Satan's Sword (Imp Book 2) (18 page)

Michelle nodded knowingly. “I’ve got five siblings. I know how wrapped up you can get in their problems. Still, family is family and it’s important to be there for them.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to get the shit beat out of me for protecting him. I’m not looking forward to that,” I told her. “What about these horns?”

“I like the ram-type ones that curled down better. I think you’re less likely to snag them on the decorations.” She walked around me to see them from the back. “My brothers were always taking the fall for each other. I think it’s nice that you’re sticking up for him. I didn’t expect a demon to do that.”

Me either.

“Had an angel try to kill me today, too. That sort of ruined my mood. How about a tail?”

Michelle didn’t seem fazed by my announcement. “Yeah, that would bum me out, too.” She looked at the tail. “Try shorter.”

“Then I somehow got roped into protecting that little kid in the apartment on Clive Street from a ghostly cat that shoves his actions figures in the toilet and some guy that wants to cut off his ears.”

“The little Perez boy? He is awfully cute. Wait,” she looked up, a frown on her face. “They’re not supposed to have pets in that unit. Did you say they had a cat?”

“It’s a ghost. Don’t get your panties in a knot.”

Reassured that no one was violating the pet clause in their lease, Michelle turned her attention back to my tail. “How about really short? So it won’t drag on the ground?”

“I don’t do a tail at home, so I’m not used to it. I’m afraid I’m going to get it stepped on or whack someone with it. Maybe I’ll skip the tail and go with the wings and horns instead?”

Michelle considered the tail again. “Yeah, and the spikes at the end are probably not a good idea at a crowded party anyway. Let’s see the wings.”

Wings. I’d already gotten in trouble doing wings. Might as well have a repeat performance.

“How about these?” I manifested the huge bat wings and odd body structure I’d used to fly down the Potomac River. It was suddenly cramped in my living room. I shifted a few inches and knocked over a lamp.

Michelle looked horrified. “Sweet Mary and Joseph, you look hideously deformed. Can you make your body look more normal, and reduce the size of your wings by maybe ninety percent? You’ll never fit in the doorway with those things.”

“But if I reduce them and change my torso back I won’t be able to get off the ground,” I complained. “All those paintings and statues? They’re bullshit. No way could those creatures even glide down safely from a cliff. Physics doesn’t work that way.”

“You don’t need to actually fly. You’re going to be at a party. Think of them more as accessories. Like a handbag or earrings.”

I shifted the accessories in question, knocking another lamp over. It rolled off the end table and onto the floor.

“I’m philosophically opposed to wearing non-functional wings. What if I need to make a quick get away? Or someone throws me off the roof?”

“Wyatt is going to puke if you look like that.” Michelle picked up the lamp and tucked it safely under the table. “And even if you fold them, you’re not going to fit in the room with those things the size they are. Come on Sam, it’s just a costume. For a party. You can fly around with your freakishly deformed body afterward if it makes you feel any better.”

“Fine.” I reduced the wings and returning my body to its previous human shape.

“What do you think?” I modeled the form. I was a latte color with curved ram’s horns, red eyes with slitted pupils, furry lower half with goats legs and hooves, and my beautiful bat-like wings.

“Are you ok walking upright with your legs and feet like that?” Michelle scrutinized the odd angle.

“Yeah, I’ve used these legs at home.”

“Do you look like this there?”

“No, this would be pretty boring in Hel,” I confessed. “It’s not like I can do my first form or anything dramatic here and get away with it. Plus, I really wouldn’t be able to drive in most of the forms I use at home. As it is, I’ll need to do the wings and feet when I get there.”

“Wyatt could drive,” Michelle suggested.

“Nope. No one is allowed to drive my car.” Wyatt had once this past summer, but only because Gregory threw him the keys and gated me away before I could protest. It would take a real emergency for me to turn over the keys to my Corvette.

“What does your first form look like?” Michelle asked. “Can you show it to me?”

I popped quickly into the shape. It felt so familiar and comfortable. When we are created, we are gifted a form from the parent shaping us. We immediate assume this form since we must always have a corporeal shape to exist. Our first hundred years are spent like that, until we have the skill to modify it significantly or assume another.

