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

by Eimer, Patricia

  “Anyway.” He handed me a margarita and then set a small cage with a hamster inside it on the deck beside us before taking the chaise lounge next to mine. He pushed one artfully sculpted blond curl behind his ear and gazed at me with a pair of silvery-green eyes that would have been mesmerizing if it weren’t for the fact I knew how evil the depths that lurked beneath could be. “When is your new husband getting back from his run?”

  “How long has he been gone?” I looked down at my watch. “About an hour? He should be back in about five minutes.”

  “Great!” Death smiled, his overly white teeth almost shining. “That gives us enough time for a short lesson before the two of you go do some sightseeing.”

  “Right.” I took a sip of my drink. “So what are we going to work on today? Proper ways of handling confused souls?”

  “Boring,” Mal said and then snapped his fingers, making a small screen appear in the air in front of him.

  “Well what do you suggest then? You were the one who came up with this as an idea for my honeymoon, after all.”

  “I was multitasking,” Malachi said as he began flicking his finger along the screen, changing channels with each swish. “Ooh, porn!”

  “No.” I said. “No porn. I don’t want to try to concentrate while you’re watching some dirty movie.”

  “Fine.” Mal sighed and flicked the screen again, landing on a news channel this time.

  “Today, the president visited the city of Pittsburgh for the first time since the attacks of last week,” a peppy newscaster said on Malachi’s screen and we all focused on it. “While the CDC has yet to isolate the chemical compound that was released in the city and affected the population, they have said definitively that the city is safe for inhabitants. I repeat, whatever was released inside the city, has dissipated and the CDC has reported that the effects of the drug are not contagious.”

  “I can’t believe that people are buying the story that terrorists blew up the city and released biological weapons that caused mass hallucinations in everyone present,” I said.

  “They had to believe something.” Death shrugged.

  “Militant vegans who don’t want to pay taxes?” I shook my head.

  “Mortals,” Mal said dismissively and then flicked to another channel—this one showing what looked like a rather involved Mexican soap opera—at least if the weeping women and the screaming were any indication.

  “Right.” Death clapped his hands and shifted so that he was sitting facing me instead of Mal and the television. “If we could maybe get back to the lesson?”

  “Sure.” I took another sip of my drink. “What were you thinking? More procedure stuff? Pet deaths, perhaps?”

  “I was thinking we could switch topics.” Death smiled at me, his eyes sparkling with red flames. “How do you feel about power surrogacy?”

  “Surrogacy? What do you mean surrogacy? Like paying someone else to get pregnant to breed a new Angel of Death?”

  “Don’t be silly.” Death picked up the hamster cage and sat it on the chaise lounge beside me. “Meet Ignatius. Your power surrogate.”

  “My what?”

  “Your power surrogate. I’m going to teach you how to transfer your power, temporarily, to Ignatius. That will allow you to move about in the mortal world while Ignatius stays in his cage, guarding your powers.”

  “You want me to use a hamster as a temporary Angel of Death? Seriously?”

  “Of course. He’s small, he’s portable, and the power surges keep him alive for far longer than his normal life span. After all, how else would I keep your standard, garden-variety hamster alive since the Garden of Eden?”

  “Really?”

  “You want to know the best part? Ignatius is virtually undetectable with your powers. If you’re attacked, no one is going to get him because no one ever thinks about the hamster. After all, he’s a hamster.”

  “That’s genius.”

  “I always thought so.” Death lifted the tiny brown-and-white hamster out of his cage and gave him a brief stroke. “Now, ready to give him some juice?”

  “Sure.” I took the hamster from him and cradled the tiny fuzz ball inside my hands. “So hit me with it. How do Iggy and I bond?”

  “Ignatius,” Death said.

  “Whatever.” I shrugged and heard Malachi snort.

  “Now.” Death pointedly ignored Malachi and glared at me instead. “Just like we practiced on your first day here. Close your eyes, find your power, and then pull it back into yourself. Touch your own aura.”

