Truth or Demon

CHAPTER 3

W hat the hell?

Killian blinked up at the unfamiliar ceiling—a dingy white ceiling. Not the crisp, new white of his ceiling at home. Nor was he in his own bed. This one was decidedly feminine, covered in a ruffled bedspread plastered with pink and red cabbage roses. Nothing like his black silk sheets.

He glanced to the right to see an antique nightstand. On it, in its full flowered and beaded glory, sat a lamp that looked as if it came from a yard sale circa 1959. An Agatha Christie was opened, facedown on the doily-covered surface. Several medication bottles were lined up beside that.

Great, not only was he in a strange bed, but it appeared to be that of an elderly woman.

He glanced to his left, hoping he’d see something that would make sense to him. He definitely needed an explanation for this predicament—and why he didn’t seem to recall how he got here. But instead of some clue, he found someone staring back at him.

It was the ugliest, mangiest cat he’d ever seen. It stared at him with its one good eye. An eerie yellow eye. The other was stuck together into a crusted black line. The cat’s long, white fur—or at least he thought it was white—had a matted, gray tinge as if it had rolled in ashes. Damp ashes.

Maybe Killian was still in Hell. But he suspected that even demons would throw this thing back.

Keeping his movements slow and subtle, Killian levered himself up onto his elbows, concerned that even the slightest move would set the beast into attack mode.

The cat hissed, its back arching and its tail, once broken or maybe just as naturally ugly as the rest of it, shot up like a tattered flag at half-mast. It hissed again, louder, its lips curling back to reveal a splintered fang and some serious tartar buildup.

Killian braced himself for what appeared to be an inevitable fur-flying assault, but instead the feline monster darted over the chair and disappeared under the bed, surprisingly fast for such a massive creature.

“Great,” he said, peering over the edge. Now he felt like he was stuck in some horror movie where the monster under the bed would lunge out and grab him as soon as he set a foot on the floor.

He fell back against the mattress. The scent of musty pillow, masked only slightly by some kind of stale, powdery perfume, billowed up around him.

Where the hell was he?

He lay there, searching his brain, but nothing came back to him. His last memory was getting off work and going home. But he was clearly no longer in Hell. This place was very definitely the dwelling of a human. Humans had a completely different energy from demons.

Had he gone home with some human woman for a little nocturnal fun? Not his usual behavior, but not unheard of either.

He glanced around the room with its flowered walls and damask curtains. A pink housecoat was draped over a rocking chair in the corner.

He cringed at the sight. Not unless he’d suddenly developed a taste for the geriatric set.

“At least let it have been the hot granddaughter,” he said aloud. The monster under the bed hissed in response. Probably not a good sign.

He remained there for a moment longer, then decided he couldn’t stay trapped in this sea of frills and flowers indefinitely. He had to figure out where he was—and more important, why.

He sat up, steeling himself for his next move. Then in one swift action, he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and gave himself a hard push against the mattress, vaulting a good three feet across the floor.

The dust ruffle quivered, then a paw with claws unsheathed shot out and smacked around, hoping to connect and maim. Finding nothing, it snapped back under the bed’s depths. The bed skirt fluttered, then fell still.

“Ha,” he called out to the animal, feeling smug. Then he just felt silly. He was a demon who’d managed to outsmart a cat. Yeah, that was something to get cocky over. Especially since he was a demon who had somehow managed to forget where the hell he was.

He stepped out of the bedroom into a small hallway. Directly in front of him was a bathroom that revealed more flowers on the shower curtain and on the matching towels hanging on a brass rack. Even the toilet seat cover had a big rose on it.

To his right was another bedroom. A dresser, a nightstand and a brass bed—and, of course, more flowers.

He frowned. Would he really hook up with a human who was this obsessed with floral prints—very bold floral prints? He didn’t think so, but anything seemed possible at this point.

He wandered to a living room with swag draperies and ancient-looking velvet furniture. BenGay, hand lotion, Aleve, a crystal bowl filled with mints and a box of tissues were arranged on another doily-covered table beside a tatty-looking recliner. A crocheted afghan was draped over the back.

“Let there be a granddaughter … let there be a granddaughter,” he muttered, even though he’d seen not a single sign of youth so far.

He crossed the room to a fireplace, looking at the framed photos crowded along the mantel. Only one woman kept reappearing in the pictures and she didn’t look to be a day younger than eighty. But he didn’t recognize her. In fact, none of the people in the pictures jogged his memory.

“Maybe I don’t want to remember,” he said, grimacing down at a picture of a group of elderly women on what appeared to be adult-sized tricycles beside some beach.

Then his own shirtsleeve caught his attention—or more accurately his cuff link, deep red garnets set in a charm of a ferry boat: the symbol of his position and job in Hell.

He set down the picture and inspected himself. He was still dressed in his standard work uniform, a white shirt with a tab collar, a black vest and black trousers. He’d taken off his greatcoat sometime during the evening, but he was relieved to see that the rest of his clothing was intact.

A good sign nothing untoward had happened, but it still didn’t give him any hint as to where he was or how he got here.

“Just get out of here,” he told himself. He could just as easily contemplate this bizarre situation in the luxury of his own place.

He closed his eyes, picturing his ultramodern dwelling with its clean lines and stark colors. Not a single flower to be found anywhere. He visualized the living room with its black leather furniture. The bedroom with its king-size bed and dark red walls. He especially visualized his black granite bar and the bottle of Glenfiddich sitting on it.

