The Devil and Dan Cooley Read online

  Dan picked her up and swung her around, hugging her close to his chest as he did. Their skin stuck, their damp clothes clung to themselves and each other, and their foreheads and upper lips beaded with sweat. Meg laughed. Dan liked her laugh. It had just a hint of looniness, and there was nothing artful or artificial about it. Her laugh was rather like the rest of Meg, in fact.

  He put her down. "So what's your good news?"

  "Two things. The ACLU has decided to go ahead with the antidiscrimination suit for the Hellraised. My friend at the office called me today; she told me not to expect quick results, of course."

  "Of course. That's terrific. And the second thing?"

  "The consortium has reviewed the Devil's Point plan and has agreed that it's a worthwhile project, and they've met with representatives from Satco, and have already negotiated a deal whereby they purchase the land with Satco's money and for their work they'll not only get a handsome immediate return but stock and shares in Devil's Point itself." Meg made a little face at that. "I have to say that I didn't care much for the attitude of the fallen angels and devils who did the negotiating. And they came with so many of their own lawyers..." Her gaze took on a faraway look for an instant, and she shivered. "There but for the grace of God..." she said.

  "Not so," he said. "Those weren't people who ended up in Hell accidentally, and they aren't people who would have to stay there. They have a choice—they are where they choose to be. People consciously choose evil in their lives—their crummy childhoods and evil parents don't make them evil. They, and you and I, become what we wish to be."

  Meg looked up at him. "That's an odd attitude for someone who's trying to help the Hellraised out of Hell."

  "I think you can show people that life can be different than it is, and that it can be better, but you can't make their decisions for them."

  Meg stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek. "You're probably right."

  "I'm certainly right." He looked down at Meg and frowned. He was forgetting something. "Oh. Shit. My mail. I've got to get my mail."

  "I came to get my male, " Meg said, giving his shirt a little tug, "and since Puck and his friend are still tied up with the consortium, I'd like to see if I could tempt you upstairs for just a... quickie."

  Francie tugged at Dan's mind, but he forced himself to not think about her. He said, "By all means. Tempt away. But would you mind tempting me someplace that isn't so frigging humid?"

  They ran up the stairs together, hand in hand.

  ***

  When the explosion blew in Dan's bedroom window an hour later, luck alone saved them from serious injury. Meg, in the windowless bathroom washing up, missed everything but the noise and the pressure that blew the bathroom door open. Dan, with a bad case of postcoital munchies, had been standing in the kitchen going through the freezer and trying to find any sort of ice cream that the damned devil hadn't scarfed. The boxes of Drumsticks and Frosty-Pops and cartons of chocolate and vanilla ice cream (Dan refused to buy anything with a stupid name like Cookie Dough Crunch on general principle) were still in the freezer, but all of them were empty. He'd just finished wishing the devil back into Hell when the earth shook, glass shattered, and a roar like a freight train erased the mundane sounds of life as it had been.

  In the bathroom, Meg screamed. He ran to help, but stopped as soon as he opened his bedroom door. The floor glittered with knives of glass. The waterbed sparkled, and thin sprays of water shot straight into the air from the places where tiny glass spears stuck through the sheet and into the vinyl.

  He looked around for something to put on his feet, raced back to the entryway closet, and pulled out a pair of sneakers. Then he ran across the bedroom floor and skidded to a halt in the master bathroom doorway. Meg crouched in the still-full tub, her arms over her head. "Meg! Are you okay?"

  "What was that?"

  "I don't know yet, but it threw glass all across the room and punched holes in the bed. If we'd still been in it, it would have punched holes in us, too."

  Meg stared up at him. "What happened?"

  Dan shrugged. "Don't know. Stay there. I'll get you some clothes and shoes from my closet. Your stuff is covered in glass."

  He got her a T-shirt and some sweatpants and another pair of his sneakers. When she'd dressed, she looked like a little kid playing dress-up in her father's clothes. Dan put on underwear, jeans and a T-shirt, too. Then the two of them crept to the window, keeping low in case whatever had caused the destruction wasn't done yet. I "Oh, shit," he whispered. "My car!"

