by ROCFanKat

Disclaimers: See Chapter 1.

When I was sure Cassie was asleep, I carefully separated from her and climbed out of bed. She didn't stir until I covered her back up, and only then to steal all the covers. It figured. Sleeping with her had many compensations, but half the blankets wasn't one of them.

As quietly as possible, I put on my pajamas and last night's shoes, and kissed the top of her blonde head, which was all I could find of her in that mountain of bedding. Then I prowled the upstairs, looking for the way to the attic. Something had been drawing me there for the past few hours, ever since I'd seen those eyes on that videotape, and something told me that thing was Monica. I hadn't mentioned it to Cassie, because she wouldn't want to know. Besides, that last ouzo had worked like a charm; she'd forgotten about making me call her mother. Why ruin what had turned out to be a very fine evening after all?

So I would go see what Monica wanted, in private. First, though, I had to figure out how to get up to the attic. Cassie had said something once about a fold-down ladder in a very inconvenient place...

Eventually, I found it--a panel in the ceiling of a walk-in closet in the guest bedroom. Grumbling under my breath, I found a pole with a hook on it at the back of the closet, used it to grab the brass ring on the ladder panel, and pulled. The panel squeaked, enough that it might wake her up; I left the hook pole dangling from the ring while I went back to close her bedroom door.

When I came back, the ladder was already folded down, and a light was on in the attic.

"Monica?" I whispered.

No answering sound, except for a faint patter on the roof. Cautiously, I climbed the first three rungs of the ladder, and felt a cool breeze that smelled like rain. Great. Apparently a window was open up there, and it had been raining all night. No doubt Monica was out to ruin Cassie's house, too. I would've thought she would've gone in for Amityville Horror tricks--green slime or blood running down the walls--but Cassie would be just as furious about rainwater.

Briefly, I considered the options: face a demon in the attic, or face my beloved if I didn't close the window. That was a no-brainer. I went on up the ladder.

The attic was clear of demons at first glance. Anything could be hiding behind all those boxes and trunks, of course, but Monica wasn't the hiding type. Oddly, too, both windows were closed. But the wind and the smell of rain were coming from somewhere else, somewhere in the ceiling, through no opening that I could see...

At which point a mouse ran over my shoe, and I rather lost track of things for a minute. It wasn't that I was scared of mice. One of my best friends in grade school had a pet white rat, and he'd been harmless enough, even when we dressed him up in Barbie clothes. But an unexpected mouse was a whole other story. I did a little dance, it made a little squeak, and then it scurried between two boxes, out of sight.

I took a moment to recover my wits, feeling stupid but keeping sharp watch on the place where I'd last seen the mouse. Cassie hated all mice, indiscriminately, and she would send me back with a carving knife if she ever found out. Maybe I'd get Kurt to do it instead. He could probably reason with the creature on its own level, rodent to rodent.

Speaking of creatures, I still had to deal with Monica. Pushing the mouse to the back of my mind, I started to search the attic again--and found another fold-down ladder folded down from the ceiling, the night sky clearly visible through the opening that hadn't been there before.

That was a demon for you. She could've just yanked me out of bed again, but no--now I had to climb up to the roof to have speech with her. Well, I wanted speech with her about that. Goaded, I went up the ladder and pulled myself onto the roof.

No Monica. Was she hiding behind the chimney? Hanging upside down from a branch of the walnut tree? I hated it when she got cute.

"Monica? Damn you, where are you?"

I was about to check the other chimney when a hand touched my shoulder. Startled, I turned--faster than a smart person would turn on slippery roof shingles.

Vanessa barely caught me in time. With no effort at all, she set me back on my feet and then shook her head in dry amusement. "You should know better than to go up on a roof in the rain in those shoes. Try something with a little tread next time. Did you know Nordstrom has a cute little ankle boot that..."

"You?!?"

"You sound surprised."

"Surprised, hell--I'm mad. I climb halfway up Kilamanjaro, in the rain, looking for Monica, and I get you?"

"You don't want to talk about shoes?"

