Catnapped, p.8
Catnapped, page 8
“We brought you breakfast.” Darlene grabbed one of the platters, took it to the coffee table, and pointed at me before pointing at the couch and snapping her fingers until I obeyed. “You need to eat, and you need to eat a lot. You need to eat a lot. You, stubborn thing you are, put up a fight. I swear, you’re just a delight, and it disgusts me I have to side with my husband on this. You’re almost as good at giving him a run for his money as I am. Also, don’t panic that you can’t remember it. His brother wanted to spare you the trauma, and when his brother gets fidgety about something like that, it’s best to just give him what he wants. You are only missing a bunch of cursing, screaming, and threatening to rip my husband’s dick off and feed it to him if he didn’t stop trying to incinerate your breasts. I shouldn’t have laughed at your suffering, but once you decided you’d had enough, your curses and threats got vicious.”
Well, I didn’t regret missing the screaming and cursing portion of my night, but as making such a statement fell outside of my normal behaviors, curiosity ate away at me. “Did I actually do that?”
“You actually did that,” she confirmed. “Lucy even asked his brother to protect him out of fear for his life. Or his prowess. More for his prowess, really. He’s a vain creature.”
“I’m pretty sure any man would be concerned in that situation,” I replied, grimacing at the thought of having been that vehement. “I apologize, Lucifer.”
“No need to apologize. Sit down and have your breakfast. Anyway, I am who I am, and I find that thing to be quite attractive. I took my frustrations out on Darlene later, so don’t you worry yourself any.”
With a sly smile, the succubus ferried more platters to the coffee table. “Thank you, I had a wonderful time, in case you were wondering.”
“Not particularly, but you’re welcome. I’m glad one of us had a wonderful time.” I pointed at my chest, which still hurt. “What’s the deal with the bandages?”
“My wife demanded ‘we keep them from bouncing’ while healing, thus converting you into a mummy. Bouncing would not be good right now,” the Devil replied, taking a seat on the arm of the couch near me. “Bouncing would really not be good right now, and not a single one of those lacy bras you brought will do a sufficient job of breast bondage, so you got bandages. You are to leave them on for three days. Shower or bathe without removing them. My brother is a far kinder being than I am, so they’ll stay clean until it’s time for them to come off.”
I appreciated that. “Thank you. Please thank your brother for me, too. Just don’t tell me which brother. It’s bad enough I run a high risk of encountering Raguel. I’ve reached my limit of divines for the week. Introduce me to more divines next week.”
“That’s our cue, my darling,” Lucifer said, helping Darlene to finish emptying the carts before shoving them out into the hallway. “Eat until you can’t possibly eat another bite, and then go do the things pesky little mortals do when bored and left unattended. Do not get into more trouble than you can handle alone. Try not to have too much fun getting into trouble. I’ve learned once mortals discover the delights of creating trouble and mayhem, it becomes habitual. My secretary needs to balance the perfect amount of containing vs creating trouble and mayhem.”
Without another word, the pair teleported away.
Darian sat down beside me, selected a platter, and took off the lid, revealing a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and fruit. Silver vessels tucked to the side contained maple syrup, jam, and butter. “There has to be magic at play here. There is no way I would normally finish one of these.” Pointing at platters, he counted, where they were scattered everywhere, including taking over most of the kitchenette. “They expect us to eat ten plates each.”
“Whoever can’t eat another bite first loses. Whoever eats the most in the shortest amount of time without throwing up wins,” I proposed, as only my competitive nature would get me through one plate let alone ten. Two would be pushing my luck, but for the sake of victory, I could cram enough into my stomach.
“What are the stakes?”
“Good question. Any reasonable favor? I’d say sex, except it seems I’m out of commission for a while.” I glared down at my chest. “Society has convinced me sex should be sinfully pleasurable, and I do not want to be disappointed because of this mess.”
“You really are not shy at all.”
