Belial let him handle his own putts—four of them—to finish out the hole. “Dara works hard, but that place always seems to be on the edge of closing.” He was surprised how enjoyable it was, in this group of hardworking doctors, to allow his pride and affection for Dara to come through. If the boss heard it, he would write it off as an act.
Ted punched Jeremy’s arm. “Does it bug you that this guy seems to have succeeded where you spent five years failing?”
“Nope.” Jeremy smirked. “Don’t get me wrong. Dara’s great. But who would want Dara when they can have Lilith?”
Anyone with an ounce of good taste. Not to mention self-preservation. Still, Jeremy might make a good husband for Dara, once Lilith was out of the way. If the she-demon hadn’t ruined him, that was. Belial wanted a good husband who would cherish Dara, not one of Lilith’s trained freaks.
“It’s always been like that,” Tony said.
Belial hadn’t met Tony before, but he liked the self-effacing doctor. He came into the clinic once a month to do pap smears and give referrals for mammograms. He might make Dara a good husband. Belial checked out Tony’s left hand. There was no ridge inside the third finger of his golf glove. What excuse could he give DemSec to get a background check on Tony?
“What kind of fundraiser were you thinking about?” Ted asked. He was married with kids, so there was no point considering him. Dara would never break up a family.
“What kind of event can we set up annually that will raise lots of money?” Belial said.
“How would I know?” Jeremy lifted his bag into the back of the golf cart. “Ask Lilith. She does that kind of thing for a living and she’s on the clinic’s board.”
Belial wasn’t about to let Lilith within a thousand yards of this event. “I mentioned it to her,” he lied. “She didn’t have any ideas.”
“Really?” said Jeremy. “Because she never seems to be short on ideas when she’s with me. Did I tell you about this thing she does with a mango and an ice cube?”
“Nobody wants to hear about your sex life,” Tony said.
Shooting Tony a grateful look, Belial removed Jeremy from his list of potential husbands for Dara.
“Why don’t you talk to Kelsey the next time you’re at the clinic?” Ted said. “I mean, that’s what she does, right?”
“You’re brilliant.” Belial rewarded Ted with a double eagle.
As soon as he left the golf course, Belial texted Kelsey and asked her to meet him for a drink at Slyders. He was working against a deadline and there was no time to waste. He was unsurprised when she responded right away in the affirmative.
It took her longer to arrive than he expected, so he drank a beer and did some mortal-watching. The people on the beach fell into two categories: tourists and regulars. The tourists were easily identified by their brand-new beach gear—huge umbrellas, shiny coolers, brightly colored towels—and their painful-looking sunburns. The regulars had warped beach chairs, beat-up coolers and ragged towels. Their skin was wizened to leather by the sun. They would do well in Hell.
Surprisingly, his phone didn’t buzz. Had the boss decided to let him run his own mission, or was Satan occupied elsewhere? Not that it mattered. The important thing was that he had the space he needed to set up a new, better life for Dara.
An hour later, Kelsey stepped through the doorway, and he saw why it had taken her so long. Her hair, which he’d never seen out of its bun before, rippled down her back in shining waves. Her face was made up so that her doe-like eyes looked even larger. She was a pretty child. His feeling of tenderness surprised him. The softness he’d developed for Dara seemed to extend to others as well.
“Thanks for coming.” He was careful to make his voice neutral, but even so, she lifted onto her toes like she was about to do a series of leaps across the deck.
“I’m happy to.” She slipped into the chair opposite him, her eyes shining.
Had he made a mistake asking her here? The waitress came by and took their orders. He ordered a pizza with peppers and onions. As he expected, Kelsey asked for a salad. That was another thing he liked about Dara. She wasn’t obsessed with some Hollywood ideal of what her body should look like.
“I wanted to talk to you about doing a fundraiser for the clinic,” he said once the waitress was gone.
Kelsey’s smile dimmed by a few hundred watts, but she quickly rallied. “That’s a lovely idea. It was good of you to think of it.” She tilted her head to the side in a way that showed off the graceful line of her neck. She stretched her hand across the table. Her pale pink fingernails touched his hand. “What sort of fundraiser did you have in mind?”
Trying not to be too obvious, he withdrew his hand and let it drop into his lap. “I thought maybe a golf scramble?”
She winced and shook her head.
“No good?” he said.
“There must be ten of those things here every year—leukemia, breast cancer…”
“All right, no golf scramble. How about a dinner dance?”
She wrinkled her nose. “The medical society already sponsors one of those, with a silent auction, every October. I don’t think you’ll get the docs to attend another one.”
He tried to think of the other ways he’d seen humans raise money. “What about a poker tournament?”
Kelsey’s carefully groomed eyebrows drew together. “A poker tournament? I don’t think Dara would go along with that.”
But the more he thought about the idea, the better he liked it. There was a certain symmetry to the idea that a poker game would start Dara’s new, better life instead of ending it. For once, he would leave a target in better condition than he’d found her. “You can leave Dara to me.”
The glow dimmed from Kelsey’s face, as she registered the possessive note in his voice. She straightened in her chair. “Let’s say Dara’s willing to go along with holding a gambling event. When were you thinking about having it?”
