Robert Preece - One Handsome Devil

ONE HANDSOME DEVIL

By Robert Preece

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Chapter 1

The two women giggled nervously as they held the spell book Sara Slocum had found in her mother's old

things. "Are you sure we want to do this."

"Have we gotten a boyfriend any other way," Sara's best friend Katra O'Hara reminded her. "Besides,

what can it hurt?"

Sara didn't want to think about that. She read the words of the spell out loud, her eyes suddenly heavy.

"Keep chanting, I feel something."

She sputtered back to full consciousness at Katra's voice. "Let the powers of the east lend us strength,"

she said, trying to sound like the preacher at her grandmother's church.

"I think you already did that part," Katra whispered.

"This isn't working." Sara slowly closed the spell book. "I told you casting spells for boyfriends is

stupid."

Katra giggled, but she sounded nervous. "Just your boyfriend so far. We'll do mine next. But I really felt

something."

"Maybe you shouldn't have eaten all that chili."

"Oh, yeah. Well--"

Sara felt rather than heard a whoosh sweep through her Dallas apartment like a Texas Norther, dropping

the temperature twenty degrees. Whatever it was cut Katra short, something of a trick all by itself.

The row of scented candles on the table in front of them flickered then winked out slowly, one by one.

The room sank into a darkness more complete than should have been possible, even on a late-spring

Dallas afternoon.

"It's just your air conditioning," Katra whispered. She didn't sound convinced.

"It isn't on."

Sara heard the sound of Katra flicking her lighter but didn't see the flint's spark.

"What the heck is going on. I just bought this lighter." Katra paused. "Hey, do you think this is magic? I

told you I felt something."

Sara had felt something too, from the moment she'd touched her mother's book. She, not Katra, had

suggested this seance even though she'd never believed in hocus-pocus. Of course Katra had been the

one who'd suggested starting with the spell for summoning their true loves, and then insisting that they do

Sara first.

"You think my mother hid that book for a reason?" Sara asked, her voice a whisper.

"We're thirty and single. We have to take chances," Katra snapped. "Besides, sitting around in the dark

isn't any worse than sitting around with candles and no boyfriends. Our biological clocks aren't going to

wait."

Sara hoped Katra was right. Sitting around in a candle-lit room asking the Guardians of the Earth to

supply her true-love was asking for trouble, even though she didn't really believe in the Guardians of the

Earth. An icy feeling trickled through her veins even though Dallas had been warm all spring.

"If you blew those candles out," Katra continued, "I don't think it was very funny."

"It wasn't me." Sara inhaled and caught a faint odor of sulphur. Funny, they'd used a lighter, not matches.

Katra's grip seemed way too strong for her tiny friend. The poor thing must be even more afraid than she

was letting on. Sara gave a tug but Katra's grip seemed rock-solid.

"You're squeezing too tight."

"I'm not touching you."

Something gripped down even harder. She didn't remember Katra's hands having those calluses. "Don't

kid me," she urged, but without much hope.

"You'd better be joking." Katra didn't sound like she was kidding.

Panic welled in Sara's chest. "Oh my G--"

"Don't say it." The voice was male and strong and it sent a tingle of sexual need, mixed with sheer fear,

down Sara's spine.

"Don't say w--"

Katra interrupted with a scream. "There's a man here," she gasped after she'd made enough noise to

awaken people in Oklahoma City a hundred miles to the north.

"Free me from this blasted pentagram; I'll take care of any men," the male voice urged.

Sara didn't know what it meant, but the voice held a compulsion so powerful she wanted to do whatever

it demanded.

"Tell me you learned how to do voices." Katra begged to be reassured.

"It isn't me." Sara put all her strength into yanking her hand free this time. The grip tightened around her

fingers in a grip that stopped just short of pain. The evidently male grasp felt warm, almost sizzling, to her

touch. How could she have mistaken this for Katra's touch?

"Let's get out of here." Katra's voice shook. There were a few more cigarette lighter noises, then a clunk

as Katra evidently heaved the recalcitrant tool into the corner.

"Don't go without me," Sara begged. Admittedly she had been casting a spell for a man, but that didn't

mean she was just going to glom onto any male that snuck into her darkened bedroom. She relaxed,

pretending she had given up, then grabbed the candlestick and swung it, full force, at whatever was

holding onto her.

