The Devil's in the Details

by Kimberly Raye

  “Oh, and throw in a bachelorette party and a few male strippers. Your grandfather’s ridiculous rules stipulate that I have to be faithful, otherwise it negates the union.” She eyed the screen and blew out an exasperated breath before handing the device back over to Cheryl. “If I’m going to commit myself for the rest of eternity, I want to have as much fun while I still can. Speaking of which, I have a massage scheduled in half an hour.” She cast a knowing glance at the tuxedo-clad groom standing outside the ballroom double doors, nervously checking his watch. She gave me a wink and a suggestive smile. “You’d better get to work.”

  Ick.

  Not that he wasn’t attractive. He was, but I was so over the spoiling-men phase of my existence. Plus, said groom was hopelessly in love with his bride. Her name was Mary Ann and she was a pediatric nurse and one of the nicest humans ever. She’d been a real trouper despite a hellacious mix-up with the invitations. She’d even given a beautiful quote to the magazine on my behalf.

  I could never do such an awful thing to Mary Ann, and I should just confess as much to my mother. She would know the truth about me—that I’d turned my back on my birthright and gone legit—when the magazine came out anyway. No sense putting off the inevitable. My career was over and I was headed straight back to Hell.

  “I’m on it,” I said instead.

  What? We’re talking Hell.

  2

  “The groom’s uncle Jeffrey can’t sit next to his ex-wife,” I told Burke Carmichael a half hour after my mother had waltzed out of the hotel and left me to digest her request.

  I was standing in the main ballroom where the reception would be held, staring in horror at the place cards set side by side on the pale-pink, linen-draped table. “They hate each other.” I plucked Uncle Jeffrey’s card and handed it to my assistant.

  Burke and his identical twin brother, Andrew—the dynamic wedding duo—were two of the hottest guys I’d ever seen. Twenty-nine. Blond hair. Light-brown peepers. Broad shoulders. Six-pack abs. They were also heterosexually challenged, which made them the perfect assistants because their concentration centered solely on creating matrimonial bliss rather than on how to charm me out of my skinny jeans.

  Female sexual demons ooze—you guessed it—sex appeal. With one glance we inspire the most lascivious thoughts in humans of the opposite sex. The average guy doesn’t stand a chance.

  Unless said guy is attracted to men.

  As if to prove the point, my gaze collided with Burke’s and an image popped into my head—Brad Pitt from Legends of the Fall, complete with long hair, tanned skin, and oodles of emotional torment.

  As a sexual demon, I don’t just wow humans with my sex appeal, I can also read their deepest, most erotic thoughts. Bottom line, I can see the object of any human’s hottest fantasy.

  Burke had always been a Brad man. While the details might change—Brad à la Ocean’s Eleven or Brad à la Thelma & Louise (my own personal fave)—he was always faithful to the überhot actor. A helpful tidbit if I’d still been in the spoiling-and-seducing phase of my existence.

  At the moment, it just reminded me of my own self-imposed deprivation. Two years on the celibacy wagon. I hadn’t even had a date.

  Your own fault, a voice whispered. I’d promised myself I’d take the bull by the horns and sign up for an online dating service or something, but I was just so busy on the weekends, what with everyone else’s weddings. That, and I was doing my damnedest to curb temptation. No dates. No one-night stands.

  No disappointment.

  I ignored the last thought and paged my way through the notes on my iPad. “We’ll sit Uncle Jeffrey next to the bride’s relatives on the other side of the room.”

  If only the seating at my mother’s wedding would be this manageable.

  Fat chance.

  Evil entities weren’t exactly known for their camaraderie. The last time Beelzebub had been within one hundred feet of Ashtoreth, they’d beheaded each other. Sure, the heads had regrown and they’d been back at it during the very next get-together, but still. We’re talking a massive dry-cleaning bill, and I was sure to puke all over my shoes at the first sign of blood.

  Hey, I’m a lover, not a fighter.

  I clicked my headset and called for Burke, who’d just headed to the kitchen to check on the menu for the hors d’oeuvres and cocktails that would keep the guests celebrating until the reception dinner began in an hour. Judging by the round of applause coming from the ceremony space, the doors would open any moment and a pack of hungry guests would head upstairs to the mezzanine level for cocktail time.

