Jingle Hells (9 page)

Peering around Gab’s wings, I kept my hand
on him in case he got any ideas about moving away. “No, but I’m not
immune to your enchantments. You’ll use me to hunt down Emilia and
I can’t allow that. I can’t allow you to hurt my sister.”

A mix of emotions passed over Luc’s
features. “Why would I hurt Emilia?”

“Because of what she did. To us.”

“Yes, she turned you away from me,” he said,
his voice full of sadness. “But you love Emilia, even though you
don’t like her much. I won’t hurt her, because to do so would hurt
you, and you…” He sighed and studied my face as if studying a great
work of art. “You are the last person on Earth I would ever want to
hurt, Amy.”

He’d told me that many times before, how he
loved me, how he would never hurt me. Up until he’d slept with
Emilia, I’d believed him. Was it fair to hold him responsible,
though, for what had happened? “Why do you want to know where Em
is?”

“To erase her memory,” Gabriel interjected.
“So she won’t remember the sins she committed with him.”

Luc’s gaze never left mine. “And to retrieve
the spell and potion. Obviously, they are dangerous to me.”

Emilia had been tormented since some of her
memories of her time with Luc had come back to her. The thought of
easing her pain was tempting, but what good was a lesson learned if
you had no memory of the consequences?

“Honestly, I’d like nothing better than to
erase what happened between the two of you,” I told Luc. “But it
did happen and maybe it was for the best. Emilia should keep her
memories, and I’ll take care of the spell and potion for you. I’ll
destroy them, promise. It’s the least I can do.”

We were all silent for a moment. Luc’s
strained expression showed the war waging within him. Gabriel
fluttered his wings in impatience. “You do trust her, don’t you,
Lucifer?”

There was no hesitation in his answer.
“Yes.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Luc ignored Gabriel and stared at me. “What
about us?”

Hells bells, I knew he’d ask me that. For a
half a second, I wanted to say we could talk about it. Then I
remembered I wanted to be human, to be good, no matter the price.
“There is no us. I’m with Adam now. And I’m good now. I want to
stay that way.”

There was the briefest flash of sincere hurt
in his eyes, before they went cold and flat, his mouth and his jaw
hardening. “Very well.” He began stepping backwards, moving with
the same easy gate. “So shall it be,” he mocked me with the Wiccan
prayer.

In a flash, he shimmered out of sight. I
should have been elated, but I felt hollow inside from my heart
down to my stomach. Why did doing the right thing feel so
crappy?

Gabriel turned, still hovering in midair.
“My work here is done. Please don’t call on me again.”

“You owed me.”

A tight smile thinned his lips. “Yet I am
not a bodyguard. The next time you wish help or protection from
evil, you will owe me.” He reached out and traced his fingers down
my cheek. A zap of power raced through my body, like I’d stuck a
finger in a light socket. “And the price will be steep, I assure
you.”

One flap of his giant wings and he was gone.
Behind me, Father Leonard groaned.

Bending at his side, I helped him sit up.
“What happened? Did I miss anything?”

“Just my little pow-wow with an angel and a
demon.”

He struggled to his feet and brushed snow
off his coat. “Judas of Iscariot, I always miss the good
stuff.”

I pulled a Dove chocolate from my pocket and
handed it to him. “Hang around me. There’s bound to be more ‘good
stuff’ ahead.”

Chapter
Nine: Beware the
Cat

Christmas dawned with a full-blown blizzard
raging over Eden. I slept late, took a long, hot shower and tried
to pull up the cheer I’d felt before my showdown with Luc. Not even
fantasizing about Adam in his new holiday underwear pulled me out
of my funk.

In the kitchen, I fed the cats, including
Liddy’s calico. I scratched her ears and tried to make friends, but
she skittered away and refused even my bribes of tuna.

Giving up on her, I spruced up the living
room, turned on the Christmas tree lights and rearranged the gifts
under the tree. I turned the radio to the twenty-four hour holiday
music station and called Em to invite her over for lunch.

