“I don’t believe you,” Valerie said, and I couldn’t help but agree with her. Turning a group of nephilim children into demons? It had never been done. I didn’t even know you could steal a child’s soul.
“I expected you to say that.” Lilith snapped her fingers and a young couple appeared, frozen in a bubble, next to the island in Matt’s kitchen. The woman, who could have been Matt’s sister, was holding a tiny infant in her arms. “So perhaps a little demonstration is in order?”
The girl inside the bubble let out a scream when the baby in her arms levitated and flew across the room to Lilith. The demoness cradled the baby against her chest and cooed. “Isn’t she a lovely thing? Definitely worthy of joining my ranks in a few year’s time, aren’t you? Yes, you are. You’ll make every man in a fifty mile radius fall to his knees.”
“Lil,” I said, my voice wavering.
“Now,” she continued, focusing on the baby. “This is going to tickle. But I promise, you won’t notice a thing afterward.”
She nuzzled the baby’s neck and put her finger to its lips. “Out you come.” A tiny tendril of golden light flickered briefly and attached itself to Lilith’s finger. She tugged gently, twining the thread around her finger as it pulled free.
“Lil,” I persisted, my voice more urgent. She was actually going to remove an infant’s soul. Against its free will. That was a very big no-no in Dad’s book. We didn’t steal souls. That was Rule One. Rule Two was that we did not take the souls of children. Rule Two Point One was probably that if we were going to break Rule One we never it broke it and Rule Two at the same time.
“Hush now.” She waved her hand at me and the golden light tangling around her finger wavered. “I need to concentrate.”
“Mother,” the woman inside the bubble wailed. “Tell her what she needs to know.”
“She won’t do it,” Valerie said, her voice steady. “She wouldn’t actually cut the cord and take your child. It’s all a bluff.”
“He’s in my mother’s house. Hidden in the basement,” the girl screamed. “I’ll take you to him. It’s on the main road. The house at the end. The one next to the church.”
“Wonderful.” Lilith nodded, not bothering to look over at the girl, cooing at the baby instead. “Faith, go tell your father I’ll be with him in a moment. Then we’ll go get my son.”
“What about my baby?” the girl inside the bubble wailed. “I told you what you wanted. Please give me my daughter back.”
“Of course,” Lilith replied and untwined the child’s soul from her finger, feeding it back into the baby’s mouth. “One second, though. We want to make sure it’s all back in place.”
“You fool,” Valerie snapped. “She would have never hurt the child.”
“She’s right.” Lilith watched the last tendril slip back inside the baby’s mouth. The child giggled and clapped her hands. “We don’t steal souls, and we never harm children. Unlike some people, we actually follow the rules.”
“I told you!” Valerie yelled, struggling against her bonds.
“Faith,” Lilith said, her voice calm. “Please go get your father. You don’t want to have any part in what’s coming next.”
“But…”
“Now,” she insisted, her eyes a matted obsidian.
“Are you sure?”
“Faith Anne, I said go now.” Black power enveloped Lilith and she started to shift from the gorgeous succubi form she normally wore to that of an eight foot tall pissed off demon lord instead.
I swallowed once and decided that whatever was about to go down in here, Lilith was right. It was better if I didn’t have any part of it. I did my best to keep my pace steady and not run like a demon child with my tail on fire. Unfortunately for my dignity, I barely managed a terrified scurry.
“What happened?” Hope asked. She stopped pacing and shook her head. “I wanted to go inside but Lilith told me I wouldn’t be useful without my powers. I can’t believe I missed a chance to work with the harbinger of Evil herself. Stupid, miserable, worthless curse.”
“Lilith threatened to remove a baby’s soul so the mother told us where Tolliver was.” I looked at Dad. “She said to tell you she could take you to the Angale compound in just a moment. She has some business to finish first.”
The wind picked up outside and the hallway turned icy. A flash of dark power flared from underneath the door, and the light above us exploded into a thousand tiny shards. What the hell had she just done?
