Sympathy for the Devil Page 4

  “Oh, I didn’t have a reservation.” He lifted his wine glass and held it under his nose for a few seconds, eyes half-shut as if he were concentrating on analyzing the bouquet or whatever it is that people smell when they sniff at their wine before drinking it.

  “But we walked right in — ”

  His eyes opened all the way then, and again I was startled by their blueness under the straight dark brows. “I have a way of opening doors.”

  “Apparently,” I remarked, and lifted my own wine glass and took a sip without bothering to inhale it or breathe it first. I didn’t know much about wine, except that I either liked it or I didn’t. This particular one tasted interesting, with a strong earthy underlay to it that was unfamiliar to me. Then again, I didn’t drink much French wine. The cheaper house pours were invariably from California.

  Statements like the one he had just made didn’t do much to put me at ease. If he were up to no good, you’d think that he’d be doing everything in his power to conceal his true identity. Yet he’d told me he was the Devil the way another guy might have told me he was a stockbroker or a lawyer. Maybe to him it was just a matter of degree.

  “You still haven’t told me what you want with me,” I said, although I made sure to keep my voice fairly low. The people around us didn’t seem to be paying much attention, but I still didn’t want anyone overhearing something that would either land me in a rubber room or on the front page of the Star with a headline screaming, “I Had a Date With the Devil!”

  “I wanted you to have a good birthday,” he replied. “You did seem to have been somewhat…abandoned.”

  Well, that was certainly true, although in Nina’s case it certainly wasn’t her fault. Danny, on the other hand….

  Like he’d have taken you anyplace half this nice, my mind scoffed at me. You would’ve been lucky to get taken to California Pizza Kitchen, so shut up already.

  “How altruistic of you,” I remarked. “You certainly aren’t living up to your reputation. Since when is the Devil moonlighting as the Birthday Fairy?”

  Once again he laughed, and, unlike me, he didn’t bother to keep his voice down. The woman at the next table, who looked as if she probably hadn’t eaten a carb in five years, gave us an irritated glance. I groaned inwardly. Great. All I needed was for her to start eavesdropping….

  But he apparently noticed my discomfort and quieted down quickly enough. After sipping at his wine once more, he said, “Reputations are very rarely built on fact, I find.”

  “So you’ve just been misunderstood and misrepresented all these years, is that it?”

  “Something like that.”

  I lifted a skeptical eyebrow at him but was prevented from further comment by the arrival of our salads. After assuring the waiter that no, I didn’t want any pepper, I waited a few seconds, then said, “So I shouldn’t find anything at all out of the ordinary about this?”

  “No, of course you should. I just wanted to reassure you that I certainly don’t mean you any harm.”

  I let his comment settle in for a few seconds. The funny thing was that I really didn’t feel any sort of threat coming from him. I didn’t pretend to have supernatural instincts about people or anything like that, but you’d think the Devil would give off some fairly strong evil vibes, and I wasn’t getting anything. Pathetic as it might seem, so far this was the best date I’d been on in months. Years, even.

  I lifted my fork and ate a few mouthfuls of salad before saying, “Somehow I get the feeling you’re not going to really tell me why you’re here.”

  “And why must I necessarily have ulterior motives?”

  “Everyone has ulterior motives,” I replied. “Sometimes it doesn’t matter, because you both have the same ulterior motives. Maybe I just agreed to have dinner with you because I didn’t want to spend the night alone.”

  “A good enough reason for me,” he agreed. “More wine?”

  I nodded, then waited as he poured a few more inches of Bordeaux into my glass. He had nice hands, I noticed, with long, strong fingers. I suddenly recalled the feel of his hand on mine. This time, though I was able to repress a shiver. It would have been a lot easier if he hadn’t been so damn good-looking.

  Or was he? Maybe he was doing something to my mind that made me think he looked like an attractive man, and underneath he was all horns and tail and huge pointy teeth….

  I lifted my wine glass and helped myself to a steadying drink. He watched me, and I saw him frown slightly.

  “You look troubled.”

  Great. So much for my poker face. I met his gaze squarely and said, “Is that” — and I pointed toward him — “really you? Sorry, but you don’t look much like who you say you are.”

  “So that’s what’s bothering you?”

  “Partly.”

  “This is how I choose to manifest myself.” He leaned forward, smiling slightly. “I assure you, however, that if you’re worried I’m going to turn into some horrific lizard creature at the stroke of midnight, it won’t happen.”

  I got the impression he was teasing me, but I thought it was a valid concern. It was sort of difficult to discard an entire lifetime’s worth of preconceptions in just one evening. “All right,” I sighed. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “Excellent idea.”

  At that moment our entrées arrived, and we spent a few moments eating in silence. He’d managed to neatly dodge my questions about his presence here, or why he would have singled me out in particular. The millennium was long gone, as well as the significant date of June 6, 2006, so if he’d been angling for some sort of Rosemary’s Baby or End of Days action with me as the mother of the Antichrist, he’d sort of missed the boat. That thought reminded me of the time I’d watched End of Days with Nina, and how she’d remarked that if the Devil really did look like Gabriel Byrne, she sure as hell wouldn’t be running away from him. At the time I’d agreed.