  “Touch my own aura,” I mumbled as I let my eyes slide shut. Concentrating, I reached out with my mind and, even though I felt stupid admitting it, I could sense my powers ebbing and flowing around me. It was like static electricity all along my skin, sending off a million shockwaves all at once that I’d never bothered to notice before.

  “Pull it back into yourself. Imagine it’s a piece of cloth surrounding you and fold the cloth of your powers back into you. Gather it into your heart.”

  “Right, my powers are a cloth.”

  “They’re like a warm blanket. Gather them tight around you.”

  “They’re a warm, cloth blanket.” I tried to pull my powers back inside myself but I couldn’t quite grasp it. Because, no matter what Death said, it wasn’t like cloth or a blanket or anything else you could touch with your fingers. It was more like something attached to your liver. Something that moved with your breath and was connected near your belly button.

  I tightened my stomach like I was putting on a pair of size-six capris after a long winter of hibernating in baggy sweatpants. The power around me seemed to waver. Maybe that was it. It wasn’t a cloth for me, it was sort of like my own personal extra layer of gut fat. I wrinkled my nose at the thought.

  “Concentrate on your powers. Think of nothing else besides those powers. Breathe through your powers.”

  Breathe. There was an idea. In the one ill-fated yoga class that Lisa had dragged me to right after we’d become roommates, they had talked about breathing. In through your nose, belly soft. I couldn’t pronounce whatever it was the yoga-teacher lady had called it and I wasn’t flexible enough to bend myself like a pretzel so I’d never been back, but the breathing hadn’t been too hard. I gave an experimental yoga-like breath and felt a jolt as my powers swept up my nose with a burn similar to soda in your nasal passages. Another breath, another feeling of Coke-like dark power seeping into my nose and down the back of my throat in an odd, burning tingle.

  “Good,” Death said encouragingly, his voice low. “Pull your powers back into your body. Not too fast, a nice, steady rhythm that you can keep control of.”

  I took another breath in and felt more of my powers trickling into my body in a slow, steady stream. Four breaths later I felt like I had a balloon full of Coca-Cola in my stomach that was sitting on my bladder but I couldn’t feel any of the static racing along the length of my arms.

  “How do you feel?” Death asked.

  “Like I have to pee,” I said, and I heard Mal laugh again.

  “That’s normal in the beginning. Now what you need to remember is that the power isn’t a real presence. There is nothing physically manifested inside your body or in your bladder for that matter. The feelings will pass,” Death said.

  “Unless you really do have to pee,” Malachi said.

  “Malachi, please, let my student concentrate.”

  “Yeah, let me concentrate.” I stuck my tongue out but kept my eyes closed and my mind focused on holding that ball of squishy magic inside me.

  “Now,” Death continued in his deep, hypnotic voice, soothing me as he spoke. “What I want you to do is I want you to go inside yourself again. Imagine that you can feel around inside your body and grab that knot of power. Grab that knot and smash it down, press against it, make it a tiny kernel of power. Just as strong as the knot you’re carrying, but much smaller. Imagine that your power is a walnut you could drop into a purse.”

  “Fa
ith doesn’t need to shrink her power down to the size of a walnut to get it in her purse,” Mal said. “Have you seen the bag she carries? She could hide the Titanic in that thing and not break a sweat.”

  “Ignore him,” Death said his voice light with humor. “He’s not important.”

  “I’ve known that for years.” I said, trying to keep my focus on my little balloon of deadly power.

  “Now squash that power down into something I could hide in my trouser pocket.”

  I focused my mind and imagined that I could get into myself. That I had another set of arms that weren’t real, like shadow arms that went inside of me and take hold of all the death and the ugliness that I’d forced down into that little ball. I grabbed the power between those two not-real hands and pressed, pushing on it like you would an aluminum soda can. I pressed and I pushed with my mind, feeling the power condensing down to a hard rock the size of an egg.

  “Good,” Death said when I sighed and used my real hand to swipe at the sweat that had formed off my forehead. “You have it smashed down?”

  “I think so.”

  Death took my hand. “Now, here’s the hard part.”

  “That wasn’t the hard part?”

