Mercy for the Wicked (21 page)

Unfortunately Mimsy chose that time to venture into the living room, hissing when she noticed Nelo for the first time.  Nelo, finding himself in a staring match with the fuzzy little creature, completely forgot he was supposed to be keeping out of sight. 

“What the hell is that?”  Ben demanded, one hand going for the holster at his belt. 

“No, it’s fine.”  I stepped out from behind the kitchen counter, putting myself between him and Nelo.  “Ben this is Nelo, remember I told you about him?”

“You did
not
mention you had a… a demon still here with you.  Mercy… you can’t expect me to be okay with this.  Get it out of here.”

“He’s not an it, he’s a him and he’s my friend.”  I expected it from Sam, but hadn’t Ben heard me say how I couldn’t have escaped Midian without Nelo’s help?  Acutely uncomfortable, Nelo backed towards the nearest shadow, and I was afraid he’d jump somewhere and get lost and I’d never see him again.

“I don’t give a good goddamn what he is, get him out of here.”

“Oh, would you just pipe down!” I waved Ben off, moving to intercede before Mimsy took a swipe at Nelo.  “Mimsy, it’s okay, baby… calm down, this is Nelo, he’s a friend.” I spoke in a calm, soothing voice, but she still backed up when I approached.  God only knew what I smelled like coming from Midian, I didn’t blame her for being skittish. 

“What is that beast?”  Nelo asked, eyes wide as he peeped out from behind the couch.

“This is my cat, Mimsy.  Haven’t you ever seen a cat before?  No, of course not,” I answered my own question at seeing him cower from the little animal.  “She won’t hurt you if you don’t get too close until she gets used to you, she’s just as afraid of you as you are of her.”

“She is your… companion?”

“Yeah, she’s lived here with me for a couple of years now and she’s a little skittish with new things, but she’ll settle down quick enough.  Won’t you, Mimsy?”  I reached out to let her sniff my fingers and she let me pat her head, but that’s as close as she let me get to her.  I was so fixated on calming her down, I didn’t realize Ben had fallen silent right away.  Until I looked back and saw him frozen in place, his expression one of exasperation mingled with anger.  “Ben?”  Then it dawned on me, I’d frozen him just as Nathanael had done that time in the parking lot at Severino’s! 

“Oh no…. no, no, no!  Ben?  Ben, can you hear me?”  Rushing to his side, I reached out to touch him, but he gave no response.  How the hell had I done that?  Would he snap out of it eventually or had I unwittingly done something worse to him?  “Sam?  Samael?  Are you around?”  Maybe it was selfish for me to call, but I needed angelic reinforcements. 

Landing light as a cat, Sam dropped to my balcony, his face a mask of worry as he pulled open the sliding door.  “Is something the matter?” he asked, with no sign of any hard feelings.

“I’ll say, take a look at what I accidentally did to Ben!”

“Yes, I see him,” Sam nodded, and I waited, but that was his only response.

“Is there anything you can do to snap him out of it?  What if I accidentally messed with his brain?”

“I like him better like that, Mistress.  Perhaps you should leave him this way?” Nelo commented, coming out from behind the couch to study him closer. 

“I actually agree with him on this one, he’s much more agreeable this way,” Sam nodded.

“When the two of you are done with your comedy act, can you maybe help me focus on the problem at hand?”  I replied tartly.  “What if he’s stuck like that?”

“It will wear off soon enough, though you might wish it hadn’t when he wakes.  He looks angry.”

“He was angry,” I sighed, wondering if that was it for Ben and me.  I know I was in love with someone else and I hadn’t intended to keep seeing Ben on the side, but that wasn’t how I’d planned to end things with him.  Actually, I hadn’t made any plans at all yet on how to handle the break up, but I knew I hoped we could still stay friends, as cliché as that might sound.  “Maybe if we…”   Ben came back to life then, not missing a beat from his last train of thought. 

“I mean it, Mercy, this… is…”  Ben blinked, looking from me to Sam to Nelo who all stood around him, watching him intently. 

“Ben…”

“You did it again, didn’t you?  You messed with my head, like you did before.”

“No, it wasn’t like that.  Last time it wasn’t me, it was Nathanael,” I tried to explain, but he wasn’t in the right frame of mind to listen.

