Grave Humor

by RJ Blain

  I shut Lady Luck’s door, hauled the groceries out of the back, and set it down nearby before getting the weed whacker, filling it up with gas, and starting its motor. “All right, Eoghan. He’s been beaten enough. Please watch my grandmother’s jewelry box. I have a back yard to slay. I can’t picnic in a jungle. Lucy, get rid of that eyesore of a house, make sure the cops don’t have a problem with your demolition services, and take care of the drinks. If I didn’t get the right food, bring whatever you think is better with you when you come, but be aware you will be eating my offerings at the risk of Eoghan beating the sin right out of you.”

  “That would be quite the feat,” the devil’s wife replied, grinning. “Can I watch?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I love you. I’m Darlene.”

  “Anwen. You ever use a weed whacker before?”

  “No, I can’t say I have. Before I took pity on the layabout over there, my neighbor took care of the edging in my yard. I did use the push mower. It was fun enough.”

  “This is far better than a push mower.” I marched around the house. “Don’t breathe near the hole. The basement is nasty, and it’s the primary reason I’m having your husband torch the whole damned thing.”

  “I could smell it from the driveway.” Darlene tapped the side of her nose. “It’s sensitive. Too sensitive. I really need to convince him to change the stench of hell. If I wanted to smell sulfur all the damned time, I would’ve moved to Yellowstone. The geysers are prettier than lava fields.”

  I bet. “When was the last time you let him count your spots, anyway? According to his whining, it has been at least a decade.”

  Darlene skipped along beside me, and her tail fur smoothed. “A month. He’s been a very naughty devil, and he hasn’t been naughty in the right ways. I’m sure he’ll learn to say he’s sorry one of these days.”

  “I will not!” the devil called out from behind us.

  “Then you’ll be counting my spots in approximately never, asshole!”

  No wonder the devil had been willing to do so much for so little. He’d need a miracle to get out of the doghouse with his wife. “Do you fight often?”

  “We’re supposed to not be fighting?” Darlene grinned and waved her hand to dismiss my concerns. “He gets worried when I act all lovey dovey with him. It usually means I want something, and when I want something, it usually involves him having to do something embarrassing, such as confess his eternal, undying love for me in front of his devilish horde.”

  The devil popped into existence in front of us, stretched out his wings, and leaned forward to get nose to nose with his wife. “Never again, you.”

  I considered beating the devil with my weed whacker but thought better of it; his hard skull would break my new machine, and I needed a cleared yard so I could have a picnic. “The house is still standing, Lucy. Get your ass kicked by your wife after you’ve done your chores.”

  “Maybe she should run your hells, babe. She’s bossing you around, and you’re even going to do what she wants. It stinks. I’ll consider an exemption from your spot-counting ban should the house be properly demolished without creating any legal problems for her or Death.”

  “Eoghan,” I corrected. “I’m still having trouble believing that part of things,” I admitted.

  Eoghan strolled over. “Which part?”

  “You can transform into a black dog and you didn’t tell me,” I complained. “I could have pet you anytime I wanted, and you hid it.”

  The devil snickered. “You can conquer her with a mere promise she can pet you at her leisure, Eoghan. Not only does she love dogs, she adores you as a dog. You’re already ahead of the game. It’s good to be the Black Dog of Death, isn’t it?”

  Heaving a sigh, Eoghan bowed his head. “Why is killing you forbidden?”

  “You’d miss me.”

  “I really wouldn’t.”

  “You would.”

  “Boys,” Darlene warned.

  To my amazement, both men shut up.

  “Okay, how did you do that?” I demanded.

  “I merely taught mine the truth of the situation: I have what he wants, and if he upsets me, he doesn’t get what he wants. The other one is smart enough to understand if he upsets me, Satin over there will get pissed and he’ll have a real fight on his hands. I’m just using my authority. You have it, too. You’ll see.”

  “Satin?” I asked.

