The_Demons_Wife_ARC (4 page)

It was
definitely Samael.

Her first
impulse was to ignore him…not say a word and walk away. He’d already ditched
her once tonight. She wasn’t about to be humiliated again.

Her second
impulse was to turn to him, let him see what a sodden, disheveled mess she was,
and tell him to go fuck himself.

But her third
impulse—the one that gripped her with undeniable power and overwhelmed the
first two—was to smile back at him, laugh as if this was just the silliest
thing that ever happened to her, and get into the car.

Which is
exactly what she did.

~ * ~

“I’ll get your
car seat wet.”

“It’s seen
worse.”

Claire wasn’t
sure what he meant by that as she settled herself in the seat and then clicked
the seatbelt around her waist and chest. It struck her as silly to belt up with
less than a quarter mile to go, but so be it. The thought crossed her mind,
though, that she was restraining herself, and Samael could take advantage of
her if he had any bad intentions…like that man in the alley.

“So—umm,
where’d you disappear to?” she asked.

She figured it
was best to get it all out in the open instead of letting it fester. She told
herself that this didn’t change a damned thing. It had been unreasonable of her
to expect him to wait for her all night at the hospital, but that’s exactly
what she had done. He had to know that even though they barely knew each other,
he had let her down. Otherwise, it wasn’t a promising way to start a
relationship…

She chided
herself for thinking so much ahead of things.

He had been at
the hospital…and now he was driving her home…a little late, maybe, but what the
heck?

That’s all,
though.

There’s no
“relationship” here.

“I got a call
I had to take,” Samael said.

He kept his
eyes focused straight ahead on the road. The windshield wipers slapped back and
forth, scooping fans of water to the sides of the car. Claire had the momentary
sensation that they were underwater, somehow totally isolated from the rest of
the world. She noted how this wasn’t the first time Samael had created the
illusion that when she was with him, the rest of the world could slide into the
background without notice. 

“I figured
you’d be in there a lot longer. You know how hospitals are. So I thought I
could slip out for a few minutes.”

Claire made a
harrumphing sound and told herself she was a fool for believing anything he
said or for allowing herself to think there was anything special happening
here. What would a guy like Samael, obviously rich and successful, be doing
with a woman like her, anyway? No doubt, he had his pick of any number of
gorgeous, wealthy, stylish women to function as adornments to his lavish
lifestyle. While she acknowledged that she wasn’t particularly unattractive,
she was also realistic enough to know she was no raving beauty, either.

Except for her
blazing red hair, so maybe he had a thing for redheads.

“You didn’t
have any obligation to stick around,” she finally said, once she was sure she
could control the pitch of her voice. She intended to sound casual, but it came
off as sounding a little desperate…especially looking like she did right now.

He drove for a
while in silence, but not far because he pulled up to the curb directly in
front of Claire’s apartment building. She looked at him with a mixture of
suspicion and amusement.

“Wanna tell me
how you know?” she asked.

He sat there
with his hands draped over the steering wheel, his long fingers hanging
loosely. The engine was purring, the wiper blades slapping back and forth. He
stared straight ahead as if he was still driving. The reflected lights of the
city played across his face, creating the illusion that his features were
shifting…changing shape even as she watched him. It was both unnerving and
intriguing.

“How did I
know what?” he asked, turning to her. His eyes glowed like chips of ice in the
darkness. He was smiling, but there was a ravenous look about his smile that
for some reason made Claire think of the “Big Bad Wolf.”

Claire nodded
to indicate the building they were parked in front of.

“Where I live.
This is my place.”

“It is?”

He sounded
surprised, but a mocking note colored his voice.

“Uh-huh.”

“I pulled over
where I saw an empty parking space. I figured you couldn’t live far from here
because you were walking in the rain. If you lived on the far side of town, you
would have called a friend…or a cab.”

Claire nodded,
still suspicious. It sounded reasonable enough, but still—she wasn’t sure.  She
had the sudden paranoid thought that maybe this guy had noticed her at some
point and had been stalking her for…

Who knew how
long?

Maybe running
into her at the restaurant and then following her to the hospital had all been
planned, somehow.

Not likely
, she decided…
I’d
have noticed a guy like this right away.

“Well…thanks
for the ride, such as it was,” she said with a laugh.

