A Fiend in Need Read online

  Perfect.

  All of the cops in La Sombra and I got my ex.

  “Cassie?” He left the car door open and walked toward me. “You all right? We got some nine-one-one calls about a fight. Some woman getting beaten up by a big guy. I was close, so I responded, and…” His gaze moved over me, apparently those catlike cop responses kicking in, and he noticed the bloody knees, the ratty hair and the tears in my skirt. “It was you? Are you okay?”

  He grabbed me and pulled me into a hard hug, and just for a second or two I let myself enjoy it. His strength felt good, and the fact that he cared enough about me to be worried was like a soothing balm. Logan was the first guy who’d slept with me and then hurt me. Was it weird that now I was willing to accept comfort from him?

  Pulling back a little, he caught my chin in his hand and turned my face from one side to the other. He winced and said, “Damn, honey. You don’t look so good.”

  Just what I needed to hear.

  “I’m fine, Logan.” Not really, but fine enough. The bruises weren’t even painful anymore, and I knew from firsthand experience that most of them would be healed by tomorrow. The whole Demon Duster package could really work to your advantage when it came to physical injuries. What really hurt was my insides.

  And nobody could do anything about that.

  Least of all Logan.

  “Where’d the guy go?” he asked, scanning the lot, looking for the assailant and/or witnesses.

  He was fresh out of luck, though. The demon was long gone, and my audience had faded away almost as quickly. Guess nobody wanted to stick around once they saw a guy dissolve into dust bunnies.

  “Can you give me a description?” he asked, even while two squad cars rolled up.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, glancing at the other cops and wishing they’d go away. Heck, I wanted everybody to go away. Me most of all. I wanted me to be in a bar, a margarita in my hand and nachos in front of me.

  “Of course it matters,” Logan argued, then turned and shouted to the other cops, “Spread out. Look for witnesses.”

  They moved off, and he turned back to me. “Do you know who the guy was?”

  “Just some demon,” I said, shaking my head. “He didn’t give me a name.”

  Logan’s face froze up, and I did an inward mental head thunk. Why had I even bothered?

  “Don’t start that again, Cassie,” he warned.

  I looked up at him, squinting into the afternoon sunlight, and suddenly all the warm fuzzies I’d been feeling for him evaporated. I was completely out of patience. It had been the day from Hell, and Logan wasn’t making it any easier. Yes, he’d been right there with me a month ago when I’d dusted Judge Jenks, but even seeing it for himself, Logan had made excuses, unwilling to admit that there actually were demons living happily in his cozy hometown. Looked like nothing had changed. Well, I was done making nice. I wasn’t going to make up some comfortable lie for him. He could believe me or not.

  “Wake up, Logan,” I snapped, and limped off on one shoe to pick up my Marc Jacobs tote. I grimaced at the long scrape on the formerly pristine red leather and wished I could dust that damn demon all over again. I turned to face Logan and said, “Look around. Do you see any attackers? Do you see any witnesses? No. Know why?”

  I bent down, scooped up some dust and let it dribble through my fingers to be caught by the ocean wind. As it streamed out behind me on a current of air, I said, “This is why. I dusted him. He poofed in front of witnesses, and it scared the crap out of them.” I paused. “Well, I don’t think it scared the kid. He seemed to enjoy it—but the others were freaked out, so they ran. That’s why we’re all alone here, Logan. That’s why you won’t be finding my attacker anytime soon.”

  Logan’s blue eyes narrowed, and that muscle in his jaw started to twitch, so I knew he was grinding his teeth together. He shoved the edges of his dark green flannel shirt back, planted both fists on his hips and glared at me. “This demon shit is getting old, Cassie.”

  “You’re telling me?” I brushed the dirt off my red leather bag and wondered if a shoemaker could do something about that scrape. “You think I like dealing with demons? You can’t trust ’em, you know. Not even the ones who pretend you can. They lie to you just like humans, and then they turn on you like rabid snakes and—”

  “Will you knock it off with the demon crap already?” Logan demanded.