  “Our daughter’s favorite name for him. He scarred the poor girl for life once after wrapping some nitwit up in a fortune of fabric and lighting him on fire. She copes with having seen her father in all his glory through odd nicknames and other strange coping mechanisms. She’s got enough divine blood in her that she isn’t wiped out should she get a peek of his face, but she shies away from the memories. For good reason. The first time I got a look at him, he had to take drastic measures because I wasn’t born with divine, demonic, or devilish blood—and angelic blood won’t save you from that, not that I have a scrap of angelic blood in me.”

  “I try not to think about that,” the devil admitted.

  “He’s a big softy, and don’t you listen to his lies,” Darlene ordered. “The house is still standing, my dear. It stinks. Get rid of it, go calm the locals down once you’re done, and don’t you dare forget my coffee.”

  “Should I just grow coffee in our back yard?” The devil glared at the decaying ruins of the house. “Fine. I’ll take care of it. Spots, my darling. I wish to count them.”

  “If you want to count spots, you need to earn them. Shoo. I get to play with a weed whacker, and I can’t do that with you in the way.”

  The devil spat a few curses at his wife, who waved him off until he teleported away. “He’s so high maintenance.”

  That he was.

  Blue fire engulfed the house, although no heat washed over us as I expected. I watched with interest as the flames brightened, crackled, and died away, leaving a rather large hole in the ground. Not even the foundation remained, not that there had been much of a foundation anyway. Blue flames belched from a section of the front yard, marking where the septic tank had once been.

  The devil reappeared. “You needed a new septic system anyway. You’ll thank me later.”

  “I’m thanking you now. Thank you, Lucy.”

  “Spots, Anwen. I need my spots.”

  “Go calm the locals, and I’ll ask your wife really nicely to relent and allow some spot counting.” Then, as I could be as much of an asshole as his wife when I wanted, I stepped on my toes and patted his head. “You’ll be okay, Mr. Devil.”

  “You’re evil,” the devil replied before he disappeared again.

  “I think he likes me,” I said, waving my hand in front of my face in an effort to clear the air of the brimstone stench.

  “He likes my spots, and he’s just using you to get access to them,” Darlene replied.

  “We’ll probably survive. Shall we go teach the back yard a lesson?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Seventeen

  I will bring severe injury to any who try to take a piece of mine.

  Darlene liked my weed whacker, and judging from her enthusiastic destruction of every rogue plant to cross her path, she needed more than coffee to get her through the rest of the day. “Hell must be tough. I don’t think those plants are going to bother anyone ever again.”

  “It has its moments. It’s been busy lately.”

  “I can’t even imagine how hell could be busy, what hell being busy entails, and how that results in you venting through aggressive weeding of my back yard.”

  “He asked the asshole to come over.”

  “The asshole?” I asked, glancing at Eoghan.

  “Not that asshole.”

  “Hey,” Eoghan complained. “Why am I an asshole? I haven’t done anything right this moment to earn such a thing. I am very deliberate when I wish to be a most arrogant asshole.”

  Nice. He’d been working on his sense of humor. “I
t’s accumulative.”

  “Since when?”

  “I decided that right now.” I grinned at him. “And you were truly an arrogant asshole when we first met.”

  “There’s a good reason for that,” he reminded me.

  Darlene dove for the next section of weeds to be leveled, and I removed the slaughtered weeds to clear space for the blanket and picnic basket. “While true, you about scared a few years off my life.”

  “I still won our wager,” he replied.

  “If you had spots, I’d say ban him from counting them,” Darlene said, treating the weed whacker like a scythe. “Withholding spots is an excellent tactic. I’m sure you can come up with something. Perhaps freckles?”

  “Alas, I do not have freckles he could count.”

  “Such a pity. I’m sure you’ll come up with something appropriately alluring.”

  “Why are we killing the plants here?” Eoghan asked.

  “We’re going to picnic, and we need a cleared space to picnic. This space has been selected. Wait here.” I headed back to the truck, loaded up on as much as I could carry, and dragged it over to the chosen picnic location. Three trips later, I went to work laying out the blanket on the space Darlene had cleared away. “It’s not perfect, but once the back yard is properly maintained, we can just come out here, toss down a blanket, and enjoy ourselves.”

