Page 52 of Demon's Desire

I watched the window for a couple of minutes, expecting him to come back. When he didn’t, I sighed and moved back to the couch. At least he knew where I was. He could come back anytime he wanted to. In the meantime, maybe I could try to get some work done.

12

All right. Special skills. Customer service, organization, inventory, cooperation with coworkers… Those were marketable skills, right? Oh, I could do cashiering too. Maybe I could even add my words per minute, if I was looking to get any sort of office job. I searched for typing tests. My results said sixty-two words per minute. According to the internet, that was on the low end of professional. Maybe I shouldn’t include it after all.

Okay, now I needed to find a way to make it look impressive that I had only ever worked two jobs. How did I do that?

After about fifteen seconds of wondering, the theme song to Full House popped into my head for no reason. I tried to ignore it and focused on my job history. At some point, I blinked and realized that two minutes had gone by where I hadn’t touched the document in front of me. The Full House theme song was still on repeat.

I sighed and brought my hands up to rub my eyes. There was a dull ache in the back of my head and a knot in the pit of my stomach. Knots didn’t usually hurt, right? They weren’t supposed to, anyway. They were more like nerves. But I wasn’t really that nervous. And my stomach definitely hurt.

Why hadn’t Suldeargan come back yet?

I looked out the window and frowned. He said if he got too far from me, he’d be in pain. Was he in pain right now? Was it bad? Was it any worse than what I–?

Shit.

“Fucking curse,” I groaned, standing up and going to grab my shoes. “He didn’t say it went both ways.”

I was ninety-nine percent sure that the cause of my headache and stomachache was the distance between Suldeargan and me. Did he not know, or was he just trying to piss me off? I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t really care. Right now, I just had to find him so I could focus on something else.

I shut the window before I left and locked the doors. I didn’t have a car, but since I didn’t know where I was going, an Uber didn’t seem like the best idea, so I just started walking. I headed in the direction that I’d seen him flying toward. I went that way for three blocks, then crossed the street and turned left. That was where he had disappeared behind the tall building. I was officially lost from here. Oh, well. I’d just keep walking until my body stopped hurting and go from there.

I kept going for a few more minutes. As I passed another intersection, I suddenly realized that the pain wasn’t as bad as it had been before. A few more minutes, and it was gone completely. That must have meant I was close. Looking around, I recognized a couple of things. There was a building next to a park with a mosaic on the wall of children playing. There was a gas station across the street that Kelly had stopped at a few times.

“Soul?” I called out. I didn’t want to say his full name in case that attracted too much attention, but Soul could sound closer to a pet name. “Soul, are you around here?”

I saw movement around the park and glanced in that direction. There were a handful of children playing, but across the playground, there was a dark figure. None of the children seemed to be disturbed by its presence or the fact that it was moving, which meant none of them could see it.

I was immediately relieved when I realized he was there. I took a step toward the park when I heard a car slow to a stop. I turned back to the street and saw the same van from earlier, carrying Jackson. My heart stopped suddenly. Suldeargan was here. There were no walls between him and Jackson. I had no idea how easy it was to kill a demon, but I didn’t want to risk it. Fuck. I needed to distract him somehow!

Jackson was still in his van talking to someone, scanning the playground. I pulled my hood up so he couldn’t see me and walked onto the playground.

“Mia?” Suldeargan asked. I could tell from the look on his face that he knew Jackson was close. He must have been able to sense him. He looked like he was seconds away from running. I gave him a look and quickly shook my head, holding up a hand to tell him to stay in place. I didn’t want to risk Jackson seeing him before I could create a diversion. While he stood still, I walked straight over to one of the women sitting on a bench.

“Hi.” I smiled at her and stood with my back to the road. “Hi, my name is Hayley. Do you guys come here often?”

“Hi, Hayley,” the woman in her mid-thirties smiled. “I’m Abby. Yeah, we’re here a few times a week. At least until it gets a bit colder. They hate winter because they always want to play at the park.”

“I know what that’s like.” I chuckled. “My younger sister was the same way. Anyway, I don’t want to bother you. I was in the area looking for my dog. He got out this morning, but I wanted to ask, do you see that van that just pulled up?” She squinted at it and nodded. “Have you seen that man here very often?”

“I haven’t noticed.” She frowned. “Why?”

I pursed my lips. “This is going to sound awkward… Would you mind going up with me to ask his name? If he’s who I think he is, then I have a restraining order against him. But if I’m wrong, I don’t want to call the police. I’m just… really uncomfortable going to talk to him by myself.”

“Oh, my word!” She stood up and patted my hand. “Of course, Hayley. Is he dangerous?”

“No, no.” I shook my head. “He never hurt anyone. He was… I mean, if he’s who I think he is, he was taking pictures of me through a window, and he kept calling my boss at work, saying he was my boyfriend and that I should be fired. It was awful. But he’s never hurt anyone.”

“Then why don’t you just stay here, and I’ll go ask him myself?” She nodded.

I gave her a grateful smile. “That is so kind. If he is who I think he is, his name is Jackson. Otherwise, it’s just an honest mistake.”

“Of course. You wait here, honey.” She smiled at me and squeezed my hand as she walked over toward the street. She called something to two of the boys that were playing as she walked, telling them they were doing good.

Jackson was just getting out of the van as she approached him. Once they started talking, I walked onto the playground where Suldeargan was. I gave him a look and nodded at a small alley between two of the buildings behind the park. The playground structures should give us cover so that Jackson didn’t see him leaving.

Suldeargan understood and immediately made a break for the alley. I followed him at a slower pace so the children didn’t get suspicious, but the second I was in the alley, I grabbed his hand and started running through to the other street.