Rylie Cruz 3 - How to Date a Demon (20 page)

After what seemed like an eternity,
Derek nodded. “Okay. Well, please make yourself at home.” He
exchanged a glance with me and smiled.

His gesture didn’t seem sincere
though.

“
Thank you,” Cole said, as
if we really belonged at the party.

“
It was nice to meet you. If
you’ll excuse me,” Derek said with a fake grin and a
nod.

He walked off and approached a man on
the other side of the room. They began speaking and looking in our
direction. I shifted from foot to foot. If I needed to run, I’d
leave Cole’s butt there. He’d only slow me down. He could take care
of himself anyway. After all, he was supposed to be the big bad
demon hunter.

“
Uh-oh. It’s time for us to
get out of here,” I said.

Cole nodded. Thankfully, he didn’t
argue with me on this one.

“
We’re lucky we didn’t get
our asses kicked,” Cole said as we weaved through the maze of
people. “I can’t believe we made it this long.”

When we reached the foyer, I said,
“But we still haven’t found the guy from the bar.”

He’d virtually disappeared the moment
he had slipped behind the closed door. I guessed it was no surprise
though with all the people. But still, we hadn’t been that far
behind him when we entered the house. I figured he’d be one of the
first people we saw.

“
There’s no time to find him
now,” Cole said, gesturing for me to start moving again.

We hurried for the door, but that was
when I spotted the guy with the ring who we’d followed here in the
first place. Where had he been all this time? We had to see where
he was going or what he was doing. We couldn’t leave
now.

“
There he is.” I nudged Cole
with my elbow.

The man was walking up the large
staircase.

“
Come on.” I motioned for
Cole to follow me up the stairs.

Cole hesitated, but ultimately
followed. “I don’t know about this,” he whispered. “I can’t
guarantee that I can protect you if something happens. There are a
lot of people here and just one of me.”

I snorted. “Thanks, but I think I can
handle myself. Besides, Derek Spencer didn’t see us come up here.
He probably thinks we left.”

I said I could handle myself, but I’d
be lying if I said I wasn’t a little afraid. It was only natural to
feel that way. With any luck I’d be able to protect myself if I had
to.

“
If you say so.” He
shrugged.

How to Date a Demon, Rule
#22

Talk of the devil and he is
bound to appear.

We made our way to the top of the
staircase. There must have been at least seven bedrooms on the
second floor. I could have easily gotten lost. The music spilled up
from downstairs, but upstairs was still eerily silent. The man
disappeared down the hall. The upstairs was just as spacious as the
downstairs. The hallway seemed to go on forever. Hardwood floors
clicked under our feet, so I tried to tiptoe.

“
What now, genius? We’ve
lost him,” I whispered, praying no one heard us.

“
We’ll find him,” Cole
whispered.

“
Let’s check every room,” I
said, motioning over my shoulder as I headed down the
hall.

“
We can’t just go opening up
every door we see to find him.” His tone grew more
exasperated.

“
Who says we can’t?” I
turned to face him.

“
I say we can’t. Like I
said, I don’t know that I can protect your ass. If we get in a
fight, I’ll kind of have my hands full.” He gestured toward the
bottom floor.

“
And like I said, I can
handle myself.” I continued down the hallway.

“
You’re five foot two, one
hundred fifteen pounds, tops. You may be a werewolf, but that guy
will pulverize you,” Cole responded from over my
shoulder.

My skin crawled with his mocking. I
leaned in and listened for noise from behind a couple doors but
heard nothing. All the doors were closed but one. I motioned with a
tilt of my head toward the room. Cole shook his head and mouthed,
“No way.” Yeah, right, like I was going to listen to him. We’d come
this far, there was no turning back now.

I stepped over to the door. After
listening for noise and hearing nothing, I braced myself and eased
the door open a couple inches. No one was in the room, so I pushed
the door open even further. The coast was clear.

When we stepped into the room, I
scanned the space to double-check that no one was there. So far we
were still safe. The room was tastefully done in shades of light
blue and white. The soft night breeze blew the sheer white curtains
gently away from the windows. The most luxurious-looking white
comforter graced the bed’s top, with floral pillows at the head of
the massive, hand-carved cherry headboard. An exquisite rug rested
on the floor by the foot of the bed.

Finally I closed my gaping mouth and
eased over to the closet and peered inside. No one there either.
After checking under the bed to see if anyone was hiding, I exhaled
and tried to calm my nerves. At least we were alone in the room. I
moved a few steps across the floor toward the window and stopped in
my tracks. Cole bumped into my back.

“
What is it?” he
asked.

I pointed to the floor. The symbol
that had been on Jennifer’s ring and the ring of the guy we were
following was painted onto the hardwood floor in the middle of the
room.

“
Look,” I said in a shaky
voice. “It’s the symbol. That’s the one on Jennifer’s ring and the
other guy’s too. Why is the symbol painted on the
floor?”

Cole looked at me blankly.

“
What?” I asked. “I think
that’s a legitimate question. Is it like for worshipping Satan or
something?”

His answered with a little nod, then
said, “Or something.”

A circle was painted around the symbol
in black. I stepped closer to the image. Just as I placed my foot
near the boundary, Cole pulled me back.

“
I wouldn’t go any closer if
I were you.”

“
Why? Will the demons come
to get me?” I teased.

“
Yes.” He looked be straight
in the eyes.

I was making light of the situation to
try to elevate my fear. I was stronger than that though. This was
no time to kid around.

“
What does the thing mean?”
I asked, pointing at the depiction on the floor.

His face turned pale. “I didn’t know
that was the symbol on the ring.”