The heavy crystal candlestick clunked, then shattered. If she'd hit the man who was holding her, Sara

was certain he would have let go. Unfortunately, she'd misjudged her distance and smashed her own

hand.

"Oh my God that hurts."

Evidently something caught the man by surprise. He didn't let go, but his hand jerked against hers.

"The wards," Katra breathed.

"Wha--" except Sara saw them too. Where they'd drawn the five sided star with sea salt, almost

imperceptible blue lines glowed.

The faint light shouldn't have been enough to see by but Sara's eyes had adjusted to the dark. A male

hand clasped hers where her hand crossed over the plane of the wards.

Using every bit of the strength her panic lent her, she yanked her hand away.

Even with all her force, her hand barely moved. Yet it was enough. When it reached the sea-salt

boundary they'd drawn, a shower of sparks surrounded the male hand. It jerked, then dropped hers.

Sara collapsed to the ground panting as if she'd just run five miles. The eerie blue of the wards glowed

more brightly now as if they'd sucked power from whoever they held trapped.

Sara gasped for breath, then struggled to her feet, reached for the light switch and turned on the

overhead light.

If she'd thought the harsh glare of an electric light would explain everything, she was sadly mistaken.

Katra's earlier scream had something theatric about it. This one was real and from the heart.

The thing crouched in the midst of the pentagram was male all right. It wasn't a man, though. He looked

instead like one of the demons from the stained glass windows in the old-country church her grandmother

attended. Small horn nubs protruded from a too-handsome face right at the hairline. He was shirtless and

a pair of bat-wings extended from his muscular shoulders. What appeared to be a pair of leather pants

did nothing to hide his male swell.

Ironically, Katra's scream gave Sara a moment's pause. A real demon, if such a thing existed at all,

wouldn't look like a medieval fantasy. The thought was too absurd for words. And if he wasn't a real

demon, he was a real something else. Like somebody's idea of a practical joke. Maybe one of their

girlfriends had decided to play a game on them when Katra and Sara had shared their plans.

She took a deep breath. "Halloween isn't for another two weeks, so what's the big idea?"

"He's a demon," Katra breathed. "He's probably going to blast us both."

"There are no such things as demons," Sara declared with more confidence than she felt. If this was a

costume, it was the most realistic one she'd ever seen. And if the rent-a-stunt services had a lot of guys

with builds like this working for them, maybe she should look into a new line of work.

"Whoever told you there were no demons," the male voice declared, "lied."

Something in the male voice reverberated down her spine and set off hormonal signals Sara had ignored

since high school. It had to be the tension, she reassured herself. Nobody could respond sexually to a

freak in a cheap costume.

The demon flexed his bat wings, bringing his broad chest to fuller definition. Cancel that thought about

cheap.

"You can drop your game now," Sara told him, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice. "If there are

demons, they are symbolic, representative of the inclinations within us all." She held up a hand to forestall

his objection. "But let's suppose that's wrong and there really are grubby little imps running around. You

aren't one of them. After all, a metaphysical being couldn't have grabbed me physically."

"You know a lot about this, do you?" His voice sounded amused, practically condescending.

"Trust me, your costume is something out of fairy tales meant to frighten European peasants." Someone

like her grandmother. If Nana had seen this costume, she would really have been weirded out. "Anyway,

you did your job. We were scared for a second. Go home and tell whoever hired you that you deserve a

bonus."

"No, I really don't think I'll go back home just now." His face contorted and his deep blue eyes flickered.

It took Sara a moment to realize it was a smile. "Trust me, Hell is no place to rush back to. I could get

used to being around here."

"Hand me the phone, Katra." She turned back to the supposed demon. "You may think this is a big joke,

but the police will think it's breaking and entering. If you don't want me to call the police, you'd better tell

me who you are and who hired you to play this nasty joke on us."

"But you must know my name." He reared back, his wings extended until they brushed against the ward

lines. Blue sparks flew at the touch of costume wing against wards that could not really exist. A scent of

ozone joined that of sulphur. His voice sounded doubtful. "How could you have conjured me without mt

name?"

Sara shrugged. "All right, play it that way. Katra, dial 9-1-1."

"Uh, maybe he's got a gun. Why don't you call the police?"

