Devil May Care (26 page)

I smiled at him. “You’re pretty good-looking yourself.”

“Please. Mortals don’t look this good.” He gave me a wink. “This is…
me
.”

“Well then, why don’t you go this way all the time? If you don’t like your other form, wear this one. Be who you really are for Evil’s sake.”

“But you’re more comfortable with me in the other form. This one scares you.”

“It scared me when I was two,” I said. “I’ve grown up a bit since then.”

“I keep trying to remind myself of that but it doesn’t help.” He smoothed his hands over his jacket and turned to face me. “You know, I talked to Matt this afternoon.”

“Grownup, Mal,” I patted his arm. “Time to let me make my own decisions.”

“Well then, quit making all the wrong ones. It would make the job of protecting you so much easier if I only had to worry about bad guys. Right now, I feel like most of my workload is protecting you from you. And I have to tell you that’s a job for two of me right now.”

“Maybe it’s time you let me go,” I said. “Let me take care of myself. Hope doesn’t have a bodyguard anymore. Why should I?”

“Hope doesn’t have a bodyguard because no one will take her on. Besides, I’d get bored in Hell. There’s nothing there for me but paperwork and meetings. It’s much more fun topside with you. Or it was until you sailed off on the Good Ship Crackpot and ruined your one chance at happiness.”

“I had to.” I tried to keep my fake, bridesmaid smile on my face from slipping. “I’m not sure what would be worse—taking the chance and the Angale hurting Matt, or hurting someone else in this family or just some random stranger who happened to get in the way.”

“You think that by breaking your own heart, and Matt’s, you’re going to somehow prevent the Angale from being crazy? You think that will prevent them from a war if they decide to wage it? They have been bred to destroy demons.” Malachi tugged on my arm so that we were face to face again. “That is their only purpose in life and, if they choose to stay that way, nothing you and Matt do will change their minds.”

“You don’t think they’re going to change, do you?” I asked as he took my arm, leading me toward the sanctuary. “Valerie’s death just brought us closer to war.”

“We’ve always been coming closer to war.” Malachi stopped at the doors to the replica of Notre Dame my mother had asked the Alpha to provide her for the wedding. He dipped his fingers in the water and crossed himself. “Being stupid and breaking Angel Boy’s heart won’t pull us all back from the brink and it won’t save innocent bystanders, either. If war comes, no matter what you do, people will get hurt.”

I fought the urge to throw my arms around his neck and cry like I had when I was a kid. Back then Mal would turn himself into a pillow and let me sob myself to sleep on his chest. Not that it would do me any good now. “It won’t pull us back from the brink, but if war comes it will prevent…”

“Don’t count on it,” Malachi said.

The music started and I wrapped my arm around his bicep. Lisa and Nahamia started up the aisle and I psyched myself up to walk down the aisle with Mal and not wobble in my shoes. Even though I’d lost all feeling in my toes.

“Can I give you a little bit of advice about war?” Malachi asked.

“What?” I watched Lisa hit the point that my mother had told me was my cue to start marching. Malachi straightened and started us up the aisle in time with the music.

“In war there are no sides,” he whispered, keeping his face forward, not acknowledging the demons sitting in the pews. “Battles are nothing but a clusterfuck full of chaos and the only way you survive them is to grab onto the people who matter to you and try to keep each other safe. All that matters is keeping the people you love safe, even if you have to split the world apart and reign down hellfire on anyone who stands in your way.”

He let go of me at the top of the aisle and I turned to him. He was right. If war came I would do whatever it took to keep Matt and everyone else I loved safe. But for right now, the best way for me to do that was to let Matt go. No matter how much it killed me.

Dad looked at me and then at Malachi, his eyebrows drawn together. Instead of answering, the dread demon just patted my father’s shoulder and turned to the back of the church.

All my father’s subjects except for Lilith were in the audience. Not that I could blame her. I doubted I was going to find myself at any of my ex’s weddings in the future.

When Hope reached us, the music changed and everyone stood, facing the back of the church. Except for Dad. Always the proper gentleman, he kept his back turned while Mom walked down the aisle. My sister started to giggle, her shoulders shaking, and I craned my head around her to see what was so funny. Mom made it farther up the aisle and I stared, stunned, at the hot mess she’d managed to make of herself in the short time since we’d left her alone in the dressing room.

When would Mom learn she wasn’t eighteen anymore? She was the mother of two grown daughters. Besides, was it really appropriate for the soon to be Consort of Satan to be walking down the aisle in a knock off of the Princess of Wales’s wedding dress? Especially a version that was two sizes too small in the bodice. I was pretty sure that much cleavage was something they’d frown upon at Westminster. But, even if they didn’t, a proper royal bride always knew it was better to leave your pageant tiara at home when you were in a church. Diadems were so much classier.

…

“The past couple of weeks have been hard on you,” my uncle said and handed me a glass of champagne. I clinked it against His and turned back to watching the rest of the guests from the sidelines of my parents’ wedding reception.