“Why should I be? I got the talk young, although it was presented in a way to keep me a pristine virgin for religious reasons. Really, the only reason I haven’t dragged a man to bed involved paying off that wretched mortgage and time. I worked hard to get rid of that mortgage, but I did such a good job at it I just don’t have time for a man. I really don’t. At least right now. I mean, what am I supposed to do with a man? Hang him up when I’m done with him in bed and pull him out whenever I have an itch I want him to scratch?”
Darian laughed. “Your view of life is definitely refreshing. My mother is convinced I’m reckless and should not be trusted anywhere near a delicate flower of a woman. I keep trying to tell her women aren’t fragile. She throws a temper tantrum about how she is the most delicate of women, pretends to faint against one of my fathers, and otherwise disgraces all women everywhere. Really, she thinks I’m excessively sensitive and will be a wilting lily if there’s any pain or bloodshed.”
I stared at him. “Please tell me your mother explained how women’s bodies actually work.”
“I am well educated about the blood tithes women pay every twenty-eight days. My mother claims she is sacrificing blood to some blood god once a month. And if chocolate is not sacrificed to her, everyone around her will pay. Also in blood. I’m also educated in how to identify lumps, as my mother is convinced that wise men should be intimately familiar with the texture of their wife’s breasts.”
“If you win, I will take you to a brothel, where you can get whatever education you desire about sex in application. And I’ll pay the bill. Try not to bankrupt me. I feel you have been unfairly restrained and deserve to get lessons from a succubus if you want them.”
With a grin, Darian replied, “Okay. If you win, I’ll help you negotiate your job offer with the Devil, and I’ll make sure you have the appropriate time off. I would offer to take you to a brothel, but you’re pretty enough that you might be asked to stay as a worker, and my mother would really kill me dead if she found out I was leading delicate women into darkness. I will also offer to drive you to any clinics you need for cancer screening and health checks, as that shit is stressful and having someone to go along for the ride can be helpful.”
“I can live with those terms. The way my chest hurts, I’m thinking somebody fucking lied to me about the severity, because it seriously feels like he flash fried my breasts before boiling them to mush. I touched. I am not making that mistake again, Darian. I am not touching them as much as possible. Frankly, I might ask you to help me in and out of my shirts, so I don’t have to move my arms as much.” I lifted my arm and pointed at the muscles connecting my breasts to the rest of my body. “Doing this is not comfortable. I’m getting painkillers before we go out today. And I’ll try not to whine about it, because this beats cancer, but it is not comfortable.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can,” he promised. “After we eat, we’ll talk business. With a little luck, we’ll be so busy searching for your cat you won’t have time to remember it hurts. And even if we waste half of this, we’ll be grateful for it later, because with my luck at wayfinding, we will have quite the hike ahead of us.”
To both my relief and disappointment, we tied at who could eat the most and how fast we could shovel food into our bottomless pits formerly known as stomachs. Magic played some role for certain; every now and then, flickers of blue-white flame danced over our skin and arms before soaking in and vanishing without a trace. Every plate I packed away helped to ease the soreness in my breasts, something I appreciated—and would appreciate later, once I had to move around and get work done on finding my cat.
“I hate when I owe people for anything,” I complained, tossing down my napkin on top of the pile of dishes. As part of my feeding frenzy, I’d licked every plate to come my way clean, and I’d even scoured the little dishes for every drop of syrup and scrape of butter. I’d abandoned all dignity, and I suspected I had jam or syrup on my nose. “I’m essentially obligated to accept the Devil’s job offer, and while I’m good at negotiating with others when my boss tells me to, I clam up when it’s time for my yearly review. Every damned time. It was beaten into me as a kid to be grateful for what I had, and this makes it hard to do things like ask for a raise. But I’m supposed to be an adult. I should ask for raises. Or negotiate higher, because my work is worth more. Great. Now I’m whining.”