Sara looked the supposed demon up and down. If he had a gun, it was well hidden. Those pants could

have been painted on from the way they hugged his narrow hips and muscular thighs.

"All right, I will." She stood and took a step toward the phone, careful not to cross the sea-salt line on the

carpet.

The supposed demon held up a hand. "You can call me Beljackoninan--uh, just call me Jack." As if he

really had some ancient Babylonian title.

He showed Sara his teeth in that expression he must mean as a smile. At least they weren't sharpened to

points. That would have been taking the costume too far. Still, those teeth looked strong and the grin

could have been meant as a threat.

"Listen to me, little girl. I can--" He jabbed a finger in her direction. His finger met the line of the ward

and a sheet of blue light swept up from the floor blinding Sara for a moment.

Sara hung up the phone and rubbed her eyes, trying not to breath too deeply of the ozone-rich air. Jack

glared at her and blew on his smoking finger. She was sure a finger couldn't actually catch fire but it had

looked that way.

"That's a pretty good ward," he admitted.

"Thanks, I think." She wasn't a weirdo. Semi-naked men with fake wings on their backs and fake horns

on their heads were not a turn-on for her. So why didn't she just call the police and have him carted off to

the looney bin or Science Fiction Faire where he belonged? She'd do exactly that, except she was

curious about those wards. Maybe somebody could have snuck into the apartment while she and Katra

were concentrating on the spell. But what kind of equipment would it take to make the salt lines glow like

that?

Still, he had to be a man in a costume. Any other explanation was silly.

Jack stretched again, this time careful to avoid the painful touch of the wards. It had been centuries since

he'd last walked in the physical plane. Although he could never fully escape the pains of Hell, it felt good

to be breathing again, to stretch his wings without bumping into a thousand other demons.

He couldn't believe his luck. The woman had actually summoned him without being able to remember his

true name. Without that, she could never compel him to her will. Once he was free from these pesky

wards, he would stride the earth like a king once more. Of course he'd have to get free fairly quickly. He

didn't want to open a pathway for all the other demons in Hell. This was going to be his own personal

pleasure.

He looked at the women more closely. Peering into their souls, he could read so much about them, their

hopes, fears, their pride. An innocence and inherent goodness overlaid the shallow layer of toughness in

the one called Sara.

That wouldn't help her. The two human women had been playing with magic, he saw, to attract men.

Their mistake. The two women were certainly attractive enough to catch any man they truly set their heart

on, but they hadn't and now he would use that fact to his advantage.

"If you choose to believe that I opened the door without you noticing, snuck into the room, blew out the

candles, set up some magic spell to make your wards glow, and then imprisoned myself here, I won't

argue with you," he said. "Just use that silver knife to cut an opening through your wards and I'll be out of

your lives forever."

"He has a point," the woman named Katra said. "How could he have done that?"

"You're a trained scientist," he reminded Sara. "So observe rather than leaping to conclusions." He

decided to appeal to Sara's emotions. "If I was a criminal, it might make sense to hold me here until the

police came. But of course you couldn't. You have no weapon in this apartment and I could walk out.

Since I am who I say I am, you have me trapped. Yet it isn't right to hold a sentient being against its will.

Your own morals must tell you to let me go."

"You think you know everything about me?" Sara sounded unsure of herself. Time to attack.

"You are easy enough to read, Sara."

"How did you know my name?"

Jack enjoyed watching Sara's body adjust to the shock. Her face flushed, then paled, but she stood up to

him her fists so tight her knuckles whitened. He'd always appreciated a fighter, even a fighter of lost

causes. With her long blonde hair, slender jeans-clad legs, and hazel eyes, the part of Jack that was male

stirred in an instant reaction.

He suppressed that thought. Once he was free, he'd take his fill of humans.

"I know everything about you, Sara. I can see your dreams."

"Ridiculous."

"I'm serious. Look at me and tell me how I could be wearing a costume. Think about it and tell me how I

could have come in without you noticing. Watch the wards and tell me if your puny science has anything

that could explain what is going on here."

He gritted his teeth, then flung himself against the wards in an all-out attempt to break through or at least

prove to himself that it was impossible.

The wards flung him back to the floor with as much ease as if he'd been the tiny imp Sara had accused

him of being.

Damn.

