He tilted his head. “You read books for a living?”
Of all the things he could have focused on in my statement he chose that one? I rolled my eyes. “Never mind. You said you’d answer my questions.”
“Sure. But first, show me all the e-mails you got from this guy.”
“So you admit he was there? I’m not nuts.”
Chavez slid his weapon into a holster tucked under one arm. “He was there.”
I’d known that, but I felt better having him say it. I also felt better now that he’d put away the gun.
“It wasn’t very nice of you to try and make me think I was crazy.”
“I’m not nice.” He flicked a finger at the computer in the corner of my dining room. “The e-mails?”
He’d kidnapped me to look at e-mails? Who was this guy? And who was Eric? I started to concoct all kinds of conspiracy theories.
“Huh,” he said when he’d read all of the messages. “Nothing weird.”
“Should there be?”
“Considering what this guy is, yeah.”
“Is Eric some sort of secret agent?”
And if so, what did he want with me? Besides the obvious.
“Agent of the devil,” Chavez murmured, still staring at the computer screen. “Not much of a secret.”
I frowned. “Is that code for terrorist?”
“Terrorist?” He glanced at me, amusement in his eyes, though nothing so lighthearted showed on his face. “You think I’m Homeland Security? FBI? CIA?”
“You’re something.”
“Got that right.”
Considering his accent, his appearance, his innate foreignness, maybe he was the terrorist. Except we hadn’t been at war—even a cold one—with any Hispanic countries for a long, long time. Of course, pretty much everyone hated us lately.
“DEA?” I blurted.
“You think the guy was a drug dealer? You’ve got quite an imagination, but you’re way off base.”
“Get me on base then.”
“He’s a demon, and for some reason he wants you.”
“He’s a what?”
“Fallen angel. Spawn of Satan. Minion of hell. Soulless, evil, creepy thing.”
For the first time tonight, I was speechless.
I’d started to believe that maybe Chavez wasn’t crazy. Maybe he was just a gung-ho member of one of the many law enforcement agencies in a country that had gone a little overboard on security after September eleventh. Who could blame us?
But demons?
“If Eric’s a demon,” I said slowly, “that makes you a—”
“Rogue demon hunter.”
I blinked. “Lost in the Buffyverse, are we?”
“That show was a real pain in my ass,” he muttered.
I was not having this conversation. Except I was.
“Not sure what kind of demon he is,” Chavez continued, as if he hadn’t just said something weirder than weird. “Salt didn’t work. Neither did a silver bullet.”
“Maybe because there’s no such thing as demons?”
He turned a dark, placid stare in my direction. “Then what do you call your date?”
“A jerk. But that doesn’t mean he’s the devil in disguise.”
“You didn’t think he was such a jerk when you were letting him stick his tongue down your throat.”
I stiffened, even as my face flooded with heat. “You shouldn’t have been watching.”
“If I hadn’t, you’d be dead now.” He tilted his head. “You don’t seem the kind of girl who’d let a guy screw her against the wall of an alley.”
“Gee, thanks. I think.” I took a deep breath and admitted the truth, though I’m not sure why. “I don’t know what got into me.”
“It was almost Eric.”
I ignored that. “I don’t sleep with men on a first date. I just felt—”
“What?” He leaned forward, face intense.
I searched for the word to describe my bizarre lapse of character.
“Consumed,” I said. “I couldn’t seem to stop what was happening. I didn’t want to.”
Chavez jumped to his feet and began to pace. “He’s some kind of incubus.”
“Which is?”
He paused, surprised. “You’ve never heard of an incubus?”
“Of course. I’m just a little rusty on my demonology. Haven’t had to use it in, oh…my entire life.”
A slight narrowing of his eyes was the only indication that he didn’t find me half as funny as I found myself. “An incubus uses sex the way the rest of us use hamburger.”
I got some bizarre images on that one and made a face.
“I meant an incubus feeds on sex,” Chavez muttered. “If he goes too long without it, he dies.”