03 Before The Devil Knows You're Dead-Speak Of The Devil (2 page)

“Didn’t it go off?” Confusion and doubt filled her eyes.

“No. The alarm in here didn’t go off. Everything in here is fine. I’ve been in here for a few minutes doing treatments. I was working toward Leslie and Kim so that I could tell them to go on break. Why? Did you hear an alarm?”

“I could have sworn…” Dr. Malan looked from me to the alarms again, her mouth hanging open. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and then flinched as she tried to move her weight off back off her right knee. She turned to Leslie and Kim standing behind her. “Tell me you two heard the alarm?”

“No, Doc,” Leslie said her voice full of conviction. “We saw you running and followed.”

“I don’t know what to say.” Dr. Malan ran a hand up over her face. “I know the alarm was going off.”

I gave her my most reassuring smile. “It’s late, it’s quiet, and you probably dozed off for a second and dreamed you heard one of the alarms going off.”

“You think?” she asked, sounding skeptical.

“I do it all the time on my days off,” I said and both Kim and Leslie nodded in agreement. “I’m sound asleep and then all of a sudden I dream that I can hear an alarm or a call light. Next thing I know I’m wide awake and half out of bed before I realize that I’m home in my jammies and not here on the ward. It’s part of the job. You’ll get used to it over time.”

She shifted again and then winced. “I guess, but man do I feel stupid right now. Running after phantom alarms and scaring all three of you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said and felt my shoulders relax. She was going to let this go easier than I expected. “Hey, Doc, are you feeling okay? You keep grimacing.”

“I think I banged my knee against my desk when I decided to go on a mad dash down the hall. I’ll probably have one heck of a bruise by the time we go off shift.”

“Ouch.” I wrinkled my nose at her and pretended to be sympathetic instead of relieved at how easily she was letting this all go. “Why don’t you take a minute off the hall and take a breather? Go grab a bottle of water or some coffee. We’ll be fine up here.”

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“Go, take Kim and Leslie with you. All of you could use a few minutes of peace. Bring me back a Mountain Dew. I’ve got some money stashed in the nurses’ station.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Dr. Malan shoved her hands in her lab coat pockets. “I think after all this excitement I can buy everyone some caffeine.”

I watched the three of them make their way to the stairwell and sighed as they left the hall. The last thing I needed was someone catching on to the fact that patients tended to die less when I was on shift than they did otherwise. Medical people were always a superstitious lot and the last thing I wanted to bring attention to was the fact that Satan’s youngest daughter was a charge nurse on the pediatric-intensive-care unit. People tended to get touchy about those sorts of things.

“You know we wouldn’t have this much excitement if you’d have gone to secretarial school,” another, deeper voice said from behind my shoulder. My bodyguard floated next to me in his three-foot grim reaper costume rather than his human form.

“Come on, Mal, I thought you liked all this excitement?”

“Yeah, well, I knew typing wasn’t your strong suit. Now, how long until you’re off shift and we can go get some decent coffee?”

“About four hours.”

“Four hours? Your cousin Christ on a cracker that’s a long time. I’m going to try to find some late-nite porn on the visitor’s lounge television to stay awake.”

“Hey!” I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. “We’ve got kids in here.”

“It’s the middle of the night,” Malachi retorted as he floated off. “They should all be asleep, genius. That’s why they put porn on late-night TV.”

“Hey, Mal?”

My personal demon stopped then slowly spun to face me.

“That thing with Michael tonight…”

“What about it?” he asked.

“You don’t think it’s weird that he tried to show up and poach someone who wasn’t on the list, do you?”

“Faith, he’s a reaper. Everything they do is weird. Don’t let him get to you.”

“Do you—”

“They all get a little crazier than normal around review time.” Malachi shrugged his tiny shoulders toward where his ears should have been. “Don’t worry about it. It’s Michael being his usual idiotic self.”

Chapter Two

“I’m going to murder your brother,” Lisa said and then let out a weak moan before the unmistakable sound of her vomiting sounded inside the bathroom stall at Churresco’s Coffee. “Then I’m going to have Matt and your cousin resurrect him, and I’m going to kill him again. Over and over again.”