  The man who faced me was certainly just as attractive, if in a different way. Realizing that I seemed to actually be enjoying myself as I sat there with him worried me a little. Okay, it worried me a lot. I was beginning to wonder whether some freak-out circuit in my brain had been disconnected. Otherwise, shouldn’t I have been putting on my running shoes and getting the heck out of there?

  My friend Micaela, who was naturally jaded and had become even more so after working in the entertainment industry for the past five years, once told me I was way too trusting of people. “Expect the worst, and you won’t be disappointed,” she’d remarked. Then again, she hadn’t been on a real date in almost two years.

  So was the fact that I hadn’t yet gone running off screaming into the night evidence that I really did tend to think the best of people, sometimes to my detriment? Or was it something more?

  Even without the whole supernatural component, the man who sat across the table calmly eating prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes would have fascinated me. Once you got beyond the good looks, there was something oddly charming about him. And he’d certainly acted like a gentleman so far.

  Whoa, there’s some rationalization, I told myself. It’s easy to play at being the nice guy when you have the powers of the universe at your command.

  “So do you know everything about me?” I asked, hoping I sounded casual. “I mean, powers of heaven and hell and all that?”

  “No,” he replied. “I know no more of you than what anyone else observing you might have seen. Well, that, and what others know and think about you. But you, the real you” — and he tapped a finger against his temple as if to indicate one’s mind or thoughts — “I don’t know any more about that than anyone else.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Let me guess. The rules?”

  “Precisely.” His eyes met mine then, and I made myself return his gaze for a moment before I looked down. I hadn’t been expecting to see such approval.

  Blood rushed to my cheeks, and I hoped the dim lighting in the restaurant hid my blush. It would have been so
easy to let myself fall prey to his charm, and I knew I couldn’t do that. Not until I knew what he was really up to.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” I said lightly. “No girl likes to have all her mystery taken away.”

  “God forbid,” he said.

  “Did He?” I asked, and this time the Devil’s laugh sounded a little forced.

  “How’s your prime rib?” he returned, and I knew I had scored a point.

  The conversation wandered to commonplaces after that — for some reason he wanted to know about my job, about how I liked living in Los Angeles — all the typical things a man might ask on a first date. He continued to expertly steer the conversation away from anything involving him, and I let him do that for the time being. It was fairly obvious he didn’t look on this evening as a one-time affair, and for now I was willing to go along with that. If nothing else, trying to discover his real purpose in seeking me out sounded like a challenge.

  After dinner he began to head toward my apartment, and I protested that we had to go back to The Grove so I could retrieve my car from the parking structure. He shook his head and said, “Your car is already safely tucked away in the garage at your home.”

  “It — what?” I shifted in my seat so I could see his profile. “How could you do that?”

  “The same way I do everything else.” The laugh lines at the corner of the one eye I could see crinkled slightly in amusement. “It would have been tedious to have to retrieve your vehicle, so I…moved it.”

  Damn. Nice trick to have, especially in L.A. I was very lucky to even have the garage; there were more apartments than garages in my complex, and getting one involved seniority in the building. Well, technically, that was how it was supposed to work. But one came vacant at the same time the apartment I occupied did, and although Lucille downstairs was next in line to get the garage, Rudy, the apartment manager, had been waging guerrilla warfare with her over her many cats even though the building was supposed to be pet-free. So his revenge was giving me the garage. I needed it more, anyway; my Mercedes deserved the protection a lot more than her ancient Taurus, which looked as if it should have been recalled years ago.

  At any rate, after the Devil parked the Bentley at the curb in front of the building, I had to go around to the back to make sure my car really was safely inside the garage. Sure enough, after I had undone the padlock and lifted the door, I saw the Mercedes gleaming inside.

  “Satisfied?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “And mildly freaked. But I suppose I’ll get over it.”

  “I hope so.”

  My apartment was on the second floor, and he followed me up the stairs and waited as I fumbled in my purse for my keys. I had to remove the Victoria’s Secret shopping bag and tuck it under one arm before my fingers finally found the key ring at the bottom of my purse.

  Then I took a breath, looked up at him, and said, “By the way, I don’t kiss on the first date.”

  “Very old-fashioned of you.”

  “Guess that’s the Orange County in me,” I replied.

  He smiled, but I could see his glance lingering on my lips. “Good night, then, Christa.”

  “Good night.” I faced the door and inserted the key in the lock. It turned, and I had one foot inside when I heard him say,

  “By the way — ”

  I looked over my shoulder. “What?”

  For some reason he was staring at the Victoria’s Secret shopping bag I still had clenched under one arm. “Red’s my favorite color.”

  And with that he strolled off down the staircase. I could hear him whistling as he descended the steps and made his way to his car.

  I shut the door behind me, then leaned my head against it, heart pounding.

  Damn….

  Interlude

  An empty gray plain, so featureless it was difficult to tell where the ground ended and the sky began. A strong wind, neither hot nor cold, blew from an indeterminate direction, and smelled of sulfur and ash. Nothing grew. Nothing changed.

