That Old Black Magic

“How can you be so calm about this? You’re possessed, honey. By a demon from the fiery depths of Hell!”

Luckily there was no one else in the lobby to overhear her — admittedly true — ravings.

“Calm isn’t what I am,” Eden said. “But Darrak and I have a mutual understanding. And we’re finding a solution. Sooner than you think, actually.”

“And how am I supposed to be convinced that he’s not manipulating your emotions? Did he seduce you? I know demons. I know how persuasive they can be when it comes to converting one to their sexual deviance. Bondage is meant to be done between two consenting adults, not between a victim and a vile minion of Lucifer.”

“Stop her,” Darrak said dryly. “I’m getting all turned on.”

Eden cringed. “I’m not talking about this, Mom. Not with you.”

Caroline’s bottom lip wobbled. “I’d do anything for you, Eden, you know that, don’t you?”

Anything. Funny, it hadn’t felt like that when Caroline had been alive. In her own body. Frankly, it felt as if Eden had been a big burden on her mother’s free-spirit lifestyle. Carting a kid around when you never called one place home for more than a few months wasn’t exactly ideal to establishing a stable childhood.

Eden exhaled. “Mom, I need you to hear me. Will you listen for just a moment?”

“Of course.”

Eden turned to face her directly. “I don’t need your help. And I don’t want your help. I can handle this like I’ve handled everything else for my entire life. You can’t march in here and expect that you can make everything right that went wrong when you were alive. I know you’re trying to redeem yourself, but you can start somewhere else. Not with me.”

She expected this speech to finally get through to her mother and make her understand. Instead, Caroline’s eyes flashed.

“Well, that’s too damn bad. Because I’m here. And I’m going to help you whether you like it or not. I might have been a lousy mother—”

“I’m not saying that.” Not out loud, anyway.

Caroline raised her hand. “Whatever. I’m not an idiot. I know things weren’t ideal when you were growing up. But you turned into a fine woman. I’m not going to say it was my doing, but this is where we are now. I don’t know what this demon has been telling you, but it’s sick what’s going on here. I guess I have just enough clarity to see that. I’m not leaving until I can do something to help fix this. It’s all I want, Eden. I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” Eden gritted out. “Ecstatic, in fact.”

“Are you in love with that nasty demon? Tell me.”

She let out a breath of exasperation. “Would that make a difference to you?”

“It might.”

“I care very deeply for him. Yes, I–I love him.”

“You don’t sound convinced about that.”

“I guess I don’t like being put on the spot when it comes to discussing my feelings. Especially not with someone who’s always had the habit of stomping on them whenever she has the chance.”

Finally, Caroline flinched. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Fine, I’ll leave. But this isn’t over.”

She turned and stomped back toward the sports car. Eden watched until she’d driven out of the parking lot, squealing her wheels.

“I think we’re making progress with her,” Darrak said. “And by progress I mean the opposite of that. What’s the opposite of progress?”

“That.”

“Yeah.”

She was quiet for a long moment. She couldn’t help but feel guilt at pushing her mother away, even though she knew it was the right thing to do. There wasn’t much more to say. She’d been blunt. Perhaps too blunt.

It was done. And Caroline didn’t seem completely deterred in her newfound mission.

Save her possessed daughter.

But Eden was already attempting to save herself. And she might even have the tools to do just that.

“Tomorrow, at dawn, before we go and find the missing person for Lucas, I’m breaking your curse once and for all.”

“Is that a promise or a threat?” he asked warily.

She thought it was a promise, but suddenly she just wasn’t all that sure anymore.

If it was possible to pace while in a noncorporeal state inside the body of a beautiful, yet frustrating woman, that was exactly what Darrak did while Eden slept.

Pacing. Back and forth.

He might even say he was fretting. He didn’t think he’d ever fretted before. It was a word that had only been added to his vocabulary tonight.

Fretting sucked.

She was so damned motivated to try to break this curse. She’d broken the spell relatively easily — so easily it made his head swim. Not that he’d have a head until the morning, but a head was implied.

She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Besides, why would he even say no? This was exactly what he wanted.

Freedom. Something that had sounded like a pipe dream for so long might actually become a reality.

And then what?

Darrak wasn’t much of a “look deeply into the future” kind of guy. He liked to live in the now.

Okay. So what now?

He had to deal with Lucifer. That wasn’t now, but it would be soon. Lucifer was his boss — a boss that Darrak had screwed over once too often. A big lesson he’d learned recently was if you were going to screw over a boss, please try your best not to make it Lucifer, the Prince of Hell.

Yeah. Lesson learned.

Darrak didn’t feel the immediate need to head back to Hell anytime soon, of course. He wouldn’t be welcomed there anyway until he got rid of the celestial energy churning inside him. He had no idea how long it would take before he would be able to enter the Netherworld undetected. Possibly a very long time. In the meanwhile, he’d have to get used to living here in the human world.

He couldn’t help but wonder if Eden would want him around after their ties were finally cut. This was something he tried very hard not to think about much, especially after hearing her awkwardly answer the “Do you love the hell-spawn?” comment from her mother. Eden had answered in the affirmative, which was nice to hear. But it hadn’t exactly been delivered with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Ah, self-doubt, he thought. There you are again. Awesome.

He hated that he felt this way, that he’d spend even a moment of his energy on this particular problem, but there it was. The uncertainty about whether a woman was head over heels in love with him.

How sad.

Even sadder was the fact that he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that what Eden really felt about him was only a fraction of what he felt for her. Perhaps it was the fact he’d never been in love before that made his emotions so acute, so strong, so impossible to ignore. He wasn’t a puppy dog, ready to roll over and bare his belly the moment he thought she might give him a scratch. He wasn’t that whipped. But he knew he’d do just about anything for her.

And if, when all was said and done, she wanted them to part ways, then that was exactly what he’d do. As the saying went, if you love someone you should let them go, and if they didn’t return you should hunt them down and…

No, wait. That was a different saying. The original one was that if they didn’t come back then they never were yours to begin with.