A Devil of a Date

by Long, Andie M.

  After waiting valuable minutes while Kim explained the situation, I noticed that Darius was pacing around like a, well, wolf waiting to pounce.

  “Is there anything me and my pack can do?” He asked as she pressed end call.

  All the tension between them became forgotten as they focused on the matter at hand. “I don’t know. It’s all down to Shelley really. They’re going to meet us in front of the amusement arcade. Let’s go.”

  We walked down the street and watched as Shelley appeared from around the corner, no doubt having travelled by portal, and then a freak breeze whipped her hair before her husband appeared at the side of her, having travelled using his vampire speed. I missed being able to appear via a portal. Now I had to catch the bus everywhere which was a complete arse pain.

  I took in how Theo was with his wife. He touched her shoulder lightly and fastened his gaze on hers, checking in with her that she was okay. I didn’t need to hear his words though, his non-verbal cues saying everything before his mouth opened. I turned my gaze to Kim. Worry etched her features and the wolf, Darius, hovered just behind her. Although she was oblivious, being pre-occupied with concern, I saw Darius rubbing at his eyebrow, his other fist clenched at his side where his knuckles were white.

  I’d spent a lot of time in Hell, and many hours watching people. Seeing their faces when they first entered and realised where they were. I knew that so many people didn’t believe there was anything after death and I understood - we were brought up with lies about Santa, and the tooth fairy, and so why would anyone believe there were really angels and demons? So they’d enter Hell and I’d watch as their mouths slackened, their eyes widened. Then they’d look around at their new environment with a confused gaze upon their face. Their eyes would blink rapidly as if by doing so their fiery hot surroundings would disappear and then as they accepted that this was not a dream after all, not a nightmare, their arms would fold over their stomachs, their cries of ‘No’ lost in a sea of screaming.

  “Lucy. LUCY.” I looked up quickly in the direction of the sound and saw Shelley frowning at me. “Is he able to take him to Hell? I don’t think he can, can he?”

  “No. He has to be here somewhere, so you need to do a location spell. You know, your Spot-a-Satan map.”

  Alongside the flashing lights coming out of the amusement arcade, no one noticed as Shelley focused on the wall at the side of the building and a location map appeared with its shining red dot.

  She turned in my direction. “According to this, he’s at your restaurant.”

  And so he was. Sitting there at a table in the window as bold as brass. Frankie was sitting opposite him shaking and looking for all the world like some kind of druggie sat with his dealer.

  Henry finished taking payment from a table and then walked towards me. “Thank goodness you’re here. I’ve asked but they won’t leave.” His lips pinched together, his jaw taut. “It’s putting people off coming in.”

  I sighed. “It’s fine. I know them. Leave it with me. We’re going to move to a larger table. Take a drinks order so it doesn’t look too suspicious.”

  “Okay, Boss. But if you need me for anything, just give me a signal, like tug on the bottom of your ear okay? I’ll keep watching.” He bowed his head and walked away. I was lucky to have such good staff. I’d inherited them along with the restaurant, the previous owner having moved away to be nearer to family as he’d reached retirement age. I made a note to get to know them all a little better, to be a better employer than I had been.

  Moved to the larger family celebration table at the rear of the restaurant, we were less conspicuous. Shelley sat right next to a grinning Satan and spat out angrily. “What are you playing at?”

  Satan sat back, smiling, in his charming vampire guise - a devil of a disguise. “Well, I was just chatting to Frankie here about a business proposition. I could make him a very rich man if he’d let me bottle that non-sleeping vampire juju he has going on. Trouble is he’s not been very talkative. Just keeps sitting there shaking and stuttering. Have to say I’m getting a little impatient.”

  “The last time you met, you smote him.” Shelley pointed out, completely unnecessarily if you asked me. Indeed Satan just glowed, yep, he really did get a bit of a redness about him as he laughed. “So, shall I use some of my own juju to get you out of here and back down under?” She threatened, and she didn’t mean Australia.

  “Now, now. That’s not very civilised behaviour is it?”

