“I know that,” I snap.
“We could kiss again.”
“He’s watching us.”
“That’s the point. Are you ready to go?” He says it stiffly, like I’m the one who’s being unreasonable and I laugh like it’s the funniest thing ever and lean in, way close.
“I’m always ready, sweetheart,” I say seductively, and so help me, I lick his ear.
“Hot freaking damn, Dovey,” he says, voice shaky. He pulls away and shoves me toward my door.
I just smile at him.
I guess he’s never seen me act before.
The dogs are still barking, and one of them slams into the driver’s side door, rocking the car. With a heavy sigh Isaac mumbles, “Let’s get this over with,” and opens the door hard. The dog whimpers and charges right back into the trailer. The other one stops tonguing my window to follow it, tail tucked between its legs. Cowards. By the light of the TV shining inside the trailer, I can see a tall guy standing there, holding a can and a lit cigarette in one hand.
“What the hell, Raleigh?” the guy says in a smooth, lazy voice that was made for radio. “It’s four in the damn morning. You’re going to wake up the neighbors.”
But the words don’t match the inflection. He’s amused. Baiting, even. I don’t think he would mind if we chopped up the neighbors and shot them out of a confetti cannon. This guy? He’s an actor too. He takes a drag from his cigarette, and the glow of his cherry isn’t enough to show me his face. I imagine one side is smiling, welcoming. And the other side, like some comic book character, is ravaged, evil, and twisted.
“How goes it, Crane?” Isaac calls in the same playful tone.
I toss my mittens onto the passenger seat and hurry around the car to the warmth of Isaac’s side. He slings his arm around my shoulder, and I lean into him as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Crane’s eyebrow goes up a notch, and he smirks.
“Not as good as it’s going for you, man,” Crane says. “Who’s the chick?”
Before Isaac can answer, I wave with the pinkie-free hand and say, “Hi. I’m Jasmine.”
“Yeah, and I’m Mickey Goddamn Mouse,” Crane says, but he’s still amused. “You guys want a beer?”
“Sure,” Isaac says. I just smile and shrug, my shoulders heavy under Isaac’s arm.
Crane disappears into the trailer, and we follow. It smells of stale smoke, staler beer, wet dog, and something even deeper and darker. Like a bear’s den. Crane goes to the fridge, ducking his head to keep from scraping it on the ceiling. Isaac’s tall, but he’s standing fine. Crane has got to be at least six-four.
He clicks on a light in the kitchen. It flickers into life as he turns to give us our beers. I’m almost disappointed that his face is symmetrical, handsome, even charming. I was hoping he would look evil, but Isaac did say cambions were generally attractive. While Isaac is blond, mysterious, and almost pretty, Crane is brunet and clean-cut, like a classic good guy, a broad-shouldered all-star quarterback. But there’s something hiding under his smile. I don’t trust him one goddamn bit.
“What brings you by Casa de Crane?” he asks, motioning us onto a disreputable-looking couch.
Isaac sits, pulling me into his lap. Since it means that less of me is touching the stained paisley corduroy and crushed pillows, I’m grateful. I lean back against him and compulsively check that Carly’s necklace hasn’t fallen out of the deep pocket of my cargoes. Nope, still there. Isaac pops his beer, and I pop mine and pretend to take a sip. It smells like dry, moldy grass, and I’m not about to drink anything Crane gives me. But I can pretend.
“I wanted you to meet Jasmine,” Isaac says with an easy smile. “You ever met a cambion chick? She’s a wildcat.”
Crane smirks and takes a drink. “They’re all insatiable, man. I actually used to date this girl named Lenore. Like the poem. Nearly tore me to pieces, if you know what I mean.”
“Hell, yeah,” Isaac says, and they bump fists. I roll my eyes and giggle.
“So who do you belong to?” Crane asks me.
“Kitty, of course,” I say.
“Yeah, Dawn hates that bitch,” Crane says. He pauses to finish his beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a long, badly shaved throat. “And Josephine’s pretty pissed with her too.”
“What for?” Isaac asks.
