Riley's Excellent and Not-at-all Fake Exorcism Service

Chapter 9

Whether or Not It's a Bad One, It's Still the Plan

As soon as we ran through the balcony doors, we stopped dead in our tracks. My beautiful friend was in the middle of my living room, screaming at the top of her lungs, a can of pink pepper spray in hand. The burning liquid coated Thomas' face. Though Thomas looked mostly unaffected by this, he certainly didn't seem happy.

"Human, please, stop spraying me," Thomas asked nonchalantly.

Andrea refused to listen.

"Andrea!" I called out, still not wanting to get closer because the smell of that shit alone made my eyes water.

"Riley!" She looked over at me with red puffy eyes. Clearly, pepper spray was meant to be used outside, not in a cramped Manhattan apartment. She stopped her onslaught and ran over to me, wrapping her arms around me tightly. "Oh my God! I thought you weren't here! I came to feed Cat and when I walked in, there was this strange guy and . . . oh my God, I'm so sorry! Is he your friend?"

"It's okay." I patted her back gently. "It's actually pretty badass how ready and willing you are to pepper spray a guy in the face. And he's not my friend . . . and he's a demon, so don't feel bad, okay?"

"Riley." She broke our hug and tried to wipe her tears away with her sleeve, which probably contained pepper spray residue because her eyes only became redder. "It's not nice to call people demons."

"But, he is one." I smirked at Lawn, who still appeared a little dazed.

She turned to Thomas, who was drenched in pepper spray and wearing a half scowl.

"I'm so sorry," she apologized, even though she looked more in pain than he did. "I thought some guy had broken in here. If I had known you were a friend . . . acquaintance . . .of Riley's, I never would have done that . . ."

"Yeah," Thomas' response was surprisingly curt, as I thought he would crack a joke or wink or something. "Don't worry about it. Though, you probably will."

"Why don't you wash up?" I said, dragging her to the bathroom. "I'll bring you a change of clothes."

"Umm, yeah, okay." She kept looking at Thomas, clearly feeling guilty. "Again, I'm sorry."

I closed the bathroom door, then turned to Thomas, "So pepper spray doesn't hurt demons, huh?"

"Nope," he said, suddenly looking like his annoying self again. "Maybe if it were blessed but, I don't know if that would work either, honestly. Don't think anyone ever tried it."

"Maybe we can have Lawn bless it, then do a retest?"

"By retest, you mean spray me with it?"

"See any other demons here I can test it on?"

"How about we do something that smells nicer than this stuff," he suggested. "Maybe we could try your perfume? I wouldn't mind smelling like you."

"Ew," I said, crinkling my nose. "What did I say about being creepy?"

"Believe it or not, I'm really trying."

"Whatever," I sighed. "Go wash up in the sink, I'll grab you one of Daniel's shirts or something."

As I walked toward my bedroom, I turned to find Lawn behind me. He half nodded toward the room. Guessing he was asking if it was okay for him to enter, I nodded. Once inside, I headed straight to the closet, shifting through to find something that might fit Andrea and Thomas.

"Do you think it was a good idea to tell your friend that Thomas is a demon?" Lawn asked.

"Probably not," I shrugged, as I pulled out an oversized sweater and leggings. "But I'm going to explain everything anyway. She's my best friend, I tell her everything."