  Parts of the Mustang still burned. Flames shot out of the windows from the charred interior. One door lay on the grass quadrant between two apartment buildings, and the other hung canted on broken hinges. A snow flurry of paper turned the ground white for a hundred yards in all directions. People were running everywhere.

  "Where did all the paper come from?" he wondered, and as soon as he did, he knew. "Someone tried to kill me," he said. He stared at Meg. "Someone tried to kill me! Someone mailed me a bomb. He wanted to..."

  Dan felt light-headed. Queasy. He couldn't seem to catch his breath, and his lips began to tingle. The room spun, and at that moment Meg said, "Oh, no you don't." She grabbed his arm and dragged him out to the couch and made him sit with his head between his legs until he could breathe again.

  By that time, Dan could hear the sirens in the distance. He stood, still feeling weak and sick, and told Meg, "Let's go. We need to tell someone what happened. And we need to see if anyone else is hurt."

  He ran out his door and down the stairs. The stink of acrid, synthetic-scented smoke filled his lungs and burned his eyes. He coughed and kept going; he saw a knot of people clustered near his car and felt a sudden sick dread. Someone had been hurt. Someone had been killed by the blast, shattered, splattered across cars and concrete, torn, hurled down...

  He pushed his way through the people, found a man kneeling in the center of the circle, and he realized his worst fears were true. A woman lay, bloody, shredded, unbreathing, while the man did CPR. Filling the lungs with air, pressing on the chest.

  Dead because of me, Dan thought. Dead because I brought this danger here.

  The ambulance pulled into the parking lot and its lights, flashing red and white, cast shadows in daylight. The paramedics swung out of their front doors, ran to the back, and a second later forced their way through the crowd, pushing a stretcher with a box of supplies on top. A young woman with pale hair, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, mid-twenties, confident swagger; an equally young man, blank-eyed as a war veteran coming up out of the trenches. They knelt by the man doing CPR. Dan couldn't hear what they said, but the man nodded and moved back. The ambulance's EMT team checked the victim's pulse and looked for breathing. The female rescuer took a tube and a metal cylinder and pried the woman's jaws open and slid the tube down her throat. The other rescuer had cut through her shirt and was attaching sticky circles to her chest and hooking them up to some sort of heart monitor. Police arrived and started clearing the bystanders, and the man who'd done the initial rescuing stood and backed away with the crowd. His blood-smeared face and hands made him look like another victim. Dan started to work his way toward the other man, when the man glanced over at Dan and smiled a weary, sad smile. Dan looked into his eyes and froze at what he saw.

  Pale yellow-gold eyes. Square pupils.

  Puck.

  Chapter 27

  Janna got home from another long day with Puck and called her agent, Kate Matorsi, to see if she'd heard anything about the part she'd read for.

  "You aren't going to be happy."

  "They don't want me."

  "No. Sorry, Janna. The director wanted someone with a bit more visibility. They went with someone out of California."

  She stared up at her ceiling and counted to ten. "Okay. Fine. You've been saying 'Establish yourself in a regional market and have an impeccable record.' Well, I have a great record—and it isn't doing me a goddamn bit of good."

&nb
sp; "You aren't going to get every part you want."

  "Maybe not. But I should be able to expect better than this sort of response. Not even a thank you for coming in to read? Not even a personal call telling me they'd chosen someone else?"

  Kate sighed. "They were doing you a favor, Janna—not the other way around. Did you send them a note thanking them for their time?"

  Janna rolled her eyes, but changed her voice to one that would sound chagrined. "Oh. I hadn't thought of that."

  "Think of it," Kate said. "If you don't stand out as someone who is thoughtful, professional, and pleasant to work with, people won't want to work with you, no matter how talented you are—because the field is full of talented people who are thoughtful, professional, and pleasant to work with."

  Janna put a smile on her face, because she'd heard people could tell if the person on the other end of the phone was smiling from the sound of her voice. She said, "You always give me such good advice, Kate. I'll write them a note now."

