03 Before The Devil Knows You're Dead-Speak Of The Devil (11 page)

“Faith.” He shook my shoulders lightly and I could hear the panic in his voice.

Obviously, he couldn’t hear me, which was pretty much the definition of seriously bad as far as I was concerned. The upside, though, was that his life-saving act of daring wasn’t going to rip him apart at the molecular level and trap him in the Celestial realm until he could find a new body to inhabit. Which could be difficult since this body was meant to be immortal, and he’d have to find someone else who was compatible so he could body hop. Which was a serious problem since last I checked, neither Lazarus nor Jesus was ready to shuffle out of the mortal realm.

I watched as he scrambled to get his cell phone out of his pocket and dial it. The pizza I’d been craving earlier had ended up facedown in a puddle of beer, bits of glass from the beer bottles embedded in the crust, and my stomach gave a growl of protest.

“Malachi,” Matt yelled into the phone. “I need you at Faith’s apartment now.”

Instead of waiting for the dread demon to respond he dropped the phone beside him before cradling my lifeless form in his lap. He slapped at my cheeks. It would have been touching if it were anyone else, but considering it was my form he was rocking back and forth, I was ready to skip to the miraculous recovery bit. Starting now. Like, right now. Immediately. Damn it.

Things started to fade. Not like the-world-disappeared fade, but more like a picture that isn’t really in focus anymore and is going gray around the edges. “No.” I grabbed for the ceiling again. “No, no, no. This is not good. This is so not good.”

A dim light flared to life in the corner and Malachi seemed to burst into the room, Harold floating along behind him. Or he would have burst if it weren’t for the fact that the whole thing was washed out now and the bright light he should have been generating was more like a dull glow. Instead of being bright like the face of the sun he was more like a candle in a dimly lit restaurant.

“Oh crap.” My bodyguard’s face drained of color and he stood frozen, staring at Matt. Malachi shook his head like he was coming out of a haze and then blinked out of existence again.

I looked over and saw Harold staring at me. Instead of being washed out like everyone else he looked normal and if nothing else told me I was hosed, that would have done it. “What’s happening?”

“What are you doing up here?” Harold yelled.

“I don’t know. I’m stuck up here but my body is down there and it’s like they can’t hear me. You’ve got to help me.”

“Faith!” Harold yelled, louder this time, and moved closer to me. “I can’t hear you.”

“What? What do you mean you can’t hear me?” I grabbed my ponytail and pulled on it in frustration.

Harold floated close enough so that we were almost touching. “I can see you, but I can’t hear you. But don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”

“Help me!” I screamed, panic clawing at my throat. “You have to help me. Please.”

“I will.” Harold tried to touch me, but his hand slipped through where my shoulder should have been. I was a ghost that even other ghosts couldn’t touch. That was so very much the definition of not good. “I will help you. I promise. Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” I nodded, making my movements big enough so that I was sure he could understand them. I pointed at the man currently curled up on the floor below us and then back at myself. “Tell Matt.”

“Right,” Harold said. “I’ll tell Matt what’s going on. Well, what I know about what’s going on.”

The room below us exploded in a dozen tiny balls of light as my family burst into the room, not bothering to worry about the effects of their power on the fabric of reality.

J was the first to Matt, and he dropped to his knees and immediately started trying to catalog what was wrong with me, Tolliver right on his heels. “What happened?”

“I don’t know.” Matt’s voice was pinched and his hands were shaking. “I went out for pizza and when I came back she was on the floor.”

“What did she do today? Where did she go?” The Alpha was at Matt’s shoulder, His hand gripping the other man’s forearm. “Matt. Look at me. Tell me where she’s been. Who’s been around her?”

“I don’t know.” Matt’s eyes were wide. “I don’t know what happened. She told me that she’d spent the morning at work and then she had Lisa’s midwife appointment.”

“What then?” the Alpha asked. “Where did she go after the midwife’s appointment?”