The look on Cole’s face told me this
wasn’t good.

“
What does it mean?” I asked
in a panic.

“
I don’t know the exact
meaning, but I can tell you it isn’t good. It is a demonic symbol.
Her having that ring is putting her life in serious
danger.”

That wasn’t the news I was hoping to
hear. A sound came from in the hallway. The clomp-clomp of
someone’s boots.

“
Someone is coming,” I
whispered.

“
We have to get out of this
house. We shouldn’t have come up here in the first place,” he
snapped.

“
Then we wouldn’t have seen
that.” I gestured over my shoulder.

The footfalls continued down the hall
toward our direction, then stopped nearby. Just when I didn’t think
I could handle it anymore, the person began walking again—the sound
becoming louder and then finally easing away.

We hid behind the door, holding our
breath as the footsteps moved past the door, then ended completely.
Thank goodness. Now we just had to slip back down the stairs
without anyone catching us. But what about the guy with the ring? I
really wanted to find him before we left. He was the key to
Jennifer. If I left without talking to him, I might never find
Jennifer. Not that the guy would talk to me. But maybe I could find
Jennifer if I followed him.

The room was completely silent, only
the sound of our breathing. Did Cole have to stand so close? The
silence was broken by the sound of my ringtone blaring loudly
across the room. I yanked the phone from my pocket. My cheeks
burned as I looked at Cole. I glanced down and saw that it was
Jack’s number. I couldn’t answer now. Despite the fact that someone
might hear me talking, I also couldn’t explain to Jack what I was
doing right now. I sent the call to voice mail then turned my phone
on vibrate. Cole shook his head and looked at me with a
condescending smirk.

After another couple seconds, we
slipped out into the hallway. I heard my heartbeat thumping loudly
in my ears. One wrong move and we might be discovered. Cole grabbed
my hand and pulled be toward the staircase. I wanted to object, but
it would just take up precious minutes. Did he get manicures? Why
were his hands so freakin’ soft? He was a demon hunter, for Pete’s
sake. Weren’t his hands supposed to be scaly or
something?

I rushed down the stairs hand-in-hand
with Cole. Thank goodness Jack couldn’t see me. This would be a
hard situation to explain. I tried my best not to slip on the
stairs. That was the last thing I needed: to land face first at the
bottom. That would be a little obvious to the crowd then. We
already looked out of place. I pulled my hand from Cole’s. There
was no reason for him to still be holding on to me.

When we got to the bottom of the
steps, I spotted the guy. But he wasn’t alone. Jennifer was with
him. She’d changed her outfit since I last saw here. This time she
had on a strapless long red gown with a slit all the way up her
thigh. Her blonde tresses flowed in waves down her back.

I couldn’t yell out to her. If I did,
everyone would notice us. And that would be a very dangerous thing.
I pulled on Cole’s arm.

“
There she is.” I pointed.
“Jennifer is with the guy.”

What was the ring, some kind of
promise ring? Why were they both wearing it? Jennifer and the guy
walked right out the front door into the night air. She’d never
even noticed me. If this guy harmed Jennifer I’d have his head on a
stick.

We zigzagged through the crowd,
getting some very angry looks. I accidentally knocked over
someone’s drink. I had to make it to Jennifer before she was gone
for good.

“
Step up the pace,” I said
over my shoulder. “For a demon hunter you sure are
slow.”

“
No, you are just freakishly
fast. Have you ever thought about competing in the Olympics?” he
asked between pants.

“
No, it would be completely
unfair to everyone else,” I said as I pushed through the front
door.

When we rushed outside, I stopped on
the front porch and looked around. Strangely, no one else was out
there but us. Music still came from the house, but otherwise the
street was silent. That was when I spotted Jennifer and her new
friend as they got into his car.

“
Jennifer, stop,” I yelled,
waving my arms.

They pulled away from the curb. She
didn’t look as if she was in distress. Since she had a smile
plastered on her face, it looked as if she’d gone willingly with
him. I watched as the taillights faded into the night. I felt
deflated.

“
Come on. We have to follow
them,” I said.

“
They are in a car. I know
you can run fast, but I really don’t think you can run that fast.
And I sure as hell know that I can’t.” He glanced back at the house
then looked down at his watch.

I shook my head. “No, silly, I mean we
have to get my car and follow them.”

“
There is no way we can get
your car and then follow them. We won’t know which way they went.”
He looked back over his shoulder again.

He did have a point.

“
We’ll have to go back to my
apartment,” I said, marching through the gate and onto the
sidewalk. “Are you coming with me?”

Cole hurried and caught up to me, but
I didn’t glance over at him. There was nothing I wanted to say at
the moment. Thankfully, Cole didn’t say much as we retraced our
path back to my building. The last thing I needed was more useless
commentary from him. Jennifer had been right under our noses and
we’d let her slip away.

Clouds were moving in and it looked
like it would rain soon. A terrible day had turned into an even
worse evening.

When we rushed toward the apartment
steps, Lily was standing in front of the door.

“
Thank goodness you are
here, she said. “I need you to help me with the dinner menu. Should
we go with the filet mignon or just do ribs and let everyone chow
down?” She looked at me with the most innocent little
eyes.

She knew I was stressed and she was
still yanking my chain. “Lily, I am going to shove a rib up
your…”

Lily lunged forward and Cole stopped
her before she reached me. “Ladies, ladies, ladies. Can we deal
with this stuff later? Now listen, gorgeous.”

Lily glared at him.

“
You have beautiful eyes,”
he said while still holding her arms.

She giggled. “Thanks.”

I rolled my eyes.