Luck of the Devil (22 page)

“Shut up.”

“So,” my mother said, and cleared her throat awkwardly. “The Angale didn’t know about this until it hit the Internet?”

“CNN,” Matt corrected. “The first calls I received came after the CNN report.”

“CNN?” I asked, stunned. “We were on CNN?”

“Yeah, it was breaking news while they speculated about domestic terrorism.”

“And now?”

“Everyone’s holding with the same story,” Tolliver said.

“They reported that federal agents had been called in when explosives were found in a local Pittsburgh apartment building,” Malachi said.

“But,” Matt said. “The important thing is the Angale had no idea what was going to happen until it hit the news.”

“That you know of,” Jesus said.

“Trust me, if anyone was planning anything, Mom would have known about it,” Matt said. “And they wouldn’t have dared mess with my car.”

“But… ” Dad glared at him, his eyes full of skepticism.

“Which one is your mother again?” the Alpha asked.

“Valerie Andrews,” Matt mumbled and kept his eyes focused on his lap.

“No, no, I highly doubt they would have tried anything without Valerie knowing about it,” the Alpha said. “She’s a rather formidable woman, you could say. Don’t you agree?”

“I had heard that,” Dad said. “So we know it wasn’t the Angale.”

“That means Levi has gone rogue,” Matt said. “Whatever he’s doing he’s doing it alone.”

“Not necessarily,” Lisa said. “What if he didn’t steal someone’s powers, but borrowed them? Like he’s got an accomplice or something?”

“But what demon is going to willingly share his powers with the Angale?” Jesus asked.

“One that doesn’t want to be a demon anymore,” I said, and looked at Hope. “Someone who’s fallen up.”

“I’ll kill him,” Hope growled. “I swear I will murder him, chop him up into little bitty pieces, put him back together, resurrect him, and kill him again.”

Chapter Twenty-six

“Mrs. Andrews? Mrs. Dreborsky?” A man in a rumpled black suit knocked on our open doorjamb. “I’m Federal Agent Hahn. How are you two feeling?”

“Okay, all things considered,” I said. At least everybody had left a couple of hours ago so Hope and I could rest.

Hope sighed. She should have known there was no way we were going to escape this without at least a little police involvement. “Oh, yeah, everything’s just fine. What with the blowing up and everything.”

The agent grimaced, stealing a quick glance behind him.

I craned my next to peek around him and noticed two younger men in black uniforms sitting in the hallway. Great. A mortal police presence. Because they would be so helpful in dealing with an immortal sicko intent on world domination.

“We’ve added a protective guard to your rooms,” Agent Hahn said. “It’s an extra precaution while we try to work this out. You’re going to be perfectly safe.”

“I’m sure we will be.” Hope rolled her eyes and sighed.

“Well.” He sat in the chair my father had been in earlier. “I wanted to stop by and see what the two of you could tell me about what happened today. And I wanted to get your opinions on some other things we’ve found out recently.”

“Other things?” I asked.

“We’ll get to that later,” he said with a tense smile. “What I would like now is if the two of you could tell me what happened today?”

“We were having a family lunch,” I said, and launched into the details of the afternoon.

He listened without speaking the entire time, sometimes scribbling in his pad, other times crossing his legs and nodding thoughtfully. When I finished, he ticked down his notes and turned to Hope. “Do you have anything to add, Ms. Dreborsky?”

“No.”

“All right, then. Let me make sure I have everything straight. Lunch included the two of you, Mrs. Andrews’ husband, Matt—”

Why bother to correct him?

“—your father, Louis Morningstar, your mother, Roisin Bettincourt, your brother, Tolliver Morningstar, a Miss Lisa DeMarcos? How is she related to the family?”

“That’s my roommate and my brother Tolliver’s girlfriend,” I said.

“Right.” He jotted in his notebook. “And another woman, a Miss Mallory Kai?”

“She’s a friend of the family,” Hope said.

“So, you were having a family lunch and you went outside. Tell me again what happened next?”

“We were walking back to our cars and there was an explosion. Suddenly, it was really loud and hot and there were bits of pavement falling everywhere. And then I passed out,” I said.

