©2006 by Amy Webb
All Rights Reserved
No portion of this book may be reproduced—mechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopying—without written permission of the author.
The Devil Series:
Book one: The Devil’s Deal
Book two: The Devil’s Duty
Book three: The Devil’s Dilemma
ISBN 978-1-4116-8811-7
The Devil’s Dilemma
By
Amy J. Webb
For Randy and Eric
~Prologue~
Scott Madison peered into the bassinet and the eyes of his tiny newborn daughter, Abigail Rose, or, as his Uncle Roger had nicknamed her,
“How’s my little girl tonight, huh?” he murmured in a soft, reassuring voice. “Someone’s hungry and can’t wait until morning?” He placed the baby against his bare chest and rubbed her tiny back with a slow circular motion. He sighed as she snuggled against him, her head resting in the crook of his neck as she molded her body to his in a way that only babies can do.
Despite the fact that Abigail had occupied the nursery for almost three weeks, Scott still marveled at how light and soft she was. Barely nine pounds, she was just a bit heavier than the protective gear he wore for football games. She had an untidy mop of brown hair, pink cheeks and rosebud lips. The downy, hair-like substance all babies were born with still covered her shoulders, making her appear that much more vulnerable. When she cried, his heart ached. When she slept comfortably in his arms, he felt more at peace with the world than he could imagine. He was to be the shaper of her dreams, the molder of her future, the one who would teach her right and wrong and the beater of potential boyfriends with a sharp stick.
“You’re not going to have any boyfriends, are you, Abigail?” he asked. “You’re going to stay here with me forever. I’m going to teach you about football, Squirrel Nut Zippers and why the Boston Red Sox will never win a World Series. You’re not going to have time for pesky boys!” He sniffed as he kissed the little swirl of hair on the crown of her head. She smelled sweetly of baby shampoo and softness and sour milk “You’re going to be daddy’s little girl, right?”
Scott sat down in the large rocking chair next to the bassinet and picked up her bottle of formula. He adjusted Abigail’s position, so that her head rested in the crook of his arm, her face to his. He placed the nipple of the bottle to the baby’s lower lip and she eagerly began to suck. As he rocked her, the only sounds heard were the creak of the rocker and the sound of air bubbles in the bottle.
“I’m going to be a good daddy to you, sweetie. People have told me I won’t be able to do it, that I’m too young and immature to know how to be a good parent. They say that it’s only a matter of time before I fail you, but I promise not to let that happen, Abigail. I’m going to do right by you and your mama.” Scott continued to rock the little girl, his eyes growing heavy with fatigue. Within moments, father and child were asleep in the rocking chair and all was at peace in the world.
~1~
Spellman in
Business at the Sin City Bar and Gentleman’s Club was unusually slow for a Friday night. Despite the lousy weather and lack of a major sporting event on the television (factors which usually brought customers in droves), the bar was nearly empty. Those who depended on the male clientele for their paychecks were becoming worried at the lack of prospects.
“It looks like it’s going to be slow tonight, Melissa,” a lanky redhead commented as she tugged at her turquoise midriff top with one hand. “Debbie just left and told me she only had one customer all day.”
“Always the way, Monique! You know, the nights I need some good money it’s always dead in here! My landlord is threatening to change the locks on my apartment if I don’t pay the rent by tomorrow,” Melissa said in an exasperated voice. “Hey, what about him?” she asked, pointing to a small man sitting in a corner booth. “I didn’t notice him sitting there before. He looks so sad. Perhaps he needs cheering up!” She sat up a little straighter in her seat, hoping to get a better look at the potential prospect.
The man was quite short – not even five feet five inches tall, she suspected, and balding. He wore a grubby light blue corduroy jacket and the most disconsolate expression she had ever seen. However, Monique knew the man well. When in a good mood, he could be quite an enjoyable trick to turn. Lately, though, he had been cruel and more than a little off in the head.
For one thing, he refused to take off his shirt during sex. Monique learned not to question his motives behind that particular quirk the hard way: she once asked the obvious question and he ravaged so badly that she was out of commission for three days!
The other girls had been willing to forgive his actions; he had only done it the one time, but Monique was not as willing to forgive and forget; after all, the man had attacked her. Therefore, she was less than thrilled to see him back in the bar. “Oh, I saw him when he came in,” she said tersely, “but I refuse to service him. I’d rather go hungry. “He’s such a sleazy little bastard!”
“I don’t know about that,” Melissa commented as she picked up her screwdriver and downed it in two gulps. She adjusted the strap on her tight-fitting silver sequined halter-top. “He pays extremely well, though, for the amount of time he’s actually, you know, getting closer to God!” She uncrossed her legs. “As far as customers go, he’s one hell of a kisser!”
The girls around Melissa cupped their hands over their mouths and giggled knowingly. At one time or another, each of them had had the experience of conducting business with him.
“That’s not in dispute! To be honest, though, the man creeps me out! He loves to role-play and some of his scenarios are rather bizarre,” Monique said pointedly. “The last time I had the pleasure of entertaining him, he kept asking me, `Who’s your Dark Prince? ´and wanting me to whip him with a riding crop! Honestly, it was weird!”
