She looked him in the eye and there was no mistaking the triumph in her gaze.
“You’re done here,” she said.
Chapter 31
Over lunch the next day, Dara dropped by to see Nana. It was rare for her to miss a Sunday visit, but after what she’d nearly done Saturday night, she was so ashamed she skipped the next two days.
“What’s wrong?” Nana asked as soon as Dara walked in the door. Well, at least she didn’t say, What have you done?
Dara told her about the frog in the toilet.
“I told you that demon would bring your clinic no good.” Nana smiled grimly. “Now you can finally throw him out.”
But Dara had had time to think since Ben’s exit from the clinic the previous evening. “What will I tell my board? I’m mad that he unclogged our toilet?”
Nana’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. She didn’t have an answer, either. Fear washed yellow into her skin and brought all her wrinkles out in sharp relief, making her look all of her ninety-four years. She twisted her hands together like she would wring a solution from them. This was the worst part—what the demon assault was doing to Nana.
“Besides,” Dara said, “I’m not sure it was him. He was so frustrated. And it’s like he said—he worked so hard to get into the clinic. Why would he throw it all away for a childish prank? It’s almost like someone is trying to keep him from completing his mission.”
Nana sat upright in her recliner. “I hope that someone is you.”
“Someone besides me.” Dara hated to frighten her grandmother any more than she already was, but she needed help. “Is it possible that there’s a rival demon involved?”
“Lord save us.” Nana groped for her ruby cross, but it was hanging around Dara’s neck. “You think there are others?”
Dara described Ben’s reaction to the frog.
“He truly didn’t seem to be behind it,” she said. “But someone is.”
“You need to close that place down. Today. Don’t even set foot under that roof again. If Satan has unleashed his minions there, it isn’t safe for you or anyone else.”
Only seventeen days remained in the demon doctor’s mission to “observe healthcare.” With his presence limited to the pediatric clinics, he’d see maybe a dozen patients. Less, if Dara added another doctor to the roster. In fact, using this strategy, she could stop him seeing any patients at all.
“I’m not going to do that, Nana. Tell me again what plagues are left.”
“You’ve had lice, locusts, frogs and that raccoon. That leaves blood, boils, hail, darkness, pestilence and death of the firstborn.”
That final one hung between them. Every firstborn who came into the clinic was at risk. Even before the frog, Dara had begun double-checking the new box on the medical history form, routing them to another doctor if they were the firstborn in their families. She had thought the other volunteers were safe, but if a second demon were involved, she’d need to screen every single practitioner.
She told Nana about moving Ben to the peds clinic, and about adding the birth order question to the patient history form.
“It won’t keep them from targeting someone, but at least we’ll know who’s most at risk,” she said.
Nana wasn’t buying it. “Why in the world would you bring that demon into the children’s clinic?”
“Children are at no more risk than adults. Old or young, a firstborn is a firstborn.”
Nana squeezed the arms of her chair. “But their innocence makes them more of a target for Satan. How would you feel if someone had placed your baby in Satan’s crosshairs?”
Dara sucked in a shocked breath. Nana was using her lost child against her.
But Nana was uncompromising. “Well?” she asked.
“Not good, obviously,” Dara said. “But if I put the demon in an adult clinic, he’s going to see a dozen patients a night, minimum. If something pulls me away, he could wind up seeing them without supervision. In the peds clinic, he’ll see one or two kids, and I can be sure of being in the room the whole time. And I can add a second doctor to that clinic. That way, I can keep him from seeing any firstborn children.”
After a long moment, Nana nodded.
On the way back to the clinic, Dara walked through what happened the night before, step by step. When Ben denied responsibility for putting the frog down the toilet, she’d assumed he was lying because he got caught. The more she thought about it, though, that didn’t make sense. There was already a substantial amount of water on the floor when she walked up. The frog must have gone into the toilet while they were with the Gonzales boy.
Unless demons had the ability to levitate frogs into toilets from another room while simultaneously examining a patient, Ben wasn’t to blame.
She exited the highway, aware that she was far more relieved than the situation warranted. For some reason, the demon she knew worried her more than the demon she didn’t.
What demonic purpose did these plagues serve? Were they intended to intimidate her? That was another problem with holding Ben responsible. If he had succeeded in hiding the frog, she would never have known about it. That toilet backed up all the time because patients flushed paper towels down it. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it if she hadn’t seen the frog. A plague she wasn’t even aware of had no intimidation value. That suggested he was telling the truth.
When she’d first come upon him, he was muttering something about hating demons. He could have known she was there and said it for her benefit, but she didn’t think so. What she’d heard was his frustration that another demon was horning in on his territory, upsetting his mission.
She stopped for a red light and her heart sank a little at the thought of that mission. Why was she trying to convince herself that he didn’t have it in for the clinic? He was a demon, and a demon’s nature was to cause misery and heartache.
At the front desk, she stopped to talk to Gabby. “Can you give me the names of everyone who was in the clinic last night while Dr. Lyle and I were with Timmy Gonzales?”
Gabby pulled up the patient list. To Dara’s disappointment, there were no names she wasn’t already aware of.