“Temperamental woman.” Dad pinched his nose. “I told her I’d handle things. But no, she just can’t resist zapping people who piss her off into a zillion pieces. Let’s hope she didn’t set Matt’s couch on fire in the process. That would be a pain in the ass to explain.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The door opened and Lilith, back in her regular MILF from Hell form, stared at Dad, her hands on her hips.
Dad rolled his eyes. “I take it our little problem has been taken care of?”
“Of course it has.” Lilith smacked the back of his head. “I don’t leave behind messes. You know that. Now let’s go before your fiancée and my lover get annoyed at all the time we’ve been spending together. ”
“Your lover? What lover?” Dad rubbed the back of his head and frowned at her. “No one told me you had a lover.”
She crossed her arms over her ample chest and scowled. “I’ve spent long enough waiting around for you to come to your senses. You’ve chosen another mate and there’s nothing to keep me from doing the same. Besides, eternity is a long time to sleep alone. Now, if you could redirect your not inconsiderable energies toward helping me retrieve our son, I would be grateful.”
“We will be discussing this later,” he said.
Lilith pushed past him and opened a phase portal in the middle of my hallway. “Oh, we will not. Now are you coming or aren’t you?”
“Fine.” He stepped through the portal behind her. I turned to Hope and she shrugged. What could we say? It served Dad right that Lilith had gotten fed up with waiting for him and had taken a lover. I walked into the portal behind Dad, my sister and my best friend following behind me like the Holy Ghost was on their asses.
We stood behind a tiny, old-fashioned gas station. Steam simmered off the blacktop while waves of heat came off the green fields behind us. I took in a deep breath, and it felt like I was sucking air in through a wet washcloth. We weren’t in Pittsburgh anymore. This place was much too green, and besides, it was hotter than Hell. I mean, Hell was warm, but this place was scorching.
“You want to go in there, just the five of us?” Hope asked. “I mean, not that I don’t think we could take them. Hell, I could take them on my own if Dad hadn’t robbed me of my powers. But don’t you think a shock and awe tactic of a hundred howling, bloodthirsty demons would be more effective? Plus, way less damaging to my manicure. Which I just got done, by the way.”
“We don’t need an entire legion of demons to get your brother back,” Dad said.
“Well at least give me my powers back so I can be useful.” Hope crossed her arms and tapped her silver stiletto sandal-clad foot on the ground.
“You can be useful.” Dad grabbed her hand, without bothering to even look at her bright pink nails, and pushed her behind him. “If someone sneaks up behind us, scream. Then kick them with those ugly ass shoes.”
“Hey!” She looked down at her shoes. “What’s your problem with my shoes?”
“Where do you want me to start?” Dad asked.
“Excuse me?” Lilith stuck one of her hands up and waved it. “Not that this discussion about your daughter’s… What are those? Prada?”
“Stella McCartney,” Hope corrected.
“Right.” Lilith nodded. “Could we maybe focus a little more on finding Tolliver and a little less on Hope’s choice of footwear?”
“Absolutely.” Dad grimaced. “Where are they at?”
“Just around the side of the gas station.” Lilith pointed to the scrubb
y looking field behind the ramshackle building. “They’re pretty well hidden, but that’s where they seem to be coming in and out of their bubble.”
“Right.” He nodded. “So how are we going to handle this?”
“We blast our way in and zap anyone who looks at us cross eyed.” Lisa announced, her voice hard.
“Well it does seem straightforward enough,” Dad said. “But who’s going to start? I mean we don’t just want to start blasting all at once, do we?”
“Would you like the honors, dear?” Lilith looked at Lisa. “It is your fiancé we’re saving after all.”
“Right,” Lisa said. “They can hear me from inside there?”
“I’m sure they’re listening right now,” Lilith said.
“Good.” Lisa stepped forward. “Hey, assholes! I just snuffed your queen, and I’m going to blast your little reality bubble straight to Hell if someone doesn’t get their ass out here right now to negotiate.”
