Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) - By Killian McRae Page 0,8
me your mother was a patent lawyer from New Jersey,” Riona snapped back, looking desperately through the menu for salvation, and salavation.
“Yeah, who got knocked up by Zeus. And could that be any more Greek?”
Luckily, the waitress didn’t seem to take any note of the odd comments openly declaring his hybrid ancestry. Probably because Dee was charming her with a crooked smile and a wink that had her thinking about just how big his own lightning rod might be.
Yeah, the poor unsuspecting lass would be under him, atop him, and, depending on whatever else Dee was planning, perhaps behind him by the end of the night.
“Make that monstrosity for him.” Riona pointed accusingly at Dee. “Me and the other guy will have a large pie, light cheese, thin crust, no garlic.” Riona shoved her menu into the waitress’s stomach. The blonde barmaid strutted away with an oh-no-you-didden look in the wake of her departure.
“Well,” Dee finally said, breaking their tension, “that went pretty well.”
“Except for that whole trapping-me-in-mime-land bit,” Riona chortled, rolling her eyes.
Dee looked up from spreading a napkin over his lap. At least, that’s what Riona hoped he was doing with his hands under the table. “Say what?”
Probably in the confusion of the scuffle, they hadn’t noticed or maybe understood her predicament. “It was weird. Jerry used this charm I’d never heard from you guys, and it was like he threw an invisible force field up. Solid as a brick wall, see-through as water in a glass.”
Dee’s face suddenly went rigid. “Do you remember the charm?”
She nodded. “Something like fruity perimeter.”
Marc, who suddenly seemed a whole bunch more interested in what she was saying, leaned in over the table. “Infuita permuter?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.”
The priest turned to Dee. “A Morgana Box? I thought only the elites were capable of those.”
Dee shrugged. “Yeah, but Jerry wasn’t exactly straight off the bus. In all his centuries, he might have picked it up somehow. Don’t forget, he is… was a gnosis demon. Forbidden knowledge is sort of their shtick.”
“Yeah, but why would he have used a protective barrier spell? If he was trying to kill the Keystone, wouldn’t he want all the other demons coming after her? Why would he isolate her like that?”
Dee scratched his chin. “Maybe he thought it’d be a blow to his ego to have help. Maybe some sort of pissing in the sand move to mark his territory.”
“Or, maybe he didn’t want to kill her. Maybe he was going through all the gusto not to lose face, and was trying to figure out a way to get her out.”
The suggestion that Jerry may have been faking his evil in the bar hit Riona like a three-day-old dead fish. It smelled funny and left her feeling a little funky in the soul. Was it possible she had just vanquished someone on the up and up? Someone who was just as scared as she was?
No, Jerry was a demon. Demons were capable of kindness, but only as a means to an end. Just because she had a temporary moment of pity, a transitory nanosecond of feeling for him, didn’t change what his true nature and purpose were. And, besides, she had vanquished him. If there was no use crying over spilt milk, there was certainly no good fretting over an exploded demon.
The waitress returned with the drinks, breaking their conversation. Blondie delicately set two steins in front of the men, but almost dropped the iced tea she assumed was Riona’s in the witch’s lap. A parting wink at Dee, and she was off without an apology.
“What the heck is her deal?” Riona asked as she patted away a few splashes of tea from her shirt. Marc used the distraction to exchange Riona’s beer for his tea.
Dee grabbed a napkin to wipe a few drips from the table. “She probably thinks you’re with me, since, you know, you’re with me. She’s just jealous.”
Marc swigged his tea, swallowing loudly. “Yup.”
Riona, however, felt a pang of unease. “There was something weird about Jerry. He just seemed to give up. Not like him, y’know? He’s so damned confrontational on everything. I wanted TV, he wanted to go to a movie. He wanted Chinese, I wanted steak. He wanted to be on top when I wanted…”
She paused while Marc’s eyes looked for anything else in the room and Dee’s seemed concerned with anything but.
“Well, anyways,” Riona resumed, “like I said, confrontational. I don’t get why he’d suddenly change like that.”