Page 34 of Midnight with the Devil

“Mr. Star’s lawyer? Yeah, why?”

“I want to ask a few questions about my contract. Do you think he’s in his office on a Saturday?”

The driver chuckled. “Looking for loopholes? I did the same. Yeah he works Saturdays.”

“Did you find any loopholes?” she asked hopefully.

“Nope. He drafted that thing solidly. Barnaby’s office is at 7923 East Parkway Avenue.”

Diana fiddled with the zipper on her duffel bag, thinking. If she could find out whether there were any loopholes, she might still be able to save her dad without any more midnight visits. After last night, she knew that if she kept going to see him, she would truly lose herself in him.

“Here we are,” Douglas said as he pulled up in front of her apartment.

“Thanks.” She slipped out of the car and threw her duffel bag over her shoulder. Her thoughts were miles away as she headed to her apartment. How on earth was she going to find a loophole in a deal with the devil?

10

And should I at your harmless innocence melt, as I do. - John Milton, Paradise Lost

Jimiel lingered outside the door to Diana’s apartment, thoughts rushing through his head. He needed to find a way to protect Diana. He had been given clear orders from Michael himself.

She must live. She must be kept safe.

Jimiel had failed Diana.

From the moment she’d been born he’d been there, watching over her, keeping her safe. He’d been her imaginary friend, her school ground playmate, the boy at the prom who danced with her when her date bailed on her. Every pain he could spare her, he had. Until her father’s illness. There were some things he couldn’t help, not without crossing the line. Going against orders was just as bad as failing to keep her alive. So he watched, he waited. He had borne each of her pains in his own heart. Angels did not feel pain the way mortals did. When Diana cried, her heart felt like it was bleeding and cut from her chest. Yet she continued to breathe, continued to be strong. With an angel, it was different.

Jimiel placed a hand on her door, using his extra senses to listen to her talk to her cat. He smiled a little, despite his worry. She was tough. His little mortal charge could handle almost anything.

When angels experienced pain, it affected every cell of their body. Like a pulse of electricity shooting through them, frying every fiber of their being and paralyzing them. Angels were hard to hurt and nearly impossible to kill. That made them strong enough to fight the demons. Demons were angels who had been so fully corrupted that they’d left the light behind. Jimiel rarely encountered demons. His heavenly job assignments were usually to help share the burden of a human’s pain. More than once Jimiel had visited Diana’s father for such a purpose.

I couldn’t heal him, but no one said I couldn’t ease his pain.So he had sat with the man for hours, lightly touching his hand and siphoning off the pain. It had been worth it to see Diana’s face when her father had said he felt good and had no pain that day. It hadn’t stopped her tears each time she returned to her car in the hospital parking lot, but it had given her some relief.

But how could he save Diana from Lucifer? The fallen angel was powerful, the king of hell itself. No normal angel could survive a battle with him. Even archangels tiptoed around him when their paths sometimes crossed. Lucifer may be the devil, but he had been known to many as the favorite son, the brightest star. Not even the blackness of the end of the world could have dimmed his burning beacon when he’d been an angel of the light.

Jimiel had never known him then, but the stories… Lucifer before the fall had been a legend. But his pride had been too strong, and his need to be more important than the humans Father created had been his undoing.

Pride goeth before the fall.

Jimiel studied the door to Diana’s apartment, wondering how he could save her from the devil. She was going to visit an attorney this morning, that much was clear. He would listen in on that conversation, just in case there was something worth hearing. If he could find a way to circumvent the time Lucifer spent around her, then he might be able to stop Lucifer from corrupting her. Every soul that Jimiel had seen make deals came out darker, hungrier for the things they shouldn’t want, like pain, death, greed. So far, Diana hadn’t shown any signs. A little rough sex wasn’t darkness, not to angels. No, it was greed for money, greed for power, a lust for hurting others. He would do anything to stop Lucifer from turning Diana into that.

Anything.

Lucien prowledinto the cavernous room of his office in hell. It held a rather rustic, otherworldly charm that clearly screamed “the devil works here,” with the black diamond fireplace, the large roughhewn dark wood desk, the chains on one wall, and a few torture implements on the other side. But he rarely spent time down here. Torture wasn’t his thing. He outsourced that to the more trustworthy demons he kept imprisoned in hell. Most fallen angels like him weren’t drawn to pain, either to feel it or to cause it. Angels had one weakness. Pleasure in all forms. It was an emotion that they should only experience in the presence of their father, unless they fell. They were free to taste the world as humans do, but everything was still a little faded.

Pleasure that was dimmed was still better than no pleasure at all. Andras was like him, focused on pleasure, but as the Fallen they faced the task of being the gatekeepers to hell. Angels who went too far, who loved the darkness too much, always changed. The ones who loved death, pain, greed, and power mutated into the worst demons. Lucifer had dominion over them, despite his own loathing of them.

“Everything all right?” Andras asked as he materialized in the doorway.

“Yes.” The word was a lie. They both knew it. One of the funny things about hell? You couldn’t hide the truth, not once you passed the gates. A lie uttered even from Lucien’s lips held an easily detectable ring of falseness to it.

“It’s her, isn’t it? You went back to her this morning.”

“I did.” He had returned when he shouldn’t have, but she’d called his name and had asked for her bag, and he’d wanted to see her just once more. He’d expected to see her leaving his penthouse, but she hadn’t been leaving—she had been inhisbathroom ready for a shower. He had lingered there, invisible, watching her strip naked. It hadn’t been her naked body that had fascinated him, buther. There had been a soft, alluring vulnerability to her that called to the dead part of him, the angel he had been before the fall. Angels had been created to serve and protect, to guide. Vulnerability brought out those angelic instincts.

“Are you sure she’s worth the risk?” Andras asked.

“Risk?” Lucien leaned back against the front of his desk, eyeing his friend.

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