“The doctor
must have given you a prescription. Do you want me to drive you to the Rite-Aid
in the morning to fill it?”

Claire shook
her head.

“I have a
couple of pills to get me through until I can fill it. My roommate will run
down to the pharmacy for me.”

“Ahh, yes.
Sally,” he said, nodding.

Claire glanced
at him, then looked over her shoulder at her building, and then back at him.

“Thanks for
the ride, then,” she said.

The door latch
clicked, and the car door swung open. The air had a chill, and the rain came
down hard. Fitful gusts blew needle-sharp spray into her face.

I can’t look
any worse than I already do
, she thought bitterly.

Shivering, she
cringed inside her coat, pulling the collar up around her neck as she prepared
to make a dash to the front door.

But
then—somehow—Samael was out of the car and standing beside her on the pavement.
She hadn’t even noticed him getting out and running around the car,
but—somehow—he had produced an umbrella as he extended a hand to help her out
of the car. The umbrella expanded, and she felt safe under its shelter. She
glanced at Samael and smiled.

“Thanks,” she
said, but that didn’t begin to express the amazement she was feeling,
considering how fast and smooth he had moved.

“It’s the
least a gentleman can do,” he said. “Is this your door?”

As if you have
to ask
,
Claire thought wryly but didn't say.

Side by side,
with rain beating a wild rhythm on the umbrella, they walked under the
sheltered alcove at the front of the building. Samael collapsed the umbrella
and shook it, and they stood there, looking at each other in awkward silence
for a long moment. Cars passing by on the street seemed to recede into nothing.
The night and everything around them seemed so distant, but Claire tensed when
a low grumble of thunder sounded above the sounds of the passing traffic.

“That’s
weird,” she said, leaning forward and scanning the sky.

“What is?”
Samael glanced up and down the street as though expecting to see something
unusual.

“You usually
don’t hear thunder in March, is all.”

As soon as she
said that, a faint blue glow flickered in the dark sky above the city. Seconds
later, another low roll of thunder sounded above the steady downpour of the
rain.

“Global
climate change,” Samael said, smiling at her.

Once again,
she was struck by the faint bluish glow of his teeth, like they were reflecting
the flickering lightning.

Claire was
tossing back and forth in her mind, wondering if she should invite him up to
her place—to dry off, at least. She knew—and she knew that he knew—exactly what
that would mean, and making a move like this was so uncharacteristic of her. It
was something Sally did all the time. Claire couldn’t count how many times she
had suggested to Sally that being so easy might be exactly why she was having
so much trouble establishing a long-term, committed relationship with anyone…if
that’s what she was looking for.

But then…look
where it had gotten her…

“So…you—umm,
wanna come up for some coffee or something?”

The words were
barely out of her mouth before she could consider them. She was instantly
irritated at herself for resorting to so obvious a cliché.

“’Coffee,’ huh?”
Samael’s voice had a husky echo in the dark confines of the alcove. The
sidewalk behind him danced with falling rain.

Claire
couldn’t dispel the feeling that the two of them had somehow entered a magical
bubble where the rest of the world passing by them wasn’t at all real and
didn’t matter in the least. She was staring at him—the planes of his face, the
glow in his eyes—and she was thinking with every passing second that, yes, she
damned well wanted him to come up to her place for coffee or anything else he
might have in mind.

“Or a
nightcap, if you’d like,” Claire added, thinking immediately how foolish that
sounded, so early in the morning.

What time is
it, anyway?
She wondered. If she stepped out onto the sidewalk, she knew she’d be able to
look up and see the time and temperature display on One Canal Plaza, but she
didn’t want to know the time. It might burst the illusion she was constructing
here.

“Another time,
maybe,” Samael said even though he didn’t turn to leave. He simply stood there,
staring at her like he was waiting for her to say or do the right thing.

What the fuck?
Claire thought, immediately stung by his refusal. For a moment or two, she
wanted to believe she hadn’t heard him correctly.

Is he ditching
me again?

She studied
Samael with surprise and relief warring inside her. It wasn’t at all like her
to be so forward with a man, any man,…even one who seemed to have it all.

Except he
doesn’t seem all that interested in me
, Claire thought. And
why should
he? I’m so far out of his class, and we both know it.

