One Handsome Devil (8 page)

"You're not answering my question,” Katra interrupted. “Sara, look at him. He's got horns under that hat and wings under that shirt. You've got to get away from him."

"Go fix Katra's car,” Sara ordered Jack.

He got out of Sara's car, walked over to Katra's ancient Chevy, and popped the hood. Black smoke billowed out. Add a little sulphur and a few thousand degrees of temperature and it would have been positively homey.

"Magic didn't do in this car,” Jack explained. “Old age did."

"Oh.” Sara looked momentarily nonplused. “Maybe you should use the money from your lottery ticket to buy a new car, Katra. You have had this thing since high school, after all."

"I haven't cashed my ticket yet and I need to get to school. Besides, I wasted a wish on this crate and I want it fixed.” She turned to Jack. “So can you fix my car or are you just some kind of demon gigolo?"

"Katra,” Sara protested.

"He's still with you. Don't tell me you weren't doing the nasty."

"Well..."

"I knew it.” She shook her head. “I bet he can't fix my car either. Men are so useless."

Jack pressed his hands against the hot engine, probing into the metal. “You threw a rod."

"Oh. Does that mean you can't fix it?"

"I'm not a mechanic."

"You did notice he never answers questions when he doesn't have to, didn't you, Sara?"

Sara nodded.

"Well, magic man,” Katra said. “Wiggle your nose or whatever."

Before he could answer, Sara brushed her dark bangs out of her face. “No games, Jack. Are you saying you can't fix it, or just that you see a way to weasel out of doing something good?"

He gave up. “Of course I can fix it. So could a hundred thousand mechanics."

"Yeah, but they'd charge Katra a bundle and keep her car for a week. Come on, Jack. Just do it. Be nice."

Nobody had called Jack nice since the Fall. He'd have a lot to live down when he got back to Hell.

"Maybe you should, you know, zap him,” Katra suggested. “It worked pretty well last night."

Sara was trying not to think about last night. It wasn't easy since her body still ached from Jack's touch. Still, seeing what he had done to Katra put things in perspective. Jack just didn't seem to have any moral compulsion at all.

"It's all right,” she began.

Jack looked her way but, for once, she couldn't meet his midnight blue eyes. His hands had penetrated the hard metal of the engine block.

"What?"

"How did you do that?” Without conscious volition, one of her hands traced a path down his back, between his wings.

He pulled one hand free holding a broken pipe-like piece of metal. “You mean this?” The cast iron block puddled, then hardened into red-hot metal.

"You put your hands inside the engine.” She felt as if someone had stood on her chest.

"Yeah. Because that's where the problem was.” He held together the two pieces of pipe, then concentrated. The metal softened, then formed together in a unified whole.

"That's impossible."

"Why? Because I didn't wiggle my nose?"

Katra made choking noises.

"I told you I was dangerous. Imagine what that kind of power would do to a person."

"I think that's what you did to Sara last night,” Katra quipped.

"Shut up, Katra,” Sara suggested.

"Uh, yeah. Maybe that was over the top. So what are you going to do with that hunk of metal?"

Jack shook his head, then stared at the engine. As she watched, he slid the reforged part back through the engine block and into the cylinder.

He concentrated on Katra's sick engine as if it was the only thing in the world, making invisible adjustments with his hands deep inside the solid metal.

"Start your car now,” he said.

"Are you giving me orders?” Katra fired back.

"Katra, please.” Sara didn't want to imagine how life would be if she had to constantly make peace between her best friend and her favorite demon.

"All right.” Katra stomped toward the car and shoved the keys into the ignition.

"Your hands,” Sara gasped at Jack. If they were still in the engine when Katra started it, they could be ground to pieces.

"Don't worry about me."

The roar of Katra's aging Chevy drowned out any further comment. Jack sucked in air. The hard muscles of his forearms bunched into strong knots. Then, he nodded and slowly tugged his hands from the purring engine. “I had to reshape the pistons a little,” he admitted.

Sara shook her head. One thing for sure, if Jack decided to hang around, he didn't have to worry about making a living. Any garage in the country would hire him. Katra's car hadn't sounded that good since high school.

