“Really? You’re going to fall back on grad school psychobabble?” His voice dripped with amusement. “I expected better from you. Can you honestly tell me, Simon, that when you look into de Silva’s big brown telenovela eyes, you never see any shadows there?”
“No. No, of course I do, sometimes, because he’s human, and human beings aren’t happy one hundred percent of the time.”
“Those aren’t the kind of shadows I’m talking about, and you know it.”
I realized I was squeezing my phone so hard an ugly red impression of its hard plastic casing had sunk into my skin. I had to switch hands.
Because he was right. I did see occasional glimpses of darkness in Jesse’s eyes . . . and not sadness, either.
And while I hadn’t been lying when I’d told Paul about Jesse’s desire to help heal the sick and most downtrodden of our society—it was an integral part of his personality—I did worry sometimes that the reason Jesse fought so desperately against death when he saw it coming for his weakest patients was that he feared it was also coming back for him . . .
Or, worse, that there was still a part of it inside him.
If what the Book of the Dead said was true, and Paul really did tear down 99 Pine Crest Road, there was no telling what that destruction might unleash.
And it didn’t seem likely we could count on yet another miracle to save us. A person is only given so many miracles in a lifetime, and it felt like Jesse and I had received more than our fair share.
If miracles even exist. Which I’m not saying they do.
As if he’d once again sensed what I was thinking, Paul chuckled. “See what I mean, Simon? You can take the boy out of the darkness, but you can’t take the darkness out of the boy.”
“Fine,” I said. “What do you want from me, exactly, in order to keep you from tearing down my house and releasing the Curse of the Papyrus, or whatever it is? Forgiveness? Great. I forgive you. Will you go now and leave me alone?”
“No, but thanks for the offer,” Paul said, smooth as silk. “And it’s called the Curse of the Dead. There’s no such thing as the Curse of the Papyrus. Curses are written on papyrus. They’re not—”
“Just tell me what you want, Paul.”
“I told you what I want. Another chance.”
“You’re going to have to elaborate. Another chance at what?”
“You. One night. If I can’t win you over from de Silva in one night, I’m not worthy of the name Slater.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
If I hadn’t felt so sick to my stomach, I’d have laughed. I tried not to let my conflicting feelings—scorn, fear, confusion—show in my voice. Paul fed off feelings the way black holes fed off stars.
“I’m not, actually,” he said. “I told you, it’s never a good idea to joke when the forces of evil are involved.”
“Paul. First of all, you can’t win back something you never had.”
“Suze, where is this coming from? I really thought you and I had something once. Are you honestly trying to tell me it was all in my head? Because I’ve had a lot of time to think it over, and I have to say, I don’t agree.”
“Second of all, I’m engaged. That means I’m off the market. And even if I wasn’t, threatening to tear down a multimillion-dollar house and release some kind of evil spirit that may or may not live inside my boyfriend is beneath even—”
He cut me off. “What do I care if you’re engaged? If Hector doesn’t put enough value on your relationship to bother consummating it”—Paul put an unpleasantly rolled trill on the second syllable of Jesse’s given name—“which I know he doesn’t, you’re still fair game as far as I’m concerned.”
“Wait.” I could hardly believe my ears. “That isn’t fair. Jesse’s Roman Catholic. Those are his beliefs.”
“And you and I are non-believers,” Paul pointed out. “So I don’t understand why you’d want to be with a guy who believes that—”
“I never said I was a non-believer. I believe in facts. And the fact is, I want to be with Jesse because he makes me feel like a better person than I suspect I actually am.”
There was a momentary silence from the other end of the phone. For a second or two I thought I might actually have gotten through to him, made him see that what he was doing was wrong. Paul did have some goodness in him—I knew, because I’d seen it in action once or twice. Even complete monsters can have one or two likable characteristics. Hitler liked dogs, for instance.
But unfortunately the good part of Paul was buried beneath so much narcissism and greed, it hardly ever got a chance to show itself, and now was no exception.
“Wow, Simon, that was a real Hallmark moment,” he snarked. “You know I could make you feel good—”
“Well, you’ve gotten off to an excellent start by threatening to turn my fiancé into a demon.”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, baby. I’m not the bad guy here. If I weren’t the one tearing down your house, it was going to be some other filthy-rich real-estate developer.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“What the hell, Simon? You should be grateful to me. I’m trying to do you a solid. Where is all this hostility coming from?”