Chapter Fifteen #4
“If I’m being honest that’s probably an underestimate.
Which I know is awful to hear. I know that must be really scary.
But just know, nothing will happen to you as long as I’m careful about what I say, and what I do, and I’m around to cover anything that slips through protection spells by, you know, watching over you. ”
“ You’ve been watching over me? ”
“Well, I kind of have to. The more I reveal something to someone about all of this, the closer they are to the spell, the more danger from devil dogs and the like they’re put in.
They’re contravening the rules of the deal.
They’re helping me contravene it. So they get punished.
And I can’t let that happen. I have to look out for threats—though I swear I don’t do it in a creepy way.
I mean, yeah, I sleep on your roof now, but I never peep in your window.
I’m not listening at any of your vents. In fact, the only thing I’ve ever accidentally seen or heard that I shouldn’t have was that time you came out your front door in your nightie because someone had left a parcel on your doorstep at six in the morning.
And even then I looked away real fast the second I saw the nightie was that short and flimsy and low-cut,” he babbled, and she could tell that even as he was doing it he knew he was saying too much.
He winced before she even managed to choke out her shock.
Then she did, and he raced on. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. I just glimpsed it for a split second.”
He was being ridiculous, though.
It wasn’t the glimpsing that was hitting her hard, not at all.
“Jack, I don’t care about boobs you saw. I care about you on the roof .”
“Right, and I know it’s weird, but it just means that I can cover any threats perfectly, it’s a great angle.
I mean, I tried being nearby in my car but then I can’t immediately clock anything happening around back, and I’m fast, even in human form I’m ludicrously fast, but there’s always a chance, you know? ”
“I know that you just added car sleeping to this unhinged equation.”
“So car sleeping is worse to you.”
She put her face in her hands briefly. Because he just wasn’t getting it, he didn’t get it.
“No. No, Jack. None of this is worse . None of this is you doing something bad. It’s just absolutely wild that the only place you’re getting any rest lately is in either an inexplicably busted and possibly possessed truck, or on my leaking, wonky, not even flat rooftop.
Like, dude. It’s a whole slope. The entire thing is a slope.
How you are even… why aren’t you… my god, no wonder you always look exhausted.
It’s incredible you don’t have constant hypothermia.
Human bodies are susceptible to the elements, you know,” she pointed out.
Though he was already rolling his eyes.
“Okay, first of all, honey, it’s not inexplicable that my possessed truck is busted. It’s just more convincing if things are broken down, and especially when this is the body and face I have. And second of all, said body and face really aren’t as vulnerable as your typical human being’s.”
“Not as vulnerable? So still some.”
“I can endure extremes. Like, I can walk around in the arctic.”
“Yeah, but would you want to? Is that nice for you? Is that comfortable? Would you like to get some shut-eye there with what I’m assuming is just a sleeping bag or a crappy blanket and maybe a small throw cushion?
” she asked. Only now he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
And she could see he was pulling that guilty face.
“Oh my god , you’re not even using those things, are you.
There’s not even a blanket and small throw cushion in this whole business. ”
“Well, I can’t spring into action while swaddled in comfort.”
“I’m not asking for swaddled. I’m just asking for some ,” she said, and knew she’d done it too desperately. The moment he heard that tone he stopped trying to protest, or insist this was all fine. Instead, he seemed to let it sink in.
And his expression was pure, sweet surprise and gratitude.
“It means a lot to me that you care, honey. A whole hell of a lot. But please think about you. Think about yourself,” he said, so gentle she didn’t know how to respond for a second.
She had to swallow thickly around a lump of emotion.
And doubly so when she felt something graze one of her bunched fists, and realized it was his fingertips.
He was stroking her with his fingertips.
So she just did it.
She grabbed his hand and squeezed.
“There has to be some way we can get you out of this, some way we can help you win. Like maybe I go explain the situation to her or talk you up to her or something. If you just let me know who she is I could—” she tried to say. But even before she got to the end part he was shaking his head.
Then he cut her off completely.
“Nope. No. Can’t do that. Can’t say her name out loud. At all.”
“Fine, then write it down.” She scrabbled in her pockets for that pad he’d given her, while he dipped his head to catch her gaze. To stop her, before she went any further down a no-go path.