Once I had the ham baking in the oven—having
followed all of Adam’s instructions—I plopped into my favorite
chair and moped. On the coffee table sat the Bible Father Leonard
had given me. The front cover had been clawed to death. Wasn’t hard
to guess which furry culprit in my apartment had done the damage.
Father Leonard’s words rang in my head. A friend…find the solution
to the problem plaguing you…

The only problem plaguing me had been
confronting Luc. That was over and done with, so why bother? As I
sat there, though, my gut told me I was missing something. I picked
up the Bible and opened it to Genesis, chapter one.

I’d never read the Bible before, having
picked up the few stories I knew about from other books, movies and
TV. Once I started reading, though, I couldn’t stop. The original
man in the story, made from God’s image was now my man. Yet as I
pictured him living out the story, I couldn’t quite match up the
one in the Bible with the one who’d been sleeping in my bed.

A painting of Adam and Eve in the Garden of
Eden done in the 1500s had been reproduced at the beginning of the
chapter. The likeness to my Adam was uncanny. He looked almost
exactly the same, muscular and virile. And Eve…well, she was
voluptuous, more so even than Delilah, and her face had an ethereal
appearance. I tried to put myself into the story in her place, but
again, I couldn’t match us up.

While Adam and Eve’s story in reality wasn’t
very long, it packed a lot of drama. I could sympathize with Eve’s
inability to resist Satan and I liked that Adam made the choice to
eat from the apple and stay with her, even though it meant bye-bye
paradise. What I didn’t get was the fact that if God had only
allowed them to eat from the Tree of Life to compensate for eating
from the Tree of Knowledge, they could have lived forever in Eden
and been happy. God, however, was not up for competition.

I dredged on through more of Genesis but
eventually fell asleep. When I woke, Adam was bending down beside
me and smiling. His eyes reflected the lights on the tree, making
them twinkle.

“Merry Christmas,” he said and kissed
me.

The Bible had slid to the floor and I
nonchalantly kicked it under my chair with my foot before the kiss
ended. I rose, adjusted my shirt and ran my fingers through my
hair. I’d wanted to be dressed in my Santa costume before he
arrived. Now I’d have to save it for later. The clock on the wall
and the smell of the ham said it was lunch time. “And merry first
Christmas to you.”

Adam pulled me over to the tree and pointed
at the wrapped gifts snugged around it. “You’re giving me the
cat?”

Glancing down, I saw the calico lying on her
side with a bow on her head, a tag attached. To Adam, From Amy, it
read. How had she done that? Taken a bow and tag from another gift
and somehow slapped it on her own head?

Well, why not give her to Adam? She liked
him and apparently hated me, so… “Only if you want her.”

He bent down and scooped her into his arms.
“Of course, I want her.” He removed the bow and scratched her head.
“How did you get her to lie under the tree like that?”

“She’s very…” I searched for the right word
and the cat meowed at me. It sounded like a warning. “Creative,” I
settled for.

“Should we eat first or open presents?”

He was just like a little kid, full of
anticipation. Of course I gave in. “Emilia’s not here yet, so let’s
open our gifts to each other. When she gets here, we’ll eat.”

I made Adam sit on my love seat and I
brought the gifts for him over. The cat went back to her spot under
the tree and I ignored her twitching tail and gold-green eyes.

Everything was going along great—Adam loved
his T-shirt, car kit and fan attire. But as he opened the set of
holiday underwear and held them up, a weird noise came from the
cat. I can only describe it as part howl, part words, that sounded
like, “Oh, enough of this!”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and
I jerked around just in time to see the calico turn into…

“Eve?” Adam said, agog at the naked woman on
her hands and knees in front of the tree.

“Eve!” I echoed, knowing before I even said
it that it was true. She looked almost identical to the painting in
the Bible under the chair.

She straightened, one hundred percent pure
gracefulness, pure femininity, and locked eyes with Adam. Her skin
was so fair, it looked almost translucent, and her eyes were the
same brilliant mix of color as the cat’s had been. She had curves
in all the right places, and as she moved toward us, she moved
those curves in all the right ways.

The mother of humankind was standing in my
living room, bearing down on my boyfriend. “Whoa,” I said under my
breath.

While he now seemed speechless, the look on
Adam’s face said he was thinking the same thing. It irked me just a
little so I intercepted her before she could touch him. “What are
you doing here? And how did you get here?”