Melissa pulled a lipstick out of her pocket and swiped some across her lips. “Then you don’t mind if I go and strike up a conversation, then? I’ve got to pay the rent and my kid needs a new pair of shoes. Perhaps our little friend is in a friendly mood tonight! Although,” she added with a knowing smile, “we all know that there’s not much that’s little about him!” The girls seated around her nodded knowingly.
“Go for it. Just don’t ever say I didn’t warn you,” Monique answered in a dismissive voice as she scanned the crowd for a more pleasing prospect.
Melissa gave her friend a wink and a nod. “Warning noted! Time to watch a pro in action, everyone!” Her seatmates tittered with laughter while Monique rolled her eyes and sighed.
Melissa shook her head at her picky co-worker as she stepped off her high barstool and sauntered towards the table, her target clearly in her sights. Money was money, in her opinion; as long as the weirdo wasn’t going to beat her up too badly, it was rather an easy way to keep her daughter in clothes. “The Little Worm” was sitting by himself in a corner of the bar nursing a bottle of Heineken. As she approached his table, he looked up and she gave him a thousand-watt smile as she winked suggestively at him. She leaned over the table and allowed the man a nice look at her cleavage. As she gestured to the empty seat next to him, she said in a rather seductive voice, “Room for me, soldier?”
“Not tonight, Melissa,” Simon Spellman answered in a flat voice. “I’m not feeling up to it.” He went back to staring at his bottle of beer.
Melissa sat down anyway. “Poor dear,” she purred in his ear, running fingers from one hand through his thin hair and placing a kiss on his cheek. “You look like you just lost your best friend!”
“Like you c-care,” Simon retorted without looking at her directly. He picked up his beer and took a large swig. He held the bottle up to the light and examined the contents: practically empty, it had only the tiniest dribble left. He slid it across the table, where it chinked against the other four bottles he had emptied in the last half-hour, two went crashing to the floor. He regarded his curvaceous seatmate with the glassy expression of someone who had perhaps imbibed more than he should have in such a short amount of time. “Do you get paid to sit around and g-goldbrick?” he asked. “You c-could make yourself useful, Melissa, and g-get me another drink.”
“Oh,” pouted Melissa, batting her eyelashes at Simon in a coquettish manner, “someone’s in a bad mood!” She placed her left hand on his upper thigh. “You’re too tense. Why don’t you and I go and blow off some steam?” she suggested, the hand on his inner thigh inching slowly upward until she found her intended target. “Hmmm?”
“I said NOT TONIGHT!” barked Simon, slapping her hand away.
Melissa sighed. The man was not feeling at all frisky tonight. Unless she could somehow cheer him up, it looked like her little girl would have to wait on those shoes. Any other prostitute might have given up at this point, but Melissa didn’t know the meaning of failure. She was a woman who regularly got what she wanted and she was the first to admit that she liked a challenge.
She raised one hand in the air and snapped her fingers. “Whom do I have to kill to get a drink around here?” she called to the bartender, who tossed her an unopened bottle of the swill. “Thanks, Sam!” Melissa caught the bottle in her left hand just before the projectile would have struck Simon squarely in the head.
“What’s the matter?” asked Melissa, her bow of a mouth fixed in a frown. “Did you lose your girl or something?” She held up the bottle of Heineken and dangled it provocatively before his eyes.
“You m-might say that,” Simon answered. He reached up to take the bottle from the woman. Before his fingers could wrap around the bottle, however, she pulled her tight shirt away from her body and placed the bottle inside it. It rested in an area that would be difficult for Simon to gain access to without being completely obscene.
“Melissa,” he warned, “Give me my bottle n-n-now!”
“Come and get it, soldier!” Melissa said with a shiver. Because of the temperature of the bottle, her skin broke out in gooseflesh; due to the tightness of her top, it wasn’t just her arms responding to the chill. Despite his low-spirited mood, Simon was impressed with the woman’s tenacity and various other attributes. His eyes strayed from her face for a second or two.
“So, why did you lose your girl?” Melissa asked as she rubbed his back with one hand. “Did you have a fight with her?”
“If only it was that easy. She wouldn’t leave her h-husband,” he replied. “I was s-so much better for her, but she didn’t see it that way.” He rubbed his eyes. “She meant everything to me.”
“The girl didn’t know what a good thing she had, if you ask me,” said Melissa as she swung her legs into Simon’s lap. “You’re the perfect man, soldier.” She giggled as Simon placed his hand underneath her top and proceeded to search slowly and methodically for the wayward bottle. His fingers lingered against her bare skin. She kissed him softly on the mouth. “So tell me, hon: what was she like?”
Simon sighed as he conjured up the image of the woman he loved: not too thin, not too chubby – the kind of woman that curved in all the right places, yet felt solid enough so that you didn’t think that by hugging her you might break her in half. Tessa Madison was a bit taller than he normally liked his women, but he didn’t hold that against her! However, because of what he had put her though over the past year, he knew that the woman hated him with a raw passion and always would.