“Well,
then…umm…thanks again for the ride.”

“My pleasure,”
Samael said.

This is your
chance, Claire thought. The least you could do is give me a little hug and
maybe…just maybe a kiss on the cheek. 

But…no.

Samael bowed
his head and then turned. The umbrella magically sprouted again, looking like
spreading bat wings that shielded him from the rain as he walked around his car
to the driver’s side, opened the door, and got inside. Claire couldn’t see him
through the tinted glass, but she could feel—or, at least, she wanted to
hope—that he was watching her and maybe…just a little…regretting that he hadn’t
accepted her invitation to come upstairs for that cup of coffee.

“You’ll never
know what you missed,” she whispered as Samael’s car started up and pulled out
onto the street. It didn’t take long for his car to be lost in the rain-slick
darkness, and once it was gone, Claire had the unique sensation that it had
never been there in the first place—that she had imagined the ride home and
everything else.

And all she
was left with was a lonely, aching feeling that she was the one who had missed
out.

“Screw it,”
she muttered, still staring down the street. She reached into her coat pocket,
took out the napkin with his name and phone number, and crumpled it up and
tossed it onto the sidewalk, where it instantly turned into soggy mush. She was
tempted to step out into the rain and grind it underfoot like she was crushing
out a cigarette, but enough was enough.

As she keyed
the door open, she told herself she’d be a fool to think about this Samael guy
ever again, but then, the next morning—Saturday—bright and early, a huge
bouquet of flowers arrived with a handwritten Get Well card from Samael,
saying:

“I hope you’re
feeling better and I hope to see you soon.”

“You slick
devil,” she whispered, not knowing how true that was.

Chapter

3

Burning Boat

Things happened fast after
that.

It was, as
they say, a “whirlwind courtship.” After she received the flowers on Saturday
morning, Samael called and asked—if she was feeling all right—if he could take
her out for lunch, maybe to Dominick’s, the “floating” restaurant on a huge
barge on Casco Bay, beside Chandler’s Wharf. Although she wasn’t a huge fan of
seafood, Claire didn’t hesitate. She had always wanted to eat there, but felt
she couldn’t afford it. So she spent the next hour fussing about what to wear and
how she should do her hair.

Sally got up
late, as was usual for her on weekends. Around noon, while Claire was touching
up her fingernails in the kitchen, her roommate hovered around, clattering
dishes and banging pots and pans as if that was the best way to demonstrate to
Claire that she was irritated and/or couldn’t care less where she was going or
what she was doing. Sally’s cat, Mittens, stuck her tail into the air and left
the room; and when Claire couldn’t take it any longer, she decided to say
something. Not wanting to start an argument, Claire chose to take a gentle
approach.

“So…how was
the concert last night?”

“Huh? Oh,
great…except I kept getting these text messages from someone.”

“Really?…Who?”

“Oh, sure. Go
ahead ‘n play all innocent now.”

“What are you
talking about?”

So much for
nonconfrontational.

“Who do you
think?”

“I don’t have
a clue.”

Claire’s first
thought was: What if it was Samael?…What if somehow he had gotten Sally’s cell
number and had been texting her?

“You, you
moron. You only sent me, like, fifteen or twenty messages.”

“The hell I
did. I called you once, early this morning, but you were too groggy to talk,
and then I…walked home.”

“I don’t
remember you calling this morning.”

“Well, I did.”

“You want me
to show you the texts?” Sally said.

Sally’s face
was pale, her expression pinched with eyes narrowed to two dark, glassy beads
that looked like they would shatter if she opened them too wide. Before Claire
could respond, Sally grabbed her purse from the counter where she usually
tossed it after a night out. Huffing under her breath and frowning, she dug
until she found her cell.

“Hold on,” she
said as she pressed a few buttons to call up the record of messages received.
Smirking, she held the phone out so Claire could see.

“See?…Satisfied?”

Sure enough,
there was a string of messages, all listed with the times they had been sent.
Claire cocked her head to one side and studied the screen. She didn’t try to
count them all. She guessed more than twelve. But all of the texts had
originated from her phone.

“That’s…really
weird,” she said, genuinely perplexed.

“Irritating’s
more like it.”

