The Devil's Wife (3 page)

      She nodded. I turned my attention back to her stomach, glancing up now then to make sure she was still awake. With a well-practiced movement, I threaded the needle and wiped off the new blood with a clean towel.

      "My name's Clarissa," she said quietly, each word a groan of pain. "Clarissa Avario."

      I paused for a second and smiled slightly. It was a nice name. I cut the thread and looked up at her. "This is going to hurt, though I don't know if you'll feel it through the pain in your stomach. You've only just avoided catastrophe—the knife missed your organs, your arteries, and everything else that could kill you. Your muscles are a different story, however."

      I picked up a bottle of scotch from the counter and poured two glasses of it. I placed one on the table next to Clarissa's stomach, lifting her head slightly. "This will help ease the pain for you," I said, putting the glass to her lips. "Drink some."

      She swallowed a couple of mouthfuls and made a face. "God, I hate that stuff. It's like liquid fire!"

      I smiled at her, helping her lie back down. "Scotch, or alcohol in general?"

      She smiled indulgently at me, her eyes crossed. "Scotch. I'm not a nun. I was also a teenager at one stage, and that led to many a night out drinking myself unconscious on anything I could afford. From the age of twelve, if my memory serves me."

      "Really?" I lifted an eyebrow at her, taking a sip of the second glass.

      "Yeah, as hard as it is to believe. I'm a vodka girl." She smiled at me, which I took to be a bad sign, judging from her first reaction to my presence. She might have been going loopy with blood loss.

      I smiled, then warned her, "This'll sting." I poured the scotch into her wound and quickly wiped off the unmarred skin around the laceration. She cursed and yelped, her back arching with the sting, but I held her down.

      "Jesus Christ!" Clarissa cursed, startling me. "I knew the Devil was a bastard, but that's going too far! I won't get to Hell for a while yet, so you can save the fucking torture for then!"

      I snickered, then laugh, falling back against the

cupboard as she glared at me.

      "What?" she demanded irritably, slightly cross-eyed. The restorative healing I was doing on her must have taken, or she wouldn't be so lively.

      I tried to rein in my laughter, sniffling and setting to work on sewing together the muscles in her stomach, giggling occasionally. "Nothing, you just startled me, that's all. 'Devil's a bastard' indeed..."

      She glared at me again, the corner of her mouth twitching in pain every now and then. "Yeah, well, you scared the shit out of me when you revealed yourself! I thought for sure I was dead, that he'd hit something vital that killed me without me knowing it. Ah!"

      "Don't be silly. You're in too much pain to be dead." I tied off the thread, poking the needle through the leg of my jeans so I wouldn't lose it. I grabbed a small pile of the gauze and gently stuffed it into the wound, where it would soak up the excess fluid and keep the wound open. That way I could keep an eye on the stitches in her muscles as they healed. It wouldn't do to trust blindly in the human body's healing ability.

      When the wound was packed, I pressed another piece of gauze against the wound and made her hold it there, helping her to sit up on the table. She sat gingerly and took the cut-up shirt off completely, swaying and unfocussed.

      I pressed a second soft cotton dressing against the gauze to protect the wound and starting to wrap a bandage around her mid-section. I frowned as I wrapped the gauze around her stomach, using my magic to find the cut in a vein spouting all the blood in her abdomen. I cauterized it with a sniff of magic. She groaned and grabbed her stomach, but that burning pain was gone within a few seconds, overtaken by the other pains.

      "Sorry, I'm—I've never patched up a human before," I apologized, glancing at her face. I grabbed a second bandage to add over the top of the other one, reinforcing the wrapping.

      "It's okay." She looked up at me as I worked, securing the bandages to her waist. "Thank you for your help," she slurred.

      "You really must be loopy from the blood loss, being so nice to me after your original reaction." I smiled at her. "Hang on and I'll get you a new shirt. You can't wear that one; it's soaked with your blood."

      She nodded, swaying slightly on the table. I walked quickly from the kitchen, heading for my bedroom, where I spent the days sleeping, reading or thinking. I ruffled through the chest of drawers, pulling out a black button-up shirt that I'd never worn before. I headed back out to the kitchen to find that she was still sitting there, examining the appliances with slightly crossed eyes.

      I smiled, relieved she had stayed. "Usually humans run when I leave the room. Something to do with my reputation, I think."

      I helped her pull the shirt on, careful about stretching the wound and lifting her arms gently. She tried to do the buttons up but her fingers were too clumsy, so I ended up doing them up for her.

      "So you do this often?" she asked, pushing off against me in an attempt to stand. "You'd have to in order to say that humans run when you leave them unguarded in a room."

      "No, you're the first human who's seen where I live."

      I helped her off the table, holding her up as she made her way to my couch. The light was still on from my search for the needle and thread, and I helped her over to the long leather couch. She sank down gratefully into it, her skin still pale. I frowned and used my magic to stimulate the marrow in her bones so that it would start producing more blood than usual. Blood flooded her face as her veins filled, slowly rebuilding her strength. I had no idea when the shock would pass, so I decided that she needed something in her stomach in case her body crashed.

      "Do you want something to eat or drink?" I asked, kneeling down in front of her and adjusting pillows to make her more comfortable.

      She nodded, leaning back against the couch. "Something strong would be good. Maybe then I can get out of this painful nightmare."

      I nodded, slightly insulted, and stood up. "I'll grab you a drink and make you something to eat."

      "Okay. Hey, do you even eat?"

