Luck of the Devil

by Patricia Eimer

  Lisa followed me into our tiny kitchen and leaned against the island. “I don’t like the idea of him causing you any trouble.”

  “Says the woman he turned into a succubus for grins and giggles. Why don’t you go change and I’ll make you a cup of tea to help you calm down? I bet you’re still buzzing pretty hard after eating Harold.”

  “You know, he didn’t taste too bad. Considering it was Harold.”

  I wrinkled my nose at that thought. The last thing I wanted to know was any details related to her unholy, and most likely disgusting, union.

  “A little bit too much coffee, but other than that—”

  “Shit!” a male voice outside the door shouted. Muffled thumps came from below, followed by a loud crash.

  “Sounds like the guy next door dropped a body. Better hurry outside and pant over him,” Malachi said.

  I raced to the front door. So what if I’d had a crush on my neighbor, Matt, since he’d moved in six months ago? Except for some awkward flirting, he barely acknowledged my existence, which was probably a good thing. Human-demon relationships never ended well. I knew from experience.

  “Hey,” Malachi called. “Wings, horns, tail. No scaring the humans, remember?”

  “Right.” I closed my eyes and willed my extra bits back into place. Once everything was hidden, I flung open the door and looked around the landing.

  Files scattered across the steps, paving a trail to Matt. His body sprawled across the lower landing. A cardboard box crushed his chest. His normally neat black hair stuck out all over his head, and his jeans had ripped across the knee.

  That wasn’t normal.

  Every other time I’d seen him he’d been dressed like a Young Republican at a recruiting drive—a yummy, muscular Young Republican with a bit of a nerd complex, but a straitlaced conservative all the same: black suit, white button-down shirt, and the obligatory navy-striped tie. That’s why he was so fun to mess with. Really. It had nothing to do with the hot nerd fantasies I had about him. Not a thing.

  I stepped toward him and something crunched. I lifted my foot and found a crushed pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

  “Oh, in the name of all Evil!” I swore.

  My day just kept getting better and better.

  Chapter Two

  I winced and stepped off Matt’s demolished glasses. “I’ll pay for those.”

  He looked up at me and sighed. This wasn’t the first time I’d done something stupid in front of him. I’d managed to do that less than twenty minutes after he’d moved in. It wasn’t my fault, though—his messy hair, big green eyes, and muscular build fired up every hot nerd fantasy I’d ever had and made it hard to concentrate. Besides, I’d paid for the damage after running over his mountain bike.

  “It’s fine.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from whimpering in lust. I’d been fantasizing about him for the past six months and now I had him pinned underneath a heavy box right in front of me.

  “They were my backup glasses, and I need a new prescription anyway. I should have known they were going to break when they landed in front of your door.”

  That didn’t sound very fantasy-like. Actually, it was sort of snarky. And a bit impatient. He’d never been snarky and impatient before. At least not during the fantasy conversations I’d had with him.

  “Oh, well, I should replace them. It would be the neighborly thing to do.” I smiled at him and batted my eyelashes. My flirting skills were rusty, but I wasn’t about to let a chance at spending more time with my neighbor slip by.

  “How about moving that box off his chest?” Malachi said.

  Duh, Faith. The man’s immobilized here. Less flirting, more helping.

  Matt’s eyes darted around. And he kept licking his lips like he was nervous, searching for something. Did he hear Malachi? Or feel some sort of resonance? I peered at my bodyguard and raised an eyebrow.

  Come to think of it, he’d always been a little edgy. It would be my luck if he were one of those paranormal-sensitive types, jumping at the slightest disturbance. What a pain in the ass to deal with. I hoped he wasn’t, because I really didn’t want to come up with some sort of excuse to evict him. The whole termite thing had barely worked on the psychic when she’d been in 2C, and I didn’t have anything to hold over the exterminator this time to get him to lie.

  I hurried down the ten steps between our landing and the one he sprawled across. “Let me help you move that box.”