“There may be some flaws in your logic.” I leaned back against the light green walls of the ladies’ room and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. Ugh. I looked like I’d been dragged through Hell by my dad’s two favorite hounds—Fluffy and Mortimer.

The light above me flickered and I looked up. It had one of those fake Tiffany covers that had pink roses and green leaves intertwined on it. Maybe the lighting had something to do with how pale I looked? I glanced back at the mirror. Nope, it was all me and my nocturnal lifestyle.

She barfed again and I grimaced before looking down at my nails and wondering how much longer I could go without at least some form of manicure. My nails weren’t bad but my cuticles looked like they’d been through the Apocalypse. I was going to have to find some time to get that taken care of.

“Name one flaw in my logic,” Lisa said, her voice echoing inside the toilet, and I gazed up at the pale pink cubicle door and narrowed my eyes.

“I can name three without breaking a sweat. The most obvious is that if you resurrect him you can’t kill him again later. Drain his powers, yes, kill him, no.”

“I’m sure I can find a way to cause him enough pain to make that point redundant,” my best friend said and then started to gag again.

“Okay reason two, resurrections have to be done to the freshly dead. It’s midsemester and you know Jesus hates taking sick days if he can help it. Something about the kids in his special-education courses needing consistency and routine, and how substitutes upset them.”

“Matt can do it,” she said and then let out a pitiful moan. “I want Tolliver to die. Make him die. Painfully. Very, very painfully.”

“You really don’t want Matt to try this by himself. Resurrections are tricky and he’s a novice. Do you really want the resurrection of the father of your unborn child to be a learning experience? If it turns out bad and you’ve got two screaming, crying mouth breathers to take care of.”

“Okay you might have a point there,” Lisa said, her voice watery and vaguely pathetic-sounding.

“That brings up the third flaw in your plan. As much as it pains me to say this, for once this isn’t all Tolliver’s fault.” I shoved my hands in my scrub top pocket.

“Yes it is,” she sobbed. “He did this to me. It’s all his fault and I want him to die. Don’t worry honey, it doesn’t matter that the cruise line lost the bag with your birth control in it. It’s our honeymoon. Try to relax, sweetheart. Everything will be fine. I thought that meant he had some sort of Son of the Devil mojo going so I wouldn’t get knocked up.”

“You know what they call people who use that kind of logic?” I glanced under the door and saw that she’d managed to stand up. The door to the stall opened and she stood there glaring at me, her face green and her eyes watery.

“What?” She moved past me to the sink to swipe at the smears of mascara under her eyes and then washed her hands. “What do they call demonesses who trust their husbands to be responsible?”

“Parents.”

She glared at me again in the mirror, her eyes flashing red. I’d feel sorry for her, really I would, but this was an everyday occurrence. She’d get through the morning sickness, nibble on some toast, and then I’d spend the rest of the day hearing about how amazing it was being pregnant with my first niece or nephew.

Instead of answering she shoved the door open and stalked out of the bathroom, leaving me to trail behind her.

Stephen Churresco looked at us from behind the counter and waved me over. “She okay?”

“The smell of the coffee is making her sick,” I said.

He shook his head at me and then looked over at her, his eyes wary. “The poor thing, she looks miserable. If you hold on a second I think I might have something that will help.”

“Really? Got much experience with pregnant ladies then? Is there someone else that I should know about? Someone you’re hiding from me?” I teased.

“Don’t even start flirting with me,” Stephen said, his voice severe even though he was smiling. “That boyfriend of yours will come in here and kick my ass. For a lawyer he’s one scary guy. Which now that I think about it makes him even scarier. He’ll kick my ass for flirting with his girl, and then he’ll sue me for breaking his hand on my face.”

He turned his back and started rooting around in one of the cabinets. He pulled out a box and waved it over his head triumphantly before pulling a bag out of it and making his way back over to his machines. “Found it. Peppermint tea. My sister guzzled this stuff when she was pregnant with both of her kids, said it kept the vomiting down.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I’d say let me take you to dinner as a thank you, but then we’re back to the fact your boyfriend is one scary guy.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about Matt.” I shuffled my feet as I thought about the awkwardness that had sprouted up in my relationship with the hot nephilim who lived across the hall who was now his species’ new absolute ruler.