“Tessa was – is – amazing. She’s s-stubborn, feisty, funny, an excellent cook and…” he trailed off, “…hopelessly in l-love with her h-husband.” He pulled the bottle of beer out of Melissa’s top and handed it to her. She opened it for him by balancing the cap on the edge of the table and sweeping her hand sharply down. Simon downed it completely in a matter of seconds.
“Too bad,” Melissa said, playing with a long strand of Simon’s straw-colored hair. “Well, you know what they say, soldier. If you love someone, set her free. If she comes back to you, she’s yours; but if she doesn’t, she was never yours to begin with.”
“You don’t understand!” Simon said, his voice rising quite a lot. “I-I can’t stop thinking about her. She was the b-best thing that ever happened to m-me!”
“I’d say she was a grade-A ass, soldier, if she didn’t want you!”
Simon’s face became scarlet with anger. “Don’t you EVER call Tessa Madison an ass!” Simon shouted, shoving Melissa away roughly. She landed on the floor just outside the booth.
Melissa got up slowly, rubbing her backside as she did so. The establishment had grown silent – all eyes focused on her.
“I’m sorry, hon,” she said in a syrupy voice. “I’ll go away now, if you want me to. I just saw that you looked sad and I thought maybe I could help you forget about her, at least for awhile.” She began to walk away, her round hips swaying temptingly. The music blared once again; the other customers turned their heads away and focused once again on their various conversations and dealings.
As Simon watched Melissa sashay toward another prospect, he suddenly had a thought: Melissa wasn’t exactly painful to look at. A decent fuck, and a willing one at that (admittedly for pay, but at this point he wasn’t a man with a lot to lose in the way of dignity) perhaps she could help him to forget the woman he truly longed for. Better yet...
“Melissa!” he cried. The girl turned around, her eyes wide and her smile wider.
“Yes?”
“I have a proposition for you.” Simon beckoned her back to the table and patted the seat next to him. She rejoined him eagerly.
“What can I do for you tonight?” she asked, running a hand through her hair.
“I want you tonight, Melissa. How long are you available?”
“You’ve got me for the whole night if you want me,” said Melissa, mentally adding up the tab on eight hours’ work.
“I’ll be requiring certain things for this night to p-proceed as I see fit,” he said. “Can I c-call you Tessa?”
“If you’ve got the means, you can call me Mother Theresa!”
“Excellent. How much for the night?”
Melissa giggled and made a large production of looking horrified; prostitution was illegal in their state, one could never tell when an undercover cop might be in the next booth, listening intently for an agreement on a price for sex. She couldn’t afford to be busted again.
“Sex for money? Did I hear you right? I’ll have you know I’m not that kind of girl, and
Spellman pulled a wad of hundreds out of the pocket of his jacket. He waved the money underneath a surprised Melissa’s nose, who was now thinking that not only would the landlord get his rent, her kid would also have shoes and perhaps a new coat and some jeans to boot!
“Will this cover it?” Spellman asked in a loud voice.
Melissa saw the cash and paled, forgetting to shush him. “Y-yes, soldier, that will cover the night in spades,” the prostitute breathed. She turned to her group of co-workers who were sitting at the bar and staring at Melissa with dropped jaws. Despite being thrown on her ass, the prostitute was going to turn her trick after all!
Spellman reached back into the pocket of the jacket he wore and pulled out a piece of black diaphanous material. He placed the item to his nose and inhaled. Ah, he thought, her scent still lingers...just a hint of jasmine.
With great reverence, he placed the treasure into Melissa’s outstretched hand. She shook out the carefully folded item and discovered that it was a lovely, expensive piece of lingerie. Where would the little soldier have come across such a beautiful item?
“Will you w-wear this for me?” Simon asked.
“I’ll wear anything for you, you sexy stud!” Melissa kissed him deeply, her tongue searching out his. He responded eagerly, his anticipation of seeing someone wearing the lingerie he had stolen from Tessa’s chest of drawers causing his arousal to spike to record levels. If he closed his eyes, it would be almost as if he were making love to Tessa.
Simon broke the kiss and grinned cryptically at Melissa, who, for the first time in her esteemed career, began to feel a little bit of anxiety. The man’s smile was strange and didn’t look entirely like that of a sane man. She pushed the feeling out of her mind with a slight shake of her head. She was going to make ten-thousand dollars for just eight hours’ work! That would teach Monique never to speak ill of the customers, she thought with a feeling of superiority.
Melissa glanced around, still wary of possible undercover officers, then leaned forward and regarded Simon with a serious expression. “I’m in room seventeen. Up the stairs, take a right. I’m the room on the left, right after the velvet Elvis. Sam at the bar’ll give you the key. I’ll have another drink down here, so what we’re about to do isn’t so obvious.”
Simon nodded. He’d done this many times before and knew the routine.
“Go into the bathroom and strip down to your socks for my inspection. Remember, if you’ve got a sore, you’re out the door, so make sure Mr. Happy’s clean before I look at it,” she added pointedly, staring at his crotch.
“It’s settled then,” Simon intoned. He looked up to the bartender and raised his index finger in the air.