  “I see.” After a moment of hesitation, Eoghan joined me on the blanket. “And we do what?”

  “Eat food, talk, and be merry. That sort of thing. Mostly, we eat. If we’re lucky, we’ll get some entertainment to go with the food.” I dug through my food purchases and revealed a cutting board and three honey rocks. “It’s not a picnic without honey rocks.”

  Darlene killed the motor on the weed whacker, set it down, and stared at me as though I’d lost my mind. “You got one cantaloupe per person?”

  I shrugged. “I’m certainly going to eat one by myself, and I will bring severe injury to any who try to take a piece of mine. I made the purchase with the safety of others in mind.”

  She laughed. “And I thought I was bad about coffee. That’s adorable.” She brushed the grass off her clothes and joined us on the blanket. “Picnicking in any one of the hells isn’t really an option, although I might have to make a nice space in my snow lounge to do this. He’ll hate it, and as such, I’ll love it.”

  The devil popped into being, and he held a tray of iced coffees, which he offered to his wife. “What are you doing to our house now?”

  “Figuring out how to picnic,” she replied, smiling as she accepted the coffees. “You had no idea what they wanted, so you got everyone what I like?”

  “Precisely. I’m the Lord of Lies, not the Lord of Putting in Extra Effort. You should know this by now, my darling. The only one I put in extra effort for is you, and I do so grudgingly and with the expectation of my good behavior going towards permission to count your spots.”

  To some, love looked like roses and sweet nothings. To others, it was bickering and posturing with secret smiles.

  To my amazement, I found the devil’s odd brand of love to be far more genuine than the pretty lies.

  The devil winked at me. “Just for that, I have good news for you.”

  “Must you always read people’s minds?” Darlene complained, reaching across the blanket to smack her husband’s leg. “You’re so bad.”

  “In this case, yes. She thought something complimentary about me. You know I need to be praised, my darling. I’ll surely expire if I don’t receive sufficient attention and an opportunity to count your lovely spots. I am ruthlessly using Anwen to secure my opportunity to count spots tonight.”

  “You’re obsessed.” Darlene squared her honey rock on the cutting board and slammed the poor knife through it, chopping it in half with no sign of effort. “Just handcuff them together and cheat.”

  “They don’t have appropriate living arrangements for that quite yet, darling. We don’t want to traumatize their vampire friend.”

  Eoghan raised a brow, but as he looked more amused than alarmed, I decided to say nothing and pretend they weren’t discussing how we should be spending our time together.

  Then again, I thought dragging Eoghan to my bed would be a very good use of my time.

  I had more problems than I could shake a stick at, but in good news, the decrepit ruins of my parents’ house wasn’t one of those problems.

  Darlene scowled and eyed the hole that had once been my parents’ house. “You make a good point. When you cheat, the couple does tend to embarrass anyone who knows them for a few days. But they’d like it.”

  “You can also cheat, my darling.”

  “You cheat better than I do, and I’m displaying my spots for you right now.”

  “I do find the presence of spots to be highly encouraging. You should encourage me.”

  “You promised me entertainment today. Until I’m properly entertained, I am not sharing my spots with you.”

  “But I want them,” the devil whined.

  “So needy. Entertainment first. Those are the rules.”

  “That implies I get to count spots today.”

  “If I’m properly entertained, you may count spots.”

  The devil pilfered one of the honey rocks, cracking it in half with his bare hands. “Today is a good day. Your entertainment will arrive soon. The first part of the entertainment will be here shortly after Anwen finishes preparing her treat.”

  I waited for Darlene to finish slicing her honey rock before I went to work on mine, and as I was a generous being, I cut Eoghan’s up for him at the same time. “I like how the entertainment is waiting for me to have a snack.”

  Michael, Gabriel, and Azrael popped into existence behind the devil. Gabriel fisted his hand and smacked his devilish brother upside the head. “You’re trouble. Why must you always create trouble?”

  I nibbled on my honey rock and observed the entertainment. Darlene did the same, and the tip of her tail twitched. Her ears remained forward, which I translated to mean she enjoyed watching her family’s drama.

