Val considered that, but only for a moment. “No, I don’t think so. Nathaniel, I’ve changed my mind. You can move and talk again.”
His hands clenched into fists, fire appearing in his furious gaze as he looked at the girl. “I don’t know who you are. I’ve never seen you before.”
She laughed and turned to Val. “He doesn’t recognize me. After what he did to me, he doesn’t recognize me. Isn’t that bloody typical of a Tempter Demon.”
Lloyd appeared at the doorway, wearing an apron and holding a plate of brownies. “Is there a problem out here?”
“I’ll say there’s a problem out here.” Lisa pointed at Nathaniel. “He’s the one responsible for sending me to Hell. He tempted me and then turned his back on me like it meant nothing to him. And now I’m back to destroy him.”
Val frowned at her. “Are you trying to tell me you’re a fallen angel?”
“Once was. Now I’m personified vengeance.”
“Is that a title or something?” Reggie asked. “Like ‘Greased Lightning’?”
“They don’t know I’ve escaped.” Lisa looked around nervously. “I don’t know how much time I have before they drag me back, but I’m going to use the time I have for revenge. And there’s only one monster I want revenge against.”
“I don’t remember you,” Nathaniel said simply.
“That doesn’t make it better. If anything, the fact that you can’t remember me . . .” She sniffed before she pulled it together again. “. . . Makes it worse. Much worse. That I meant nothing to you, not even to remember what you did to me.”
“I remember you,” Reggie said. “You used to do the nicest hospital corners on the bedsheets.
It’s really an art.”
Nathaniel glanced at Val, but she didn’t meet his eyes. She watched their exchange with growing apprehension. Lisa had escaped from Hell? She didn’t even know that was possible.
And now this girl wanted revenge on the demon who sent her there in the first place. Made sense to her, but she wouldn’t let it happen. Not today. She figured this made everything
Lloyd had told her null and void. Nathaniel had obviously succeeded in tempting before. And to think, he didn’t even remember the poor girl?
“Listen, Lisa.” Val approached her cautiously, but she didn’t make a move to attack. Lisa’s eyes were brimming with tears and Val put a hand on her shoulder. “Nathaniel’s an unforgivably heartless bastard.”
Nathaniel cleared his throat. “I don’t know if you’re helping matters.”
“Quiet,” she said over her shoulder, and then turned back to the girl and felt a huge flood of sympathy toward her. Just an innocent fallen angel who didn’t know better than to say yes to a handsome demon. She felt betrayed. Betrayed and abandoned, with eternity to regret her decisions. “I get how you’re feeling. I’m a fallen one, too.”
Lisa looked at Val skeptically. “Is that why you’re here? Is he taking you to Hell”—She glanced around their surroundings—“via the scenic route?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what are you doing together in the Underworld?”
Val sighed. “He’s sort of helping me.”
She actually laughed at that. “A Tempter Demon helping a fallen angel? That doesn’t happen.
It’s against the rules.”
“Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything. Look, like I said, what he did to you wasn’t right. But he’s a demon. That’s his job.” Val glanced at him again and he met her eyes but didn’t say anything. “He doesn’t have a choice. I could go into the whole ‘balance’ lecture
I’ve been hearing lately, but bottom line, it’s out of his control what happens to us after we’re tempted. But at the end of the day, it’s our decision. You’re the one who said yes.”
She frowned deeply. “Why are you defending him?”
“I’m not. I’m simply trying to show you things aren’t quite as black and white as you think they are.” She looked at Nathaniel. “Do you have anything you want to say?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I don’t remember this woman.” At Val’s look of disbelief, “I don’t.
She must be lying.”
“And what would she have to gain by lying?” Val shook her head and turned to Lisa. “So . . . what are you going to do now?”
She sighed and looked around the street to see the neighborhood’s demons now emerging from their homes to go about their daily demon business. Dark-time was officially over. No more worries of becoming a passing Nightflyer’s tasty snack.
“I plan on getting back to the earthly realm. Before they find me. I have a plan.”
Lisa made a move to walk away. Then she stopped, turned around, and kicked Nathaniel hard in the groin. He collapsed to his knees, groaning in pain.
Lisa turned around to smile at Val. “It’s not a vanquishment, but it just felt so good. And Nathaniel, word to the wise. If you break any more rules, especially with her, you’re going to be in serious trouble. More than you already are.”
Val opened her mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Lisa walked down the sidewalk without looking back.
“Well,” Reggie said. “Ain’t that a kick in the nuts.”
Val tried hard not to smile and waited as Nathaniel rose slowly and uncomfortably to his feet.
“You okay?”
He glared at her. “Never better.”
“You really don’t remember her?”
“No.”
“I suppose you forget a lot of the fallen ones you tempt. Kind of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind thing, right?”
He shook his head and looked away. “I remember each of my assignments. They’re burned into my memory, every last one.”
“From guilt?”
Nathaniel shot a look at Lloyd who stood at the doorway to his town home. “You need to keep your mouth shut about my business.”
Lloyd shrugged. “But it’s such a good story. I can’t help it.”
Val crossed her arms. “So why don’t you remember Lisa?”