"Call me gone,” Katra called out when Jack lowered her hood. She squealed away in a cloud of burning rubber.

"We should get going, too,” Sara said.

Jack turned to face her. His hands were blackened, covered with grease and oil from Katra's engine. A smudge smeared across his nose.

He followed her gaze with his eyes then smiled. “That I can fix.” With a flash of white heat, the oil vanished. “Now we can go.” Heat patterns rose from his shadow.

Greatly daring, she reached out a single finger and touched his hand, then jumped away as if she'd touched an oven. “You're hot."

"I had to melt the metal. It wasn't bad. Nothing like what I face most days."

She shook her head. How could anyone endure burning fire for century after century? She would have gone crazy. But, while Jack had a number of crazy ideas, overall, he seemed as sane as anyone she'd ever met.

An idea popped into her mind. “Could you see into the engine or did you have to touch whatever you were adjusting?"

"I could see."

"Is there a distance limitation? I mean, could you see into the earth for thousands of meters?"

"Maybe."

Things were looking up. A talent like that would certainly help in the petroleum engineering and prospecting business. Maybe Jack wasn't here for sex. Maybe he was here to help her get rich. “Let's go to Oklahoma."

"Are you hungry?” Sara's stomach gurgled and she realized she'd completely forgotten breakfast. “We can grab lunch before we hit the lease."

Jack gave her an uncomfortable stare. “Demons don't eat.” His pause sent a chill arrow through her heart. “At least not normal food."

"Not even Mexican?” She wasn't sure which was worse: Jack's implications, or a lifetime without food. For that matter, if anyone had told her yesterday that she'd miss breakfast because of great lovemaking, she would have called them crazy.

He shook his head. “I could try if it bothers you."

"Darned right it bothers me.” She'd feel like an idiot sitting there chowing down while Jack just watched. All she needed was a boyfriend who made her feel like a glutton.

"All right. I can do that."

That handled the first part of her problem. “So what do demons eat?"

"You don't want to know."

Sara felt certain of that. Still, she'd spent the night with Jack and she needed to know the basics. “You don't eat people, do you? Like in that
Twilight Zone
episode?

His eyes held all of the sorrows in the world. “I guess some might eat a person if they had the chance.” He took a breath. “I never have."

"Don't string me out."

"We survive on pain, suffering. That's why we do what we do."

"You mean you can't live without creating misery?” This was more serious than she'd thought—and she'd thought it was pretty serious.

Jack managed a short laugh. “We don't have to create it. That's done for us. Hell creates it naturally. Out here, you people do it for us. It runs around free, sort of like an all-you-can-eat buffet."

"So there isn't a problem.” Sara pulled into a Sammy Delight.

"It isn't that easy. You know what happened with Katra?"

Sara nodded. She was sure she didn't want to hear what Jack had to say about Katra. “Yeah."

"Her wishes backfired. Well, that's how it works. Whatever we do, it changes to shit."

Sara blushed bright red just as a middle-aged man appeared, hitching his oversized overalls over an oversized belly. The man signaled for her to roll down her window.

"Whatcha want?"

"Just a second.” She rolled the car's window back up and turned her attention to Jack. “Don't tell me you're going to turn last night to, uh, manure."

"You had me tied down, remember."

She remembered and blushed again. The man outside must think she was some sort of freak.

"Try to eat, then. I mean food."

Jack shrugged. “From what I've heard about these places, eating here isn't that far different from eating trouble."

Sara shot an elbow into his side. “Hey, I love this kind of food."

A quick menu scan showed no changes since she'd been to her last Sammy Delight the previous week. She rolled the window back down. “A burger and a Diet Coke."

"I think I'd like to try Oysters Rockefeller,” Jack said. “Or maybe caviar. They're supposed to be good."

"You want that kind of pussy food, maybe you should go back to Dallas where you came from,” their waiter growled. “We serve American food."

"Make that two burgers,” Sara told him. “And a large order of cheese fries. And a regular Coke."

"I had my heart set on Oysters Rockefeller,” Jack complained as their waiter headed back to the kitchen. He spoke just loudly enough to be heard and the man turned and started back.