  “Cass.”

  A deep voice spoke up, and whatever I would have said to Logan died unuttered.

  I whipped around to watch Devlin step out of Magic Nights. He was wearing a shirt, but it was unbuttoned, giving me an unobstructed view of his burned and still-smoking chest. Small satisfaction.

  He glanced at Logan and dismissed him before turning his gaze back to me. “We have to talk.”

  Riiiiigggghhhhttt… I’d said all I was going to say to Devlin Cole.

  “Yeah,” I muttered, “that’s gonna happen.”

  “Cass,” he said on a long sigh, “you’re making too big a thing out of this.”

  Logan piped up. “Butt out, Cole. I’m talking to Cassie.”

  Devlin didn’t even acknowledge that. Instead he took a step toward me, and damned if I didn’t back up a step or two to compensate. I so didn’t want to be anywhere near him at the moment. I could still see him balancing Three Boob on his lap while filling his hands with two of her boobs.

  Two and a spare. Any man’s wet dream.

  “I know you’re angry,” he said.

  “Good catch,” I told him.

  “You’re mad at him?” Logan said, clearly enjoying the thought.

  “We need to talk about this, Cass,” Devlin said, and shoved one hand through his long, thick black hair. His nearly black eyes fixed on me, and I thought for a second that I saw color swirl in them. Something reddish. His demon nature poking through?

  “We don’t have to do anything,” I told him. “I am going home.”

  “Hold on. You can’t leave,” Logan argued. “You were attacked. We have to fill out reports—”

  That was Logan. When in doubt, fall back on what you could count on. Paperwork. Logic. Reason. Well, all of those things had zero to do with my life.

  “No reports,” I snapped. “I’m not pressing charges against anybody, so forget it.”

  “Attacked?” Devlin echoed.

  “Hello?” I countered, waving both hands up and down my body. “Did I look like this a few minutes ago?”

  “Are you all right?” Devlin asked.

  “None of your business,” Logan said.

  “No, I’m not, and you know why,” I told Devlin, ignoring Logan myself, since I really didn’t want to deal with either one of them.

  “This is a misunderstanding,” Devlin said.

  “Oh, I understood plenty. Where’s Three Boob?” I looked behind him at the door, half expecting his cleavage-gifted honey to make an appearance.

  “She’s gone.”

  “Too bad for you.”

  “Three Boob?” Logan asked.

  “You know what?” I asked nobody in particular. “I’m done. I need a drink. And some chocolate. Maybe a chocolate drink. And then I need a bath. And maybe another drink. What I don’t need is you guys.”

  I dug in my ruined purse for my car keys, curled my fingers around them and headed for my trusty VW. I was limping, of course, since I had only the one shoe, and the bits of gravel in the lot bit at the bare sole of my foot. Wind zipped in off the ocean and made me shiver. At least, I think it was the wind. It could have been a reaction to everything that had happened in the last fifteen minutes.

  I couldn’t hope for dignity, but I had a little pride left, so I just kicked my other shoe off to get rid of the limp and left that pump lying abandoned in the lot.

  “Damn it, Cass.” Devlin.

  “Cassie…” Logan.

  “Screw you guys.” Me.

  Then I was in the Bug and driving off. I checked my rearview mirror once and saw both men s
taring after me, still looking furious.

  Maybe I’d get lucky and they’d kill each other.

  “Cohen Dental.”

  The familiar voice on the phone didn’t sound happy to be at work. “Men suck,” I said.

  “Too true,” Rachel agreed.

  That was the best thing about having the same best friend your whole freaking life: She immediately knew what she was supposed to say. And she was always on your side.

  “Can you leave the office?” I asked, and steered my car down PCH toward the La Sombra pier.

  “Sure, where am I going?”

  “Tully’s. It’s a margarita emergency.”

  “Excellent,” Rachel said. “Give me twenty minutes. I’ll get Simon’s mom to come in and answer the phones. She just loves getting a chance to worm her way into the business. Then she can tell me what a lousy wife I am and how Simon deserves better.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No biggie. I let her harass me once in a while. Makes her feel better.”

