Page 6 of Calling Chaos (Demon Bound #3)

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Cooper

C ooper woke up on the floor. Again.

At least this time, he was covered by a blanket. And was that a…book under his head? How the hell had he gotten a blanket and a book pillow?

Slowly, with every muscle heavy and leaden, Cooper used his hands to sit himself up. By the light coming through the window, he’d guess it was early evening. He craned his neck, peering into every corner, but he didn’t see any signs of his hallucination from before.

So that was it—it was all over? Just a super temporary psychotic break, nothing to worry about?

He should probably still get checked out. For all he knew, there was a gas leak in his apartment, and this was just a symptom of it. But when he tried searching for his phone so he could call someone—nothing.

Where the hell was his phone?

Cooper stood carefully and checked around his computer, only to see another message from RedRabbit.

R: I’m waiting.

Cooper wrinkled his nose as he stared at the message. The guy was getting pushy, and Cooper didn’t have time at the moment for a throwaway hacker project. He was going insane, for one. He’d lost his phone, for two. And he hadn’t finished either of Ivan’s jobs, for three.

The phone thing would have to be taken care of. Ivan had been shot at, and Sergei was on the loose—Cooper needed to be available if anyone called, if only to be told of his own impending doom. It also meant none of Ivan’s gofers were going to be free for something as unimportant as getting Cooper a new phone.

So he’d need to go get one himself. He could stop at an urgent care clinic along the way, see what they had to say about his…extremely vivid break with reality. After the day he’d had, he would have preferred to stay in the comfort of his own apartment, but he’d already gone outside into the world once today, and all that had happened was a shooting and a visit from an imaginary demon. What was one more errand?

At least Cooper’s normal underlying buzz of anxiety about leaving the house seemed kind of insignificant compared to the bigger issues at hand. He should maybe find his newfound levity alarming, but maybe it was a side effect of the psychosis.

After making sure he still had his wallet and keys, Cooper headed down to the ground floor.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, he heard a commotion coming from the apartment entrance around the corner.

The sound of raised voices had Cooper’s hackles rising, along with a looming sense of foreboding. Because Cooper recognized that voice. His mind had made up that voice.

Except how could it all have been in his head, when the voice was talking to the guard at the front desk, who was very much a real person?

Shit.

“I am allowed,” Cooper heard his imaginary demon say crossly. “I was expressly summoned here. Into this apartment.”

“You’re not on Cooper Zaitsev’s list of guests,” Sam, one of the front desk guards, rebutted. “And I can’t get him on the phone to verify.”

“That’s because I stole his phone.”

A third voice joined in. “I told you he’s a thief. He broke into my apartment!”

Cooper rounded the corner, his chest increasingly tight. There was Sam, standing in front of his desk. And there, to Cooper’s immense dismay, was the demon—Bracchus or Chaos or whichever—except he didn’t have any of his demon accessories. And his hair was brown. And his eyes weren’t creepy fox eyes.

He looked human, basically.

And for some reason, Cooper’s neighbor Mrs. Cross was also there, saying stuff about how Chaos had broken into her apartment.

Double shit.

Cooper knew the only reason Sam hadn’t already called the cops was because this whole building was owned by Ivan, and employees of mobsters didn’t fuck with police. The residents knew not to either. Things were handled in-house, or Ivan’s wrath would sometimes work as its own deterrent.

Cooper’s gut churned as three pairs of eyes landed on him. His mind was battered with countless memories of his father making some sort of scene, a too-young Cooper trying his best to smooth it over before someone took it in their head to investigate his living situation.

I’m not a child anymore , he reminded himself. This isn’t one of Dad’s messes. This is my mess.

And while, just like his father, he hadn’t meant to make it, unlike his father, he’d fix it himself.

Cooper squared his shoulders and met the demon’s now brown eyes. “Bracchus?” he asked, as calm and casual as he could.

Chaos’s face lit up like Cooper’s very presence was some sort of delight. Nobody looked at Cooper like that these days. It was kind of…sweet, actually. “Puppy!” he exclaimed.

Cooper’s cheeks went hot. Jesus. Now everyone was going to think he had some sort of kink arrangement with this guy. He could practically see Mrs. Cross filing the info away for later. Most of Cooper’s neighbors minded their own business, but that one didn’t have anything better to do than gossip. Too much money and not enough real responsibility.

