Devil May Care

by Patricia Eimer

  “If she was going to hide him anywhere it would be somewhere she felt safe. Somewhere her madness made sense.” He kept his eyes fixed on the house and lifted the latch on the chicken wire fence.

  “This is that place?” I looked around the yard and tried to picture Matt spending time somewhere like this. It was…well it definitely didn’t scream “idealistic childhood home” that was for damn sure.

  “Strangely enough.” He pushed the gate open and walked into the yard. “Yes, this is that place. Why?”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged and followed him up the cracked, concrete walk toward the obviously abandoned house. “I just expected something—I don’t know—more.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.” He reached for my hand but pulled away. He grimaced at me and shook his head before he started up the front steps. “Come on, let’s get Tolliver and go back to your place. The sooner this is done with the better.”

  “Fine.” I followed him up the steps, my heart feeling like it had been shattered into a million pieces and was currently being ground into dust by a pair of vengeful imps. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Whatever gets the two of you home,” he said.

  “I think you’ll find that your count is off,” I said. “There are three of us that will be going back to Pittsburgh. I can’t release you without my father’s permission.”

  “Who said anything about release?” Matt turned around to loom over me, his green eyes burning. “Didn’t you hear Nahamia? They don’t want you to release me. They want you to drain my powers and banish me somewhere so they don’t have to deal with me anymore.”

  “Well then, they’ll have to learn to live with disappointment,” I said. “I’m not banishing anyone. Especially you. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  I pushed past him into the house and looked around at the empty room with its dank, dingy looking walls that were once probably white but now a sort of soggy yellow. The floor was covered in dust, and with the boarded up windows the place had a sad, lonely feel to it. Like its people had left one day and never bothered to look back.

  “I said something I didn’t mean in a fit of anger.” Matt followed me into the main room, standing close enough so that we were nose to nose. “Which, if you haven’t heard already, was brought on by your father kicking my ass, and just so you know, he doesn’t fight fair.”

  “Of course he doesn’t fight fair. He’s the Devil. Fair is not a word in his vocabulary.”

  “Then I find out you’ve been seeing your ex-fiancé behind my back.” Matt started toward another room. I followed him into what had once been a kitchen, judging by the cracked black and white checked linoleum and dust-covered green counters, and put my hands on my hips.

  “I wasn’t seeing Dan.” I brought my fingers up to make air quotes. “I’m with you. Or I was with you. Besides, I tried to tell you what was going on.”

  “Yeah well you didn’t try too hard, did you?” He turned and stalked out of the empty room and into another one. Hellfire tingled between my fingers and I had to bite back the urge to give him a solid zap in the ass. With the way he had his head crammed up there it might cause brain damage.

  “Let’s just get my brother and get out of here.” I pushed past him and into another empty room. We made our way upstairs and found it deserted as well. Tolliver wasn’t here.

  I lifted my nose and sniffed, pulling on Matt’s power through the link between us. He drew back and I could feel him trying to resist the control my mind had over his. I tugged harder and felt my control of his powers strengthen.

  Sunshine and chocolate chip cookies. Dust. I could smell mothballs in one of the closets downstairs. But nothing in the place smelled like Tolliver. I stretched my powers and tried to locate him. Nothing. There were no demons anywhere nearby and from the smell of things, there hadn’t been demons around here for a very long time. If they’d ever bothered to check this place out at all.

  “Wherever they’re keeping Tolliver, it isn’t here.” I slumped down on one of the stairs.

  “He has to be,” Matt said. “This is where she hides everything of value.”

  I motioned around the first floor and then pointed upstairs. “What of value do you see in this house? Unless she’s found a way to spin dust to gold there’s nothing here.”

  “I know.” Matt sat beside me and dragged his hands over his face. “That’s what I can’t understand. This was always Mom’s hiding place. If she was going to hide Tolliver anywhere, this would be it.”

  “So your hypothesis is what? Because he’s not here she’s not responsible for stealing him?” I nudged him with my shoulder. “Or do you think she turned him into a garden gnome and stashed him outside?”

