03 Before The Devil Knows You're Dead-Speak Of The Devil

by Eimer, Patricia

  “Just finished one with old Mikey boy, spot check for his performance evaluation. I lobbed him a softball,” the angel coughed.

  “Rough case?” Malachi asked.

  “Nah.” The other angel tried to sit up and then grimaced as he lay back down again. “Polish lady in Apartment C. Ninety-five years old today. She laid down for a nap and the kids are all hanging out in her front room, eating the old lady’s cookies and changing the volume on her television. The bastards.”

  “Valentin?” Michael said. The archangel I’d tossed in the ocean off Antarctica the night before stood inside our bubble, his mouth hanging open as he stared at the man lying on the ground beside me. “What happened? Why are you on the ground? Why are there demon spawn here? Especially Faith. I told you she’s evil. She’s sabotaging me.

  “Faith!” My mother called out from the car and I glanced over at her. “What’s going on?”

  “Just stay in the car Mom.” I held a hand out.

  “But—”

  “Just stay in the car. We have this under control.”

  “Of course we do,” Valentin said. “I’m fine. You just help me up, and I’ll go over and congratulate your mother on her wedding. I didn’t make the ceremony after all. Earthquake in Indonesia I had to supervise.” The angel struggled to sit up, his arms wobbling and instead of making it upright he collapsed backward again.

  “We need to get you to a hospital,” I said, ignoring the idiot on the other side of him, and he clamped down on my hand, gritting his teeth.

  “Valentin, lay back down and try to keep still while we get someone to look you over. You’re going to be okay.” Michael came closer and his voice had taken on a note of panic. Obviously he had gotten a grasp on what was going on. “You have to be okay. We’ll make sure of it. Won’t we, Bettincourt? You’re a nurse. You can do something-- can’t you?”

  “Absolutely, let me call a doctor and—”

  “Don’t think we need to worry about that now do we?” Valentin said, and let his head drop back. He brought his other hand up to pat mine and tightened his grip on my fingers. “You look like a nice girl. Louie’s youngest, aren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice cracking, and then I swallowed. “I’m Faith. And Michael’s right, I’m also a nurse. You’ve been hurt very badly, and for some reason you’re not healing like you should. We need to get you medical attention. There’s a demon on staff at Presby. An internist. Let me call him. He’ll be able to explain what’s going on.”

  Because I definitely couldn’t. When angels and demons took on physical bodies they were virtually indestructible. When we’d hit Valentin Tolliver’s SUV should have crumpled—not the angel in front of us. Something was very definitely wrong and I had no idea what it was.

  “Dehalme?” Valentin coughed and the muscles in his chest spasmed. “There’s no way in Mary’s blue tunic I’d let that old hack work on me. He used to advocate leeches and bleeding back before you were born. I’m not letting him anywhere near me with those slugs of his.”

  “Dr. Dehalme is an excellent physician. Let me call him and he can phase right over. Whatever is keeping you from healing, he’ll know how to handle it,” I said, dropping back into what we used to call a ‘reassuring the crazy patient voice’ when I was in nursing school.

  “Mal?” Valentin tightened his grip on my fingers, but focused his attention on the dread demon beside me. “Have a drink for me. Tequila. That’s one of those things I’ll miss. Good tequila with a little twist of lime.”

  “Sure.” The dread demon started to untangle our fingers but Valentin clamped down tighter, refusing to let go of me.

  “What are you—” I tried to jerk away from the angel but he wouldn’t release me as heat arced between us.

  “You need to give me your hand now.” Malachi grabbed my wrist with one hand and Valentin’s with his other, trying to break the other angel’s grip as I pulled with all my might to get free.

  “No. I know what to do. I’m prepared. Give me your hand.” Michael tried to snatch Valentin’s other hand in his, but the other man pulled away from him and grabbed onto me with a bruising grip.

  “Val.” Malachi’s voice was cold now. “Let go of the girl’s hand.”

