She muttered as I opened the door, cursing about me under her breath. I heard the words ‘dream walker’ and knew for sure her demon had sensed me. It worried me, made me wonder how long the Sloth had been in her. That didn’t always happen. Usually the demon had to have his claws into his host pretty deep to allow him to control his or her speech or actions.
I tossed the can in the first bin I came across on my walk into town. Drinking it probably wouldn’t kill anyone, but the encounter had left a bad taste in my mouth. Better safe than sorry. I quickened my step, knowing I didn’t have a lot of time. I had to get back to Mason’s place where suddenly being pulled into the dreamscape wouldn’t be so damned risky. I got to Piper’s cafe in about ten minutes.
Piper’s eyes lit up when she saw me. Not with a demon, just regular-person sparkle, thank God.
“Tina! Where have you been?” She looked me over. “Is that a guy’s shirt?”
I glanced down. Oh, yeah. I’d spilled curry sauce on my T-shirt last night. Mason had taken it as a chance to get me out of my clothes. He’d thrown it in the wash later and given me one of his. I hadn’t thought it was that obvious, but I supposed I was kind of drowning in it. “Um...”
Her mouth dropped open. “This is why you didn’t want anything to happen with Jimmy.”
She could be awfully good at jumping to conclusions when it came to relationships. Hitting the nail on the head here, but she didn’t need to know that. I felt my skin flush hotter the longer my brain refused to feed words to my mouth. I didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know anything about Mason. I’d just been telling her I had work, using it as the excuse not to go for wild nights out even though some part of me wanted that more than anything.
“So, who is he?” She raised an eyebrow.
I glanced around, hoping for a queue of customers to intrude. Apparently it was too early for that. I groaned. There was no use trying to lie. She’d know. “It’s kind of new. So I’m not...”
She nodded quickly. “Okay. Sure. Whatever. But you’re telling me everything, the second you decide he’s a keeper.”
She had no idea how much of a keeper he already was. The one person on the face of this earth who knows what I am and completely accepts it? I’d have to be crazy to ever let him go. Having someone to talk to about the dream walker stuff had been a weight off my shoulders. I knew he felt the same way about his own abilities. He sees spirits, and I’ve seen them too. I was the only person he’d shared that with.
“Okay,” I said, looking at the board. Breakfast was now the last thing on my mind.
“Man, Jimmy’s going to be bummed,” she said, snapping my attention back to her.
“Jimmy’s a man-whore.” I winced at my tone the second I heard myself say the words. It wasn’t as if they weren’t true, but that wasn’t why saying them made me sound irate. Hearing his name had poked at something I didn’t want to think about. He’d been texting me on and off and we were starting to feel like friends. Every time I replied to him I felt guilty. I hadn’t told him about Mason, and I hadn’t told Mason I was still texting some random guy, even if it was harmless.
“Well, yeah,” she said slowly, “but man-whores have feelings too.”
“Jimmy’s great, but this is a guy I’ve known for a long time.”
“It is?” She frowned as if she was trying to work out who it might be.
I took a deep breath. Admitting this to her felt weird. We’d never been as close as I’d been with Lucy or Mason. I knew Piper was a very honest and loyal kind of person. I probably knew more about her than she knew about me. Opening up felt terrifying. What was the worst that could happen?
I didn’t know, and that was what I didn’t like about it.
“His name is Mason. We had a thing in high school.”
“Okay...” She smiled. “So, how hot is he?”
I had to smile. “Very.”
“You have to bring him out.”
“He’s not really a clubber.” I couldn’t even imagine him in a night club. He was more of a Netflix and chill kind of date. Though it would be fun to see him tipsy. A few beers and he usually cut himself off so I didn’t know what that even looked like.
She pulled a face. “Well, then, bring him in for lunch or something. I want to check this guy out. Make sure he’s good enough for you.”
“Oh, he’s good enough.” The smile froze on my face as I felt the pull of the dreamscape. I’d wasted too much time on small talk. Now I was going to have to find a place to crash out for however long the damned demon wanted to take to be exorcised. “Hey, where’s the bathroom in this place?”
She nodded behind her. “Through those doors and down the stairs.”
“I’ll be back.” I tried not to look like I was rushing, but I could only resist the pull for a certain amount of time before it dragged me under. The last thing I wanted to do was pass out cold in front of a friend who knew nothing about my freaky dream walker abilities. I dashed down the stairs, holding onto the railing tight. When I found the door to the toilet, my head was swimming. I rushed inside and locked the door, sliding down the wall until I was sitting on the floor. Losing consciousness took seconds. I knew it would take a whole lot longer to capture the demon. Dreamscape, here I come.
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Acknowledgements & Author’s Note
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a short review.
Special thanks go to Cherri-Anne Boitson for coming up with the winning name for the character Piper, named for her much loved and missed Sheltie.
This series is set in my home town in Scotland. The main settings are fictional but are based very loosely on existing locations that are not specified by name.
The second book in this series, Quicksand Nightmares, is coming out in June 2018.
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Sinners Never Sleep (Seven Deadly Demons Book 1) Page 13
