Fifteen minutes before I had to leave, someone with an otherworldly signature knocked at the door. When I answered, Harmony came in without waiting for an invitation. She eyed my slutty secretary getup. “Looks like someone has a job this afternoon.”
“Yes,” I said stiffly. “Not that it’s
your
business.”
“There’s no need to be touchy.” She took a seat on the couch, stretched her arms above her head, and yawned. “I just got off of work myself, and now I’m exhausted.” She didn’t
look
exhausted, though. Her eyes were even brighter than normal, and her skin was flushed, as if she were riding an endorphin high. “But I don’t mind because my job today was
amazing
!”
“Really? You should tell me about it some time.” I tapped my wristwatch.
She didn’t take the hint. “I was assigned to guard this little boy. I followed him for hours, right? Every time the kid went near a pair of scissors or an electrical outlet, I was ready to spring into action.”
“And?” I was interested in spite of myself.
Her unearthly, blue eyes twinkled. “Finally, at the grocery store, the boy gets into one of those special carts they make for kids. The ones that look like fire engines?”
I nodded. Grace used to love those.
“The minute he sat down, I smelled something nasty.” She wrinkled her pert nose. “I realized the steering wheel of that thing was
covered
in e-coli. So I approached the mother and pointed out the antibacterial wipes near the front of the store. ‘Safety first,’ is what I told her. She got the hint right away, of course, and wiped down the cart, killed the bacteria, and – BAM! – the kid is saved.” Harmony closed her eyes and smiled, ecstatic. “I love completing an assignment. I mean, what a rush!”
I frowned, annoyed. “You act like you just took a bullet for the President. Or saved a busload of nuns from going over a cliff.” Okay, so I was jealous. I admit it. After all, a successful assignment for me generally meant death, destruction, and a trip to the hospital. Still, she didn’t have to rub it in.
Her light dimmed. “Well, it’s better than what
you
do.”
It was nice to know that even angels could become petty given the right circumstances. It made them more human. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
She accepted my white flag with an understanding smile. “Guess what? I put in my intercession for Patrick.”
I waited a heartbeat. “And?”
She tilted her head. “And that’s it. They’re working on it now.”
“Harmony, it’s been
four
days! And you’re telling me that they’re only starting to work
on it?” I wanted to stab a fork in my eye. I had expected that Patrick would be rescued by the end of the week. I couldn’t bear the thought of him enduring Helen’s abuse any longer.
Harmony smiled radiantly. “Be patient. Have a little faith.”
“
Faith
isn’t going to get Patrick out of that iron maiden!”
“We don’t know for sure he’s in there,” she reminded me.
I hoped she was right. “So how long will this intercession thing take?”
She shrugged. “Heaven works on its own time, but it’s always the right time.”
I grit my teeth. “Maybe if you angels weren’t so busy drinking hot cocoa and weaving rugs from Moses’ robe, you’d have time to…” Holy icons! Suddenly, I realized an earthly icon might not be good enough to get William and me out of our contracts. No, I needed an icon from the one place Helen could never reach: Heaven.
“Harmony, I need a favor.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Another one?”
I sat next to her on the couch. “I think I have a way to get out of my contract, but I need your help.” I explained about Helen’s fascination with the piece of the cross, and how another, even better, holy icon straight from Heaven might be just the ticket to buy my freedom.
As I talked, Harmony looked more and more worried. “I don’t know,” she said when I’d finished. “I mean, I’ll be happy to put in a request for you, but I’m not sure if it will be honored. Heaven’s policy is to ignore selfish prayers.”
I drew back, affronted. “First off, I wasn’t praying!”
She shrugged. “You were asking for help from a representative of Heaven, weren’t you?”
Though it burned me, I let the comment pass. “Secondly, this isn’t selfish,” I said. “I mean, it does
me
good, sure, but it also helps my family and everyone whom I would have been tempting.” And William, I added mentally.
“Like I said, I’ll put in a request, but there are no promises.”
“How long will it take?” I asked. “I’m kind of in a hurry.”
She sighed and pressed her fingertips to the sides of her head. “Heaven’s not on the same time schedule as everyone else.”
“Oh, don’t start with that again!” Annoyed, I stood and began pacing. “Can’t you see I’m
desperate
here? All I’m asking for is one lousy icon.”
“Prayers aren’t magic, Lilith.” She was getting testy as well. “And heaven’s not a shopping mall.”
Would that it were, I thought angrily. “If you don’t want to help me, then don’t. But spare me the justification.”
Her expression softened. “Prayers aren’t usually answered the way people expect them to be, but you never know. Maybe you’ll be the exception to the rule.”
I should have known asking her for help would be useless. After all, praying hadn’t done a damn thing for Tommy, and he wasn’t even a demon. I wanted to continue arguing, but then I glanced at my watch. “I’ve got to get to work.”
To my surprise, Harmony hugged me before she left. “I’ll do what I can, but no promises.”
That angel exasperated me to no end, but at the same time, I kind of liked her. After spending nearly a lifetime with Jasmine, I understood how it was possible to want to shake someone with one hand and still hug them with the other.