“Check, please!”
***
If one were to peer over the gently rolling hills and through the trees surrounding the quiet, two-story house in the tiny
As commonplace as the home may have appeared, the family who occupied it was extraordinary by contrast: Scott and Tessa Madison and their brand-new daughter, Abigail Rose lived there. One was the media darling of the Loyalist movement, another was on the run from the law, wanted for aiding the Visionary Coalition, and the third occupant was the couple’s daughter, barely three weeks old.
The milieu inside the
“Are you certain that you’re all right?” Scott peeked into the nursery, a warm smile on his face. Every day since the morning that she had awakened from her coma, Scott marveled at his good fortune to have two women in his life. Wife and child were the center of his universe.
“I think I’m all right,” Tessa answered, grimacing with pain. She struggled to sit in the large rocking chair that Franklin Reid had given them several months ago. She held out her hands and awaited her baby.
“Here she is, all ready for mama,” Scott said as he gently placed the newborn in her mother’s arms.
He still could not get over the fact that he was a father. Abigail had stolen his heart from the first time he saw her in the delivery room of the local hospital. Despite the pointed lecture his uncle Roger had given to him weeks earlier about how terrible newborns looked, Scott couldn’t fathom how anyone could have thought his daughter ugly. Ever since Tessa and the child had come home from the hospital, six days after Abigail had been born; Scott was reluctant to give the little girl to anyone else, preferring to hold her for hours and hours each day! However, he was sensible enough to realize that Abigail needed something to eat and Tessa would be required to hold her, at least for a while.
He bent over the figure of his little angel and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. “I expect to have her back after the feeding, Mrs. Madison. She and I have a date with the newest copy of Sports Illustrated. We’re reading the special Top-25 Issue together.” Scott placed his finger close to his daughter’s hand so that she could grab it. He never tired of the feeling of her tiny fingers wrapping around his. “You’re going to play football, aren’t you sweetie?”
Tessa scowled. “I’m not going to have any success getting her to latch on with you distracting her like that! Goodness knows it’s hard enough!” She looked at her daughter lovingly as she stroked the baby’s soft pink cheek. “Hello, little one,” Tessa said as she pulled back her dressing gown to allow the infant access to her breast. Abigail latched on with a little help from her mother and soon was busy nursing.
Tessa gazed at her precious little girl. She secretly thought that the child was going to look like Scott – her brown hair was already unruly and stuck out everywhere, despite Tessa’s best efforts to smooth it down. She also had Scott’s long slender fingers.
“My daughter isn’t going to play such a rough sport! Abigail will learn to play the piano, and perhaps the viola.” Tessa smiled wickedly as she added, “I’m going to teach her my secrets of Scrabble success, so that I can have a competent challenger for a change.” Upon saying this, her eyes darkened a bit, as she remembered that at one time, not so long ago, she actually had one. She banished the thought from her mind as quickly as it came.
“That, my love, was a low blow!” Scott exclaimed. “I’ve gotten a lot better. The last time we played, you only won by 150 points!” He rubbed his wife’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “When you’re finished feeding her, why don’t you give her to me and go for a nap?” Scott asked good-naturedly. “She keeps you up at night with the feedings and I’ve noticed you’re not sleeping that well,” he added with a slight frown. “Do you need more of those little pink pills the hospital gave you to help you with that?”
“I don’t want pills. I’m okay, Scott, really I am,” Tessa said in a too-cheerful voice that failed to betray the black circles under her eyes, “I don’t need any more sleep!” She continued to gaze at her child, making little cooing and clucking noises at Abigail while the newborn concentrated on dinner. “Besides,” she added, still looking at the tiny baby in her arms, “why would a person want to sleep when they have this beautiful little face to gaze at?” Tessa’s voice broke slightly at the end of the sentence.
Scott kneeled before her and patted her outer thigh. “We both know that you need your rest. You just had a baby! I can take care of Abigail while you sleep. She’s going to be safe with me!”
Tessa was adamant. She looked up at Scott with tired red eyes filled with tears. “Don’t worry about me,” she snapped.
Scott shook his head and sighed at her stubbornness. He turned away from her and left the room. As he made his way down the stairs to grab a snack, he worried about her. She looked ready to collapse any moment and her sleeping patterns had become erratic since Abigail’s birth.
On the first night home from the hospital, Tessa constantly checked on the child. In Scott’s opinion, her behavior was probably natural; after all, she had been bound to the child for nine months. However, when she discovered that the locks on the nursery windows were broken, he couldn’t console her, despite his quick repair and his protestations that the locks were now fully functional. As the nights passed, she began keeping vigil by Abigail’s cradle instead of joining Scott in their four-poster bed. She’ll be safer this way, Tessa explained. Scott wondered what she was trying to protect Abigail from. Nobody who could hurt them knew their whereabouts.
Diligent to the point of obsession about making sure that the baby was well fed and comfortable, Tessa rarely slept and when she did, it was fitful and restless. The bags underneath her eyes grew larger by the day and it worried Scott. When she did take time to sleep, Tessa would set an alarm clock to wake herself up every half-hour. Scott attempted to encourage Tessa to take some sleeping medicine so that she could have a peaceful slumber, but she told him that she didn’t trust that the medication wouldn’t transfer to Abigail through her milk, despite what the package read and staunchly refused them.