  Simon was Rachel’s husband, and an orthodontist. I’d just recently discovered that he was also the dentist of choice for the demon population in town. It was comforting that I could talk to Rachel about the weirdness. Although I still hadn’t gotten around to telling her about me being the Demon Duster. Don’t ask me why, ’cause I don’t know. It just never seemed like the right time, and, hey, I’d known myself for only a month!

  “Thanks, Rach.”

  “Cass,” she said, clearly picking up on something in my voice, “you okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “Make it fifteen minutes.”

  I had a head start on Rachel. I was halfway through my first margarita by the time she got to Tully’s. The bar/pizza place sat at the end of the pier and boasted glass walls, so you could get a great view of the ocean. About twenty years ago Tully slapped some of that do-it-yourself window tinting on the glass, so the only time you got hit with a little sun blindness was when you got a seat in the direct line of some of the peeling-off tint.

  Tully’s wasn’t long on ambience, but Tully also didn’t care if you came in barefoot—a real plus for a restaurant right on the beach. It worked out well for me that day, too. Surfers crowded most of the tables, with a sprinkling of fall tourists just for atmosphere. There was sand on the floor, music pumping through ancient speakers and plastic ivy in brown baskets hanging on silver chains from the ceiling.

  “Wow,” Rachel said, sliding onto the blue Naugahyde seat opposite me. “You look even worse than you sounded on the phone.”

  “And feel worse than that,” I said, and grabbed one of the pepperoni pizza sticks from the plate in front of me.

  Rachel grabbed one too and picked up the trailing thread of mozzarella to pile on top. She took a bite, then lifted one hand to the bartender and pointed at my margarita. Then she took another bite of pizza stick, looked at me and said, “Spill it.”

  I slumped against the seat back, sipped at my drink and enjoyed the icy slide down my throat. “All men are dogs.”

  “Good start,” Rachel said. “Is this a general man bashing, or is there one in particular we’re gonna kick around?”

  “Devlin.”

  She frowned, but probably no one but me would have known that. Rachel was a big fan of Botox.

  “Damn,” she said when the bartender brought her margarita. “What’d the bastard do?”

  “Better question is, Who’d the bastard do?”

  “Oh, man.” Rachel took a long drink, set the glass down and grabbed another pizza stick. “That sucks. I thought he was a good demon.”

  Yep, Rachel knew all about Devlin being a demon, too. Hey, she’s my best friend, remember?

  “Me too.”

  “So, who’d he do?”

  “I caught him with a demon. She had three boobs! All of ’em bigger than my measly two.”

  “Show-off.”

  “Exactly.” I finished off my margarita, signaled for another one and idly spun the empty glass in its damp circle on the tabletop.

  “Did you dust him?”

  I blinked at her. Apparently I really stank at the whole having-a-secret-identity thing. “What?”

  She shrugged. “You know. Did you kill him?”

  “How did—”

  “Thea told Zoe; Zoe told me.” Clearly there was a downside to this friendship-next-generation thing.

  Rachel took a long sip of her drink and said, “But you should’ve told me.”

  “I was going to.” Well, that didn’t sound too lame. “It’s just such a long story, and—”

  “Women in your family become Demon Dusters on their thirty-second birthdays?”

  “Okay, not that long.”

  “You should’ve told me,” Rachel said again, and took another sip.

  “You’re right. I should’ve. It was just weird, you know? I mean, it’s not every day you find out something like that, and things have just gotten crazier, and—Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”

  “Because I didn’t want you to know I knew until I knew you wanted me to know, you know?”

  “Terrifying to admit I actually understood that,” I said, then handed off my empty glass for a fresh one when the bartender strolled over. Strange, but I didn’t even have a buzz from the alcohol. Was this another piece of the Demon Duster package? Was I destined to go buzz-free the rest of my life?

  “So did you? Dust him?”

