Page 56 of Demon with Benefits
All of a sudden, Meph was sick of putting up with other people’s crap. He had enough of his own to deal with.
He was done ignoring the elephant in the room, pretending Belial’s temper wasn’t a big deal. He let Bel accuse him of all sorts of shit, agreeing that yeah, he was a loose cannon, yeah, he was a pain in the ass. But no one ever mentioned how much of a loose-cannon-ass-pain Belial was. No, no one said anything about Belial because nobody wanted to set him off.
Well, fuck that. And fuck Dan for trying to act all high and mighty. Like Meph was the one in the wrong when he was the only one telling Jacqui the truth?
Meph opened his mouth to tear Dan a new one and then realized that he didn’t care. He just wanted to work on his sculpture.
The whole point of his art was to escape the drama, and he resented Dan for showing up here and bringing it into his workspace. A workspace that was technically Dan’s first, but still.
So, Meph stuffed his hands into his hoodie pocket and walked past the angel toward the coffeepot, dismissing him completely. If Dan wanted to stab another blade into his back, so be it. Let the asshole put him out of his misery. Someone had to.
“You want some coffee?” he asked, putting on a pot. “Jacks will when she turns up, so if you want me to make extra, speak up.”
Dan didn’t say anything, so Meph shrugged and made the usual amount. Then he went about setting up to work on his sculpture, getting all his sculpting tools ready and a bowl of water to wet the clay with.
A minute later, he sat down with his coffee and tools, ready to go. Except Dan was still just standing there staring at him, and he realized it was going to be hard to focus. So, he spun his stool around and looked him in the eye.
“Look, dude, if you want Jacqui back you have to talk to her. She’s mad because you lied to her for so long, so why the fuck would you think lying to her now is going to help?”
Dan’s eyes narrowed as if he wanted to retort, but he blew out a breath instead. “I didn’t mean to lie to her. I honestly didn’t. It didn’t even occur to me to offer to turn my wife into the kind of monstrosity I’ve spent my life hunting. I can’t imagine doing such a thing to her.”
“It’s not that bad—”
“Itisthat bad. The very existence of vampires is a violation of the rules, and she would be killed by other Grigori if anyone ever found her.” His jaw clenched. “Just like my daughter.”
“So protect her,” Meph said. “And help her learn to protect herself. Like Ash is doing with Eva. I don’t see Ash whining about it.”
“That’s different. Eva didn’t have a choice to become what she is. Jacqui does.”
“Yeah.Jacquidoes. Not you. At the end of the day, it’s not your call to make. And if you want her back, you have to stop trying to decide shit for her.”
Dan opened his mouth and then closed it again. He tilted his head. “You’re an interesting character, Mephistopheles. Not at all what I expected.”
Meph winced. “Uh...”
“To be honest, I want to stab you again for getting close to my wife while I’m not around. But I’m also grateful. She deserves to have a friend she can talk about this with, and I suppose she could do worse than you.”
Meph held up a hand. “Nah, let’s stop right there. I don’t want to like you any more than you want to like me. You can just leave it at wanting to stab me again.”
To his great surprise, Dan laughed.
At that moment, crunching on the gravel outside snagged their attention. They looked through the glass and saw Jacqui approaching with a tray of food in her hands.
Breakfast. She always brought breakfast for Meph when she came in the morning, even if he told her he’d already eaten. Even if he told her not to bother. She always did it anyway “just in case he got hungry.”
Something weird clenched in Meph’s chest at the sight of her with that tray of food, and he found himself looking at Dan. “If you fuck things up with her again,I’llbe the one doing the stabbing.”
Dan didn’t reply. Jacqui reached the studio, her hand on the doorknob. She was looking around at the cedar forest and hadn’t noticed them inside yet.
As she turned the handle, Dan disappeared.Damned fancy angel teleportation.Meph spun his stool back around to stare at his sculpture, pretending he’d been working.
“Morning,” Jacqui said when she saw him. “I brought food!”
“I’ve looked at that one.” Lily pointed to the text in Iris’s hands. It was an old grimoire of faded parchment entitledThe Book of Gamigan. “There’s nothing. It’s a bunch of weird sketches and spells written in a freaky language.”
Iris cracked it open and flipped carefully through a couple pages, realizing she recognized some of the characters even though she couldn’t read them. A chill went down her spine. “That looks like Sheolic. What is this? Why do we have this?”
The twins currently sat on the floor in the basement of Le Repaire between the rows of bookshelves. “Don’t know,” Lily replied, “but as far as I can tell, there’s nothing we can use in it. I checked.”