  “And kidnapping our friend is?” I queried.

  Satan tilted his head toward me. “Awww, the lovely Lucy. I wondered when you’d join in and dazzle us all with your opinion.” He pouted out his bottom lip. “I have to say I’m a little disappointed that you’ve sided with the defunct vampire though. Don’t you fancy teaming up with me again? We could have fun working out how to get the DNA out of him.” He winked.

  “Sorry, but hanging with you has gotten kind of old.” I told him. “Now I’m looking for new experiences.”

  “Yeah, she’s going to find a new man to hang with. She’s going to fall in love.” Kim blurted out.

  Satan looked bemused before pointing at me. “Her? Fall in love?” Then he burst out into raucous laughter. “If she starts dating I’d test the meat in the kitchen to make sure she’s not gone all Hannibal Lecter; only a vast amount of char-grilled bodies would be obvious, but missing people and a reduced meat budget? Win, win.”

  “We can’t allow you to take Frankie anywhere.” Theo interrupted, sitting forward in his seat.

  Satan clasped his hand to his chest. “Oh, my best friend, Theo. How I’ve missed you, dude. Every Thursday night I feel at a loss.” He turned to Darius. “Don’t miss you at all.” He said in the most insulting tone he could afford.

  “Likewise, Satan. He said. “It’s a lot cooler without you.”

  “Nice one.” Satan said holding out a bro fist which Darius bumped.

  “When you’ve finished with the reunion, we need to talk.” Said Shelley. “You can’t just keep coming back here when you damn well feel like it.”

  “I can though.” Satan replied. “I went over the finer details of our agreement and all we agreed was I would release Lucy. Nothing said I couldn’t take her back with me again. Also, although you’re unfortunately stronger than me, I never agreed that I would stay away from Withernsea. It’s just a little more boring now you can rein me in.”

  “So you decided to kidnap Frankie, knowing full well that I would come after you?”

  “Of course.”

  “You know you can’t have Frankie, so why did you really kidnap him? It’s not to experiment on him. You know I wouldn’t let you.”

  “True. However, you can’t stop me spreading his secret around Faceblood can you?”

  He held up a hand to Theo. “I’m not on there as Satan or Reuben, so there’s no point trying to block me if that was your idea. I can make no end of fake aliases. So for me to not do that, well, we perhaps need to come to some new kind of arrangement…”

  “What do you want?” Shelley asked. “And having Lucy back is not on the table.”

  “Oh, my little Lucy will come back all on her own, I’m sure.” Satan grinned. “No, I want to be able to come back down here and recruit. All the potential evil people are walking around unguarded. You’re putting Withernsea in danger.”

  “I can’t allow you to come down and kill people, even if they are evil. You know, he-who-shall-not-be-named and yourself have to keep the balance and fate decides who dies when.”

  Satan actually sulked. “Fate’s such a lucky bitch. Why didn’t I get her job?”

  “So, I’m sorry, but on this occasion the answer is no.” Shelly said. “Now, however, I do agree that you can come down here, if you wish to visit from your work place. I understand it might take some time to adjust that you no longer rule things down here. I sure as shit haven’t got my head around everything I need to do here yet, but no smiting, you hear me? Or I’ll find out ho
w to banish you from Withernsea forever. Why don’t you go somewhere else, anyway? Why here?”

  “So many questions, but you see, Shelley, answers have power and so I don’t think I shall avail you of them. I’m sure we’ll be chatting again soon. Anyway, what about if I just torture anyone evil here, rather than actually kill them? If you let me do that, I’ll keep quiet about Frankie here’s talents.”

  “Oh, Satan.” Sighed Shelley. “The problem with your selfishness and your vanity is that while I’ve kept you enrapt in conversation about yourself, Theo whizzed home and back. I don’t think you have anything to bargain with now.”

  I turned around to see Frankie drinking what looked like a pint pot full of red wine, but I knew it was nothing of the sort. A tear ran from Kim’s eye as she stroked his back.

