The Demon in Me (33 page)

“You still think I’m handsome after all this time?” Darrak asked dryly. “Please stop. I’m blushing.”

“I’ve seen him,” Eden said. “The demon him.”

The witch looked surprised. “I don’t believe you.”

Eden nodded. “He’s a lot larger, he has these big-ass horns, and he’s covered in hellfire. Not exactly male model material.” She glanced at Darrak. “No offense.”

“None taken.”

Selina blinked. “I stand corrected. But I can’t believe you have accepted him. That you… fornicated with him.”

There was that word again. Eden winced.

“Let’s stay on topic,” Eden suggested.

The witch crossed her arms. “My life is perfect right now. I don’t want to do anything to risk that. I destroyed you, demon.”

“Well, you gave it your best shot.” Darrak didn’t sound friendly.

“I was such a newbie back then. I should have made sure that the job was done correctly.”

“Water under the bridge.”

“It is?”

He shifted in his seat. “I’m trying to be diplomatic. But being incorporeal and voiceless for three hundred years has a tendency to weigh heavily on one’s mind.”

“And yet you have a body right now. A very fine one.”

“Are you coming on to me? I think that’s a bit inappropriate at the moment, Selina. Given our history.”

She scowled at him. “I don’t even know how it’s possible for you to have a body. I destroyed your previous one.”

He visibly tensed. “Haven’t forgotten that. Believe me.”

“So, what’s changed? Is it her?” Selina nodded at Eden.

“I believe so.”

“There’s something about Eden’s psychic energy that makes it possible for you to draw enough strength from her to take corporeal form during the day. But at night you have to possess her body.”

“Insightful as ever, Selina.”

Eden kept her attention on the mug of hot chocolate in front of her.

Selina smiled thinly. “You’re trying to resist the urge to strangle me with my purse strap right now, aren’t you?”

“I was eyeing my coffee stir stick as the weapon, actually. It could do a great deal of damage in the right hands.” He looked at Eden. “Despite Selina’s ability to work magic and her… well, moldy Swiss cheese soul, a black witch is still essentially human. Despite her potential for immortality, her body is vulnerable to all kinds of damage.”

Eden didn’t like how he said that. There was the threat of true violence behind it. She wondered then, and not for the first time, if it had been a mistake to bring these two back together after all this time.

Oh well. Too late now.

“Yes, the only way to break his curse is if I do it willingly or he kills me with his own hands,” Selina said. “So excuse me if I’m not terribly comfortable at the moment.”

“Selina, please sit down,” Eden said.

“I’d rather stand.”

“It looks a bit conspicuous.”

“Like I care. I thought I told you that you had five minutes. I believe that time is nearly up.” Her eyes narrowed. “I feel your weakness, demon. Not quite the same as you were all those years ago, are you?”

“No, I’ve changed. I’m much more pathetic and needy now. I believe that’s the point of this meeting.”

“Then I’ll give you another minute to convince me to break your curse. Beg if you like.”

Darrak nodded grimly. “I can do that if I have to.”

“Oh. My. God.” A voice from Eden’s right exclaimed. It was Nancy, the barista, who must have just come on shift. “Selina Shaw.
Here
at Hot Stuff. I can’t believe this.”

“Wonderful,” Selina said sarcastically under her breath. “A fan. Just what I need right now. I should have done a camouflage spell on this table the moment I walked in here.”

Nancy rushed over. “Can I get you a coffee, Ms. Shaw? A biscotti?”

“No, thank you.”

“Perhaps a blueberry scone? I can heat it in the microwave for you and put some butter on it. Are you lactose intolerant at all?”

Selina sighed. “I’m going to decline. But I appreciate the offer.”

She beamed at the writer and then looked at Eden. “And look at you, talking to Selina Shaw herself. If it wasn’t for me you would never have found her in the first place. And now you’re friends!”

“Found me?” Selina asked. “You’re the one who helped them locate me?”

“Yes! Can you believe they’d never heard of your books before? Eden never would have known about your signing last night if I hadn’t told her.”