Cooper cleared his throat with an embarrassed laugh, looking to the guard now. “Sorry, Sam. I, um, forgot to put my friend on the list.”

“This deviant is your friend?” Mrs. Cross asked, her voice full of accusation, like the information was damning.

“Um. Yes?”

“He forced his way into my home.”

Of fucking course he did. “Did he take anything?” Cooper asked, reaching for his wallet. “I’ll pay for any damages.”

“No. He— There was a—” Mrs. Cross trailed off, suddenly at a loss for words.

Oh boy. What exactly had Chaos done to her?

Cooper startled when a warm hand landed on his arm. He hadn’t even realized Chaos had sidled up to him.

“I only wanted a peek.” Chaos made a little pout, like a child who’d been caught sneaking candy, as he grasped Cooper’s bicep. “To check for fun-house clowns.”

As Cooper tried to process what that could possibly mean, Sam spoke up. “Cooper, your friend can’t go breaking into other apartments. We’ll have to ban him from the building.”

Shame. Embarrassment. Defeat. Cooper was used to those feelings when dealing with the general public.

But what exactly was shameful about this situation? It was a mess, sure, but…assuming Chaos was real—and he certainly seemed to be—then he was a demon, presumably from some other dimension, maybe not used to their world at all. He didn’t know any better.

And Cooper was the one who’d brought him here, even if he’d done it unintentionally.

Cooper ignored his hot cheeks and roiling belly, raising his gaze to meet Sam’s. “He’s helping me with something for Ivan,” he said firmly, watching Sam’s eyes widen at the mention of Cooper’s intimidating cousin. “Do you want to be the one to explain to him why we were delayed?”

Cooper had never once invoked his relationship with Ivan when dealing with the guards here, so he could only hope Sam would take the exception seriously.

And Sam did, holding up his hands as if to ward off an attack. “No. No. He can stay.” He raised an apologetic brow to Cooper’s neighbor. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cross, my hands are tied.”

With one last scowl at Chaos, Mrs. Cross stalked off in a huff back to the elevators. She might not have liked it, but she knew the order of things around here, same as everyone else.

Cooper lifted Chaos’s hand off his arm and tugged him gently to the side. He tried to release him afterward, but Chaos kept a tight hold, bringing Cooper’s fingers up to his face and stroking them slowly. It was…weird but not as freaky as it might have been if he still had all his sharp teeth.

“You’ve been getting into trouble,” Cooper murmured, too quietly for Sam to overhear, his spine tingling with a strange shiver at the way Chaos’s exploratory touch was tickling his fingers.

“Me?” Chaos widened his eyes with faux innocence. Their plain brown color was less unsettling than before, but Cooper kind of missed the fox-like pair. They’d been so strange. Pretty, kind of.

Cooper almost laughed at Chaos’s completely unsuccessful attempt to look guileless, but he was interrupted by the loud growl of his stomach rumbling.

Chaos’s gaze zeroed in on Cooper’s belly, his eyes narrowing. “You’re hungry,” he accused.

“You’re real,” Cooper countered.

Chaos straightened to his full height, pinching the tip of one of Cooper’s fingers in reprimand. “Of course I am.”

The thought of it made Cooper lightheaded again. He’d summoned a demon. An actual, real-life demon.

Now would have been a nice time to dive into his bed and hide under the covers. Maybe stay inside for a whole week this time.

But if Cooper hid his head in the sand, what other kinds of trouble would Chaos get into?

Chaos stole back Cooper’s attention by pressing his teeth lightly into Cooper’s knuckle, holding Cooper’s finger in his mouth. “There are a lot of food establishments in the area,” he mumbled around Cooper’s digit.

Demons were fucking weird. Cooper gently—but firmly—tugged his hand away from Chaos’s mouth. “You want to go out again?”

“If you’ll come with me.” Chaos directed a frown to the front entrance, like the outside world had offended him. “It’s boring by myself.”

It was a bad idea, surely. Cooper should be hiding Chaos away until he could figure out the scope of what he’d accidentally brought into his life.