“Well, that was a little more blunt than I usually go for,” Dad said.
Hope snickered. “Well, you’re not running things, are you?”
“And I’m not the one sitting here with no powers either, now am I?”
“Just wait until I get them—” Hope stopped as the field in front of us shimmered, and a man only a few inches taller than me stepped out. He looked like a weasel in his three-piece suit, his gray comb over barely covering his sunburnt scalp.
The weasel sniffed. “Who are you?”
“Who am I?” Lisa leveled a finger at him, zapping him in the chest with enough force to throw him backward. Instead of waiting for someone else to stick their head out, she followed him inside, my father and his former consort hurrying along behind, keeping Hope and I behind them.
We walked into the middle of a group of rundown houses, and my entire body went cold, like it had inside the sprites’ encampment. Lisa sneered at the assembled mass of nephilim while my dad and Lilith flanked her, still keeping in front of my sister and I so that we weren’t directly in the middle of the shit when it hit the fan.
“I told you who I was already,” Lisa said. “I’m the demon who killed your idiot generalissimo wannabe and if someone doesn’t get me my boyfriend in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to kill everyone else in here as well. Are we clear?”
“She’s bluffing,” one of the women called out. “Her Holiness would never be taken by a mere demon. Bassano wouldn’t allow it.”
“Bassano didn’t even notice,” Lisa said. “He’s being entertained by a dread demon disguised as a supermodel and a game of naked Twister.”
“Ugh.” I was going to have to disinfect Malachi once this was over. Or give him some sort of reward. I couldn’t imagine he would enjoy spending this much quality time with Bassano, but this was Mal—there were some things it was just better not to contemplate.
“The Celestial One wouldn’t have left us for a demon,” the woman argued, clearly in denial when it came to certain angels.
“Um, yeah, I think he would for one if there was a naked Twister game involved,” someone else in the crowd said.
I closed my eyes and tried not to laugh at the insanity of the situation. Matt was being put through an incredible amount of pain while my uncle and cousin fought to save his life and his own family was more concerned about whether or not his dad was a kinky bastard. If I wasn’t careful this group was going to send me straight past hysterical and right into a total mental break.
“Time is tick, tick, ticking away,” Lisa sang. She turned her attention back to the guy on the ground and shook her head at him. “You must not be the most popular guy around if they’re willing to let you die while they argue about whether or not your boss is a perv.”
“I’m the church accountant,” he said, his voice squeaky. “I collect the tithes and the rents. I also manage all the businesses while Her Holiness and the Celestial One are busy with other things.”
“Oh, you’re the toady.” Lisa gave him another quick zap. “No wonder they don’t care if you live or die. But, regardless, someone better get me my man before I get too angry. Otherwise I might just kill the toady, kill the mortals, and then start in on all of you.”
“Get the demon,” the man on the ground whimpered.
“But Her Holiness—” one of the women countered.
“I told you.” Lisa zapped into the crowd at random and Lilith stepped closer to me to give her future daughter-in-law room. “I killed her. Turned her into a little pile of ash and poured her down the garbage disposal. No more crazy homicidal leaders for any of you.”
“You can’t expect us to believe—”
Lisa pulled the silver crucifix Valerie had been wearing earlier out her skirt pocket. She held it up for everyone to see and then tossed it onto the ground next to the accountant. “Now, bring me my demon.”
“But—”
“Tolliver. Now.” Lisa raised her finger at them, and three of the women pointed toward the largest house in the compound.
“He’s in there,” the weasely accountant sputtered. “In the basement.”
“Good.” Lisa zapped him. “Go get him.”
“But…”
“I said”—she pointed at him—“go get him. Now.”
He flinched, and addressed some of the men behind him. “Dale, Leroy, Jethro, go get the demon. Bring him up here.”
“Get him gently,” Lisa said. “I might start getting itchy and Evil only knows who I might kill after Toady here.”
The man sniffled. “Earl.”
“What?” Lisa looked down at him and zapped the ground in disinterest.
