my father, Satan, walking me down the aisle.
“Crap,” I muttered. “Still, what does this have to do with the Vessel?”
Nina’s eyes widened. “He’s the other big cheese that wants the Vessel, right?”
Alex nodded slowly and I felt the blood pulsing in my cheeks. “Oh, great. So, not only does Ophelia want to kill me because she thinks I know where this stupid thing is, but now my father, who may or may not be Satan, may or may not want to kill me to get a hold of this thing that I have no idea about.” I put my fists on my hips. “You’re sure there’s not an unsolved murder that we could team up on? You know, maybe work up to this whole fate-of- humanity thing?”
Alex patted me awkwardly on the shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure something out.”
I wasn’t so sure. My stomach started to churn and I felt as though my whole world—my whole, Sophie Lawson, demonically normal world—was slipping away. I didn’t know my father, I couldn’t know my mother. My grandmother was gone and I was alone in the world—and now, somehow, I might not be.
I wondered whether it would be better to be an orphan or the daughter of the dark king.
I stood up, surprised my shaky legs could hold me. “I’ll be right back.”
I clicked the bathroom door shut behind me and went to the sink, turning the faucet on. I splashed cold water on my face and looked at my reflection in the mirror. Green eyes gone glassy and cold. Miniscule lashes flecked with tiny droplets of water. Pale white cheeks pockmarked with angry red blotches. The face that I had recognized and scrutinized my whole life through—flesh and blood—and now some of that blood belonged to the devil. Maybe.
The tears started involuntarily. The weight of knowing heaved against my chest, seeming to squeeze out every last inch of air.
I thought of all the images of Satan that I had seen in the past—a sinister, red-faced man with a cleanly cut beard, a prominent widow’s peak, and jet-black hair pushed back. I thought of the cloven feet, the pointed tail, the two sharp horns sprouting on his head. Images of evil, of tortured souls writhing in a fiery hell while Satan gleefully watched on. Satan.
My father, the devil.
My round face and bushy brows were courtesy of my mother. Ditto for my diminutive stature, my stubby toes, and what my doctor politely referred to as “childbearing” hips. What had my father given me?
I bared my teeth—straight, Crest white, supremely human, fang free. I checked my nails—half a manicure, each nail that wasn’t chipped or bitten filed into a neat square. No claws. I wiggled my toes—all ten of them. No cloven hooves.
I had no physical traits of my father—in devil form—so I supposed that was good. And I didn’t consider myself a sadist or anyone who took pleasure in the pain of others except for the occasional schaudenfraude.
So what did it mean to be Satan’s kid?
I glanced back up into the mirror and sucked in a shaky breath, using my index finger to tap the glass.
“Grandma?” My voice sounded small, foreign, and tinny. No one appeared; the only person looking out was me, with red-rimmed eyes and a clutch of fire-red hair. I lifted my hand to knock again, but the thought that my grandmother may have known this weighed on me.
There was a gentle knock on the bathroom door.
I peeled the door open and slipped out, trying to avoid the quiet stares.
Nina looked at me, her eyes registering concern. “We’ve got to do something. Look at you, Soph, you’re upset. This is not okay.”
Nina looked from me to Alex and then widened her stance, slamming her fist into her flat-open palm. “We’re going to do something. We have to do more than just read books. Sophie, I’m going to find Ophelia and we’re going to find out if you’re the spawn of Satan if it kills me. Again.” She nodded her head definitively, crossed her arms in front of her DUDE, WHERE’S MY COUTURE? shirt and stared both Alex and me down with her black eyes.
“The spawn of Satan?” I repeated meekly.
“Oh.” Nina pressed her reverse-French manicured fingers against her mouth. “Satan’s kin. Is that better?”
Frankly, with my working in the demon Underworld and sharing a bathroom with a card-carrying member of the soulless undead, I’d always considered myself more Hell-adjacent, rather than directly in line with anything from the actual dark side. Yet here I was, in my living room, being told that daddy dearest might actually be devil dearest.
“Aw, crap,” I muttered again, massaging my aching forehead.
“Come on, Soph. You’re okay.” Nina shrugged toward Alex. “He’s an angel, I’m a vampire, and you’re—”
I held up a silencing hand and Alex leaned in. “You’re Sophie Lawson, regular girl.”
I smiled softly in spite of myself, relishing the feeling of delicious warmth as it spread through my body. I didn’t even pause to consider that my life was crashing down around me, my father might be responsible for every bad thing that happened in the world, and I was becoming a knock-kneed schoolgirl because a cute boy was being nice to me. “You really think I’m regular?”
Alex cocked his head with that sexy half-smile. “Actually, I think you’re way better than regular.”
I sat up a little straighter, feeling a lump rise in my throat. But whether it was from my newfound family tree or the sweet, earnest expression of my friends, I wasn’t sure.
Nina’s head swayed back and forth like a spectator at a tennis match. “Did we really just have a Hallmark moment right now? Sophie might very well be in the clutches of world-ending evil and you’re acting like a couple of eighth graders!”
I shrugged, and Nina used her index finger and thumb to pinch the bridge of her nose and blow out an exasperated sigh. “Am I the only one in the room who isn’t thinking with her genitals?”
“Sorry, Nina. What do you suggest we do?”
“There has to be someone who knows something; there has to be some way to find out more,” said Nina.
“There is. I think I know where to find help,” Alex said solemnly.
“Where?” Nina asked.
“Heaven.”
Chapter Nine
“
I yanked open the door, immediately wrinkling my nose and rubbing my greasy palm on my jeans.
“Yeah,” Alex returned. “What did you expect? Clouds and harpsichords?”
Heaven was a dive bar at the mouth of Hayes Valley and nothing about the place reflected its name except for a chipping depiction of God giving life to Adam painted on the wall just in front of the illuminated restrooms sign.
I immediately felt a nervous blush wash over me. “Geez. Why is it that otherworldly information never comes from a stodgy man in a suit at the Burlingame Hilton?”
Though I wasn’t a teetotaler by any means, my last bar experience was trying my bloody best to fit in at the vampire bar, Dirt. It didn’t seem like I was doing any better at Heaven, where every face swung to scrutinize us once we stepped into the dimly lit place. Alex got the interested once-over from the ladies sipping brightly colored martinis at the table in the corner; Nina was being admired by a drag queen drinking a Sam Adams, and everyone else was focused on me.
“Blend in,” Alex ordered.
“With what?” I asked, my eyes sweeping the half-human, half-demon, half-
I tried to paste on Paris Hilton’s patented too-bored-for-this-planet look, but I was having a hard time tearing my eyes from the gentleman at the end of the bar. His amber eyes were almond shaped and deeply focused; he took long, slow pulls from his beer without steering his gaze from me. There was something vaguely familiar about his ash-blond hair, something recognizable about the slope of his nose, his thin lips. My mind reeled as I tried to place him. I was still working on it when Alex nudged me.
