“I don’t have to do anything.” His reply was unyielding and stiff as his big body began to shimmer, pieces of him falling away only to reappear.
What. The. Fuck? She fought her surprise and confusion and focused. “You do, too. Now quit playing Sir Lancelot and hit it.”
“Nope.”
Delaney waved a finger up at him. “Damn it, Clyde Atwell—I’ll yank that cord so fast you won’t have time to say banana Slurpee. Then I’ll drag your ass kicking and screaming into the light. Don’t you even think for a minute I won’t.”
His look dared her. “Try it.”
Oh, no, he di’n’t. “Argh! I’ll be fine, Clyde. You wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for me. This goes back fifteen years—this is my fault. Please, just let me make it right by getting you where you should be.”
He began to move closer to her again, completely unaware that he was literally disappearing before her eyes. “I wouldn’t have lived without Vincent’s heart. I’d like to think that the fact that I lived was a good thing—not bad. And I wouldn’t have known there was a mess to begin with or found out where I was—where my body was—if it wasn’t for you, Delaney. And if I weren’t in this mess, I’d be in another one. I was determined to get out of Hell. Clyve’s assignment provided me the opportunity. That you were a part of that is coincidence. Plain and simple.”
“Technicalities, Atwell, and enough with them. Now quit with the Neanderthal crap and prepare for the light.” Delaney made a move toward his prone body on the hospital bed, preparing to do what needed to be done.
To make what she’d done all those years ago right.
Yet Clyde was right behind her, whirling her around to face him. His nostrils flared, his eyes shot flames of determination.
As for his right arm, well, that was so close to missing from his body it could have been on the back of a milk carton. “I said no, Delaney, and I meant no. If you touch that cord I’ll haunt you into your afterlife. Clear?”
Her chest tightened and convulsed. Crap, he was so damned hot when he was demanding, it made her stomach flutter. But she was just as determined. “Let me go or I’ll—”
“What? Wrestle me? Did you remember the prism?”
Her eyes narrowed. “You cocky pain in my ass. You have some set of nads threatening me, demon. I’ll—”
“Clyde! Get the fuck away from there!” Marcella yelled, skidding into the room on her high heels, slipping and sliding to a halt in front of Clyde.
Both Clyde and Delaney whipped around in unison to find Marcella, her beautiful features slathered in fear. “Don’t touch that!”
Delaney instantly backed away. “What’s going on?”
Marcella’s chest heaved up and down as though she’d been running. “Two words. Lucifer’s coming!” she gasped out.
Clyde glanced in Delaney’s direction, his eyes wary, his left ear missing. “At my signal, unleash Hell,” he muttered.
Delaney gulped and nodded, struck by how crazy it was to actually remember the line Clyde had just quoted in the midst of this madness. “Gladiator—Russell Crowe . . .”
Because certainly, Hell was going to be unleashed.
twenty-one
“I need you two to open up your ears and pay very close attention,” Marcella ordered. “First, Clyde—get away from your body. Now!” she roared in command.
Clyde backed away from the bed, confusion clearly a close companion with his uncertainty.
Marcella gripped Delaney’s arm. “Listen to me—we got big trouble, chica. No matter what, we cannot let Clyde’s soul get back into his body before we’re sure his body’s dead. Understood?”
Delaney gaped at her. In, out. In, out. For the love of—pick one. “I thought we had to ship Clyde off—you know, free Willy, blah, blah, blah. The only way to do that is to unplug him, Marcella. What the fuck is going on?”
Her mouth set in a thin line of determination. “Don’t say another word—just listen. We got beeg . . . er, big trouble. That fucking contract—the one with Vincent and his father? It’s connected to you, D, because you’re Vincent’s half sister. When Lucifer struck the deal with Vincent’s father, Richard, this Richard was one smart cookie. He had a clause in the contract: if anything should happen to either him or Vincent, the power he had, that you now have, would be passed on to any living relative—forever. How he got that past Lucifer is more mysterious than Area 51. But that’s why you began to see ghosts—it had shit to do with the horned one and being good and pissed off. You see ghosts because of that freak Vinny. When he died, this ability to talk to the dead was passed on to you.”