Page 4 of The Devil and His Ghost

(Present Day)

DEMONS WILL NEVER FALL IN love. They can’t.

This was a common belief among demons and people, and it was an idea I liked to remind my fellow spawns of Hell about. Not because it was true, but because getting them riled up when they believed the opposite gave me a boost in power.

I pushed buttons. I goaded. I annoyed. I did everything I could to piss off my demon friends and anyone else who came near me, because of the very thing I lied about.

Demons would never fall in love. They couldn’t.

But that wasn’t my worst lie. That honor fell to the one I’d told her, to the many broken promises I’d made her. Each one threatened to break me now, but I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t break when it was finally time.

Finally fucking time.

Everything I’d done for the past year—every fuck I’d drained dry of energy, every performed horror, every move for power—was all for today.

For the first time in so fucking long, I could truly breathe.

There was nowhere she could run and hide anymore. There was nowhere she could go but into my waiting grasp.

Finally, I would get to see her again.

My Qīn’ài de.

My ghost.

My Kendyll.

Chapter 3

Kendyll

(Present Day)

I MANAGED TO OPEN MY groggy eyes by sheer willpower alone, only to have them assaulted by a black mass. My entire body felt heavy with sleep, and now my face was being smothered with the ethereal presence of a ghost cat and his incessant yet intangible kisses.

“Good morning to you, too, Catsper,” I croaked, my voice hoarse with exhaustion.

The one-eyed black feline purred happily in response and floated off of me. One milky green eye peered at me from his round and fluffy face, and both of his ears twitched, including the one that was torn in half. I sometimes wondered how the cat had died and if his missing body parts were a result of his passing or from prior to his death, but the only response I got when I asked him was either meow or meow. So I was left to speculate.

I blindly searched the nightstand for my phone, and when I saw no new messages or calls, my throat nearly closed up. With shaky hands, I tried dialing my brother’s number. Each ring and pause between them was like the ticking down on an ensuing explosion. When the other line clicked, followed by the prompt to leave my voice message, that bomb detonated with a painful blast. I squeezed my eyes shut and tossed the phone away without leaving a message.

I wasn’t sure how many days or weeks had passed since we last spoke. He hadn’t reached out to me or answered any of my attempts to get ahold of him. Not since that day. It should’ve been the best day of his life. After all, it was his wedding day.

But I ruined it.

I knew he blamed me. How could he not? My heart threatened to break every time I thought about that day and the events that occurred. If only I had stayed in my stupid room. If only I hadn’t followed him. If only I …

Blowing out a puff of air that carried the horrid tangle of emotions with it, I threw off my blankets. I wanted to snuggle deeper into the cheap hotel bedding, but rotting in bed wasn’t why I was back in this once wealthy yet small town.

I took a rather slow shower and got dressed, all while focusing my senses on the hotel room around me. Other than my long-time ghost cat companion, I hadn’t seen or heard any spirits here. Though, I still felt a slight presence that didn’t belong to Catsper. Each time I’d tried to find the source, the feeling receded like someone slipping around a corner before I could catch them.

As I put my glasses on and stepped into my jeans and purple turtleneck, that subtle yet elusive feeling of a nearby otherworldly being tingled the back of my neck. I turned around to see if the presence had finally wandered close enough for me to catch sight of them, but the feeling vanished before I saw anyone.

“You don’t have to be scared,” I told whatever ghost or entity kept coming close only to disappear.

I wasn’t sure if they kept running out of energy, causing them to fade quickly, or if they’d simply gone too far to hear me. In case they could hear me, I wanted to make sure they knew they were safe talking to me.

Ever since I started seeing ghosts and demons as a little girl, I’d hardly ever met any that purposefully avoided being seen or spoken to. There was only one time in my life where ghosts actively hid from me, and I never found out why.