  “No,” Matt whispered. “She confessed to me that she sent the sprites to attack Tolliver and that she’d cast a trap to kill you. She kept telling me how she’d done it for me. Like this was something I wanted.”

  “Didn’t you? You did dump me after all.”

  He rubbed his hands over his face again. “For the last time, I was mad when I said that thing about breaking up with you.”

  “But I’m just like they are. Just another demon.”

  “No.” He lunged forward and grabbed me around the waist, pressing his forehead against mine. “You’re mine.”

  I felt my heart flutter and I leaned into him, my lips seeking his like they held the answer to life, the universe, and the all-important question of why the heck no one could make a low-calorie chocolate ice cream that actually tasted like chocolate ice cream was supposed to.

  Then I remembered that this was the guy who walked out on me while I was unconscious and apparently fighting for my life. “You left me.” I kept my eyes focused on his and swallowed. “I need to be with someone who thinks I’m worth fighting for. Someone who wants to be in with me no matter what it takes. If you truly want me, the real me and not just some idea of me, you’d have fought for me.”

  “He may not want you,” a reedy voice said and I turned around to see a green sprite hovering in front of my face. “But I do. In fact, I want you both.”

  He snapped his fingers and a swarm of sprites appeared out of nowhere, surrounding us. Shit, we’d walked straight into an ambush and I’d been too distracted to even notice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Oh, God damn it.” I reached for my power and my brain slammed against the mental equivalent of a brick wall. My magic, straining toward me through the block, was no use. Crap. So much for smiting the damn things with hellfire. It seems they’d learned from their experience with Tolliver and weren’t taking any chances.

  “I thought you said they were simple creatures.” I smacked at the sprite clinging to my left arm and tried to pull on my powers again. Instead of retreating the little bastard bit down on my right thumb.

  “They are.” Matt’s face had gone pale, like he’d been sucker punched.

  “I swear to all that’s evil I’m going to kill your mother for getting me into this mess. I should have known that she’d figure out that you were going to come here and leave an ambush behind.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t believe in murder?” Matt reached out to snatch a sprite out of the air, and when he caught the little monster he flung it across the room.

  “I’m reevaluating my belief system on killing right now. Ask me again later,” I said. Half the sprites surrounded me, wrapping silky threads around my legs. Flying imps crossbred with spiders. Perfect. Just what you want in a heavenly creature.

  They cocooned my body up to my chest and wrapped my arms up to the elbows to pin my sides. Within seconds I was standing like a half-finished mummy. They had Matt wrapped up, too. Efficient little buggers. I’d give them that.

  “Reevaluate silently,” the sprite from earlier said, flying close to my face. “Your prattle annoys me.”

  “Hey!” Matt yelled. “Talk to my girlfriend that way again, and when this is over I’ll get the weed killer out and bathe you i
n it.”

  “Your threats of murder don’t scare me, traitor.” The sprite made a show of sticking his nose up at the two of us like we were shit on his tiny little shoes. “Daharack is the High Emperor of the Sprite Kingdom. When he is successful in his task he will be given power beyond all reckoning. Even the loathsome Tailed Ones will quake in fear at my reign.”

  “Tailed Ones?” I raised my eyebrows at Matt.

  “Cats,” he said, his face pale. “Sprites loathe cats.”

  “Murderers,” the tiny megalomaniac screeched. “The evil beings hunt us down and perpetrate genocide amongst us. They would strip us from our rightful place and exterminate us. They are devil’s spawn.”

  “No they aren’t,” I said. Okay, so he was a crazy little monster who had ambushed me and now had me tied up. And yeah, I was going to smite the ever-living hell out of him once I was loose. But I could sort of understand his whole Hatred of Cats thing. Dan’s cat Copernicus had loved bringing me presents when we lived together, and birds were her favorite since they were airborne targets. If I had to guess I’d say sprites were a whole new level of difficulty, which meant serious bragging rights for one of the more competitive cats out there.