Breathing hard, trying to control my temper, I gave her a narrow once-over. She was wearing the same kind of black gown Monica always wore, and there was just enough streetlight for me to see her eyes, which were the same weird shade of red. This was a trick, of course. Monica was probably shape-shifting again. I'd never quite forgiven her for turning into Cassie on me that night last summer. But if she thought I was going to fall for that trick twice, with Vanessa of all people...

"I'm not Monica," she said. "God, don't insult me."

"If you're reading my mind, read a little farther. I've thought a lot worse of you."

"Of course you have. But that's not important. It's time we had a talk, Devlin."

"Fine. We can talk inside. I'll get Cassie, and then..."

"Not just yet. It's a beautiful night. I thought a little fresh air would do you good. You like rain, don't you?"

"That's not the point. The point is..." I wished I'd learn to stop saying that; it was one of those sentences I never seemed to know how to finish. "Quit yanking my chain, Monica. I know you're in there. Show yourself."

"Really, Devlin. Isn't enough of me showing already?" A flash of fangs in the streetlight, which might have been a smile. "They warn us about this in Demon Ed. Let a celibate loose just once, and you'll never..."

"Cut that out. How stupid do you think I am? Demon Ed?"

She reached into the front of her gown--an action that I made a point of not watching. When I looked again, she was handing me a small pamphlet. It was exactly the size, shape, and design of those little tracts the street preachers passed out downtown, an irony that would have amused me more had I not been in a temper. The last time I'd run into one of those yahoos...

"You and Cassie decided to walk to lunch that day," Vanessa said, matter-of-factly, "and you had to go across Mad Mac's corner. That was before the city got hold of him and made him get a storefront, of course. He was oppressing some poor old woman about how Jesus loved her, at the top of his lungs, so you gave him one of those looks of yours..."

My blood froze. "How do you know that?"

"...and you didn't think he saw, but he had eyes in the back of his head, because he turned around and looked right at you..."

"We didn't tell anyone about that. It was too stupid to even mention. So how do you..."

"...and he said, 'But Jesus doesn't love you.' Cassie tried to bop him with her purse. I know you remember this, Devlin."

Dead silence on the roof, except for the rain and the rustling of bare branches in the wind. She was right--and she wasn't Monica, either. Monica would have had a few choice comments about my carrying Mad Mac's words around like a cross all these years. Vanessa just stated the fact, without malice.

"It's too bad your parents are Methodists," she said, almost sadly. "If you'd been brought up Catholic, you'd have lapsed a long time ago, and you'd have just popped the little twerp one. You really should be an ex-Catholic, you know. All that Irish blood..." Another flash of fangs. "Oh, well. We win some; we lose some. Read the little book."

"In the dark?"

"Oh." She reached back into her gown and came up with a lighted candle. "Here."

It was a good thing that I was used to this sort of thing by now. Without comment, I took the candle and held it close to the pamphlet. The title was in Russian, which might as well have been Greek or Sanskrit for all the good it did.

"Mikhail Bulgakov wrote some of it," she explained. "With Gogol. C.S. Lewis has a beer with them every now and then. They.."

That wasn't funny. "Stop that right now."

"You're forgetting The Screwtape Letters. C.S. got it all backward, but he did get it."

Annoyed, I lighted the pamphlet with the candle, and then threw both burning things into the rain as hard as I could. "Give me one good reason not to throw you off this roof, Vanessa."

"Hmmm. That's a toughie." She put her fingertip to her temple and frowned, in a mock show of deep thinking--and I had to blink hard, because for just a second, she turned into a Valley Girl with big hair and see-through pink clothes. It was getting so hard to tell anymore whether I was losing my mind. "One good reason? It would mess up my dress. This thing takes forever to dry."

"I've got time," I informed her, taking a menacing step in her direction.

"Want one more reason?"

I kept moving. "No. I want to throw you off the roof."

"You don't want to hurt me. I'm Cassie's demon."

Outraged, I completely lost my balance. Vanessa grabbed me again.

"Say that one more time," I demanded.

"I'm Cassie's demon."

