Page 79 of Grave Humor

“Or try to feed you to me,” Eoghan added, his tone amused.

Darlene snickered. “She wouldn’t mind if you—”

The devil reached over and covered his wife’s mouth. “He’s thousands of years old and very formal, my darling. However willing she may be, let’s not fluster him. That said, Azrael could officiate things to make the next part of her life easier.”

“Bed her, wed her, and plan to stick around for life because she won’t let death have you, Eoghan,” Azrael suggested.

“She doesn’t get a say…” Eoghan’s eyes widened, and he gave the archangel his full attention. “You can’t be serious.”

Azrael shrugged.

As the antique wasn’t getting a straight answer out of the archangel, he turned to the devil. “You can’t be serious,” he repeated.

The devil smiled. “I am often serious when I do not appear to be. It is one of my favorite lies.”

“It really is,” Darlene muttered.

“I married such a cruel woman. Me. The devil. Brought low by a woman’s spots.”

“Being brought low sometimes gains you access to those spots you so love. You’ll probably survive. It’ll be a near thing. I’ll just have to take you home with me and keep an eye on you during your severe illness and your recovery.”

“Can I interrogate him before you take him home?” Eoghan asked.

“Of course. If you beat him, he can cry about how he was treated so poorly and requires my love to survive. Watching him brought low is one of my joys in life.”

“Explain yourself, Lucifer!” Eoghan demanded.

“I didn’t have anything to do with this. It’s the universe’s fault. Blame the universe. Azrael, tell him I’m right.”

The archangel once again shrugged. “As I cannot lie, I must report he is indeed correct. The universe is to blame for this. The universe planted the seed, the universe provided the conditions needed for the seed to grow, and your awakening has less to do with the magic of this era and more to do with her presence than anything else. More specifically, the first time she approached death’s door in earnest, you awoke. That began the moment that vile human set her on the path that should have led to her death. Instead, she got you. I’m not sure which fate is worse.”

Ouch. I grinned at the archangel’s disgusted tone. “That was just mean.”

“But true.”

I loved archangels. They redefined what it meant to be an asshole, but they were so damned honest about it. “How do you feel about using a weed whacker to kill off a jackass who tried to break the rules?”

“I would be quite pleased to offer some holy fire to the cause. I would lower the shroud so—”

“No,” Darlene said, and she pointed at the archangel. “You keep that thing where it belongs!”

“That thing is my head.”

“Keep it where it belongs.”

The devil’s soft chuckle drew my attention to him, and he reached over, snagged his wife by the waist, and dragged her across the blanket onto his lap. “I’ll cover your eyes, my darling. It won’t hurt you to see him. It won’t even hurt your new friend, although her reaction to beholding the heavens is more curiosity than anything else.”

Darlene’s tail, which had puffed, warned me the incident of seeing her husband’s face had left a mark. “That’s not fair.”

“Don’t be worried, Anwen. She wasn’t born able to look upon the heavens without consequence, and while she’s capable of withstanding it, her soul remembers.”

Azrael circled the blanket and stroked his hand over Darlene’s hair. “I can erase the memory if you’d like. He is only willing to meddle so much.”

“He just likes when I owe Him,” the devil complained.

“Why do you owe Him?”

“When my brother here slipped and she caught a glimpse of her husband in his full glory, He planted just enough divinity within her soul to allow her to survive. It was not without consequence. Her soul has since been converted, but she still remembers, as her mortal soul is still hers—it is simply more divine and demonic in nature than human.”