1 Straight to Hell (25 page)

For a minute, I had no idea what he was talking about.  Then it dawned on me.  “Grace?”

He nodded.  “It would never work.  I need you all to myself.  No distractions.”

I started to protest, but he kissed me again, sending a bolt of lightning from my lips to the soles of my feet.  His hands picked up where they’d left off, unfastening my jeans and sliding them over my hips.  “Please, Lil,” he begged.  “Promise me that it will be only the two of us.”

I couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving me.  “All right.  I promise.”

He tensed for a moment, then relaxed.  “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”  I’d started to fumble with the buttons of his shirt, too, and when that became too frustrating, I simply yanked it apart, sending a few buttons flying across the room.  There was nothing I’d ever wanted more in my life than this rapturous moment with him.

He pressed something hard into my hand.  My cell phone.  “Call your ex-husband right now.”  He murmured into my ear, sending tiny shockwaves down my spine.  “Tell him to come get your daughter.  That you’re turning over custody to him.”

“Not now,” I begged, but he was insistent.  He sat up, refusing to continue our lovemaking.

Dazed, I pressed the speed dial number on my phone and in a moment heard Ted’s voice.

“Hello,” I said.  “It’s Lilith.”

“Have you been jogging,” he said.  “You sound out of breath.”

“No, not jogging.”  I smiled at William who took my hand and kissed it.  “Ted, I need you…”

“I’m glad you called.  My mother and I have been talking, and we think it’s time for Grace to begin studying for her exams.”

I sat up a little straighter.  “What exams?  She’s eight.”  William slipped to the end of the couch and very expertly began rubbing my right foot.  I closed my eyes and sighed.  “Never mind.  I need you to…”

“Placement exams, Lil.  I know that college is a few years off, but if Grace applies herself, she can test out of fourth and fifth grade.  Adelaide and I think she could start high school as soon as she turns twelve.  Maybe even eleven.”

“Are you kidding me?”  I yanked my foot away from William and stood up.  “Ted, Grace doesn’t need to be in high school when she’s eleven.  She’s fine where she is.”  William tried to put his arms around me, but I shooed him away.  Right then, I wasn’t in the mood for one more man trying to get me to do what he wanted.

And then something inside me went off  like a shotgun blast. 

I shut my phone without saying good-bye to my ex, then turned on William, shoving him away so hard that he fell to the ground with a thud.  “You bastard!  You lying bastard!”  No wonder his words had seemed to follow the script in my head; his seducing demon had been giving me exactly what I wanted.

I flung a pillow at his head, but he deflected it.  Ariel’s math book, however, caught him square in the jaw.  “You prick!  I’m your victim for tonight, aren’t I? 
I’m
the difficult assignment!  Miss Spry wanted you to convince me to leave Grace!”  Without my succubus to insulate me, I had been at the mercy of William’s seductive demon.  No wonder humans fell at our feet.  We were nearly irresistible.

I threw everything within reach.  The empty stadium cup bounced harmlessly off his shoulder, but the TV remote struck him under the eye.

“Stop!”  He was now as angry as I.  Breathing hard, he pinned me to the couch, holding my wrists tightly above my head.  And, at that moment, if he’d kissed me passionately and ripped off my blouse I might have let him ravish me like a heroine in a trashy romance.  But – and I remain grateful to him for this – he didn’t.  Instead, he said, “I was only following Miss Spry’s orders.”

Miss Spry! God, how I hated that bitch.

He let go and sat back on the couch, looking genuinely sorry for what he’d done.  But I wasn’t about to forgive him.  After all, he was an incubus – a monster designed to seduce women.  Who knew when he was acting and when he was genuine?  I wasn’t about to take any chances.

With as much dignity as I could muster, I fastened the buttons on my blouse and zipped up my pants.  “Get out.  Right now.”  I’d never been so humiliated.  So cruelly used.

“I’m sorry.”

“Go to hell!”

He laughed bitterly.  “I’m already there, remember?”

“So go back.”  It had been bad to have him seduce me, but it was worse having him watch me fall apart.  I couldn’t bear his pitying look.  I picked up the afghan that had fallen to the floor when we’d been lying on the couch and draped it around me.  “Get out of my house, William.  Right now.”

I stormed into the kitchen to throw the vodka bottle away before Ari or Jasmine found it.  I was furious at myself for being so stupid.  I should have thrown William out of the apartment the minute I’d seen him.  Instead, I’d been the easiest prey imaginable.

As I passed the fridge, I noticed the calendar.  Once again, this month’s annoying epitaph mocked me:
God is right there when we need him most
.  Furious, I swiped the thing into the garbage.

And then I had a second thought..

I took the calendar from the trash, wiping pizza sauce off the picture.  There was only one thing that Miss Spry hated and feared.  If I had a chance at all, it would have to come from Him.

It was time to change sides.

I returned to the living room to find William still standing by the couch.  “I need a favor.”  And before he could say anything, I jabbed my finger at his chest.  “And don’t you dare say no.  You owe me for being such a prick tonight.”

“I was acting on orders.”

“Whatever.  In my book, that’s still no excuse.”

He shoved his hands into his pocket.  His shoulders slumped.  “What do you want?”

“Show me how to get to heaven.”

