Kathy Love - Truth or Demon

As much as he hated to admit it, the girl was right. He was stuck here, and making Poppy hate him was really defeating his own purpose. But he was having a hard time not showing his aggravation. He did not want to be here. And he hated being controlled by young girls.

And to make matters worse, he’d discovered another very irritating fact. He couldn’t control Poppy’s thoughts or emotions either. He’d attempted to do so when he’d offered to help her while she was at the fridge. But nothing had happened. She was as unaffected as the girls.

“We need a more detailed plan,” Daisy decided, tossing the orange-juice-soaked towel into the sink. “You need to hang out with her. Just the two of you.”

“Are—are you really going to trust a demon alone with your sister?” Emma asked. She glanced nervously at Killian.

“He can’t hurt her,” Daisy said. “He has to do whatever we want.”

Killian gritted his teeth. Did they have to keep repeating that?

Smug smiles curved both Daisy and Madison’s lips. Damn, this was the most frustrating situation he’d ever been in. Killian couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than being controlled by teenage girls. This was hell—much worse than the Hell he knew.

“I still don’t think we should trust a demon,” Emma said.

“Demon?” Poppy came back into the kitchen in a new T-shirt, this one sporting the Superheroes, in their full retro glory. She also had changed into a pair of jeans that showed off the subtle curve of her hips and slight build.

Killian frowned, wondering why the innocuous change of clothes would suddenly draw his attention to her figure. Especially when he had much bigger concerns to take up his thoughts.

“What is this about demons again?” she asked.

“Oh—um,” Daisy looked around at the other girls, “we were just talking about …”

“His career,” Madison said. “Killian is a paranormal investigator.”

Killian fought the urge to roll his eyes. Paranormal what? Really?

“Really?” Poppy said, her tone intrigued, despite her obvious dislike of him. She turned to him. “Wow, you don’t meet one of those every day.”

No, you didn’t. And she hadn’t now either. But he simply nodded, not sure what exactly to say about this newest lie. Couldn’t these kids come up with something even remotely normal?

“He’s actually here to do research,” Madison said.

Okay, he could probably work with that.

“He has his own paranormal show,” Madison added with one of her smirky little smiles.

Okay, now they were just getting silly again.

“Your own show? Like one of those ghost-hunter type programs?” Poppy asked.

“Umm, yeah, sort of like that,” Killian said, not sure what exactly she was referring to.

“He’s quite a celebrity in Sweden,” Madison said, clearly enjoying this storytelling a bit too much.

“Madison’s actually getting a little carried away,” Daisy said, obviously agreeing with him. She shot her friend a warning look, then turned to Killian. “Weren’t you saying that you are just here to get ideas for a show?”

“Um, yeah. Just ideas.” Killian forced a smile. If they were expecting his help, then they were going to have to let him make up the fake life for himself. A paranormal investigator/pseudo-celebrity from Sweden? Teenage girls had strange ideas of cool.

“That’s pretty impressive,” Poppy said, although he couldn’t tell if she was impressed or not. He supposed it didn’t matter as long as she was actually buying this load of nonsense.

“In fact,” Daisy said, “he was hoping to have a look around Boston today. You could do that, right, Poppy?”

Poppy shot her sister an irritated glance, then gave Killian a feigned look of regret. “Oh, I don’t know. I have some work to do today.”

“It’s Sunday,” Daisy said. “Surely even you can take a Sunday off.”

Poppy shifted, her discomfort with this idea clear on her face, but reluctantly nodded. “I guess I can join you.”

“Great,” Daisy said. “He wants to walk the Freedom Trail. There’s plenty of ghostly stuff there. Plus, I’m sure he’d like to just see the city.”

Killian nodded. What he’d really like to see was his own place, but to do that, he was going to have to find this waiflike woman in her superhero T-shirt true love. Which was going to apparently involve ghost tours too. Joy.

“Okay, well let me just run to my office and check my e-mail and grab a sweater. Then I will be ready to go.” Poppy hurried out of the kitchen as if she’d rather just go hide and avoid their plan altogether.

He didn’t blame her. How was he supposed to pull off this cockamamie scheme anyway? What did he know about matchmaking? Or true love, for that matter? He’d never experienced such a phenomenon. In fact, he didn’t actually think such a thing existed. In his world, people were usually coming to him because they’d been involved in acts and deeds that had not a single thing to do with love.

“Okay, so here’s what you need to do,” Daisy said in a hushed voice, shooting a furtive glance toward the kitchen door. “First of all, be nice. I mean you’re pretty hot”—Killian raised an eyebrow at that—“but you need to work on your personality.”

He frowned at that. Work on his personality? Whatever.

“Poppy’s not the type to warm up to someone quickly,” Daisy told him. “So you’re going have to work it.”

“You need new clothes too,” Madison added with a disdainful grimace at his uniform.

Killian looked down at himself. “What? This is classic. Dashing.”

“It’s gay.”

“I kind of like it,” Emma surprised him by saying, even though she immediately avoided his gaze, toying with her syrup-drenched pancake.

“Well, you like those Johnny Depp types,” Madison said in a way that made it clear she did not.

“He is a paranormal investigator,” Daisy said. “I think he can pull the look off. It makes him interesting.”

“Because the life you’ve invented for me isn’t interesting enough,” Killian said wryly. “I think maybe I need to invent my own background from now on.”

Madison smiled, smug as usual. Emma bit her lip, sheepish as usual. And Daisy nodded.

“Fine. But remember your task. And try to be someone my sister would like. Well, not like like, but, you know, hang out with.”

“I get it,” he said, finding it rather terrifying that Daisy was the only one who seemed at all sensible.

“And no telling her that you are a demon,” she added. “That won’t make her like you at all.”

“I hadn’t planned on it.” Actually he had thought of it earlier, but that definitely wouldn’t get him home any sooner to his comfy bed, Xbox and expensive scotch.

“Okay,” Poppy said, walking into the kitchen in a black cardigan that looked like it had been around since the sixties. “Are we ready to go sightseeing?”

All three girls stood then.

“Oh, we aren’t going. We have to help Emma’s mother,” Daisy said.

Poppy frowned. “What?”

“We’re helping Mrs. Wills—” Daisy looked at Emma.

“Clean,” Emma said automatically. “We’re—helping with the annual spring cleaning.”

“So you two have fun,” Daisy said, waving as she hooked the other two girls’ arms and dragged them from the kitchen. The apartment door slammed shut before Poppy even managed to snap her gaping mouth closed.

Slowly Poppy turned to look at Killian.

He smiled, perhaps his first real smile of the past two days. “I guess it’s just the two of us.”

J ust the two of us.

Poppy was still trying to figure out how she’d ended up alone with this man, even as they stepped off the T and headed toward their first stop on the historic Freedom Trail.