The Sinner

I peered up at Cas, shutting one eye to keep from seeing two of him.

“Not that two Cazzezz’z is a bad thing.” I gasped and clutched at his arm. “I keep saying stuff out loud, don’t I?”

His smirk deepened. “You do.”

I scowled. The beautiful bastard was completely sober, despite matching me glass for glass. I vaguely remembered it was Cas who kept ordering the cocktails—which I then paid for.

Gotta get this boy a job…

I snickered and then slugged his arm, my fist bouncing harmlessly off the hard muscle of his bicep. “Why’d you lemme get so drunk?”

“You needed it,” he said. “Not the illness tomorrow perhaps but to be out in the world. Your own neighborhood, at the very least.”

“Pfft,” I scoffed. “Just another step in your gran’ plan to…what? Make me not be an introvert? Good luck, pal.”

“I’m not trying to change you, Lucy Dennings.”

“Then what’s the dealio?”

He glanced down at me. My vision was blurred with whiskey, but I could’ve sworn there was longing in his eyes, as if he were waiting for…something. For me to say or do something he couldn’t. But I couldn’t guess what, and I was too busy drinking in his handsome face anyway.

God, he is really, really beautiful. For a demon.

But it was nearly impossible to think of Casziel as an infernal creature of the underworld. Or that I had two demons of my own, plaguing me. Now that I was three sheets to the wind, the whole situation was ludicrous again.

I giggled.

“Something amusing?”

“I have two demons and one of them is named…Deb. Short for Deborah? Debbie? What is K short for? Karen?”

“Their true names are Deber and Keeb.”

I burst out laughing. “Stop it. Do they make cookies and live in a tree?”

He stared at me blankly. “They’re quite infamous. Not many demons have been referenced in the Bible by name.” He tilted his chin. “Although there are whole chapters dedicated to me in various grimoires. I’m mentioned several times in the Theurgia Goetia alone…”

I couldn’t stop giggling. “It’s just that Kee—”

Cas put a finger to my lips. “No true names. Not unless you want to summon them or bind them tighter to you.”

“All it takes is speaking a demon’s true name to summon’em?”

“Rituals are sometimes required. The more powerful demons, such as myself, take a great deal of wooing.”

“I never wooo’d you,” I said and my face got hot. “I mean…I din’ summon you.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” he said disdainfully. “I don’t come at a human’s beck and call like an obedient cur. I chose you.”

“You chose me,” I said with a smile. “You know, Cas, sometimes it feels like you and I…”

His arm under my hand stiffened. “Yes?”

“Like we—”

“Ssssh,” Cas hissed and froze.

We were almost at my building. The shadows seemed thicker that night. In the alleys between buildings, the darkness felt alive. Breathing.