“She went back to work for a few hours and after that we were both here.” Matt swallowed but his voice was shaky.

J closed his eyes and golden power enveloped him, his entire body radiating light like he was his own personal Hiroshima. He grabbed the sides of my head and my whole body lurched. I felt a light tug at where my toes should have been and looked, desperately, at Harold, hoping he knew what the hell was happening. The poltergeist stared at me, his eyes wide, and all I could think was that I was in serious trouble.

“Help them,” I mouthed and pointed at where J and the Alpha were working on my body while Malachi and Tolliver had my father pinned against a wall in the corner, the three of them watching as the others tried to find a way to bring me back to life. “Please.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Please.”

“Come on, Faith,” J said and I felt another tug on my toes as the body below me lurched under the onslaught of the Celestial version of a defibrillator. “Wake up or I swear on Dad, I am going to kick your ass.”

“She’s not there,” Harold said as he appeared on Jesus’s right side.

“Yes she is.” J dropped his hands from my head and put them on my chest. “We’ve got to get to her.”

“She’s not in there,” Harold said, louder this time.

“Yes, she is! She’s in there.”

“No, she’s not.” Harold shook his head. “She’s trapped against the ceiling.”

“What?” The Alpha let go of Matt’s shoulder and looked at Harold. “What did you say?”

“She’s not in there.” Harold pointed at my body. “She’s up there.” He jerked his hand back and pointed at me. Even though he was the only one who could see me, I gave him a thumbs-up and smiled, nodding my head so that he could know that I heard him.

“She’s up there?” the Alpha asked. “You’ve seen her?”

“Yes, I can’t hear her or anything but I can see her.”

“Are you sure?” Dad said. “Are you sure it’s her?”

“Who else is it going to be? It’s not like I’m going to mistake Faith for some other random poltergeist is it?”

“You can’t hear her?” Malachi asked. “You said you can see her, but you can’t hear her?”

“Exactly!” I yelled even though he couldn’t hear me. “That’s the exact problem. So what you need to do is get me back into my body and fix this because it really sucks. You guys hear me? This really sucks.”

“You don’t think she’s…” Tolliver stopped, staring at my body, his hands tucked in his armpits.

“Trapped between realms?” Malachi looked over at where I was floating and even though I didn’t think he could see me, he was staring straight into my eyes like he could sense where he was. “I think it’s possible. Now what we need to figure out is how.”

“No.” I shook my head back and forth as violently as I could so that Harold could understand what I was trying to say. “You need to figure out how to get me”—I pointed at my own chest—“back in there”—I pointed at the body lying on the floor. “How I ended up like this can totally wait until later.”

“I think Faith would rather you concentrate on getting her back in her body first,” Harold said. “Or at least that’s what I think she’s trying to tell me.”

I nodded and smiled at him.

“Right.” J looked over at Harold. “So you can see her and the two of you are managing to communicate somehow?”

“Sort of.” Harold swallowed. “It’s not perfect. Sort of like charades with a chimpanzee, but we seem like we’re getting somewhere.”

“Okay, find out if she can hear us.” J looked toward me. “Obviously she can hear you, but can she hear the rest of us?”

“Yes!” I gave Harold a thumbs-up and nodded so hard that I could feel the ghostly version of my ponytail bobbing in time with the movement.

“Oh yeah, she can hear you.”

“Can she tell us what happened?” Malachi asked, staring at where I should have been. “It could be critical for getting her off the roof and back into her body.”

“Michael.” I crossed my arms over my chest and growled in frustration that the stupid angel had managed to get the drop on me so easily.

“What?” Harold looked confused and held his hands up in a huh gesture.

“Mike!” I yelled. “Mike did this to me!”

“I don’t understand you,” Harold said, dragging each word out like I was the one who had problems hearing him instead of the other way around. “What happened?”

“Oh for the love of evil.” I grabbed my hair and tugged on it. “Mike!” I put my hand in front of my face and pretended I was singing into a microphone, moving my head from side to side.

