Devil May Care

by Patricia Eimer

  “The girl body thing is just Mal’s way of dealing with his own issues.” Mom rolled her eyes. “But the reason he shows up in floaty form is because he doesn’t want to freak you out.”

  “Why would he freak me out?”

  “Look, when you were an infant, Malachi was an invisible presence. Karanthian lived with us as a nanny demon and the only time Mal physically manifested was if we called him. But when you were about two, Karanthian left and Malachi stepped in to be your bodyguard fulltime. The first day he showed up looking like a normal mortal man—tall, muscular, black hair, big chocolaty eyes. He was sexy in this sort of bad boy way, and when I say sexy I mean he could literally stop traffic at the mall during the Black Friday sales. I always said if your father wasn’t around—”

  “Mom!” I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a quick shake. “Enough mooning over my bodyguard. Focus.”

  “Right, sorry.” Mom shook her head like she was trying to clear out the memories of how hot Malachi used to be. “But I mean is it really any surprise that Matt’s mom would have tried to seduce him? Really, Bassano can’t compare.”

  “Valerie tried to seduce Malachi?” My eyes widened. “Was that the whole thing going on between them at the Church Brewworks?”

  “Well obviously that was all anger and unresolved sexual tension between them.” Mom rolled her eyes at me. “But anyway, Malachi showed up looking like a mortal man, but you were terrified of him and wouldn’t let him near you. Which made guarding you and Hope almost impossible. So he tried turning himself into a dog. A black French poodle, if you can believe it. You peed yourself when he got near you.”

  “Great, thanks for that memory. My own bodyguard made me wet my pants.” I couldn’t believe this. Malachi was a man. I mean sure, he did the demonic equivalent of drag on occasion but he still identified himself as a male demon. But I’d never thought of Malachi as a man. Like a man man. “What I don’t understand is how he went from being a man to being what he is now.”

  “There was this commercial on television. I don’t even know what it was for. Something stupid. I think it might have been a used car lot talking about how the only person who could slash things better than them was the Angel of Death. Then they had this little cartoon of a reaper slashing prices on their cars, and it made you howl with laughter. So he shifted into that form and you kept laughing. You even let him float down to sit beside you and that was that. He’s stayed that way ever since.” Mom shrugged and gave me one of those what-can-you-do? smiles she seemed to have perfected over the years.

  I shook my head and rubbed my eyes, trying to find some way for this to make sense. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea for us to date. No offense to Mal but I think I might give up on the whole enterprise if you don’t mind. Maybe celibacy isn’t such a bad idea.”

  “Well, your dad said I can’t push you on anything but I want to say I think you’re making a mistake. Life’s difficult Faith, you shouldn’t spend it alone.” She patted my back. “But I think I have something that will perk you up.”

  I tried to muster some enthusiasm. Otherwise she’d come up with something truly horrible to torture me with. Like chick flick marathons. Or even worse, hours of watching Lifetime.

  “Ooh! Has Dad decided to go destroy a city? Can we level Paris? I’d really like to level Paris right now.”

  “Why Paris?” Mom lifted one of her eyebrows and gave me an appraising stare. “What is there in Paris that you want to destroy?”

  “Nothing.” I tried not to think about my and Matt’s first date, which happened to be in Paris. I’d rather not think about what my stupidity since then had cost us all. “I just thought Paris would be a good city to destroy.”

  “Your father isn’t leveling a city. But you need to get up anyway. You know how Lisa and I had agreed to just have a double wedding since my wedding got canceled?”

  “You and Lisa were planning a double wedding tomorrow? Does that mean I don’t have to wear that fugly monstrosity that you bought us and I can just wear the nice black cocktail dress I had picked out for Lisa’s wedding?”

  “Oh right, you were MIA when Lisa offered to let us share their wedding. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that your father doesn’t feel right about making me share my special day with someone else. I’m going to be the Devil’s consort. I should have my own day. Well, my own night, I guess you could say.”