“And there were those two little boys,” Gabby said.
“What little boys?”
“They said their mother was out in the car, but I never did see her. They asked to use the bathroom, but when they came back out, they disappeared.”
Bingo. “How old were they?”
“I don’t know. We never got patient cards on them. I’d guess maybe ten. Why?”
Dara forced a smile. “I think they put a frog down the toilet.”
Gabby shook her head. “What a pair of imps.”
She didn’t know the half of it.
At her desk, Dara tried to figure out what to do. It looked less and less like Ben was behind the frog incident. Did that mean he wasn’t behind the other plagues, either? But if it wasn’t him, who could it be? Was it someone she knew? Through the clinic, she met dozens of new people every week. It didn’t even have to be a demon, she supposed, although the timing seemed too coincidental for it to be a human playing pranks.
She pulled up her contacts list and scrolled through it. They fell into four groups: volunteers, board members, vendors and donors. None had been in the clinic the night before. Most were people she’d known for years. With many, she knew their parents.
Except for Lilith Rojas.
She was a new person in Dara’s life, and she’d come on the scene, out of the blue, at the same time Ben appeared. She frequently tried to tempt Dara into doing things that were unwise—drinking, buying sexy clothes, going off with Ben. It was easy to picture her as a demon.
The problem was that Lilith had passed the spilled-grains test, and Nana said it was reliable.
Dara gnawed her lip. What if it wasn’t reliable? Lilith was smart. Maybe she’d used some kind of hypnosis on Dara so she wouldn’t see her count.
There was one other way to iden
tify a demon, but it involved some risk. If she made Lilith mad enough, she could check her pupils. She thought about the lice and the locusts and the raccoon and the frog. If she didn’t put a stop to these plagues, they were only going to get worse.
She picked up the phone and dialed Lilith’s number. “I need some ideas for fundraisers. How about joining me for lunch? I’ll buy.”
At Crab Louie’s, a Cajun seafood bistro by the shore, Dara asked for a seat out on the patio. The light would be better there. Lilith was dressed in a black silk suit with an ivory shell and chunky accent pieces that looked like they might be real gold. A squirt of catsup in her direction would wreck that beautiful shell. Given Lilith’s reverence for clothes, that should be enough to set her off.
“It’s going to be hot out there,” Lilith said.
“They have an awning. I’d really like to be outside. You can take your jacket off.” She’d make an easier target that way. Dara tried not to think about what this would do to their friendship if Lilith wasn’t a demon after all.
Lilith rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
Once they were seated, Lilith ordered a salad, while Dara asked for a cheeseburger and fries. Lilith surveyed her in surprise. “What’s that about?”
Dara shrugged. “Sometimes you get a craving.” And sometimes you needed catsup to use as a weapon.
“You’re in a weird mood.” Lilith slipped off her jacket, revealing tiny cap sleeves with black embroidery on her silk shell.
What if Lilith wasn’t a demon? What if Dara defaced Lilith’s beautiful blouse for no reason? The thought made her feel a little ill. Well, she’d just have to apologize and pay for the damage.
Lilith noticed her gaze. “Do you like it? I just spent a week’s pay on it.”
It would take one of Dara’s entire paychecks to cover for the damage, but she couldn’t just let the plagues continue unabated. She cleared her throat. “About that fundraiser…”
Lilith held up her hand. “Before we get started on that, I want to talk about doing a spa day.”
“A spa day?”
“You know, a day where you check into a resort and they pamper you.”
“Sounds expensive.” Especially if Dara had to replace an expensive blouse.
Lilith pulled a slip of paper from her purse. “I happen to have a two-for-one coupon for Exhilaration.”
Exhilaration was a trendy new spa that had recently opened in a high-end shopping complex near the golf course and Slyders.
“Even with a coupon—”
“I already made us an appointment for Saturday,” Lilith said. “I’m going whether you do or not, so the money is already spent. Come on—join me.”
“Only if I can pay my half.” And you pass my demon test.
“Deal,” said Lilith. She picked up her phone and began typing. After a few minutes, she nodded in satisfaction. “I set us up for hot stone massages, facials and mani-pedis.”
The waiter brought their food.
Dara picked up the squeeze bottle from the table and aimed it at her fries. At the last second, she jerked and squirted catsup directly at Lilith’s blouse. It landed dead center, a bright red stain blooming like a gunshot wound in the middle of Lilith’s chest.
Lilith reared back, grabbing for a napkin and dabbing furiously. “What the hell, Dara?”
Dara inspected her eyes. Even in the midday light of the patio, her irises were so dark that it was difficult to differentiate between iris and pupil. From what Dara could see, though, they appeared to be round.
Maybe Lilith wasn’t mad enough.
“There must be something wrong with that catsup bottle.” Dara picked it up and squirted again. Bullseye.
“Damn it, Dara.” Lilith’s face turned red. “What the fuck?”
Dara leaned across the table to get a better view. Lilith’s face was scarlet with rage. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes were narrowed, but her pupils remained perfectly round. Perfectly human.