“Why is that?” He poured out a large cup of hot water and dropped the tea bag in. He grabbed another cup and started making me a mocha. “Are you guys having trouble? It’s not any of my business or anything, but I am your barista—the new millennia’s version of a local bartender. So feel free to bare your soul for my perusal if you think it’ll help.”

How to explain what happened between me and Matt to a guy who had no idea what we really were? Hmm, let’s see, I could go with Well, first his half-brother stalked me, tried to kill my whole family, and we had to lock him in a pocket of Purgatory where he couldn’t hurt anyone. Then, a month later his crazy ex-girlfriend showed up with his mother and they kidnapped my brother and then tried to kill me with a bunch of garden sprites. Except, instead they accidentally killed him and I had to let my uncle, the God of All Things, and my cousin Jesus, resurrect him. That caused a bit of tension between us, but not nearly as much him becoming the new head of the Angale and that meant he had basically become my family’s most dangerous enemy in the length of time it took to do a standard resurrection.

Although, to be fair, I’m the only one who really seems to have a problem with the whole Angale thing. Matt and Dad have been bonding over the whole finding the nephilim army a safe refuge and constructive uses of their new free time now that they aren’t actively training to kill us thing. He’d gone and played a few games of golf with Tolliver, Malachi, and Harold to blow off steam, and I even caught him in my kitchen once, talking to my mom while she made him cookies.

The only person he wasn’t spending time with was me. The woman he’d promised to fight for. Instead, he spent his days avoiding me to give me space to think and then he’d ambush me when I least expected it, making my knees go weak and my brain grow fuzzy from the taste of his kisses.

“Things between us are complicated right now,” I said, going for an abbreviated—and entirely mortal-friendly— version of what happened.

“Complicated how?” Stephen asked. “Complicated as in ‘you think Daniel Craig is the best Bond and he’s a Sean Connery fan’ or complicated like ‘you want fifteen kids and he gets faint at the idea of changing diapers’?”

“I don’t think we’re really going to work out.” I bit my lower lip and tried to avoid his stare.

“That’s too bad.” Stephen handed me the two cups. I stuck my hand in my purse to pull out some money and he grabbed my hand, stopping me. “It’s on the house. Sort of.”

“What do you mean sort of?”

“If you and Matt call it quits, you let me take you to dinner,” Stephen said. “Just because he’s an idiot that doesn’t mean you should waste away and you, Faith of my Heart, are looking a bit thin.”

“Really?” I craned my head around so I could try to see my own ass. I knew my scrubs had been a bit loose lately but I figured that they were getting worn out and I’d need to replace them soon.

“Really we should go to dinner, or really you’re looking a bit thin? Because it’s yes to both, woman. I can see the bones in your wrist and it’s not sexy. You want to know something else?”

“What?” I let him pull me closer so that we were leaning over the counter, almost touching.

“Men always prefer women with curves,” Stephen said and then glanced down, smiling. I followed his gaze and saw that my scrub top had gaped slightly, giving him a clear view down my shirt.

I pulled back, breaking his hold on my wrist, and shook my head at him. “I’m going to go drink my coffee now.” I picked up my cup of coffee and Lisa’s cup of peppermint tea, trying to look annoyed at the former hockey player who now ran my favorite coffee shop.

“You want a cinnamon roll? They should be coming out of the oven in—” He glanced over at a timer. “Crap, less than a minute.”

“Yes,” Lisa called out from our table and then slumped forward with her head on the table. “Extra frosting on it, please.”

“You drink that tea, and I’ll bring you something to eat, Little Mama,” he said over his shoulder as he scurried into the kitchen.

I walked over to where she was sitting and sat down before wrapping her fingers around the cup. “This should make you feel better. Or at least clean the taste out of your mouth.”

“I like him,” she mumbled into the tabletop. She sat up with a sigh and pushed the hair that had come loose from her caramel colored ponytail behind her ear. “I want to divorce Tolliver and marry Stephen instead. He wouldn’t have impregnated me with demon spawn that makes me sick at the smell of coffee and chocolate.”

