Chapter 25
More of Bea’s dinner had wound up on her than in her, bright orange cheese sauce smeared around her rosebud mouth.
“Looks like someone needs a bath,” Finn said, then grimaced down at the cheese streaking his own shirt. “Looks like I could use one, too.”
“You go ahead,” Effie said. “I’ve got the dishes.”
“You sure?”
“You cooked dinner.”
“It came from a box.” He plucked a shell-shaped noodle off of his lap and balled it up inside his napkin. “It wasn’t exactly a feat of culinary excellence.”
“Think about who you’re talking to.” She grabbed their plates and stood. “I thought it was delicious.”
“Maybe you’re just easily impressed,” he teased, eyes bright.
“Are you complaining?”
Finn laughed. “Not a bit.”
She’d just finished filling the sink with hot soapy water when her phone buzzed inside her pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the screen, her nose wrinkling at the caller ID.
Harbinger
“Piss off,” she muttered and sent the call to voicemail with an aggressive swipe of her thumb.
Finn looked up from wiping down Bea’s high chair. “Huh?”
“Just my boss. Or he was.” The whole of Hell would have to freeze over before she’d go back to working for Harbinger.
“I guess he hasn’t heard the good news.” It had, in all fairness, been only a handful of hours since they’d bested Lucifer.
She imagined Belphegor and the other princes would want to guarantee all their ducks were in a row before making a formal announcement that Hell was under new management.
“I can’t imagine why he’d call me otherwise.
It’s not like I was working for him voluntarily. ”
If Harbinger thought Effie would return to the Office of Technology and Infernal Innovation without the threat of Judecca hanging over her head, he had another think coming.
He smiled at her. “I imagine that means no more trolling nitwits on the internet.”
“Not unless I decide to do it for free.”
They fell silent, Finn continuing to wipe stray bits of macaroni off Bea’s high chair and bib while Effie scraped the plates and set them in the sink.
“So what does that mean?”
Effie reached for the sponge. “What does what mean?”
When Finn didn’t answer, she turned toward him. He was watching her, chewing his lip, his brows knitted pensively.
“Are you going back to making deals?” he asked. “Souls for wishes?”
Oh. Huh. She frowned. “I don’t know. To be honest, I haven’t really thought that far ahead.”
“It’s what you did before,” he said. “It’s what you told me you’d rather be doing.”
“When the only alternative was rage-baiting idiots online, sure. I wasn’t exactly in it for the love of the game, Finn.”
When he continued to frown, she sighed and crossed the kitchen, looping her arms around his neck, drawing him down into a soft, lingering kiss.
“Why don’t you ask me what you really want to know?” she murmured when they broke apart. “You can ask me anything. I won’t lie to you. You have to know that.”
“I do. I know.” Finn nodded. “Silver Springs is small.”
Effie shrugged. “It has its charms.”
“With Bea and the bar, my life is kind of here right now,” he said. “But I know Hell is home for you, so I understand if—”
“It’s not.” All at once, it was clear what he was asking.
“Finn, Silver Springs, Isle of Skye, a big city, or the moon, it doesn’t matter.
My home is where you are. Everything I need, everything I could ever want”—she looked at Bea all covered in gooey cheese and then back at Finn, the man she loved so much she’d been willing to risk it all—“I have right here.”
Nights like this were what she’d once dreamt of. That she had prayed for this, bled for this, died for this, that it was hers now and she got to keep it? It was a dream come true, sweeter still because it was real. Because she had fought for it and won.
“But speaking of wishes,” she said, fingers threading through his hair, playing with the short strands at the nape of his neck. “I wouldn’t mind granting a few of yours. Strictly out of the goodness of my heart, of course.”
“Oh yeah?” Finn grinned wolfishly, his hands falling to her hips, pulling her close, her body flush against his. “How charitable of you.”
“You know me,” she murmured, tipping her chin up for another kiss. “I’m practically a saint.”
It took Effie a moment to figure out what woke her.
The bedroom was dark, save for a sliver of moonlight spilling in through the curtains and the alarm clock’s faint red glow. The numbers were blurry and stretched. She squinted hard. 3:33 a.m. Early early, and yet Effie was suddenly and inexplicably wide awake.
Trying not to disturb Finn, she lifted the corner of the quilt and slipped her foot out from beneath the covers.
Finn’s arm banded around her middle, dragging her back against his chest. “Where do you think you’re going, hmm?”
His voice, thick with sleep, had a warmth to it that made her heart flutter.
“Can’t sleep.” She rolled over in his arms and tucked her head beneath his chin. “I don’t know why. I just woke up.”
“The last few days have been a lot,” he murmured.
