by Holly Lisle
He was still pondering that when Puck looked up, wide-eyed, and ran for the bathroom.
Chapter 20
Meg nearly hung up. She'd counted nineteen rings, and she didn't see any reason to keep trying—but of course that was the moment that the voice on the other end said, "Satco, General Projects Division."
"May I speak to Glopsmear, please."
"Speaking."
"My name is Meg Lerner. I'm a lawyer calling on behalf of a consortium that has heard about your Devil's Point project, and may be interested in investing."
From the other end of the phone, silence. Then, "Devil's Point? But that project is dead."
"You can't get the land. I know. But I think I may have a solution."
"A solution would be worth a lot to me right now." The voice on the other end held an edge of excitement.
"Then when can we meet?"
"Where are you?"
"In Raleigh."
"I mean right now."
"Oh." Meg paused, then told her the name of the restaurant.
"Give me five minutes."
Click.
Meg hurried back to the table. Puck was just sliding into the seat when she got there.
"What did she say?"
Meg smiled at him. "That she'll be here in five minutes. She sounded excited."
Puck's face went slack and looked frightened for a moment. Then he said, "You haven't seen excitement until you've seen what she would do if she ran into me. I'm going to go outside and sleep in the back of your car, Dan. Get me when you're through meeting."
"The door's locked."
"As if that would be a problem."
He reached over and shook Meg's hand. His palm was tremendously hot, his scaly skin not entirely unpleasant to the touch, though certainly odd. "It's been a pleasure. I hope we'll meet again."
"Of course we will," she said to his retreating back.
She turned to Dan, who didn't seem surprised by the devil's hasty retreat.
"He's had a lot of problems with his own kind as well as ours," Dan said. He looked like he intended to go into detail, but he didn't get the chance.
A curling cloud of sulphurous yellow smoke erupted from the center of the room, in between several tables of diners. As people began to shriek and stumble backward, a solid form developed in the center of the smoke cloud. Meg's first impressions were of tremendously long hair that swirled in a cloud of its own, of powerful shoulders, muscled thighs, and enormous, jutting breasts. Her second impression, as the smoke cleared, was of a face that would stop clocks and cause birth defects.
Into the stunned silence, Meg cleared her throat. "Over here," she said, and all the customers went from staring at the female devil to staring at her. She shifted in her seat, wishing that Glopsmear had chosen a less dramatic entrance.
The devil wore a nicely cut gray summer wool business suit with a high hemline and an elegantly draped red blouse and carried a slim, expensive briefcase. Meg felt a moment of envy over that briefcase, but it passed quickly. The envy over those breasts lasted longer. Even at her age, Meg found very little wonder in the Wonder Bra, and still remembered with some anguish her junior high days when the only thing that came between her and her Playtex Cross-Your-Heart was a pair of rolled sweatsocks. Such feelings of inferiority faded, but never entirely died.
On the other hand, she thought with some gratitude, she could look at her face in the mirror in the morning without screaming.
Glopsmear settled into the seat Puck had so recently occupied and sniffed. "I didn't realize they served the Hellspawn here," she said. She didn't have any scales. She looked, in fact, almost human, except for her pale, pale blue eyes, which had those square pupils, and for her mouth, which was twice as wide as any human mouth Meg had ever seen. The mouth seemed to split her face in two, and when she smiled, Meg got a look at teeth that would have sent an orthodontist screaming. Oddly, she reminded Meg of Puck, but not in any way that Meg could put a finger on.
Meg shrugged. "Policies change."
"Indeed they do." The devil opened her briefcase and from it extracted a blue folder about an inch thick and several reduced-size copies of blueprints. "And if we could just get this project off the ground..."
Meg and Dan listened in amazement as Glopsmear took them over the planned Devil's Point Amusement Park. Meg studied die list of planned attractions, and realized that nowhere else in the world was there anything similar to even one of them. Devil's Point would be unique, educational, fascinating, fun... and it could be the first real draw to turn around North Carolina's ailing economy.