“I remember Dad’s car going up,” Hope added. “I reached my brother’s car first, and when I got there, I heard the explosion and turned to see that Dad’s car was in flames. I heard this tiny click sound and then everything blew up.”

“I see. So neither of you really remember much else?”

“Beyond the fact someone tried to kill us?” Hope said. “No, not really, we’ve been a bit fixated on that.”

“Can you think of any reason that someone would want to put explosives in your cars?”

“I have a stalker,” I said. A really stupid stalker. “I’m sure you’ve found the pictures.”

“We have, and I do have to wonder why you haven’t reported this before now. Do you have an idea of who it is?”

“I have no idea,” I said. “I just figured it was some sicko trying to scare me, and when he saw I wasn’t giving him any attention, he’d just leave me alone. Sort of like a bully.”

“Are you suspicious of someone? You filed a complaint against a professional colleague last week. Do you think he might have something to do with this?”

“Harold?” It was tempting to lay the blame on him and get the police to chase a dead lead while my father and the Alpha handled Levi, but I couldn’t do that to him. Sure, he was annoying, but for a ghost he really wasn’t that bad. Especially since he’d apparently been right—there was a creepy guy stalking me. “Harold is a lot of things, including an ass-grabber, but he’s not a crazy stalker with a penchant for things that go boom.”

“And you don’t think he could have snapped?”

“He does surgery on children. I’m pretty sure that at some point along the way, he’s snapped at least once. But no, this isn’t Harold. He’s a creep and a perv, but he isn’t a killer. This wasn’t him.”

“So, if it’s not him, who is it?”

“Who knows?” I said. Why couldn’t he just get bored and go find the nearest donut shop already? How many more ways did I need to be unhelpful before he went somewhere else to look for answers?

“Why would she?” Hope said. “Do you think my sister is really going to understand the mind of a stalker?”

“No, but it’s rare for someone to escalate from stalking to attempted mass murder within a few days. And most stalkers don’t use explosives.”

“What? Would you be more comfortable with the situation if he’d shown up and beat her up a few times first? Would it be better for your simple mind if he’d have shown up and shot her instead? Would that fit in with your teeny-tiny world view better?” Hope stunned him with her attack. He’d go with any story she fed him now, if nothing else than to keep her from yelling at him again.

“Mrs. Dreborsky, I never meant to suggest—”

“You never meant to do anything. This is what it is. Faith has a crazy stalker who tried to kill her, and you want to dick around to see if there’s some other motive to make you look better on CNN. You need one of us to be an abortion doctor, or a lawyer who defends pedophiles, or even the guy at the bank who signs the foreclosure notices. You need us to be someone who ‘deserves’ to be blown up while we go about our daily lives.”

“Mrs—”

“You are not speaking yet,” Hope said and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She stood up and loomed over him, then jabbed her finger into his chest. Uh-oh. He was going to be lucky to get out of here in one piece. “You will speak when I tell you that you are allowed to speak again.”

“But—”

“I didn’t give you permission to speak,” she snarled. “Now, we are a nice, quiet, respectable family that hasn’t done anything to anyone. We go to work, we pay our taxes, and we keep to ourselves. Faith’s a pediatric nurse, for fuck’s sake. And until last week, I didn’t even live in Pittsburgh; I was working for a community organization in Idaho. Her roommate is a nurse at a community health center. We are like every other nameless, faceless family in this city. The only difference is today someone tried to blow us up and you’re trying to make us the bad guys in this mess.”

“I’m not—”

“That’s right. You’re not a lot of things. One of those is welcome in this room anymore. Get out.”

“I’m sorry to have upset you,” Agent Hahn said stiffly. He rose and nodded toward me, and then at Hope, before backing quickly toward the door. “There’s a police presence outside.”

“Get out,” Hope said, her voice cold.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. Not like he was paying me any attention, anyway.

“I’ll be in touch if we need anything else,” he said, and hurried through the door.

Hope followed, and slammed it decisively in the police officers’ faces.

“Community service group?” I asked.

“Too much?” she said and stalked back to her bed, throwing herself across it and flinging out her hands.

“A bit,” I said and smiled, lying against the flat pillows.

“It got him out of here, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, but don’t you think he’s going to be suspicious?”

