Page 25 of Providence

I walkedwith a pleasant ache into the kitchen the following morning to find Cara eating Cheerios with Satan. My steps faltered, and I noticed that Cain was frozen in the corner, his hand halfway to his gun. Sammie ate his bran flakes, channeling an eighty year old, but watching Lucifer and a female angel with suspicion.

“But I want to know why?” Cara said in her childish whine. “If unicorns were real, why can’t I have one now?”

The female angel rested her elbows on the kitchen island. “Yeah, Luc. Give the kid a unicorn already.” She was definitely laughing at the Devil. When the female angel’s eyes snapped to me, she stood up straighter.

“Holy shit. How didn’t we see it immediately?” she chastised the Devil. “She looks like him. She has Tikvah’s eyes though. The eyes that tore the Heavens in half. They wrote poetry about Tikvah’s eyes.”

I hadn’t known my mother. I had no idea what she looked like. She was ash in the wind by the time I had anything resembling cognitive thought. There were no great artists waiting around to paint her beauty as they had Gusion.

I walked further into the room and prayed my knees didn’t shake. I wanted to pretend that finding the Lord of Hell in my kitchen with my kids was nothing to worry about. Hopefully before the rest of the guys rolled out of bed and then guns started firing. “I’m Serendipity. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

“Acerezeal. Call me Ace. It’s less of a mouthful,” she said, winking. She was beautiful, with her long dark hair and a body literally made for sin. Her eyes danced with mischief. She was dangerous, that much I knew. But my gut said she wasn’t dangerous to the kids. To Cain and myself, I wasn’t so sure.

Cain’s eyes were wild where he was frozen in place and I could see the veins bulging in his temple as he struggled. I walked over to him, putting a calming hand on his shoulder. “Can you please undo… whatever this is?”

Ace nudged Luc, who sighed. “He’s lucky there are children present and I didn’t just rip off his gun arm,” he muttered, walking over to pluck the gun from Cain’s hand, empty it of bullets and then throw it in the freezer. He waved a hand, and Cain’s body sprang into action. He pushed me behind his back, his eyes burning with rage.

Cara, somehow oblivious to the angst in the room, turned a smiling face to Cain. “Mr. Luc is going to get me a unicorn!”

Luc frowned at the girl. “I believe we were in the middle of negotiations, Child. I never promised you a unicorn.”

Cara turned big dark eyes, just like Marco’s, toward Ace. “But he said?”

Ace shrugged. “I heard you were giving her a unicorn. Do you want people to call the almighty Lucifer Morningstar a liar?”

The look of betrayal on his face was almost comical. “This is ridiculous. I am the Great Deceiver. Lord of Hell. I am basically the Patron Saint of Liars.” Still, he waved his hands in the air, and a car sized stuffed toy of a chubby unicorn landed in our kitchen. “A compromise. I can’t bring back a race of mythical beings, even for the cute face.”

Cara squealed and launched herself off the stool and onto the unicorn’s oversized stomach. Luc shook his head. “Women.”

Ace gave him a sly look, then launched herself at the unicorn's huge head. Sammie looked at Lucifer, and gave a solemn nod. “Thank you for the gift.”

Luc smiled at the little boy. “You, I like. You have the proper respect. What would you like?”

Sammie bit his lip, his face screwed up in thought. “For Cara and me and Marco to be safe.”

I sucked hard on my back teeth, blinking rapidly so I didn’t cry. That kid had seen way, way too much, and here he was, sitting in my kitchen, asking the Devil for safe passage.

Gah.

The superior sneer that Lucifer wore softened. He leaned forward, getting to Sammie’s height and looking him in his too bright eyes. “That I can promise you. Just a little more time, and anyone who thought of hurting you will no longer be a threat.” Luc straightened. “While we are waiting for your enemies to rue the day they were born, I saw a great tree out the back.” He snapped his fingers. “I think I just made it better, however. Why don’t you have a look?”

Sammie scooted off the stool, racing out onto the back deck. “SERA! There’s a fort in the tree. It has a rope ladder and everything,” he yelled back at me, tearing down the back stairs and onto the grass. Cara was up after him, trying to drag the unicorn with her.

Luc grinned, watching her struggle to pull the stuffed unicorn ten times the size of her out the door. “Allow me,” he said, and snapped his fingers again. The unicorn disappeared and then Sammie’s voice yelling that the unicorn was now in the tree fort.

Cara tore out of the room too, yelling “thank you” as she slammed the sliding door shut. Ace shook her head. “Sorry. Ever since dyslexic kids have been writing their Christmas lists to Satan instead of Santa, he takes the whole gift giving thing really seriously.”

The noise of the kids' screams seemed to wake the rest of the house, and Solomon and Marco stumbled into the kitchen at the same time, slowing as they took in Luc and Ace. Marco reached into the back of his pants and pulled a gun. I flung out a hand, both in Marco’s direction and Luc’s. “Woah. Let’s not go down the whole freezing route again. Marco, it’s okay. The kids are outside. It’s fine.”

Marco made no sign he’d heard me, not lowering his gun though he did move his finger off the trigger. Judas strolled into the kitchen behind us, completely unconcerned with the Devil at our breakfast bar. “Goliath is with Madoc. Bear and Goose are in the fort with the kids. It’s all good,” he murmured to the four of us without wings. He looked toward our unexpected guests. “Luc. To what do we owe the pleasure of your early morning visit?”

“We just stopped by for coffee,” Luc says pleasantly, snapping his fingers again and a steaming cup of coffee appeared in his hand. “Hell only has instant, you know.”

Judas strolled over and started the espresso machine. “That does sound like torture,” he says equally as pleasantly, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that the President of Damnation MC had brass balls.

Luc raised his cup. “Oh, and there's the little matter of the payment Cain owes me.”

13

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