“You’ve had a hard day yesterday and today. I think you’ve earned a chance to whine. I’d be whining, too, if someone stole my pet. Honestly, in your shoes, I would be tearing the planet apart stone by stone, and I don’t even have a pet. But if I did, I would.”
I straightened, pleased he directed our conversation to the matter of finding Mr. Flooferson the Magnificent. “Oh, good. Then you won’t judge me too badly when I go to drastic measures.” I could work with that. A willing accomplice made everything easier. With a little luck, easier would mean we could find and rescue my cat sooner.
“I admire that your first line of offense was to call the Devil. That takes serious courage. Or insanity. I’m not sure which, but I’m here to find out. That leads me to the problem of my wayfinding ability. While Lucifer told the truth about my general abilities and limitations, we still need to talk about it.”
“He said you couldn’t go to people or other living things, and that you had some restrictions.”
“Correct. For example, I can take the fur you gathered and search for if the fur had been used in an experiment, and if so, where. The fur is not a living being, especially once taken from the cat. I’m not searching for the cat, I’m searching for the fur, a non-living entity.”
“But the fur came from my cat.”
“I could pluck a hair from your head and search for the brush that last touched your hair and create a path to the brush, but I couldn’t search for you. The hair isn’t you. It was, until plucked, a part of you, but it lacks the spark of life. That’s typically where the line is. So, we will have to make certain we frame all of our searches with that. I can only establish one path a day. Once the path is set, we have six hours to get to where we’re going before it disappears. Reestablishing the same path is feasible after I’ve gotten some rest. That’s limited compared to some wayfinders, but my magic will usually take a good route to where I need to go. Most wayfinders take direct lines only. Mine at least somewhat understands roads exist. It will take the path of least resistance. Unfortunately, if there is a river, it might try to follow the river rather than a road, as it doesn’t really distinguish the difference between water and asphalt.” Darian shrugged. “If I’m in an area with a lot of water, I tend to make sure I have an ATV so I can follow along. I usually will get a truck rental, load an ATV into the back, and go for a look. I’ll have to check out the terrain here to see if an ATV is a good option. I’ve been to California only once before, and I made a pretty direct trip to where I needed to go.”
“I’ve been here a few times, but it really depends on what part of California you’re in. Some areas are desert. Some? Forests with huge trees. Where are we?”
“Good question.” Darian reached over the arm of the couch and grabbed the leather-bound hotel guide, flipping it open. “It seems we’re in Redding, which is somewhat north of Sacramento. We’re getting close to not being able to go much farther north before entering Oregon.”
“What the hell could possibly be up here?”
“Drugs,” he announced. He turned the guide my way, which showed a map of the state, and it included nearby counties. He tapped one of the counties along the coast. “This is Humboldt, and it’s considered to be one of the drug capitols of the United States. Ironically, this is where I was during my only visit to California. From illegal variants of pixie dust, plant-derived drugs, and various illegal labs, if you’re looking for some form of narcotic, chances are, you can get it here. The residents are pretty closed mouthed about it, too, so you have to be careful around these parts.”
“How do you know that?”
“I busted down a business that was running illegal labs out of Humboldt. I got the run around on the operations, so my first wayfinding took me to a different lab, but what I found there led me to Humboldt. Since your cat is a rescue from a lab, I already have a feel for how the illegal operations work.”
I frowned. “Which would be why the Devil pointed you my way. Not because you’re a wayfinder, but because you’ve already been involved with labs. And not just any labs, labs in this area. This makes sense. And he would know, because he’s the Devil and he can look into the future when it pleases him, so he is killing a bunch of birds with one stone, which is what he likes to do. And the more inevitable the future, the clearer and easier it is for him to see it.”
