Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

I watch Beverly drive away, waving as she reaches the end of the driveway. I then realize I've left my child alone with a demon and rush back inside.

"What do you do all day?" I hear Bella ask as I enter the kitchen. She's sitting on the floor, looking up at Damon expectantly. Dash and Mr. Darcy are sitting near her, looking up at him as well. It's like they are all waiting for him to tell them a story. Damon is standing there with his arms crossed, looking less than impressed at his raptured audience.

"What do you mean?" Damon asks Bella.

"Just what I said. What do demons do all day?"

"We are very busy doing things a mere human child would not understand."

"That boring, huh?" she says, shaking her head.

"What?" Damon roars. "I am not boring. I am terrifying!" His eyes blaze and waves of heat radiate from his head. Dash whines and Mr. Darcy runs behind me. Even I take a step back, eyeing my block of knives on the counter. Though, I suppose they wouldn't do much good against a demon.

"Okay," Bella says, getting up and stretching. "I'm going to go read," she tells me.

"Oh, okay." Wow, she really must be bored if she'd rather go read than learn more about the demon in our kitchen. She picks up Dash, and Mr. Darcy follows them upstairs to her room.

"Why is she not afraid of me?" Damon asks me.

I sigh and head to the living room. "Beverly said you weren't a threat to us." He follows me as I flop onto the couch. He takes a seat in a chair across the room. "And the reason you aren't a threat is because a ten-year-old kid trapped you. No offense, but you must not be very powerful."

"Every offense taken!" he says. "A child cannot defeat me!"

"A child did," I say, letting my annoyance show. "And not a very powerful one at that. How did you even let that happen?"

Damon grunts. "I didn't know a witch would be here. I let my guard down."

"What did you know about me before you arrived?"

"The Dark Lord only told me that a human woman was to be possessed and tortured. I don't know why or who asked that it be done."

A shiver runs down my back. "The Dark Lord. You mean…Satan?"

Damon scoffs. "He is far more than some Disney villain from a children's fairy story."

I shake my head. "That's not comforting."

"It wasn't meant to be."

I lean back in my seat and put a pillow on my lap. As if a bunch of stuffing could protect me if Damon suddenly found the will to attack me. "Anyway… Look, I don't want you here anymore than you want to be here. We should work together to figure this out."

I notice movement behind Damon's chair and see Mr. Darcy curiously investigating our guest, his little nose working furiously to figure out if Damon is friend or foe. I snap my fingers to summon the cat to me. Instead, Mr. Darcy jumps onto the edge of the chair and slips onto Damon's lap. The cat curls up and lays down, purring. Damon strokes the cat's long fur.

"You made a friend," I say.

"Cats find comfort in dark spaces," Damon says. "Besides, my kind have no reason to hurt an animal."

"Don't you usually require, like, animal sacrifices?" I say.

"We require blood," he says coldly. "Spilled blood signifies the seriousness of the bond between humans and demons. It is not our fault if humans would rather spill the blood of an innocent animal than their own."

His words make me shudder. I hear Dash whining at the back door to be let out.

"I'll be right back," I say, going to let her out.

I follow Dash out to the backyard, rubbing warmth into my arms. What am I going to do? I can't have a demon in my house. I have to get rid of him. But I have no idea how. I'll have to reiterate to Bella how thankful I am that she stopped Damon from…doing whatever he was sent here to do to me. I just can't believe someone sent him to curse me, or possess me, or whatever. Anyone who knows me knows how miserable I am. How much I torture myself over my husband's death. And if something happened to me, who would take care of Bella? I mean, yeah, she has grandparents on both sides to help out, but it's not the same as having your parent in your life. Hurting me hurts Bella. So, whoever sent Damon here must not care about Bella. But I still can't imagine who would want to hurt me.

I follow Dash back into the house and see Damon standing by the fireplace. He is holding one of our family pictures.

"Don't touch that!" I say more loudly than I meant to. Still, I storm over to Damon and take the frame from his hand. Damon seems surprised at my anger. I practically push him out of the way as I put the picture back on the mantle.

"Sorry," Damon says. "I was just looking."

"Look with your eyes, not your hands," I say. "Unless… Well, maybe you do have eyes in your hands in your natural form."

Damon chuckles. "I was just noticing that you have many pictures of this man, but I don't see him here."

"No," I say, straightening the frame. "He's gone."

"But not divorced," he says, more to himself than to me. "Otherwise, his pictures would not hold such pride of place. Your man is dead."

I feel a lump rise in my throat. It has been a long time since someone has stated that fact to me so plainly. I have to turn away from Damon so he does not see the tears forming in my eyes. I clear my throat.

