a file folder that had fallen to the floor earlier. Then she spun her Rolodex to find the number of the door repairman.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never possessed a female before, so you do feel… different to me — even aside from your physical body. And I’m able to draw energy from you in order to take form as well as talk to you, unlike my relationships with any of my other hosts. Yet I don’t sense anything overtly Otherworldly about you.”

“She was probably just talking about my psychic ability.” She thought back to working at Psychic Connexions. “I do shuffle a mean deck of tarot cards, I’ll have you know.”

“That must be it. Do psychic abilities run in your family?”

Eden thought about her mother. Other than an addiction to gambling, drinking, emotionally neglecting her daughter, and working her way through a long line of hairy men, she didn’t recall anything unusual. Maybe her father had been psychic. She remembered one brief visit from him when she was a very little girl — a man with a big warm smile and hair the bright red color Eden’s would be if she didn’t make regular trips to the salon to keep it the darker auburn she preferred. But nothing like Ouija boards or crystal balls rang out in her memory.

“I don’t think so. But I haven’t exactly been all that close to my family over the years.”

“Think about it. But I’m going now. I’ll be back.”

“Darrak,” she began.

“Yeah?”

“What’s your real name?”

There was a long moment of silence and then a tired sigh. “I understand your fear and misgivings about what is going on, Eden. And I also understand why you called the exorcists. But if I ever tell you my true name, that would give you a great deal of power over me, so it’s something I must keep hidden from those who might do me harm.”