“No, he’ll write me off as an irrational and traumatized little woman whose first defense is to get bitchy. And you know he was looking for an angle to spin this. You didn’t have to be able to read his every thought to see that one written on his face.”

“So, you think Levi thought we’d just write him off as some screwy stalker and let the police handle it?”

“No,” Hope said thoughtfully, and slipped back into her own bed. “I think he didn’t intend for any of us to survive. I don’t know where he got the idea a car bomb would kill the Devil, but I really think that’s what he intended. He wanted to kill us and bask in the glory of starting a great war between the forces of good and evil. If he’d succeeded he’d have been the nephilim who destroyed the Morningstar bloodline.”

“But why not just do it in person? Why hide behind a bomb? Why not just raise an army and declare war?”

“Because what if they wouldn’t rally behind him? What if the Alpha didn’t reward him, but punished him instead? Even worse, what if he failed? With a bomb, he could slink into the background and distance himself from the stench of failure.”

“That’s… ”

“Cowardly?”

“Sort of sad,” I said.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for him,” Hope said darkly. “He tried to kill us.”

“I don’t,” I replied. We both knew I was lying, but it didn’t change anything. “But you heard Matt—his own father didn’t care about him. He’s the runt of the litter.”

“So?”

“And some demoness stole his powers. That had to be humiliating. He’s some poor, screwed up kid who thinks we somehow have the ability to give his power back.”

“That doesn’t change the fact he’s been stalking you. Or that he tried to kill us.”

“It doesn’t, but what if he was trying to get back what was his?”

“Then why go after you? You didn’t take the little loser’s power. It wasn’t you who tied him to the bed and—”

“Oh, Hope.” I should have known she had some part to play in this.

“What?”

“You didn’t?” Why was I asking? Of course she did.

“Didn’t what?”

“Hope, did you take Levi’s powers?”

“What makes you think I did?”

“Because Matt only told us a demoness stole Levi’s powers. Not that she tied him to a bed and stole them while they were having sex.”

“I wouldn’t dream of having sex with him. I’d have needed a magnifying glass to even find it.”

“Hope,” I said, and stared at her. “Did you steal Levi’s powers? Tell me the truth.”

“It wasn’t like there was much to steal, anyway.”

“Hope,” I cried.

“Yes, okay?” she said. “I got him drunk in a bar, took him to a hotel room, tied him to the bed, and swiped his miniscule and completely irrelevant powers. I was hungry, he was there, and that’s what we do. Demoness, remember?”

“Yes, when it comes to souls,” I said. “But you didn’t swipe Levi’s soul. You took his powers.”

“I was buzzing, and I needed a little pick-me-up. You know what it’s like sharing powers, what it feels like when you tap someone else and draw it into you.”

“But you took his powers.”

“
You
try to do it wasted on watermelon margaritas.”

“You didn’t take them on purpose, did you?” I asked warily. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had. Hope was not someone to let that type of opportunity pass her by.

“No, I was drunk and trying them out and I felt this sort of resistance to my manipulations so I sort of tugged a little harder on the connection, and it snapped.”

“So you bolted?”

“I stole a nephilim’s powers. Of course I bolted. It wasn’t like I knew how to give them back on my own, and I wasn’t about to call Dad and tell him what I did. That was right after I had that incident at Berkeley, remember?”

“The three-day-long frat house debauchery where someone accidentally set the house on fire? Yeah, I remember.” Who didn’t? It was one of Hope’s few public screwups. I’d gotten traction off it for months.

“I couldn’t tell him he was going to have to get the Alpha involved.”

“So you bolted and hoped no one would notice?”

“Well it worked pretty well up till now, hasn’t it? But do me a favor, okay?”

“What?”

“Don’t tell Dad? Please? Just between us sisters? I really don’t want him mad at me right now.”

“Yeah, sure. Because the whole keeping-secrets thing has been working so well for us lately,” I said.

“So you will? Keep it secret, I mean.”

“Of course I will,” I said with a sigh. “I mean, what’s the worst that can happen now? He’s already tried to kill us and we saw how well that worked.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

A few hours later, a nurse came in with a mild sedative we faked swallowing, then flushed down the toilet.