  “It’s pretty heavy,” he warned as I clattered toward him. “I overpacked my boxes when I moved here, and I didn’t realize it until I went by my storage unit to grab this one. I don’t remember it being this heavy when I put it in there.”

  “I bet I can manage.” I grabbed the box and heaved it off his chest with a grunt, hobbled to the steps, and set it down. Damn, he wasn’t kidding when he said it was heavy. What did he have in there? Books made of concrete?

  Malachi floated underneath the box and pressed his back against it, lifting it slightly so I could grab it at a better angle. With my unseen friend’s help, I managed to carry it up the stairs and place it on the floor next to my new neighbor’s door.

  “Wow, Supergirl.” Matt pulled himself up and dusted off the front of his shirt. “You make me feel like a wimp.”

  “Nah, you carried it up the first four flights of stairs. I just took it the last tiny bit to your door.” I preened and heard Malachi let out a little snort. “So what happened? Lose your footing on the fourth step? I warned you it was loose.”

  He frowned at the steps. “I must have. It was the strangest thing, though. I felt this cross-breeze on my shoulder, and the next second I was tumbling down the stairs—”

  “Cross-breeze?” Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. This was bad. There were no windows in the hallway, so any ‘cross-breezes’ he felt must be the result of someone phasing in or out. And the building’s demons were all accounted for when Matt fell. Which meant some other demon had phased into my building. So not good. Only a few demons would dare pop in without prior permission, and all of them sucked.

  “We do have ever so many of those. Drafts, that is,” a cold voice announced from my doorway.

  Tolliver. The bastard. What was he doing here?

  He leaned against the doorjamb in a black silk shirt and dress pants, inspecting his fingernails. With his slick ebony hair and pale skin, he managed to rock the angst-fueled, tortured artist look pretty well. Although nothing was further from the truth. The only torturing Tolliver concerned himself with was what he inflicted upon others.

  He came around more often since he kidnapped Lisa’s soul, but he never made trouble with the neighbors. So why was he intent on making mischief now? He’d claim it was a big brother’s prerogative, but I had a sneaking suspicion he enjoyed being an ass.

  This was Tolliver, after all. He was the big brother who fed our puppy to a lower demon because I refused to eat a cockroach. Brothers—can’t live with them, can’t bind them into Hell without facing Dad’s wrath. But, in this instance, it might be worth it. What was the worst Dad could do? Oh, right. Yell, scream, give me the I’m So Disappointed in You lecture, and throw me into Purgatory to think about what I’d done. Man, that would be a hassle. Eh, I’d just spit in his coffee instead.

  “Oh,” Matt said before walking toward us. “I didn’t realize Faith had a guest over. Sorry if I disturbed your evening.”

  Tolliver regarded Matt with the same amount of esteem he reserved for imps. I hoped Matt hadn’t noticed the lack of reflection in Tolliver’s black eyes. Most mortals didn’t but, if he was as perceptive as I was starting to suspect, it could be an issue.

  Matt bent to pick up his glasses, and his hand brushed my ankle. Electric tingles shot up my leg from his touch. My eyes widened. All mortals made me tingle from their touch, but never like this. It was like comparing a tiny static-electric shock to licking a nine-volt battery. Neither hurt, but his touch gave a bit more of a jolt than normal.

  Th
ankfully, I’d been careful about keeping my mental blockade in place so his entire life story wouldn’t flood into me. The last thing I needed was to know all about his sex life. Or how much he regretted moving next door to our particular brand of dysfunctional.

  “So.” He rose and waved his hand between Tolliver and me. “Have you two been dating long?”

  “Dating?” My mouth dropped open. “What?”

  “Yuck.” Tolliver curled up his nose and gave Matt a soul-withering stare. “That’s a little too freaky, even for me.”

  “Uh… ” Matt glanced between the two of us.

  “This is my half-brother, Tolliver. Tolliver, Matt. Matt, Tolliver.”

  “Oh.” Matt’s shoulders relaxed slightly and he shoved his crushed glasses into his jeans pocket. I noticed he wore a black Kinks T-shirt and couldn’t help but smile. Apparently, he wasn’t too conservative. “I didn’t realize you had any siblings.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t think siblings have come up since you moved in. We haven’t been neighbors that long or anything.”

