“Piece of cake.”
All the girls surrounded a door a few feet away.
“This isn’t going to work,” the curly-headed blonde said.
“It will,” the darker one said, her voice filled with exasperation.
“Just open up,” Daisy said. “Poppy said she’d come look for us in five, and knowing her, she’s actually timing it.”
The dark-haired girl unlocked the door and pushed it open. Then they all looked at him expectantly.
He frowned in response.
“This is where you are going to stay,” Daisy said, gesturing to the open apartment.
His frown deepened as he stepped closer. The place was dark, except for an old-looking lamp creating a dim pool of light around a hall table. The place smelled. He sniffed again. Like old age. Old books and the menthol of arthritis creams and mustiness and cat.
He looked at the kids.
“I’m staying here?”
They all nodded, wide-eyed.
“You have to,” Daisy said.
Killian thought about it, wanting to say “no, I really don’t have to.” But he found himself nodding and stepping inside the apartment.
“Don’t let anyone know you are here,” Daisy said once he was inside.
He was supposed to be staying here, but no one could know. That didn’t sound right. But again, he found himself nodding.
“We’ll check on you tomorrow.”
He nodded again.
They nodded back as if they were silently closing some secret pact—and maybe they were. Then the girls left, enclosing him in the dim light of this strange place. He listened to their footfalls hurrying away, back to Poppy’s apartment and her famous hot chocolate.
But his feet remained anchored to the spot.
Eventually, he turned and surveyed the fussy, frilly, floral room.
He was stuck
CHAPTER 3
W
Killian blinked up at the unfamiliar ceiling—a dingy white ceiling. Not the crisp, new white of his ceiling at home. Nor was he in his own bed. This one was decidedly feminine, covered in a ruffled bedspread plastered with pink and red cabbage roses. Nothing like his black silk sheets.
He glanced to the right to see an antique nightstand. On it, in its full flowered and beaded glory, sat a lamp that looked as if it came from a yard sale circa 1959. An Agatha Christie was opened, facedown on the doily- covered surface. Several medication bottles were lined up beside that.
Great, not only was he in a strange bed, but it appeared to be that of an elderly woman.
He glanced to his left, hoping he’d see something that would make sense to him. He definitely needed an explanation for this predicament—and why he didn’t seem to recall how he got here. But instead of some clue, he found someone staring back at him.
It was the ugliest, mangiest cat he’d ever seen. It stared at him with its one good eye. An eerie yellow eye. The other was stuck together into a crusted black line. The cat’s long, white fur—or at least he thought it was white—had a matted, gray tinge as if it had rolled in ashes. Damp ashes.
Maybe Killian was still in Hell. But he suspected that even demons would throw this thing back.
Keeping his movements slow and subtle, Killian levered himself up onto his elbows, concerned that even the slightest move would set the beast into attack mode.
The cat hissed, its back arching and its tail, once broken or maybe just as naturally ugly as the rest of it, shot up like a tattered flag at half-mast. It hissed again, louder, its lips curling back to reveal a splintered fang and some serious tartar buildup.
Killian braced himself for what appeared to be an inevitable fur-flying assault, but instead the feline monster darted over the chair and disappeared under the bed, surprisingly fast for such a massive creature.
“Great,” he said, peering over the edge. Now he felt like he was stuck in some horror movie where the monster under the bed would lunge out and grab him as soon as he set a foot on the floor.
He fell back against the mattress. The scent of musty pillow, masked only slightly by some kind of stale, powdery perfume, billowed up around him.
Where the hell was he?
He lay there, searching his brain, but nothing came back to him. His last memory was getting off work and going home. But he was clearly no longer in Hell. This place was very definitely the dwelling of a human. Humans had a completely different energy from demons.
Had he gone home with some human woman for a little nocturnal fun? Not his usual behavior, but not unheard of either.
He glanced around the room with its flowered walls and damask curtains. A pink housecoat was draped over a rocking chair in the corner.
He cringed at the sight. Not unless he’d suddenly developed a taste for the geriatric set.
“At least let it have been the hot granddaughter,” he said aloud. The monster under the bed hissed in response. Probably not a good sign.
He remained there for a moment longer, then decided he couldn’t stay trapped in this sea of frills and flowers indefinitely. He had to figure out where he was—and more important, why.
He sat up, steeling himself for his next move. Then in one swift action, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and gave himself a hard push against the mattress, vaulting a good three feet across the floor.
The dust ruffle quivered, then a paw with claws unsheathed shot out and smacked around, hoping to connect and maim. Finding nothing, it snapped back under the bed’s depths. The bed skirt fluttered, then fell still.
“Ha,” he called out to the animal, feeling smug. Then he just felt silly. He was a demon who’d managed to outsmart a cat. Yeah, that was something to get cocky over. Especially since he was a demon who had somehow managed to forget where the hell he was.
He stepped out of the bedroom into a small hallway. Directly in front of him was a bathroom that revealed more flowers on the shower curtain and on the matching towels hanging on a brass rack. Even the toilet seat cover had a big rose on it.
To his right was another bedroom. A dresser, a nightstand and a brass bed—and, of course, more flowers.
He frowned. Would he really hook up with a human who was this obsessed with floral prints—very
He wandered to a living room with swag draperies and ancient-looking velvet furniture. BenGay, hand lotion, Aleve, a crystal bowl filled with mints and a box of tissues were arranged on another doily-covered table beside a tatty-looking recliner. A crocheted afghan was draped over the back.
“Let there be a granddaughter … let there be a granddaughter,” he muttered, even though he’d seen not a single sign of youth so far.
He crossed the room to a fireplace, looking at the framed photos crowded along the mantel. Only one woman kept reappearing in the pictures and she didn’t look to be a day younger than eighty. But he didn’t recognize her. In fact, none of the people in the pictures jogged his memory.
“Maybe I don’t want to remember,” he said, grimacing down at a picture of a group of elderly women on what appeared to be adult-sized tricycles beside some beach.
Then his own shirtsleeve caught his attention—or more accurately his cuff link, deep red garnets set in a