"He's just kidding,” Sara assured him.

"Do you want to tell me what that was all about?” she demanded.

"See what I mean? When you suggested eating, I just thought I'd try some of the things I've heard about. Naturally it turned out wrong."

"You didn't do that on purpose?"

Jack shrugged. “How would I know he'd be sensitive about his menu. You'd think he'd be proud of it or change it."

Sara glared at Jack and tried to assess pros and cons. Sure he was a wonderful lover, but did she really want to spend time with someone who seemed to get into trouble everywhere he went? For that matter, he'd already created problems between herself and Katra.

The man waddled back with a tray he hooked to the Miata window. His hands clenched into fists as Jack reached across Sara to take one of the burgers.

"Thanks, Mister,” Sara blurted. “Keep your mouth shut,” she whispered to Jack.

"You say something to me?” Large and fat seemed aching for a fight.

"I told my friend to keep his mouth shut. I'm tired of his jokes about oysters."

"You and me both, lady."

"That went well,” Jack observed as their waiter headed back to the kitchen.

"Shut up and eat.” It wasn't the greatest comeback, but Sara was hungry. She'd do better later.

Jack bit into his burger and made a face. “People actually eat this?"

"Yeah. It's good."

"It's got four hundred and fifty grams of saturated fat, eight hundred calories, and it was cooked three days ago and warmed up in a microwave."

All of a sudden, the burger didn't look quite so appetizing. “You're making that up."

"No, ma'am."

"Don't try to talk like a Texan. You can't fake it."

"And those, uh, potato things. They have—"

"I don't want to hear this,” Sara announced, covering her ears. She never gained weight so she figured she could choke down a few extra fat grams if she wanted to.

"Right.” He took another bite.

"Well?"

"On a scale of one to ten, it fell off the cliff."

"It grows on you.” She took a bite of her own burger. Despite Jack's concerns, it was delicious. The cheese on the fries had congealed perfectly so she grabbed a wad of those too and stuffed them into her mouth.

"Perhaps for our next meal, we should try oysters Rockefeller,” Jack suggested. “Maybe they're even worse.” He did, Sara noticed, take another bite of the burger. When she offered him the fries, he shook his head with a shudder.

"There's a reason they call them Rockefeller,” she observed. “They're for rich people. Poor folks like me eat burgers."

"Poor?"

"I'm sure not rich."

"Hum. But if we found some petroleum products, you could get rich and we could eat other foods."

"I happen to like this kind of food. And I'm doing this for pay, not to get rich.” Unfortunately. The Texas oil industry had laughed her parents out of it for refusing to give up old-fashioned dousing and nobody had volunteered to stake her despite her science degrees. Someday she'd start her own company, but today wasn't the day.

"Still, if we find something, perhaps we can celebrate tonight with something healthier.

If Sara had her way, she'd celebrate tonight, all right. Not with oysters, though. Neither of them needed any artificial encouragement. Still, Sara couldn't hold back a giggle.

"What?"

"No oysters. Besides, they won't be able to prove out the lease for at least a year."

A cute teen-something blonde emerged from the Sammy Delight and thrust a bag at them.

"I didn't order anything else."

"Huh? Oh. It's on the house.” She seemed completely enraptured with Jack. “If I can get you anything else, just let me know. I get off in a couple of hours."

"That sounds nice,” Jack said.

"Forget it,” Sara corrected. She dumped the tray onto the ground, cranked her ignition, shifted into reverse and accelerated out of the parking lot.

Old and fat headed out after them waving a knife.

"I think that was his daughter,” she observed.

"She seemed friendly. Not like him."

"I'm sure she's real friendly. She wants you between her legs."

Jack nodded. “I saw that the second she noticed me."

"So why did you encourage her?"

Jack looked as if he couldn't fathom Sara's line of question, then his face cleared. “Oh, you were worried that I would damage her. I would make you ward me down first."

Sara bit back an angry shriek, floored the accelerator, and cranked up the volume on her stereo. Demons or humans, men were all the same.

After her late date and the car breakdown, Katra was happy to make it to her first period of classes. She could make up the prep time later.