The sports bar was packed with the after-work crowd. Most of the patrons dressed in business casual and kept one eye on their smart phones and the other on the Tigers’ game which was broadcasting on the enormous TV’s.
My clients sat at a round table near a karaoke machine that was quiet this early in the evening. They seemed like ordinary guys blowing off steam at the end of a long workday, but pretty quickly their dark sides emerged. When the waitress brought them water, they asked the size of her bra cup. They acted as if they were the only ones in the restaurant, shouting so loudly at the Tigers that the other patrons glared at them. They boasted about their cars, their houses, and their bonuses.
Sensing my anger, my succubus perked up, ready to roll up her sleeves and get to work. It’s payback time, she told me. When one of the men pinched the waitress’s butt, I couldn’t agree more.
All of my clients were obnoxious, but one among them stood out as a Neanderthal among the cro-magnums. He was a heavy man with a jowly face and short bangs coated with so much gel that his hair stood at attention. A pinkie ring adorned his right hand, and a Bluetooth headset nestled in his ear.
He wasn’t only the loudest man at the table, he was also the most aggressive. He turned everything into a competition by starting nearly all of his sentences with, “Well, if you think that’s something…” When one man said he was taking his wife to Cancun, Mr. Pinkie Ring immediately said, “Well, if you think that’s something, Andrea and I were in Tuscany last summer.” And when another man mentioned he was going to a Lions’ game, Mr. Pinkie Ring immediately interrupted him by bragging, “Well, if you think that’s something, I was a guest of Henry Clay Ford’s and we sat in his skybox.”
The final straw came when Mr. Pinkie Ring decided to boast on how hot he liked his Buffalo wings. When the younger man sitting on his right ordered a platter of wings with mild sauce, Mr. Pinkie Ring laughed. “
Mild
sauce? Wally, you are the biggest pussy.”
Wally’s stricken expression spoke volumes. Almost immediately, the other men took Mr. Pinkie Ring’s cue and demanded that Wally try some ‘real man’ wings dressed with the ‘devil’s fire’ sauce. On the restaurant’s scale of heat, the devil’s fire was a ten. Wally, already sweating, retreated behind a wall of silence while the others continued to razz him.
I suddenly remembered this group of men from the party. That night, Mr. Pinkie Ring had dared Wally to add extra wasabi to the California roll he’d plucked from my thigh. Then all of them had given thumbs up over my sushi-clad body while a waitress snapped a picture.
I hated them.
Helen was right. These men were only getting what they deserved. My brain buzzed as I made plans, and my succubus chimed in with a few ideas of her own. This time, I
would
be karma dressed in Dolce and Gabbana.
When Mr. Pinkie Ring headed for the bathrooms, I left Hell and slipped into his empty seat. I turned on my demon’s charm, but carefully. I’d never seduced a group of men, and I didn’t know how much was too much. “Hello, gentlemen.”
My allure combined with the slutty, office-drone fantasy outfit worked like magic. I instantly had their attention. “That pal of yours is a real jerk,” I told them.
“Do you mean Derrick? He’s not so bad.” This came from a thin, balding man sitting across from me. He seemed the most decent one of the bunch.
“Are you sure?” I asked. The men shifted uncomfortably, and avoided my eyes. None of them was ready to throw Derrick, aka Mr. Pinkie Ring, under the bus. Not yet.
I amped up my allure. Immediately, someone began caressing my knee while another man’s foot slipped out of his shoe and rubbed the back of my calf. And did I mention that all of these men wore wedding rings? “Derrick has a strong sense of competition, doesn’t he? I bet he’s a riot to work with,” I said.
They laughed uneasily, but no one offered any stories.
Frustrated, I kicked at the wandering foot and slapped the hand that was moving rapidly up my thigh. Derrick was probably heading for the table right now, and unless these four worked together, my plan would be useless. For a moment, I was stymied, then my succubus came through for me. “Would you all buy a lady a drink?” she asked them. Immediately, Wally flagged down the waitress who asked me what I wanted.
I made a ‘come hither’ gesture, and she crouched next to me. When I whispered my order in her ear, she frowned. “Are you serious?”
I smiled. “Completely.”
She shrugged. “It’s your freak show.”
Very quickly, she returned with my drinks. All four of them. I smiled as I arranged the shot glasses in front of me. “These, gentleman,” I said, “are called ‘red silk panties’, and if you help me in a little wager against Derrick, I’ll let the winner of the competition drink these from between my breasts.”
Finally, everyone was onboard.
I turned to Wally. “How about if you challenge Derrick to a wing-eating competition? The one who can eat the most devil’s fire wings in five minutes wins.”
Wally paled. “I have a duodenal ulcer,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t be eating wings period.”
“Let me worry about that.” I winked at him. “Just challenge him.”
The thin, balding man looked unconvinced. “What happens to the loser?”
My smile widened. “I’ve got something in mind.”
Wally and another man, a guy with enormous pouches under his bloodshot eyes, were both smiling now. However, the thin man remained worried. “Derrick isn’t known for his sense of humor.” He glanced at his companions. “Remember when he lost the office pool during March Madness?”
“Oh, yeah,” Wally said. Once more, the men grew grim.