“I should feel guilty about the improper disposal of medication. But I don’t.”

“It would have been a waste to give them to us, anyway.” Hope came back from the bathroom and wiped her hand on the scrubs the hospital had let us borrow.

“And would you want to take them if they did?”

She shrugged. “Not really.”

I pressed the button to lower the head of my bed before reaching to flip off my bedside light. “By now Levi probably knows he didn’t succeed in killing us. You know he’s going to try again and, no matter what Agent Hahn thinks, a police presence isn’t going to stop him.”

“The hospital would be the best place for him to try.” Hope snapped off her own light and we lay together in the darkness. “If he tries to move against us anywhere else, we can contain him until we’re somewhere private. I wouldn’t want to face the Alpha in private, would you?”

“You’re worried about the Alpha? Levi tried to kill Dad.” I shook my head and tried to relax. It wasn’t the boogeyman out to get us, it was a lone nephilim with an attitude problem. Okay, a lone nephilim with an attitude problem and explosives, but still.

“Exactly,” Hope said with a dry laugh. “Dad isn’t going to have a chance at him. No, my money is on the Alpha taking him apart in ways Dad can’t even imagine.”

“Really?”

“He has a vengeful streak,” Hope said. “Especially when it comes to Dad. They’re the only two of their kind—they need each other to stay even somewhat sane. If one of them had responsibility for everything, they’d go mad.”

“I guess. It’s just hard to imagine Him being the vengeful one.” I wasn’t sure why the idea of a vengeful God bothered me, as there was plenty of historical precedent, but it did. For some reason Dad was supposed to be the badass of the two, and his brother was supposed to be more of a lovable, goofy uncle who let you eat cookie dough for dinner.

“What about Boris, though? Do you really think he’s a part of it?”

She tossed and turned on her bed, trying to get comfortable. It had to suck knowing your husband was trying to kill you. “I don’t know anything going on with him anymore. Six months ago, he was fully committed to who and what he was. If someone like Levi would have suggested he kill me and overthrow Dad, he’d have personally escorted him to Hell and asked permission to take the lunatic apart. But now? I don’t know.”

“But what does your gut tell you?”

“I don’t want to believe that the man I loved, who I thought loved me, would try to kill my entire family and me. But I remember when he told the cult about our scam, and how they could have tried to kill us. They were lunatics with an armory, who found out we were trying to cheat them out of money and their chance at Hell. He couldn’t have known they wouldn’t kill us. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.”

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do about it right now. If he’s a part of it, Dad and the Alpha will find him, and I don’t know if you’ll be able to stop them once they have him.”

“I don’t know if I want to.”

“Really?”

“No.” Hope and I had never been much on girl talk, but if there was ever a time to start, now would be it. “I’d probably beg Dad to take mercy on him.”

“Mercy? The Demonic Nephilim, Hope Bettincourt Morningstar Dreborsky, would ask for the mercy of another? Who are you, and what have you done with our Hope?”

“Shut up.” She snorted. “Yes, I’d ask for mercy. I do love him, after all. Even now, when I think he’s helped someone try to kill me. I should hate him, and part of me really, really hates him but—”

“It’s hard not to love him?”

“Yeah.” She sniffled, and grabbed a tissue from the box on the nightstand between us.

The sky outside filled with clouds, and I bit my lower lip. If we were lucky, Pittsburgh would only suffer a minor, crying-related storm tonight.

“I still love him, even though it means I’m a complete idiot.”

“I don’t think it makes you an idiot.” Even though what she was suggesting
was
idiotic. “I think it’s the human part of us taking over.”

She sniffled and blew her nose. “Yeah, the idiot part.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But it’s a little spark of humanity the rest of them don’t have. It’s why we thrive in the Earthly realm.”

“And they stand out like crazy-ass freaks?”

“I’d have said like sore thumbs, but crazy-ass freaks covers it. Think about Boris’s suits, for example.”

“Hey,” she choked, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, “it could have been worse.”

“Worse than gigolo suits?” I raised my eyebrows and waited for her to explain how it could have been worse than those travesties of men’s fashion.