  “She’s so much nicer than you are, Malachi,” the angel said, grabbing my shoulder with his other hand and pulling me closer, using my body to block our hands from Malachi’s grip. “Besides, you’d be crappy at my job. Don’t have the patience for it and you’ve seen too much. That’s my problem. Seen too much in my time here. Ended up jaded and bitter.”

  “Then give your hand to me.” Michael tried to pull us apart but the other angel held fast, pulling me across him like a blanket.

  “She’s got a nice heart.” Valentin shifted his weight so that he could wrap both hands around my jaw. “She’ll be so much better at the job than I ever was. Besides she doesn’t want it. That’s something most people don’t understand. The people who want this job are the ones who shouldn’t have it.”

  Before I could say anything the world exploded around me in a riot of bright gold. It was like walking from a darkened building into a brilliant July day, then staring directly into the sun, except a million times more powerful.

  My eyes watered, my head bloomed with pain, and all the muscles in my body seized at the same time. But I never panicked. I never felt fear. Instead, there was nothing but warmth and something that I thought might have been some form of peace. It was like… It was like dying, but without all the lousy, painful bits.

  Something exploded and gone was the warmth and the peace. Now it was like being inside a supernova. Too hot. Too bright. The world was burning and taking me along with it. It was like swallowing the sun. I tried to scream but my voice had been burned away by the heat and then, as quickly as it came it was gone. The heat poured into my open mouth and the light went with it, tucking themselves behind my spine, as the blackness surrounded me.

  “Faith,” Malachi said. “Damn it. Open your eyes, Faith Anne, or I swear to the Alpha and all those stupid humans He turned into saints for spoof factor that I will start doing chest compressions with a sledgehammer. Now wake up!”

  “Umph.” I tried to wiggle my toes. No good. My toes hurt. Correction. Everything hurt. Even my eyelashes. That couldn’t be good.

  “Wake up now. Otherwise, I will do something drastic and I promise you will not like it.”

  “I don’t want to go to school today.” Why would Malachi try to wake me up from a perfectly comfortable dream and make me face a world filled with pain instead? “Don’t worry, Mal, I’ll make sure I catch up on all my homework.”

  “Oh for the love of Jesus’s fluffy cat Magdalen,” Malachi said. “If you don’t wake up right this second, I will go get your mother.”

  My eyes shot open and I sat bolt upright. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but if Malachi was threatening to get my mother involved, then it had to be serious. “What? What is it? What happened? I didn’t do it.”

  “There’s my girl,” Malachi said smiling at me. “I was worried there for a second.”

  “What happened? Where are Michael and Valentin?” I tried to push myself up off the pavement, but the world began to spin. That would have been fine if it had the courtesy to only spin in one direction, but the diagonal swoop from my left eyebrow to my right ear was a killer.

  Malachi put his hand on my chest and pushed me back down. “They’re gone. Don’t try to get up so fast. You’ve gotten a pretty solid zap. Lay back.”

  “We’re in the middle of the road.”

  There was the scrape of denim against the pavement and a pair of well-muscled arms wrapped around my shoulders, lifting me. “Fine. Give me the keys. I’ll drive.”

  “They’re in the ignition,” I said as he stalked over to the SUV and juggled me into a better position for him to open the passenger’s side door. I cringed while Malachi shifted me into the car.

  “Praise be to the Goddess,” my moth
er said. “You’re alive. I’ve already called your father and Matt. They’ll bring your uncle and your cousin. Everyone is meeting us at the house.”

  “Oh fabulous,” I said and a moment later my cheek was pressed against the soft leather of Tolliver’s bucket seats. There was the brush of a disinterested hand against my breasts and I grinned as he clicked the seat belt into place.

  “What are you smiling about?” Malachi asked. “You’re going to have to deal with your whole family and an entire legion worth of trouble in a few minutes, and you think this is a good thing?”

  I smirked up at him, still too in shock from whatever had happened to really think straight about the fact that I was going to have to face my father after hitting an angel with my brother’s car. “You’ve gotten two cheap feels in the last five minutes and didn’t even realize it because you were busy making sure I was properly belted in and following a mortal traffic law. You’re slipping, you perv.”