But his apartment, usually so spacious, seemed way too small to hold all Chaos’s energy inside it. The walls that had always been so comforting to Cooper were suddenly confining. Could he really keep Chaos inside for any extended length of time?

And there was one place Cooper liked. A diner nearby where everyone minded their own business.

“All right,” he said, hoping against hope he wasn’t going to regret this. “Let’s go out.”

Chaos gave him a dazzling smile, a dimple appearing in his left cheek.

He kept hold of Cooper’s hand as they left the building.

The evening air was a little too cold to be wearing just a sweatshirt, but Cooper didn’t want to deal with herding Chaos back into the apartment and out again to get a coat, so he dealt with the discomfort. The diner wasn’t too far, anyway.

Plus, Chaos’s hand was warm in his, enough so that the heat seemed to spread, seeping up Cooper’s arm.

“You have pleasing hands,” Chaos told him brightly as they walked, echoing Cooper’s thoughts eerily.

“Um, thank you?”

Chaos did a little test swing of their joined hands. “It makes it quite agreeable to clasp one together with mine.”

“That’s…good?” All Cooper’s statements were coming out like questions, but he’d summoned a literal demon today, so he was cutting himself some slack.

“It is good,” Chaos agreed. Then, “Tell me, puppy—”

Okay, here it was. They were going to get into it now, right? Cooper had apparently sold his soul to a demon, even if he hadn’t meant to. What exactly were the terms? When this contract was done, did Cooper have to, like, go to hell with him?

But Chaos didn’t get into any of that. Instead, he asked, apropos of nothing, “Why would someone urinate in an alley, when humans went to all the trouble of inventing bathrooms?”

It took Cooper a moment to realize they really weren’t going to discuss demonic contracts, and another moment to answer. “Um. Well, not everyone has easy access to indoor bathrooms. Not everyone has easy access to the indoors, period.” He thought of his father and added, “And some people are…altered. Drunk or using drugs. They might not be totally aware of what they’re doing.”

“Ah. I see.” Chaos started to swing their hands with abandon, enthusiastically enough that they almost hit a man coming from the other direction. He gave what sounded like a happy sigh. “I was right, this is all much better with a companion.”

Cooper took the opening. “You didn’t come from here? From…Earth?”

“I came from the Void,” Chaos said easily. “And before that, the demon realm. You summoned me with the Book, we made a contract, and now I’m here.”

Jesus. Somehow hearing it out loud was more intimidating than imagining it. Cooper swallowed, his throat dry. “And when our contract is done, do I…go back with you? To the demon realm?”

Chaos giggled with delight, like Cooper was spouting adorable nonsense. “Not you , silly. Just a little niblet of your soul. You won’t miss it. Humans never do.” His giggling quieted, and he muttered, seemingly to himself, “ If I go back, that is.”

“You might stay?” Cooper asked, trying to keep the note of panic out of his voice. What the fuck was he going to do if this demon decided to never leave?

“I might,” Chaos said cagily, smiling to himself.

And then he was pulling them to a window of a restaurant, pressing their joined hands as well as his face against it to peer inside. “Oh! Pancakes! I’ve never seen them in real life.”

Cooper tried to tug their hands away, and when Chaos gave a little growl instead of moving, Cooper—his cheeks once again flushed with embarrassment—made an apologetic face to the people inside, who’d raised their brows and then their middle fingers at Chaos’s blatant inspection.

Fuck. If Chaos did stay, it was going to end up being some sort of social anxiety exposure therapy: extreme edition, wasn’t it?

Although, it was hard to worry too much about what other people were thinking when Cooper had to focus all his attention on the loose cannon that was this little demon.

“Bracchus,” he said quietly, when it was clear tugging wasn’t going to work. “This is the diner I was telling you about.” He’d almost missed it, distracted as he’d been with the thought of Chaos staying. “Will you come eat with me?”

Chaos turned from the window immediately. “Will you order pancakes?”

Cooper nodded. It was an easy concession. “I can, if you like.”

“If I like,” Chaos repeated, his eyes laser-focused on Cooper, like he’d said something fascinating.

