Sympathy for the devil

by Holly Lisle

"I'll be happy to," Dayne told him. "Have a seat on the bench—it will take me just a minute, but I'll be right down."

  "Sure." He nodded, and smiled again. "Thanks."

  Dayne closed the window and beat her head gently against the wall a few times. Usually she got up with the sun. Actually, she frequently beat the sun out of bed by an hour or more.

  "Why did I have to be a slob today?" She could have been up, showered, dressed . . .

  She rummaged through the clean clothes she'd bothered to wash and fold and carry all the way up the stairs—a small subset of the clothing she owned. She found some clean jeans and a V-neck T-shirt that always made her eyes look bluer, and threw them on. At barest minimum, she had to brush her teeth and her hair—she ran to the bathroom and groaned at her first sight of herself. Her hair, shoulder-length, blunt-cut, and black, had that definitely lived-in look.

  "Lived in by rodents, maybe," she snarled, bending over and yanking her brush through it at top speed. She brushed her teeth in high gear, scrubbed her face without even letting the water warm up from doing her teeth—so that at least she was much more awake afterward than she had been before—and with one more disgusted look at herself in the mirror, she ran down the stairs.

  She snagged the pepper gas off her shelf—paranoia was the better part of virtue, after all—and opened the door.

  He stood when he heard it open, and turned and smiled at her. He was even better-looking up close. "This is very nice of you," he told her. He handed her a slip of paper. "This is the number to call. This is my account number. My name is Adam D'Agonostis."

  "Dayne Kuttner." Dayne held out her hand, and Adam shook politely. He had a firm grip, but not so hard it was obvious he was trying to prove something. His palm was warm and dry and slightly rough. Sexy. He had the most fascinating eyes she'd ever seen. She'd bet his driver's license said brown, but his eyes were brown the way the sun was yellow. They were, she decided, more of a honey gold that shaded to black at the edge of the iris; they were fringed by thick black lashes. She thought she would find it easy to get lost staring into those eyes. She looked away, down at his car. "No problem. So what happened?"

  "I wish I knew. I was driving along this street, I heard a `pop' and suddenly the dashboard lit up like a pinball machine and black smoke poured out from under the hood." He sighed. "What a way to start my first day in town."

  Dayne looked back at him—he was laughing slightly at his trouble. At himself. She doubted she would be either so cheerful or so charming if her car had died on her in the middle of a new city on a Saturday.

  She looked down at the paper in her hand. "Let me call these folks and get you some help." She took a deep breath. "I'll have to ask you to wait on the porch. . . ."

  He grinned. "Sensible of you. And I don't mind a bit. It's beautiful out today."

  She nodded. "Can I get you some tea?"

  "I'll be fine," he assured her. "I'm just going to go see if I can get some idea of what blew."

  Dayne watched him bound down the steps, and all she could think was, "He's perfect." As she turned to go inside and make his call for him, she became acutely aware, for the first time in years, of precisely how long it had been since she'd last been kissed.

  Chapter 16

  Agonostis leaned over his trunk and whispered into the air, "Is everything ready?"

  Earwax was not present in body, but his voice filtered out of the engine as if he had been. "Oh, hail, Mighty Seducer of Virgins and Deflowerer of the Pure and Innocent. The Devils' Engineering Corps just finished tapping into the main lines, and our telephone guy has us hooked into the eight-hundred system. What number did you give her?

  "1-800-462-4355."

  "Okay. Got it." Agonostis heard him repeating the number to someone nearby. "Strange number. How did you choose that one?"

  "Because it's 1-800-GO2-HELL." Agonostis chuckled. "I thought it was pretty funny."

  There was a long, wary silence from Earwax. Then, tentatively, it said, "I thought you guys didn't have senses of humor."

  Agonostis stopped chuckling and stared into the motor. The Fallen didn't have senses of humor. The Lower Orders—devils, demons, imps and so on—occasionally did, though the humor tended to the dark and the sadistic. The Fallen, though, when an angry God had ripped them from the glorious embrace of Heaven and thrown them into damnation and torture, had lost any semblance of humor from their make-ups.

