The Devil's in the Details (15 page)

Um, yeah. I could practically feel the sexual tension crackling over the phone line.

“I meant
lucky
as in a lead on Azazel,” I told her. “I have to find out if he’s here or Down Under.”

“Agarth knows this demon over in the Motherland—” i.e., Italy “—who’s in charge of keeping the archives on all the ancient spirits. He tracks everyone. Documents, possessions, et cetera. Agarth has a call in to him to see if he knows anything about Azazel.”

“I didn’t know we had archives.”

“
We
don’t. The archives were started by this brotherhood of theologians about a zillion years ago. The job’s been handed down over the years. The most recent guy in charge choked on a meatball last year, and just as his spirit took a hike a demon by the name of Rathenbubzer checked in. He’s been keeping tabs on all the oldies but goodies for the past six months now.”

“Including Azazel?” Hope filled my voice as I set the doggie bowl down and opened the gate for Snooki. She yapped (when did she not yap?) and growled at me until I backed away and left her to her dinner.

“Maybe. Rath’s still new to the whole record-keeping system. He said it might take him a few weeks to track Azazel through the endless pages of documentation. They’re old school and still haven’t managed to computerize.”

“A few
weeks
?” Panic welled.

Easy. Calm. It’s not the end of your life here on earth.

“Or a few months.”

Bye-bye, cupcakes and cable TV.

A golf-ball-size lump pushed into my throat, and I reached for a bag of Chips Ahoy sitting on the counter. “But my mother’s wedding is in two weeks,” I said in between cookies. “If I don’t hand over Azazel before then, Cutter will chop off her head.”

Blythe grew silent, making the thunderous crunch of the store-bought treats more pronounced. “Maybe you can persuade him to give you more time?” she finally said.

I swallowed with a loud gulp. “I’m totally going down. In flames.”

“Maybe not,” she said, jumping in to cheer me up in true BFF fashion. “You’ve been known to work a little magic with the opposite sex. Maybe you
could
persuade Cutter to give you more time.”

But while Cutter Owens might be attracted to me, I knew he didn’t
want
to be attracted to me. Which meant he had his guard up. Which meant I might as well be a green alien with three eyeballs in the middle of my forehead. “Can’t Rath move any faster?”

“He’s trying, but the last theologian was so old that he was still writing in ancient Hebrew when Rath took over. He’ll have to find a translator to decipher the records.” Her voice grew softer. “You might want to think of a plan B.”

My plan B consisted of more Chips Ahoy, a box of Kleenex (what? A demon can’t cry?), and an evening with Google.

I knew it was a long shot, but I was desperate. I needed something—anything—that might lead me to the ancient demon.

The good news? There were over two hundred thousand references to Azazel.

The bad news? There were over
two hundred thousand
references. Everything from Wikipedia definitions to several black magic spells guaranteed to summon an ancient demon ($9.99 or your money back).

I spent most of the night clicking one by one, soaking up all of the information, however crazy or sparse, desperate for any clue that might lead me to his whereabouts. I spent a ridiculous amount of money purchasing a few spells, complete with a bottle of virgin’s blood and overnight shipping.

I know, I know.

The odds that I was forking over money for the real thing were slim to none, but it was the best I could come up with. I couldn’t just sit around waiting for Blythe to find me a lead.

Failure was not an option.

That’s what I kept telling myself. But when I finally fell asleep, my dreams were filled with dancing virgins, barking dogs, and Cutter coming after me with his giant sword (and I don’t mean that in a good way).

I was so screwed.

I woke up with a major sugar hangover (what’s new?), a great big mound of guilt (get thee behind me, Chips Ahoy), eight urgent phone messages from Delaney, who insisted on changing the table linens—all five hundred of them—and my cousin Monique looming over me because I’d been so busy googling that I’d forgotten to spread my No Demon powder across the windowsills and thresholds before dozing off on the couch.

“Do you know that you drool when you sleep?”

“No, but thanks for passing that along.”

“You snore, too, and not in a cute, fluffy sort of way. You really let it rip—”

“What are you doing here?” I cut in, scrambling upright. Crumbs flew and the remote took a nosedive to the floor.

“The real question is”—she swept a gaze around at the circle of burned-down candles sitting center stage in my small living room—“what are you doing here?”

“I was, um…” My brain raced for something to say, and not very fast since it was early and I hadn’t had a shot of caffeine. “That is, I was just summoning Tylechanezer.” The ancient demon’s name popped into my head courtesy of the bottle of Tylenol sitting on my nightstand. “For my mom’s bachelorette party. She wants to get wild, so I thought we could have him jump out of a cake.”

It was a lame excuse, but Monique seemed to buy it.

“Good idea, but wouldn’t it be easier to just text him? He’s been living in Chicago for the past ten years. Occupying a really hot body from what I understand, so I’m sure your mom will be happy.” She gave me an odd look. “A conjure spell only works if a demon is Down Under. You should know that.”

Duh. Talk about Demon 101. The thing was, it had been so long since I’d actually sat through Demon 101 that I’d sorta, kinda forgotten a lot of the dos and don’ts.

“I’ll e-mail his number.” Her mouth drew into a tight line as she eyed me. “Then again, you probably won’t open my e-mail because you never open my e-mail. I tried calling you too, but you haven’t called me back.” She stared at me as if she were about to hand over the fate of all mankind. “I need you to bring the brownies.”

“Brownies?” I pushed to my feet and sidestepped a wayward candle. “What? When? Where?” A sleepy fog still gripped my brain, and I did a quick visual for a leftover Diet Coke on the nearby coffee table. Caffeine would be good right about now.

