Luck of the Devil (6 page)

Chapter Six

“Overcompensating much?” I leaned against the side of my practical little Civic and crossed my arms, watching Satan try to peel himself out of the tiny car. His preferred human form was well over six feet, and he was built like some Hollywood starlet’s bodyguard. Yeah, where my brother went for the tortured artist look, Dad decided to work the tall, dark, and muscular angle.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He opened his arms wide for a hug, his green eyes glittering mischievously. They were the only physical characteristic we shared, but where mine were a flat, mossy color, his glittered a brilliant shade of clover.

“You need a can opener to get out of that thing.”

“It’s a very cool car,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing. Even if I wasn’t going to hug him, God damn it, the Devil was going to hug me. “It keeps the persona going.”

“It’s a cool car if you’re younger than thirty-five. Once you hit that mark, a Lamborghini says, ‘I have a tiny dick and no self-esteem.’ Not exactly the image I think you want to project, given your reputation.”

If he was man enough to tell me green made me look jaundiced and I didn’t have the butt to pull off skinny jeans, I was woman enough to tell him his overly flashy car made him look like a twerp.

“You think?” He pulled back and stared at me. “Do I really look like one of those old, pathetic bastards trying to pick up women who are way too young for me?”

“I think it’s a very sexy car. Very sleek and powerful,” my mother said, circling her arms around his waist and pressing her head against his ribs. She was only an inch taller than I was, and he towered over both of us.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” He smiled at my mother and kissed me on the crown of my head. “So, Faith, honestly, what do you think? The car? Would you give me your soul to take a ride in it?”

“I’d be too busy laughing at you to give you my soul.” I squirmed to get out of his embrace. “I know you missed me, but come on, I can’t feel my arms.”

I don’t know what it was about hugging, but he had never learned the unspoken timing of the action. Or how to properly apply pressure. Most girls found hugs from their fathers comforting. My father, meanwhile, treated it more like a sleeper hold, something he did until you lost consciousness or capitulated to his demands.

“Oh, sorry.” He let go of me quickly and my mom tittered. “I forget my own strength.”

“You are so very strong,” she said, twirling a blonde corkscrew around her finger. I tried not to gag when she stroked his arm.

“Anyway, are you here to pick up Mom and take her to your hotel?” Maybe I’d get lucky and he’d already decided it would be better for them to stay somewhere else. Especially if their version of PDA was out in full force.

“Hotel?” he said. I watched my brief fantasy go up in smoke. “Why would we be staying at a hotel? What about my usual apartment?”

“Well, I would have made sure it was empty if I’d have known you were coming.” I scratched the back of my head in annoyance. That was the problem with immortal beings that spent most of their time in another realm; they never got the idea of discrete space. Because no matter how much you maneuver them, you can’t shove fifteen demons into a Volkswagen Beetle. The maximum number is ten, and that’s a tight fit. I know. I’ve tried. Twice.

“But your mother said you invited us a month ago and you’re dying to see me.”

“Surprise! I just knew the two of you would be so happy to see each other. But as busy as you are, darling, and the way Faith always tries not to intrude… ” Mom’s pasted-on smile froze, probably at the moment she realized she’d dug herself a hole she couldn’t sweet-talk her way out of.

I glared at her, letting out a harsh breath. This was why I never let her come to visit. Dad was fine on his own, but she was unbearable at the best of times. When she was around Dad, it was an exercise in mental torture. “And Hope has taken up residence, rent-free, in the apartment you normally stay in.”

“But that’s my apartment. Why would you rent it to someone else? Wait a second. Did you say Hope is staying in it? Why’s your sister here and not Idaho?”

“Oh, it’s not really important,” my mother said.

I smiled. Someone was in for it. And for once, it wasn’t me. Maybe this vacation could be salvaged after all.

“Roisin, why isn’t our oldest daughter in Idaho, running a cult of idiots into the ground and stealing their money?”

“Well… ” She shoved her hands in her jeans pockets and looked at me.

Like I’d help her? I dropped my head backward and let it rest on the roof of my car before banging it softly a few times. Why was it no one ever thought about how they were going to handle these little situations
before
they happened? Why did they always, always, wait until things blew up in their faces? Oh, that’s right, because Faith would take one for the team and face Dad so they wouldn’t have to.