Sara's smoke detector went off in a frightened squawk. Had the thing been trying to show her he really

was trapped, or had it been seeking to escape and failed? Either way, she found it harder and harder to

believe he really was a man in a costume. Too bad, because she hadn't met many men as attractive as

Jack.

It took her a minute to climb up on a chair and unhook the battery that powered her detector. When she

climbed down, she decided to take Jack at his word and really check him out--staying safely on her side

of the wards. If she couldn't find any seams that held his wings on, she would have to believe there was

something going on here other than just a bad trick.

She let her eyes have their fill with Jack's body and masculine face then settled down to serious business.

There had to be seams where the fake horns met his head and more seams where his wings where

attached.

It was hard, though. Her gaze kept sliding off the wings to ogle Jack's broad back.

"Want to help me, Katra?" she asked. Somebody had spent a fortune hiring this hunk and they might as

well both take advantage of it. Who knows, maybe he had a friend and they could both get dates out of

this.

"I'm looking, believe me," Katra muttered.

Jack shrugged his shoulders when she passed in front of him. "There are no hidden strings."

"That doesn't make you a demon. Maybe you're an alien." Anything would be better than one of the

demons from her Nana's stories.

"You don't get more alien than a demon." Jack reached for Sara, then pulled back his hand when the

ward started to glow a deeper blue. "Why don't you just cut away some of that sea salt and make a

break in your wards?"

Katra tried to bring her heart rate under control without much luck. How Sara could just walk around

Jack, checking him out like he was a piece of meat, was beyond her.

"Does your mother's book say anything about banishing demons?" she asked. She'd seen enough movies

to know that just setting a demon free was unlikely to be a brilliant move. While Sara was her smartest

friend, she wasn't always the most practical.

"Hum?" Sara dragged her gaze away from the hunk. "Oh, sure. It's in there. Except--uh, oh."

Katra didn't like the sound of that. "What?"

Sara's normally tanned face paled. "The spell won't work for twenty-four hours after you summon them."

"You didn't warn me about that."

"Because I was summoning a true love, not a demon."

"True love? Is that what brought me here?" The demon gave a short laugh. "I didn't know it was possible

to mangle that spell so badly."

"Sara started to fall asleep in the middle of it."

The demon rubbed his forehead and horns as if he had a terrible headache. "I'm going to forget this ever

happened." He paused, then gave Katra a grin that frightened her out of ten years of life. "If you don't

want to use the knife, just blow on the lines. I'll be gone before you can say boo."

Sara might not be able to hurt a fly, but Katra had always been the tough one. "If we let him out, he'll

probably just go and bother someone else. Twenty-four hours isn't that long," she told Sara. "He seems

contained."

"For now," Jack observed. "You don't think these wards will hold me forever, do you?" His hand

brushed against the invisible line again, once again setting off a shower of sparks. "Don't you see that

they're weakening already? You want me gone. I can be quite a damper on romantic evenings, believe

me."

"If that was a problem, we wouldn't all be here," Sara quipped.

Katra's brain raced. She wasn't dumb enough to miss the fact that Jack had asked a series of questions

rather than simply told them he could break out. This could be an opportunity. "He seems to want out

bad. I'll bet he'll give us three wishes if we let him go. Remember the way it happened in Aladdin?"

"Whatever Jack is, he isn't a genie," Sara observed. "Besides, are you sure you want to base your life on

a Disney movie?"

"It isn't just Disney," Katra protested. "All of the fairy tales are the same. And it doesn't have to be a

genie, either. Brownies or leprechauns or your grandmother Maura's Baba Yaga, they all give you wishes

if you can catch them." She paused, feeling the smile on her lips. "This one is good and caught."

"Does she always go on like that?" Jack asked.

Sara nodded. "It's part of her dumb act. She thinks it attracts men."

"Hey, it works." Katra put her hands on her hips. Not that she'd had a lot of luck with men lately. She

tried to forget anything she'd ever heard about deals made with the devil. This wasn't the devil, just some

demon--probably a misunderstood one.

Sara turned to face the devil-thing. "Is she right? Are you here to grant our wishes?"

Jack's laugh hardly qualified. "You summoned me. Is that what you want? Wishes? All right, free me and

I'll give you three requests."

Katra didn't know much about demons but she knew plenty about men. They were big on promises until

they got what they wanted. Then the deal got changed.