Other things about Tessa’s behavior bothered Scott too. Nearly three weeks had passed since Tessa had awakened from her coma at St. Mary’s, but she wasn’t well yet. She was weak and sore, which he had expected, but also seemed preoccupied with more than just her newborn daughter. Was it the fact that her ring was back on her finger? She hadn’t commented on it and Scott was too nervous to bring it up. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the story behind its removal just before Abigail had been born.
Tessa hadn’t mentioned their former handyman, Edward McMurray, since she had asked about him at the hospital. Surely, she would have wanted a visit from the man who had saved her life.
Tessa also cried a lot. Scott observed her crying when she thought he couldn’t see. She cried when Scott helped her into the house on her first day home. She cried the first time she stepped into the nursery and placed Abigail into her cradle for a nap. She cried when Scott told her he needed to go to Briarwood and finish the final exams he had missed due to his daughter’s birth. Despite his attempts to be patient with her, the crying got on his nerves; she couldn’t expect him to skip his finals!
Scott remembered that the doctors at St. Mary’s had advised them that Tessa would be prone to tears for a while after the baby had been born but her crying seemed to border extreme. He wondered if his own mother had acted the same way after he was born. He couldn’t help but harbor the nagging suspicion that Tessa might experiencing something beyond the normal “baby blues”, but he also realized that Tessa would certainly never tell him if it were the case! She was the type of woman who seemed to prefer to work out her own issues. More than once this foible had gotten her into trouble. Scott wished that she would open up to him, if for no other reason than to put her problems out into the open and not keep them bottled up inside. He had done everything he could think of to encourage her but, as the saying went, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
Tessa sighed heavily as she watched Scott leave the room; his facial features were puzzled and his brow wrinkled with concern for her. What Scott didn’t know was that she was both afraid and mortified. She didn’t want to tell Scott about what had happened during her coma at
A flashback from the dream assailed her thoughts. Simon stood nude before her, his erect penis in his hand and Tessa shuddered. She had fought to avert her eyes, but the situation was like a bad car accident: she knew that she shouldn’t look, but she couldn’t help it. The image had been burned into her brain like a ghastly brand. She didn’t know if she would ever get the image out of her head.
Even scarier than the vision of Spellman in the buff were the jarring words he had spoken to her during her coma:
“This is my dream, and I summoned you! You won’t be able to leave until I say you may or either you or I awaken, therefore breaking the bond!”
As a result, the idea of going to sleep petrified her. She didn’t want to risk the possibility of a summons by Spellman for another Dreamfasting session. He had displayed in the coma-induced vision that he had the power to coerce her into doing things that she would normally never do using merely his will. During her coma, he had somehow placed the idea into her brain that he was devilishly alluring and that she must kiss him, so she had, despite the fact that she hated him with the intensity of a thousand suns.
Much as she loathed admitting it, she had enjoyed the kiss and it shamed her more than anything else could. Before things had gotten out of hand, Tessa had managed to wake herself up. However, she didn’t know if she would have the strength to get away from him again, ergo her reluctance to sleep. If she didn’t sleep, she reasoned, she couldn’t dream; if she couldn’t dream, she would be safe from another attack.
Unfortunately, she felt that she couldn’t tell Scott about the dream: he might not understand the circumstances. If Scott found out she had kissed Simon, whether manipulated into doing it or not, Tessa was convinced that he would leave her for good. She didn’t want to anger him as she had last Valentine’s Day; she had shared one other kiss with Simon, albeit while he was in handyman form and she didn’t know who he was. She hadn’t asked for that kiss, either, but Scott had become angrier with her than she ever thought a person could get and she didn’t want a repeat performance.
As her newborn nursed contentedly, Tessa looked around the nursery, her exhausted blue eyes surveying every inch of the room. In another time, it might have been a comforting place to be; pale pink walls with a border of multicolored ducks graced the room. A white cradle stood in the corner, next to a wicker dressing table stacked high with diapers and extra clothing for Abigail. It looked, for all intents and purposes, to be a sweet little nursery for a sweet little girl.
But Simon had decorated the room; Simon had selected the border; he had put the cradle together; he had painted the walls; he knew every inch of the house because he had been working there for months. He had come into their homes, disguised as a handyman and had the power to continue infiltration. Everywhere she looked in the house, she could see him – almost feel his presence, despite the fact that he had not entered the house in weeks. Despite Scott’s statement in the hospital that he had “given Edward what he deserved,” Tessa was fearful. It would have been completely out of character for Simon Spellman or Raphael Valdez to give up on something they wanted so quickly.
Tessa stopped rocking in the chair. She disengaged herself from the tiny child and placed her in the cradle. Little Abigail, who was not finished eating, was not amused. The newborn let out a shriek of protest and waved her arms as her mother stepped away from the cradle. Tessa’s hand flew to her mouth and she stumbled out of the room and across the hallway. She reached the toilet and began to vomit violently. She did not stop until only dry heaves escaped her. Once finished, Tessa sat on the floor and rocked back and forth, the cries of her baby girl falling on deaf ears.