“Oh, the usual. Being too obvious. Not covering her tracks. I mean, did you hear about how Riverfest got busted tonight?” He leans over to me, like we’re sharing a secret. “Kitty’s careless. And Josephine likes her soldiers to be sly.”
“Sly’s good,” I practically purr.
Isaac’s hand moves to my thigh, marking his territory as it slides a notch up my leg. I stop myself from feeling the surge of . . . whatever it is. Lust? I won’t let myself want him. Won’t fall for it. He’s evil, has to be. He’s acting. And he won’t ever love me. But his hands are hotter than a metal slide in a Savannah summer, and I lean back into him, longing for more.
“So how long until you commit?” Crane says, his grin as slow and thick as swampwater.
“Already did a few months ago,” I say, waving my hand like it’s no big deal.
“So Isaac Raleigh is the last to join up.” Crane takes a long draw on his cigarette. “Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies.”
I throw back my head and laugh, and Isaac rubs my neck. I feel free and powerful. I’m on stage again. I’m playing a character I know and hate. And it’s fun. Freeing, even. It feels good. Isaac’s hands feel good.
“Let’s just say I know which side of my bread is buttered,” I murmur.
Crane settles back in his broke-down La-Z-Boy chair like a king on a throne. It’s kind of sad, really.
“So why’d you give it up before the big show?”
I realize he’s looking at my pinkie, and he must know I’m not twenty-one yet. Before Isaac can lean in to nibble on me or whisper something, I toss my head and say, “Oh, that? I made a better deal.”
“Do tell.”
He leans closer to me, and I lean in to meet him. Isaac traces a line down my spine, and I can’t help shivering.
“Mum’s the word,” I say, smacking my lips together.
“Interesting,” Crane says, leaning back. “Nice to meet someone with the good sense to go rogue early.”
“I just miss the hell out of my pinkie.”
“Yeah, but being soulless feels pretty good, don’t you think?”
I look into his pitch-black eyes and shudder, turn it into a sexy squirm. This guy—there’s no humanity left in him.
“Feels great. Although, I hope my poor little soul isn’t too lonely.”
He laughs. “Then get your boy Isaac to join the hell up. Put his box in Kitty’s cabinet right next to yours. And get extra points for converting him too.”
Inside me a light turns on. Outside I just smirk and draw a line across Isaacs’s lips with my fingertip, saying, “Sure would be nice to have some company, sexy.”
“You guys know something I don’t?” Isaac says playfully. “Everybody knows dybbuk cabinets are bullshit.”
Crane’s smile gets even more predatory.
“ ‘Everybody’ my ass. Guess nobody told you about how good it feels to have your soul ripped out either. All the new things you can do?” He shakes his head, scoffs. “She must not trust you. Every demon has a freaky little cabinet. Another one of their weird traditions.”
“Bull,” Isaac says, his hand tense on my leg. “Total bull.”
“Jasmine’s been keeping secrets from you, bro.” Crane pulls out another cigarette and lights it off the cherry end of his last one. “It’s not bull. I’ve seen one. You’ll see one too, when you just accept the fact that you’re an evil bastard and join in. Stupid ass ceremony and everything.”
“You always were a goddamn liar,” Isaac says with a wicked smile. “Is that true, baby?”
He rubs my neck while he asks, and I shiver against his hand and say, “Maybe.”
Crane takes the beer from my hand a
nd sits beside me on the couch. His weight pulls me off balance, and I reach for my pocket to make sure I don’t lose Carly’s necklace in the disgusting pillows. Taking a long swig off his beer, he runs a hand up my leg. I shudder like spiders are crawling on me, and Isaac swats him off.
“And you never were much for sharing,” Crane says. But he removes his hand and settles for putting an arm along the back of the couch. I lean into Isaac, grateful for an excuse not to touch Crane.
“You been keeping secrets, little girl?” Isaac murmurs into my ear, just loud enough for Crane to hear. Crane leans forward, and I get the feeling that watching Isaac touching me, watching us fight a little, gets him going. He has a look similar to the lynx-eared demon, waiting for Baker and me to get on the Free Fall.
“Maybe,” I say into Isaac’s ear, nipping him again.