“Wow.” Michelle circled me to get the full effect. “Can I touch you?”

“You can touch the scales, but not the spikes. They’re poisonous,” I told her wordlessly.

Michelle gasped and held her head. “I didn’t know you could do telepathy.”

“I can’t read your thoughts, and you lack the skill to speak to me without your voice. This is the only way I can speak to you in this form though.” I laughed and the sound came out a raspy click.

Michelle ran her hands over the scales, avoiding the spikes and small tufts of hair that dotted my form. She worked her way around to my front and looked at my three heads, touching the scales on one cheek and gently running a finger down a fang.

“So smooth, so sharp,” she mused. “The scales are such a pretty red-orange.”

“Wow,” I heard from the doorway. I swiveled one of my giant heads around to see Wyatt, open mouthed, his eyes roving down my long form. “Is
that
what you’re going as? I’ll need to strap you to the top of the Suburban like a dead deer. I don’t even think you’ll fit into the horse trailer.”

“No, I’m going as something more manageable. Michelle wanted to see my first form.”

Wyatt approached with an amazed look on his face. He didn’t seem to notice that I’d spoken to him without using a voice. He reached out a hand and I cautioned him silently about the spikes.

“Which head should I talk to?” He looked from one head to the other.

“It doesn’t matter, they’re all me. Of course, when in doubt, you should always choose the middle one.”

He rubbed me all over, tugging slightly at the tufts of fur. His caresses felt good. I wanted to purr.

“Your scales are smooth like glass,” he admired. “They’re reddish in places, too. And I really like the furry tufts.”

He traced a scale with his finger. “You’re beautiful like this, Sam.”

His words hit me hard and I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. He thought I was beautiful like this? A three headed, scaled monster, with stubby legs, and bits of blue fur? This was the form I’d been given at birth. The form I’d worn for hundreds of years. A human thought me beautiful.
My
human thought me beautiful.

They both stepped back and I popped into the shape that was to be my Halloween costume.

“This is what I’m going as for Halloween,” I told Wyatt. “Do you want me to try anything different?”

“No, I like it a lot.” He looked me over.

“Wanna hit that furry ass?” I teased, wiggling my rear at him. He laughed.

“I’d want to shave it first. Maybe I should stock up on razors for after the party. It’s likely to take more than one to get through that.”

“You may need clippers,” I warned him.

Michelle gathered up her belongings.

“I’m outta here girlfriend,” she told me. “My work here is done. Score one for the Halloween costume.”

“Thanks for helping me.” I gave her a hug. My ram horns whacked her in the head, and she clearly didn’t know how to hug me in return, with the wings occupying most of my back.

“Thank you for sharing your magic with me, Sam. I never thought in my life I’d be helping a demon with a Halloween costume, petting her scales, and eating Lo Mein.”

Michelle headed out and I popped back into my Samantha Martin shape. Which, of course, was naked, from my conversion.

Wyatt helped himself to the leftover Lo Mein and bean curd. “Amber is going to be so jealous. She’s wanted to go to the Halloween party at Bang for years. I’ll have to send her pictures.”

“What’s she like, your sister?” I asked on impulse.

He had told me a few things here and there about his family, but not much. It was hard to relate, and honestly I never cared about human childhoods or family relationships. They were complicated and boring. I suddenly wanted to know more about Wyatt’s family. What was he like when he was little? Did his sister steal his toys, melt them, and hang them from the rafters? Did she impale durfts on his spikes where he couldn’t reach them? Or leave him in the woods for a week tied to a log?

Wyatt looked surprised at the unexpected question and sat down on a chair at the dining table.

“She’s smart. People think she’s reserved and distant, but she’s not that way with her friends and family. Don’t get me wrong, people are drawn to her. She has a way with them. When someone’s pissed off or difficult, she can manage to totally turn the situation around. But even so, there’s a distance she keeps.” He paused a moment and traced the wood grain on the table with his finger.

