Mysteria Nights

Hell’s bells. He should have known Lucifer would not let him win, would keep trying to sabotage the trust Damon had built in Harmony. For if Damon were to win over Harmony Faithfull, Lucifer would lose. Over the past few weeks, the Devil had shown no signs of giving up on his quest to assure the defeat of his ex–demon high lord.

How many incidents such as this had there been over the past months? Too many to count. First there’d been the goblin in the barn, then the minitrolls in Harmony’s kitchen. Now this, a flock of subdemons in the middle of the lawn in broad daylight on a Sunday morning, the most brazen violation yet! Well, except for the naked incubus he’d found sneaking through Harmony’s bedroom window one night, but that may have been only a coincidence, the wrong window on the wrong night for the unfortunate dark creature.

Damon redoubled his efforts to get rid of the subdemons, but they swarmed. He’d seen a lot of scenes during his long years working for the Devil, but few as chaotic as this one unfolding on the front lawn of Mysteria Community Church. Townsfolk ran every which way, complicating his efforts to chase the beasties from the churchyard. Damon attended to the subdemons while simultaneously trying to joke about the infestation to impart calm to the crowd. Even for Mysteria, this was a strange happening, although many of the locals took it in stride. It would not be so in any other town.

Competing with the subdemons’ raucous noise were the howls of the O’Cleary great-grandchildren, who ran wild like little demons themselves. Damon fancied that he’d like a family of his own someday, but two minutes spent with the O’Cleary offspring was almost enough to convince a man to drop all thoughts of procreation.

And then there was Dr. Fogg. His hair windblown, his tie whipping in the breeze, he pushed spectacles up the bridge of his elegant nose with one hand as he crouched down low, attempting to entice a subdemon with a broken Saltine cracker. Consorts with elves, that one does, Damon thought. The same with the sheriff. Damon could smell an elf a mile away, and even with his demon’s senses almost gone, he knew well what the doctor and especially Harmony’s friend Jeanie did in their spare time. Elves, too sexy for their pointy ears, they were. The town jail stank of them.

Damon knocked several more subdemons unconscious and dragged them to the Hell hole, shoving them back into the earth. “Tell your master his efforts are in vain. He’ll never destroy me. He’ll never turn me back the way I was before!” A derisive sound came up through the Hell hole, like a deep belch. The warm, moist breeze ruffled Damon’s hair. ’Twas Lucifer himself answering him.

Damon’s lips pulled back over his teeth. “Are you such a coward that you send your minions to do your dirty work? Why don’t you come out and fight me yourself?” Damon raised the pitchfork. “Come on. Come up here and fight like a man. I may be mortal, but I’m ready for ye.”

“Damon, who are you talking to?”

At the sound of the familiar voice, Damon’s heart plunged into his stomach.

Harmony sounded poised at the razor’s edge of hysteria.

“Dinna be afraid, lass!” With a sweep of the pitchfork, he took out several of the more brazen of the subdemons before her eyes, her wide, brown, disbelieving eyes. Some of the creatures lay dazed on the ground. A few crawled, pulling their broken bodies toward the Hell hole in the garden. Damon puffed up his chest and assured her, “They’ll soon be gone.”

“Gone . . .”

“Aye.” That’s when he noticed how brightly her eyes glowed, how her lips were so pale and tight, contrasting with her flushed cheeks. But what he noticed most of all was the shovel gripped in her white-knuckled hands, as if she meant to clang it against the side of his head. Nay, she was not frightened, not at all; she was as furious as the wind that had whipped her long hair and skirt only moments before.

Harmony’s glare intensified. “Gone, like those so-called rats you found in my kitchen?”

Instinct told him no answer he gave would be the right one.

“Gone where, Damon? To the south, maybe? Isn’t that where you told me you were from, Damon? Farther south than I’ve ever been? You weren’t talking about Mexico, were you?” Harmony ducked as a subdemon swooped low overhead. Then she advanced on him, her nostrils flaring. “Were you!”

Damon hesitated, the pitchfork raised in midair as his heart sank. A thousand alternate explanations came to mind, but with those excuses, would he not be slipping back into the lies that so characterized his previous life?

“Nay,” he said gently. “I was not talking about Mexico. But I can explain. I . . .” Say it. He jerked his pitchfork at the sky. “I was one of them.”

Harmony’s eyes went wide. “A flying monkey?”

“Nay, lass! I was a demon.”

Twelve

There was a terrible pause. Then Harmony asked, “A demon demon?”

“Aye, a demon demon.”

“This is the truth, Damon. You swear?”

“I do.”

Harmony made a strangled sound and raised her shovel high. For a moment, Damon was sure she’d whack him in the head, but she struck at a low-flying subdemon instead, and then another as they wheeled overhead, taunting him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Clang. A subdemon fell to earth, another victim of Harmony’s vicious swing. “Why didn’t you?”

“I did! That very first day. In the kitchen. Ye thought I was lying.” As she stared at him, he saw her gaze turn inward and knew she remembered. “But ye took me in all the same. Deny it you might, lass, but ye are as close to an angel as I’ve ever encountered.”

She snorted. “What do you know about angels? You’re a demon.”

“Was a demon, lass. I was fired. Terminated without benefits.” Crash. Thwap. A little red hat sailed down to the grass. “Benefits. Oh, please. Hell has a retirement plan?”

“They did, once,” he muttered. “No longer, it seems.”

“Is nothing sacred anymore?” Her sarcasm was as sharp as a blade. “Well, there’s always social security.” Thump. Another subdemon dropped from the sky.

Water erupted from the grass, engulfing them in a drenching cold spray. Shrieking accompanied the deluge, but human shrieking this time. Semihuman, Damon qualified. Mrs. O’Cleary’s great-grandchildren had somehow turned on the sprinklers. Any subdemon unlucky enough to be hit hissed and sizzled, screaming as they dissolved into little piles of doll-sized clothing.

“Who turned the sprinklers on?” Jeanie Tortellini ran across the churchyard, yelling, trying to regain control. The preteen Desdaine triplets, Withering, Scornful, and Derisive, whooped in delight. “How come no one’s watching these kids?” she demanded of the parents who were wisely hiding behind some lawn chairs.

“Wait!” Harmony yelled to the woman. “Leave the water on! It’s . . . it’s killing them.” She swung her glare around to Damon. “Just like what happened to the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. She melted. You knew this all along; you prepared for it by installing these sprinklers. And here I thought you were just a fan of irrigation!”

At that moment, Damon again understood that the best answer was no answer.

The lawn turned into a sea of mud. Children squealed with laughter as they grabbed the sprinkler heads and aimed water at the subdemons. Harmony’s pumps made sucking noises. She snarled and threw her shoes one at a time at the creatures, striking one and knocking off its little red-and-gold hat. A jet of water clanged off the handle of Damon’s pitchfork. He lost his balance. Harmony tried to steady him, but she slipped. They went down hard in the mud.

He turned to find her lips an inch away from his. His body was wrapped around hers as they lay sprawled on the ground, the same body that now reacted rather briskly to that pleasant discovery. He’d come to enjoy the sensations of his new body—advantages to being mortal that he’d never realized. But also disadvantages, one of