“You’re so bad,” he growls back.
“You ever ask him if he’s keeping secrets from you?” Crane asks.
I glance at him, and he’s hungry, avid, anxious to see things escalate. I bet he’s the kind of asshole who goes to dogfights for fun, and I also bet he can’t even throw a punch himself. He wants me to react, to turn against Isaac maybe. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction, but I know that the truth is hidden deep underneath everything he says.
“Isaac can’t keep anything from me,” I say in a pouty voice, running a finger along Isaac’s stubbled jaw. I think I’ve touched him more in the last ten minutes than I’ve ever touched another boy throughout my entire life, including playing Red Rover with Baker. Even if we’re just pretending, it still feels nice. It’s good practice. And it’s getting a response.
Crane bursts out laughing, his cigarette almost falling into my lap.
“Homeboy’s got secrets,” he says. “Don’t let him fool you. He’s been dark longer than I have.”
“Dark’s good,” I say.
“Then I’m your man,” Isaac answers, but he’s gone as stiff and still as a mouse in a hawk’s shadow.
“I heard he was undercover for a while,” Crane says, leaning back to watch us. He puts a long foot up on his knee and relaxes back into the couch. “They had him doing some seriously nasty shit last year. But then I heard he was trying to clean up. Scared straight, as they call it. Now we don’t know which side he’s playing for. Not that it matters. The demons always win in the end.”
“Oh, I think we’re on the same team,” I say sweetly, snuggling close to lay my head against Isaac’s chest. Under his black T-shirt his heart hammers wildly. He smells like fire and cinnamon and leather jacket. And fear.
“Definitely,” he mumbles into my hair, his breath warm against my face.
But I’m not so sure.
Across the couch Crane chuckles. He’s not so sure either.
“Watch out, little girl,” he says wisely with a knowing nod. “You play with fire, you’re going to get burned.”
“I take it you like to play with fire?” I ask.
“I like to be the one holding the lighter.” Crane winks.
Isaac stiffens. “So you’re the one who lit up that restaurant downtown last week?”
Crane’s mouth curls up in an unspoken yes.
“Of course not. Dawn doesn’t let her people go downtown. It was probably Marlowe.”
“Marlowe doesn’t leave the marsh. You know that.”
“I know a lot of things. Like, for example, that the Redskins suck.”
They launch into a discussion of teams, point spreads, and who owns whom, and I realize that Fantasy Football and the demon hierarchy have a lot in common. Now that the conversation is back on harmless territory, Isaac relaxes and strokes my back. My eyelids start to feel heavy, and I cuddle closer to Isaac and listen to him breathing. He and Crane banter in the friendly, irritated way of dudes at a bar, and I know that we’re not going to get anything more out of this soulless creeper.
“I think I need to get Jasmine home,” Isaac says, and I nod awake.
“My mom’s going to freak out,” I mumble, forgetting to act in my sleepy confusion.
Crane laughs.
“Just slip her some clear,” he says. “Jesus, how new are you?”
He and Isaac laugh together, and I rub my eyes and stand up.
“New enough,” I say in Jasmine’s voice. Isaac stands beside me, a hand on my lower back.
“Good to see you, man,” he says, and they shake hands hard, their forearms taut. I notice Crane’s missing pinkie for the first time, on his right hand, like mine. His scar is pink and puckered, like something nasty happened to it while it was healing.
“Any time you want to hang with a real man, you come find me,” he says, pulling me into an uncomfortable hug. “I like a little wildcat in my women.”
His arms wrap around me, and I’m caught, suffocating against his shirt, which is a scratchy waffle weave and smells like cigarettes and two days on the floor as a dog bed. I push away from him and say, “So does Isaac.” As I turn away, Crane cops a feel, and I throw myself a little harder against Isaac’s chest than I mean to. He just pulls me closer.
Crane follows us to the door and leans against the frame as we walk to the car. The dogs, which had disappeared into the back part of the trailer, flank his sides, growling low in their throats. He lights another cigarette and puts his hands in his pockets with a lazy grin.