She could hear Scott’s footsteps on the stairs as he raced toward the bathroom. She watched as he burst through the bathroom door and cried aloud when he saw her on the floor. Despite her attempts to appear normal and rational, Tessa couldn’t help babbling about locks and protective wards. The look Scott gave her convinced her that he thought she was one card short of a full deck.
Tessa wiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt as she looked up at Scott. He crouched next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “What’s the matter, honey? Are you sick? Do you need me to take you back to the hospital?” He helped Tessa struggled to her feet.
Tessa attempted a stab at lightness at the strange situation. “You must think I’m a sandwich short of a picnic, sitting here on the bathroom floor, babbling like a lunatic!” She flashed a quick smile.
Scott did not look convinced. “I’m taking you to bed now,” he stated firmly. “You’re scaring me.”
“I don’t want to go to sleep!” Tessa’s smile slid from her face and tears coursed down her cheeks she clutched Scott by the arms. Her eyes searched his for some semblance of understanding. Finding none, she buried her face in his chest.
“Please, Scott, just leave me alone. I’ll be all right...I promise you that I will be all right.”
“You need to talk to someone, Tessa, preferably me! I don’t know how much longer I—”
She shook her head. “I’m fine, Scott! It’s just baby blues!” She met his eyes, afraid of what she might see. Does he see the guilt on my face?
“I don’t believe you,” Scott said in a firm voice. “You’re going to go to bed right now and you’re going to sleep through the entire night. I’ll get up with Abigail, but you need your rest!”
“No!” shouted Tessa. “I need to watch her!”
“Shit, Tessa, I can take care of her too!” Scott cried. “If you don’t go to bed RIGHT NOW, I am going to force a sleeping pill down your throat!”
“You wouldn’t!” hissed Tessa, her face mutinous.
“Try me!” Scott retorted, reaching into the medicine cabinet and pulling out a tiny brown bottle. He means business, Tessa thought as she stared at the medicine. If he only understood what potentially lies beyond my consciousness he’d try to force No-Doz into me, I’d wager.
Tessa read Scott’s resolute expression and sighed in defeat. “Fine, I’ll go to bed,” she said in a sulky voice. “But only if you wake me up on the half-hour.” She brushed past Scott, her nose in the air and her steps a bit harder against the floor than was necessary. A moment or two later the door to the master bedroom closed with a slam.
Scott hadn’t moved from his spot in the bathroom. “Course I will,” he called, crossing his fingers behind his back. “Forgive me, hon, but you need the rest,” he said in a soft voice. “I don’t know why you don’t trust me with the baby, but you’re going to get some quality sleep!” Aggravated, he shook his head and walked out of the bathroom.
He turned in the direction of the nursery and stepped to Abigail’s cradle. The baby was still crying; her back arched and her face beet-red, her little hands balled into tight fists. Scott bent over and carefully picked up the newborn, being careful to support her head. He placed the child over his shoulder and rubbed her back. Presently, she stopped crying and snuggled against him.
“It’s going to be just you and me tonight,
Abbey sighed contentedly.
“Finally,” Scott muttered, only half-joking, “a woman who isn’t hard to please!”
***
“Patrick!” he called out in a dreadful voice, “I require your assistance!”
Patrick Garvin approached the altar. “What do you need from me, boss?” he asked as he genuflected before Raphael Valdez.
“You’re going to find my wayward second and bring him back here. He’s going to do his part to help me fulfill my plans or he’s going to die. Slowly.” Anger radiated off
“Why would you even want him back? He’s incompetent – a waste of magical blood, if you ask me.”
“Simon Spellman has a power that none of you other pathetic lackeys possess!” cried
Patrick knew that Dreamfasting was a rare gift. He thought it a shame that the gift should reside in a man as utterly wretched as Simon Spellman was. “Where would I go to find him, boss?”
In response,
“Jesus,” Patrick said as a sickened expression crossed his handsome features. “I just ate!” He averted his eyes from the scene.
“I see that Spellman is…occupied at the moment,”
“Spellman ruined my plans to get rid of Scott and Tessa Madison when he donated blood that saved her life after their brat was born. He deliberately disobeyed me and I’m going to see to it that he suffers beyond his worst nightmares. I want him back at the compound as soon as you can arrange it. Do you know where this club is located?”
“I do, sir,” answered Patrick, reddening slightly at the admission. “It’s an upscale establishment that caters to men of extravagant means. I believe it’s located in the Diamond District, sir.”
“I want you to go to
“And healthy?”
“I said alive. Read into that whatever you like.”
Patrick smiled wickedly as he clasped his hands together and bowed low before his boss. “It will be my utmost pleasure to serve you, boss.”
“Enjoy the child while you can, Scott. She will not be yours for long.”
