“You remember the moment you were born?”
“—and suddenly someone says, ‘Hey, remember that time we singed our eyebrows lighting that bowling alley on fire?’ only at first you don’t remember singeing your eyebrows while lighting a bowling alley on fire, but then you think about it and it suddenly comes to you? You totally remember singeing your eyebrows while lighting a bowling alley on fire?”
She blinked several times, then wrenched out a “Sure.”
“It’s like that. I remember being a god, but not totally. Like parts of my celestial life have been erased from my memory.”
“Your celestial life.”
“Right. Before I became human? I think I have a glitch.”
“It’s … possible, I suppose.”
“I mean, who knows? I might already have a way to defeat a malevolent god that’s loose on this plane and not even realize it.”
“A malevolent god?”
“The malevolentest.”
“And he’s loose on this plane?”
“Yes. And trust me when I say you do not want him here. He takes his death and destruction very seriously. And he has zero respect for human life.”
“Mmm.” She nodded and went back to taking notes.
“Zero,” I added for emphasis, making an O with my fingers. Then I waited. She had a lot to write down. When she kept at it long enough to outline a novel, I filled the silence with, “It’s funny. My husband thought it would be pointless to come here.”
She laid her pen across her notepad and gave me her full attention. “Tell me about him.”
“My husband?”
“Yes.” Her voice was very soothing. Like elevator music. Or summer rain. Or Darvocet. “How’s your relationship?”
“How much time do we have?” I snorted, cracking myself up.
My husband, a.k.a. Reyes Alexander Farrow, didn’t find my joke as funny as I did. It happened. I felt him before I saw him. His heat brushed across my skin. Sank into me. Saturated my clothes and hair and even warmed the cool gold band on my ring finger.
As he passed over me, all darkness and billowing smoke, he paused to whisper sweet nothings in my ear. I barely heard him over the rushing of my own blood. Whatever he said made my nether regions clench in anticipation. Then he continued on his journey, materializing on the other side of the room where he stood in a corner to watch from afar. Ish.
“Just kidding,” I said as his eyes glistened in the low light. “He’s kind of awesome. He’s from down under.”
“Australia?”
“Hell.”
His eyes narrowed, but any threats he may have been trying to hurl my way were nulled and voided by the smirk playing about his sensual mouth. He crossed his arms at his wide chest and leaned back into a corner to observe my goings-on.
He’d been doing that a lot lately. Popping in to check up on me. It could have had something to do with the fact that I had waged war with not one god but two. The malevolent one and the Good One. The Big Guy upstairs.
I decided to ignore my husband to the best of my abilities. I was here on a job. If I couldn’t stay focused despite being bombarded with the most delicious distraction this side of the Flame Nebula, I was no better than a gumshoe-for-hire PI.
Oh, wait. I was a gumshoe-for-hire PI. Which would explain the job I was currently on. It paid the bills. Sometimes.
“Okay, let’s get back to your husband. You mean he’s from hell metaphorically?”
I refocused on the good doctor. “Oh, no. Quite literally. Technically, he’s a god, too, but he was tricked by two other gods—one of which I’ve already trapped in a hell dimension and the other of which I’m currently trying to trap and/or horribly maim—and handed over to Lucifer, who created his only son out of the god’s energy.”
She frowned and squinted her eyes like she was trying to imagine it all.
“Okay, so, basically, you take the energy of a surly god”—I held up an index finger to demonstrate—“toss in some fire and brimstone”—I wiggled my other fingers around said index—“top that with a little sin”—I pretended to sprinkle sin over the mixture—“whisk for five minutes, and voilà.” I flared my fingers as though I’d just done a magic trick. “Rey’aziel incarnate.”
When Reyes scowled at me, I fought the urge to giggle. Nothing like having your entire existence boiled down to its basest elements.