“She had an accident while doing karaoke?” Harold looked at the others in confusion and mimicked my movements, except he added a butt wiggle that I could never unsee, no matter how long I lived after this. “I’m not sure what she’s saying.”

“Not karaoke, you jackass.” I held my hand out like I was waving a mike at him. “Mike! The archangel of dumbassery and sexual repression.”

“Not karaoke. I don’t know what happened. She’s waving her hand at me and pretending to sing but she looks pretty pissed off.”

“A mic!” Tolliver cried out and clapped his hands together before pointing at Harold. “It’s not the singing she wants you to see, it’s the mic.”

“The mic?” Matt asked and his grip tightened on my shoulders. “Why would she care about a microphone?”

“Because Michael is the head of the reapers,” Malachi said. “He was there when Valentin gave Faith his powers. He was pissed off that she got the gig instead of him. He seemed to think that he was next in line for a promotion or something.”

“He’s been angling for the job for years,” the Alpha said. “Every time the position is about to come vacant he petitions to take over the role but I’ve always rejected him. He’s not the sort of angel who should have that kind of power.”

“Well, duh.” I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. “Thanks for stating the obvious.”

“I think Faith is agreeing with you,” Harold said cautiously.

“So what happened?” Matt asked. “How did the Archangel Michael kill Faith and trap her essence outside her body?”

“He forgot to open the window on his way out,” Dad said, his voice icy. “He’d have been afraid of being caught by Matt, otherwise he wouldn’t have forgotten it. Without the window open—”

“I couldn’t escape,” I said even though no one else would be able to hear me.

“She was stuck in here,” Harold said at the same time. “Her soul couldn’t leave because there was nowhere for it to go.”

“I don’t understand,” Matt said. “What does a window have to do with anything?”

“Faith’s soul left her body without a reaper there to guide her,” Jesus said. “Now, it shouldn’t matter because not only is she no longer an actual physical entity, but she knows where her remaining life force needs to go. It’s not like she is going to get lost on her way to Hell or anything. For some reason, though, there’s this quirk when it comes to humans that has also passed to nephilims like us, if the soul doesn’t have a reaper, it begins to float, looking for an escape from whatever room it’s trapped inside.”

“Which is why old-school doctors and nurses used to open windows when a patient died,” Harold said. “My father and my grandfather both did it. Every time a person would die, they would open a window so the soul wouldn’t get trapped inside the room. So they could find their way back to God is what my grandfather always used to say, but that’s a stupid superstition.”

“Every superstition has some basis in fact,” J said. “It may be a distorted view that’s used to explain the world around us but it’s tied to the truth in some way, shape, or form.”

“So what you’re saying is that the only reason she is here and not trapped in Hell—or somewhere worse—is because there’s no way for her to get out?” Matt asked.

“Exactly,” Jesus said.

“Well that’s great.” Matt glared at the other man. “So we know how she got up there, but that doesn’t tell me how we go about getting her back in her own body.”

“We give her soul something to tether onto,” Malachi said. “We give her some reason to fight to stay alive. Then, under no conditions, do we open any of the windows or the doors in your apartment until we’re sure she’s back in her body and firmly strapped back into the controls.”

“Easy enough. She needs something to fight for? I can give her that.” Matt lifted my limp form further into his lap so that my head lolled back on his shoulders. He grabbed my chin and lifted my head so that he would have been looking in my eyes and I felt my heart pick up.

“I refuse to spend the rest of eternity without you.” He shook my chin lightly. “Not when I just got you back on the same page with me again. I love you too much to give you up now. So let’s hope that this doesn’t vaporize me.”

He pressed his lips to mine and the world dissolved into a cold, black nothingness around me.

Chapter Thirteen

They say that when you die your life is supposed to flash before your eyes. I can tell you, without a doubt, that doesn’t happen. When Michael killed me, I sort of wanted to see a highlights reel, but instead all I could think was well damn this is sort of anticlimactic. So no This Was Your Life Faith Bettincourt for me when I died, but being forcibly sucked back into your own body? That could have been produced by HBO in super high-definition and surround sound and all those other fancy technical sort of television terms.

