Page 10 of Demon Dating Service
He'd opened his mouth to say no, but then she’d offered time and a half.
Besides, it would take them only an hour. Maybe two.
Four. Fucking. Hours. Later.
So, on his rare day off that should have been spent settling into his new rental space and getting some much-needed homework done for his classes, he’d ended up working nearly fourteen hours. But at least his bank account was going to be happy, and he had a chance of surviving off something other than ramen, trail mix, and Harper’s charity sandwiches.
As he reached the giant house, he saw only two lights left burning in the windows. A single bulb glowed on the front porch. It did little to push back the overall darkness, providing him with enough illumination to see the door and the lock.
He dropped his duffel bag onto the porch with a heavythudand fished around in his pockets until he located his new key. It slid home with no problem, and the lock gave a satisfying click. The door moaned out a loud creak as it swung open, reminding him vaguely of pretty much every haunted house movie he’d ever watched. Thankfully, he loved horror movies, so this was amusing rather than unnerving.
With a sigh of relief, he shouldered his bag and stepped inside. The entire house was silent as a tomb. A couple of small lights glowed along the hallways and at the top of the stairs as if one of his new roommates had left on nightlights for him. That was considerate.
Or maybe they didn’t want their new tenant to fall down the stairs and break his neck on the first night.
The latter. Definitely the latter.
His right foot had just touched the first step when he spotted it. A spider. A big one, too. Easily bigger than a daddy longlegs.Was that a banana spider? He remembered seeing pictures of them as they’d threatened to overrun Florida a few years ago. The spider was a few inches long, with black, spindly legs and a black-and-yellow striped body.
“Well, no place is perfect,” he muttered to himself. He dropped his backpack and duffel bag by the stairs and pointed at the spider. “You stay right there.”
With as much energy as he could muster, Luke jogged to the kitchen and flipped on the bright overhead. After searching through every cabinet and drawer, he finally came up with a plastic bowl and lid. He took his find to the stairs, where the spider was kind enough to wait for him.
It took a couple of tries, but he got the spider into the bowl with the lid on.
“Look, I’m new here, so I think it’s only fair that I give you a warning,” Luke said to the spider in the bowl as he walked to the front door. “Growing up, we had a basic rule. If you found a spider outside, you’d leave it alone because outdoors was its home. But if we found a spider in the house, it got squished and flushed because that was our house. You stay in your house, and I’ll stay in my house. ’Kay?”
He slipped outside, cringing at the loud creak of the door. At the edge of the porch, he removed the lid from the bowl and dumped the spider into the closest bush. “There. Make a nice web. I’m sure you’ll catch a better dinner out here.”
As he turned toward the house, a loud caw cut across the lawn. He spun around, searching the darkness until a crow dove from a tree to land on the sidewalk. He tilted his head and cawed at Luke.
“Dante from campus, right? You gave me the room-for-rent notice. Thanks for that. But it’s late. Go get some sleep. I’ll have more nuts for you tomorrow.”
Was it weird that he named the birds he built up a rapport with? No. Particularly crows. They were good at remembering people—the good onesandthe bad ones. Dante had helped him get a place to live. Maybe tomorrow he’d get not only some nice nuts for Dante and his friends, but some grapes, too. The bird definitely deserved it.
Spider gone. Time for bed.
Luke locked the door and shuffle-stumbled to the stairs. As he bent to pick up his bag, his eyes caught on the spider’s family, his extended family, his next-door neighbors, and a whole mess of second cousins. Spiders blanketed the stairs. Lots of fucking spiders.
He was going to need a bigger bowl.
Fuck, he couldn’t scoop all the spiders. That would take forever, and he’d get no sleep ahead of class tomorrow. It wasn’t like he could stomp on all of them. That would make a mess of the pretty, thick red carpet that covered the stairs. He’d never get it clean on his own. He’d have to go rent a carpet cleaner to get rid of all their tiny corpses.
Luke groaned and placed his hand on his face. He just wanted to fucking sleep. Why the hell was the house overrun with spiders? Better yet, why the fuck were these spiders trying to keep him from sleeping? That was mean.
Well, he could be mean, too.
Luke’s shuffle became a stomp as he crossed the hall to the front doors. He threw both of them open and rushed across the porch. He clicked his tongue several times and searched the trees.
“Dante? You still around? Dante?”
He had to wait a few moments before the sleek black crow he’d seen earlier flew from its branch to the sidewalk. It hopped toward him, seeming happy to have Luke’s attention again.
“Are you hungry?” What was he saying? Crows were bottomless pits when it came to food. “How about some nice crunchy spiders for a late-night snack?” He waved his hands to the open doors, beckoning the bird to check out the crawling buffet. Dante tipped his head to one side and then the other, as if he thought Luke had lost his mind. But after a long moment, he turned his attention to the inside of the house. Luke was sure he must have spotted the spiders crawling through the hall and away from the stairs, because he let out several loud, excited caws. He flapped his wings and dove through the open doors.
The cries must have roused his companions, because several other crows poured from the trees in the yard and flew into the house.
Luke giggled to himself as he followed them in. Six crows feasted on the spiders, who were now in desperate retreat. There was no sound other than the flutter of feathers, the click of beaks, and the occasional scrabble of claws.