“Brownies,” she prodded as I stumbled toward the kitchen. She stalled in the doorway and cast a sideways glance at Snooki pacing behind the doggie fence blocking off the bathroom. The animal barked and growled, and Monique glared. “For the baby shower, remember?”

“I’m sorry. I meant to call. I can’t make it this Saturday.” I sent up a silent litany of thanks. “I’ve got a wedding.”

“Which is why we switched it to Thursday afternoon. One o’clock.” She bypassed a snarling Snooki and walked toward the counter where I stood. “You really haven’t been reading my e-mail.”

“My server’s been down,” I murmured, desperately trying to digest this new piece of information.
Moved? To Thursday?

“Now back to the brownies. Hester positively loves them. And so does everyone else. So we have to make sure we have plenty. I’m
thinking a full dozen for each person there. That puts us at”—she glanced at the iPad in her hands—“eighty dozen.”

“Thursday?” I mumbled, still stuck on her earlier news.
This
Thursday? Without a major shot of caffeine it was a little difficult to keep up. “But today is Tuesday.” My head snapped up and my gaze collided with hers. “That means tomorrow is Wednesday. Followed by Thursday.” Anxiety zapped me and blood started pumping even before I popped the top on my Diet Coke. “But that gives me barely forty-eight hours to make a zillion brownies.”

She shrugged. “You should have read the e-mail. Or at least checked the Facebook page that I designed for the event.” She beamed. “Talk about cuteness.”

“I can only imagine.” I downed a can of soda while Monique slid into a kitchen chair and chattered on about the baby shower for my cousin Hester. Ugh. It was just so wrong on about a million different levels.

Number one? I couldn’t stand Hester—one of Aunt Bella’s brood—when she wasn’t expecting. Add a bunch of raging hormones and swollen ankles and three solid hours listening to her brag about everything from her shoes to the size of her husband’s penis and I could safely say she was my least favorite relative.

If Hester’s company wasn’t bad enough, a baby shower meant all of my kin stuffed into one location—in this case the penthouse apartment of the Galleria Towers. Which meant my aunt Bella would bring her usual pickled eyeballs and my cousin Dahlia would talk nonstop about her own set of twins and then everyone else would want to know why I didn’t have a baby on the way, including my mother, who was sure to be front and center, reminding me that my specialty was the big S and I should have two dozen of my own little illegitimate demons running around by now. And who knew? Maybe I’d be the one to break the curse and finally birth a boy.

Like that was going to happen.

I knew that was next to impossible, and you would think after more than seventy-two female births, the rest of my aunts and cousins would know it too. But obviously optimism is alive and thriving in the Damon clan.

Case in point—Hester had registered for an all-blue layette complete with a miniature cowboy outfit, baseball-themed nursery sheets, and a sterling silver football ready to be engraved with the new baby’s name.

Hargathonarazmas.
That had been the name listed on the powder-blue invitations.

Welcome Baby Hargie!

“So that’s eighty dozen brownies, and don’t forget a baby gift,” Monique told me. “I’m getting the baby a miniature Dallas Cowboys football uniform, complete with tiny helmet.”

“But what if it’s a girl?” What can I say? With a demon slayer hot on my tail and my livelihood hanging in the balance with my mom, I was fresh out of optimism at the moment.

“It’s not a girl.” Monique gave me a narrowed look that promised retribution if I didn’t jump on board the XY-chromosome train.

“Did she see the sex on the ultrasound?” What? I was already on the
Demons’ Most Wanted
list, being tormented by my big bad aunties. Monique, a lower-level demon who specialized in slow grocery clerks and long wait lines at the DMV, was the least of my worries.

“Everybody knows you can’t trust those ultrasound thingies.” She waved a hand. “If Hester thinks it’s a boy, that’s good enough for me. Now about the brownies…” She spent the next fifteen minutes giving me specific instructions on the size she wanted each brownie square and what type of serving platters to bring and how high to pile the plates and what color doilies to use.

“That’s
powder
blue,” she told me. “Not baby blue. Or cornflower blue. And don’t even think about showing up with azure.”

Yep, you guessed it. It isn’t just optimism that runs rampant in our family. We’re also a bunch of OCD pain-in-the-asses.

“Don’t forget,” she went on. “You need to be there two hours early.”

“Got it.” I downed the last of my Diet Coke and glanced at the clock. A bolt of panic went through me. I had two dress fittings, three cake tastings, and a meeting with Cheryl to go over the guest list, and I was already forty-five minutes late.

“I really have to get going.” I ushered Monique toward the door. “But thanks for stopping by.”

“Don’t forget the brownies,” she blurted before I slammed the door in her face.

As if.

I might be guilty of lots of things. Too many one-night stands. A little creative Photoshopping on my Facebook pic. Slipping a Valium into Snooki’s nightly kibble. Okay, that last one I’d only thought about. But still. I made mistakes.

But forgetting a mountain of chocolate?

I was stressed, not crazy.

“Here’s the guest list.” Cheryl handed me the neatly typed pages when she walked into the office a few hours later, where I was neck-deep in momzilla wedding details.

I was flying solo that morning since Andrew and Burke were finishing last-minute errands for a vow renewal we had planned for this Saturday, complete with a Friday night dinner party at the Waldorf Astoria. An event that was completely under control. Unlike my mother’s extravaganza. Sure, it was taking shape. Slowly. But slow wasn’t good enough. I needed fast.