The room went dark and all I could see was Matt. This great, beautiful glowing light that radiated around me and it was all Matt. Matt asleep on Sunday mornings. Matt reading the newspaper on my couch. Matt singing off-key in the shower. Matt trying to decide between the regular Twinkies and the chocolate-filled ones before buying both when we went to the grocery store.

My entire world had been compressed to the feel of his lips against mine and as the universe exploded around me I realized that every single molecule of it that mattered to me was Matt. He wasn’t the sun in the middle of my solar system; he was my equivalent of this galaxy and all the others we haven’t found yet. He was absolutely everything.

Then the heat receded and I could feel my limbs again even though—Alpha help me—I really didn’t want to. I let my eyes slide open and looked up into Matt’s face. His skin was a pale white and his eyes were red-rimmed, like he was trying to hold back his tears.

“Hey,” I said, wincing at the way the muscles in my throat contracted from the pain of being used again after they’d decided to retire permanently.

“Hey.” He sighed and let his forehead drop against mine so that we were pressed together as he tightened his arms.

“Um.” I shifted slightly so that I could snuggle into his chest and stifled a groan, trying not to let him see how much of an issue I was going to have with moving. “Thanks for, well you know, kissing me to save my life and all, but aren’t you supposed to be not touching me?”

“Thanks for coming back to life.” He tightened his grip on me again, his eyes closed.

J touched my arm gently. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded and tried not to grimace. “I mean for just having the life sucked out of me by an archangel and almost getting trapped in the ceiling fan, I’m doing great. But I am wondering how everyone can manhandle me right now without consequences.”

He swallowed and let go of my shoulder. “As far as touching you is concerned, I think whatever Michael did somehow knocked something loose. The job passes to the next angel when you die. You’ve died so…”

“Faith.” My father was staring down at me, his shoulders slumped forward.

“Daddy.” I struggled to stand up and, instead of watching me fight to get to my feet, Matt stood, lifting me up at the same time, and passed me over to my father.

I wrapped my arms around Dad’s neck and squeezed. I felt a second pair of arms go around me from behind and Malachi’s dark head burrowed into the side of my neck. I didn’t want to say anything but I was pretty sure that my father was trying not to cry. Not that he’d admit to it or anything.

“I’m so sorry,” Malachi said, his voice cracking, “I’m so, so sorry. I should have been here.”

“It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.” I tightened my grip on Dad’s neck and tried not to freak out seeing the two scariest guys I knew acting so vulnerable.

“We should have known,” the Alpha said, and I glanced over my shoulder to see him standing at the far side of the room, his arms crossed over his chest.

“We should have recognized Michael’s instability and his unhealthy fixation on the Angel of Death’s position. We should have known he would be dangerous. That he’d attack you this way. We should have had safe guards in place.”

Malachi pulled away from me, running a hand up to wipe at his eyes. “I should have been here but I wanted to try one last time to make the original Death see reason and I shouldn’t have gone. I should have sent a minion to negotiate with him and stayed here to protect you.”

“I should have called someone when I went out so Faith wouldn’t have been alone,” Matt said.

“Or I could have gone out for the pizza instead,” Tolliver said, bracing himself in the corner of the room, his face white, staring at me like I was some sort of newly risen ghost. Which, well I guess that might have been appropriate, but it felt creepy.

I hadn’t actually died, I’d just been jostled from my human form, the soul’s equivalent of falling off a cliff in a dream and waking up disoriented for a few brief seconds. Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best analogy but it sure beat “oh crap you came back from the dead like some sort of demon zombie.”