“She was ousted,” I said. I lifted my head, popped open the trunk, and grabbed my mother’s suitcase. “And she’s inside with everyone else, so there’s no reason for us to stand out here and discuss it when you could get your information straight from the source, inside and away from prying eyes.”

“Yes,” Mom agreed with an anxious nod. “Really, I’m sure once you talk to her, you’ll see none of this is her fault and you’ll know how to help her fix it.”

“Don’t make it sound good or anything,” I said.

My father took her bag from me before slinging his other arm around my shoulders.

“You had no idea she had any of this planned, did you?” he whispered.

“Not a clue.” I leaned my head against his side and relaxed. Say what you will about the Devil, but when he doesn’t have you in the Hug of Death, he’s a pretty comfy guy to use as a pillow. He looks big and beefy, but get close enough to touch him and he’s not all that tough. He’s more like goose down.

“I should’ve known. It’s not like we don’t see each other all the time during the football and hockey seasons. I mean, heck, we even catch a couple of Bucs games every year. We’ve got a great father-daughter relationship, don’t we?”

“Sure, Dad. Beer and box seats for ritualized combat in a competitive form. What more could a girl ask for?”

“Yeah.” He pulled me closer and kissed my cheek with a loud smack “We’ve got a great relationship. I should have known your mother was up to something.”

“But?”

“Well, you know how it is when she’s out ‘communing with the nature spirits’ and breathing in all that ritual smoke. I mean, she’s a bit dippy at the best of times but once she gets going, there’s no slowing her down. If I didn’t love her so much, I’d probably strangle her.”

“Tell me about it.” I slipped out of his grasp once we were inside my apartment. It might be better to have some space between us when the yelling started. Dad had a temper, and he’d been known to accidentally whack things with his tail when he was in a mood.

“Tolliver,” he said.

“Hey, Dad.” Tolliver’s voice cracked, and his smile was forced. He still sat on the couch next to Lisa, wringing his hands. I hadn’t seen him this nervous since he turned my high school cheerleading coach into imp food.

“It’s good to see you, son.”

There was no way we were getting out of here without a minor demonic incident. I was going to have to move again. And it was going to be next to impossible to find another coffee shop like Churresco’s.

“Lisa?” My father narrowed his eyes at her and sniffed. He whipped around and directed a stare at me. Thank Evil his tail hadn’t come out yet. “Why do you smell like fire and brimstone all of a sudden?”

“Uhh… ”

He cast his attention to Lisa, then back to me. “Faith Anne Bettincourt, what have I told you about turning your friends into demonic minions? Not allowed, young lady.”

“Hey. Don’t look at me.” I held my hands in front of me in the universal sign of
Keep Me Out of This Shit
. “Go talk to Mr. Let’s-Trade-Your-Soul-for-a-Drink. I was so very much not in the picture for his little episode of
Turn Faith’s Best Friend Into a Succubus
. I also haven’t been involved in any of the other succubus-related incidents since.”

“Except last night,” Tolliver said.

Traitor.

“Last night was an accident,” Lisa said quietly, narrowing her eyes at him. Her desire to protect me was clouding her own self-preservation instincts, and I wanted to strangle her stupidly loyal stance. She needed to worry about her own skin instead.

“Was it, now?” Dad turned to Lisa. “So why don’t you tell me what happened, Lisa? And when that’s over, you can explain to me how my son, the Archdemon of Gluttony, came to turn you into a succubus, which is very clearly the province of his mother, the Archdemoness of Lust.”

“Well.” Lisa kept her eyes on the floor and began scuffing her feet together, doing everything in her power to avoid meeting my father’s eyes. She hadn’t been a succubus very long, and her control stank, but she was learning the necessary demonic survival tricks quicker than I’d expected.

“Out with it, young lady.”

“Harold was always giving Faith such a hassle, and there he was, alone in his office while she was finishing up her paperwork. I thought if I could just teach him a little lesson, he’d leave her alone. I was only trying to help, but I can’t manage to ever really control it and—”

“I knew there was someone at work!” my mother said, shaking her finger at me. “Why haven’t I heard anything about this Harold guy? I mean, really, Faith, is it so hard to keep your mother in the loop? You’re thirty years old. There’s no reason to be ashamed of having a boyfriend.”