      She's not trying to be offensive, she's just curious, I told myself. "Yes, but I don't have to. I like eating, it breaks up the day."

      "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Are you sure you're the Devil? I thought he was a smart, crafty bastard who lived underground and would have helped the Hellraisers tonight rather than killed them."

      I shook my head at her, frowning slightly. "Please don't call me 'the Devil.' My name is Lucifer. Not Satan, not Prince of Darkness. Lucifer. And I'm no less human than you are. Who do you think taught the humans to be all that they could be? God? The Angels?" I laughed sourly. "If God and His Angels had their way, humans would still be building pyramids in an effort to reach the stars. If they were doing anything more than sleeping in trees, that is."

      I stood up, heading into the kitchen. I could feel her eyes on me as I rounded the corner, grabbing a fresh glass and filling it with juice from my fridge. A splash of vodka innocently made its way into the glass as I walked into the living room.

      "I didn't mean to offend you. I know the kind of shit you could do to me if I did, even by accident," she mumbled, watching me. She was still slurring, as though she was drunk.

      "You don't know anything about me, Clarissa. Here." I handed her the glass and helped her steady it. She was trembling, still in shock. "You didn't lose as much blood as I thought, but I'm restoring your blood volume anyway. You came very close to being dead."

      "Thanks, I think." She took another sip. "So what am I going to owe you for this? Because I have to say, my immortal soul's already heading for Hell, anyway. Against my wish, but that's life."

      "You obviously haven't been watching the news. You're in Hell," I growled, depressed again. Well, the idea of a companion was good...while it lasted. "You should get some rest. I'll go and make up your bed."

      I headed into my bedroom, starting to strip the bed and lay out new sheets for her. I threw the sheets around energetically, trying to let my anger out physically rather than use my magic and risk burning them.

      "I'm sorry, Lucifer," Clarissa said from the doorway, startling me. "I didn't mean to cause you offence again. I know you could send me straight to Hell if you wanted, and I'm trying very much to avoid that."

      "You don't know anything, Clarissa," I snapped. "I should be used to people thinking I'm after their souls when I turn up. I don't send people to Hell just because they annoy me. I don't have that power. I'm just so sick and tired of people treating me as though I'm an alien species. Humans were born, adapted and grew from me and those I call my family: the Grigori. We're no fucking different from the Angels or the goddamn humans. It's all in your fucking minds."

      I tugged the sheet straight and grabbed the blanket, stripping it and putting a new cover on it. I snorted in angry laughter as I lifted the mattress and tucked the blanket in. "You know, He would be very annoyed to find out that you were apologizing to me. He doesn't think so well of me anymore. Not that He ever did," I added under my breath.

      "Who?" she asked timidly, a hand on her stomach.

      I turned to her and lifted my eyebrows, pointing at the ceiling. "Him. The obsessive-compulsive patient that you call God. Jehovah."

      "Oh."

      There was quiet in the room as I headed for the linen press, grabbing a couple of pillowcases.

      "You don't have to do this," Clarissa said, resting her head on the doorframe and closing her eyes. "I can sleep on the—"

      "You're not sleeping on the couch. For one, you're a guest. For another, you're injured, and for the last, you're a woman. None of those three ends up on my couch. That's reserved for me."

      She looked uncertain, as though worried about what sleeping in my bed would mean. I knew it meant nothing, but that's not what she'd think. Humans were so protective of themselves; it was amazing they ever did anything at all, rather than risk themselves in something.

      I smiled, shaking my head at her as I put a new case on the pillow. "I told you before, I'm not going to hurt you. I won't touch you unless you're in pain, you fall asleep in an

uncomfortable place, or you ask me to."

      "Why are you doing all this?" she asked, half asleep. "You don't know me."

      I smiled over at her as her eyes fluttered closed. "Because I'm alone and I desperately need a friend. And, at the moment, you're the only option I have."

      "Oh," she breathed, and passed out.

      I caught her before she hit the floor and carried her over to the bed, putting her down and gently easing the sheets up over her body. She didn't move, and I checked her breathing. Her chest was still moving, but her pulse was a little rushed. I frowned and gave her another pillow before walking to the door.

      I turned to Clarissa again, watching her sleep in my bed. My, but she is the very image of my Sera. Her brown hair was the same, and, when she snored slightly, she made the same noise Sera used to make when I watched her sleep. I shook my head, sobering slightly.

      Sera was gone. There was no doubt about that. I'd seen the remains of what was once her body when I went searching for her. There was no chance that she would have made it through the last five thousand years without me finding her. She wouldn't have spent all that time without looking for me.

      At least, that's what I hoped.

      I took my favorite pillow from the doorway, grabbing a second blanket from the linen cupboard. The couch was long enough for me to use it as a bed, so I wouldn't be uncomfortable sleeping on it for a week, let alone the couple of nights it would take Clarissa to feel up to traveling.

Aspen Grigori

      There was something wrong. Clarissa never wandered the city this late at night, even when she was out clubbing. If she knew she'd be out late, she'd tell me. She was supposed to have come straight home from work this afternoon, to make me dinner and watch a couple of movies with me.

      I paced around the living room, from the couch to the kitchen to her bedroom and back, cursing under my breath as I went. I shook myself as a cold breeze from an open window ran up my back, ruffling my hair. I cursed again and ran to the window, using all the force I could muster to pull the glass down.

      Stupid window. Why did she even open it? I muttered to myself.