“What should I have done?” I looked first at my brother and then at Matt, trying to give them my best bitch glare even though the muscles in my face felt like they’d been stomped on by Leviathan and a whole host of wrecker demons. “Should I have sat here and darned someone’s socks? Because I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know how to darn socks. I don’t even know if people darn socks anymore. Socks aren’t that expensive, and isn’t it easier to go buy new socks? Or not wear them. Personally, I only wear socks when I’m on duty at the hospital. Otherwise I skip them because they make my toes feel weird.”

“O-kay, we won’t make you wear socks anymore.” J shook his head and his hand twitched like he was trying to keep himself from checking my forehead for a fever.

“I’m not talking about socks,” I said. “Well I am, but I meant it as a metaphor. The socks were meant to illustrate a point. I’m a grown woman, a demon in my own right. Okay, not a very powerful demon, but I am a demon complete with wings and a tail and horns. I can take care of myself. I don’t need a bunch of guys standing around, waiting to protect me. I can protect myself.”

“Says the woman we just had to bring back to life,” Dad said. “Or did you forget about the whole getting trapped next to the light fixture and playing charades moment you had less than five minutes ago?”

“Of course I didn’t forget it. I was the one who died after all.” I pulled back from him and crossed my arms over my chest.

The room went completely silent as everyone stared at me.

“All right?” I threw my hands up in the air in front of me and stepped back from all of them. “I died. I made a mistake, and I died because of it. Stupid me. I should have gone with my first instinct not to trust Michael but he caught me at a weak moment and I got too close and once he had his hands on me I was done for.”

“You can’t blame yourself for this,” J said. “Michael is smart and he’s tricky.”

“Yeah, well, if Matt wouldn’t have come in when he did, I’d have faded more and then the moment he opened the door later out I’d have gone—a one-way express ticket to Hell and I get that. I do. That doesn’t mean you can keep me locked in a tower for the rest of my life.”

“You said you made a mistake trusting Michael,” the Alpha said and let the silence stretch around us. “You let him in, didn’t you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “He waited for Matt to leave and then he did his whole appearing before a person schtick.”

“Then what—” Matt started.

“He wanted my powers,” I said slowly. “He’d asked for them before and I’d said no but he came back tonight to try to convince me. He tried everything. He tempted me, offered me the chance at everything I wanted, and I was right there with him. I was so tempted, Matt. I wanted to give it to him but there was this part of me that knew it was wrong.”

“You what?” Dad yelled. “You wanted to give him your powers? Why? What sort of idiotic—”

“Yes, I wanted to give the Archangel Michael my powers,” I said, my voice trembling. “I wanted to let him have them and walk away so that I could have a normal life. So that I could have Matt.”

“Oh, shit,” Tolliver said.

“What were you thinking? How could you have been tempted by such a thing?” Malachi asked.

“What does it matter? I didn’t give them over. I resisted. No matter how much I wanted to be free, I said no.”

“I think everyone is trying to understand why,” J said. “Why would you have even considered something so drastic? Why let him in here at all? Why let him close enough to hurt you? We want to understand what you were thinking that let him catch you so off guard. The temptation was enough to give him a hold over you.”

“I was thinking that I was going to have to live for the next eighty years without the ability to touch anyone. I’d have been completely alone, trapped on the outside of life. Looking in, waiting for people to die. I’d have been alone, watching the world pass me by for the next eighty years. That’s what I was thinking. That’s why I was vulnerable. I was looking at the next century alone and I was scared.”

“You had me,” Matt said, his eyes were filled with hurt.

“That’s why I wanted to give him my powers. So I could have a life with you—a real one—one where you didn’t stay with me out of pity because of what I’d become.” I touched my fingers to his, and he pulled away from me. “I wanted the chance for a life with you but I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t. I knew he was evil and if he was offering me everything I wanted, then it was because he wanted to do something horrible.”

“I’ve never.” Matt grimaced. “I’ve never, for one single second, pitied you, and I never would have. You’d know that, too, if just once you believed in me as much as I believe in you.” He turned on his heel and started toward the door.

“Matt—”

“I would have never pitied you.” He shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I was tempted but I wanted the chance of a normal life with you—”

“I didn’t want normal for God’s sake! I wanted you. Every single contrary, demonic part of you. Don’t you get that?”