  “Mom, not that this isn’t terribly compelling,” I said before pulling the pillow over my head. “But could you cut to the punch line? I’d like to go back to my pity party so I can get it all out of the way and be able to fake enthusiasm for my best friend’s wedding tomorrow.”

  “Well, you’re going to have to speed up that order of fake enthusiasm,” she said, bouncing on the edge of my bed.

  I lifted the pillow off my face and gave her my best bitch stare. “Why?”

  “Your father and I are getting married tonight.” She glanced at the clock and frowned. “In six hours.”

  “You’re getting married at nine at night?” I asked, looking at the clock. “Why so late?”

  “It was always supposed to be an evening wedding,” Mom said. “They’re very trendy. Besides, it will take your father’s kitchen staff that long to get the food prepared and set up on this short notice. But your uncle is here. All of you children are here. Everyone is safe. We’re having the wedding.”

  “Are you sure it’s not so you can beat Lisa down the aisle?”

  “Of course not.” Mom huffed. “Now, up. I need you to start getting dressed. We have a full day’s worth of pampering to do and not nearly long enough to get it done. Come on.”

  “Fine.” I sighed. “I’ll get up. I’ll be happy that you and Dad are getting married. Does that mean I don’t have to wear the dress?”

  “You’re wearing the dress.” Mom pointed at me. “Get over it. And don’t worry, I’ve already found someone else to escort you up the aisle since I didn’t think Matt would feel up to coming.”

  “Who?” I asked, wary about what sort of crazy, and most likely inappropriate, date my mother had found for me.

  “It’s a surprise. But your father wants to make sure you have ample protection so he’ll be your date to Lisa’s wedding tomorrow, too.”

  “I’ll be fine with Malachi.” I fought the urge to give her a solid jolt of dark power. The last thing I needed was some demon I barely knew hovering over me. Or even worse, thinking that I was in the market for a new man in my life.

  “I never said that you wouldn’t be fine with Malachi,” Mom said. “Now get in the living room so we can start making you look like the Princess of Hell your father claims you are.”

  “I’d be more believable in the dress I picked out for Lisa’s wedding.” If my life had to fall apart around my ears, couldn’t I at least meet my fate looking somewhat fashionable? It just seemed pathetic to meet a lifetime of loneliness in a dress that hideous.

  “Tough.” My mother stalked out of the room. “You have five minutes. Then I’m coming back in here.”

  “I’ll be two minutes or less.”

  She left, slamming the door behind her, and I grabbed my phone, looking at the picture of me and Matt on the front of it. I opened my settings and my finger hovered over the Delete key. It didn’t do me any good to keep it now. No matter what he said we weren’t going to be able to work things out between us.

  The phone buzzed and I glanced at the screen. Rogers Hospital. But it wasn’t one of the lines from my contact list. That was weird. I answered it and hoped it wasn’t Harold, trying to keep me up to date with the latest who’s screwing who gossip. “Hello?”

  “Faith?” Dan sounded nervous. “I just wanted to call and see how you were doing. You haven’t answered your phone in the past couple of days. I don’t want to be a pain in the ass but—”

  “I’m fine,” I said. Why could this guy not get the hint? We weren’t meant to be together. I wasn’t meant to be together with anyone. �
�We found my brother and things are fine.”

  “How are things with the boyfriend? I know the last time we talked you said it was complicated.”

  “Not too complicated really,” I said. “Since he’s not my boyfriend anymore.”

  “Oh.” I heard him swallow and clear his throat. “I’m sorry. I know you were hoping that you could work it out. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No,” I said. “But is there anything else you needed?”

  “I just wanted to check on you. And well…I guess there is this other thing.”

  “What?”

  “I’m done with the MEDTECH software update,” Dan explained. “My project at Rogers Hospital is done. I’m flying back to Chicago tomorrow morning.”

  “Oh, well thanks for telling me.”

  “I’m going to be back in a month, though,” he said, his words coming out in a rush. “A longer project, too. All of the University Hospital System. Twelve weeks.”