With all the force I could command, I threw her off the roof. Then, dusting my hands off, I went back down the ladder to the attic.

Where Vanessa was standing, unharmed and whole, with a tolerant little smile on her face.

"Can't blame me for trying," I said.

"It won't work on Monica, either."

"Am I asleep, by any chance? I have crazy dreams sometimes. Maybe it was the ouzo."

"You're awake."

That was what I was afraid of. "Does Cassie know?"

"Not yet. Go wake her up, and we'll tell her. I'll meet you downstairs."

I nodded and started to fold the ladder back into the ceiling. While I did, she stuck something small and flat into my pajama pocket. "Tracts don't burn," she explained.

"Demon Ed," I said heavily. "By Bulgakov and Gogol. In Russian."

"Well, not all of it. C.S. Lewis wrote the captions."

Of course he did. I'd just been up on the roof, in the rain, in my pajamas, in the middle of the night, in an expensive part of Greenville, with a co-worker who said she was a demon--and not just any demon, but Cassie's. Two dead Russians and a dead Brit were writing tracts in some corner pub in Hell, laughing like madmen, and Mad Mac was playing touch football with Howard Abner at a cheap motel in Blue Valley, both of them in prom dresses. Sure. Why not?

I watched my mind slip its moorings and drift through the opening in the ceiling, between the branches of the walnut tree and on out into the night, as bright in the dark sky as a red balloon. It might have been my imagination, but the balloon seemed to be wearing a pair of tiny horns.

•••

Cassie made another circle of the living room, scowling, arms folded, not happy. She'd been unhappy enough when I woke her up--I'd forgotten that I was dripping, that the rain had been cold, and that she wasn't wearing a thing--and when she'd gotten over being dripped on, she'd had a second fit because I was standing there in wet pajamas and soggy shoes. In no mood for explanations, she'd dragged me to her peach-and-blue bath by the ear, stripped everything off, and turned her hair dryer on Stun. It was an interesting situation, but I was pretty well immune to interesting by now, and being blow-dried by a blonde in her birthday suit was just one more thing.

She hadn't liked hearing that Vanessa was downstairs, either, when I finally got a word in edgewise. She complained about it the whole time we were getting dressed, and she practically bit Vanessa's head off when we got down to the living room. But Vanessa had simply smiled and pointed at the fireplace, which instantly roared to life, which shut Cassie up for a second. That was long enough for me to get her settled on the couch and to get a good grip on her while Vanessa told her who she was.

That had been half an hour ago. Cassie was relatively calm now, and Vanessa was still talking. It had been a lot of nonsense, really, about demons and angels and gods, and how humans got them all confused, but she'd promised at the start to keep Monica away if we agreed to listen, and that had been good enough for Cassie.

For my part, I'd been leaning against the wall for a while, sipping brandy and trying not to think. Cassie had thrown down her own brandy in one shot and refused a refill; she'd been pacing a hole in the carpet ever since.

Vanessa didn't seem to mind. She just kept talking, about guardian demons, and competition for souls, and Monica's eternal propensity to cheat. It seemed that there'd been a bet between them about Cassie and me. Monica thought she could get my soul the old-fashioned way--with guilt, temptation, and sex, not necessarily in that order. Vanessa said she was crazy, because Cassie would be better at the sex part than Monica was, having Vanessa as her demon and all. There'd been a big argument about that, with many rude things said, all of which Vanessa repeated, with venom...and it was all starting to give me a headache. There was a bottle of Advil in the bath upstairs; I decided to go take a few and then have another brandy.

But Cassie cut me off, informing me that I wasn't leaving the room. She meant business, by the look in her eye, so I decided to go hold up the wall some more.

Finally, Vanessa finished. It was quiet for a long time, except for the scuff of Cassie's flats on the carpet as she continued to pace.

"Questions?" Vanessa asked.

Cassie gave her a terrible look, but kept her own counsel.

"Devlin? Questions?"

"Cassie's not happy," I said. "I don't think she likes having a demon. Any chance you could just go away?"

