Chapter 22
22
Divi n e I n terve n tio n
J acqui hung up the phone, more disturbed than she cared to admit. Why was Dan involved in this? And how big of a secret had he been keeping from her? She had a strong suspicion she wasn’t going to like the answers to any of those questions.
She slid open the patio door and stepped back inside, closing it behind her. Eva had warned her the demons had heightened senses, and she hadn’t wanted them to overhear, so she’d made sure to walk a distance away from the house before calling Dan.
Back inside, she could hear Meph and Raum bickering about something in the living room, the muffled conversation featuring an array of creative profanity. Belial washed dishes in the kitchen, and there was muffled music coming from the den, not quite buried beneath the sound of clinking porcelain.
The music was what really caught her attention.
She stopped, hand still wrapped around the door handle, and listened closer. Sultry piano chords were complemented by the ethereal tones of Eva’s violin as she outlined the mournful melody of “My Funny Valentine.”
Jacqui wandered into the kitchen in a daze, needing to share the moment with someone. That was the beauty of art at its finest—it was always better when there was another who understood your wonder.
Belial glanced up from the sink when she entered.
“That’s your brother? He’s... They’re...” She actually had to wipe a tear from her eye. “They play together so beautifully. Like they were made to.”
Bel nodded and went back to scrubbing. He had a face like an angel, but there was a hardness to those features that made him intimidating and difficult to read. Not to mention, he had to be seven feet tall, and it was hard to see his face at all from that height.
“We found out recently that music makes Ash’s curse lift,” he said. “The effect seems to be temporary, but I’m daring to hope he can find a way to lift it permanently if he keeps experimenting. It’s never been a possibility before now.”
She grabbed a dish towel and took over drying and putting away. “How did it happen?”
“Eva and Asmodeus played together at Eva’s jazz club. Afterward, he got attacked by women. They swarmed him like wasps on shit.”
She had to laugh at the analogy. “What did he do?”
“After three thousand years of being invisible, he panicked.” Belial snorted. “Eva came to his rescue and dragged him out of there.”
“He wasn’t tempted by the women?”
“Nope.” Belial shook his head. “He’s always been a bit weird, but that was taking it to a whole new level.”
Well, that was interesting. “Why do you think the curse lifted?”
“Something to do with the music. Ash always said he wasn’t a real musician because he’s a demon, and I think it ties into that.”
Jacqui scoffed. “He sounds like a real musician to me.”
“I know. But he thinks music comes from humans’ souls, and since demons don’t have souls, whatever art he creates is just a mockery of the real thing.”
Jacqui paused while drying a plate and considered this. “There may be some truth to that, but I think he’s missing an important point. In fact”—she lowered the plate and looked up at Belial—“I think all of you are.”
The imposing demon tilted his head as he met her gaze. It would be oh so easy to wither under that piercing stare, and she was glad there was no malice in it. “What point?”
“You escaped from Hell because you didn’t feel you belonged there anymore. Eva told me about Asmodeus’s whole ‘theory of demonic evolution,’ and well, I think it’s true. While you may not be humans with human souls, I don’t believe you’re entirely demonic either. I think you may be something in between. And if you look at things from that perspective, it makes perfect sense why Ash’s curse would lift when he plays music.”
Without breaking eye contact, Belial passed her another plate to dry. “Why?”
“If music is an expression of divinity, then every time Asmodeus plays, he’s becoming a little more divine and a little less demonic. The curse was on his demonic self, so it won’t affect this newer, more human side of him.”
Belial stared at her without speaking for so long, she finally caved and looked away. But it didn’t help. It felt like his eyes were burning a hole in the side of her head as she focused on drying her next plate. She hoped she hadn’t angered him by suggesting Ash wasn’t demonic, but she wasn’t going to take back what she’d said.
Something in her pressed the importance of connecting with these beings, even one as ancient and formidable as Belial. If there was truly such a thing as demons that could evolve, then helping them along that process seemed like a necessary service to the world.
“That makes sense,” Belial finally said, and she breathed a silent sigh of relief. He shrugged enormous shoulders. “Too bad it wears off eventually. Ash said that after a few hours, he was back to normal.”
Jacqui smiled, setting the dried plate on top of the stack in the cupboard. “Then I guess he’ll have to keep playing music regularly, won’t he? I bet that if he keeps fostering this new side of himself, the curse will eventually go away forever.”
Belial’s mouth lifted in one corner, and the dimple that appeared in his cheek nearly knocked her flat. “You’re right.”
Underneath that aura of danger, there was a powerful charisma to him that was profoundly compelling. And he was, of course, devastatingly handsome. All the demons were. Eva had warned her about his short temper and the resulting chaos, however, so she remained wary.
That half-smile suddenly became a full-fledged grin, upping his devastating handsomeness to an eight-point-oh on the Richter scale. “You know, I’ve been searching for ways to break Asmodeus’s curse for millennia, and you’ve gone and solved it in one go. What’s more, he’s obsessed with music. And you’re telling me all he has to do is keep playing.”
“It’s probably the same with your love of cooking. Cooking is an art form, a passion for creation. It’s an expression of divinity.”