  “That’s great. I mean it’s great that you’re on such a big project.”

  “I was thinking,” he continued, “if you want, maybe we can get together for dinner. Maybe just drinks even, as friends of course. Because right now, you sound like that’s something you need.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re a nice guy and all, but right now I just don’t think I’m in the place for that. I’m sorry. Congratulations on your new project, though. You deserve it.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Well, if you need to talk to someone, you know you can call me. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea either. Good-bye, Dan.” I felt a sharp ache inside my chest. I’d never gotten to say that before. It should’ve felt like closure of some sort, but no matter how many memories you wipe or how many things you manipulate, the past is always there, waiting below the surface like piranha, just waiting to rip your hand off and leave you bleeding to death while it munched on your flesh.

  Six hours later I’d been primped, pampered, polished, and then crammed into the world’s ugliest bridesmaid’s dress and a pair of stilettos that could double as torture devices for questioning terrorists. Standing in the back of the mock church that the Alpha had made appear out of thin air, I was pretty sure my night couldn’t get any worse. Then I remembered that Mom had set me up on a blind date for the next two days and realized that in this family it could always get worse.

  “You know, you don’t look too bad in that dress,” Malachi announced from the top of a set of stairs that I thought might have led to the choir loft. I resisted the urge to laugh. Mom was right, if it weren’t for the fact it was Mal I’d have agreed with her that he was probably one of the five hottest guys I’d ever seen. Hell, even though it was Mal, he was still in the top three and that was just all kinds of wrong. But at least I didn’t have to worry about making small talk with a stranger tonight.

  He tugged at the cuffs of his suit and gave me the once over with his caramel colored eyes. He lifted the side of his lush lips upward in a crooked smile and quit fidgeting. “But I forgot how difficult it is to get dressed in this body. Everything is so constricting.”

  I could see how most men’s clothes would be. He was tall enough that he could rest his chin on the top of my head, and he had enough muscles without being one of those weird, gross looking super-body-builder-I-eat-small-children-for-breakfast types, but I didn’t need to ask who to put my money on in a bar fight, either. He’d neatly combed his black curls back and he was channeling the whole Bad Boy Who Needs Love thing like it was going out of style. I’d even noticed the shadow of a tattoo on his left bicep underneath his white dress shirt before he put on his jacket.

  I smiled at him. “You’re pretty good-looking yourself.”

  “Please. Mortals don’t look this good.” He gave me a wink. “This is…me.”

  “Well then, why don’t you go this way all the time? If you don’t like your other form, wear this one. Be who you really are for Evil’s sake.”

  “But you’re more comfortable with me in the other form. This one scares you.”

  “It scared me when I was two,” I said. “I’ve grown up a bit since then.”

  “I keep trying to remind myself of that but it doesn’t help.” He smoothed his hands over his jacket and turned to face me. “You know, I talked to Matt this afternoon.”

  “Grownup, Mal,” I patted his arm. “Time to let me make my own decisions.”

  “Well then, quit making all the wrong ones. It would make the job of protecting you so much easier if I only had to worry about bad guys. Right now, I feel like most of my workload is protecting you from you. And I have to tell you that’s a job for two of me right now.”

  “Maybe it’s time you let me go,” I said. “Let me take care of myself. Hope doesn’t have a bodyguard anymore. Why should I?”

  “Hope doesn’t have a bodyguard because no one will take her on. Besides, I’d get bored in Hell. There’s nothing there for me but paperwork and meetings. It’s much more fun topside with you. Or it was until you sailed off on the Good Ship Crackpot and ruined your one chance at happiness.”

  “I had to.” I tried to keep my fake, bridesmaid smile on my face from slipping. “I’m not sure what would be worse—taking the chance and the Angale hurting Matt, or hurting someone else in this family or just some random stranger who happened to get in the way.”