  “Six months,” Malachai said. “Six mind-numbingly boring months filled with you incessantly chattering about an inconsequential do-gooder lawyer out to save the world. That’s not long at all. In the name of all Evil, I miss Hell sometimes.”

  Matt’s eyes widened, and darted away from mine. He motioned toward his door. “Well, I have a lot of work to do. Inside, I mean. Case files to catch up on and stuff.”

  “Right, well, if you change your mind about replacing your glasses… ”

  “It’s cool.” He bolted to his place.

  Once the door shut, I sighed and, hands on my hips, turned to glare at my sibling. He’d gone and done it again. Why did he have to be such an evil son of a half-rate imp?

  “Careful, you might set the stairs on fire with that Hell-gaze. If I were a human, I would be a tortured shell of ash right now. Luckily, I’m one premium specimen of demonic male virility and your harridan’s gaze does nothing to ruffle me.”

  “Ruffle this.” I slapped him across the back of the head and pushed past him into the apartment.

  “My, my, someone is in a rather temperamental mood this evening. Is it because of your dashing neighbor’s apparent lack of interest, or did something completely mundane and uninteresting happen at work today? Did someone small tragically die?”

  “I’m not temperamental. Just because Lisa killed Harold—”

  “Lisa killed Harold?” Tolliver said. “Really? Why?”

  “Shit.” Talk about keeping secrets. I’d been around him less than five minutes and I’d already told my big brother too much. I rushed into the kitchen. “Because I told her to.”

  Lisa hurried to the couch and hugged one of our throw pillows. I wanted to tell her that cowering in fear made Tolliver worse, but given her current situation, I wasn’t sure her Tolliver-related issues could be any worse.

  “You told Lisa to kill your boss?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Damn it, I was a crappy liar, and Tolliver wasn’t one to let things go. “Because Harold was harassing me. When I went to HR to file a complaint, he found out and claimed he had proof I was stealing the meds I’d reported missing that morning and selling them on the street. I’d have been out of a job and they’d have taken my nursing license.”

  “And were you?” Tolliver walked into the living room, strategically blocking my eye contact with Lisa.

  Damn it, he was learning.

  I tried to sound innocent. “Was I what?”

  “Stealing medication from the sick children on your ward and selling it on the street?”

  “Don’t be stupid. First, if I was stealing drugs, do you think I would have been caught? Second, if I had the thriving drug business Harold claimed, would I be living here?” He could at least give me some credit. I wasn’t the brightest demoness in the bunch, but I wasn’t a total imbecile. Like Harold would be the one to catch me.

  Not that I’d ever consider stealing pain meds from sick kids. Some things were too evil. Even for a demon.

  “The first is a valid observation,” Tolliver said. “I mean, surely you would be smart enough to cover your tracks.”

  “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence in my intellect.” I leaned against the island and tapped my fingers on the granite countertop, trying to act nonchalant as he unraveled my web of lies.

  “The second observation is, meanwhile, irrelevant,” Tolliver continued. “You have access to millions, and yet you still live here. So, if you were selling drugs to supplement your paltry income in the healthcare industry, it wouldn’t make any difference where you live.”

  “I don’t have millions. Dad has millions. I’ve said it nicely, screamed it, thrown a temper tantrum about it, and now I’ll tell you again with a heavy dose of resigned sarcasm: I don’t need his money.” Unlike some demons.

  Dad had a bit of a hearing problem, though, and my allowance still arrived weekly in my bank account. It irritated me, but the extra funds were helpful. My only rule was that after I’d sent a bit to my ex-fiancé’s caregivers for the extras he might need, I always gave the rest to charity. It was my allowance, after all, to spend as I wanted. And I knew it made Dad squirm when I gave it to groups like Doctors Without Borders and the Coalition for Peace.

  “Except now you’ve been fired and can’t make it on your own,” Tolliver said. “So I guess some charities are going to be missing the influx of funds coming from Sainte Faith the Beneficent until you find some other pathetic mortal job to waste your time on.”