  “Is everything ready?” I asked.

  “The signature drinks are flowing and the platters are being loaded.”

  “Good, because all hell is about to break loose.”

  And how.

  Forget seating. The food choices at Mom’s big event would be even more of a nightmare. While every demon could appreciate a decked-out wedding cake (we all had an insatiable sweet tooth), each had a different palate when it came to main courses. I so didn’t want to be the one to ask a caterer to substitute braised eyeballs for the salmon croquettes. Talk about killing my chances at being voted Houston’s hottest wedding planner of the year.

  At the same time, if I refused to handle the arrangements, my mother would surely get pissed. I’d be forced Down Under, into eons of service as Hades’s chief harlot.

  I had to do it.

  And maybe, just maybe, if I pulled it off, my mom would be so busy calling the shots Down Under that she might miss the magazine article and the all-important fact that I’d turned my back on my birthright.

  Hey, it could happen.

  I held tight to the teeny tiny thread of hope and was about to pop some Life Savers into my mouth to pacify my sweet tooth when the cell phone in my pocket started vibrating.

  I wasn’t going to answer it. That’s what I told myself, particularly when I saw the black raven icon on the caller ID and realized it was my cousin Portia.

  Portia was the youngest of Aunt Bella’s brood, meaning her demonic specialty was being spoiled-ass rotten. She was Hell’s version of a mean girl, i.e., she loved Gucci, gossip, and getting her way.

  I didn’t want to talk to her right now. But if I didn’t pick up, she was sure to fabricate a scandalous reason as to why I’d avoided her call.

  “I’m really busy right now,” I said when I answered the phone. “Can I call you later?”

  “No can do. I’m about to have some collagen injected into my lips and I won’t be able to move them for a few hours.”

  “I’ll text,” I offered, but she wasn’t listening.

  “I heard from Trisha, who heard from Sally, who heard from Lara, who heard from Beth, who heard from Aunt Levita that your mom said she paid you a visit today. Word is there are going to be wedding bells in the near future.”

  Welcome to My Big Fat Demon Wedding.

  “Not wedding bells. Maybe a heavy metal guitar riff or a gloomy organ,” I said, remembering my mom’s minimal list of must-haves. “Mom’s leaning toward dark and sinister for her theme.”

  “I knew it! Auntie is tying the knot. Mother thought it was a trick, but then Auntie Levita said Auntie Lillith said you were planning the wedding for her. A real wedding. Imagine that. So when is it? When’s the big day?”

  “There won’t be one if I don’t get moving with the plans.”

  “But—”

  “Talk later.” I hit the kill button before she could fire off another question. I’d already confirmed my mom’s announcement. I wasn’t going to leak any details. If ma wanted my aunts to know when, where, and what time, she would tell them herself or send them invites. This was her big news to spread, not mine.

  I so didn’t want to be caught in the middle of an all-out demonic war.

  I was sliding the phone into my pocket when it vibrated again. Talk about pigheaded. Portia just didn’t give up.

  I was about to hit Ignore when I saw a giant margarit
a glass dancing on my display: it was my best bud, Blythe.

  Blythagamamia Stephenolopolis, aka Blythe Stevens. Forget causing droughts and stirring earthquakes. Blythe was a lower-level demon responsible for tempting humans on a more day-to-day basis. Her cover? A hot-to-trot party animal who made being bad look really, really good. She’d been a Hooters girl for the past few years until she’d saved enough tips to open her own limo service. Now she cruised the Bayou City all night in a hot-pink stretch Hummer full of partygoers eager to drink and dance and sin the night away.

  The thing was, Blythe had long since tired of the endless nightlife. Like me, she wanted more out of her existence. Unlike me, she could actually achieve her dream without finding herself doomed to Hell. There were just too many of the lower-tier demons to keep track of when the higher-ups (Mommie Dearest among them) were focused solely on the push-pull of power at the corporate level.