“You could say that,” I said. We sipped our champagne, and I tried to ignore the fact that I was standing there drinking with the Creator of All Things while a group of demons did the Electric Slide. What was I supposed to say to him? “Thanks for resurrecting my boyfriend but you know, I would have preferred him dead rather than in charge of the Angale.” Yeah, even if that were true—which is wasn’t—it might sound a tad ungrateful.

“Blech, I always have hated this stuff.” He waved His hand over our glasses and I saw that He’d changed it from champagne into Guinness. Who said the Alpha didn’t have good taste?

I laughed and took a large drink, savoring the change. “You realize Mom paid three hundred dollars a bottle for that champagne, right?”

“I think that makes it taste worse.” He laughed. “Besides, it’ll be our little secret. Your father has already turned his and about half the other guests’ drinks to whisky anyway so it’s his ass she’ll go after first.”

“That’ll make an interesting honeymoon. I’d be prepared to control a demonic incident in Hawaii next week if I were you.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” He said, and we both stood there watching the silly demons in front of us for a few minutes, not bothering to talk.

“Hey, Faith?” He took my hand in His, His tone suddenly serious. I knew that the polite small talk had come to an end. “I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for everything.”

“Me too.” I pulled my hand away before taking a long drink of my beer.

“If I had any other choice—”

“Please don’t,” I said.

“But—”

“You and him”—I pointed to my father with my glass of beer—“The two of you have nothing
but
choices. It’s the rest of us who have to live with them. So don’t tell me there was no other way. You made a choice and now I’ve got to live with it.”

“Would you rather I let him die? Or perhaps I should have destroyed the Angale when they first started? Strangled them to death in their infancy? Then he’d have never existed and who knows what we’d be facing now? Because trust me, with or without Matt Andrews in the picture, this has been coming for a long time.”

Instead of answering, I walked away. I loved my uncle but the last thing I needed right now was to listen to Him justifying why, for once, He couldn’t just be fair.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Lisa said the next morning. She tugged on the hem of her dress and followed me up the front steps of the funeral home. “I’m getting married in”—she looked at the gold watch on her wrist and glanced back at me—“less than four hours.”

“This shouldn’t take more than a half hour,” I replied. “Besides, we owe it to Harold. He’d do the same thing if it was us.”

“Of course I would,” the spirit in question said, appearing next to me in a somber black suit. “I mean after all, I did plan on making it to your wedding, which happens to be on the day of my memorial service. If I can make it without a conflict, you should be fine.”

“Point taken.” Lisa nodded and gave Harold a warm smile. We stopped at the guest book, and I hastily scrawled both of our names before taking two of the donation envelopes and putting anonymous cashier’s checks for $100,000 in each. In lieu of flowers Harold’s family was asking that donations be given to Ronald McDonald House charities. Fitting, all things considered.

We stepped into the reception room and found ourselves face to face with a middle-aged woman wearing a black pantsuit that set off the gray in her short bob so that it looked like liquid silver. She gave us both a disgusted once over and the smell of rage and affronted dignity wafted off her like rotten eggs mixed with burnt tea.

“Hello, this is a private memorial. One meant for my father’s friends and family.”

Harold sucked in a breath beside me, and I could feel his presence wavering. Not that I blamed him. I was a demoness and his daughter was sort of scaring me right now with the vibes she was giving off.

“We were friends of your father,” I said and gave her a sad smile. Lisa kept her head down and didn’t say anything. “Well, work friends you could say. We’re very sorry for your loss.”

The woman’s eyes were red rimmed and I could tell she was trying to keep herself under control so she didn’t break down in front of the assembled crowd. “My mother is already upset, and she doesn’t need any more of Dad’s little flings showing up. Can’t you people leave us in peace?”

“We weren’t flings,” I said, keeping my voice low, so I didn’t embarrass anyone. Lisa’s face flushed, and I hoped that Harold’s daughter thought it was out of modesty and not because I was lying through my teeth to protect her. “We are nurses who worked with your father and respected him a great deal. We only wanted to come pay our respects.”

“Oh,” Anne said, her shoulders slumping and her eyes filling back up with a light sheen of tears. Gone was the Amazon prepared to go to war to defend her mother, and back was the woman who’d lost her father years ago and hadn’t gotten the chance to make her peace with that yet.

I felt sorry that she and Harold couldn’t fix their relationship now that he was gone. Although, given how persistent he was, I wouldn’t be surprised if he came up with something.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “We’ve had a parade of tarts coming through these doors acting like they owned the place. That bitch Mona has been a total nightmare, screaming about how she’s going to contest the will and how she’s owed something now that Dad is dead.”

I took her hands in mine. “There are kids, well adults, too, if you think about it, that are alive today because of what an amazing doctor he was. We’re all going to miss him and we won’t do anything to ruin his memorial. Harold was as much a part of our family as he was yours.”

“Thank you.” She pulled me forward, toward the picture mosaic of Harold dominating the front of the room.

“I don’t know if they told you he was a hero,” Lisa broke in. “With what happened to him I mean.”

Anne nodded. “The police told us. Mom said she wasn’t surprised. She always claimed he had more guts than he did common sense.”