  “Do you say Daharack lies? Do you suggest that I, Daharack, would play my pack false?” He thumped his scrawny chest like an angry war chieftain from one of those old school spaghetti Westerns.

  I tried to hold back my smile. “No, but I can tell you for certain that the feline species was not created by the Devil. They aren’t demon spawn.”

  “They are!” he insisted.

  “They aren’t.” I hopped closer to him so we were nose to nose—or as close to that as we could be since my nose was bigger than his entire face. “Trust me, I’d know, I’m devil spawn and we can all identify each other. Besides, the Devil’s allergic.”

  “What?” Daharack flitted back from me. “What lies spill from your evil mouth?”

  “My father is allergic to cats,” I said. “Totally allergic. Can’t even be in a house where one lives. It makes his skin go all blotchy then he swells up and starts to wheeze.”

  “You lie.” Daharack pointed his tiny clawed hand at my nose.

  “I do not.” I jerked my head toward Matt. “Ask the nephilim.”

  “I refuse to recognize that the race traitor is among us,” Daharack said with a sniff. “He offends my eyes. His mere presence disgusts me.”

  “Why? Because he’s been dating the Devil’s daughter? You can sit here and argue with me, but he offends you?”

  “He is a traitor to our kind!” Daharack yelled. “You, demon child, cannot help the unfortunate circumstances of your birth but that thing chose his own fate. He’s chosen to cast himself out of the light. For that he must die. Our law decrees it!”

  “What? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. He’s offended you and so you’ve just decided to kill him? Why? Because he doesn’t think that the Apocalypse is a really nifty idea?”

  “Because I love you, stupid,” Matt answered softly.

  “What?” I whipped my head to the side so that I could look at him. We were being held captive by psychotic sprites who were experts in mummy wrapping. I couldn’t feel my toes or my fingers, and this is when he decides to declare his love for me? For the love of all Evil, someone had to talk to this man about his timing.

  “Daharack cares not for the traitor and his words.” The ugly little sprite flew closer to me. “Daharack wants to know of this allergy the Woman of the Forked Tongue speaks.”

  I turned to the overgrown dragonfly. “The Devil has hounds. Hell hounds. He has big black dogs that howl and chase down wicked mortals on moonless nights. They also go ape shit for cherry-dipped chocolate ice cream cones from Dairy Queen. Get over it already. Can you not see that we’re having a moment here?”

  I thought the people on my side of the arrangement were a pain in the ass. At least our pets didn’t back talk. I reached for my powers and winced as a sharp electric current raced along my spine instead. Matt hissed and the bracelet on my wrist heated as his pain flowed back through the link between us.

  “The Devil has no Tailed Ones,” Daharack said, putting the pieces together in his tiny cracked out mind. His eyes sort of lit up and I thought he had that look primitive guys had when they figured out they were supposed to bang the rocks together instead of beating each other over the head with them.

  “The Devil has The Ones That Bark. The Ones That Bark hate the Tailed Ones. They declare war upon the evil beasts and chase them from their lairs.”

  “Yes,” I said. “The Devil prefers dogs. Congratulations, you’re catching on. Meanwhile, God has a big white fluffy Persian named Magdalene. And Jesus has two Tabbies, Mark and Matthew.”

  “The Light and The Glorious Return own Tailed Ones?”

  “Yes, so I highly doubt they’re going to let you declare war upon their pets. But if you let me go and lead me to my brother, I’m pretty sure my dad will reward you with a whole animal shelter full of cats to slaughter. Fluffy death for everyone.”

  Another sprite flittered forward and whispered to Daharack. The two of them huddled and whispered, waving their tiny arms in the air like they were arguing. Perhaps Daharack wasn’t quite the unquestioning king of the sprites he thought he was?

  “Your offer intrigues me.” Daharack turned toward me with an appraising look on his face.

  “Good. Take me to my brother and once I know he’s safe I’ll work out a deal for you with Dad.” Finally we were getting somewhere. Now if the freak would just unwrap me I could squish him like a bug so we could get out of here.