  Blythe was now in her fourth year as an undergrad at the University of Houston, specializing in early education. She wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. While I totally supported her dream (I’d quizzed her for her last exam), I couldn’t help thinking she was about to trade one hell for another.

  We’re talking a room full of screaming five-year-olds.

  “What up?” she asked when I pressed the talk button.

  “I’m about to start the reception.”

  “I didn’t mean what up at this exact moment. I meant what up as in what big catastrophe is about to consume your entire existence?”

  “I guess good news travels fast.”

  “This is more like tabloid news, like when that woman in Kansas gave birth to the three-headed baby.”

  “Except this is true.”

  “Which explains why you sound so emo right now.”

  “I’m not depressed. I’m scared.” There. I’d said it. The desperation that I’d been fighting crept back into my voice. “She showed up here, Blythe. Right here. What if she’d caught me all misty-eyed, watching the bride walk down the aisle? She would have yanked me back to Hell faster than you can pop the cork on a champagne bottle.”

  “But she didn’t see you, which means your secret is still safe.”

  “For now. But with me as her wedding planner, we’ll be together nonstop. Plus she wants all this dark and creepy stuff, and I don’t know if I can pull it off.”

  “Sure you can. You’re a demon. You majored in dark and creepy.”

  “Yes, but this is a wedding.”

  “Satan’s wedding. Just keep that in mind, do a creepy spectacular job, and you’ll be fine. She’ll say I do and then she’ll be so focused on her new power trip that she’ll forget all about you. The article will come out, your business will quadruple, and everyone will live creepily ever after.”

  “And what if she doesn’t forget about me? I have a bad feeling about this. A really bad feeling.” I spent the next thirty seconds angsting to Blythe until my phone beeped again with an urgent text message. I said good-bye and stared at the display. My cousin Monique.

  Monique was Aunt Levita’s oldest and the Martha Stewart of the Damon clan. She planned and primped and pulled off most of the family get-togethers, which explained why I ignored the CALL ME! blazing on my screen.

  The big plus of being a wedding planner—besides the endless supply of wedding cake—was that I spent my weekends working, hence I had an excuse to miss most family functions.

  Namely my cousin Hester’s baby shower scheduled for next Saturday.

  “Hip-hip-hooray!”

  The cheer came from the ceremony room full of guests rather than yours truly, and I knew it was time to get back to work. I slid my phone into my pocket a second before the double doors swung wide and the guests spilled out to head upstairs.

  The second-floor cocktail area filled up in the blink of an eye, and just like that I found myself neck-deep in wedding chaos. A few of the kitchen helpers had called in sick, so I dived in and started reloading hors d’oeuvre trays.

  Okay, maybe I didn’t need to worry about my mother after all. At the rate things were going, I’d be dead from exhaustion before the night ended. Who cared about tomorrow?

  “What’s wrong with you?” Andrew, the other half of the dynamic dude duo, asked when he tracked me down in the back kitchen a half hour later, a concerned look on his face.

  For the record, Andrew hated all things Brad, except the actor’s last ensemble at the Oscars. His fantasy man? Sean Connery à la James Bond.

  “You look totally freaked,” he told me.

  Damned would be more like it. “Sue and Eli got the flu,” I said as I finished reloading a platter of Swedish meatballs and handed it off to one of the servers. “I’m swamped.”

  “I’m not talking about that. Too much work makes you wired and cranky, not depressed. You look like someone just canceled Cupcake Wars.”

  I shrugged. “New client.”

  “And the problem is?” He seemed to think. “Holy crap. She’s a bridezilla. That’s it, isn’t it?” When I didn’t answer, he added, “Please tell me she isn’t another Delaney Farris.”

  Delaney was our current bridezilla and the reason I’d popped two Valium last week despite my strict Just Say No policy.

  “She’s not a bridezilla.”

  “Thank God.”

  “She’s a momzilla.” My gaze collided with his. “My mother is the one getting married.”

  While Andrew wasn’t privy to the whole Satan thing, he knew that my mother and I didn’t have the closest relationship. He also knew that she was controlling and unsupportive and impossible to please. And that she drove me nuts whenever we spent more than five minutes together.