  Eoghan snorted and ate his share of honey rock, shaking his head.

  “It’s fun,” the devil replied.

  I laughed at that. “If you expected any other answer from him, you need to go sit in the corner and adjust your general expectations.”

  “You’re meddling. Again. You’re toeing the lines. Again. Why must you do such things? He has noticed, and we’re supposed to make sure you don’t create more trouble. He told us to keep you company to make sure you don’t do something foolish. Again.”

  “He loves my antics. The stuffy believers just don’t like me, so He has to pretend He hates me.”

  The Earth was not of sufficient size to contain the devil’s ego.

  “You’re luring the one who seeks to circumvent death here. On purpose. To do what?” Gabriel demanded, and he crossed his arms over his chest and stretched his wings. I assumed the wing display was meant to intimidate. The devil laughed and waved to dismiss his angelic brother’s complaints. “Lucifer, can’t you be serious?”

  “I am being serious. This is the most efficient solution to the problem, and it permits me to meddle to the fullest extent possible. If I permitted things to play out in their natural course, it would take weeks to accomplish the same goal. This way, I also get to enjoy a picnic. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a picnic. My wife is also enjoying the picnic, too. You know how I feel about anyone interrupting things my wife enjoys.”

  “You’re whipped,” the devil’s wife informed him. “By me. I like that. It hasn’t been that long since I let you count spots.”

  “It’s been too long.”

  Eoghan leaned towards me and whispered, “He could have counted her spots an hour ago and it would have been too long for his liking.”

  Lucy heaved a sigh. “I see how it is. I was being helpful. Can’t I be helpful without everyone doubting me?”

  “Absolutely not,” all
three archangels chorused.

  I laughed and went back to eating my honey rock. “Hammel is coming here, then?”

  “He’ll be here fairly soon,” the devil replied. “I sent a minion to tell him what he wants is here. Which it is.”

  Crap. I’d forgotten about the node. I twisted around to stare at where my parents’ house used to be. “We didn’t incinerate the node, did we?”

  “We?” the devil replied.

  “I told you to do it, and you did it. Therefore, we applies.”

  Darlene snickered. “You’re right, you goof of a husband. I do like her. Anwen, we’re going to need to picnic and have coffee again soon. I haven’t had this much fun in a while.”

  I liked the sound of that, so I nodded. “I can probably convince Eoghan to tolerate your husband. They can keep each other amused while we enjoy coffee.”

  “Men are a lot of work, aren’t they?”

  I pointed a piece of my honey rock at Eoghan. “My initial impressions of this one involves a lifetime of potential frustration.”

  That earned me a scowl. “Pardon?”

  I ignored the complaint in his tone and took a bite of my melon.

  Eoghan grunted but didn’t say another word.

  “Men, particularly husbands, are constant sources of frustration. As he is not yet your husband, you can trade him in for a different model if he doesn’t live up to your expectations. Once married, especially to the annoying immortal types such as these two men, you tend to be stuck with them. I was thoroughly tricked, and now I have to make the most of it. My spots are a most effective tool at keeping him tolerable. If he isn’t tolerable, he doesn’t get to see the spots let alone count them. They’re an effective disciplining tool.”

  The devil sighed. “They really are. I like those spots too much for my own good.”

  “You’re a pest,” Darlene informed her husband.

  “But I forgot about the node. Shouldn’t we know where it is before he gets here?” I asked. “Won’t it be problematic if he acquires it?”

  “It weighs about six thousand pounds. It’s not going anywhere, Anwen,” the devil replied. “And it’s not like knowing where the node is will help him. Nodes have power, but what he wants is an impossibility. This node isn’t like some, which are basically magical batteries. This one takes potential and gives them life—in the right circumstances. It could give him the raw magical power required to accomplish his goals, but it would break the universe, and that sort of thing is annoying. Anyway, he had his chance, and he squandered it. More accurately, he didn’t realize he had his chance. The Book of Life is outside of his reach, the fates are off doing whatever they want, and the facets of death all have a rather strong dislike of him. You did put the Book of Life back where it belongs, Azrael?”