Page 64 of Grave Humor

That was one way to put it. Shrugging, I put the truck back into gear and pulled down the driveway and parked near the front doors. Time hadn’t done the place any favors, and nobody had bothered with the lawn since I’d left. Sighing, I shook my head. “Well, it’s not quite like how it was when I was little and my parents took advantage of eager child labor to keep the place somewhat presentable.”

“It’s decrepit,” Eoghan said, and he frowned. “It has potential, and it saddens me to see it like this.”

I liked Eoghan thought the place could be something worthwhile. “I used to love this house.”

“You still do,” Michael corrected. “You do not love the people who live here, but you do love the house. It is where your heart has lived for most of your life, and your heart remembers.”

Damn. “There’s not much I can do about that.”

“Of course there is,” he corrected, and he got out of my truck. “Show us your home.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Azrael hopped out of the bed of the truck. “He means Eoghan has much wealth, and the humans who created your seed of life desire wealth. He would not at all miss the wealth he would spend to secure this home and bring it to its proper glory, and they would peacefully leave you be, as he would write in such a clause into the agreement for the sale of the home.”

Deep lines furrowed Eoghan’s brow, but then he smiled. “I’ve changed my mind about you, Azrael. I might almost like you.”

“I will forever vex you, but we shall vex each other on good terms, much like our beloved fallen brother insists on vexing us at every opportunity but we love him all the same. It is not a bad way to live.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

I giggled at their posturing and shook my head. While they investigated the front yard, I checked on the back to discover even more natural destruction. Once upon a time, there had been a back yard. A year of growth had transformed it into an impassable jungle. “What the hell? Did they spray the whole thing down with fertilizer to help it along?”

Azrael joined me. “Hardly. You might want to have a new house built. This one is not long for this world.” The archangel pointed at the foundation, which had crumbled to the point of having holes leading into the basement. “That is not how it should be.”

I sighed. “Yeah. The damned thing is coming down around their ears. They wouldn’t get anything for the house here, but they might get something for the land.”

Azrael turned and shouted, “There’s space for your horses, Eoghan.”

That got the antique on the move, and he strode over. “My willingness to pay for the land has increased significantly. How much land is good for horses?”

“There’s a hundred acres. It used to be a farm, but the farmer got old and died, and he didn’t have any family left, so the town sold the place off at auction. My parents bought it back when they were much younger and hadn’t pissed their money away.”

Eoghan’s brow furrowed. “Azrael, is the node here?”

“He moves in mysterious ways,” the Archangel of Death replied.

“You asked for a ride in the truck because you knew she’d take us here,” Eoghan accused.

“Yes.”

The antique was not impressed with the archangel, and he braced his hands on his hips. “Won’t that bring Hammel here eventually?”

“Should you and she be found here often, yes. This would be a good thing to have happen.”

I liked the old house and its many acres just as much as I liked the house I rented. I wondered if I could have it all thanks to Eoghan’s hefty paychecks

“Who the hell knows where my deadbeat parents went this time,” I grumbled.

“The blue-feathered menace over there can help you with that,” the devil announced from behind me.

I shrieked at the unexpected arrival of the Lord of Lies. “Would you stop that?”

“No. It is far too much fun to pop in at my whim and scare the liver out of you. I love watching your antique get all snarly every time you make noises he doesn’t like.”

“He is the devil, Anwen. You can’t expect him to be a kindly spirit even part of the time,” Azrael chided.

Right. I dealt with a bunch of winged assholes out to cut a few years off my lifespan. I took a few moments to breathe, considering my options. “All right. I see I’ve been doing this wrong. What do you want us to do so we can just get to doing it? That’s what’s going on, right? You have something you think we should be doing, so you’re maneuvering us so we do it.”