  Beelzebub fought the urge to look at his watch. What was the point, in a place that had no notion of time?

  But then Asmodeus was there, his dark suit and perfectly groomed hair incongruous notes in that soulless place. Well, Asmodeus always was a bit of a peacock.

  “I’ve been hearing things,” Beelzebub said.

  “Maybe you should get that checked.”

  Beelzebub chose to ignore his compatriot’s snarky comment and went on, “He has been indulging in some questionable behavior.”

  Asmodeus stopped fiddling with his cufflinks. “Questionable?”

  “I’m fairly certain he’s trying to make an end run.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Sometimes Asmodeus’ obtuseness could be downright annoying. On the other hand, at least he was trustworthy. Most of the time. “He’s gone off and done some independent negotiations with Him.” Beelzebub cast a significant glance upward.

  After a second or two Asmodeus nodded, then frowned. “You think he’s trying to make a break for it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Without us?”

  “Yes.”

  Asmodeus appeared to digest that information for a little while. “Well, that’s not very…sporting, is it?”

  “No.”

  A small silence fell. Beelzebub held his tongue, knowing the best thing to do was simply wait until the other demon came to the same conclusion Beelzebub already had formulated some time before.

  “So what are we going to do about it?”

  Beelzebub would not allow himself to smile at the use of the word “we.” He replied, “Put a stop to it, of course.”

  “How?”

  “He has been spending time in the company of a mortal woman. She must be part of the deal, whatever the details may be. So the most reasonable thing to do is somehow keep the two of them apart.”

  Asmodeus tapped a finger against his chin. “Possession?” he asked.

  Beelzebub shook his head. “No. At least, not of her. It’s too risky — he would probably be able to tell right away, and then we’d have a lot of explaining to do, wouldn’t we?”

  “I suppose so. Then who?”

  Luckily, Beelzebub had had some time to figure this out. Once he’d zeroed in on Christa Simms as the unlikely target of his attentions, it had taken little effort to make a quick study of her acquaintances, of those who could do the most good — or ill, depending on how one looked at it — in foiling this underhanded plan. “She has a boyfriend,” he said.

  “So which one of us gets to possess the boyfriend?”

  “Neither.”

  Asmodeus frowned. “Excuse me?”

  Allowing himself a small smile, Beelzebub replied, “Too risky. The woman involved might notice something odd about his behavior, and might say something to him. We can’t risk that. However, the boyfriend has two roommates.”

  This time it only took an instant for comprehension to flare in Asmodeus’ eyes. “So we possess the roommates — ”

  “ — and use them to manipulate the situation.”

  “It might work.”

  “Oh, it will work. The boyfriend is very close to these two, and tends to take their advice. It shouldn’t be difficult at all to get him to do whatever we say.”

  “So who are these two?”

  “A couple of computer geeks.”

  Asmodeus looked pained. “Geeks with substandard wardrobes, no doubt.”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  “I suppose not. If there is no other way — ”

  “There isn’t.”

  Asmodeus muttered something that sounded like, The things I do for you, but since it was obvious the words weren’t meant to be heard, Beelzebub chose to ignore them.

  “Very well, then,” he said briskly. “I’ll contact you when it’s time to go.”

  “And he won’t notice that we’re gone?”

  “I think he’s sufficiently distracted by this woman that we
have some room in which to maneuver.”

  With a nod, Asmodeus said, “I’ll be hearing from you,” and then disappeared as precipitously as he had arrived.

  Excellent. Just a few more things to set in place, and then it would be off to Los Angeles to take over the hearts and minds of his intended victims. Beelzebub hoped the endeavor wouldn’t require more than a few days; lengthy possessions tended to be an exhausting proposition at best. Still, he was willing to make the sacrifice.

  Because he was damned if he was going to allow Lucifer to regain the Kingdom of Heaven if the rest of the angels who’d suffered the Fall had to stay down here in Hell….

  Chapter Three

  I was still feeling a bit disoriented — to say the least — when I went in to work the next morning. It actually hadn’t been all much past ten when the Devil dropped me off the night before, but I hadn’t been able to sleep for hours. I even wrote an entry about my experiences in my private blog, hoping it might help me to set down the evening’s events.

  To say I just had the craziest birthday ever is probably an understatement, but it was. I’m still trying to process what happened, to understand how someone like me, Christa Simms, Ms. Ordinary, could have had dinner with the Devil.

  Wow, that looks even worse written out. I wanted to not believe him at first. But that trick of transporting us halfway across town in the blink of an eye? Not something I could easily ignore. And when I tried to come up with “plausible” explanations for what had occurred, they just didn’t work. When your explanations are so convoluted that they start to sound crazy, too, then it’s generally easier to take something at face value, even if your brain really doesn’t want to.

  The really insane thing, though, is that I enjoyed myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but who would have thought the Devil could be such a gentleman? And fun. And amazingly good-looking, and…

  Uh-oh.

  I have a feeling this is going to get complicated.

  Then I went to bed and stared at the ceiling for what seemed like half the night before I finally dozed off.