Selina smiled. “Go now. Before I tear out your intestines and stomp on them with my new Ferragamo pumps.”

“Sure thing. If you do decide you need anything to eat or drink, just holler.” She sauntered away, happily oblivious to the threat of evisceration she’d just received.

Selina turned to leave. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

“No. Please, stay,” Eden said. “Darrak’s changed. Just like you.”

She froze. “He’s nothing like me.”

“Having to possess humans all of these years has infused him with humanity.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Is that what you think has happened?”

“It is,” Darrak confirmed.

She raised an eyebrow. “I thought I sensed something oddly human about you. For a moment I thought it was simply residue from your recent and ill-advised horizontal romp with this girl.”

“What makes you think we were horizontal?” Darrak’s lips twitched.

She glared at him. “Do not make light of this.”

Darrak’s grin widened at her outrage. “Don’t be jealous. It’s not becoming to a woman of your age.”

“Jealous is the last thing I am right now.”

“Look, Selina. Here it is. You summoned me years ago. You sucked all the energy out of me you could possibly get and left me an empty husk. Then you tried to destroy me completely.”

“You were going to kill me. Do you deny that, demon?”

His smile vanished. “Not for a moment. I don’t take kindly to being summoned and forced to do things against my will.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Forced? You didn’t seem to mind my attentions at the time. In fact, you welcomed my body like the horny little ex-incubus you are.”

Eden considered getting up to grab one of those blueberry scones Nancy mentioned. Anywhere to escape this extra-uncomfortable part of the conversation.

Darrak’s blue eyes narrowed. “That was a long time ago,
witch
.”

“If you hadn’t tried to kill me I wouldn’t have had to destroy you.”

“You should have released me when you had the chance.”

“But I didn’t. And here we are reliving the good old times in a place that serves pastries and cappuccino. Now what?”

“Now you break my curse. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. We can both have a future here.”

She eyed him for a moment. “Have you convinced this foolish woman that you’re in love with her?”

He flicked a momentary glance at Eden, who was now anxiously watching their conversation like it was a supernatural-infused tennis game. “She has nothing to do with what happened between us.”

“You honestly think that?” Selina sighed. “Eden, be very careful with him. I thought he loved me, too, once. But he didn’t.”

“Can we please try to stay on subject here?” Eden said tightly, disturbed equally by the talk about love and destruction.

His jaw was tight. “If you don’t break my curse, I will eventually drain the life completely out of Eden and she will die.”

“Well aware of that. But why I should care?”

“Because if you’re the nice self-help-book-writing witch you say you are, then you should care if someone lives or dies.”

“I never said I was nice.” Selina touched her pendant. “I said I didn’t want to lose my soul completely to the darkness. And I would hate for someone else to have the same struggles I’ve had all these years. I would have warned you last night, Eden. But now it’s too late, isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?” Eden asked.

Her eyes widened. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?” She didn’t like the look on the witch’s face. Especially since it was directed at her.

Selina turned to Darrak. “Can’t you even sense it? Are you that much of a fool?”

Darrak frowned at her, confusion crossing his expression. He looked at Eden and searched her face until a glimmer of clarity came into his widening eyes. “It’s not possible.”

“I sensed it the moment I got here,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Damn you, Selina.” His jaw clenched. “This is all your fault, isn’t it?”

The witch crossed her arms. “You only have yourself to blame.”

Darrak’s expression looked like it might shatter. “I knew something bad would come of it because of what I am… but… I didn’t know what. Eden… I’m so sorry.”

Eden felt so confused by whatever they were saying, it was like she’d walked into a foreign movie halfway through. “Can somebody please explain what the hell you’re talking about?”

Selina finally sat down next to her. She took Eden’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “Last night when you spoke with me, I told you that I’d summoned the demon and done a spell so that he would give me enough power to become a black witch.”

“I remember.”

“That spell was never broken.”

“And what does that mean?”

“With this spell, a woman must willingly have sex with a demon in order to gain that power—the same dark magic I try not to use so I don’t destroy my soul completely. I summoned the demon specifically so I could have sex with him and become a black witch.”

