Kicking It(84)

The mark of Lucifer, my many-greats-grandfather.

I’d gotten the mark by using a sword made by Lucifer and tapping into some long-buried power inside me that tied me to his bloodline. I didn’t love having it. It identified me as one of Lucifer’s own, and there are many good reasons why an association with Lucifer is less than desirable. Starting with his list of enemies, which was far too extensive. And all of them liked to find ways to hurt him by hurting me.

Thanks to my unwanted family ties, I’d recently gotten sucked into a major diplomatic-mission-gone-wrong in one of the local faerie courts. In the process I’d managed to make a personal rival out of the faerie queen, Amarantha. I had enough on my plate without being chased down by angry fae every time I stepped outside of the house.

And now there was an envelope from Lucifer. I was sure that I wasn’t going to like what was inside. I tore the seal and withdrew the folded paper.

The paper was actually made of linen. Where does one even find linen paper?

I read the message inside, my eyebrows drawing closer together with every word. Then I tried to crumple the fancy linen into a tiny ball but succeeded only in making the letter look like it needed ironing.

I went down the hall to the kitchen and tried to slam the letter in the trash in a satisfying way. The expensive paper just drifted softly into the can.

Beezle was buried in a bowl of popcorn on the counter. And when I say “buried,” I mean he was actually buried. My gargoyle is about the size of an eight-week-old guinea pig. He fits in my coat pocket. So he can actually disappear into a serving bowl full of food—at least until he eats it all, which takes a surprisingly short amount of time.

He was facedown in the bowl. I could hear the sound of his stone jaws crunching away at the kernels on the bottom. The only visible parts of him were the claws on the tips of his feet. I grabbed one of those claws and yanked him out of the bowl, thus spilling popcorn onto the counter. He glared at me indignantly, swallowing the food stuffed in his beak.

“I’m in the middle of something here,” he said, flapping his little wings and wrenching his foot out of my grasp. He floated up to my eye level.

“Lucifer wants me to find the Red Shoes for him,” I said. “I don’t want to go on another mission for Lucifer that’s sure to go haywire. I don’t even know what the Red Shoes are.”

“What you don’t know could fill an encyclopedia. If people used encyclopedias anymore,” Beezle said.

I ignored him. “How am I supposed to find these things? And what makes these red shoes more special than any other pair of ruby slippers?”

“The Red Shoes are a legendary artifact,” Beezle said. “Nobody knows exactly how old they are, or where they originated. They are generally associated with the fae, but they didn’t make the shoes.”

“Oh, good. More faeries,” I muttered. “Why does Lucifer want them?”

“We-e-e-e-l-l-l,” Beezle said slowly. “Supposedly the wearer of the Red Shoes will be forced to dance without stopping.”

“Until?”

“Until nothing,” Beezle said. “Even if the wearer dies, or their limbs are cut off, the shoes will continue to dance.”

I had a horrible vision of amputated feet, still bloody at the ankles, gaily moving in the steps of a jig.

“So Lucifer is sending me after an ancient torture device disguised as attractive footwear,” I said.

“You’re surprised by this?” Beezle asked.

“No,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to get mixed up in any more faerie nonsense, do you?”

“Lucifer thinks it’s a good idea, or else he wouldn’t have asked you,” Beezle said.

“He didn’t ask,” I said through gritted teeth.

“He respects your strength. So he wants to test it,” Beezle said.

“I don’t test well,” I said.

“I don’t think you have a choice,” Beezle said.

“I have other stuff to do,” I said.

Beezle snorted. “Like what? Sit around and moon over your non-relationship with Gabriel?”

“I have souls to collect, as you well know,” I said, ignoring his jibe about Gabriel. My relationship with Gabriel was too complicated to think about. “Sacred duty as an Agent of Death and all that.”

“You have time in between soul pickups to investigate,” Beezle said. “You only collect one soul a day, at the most, and the rest of the time you’re at home driving me crazy when I want to watch Telemundo in the afternoon.”

“You can’t even speak Spanish,” I said.

“You don’t need to speak Spanish to understand telenovelas,” Beezle said. “They are awesome in any language. And most people think it’s a good idea to give Lucifer what he wants. Or else . . .”