“Other than suffocation,” Xavier growled between coughing fits.
“The guy I want you to look at is holed up in an apartment upstairs,” I said. I was starting to feel a little bad for Xavier, but there was no denying his discomfort amused me on one level.
“Right,” Ben said, sending another distrustful glance toward Xavier. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“Peter’s usually gross,” I said. “Smelly, for the most part. But now he’s spouting poetry and creating flowers.”
“This is bad,” Ben whispered.
“It’s very odd,” I said, “but why is it bad?”
“Trust me,” he said. “You don’t want to let this demon stay here, not if it’s what I think it is. Show me to the host.”
Xavier recovered enough to help shove the mountain of flowers down the stairs while Ben looked on calmly. I sneaked peeks at Xavier’s muscles moving beneath the snug t-shirt he wore.
His Lordship King Snugglebumpkins wandered over with a mrrwor, then hissed at Xavier and ran up the steps ahead of us.
“He has good taste,” I said.
Xavier just snorted, and the three of us marched up the stairs to Marla’s apartment.
I knocked on the door. “Hullo, Peter, we need to chat with you.”
“I’m not coming out!”
“I could break the door,” Xavier said.
“No, I’d rather not wreck Marla’s door,” I said. “Peter, someone here needs to take a look at you and make sure you’re okay.”
There was no response. Sighing, I said, “You know that tasty treat I gave you the other day? The red stuff in the bag? There’s more of that for you later today if you’ll just talk to this nice doctor.”
Peter said, “There once was a doc from Kentucky, whose remedies made one quite plucky—”
“Shut up, Peter, and open the door,” Xavier said.
And to my amazement, Peter did.
A barricade of furniture blocked the door from opening all the way, and Peter stared at us from over the top of a dresser.
Ben gave Peter one glance and pulled his spray can out of the golf bag.
“Demon!” he whisper-shouted. “Demon, I command you to leave that vampire at once!”
Laughing, Peter looked behind him. “What are you saying?”
Ben pressed down the button on the bottle and the purple aerosol spray came bursting out.
“What are you saying?” Peter asked again. “And what are you spraying?”
Peter’s words ended in a scream and he clawed his face, tearing at his own skin.
“I can’t watch,” I said, but I was transfixed.
Ben kept spraying him, while Xavier and I backed up. Xavier grabbed my hand and held it, and I didn’t mind.
Finally, the spray seemed to run out, and Ben chucked the empty bottle at Peter. It bounced off Peter’s head before falling to the ground.
“The Opposite Demon is gone,” Ben said.
Flowers appeared next to Peter, but they weren’t fresh blossoms anymore. Now they were dead and slimy, smelling of mold. He pointed at the pile and tried to make more, but nothing happened. He seemed delighted by this development, because he clapped his hands and looked up, grinning.
“Kelly,” Peter said, “I’m finally free!” He held up a finger and I groaned as an itchy rash appeared on the backs of my hands.
“Take that back, Peter,” I said. “I do not want a skin disease today, thank you very much.”
Peter’s lower lip pushed out in a pout, but he said, “Fine,” and the itchiness faded.
Brothers were the worst.
Ben turned around to face Xavier and me while I inspected my disappearing rash. “It appears my work here is done.”
“Thank you,” I said. “What do we owe you for your services?”
“Not a thing, not a thing,” he said, waving his hands in the air—whether to gesture that it wasn’t important, or to try to wave off more of the purple demon-banishing smoke, I couldn’t tell.
“Well, we really appreciate it,” I said. “I listen to your show almost every night, by the way.”
“Do you, now?” he said.
“I do. It’s great listening.”
“Glad to hear it,” Ben said, hoisting his golf bag higher on his shoulder. “Well, there’s more work to be done. I have a conference to prep for. I can see myself out.”
Peter slammed Marla’s door closed, so apparently the demon exorcism didn’t clear him of his resolution to squat in Marla and Grayson’s place. Xavier and I followed Ben out, His Lordship King Snugglebumpkins at our heels, meowing loudly. I picked up the cat, surprised when he didn’t try to bite off my fingers, and watched Ben leave.
“Well, that was good, right?” I said to Xavier.
He shrugged. “One issue solved, true. Do you want me to get rid of the flowers?”
I stared at the giant mountain of blossoms and sighed. “Yes. I’ll help. We can put them in the dumpster.”
A part of me was disappointed that Peter’s issue was mostly resolved, because the whole possession issue had been a good distraction from the very real problem of my ex-boyfriend lurking around. Worse still, I didn’t mind as much as I had the day before. He was wearing me down.
7
XAVIER
While Kelly slept, I worked. I sent a quick text to Clyde like I did every night, telling him I was still looking into the situation in Forbidden. Every day that passed and I hung around town without furthering my investigation felt like deception. And I hated lies, even if they were only to myself.
The dump site of the corpse wasn’t easy to find. I’d asked Kelly for the location, which she refused to provide. She’d told me to buzz off, which suited me fine. I liked a challenge. All I’d gotten from Clyde was a general location—the forest northwest of town, a few miles out. There was a lot of forest to cover.
I made quicker work of the hunt by shifting into wolf form. Still, the terrain was wet with old leaves, and covered in a layer of frost. It was surprising to me that anyone had found a body out here at all.