  “I’m too worried about that whole legions worth of trouble part,” Malachi said and then there was the press of a pair of warm, full lips against my forehead. “Besides, the very idea of perving on you is all kinds of wrong. I might have nightmares from the suggestion.”

  Cool air caressed my skin and I heard the soft click of the passenger side door closing. I took a deep breath and tried to figure out what hurt worse—my chest, my head, or every other part of me.

  “I was so scared,” Mom said, her voice high pitched and squeaky. “There was that giant gold fireball and then everything went dark. The next thing I knew you were lying on the ground dead.”

  “Not very likely—especially now,” Malachi said as the car began to move.

  “I’m fine.” I groaned and the sound reverberated inside my own head. Yep, that was definitely the place that hurt the worst. “Except for the whole herd of elephants rehearsing Swan Lake in my frontal lobe I’m peachy keen. No worries.”

  “What?” Mom asked. “You’re seeing elephants?”

  “I think she has a headache,” Malachi said, exasperation in his voice. “Unless you are having a hallucination. Tell me, do I sound like Susan Sarandon?”

  “Nope. You sound like you.”

  “Good. That means there’re probably no hallucinations.”

  “You can’t use that to eliminate the possibility of a concussion,” Mom said.

  I shifted in my seat and tried to open my eyes. Nope, that hurt too much. “I am almost positive that I have a concussion. The last time I had one it felt very similar to this. What I want to know is who that was. And what the hell just happened to me.”

  “That was Valentin,” Malachi said, not meeting my eyes. “He’s a cherub.”

  “And the fireball?”

  “That’s a little more difficult to explain,” Malachi said and then the car glided to a stop. The door flew open and the smell of sunshine and cookies pouring into the front seat of the car mixed with the spicy aroma of absolute terror. “But it looks like I’m going to have to.”

  “Is she okay?” Matt asked, the stench of brimstone overpowered the cookies and my head thunked against the seat.

  “Don’t,” Mal said, his voice tense. “Don’t touch her.”

  “Why?” Dad’s voice was sharp.

  “Oh, Louie,” my mother wailed, “I was so scared. There was this bright light and then it was dark and Faith died.”

  “I didn’t die.”

  “My car.” I lifted my head and saw Tolliver standing in front of it, his hands tearing at his hair as he stared at the front grill. “You wrecked my car. This damn thing was supposed to withstand a bomb blast and you totaled it.”

  “Sorry.” I winced at the look on his face and then looked over at my father and Matt, both staring at me from the gap between the passenger’s side door and the curb.

  “What did you hit?” Tolliver yelled.

  “The Angel of Death.” Malachi said and I grimaced. That explained the fireball then.

  “The what?” Tolliver said.

  “Faith hit the Angel of Death with her brother’s car?” Dad asked, his voice sounding weary. “Shit.”

  “Would be an understatement, Your Royal Evilness, since she’s now absorbed his powers,” Malachi said. “That’s why you can’t touch her. None of us can touch her.”

  “What?” I lifted my head and tried my best to open my eyes to peer at the dread demon standing next to the car. His hair stood up in wild curls, his eyes were dark, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was sworn to protect me, I would have been worried that he was going to wring my neck. He looked angry enough to kill and not even flinch.

  “Val was the AOD live and in person, which is why he was so surprisingly fragile. One of the downsides of being forced to deal with mortal death. Although the upside of having a mortal body is that being Death is a short-term gig. One body, one mortal lifetime, and then you’re free to go.”

  “You couldn’t manage to distract him? You’re supposed to be protecting her, Mal!” Lightning raced across the sky and I looked up as every streetlight on the block exploded at the same time.

  “He tried,” I said, trying to calm my father down. “So did the Archangel Michael. It wasn’t their fault. The Angel of Death has one heck of a grip. Now quit yelling already. My head hurts.”

  “Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else? Somewhere away from the normal, non-Celestial, people? You know the ones who might think we look a tad strange standing out here like this?” Matt asked.

