Chapter 19 #2
“I don’t think she was an anomaly. I don’t think it’s that we demons can’t feel.
I think, after a while, we all choose not to because it’s easier that way.
Think about it.” She pressed off the railing, unable to stand still.
She paced the width of the porch. “Once upon a time, we all wanted something so badly we were willing to sell our soul for it. And then we were all so desperate to escape an eternity of torment that we pledged fealty to the very man who would damn us. And we’re not supposed to feel some way about that?
See, I think it’s so much easier to tuck it all away, to do our damnedest to turn it all off, to pretend none of it exists.
We are capable of feeling it all. No one claims we demons are incapable of anger or lust or pride, greed or fear.
Why would love or grief or hope be any different?
It’s not a matter of whether we can feel these things, only whether we want to feel them. ”
Belphegor scowled. “If anyone heard you say these things—”
“I’m not saying it to anyone. I’m saying it to you.
” She offered him a smile. “Though I don’t love you—and honestly, most of the time, I’m not sure I even like you—I have cared for you.
And I think you’ve cared for me, too, in your own way.
Otherwise, you wouldn’t have been so concerned with keeping me out of trouble. ”
He frowned thoughtfully and tipped his head, conceding the point. “That is true. And it is because I do care that I must ask you what your endgame is here. He is human, Effie. Mortal. You are not.”
She crossed her arms. “I know that.”
“Do you?” he asked, more gently than she thought him capable. “Have you considered what that means? One day, he is going to die. Humans always do.”
“Yes, but—but he’s young. That’s not something I have to think about right now.”
“Avoidance.” Belphegor tutted. “Did you yourself not just give a speech condemning the burying of one’s feelings? How is this any different?”
Damn it. She hated when he made sense. “I just got him back. It turns out he does remember. I would just like the chance to enjoy being with him before I have to think about”—she swallowed hard—“that.”
“So your plan is to live in the moment?” Belphegor spoke as if the words put a terrible taste in his mouth, his lips curling into a sneer. “For Satan’s sake, Effie, you are on disciplinary probation. If Lucifer finds out about him—”
“He won’t,” she snapped.
Effie would make sure of it.
Belphegor pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I cannot cover for you for the next sixty years. You do not realize it, but in the time you’ve been gone, Lucifer has grown more—more despotic.
” He leaned in, dropping his voice as if concerned someone might overhear them.
“Volatile. He is unhinged, Effie. I, and many others, fear he has lost his mind. He has always been punitive—”
She snorted.
“—but he has taken to imprisoning demons now. Three he has locked in Judecca in the last week.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, her mouth falling open. Judecca? For all she joked, that place truly was reserved for what Lucifer deemed the gravest of sins, the highest of Hell’s crimes. “For doing what?”
Belphegor sighed and shook his head, the twist of his lips grim. “Dereliction of duty was the official charge. In truth? Voided contracts were the culprit.” His brows ticked higher. “Executory consideration.”
Ah. Good ole paragraph 69 of page 666 of each and every one of Hell’s wish-granting contracts.
Payment is to be rendered upon the completion of the wishes outlined on page 1, paragraph 1. If the damned becomes the decedent before the fulfillment of these wishes, this contract will be voided.
Plainly, if the human involved in a demon deal kicked the bucket before they’d made all their wishes, they didn’t have to fork over their soul.
“But that’s not something we have control over.”
Sure, they could try to keep the human they were doing business with alive, but shit happened.
The nice thing about living on a planet with a population of eight billion and counting was that there was always another desperate human willing to sign over their soul for something.
They were not a finite resource, and voided contracts were not worth imprisoning demons over. There weren’t that many.
“This is what I mean,” Belphegor said. “Lucifer has lost it. I fear a revolt is on the horizon. The amount of bloodshed will be…” He shook his head. “I—”
He paused and did the strangest thing, looking over each shoulder before leaning in and lowering his voice.
“We grow weary of his erraticism, Effie.”
Her brows rose. “We? Are you saying you and the rest of the—”
“Yes, we,” he stressed. “Not all of us, no. But several. There has been talk, and we…are considering our next moves carefully. If the time comes, and we collectively believe the need has arisen, we will only have one chance to—”
He shook his head and pinched his lips together, his jaw clamped tight.
“I cannot say it. And it matters not, as it may never come to any sort of head. But I will say this. It does not matter if you have betrayed him, it only matters that he believes you have. And make no mistake—he will view what you are doing here as a betrayal. Loving a human. The same crime as Daphne, whom you aided and abetted.”
“Daphne wanted too much,” she argued. “She wanted out of her contract, to have her soul returned, to become mortal again. I’m not asking for anything like that. I only want to be with Finn.”
“I will not debate whether we can love, but I will say this—if we are capable of it? We are not meant to love anyone more than we revere Lucifer.”
Dread curdled in her stomach. Fuck. Pride might have been Lucifer’s greatest sin, but it was not his only sin. He was profoundly envious of others, jealous, too. He didn’t like to share his toys, he never had. “Has he noticed I’ve been gone? Has he said anything?”
Belphegor shook his head. “He himself has been absent. He leaves for long stretches of time, during which he is unreachable. Where he goes is anyone’s guess.
When he returns, it is for a brief time, only to dole out punishments before he leaves once more.
I believe you have been extraordinarily lucky.
Your absence has, as far as I can tell, escaped his notice.
But, Effie”—he pinned her with a stony stare—“you are playing with fire. Your luck will run out. I take no pleasure in it, but I have no doubt Lucifer will drag you back to Hell as soon as he finds out you have gone and to where. And that is not to say what he will do to your human.”
Her heart rocketed into her throat. “What?”
Belphegor looked at her pityingly. “This is Lucifer we are talking about. What better way to punish you than by hitting you where it will hurt the most? By hurting someone you claim to love.”
She hated what Belphegor was saying, but she couldn’t deny the truth in his words, not without lying to herself.
There was a chance, however small, that Lucifer would never find out about Finn or her time here in Silver Springs, a chance that Lucifer wouldn’t care even if he did find out.
The question was, could she take that risk?
Risking her own neck was one thing, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something happened to Finn, and unfortunately, Effie was going to be alive for a very, very long time.
“I just want a little more time,” she said mournfully.
The pity in his eyes intensified. She knew what he was thinking, because she was thinking it, too. Spend enough time around desperate humans and you become acutely familiar with grief and the many ways in which people experience it, run from it.
She didn’t need Belphegor or anyone else to tell her she was bargaining, trying to postpone the inevitable.
Mercifully, he didn’t call her out on it. She wasn’t sure what she’d have done if he had. “I will endeavor to keep your absence unnoticed for as long as I can.”
That was more than she could have hoped for.
“Thank you. Truly.”
Belphegor rose from the porch swing. “Be well, Effie.”
She offered him a tentative smile. “You, too, Belphegor.”
He gave her one final nod and disappeared in a plume of dark blue smoke.