  “I don’t know what will happen to me now, but I couldn’t let you do this.” Frankie said to Satan. “So because of you, I’m probably dying again.”

  Then he fell to the floor, his body shaking as seizures overtook him.

  “Damn you.” Satan spat, banging on the table with such force that the crockery shot everywhere and the table splintered down the middle. Then he and Shelley were gone.

  Theo looked around in panic. “Where’s my wife?”

  There was a clattering of dustbins. “They could be out the back.” I said. “Kim, Darius, go with Theo. I’ll get Frankie and take him to my house, his house.”

  Kim hovered, undecided. “Go. I’m a demon, I got this. Your best friend needs you.”

  She leaned over Frankie, kissed his forehead and then ran outside.

  I stared at the convulsing vampire. Henry came running over. “I told the patrons there had been a family argument that had resulted in an epileptic fit through shock.”

  “Well, that’s exactly what it was.” I said to my human waiter.

  “Lucy. I’m not stupid. I may be human, but my best friend’s a pixie.”

  Dread ran through me. It couldn’t be, could it?

  “Wh-what’s his name?”

  “Cornelius. He lives in Montreal now though. Haven’t seen him for a couple of years.”

  I exhaled. “That’s brilliant.”

  He looked at me strangely. “So, your friend seems to be sleeping now, but what’s happening?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but what I do know is he’s probably not safe to be around humans. I need Allan to drive me to my house. Can you go ask him for me?” I said. Allan was a cook and a bear shifter.

  Then Frankie went into another seizure which looked even more painful than the last.

  “Hold on, my friend.” I whispered to him and then I looked at him in shock thinking of my words.

  He really had become a genuine friend.

  “You’re not allowed to die, you cretin, you hear me?” I whisper-shouted. “I’m taking you home.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kim

  That minute spent dashing out of the restaurant seemed to last a lifetime. Seriously, time seemed to stand still, and we moved in what appeared to be slow motion, matrix style. Theo’s expression was haunted, before he disappeared leaving me with Darius. I turned to the man whose company I’d been doing my best to avoid and watched as he reached out and grabbed my hand. The most powerful electric type force buzzed down my skin, but I had no time to think about why. All I knew was it energised me as I stepped outside, ready to fight to the death if I needed to in order to save my best friend’s life.

  But as I rounded the corner and dashed out of the back exit of the restaurant, I saw I was of no use.

  For Satan was hanging in midair, looking like he was choking, in a stranglehold of the same blue web type material she’d fixed Frankie with. My bestie was stood there complete with her reptilian legs and greenish-blue wings standing proud of her back. She’d harnessed her inner wyvern.

  She turned to us, keeping one arm up in place and that on its own held Satan in position. My God, she was strong! I needed to remember not to protest the next time she asked me to get her a coffee and a doughnut.

  “Sorry I worried you, but I needed to take this outside, away from the human eyes. Only this guy was getting very annoying.”

  Only the strongest person in Withernsea could call Satan annoying.

  She dropped him down to the floor where he clutched at his neck and spluttered before dropping his vampire glamour and standing there in his burning red skin. His too was reptilian looking. He spoke, giving us a glimpse of his forked tongue. This was the evil that had fed from me at Halloween, poured sizzling venom into my body. My heart thumped in my chest, so hard I thought it would kill me where I stood.

  “If you ever step out of line and do something evil, I shall come for you.” Hissed Satan. “You may be more powerful than me in Withernsea, but in my domain, I rule and I will take great personal delight in torturing every single atom of your body.”

  Then he ripped a hole in the air and went through it.

  “Oh my God, are you okay?” Theo ran to his wife and threw his arms around her.

  I realised I was still holding Darius’ hand. Had been the whole way through. I dropped it and ran up to Theo and Shelley, throwing my arms around the both of them. “You utter shit, you gave us such a fright.” I told her.

  When I turned back to say thank you to Darius, he had gone.

  Back in the restaurant, Henry told us that Lucy and Frankie had been taken to Frankie’s house.

