Last night’s aftermath is way too much to deal with before my first cup of coffee. I knock on the wooden door that barricades me inside and wait for Paige to answer.
She calls through the door, “Darcy or Dudley?”
This is our routine after incidents like last night. She’s never personally witnessed an entire episode, just the teaser. When my heart rate hits one hundred sixty beats per minute, we know we’re moving into dangerous territory. At one hundred ninety BPM, I’m in full fight-or-flight mode. There’s no going back, and she has seconds to either contain me or escape.
I’ve made her promise not to linger for the whole show. It’s too dangerous. Her instructions are to keep the door locked until the next morning. She can’t open it until she can confirm it’s me and not Dudley.
“It’s Darcy.”
“Let’s hear it.”
I sigh. “Can we skip it just this once?”
“Hey, it’s your rule.”
I clear my throat. Then with absolutely no enthusiasm, I start singing.
“Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame,
“Wake up the echoes, cheering her name,
“Please don’t make me sing the whole thing in shame.”
No self-respecting demon would ever utter those words, let alone sing them.
I can hear the iron hook scrape out of its latch. The pocket door slides on its track and disappears into the recess of the cinderblock wall. Paige Whitaker stands there in shorts and a gray Dodgers T-shirt. Her blond hair is tied in a ponytail and soaked with sweat. As with every morning, she has already burned a thousand calories before I’ve woken up. Meanwhile, I’m a disheveled mess and look like a public-service warning.
We stand there facing each other, and I’m reluctant to speak. I want to apologize for sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. I want to apologize for leaving her alone last night when I should have been there. I want to apologize for losing control and putting her in a potentially dangerous situation.
“I’m sorry,” she says, beating me to the punch. “I should have seen what a scumbag he was.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t handle it right. And I never should have left you alone with him.”
“No. I shouldn’t have let him inside. That was my fault!”
“Men,” I mutter.
“Boys,” she corrects me and brings me in for a hug.
Paige is the closest thing I have to family now. I never want to see her hurt, and I never want to be the cause of her pain. Which is why I don’t say anything about how sweaty and smelly she is right now. “Did he ever come back last night?”
She shakes her head. “No. I don’t think we’ll ever see Brock again.”
“Good.”
“Darcy?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s in the bag?”
I forgot about the bag in my hands and its contents. “Laundry?”
The bag squirms, flopping against her back. She wriggles away, her body contorting. “Gross!”
Paige twirls on her bare toes and heads to our dining table, reaching over her shoulders to brush away the lingering sensation from her back. I step into our long, narrow living room and walk toward the front wall. From the coat closet, I pull out a portable terrarium. Fortunately, nothing is inside this time, so it’s fairly easy to dump in the new guest and quickly close the blue plastic top to seal it shut.
“I’m going to call him Sir Hiss,” I call out across our loft.
“Don’t do that! You’ll get attached.”
“Sorry,” I say to our new houseguest in a quieter voice. “Paige doesn’t like reptiles.”
Well, not reptiles per se, just the hell spawn that emerges from my stomach.
I decide to take an extra-hot and extra-long shower. After, I wipe the fog from the mirror and take a moment to appraise myself. Despite whatever resentment I still hold for my mother, I count myself lucky that I inherited her high cheekbones and smooth skin. My long black hair helps me look youthful, but I wonder how much longer it will stay black before the wear and tear of demonic episodes turns it white.
Eventually, I find myself staring into my eyes. Only my irises are yellow, so people don’t notice the color until they get up close. Once they do, they usually can’t look away. Some people are unnerved by the color. Others are fascinated by it. I’m long past the charade of constantly wearing sunglasses, so when people ask about my eyes, I say I wear colored contacts as a fashion statement. I still haven’t figured out what that statement is.
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, and as I stare at my own reflection, I suspect the adage is true. However, in my case, I don’t see my soul—I see Dudley. I see a stranger’s eyes glaring back at me—a vile, malevolent demonic spirit that hates me with the burning fury of a thousand suns, a creature utterly pissed because he’s subdued in the body of a twenty-six-year-old woman.
“Good morning, Dudley.”
My stomach churns, so I know I’ve pissed him off. I do this from time to time to remind him who’s winning this battle. Or maybe I do it to remind myself.
Being possessed feels a lot like being sick—or more accurately, like that day before you get sick. My throat is scratchy. I suffer from aches and chills. Ever since Dudley came along, I’m constantly cold. I guess compared to the thousand-degree heat of an eternally burning hell, eighty degrees might feel a bit nippy.
I choose my outfit for the day from the various lockers in my bedroom—jeans, boots, and my thick black field jacket. Even though it’s going to be a warm spring day here in Los Angeles, I know I’ll need to stay bundled. Plus, my jacket has plenty of pockets, so I never have to carry a purse.
When I emerge from my room, I can hear Paige taking her turn using the shower in our shared bathroom. On our dining table, I find a