  “Imagine that the tiny knot of power you’re now carrying is traveling up the back of your spine. The power is traveling up your spine and it’s going to come to rest at the back of your neck, right where the spine meets with the skull.”

  “So the power to kill someone with one touch is going to lodge in the back of my brain like some sort of cancerous growth? Perfect. Just what I need. The power to kill with one touch and brain cancer all at the same time.”

  “It’s not a tumor,” Death said.

  “Oh man, say it again.” The dread demon howled with laughter. “The accent is all wrong but it’s the most hilarious line in movie history.”

  “Oh, sweet Alpha, save me,” Death said and then I heard him chuckle. “Only you would think of Kindergarten Cop at a time like this.”

  “At least it’s not a tumor,” I said and then started to giggle, keeping a stranglehold on my powers. “So there’s something at least.”

  “No, it’s not a tumor,” Death said his voice a dead-on impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Now, please lodge the power to kill with one touch in the back of your head so we can go on about our day.”

  “Fine, fine.” I slowly started to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, letting the nasty little egg of death slide up my spine with each inhale. Once it had nestled into the back of my skull, inside my brain like a weird sort of awareness. It didn’t hurt. It felt odd. Like the traces of a headache after you’ve taken something for it.

  “Now,” Death said. “Open your eyes.”

  I let my eyes flutter open and looked at the man sitting cross-legged in front of me on the floor. “You feel in control now, don’t you?” he asked.

  “I do. I feel good. I feel like I can handle this.”

  “Great.” He pulled a hamster cage out from behind him and put it down in front of me. “Touch Ignatius.”

  “What?” I scooted backward.

  “Come along, pick Ignatius up and give him a cuddle. He’s a very friendly boy. Very social. So come along, make friends.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Pick up the hamster, Bettincourt, you wimp.”

  “Fine. Fine, you don’t have to be mean about it.” I snatched the hamster up out of the cage where he’d been running in his little wheel o’ death during our meditation session. “I don’t see what the big deal is. I didn’t want to hur…”

  I looked down at the tiny creature snuggled into my right hand while my left stroked along its back. “Oh shit.”

  “Don’t freak,” Death said hurriedly. “Keep breathing. Your power is contained and cannot hurt you or Ignatius. As long as you remain calm the two of you are fine. You’re fine.”

  “Yeah,” I said and nodded weakly, running my finger along the hamster’s back. “I’m fine. Iggy is fine. We’re cool.”

  “Ignatius. And if you’re ready we can continue,” Death said.

  “Continue?” I looked up from the hamster in my hands at Death. “What do you mean continue?”

  “Close your eyes,” Death said. “Then just like you moved your power from your stomach to the base of your skull, take that power and let it travel down your arms and into your fingers. Imagine watching it slide from you and into Ignatius.”

  I did exactly as Death instructed and closed my eyes, imagining a blue-black knot of power traveling down my arms and up into the tiny hamster feet resting on my hands. Iggy let out a muffled squeak and I opened my eyes. I felt lighter somehow. Like there was nothing inside of me that could do harm. “So did I do it?”

  “I think that would be an unabashed yes.” Death nodded toward my hands, and I looked down to see that Iggy had sprouted little black wings and two flea-sized black horns. He flapped his wings lazily and lifted off of my hands as a little black tail sprouted out of his hind end.

  “Oh yeah!” I threw my hands up in the air and wiggled a bit. “Look at that. Iggy and I have this totally off the hook.”

  “Ignatius,” Death said his face stern. “The hamster’s name is Ignatius.”

  “Only to those who haven’t spared his life today. Those of us with awesome, but completely contained, powers over the forces of life and death can call him Iggy.”

  “Iggy?” Matt asked from the doorway.

  “He’s our new evil hamster of death.” I gave him my brightest smile as the hamster began flittering around the deck, his little tail lashing back and forth as he sniffed at things, snorting little bits of fire out of his nose.

  “Our new what?”

  “Evil hamster,” I said. “Iggy is my new snuggle buddy.”

  “Great. We’ve been married less than two weeks and she’s already found someone else to snuggle.”