Her eyes sent daggers at me. “I would think
that would be obvious.”

Adam. She’d come for him. To take him back
to Heaven? Or just to take him back, period? “You can’t have
him.”

“He’s my husband.”

Okay, point to the mother.

Before I could think of a snappy retort,
Adam rose and reached a hand out to touch her. “I can’t believe
it’s you.”

I didn’t much like the awe in his voice. I
didn’t much like what happened next either.

While I rummaged in my closet for some
clothes for Eve, she and Adam were in the living room making
plans.

“We just need to talk,” he told me as he put
his coat around her shoulders and propelled her to the door. “I
promise this doesn’t change anything between us.”

I wanted to believe him. When he kissed the
end of my nose, however, and said, “I’ll call you later,” before
ushering her out the door, I didn’t.

Emilia found me a little while later in my
office with the blinds drawn and a box of tissues in my lap. I
couldn’t bear to stay in my apartment with Adam’s gifts still
strewn on the love seat and the cat’s claw marks everywhere. I
refused to tell Em what had happened, and the next thing I knew,
Keisha was in the office handing me a cup of Java Brownie Chip ice
cream.

“Talk to me.” She sat in her normal spot and
put her feet up on my desk.

I sniffed. “Eve.”

“Eve?” She raised her hands palms up in that
what are you talking about way, but then as if it suddenly dawned
on her, she repeated herself, this time with awe just like I’d
heard in Adam’s voice. “The Eve?”

Throwing a used tissue in the waste can next
to me, I nodded. “That calico stray Liddy found? Not a cat.”

“Oh. My. God.”

My thoughts exactly. “She and Adam left me
to go talk.” I used my fingers to put air quotes around the word
talk.

“Oh. My. God.”

I picked up the ice cream and glared at her.
“Don’t’cha got anything better to say?”

“Um, actually…no.” We sat in silence for a
minute as I ate a spoonful of ice cream. Then she said, “You don’t
think they’re going to…”

“Get back together?” I supplied, swallowing.
“She’s his wife, Keisha. God literally made her from one of Adam’s
ribs. Odds are, yeah, they’re going to get back together.”

Setting the bowl down, I grabbed for another
tissue and wiped my eyes. I felt more angry than upset, but I
always cried when I was really, really angry.

Keisha sighed and Emilia stuck her head in,
motioning for Keisha to follow her. They left me quietly, sliding
the door closed behind them. Putting my head down on the desk, I
let myself cry some more.

A few minutes later, I heard Keisha come
back in. “Someone’s here to see you.”

I didn’t need to look in a mirror to know my
face was blotchy, my eyes were bloodshot and my nose was the color
of Rudolf’s. “Go away.”

While I heard the door shut again, I also
knew there was a presence in the office with me and it wasn’t
Keisha. This certain presence was turning my office into an oven.
Keeping my head down, I spoke again into the desktop. “What are you
doing here?”

“Keisha was worried about you. She summoned
me.”

I knocked my head against the wood
underneath it. “You knew, didn’t you? You’re the one who asked
Father Leonard to give me the Bible so I could read Genesis.” My
head now stinging as much as my heart, I lifted it to stare into
Luc’s eyes. Surprisingly enough, he looked as miserable as I felt.
“Why didn’t you just tell me the cat was Eve?”

“I wanted you to have knowledge of their
history together so that when she finally chose to reveal herself,
you might better understand Adam’s reaction to her.”

Score one for the Devil. A tiny part of me
did understand Adam’s reaction to his wife, thanks to the lesson of
Eden. They shared something no one else had ever experienced and
the fate of their love story was inexplicably linked to every one
of us on Earth. Even Lucifer was tied to them. “What do I do
now?”

While I’d meant it as a rhetorical question,
he offered advice anyway. “Do you love him?”

The only man I’d ever loved was Lucifer.
Comparing my feelings for Adam against the feelings I’d once had
for him sent another stab of pain through my heart and my head. “I
think so.”

Luc reacted liked I’d punched him again.
Still, he recomposed himself and cleared his throat. “Then you have
to fight for him.”