  She hung up the phone and muttered, "And when I make it big, they can kiss my ass and beg for every single thing they want."

  Someone rang her doorbell.

  She wasn't expecting company, and the men she dated knew they were never to stop by without calling first. Paul didn't listen too well, though, or he thought the thousand or so dollars he left on the counter for her every couple of weeks "to help out" bought him special privileges. If he were standing out there, she wanted to have a good excuse why she couldn't see him. She didn't want company.

  But when she looked through the peephole, it wasn't Paul after all, but the devil Puck—the new, almost human Puck. Neatly dressed in a polo shirt and Sans-A-Belt slacks and tasseled loafers, looking very much like a golfer on his way to the links for a few holes after work. A golfing devil; that image wasn't nearly as jarring as it seemed it ought to have been. He carried a small wicker picnic basket with a large blue bow on the handle.

  She opened the door and studied the basket for an instant, then said, "Hi."

  "Hello. I'm sure you've seen about enough of me today, what with the photo shoots and the reporters and everything, so I won't take much of your time. I brought something for you." He held the basket out for her.

  She took it, and felt the contents shift when she did. She lifted the cover, and a gorgeous Himalayan kitten stared back at her out of eyes as deeply blue as an October sky.

  She studied the kitten, which was undeniably cute, then glanced over at Puck. He stood at her doorway smiling nervously. "I'm really sorry I ate your dog. I hope you like her—I mean the kitten... I didn't actually know if you liked cats, you know, but I thought she was rather elegant, you know, like you, and at the same time very..." He blushed. "Very pretty. So I really do hope you like her."

  I can charm a devil to speechlessness, but I can't convince a couple of film assholes to cast me in a part I want. Well... I've heard that devils have their uses, too. Not this one, maybe—but he ought to have friends.

  "It's beautiful," she said. The kitten crawled out of the basket and up her arm, tiny claws digging into her skin and catching in the cotton of her shirt. When it reached her shoulder, it attached itself firmly with those claws and began to butt the side of her face with its head.

  Puck smiled. "I'm glad you like her."

  "I do. Thank you so much." She paused, thoughtful. "Would you like to come in for a moment? You said you were on your way home, but..."

  "I left Fetch down in the car. It won't get too hot for him in there, no matter how hot it gets... but I don't want him to be bored."

  "You got a car since this morning?"

  "After you left, the Chevy dealer supplied me with a nice Blazer. They thought it was sort of appropriate."

  "What about a driver's license?"

  "I already knew how to drive. I had to take the test, but I got my license with no trouble." He smiled, seeming quite proud of himself. He fished through his pants pocket and pulled out a wallet, and from the wallet extracted a driver's license with perhaps the worst photograph Janna had ever seen. Puck looked like someone had thumped him on the head with a bat, then waited for his eyes to cross and his mouth to gape open before snapping the shot. She sighed and handed it back to him. "You take lousy pictures."

  She walked back into her apartment and he followed her in.

  "I was talking when the woman took that," he said. "It didn't turn out very well."

  "I noticed." She sat on the couch and pointed to one of the armchairs. "Have a seat."

  "Something's bothering you," he said.

  "Sharp of you to notice. I'm facing some difficult career choices right now. I just got the news back from my agent that I was turned down for a part I really wanted."

  "I'm sorry to hear that. And a bit surprised. I can't really imagine anyone having the opportunity to cast you and failing to do so—or perhaps the part was for a homely woman?"

  Janna smiled. "Not at all. The part was for a famous woman."

  "Meaning that you weren't sufficiently well known to be chosen?"

  "Precisely." Janna removed the kitten from her shoulder, where it was playing with her hair, and put it on the floor. It looked around for a moment, then scampered off to see what it could discover. She watched it, trying to figure out how best to word what she wanted to say. At last she sighed. "I guess everyone has heard about making deals with the devil."

  Puck sat looking at her. He didn't say anything.

  "I just want to know if there's any truth to the stories."

  "What stories?"

