“No, what?”
“It’s like going through one of those corn mazes at Halloween. You know, the ones you go to to humor your stupid college friends, but you really just want to get the fuck out of because it’s time wasted that you could have spent having bamboo stuck under your nails—yet you keep wandering in and out of rows of corn because you’re lost and you have no choice but to keep wandering aimlessly ’cause if you don’t, you’ll never frickin’ get to the end?”
“I’ve never been in a corn maze, so I can’t say,” he said with all seriousness.
Delaney fought back the scream she wanted to shout. Instead, she stuffed her fist in her mouth while she composed herself. “That’s not the point! The point is, you take forever to get to it—the point, that is—and when you do, it makes no sense to me at all. How did you go from handing me some information about me directly from Hell to being my boyfriend?” Because for real, if that was all it took . . .
Clyde’s sigh was one of a man dealing with a small child—fighting to keep his patience, but coming close to taking her Fruit Roll-Up away. “The man who just came into your store was a demon—one you didn’t recognize. He was checking up on me, and I guarantee it’ll happen again. The worst part of this assignment was what Clyve had to do to get you to agree to sign a contract with the devil.”
There was more. Foreboding skittered along her spine. “I thought the plan was to get me to hack a vein.”
Clyde grimaced. “It was how he was going to do it that’s the most fucked-up part in all of this, and excuse my foul language, but that’s just what it is—fucked up. And it’s also why I kissed you.”
Her stomach turned, tying her intestines into knots. Dread called her name to stop, but she’d come this far, she may as well not stop now. “How was he going to do it?”
“By making you become romantically involved with him.”
Ludicrous, that’s what that notion was. “And he was going to do that how? Even if I’m a little off my game today, and I missed this demon, I know a malicious entity. I can feel them. So how did he plan to make me hot for him when I get the skeeves just breathing the same air?”
Clyde ran a hand over his short hair with an open hand. “I’m guessing there are much bigger fish to fry than the demons you’ve come across so far. Clyve was assigned to you because he’s capable of some huge deceit, and his experience with those who possess a sixth sense, or are mediums as you call yourself, is renowned in Hell. I’m guessing there are some demons that can get past this antenna of yours—you’ve just been lucky till now. Clyve was, for lack of a better word, a sociopath. A real prick without a conscience. He was made for an assignment like this, Delaney. Satan said to step up the game where you were concerned—he was doing that by sending Clyve in to win your trust, your heart. I was pretending to be Clyve when our demon spy dropped in. To do that I had to behave as though we were becoming romantically involved. He’ll go back to Hell and tell the level boss I’m right on track. That’s what we want.”
Sweet, fancy Moses. “So Clyve was supposed to be like some kind of love decoy?”
“Love. Or the promise of it.”
That stopped her cold. It was the one thing she knew she might never achieve because of her ability to talk to people no one else could see. Love. Children. Cookies and milk. Crock-Pot dinners. Soccer games and tutus. And Satan wanted to mock her for it. Fucktard. “Okay. Give me the details and don’t stop until you’ve told me everything.”
Clyde’s face darkened, and that told her she wasn’t going to like hearing the details. He moved the chair, motioning her to sit. “Please, sit. I’m just going to get this all off my chest at once, okay? Do me a favor and don’t stop me until I have. It’s enough I’ve been carrying this shit around with me, feeling as crappy as I have about it, but I have to just say it—and then we’ll attack, okay?”