His eyebrows flew up.  “No.”

“No because you don’t know how.  Or no because you’re afraid you’ll get into trouble.”

“No because I don’t want anything to do with Him or His realm.  He’s a bully, Lilith, no matter how much He tries to make people believe otherwise.  He’s the reason you and I are where we are.  Think about it,” he insisted when I looked doubtful.  “It was His ministers, the Mathers, who imprisoned Sarah Goodswain in the first place.  And it was His good Revered Landers who chased me right into the Devil’s arms.”

 He had a point, but I could see no alternative.  Miss Spry wanted me one way or the other, and I knew that she would never give me up.  Now that I’d resisted William, she’d send something else at me.  “I know this isn’t a perfect plan, but He’s my last hope.  Please, all I need you to do is show me how to get there.”

Maybe it was seeing how adamant I was.  Or maybe he really was ashamed for what he’d done to me, but William finally gave in.  “Fine.  But before I do, I want you to promise me something.”

“What?”

“When you get to heaven, I want you to find Charles Landers and tell him about me.  Say that becoming the Devil’s servant has made me the happiest man alive.”

I agreed, although – gauging from William’s haggard expression and the bleak desperation in his eyes – I knew it was a flat-out lie.

As eager as I was to change sides, I couldn’t leave the girls on their own while I went to hunt down the ruler of Heaven.  I didn’t want a repeat of the nose-piercing emergency.

So, hoping, while at the same time expecting nothing, I called Jasmine.

“What?”

“Most people say, ‘hello’,” I told her.  When she didn’t respond, I continued, “I need a favor.”

She huffed in annoyance.  “Just a second.”  Within moments, she was standing in the living room.  This is how disconnected my sister and I are: I hadn’t even realized she’d been in the basement.  I’d thought she’d left the apartment after dinner.  She wore a pair of old sweat pants and one of Tommy’s t-shirts.  She had that dull-eyed, rumpled, just woke up look.  Her hair was a mess, and there were even pillow creases on her cheek.  She gave William a quick up-down, and said, “Who the hell is that?”

Now Jas is a lot of things – irresponsible, tops the list.  She’s also disorganized, fey and completely self-centered.  But she’s never rude, especially not to men.  I was also amazed that she could stand close enough to William Darcy to brush shoulders with him and not be overcome with lust or at least a mild interest.

William, too, seemed perplexed.  He moved a little closer to her and gave her a melt-your-heart smile that, even as furious as I was with him, pleasantly tweaked me.  “William Darcy.  Very nice to meet you.”  He held out his hand.  Jasmine deigned to touch it with the tips of her fingers, but she didn’t even smile or give her name in return.  He looked crushed.

“Are you feeling okay?”  It was the only thing I could think of that would keep Jas home on a Friday night.

“Fine.”  The word snapped from her mouth like a small firecracker.  “Look, Lil, what do you need?”

“I was hoping you’d stay with the girls for a while.  I need to leave, but it should only take a half hour or so.  Are you going to be home?”

She glared at me.  “Does it look like I’m going anywhere?”

I wanted to ask her what was up, but I could feel William growing restless.  Apparently, he found being in the same room with a woman who wasn’t falling all over him discomfiting.  He picked up his coat that had been hanging over the stair rail and opened the front door a crack.  “Ready?”

“A few minutes, okay Jas?  Then I’ll be back, and you can go on with your Friday night.”

Jasmine flung herself onto the couch and draped one arm over her face in a gesture so theatric that William snorted in amusement.  “I’m not going out tonight,” she said.  “Maybe not ever again!”

Guy trouble.  I should have known.  This was the only
other
thing that could keep Jas home on a Friday night.  “I’m so sorry, Honey.”  I patted her leg.  “We’ll talk about it when I get home.  I promise.”

“It’s Tommy,” she said, as if I hadn’t spoken.  “He found a really cheap flight overseas and is leaving on Monday.  In fact, he’s saying good-bye to his family right now.”

My heart wilted at the news.  Despite how crowded the townhouse had become, I’d come to enjoy his company a great deal.  But I also knew how much the trip meant to him.  It was his life’s goal.  “I’ll miss him too, but I’m sure he’ll stay in touch.”

“Oh, Lil,” she wailed.  “I can’t bear to be without him.  Not for a whole year!”

“You kept telling me that you were only friends, remember?”

“I know what I said.  But that was mostly because he wanted it that way.”  She sat up, hugging a pillow.  “The celibacy thing is the whole problem.  If he was sleeping with me, he’d never leave that’s for damn sure.”  She looked squarely at William as if expecting him to disagree.

I pressed my fingertips to my forehead.  “I swear, we can talk about this when I get home, but right now, I really have to go.”

Jasmine put the pillow over her face and flopped forward on the couch.  “Whatever.  I don’t care.”

“Maybe I could talk to him.”  William shut the door and came further into the room.  “Sort of man-to-man if you will.  Maybe I could get him to see that leaving a beautiful woman such as yourself would be a terrible idea.”

I sure as hell didn’t feel like watching the man I’d thrown myself at moments before put the moves on my stepsister.  “I thought we had to go,” I said. This time, I was the one who opened the door.

William ignored me and touched Jasmine’s shoulder.  “I’d be happy to do that for you if you’d like.”