  “I wasn’t fired. He just threatened.” I pressed my fists into my back. No way would I play with my hair. It was my tell, and Tolliver knew it. And besides, Lisa was doing enough to make him suspicious by rocking back and forth like a little girl at her first scary movie. “Now that he’s dead, no one will be the wiser. In fact, I’m sure with a bit of digging, I can find proof that Harold was swiping the drugs he accused me of stealing.”

  “Do you really think it’s necessary?” Tolliver lounged against the back of the couch and picked up one of our ruffled throw pillows, snorted, and tossed it across the room. “I mean, he’s dead and you still have your pathetic mortal job. All the little kiddies are still getting their medications on time. It seems to me everything is right with the world. Except I didn’t get my fair share of Lisa’s kill.”

  “She followed my orders. I told her to drain him and she was compelled to obey me.” He was not going to fight me on protocol, was he? Really? The guy who took my roommate’s soul, and broke about fifty rules in the process, was fired up about technicalities?

  “Hmm, I see. And why did you want to drain him instead of just capturing the soul for our father’s subjects?” Tolliver focused his black eyes on me and pressed his lips.

  “Since she hasn’t mastered a full soul removal on her own, I didn’t want to lead her into a learning experience gone wrong. Like that first-grade teacher you turned into a zombie.”

  “True.” Tolliver shrugged, unconcerned. “Miss Hopkins was an unfortunate accident, but you’re right—it’s best to not tempt fate.”

  “And as a lower demon, isn’t she bound to do as I command her?” I was on a roll now. The zombie thing had him on the ropes.

  “Yes.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, so I pushed ahead before he could say anything.

  “So what’s the problem?”

  He looked like he was thinking, and a thinking Tolliver was a pain in the ass.

  Tolliver shifted on the couch, crossing and uncrossing his arms. The smell of burnt sugar and brimstone emanated from him, and judging by the way he fidgeted, his wings bothered him. But he had a terrible competitive streak and if I wasn’t exposing my wings, he wouldn’t either. It wasn’t much of an edge, but it might keep him distracted long enough for me to talk my way out of the whole Harold mess.

  “But it’s customary to ask a demon lord before you use one of his mini
ons for a soul extraction. It’s also polite to give the soul to me for use as I see fit.” He knew he was on precarious ground. Technically, he was right, but all I had to do was call Dad and he’d be in bigger trouble for turning Lisa into a demon than I would be for killing Harold.

  “And why would I waste time kissing up to you? Lisa’s my roommate.”

  “Because you owe me for the soul extraction?”

  “Here.” I reached into a canister on the island and tossed him a macadamia nut cookie. When in doubt, bribe him. “Payment for your trouble.”

  “Oh, these are my favorites.” He chuckled and took a greedy bite. “But I don’t know if they’re sufficient payment. Perhaps I want the neighbor instead?”

  “No deal.” No way would Dad let him hijack someone’s soul for a laugh. There were rules about that sort of thing. Not many rules, but there were rules. Although, they hadn’t stopped him with Lisa.

  “What about that priest over at St. Timothy’s? You know he’s up to no good. Besides, think about how much fun you have tormenting him once he’s gotten into the communion wine.” Unlike normal mortals, religious clergy were fair game, and Tolliver loved messing with the drunk in charge of St. Timothy’s. Driving that poor priest insane was a personal mission for him.

  “Can I use my powers against him? You know how funny it is when he freaks out. Please?”

  “If it’s subtle. No blowing up the church, no flying him out over the city where people might see, nothing like that.”

  “Oh, sis!” Tolliver clasped his hands in front of his heart and reached up to wipe a nonexistent tear from his eye. “You wound me with your lack of faith. I would never dream of doing something to threaten your stronghold here in lovely… where are we again?”

  “Pittsburgh.”

  “Pittsburgh?”

  “Yes, Tolliver, we’re in Pittsburgh.”

  “Are you sure? Why would you live in Pittsburgh?”