When Glopsmear got to the planned construction details, Meg and Dan looked at each other. "They're going to have to hire human construction companies to do this," Dan whispered.
"And humans who run hotels in the area are going to rack up." Meg considered the influx of international scholars who were going to want to use the library—every book ever written in any language; the paleontologists who would move into the prehistoric areas; the historians who would be able to talk with Julius Caesar and Hannibal and Hammurabi and Queen Elizabeth I in person. And the everyday people who would go there to play. To have fun. To get the bodies they'd always dreamed of.
I might do that, Meg thought I could. Real perfect breasts. Not implants.
She said, "Once we acquire the land and construction starts, you folks might want to consider opening up the company and offering stock."
The devil said, "The problem is the land." She pulled out a plat map of part of Fender County. "This is the piece of ground we want. It's roughly ten miles by ten miles square, and we need all of it, of course. You can see that we've planned to utilize every square inch of the space. There are a few people who live there—we think they'd be amenable to selling. Our big problem comes from the owners of this stretch of land from here—" One talon dragged along a shaded area. "—to here. This is owned by people who aren't interesting in selling at any price."
"Then they're the only people in the state who aren't trying to get rid of property right now. Who are they?"
"You've heard of Forever Wilderness, Inc. ?"
Meg felt her stomach knot. "The private company that buys up little parcels of land and acts like it's saving the universe. I sent them a thirty-dollar donation once and within the year received over two hundred dollars worth of mailings soliciting more money. They have great memes, but their corporate raison d'etre is simply the propagation of their organization."
"So you have met."
Dan raised an eyebrow. "I donate to them."
Meg said, "I'll put garlic around your neck and give you a silver cross to ward them off. They're money vampires."
The devil laughed. "However, they really don't ever give up a piece of ground they've acquired, and they certainly weren't interested in selling to us, no matter how much our project might help the economy."
"Maybe we can work out a barter deal with them. Other land in the state is certainly up for grabs. How much are you willing to pay for the land if my consortium can get it for you?"
"You'll like this," the devil said. "Money is no object. We just want the land."
"Do you have the money now?"
"Our corporate war chest is very, very deep. The answer is yes. Whatever you have to pay to get the land, pay it, and we'll make the deal extremely profitable for you."
Meg reached out a hand and shook with Glopsmear. "When we're ready to do the deal, I'll let you know and we can work out the details then." She looked at the Devil's Point plans. "Would you mind if I took those with me to show to my investors? I think we're much more likely to get total cooperation from the group if they can see what a marvelous project this is."
Glopsmear smiled. Unfortunate, really. It looked like she'd tried to swallow a dinner plate and the plate had gotten stuck halfway down. "Take whatever you need. You know where to reach me."
"You'll be hearing from me soon."
The devil disappeared in another cloud
of sulphur, and Meg twisted around in her seat and hugged Dan. "This could save North Carolina," she said.
Dan nodded. "It could. And if we could tie it in with the Great Devil Makeover as one example of the benefits our state will reap from taking advantage of the presence of the Hellraised, North Carolinians should be willing to support it."
"A lot of our success in doing that will depend on how well Puck does," Meg said.
Dan nodded, his expression becoming thoughtful. "If Puck can walk away from Hell and evil, that will make all the difference in the world."
Chapter 21
Dan put his key into the lock and paused.
I forgot about the imp, he thought. It's been in there all day. God only knows what kind of mess it's made.
He took a deep breath. How much worse could it be than when he left? Well, he could have stuff dripping off the ceiling in the rest of the apartment. Everything he owned might be shredded and in piles. All the dishes might be broken. He opened the door and his first thought was that he'd been robbed. Then he realized someone had just cleaned up. He heard off-key humming, and after a moment he realized the song was "Copacabana."
Why would anyone hum "Copacabana"?
He stepped inside, switched on the light, and tried to get over the shock.
