Page 20 of Demon Dating Service

“You’re wrong.”

“Are you trying to tell me I’ve been playing chess wrong for two hundred years?”

“That’s how it looks to me, because you can’t move a knight that way.”

“Hey!” Tuk snapped, halting their bickering. Two sets of blood-red eyes shifted to him, their expressions indifferent and maybe even a bit bored. “Can’t you be a little scarier? Azroth recommended you because you’re scary.”

“You also said we’re not allowed to bite him,” the icy blond replied. “You get what you pay for.”

Tuk slammed the door shut and stopped in the middle of the hall, sucking in a calming breath. Maybe he could steer Luke away from the vampires because they were appearing to be a clear miss. But the werewolf and zombies were still good. So were some of the other surprises he had planned for Luke, likethe swirling vortex of nightmares, the nest of pythons, and that one random guy he’d found in the woods with a chainsaw.

He figured that this was where his companions had gone wrong. Mullmag, Annod, and Tog had gone in for one big scare. If that didn’t work, they were out of options. Luke was proving to be much harder to scare. What they needed was an endless gauntlet of terrors that would leave Luke curled up in the fetal position and crying.

Not that he wanted to scare Luke.

He was a nice person who was working hard to get his degree and earn enough money to stand on his own two feet. Not to mention, his love life was kind of sucky. Tog had been all too happy to spill the beans to the rest of the demons. Of course, they all might have bragged about getting the chance to spend some one-on-one time with their new roommate.

It was just the other day that Luke had shown him how long to keep water balloons in the freezer so that the water started to get those fragile ice crystals but didn’t completely freeze. He’d also worked out a fun slingshot that got them to arc over the fence and onto some neighbors. Their outraged and pained screams were a symphony that couldn’t be matched.

But they’d made this bet. He had to scare Luke.

If he lost the bet, the other demons would never let him hear the end of it. He’d never been scary, and this would put another nail in the coffin for him as being known as the least scary demon this side of Hell.

The front door creaked on the first floor, announcing Luke’s arrival home. Bath’tuk did a little dance and hurried to the top of the stairs. He peered down the curved staircase, looking for any sign of the graduate student. Soft footsteps shuffled across the hall carpet, and the tinkle of metal keys danced through the air. A low wooden groan announced that Luke had reached the first step, but it was followed by a lot of nothing.

Seconds ticked by, and still nothing.

“Luke?” Tuk called out. “You home, Luke?” He shouted again even though he knew the answer.

“Hm?”

“You coming up? I’ve got something to show you.”

“Yeah. ’Mkay.” His words were mumbled and soft, but they sounded like Luke.

Tuk waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

He glanced over his shoulder at the hall clock to find that he’d been waiting for Luke to climb the stairs for five whole minutes.

What the hell?

“Luke?” he called out again, but this time there was no answer.

With a huff, Tuk stomped his way down the stairs. If one of the other demons had done something to Luke to interrupt his grand plan, he was going to be seriously pissed. It was against the rules to interfere in another demon’s scare. This had taken him days to organize. It wasn’t like zombies stayed fresh.

But Tuk stopped mid-stomp when he found Luke sitting on the first step, curled around his giant backpack, snoring. The poor guy had run out of steam. He couldn’t even make it up to his room.

How could anyone expect him to keep this crazy schedule? He went to school, taking classes for a master’s degree, and he was workingtwojobs. And that didn’t include the time he generously gave his crazy roommates or how he tried to keep the house tidy, even though the rest of them had magic to take care of the house.

Well, crap…

How was he supposed to scare him now? It wasn’t as if he could wake him up. He was sleeping so well, with his hair all ruffled and his lips parted. It was like that time someone had found one of those baby imp demons sleeping in Satan’s slipper.

Nope, he was calling it off. No one was scaring Luke tonight. He needed sleep.