“The suits themselves weren’t bad,” Hope insisted. “I mean, find me a man that looks bad in Zegna and Armani. He doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter how ugly a man is. Put him in a good suit and he’s beating women off with a stick. Boris’s problem was the shiny satin shirts.”

“Yeah, the shirts ruined the entire appearance you were going for.”

“They were a compromise,” Hope huffed. “I gave in on the shirts if he promised to wear them underneath the suits, because the alternative was so much worse.”

“Alternative?”

Hope shuddered. “Polyester. So much polyester I felt dirty just throwing his wardrobe away. I burned it instead.”

“You burned his clothes?”

“The local shelter refused everything except his winter coat. Even the homeless wouldn’t wear them. So I convinced him the suits made him look good. I had to compromise on the shirts, though.”

“He needed a tiny bit of disco, huh?”

Two loud thumps sounded in the hallway and both of us bolted upright.

“It wasn’t as bad as the two of you are making out,” Boris said from the darkened doorway.

There went that awesome mortal police presence. Forget my donation to next year’s police fund.

“Boris?” Hope said. “I really don’t want to know this, but what are you doing here?”

“I’m here to kill Faith, obviously. Hi, Faith.” He wiggled his fingers in a dainty wave.

“Hi,” I said. “Is there a reason you’re here to kill me? Not to sound mean, but shouldn’t you be going after Hope? She is your wife. Or Tolliver? Someone higher up the food chain from me? Dad, maybe?”

“I agree with you.” Boris nodded and stepped into the room. “But Brother Ev—”

“I don’t think we need to keep the pretense up any longer,” another voice announced from the darkness.

I tried to peer around Boris’s meaty shoulders to see the man hiding in the darkened doorway.

A much shorter, more slender, man stepped forward, tugging on the sleeves of his ugly Western shirt. Harold had been right—he looked like a weasel. “I’m sure Sister Hope has figured out the connection.”

“Well, I haven’t,” I said. “And since you intend to kill me, I would really like to know. I think the not knowing who you are and how we’re connected before you go through with killing me and stripping me of my powers would just kill… um, never mind.”

“Humorous.” The man nodded. “I knew there was a reason my brother was so fond of you. He always did like a funny girl.”

“That’s me, a laugh a minute, right here in one semi-human body. Jokes, impersonations if you want, dry humor, and sarcasm is my specialty.”

“Shut up,” he said curtly. “He did finally tell you we’re brothers, didn’t he?”

“Matt told us everything about you,” Hope said. “Let me guess. Boris put a glamour on you as a disguise so I wouldn’t recognize you as an immortal?”

“And since he’s a full-fledged demon and you’re not… ” Levi threw his arms out wide with a dramatic flourish.

“Very clever,” Hope said dryly. “How long have you two been planning this? Six months? A year? Let me guess, when you went on that business trip for the church to Provo?”

“Oh, long before Provo, my dear.” Levi laughed, walked to her bed, and tapped her on the nose. I waited for her to bite his fingers, and when she didn’t, I had to fight back a minor wave of disappointment.

Instead of waiting for my sister to grow a spine and fight back, I decided to do what I always did in this family. Take charge. This bastard thought he could take my powers because I was the wimp of the family. The one everybody walked on. It was time he thought again.

“So very much longer than Provo,” he continued. “Where was it, exactly? Oh yes, Los Angeles. You remember Los Angeles, don’t you, Hope? We had a little drink in a bar and the next think I know YOU STOLE MY POWERS!”

While everyone else was distracted, I slipped my hand toward the IV pole next to the wall behind my head. Thank Heavens Mercy was still an old-school hospital that used poles instead of wall hangers. Otherwise, my next-best choice would have been a bedpan.

“It was an accident,” she said, standing up and pointing her own finger back at him. “I didn’t mean to take them. I was just borrowing, and it went wrong.”

“Well that’s no help to me, is it?”

“Not like it matters. You barely had any powers to begin with. I couldn’t use your powers to turn on a lamp with my mind if I was sitting next to it. Why do you care if you lost them?”

“Because they were mine,” he growled. “And you stole them from me.”

“And I’m sorry about that. It was an accident, and I’m willing to give them back. Just go next door and wake up my father and the Alpha. I’m sure one of them can give you back your powers.”