  Janna said, "Come on. The stories about selling your soul in order to get whatever you want. Signing a contract with the devil—is that possible?"

  Puck raised an eyebrow. "If things are that bad, you might just want to consider a new agent."

  She glared at him. "I'm not joking. I really want to know."

  He said, "I'm trying to put that part of my life behind me... but yes. In theory, at least, it's possible. In actual fact, it isn't quite as simple as most people think. First, you have to have a soul that Lucifer particularly wants. And you have to not be headed to Hell already—there isn't much point for him in recruiting you as an officer if you're already going in as enlisted. And of course you have to have some special skill to contribute." Puck leaned back in the armchair and narrowed his eyes. "I sincerely hope you aren't considering it."

  "If I were, could you help me?"

  "No."

  She frowned at him. "No? Just like that? No?"

  "I'm doing everything I can to get out of the business."

  "Could you at least tell me how to get in touch with someone who can talk to me about this?"

  Puck shook his head. "Hell knows now that you're interested. If Lucifer is interested in you, a recruiter will find you."

  "Hell knows...?"

  "When you speak out loud about selling your soul, Lucifer hears." Puck stood and studied her for a moment, and she thought his eyes looked sad. "I hope you get what you truly want, Janna... but if I were you, I'd spend my hours alone contemplating what that was." He headed toward the door. Then he turned to her again.

  "Watch the news," he said. "Someone tried to kill your friend Dan today."

  Janna walked him to the door and locked it behind him. She checked the time. Almost six. She turned on the television and waited to see if Dan was on it.

  Sure enough, he was. A brief interview with him and a short, plump brunette lawyer who was working to get rights for the Hellraised. A couple of well-lit scenes of the parking lot; what was left of Dan's car; Puck doing CPR on a woman; the body of a woman being hauled away in an ambulance; closing shots of WKTU and Dan.

  I should have been there, she thought. It would have been a perfect photo op. Those pictures will be on every television screen in the country—and I would have been perfect as the brave-yet-frightened young actress pitching in to save the dying woman, or offering comfort to the bereaved.

  She could see herself, face artistically
smudged with soot, hair a little mussed, wearing something that was revealing in a sexy, not sleazy, way... a shirt with an extra button "accidentally" unbuttoned, or a wide-necked tee with one side of the neck slipped just off her shoulder. She could have been there, too. She's spent the better part of the day with Puck—but when the opportunity for a shot that would hit the cover of Time came along, she was home.

  She decided that if she got an opportunity to sign a contract with Hell, she'd insist on a clause that would put her in the middle of prime news events.

  Chapter 28

  Dan leaned back in the seat of Meg's car and tried to forget about the last few hours. Neither he nor Meg had said much since they found out the woman Puck had tried to save had died. Dan had waited around until the police were finally able to talk to him. Then he'd given his statement. The detective he spoke to said the police had plenty of corroborative evidence to support Dan's contention of a letter bomb. He'd mentioned the letters the explosion had scattered across the apartment complex, stating that a lot of them appeared to be hate mail.

  Dan still felt strange. Someone had tried to kill him. Someone wanted him dead.

  "Meg. Let's stop by Cynthia's house on the way home. I want to visit with my family."

  Meg's face looked tight. She'd been in her own world until his voice had interrupted her thoughts, and he could see from the set of her mouth and the look in her eyes that it hadn't been a happy world. She glanced over at him and said, "I'll drop you off, if you don't mind, but I really can't stay to visit. Do you think your sister could drive you home?"

  "I'm sure she could." He frowned. "What do you have to do?"

  Her lips thinned to a tight line. "Work."

  "Related to what happened?"

  She glanced over at him. "What makes you say that?"

  "You don't get angry often, but you're angry now."

  "Someone tried to kill you," she said. "If that someone had been successful with you, I would have died, too. Both of us—the two people who are currently most active in this Great Devil Makeover, and in trying to fix the situation here in North Carolina, would have been dead. And if you don't mind me saying so, I have no wish to be a martyr for the cause."