~2~
I’ve got you under my Skin
Tessa stood in the middle of her rose garden with one hand on her hip and the back of her other hand against her sweaty forehead; dirt had caked underneath her fingertips and the smell of newly turned earth assailed her nostrils. She was tending to blooms that were stunning to look at – deep reds, brilliant whites and tender pinks. Her success with the flowers surprised her; she sorely lacked horticultural skills. Perhaps it’s the new fertilizer, she thought.
She looked over at her daughter who was sleeping soundly in her baby seat. Abigail was certainly a good sleeper and, most of the time, an easy baby. She was, Tessa surmised with the kind of pride that only a mother could possess, the baby that all mothers must wish for. She knelt in front of the carrier and leaned forward to place a kiss on her daughter’s forehead. As her lips made contact with Abigail’s soft skin, the ground seemed to jerk underneath her, sending her tumbling sideways.
Struggling to gain her bearings Tessa cried out as, without warning, the world around her again shifted violently. The vibrant flowers around her began to blur and run together like a child’s chalk drawings on a rainy sidewalk before falling away completely, revealing a cavernous gray room. Panic settled in her stomach as she tried to ascertain exactly where she was. She peered about, straining to see in the dimness.
The room reminded Tessa of the interior of the castles she had read about in fairytales as a child. The stone walls appeared wet; she placed a hesitant hand against a slab of stone and recoiled at the sliminess. She could hear the faint, staccato sound of water dripping from somewhere within the chamber, but the tiny splashes echoed off the walls and concealed the whereabouts of the leak. The only light in the room came from moonlight that streamed through one tall, narrow window and several sets of white tapered candles sitting in candelabra set strategically in the room. A huge wooden writing desk stood in the corner nearest to where she stood, piled high with notebooks, several feathered quills, bottles of ink in various colors and several thick books. In the opposite corner rested a cot covered with a thin blue bedspread, and next to that, an empty glass sat atop a bedside stand. A large, royal blue tapestry covered one wall, bearing a family crest of a hand issuing from a cloud in pale, holding a garland of laurel proper. Elegant golden stitching spelled out a phrase in Latin, Constantia, Fidelitas, Veritasque, but Tessa was in no mood to try to translate it. Beyond the tapestry lay a winding stone staircase that ascended to an oaken door with a ringed iron handgrip. Her heart hammering painfully behind her ribcage, she attempted to sprint toward the staircase, only to trip over her own feet, sending her sprawling.
“Damn!” Tessa got to her knees, her palms stinging. She wondered if she had tripped over a shoelace. As she looked at her feet, she got the shock of her life – her feet were bare.
Tessa was stunned to discover that her patched work shirt was also gone, replaced by a champagne-colored silk nightdress and a thin robe. She shivered from the cold and dampness and blew on her hands to try to warm them as she stepped to the nearby grate and attempted to get a fire going, all the while wondering where her daughter was.
As she concentrated on stirring the glowing red coals with a poker, she did not hear the door to the chambers open behind her and a man’s footsteps against the uneven stones.
The man ambled down the stairs in a lazy fashion as if he had all the time in the world to spare. Once down the stairs he walked across the room on silent feet. Approximately ten feet from the object of his desire, the man stopped where he was. So busy was Tessa with the fire that she was oblivious to the threat of danger behind her.
“Hello, Tessa,” Simon said pleasantly.
Tessa gave a yelp of surprise as she whirled around, swinging the poker before her in an attempt at self-defense. When she saw who the intruder was, she clutched the poker tightly, ready to strike at a second’s notice. She looked around the room one more time, her eyes searching for an alternate escape route. Finding none, she turned her gaze once more to the short man in front of her.
“Why are you here?” she demanded. “I’m awake!”
“I think not, my dear,” Spellman said amicably as he waved his left hand, summoning a vision. A rainbow of colors burst forth from his palm and hung suspended for a moment in the air before they melded and twisted together, forming the shapes of people and furniture. A doppelganger Tessa lay upon a four-poster bed with a sleeping Scott’s arms around her. The real Tessa clapped one hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with shock as comprehension dawned that indeed she was asleep.
“You’ve been asleep for over three hours,” Simon said with glee. He made a wide sweeping gesture with both of his hands. “Welcome to my chambers!” He snapped his fingers and Tessa watched as her sleeping twin evaporated into a mist. “Admittedly not much to look at, but I call it home.” He looked her up and down, a devilish grin on his face as he nodded appreciatively. Tessa pulled her robe tighter around herself. “What a delightful treat, at least, for me anyway! You c-certainly go a long way to im-improving my décor!”
I’ve been asleep for three hours? Tessa thought. Why didn’t Scott awaken me? “Oh, God, no! I have to get out of here!” she cried. “Abigail needs me!”
“Don’t w-worry about the baby. She’s sleeping in her room. I just ch-checked up on her,” Simon placated, as if he had done Tessa a huge favor. He snapped his fingers and a vision of Abigail, asleep in her crib, materialized before her. Tessa tried to go to the baby but the vision melted away before she could touch her.
“Don’t you ever go near her!” Tessa snarled, her grasp on the poker suddenly stronger.
Simon shook his head as he clucked his tongue. “There’s no n-need to become angry with me! I didn’t h-harm a hair on her head!” He stepped closer to her and reached for the poker in her hands. “Give me the p-poker and let’s chat for a while!”