  “No.” Daharack flittered close enough that I could smell his nasty mulch breath.

  “No?”

  “I said your deal intrigues me, Woman of the Forked Tongue. I did not say I would accept it. We take our chances with the Beings of White. Bring them!”

  Well crap, so much for negotiation.

  The sprites swarmed around us and I was lifted off the ground, tilted backward so I was staring at the ceiling. Perfect. All they needed were bones through their noses and a couple of cooking pots for this to become a messed up, angelic version of a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

  “Oh, come on,” I yelled and tried to kick my feet. “Give me a break. I’m offering to cut you a deal and you’re still taking me to the dungeon? When I get free, I swear to everything that’s evil I’m buying an industrial sized thing of RAID and a flyswatter. You think cats are bad? You just wait.”

  “Faith,” Matt’s voice was resigned.

  “Then I’m gonna throw you in a hamster cage and leave it in the Grey Lands.”

  “Faith,” Matt said, and I turned to see him giving me the “you’re so stupid I wonder how you’ve managed to survive this long on your own” look. I wasn’t the one who led us into an ambush by sprites. Sprites! Did he realize how much shit I was going to take for this later? Especially if I didn’t manage to rescue Tolliver.

  I squinted at the bright sunlight and tried to come up with a plan as the sprites took us out the backdoor of the farmhouse and into the forest crowding the back of the house. Sprites and imps weren’t high enough up the food chain to phase between spaces in reality, and Tolliver wasn’t in the Grey Lands. Matt had been right all along. Shit. There’d be no living with him if we made it out of this with our powers intact.

  I stared at the trees as they passed above me and my spirits sank. I was being held prisoner by a bunch of garden sprites. With my ex-boyfriend. Boyfriend. I wasn’t sure what our status was right now. Either way he was a guy the sprites had no problem taking along with me to have our powers sacrificed. Or be banished from the mortal realm. Or hell, have the physical bodies we were using butchered and our consciousness fragmented to the wind. How was I supposed to know what a bunch of garden sprites had in mind to torture us?

  No matter what they decided to do to us they were taking Matt along on this little adventure with us. Which meant he probably hadn’t known this w
as going to happen. That wonderful conclusion left me with nobody’s ass to kick for this stupid mistake except my own. And kicking your own ass is always difficult. Especially when you lack flexibility like I do.

  “Faith,” Matt whispered.

  “What?”

  “Are you all right?”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  I looked over at him, raising my eyebrows. He was joking, right?

  “Sprites aren’t aggressive. They’re cowards by nature. Once they realize your father and the Alpha will get angry about your disappearance they’ll turn us back over and grovel on their knees to keep from being punished. The trick is not to rile them up before someone comes to save us.”

  “So the whole Going to War With House Cats thing? You don’t think that’s aggressive?”

  “Well okay, so this group is a little more peeved off than usual but I still don’t think they’d hurt us. If you don’t piss them off I think we might be able to negotiate our way out of this.”

  “No more talking,” Daharack said. I gritted my teeth and fantasized about all the ways I was going to make him suffer once we were free. “The prisoners will be silent.”

  I rolled my eyes at Matt. Sprites weren’t aggressive? So what? Our miniature ringleader was an outlier with a bad attitude? And a name. Which, come to think of it, when did sprites start taking names?

  “Hey, Matt?” I whispered.

  “Yeah?”

  “No talking!” Daharack shrieked again. “I am Daharack, High Emperor of the Sprites, and I forbid the Woman of the Forked Tongue and the Race Traitor from speaking.”

  “Never mind.” I turned my face forward.

  “I said—” Daharack screamed, flying over to levitate in front of me. Instead of flipping down to face me, though, he gave me a clear shot up his tiny loincloth. I cringed. I’d been assuming Daharack was a male sprite. But apparently, unlike imps, sprites were genderless. No wonder he was so cranky.

  I closed my eyes to avoid seeing his tiny ass again. “Hey, Daharack.”