The previously grimy upholstery looked brand new—the worn spots no longer showed, the blue-and-brown herringbone had returned, and the overall pallor of gray no longer existed. But that was the least of the apartment's changes. He felt the next one under his feet, where carpet that had been pounded into a flat, felted mass now sprang up beneath his shoes. He slipped the shoes off and sank into the delightful cushiony resistance of new carpet. "How did he replace the carpet?" Dan asked Puck.
"Fetch is an it. And it didn't replace the carpet. It rugged it—went through and twisted all the fibers back into yarn." Puck, standing just to the left of Dan, bent down and experimentally twisted one of the strands. "It could have gotten them tighter. If we were back in Hell..."
The carpet wasn't splotchy neutral beige with darker stains anymore, either. It had become a solid, pleasant shade of light blue, and its color no longer matched that of the cigarette-smoke-stained walls. Now that Dan looked at them, the walls weren't the dingy yellow-brown that they'd been when he left that morning. They were white, that sort of snowfield-in-sunlight white designers so admired.
The kitchen wasn't covered in Jackson Pollock food splatters anymore, either. Its white-on-white brilliance matched the living room's... and the floor glistened. My landlady is going to love me, he thought.
"Fetch did all of this?"
"Imps have their uses. Takes time to train them, but it pays off. Of course, every now and then you get hungry and forget yourself. Then you have to start all over again with another one."
"You eat imps?"
"All Hellraised are cannibals. Didn't you know that? It's not like you can grow food in Hell. We're the only living things there. You don't see that sort of cannibalism dirtside, though. The little bastards are too expensive to eat. A colleague of mine fried up a couple of gargoyles and a six-pack of imps for a midnight snack, because he didn't know we had to pay for their replacement bodies, and the bill from Hell was so steep he couldn't pay it. He got recalled."
That entire revelation fell into the category of things Dan didn't want to know about the Hellraised. He didn't comment on it. Instead, he sneaked the imp a Mr. Goodbar for doing such a good job and gave him a quick scratch behind the ears. Then he checked his answering machine. Three messages.
Beep!
"Phone tag! You're it! Call me! Bye!"
Dan wondered if his sister ever visited her home for more than five minutes. This is long past absurd, he thought.
Beep!
"Hello, Dan, it's Janna. I'm sorry I got so upset about Bits. It isn't like the Hellspawn haven't been chowing down on family pets since they arrived. I should have kept him out of the way. Anyway, I'd still like to help out with your project... and I'd still like to see you, too. Call me when you can."
Beep!
"Hi, Dan. Meg here. Just wanted to say I enjoyed our dinner date, and my uncle is so excited about the plans I took home he's called his investors and they're meeting him in the bank tomorrow morning. I think this is going to work. I still want to find some time for just the two of us. See you tomorrow to let you know how things went."
He went into the kitchen to get himself a Coke, and the smell hit him. An underlying ammonia clean with an overlay of the lemony scent of floor polish. And a touch of cinnamon.
The scents were like a gut punch. He hadn't smelled them together since the days and nights when he could still come home to Francie.
Francie had died in Colorado. Her body was there. The house Dan had shared with her was there. His past, his life—they were in Colorado, too. She had never seen this apartment, and yet suddenly her presence filled the kitchen for him as completely as if she had spent her entire life in it with him. His eyes filled with tears and he leaned against the refrigerator, waiting for the pain to pass.
It didn't.
After the last horrible year, when she'd wasted and faded and suffered pain that only drugs and unconsciousness could lessen, he'd thought her final release into death would be a relief. He thought that he could stand her absence and bis loss, knowing that she no longer suffered. He had been calm at her funeral. It was for the best. For the best.
But his pain after her death had worsened. Every day, something happened that he wanted to tell Francie. Every time he turned around, she wasn't there. Every time he rolled over in bed and reached for her in his sleep, his arm touched an emptiness so terrible it burned. Her presence had filled his life, but her absence filled it more.