“Honest to
God. I didn’t text you last night.”

Sally’s smirk
said it all, before she turned her phone off and tossed it onto the counter.
Then she leaned back, folded her arms across her chest, and scowled as she
looked at Claire. “It was really irritating.”

“Talk about
irritating.” Claire waved her hand in front of her nose. “I wish you’d change
the cat litter sometime soon.”

“I can’t smell
anything,” Sally said.

Claire sniffed
and said, “The smell’s so bad Mittens has stopped using her litter box,” but
she didn’t want to get off on a tangent, complaining about Sally’s cat. She
couldn’t stop wondering about those texts last night.

“Maybe I,
like, butt-dialed all of them or something?”

Even she knew
how ridiculous that sounded.

“They were all
different…and perfectly coherent.”

“Wait, you’re
saying I sent a different text each time? And they made sense? Like no spelling
or grammatical errors?”

Claire was
flummoxed, for sure. Even with Auto-Correct, her friends complained that her
texts often bordered on gibberish, making little to no sense. There was no way
she could explain any texts from last night…unless she had sent them while semiconscious
or unconscious. Maybe the meds the doctors had given her at the hospital had
really walloped her.

“And none of
them were, like, all garbled and full of misspellings and stuff?”

That gave her
pause. She always explained that her thumbs weren’t coordinated enough for
texting, and that she preferred talking to a real person on the phone…the way
you’re supposed to.

“Can I read a
couple?”

“Why bother?
You irritated the living shit out of me enough last night. I was trying to
enjoy the show.”

“I’m sorry. I
really am, but I…I never—” Claire held out her hand, shaking it impatiently.
She hoped the new layer of fingernail polish was dry enough and wouldn’t
smudge. Samael was going to be here in half an hour.

“Come on. Just
lemme take a look.”

Reluctantly,
Sally picked up her phone and opened up the list. She was still scowling when
she handed the phone to Claire.

“Hmmm,” she
kept saying as she read the messages in order. For one thing, Sally was right.
There were no spelling or grammatical errors. Each message was clear and
precise with absolutely no “text-speak.” The other thing that struck Claire was
that none of the texts “sounded” like her. The first few were chatty—

“Hey! How are
you doing? Are you enjoying the concert?”

“Don’t worry
about me. I’m doing fine.”

—and could
have been from anyone, asking what her friend was up to. But the tone quickly
changed, and the last few came across as accusatory and more than a little
self-pitying.

“I don’t mind
being here all alone. Seriously. I’m fine. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll be
fine. Enjoy yourself!”

The last one
was—“Thanks for nothing. You call yourself a friend? Deserting me when I needed
help the most! I was almost raped, and you weren’t there for me!”—downright
combative.

“I swear to
God I never sent these,” Claire said.

“See if I help
you out the next time you need it.”

“You didn’t
help me out this time!”

“You want to,
you can delete me from your phone and your friends list.”

Claire was
astonished. When she had finished scanning the texts—as it turned out, there
were eighteen of them—she stood there shaking her head from side to side, her
mind a roaring blank as she handed Sally’s cell phone back to her.

“I guess I’m
sorry,” was all she could say, “but I didn’t do it.”

“They came
from your number. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

“But I didn’t
write them or send any—”

This was
getting ridiculous. Sally was primed to fight for fighting’s sake. A sudden
crushing sensation filled her chest as she looked at her roommate. Sure, she
may not be her best or closest friend, but they had been through a lot together
over the last few years—including Sally’s unplanned pregnancy and abortion—and
there was no way, no way, even on the deepest subconscious level, that she
would ever say anything hurtful or spiteful to Sally.

“I have no
idea how it happened,” Claire finally said, hoping to finish it with a shrug.

Sally gave her
one last withering look and then, without another word, stormed out of the
kitchen and into the living room with a bowl of Rice Krispies in hand. Claire
didn’t feel comfortable letting it hang like this, and she was about to follow
after her, but before she moved, the buzzer sounded.

“Oh, shit!”

She rushed
over to the intercom and hit the TALK button.

“Hey. You’re
kinda early.”

“I’m right on
time.”

His voice
sounded flat over the speaker, but Claire barely noticed because Mittens let
out a rising howl the instant Samael spoke. Then she darted from the living
room like her tail was on fire. Claire watched her go, confused, and then
glanced at the wall clock next to the stove.