“Like that makes it better,” he gave a short bark of laughter.  “Or is this your doing this time?”  Ben accused Sam, who gave him a ‘who me?’ look, but remained silent.

“No, it was an accident, I didn’t mean to,” I stepped in, not wanting Sam to take the fall for me.  “Look, if you’ll calm down, we can talk about this.”  But Ben was already pushing past me for the door. 

“I can’t do this right now, Mercy. I have to get to work.”

“But it’s the middle of the night,” I frowned, following him to the door. 

“There’s still plenty of work to do.  I need to focus on the familiar right now, because I’m all mixed up inside about what’s right and wrong, and I don’t like how that feels one bit.”

“Okay, if that’ll make you feel better.”  I wasn’t sure what else to say to that, but I made one last ditch effort.  “If it helps, we’re with the good guys.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” he scowled, looking with equal distrust to both Nelo and Sam.  “Right now I have to go with my gut, and my gut is telling me to get the hell out of here.”

“I guess we’ll talk more later then,” I added, but he was already out the door, leaving me to lock it behind him.

“Did I offend him?”  Sam asked softly and I flashed him a sad smile.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Was it my presence that upset him so, Mistress?”  Nelo chimed in, and I waved them both off, heading back to the kitchen to get a drink of something stronger. 

“No, I’m thinking it’s me that upset him so much.  And he doesn’t even know the half of it,” I sighed morosely, pouring a healthy shot of Bailey’s into Ben’s untouched cup of coffee and taking a deep drink.  I started to recognize things with Ben were likely broken beyond repair even before we got to the issue of Adam, and there was a tiny part of me that was glad about it.  I hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of giving him the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ speech, and I had more than a little bit of guilt wrapped around how much I’d leaned on Ben over the past few months, even though I knew he wasn’t
the one
.  

“Maybe this was for the best?” Sam suggested, echoing my own thoughts.  “I really didn’t see the two of you working out anyway.  Anytime there are secrets between people, it corrupts the bond between them.  And any time a person can’t be their true self with another person, it’s only a matter of time before they grow apart.”

Sam dispensing relationship advice?  Had I emerged from the demon plane into an alternate reality?  “Have you been watching Oprah lately?”

“Yes, why?” he smiled brightly, and I had to laugh.  Grabbing another mug out of the cupboard, I poured a splash of the alcohol into it and slid it across the counter to him.

“Have a drink with me.”

Sam accepted the mug with a dubious expression on his face.  “Will this make me sick?  Like the beer?”

“Not if you don’t have too much.  Just try it, you’ll like it, it tastes like chocolate.”  That was all I needed to say and Sam was game, instantly bringing it to his lips and tipping the mug back to finish it.

“That was delicious, may I have some more please?”

Ordinarily I might have said no, I didn’t want him getting sick after all, but I didn’t want to drink alone.  “Sure, just take it easy, it’s not like chocolate milk.  How about you, Nelo, do you want a drink?”  For the moment Sam didn’t seem to mind the demon’s presence.  Maybe having a common ‘enemy’ in Ben had brought them over to the same side?  Mimsy still gave him a wide berth though.

“No, thank you, Mistress. I am rather tired and dawn approaches.  Is there a place where I may rest?”

“Ah… sure.”  I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to where he would stay and we explored a few options.  He didn’t want to infringe upon my space, and I knew he’d want somewhere quiet and dark, so the couch was out of the question.  In the end we settled on the hallway closet, despite my misgivings.   Nelo assured me that it was just what he wanted, nice and cozy with very little light, and curled up beside the vacuum cleaner like a cat.  Satisfied he’d found a comfortable place to crash, I returned to the kitchen to find Sam pouring himself another drink.

I’m afraid I don’t remember a whole lot of what happened after that.  I know there was a lot more alcohol involved, and some serious conversation about the sea.  As in, the creatures of the sea and how they fit into God’s plan, according to Sam.  Like I said, I’m fuzzy on the details.  I know there was singing at one point, and that Sam possessed a very fine tenor voice.  I remember telling him all about my time in Midian and that there were tears standing in his eyes at one point.  Whether it was because of Raum’s treatment of me, or my vivid recollection of my time with Adam… I don’t rightly recall. 

Somehow or other I stumbled into my own bed well after the rise of the sun, only after tucking Sam in on the couch with strict instructions not to go anywhere while he was the least bit drunk.  Falling into bed, I had no fear of Azazael or Raum.  My thoughts ran more towards a certain dark haired angel, replaying that last kiss over and over in my head. 

