“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a...” She couldn’t even say the word. “He said his name wasAsmodeus, for god’s sake!”
“That is interesting. I still think it’s important to investigate. You need to figure out what you saw or you’re never going to get past this.”
Jacqui had a point. Eva hadn’t been able to think or concentrate on anything in days, and it was driving her nuts. If she kept up this level of distractedness, she’d be fired from Bootleg, lose her ability to write music, and probably have to take up a career as an artist who could only draw bat wings and gargoyles and sexy men with obscenely long hair. “So what do I do?”
“If he calls you, agree to go out with him, but go somewhere public where you’ll be around other people. While you’re out, drill him with questions. Ask where he grew up, where his parents are, that sort of thing. Look for holes in his story. You might not need to see the wings again to figure out if you hallucinated them.”
“I probably did hallucinate them,” Eva said with a sigh. “There’s no way it was real.”
“Did you take anything that night, honey?”
“Mom!”
“Well, I’m just asking!”
“I didn’t take anything. My party days are long over, and I was working anyway. Can’t exactly play a set if I’m tripping on acid.”
“What about any other pills? Maybe it was a drug reaction. Or food? Did you eat any GMO products?”
“Seriously, Mom?”
“There could be chemicals in processed food that you reacted to.”
She did have a point. “I didn’t eat or take anything unusual, how’s that?”
“All right. Then we’ll stick with the investigation plan for now. I want all the details, Eva. You’d better call me first thing after you see him and tell me everything.”
“Fine, I will. If he even calls. Chances are high he forgot my number—he didn’t even write it down.”
“Honey, I’d better go. Your dad is nagging me to get back downstairs and finish the shoot. He says it’s cold, and the photos aren’t going to be any good if his balls are shriveled u—”
“Mom!”
“Right, sorry. TMI. Call me, okay?”
They hung up, and Eva felt considerably better. Leave it to her mom to come up with a semi-reasonable plan to figure out if she was hallucinating or not. Anyone else would have told her to go straight to a shrink and start popping some heavy medication. Plus, she couldn’t help but notice the plan meant she would get to see Ash again, which made her heart race a tiny bit.
Ifhe called. It had been two days, and so far, nothing.
It would be better if he didn’t, she told herself. Until she’d met him, her life had been normal. Okay, her parents were artists, and she was a musician who talked to her cat, so she wasn’t that normal, but she’d certainly never had anyparanormal experiences.
Which were probably just hallucinations, she reminded herself for the hundredth time.
Strangely, though, she felt a flare of disappointment at the thought. Even if the alternative meant that monsters were real, she supposed she didn’t want to believe that life really was as ordinary as it appeared, and that red-skinned demon men only existed in fantasy.
Maybe it was because then she would have to accept that she, too, was as ordinary as she appeared... no matter what that little voice inside whispered in her ear.
4
There AreNoNice Guys inHell
She saw through the curse. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“How? What did she say?” Belial’s expression was intense, but it was hard to take him seriously at the moment. He currently stood in front of the stove in their new kitchen wearing an apron, spatula in hand, flipping pancakes. A bottle of pure Quebecois maple syrup and a block of butter waited by the already-cooked stack nearby.
Asmodeus shrugged. “She told me she was attracted to me.”
