Free The Demon in Me by Michelle Rowen Page A

had all been a bizarre dream.
    The part about her and Ben going out for dinner tomorrow was the one good thing in this nightmare.
    She’d nearly been stabbed by a serial killer. She was possessed by a demon. An exorcist had slapped her around. And to add insult to injury, she’d lost fifteen hundred hard-earned dollars.
    She really should have checked her horoscope today. She made a mental note not to let that oversight happen again.
     
     

SEVEN
    She’d just made a deal with a demon .
    What in the hell had she been thinking?
    It took until nearly eleven o’clock to get the door adequately fixed. Then Eden drove home, making a detour to the drive-through at McDonald’s to grab a garden salad and a McChicken.
    As she distractedly pulled up in front of her apartment complex, something darted out in front of her car. She slammed on the brakes and her car skidded to a halt.
    She groaned. “Please tell me that was not a black cat.” But it was. The feline glared at her from the bushes at the side of the driveway as she continued on.
    “Bad luck omen,” Eden said under her breath. “You’re about eight hours too late.”
    She parked in her assigned spot and got out of the car into the chilly October night, juggling her purse, takeout bag, and keys. Her leg bumped into something furry. She looked down.
    The small black cat looked up. “Mrrroww?”
    “Meow, yourself. Shoo. Go home.”
    After entering through the main doors, she went directly to the elevator and took it up to the fourteenth floor, her mind overflowing with replays of her day with a killer, a cop, and a demon. She worked her key into the lock of her apartment and opened it. Something dark moved along the floor and scooted into the apartment ahead of her. It was the cat.
    Had she been too distracted to even notice it in the elevator with her? Tricky little thing.
    “Oh, no you don’t.” Eden flicked on a light by nudging the wall switch with her elbow. The cat had made a beeline for her brown corduroy couch, jumped up, and curled into a ball.
    “Great,” she said, dropping her purse and bags on the coffee table. She pulled off her coat and threw it over the easy chair. “Sure. Make yourself comfortable. Same goes for your fleas. Fantastic, really. Just what I need.”
    The cat lifted its head, then put it back down on its paws and closed its eyes.
    “You can stay for a couple minutes to warm up,” Eden told it, “but then you need to go back to your home. I don’t have pets—no matter how smart they think they are. I don’t even have houseplants. Trust me, it’s better that way for everyone involved.”
    She went into the kitchenette to pour herself a glass of wine—which she drained as she attempted to forget about her problems for thirty seconds—then sat down on her couch in the living room and pulled out her McChicken and forced herself to take a few bites before putting it down. The food sat heavily in her stomach. The cat raised its head, its attention fully on the sandwich.
    “Mrrrow?”
    She waved a hand. “Help yourself.”
    The cat got up, jumped over to the discarded sandwich on the coffee table, sniffed at it daintily, and then chowed down, sesame seed bun and all, as if it hadn’t eaten in days. Then it returned to the couch and lay down next to Eden, resting its head against her leg. It began to purr.
    So much for her plan to kick it out of the house. A quick glance out her balcony window showed it had started to rain outside. The cat didn’t wear any tags, and its ears weren’t tattooed with ID—she was pretty sure the Humane Society did that for strays.
    “Fine, kitty.” Eden scratched its head. “One night. Then you’re out of here.”
    Eden liked living alone. She valued her privacy. She’d lived briefly—very briefly—with her ex-fiancé, but after that had ended, she realized how much she liked time and space to herself.
    She hadn’t even thought about having a pet. She’d had one when she was a kid—a