“Like they’re actually going to do that now. I highly doubt the Alpha or the Omega wants me to have my powers after everything that’s happened. Besides, why would I want my own measly powers returned when I can take someone else’s?” he said, waving toward me.

“Whose? Mine? Why would you want mine? Shouldn’t you go higher up the chain of command?” I asked, trying to sound panicked so that he would think I was some weakling. I stood and scooted closer to my IV pole. “I’m sure we could work out a lease program with a demon that has a lot more power than me. They’d probably be willing to share if we pitched it right.”

“Oh, I have a demon that’s willing to share,” Levi said as he turned so that he could face me, as well. “You see, I met Boris just a few weeks after your darling parasite of a sister stole my powers, and the two of us hatched a little plot of our own. Boris has more power than he’ll ever need, but I have none,” Levi explained quietly. “Meanwhile, he’s got the strategic planning capabilities of a garden-variety fruit bat. But me? I am a master strategist. All I needed was a power source.”

“So the two of you what? Hooked up? Began your own twisted paranormal bromance?” I asked. I got a grip on the IV pole.

“Not nearly as trivial as you suggest,” Levi said. “No, we decide to start a business partnership.”

I knew the two of them were twisted, but this was something to savor for the ages. If I lived that long, of course.

“A business partnership?” Hope asked.

“Yes, he seduced you and worked his way into the Omega’s family structure while I bided my time. Once he was secure in his position, I would join him and we’d take over. Now all we have to do is take Faith’s power, kill the lot of you, and Boris here will rule Hell.”

“What’s in it for you?” I asked quickly, using my opportunity to prolong the conversation and get myself into a better position. Now, if I could only get Hope to realize what I was doing so she could distract Boris. “So far it sounds like all you’re getting is some second-rate powers while he gets everything. A beautiful demon wife, lots of sex, power beyond belief, and the chance to rule Hell. Sounds to me like the strategic mastermind of the group is getting hosed.”

“Well, I did say the lot of you,” Levi said with a cruel grin.

“I still don’t get it.”

“He was going to become the Alpha,” Hope said quietly. “He and Boris would have taken everyone’s powers and become the new rulers of all time and space. They would absorb the Alpha’s and the Omega’s powers.”

“Damn,” I said. “That’s one hell of a long-range plan.”

“Perfection can’t be rushed. The problem is, my pesky brother never could stay where he belonged. I manipulated the breeding data to give him a nice, boring mate who was only mildly inferior mentally, and what does he do?”

He set up Matt and the girl he left behind? Wow, that wasn’t a little creepy or anything. “I don’t know. What did he do?”

“He decided to run away from home like a tiny child. And straight off he goes, throwing my whole perfect plan into jeopardy, to play house with the Devil’s youngest daughter.”

“Well, don’t you think he’ll be upset you’ve killed me? It’s going to make holidays a real bitch in your household.”

“Most likely,” Levi said. “But my brother has a destiny greater than his own silly desires.”

“And who determined that?”

“I did, of course. It is my prerogative now, being a God amongst men.”

“You haven’t managed it yet,” I said slowly. “As far as I can tell, all you’ve done is talk while my father and the Alpha sit next door, trying to come up with new and unique ways to make you feel pain.”

“Too true, but as soon as the killing starts, my guess is I’ll be moving up rapidly. Boris, go get the rest of our guests. I think we’ll want everyone here before we bring in our two VIPs.”

“And how do you think that’s going to help your meteoric rise up the food chain?” I asked.

Harold appeared behind Levi, a scowl on his face. He saw me standing next to the IV pole and smiled.

“You think you’ll just kill me, and they’re going to say, ‘okay, well, I guess it’s time to hand over our powers to you. Thanks so very much’?”

Harold held up three fingers and began to count down.

“I’ve got to tell you, I don’t know if you know my dad, but he lives up to his reputation.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Levi said just as Harold put down his last finger. “But everyone knows his three brats are his only—”

Instead of waiting for him to finish, Harold floated through Levi.

I grabbed the IV pole and swung it as hard as I could, grateful that Dad had insisted I join softball so we could have bonding time when I was eight. I made a lousy first baseman, but I was great at bat.