"I can make wishes any time. Are you going to make them come true, or just let me wish away?"

Jack's smile looked completely artificial. He had been planning to trick them, just as she'd suspected. "It

would depend on the request, of course."

"Are you sure you aren't a human man?" she asked. "That's just the kind of offer they'd make. We make

our wishes, you decide you don't like them, then you blow us up or possess us or something." She turned

to Sara. "Either your demon is pretty stupid, or he thinks we are."

"He thinks we are," Sara agreed. She was flipping through her mother's book now. "There's got to be

some way to banish him back where he came from in less than twenty-four hours. I don't think I could

stand this."

The demon glared at Katra, then tried another artificial smile. "I'm not all-powerful so don't even think

about asking for world peace or a cure for cancer. How about, if I can't grant a wish, I'll let you take

another."

That sounded better. Of course he might not be able to grant any at all. Sort of like the last guy Katra

had dated. Actually, the last seven guys she'd dated. Still, if he couldn't do squat, Katra would just help

Sara send him back. Only there was one other trick. "What happens after our three wishes each?"

"I said three, not three each."

"Oh, yeah," Katra groaned. "Like I've just been dying for one and a half wishes."

When she and Sara had visited Central America together, Katra had always done the bargaining.

Nobody could believe anyone who acted as dumb as Katra did could be smart. Well, she might not be a

scientist like Sara but she wasn't anybody's dummy either. "Three each, big guy. Or else we light the

candles and send you back to wherever you came from."

"You think I'm afraid to be sent back to Hell?"

He was asking questions again, instead of answering, Katra noticed. So he was afraid. This was too

easy.

"Now that I think about it, I saw this movie where the guy got nine wishes. Shall we say five for me and

four for Sara?"

Jack shook his head. "Three wishes each. Make them good. There aren't any makeup exams here. And

I'll let you go afterwards so you won't have to waste a wish on self-protection. It's a fair offer." He almost

choked on the word fair.

"Deal," Katra said. She started to reach out her hand but stopped short of that glowing line. She didn't

trust him that far.

"You said you won't hurt us after the wishes. So what does happen?" Sara demanded.

"Your friend said we had a deal."

Sara shrugged. She must have noticed how nervous Jack was about going back to Hell too. "Sue me."

The demon scowled and raised his hands to the walls that held him in but stopped short of giving them

another light show. "I grant your requests, then I leave. You'll never see me again. Unlike you two, I have

worthwhile things to do with my existence."

"What happens to us?"

"You keep what you wished for."

"How can we know you aren't lying?" Katra demanded.

"Why would I lie?"

He was asking questions again.

"Demons are supposed to be the fathers of lies, remember?"

His wings flared. "I don't lie."

For some reason, Katra believed him. Maybe because of the way he'd weasel-worded before.

"I know what I want, then," Katra decided. "I want a cute guy with enough money to take me out to nice

places, a car that runs for more than ten miles without breaking down, and, uh, I want to win the lottery.

Tonight."

"Katra, don't--"

"Done," the demon declared before Sara could finish her thought.

"Oh, I'm sure."

The phone rang. Sara had a really bad feeling about this.

"Or maybe a vacation place in Hawaii," Katra continued. "Remember the time we went to Maui and I

met that lifeguard?"

"When you almost drowned yourself five times before he noticed you, you mean?" Sara asked, ignoring

the phone.

"I do what works. I got a date out of that lifeguard, which is more than you did. I get a lot of dates out of

my dumb act too." She put on a simpering face. "Oh, I just don't know what I'm going to do. I could

never change a tire all by my little self."

The phone rang again.

"You'd better get that," Katra suggested. "Maybe it's the Spanish Inquisition or something."

"I'm not expecting--"

Despite the tension, both women broke into giggles. "Nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition."

They slapped hands. Monte Python strikes again.

Jack glared at them. Well, maybe with his bat-wings and horns, he was expecting the Spanish

Inquisition.

With all the patience in the world, the phone kept ringing.

"All right, I give up." Sara reached for it but she didn't take her eyes off the demon. She knew he'd bolt

given half a chance. "Hello."

She listened for a moment. It was obviously Katra's mother, but she was screaming so loud, Sara

couldn't make out any words. Finally she pulled the handset away from her ear.

"It's for you."

"For me or the demon?" