03 Before The Devil Knows You're Dead-Speak Of The Devil (6 page)

“Why?” Dad’s voice was sharp.

“Oh, Louie,” my mother wailed, “I was so scared. There was this bright light and then it was dark and Faith died.”

“I didn’t die.”

“My car.” I lifted my head and saw Tolliver standing in front of it, his hands tearing at his hair as he stared at the front grill. “You wrecked my car. This damn thing was supposed to withstand a bomb blast and you totaled it.”

“Sorry.” I winced at the look on his face and then looked over at my father and Matt, both staring at me from the gap between the passenger’s side door and the curb.

“What did you hit?” Tolliver yelled.

“The Angel of Death.” Malachi said and I grimaced. That explained the fireball then.

“The what?” Tolliver said.

“Faith hit the Angel of Death with her brother’s car?” Dad asked, his voice sounding weary. “Shit.”

“Would be an understatement, Your Royal Evilness, since she’s now absorbed his powers,” Malachi said. “That’s why you can’t touch her. None of us can touch her.”

“What?” I lifted my head and tried my best to open my eyes to peer at the dread demon standing next to the car. His hair stood up in wild curls, his eyes were dark, and if it weren’t for the fact that he was sworn to protect me, I would have been worried that he was going to wring my neck. He looked angry enough to kill and not even flinch.

“Val was the AOD live and in person, which is why he was so surprisingly fragile. One of the downsides of being forced to deal with mortal death. Although the upside of having a mortal body is that being Death is a short-term gig. One body, one mortal lifetime, and then you’re free to go.”

“You couldn’t manage to distract him? You’re supposed to be protecting her, Mal!” Lightning raced across the sky and I looked up as every streetlight on the block exploded at the same time.

“He tried,” I said, trying to calm my father down. “So did the Archangel Michael. It wasn’t their fault. The Angel of Death has one heck of a grip. Now quit yelling already. My head hurts.”

“Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else? Somewhere away from the normal, non-Celestial, people? You know the ones who might think we look a tad strange standing out here like this?” Matt asked.

“Right, okay,” Dad said. “We need to get Faith inside and then I’ll call my brother. He needs to hear about this.”

“Faith can stay in my apartment,” Matt said.

“I don’t want to go to your place,” I said. “I want to go back to my apartment. That’s where I live after all. That’s why it’s called my apartment. Emphasis on the mine.”

“You’re not going back to your place. It’s not safe to leave you alone in your condition.”

“You don’t even know what my condition is.”

“I think Matt might have a point,” Dad said.

“Too bad.” I began to fumble with the seat belt, my fingers trembling and my head swimming like I’d been fighting a particularly nasty case of the flu. “I didn’t ask what you thought. I’m going to my own apartment.”

“Enough,” Malachi said. “All of you shut up. All due respect, of course, your Evilness, but shut up now.”

“I don’t see how—” Mom started and Malachi glared at her.

“Shhh.” Malachi’s shoulders hitched. “Now, Angel Boy, follow Faith up to her apartment and make sure she gets onto the couch without passing out. But do not, for any reason touch her.”

Malachi turned to my father. “My king, call your brother and nephew. We need someone in here who can think clearly.”

“What about me?” mom asked.

“Your Royal Doltness, perhaps you could go down the street and get us all something to eat? I have a feeling we’re all going to be busy for a very long time.” Malachi swallowed as he looked around, obviously assessing the situation.

“Are you sure that’s—” Mom said.

“Do as he says, Roisin.” Dad said, cutting her off, his voice soft and worried sounding.

“Tolliver,” Malachi said and then stopped. “I don’t know what to do with you so go deal with your car or something.”

“Or something,” I snickered, feeling a little bit better listening to Malachi dress down my entire family.

“Now you.” Malachi peered down at me, his eyes bright red and filled with flames. “Do not start with me, young lady. Can you walk?”

I managed to slide out of the car and onto my feet. “I think so.”

“Good. Now, upstairs and do not touch anyone. Got it? Do. Not. Touch. Not even me.”

“You carried me to the car, though. At the scene, you carried me.”

“It takes a few minutes for a curse to set in. Not that it would have mattered.”

“Why not?” I asked as everyone stepped back and I managed to stumble up the stairs.

“Because it’s my job to keep you safe, stupid.”

“You probably deserve a raise then.” I pulled the door open and managed to get myself inside with everyone else trailing three feet behind us as they watched me staggering through the building’s tiny foyer.

My hand brushed across the leaves of a palm tree in the corner and Matt sucked in a shocked breath of air, I looked up at him. “What?”

I let my eyes follow to where he was looking. Where there once had been a sort of dingy, sad looking palm tree, there was now nothing but a column of ash with shriveled palm leaves attached.

“Well, that doesn’t look promising,” I said as everyone immediately took another step away from me. I was going to try my best not to be offended by the fact that everyone was treating me like I was my own personal IED.

Chapter Six

Lisa was standing in the doorway to her apartment, watching me lurch toward the stairs like some sort of monster in a B movie. She started forward, her arms outstretched. “What happened to you? Tolliver said there was an accident.”

“Don’t.” Malachi’s voice was so sharp he could have hidden a razor-tongued demon tax collector inside it. “Don’t touch her.”

My stomach dropped into my knees. Malachi was right. If I’d killed the plant by brushing it with my foot, who knew what kind of damage I could do to my best friend? To my patients? I would kill them trying to make them feel better.

“She’s hurt.” Lisa stepped forward again. My blood froze as I noticed the slight bump between her black top and pink pajama pants covered in grim reapers.

“He’s right.” I took two steps back, putting as much space as I possibly could between us. “You can’t touch me.”

“Why not?”

“Because touching me might hurt you. Or AC 2.0.”

“We’re not naming my baby AC 2.0 and I don’t care what anyone says, you’re not going to hurt me. You’re my best friend. You are incapable of hurting me. It’s not in your nature, no matter what happened to you.”

“Lisa.” Matt’s deep baritone had a jagged, painful edge to it. His face was drawn like a man who’d gone two days without sleep. His eyes were filled with misery. “She could accidentally destroy your mortal form. Alpha knows what she could do to the baby. I know you want to help, but you’ve got to stay away from her.”

“How can I—” Lisa swallowed and I knew that her self-preservation instincts were warring with her nurses training. I was in pain and that meant she was supposed to help me except helping me would kill her.

“None of us can touch her. Not her father, or the Alpha. Not even me.” Matt’s voice was rough and his hands were trembling. He bit his lower lip and kept his eyes focused on the floor, not looking at me.

“Matt…” I looked at my family. There wasn’t anything left to say. There wasn’t anything I could do. I was toxic.

I started up the stairs and there was the clatter of footsteps as Lisa followed behind, quietly questioning Malachi, but I was too tired to listen to them. All I wanted to do was find somewhere quiet to sleep and let someone else figure out what to do for a change.

Hope was waiting for us at the landing in front of my apartment. Her face was tight, and she was gnawing on a thumbnail. She moved silently to the door, opened it, and then stepped aside, her thumbnail going back into her mouth like a security blanket.

“I don’t understand,” Lisa said and I grimaced at the grating sound of her voice I stumbled into the apartment and started toward my couch.

“It’s true then?” Hope asked. “She’s the angel of death?”

“How did you know?” My voice sounded thick and phlegmy as I flopped down onto the sofa Matt and I had picked out after we’d started dating. A couch that had been bought because it met all of Matt’s cuddle requirements—smooshy cushions, leg room, double width for comfy sleeping, fire resistant, and it had cup holders so that we didn’t lose the remote during commercial break inspired tickle fights.

Matt dropped to the floor next to me, keeping the barest trace of distance between us. I scrunched farther into the back of the couch to keep from touching him as Lisa and Malachi sat down on my love seat, both of them staring at me.

Hope shrugged. “I was listening at the window. Tolliver is out there panicking. He’s having a bit of a crisis.”

“I’ll pay to fix his car,” I said.

“Nah,” she said, her voice high and tense, while waves of garlicky worry rolled off of her. “The car is fully insured. Plus he plans on suing the manufacturer for breach of contract and false advertising. Those things are supposed to be able to stop a tank and the front bumper crumpled during one measly hit-and-run?”

“I’ll have you know I stopped, I did not run. And if it’s not the car, then why is Tolliver going crazy?”

“I dunno, maybe because his baby sister became her own version of the walking plague? Some people might consider that a bad thing. Me, I say it keeps the door-to-door salesmen and those pesky Boy Scouts out of your business, so bring it on.” The couch dipped as she sat at the far end, carefully perching at the edge.

“You wanna trade?” I gave what was probably a slightly hysterical chuckle. “Because I have to tell you you’ll get no complaint from me. I feel like I was the one hit by a truck.”

There was a rip and then the smell of burned reality hit my nose, making my stomach churn, as my uncle stepped through the door between heaven and earth he’d just torn open. “Faith.” His deep voice was like warm chocolate sauce poured over vanilla ice cream and his eyes were warm.

“Hey.” I struggled to sit up but it felt like there was an entire legion of imps sitting on my chest. “I sort of killed the angel of death.”

“I’m aware.” His lips tilted upward. “Valentin said it was a traffic accident. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve done ten rounds with Godzilla.”

“It’s part of the change. You’re going to be sore for a few days. Taking over someone else’s life isn’t a walk in the park, you know.” My uncle stepped aside, letting my cousin follow him through the portal before it stitched itself closed again.

“Well he can have it back.” I huffed as I shifted my weight and tried to sit up again.

“Just take a second,” Matt said, his voice soft. “Don’t move too fast. Relax and let me get you a cup of tea.”

“I don’t like tea.”

“I don’t care. It’s good for you, and you need to drink it.”

“Coffee’s good for me, too. It has caffeine and can perk me back up.”

“The last thing you need is caffeine.” Matt scowled at me. “Lay here and relax and let me take care of you for once.”

“I don’t need—”

He brought his hands up to my face and froze, an inch from my cheeks, and his eyes filled with regret. The churning in my stomach grew and black power crackled against the skin of my arms. My horns tugged upward and all I could think was closer. Come closer. Don’t let go of me. You’re so full of warm, yummy life, just give me a little.

“You could have died today,” Matt said. “I could have lost you.”

“You have lost me,” I said, shaken by the thoughts that had been going through my mind. “I can kill you with a single touch now. Remember?”

“You’re alive, and even if I can’t touch you it’s better than the alternative.”

“He’s right,” the Alpha said, causing me to pull back and remember that we had an audience. “If Valentin would have desired to keep his form, he could have killed you. Drained you of your life force and prolonged his time here on Earth indefinitely.”

“He didn’t, though,” I said, my chest clenching at the thought that I might have died today. “Why didn’t he?”

“Simply put?” The Alpha raised one elegant, feathery white eyebrow questioningly. “He was sick of the job. He hated it. One of my more creative punishments now that I think about it, giving a cherub the role of Angel of Death.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“A creature that craves touch above all things, and I took it from him. I’m surprised he didn’t step in front of a car earlier. I’d honestly expected him to come begging for a relief in duties after five years. Who knew he’d make it twenty?” the Alpha asked.

Matt looked over at him, his eyes wide. “He was the Angel of Death for twenty years? You mean he spent twenty years without touching another person?”

“Of course not.” The Alpha sat in the recliner next to the couch, his elbows on his knees. He ran one shaking hand up through his closely cropped white curls.

“He touched people every day. It was a necessary part of the job. Not everyone, of course. That’s too much work for anyone—even an angel—but Valentin always took the time to personally collect certain souls instead of delegating all of the work to his subordinates.”

“Wait, what?” I asked as Matt stood, and I instinctively threw out a hand to reach for him, not wanting to leave me alone to face this craziness.

“I’ll be right back,” he stepped back, his hands behind him so that we didn’t actually touch. “I’m not leaving. I won’t leave. I’m just going to get you something to drink. It’ll help keep you from going into shock.”

I nodded once, then turned back to my uncle. “You’re telling me that Valentin was what?”

“He was the Angel of Death and he passed his powers on to you. I thought that much would have been obvious.”

Matt set a cup of something down on the side table next to me and scooted it toward me with a pointed look. “So you’re saying that Faith is now what? The head of the reapers? The Angel of Death? Or, in her case, the Demon of Death?”

“We keep the name the same no matter what.” Dad slunk across the room like a kicked hellhound and sat next to Lisa and Malachi on the love seat. “But yes, in short, Faith has now been promoted to the head of our Death Services department.”

“Are you out of your mind?” I gaped at him, my jaw hanging open as my heart began to do a samba in my chest, its backbeat pounding in my ears. “I can’t be in charge of Death. I’m not even a reaper. Never have been. Never wanted to be.”