  “You think that by breaking your own heart, and Matt’s, you’re going to somehow prevent the Angale from being crazy? You think that will prevent them from a war if they decide to wage it? They have been bred to destroy demons.” Malachi tugged on my arm so that we were face to face again. “That is their only purpose in life and, if they choose to stay that way, nothing you and Matt do will change their minds.”

  “You don’t think they’re going to change, do you?” I asked as he took my arm, leading me toward the sanctuary. “Valerie’s death just brought us closer to war.”

  “We’ve always been coming closer to war.” Malachi stopped at the doors to the replica of Notre Dame my mother had asked the Alpha to provide her for the wedding. He dipped his fingers in the water and crossed himself. “Being stupid and breaking Angel Boy’s heart won’t pull us all back from the brink and it won’t save innocent bystanders, either. If war comes, no matter what you do, people will get hurt.”

  I fought the urge to throw my arms around his neck and cry like I had when I was a kid. Back then Mal would turn himself into a pillow and let me sob myself to sleep on his chest. Not that it would do me any good now. “It won’t pull us back from the brink, but if war comes it will prevent…”

  “Don’t count on it,” Malachi said.

  The music started and I wrapped my arm around his bicep. Lisa and Nahamia started up the aisle and I psyched myself up to walk down the aisle with Mal and not wobble in my shoes. Even though I’d lost all feeling in my toes.

  “Can I give you a little bit of advice about war?” Malachi asked.

  “What?” I watched Lisa hit the point that my mother had told me was my cue to start marching. Malachi straightened and started us up the aisle in time with the music.

  “In war there are no sides,” he whispered, keeping his face forward, not acknowledging the demons sitting in the pews. “Battles are nothing but a clusterfuck full of chaos and the only way you survive them is to grab onto the people who matter to you and try to keep each other safe. All that matters is keeping the people you love safe, even if you have to split the world apart and reign down hellfire on anyone who stands in your way.”

  He let go of me at the top of the aisle and I turned to him. He was right. If war came I would do whatever it took to keep Matt and everyone else I loved safe. But for right now, the best way for me to do that was to let Matt go. No matter how much it killed me.

  Dad looked at me and then at Malachi, his eyebrows drawn together. Instead of answering, the dread demon just
patted my father’s shoulder and turned to the back of the church.

  All my father’s subjects except for Lilith were in the audience. Not that I could blame her. I doubted I was going to find myself at any of my ex’s weddings in the future.

  When Hope reached us, the music changed and everyone stood, facing the back of the church. Except for Dad. Always the proper gentleman, he kept his back turned while Mom walked down the aisle. My sister started to giggle, her shoulders shaking, and I craned my head around her to see what was so funny. Mom made it farther up the aisle and I stared, stunned, at the hot mess she’d managed to make of herself in the short time since we’d left her alone in the dressing room.

  When would Mom learn she wasn’t eighteen anymore? She was the mother of two grown daughters. Besides, was it really appropriate for the soon to be Consort of Satan to be walking down the aisle in a knock off of the Princess of Wales’s wedding dress? Especially a version that was two sizes too small in the bodice. I was pretty sure that much cleavage was something they’d frown upon at Westminster. But, even if they didn’t, a proper royal bride always knew it was better to leave your pageant tiara at home when you were in a church. Diadems were so much classier.

  …

  “The past couple of weeks have been hard on you,” my uncle said and handed me a glass of champagne. I clinked it against His and turned back to watching the rest of the guests from the sidelines of my parents’ wedding reception.

  “You could say that,” I said. We sipped our champagne, and I tried to ignore the fact that I was standing there drinking with the Creator of All Things while a group of demons did the Electric Slide. What was I supposed to say to him? “Thanks for resurrecting my boyfriend but you know, I would have preferred him dead rather than in charge of the Angale.” Yeah, even if that were true—which is wasn’t—it might sound a tad ungrateful.

  “Blech, I always have hated this stuff.” He waved His hand over our glasses and I saw that He’d changed it from champagne into Guinness. Who said the Alpha didn’t have good taste?