It was a
quarter to twelve.

He was fifteen
minutes early, but she wasn’t about to dispute it.

“I’ll be down
in a few,” she said, and then clicked off.

She was still
wondering what had set Mittens off, but she was more intent on looking terrific
for Samael as she went to her bedroom to finish getting dressed. If he was
going to be early, she made sure she took all the time she wanted.

She’d teach
him.

Twenty minutes
later, she grabbed her purse and coat from the rack next to the door. Without
another word to Sally and with no sign of Mittens anywhere, she headed out the
door.

But as she was
swinging the door shut behind her, she glanced back and saw Sally in the living
room doorway, watching her with a dark scowl. For the rest of the day, Claire
was puzzled—you might say haunted, even, by the expression on her roommate’s
face.  

~ * ~

“So. I never
got to ask you at the bar…what do you do for work?”

Claire felt a
little bit foolish asking such a basic question. She was so comfortable being
around Samael, she felt she had known him for years. She would have assumed
they were well past such “getting to know you” questions. The truth was, there
was so much about him—everything—she had yet to discover, and she thrilled at
the prospect.

“Sales and
service,” he said, his voice a touch distant, as if the subject bored him as
much as he expected it would bore her. “Buying and selling and, maybe, a bit of
trading now and then.”

“Really,”
Claire said, and then she fell silent and took a moment to look around.

Dominick’s
wasn’t the kind of restaurant she and people she knew usually went to for
lunch, dinner, or anything else…not on her salary. It was a gorgeous day, after
the rain last night, and they had a window seat—one of the best tables in the
place—looking out over Portland Harbor. The water sparkled in the sunlight, and
huge, tumbling fair-weather clouds rolled over the South Portland skyline.
Lobster boats and pleasure craft dotted the water, bobbing up and down on the
gentle swells. The day had a bright, almost surreal intensity.

Claire was
convinced it was being with Samael that made everything appear so…different.

One thing she
did notice…something that struck her as peculiar, was the way, even with
brilliant sunlight pouring in through the window, Samael’s face appeared to be
cast in shadow and deeply lined. His eyes remained bright, darting back and
forth as he watched the activity going on around them. He looked distracted and
aloof. He reminded Claire of a caged beast, one that wasn’t at all comfortable
being confined but was a master of appearing at ease in such a situation.

Finally, when
she became slightly annoyed by him looking around, she asked, “Are you
expecting to see someone or something?”

Samael shifted
his intense gaze to her and, after a moment, his top teeth dimpling his lower
lip, shook his head.

“No…Why?”

“I dunno. Just
the way you seem to…” She shifted uncomfortably in her seat and cast a wary
glance of her own around the dining room. “Distracted, I guess. You’re not
married and looking out for anyone who might know you and get word back to your
wife, are you?” She arched an eyebrow.

“Don’t be
ridiculous. Of course I’m not married.”

Samael slid
his hand across the table and patted the back of her hand, like he was
reassuring a child. Something within her didn’t approve of the gesture—it
seemed a little too patronizing, but she had to admit that his touch sent a
tingle up her arm.

“It’s just
there are some…some clients of mine here, and I’d prefer them not to see me.”

Claire
bristled at that, wondering if, for some reason, he might be embarrassed to be
seen in public with her. Apparently reading her mind, he tightened his grip on
her hand and said, “I prefer not to discuss my business when I’m trying to
relax…with a beautiful woman, I might add.”

Claire kept
looking away, scanning the patrons in the restaurant and wondering how any of
them might be connected with Samael. Most of them—the ones she could see
clearly, anyway—seemed not to be enjoying either their lunches or their
environment. Their expressions struck her as superficial…plastered on while in
public to be removed—like masks—when they were alone. She attributed the
curious deadness in many of the people’s faces as “symptoms” of their empty,
pointless lives. She, on the other hand, had never felt more alive.

They engaged
in small talk throughout their meal, and Claire found herself swept away simply
listening to Samael speak…and looking at him, watching him was divine. She felt
giddy and found herself laughing at the most mundane things. She had to keep
reminding herself to play it a little cooler. No sense looking like a yokel
from the “County” on their first real date.