“He thinks he likes ’em wild,” Crane calls as I slide in on the passenger side. “But he sure as hell couldn’t handle Kitty. Maybe he won’t be enough for you, either.”
Isaac closes my door and yells, “You’re the world’s biggest dick, Crane.”
“I know it is,” Crane calls back, laughing.
The dogs start barking at us as soon as the car doors slam shut. All I can do is stare at Isaac as he peels out in a spray of angry gravel.
22
“YOU DIDN’T,” I FINALLY SAY.
“I can explain.”
“I bet it’s a sweet story of innocent first love and holding hands by the beach,” I snap.
Crane smokes in the door as Isaac squeals back onto the road. He’s got to be pretty pleased with himself, getting that last jab in.
Tears prick at my eyes. I am so very stupid, so naïve and ashamed. It felt so good, pretending to be Isaac’s girlfriend. His hands on me, his voice soft, the feeling that we were a team, that he would protect me. I have to remind myself that those things weren’t real, that he has some stupid crazy magic that makes him irresistible. That he’s an actor too. Just like me nipping his ear, just like that amazing kiss. That was just acting. We needed something, and we did what we had to do to get it. I’m not his girlfriend, even if all that nuzzling seemed to wake something up inside me. It’s none of my business. I shouldn’t care, have no right to care.
So why the hell do I care?
“Dovey, what’s your problem?” he says, sharp and angry and hard.
And I want to snarl at him and slap him hard across the face, and I’m so disgusted with myself that I can’t stand it, and I can still taste his lips, mixed in with the rot of that one unwanted sip of beer. And that’s when I realize what my problem really is.
“What you just did to me—you did it with her, too.”
“What?”
“To Kitty, you asshole! She bit off my finger and killed my best friend, and you put your tongue in her goddamn demon mouth. And then you put it in mine!”
My throat feels like it’s full of dirt, and I gag. I have never been so sickened in all my life.
“I didn’t know what she was,” he snaps.
“You didn’t notice that she was a demon, or you just thought she had a birth defect, or what?” I cross my arms and huddle against the window, as far from him as possible.
He sighs deeply, hands clenched on the steering wheel. “You have to understand that I didn’t have someone who cared about me to explain all this stuff,” he says. “Kitty showed up one day, and she was young and fun and gorgeous. And she had this dangerous edge, so not
high school. Any guy would have fallen for her, and I was only seven. It was winter. She wore hats. I only ever saw her at night. She never walked up and said, ‘Hi, I’m a demon, and you’re halfway evil, and I want you to join my kickball team.’ ”
“So when did she tell you?”
Dead air. Even with the heater on, what’s between us is a chasm of cold, dead air.
“Not until after . . .” He trails off meaningfully.
“Oh my God, Isaac. Oh my God. Gross. Don’t even say that. Please.”
I hold my breath, waiting to hear the worst, watching his face. I want to jump out of the car, and I want to gargle bleach, and I never, ever want to see this beautiful boy again, even if I had accidentally been crushing on him before this moment.
He exhales through his nose, his mouth set in a hard, angry line. “We only did it once. And then, right after, I saw what she really was, what she really looked like, and while I was freaking out—that’s when she took my distal bone. Bit it right off. And after that she explained everything. While I was sitting on my parents’ couch, bleeding into a towel.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.”
“No wonder you hate her.”
“Yeah.”
Another long pause, and my heart begins to soften, even if my mouth tastes like death.
“Dovey, come on. Say something.”
Without thinking, I mutter, “Dude, you boinked a demon.”
Silence.
“And she was, like, kind of your demon mom.”
Further silence.
Then he starts rumbling. He can’t control it. He snorts, and that turns into a laugh, and soon he’s madly cracking up while driving my tank of a car at a hundred miles an hour down the lava-red dead zone of Truman Parkway.
“It’s not funny, Isaac. Slow down.”
I try to sound serious and righteously pissed, but I can’t contain it either. So many emotions have raged through me tonight that I can’t hold them inside anymore, and I don’t know who to love or who to hate or how to feel. So I start laughing, and he slows down, and the laugh tumbles off into chuckles.
“I’m never going to let you hear the end of this,” I say.