Every word burrowed into Eden’s brain. Everything Selina said started to connect and make sense—and then it hit her like a thunderbolt of clarity.

Eden had willingly had sex with Darrak.
Very
willingly.

“So this means…” she began.

“You’re now a black witch as well.” Selina smiled without humor. “Welcome to the family.”

There was silence at the table. The coffee bar around them
continued to buzz with activity. The warm smell of baked goods still pleasantly hung in the air. The cash register dinged as someone made a purchase.

And Eden’s entire existence took a graceful swan dive into a swimming pool full of crap.

“So, demon,” Selina continued, “if you’ve really changed as much as you’re trying to make me believe, it goes without saying that unless you decide you want to corrupt more of this poor woman’s soul, you can never touch her sexually again. Hope that won’t be a problem for you.”

“Break the spell, Selina,” Darrak said darkly.

“What about your curse?”

“One thing at a time.”

The amber glow she’d all but forgotten about when she and Darrak had been together physically…

It was the magic settling over her, entering her, changing her. Making her into something different.

Eden was a black witch because she’d had sex with Darrak.

If Hell had created an STD, this would definitely be it.

“What do I do now?” she asked, stunned.

“Can you feel it?” Selina asked, searching her face. “The magic inside you now?”

Eden shook her head. “I don’t feel anything.”

“Concentrate.”

She did. And she sensed a bit of that electricity she’d felt earlier. A warm flush of power permeating her skin. “I think I can feel it. And it feels kind of… good?”

Darrak swore, gripped the edge of the table, and looked ready to tear it apart with his bare hands. “It’s not good. Nothing about this is good.”

Selina looked at him skeptically. “You mean you had no idea this might happen?”

“I—I didn’t know
this
would happen.”

“But you thought something bad would happen, right? And yet you did it anyhow.” Selina shook her head. “
Men
. Always thinking about pleasure before practicality.”

Eden looked blankly at the both of them.

Selina laughed. “I can barely believe you’re the same archdemon I summoned. I’d think you’d be thrilled to have corrupted yet another human soul.”

Flames entered his gaze. “You need to fix this.”

Her smile disappeared. “I can’t. What’s happened to Eden isn’t a spell I can break. It’s the
result
of a spell. Just like what happened to me.”

Eden’s brain was flailing about, attempting to piece everything together and also trying very hard not to freak out over this life-altering avalanche of news. “So anyone Darrak would have—would have
been with
would become a black witch?”

“My spell was specific to someone with my level of psychic ability.” Selina gave another one of those humorless smiles. “I guess we have more in common than I thought we did.”

“Only I didn’t ask for the ability to do black magic. It really wasn’t on my list of must-haves this year.” There was an edge of barely restrained hysteria in her voice.

Selina squeezed Eden’s numb hands tighter. “You haven’t used the magic inside of you yet. If you never use it, maybe that will keep your soul from any damage.”

Eden tried to stay calm, but it was a losing battle. “I’m seriously going to be sick right now. Right here.”

Selina curled her hand around her wrist and Eden felt a strange calming sensation move through her that helped settle her stomach.

“Try to breathe,” the witch suggested. “I’ll put my book tour on hold for a few days and stay here in the city to help you. I feel a sisterly bond with you now.”

A weak glimmer of hope moved through her in this otherwise hellish scenario. “You’d do that?”

She nodded. “Just try to be in control of your emotions as much as you can. I do yoga daily and take frequent meditation breaks. Scented candles are also very soothing. Anger will automatically bring the dark magic to the surface where it becomes very tempting to use.” She touched her pendant. “As a black witch, our magic is at our fingertips in a way that makes it much easier to use than through books or verbally cast spells. It’s a lot like being a drug addict, actually. The only way to defeat the desire to use the black magic is to ignore it.”

That didn’t sound very good at all. “And there’s no way for me to get rid of it?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

Eden gulped. “Are there
any
perks at all to this condition?”

“Well, there is the chance to live forever.” Selina smiled. “Just make sure you move and change your name every ten years so people don’t realize you’re not aging. Botox can only account for so much, you know.”