  That Agonostis had come forth with something resembling humor, at least in its outward appearance, and worse, that he had failed to notice he'd done so, unnerved him. After millennia of feeling sure he knew himself perfectly, he looked at that single error as if it were a door opening into a long, twisting, secret passage. He didn't have the nerve to follow it to see where it led.

  He said, "It probably wasn't funny anyway."

  Earwax, strangely, said nothing at all.

  Chapter 17

  "Well, I don't like that at all." Heaven's Chief of Data Processing watched his monitor and frowned. "She likes him—and you see what he's already done to those other women today." The angel shook his head nervously. "It simply doesn't seem fair—he has supernatural abilities and all the forces of Hell at his command, and she's alone, and doesn't have anything special to fight him with." The angel glanced at God to see if He was taking this as a criticism. "Seems to me you ought to do something to help her out."

  God smiled slyly. "She's a big girl . . . figuratively speaking. She can take care of herself."

  "Against all of Hell?"

  "Well, if there were any sure things, life wouldn't be very interesting for them, would it?"

  The angel frowned. "I don't think whether things are interesting for them or not is the big issue here. It would be a shame for her to end up in Hell."

  "Yes. It would. But I can't help thinking she's the sort who will stir things up when she arrives in Heaven." God stared thoughtfully up at the vast canopy of stars above His head. "Maybe if I let him tempt her into Hell, she'd reform things for me when she got there . . . what do you think?"

  "Good Lord!" The angel was shocked, until he realized that God's eyes held a twinkle in them, and that beneath the beard, His smile stretched.

  The Almighty said, "I will not interfere in the lives or choices of my children. But I will watch with interest."

  Chapter 18

  Dayne leaned against the kitchen wall and sighed. "I already gave you people his club number. BSC-6665845-I." She sighed loudly. "Adam . . . D'Agonostis. Capital-D-apostrophe-capital-A-G-O-N-O-S-T-I-S . . . . I already told you that, too . . . . Porsche . . . . He drives a green Porsche. North Carolina plates, um . . . PBJ-4239." She rolled her eyes and made a face at the telephone receiver. "No . . . . The car is a Porsche. He didn't wreck it into my porch . . . . But I don't want to talk to someone else. I've already talked to three people, and all of them said the next person was the one I was supposed to speak to."

  Dayne wondered how these people stayed in business. They were awful. Extremely bad Muzak played on the phone line. A new voice came on. This one sounded like Bette Midler. "We can't find him in the computer, honey," she said, and snapped her gum loudly into the receiver.

  "The last four people I talked to told me they found him in your blasted computer," Dayne said. She was almost done with trying to sound reasonable. "Will you please just send this poor man a tow truck, so he doesn't have to sit on my front porch all day? . . . No! Please don't put me on hol . . ." She held the phone in the air and glared at it, then turned to Porthos and Athos, who sat watching her, twin expressions of interest on their furry faces. "She put me on hold."

  Dayne was listening to more of the dreadful Muzak when Paige appeared in her kitchen as if by magic, an expression of awe on her face. "Do you have any idea what you have sitting on your front porch?"

  Dayne nodded, but put her finger to her lips. "His car broke dow . . . Yes, I'm still here. Laundry? Oh, my God! No, I didn't call to check on my laundry. I was talking to someone from
the North Carolina Roadways Automobile Club. Hello? . . . Hello?" She rattled the switchhook a couple of times, then hung up the phone and slowly and dramatically beat her head against the wall.

  "They hung up on you?"

  "They hung up on me."

  "What are you doing?"

  "Trying to get his auto club to send a tow truck for him. His car died on him right in front of the house."

  "The Porsche?"

  "That's the car."

  Paige said, "You couldn't ask for better if someone had wrapped him up and sent him to you with a bow around him. So are you still planning on continuing your life as a nun?"

  Dayne smiled slowly. "He's given me cause to reconsider. However, dish though Adam D'Agonostis is, I don't think I want to talk to these auto club people again."

  "He doesn't belong to Triple A?"

  "Nope. His membership is with someplace I never heard of—but that's all right, because when I called, they'd never heard of him either. I've been on the phone for nearly ten minutes . . . you heard the last of it."