“Next Saturday,” he said.
Her jaw dropped. “That’s not possible.”
“Of course it is.” Almost anything was possible if you had all the resources of Hell at your disposal. “Where could we hold it?”
“There’s only one place in town that I can think of that’s big enough—the Alexandria Ballroom. That’s where everyone does their wedding receptions. It’s booked every weekend for months in advance.”
“I’ll handle that,” he said. “What’s the best way to promote our event?”
“That’s another reason why you need to give yourself more time. There’s a lot of wealth in Alexandria—well, not in Alexandria proper, but out at the beach. Some of the older residents out there have money out the yin-yang, but they’re mostly snowbirds. They don’t come down here until it turns cold up north, usually not until Thanksgiving.”
Thanksgiving was still a month away. Belial added the prediction of a freak snowstorm to the list of things he’d need. Leviathan, the demon who commanded the seas, could blow up the makings of a frigid nor’easter to chase the snowbirds south early.
“Let’s say we can get them down here. What would make them come to the tournament?”
She considered that. “To draw them in, you’d need a celebrity with name recognition.”
“Done,” Belial said. Halpas, the stork who ran Vice, could deliver someone, for a price. That price would be high, but that didn’t matter, because Belial wouldn’t be around to pay it. Once Satan realized he had thrown the bet, Belial would be headed for a dip in the Lake of Fire.
“Then what?” he asked.
“Once you have your celebrities lined up, you book airtime on local radio and TV shows. You can also print up posters and put them in the places the people you want to attract commonly go to—groceries, pharmacies. You should mail invitations to the people you’d especially like to attend at least six weeks in advance.” She held out her hands. “Can you see all this takes time?”
He didn’t have time. “If I can book the ballroom and nail
down a celebrity for this weekend, can you help me with emails and social media?”
She wasn’t done. “And there’s food. If people pay to get in, they’ll expect to be fed.”
“We’ll hire a caterer.”
“How will you pay for this?”
There was no way Mammon would release any additional funds to him. Then he realized it didn’t matter.
“That’s the beauty of a poker tournament,” he said. “The players fund it with their buy-in fee.”
“There’s a lot of stuff you’ll have to pay for ahead of time. You’re planning this on such short notice; people here won’t be willing to take a chance on you making a profit to get their money.”
That stumped him, but only for a moment. Lilith could spare a few small gems. “I can cover that. Will you help me?”
She took a deep breath. “I guess so—if Dara okays it.”
When Lilith stepped out onto the deck at Slyders, it was all she could do not to hug herself with glee at the sight of Belial sitting at a table with the little dancer from the clinic. They were so wrapped up in their conversation they didn’t even notice her. She didn’t have to harpoon him. He’d harpooned himself.
She hesitated in the doorway long enough for Dara to get an eyeful of the two of them, their heads together, looking cozy. Her stricken expression was priceless. She had suspected Dara was infatuated with Belial. The look of devastation on her face verified it.
What an idiot. A lot of women had made the same mistake over the centuries, but they at least had the excuse of not realizing what he was. Dara had fallen for him, knowing he was a demon. What a complete and utter twit.
Which would work better? To have Dara confront him or to pull her away? Better to whisk her away, Lilith decided. Belial was an arrogant ass, but he wasn’t stupid, and he was all business. Whatever he was talking about with Kelsey was related to his mission. Right now, that mission was to get on Dara’s good side. If she confronted him, his positive motive would become apparent, and that was not what Lilith wanted. She pushed Dara back through the door.
“I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything.” She guided Dara to the front entrance. Dara didn’t resist. She just walked out the door like a robot. “I mean, he really seemed to be into you…” Lilith let her voice trail off, as though she were now realizing how wrong she’d been.
The shock and hurt on Dara’s face congealed into anger. She pulled her arm free. “This is not okay. I told him when he came on board I wouldn’t put up with him flirting with the staff. I’m going out to talk to him.”
“Right now?” Lilith winced as though envisioning an unpleasant scene. “In front of Kelsey?”
“Right now,” Dara said.
That couldn’t happen. “Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, it seems a teensy bit controlling, saying who your employees and volunteers can get involved with.”
Dara blew out a long breath. Her shoulders sagged. “Fine. I’ll talk to him Monday night.”
Lilith had no doubt that on Monday Belial would straighten things out, but the next thirty-six hours would give Dara plenty of time to stew about it. It would give her time to remember that he was a demon who lied as easily as he drew breath, time to realize her heart would never be safe loving him. That should amp her distrust back up to acceptable levels.
Still, Lilith might be able to wring a little bit more out of the situation. She forced blood into her cheeks and drew up her shoulders, as though warding off a blow.
“I didn’t want to tell you this,” she said, “but you might want to let this go. Ben told Jeremy”—she dropped her voice low, as though she didn’t want to be overheard—”that your scars kind of…you know…skeeve him out.”
Dara’s face flamed with mortification. With anything else, her common sense might argue that Belial’s reaction to her was anything but repulsed, but Dara’s scars were so wrapped up with the loss of her baby and her womb that she didn’t think clearly where they were concerned. It was all Lilith could do not to high-five herself. Then Dara lifted her chin.