“You think writing is going to work instead? Honey, there aren’t any loopholes here.
There’s no it only counts if you speak the words .
Hell just doesn’t do business like that.
Once an evil way to thwart you has been put in place, once the deal is done and the terms and conditions are set, there’s no getting around it.
They sense any contravention of the rules no matter how they happen.
Hence me not really technically telling you anything, but brushing up against it enough that you’ve got hellhounds out for your neck.
And the more I brush, the more hounds are gonna show up.
After a while, worse than hounds will show up, in fact. ”
“So if you actually explain more, the devil rips the roof off and eats me.”
“My dad doesn’t tend to eat people. But yeah, pretty much that,” he said, almost absentmindedly, one hand making a spiral in the air. Then he looked back at her and clocked her dropped jaw, and immediately grasped his mistake. “Did I say dad? Because by that I meant—”
“Oh my god. Oh my god ,” she blurted out. “You’re the son of the devil.”
“I mean, no. Not technically. Not really. Only sort of.”
“So all demons see your unholy father as their parent, then.”
Say yes , she thought at him. And instead he made a noise like eh . He tilted his head back and forth in so recognizable a way that she couldn’t help marveling over him. He might not have thought much of his human skills.
But damn, they were something.
And especially when he was the heir apparent of some place of eternal judgment.
“So you’re like the prince of Hell. The prodigal son of one of the most powerful and probably evil beings in the universe.
And yet somehow, we’re supposed to win this, even though winning this means you will no longer have to take some Hell throne, you won’t have to fulfill your evil obligations, you can just walk away and be a person and that’ll be fine.
Your Satanic father will be cool with that,” she spelled out, in no uncertain terms. No uncertain grim terms.
And he couldn’t even tell her no.
“Honestly, I don’t think my Satanic father really thought I’d be able to do it.”
“Oh, I’ll bet. You did a great job of saying without saying how little your family thinks of you.
And now it just all makes so much sense.
I mean, why wouldn’t you be a disappointment to the ultimate evil being?
You actually care about things. You try to do decent things.
You’ve been kinder to me than most human men have ever been. You must make your dad fume .”
There , she thought. Now he’ll get it.
And he did, too.
He just almost had a nervous breakdown in the process.
At first, all he could do was stare at her as he took in everything she’d just said.
Then it seemed to register to him that she’d meant it, that she really thought that he was worth more than whatever his weird family believed him to be, and he stood so abruptly it scraped lines into the linoleum.
He put his back to her, hands on his hips.
She reached for him on seeing it. But he batted her away. “I’m fine. It’s nothing. I think I just swallowed a bee.”
“Was the bee crying when you did it because it sounds like something in there is pretty upset. And also making your eyes leak so much that I can see it from right over here. In a way that’s making me want to offer you my handkerchief.”
“Don’t you offer me your handkerchief, all right,” he said, one finger jabbing at her as he did. But he still didn’t turn around. And his voice was very thick now. It squeezed her heart to hear it.
“Okay. Okay, I won’t.”
“And stop looking.”
“I’m already staring in completely the opposite direction to you,” she said as she kept her eyes on the refrigerator.
His kitchen counter. The wall over his sink.
It wasn’t hard to do, either—there was a lot of weird stuff to take in on all those things.
Magnets that spelled out non-words, as weird as the one on that hat of his.
Something that wasn’t water briefly dripping out of the tap.
And she could see there was something in one of the cupboards.
It seemed to be rattling the door. She almost wanted to ask him if she should worry about hellhounds in there, when she realized it was a milk jug with hands. Delightful to her, completely delightful and of course utterly engrossing.
Yet she still desperately wanted to look when she heard him turn to face her. It tested her, even though he was still quiet. He didn’t say anything. He just looked. He looked and looked and looked, until she was sure she could actually feel it.
His gaze on her, soft as newly fallen snow.
But warmer, oh so much warmer. Wonderful , she thought, just as he started to speak.
“I swear, I will get you out of this. If it’s the last the thing I do, if I have to go to the ends of the known universe and back, if I need to bear a burden so great it breaks me, I will make sure of that.
No force is strong enough to stand against me when the cause is keeping you safe,” he said.
And she knew, when he did, that she had fallen for him.