A nice glass or two of fifty-year-old scotch and a little Xbox 360 on his big-screen television seemed exactly like what he needed after all this strangeness. There was nothing like expensive liquor and Modern Warfare 2 to get him calmed down. Then maybe he’d recall his lost evening.

Let there be a hot granddaughter, he added again.

Then with his creature comforts affixed in his mind, he willed himself away from this odd apartment and back to his own world….

Except nothing happened.

No whirring sound, no sense of whisking through space and time. No—nothing.

He opened his eyes to find himself still surrounded by flowers and the scent of old age.

Pulling in a deep breath, he closed his eyes again and really focused. But this time he noticed something he hadn’t the first time. It was a sort of weighted feeling as if leg irons were around his ankles, keeping him in this dimension.

He released the breath he didn’t even realize he was holding pent up in his lungs. What was going on? Why shouldn’t he be able to dematerialize out of the human realm?

But then he realized shouldn’t wasn’t the right word. He felt like he couldn’t. No, that wasn’t exactly the right word either.

For the first time since he woke up in this place, a sensation akin to panic constricted his chest. He forced himself to ignore the feeling, chanting over and over in his head that there was a reasonable explanation for all of this.

“Just go to a bar here,” he muttered to himself. “Have a stiff drink—and relax.”

Things were bound to make sense if he just calmed down. How could he expect to think clearly surrounded by floral chaos?

Just then the cat from the bedroom leapt up onto the recliner, the springs creaking under its massive bulk. It peered at him from its one good eye, then hissed.

“Yeah. I’m outta here.”

He left the living room, striding toward a door at the end of another small hallway. It had to be the exit. But when he reached the door, he stopped. Everything within him told him to just grab the doorknob, turn it and leave, but again something stopped him. Told him he had to stay right here.

“Just go,” he growled.

But he couldn’t bring himself to move. That was, until he heard the rattle of the doorknob, jiggling as if someone was inserting a key from the other side.

Killian glanced around, trying to decide what to do. He noticed the kitchen to his right and sidestepped into the narrow little room, leaning against an avocado-colored refrigerator as he listened. He heard the whoosh and creak of the door opening.

“Where is he?” a female voice said. A young female voice. The granddaughter?

“He’s got to still be here,” another female voice said.

Hmm, he hadn’t considered there might have been more than one granddaughter. That certainly made things more interesting—and worth remembering.

Killian decided there was no point in hiding. After all, they were expecting him to be here. At least, he thought they were talking about him, and they were the ones who could likely offer him the information he wanted.

He stepped out of the kitchen to see three young girls. And girls was definitely the operative word.

Dear Lucifer, was there any middle ground here?

As soon as they saw him, in almost comical unison, the girls screamed. And with the familiarity of that piercing sound, all his lost memories rushed back. The screaming girls, the flying snack foods, the thwack to the head.

Killian raised a hand, frowning down at his, for all practical purposes, abductors. Surprisingly, his gesture silenced them.

“Why did you bring me here?”

If his memories of the night before were any indication, he needed to get an answer as quickly as possible, before another candlestick-wielding woman appeared.

He shot a quick look over his shoulder, just for good measure.

The girl with a smattering of freckles across her nose and the dark brown eyes moved out of the doorway, waving to the other two to join her. The other dark-haired girl joined her inside the apartment. Only the cherubic blonde hesitated behind them. But finally, and clearly against her better judgment, she followed, although Killian noticed she didn’t release the doorknob.

Ready for a speedy escape. Smart girl. He was not in a good mood. And he was a demon. Never a great combination.

“Who are you? And why did you bring me here?” he demanded.

The girls all shifted, nervous.

Then to his surprise, the freckle-faced one straightened to her full height—maybe a whopping 5′2″—and met his gaze directly.

“I’m Daisy.”

Killian tried not to make a face. Of course, more flowers.

“This is Madison,” Daisy said, gesturing to first one girl, then the other. “And Emma.”

Madison surprised him by meeting his eyes too. She sported that ennui that all kids seemed to master as soon as their age hit double digits. Killian was tempted to point out to her she hadn’t looked quite so bored just moments earlier when she was squealing, but he remained silent. Emma still clutched the doorknob, managing none of her friend’s cool boredom. Quite the opposite. As soon as his gaze moved to her, she tensed as if she was ready to dart—or pass out. Her blue eyes widened and seemed to eat up half her face.

A twinge of sympathy pulled at him. He ignored it.

“I was the one who conjured you,” Daisy said, her expression neither blasé nor frightened. This girl was simply direct and calm.

A girl with a mission.

“We all conjured you,” Madison corrected her, giving Daisy a pointed look.

“Yes.” Daisy acknowledged her friend, but remained undaunted. “We all did. But we conjured you to fulfill my wish.”

“Which we should have negotiated,” Madison muttered, collapsing against the wall in a perfected slouch of disgust.

Daisy didn’t even glance at her friend this time. She stayed focused on him. “We called you to—”

“Do something impossible,” Madison interjected.

This time Daisy did shoot a censorious look at her friend. Then she said, “No. It might be a little tricky but not impossible.”

Madison rolled her eyes. Emma swayed. Apparently passing out was still an option for the silent friend.

“What is this tricky—possibly impossible task?” Killian asked, growing tired of the teenage bickering.

This wasn’t his usual thing. Hell, he’d never been conjured before, and he had very little experience with teenagers. But even with his admittedly limited experience, he wasn’t prepared for what the earnest girl in front of him said next.

“I want you to find my sister a boyfriend.”