I stood up, surprised my shaky legs could hold me. “I’ll be right back.”
I clicked the bathroom door shut behind me and went to the sink, turning the faucet on. I splashed cold water on my face and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Green eyes gone glassy and cold. Miniscule lashes flecked with tiny droplets of water. Pale white cheeks pockmarked with angry red blotches. The face that I had recognized and scrutinized my whole life through—flesh and blood—and now some of that blood belonged to the devil. Maybe.
The tears started involuntarily. The weight of knowing heaved against my chest, seeming to squeeze out every last inch of air.
I thought of all the images of Satan that I had seen in the past—a sinister, red-faced man with a cleanly cut beard, a prominent widow’s peak, and jet-black hair pushed back. I thought of the cloven feet, the pointed tail, the two sharp horns sprouting on his head. Images of evil, of tortured souls writhing in a fiery hell while Satan gleefully watched on. Satan.
My father, the devil.
My round face and bushy brows were courtesy of my mother. Ditto for my diminutive stature, my stubby toes, and what my doctor politely referred to as “childbearing” hips. What had my father given me?
I bared my teeth—straight, Crest white, supremely human, fang free. I checked my nails—half a manicure, each nail that wasn’t chipped or bitten filed into a neat square. No claws. I wiggled my toes—all ten of them. No cloven hooves.
I had no physical traits of my father—in devil form—so I supposed that was good. And I didn’t consider myself a sadist or anyone who took pleasure in the pain of others except for the occasional schaudenfraude.
So what did it mean to be Satan’s kid?
I glanced back up into the mirror and sucked in a shaky breath, using my index finger to tap the glass.
“Grandma?” My voice sounded small, foreign, and tinny. No one appeared; the only person looking out was me, with red-rimmed eyes and a clutch of fire-red hair. I lifted my hand to knock again, but the thought that my grandmother may have known this weighed on me.
There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door.
I peeled the door open and slipped out, trying to avoid the quiet stares.
Nina looked at me, her eyes registering concern. “We’ve got to do something. Look at you, Soph, you’re upset. This is not okay.”
Nina looked from me to Alex and then widened her stance, slamming her fist into her flat-open palm. “We’re going to do something. We have to do more than just read books. Sophie, I’m going to find Ophelia and we’re going to find out if you’re the spawn of Satan if it kills me. Again.” She nodded her head definitively, crossed her arms in front of her DUDE, WHERE’S MY COUTURE? shirt and stared both Alex and me down with her black eyes.
“The spawn of Satan?” I repeated meekly.
“Oh.” Nina pressed her reverse-French manicured fingers against her mouth. “Satan’s kin. Is that better?”
Frankly, with my working in the demon Underworld and sharing a bathroom with a card-carrying member of the soulless undead, I’d always considered myself more Hell-adjacent, rather than directly in line with anything from the actual dark side. Yet here I was, in my living room, being told that daddy dearest might actually be devil dearest.
“Aw, crap,” I muttered again, massaging my aching forehead.
“Come on, Soph. You’re okay.” Nina shrugged toward Alex. “He’s an angel, I’m a vampire, and you’re—”
I held up a silencing hand and Alex leaned in. “You’re Sophie Lawson, regular girl.”
I smiled softly in spite of myself, relishing the feeling of delicious warmth as it spread through my body. I didn’t even pause to consider that my life was crashing down around me, my father might be responsible for every bad thing that happened in the world, and I was becoming a knock-kneed schoolgirl because a cute boy was being nice to me. “You really think I’m regular?”
Alex cocked his head with that sexy half-smile. “Actually, I think you’re way better than regular.”
I sat up a little straighter, feeling a lump rise in my throat. But whether it was from my newfound family tree or the sweet, earnest expression of my friends, I wasn’t sure.
Nina’s head swayed back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match. “Did we really just have a Hallmark moment right now? Sophie might very well be in the clutches of world-ending evil and you’re acting like a couple of eighth graders!”
I shrugged, and Nina used her index finger and thumb to pinch the bridge of her nose and blow out an exasperated sigh. “Am I the only one in the room who isn’t thinking with her genitals?”
“Sorry, Nina. What do you suggest we do?”
“There has to be someone who knows something; there has to be some way to find out more,” said Nina.
“There is. I think I know where to find help,” Alex said solemnly.
“Where?” Nina asked.
“Heaven.”
Chapter Nine