  “Right, okay,” Dad said. “We need to get Faith inside and then I’ll call my brother. He needs to hear about this.”

  “Faith can stay in my apartment,” Matt said.

  “I don’t want to go to your place,” I said. “I want to go back to my apartment. That’s where I live after all. That’s why it’s called my apartment. Emphasis on the mine.”

  “You’re not going back to your place. It’s not safe to leave you alone in your condition.”

  “You don’t even know what my condition is.”

  “I think Matt might have a point,” Dad said.

  “Too bad.” I began to fumble with the seat belt, my fingers trembling and my head swimming like I’d been fighting a particularly nasty case of the flu. “I didn’t ask what you thought. I’m going to my own apartment.”

  “Enough,” Malachi said. “All of you shut up. All due respect, of course, your Evilness, but shut up now.”

  “I don’t see how—” Mom started and Malachi glared at her.

  “Shhh.” Malachi’s shoulders hitched. “Now, Angel Boy, follow Faith up to her apartment and make sure she gets onto the couch without passing out. But do not, for any reason touch her.”

  Malachi turned to my father. “My king, call your brother and nephew. We need someone in here who can think clearly.”

  “What about me?” mom asked.

  “Your Royal Doltness, perhaps you could go down the street and get us all something to eat? I have a feeling we’re all going to be busy for a very long time.” Malachi swallowed as he looked around, obviously assessing the situation.

  “Are you sure that’s—” Mom said.

  “Do as he says, Roisin.” Dad said, cutting her off, his voice soft and worried sounding.

  “Tolliver,” Malachi said and then stopped. “I don’t know what to do with you so go deal with your car or something.”

  “Or something,” I snickered, feeling a little bit better listening to Malachi dress down my entire family.

  “Now you.” Malachi peered down at me, his eyes bright red and filled with flames. “Do not start with me, young lady. Can you walk?”

  I managed to slide out of the car and onto my feet. “I think so.”

  “Good. Now, upstairs and do not touch anyone. Got it? Do. Not. Touch. Not even me.”

  “You carried me to the car, though. At the scene, you carried me.”

  “It takes a few minutes for a curse to set in. Not that it would have mattered.”

  “Why
not?” I asked as everyone stepped back and I managed to stumble up the stairs.

  “Because it’s my job to keep you safe, stupid.”

  “You probably deserve a raise then.” I pulled the door open and managed to get myself inside with everyone else trailing three feet behind us as they watched me staggering through the building’s tiny foyer.

  My hand brushed across the leaves of a palm tree in the corner and Matt sucked in a shocked breath of air, I looked up at him. “What?”

  I let my eyes follow to where he was looking. Where there once had been a sort of dingy, sad looking palm tree, there was now nothing but a column of ash with shriveled palm leaves attached.

  “Well, that doesn’t look promising,” I said as everyone immediately took another step away from me. I was going to try my best not to be offended by the fact that everyone was treating me like I was my own personal IED.

  Chapter Six

  Lisa was standing in the doorway to her apartment, watching me lurch toward the stairs like some sort of monster in a B movie. She started forward, her arms outstretched. “What happened to you? Tolliver said there was an accident.”

  “Don’t.” Malachi’s voice was so sharp he could have hidden a razor-tongued demon tax collector inside it. “Don’t touch her.”

  My stomach dropped into my knees. Malachi was right. If I’d killed the plant by brushing it with my foot, who knew what kind of damage I could do to my best friend? To my patients? I would kill them trying to make them feel better.

  “She’s hurt.” Lisa stepped forward again. My blood froze as I noticed the slight bump between her black top and pink pajama pants covered in grim reapers.

  “He’s right.” I took two steps back, putting as much space as I possibly could between us. “You can’t touch me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because touching me might hurt you. Or AC 2.0.”

  “We’re not naming my baby AC 2.0 and I don’t care what anyone says, you’re not going to hurt me. You’re my best friend. You are incapable of hurting me. It’s not in your nature, no matter what happened to you.”