But she’d be right now.
“I’ll find you, Darrak,” she whispered. “No matter what.”
NINETEEN
There was no redhead. No matter how far Darrak went down the seemingly endless street, no redhead magically appeared.
Which was fine. He’d never really had a thing for redheads before. Especially not enough to follow one of them into dark, uncharted territory. So why was he doing just that?
No damn idea.
He stopped walking and scrubbed a hand through his hair.
“Okay, enough,” he said out loud. “Talk to me. What do you want from me?”
Some entity was using Theo’s appearance to get close to him, but why? He refused to think about the fact that his friend was really gone. It made something in his chest ache. It was a pain that was spreading outward the longer he walked down this street, and it wasn’t just from some strange sense of grief. It felt very wrong.
All of this felt very wrong.
Somebody was messing with him. It had to be Lucifer.
Yes, of course it was Lucifer. He could change his appearance at will. Lucifer had the power to play with Darrak’s mind, make him forget or make him remember things that had never happened. It was like Darrak was a lump of play dough and Lucifer was the enthusiastic child smashing the colors together and making a complete mess.
“Okay.” Darrak turned in a circle, ignoring the pain now swirling in his gut. “You had your fun, Lucifer. What do you want from me today? What game are you playing?”
Lucifer didn’t appear. What did appear, however, were the dark forms of the wraiths, moving toward him swiftly and smoothly, as if their long black cloaks glided just an inch above the ground.
“Ladies,” he said, forcing himself to hold his ground and not turn tail and run in the opposite direction. They had to already be full from the substantial fairy meal they’d just consumed. “Maybe you can help me.”
“Demon,” one hissed in a cold feminine voice.
“Angel,” the other snarled.
“Huh?” Darrak replied. “I think you’re a little off there, sweetheart.”
“Demon-angel,” they said in unison, moving around him like piranha circling nervous prey. “So unusual. How does it exist? How does it walk with such contrary forces at work within it?”
“Are you referring to me as an ‘it’?” Darrak asked. “Because that’s kind of rude, if you ask me.”
“It has the sweetest smell,” one said.
“Thanks. That’s not a cologne, FYI, that’s all me.” His words were flippant, but he felt anything but.
“No wonder it couldn’t maintain its life force anywhere else. No wonder it was sent here. It is not meant to exist.”
“We must taste it. Such a waste to simply let it continue on to its fate.”
Those pale fingers reached for him, but just before the wraith touched his throat, he turned and started walking, not looking back, not saying anything else to provoke their interest.
He wasn’t scared, he was mad. Mad that Lucifer would put him somewhere like this, allow these common wraiths to think they could attempt a taste test of his archdemon energy.
One of the wraiths darted in front of him and peeled back her hood.
“Try to look away, demon-angel,” she whispered. Her voice had grown more sultry, more sirenlike. Her hair was long and blonde and silky and flowed as if moved by a nonexistent wind. Her face was a supermodel’s. One of those Victoria’s Secret babes.
For some reason, a blonde supermodel didn’t do it for him today, not even for a moment.
“No thanks,” he said. “No offense, but I don’t think you’re my type. You haven’t seen a redhead wandering around here, have you?”
She hissed, which ruined the shiny look when it revealed her sharp teeth.
Wraiths. No better than the Netherworld’s answer to vampires, really.
“Go play with your girlfriend,” Darrak suggested. “I’m not interested in a make-out session with either of you. Sorry to disappoint.”
Both of them flew at him then, and he tried with all his strength to throw them off. He’d been fooling himself to think that he had a chance here. They were petite, but they were supernaturally strong once they attached themselves, like humanoid leeches. It was impossible to shake them off.
An image of long, beautiful auburn hair flashed across his vision as they kissed him, one on his mouth, one on his throat and he felt the edge of those sharp teeth.
A word flitted through his mind — a garden of paradise, somewhere warm and safe and beautiful where he wanted to live forever.
Eden.
Great. One mention of angels and he was getting all Adam and Eve.
Although, still, for last thoughts there could be worse ones, he supposed.
The wraiths suddenly detached themselves and recoiled from him. It wasn’t something he’d expected. He’d figured that was it, he was a goner. They both had their hoods pushed back from their lovely but sour faces.
“What?” he asked. “Not as delicious as you thought I’d be?”
Their eyes grew larger, now focused on something right behind Darrak. Anything that would get a reaction like that from the walking death duo didn’t make him want to turn around. He waited until the wraiths swept themselves away as if they’d just seen oblivion itself.
Darrak put his hands on his hips. “So I’m guessing that this isn’t going to be my night no matter what direction I go, is it?”
“That’s up to you, demon.”
He finally glanced over his shoulder. It wasn’t Theo again, he already knew that thanks to the woman’s voice. But this face was also familiar. A woman, in her twenties, with long dark hair and a beautiful face.
“Selina,” he said.
She put a hand on her hip and smiled. Her lips were red and glossy. “Sort of.”
“Not Selina.” Not the witch who’d summoned him hundreds of years ago. Along with the pain that had begun to infuse his core he was getting a little well-needed clarity.
“Am I on an episode of This Is Your Life?”
Her smile held. “No.”
“How about Candid Camera?”
“Strike two.”
Darrak’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Lucifer, aren’t you?”
She shook her head. “Wrong again.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. He’d been certain he was right, that Lucifer had brought him here, wherever here was, and messed with his memories, just to play one of his stupid reindeer games. “Then who the hell are you?”
“I told you before. A friend.”
“A friend who was going to let two wraiths make a tasty meal of me.”
“They didn’t.”
“What do you want?”
“You’re clinging to the sides of existence, digging in with your fingernails so hard that I thought I’d come and perhaps give you a bit of a hand.”
Darrak blinked. “Thanks?”
She continued to study him with that cool detached look of amusement. “Why don’t you follow me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
Selina turned and started walking. She wore four-inch heels and a flowing black dress that was low cut in the front and laced up in the back.
The Love Witch, that’s what she liked to be called. She’d written books — self-help books for women who had a difficult time with the men in their lives.
Darrak had made her a black witch back during the Salem witch trials — she’d cast a spell that siphoned dark power from him. She’d wanted the black magic in order to get vengeance on the men who’d put her sister to death.
Selina had tried but failed to destroy Darrak shortly after she’d gotten what she wanted from him, and he’d only recently found her again. He wanted her to break the curse she put on him. It had destroyed his ability to maintain his corporeal form. To break that curse he would have had to tear out her heart.