It didn’t make sense. There were too many clues, too many coincidences. She had to be a demon. In for a penny, in for a pound. Dara squeezed the catsup bottle again, this time aiming at Lilith’s face.
Lilith fended off the flow of tomato sauce with her napkin, causing it to splatter.
“What is wrong with you?” she screamed, but her eyes didn’t change.
She wasn’t a demon.
With a sick sense of horror, Dara surveyed the destruction she’d caused. Lilith’s blouse, jewelry and face dripped catsup. Now that she’d passed the test, Dara felt terrible.
“I am so sorry,” she said, wincing. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ll pay for your blouse.”
Without speaking, Lilith tossed her catsup-stained napkin down on the table and stalked across the restaurant to the ladies’ room.
Inside the ladies’ room, Lilith removed her blouse and rinsed it under the tap. She loaded some liquid soap onto a paper towel and pressed it against the fibers.
Just wait until she got that little bitch down to Hell. No client had ever received the treatment she’d give Dara. She’d heap on the humiliation. No torment was too painful, no task too degrading. She was even willing to shepherd the vapid little twit into Belial’s bed, if that was what it took.
His bedroom at the beach house had strategically placed cameras. One day soon, Dara would watch a porno reel of herself fucking a demon. Lilith could barely contain her glee.
She checked her eyes in the mirror. The contact lenses she’d gotten from DemSec had worked as intended. They obscured her rage and gave her the innocent round pupils of a mortal.
You had to love technology.
Lilith was gone a good thirty minutes, leaving Dara to realize just how badly she’d screwed up. She’d alienated the one person who seemed to be in her corner.
When Lilith got back to the table, her jaw was still taut with anger. She bent to pick up her purse without speaking.
“I am so sorry,” Dara said again. “Let me make it up to you. I’ll replace your blouse. Let me pay for our spa day. I don’t know what came over me.”
For a long moment, Lilith remained frozen in position. Then she straightened and shook her head. A grin broke over her face. “You are one crazy bitch, you know that?”
Dara ducked her head. Five weeks ago, no one would have ever described her that way. “Are we still friends?”
Lilith gave her a broad smile. “Honey, we are so much more than friends.”
Chapter 32
Belial arrived in Ring Nine to find Satan’s office door closed.
“You can take a seat,” Andras said. “It will be a few minutes.”
“Why did he call me down here if he doesn’t have time to see me?” Belial dropped into one of the chairs lining the wall behind Andras’s desk and wiped sweat off his forehead. The heat was bothering him more than usual. Why had he allowed Bad to blend in still more human genes? He would soon be more human than demon.
“Lord Satan is a very busy demon,” Andras said without looking up from the letter she was typing.
He picked up a copy of Modern Demon and fanned himself. Bad was on the cover. “The Face of Tomorrow,” ran the blurb beneath it. That didn’t improve Belial’s mood any.
“He’s been crazy all week,” Andras said. “Because of the interviews.”
He stopped fanning. “Interviews? For what?”
She turned her head one hundred and eighty degrees to look at him. “Chief executive demon.”
That was his job. He wanted to voice his outrage, but he couldn’t summon the energy. He’d actually been expecting this. The boss had written him off and was just waiting for the time limit for the wager to expire before executing him.
Satan’s office door opened and Bad strolled out. He hitched his chin in greeting but didn’t speak.
Andras jerked her feathered head back to her computer screen. Apparently it wasn’t safe to be seen conversing with Belial.
“There you are.” Satan appeared in
the doorway, looking annoyed, like he was the one who’d been kept waiting.
Belial stood, more weary than he could remember feeling in his entire existence.
Inside the office, Satan parked his skinny butt on the corner of his ebony desk and motioned for Belial to take a seat. Even though he knew the order was intended to give Satan the height advantage, Belial was grateful. He wasn’t sure how long he could stay on his feet.
Satan looked him up and down and spat on the floor. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call it quits and tell the Enemy he’s won.”
Belial’s head ached. Another flaw in this thrice-damned identity. These frailties had to be deliberate. No doubt they represented Bad’s best shot at the CED position. “It’s not over until it’s over.”
Satan received that cliché with the disgust it deserved. “Do you even have a plan? Even a glimmer of an idea how you’re going to close this?”
Belial had had an idea, but his head was aching so badly he couldn’t think of it.
Satan tapped his front tooth with a talon. “Maybe we can get Lilith to lure her out, try the alcohol route again.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Although Belial had enjoyed seeing Dara lose her inhibitions, he hadn’t liked the idea of having sex with her in that condition. It had been almost a relief when she’d spewed vomit all over his shoes. “This wager is about free will. Getting her drunk deprives her of her ability to choose.”
Satan snarled. “Do you have a better idea?”
“I was thinking about doing some kind of fundraiser, to show her I mean the clinic no harm.”
Satan rolled his eyes. “Money again? Been there, done that. Don’t you have anything new?”
“I just need to get her alone.”
Satan sneered. “Been there, too.”
“This time I’ll make sure she’s not on the edge of alcohol poisoning.”
The Demon Always Wins: Touched by a Demon, Book 1 Page 20