“My name,” he said, and I wrinkled my nose when I smelled the sickly sweet stench of urine. “It’s Earl.”
“Sure it is.” She zapped at the other side of him, missing by a feather’s breadth. “Now get your muscle boys in there to get my man before I change your name to Imp Food.”
“Go, now,” he whimpered and the three burly men in overalls hurried to do his bidding. While they were inside, Lisa kept her finger pointed toward Earl like a magic wand. My father and Lilith faced down the cowering group of Angale “warriors” who were trying to hide behind each other and stay out of sight.
Meanwhile, I tried to figure out how the hell someone like Matt had come from a place as backward as this. I mean I’d thought his mother’s crazy little hidey-hole had been bad but this place was just ugh. No wonder he’d never wanted to talk about his life here. He’d wanted to be a normal guy, not some freak from a compound. He’d been successful at it, too. Or at least he had been before this afternoon. Who knew what he was going to be like when he finally woke up again?
“You,” a younger woman said, her black hair pulled back in a messy braid and her blue eyes glittering at me. “You’re the demoness my brother is in love with.”
“No I’m not.” I shook my head. The last thing I needed was for them to recognize me as his girlfriend. That’d be like putting a big “attack here to draw a demon out” sign right over his heart.
“Yes, you are,” she insisted. Her eyes were wide and filled with tears. “Brenda showed me a picture of you she stole from Levi before she left the compound with Her Holiness. You’re the woman he wanted to be with instead of her.”
“I’m just his landlord,” I insisted.
She grabbed my hand, clinging to it. “Please, tell me my brother is okay? Tell me he wasn’t hurt when the other demon killed Her Holiness. Tell me you protected him.”
“He’s fine,” I finally said. My heart clenched at the thought of Matt on my living room floor this afternoon. “He wasn’t there when Valerie was executed.”
“Will he come home now?” she asked. “Is he going to lead us now that Her Holiness is gone?”
How could I tell them what was happening to him while we were all standing here? How could I even begin to guess what he was going to want once this was all over? Maybe he would take his mother’s place and lead his people. Maybe he’d want to give them a
chance at a better life than the one they’d been living. Maybe let them see the world wasn’t something to hide away from. If anybody could do that, it was Matt.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I don’t know.”
At least he’d be safer here than he’d been with me. If he was with his own kind, no one would try to kill him. But then again, they were a bloodthirsty lot, so who knew what he’d be walking into?
“Tolliver,” Lisa shrieked, and I pulled away from the woman and watched Lisa sprint across the clearing. My brother sauntered toward her, his hands in his pockets and an Angale on each side of him with another one bringing up the tail like some sort of imbecilic honor guard. Except for the blue jeans and John Deere T-shirt, which I knew were not his, he looked normal. The jackass.
Lisa launched herself into his arms and wrapped her legs around his waist. He caught her and pulled her close while she squealed in delight. She planted her lips against his in a furious kiss and tangled her fingers in his hair.
“Ah, young love,” Lilith chuckled and zapped at Earl.
“More like lust,” Hope snorted.
“That, too.” Lilith smiled and zapped at the side of Earl’s head again, enjoying her new game.
“Oh. My. God.” Lisa yelped and hopped off of Tolliver, looking at him in horror. “What are you wearing?”
“It was this or a towel, dear.” He looked down at his ensemble. “At the time this was the preferable choice, especially since the woman in charge of bathing me seemed a little too over-eager in her task.”
“Which one?” Lisa spun around, toward the pack of nephilim cowering in front of my father and Lilith. “Which one was it?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He grabbed her around the middle and pulled her back up against his front, nuzzling her neck. “Let’s go home so I can take a shower and burn these clothes.”
“I’ll wash your back.” Lisa smiled up at him.
Hope and I turned to each other and gagged.
“It’s good to know you’re all right,” I said when they reached us.
“I’m fine.” He shrugged. “Except for being trapped with the Angale. Without cable television. Why? Were you worried?”
Devil May Care Page 22