Just as suddenly as it had arrived, the smile disappeared, and his face hardened once again into an impenetrable mask. “My problems are a little too complicated to be solved by cooking.”
“Nonsense. I happen to believe art is, in one way or another, a solution for everything. In fact, my husband and I use that concept behind all our...” She trailed off, her whole conversation with Dan coming back in a rush.
Belial glanced at her as the sink drained with a gurgle. “What?”
She sighed. “My husband has been hiding something from me. Eva must have told you about that book I found in his studio, and he’s been acting very strange.”
“I may have overheard something about it over the phone, but Eva didn’t tell me about a book.”
“I think it’s a grimoire. It was full of symbols like the one I had to draw to get you here.”
His eyes widened and suddenly, he was radiating intensity. “What’s he doing with a grimoire?”
“That’s just it. I have no idea.” She sighed, hanging the dish towel off the stove handle. “We’ve been married for twenty-seven years, and he’s never given any indication he knew about all this supernatural stuff, and yet he obviously does.”
“What’s in the grimoire?”
“I don’t know, since I can’t read Latin anymore, but I found four pages he had drawn himself that very clearly had your names on them.”
Belial’s stare intensified until actual flames flickered in his eyes, causing her to recoil. She could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
“He has a sigil with my name on it?”
She nodded warily.
Meph and Raum appeared in the kitchen.
“There’s no way it’s your seal,” Meph said. “And if it was, it’s not like he’d be able to use it.”
Bel looked at Jacqui. “Could you show us this grimoire?”
She hesitated. “What kind of seal are you talking about?”
“Every demon has their own unique seal that can be used to summon and bind them,” Meph explained. “For greater demons, it’s extremely difficult to do, and most of the time the summoner makes a mistake and ends up dead.”
“But occasionally, they get it right,” Raum added.
“And when they do, the demon is bound to the summoner. He has no choice but to obey. And the more powerful the demon, the more chaos the summoner can make him unleash. And good ol’ Bel here”—Meph slapped his brother on the back—“is one scary motherfucker.”
Bel shot him a dark look but said to Jacqui, “If someone were to bind me, the destruction I could cause would be apocalyptic.”
“It could literally start the apocalypse,” Meph supplied.
“You erased all records of that seal thousands of years ago,” Raum grumbled. “There’s no way Eva’s dad has it.”
Jacqui stared at them, horrified by the implications. “Well, we should probably make sure, just in case. Follow me.”
The four of them headed outside toward the studio, Raum depositing Thelonious on a chair on their way past. No one considered disturbing Eva and Asmodeus.
The way it always did when they played together, Eva and Ash’s music came to its natural conclusion and ended perfectly—as if they’d spent hours practicing when, of course, it was a total fluke.
They were so in sync when they played, it was like she could read his mind. She’d never experienced anything like it. “My Funny Valentine” was her new favorite song and playing it with him felt like speaking their own secret language, communicating in a way that only they understood.
She set the violin down on top of the grand piano and stared at Ash, who stared back at her. He was a master musician, a passionate lover, a mystery she was dying to solve. She was transfixed. Fascinated.
In love with him.
Damn it.
“The curse lifted again.” Ash studied his hands like he’d never seen them before and then closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “It smells so good here. The briny ocean. The cedars.” His eyes opened and fixed on her. “You.”
“Me?” Her heart started racing.
He stood and came toward her. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” His eyes roamed up and down her body like he was trying to consume her with his gaze. “Your brown skin, your black hair, your light gray eyes.” He stepped closer, and her heart beat faster. “There are flecks of blue in them. I didn’t notice before.” He inhaled again. “Fuck, you smell good.”
Oh god, he was turning her on.
No, no, no , she had to fight this. She wasn’t giving in until he opened up to her. “You do realize that if every time you play music your curse lifts, you can have sex with a thousand different women who find you attractive, right?”
That was the metaphorical equivalent to a bucket of ice water on her libido.
He shrugged. “Yeah.” He barely seemed to be paying attention to the conversation, too busy scanning up and down her body, and damn it, that libido sprang right back to life like a weed that wouldn’t die.
“So...” She tried to glare at him. “You don’t need me anymore. You can have all the women you want. So you can stop with this whole ‘pretending you’re into me’ thing.”
His eyes flashed to her face. “What?”
“You can stop pretending I’m special to you!” she snapped, the hurt from before finally rearing its ugly head again. “You can stop pretending there’s anything more between us. You can go sleep with all the women in the world and forget all about me.” Damn it, that sounded petty.
“I don’t want to sleep with all the women in the world.” His eyes narrowed.
She threw her hands up. “Well, just a select few then, I don’t know!”
He frowned. “Why are you acting like this?”
His cluelessness was cute before, but now it was pissing her off. “Hm, maybe because you blatantly admitted to using me for sex, and since I’m not a goddamned automaton, hearing that shit hurt more than a little!” She accidentally shouted the last part.
“I already told you it was more than that. I told you about my... feelings.” He grimaced at the word.
“That’s not enough, Ash. I’m interested in you for more than just sex, and if you don’t feel the same way about me, then I need to protect myself and end this now.”