“You have me!”

“No, I don’t. The you I fell in love with wouldn’t have been so blind. The demoness I fell in love with wouldn’t have even thought about risking her life for something as boring as being normal. She’d have trusted me enough to be strong and not let some angel play her for a fool. She would have banished him the minute he showed up instead of letting him get close enough to hurt her. But what am I saying? You’re not even a demon anymore.”

“What do you mean, I’m no longer a demon?” I stared at my father but he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“What does he mean I’m no longer a demon?” I repeated, louder this time.

“You can’t lose a part of your power. It’s an all-or-nothing sort of deal,” Malachi whispered. “You don’t get to pick and choose what you like and what you don’t. I’ll have immortality with a side dish of wings and tail but hold the psychic powers? It doesn’t work that way.”

“Valentin—”

“Destroyed his mortal body and is now trapped in Heaven. Every single bit of his power transferred to you when you became the Angel of Death,” Jesus said.

“Wouldn’t I have felt—”

“Valentin was a third-tier cherubim,” Malachi said quickly. “In power terms, he was the equivalent of one of those electric Christmas candles you see in everyone’s windows each December. You absorbed his powers and probably never would have noticed.”

“What about the”—I stopped and then looked over at my uncle—“angel stuff. I didn’t feel any of that.”

“What angel stuff?” the Alpha asked. “Kindness? Love? The ability to nurture others? Ethics? A love of your fellow man?”

“It sounds stupid when you put it like that.” I shoved my shaking hands in the pockets of my jeans and tried to stay calm, even though I was two seconds away from having a Roisin-style panic attack, complete with fainting and hysterics. Because, right now, hysterics sounded like the best idea I’d heard all week.

“Of course I feel all those things—I’m part human, aren’t I? I thought there would be some sort of super-secret angel stuff that would suddenly happen. Like an incubi’s ability to always find high quality porn on pay-per-view.”

“I never saw a need for that particular skill amongst my minions,” the Alpha said. “That doesn’t change the fact that when Valentin gave you his powers and left the mortal realm he gave you all of his powers. Not only the power of life and death.”

“So when Michael stole my powers…”

“He stole all of your powers,” Dad said, his voice grim.

“I couldn’t have given him everything.” I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the black power that lived at the base of my skull. Nothing. I shifted my focus and tried to unfold my wings. The urge was there but it felt like there was nothing to push against. No outlet for my energy to move into. It was like there weren’t actually wings in my back anymore.

Uh-oh. I brought my hands up to pat my scalp and carefully probed at the tiny indentations where my horns normally hid. Nothing. The skin was smooth and flat. No bumps. No horns.

J took my hand in his and flipped it over so it was palm up, before he ran a shard of broken glass from one of the beer bottles over my palm. I felt a sharp sting and then a thin line of red welled up along the length of my palm. More blood pooled in my hand and I waited for the cut to heal itself. Blood started to drip on the carpet and I looked up to see J staring at me, his eyes wide.

“Here.” Malachi pulled my hand away from J and a flood of warmth poured into my palm as Mal focused his energy on healing me.

My father was staring at me, his eyes wide. “You’re mortal now. I can’t protect you unless I lock you in Purgatory or Hell and there’s a chance that once you’re there I won’t be able to let you out.”

“Mom goes back and forth all the time and she’s mortal.”

“She never went into the Celestial realms until after Hope was born. Bearing demonic children causes you to have a sort of immunity to having your physical body eaten by the dogs while the imps start arguing over the best way to prepare your soul for dinner.”

“So, since I don’t have any sort of immunity now…”

“There’s a chance they might barbecue you. I can’t keep you safe there. Your best bet is here with Mal and the others.”

“I’ll find a way to fix it. I promise you, I’ll find something.”

“How?” he asked, his voice bitter with resignation. “How are you, a mortal woman, going to fix this?”