“Harold was the head of pediatric surgery, Mother. That meant he was my boss.” I settled onto one of the kitchen stools and buried my head in my hands. There was no way this was going to turn out well.

“You were having an affair with your boss?”

“No, Mother, I was not having an affair with Harold the Walking Harassment Lawsuit.” Honestly, I’d rather marry an imp and put up with its stench than even think about Harold naked.

“Roisin.” My father narrowed his eyes at my mother and she stared back at him, oblivious. “Do you think, possibly, that we could focus on the topic at hand? Just for a bit?”

“So-rry. It’s just Faith never lets me into her life. I try and try to help her, and she just completely shuts me out.”

“Roisin!”

“What?”

That eerily calm look he always wore just before he snapped took shape over his face, and I wondered if Miami was nice. I’d never lived in Miami. And after today, I was pretty sure I’d be looking for somewhere else to live very, very soon. Probably tomorrow morning.

“What do you say we focus for a minute?”

She huffed and crossed her legs, swinging one like a pendulum.

Satisfied, he returned his attention to Lisa. “Now, Lisa, explain to me exactly what happened at the hospital yesterday.”

“Well, I showed up at ped surgery to phase home with Faith since we didn’t drive. She overslept and I was running late and you know how rush hour is—you created it, after all. So instead of fighting the traffic, we just phased.”

Way to kiss ass, Lisa. I groaned.

My father nodded. “A very resourceful use of your powers to solve problems.”

Lisa smiled, relaxing at his praise. “So, anyway, I get upstairs, and Harold tells me she’s still charting all of his new orders and I just know he’s left them to the last minute to give her grief and make her work late on the day before her vacation. Because Harold is—
was
—a bastard like that. Suddenly, I was really, really hungry and Harold looked like a pretty good snack. But he was so busy, he didn’t pay attention to me, so I… ”

“You what, dear?”

She stared at her toes, her cheeks turning a frightening shade of scarlet. “I knew he had a thing for cheerleaders after last year’s Super Bowl party, and I did that thing where you can sort of change your clothes on the fly.”

“Glamouring new clothing into place,” Dad said, nodding. “Yes, Faith and Hope used that particular trick to sneak inappropriate outfits out of the house when they were in high school.”

“So that’s what I did,” Lisa said. “Harold likes cheerleaders, so,
voila
—one slutty cheerleader at his service.”

“Very nice. If you were actually supposed to be a succubus, I’d be awestruck by your abilities to spontaneously make up plans. But why Harold? Just because you were hungry? Or was there some other reason?”

“I know we’re supposed to be careful, and like Faith constantly reminds me, ‘don’t shit where you eat,’ but I knew he’d been giving her trouble and I thought this might be a good way to get him off her back.”

“I see.” My father hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans. “And how were you going to get him off her back?”

“Well, Tolliver told me it was possible to give our food messages subliminally while we feed because we have one of those symbological relationships. You know what I mean?”

“Symbiotic?”

“Yeah, that’s it!”

I sighed and beat my forehead softly against the granite counter. My physical body couldn’t die, but if I was lucky, maybe I could beat myself into a stupor until this was all over.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, she’s stupid,” Hope said.

“Leave your cousin out of this,” my father warned her. “And we’ll be getting to you shortly, young lady, so I’d lay off the attitude.”

“Anyway, Tolliver told me there was one of those relationship thingies between a demon and their food so I sent him a bunch of subliminal messages about how I’d keep feeding off of him if he’d just leave Faith alone.”

“And?”

“Well, most guys have one of those panic reflexes. I watch for that panicky moment and I know when to stop feeding. But Harold just kept smiling the whole time.”

“And you drained him dry?” he asked. My guess was he wasn’t any more surprised than the rest of us had been.

“Yeah.”

“And let me guess—this isn’t the first time you’ve drained someone dry? And instead of teaching you how not to do it, my son and heir apparent has threatened to do something horrible to you, so Faith stepped up to cover for you? Have I got it right?”