“If he bothers to look. But yes, you’re correct. According to both of my fathers, the Devil doesn’t look all that often; he likes the surprise and uncertainty, but if it’s an important matter to him, he’ll definitely peek. Since he wants you to be one of his right-hand women, he would look to see what would offer him that specific future. He got caught with this when he met Darlene; he refused to look because the game is better with surprises, so he got hoodwinked by Him. Lucifer still throws temper tantrums about it sometimes, although honestly? I don’t even see how the End of Days would work out right now. Lucifer loves Darlene, and the only reason he still has her is because of Him. That does not make him inclined to want to wage a war to the bitter end. And he’s always operated his many hells in a balanced fashion. He’s always been about the reformation of souls. Sure, he punishes them and beats morality back into them, but it’s always about the balance. If there are too many good seeds in the world, he releases the dark ones to keep things nice and orderly and balanced. He does the same. It’s something my parents were always telling me about growing up. Dad thinks the Devil is going to be the reason we never truly reach the End of Days, although for the purpose of the universal laws, it must always remain a possibility, because in order for there to be life, there must be death. Father, on the other hand, just shrugs. I always wonder what my father’s expressions are. While I would probably survive if he lowered the shroud, Mom wouldn’t.”
“Why would you survive? I certainly wouldn’t.” The research material I’d come across, from an old book written during the prior emergence and definitely classified as a forbidden text, had taken me several years to translate, requiring that I fumble through Hebrew, two different dialects of Arabic, Egyptian, and Hindi in order to understand its secrets. I’d returned the book to where I’d found it, but I’d made a copy with all of my notes, which I’d locked in one of the high-security vaults operated by the CDC, claiming it was heirloom family research I didn’t want stolen.
In reality, I wondered what would happen if the knowledge of the shrouds and their purpose did make it out into the world.
I’d read between the lines of that old text, determining the End of Days was less about humanity dying because of their sins but more about humanity dying as a consequence of the complete removal of the shrouds and His presence during the war to end all wars. The title of the end book of the bible made a great deal more sense to me when I looked at it beneath that terrible, divine light.
Revelations, indeed.
Darian drummed his fingers on the map of California, and his display of impatience drew my attention back to him. “Genetics. As far as devils go, Dad is pretty high up there; he need not be shrouded, but he is only one step below and can withstand the visages. Father is an archangel. Put those genes together, and I can withstand it. Father is very cautious about even mentioning the shroud, but we’re aware of it. It’s par for the course of having an angel in the house. Well, an archangel.”
“I’m guessing Lucifer will have to meddle with me quite a bit if he wants me as his secretary. His shroud is a world ender. So is His.”
“Yes.” He scowled. “You would no longer be human, that much is for certain. Your soul would be irrevocably changed. Well, partially. Darlene started as a human, too. She seems human enough, but she’s not anymore.”
“Well, she’s a succubus now. She acts human except when she’s hungry, has her wings out, and is hunting Lucifer because he finds being the prey of a cranky feline enjoyable,” I muttered, shaking my head over the pair. “I have had plenty of practice dealing with that train wreck during business hours. He probably planned for her to start getting hungry right around when I needed to work with him to test my abilities to handle his bullshit.” Taking a moment to think about my situation, I shrugged. “I’ll worry about it after we find Mr. Flooferson. I mean, what are the odds we have to worry about shrouds while looking for my cat?”
“Well, considering you had the attention of several archangels and the Devil, and they’re going out of their way to make sure you survive this through use of holy fire, I’d say whatever is going on with your cat is a game changer. Likely something along the lines of humanity discovering, testing, and experimenting with ambrosia. An illegal lab out of Humboldt makes a lot of sense, as it’s easier to hide the operations in a place where the locals tend to look the other way as long as the trouble doesn’t come knocking on their door. Some areas are worse than others, but there is a lot of untamed land around there. It’s not like San Francisco or Los Angeles, which are packed tight with people.”
“You officially know more than I do about California.”
“Only because of my background with one busted lab out of Humboldt. But if the lab is in Humboldt, we’ll be good with an SUV and some practitioner magic.”