“True, and think about how much money you would have saved on not having to buy fireproof sheets.”

“Ha-ha, very funny.”

“Not to mention the air freshener to get rid of the constant odor of brimstone Tolliver has clinging to him. Or imp food for when messengers show up. Or—”

The clattering in the next room stopped and I froze, my mouth hanging open, and then glanced at the door. It swung open and Stephen came out bearing two plates loaded down with two gigantic cinnamon rolls each. He came around the counter and set the plates in front of us before going back for his own cup of coffee.

“Eat, both of you,” he said and pulled a chair around from another table and sat backward in it. I couldn’t help ogling the firm thighs and letting my eyes trail up the flare of his hip to the washboard abs you could barely make out underneath his T-shirt.

“Maybe you should be the one paying for dinner when we go out,” Stephen said and I looked up at him, shocked. He brought his hand up and ran his thumb along the side of my mouth. “Little bit of drool there. Now, if you’re done giving my ass the once-over, why don’t you try some of that cinnamon roll?”

“I’m, uh, um—” I stammered, trying to figure out the best way to apologize without sounding like I was insulting him. I knew guys and their fragile egos. Say the wrong thing and suddenly my coffee god wasn’t going to be quite so liberal with the free shots of espresso.

It really didn’t help that the biggest part of my problem was a serious case of unresolved horniness. Three months ago I was happily snuggled up with a nephilim who could make a nun orgasm with the quirk of an eyebrow.

Now? Nothing except those tingly kisses when I least expected it. Nothing more. The nephilim was across the hall, and I had an empty bed. Because, and let’s be very clear about this, I am an idiot when it comes to guys and my personal feelings.

“Don’t worry about it, Faith.” He nudged my shoulder. “We all know you want me. You don’t have to lie about it. Who could blame you, though? Look at me. Do you think I did all those hockey workouts so I could hit a little puck with a stick and hope it went into a little net?”

“No?” I asked, my mouth dry as he leaned closer. It really wasn’t fair. I didn’t want Stephen, even though he was nine kinds of ridiculously hot. I was in love with Matt, who I couldn’t have because I had dumped him even though he thought we could work things out. Which meant I was trapped between a wall and a hot guy who smelled like gourmet coffee and there was absolutely nothing pornographic I could do about it. Sometimes being good was highly overrated.

“No,” he said.

Lisa coughed.

Stephen leaned closer, so his lips were brushing my earlobe. “I did all those ridiculously hard workouts so I could kick the crap out of other guys on the ice and figure out new and interesting ways to make pretty blond nurses scream and try to climb the walls.”

“Ugh.” My terribly horny and deprived brain started to melt out of my ears and I bit my lower lip.

Why in the name of Chaos and Evil was it that the gorgeous ones always wanted to talk dirty when you had resolved not to take them up on it out of love for other gorgeous ones, who you’d also resolved not to get naked with? It was seriously starting to feel like January third in a Godiva store after resolving to give up refined white sugar.

Lisa coughed again, violently this time, and slapped her hand on the table. I looked up and found myself face to face with Mr. I’m Not Giving Up on Getting You Naked. Damn it. The smell of angry man and too much testosterone filled the room, and even Stephen, who last I checked could not sense paranormal activity, slid his chair back away from me.

“Hey, man,” Stephen said. He stood up and flipped the chair back around, offering it to Matt. “You want your usual?”

“Yeah.” Matt sat, his upper lip curling up into a faint snarl. The smell of pissed off Heavenly Creature continued to roll off of him and the lights above us burned even brighter. “And I think my girlfriend could use another coffee as well.”

Um, excuse me? What? Did he just try to metaphorically pee on my leg? I don’t think so. Forget the unresolved horniness issues because that wasn’t going to fly. I didn’t care how great he looked naked—I was not putting up with any possessive caveman antics.

“Actually, I’m good, Stephen.” I narrowed my eyes at Matt and it was all I could do to keep them green instead of letting them flash to a brilliant back-off red. “Thanks for the cinnamon rolls, though.”