“Dr. Lyle’s reaction to my scars is irrelevant,” she said. “This is about him breaking clinic rules.”
Lilith arranged her features into her sad-clown face. “Of course.” She took Dara’s arm again. “Now where would you like to go for dinner? I’m thinking somewhere with alcohol.”
“I think I’ll pass.” Dara withdrew her arm. “I’m going to call it a day.”
Chapter 38
Belial spent Sunday busier than he’d been in centuries. Arranging the threat of a nor’easter to chivvy all the snowbirds back to Alexandria required some major horse-trading with Leviathan, who controlled the seas. In the end, Belial wound up giving him Abraham’s shofar, a prize he’d lusted after for centuries. Belial handed over the ram’s horn with barely a twinge.
Halpas, the stork who ran Vice, also had to be greased to gain his cooperation to bring in a celebrity. His price was the stone David used to slay Goliath. Belial had picked it up off the field the day the Philistine died. That one stung a little, but by the end of the day, a major poker star was enlisted for Saturday and a potential storm brewed off the East Coast that had the airlines overbooking every flight south.
Of course, no visit to Hell was complete without a stop at the boss’s office. Satan glared across his desk. “Seriously? You’re going for gratitude sex?”
“I’m cementing my position. A woman like Dara has to be in love to open her legs.” Belial heard his own words with distaste, but it was imperative the boss believe he was still plotting Dara’s downfall.
“How will a poker tournament make her fall in love with you?”
“Her concern about the clinic is the last barrier standing in my way. This fundraiser will convince her she doesn’t need to worry about that. Once it’s over, I will seduce her, give her carnal pleasures beyond her wildest imaginings. But she needs more time to think about it, dream about it, fantasize about it, until those fantasies become all-consuming. She’s getting there, but she’s not at that point yet.” As he spun the words, he almost believed them himself.
“Lilith thinks she is.”
“Lilith is a bitch who has been trying to undermine me from day one.”
Satan didn’t dispute that. “I still don’t see where Saturday is any different from tonight.”
“Saturday is different only in the emotional component, but that’s the piece that sets us up for the third snare to work. That clinic is her sanctuary. Once I provide a way to fund it, year after year, her last defenses will be gone. I will have proven my sincerity. When the time comes for her to choose between me and the clinic, she will choose me. And at the same time, she will turn her back on Him. She will choose us.”
Would this false promise give him Belial the time he needed to change Dara’s future?
Satan pinched his lower lip. “You realize by the time the tournament is over, we’ll only have a week left.”
“That works in our favor,” Belial said. It worked in his favor, anyway. If he could string the boss along for those remaining days, promising miracles he’d never deliver, he could save Dara from an eternity in Hell. He didn’t let himself think about the impact his actions would have on his own eternity. “The affair won’t have time to grow stale before she’s faced with a decision. Relax. I’ve got this.”
He just hoped that was true.
On Monday morning, Belial stopped at the Alexandria Ballroom, where a middle-aged woman whose nameplate read “Betty” told him he couldn’t have the ballroom on Saturday. There was a wedding reception at seven p.m.
“We’ll be out of here by three,” he lied, but she didn’t buy it.
Behind the glass window of the small office at the front of the ballroom, Betty tapped her lower lip with one fuchsia fingernail that matched her lipstick. “Even if you were, they’ll be in here on Friday, decorating. You wouldn’t want their decorations—”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
“—and I can’t risk you messing something up for them.”
Why in Hell’s name was it so much harder to do good than it was to do evil?
“What if I can get the bride and groom to okay it?” he asked.
Betty shook her head.
“What if they cancel?”
“They won’t cancel,” she said. “The bride has been planning this wedding for two years. She had her heart set on a dream wedding in the Caribbean, but this was what they could afford.”
He tried snaring Betty, but she slammed the window in his face. Was he losing his touch?
Google identified the happy couple. The quickest way to break them up, of course, was for the bride to discover that the groom was sleeping with her best friend.
Even as he pulled out his phone to set that chain of events in motion, he stopped himself. It didn’t feel right. If Dara ever found out what he’d done, it would destroy any joy she’d take in his gift. It was foolish, but he wanted her to remember him with fondness.
Instead, he made another unscheduled visit to Hell, where he all but begged Halpas to notify the bride she’d won a dream wedding in the Caribbean. By the time Halpas agreed, Belial was almost glad he would be dying soon. At least he wouldn’t be around to see Ehud’s sword in the hands of a demon that didn’t have the artistry to appreciate it.
While Belial had his safe open, he removed a square velvet purse and stuck it in his pocket. He was running short on funds, and the treasure it contained would bring a substantial amount of cash at a human pawn shop. He’d considered selling the Ducati, but it was a vintage machine. For it to be worth much, he’d have to find the right kind of buyer, and that would take time.
He looked at the contents of the safe. Selling them would yield enough to set up permanent funding for the clinic. Regretfully, he set the notion aside. In the time frame available, there was no way he could dispose of that much loot without Satan getting wind of it.
The Demon Always Wins: Touched by a Demon, Book 1 Page 25