“Someone has to manage the whole operation,” Dad said, his voice almost sheepish. “Someone had to keep the angels from spending their day playing poker and the reapers from working up even more elaborate pranks. They’re like children. Without constant supervision they fall into chaos. Then they try to cover it up by going on work sprees.”

“Work sprees?” Matt asked.

“The Black Plague was one of them,” Tolliver said, coming into the room, skirting around me like I was the one covered in boils and rotting flesh. “J and I were both interning with them at the time. Ugh. The AOD on duty took a short vacation and the next thing you know it’s the end of the world and half of Europe is doing the mortal-coil shuffle slide. Very messy affair.”

“Oh Christ.” Matt rubbed his hands over his eyes.

“Got himself excused from cleanup detail,” Tolliver said. “Claimed that he had a weak stomach.”

“I do have a weak stomach,” J said.

“That’s when we decided that vacations weren’t a real possibility for the Angel of Death,” the Alpha said. “We’d thought one guy, immortal job security, but apparently the task is too draining. Death barely made it one millennium before he was asking to be relieved from duty. Now he’s living in California, Malibu of all places.”

“So what do we do?” I asked, my voice high and panicky. “Who’s next in line for a promotion and how soon till we can get them here so we can do a power swap? They can be here soon, right? You’ve called them?”

“Faith.” Matt curled his fingers into fists and pressed them against his legs and I knew he was trying to keep from touching me, trying to fight against his instincts to comfort me even though it would lead to his destruction.

“What?” I asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Valentin didn’t take the time to train a replacement from among the reapers,” Dad said. “He’d only been in the job a short amount of time. Twenty years. That’s nothing. He figured he had another eighty years to go.”

“Wait, you’re telling me the job has term limits? It’s, what, like an elected office or something? I know you said it was one mortal body and then you’re done but there’s actually a set amount of time you’re supposed to serve?”

My father and the Alpha both looked away from me. Malachi crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t meet my eyes. Suddenly I knew. What’s the ultimate punishment for an angel who craved touch? Or for the person who accidentally ran you over with a car?

“It’s a punishment, isn’t it?” I asked. “A prison sentence. One hundred years without the ability to touch anyone. It’s meant to be a form of torture.”

“Faith…” Regret wafted off my father in a thick cloud of burned toffee and chocolate.

“Isn’t it?” I asked, my voice a panicky scream and then I threw my cup of tea at him. The bastard didn’t even have the courtesy not to duck as it flew over his head and crashed into my radiator.

“Yes,” Tolliver said, his voice quiet, “the worst torture that they could think of. It’s the ultimate punishment, trapping an angel or a demon in the mortal plain and preventing them from ever touching. The Angel of Death is trapped, watching the world around them live and forced to stay apart because the briefest touch will kill everything that they could ever find to love.”

“What did Valentin do?” I asked. “What did he do to deserve one hundred years without touch?”

“He caused a mortal’s death. Several mortals in fact. He lusted after the power of touch so much that others died. So in return I took that power from him,” the Alpha answered.

“What about me? What did I do? An accident? I tried to take responsibility for it. I wanted to call for help.”

“This was never supposed to happen to you,” Dad said. “Originally, I’d thought it would be a suitable punishment for your former brother-in-law before I put him in a bubble in Purgatory but I couldn’t trust him to work among the reapers until Valentin was ready to retire.”

“You’d have trusted Boris to be the Angel of Death?” Hope laughed bitterly at the mention of her ex-husband. “Obviously you must not think it’s a position of too much responsibility if you were going to entrust it to him.”

“It is a position of responsibility,” the Alpha said, “but for a former incubus it would be an unimaginable torment. He’d have lived one hundred years unable to touch, unable to feed, hungry, miserable, and alone. It would have been a torture like you couldn’t imagine.”

“When you put it like that, can I wholeheartedly endorse this idea?” Hope asked her voice harsh.

“Great. Wonderful. I second the motion.” I clapped my hands together and looked at my father. “Let’s get on it then. Go get Boris, we’ll do a power switch, and that will be that.”

“It’s not that simple,” Dad said. “The Angel of Death position rotates between angels and demons. You’ve already taken the position so it has to go to an angel next—Boris is ineligible. Besides, a power transfer is tricky. If it’s not done right there can be…complications.”

“Complications…” I looked over at my best friend, sitting on the couch between her husband and my dread demon, her eyes filled with tears. “I’m supposed to be Lisa’s Lamaze coach.”