  "It sounded bizarre. Did they actually connect you to a laundry?"

  "If they didn't, they connected me to the part of the auto club that washes clothes." She took a deep breath. "I'm going to give this the old nursing school try one more time. While I do, why don't you invite him to come on back here. I hate to leave him sitting out there—there's no telling how much longer this might take. And with you here—and my pepper gas in my pocket—I think we'll be safe enough."

  Dayne dialed, Paige disappeared down the hall, and someone on the other end of the phone picked up. "Hello?"

  "I'm trying to reach the North Carolina Roadways Automobile Club."

  "Certainly, ma'am. What can I do you for?" The voice on the other end of the phone was deep and rich and resonant—a radio announcer voice.

  Dayne winced. "One of your member's cars broke down in front of our house. We're trying to get him some help."

  "Name?"

  "Adam D'Agonostis."

  "Customer number?"

  "BSC-6665845-I."

  "I show that number licensed to a green late-model Porsche. Is that the car in front of your house?"

  Dayne smiled. "That's the one."

  "Okay. His account is in good standing. If you'll hold just a moment, I'll put you through to our dispatcher, and she'll determine the problem and send the appropriate person to take care of it."

  "Of course."

  Dayne gave Paige a relieved grin when she walked back into the room. She covered the receiver with her hand and whispered, "I got hold of someone sane."

  Behind her, Adam laughed. "NCRAC had a very high customer satisfaction rating. I've never had to use them before though."

  "You may never want to again," Dayne said, her hand still over the mouthpiece. The Muzak died in mid-wail—a kindness, really, and Dayne was grateful for it.

  "This is Charlene," the voice on the other end of the phone suddenly shouted in Dayne's ear. "How may I help you?" The woman sounded almost identical to the Lily Tomlin operator character Dayne had seen on Laugh-In reruns. She imagined the voice saying, `One ringy-dingy . . . . two ringy-dingy . . .'

  "I need to have a tow truck sent over to our house for Mr. Adam D'Agonostis."

  "Why? Is he broken?"

  Dayne laughed. "His car is."

  "I was joking. It was a little joke. Address, please."

  Dayne gave her the address.

  "My I please have your name and phone number so that we can call you if there are going to be delays?"

  Dayne gave them to her.

  "Dayne Kuttner . . . with two T's and one N?"

  "That's right."

  "I'm honored to be speaking with you."

  "You are?" Dayne tipped her head and frowned. "Why?"

  "One ringy-dingy . . . two ringy-dingy. I was making a joke. It was a little joke. We will send someone right over."

  Dayne hung up the phone, still frowning. One ringy-dingy . . . two ringy-dingy? Why had the woman said that? "That was truly bizarre," she told Paige. She turned to Adam D'Agonostis and smiled. "But they're sending someone right over."

  He sat at the kitchen table, looking gorgeous in a tired way. "I appreciate you helping me out. I mentioned that I'm from out of town. I'm in charge of the branch of a large corporation that's expanding here. I got lost trying to get off of Independence Boulevard—I have no idea where I am right now . . ." He gave Dayne and Paige a sheepish smile.

  Dayne grinned. "Don't let Independence bother you. Native Charlotteans know for a fact that there's at least one hyperspatial anomaly intersecting that road. Nobody gets the right turn-off on the first try."

  "You knew about that?" Adam frowned.

  Dayne laughed—he played along very well. "Anyway, what happened next?"

  "My car died," he said. "The day wasn't shaping up to be one of the better ones I've ever had." He smiled, this time just at Dayne. "Though things do seem to be looking up."

  Dayne felt her cheeks get hot. Into the awkward silence that followed, she asked, "What sort of corporation do you work for?"

  "We deal with computers primarily, though we have interests in a number of other things. We're big, well-diversified . . ." He smiled at nothing in particular and took a sip of his tea. "And expanding."

  Paige leaned back on the counter. "My husband works in computers. He's a wizard . . . travels all over the world making other people's systems work."

  Dayne noticed the flash of interest in Adam's eyes and in the way he leaned forward in his seat. He looked at Paige as if he had just spotted gold. "A wizard? If you don't mind my asking, how much does he make? What sort of benefits does he get, and what sort would he like? We're way short of computer gurus right now, and hiring. We need top-quality people, and if he has the qualifications we're looking for, I'm in a position to offer him just about anything he wants."

