Page 73 of Catnapped

“You volunteered because you are well aware of what hell waits for them once they leave the mortal coil. You figured they might as well earn their stay, so you arranged for them to cause trouble and sin somewhere they wouldn’t bother Bailey or Sam.”

Right, right. “What’s the next surprise?”

“I have been informed that Ruby’s babies are old enough to need new homes, and as you can handle mortal fish having mortal lifespans, we are becoming the new caretakers for the babies she isn’t keeping. Baby. She’s allowed to keep one. Lucifer put his foot down, and she’s only keeping one of the spawn. That means we’re getting a ridiculous number of fish for Christmas, and if we know what’s good for us, we’ll let Darlene visit her fishy children. We will not let her know when one passes unless she asks, and should she ask, we’ll tell her he or she died of old age, a happy fish.”

I bowed my head and sighed. “She’s looking for more excuses to come over, isn’t she?”

“Yep.”

Our lair, which was more of a nice, sprawling manor house rather than what most thought of as a lair, had plenty of space for a bunch of bettas, and it also had a connection to the conservatory, entering where Lucifer kept his beloved wild horses. As Belial promised, the shoreline of the crystal lake, which had actual water and crystals everywhere, made an excellent spot for my home. The lake even had fish in it—real ones, consisting mostly of endangered species we weren’t allowed to catch. Given a few years, I suspected we’d end up helping to manage the conservatory. Darlene loved her conservation projects, and Lucifer refused to expand his home beyond working on the conservatory sub-level, as she’d take over the entirety of his many hells and leave no room to work with the fucking assholes in residence.

We already had a breeding pair of endangered parrots, one of the thirty pairs left, who might one day allow Lucifer to release some back into the wilds of Earth and create an unexpected miracle.

I’d named the talkative bastards Snack and Attack. Snack would snack her way to ruling our home, and Attack guarded his precious Snack most viciously. Conversion made healing from his bites a trivial matter, and Attack gradually learned we would pet him if he didn’t try to remove our flesh from our bones.

Attack enjoyed being petted almost as much as he liked rock music, which we played for him when he behaved.

I sighed again. “Ten bucks and a glorious night for me, where you treat me like the goddess you claim I am, says that Lucifer is going to make us pay out our owed lecture over Christmas dinner.”

“I hate losing a bet, because that’s probably exactly what he’s going to do, but I’m going to go along with this because I have ten dollars and want to spend a glorious night treating you like a goddess. If Lucifer was not planning on lecturing us over Christmas dinner, I’ll yell at him in private until he does. And if he doesn’t give us the lecture he’s owed, I’m still paying out because I’m selfish and greedy.”

I grinned at the thought of Darian going toe-to-toe with Lucifer. Again. The conversion process had done wonders for Darian’s willingness to face off against the Devil, and I was the true winner of their disputes, most of which were playful in nature.

Fortunately for my sanity, I’d converted Darian enough he could withstand a dunking or two in lava, as Lucifer rather enjoyed punting my husband-to-be into one of the pools whenever he became annoying.

“I’m expecting it because we keep refusing to set a wedding date, and he loves weddings,” I reminded him. “Just tell him we enjoy living in sin too much to ruin it with marriage plans yet.”

“Well, if you hadn’t informed him we wouldn’t have any foals romping around until after marriage, we wouldn’t be getting nagged right now.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll just hit up Vegas or something—”

“You absolutely will not,” Lucifer announced, and the bastard revealed himself on the counter beside me, opting to show up as a Caucasian gentleman with horns and wearing a designer suit.

Uh oh. The Devil wasn’t playing to my parents’ expectations, which would inevitably lead to chaos.

“Merry Christmas, and you’re an asshole,” I told my boss.

“Merry Christmas. I thought you’d like to know Ra has met your parents, and they’re now in a delightful state of shock, especially as Ra is almost as overprotective as I am, so he is laying out how they will behave at dinner. As Ra can be vindictive, he has not notified your parents of the rest of the guest list. He is already here, and He has opted to take a mortal form for the venture.”

I considered the many ways He might offend my parents. “He went with dark skin?”

“Absolutely. Mankind didn’t start as pasty pale beings, anyway. That happened due to migration and opting to live in colder climates with fewer days of sunshine. Humans always find a way to complicate things. It’s so easy to play to prejudices, and He has almost as wicked a sense of humor as I do. He’s wearing a suit, too. A rather nice one, actually. It’s nice because I helped Him with it.”

“It’s one of your suits because He generally has no use for clothes,” I guessed. “But He has a point to prove, so He is playing to humanity’s conception of propriety.”

“You’re absolutely correct. It’s been a while since He has manifested any form, so He would like you to add a shroud over his shroud. Just to be extra cautious. You need the practice anyway. Normally, He manifests as a presence.”

Conversion had come with prices, but it had also come with gifts, and the magic that would have killed me had ultimately become one of my strengths. I could shroud just about anything or anyone, and my shrouds made most divines work to break through them.

He wouldn’t be a risk to anyone, not with my shroud in place.

With me around, the End of Days might not wipe everybody out, forever changing the future. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the Devil had played an even longer game than I’d believed. Lucifer had wanted me for secretarial work, but he needed me to keep a dark future from coming to pass—or one that would end everything he held dear.

If I could shroud Him, the End of Days might not come to pass at all, not for Earth. Instead, the battlefield would change to a new location. Perhaps the heavens, perhaps the many hells—but not Earth.

“You’re tricky,” I complained. “You better have brought me really nice presents to put up with this.”

Lucifer laughed. “We have presents for you, never fear. Your living room is buried in presents, and Sam’s going to play at being Santa. He thinks it’s hilarious. What’s really hilarious is that you told your mother how many people were coming so she could get a token gift for everybody. He is going to thoroughly enjoy her expression when she realizes she’s giving me a Christmas present.”