  “Oh don’t whine. He’s a demon hamster. Even better—he’s a demon hamster that I can snuggle and who’ll keep hold of my powers when I don’t want to worry about them.” I snatched Iggy out of the air when he flew close to my face, sniffing out little fire boogers, and cuddled him in my hands.

  “That’s fabulous, sweetheart.” Matt smiled at me. “But surely you can do that with anything? We don’t really have to take home a rodent do we?”

  “Iggy is not a rodent,” I said. “He’s a hamster, and he’s helping me control my powers.”

  “Fine. If it’s that important to you, I guess we can keep him.”

  “Did you hear that, Iggy?” I scratched the hamster behind the ears and put him back in his cage so that he could fly in safety and not accidentally kill a squirrel or anything. “You’re coming home with us and it is going to be awesome. You know why?”

  “Because you’re finally getting the pet you’ve always nagged your father for?” Malachi asked.

  “No.” I hopped up onto my feet and did a little victory dance, throwing my arms up in the air. “It’s awesome because Iggy is proof that I’m cured. I can touch things again. I can go back to work at the hospital. I can help Lisa out with AC 2.0. I can feed birds in the park. Wait a second, I don’t feed pigeons in the park they remind me too much of rats with wings. So never mind, scratch that. I’m not feeding birds in the park. The important bit is that I can go back to work.”

  I jumped up and down like I was a boxing champion who’d just won a major heavy weight fight, pumping my fists in the air. “I have this death thing totally off the hook!” I yelled and felt my whole body start to tingle a second before power shot out of every pore in my body.

  There was a sharp crack and I looked up as the lights in Death’s house flickered and then died. A second later there was the squeal of brakes on the street and then the unmistakable crunch of two cars meeting in the exact same space and time while both were moving.

  “Good job. It looks like you blew a substation.” Malachi stood and sauntered over to the edge of the deck. “From
the looks of it, you knocked out at least half of Malibu, including the traffic lights.”

  “Shit.” I flopped down on my chaise lounge and sighed as Matt dropped down on the deck beside me and kissed my temple.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said. “We’ll get it. Together.”

  “Together.” I agreed, my eyes closed, and smiled. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  “I love you, too,” he said and then kissed my ear.

  “Anyway, like I was saying,” Death said and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. “You’re going to want to close your eyes and clear your thoughts. Empty your mind.”

  “Should be easy enough,” Matt said and instead of answering I lifted the middle finger of my left hand, flipping him off.

  “Later, dear,” he said with a chuckle. “After all, now that you’ve got a surrogate, we have a lot of making up to do.”

  Acknowledgements

  No one writes a book alone. Especially not me. So in no particular order of importance I’d like to thank all the lovely peeps at Entangled Publishing—Liz Pelletier, Libby Murphy, Allison Blissard, Curtis Svehlak, Danielle Barclay, my fellow authors on the loops and anyone else I may have forgotten who helped turn this into insane rambling into something that other people want to read. I know that Faith and her story wouldn’t be here without each and every one of you.

  Thank you to the fans on Facebook, the reviewers, the people who come to my blog, and all the people who tell me they read my book and it made them laugh.

  Thanks as well to my family—Ben, Ainsley, Max, Nana, Zupper, Measles, Mary, Dennis, Joe, Trinity and especially my fabulous, wonderful sister-in-law Dr. Kelli Eimer who inspired the idea of the poor, exhausted medical resident in the first chapter. There’s no one else I’d choose to go along as comic relief in this lovely journey of extended family life.

  About the Author

  Patricia Eimer is a small town girl who was blessed with a large tree in the backyard that was a perfect spot for reading on summer days. Mixed with too much imagination it made her a bratty child but fated her to become a storyteller. After a stint of “thinking practically” in her twenties she earned degrees in Business and Economics and worked for a software firm in southwestern Germany but her passion has always been a good book. She currently lives in eastern Pennsylvania with her two wonderful kids and a husband that learned the gourmet art of frozen pizzas to give her more time to write. When she’s not writing she can be found practicing karate, training for triathlons and arguing with her dogs about plot points. Most days the Beagle wins but the Dalmatian is in close second. She’s in a distant third.