“She did say that,” Harold murmured. “Harriet always claimed I was her stupid knight in shining armor. ‘Where fools rushed in,’ she’d tell me, ‘that’s where I’ll find you, Harold.’”

“He used to tell us that, too,” I told Anne.

“He did?” another voice piped up beside us.

I looked over toward the voice and saw a slender woman with her gray hair tied back in a knot and a demure black sheath dress staring at us. Harold froze beside me, and I knew the woman in front of us had to be Harriet.

“Yes, Mrs. Winslow,” I said. “We worked at Rogers Hospital with your husband. Lisa was one of his surgical nurses, and I’m the night shift charge nurse on PICU. I’m Faith Bettin—”

“Faith Bettincourt,” she said and stuck her hand out.

“Yes.” I took her hand and shook it. “Your husband mentioned me?”

“Not while he was living.”

I glanced at Harold out of the corner of my eye. He shrugged and held his hands up like he had no clue what she was going on about.

“Mom.” Anne wrapped her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “The doctor told you those were just vivid dreams and that they were part of the mourning process.”

“That’s okay.” I sat in one of the chairs at the front of the room and Harriet took the one beside me. “I’m always fascinated in hearing other people’s dreams.”

“Right about the time they said my Harold died, I had this dream and a dark-haired young man with a ponytail came to me and told me Harold was gone and I’d never see him again. But that it was okay, because my Harold was going to help you save the world.”

“Well, I don’t know.” I detached my hand from hers. I was going to
kill
J when I saw him again. What the Hell was he thinking going out and interfering in people’s dreams? Way to keep a low profile. Not. “I am just a pediatric nurse after all.”

“You’re so much more,” Harriet said and patted my cheek. “Even I can see that.”

“Okay, Mom.” Anne smiled at me, her cheeks turning red, and shook her head. “I think it’s time we get you another sedative. The emotions of the day are starting to get to you.”

“I think you’re just worried about your mother sounding crazy,” Harriet said when her daughter led her away.

“That was weird,” Harold muttered. “Harriet never was one for paranormal mumbo jumbo before now.”

“And you were?” I asked.

“Not until I became a ghost.”

“See? There’s always time for personal growth,” I said. “Now I take it the cluster of hideously dressed harpies in the corner are the Three Ex-wives of the Apocalypse?”

“That would be them.” Harold nodded. “Mona, Kitty, and Jannelle.”

“Right.” I threw back my shoulders and stalked over to them. “Ladies?”

“Yes?” the dark-haired one in a spandex, leopard print mini dress asked.

“I have a message from the Great Beyond for the three of you. Courtesy of Harold.”

“Uh-huh?” The blond ex-wife tugged at the top of her skintight black pantsuit, adjusting it so even more cleavage popped out. “What’s that? The money is buried in the cellar?”

“No.” I shook my head and gave her my sweetest smile. “Harold said to tell you that you’re all money-grubbing, backstabbing bitches, and he’s glad to know he’ll never have to see your sorry faces again. Oh, and every single dime of his money is going to Harriet and Anne. If you even think about causing a ruckus, he’s not only going to haunt your asses, he’s going to send me and my friend Lisa here back around to talk to you again.”

“What’s that supposed to do? Scare us?” the blonde asked.

I glanced at Lisa, and she shrugged, letting her horns peek through. I let my own come out as well and turned to face the three of them, my eyes flashing red. “It would sure scare
me
, if I were you. Now, I suggest you leave and don’t do anything that is going to make me come by for a little chat. You never know, I may forget to eat along the way.”

The three of them just stood there, wide eyed, and the smell the fear wafted off of them. The blonde was starting to break out into hives and the brunette was trembling. Good.

“Okay,” the auburn-haired one said and pushed her two partners in crime toward the doors of the funeral home. “We’ll just be going now.”

“I thought you might see things my way.” I inspected my nails, buffing them against the hem of front of my white shirt. That wasn’t too bad if I did say so myself. My horns retracted and Lisa was back to her normal, perky self as well.

“Thanks,” Harold said and gave me a warm smile. “For that and for what you said about being family a few minutes ago. It means a lot to me. Really. Now you two get out of here. You’ve got to meet my man Tolliver at the top of an aisle in a few hours.”

“Are you coming with us?” I asked.

“I’ll meet you there.” Harold looked at where his former wife and his daughter were sitting, talking with the other mourners. “I think I need to stick around here for a while yet.”

“Don’t be late,” Lisa warned him.

“Not even my own memorial could keep me away.” Harold floated away.

I shook my head and the two of us slipped out the exit and into the parking lot before anyone else noticed. “Well,” I said and looked over at her when we reached my Civic. “That went better than I expected.”

“It was nice to do something good for a change.”

“I was talking about the whole
Scaring the Crap Out of the Ex-Wives
thing,” I said.

“So was I. Now, let’s go shackle me to your brother for the rest of eternity. What do you say?”

“I’d say you’re a damn fool and we need to run off to Mexico until you see sense.” I turned my car on and pulled out of the parking lot, making my way toward the church the Alpha had glamoured into existence for her wedding. “But you’re not listening to me are you?”