“Well, that’s good. I’ve been wondering about you.” Then she glanced at me sharply. “And Heven and Sam, of course.”
I nodded around bites. “Speaking of, I really have to go. I was doing something for them… trying to find out information when I got hurt.” Her serene nature might make me feel better, but that didn’t mean the thunderstorm of feelings wasn’t still churning somewhere inside me. Plus, I really did want to know where Beelzebub was.
“Hey, do you happen to know what day it is?” I asked Ana, trying to calculate in my head. But since I seemed to lose one, I was a little behind.
She nodded. “It’s October thirty-first.”
“Halloween,” I murmured.
She nodded again.
I uttered a curse and set the tray of food aside and pushed back the covers, getting out of the bed. Then I froze. I looked down and expelled a breath of air. I was wearing a pair of boxer briefs. Thank God. I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to wear them this morning, but I was sure glad I did.
I would surely have blinded her innocent eyes.
I smirked at the thought.
I looked around, trying to see if any of my clothes were left. Ana noticed and went across the room to get a neatly folded stack and bring it over to me. “They were a mess, but I managed to clean them up,”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling guilty for reasons I couldn’t name. I began pulling on the cargo pants and long-sleeved T-shirt and she went back to pick up the tray. “You seem upset about today’s date.”
“It’s Heven’s birthday.”
“Oh! That sounds like fun!”
I had a feeling Heven was thinking different, but I didn’t really want to drag Ana into all that darkness. It was a place she didn’t belong.
“Yeah. They’re having a party for her and I need to go.”
“Of course you should be there.” Ana agreed. “Will there be dancing at the party?”
I thought about Kimber then. I have no idea why. Probably because she was the one having the party. “I’m sure.”
“I love to dance.” She swayed a little on her feet and smiled.
How lonely it must be for her to be here day after day, year after year with no one but herself for company.
My stomach clenched a little and I pulled the rest of my clothes on, found my shoes, and shoved my feet into them.
Then I turned to Ana. I looked at the bed with the rumpled sheets. I looked at the bowl of water she used to clean me. No one had ever taken care of me like this before.
“What is it?” Ana asked, setting down the tray and coming toward me.
“I don’t know how to thank you for what you did,” I said honestly, not trying to hide my feelings behind a joke. “If it wasn’t for you, I might still be in that ocean.”
“Well, that was the Devourer who pulled you out, not me.”
“Right.” It was so odd to think of that dragon as anything other than a pest. “But you did all this.” I motioned at the bed.
“You don’t have to thank me,” she said, and I knew she meant the words.
“Can I come back? To see you, I mean.”
“Will you bring me a box of those chocolate things I like?”
I grinned. “You got it.”
“Tell Heven I said happy birthday.”
I went to the door, but hesitated, knowing I had to go, but not really wanting to. Before I could think too much about it, I closed the distance between us and pulled her against me, wrapping my arms around her and fitting her face in the crook of my neck. She wound her arms around my waist and hugged me back and we stood like that until I could hear the clock ticking inside my head.
Then I pulled back and walked away. I didn’t turn or look back. I wanted to. And that’s exactly why I didn’t.
When I came out of the mouth of the Devourer’s cave, he was there, almost like he was waiting for me.
“I’m not really sure why you would’ve done that for me,” I told him.
He blew some hot air out of his nostrils. It smelled, but I didn’t even crack a joke. Man, I was going soft.
“This definitely deserves some Snickers next time I see you.”
I have no clue if he understood what I said, but he offered me his back and I climbed on. I wasn’t exactly in a hurry to get back into that water. This time around, riding him was a lot smoother and I realized the last time he was just being a pain acting the way he was. A few minutes later he touched down where my Jeep was parked.
I jumped off his back and looked at the dragon. His nose was covered in bright blue feathers. I reached out and gave them a pat. “Thanks, bud.”
He snorted again and flew away. I pointed the Jeep in the direction of my castle, but halfway there some demons flagged me down. It was the one of the demons I let out of the jar I found and the one I called Oscar. He looked like he lived in a garbage can at one point so I thought the name fit.
I stopped the Jeep and looked out the window. “What?”
“We’ve been searching for you,” Oscar said.
“You found me,” I replied.
“We have news.”
“I ain’t getting any younger over here.”
“Rumor is Beelzebub was banished.”
“Banished?” I echoed. “By who?” But then the answer hit me. There was only one dude with enough badass that could do that.
“Him,” Oscar whispered and the other nameless jar demon nodded. Maybe I would call him Jarhead.
“So where did he get banished to?”
“Earth,” Jarhead replied.
“Shit!” I yelled and hit the gas, leaving Oscar and Jarhead in my dust.
When the demons were no longer in sight, I stopped the Jeep, parked, and dug one of the marbles out of my backpack. The whole time I searched, the story Gran told us about how Beelzebub tried to kidnap Heven on her birthday—on Halloween—kept running through my head.
He was unleashed from the cell.
He was angry at Heven.
He was banished to Earth.
Heven was on Earth.
Today was Halloween.
I busted open a portal and jumped through, hoping I could get there in time to warn them, hoping I wasn’t too late.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam
“I can’t believe I let her talk me into this,” Heven groaned as she glanced out the window at the sinking autumn sun.
I smiled.
“And it’s, like, freezing outside.” She went on.
“Maybe she’ll have marshmallows to roast,” I said, thinking of the last party we went to at Kimber’s house on the lake. Except last time it was her birthday; tonight it was Heven’s.