  Paige smiled slowly. "I don't know that he wants anything. He likes his job."

  Adam shook his head and sighed. "Yeah. They always do."

  Dayne noticed that he had fabulous hands, and his forearms were muscular and lightly furred with soft black hair. She found having him in her house delightful. "I hate computers," she said, sitting down in the seat across the table from him.

  "Yeah. Me too." He rested his chin on one hand, and she got a good look at his watch. Rolex? Looked like one. A Rolex, a Porsche, and blue jeans. He was not the sort of fellow she found on her doorstep most days. He grinned at her.

  "You hate computers . . . and you work in a computer firm?"

  "I'm the manager. I don't actually have to work with the little bastards . . . excuse me . . . um, machines."

  Dayne laughed.

  "So . . . Dayne . . ."

  She waited.

  He smiled. "Dayne Kuttner . . . would it be terribly forward of me if I asked you out?" He glanced at her left hand quickly. "Oh, I'm sorry. You're wearing a ring." He took a deep breath. "I thought . . ." He shook his head and looked out the kitchen window into the tiny backyards of the apartments.

  She read disappointment in his face, his eyes, the set of his shoulders.

  "I was widowed four years ago," she told him. "As for asking me out, well—" She had, in the past four years, become very good at saying no. Saying yes turned out to be surprisingly tough. "Maybe. I think I'd like that."

  Someone out in front of the house laid on an air horn—the blast rattled the windows.

  All three people in the kitchen jumped.

  "The tow truck—" Dayne said.

  "Why did they have to get here so fast?" Adam muttered.

  Paige hung back and said nothing.

  It was indeed the tow truck, driven by someone who was apparently in a great hurry. Whoever it was had just hooked the tow hook under the Porsche's front bumper.

  "NOT LIKE THAT!" Adam howled, and took off down the steps and across the apartment lawn as if he'd sprouted wings. Dayne, standing behind her screen door, watched him charge af
ter the idiot with the tow truck and read him the riot act.

  "He's going to ask you out," the voice behind her said.

  "Paige, I'll believe it when it happens."

  "Are you going to be a sane person and accept?"

  Dayne turned to look at her friend. "This is the first time in years I've even been interested. If he actually calls me up and asks, I almost certainly will go out with him." She looked at the scene in front of her house, where Adam was showing the man with the tow truck how to tow a Porsche.

  "I'm afraid he was just being polite when he said he'd like to call me, though."

  Paige shrugged. The tow truck drove off with Adam in it and his dead car following behind. "So let's not think about it. Some of Mike's clients took him to the UNC-Duke game. I didn't want to go, but I thought I'd come over here and you and I could visit . . . and maybe watch a little of it together."

  Suddenly Dayne realized that she was tired. "That sounds great." She flopped onto the couch and grabbed the remote, and flipped the TV on. Paige dropped onto the seat beside her.

  News. Saturday afternoon news?

  Dayne flipped the channel.

  News.

  An I Love Lucy rerun.

  PowerLizards, or some such cartoon dreck.

  News.

  News.

  News.

  "What the hell—" Paige muttered.

  "I don't know." Dayne kept flipping channels. It was two in the afternoon, and CNN should have been the only place with news. "The Charlotte games are usually on Channel 13, but . . ." She saw something football-like flash onto the screen, then off again. She backed up a channel. "Never mind. Here it is."

  The Duke Blue Devils and the UNC Tarheels were on the field, and the Tarheel quarterback threw a beautiful long bomb down the field. His wide receiver ran a terrific pattern, was in the right spot to pick up the pass, was as clear as a Carolina afternoon . . .

  And some huge guy in an obscene bright-red devil suit, with a pitchfork, no less, appeared literally out of nowhere and speared the football out of mid-air. With the deflated pigskin skewered on his pitchfork, he ran straight through the oncoming Tarheels, blasted his way through the Blue Devils, charged alone up the field into the Blue Devil end zone, and did a victory dance that involved gestures someone managed to cover with strategically placed boxes.