The upshot of her tirade was that I was the devil’s spawn and should be locked up in a tower before I unleashed hordes of the living dead to slaughter them all in their sleep. Well, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not by much.
So consider your options, make your choice and call me home.
Clearly it was time to consider rescheduling that optometrist appointment I’d missed last fall.
No. Harsh truth was better than comfortable lies. It had to be.
Release the demon under promise that I’d be repaid handsomely, my enemies destroyed? Hmm, where had I seen this before? Oh, right. Every demon horror movie ever made. And the horror part started right after the releasing part.
I had to take responsibility, even if it meant saying no to an authority figure, because I was the authority on me.
At school, our classroom had a small rodent zoo consisting of two rabbits, three hamsters, a litter of baby gerbils and a guinea pig. At first, I’d thought the teacher was raising snack food, which impressed me, being the first sign of intelligence she’d shown. Soon, though, I’d figured out the animals’ true purpose and left them alone, though I would never understand the appeal of petting and coddling perfectly good food.
No”, Tori said, ” I kidnapped her and forced her to escape with me. I’ve been using her as a human shield against those guys with guns, and I was just about to strangle her and leave her body here to throw them off my trail. But then you showed up and foiled my evil plans. Lucky for you, though. You get to rescue chloe again and win her undying grattitude.
Before we left town, Antonio pulled into a strip mall and went in to get subs and salads, leaving Clay and me half naked and bleeding in the car, and Cain unconscious in the trunk. No wonder I was anxious to get back to Toronto. Spend too much time around these guys and you become a little too nonchalent about blood-soaked clothes and bodies in the trunk.
Gabriel Walsh comes from a long line of hustlers. He’s just the first one to go to law school and get a license for it.
Yes, you’re sleeping in my apartment,” I said. “On my sofa. It was an exciting night, but not that exciting. I’d really hope you’d remember if it had been.
Curiosity is what lets a young mind grow and keeps an old mind young.
Demons are a very human creation. You look for ways to explain evil, and instead of seeing it in yourselves, you offload the responsibility onto monsters. The monstrous exists in the mirror, not in the sulfurous depths of some fantasy world.
Night was her time. The Keeper. Bond-mate of the cat. Protector of the night. Daughter of the moon.
I’d say I needed to find myself, if that didn’t sound like I was heading into the Himalayas, taking only a backpack stuffed with angst and clean underwear.
Gabriel might always have his own best interests at heart, but he expects everyone else to do the same for themselves. To him, we are all the center of our own universes.
Don’t grumble,” I said. “Or I’ll bake you more cookies.
But was it wrong to put yourself first? That’s called survival, right? If you’re running for your life, you don’t get the luxury of being nice. They were going to learn that. It’s fine to wave the pompoms for teamwork – all for one and one for all – but when push came to shove, these guys wouldn’t be risking their lives for Chloe, maybe not even for each other. I was sure of it. Once things got worse, it would be every kid for himself. It always is.
Also, the killing of small animals is the entrance ramp onto the serial killer superhighway. Damn. I bet the cat knows that. He picked me because I can’t hurt him, or I’d be fulfilling my biological destiny. So I’m screwed. The cat stays. Unless you’ll kill him... How does fifty bucks sound?
Demon possession strains the boundaries of credulity, given the sheer number of times it seems to happen. One would really hope demons had better things to do with their time.