“Remember I told you my father died when I was ten? He was electrocuted putting a two-twenty line in the garage? Well, Amber and I had been in the garage just before. Dad and I had been fighting. He could be really mean when he was drunk, or angry, or frustrated, and he was having a hard time with electric line. Anyway, we’d had a big fight and I’d stormed out. Amber stayed there with him. I left, and Amber stayed and saw him die. She saw him electrocuted. She was only five and it really messed her up to see that. She was in such shock that she didn’t even run into the house to get help. Mom found her there, just staring at Dad, when she went out to see how things were going.”

Wyatt looked up at me and I could see the impact of this terrible tragedy in his eyes. “Amber was in therapy for years and years. She was convinced she’d killed Dad. The therapists said this was normal. That kids think their feelings of anger toward parents result in their death. I’m amazed she turned into a normal teen, a normal young woman. She saw Dad die in a horrible way. I don’t think I’d ever have been able to break free from that kind of thing.”

I’d seen a lot of beings die through electrocution. Heck, I’d killed a lot of beings that way myself. Personally, I thought it was funny, but I could imagine how terrible it would be for a human to witness it. Especially someone you loved, a member of your family. I hated seeing Wyatt with that look in his eyes. It made me hurt, too.

“What did you guys do together growing up?” I asked, shifting the conversation to hopefully a lighter, more pleasant memory. “We’re you close? Did you fight? Did she melt your toys and hang them from the rafters?”

Wyatt gave me an odd look. “We didn’t have a lot of money for toys. If we’d destroyed each other’s stuff, my Mother would have beaten our butts. We were close, but with five years apart we had different sets of friends and different interests. She didn’t get in as much trouble as I did, but then Amber has always been good at sweet talking her way out of trouble. Mom says it’s a Lowrey trait, that Dad was the same way.”

“You’re good at sweet talking, too,” I told him in admiration. “I wish I had that talent.”

“Hmmm, maybe, but Amber makes me look like an amateur. Anyway, as we got older, we’d do stuff together occasionally. See a band, go to the beach with a group of friends, camp out.” He laughed. “All my friends wanted to date her. They were always pestering me to set them up with her.”

I could imagine so. If she’d gotten half the looks that Wyatt had, she probably attracted quite a bit of attention.

Wyatt pushed the stack of breeding petitions aside to reach for the egg rolls. “Did you have a lot of brothers and sisters growing up? Besides Dar, I mean?”

“Oh yeah.” I laughed. “There are hundreds in a group at a time. The home I was raised in was pretty selective, though, and I only had two hundred siblings. Sixty made it to adulthood.”

“You lost seventy percent of your family?” Wyatt asked, looking at me in sympathy. “What happened?”

“Oh, that’s an impressive number,” I assured him. “There are a lot of accidents with young demons. That’s one of the reasons we have so many offspring.”

I looked over at the stack of papers beside him and made a decision. If I was going to start treating Wyatt as more of a partner, I needed to include him in more of my life.

I motioned toward the stack. “Those are breeding petitions. Other demons requesting that I sire a child. I’ll probably accept one of them. I don’t think I’d actually want to form a child; be the one receiving the energy and arranging for its upbringing. I may change my mind eventually, but it’s not something I feel any urge to do right now.” I didn’t feel any urge to sire a child either, but probably would do it just to solidify an alliance. Especially with Haagenti breathing down my neck. Hopefully, I wouldn’t kill anyone in the process.

Wyatt pulled the stack over to him. “Any top contenders?” He didn’t seem bothered by the idea of my producing offspring.

“This one is very flattering.” I pulled out the one from Ahriman. “And these three are noteworthy also. Here’s the one from Dar.”

Wyatt looked at the petition from Dar with its drawings, and then looked at the others. I know he couldn’t read the script, but appreciated his attention to them.

“If he’s your top contender, then why is there a black ink line drawn on the paper?” He indicated Ahriman’s petition.

I had a feeling it was time for honesty. I was a terrible liar anyway. “Gregory put that there. His writing at the top tells me that he does not approve and that I should decline this petition.”

Wyatt looked confused. “Does he need to approve of your choice? Do you have to run these kinds of things by him now? Is this part of the binding?”

“No. He was over a few days ago trying to fix the brand and accidentally saw the petitions. You know what an asshole control freak he is. This particular demon is old. I’m sure Gregory knows him from the wars and has a personal dislike of him.”