Page 6 of Devils and the Dead
“She was a good woman.” Remiel puffed out his chest. “Honest. Kind. Humble. Loving to family, friends, and strangers. She also won a blue ribbon at the state fair for her peach crumble.”
“Oh, well, no wonder she’s in heaven,” Eshu commented. “You guys get all the good cooks.”
“It might be why Satan was so interested in her,” Cruciel added. “Everyone knows he’s been wanting to replace his current baker.”
If so, there were a whole lot easier ways to do it than to orchestrate a Gordian knot of a cover-up just to steal a soul from heaven. Humans loved bargaining their souls away. Surely there were plenty of skilled chefs willing to make a deal. And if not, Satan could always order delivery. Last I’d heard, Uber Eats delivered to hell.
“Let’s formulate an action plan,” Waffle clapped his hands and a notepad and pen appeared before him. “We each should question our respective souls as to what happened during their disappearance. Hades can go over the blueprints for our respective areas to make sure there are no flaws that might have caused a mass exodus on that date and time.”
I bristled at that, but Waffle continued.
“We should each interrogate those who were in charge of the areas these particular souls resided, as well as determine if there was any lingering trace of outside magic. Shall we reconvene at the same time, four days hence?”
We all nodded, but Remiel continued to glare. “Although we will hold off taking action for now, heaven still considers hell responsible for our missing soul.” He shook a finger at me. “Know that if she is harmed in any way, or we find she was stolen and detained against her will, there will be hell to pay.”
The others vanished from the room, leaving Eshu and me to drink our spiked coffee.
“I understand that I might need to be at this meeting to vouch for the security of heaven, hell, and purgatory’s perimeters, but I really think Lucien or one of the other high-level demons should have attended,” I complained. “I’m not really a demon. You’re not really a demon. None of these souls are my responsibility.”
Eshu shrugged and drained his coffee before reaching for the flask. “True, but you know the structure of every circle and chorus in the afterlife, and you know better than most all the tricky ways souls can be removed, or even leave on their own. All Lucien would have done was get into a fist fight with Remiel over his insults and baseless allegations and slander. You were the better representative to send, demon or no.”
I finished my coffee, realizing that he was right. I might not like the extra work, or being thrown into the middle of this, but he was right. I probably was the best contractor for the job.
Chapter 4
Babylon
Every house on my street was dark as I pulled into my driveway—every house except mine, that is. As I got out of the car, my porch light came on, casting a cheery glow across the lawn. The curtains twitched at the front window, and a gruesome face peered out at me.
“Maude, you can’t look out the windows like that. What if the neighbors see you?” I scolded as I came through the door.
She smiled. At least I think she smiled. It was hard to tell since her lips had mummified ages ago, leaving her teeth permanently on display.
“Sssss dark. No one isssss awake. Rrrr you hungry?” Maude gestured to the coffee table where a plate of cheese and crackers sat beside her knitting.
“No thanks,” I told her, my stomach uncertain at the thought of eating something the zombie had prepared for me. Thankfully Maude was intimidated by my stove, and convinced my microwave was a product of sorcery, so her attempts to take care of me only extended to snacks she could gather from the pantry and fridge, and crocheting blankets.
When I’d panic-raised a whole graveyard full of the dead to battle demons, Maude had been among those who’d answered my call. But unlike the other dead whose spirits returned to the afterlife once their bodies had shambled back to their graves, Maude had remained behind. I hadn’t been able to figure out how to reverse this particular zombie spell, and needed to take her in. That was how I ended up with an undead roommate. It was awkward, but not nearly as awkward as it would have been if my friend Rita’s great grandmother was wandering around their family farm.
Maude’s body had been in the ground long enough that she should have been just bones, but for some reason she’d partially mummified and retained a tight coating of skin over desiccated tendons and bone. Every now and then a part of her flaked off, or a lock of her long silver hair drifted to the ground, but I’d take that any day over oozing putrification.
“The blanket is coming along nicely,” I commented, feeling the need to make conversation with the woman who was clearly lonely here in my house all day by herself.
“My fingerssss are still ssstiff,” she complained, spreading them in front of her.
After it had become apparent that Maude would be here until I figured out how to send her back, we’d taken to finding things that might entertain the zombie during my absence. She enjoyed listening to playlists on Spotify and loved daytime television, but it was crochet that she truly enjoyed. There had been a lot of mumbled “darn it” and “oh sugar” at first, but the longer Maude inhabited her dead body, the more movement she seemed capable of. Even her shambling was smoothing out into a more natural gait.
“Well, it looks very nice. I can’t wait to curl up under that blanket.” After I’d washed it a few times that is, because ew. As it was, I’d probably need to burn the sheets on the guest bed after I managed to either fully resurrect her or send her back. The sheets bothered me enough that I’d opt to buy new ones, but I thought I’d be able to manage using a blanket made by dead hands. As gross as it sounded, I didn’t want to hurt Maude’s feelings. And honestly it would be kinda cool to have a zombie-crochet blanket. If Maude ever managed to crochet faster and make several of them, I could always give them as Christmas gifts. Or sell them. I was willing to bet an Etsy store with undead blankets would rake in the bucks.
“We arrre going to have a pajama day tomorrrrow?” Maude asked. She was excited about the prospect, although she personally had declined to change out of the drop-waist dress she’d been buried in. For her, the appeal was not so much about a day in lounge attire as it was a television binge and my company.
“I’ve got to go over the mountain and take care of something for a friend. I’ll be gone most of the day, but I’ll be back a few hours before I need to go to work. After tomorrow, I’ve got the Sunday family dinner, and I’ll probably need to go back to my friend’s place in the evening. I’m not sure if we can have a pajama day this weekend, but we’ll definitely watch a few shows in between my running here and there.”
Maude smiled, but I could feel the disappointment she was too polite to express. I was disappointed as well. The zombie was surprisingly good company. We liked a lot of the same shows. She didn’t eat or drink, so I didn’t have to worry about providing party food. Plus, her body had been dead long enough that the only odor was of musty dirt—a smell I was familiar with and actually liked.
“Family and friendsss arrrre important.” She waved a bony finger at me. “Sssspend as much time assss you can before you arrre gone.”
Maude was all about family, although friends came in a close second. We’d spent a lot of time chatting over the last two weeks and I’d found out that she’d had four children. She’d outlived two of them as well as her husband, dying at the age of seventy-one. With some quick research, I’d discovered that one more of her children had passed while she was in the grave, but one still lived—Rita’s grandmother who was currently in her late seventies. I knew Maude longed to see Bessie, as well as Rita’s mom who had been fourteen when Maude had died. It made my heart ache to think of the woman’s family, all living within ten miles of us. So close, but they may as well have been a continent away. I could hardly arrange for an introduction to their long dead relative, even if Maude didn’t look like an extra from a horror movie.