  Theo spoke. “I’ll go back home and get some further supplies of blood and a few other things. Shelley, I need you there in case you have to secure him. I don’t know what’s going to happen. No-one has ever had such a large dose of the founder’s blood before.”

  An attractive woman with long, black hair let us into Frankie’s home. She threw her arms around me and nuzzled my neck, before running towards the furthest bedroom, my ex-lover’s bedroom. I wondered how she knew which it was. As Frankie had been by my side since this whole thing happened, I could only suppose she was a friend of Lucy’s, but her familiarity with the home made me wonder if she’d been staying here too, in which case Lucy was seriously taking the piss.

  “He’s in there. He just keeps having seizures.” The woman, bless her, looked really worried about him, pacing around the door.

  “And you are?” I queried.

  She smacked herself in the forehead. “Oh, of course. Silly me. I didn’t intend to ever reveal myself, but seeing as my Master might not survive, I thought it best to be here, like this.”

  Master? Was Frankie a Dom? Had he had a sub all this time?

  “So, I’m Maisie. Or as you know me best, Frankie’s pet cat.”

  My hands and legs felt jerky, my muscles tightened, and I leapt back drawing my arms across myself.

  “Come again? You’re Frankie’s cat? Maisie the cat?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled, rubbing her body alongside mine. “Good to meet you in my other form. I’m a cat shifter. Anyway, I don’t have time to explain further because of course we need to see what’s happening with Frankie.”

  “God, yes. Sorry, you threw me with the whole looking like Miss World thing.”

  “Oh thank you very much.” She said, grasping my arm. “I won Miss Werecat in 2015 actually. Beat a shit ton of tigers which didn’t go down well. Anyway, of course, being unconscious, Frankie doesn’t know I’m his cat. He doesn’t even know I’m here, so if he comes round if you can let me tell him? That cool with you?”

  “Err, yeah, sure.” I replied, still a little overawed by the woman and the current situation.

  “By the way, you have some am-az-ing moves in the bedroom, lady.”

  It was then I realised that all the times we’d turned around to find we were being stared at by a cat, it wasn’t accidental.

  I was about to shout, ‘Oh my God,’ when I realised I was in hearing distance now of Lucy, so I reined it in.

  I pushed open the door to see Frankie once again laid still. “What’s happening?”

&nb
sp; Theo turned to me. “So far he’s having convulsions and then resting. This is quite normal for a vampire turning, so at this stage all we can do is wait and see what happens.”

  “What did the people at the caves say?”

  “That his case was unprecedented. No one has been given such a massive transfusion. There was only that one other vampire before who didn’t sleep and as I said he didn’t survive the experiments. They’ve sent over a little more founders blood but now I’ve to dilute it with regular O-neg as he can’t become dependent on the stronger blood.”

  “What if he’s the same? I don’t think he’s strong enough to survive that.”

  Shelley came over and touched my arm. “We’ll support him in whatever way we can.” She said and the look in her face told me that if at the end of all this there was nothing left but a trip to the caves to say the incantation, then she would take him there herself.

  I made a silent prayer, given present company, that it didn’t lead to that.

  “Thank you so much, Lucy, for bringing him here.” I told her.

  “It’s his house after all and, well, I realised he’s my friend.” She told me, looking sheepish, a look I’d never expected to see on Lucy and to be honest one that made her look a little, well, human. Which was unnerving at the same time as I processed that twenty-six years ago that’s exactly what she had been. A human woman, in love with a man, thinking she was about to get her happy ever after and marry the man she loved. It was the first time I’d ever considered that the demon in front of me had been wronged herself. Shelley’s father had hurt her so bad she’d lost her human self completely.

  “You’re my friend too.” I told her and she looked at me in shock.

  “And mine.” Said Shelley, before nudging her husband.

  “And erm, mine, but it’s a distant friendship, we don’t hang-out or anything,” He said awkwardly.

  Lucy smiled. “Thank you.” Then she scratched at the left-hand side of the top of her head as if she had a violent itch. When she brought her hand away, she held a red horn between her fingers.