“Don’t come any closer. I’ll use this on you – I mean it!” She raised the weapon over her shoulder and stepped backwards.
Simon rolled his eyes and lazily pulled his wand from its holster at his waist. He pointed it at the poker and, with a careless wave of his hand, transformed it into an enormous tan serpent with black eyes and a long, forked tongue. Tessa cried out and released her grip; the snake fell to the floor and raised its dark, arrow-like head, its tongue flicking angrily. As if able to sense the music of a far-off snake charmer, the reptile began to undulate and sway before her. She backed away, speechless, and backed into the stone wall. Simon laughed; she had no place to run. The serpent slithered across the floor and coiled itself around her feet. Tessa stood still, paralyzed with fear as slowly the serpent continued to wind its scaly body around her shins, her mid-thigh and her waist.
“What are you doing?” Tessa asked, her voice shaking. “What is this thing?”
“That, Tessa, is an African rock p-python. They get to be around thirty feet long, but this one’s just a baby – twenty feet at best. They kill their prey by squeezing it to death.” Simon placed his hands behind his back and bounced on the balls of his feet. “Oh, and as this is my dream, he will only respond to my commands. I thought you ought t-to know.”
“Call it off,” Tessa begged, terrified. As if to somehow get herself farther away from the reptile, she stood on her tiptoes. Displeased at her movement, the snake tightened around her waist, causing her to gasp. “P-please, get rid of it!”
“Do you promise not to try to escape?” Simon asked. When Tessa nodded vigorously, he giggled and aimed his wand at the serpent. “Orchideous!” The snake hissed, then collapsed in on itself, leaving a pile of pink and periwinkle flowers in its wake. As if to rid herself of the memory of what had just transpired, Tessa shuddered and rubbed her arms vigorously.
Simon moved nearer to Tessa, a lecherous smirk on his face. “There, precious. The big bad snake’s gone… Well, one of them, anyhow.” He winked and thrust his pelvis forward. Tessa pushed forward in an attempt to bolt past him. Simon anticipated her move. He grabbed her by one arm and pushed her back to the wall, then advanced on her like a lion to its prey. Tessa put her hands out to ward him off, but he grabbed them before she could get a decent grip on his face. He forced her hands against the wall, pinning them there. She struggled against him but because she was still weak from childbirth, she was not much of a hindrance.
Defeated, Tessa stopped fighting and stilled. She turned her head away from him and squeezed her eyes closed. He was so near to her that she could feel his chest against hers through the thin material of her nightgown. She could also smell him: cigarettes, cheap beer and... honeysuckle?
“What do you want?” she squeaked in a terrified voice, afraid of the answer she might receive.
Simon snorted with laughter. “What do I want? You know, I-I don’t think anyone’s asked me that in a v-very long time, my dear,” he intoned as he smiled wickedly. “I want a nice peanut b-butter and jam sandwich, actually. On white bread. Oh yeah, and perhaps a nice b-bottle of Double Diamond and some of those delightful chocolate chip c-cookies you make. They’re delicious!”
Tessa’s eyes flew open as she tried in vain to yank her hands away from his. The stones in the wall had begun to dig into her skin and it hurt. “You’re being facetious!”
“Yes, well, you need to stop asking stupid questions. It wastes time. What do you think I want?” Simon asked, his lips against her ear, his tone gentler. He allowed his mouth to brush against the skin of her neck and cheek as he made his way to her mouth and pressed his lips to hers. Tears trickled down Tessa’s cheeks. She stood still and did not respond to his kiss. After five or six seconds, Simon broke the pseudo-kiss and pulled away from her so that his face was inches from hers. He smile had disappeared from his face and he still had her hands pinned to the wall.
“If you’ve ever been a man of honor, Simon, you won’t do that again,” Tessa whispered.
Honor. That word inserted into a sentence with his name in it was so foreign that it was almost ironic. The priest who had taken his confession days after Abigail’s birth had spoken of honor. As much as he didn’t want to, Simon reluctantly let go of Tessa and stepped back.
Tessa grabbed her left wrist in her right hand and rubbed it. She gave Simon a questioning look.
“I’m sorry. I won’t kiss you again until you ask me to,” Simon said in a solemn voice.
“As if I would ever entertain the notion!”
“I guarantee you that b-before your daughter utters her first word, you’ll ask me for a kiss,” Spellman said in a superior voice. “You e-enjoyed our last kiss, when we first Dreamfasted together! Don’t stand before me and try to deny it!” He took another step backward. “I can read your thoughts, you know. You w-wonder if you could control y-yourself with me if I kissed you again. Not that I blame you, of c-course!”
Bastard! Tessa thought.
“The kiss was probably only enjoyable because it was your fantasy, you sick, twisted thing! You can be any kind of kisser you want to be in your dreams...you could be Mel Gibson if you set your mind to it!”
“If that’s the case, then why do I see guilt when you look at me? Is it perhaps b-because Scott’s kisses fall m-miserably short of m-mine and you know it?”
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