The new job, the new apartment, the return to his home state—he sought them out to flee the yawning void of Francie that threatened to swallow him up. He rebuilt himself around a life that had never known her, and tucked his hollow soul away with the pain, pretending she and her love and those few perfect years before the cancer came had never existed.
He pushed himself upright, wiped his eyes, got his Coke from the fridge with jaw-clenched determination, and returned to the living room.
He sprawled into his recliner and stared at the ceiling while Puck channel surfed.
"Dan?"
"Yeah?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
The devil turned to face him. "It's none of my business; I'm just curious. You don't seem like the two-timing type. So why?"
Dan closed his eyes. "You're right. It isn't any of your business."
"Touchy."
Dan popped the top on his Coke and took a swallow.
Puck watched. "How'd you meet them?"
Dan said nothing.
"Look, you like them. They both like you. Nothing wrong with that. But sneaking around boffing two women at the same time has been known to get men into more trouble than they ever imagined."
"I interviewed them on my show, both in the same week. I asked them out. They accepted."
They were supposed to take away the pain. They were supposed to make him forget that other life... that other, perfect, irretrievable time. But he'd been kidding himself. They couldn't replace Francie, and they couldn't make him forget her, and they couldn't take away his pain.
"You fool around with women," Puck said, "they'll break your heart."
Dan looked at him, but did not say what he was thinking.
You can't break what's already broken.
Chapter 22
THURSDAY JUNE 9TH
Dan got himself up at four the next morning so he would have some time to himself before the day started. He fixed himself a bowl of cereal—when did they stop calling them Sugar Frosted Flakes?—and ate his breakfast in bed while watching Headline News on CNN. The damned human race kept itself busy with the business of human damnation—fighting in the Middle East, war in Eastern Europe, war in Africa; torture in C
entral America; rape, murder, thievery, violence, hatred and greed everywhere. The reporters dished out their morning dose of poison with the unemotional voices and blank-faced "we're objective" expressions that said, Not me. I am above this. I am pure of the taint of human pain and misery.
"Fuck you," he yelled at them. "You're human! Give a shit about humans, you bastards."
He punched the off button on the controller and threw it across the room. In the shower, he stood under a spray of icy water until he had his anger under control, then dressed and went into the living room to wake Puck.
The devil slept on the couch, curled into a ball, snoring softly.
"Puck," Dan said. "Wake up."
"Mmmrmph?"
"Wake up. C'mon. Wake up. We have a lot to do today."
"We... do? What?"
"I have to go to work. Janna's going to go with you while your suits are fitted. Then you need to meet with more advertisers and do a couple of spots for the promotions for the advertisers we already have. I think she'll probably stick around with you for that. When the two of you are done, you're probably going to have to talk with Meg's investment group. After you've done that, you and I need to set up a schedule for on-site promotions and work out your calendar."
"Oh." The devil gave a tremendous sigh, rolled over, and shoved his face into the couch back.
Dan flipped on the light. The devil groaned, rolled back over, and swung his legs to the floor. "You'll survive—" Dan started to say, but when he got a good look at Puck, words left him. Puck's scales had shrunk to the size of pinheads, and their hard new-penny gleam had dulled and softened. Puck's hide could almost be mistaken for skin—in fact, Dan had seen rich women come back from the Riviera with skin browner and leatherier than his, though without the slight metallic underlay that made him look like he'd had a good paint job.
His face was another wonder. The horns, shrunken to the buttons that would look at home on the forehead of a baby goat, almost disappeared beneath a fuzzy thatch of soft, black hair. The fangs, shorter—almost but not quite the length of human canines—no longer bulged outward or forced Puck's mouth into a perpetual sneer. Without that sneering expression, he looked somehow vulnerable. His eyes, with their square pupils and pale irises, still clearly marked his Hellish origins. The expression in them, though, was neither scornful nor hateful, but full of wonder.