Page 63 of Grave Humor

As calling out the devil wouldn’t make a difference, I considered the situation for a few moments before saying, “I walked through the valley of the shadow of death when Gordon bit me. I stepped on both sides of the wall dividing the living and dead. I figure that’s why I saw those carvings. I was neither dead or alive for a while, right? So I can see things I shouldn’t as a result.”

“Ah,” Azrael said, and he relaxed. “I understand now.”

“I told you when you read from the Book of Life,” the devil replied, his tone smug. “I told you in no uncertain terms what had happened. I’ll admit, I cheated a little and peeked. It’s good to be me.”

“I didn’t think to check,” Azrael confessed.

“You trusted me, the Lord of Lies, with critical information. Most would call that a mistake.”

“Heaven help us all,” Azrael muttered.

Only one question remained I could ask, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. “Who am I, then?”

“I will not tell you, but I will give you the key you need to answer the question on your own,” the devil replied. “You are the day to his night, you are the yin to his yang, you are everything he is not, he is everything you are not. You are the alpha to his omega.”

“I’m the alpha to his omega? The beginning to his end?” I asked, something about the phrasing almost as unsettling as the presence of so much divinity in my kitchen.

“Just a facet of it,” the devil replied before he vanished in a cloud of yellow smoke that reeked of brimstone.

Fourteen

This is like the start of a bad joke.

Taking Azrael for a spin in my truck was the most normal part of my day. The Archangel of Death rode in the bed, standing so he could look over the roof and enjoy the wind. Eoghan claimed his usual seat, and Michael and Gabriel crammed into the back of the cab. Dimitri had wisely fled with his incubus husband to return to their wife.

“This is like the start of a bad joke,” I said, debating where I’d take my unusual passengers. Through the heart of town might do. If I was going to be the focus of the rumor mill, I wanted to give them something worth talking about. “There’s no punchline, though.”

“Well, we could stand in a line and punch people if you’d like,” Gabriel offered.

“Once upon a time, I’d believed angels were supposed to be kind beings. I have learned this is not the truth.”

The archangels snickered, and Gabriel replied, “In some ways, we’re rather human, aren’t we?”

“You’re annoying,” Eoghan grumbled.

They laughed.

“Stop picking on the archangels, Eoghan. They’re our guests.”

“They’re contaminating Lady Luck.”

I joined the archangels laughing. “It’s just a ride in the truck for a while, Eoghan. They’re not contaminating Lady Luck. Be nice. Just be glad the other one went back to causing trouble elsewhere. He’d fight with his brothers in the back because he can—or he’d be riding in the bed with Azrael to help scare half the town. Hey, you two archangels. I’m going to dump you at the cemetery with your brother before I go home. I’m going to have lunch and go back to bed, as my head still hurts.”

“I will lay the groundwork of healing for your head at the cemetery, but you will want to go to your bed. Eoghan, you will want to keep a close eye on her. You can call my brother should you have questions. She will be fine, but her behavior may be unexpected. Holy fire does strange things to humans of all variants.”

“I’m just glad I don’t have extra toes or longer thumbs. I like my thumbs and toes just as they are,” I said, debating on where to take my unusual passengers. “There’s not much here outside of the cemetery and some farms.”

“Perhaps you could show Eoghan where you grew up. Where you started is as important as where you are and where you’re going,” Gabriel suggested.

Huh. As that made sense and my parents were probably headed back to Las Vegas already, I headed across town to the ratty old farmhouse they’d gotten from an estate sale for a pittance. The hundred acres rotted, as did the building, which had never counted as a happy home to me. I put the truck into park at the end of the driveway, eyeballing where my parents tended to park their old beaters.

Neither vehicle was anywhere to be seen.

“They are not here,” Gabriel announced. “And no lock can defeat us. Entering such a property breaks no angelic law.”

“I don’t have a key,” I admitted. “They never gave me one as a child, and since they keep asking for money, they can’t afford another mouth to feed anyway.”

“Such sad humans.”