“So,” Lloyd said, “if you all are certain the morning violence is over, would anyone care for a brownie before you leave?”
“Mmm, brownie.” Reggie was nearly drooling.
Nathaniel and Val hadn’t stopped staring at each other. She couldn’t figure him out. He was an enigma. Everything he did, everything he said. He was like one of those fortune cookies that was so vague it could mean anything. Best thing was to forget the message and eat the cookie.
Wait a minute.
“I’m coming with you,” Nathaniel said firmly after a moment. “And no, Lloyd, I don’t want a brownie.”
“But I added chocolate chips.”
“Yum!” Reggie waved his paw. “Me, me.”
Val stared at the demon in front of her. The good-looking one, not the grayish, single-eyed one with the plate of brownies. Nathaniel was still under her power. The summoning crystal was still safely in her jeans pocket. She had to put aside her personal issues with him. It would serve her better to have him at her side when she found Julian.
“Fine. Let’s just get it over with, then.” She marched past Nathaniel to grab two brownies off the plate. She broke one in half and gave it to a very grateful Reggie.
Then she walked down the path to the sidewalk. She turned around. Nathaniel wasn’t moving.
“Are you coming or what?”
He sighed. “You commanded me not to follow you earlier. The whole ‘don’t talk, don’t move’ thing?”
“Oh.” She waved her hand, not that it did anything—but it just felt right, somehow. “You may now follow me.”
He started to trudge down the driveway, walking a little funny after the damage done to his groin. Not that it mattered. He didn’t seem to have a use for that equipment anyhow, as proven earlier in the bedroom.
She frowned as something Lloyd said earlier twigged her memory.
“There are very strict rules that must be adhered to for all Tempters—including certain conduct with their assigned fallen angels. There are limits to how far they can tempt.
Boundaries. Some Tempters have gone over that line, gotten to know their assignment too well, and they have been punished accordingly.”
Then she thought about what Lisa had just said.
“If you break any more rules, especially with her, you’re going to be in serious trouble.”
Val stared at Nathaniel for a moment until it finally clicked for her. Holy celibate monk, Batman. Was that what had happened? He wasn’t allowed to . . . go any farther with a fallen one? It was against the demon rules? Was that the real reason why he pushed her away?
“What?” He frowned at her wide-eyed expression.
“Uh . . . nothing. Nothing at all.”
Talk about irony. A Tempter who couldn’t allow himself to be tempted.
“Okay, angel, now you’re giving me the creeps. What’s with the stare-a-thon?”
“Nothing.” She looked away. It didn’t matter. Only the key mattered. If they didn’t find it today, then nothing would ever matter. “Julian’s seeing the mayor. We need to go to his mansion.”
“And that’s the sum total of your plan?”
She bit her lip. “It’s simple. Go to the mansion and get Julian to give me the key.”
He laughed. “Just when I think you’re so much more worldly than the others, you show your true naïveté. Julian will not allow you to march up to him and demand anything of him. He’s seen you before. He’ll know what you want and obviously he doesn’t want to part with this stolen key you say he has. Is that a fair assumption?”
“I guess.”
“And as for the mayor’s mansion, you have no idea what you’re walking into. I’ve been there before. Mayor Vaille has been assembling a small army of demons for his own personal use as bodyguards. Here’s my plan, since yours will do nothing but blow up in your face. We go to the mayor’s party. I have an open invitation so he’ll assume I’m also there to discuss employment opportunities. You will pretend to be my woman.”
“Your what?”
His grin widened. “My woman. An evil witch from the earthly realm who is on vacation here in the Underworld with her”—he glanced at Reggie—“familiar.”
“Evil familiar,” Reggie added. “Oh the power. I can just feel it. Being a rat is so freeing.”
“But aren’t rats supposed to be pure?” Val asked. “That’s what Barlow told me, anyhow.”
Nathaniel shrugged. “Looks like it depends on the rat. Your rodent has no effect on me.”
“You want me to pose as a witch? Why do I have to pretend to be something I’m not?”
“Because if Julian sees you he’ll immediately realize something is up. And if the mayor finds out you’re a fallen angel whom I didn’t escort directly to Hell, he’ll be suspicious, too. And you don’t want the mayor to be suspicious. It would be very detrimental to your health.”
They swiftly walked past a demon home with three demon children running through a sprinkler on the front lawn. Cute, Val thought. Sort of. “Who is this mayor guy anyhow?
What does he do?”
He ran a hand through his dark hair. “Mayor Vaille is—how should I put this?—very particular with what he wants. He was once second-in-command in Hell, but he wanted too much power, got all greedy, so he was demoted. Put in charge of this desolate wasteland as a punishment.”
Val glanced around her. Palm trees waved in the warm tropical breeze. The ocean waves lapped at the shore of the white sand beach. The sun shone brightly in the perfect, cloudless sky. She could smell the salt of the ocean in the air.
“Yeah, looks like quite the desolate wasteland to me.”
He smiled, but his eyes were strangely sad. “Have you learned nothing from your trip here?
All is not as it appears. Glamours are not isolated to improving one’s personal appearance. If one has the power and the resources, as the mayor does, it can be stretched much further than that. Much, much further. The mayor enjoys beautiful things, be they real or not.”
Val looked around again. A convertible drove by that contained what looked like two bikini models in the backseat and a handsome surfer dude in the front.
“Are you trying to tell me that everything I’m looking at right now is just another glamour?
All the trees, the beach, all of this? It’s all fake?”
Nathaniel stopped walking and crossed his arms. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”