"I could, if you really want." Vanessa examined her talons under the lamplight, looking bored. "But then Monica would have a clear field, and she'd finish you off. It's nothing to me, of course, but Cassie would miss you, and we'd have to start sleeping with salesmen again."

I didn't like the sound of that one bit and scowled at Cassie, preemptively. She scowled right back.

"That's the problem when demons compete," Vanessa said. "The winner can send the loser back inside. I don't want to get back inside your girl, if you don't mind. She has terrible taste in men." Finding some imperfection in one nail, she reached into her gown for a file; I made a mental note to set up a purse concession when I got to Hell. "I hate sleeping with salesmen. They are the absolute worst. No technique--just close, close, close. It's enough to make a demon weep."

"And if you win, and Monica loses...?"

"I could send her back inside. That would be fun. You and Cassie and Monica, all in the same bed..."

"Over my dead body," Cassie spat.

"But I won't," Vanessa said quickly. "Just because I'm a demon doesn't mean I'm evil. I'm on your side."

Cassie stopped cold in her tracks, and we both regarded her in silence.

"Oh, all right, all right, I'm evil. But Monica's worse. Believe me, you want me to win. I'll just drive her into a Junior Leaguer or something." She swiped the file across her nails, smiling wickedly. "No one would ever notice the difference. So. Are you with me?"

"What do you want us to do?" I asked.

"Nothing you won't enjoy doing."

Damn, that sounded familiar. It had been a setup when I'd said it, and I wasn't even a demon. Were we about to make a worse deal with a different devil?

Uncertain, I caught Cassie's eye. She beckoned me over.

"What do you think?" she whispered.

"She's your demon. It's your call."

"I don't trust her."

"Neither do I. But I trust you."

The look on her face was worth whatever this was going to cost me. "Thank you. I love you. I mean it....Vanessa?"

Being busy filing her claws, the demon didn't bother to glance up. "Cassandra?"

"About what you're going to do to Monica if you win."

"When I win," Vanessa corrected, still filing.

Cassie smiled slightly and reached for my hand. "Does it have to be a Junior Leaguer? Could you drive her into anyone?"

That got Vanessa's full attention--and mine. The demon laughed. "Go on."

"It was an academic question," Cassie lied. "I just wondered. But while I'm wondering..."

"Yes. It can be arranged. Are you with me?"

"And Devvy and I stay together, no matter what?"

"Like I could keep you apart. Now, are you with me?"

"Yes," Cassie said. But what Vanessa couldn't see--and what I wouldn't have known had I not been holding her hand--was that she'd crossed her fingers.

•••

"That was a stupid trick, Cass."

"So? She's a dumb blonde." She sighed and snuggled a bit closer. "God, I hate demons. Yours is bad enough. But mine..."

"She's not full-time dumb."

"She's sleeping with Jenner."

There was no winning that point, so I conceded it.

"You said you trust me," she said.

"I do. But I just think it's..."

"I think your plan is stupid, too. But I trust you."

"That may have been your first mistake," I admitted.

"You're trouble, all right, pookie. You're lucky I like trouble."

Irritably, I pushed her off and scooted to the far side of the bed.

"Babycakes?" she asked, amused. "Buttercup? Honeybunch?"

With maximum dignity under the circumstances, I grabbed all the covers and made a Porthault-and-goose-down fort around myself.

The mattress shifted as she started to crawl my way. "Bluuuuuuebird? Buuuuuunny rabbit?"

Was she out of her mind? I scooted a little farther.

She was laughing now, the fiend. "Lamb chop? Chicken teriyaki?"

I gave the covers a mighty pull--and went over the edge. Cassie lost it, laughing so hard that she almost started hiccuping.

"I meant to do that," I snarled.

She composed herself with great effort. "Of course you did, pookie." Then she lost it again.

And this was the woman who was going to fight at my side against J/J/G, the Family Foundation, 2,000 years of street preaching, pigheadedness in general, sexual pigheadedness in particular, and two demons. I was in trouble.

Lucky I liked trouble, too.

•••

(c) 1999, ROCFanKat

Continued - Part 17