  “No,” I admitted, remembering my urge to do just that. “But I squirted him and made him sizzle like a steak on a hot grill.”

  “That’s something, I guess.” She shook her head, and her dark brown hair swung out into a smooth arc at chin level, then fell back into its perfectly cut style. Rachel always had had good hair karma. “What’d he say?”

  “You mean after the screaming stopped?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not much. But then, I didn’t want to listen. I pretty much stomped out while he and Three Boob were still smoking.” All of this talking about it wasn’t helping. I’d thought it would. You know, spill your guts, immediately feel that cathartic rush and become a new person. Not so much.

  I was still hurt and pissed off, and every time the hurt started getting bigger, I just concentrated on the mad and let that take over. I liked mad way better than hurt. “Plus, when I left the club another demon tried to kill me, and it ruined my new bag—”

  Rachel gasped. “The Marc Jacobs?”

  This is why Rachel is my best friend.

  “Yes.” I lifted the bag, showed her the scrape and appreciated the wince of sympathy. I dropped my purse onto the bench seat again. “Then Logan showed up, because some people saw me dust that demon, and somebody called the cops, and then Devlin came out and they were both yelling at me, so I left.”

  “Who could blame you?”

  I took another long gulp of frozen tequila, and an ice-cream headache throbbed into life. Perfect. No buzz, but I still got the pain. That was starting to feel like my motto. I rubbed my forehead, looked at Rachel and said, “I hate men.”

  “Of course you do. You’re female.”

  I smiled at her and felt a little better. It was good to be able to talk to somebody who so clearly understood. Who knew that all I wanted was somebody to agree with me. To let me rant and piss and moan.

  Rachel grinned. “So, no more Devlin the demon. You gonna let Logan in to play?”

  “No. Been there, done him.” I shook my head and remembered how I’d let Logan comfort me. His arms were strong and he smelled good and he could make my insides light up like a tiki torch with a single look. But he also made me a little nuts. Especially because I was pretty sure I still felt a lot for Logan—which couldn’t be good. Right?

  “Besides,” I said, trying to talk myself off the mental ledge, “even if I was interested, Thea would go ballistic. She’s just getting used to having a father. I don’t think she’s ready to have a mom and a dad dating. Plus, still hating men, remember?”


  “Uh-huh.”

  “So, I’m going to forget about men entirely. Demon and human. I’m going to concentrate on Thea.”

  “Oh, that’ll make her happy,” Rachel said. “Nothing an almost-sixteen-year-old likes better than having her mother focused on her.”

  “And,” I said, talking louder to drown Rachel out, “I’m going to go out there and kill demons. I’m going to make so much dust, people will think they’re living in Oklahoma!”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And I’m gonna go on a diet. And maybe work out more. And stop eating so much junk. And help Thea make cheerleader.”

  “Then maybe you could work on world peace and find a new fuel source and—”

  I cut her off. “You’re not being supporto-friend.”

  “Yeah, I am. I’m talking you down off the roof. You can’t let one demon do this to you, Cass.”

  I pushed my margarita away. No point in drinking it if there wasn’t going to be a buzz.

  “I’m just so damn mad,” I said.

  “Now that, I get.”

  “Devlin made me feel like an idiot.”

  “He’s the idiot.”

  “Okay,” I said, smiling at her. “There’s support gal back again.”

  “I do what I can.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “Enough to tell me about the new guy you’ve got stashed at your house?”

  I just stared at her. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

  She laughed.

  “Are you trying to take my mind off of that dirty, cheating demon?”

  “Depends. Is it working?”

  I thought about it. “Yeah. Really is.”

  “Good,” Rachel said, leaning her forearms on the tabletop. “So spill. Who is the mystery Faery?”

  “How’d you know about the Faery thing?”

  “He told me.”

  “He told you he’s a Faery?”

  “First thing he said,” Rachel told me. “Of course, I knew right away he wasn’t that kind of fairy.”

  “How?”

  “Because God would never do that to women everywhere. Too big a waste.”