As I drifted off to sleep, my mind spun fantasies of our happily ever after.  By day I would be the best bartender I could be, and by night I could travel the world with my fallen angel, or at least a fair approximation of it, in the Ether.  It wasn’t perfection, but I was more than happy to settle for it, as long as we could see each other on a regular basis.

So it wasn’t much of a stretch of the imagination for me to find myself in the Ether when I finally let go of my hold on reality.  And I wasn’t alone.

Chapter Fourteen

When I opened my eyes, I had to squint at the bright sun overhead.  Even with my floppy hat and sunglasses, the light was strong enough to make me blink.  Lying on a lounge chair, I wore a red bikini with a multi colored sarong knotted around my waist.  I recognized the beach right away, I’d been there a zillion times as a kid.  The pier on the right looked just as I remembered it, teeming with tourists.  The sand was littered with small clusters of people, their bright towels and bathing suits peppering the beach with a riot of colors.  Still under the fog of too much to drink, I watched the colors blend and shift with the movement of the ocean. 

“Oh good, you’re awake.”  Adam lay next to me, stretched out on a lounge chair, frosty margarita in hand, tiny black Speedos on his lean form.  Not my usual cup of tea, but he pulled it off.  “Good job on the setting by the way, I could get used to this.”

“I hate this place,” I murmured, eyes sweeping over the sand.

“You do?  Who hates the beach?”

“It’s not the beach itself that I hate, it’s this particular beach.  I haven’t been here in a long, long time.”

“Okay, what do you hate about this beach then?”

The world around us shifted and flexed as I exerted my will over our surroundings.  “Do you see those adorable kids over there?”  I pointed to where a little boy and girl industriously dug in the sand, the girl ordering the younger boy around for the serious undertaking. 

“Yeah, I see them, so what?”

“That’s Matty and me, we’re trying to dig a hole to China.”

“So, beyond being a little misguided when it comes to geography, I repeat, so what?  It looks like you’re having a good time.”

“We are.  We’re having a great time.”  Despite the unpleasant memories, I couldn’t help but smile as I watched us play in the sand.  Matty was so starved for affection he’d do anything I asked of him, fetching and carrying without complaint, just to be included.  I hadn’t always been the nicest to him, especially when I had other friends to hang around with.  But sometimes, like the day we watched, we got along great. 

“I’m waiting for the light bulb moment here, but you’re not helping me out.  Why do you hate this place?”

With a sigh, my gaze shifted, searching for and finding the source of my bitterness.  “Do you see that big, fat piece of… work?  Over there under the striped beach umbrella?”

“Yeah, the one who’s asleep?”

“Passed out.  It’s just past noon and he’s passed out, completely drunk.”  I wrapped my arms around my knees as my eyes narrowed in focus on the sight of my father, snoring in the shade.  “He stayed passed out all afternoon, and Matty and I got second degree burns over most of our bodies.”

“Ouch.”

“We didn’t know any better, it was something my mom usually thought of, but she had to work that day.  I put sunscreen on us when we got here, but we went in the water and I didn’t think…”

“Of course you didn’t, how old were you?”

“Seven.”

“So, how could you know?  You were a little girl.”

“He yelled at me that night, for being so stupid.  For not taking care of my little brother.  For him having to pay for a visit to the urgent care.”  Lost in the memory, I was unaware that our surroundings were shifting, people disappearing until the beach was deserted except for the two of us.  “That’s why I’m such a slave to sunscreen I guess.  I never stopped to think about it.”

“It’s not something I’ve ever had to worry about.”

I looked over at him stretched out comfortably under the sun; he was a little pale but not unappealingly so.  “You never use sunscreen, even when you come to the beach?  I thought you said you love beaches.”

“I do, I just don’t worry about damage from the sun.  Even if I did get sunburn, it’d be gone in a couple of hours.”  He shrugged, and I wondered if the same would hold true for me.  It’d be nice not to have to worry about that anymore, though I’d probably keep putting it on out of habit.  Just in case.  “Is your dad still around?  Back in California?”

Pushing myself up to my feet, I shook the sand from the sarong and pulled off the floppy hat.  “I don’t want to stay here.  Can we go somewhere else?”