  “I helped my mom plan her last wedding,” he offered, “and that turned out just fine. Of course, it was number four in less than eight years and we already had the routine down, but still. I made it. Even if I did want to slit my wrists by the time the reception rolled around.” When I blinked against the sudden burning in my eyes, he rushed on, “But that’s to be expected. That’s what moms do. They drive us crazy. And insult any and every boyfriend we bring home. And try to make us wear peach when, clearly, peach is so over.”

  “She made you wear peach?”

  He nodded. “With a lime-green cummerbund.”

  And I thought my mom was the Devil.

  Andrew left to check on the entrées, and the next fifteen minutes passed in a frantic blur of mini quiches and spicy chicken wings. I was just handing off yet another overloaded tray when Burke’s frantic voice echoed over the headset.

  “Nine-one-one!” he shrieked. “We’ve got a disaster in the reception ballroom.”

  “Missing place card?”

  “Missing body part.”

  Panic bolted through me and my first thought was ma! She’d been known to rip apart a man or two in her day. A phone call from one of my aunties had probably sent her into a mad rage before she’d left the building and she’d yanked the arm off some poor, unsuspecting guest. I strained my ears for the tormented wail of a victim and heard only a synthesizer rendition of “Like a Virgin.”

  Close enough.

  “Which body part?” I’d seen a severed leg get reattached on an episode of Grey’s Anatomy last season. Have I mentioned I’m sort of a TV junkie?

  “The head.”

  Slightly more complicated, but still doable, according to Discovery Channel’s Amazing ER Wonders.

  At least that’s what I was telling myself. Better than facing the cold, hard truth: my career was sinking faster than the Titanic.

  “And if we don’t hurry up, we’re going to be missing a tail too,” Burke added.

  Oh, no. Not the tail too—wait a second. “The victim has a tail?”

  “Not anymore. It’s melting right in front of me. I told the banquet manager not to put any of the hot foods near the ice sculpture and what did he do? He used the thing as the friggin’ centerpiece for the carving station. There are heat lamps everywhere.”

 
A wave of relief swept through me. “You’re talking about the ice sculpture.” Followed by a rush of holy shit. “You’re talking about the ice sculpture! My ice sculpture!”

  As in the full-size replica of an African mountain lion commissioned in honor of the bride and groom, who were going on safari for their honeymoon.

  I’d gone through Hell—no pun intended—to find an ice carver skilled enough to do the job. Forget the Yellow Pages. I’d convinced an old buddy of mine, Agarth, master swordsman and demon of dismemberment, to use his skills for good by promising to put in a supportive word for him with Blythe. Agarth had lusted after Blythe for centuries now. Of course, she couldn’t stand him, since his idea of an affectionate token had been a human head on a stick last Valentine’s Day. But hey, at least he’d gotten her something. I, on the other hand, had spent the entire evening watching American Idol and stuffing my face with a box of Godiva that I’d bought for myself.

  To Agarth’s credit, he’d outdone himself on the lion. He’d delivered the finished product that morning and I’d known instantly that my bride and groom were going to love it.

  Crap!

  I reached the ballroom in time to see Andrew, Burke, and a handful of waiters frantically moving the silver serving dishes away from the now headless lion. Water drip-dropped from the nub that had once been the tail. The body looked emaciated compared to the fierce beast of earlier.

  “Maybe we can tell everyone it’s an abstract sculpture,” Burke offered as he reached for a serving pan full of roasted chicken breasts. “We can say each person is supposed to have their own interpretation of what type of animal it is.”

  I grasped at that kernel of hope for a nanosecond before Andrew’s shriek jerked me back to reality. “Are you insane? No one would buy that. This is a disaster.” He snatched up a platter of ham and thrust it into a passing waiter’s arms.

  “It was a surprise anyway,” I reminded myself.

  The surprise. I always tried to do something special for each of my brides. Sort of a thank-you for entrusting me with their special day. For the Altman wedding, I’d had a restored Dodge Charger (their first-date car) show up to take them to the airport. For the Lancaster wedding, I’d brought in a saxophone player (the groom had proposed at a jazz club) to play their first dance.