They went inside and were seated across from each other at a booth, this one in the interior of the diner and not at a window. Chaos didn’t seem to mind the lack of a view—he was fascinated by the menu itself. He apparently didn’t eat human food, but he had strong opinions on what Cooper needed to order. French fries. Pancakes. A milkshake. Meatloaf, for some reason.

When the waitress had taken their large and varied order, they sat staring at each other, Chaos still holding Cooper’s hand across the table. For a noisy, chaotic thing, Chaos had a way of sitting unnervingly still when he wanted to, every fiber of his being seemingly intent on Cooper.

“I don’t really know what’s happening,” Cooper finally admitted, breaking the silence.

Chaos grinned at him, revealing his dimple again. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“Um, well…” Cooper pushed at the table’s ketchup bottle with his free hand, needing something to do that wasn’t staring into Chaos’s unblinking eyes. “I usually like to know, actually. It makes me feel better.”

“Better than what?”

It was hard to tell if Chaos was fucking with him or if he genuinely didn’t understand Cooper’s way of speaking. “It makes me less…anxious,” Cooper clarified.

Chaos cocked his head. “Are you afraid of me, Cooper?”

Cooper could almost have lied. At the moment, Chaos looked human. Like a cute human, even. And even though he was keeping Cooper’s hand captive, his touch felt nice. Warm and soothing.

But Cooper could remember how it had felt in the apartment, when he’d dared to ask if he was the one in control of Chaos. And he could see it in the way Chaos watched him now, with eerie stillness.

Not human after all. A creature, and a predatory one at that.

“You are scared of me.” Chaos was pouting again, his lower lip jutting out in a way that should have been ridiculous but somehow came off as adorable.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it.” Cooper slipped his fingers under his glasses to rub at his eyes. He didn’t want to offend Chaos, but he wasn’t a very good liar. “You can set things on fire with, like, your mind.”

The pouting intensified. “This won’t be very fun if you’re frightened of me all the time.”

Against all odds, Cooper found himself wanting to reassure the demon. Chaos was just so…cute, even in all his otherworldly terribleness.

Could I be any more of a pushover?

Cooper tried to figure out how to word his thoughts in a way Chaos would understand. “I’m scared of a lot of things, to varying degrees,” he explained. “Part of coping with that is just…powering through. I’m used to it. I can be a little scared of you and still be your friend.”

“Really?” Chaos brightened immediately. “How interesting.” He leaned forward across the table. “What else are you afraid of? Your enemies? The ones with the guns?”

“My enemies, yeah,” Cooper agreed. They weren’t exactly his enemies. He was Ivan’s hacker, not a leader of the Mafia himself. But Sergei certainly scared the shit out of him. “But also just…I don’t know.” How the hell did he explain to a powerful demon that sometimes he got nervous just running errands? He pushed the ketchup bottle around some more. “People can make me uncomfortable. Interacting with strangers. Trying to make small talk and getting lost in what they think of me. I get anxious. I don’t have it as bad as some—I’m not stuck in the house or anything. But it’s like a muscle you have to exercise. When I leave it too long, it atrophies. I have to build it back up.”

“Fascinating,” Chaos murmured. It didn’t sound like he was taunting Cooper, but his response didn’t exactly make sense either.

“Not really,” Cooper hedged. He didn’t want to, like, trick this demon into thinking he was something special. “It’s common enough.”

“Laugh for me,” Chaos ordered, like that was a normal thing to request of someone for no reason.

Cooper gave a nervous chuckle, darting his eyes reflexively to see if anyone was looking at him making a fool of himself. But everyone near them was minding their own business.

Chaos made a face. “That’s not a real laugh.”

“It’s hard to do on command.”

“Well, I can’t mate with you if I’ve never heard you laugh.”

Cooper froze in his seat as their waitress appeared, placing an inhuman amount of food on the table. He stayed frozen long after she’d left.

Eventually, he found his voice, although it came out thready and strange. “I’m sorry, you can’t what with me?”

“Mate with you,” Chaos said absently, studying the plates in front of them. “Bind our souls and our bodies for eternity, keeping me here in the human realm and giving you an unnaturally long and youthful life.” He looked hopefully at Cooper’s plate, as if he hadn’t just said the most insane thing Cooper had ever heard. “Now can I watch you eat a french fry?”