"Yeah. A long time ago."

"I am sorry to hear that."

I am surprised by his words. "What? Why?" I ask, turning back to look at him.

"His death brings you great pain," he says. "You have my sympathy."

"No," I say, confused. "Why are you sorry. Why are you sympathizing with me? You are a demon. Don't you, like, rejoice at my pain."

He shakes his head and returns to his chair. "You lack understanding of my kind. I might do things you would consider bad or evil as my job, but that does not mean I am an evil person. Your pain does not bring me joy."

I shake my head. "I don't understand. If you had possessed me, tortured me, would you not have enjoyed causing me pain?"

He shrugs. "Perhaps some aspects of it. But I did not choose this life, this job. I was created for it. It…it is rather complicated to explain to a human."

"I suppose it is," I say. I then realize how tired I am. I check my watch and see it is well past Bella's bedtime. "I need to put my daughter to bed and then try to get some sleep myself. Come on, I'll show you to the guest room."

"I don't sleep," he says.

"Oh, well, follow me anyway. I have no idea how long you are going to be here. It would be better if you had a space of your own to retreat to instead of just hanging out here in the living room."

"Space does not mean the same thing to me as it does to you," Damon says. Then he dissolves back into smoke and floats back into the cookie jar. I open the lid and look inside. I see he is a very tiny version of himself. He waves at me, and I wave back.

"Are you sure you are going to be okay in there?" I ask.

Damon snaps his finger and a little bedroom appears, complete with a flat-screen TV, magazines, and a bed. He kicks off his shoes and jumps on the bed, opening a magazine to read.

"Okay, good night, Damon."

"Good night, Tamzin," he says, his voice sounding normal despite his diminutive size.

I put the lid on the cookie jar and place it on the counter. I'm halfway up the stairs, Dash at my heels, when I feel…an urgency. I can't leave the jar downstairs. I need it with me. I go back, grab the jar, and take it upstairs with me. I put it on my dresser and then go check on Bella.

Bella has already fallen asleep, her bedside lamp still on and a book on her lap. Mr. Darcy is curled up on her bed.

"Silly girl," I whisper as I put Bella under her covers and turn off the light. She's still wearing her clothes instead of her pajamas, but I don't want to wake her all the way up by making her change, so I just let her sleep in her clothes. It's been a crazy day. I wonder how she is sleeping so soundly when there is a demon in the house. But she didn't seem unnerved by him at all. Oh, to have the innocence of a child.

I retreat to my room, putting my phone on its charger. Then I go to my bathroom for my nighttime routine. When I get to my medications, I hesitate. I usually take a sleeping pill. I absolutely cannot sleep without it. But there is a demon in my house. Yeah, he doesn't seem dangerous at the moment, but can I really trust a demon? I don't know. I feel like I need to be alert in case of an emergency. But if I don't sleep, I know I will be miserable tomorrow. I settle on half a pill. Hopefully it will be enough to get to me to sleep, but not so soundly that I won't wake up if there is an emergency.

I change into my pajamas and sit on the edge of my bed, looking at the cookie jar. It feels so weird to have him there. Can he see me? Can he hear me?

"D…Damon?" I call out softly.

"Yes?" he asks.

"Oh, sorry. Just…still making sure you were there, I guess."

"I'm here."

"Can you see me?"

The top of the cookie jar props open and I see two red, glowing eyes look at me. "I can now."

"Okay," I say. "Stop. That's totally creepy."

The eyes disappear and the top of the jar closes again. I pick up the jar and move down the hallway to the guest room. I flip on the light and see cobwebs hanging from the ceiling fan. Okay, we haven't had guests in a while. I'll need to actually clean this room tomorrow.

I put the jar on the empty dresser. "I know you don't need a whole room to yourself, but I do," I say.

"Suit yourself," Damon says.

I nod definitively and then leave the room, turning off the light and closing the door behind me. When I get to my room, it feels weird being alone. I kind of wish Bella had fallen asleep in my bed. She does that sometimes, though not as often as she used to. My therapist said that it wasn't healthy for us to sleep together so much. It created too much codependency. So she usually sleeps in her own bed nowadays. I know it's best for her, but I miss her.

Though, tonight, I guess I'm missing Damon. Which is weird, and kind of freaky. But I guess it's the bonding spell. Maybe it would have been better to keep his cookie jar in my room. But I'm not going to go get him now. I'll just do my best to get some sleep tonight. Maybe tomorrow I'll bring him back in here.

Ugh, I can't believe I'm feeling so tortured about letting a demon sleep in my room. Maybe I really am cursed after all.