He was right—between the ticking clock hanging over her head to Lucifer’s threats and an unexpected battle, the last few days had been a lot. But she didn’t think that was why she’d woken hours and hours before they’d have to get up with Bea.
“I think I’m going to go read in the living room,” she said. “See if I can get tired.”
“Or,” he said, pulling her body flush against his, rolling his hips against her, “you could stay here and I can tire you out.”
She grinned. “You have the best ideas.”
She reached beneath the covers to wiggle her panties down, pausing as it sank in just how dark the room really was, how little she could actually see.
Humans, as a general rule, had poor night vision compared to other mammals’.
Demons had stellar night vision, their eyes packed with more light-sensitive rods than humans had.
Usually, day or night made no difference to her ability to see; she could read just as well in the dark as she could in the light.
And yet right now, Effie could barely see a damn thing.
“You okay?” Finn asked.
“I don’t know.” She sat up against the headboard. Her vision was sharpest when the black bled into her eyes, trading off color detail for light and contrast sensitivity.
She did just that, letting the black bleed into her eyes, only nothing happened. In all her years as a demon, that had never happened to her before.
Maybe she’d try something else. Effie stared down at her hands, eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, but not the way they should. She tried to extend her claws, and—nothing happened with those, either.
Her breathing sped, her pulse pounding loudly in her ears.
“Baby?”
“Something’s wrong,” she said. “I can’t shift. My glamour’s stuck and my vision is shit and—”
She reached for the lamp on the night table, finding the switch, turning it on, bathing the room in a warm golden glow.
Effie gasped. There, sitting beside the lamp and the alarm clock, was a manila folder. Hands shaking, she grabbed it and opened it to a letter penned on parchment.
Effie,
I will keep this brief.
I owe you an apology for calling your actions re: Daphne irrational and imprudent. I understand now.
Enclosed is what Satan and the Department of Records would like you to consider a many-years-belated wedding gift.
My own gift to you was, and I am sure you can imagine, decidedly trickier to come by.
I was not sure how Lucifer achieved it with Daphne, and he was less than forthcoming when I asked.
But I believe it will please you to know that he sang like a canary after I suggested that the use of thumbscrews might loosen his tongue.
As there was no way to verify what he said, I wanted to leave little to chance.
As such, I knew I had a narrow window in which to act—when better to return someone’s mortality than when the veil between the worlds is at the thinnest?
I do hope I did not disturb you, but I wanted to wait until the witching hour as an added precaution.
Ensuring you returned…unblemished, rather than in the state you were in on your deathbed was rather energetically taxing. Fortunately, the convergence of ley lines over which you now reside was a boon.
Do take care, Effie. It would be a true shame to have gone to such trouble to make you mortal only for you to die because you did something reckless. The average life expectancy of mortal women in your demographic is approximately eighty years old. I expect you to live at least that long.
With kind affection and idle hands,
Belphegor
A teardrop hit the parchment, narrowly missing the ink.
“Effie?”
“Here.” She passed him the letter so that he could read it himself, not confident she’d be able to get through reading it out loud without choking up. She moved on instead to the other contents in the folder.
It was everything she’d need now that she was—god, human. Birth certificate, social security number, driver’s license, passport, school records—she laughed, more tears escaping her eyes and rolling down her cheeks—even a backdated marriage license stating she and Finn were legally married.
Finn’s hands shook as he set the letter down on the quilt.
“Do you feel any different?” he asked.
She rubbed her eyes and choked on a laugh. “Other than the fact that I’m pretty sure I need glasses? Surprisingly no.”
Though, she had a feeling that was due in no small part to the magic Belphegor had worked, ensuring she didn’t have her mortality restored only to face the awful fate of bleeding out in childbirth.
She’d be feeling supremely shitty right now if not for his forethought.
She’d seen the state Daphne had been in, hooked up to life-saving machines in the hospital post-surgery, and Effie was very glad to have been able to skip that.
Finn chewed on his lip as he leafed through the documents laid out on the bed. “Is this…Did you want this?”
Effie gave the question the consideration it was due.
She hadn’t hated being a demon, but it was never what she’d wanted, more a means to an end than anything.
She’d spent most of her time as a demon trying to outrun her grief, never truly facing it.
The last year had been a total pain in her ass, stuck on probation.
Of course, being a demon had had its perks, but none of them outweighed the greatest perk of being human now.
Never again would she have to live another lifetime without Finn, let alone an eternity. Together, they would have this one precious life, and what came next…She liked to think they’d meet that fate together, too.
“I can’t think of anything I wanted more,” she said, meaning it.
Finn leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. “You know what this means, right?” he breathed against her mouth.
“What?” she whispered.
He held up her driver’s license and grinned. “Now you have to let me teach you how to drive.”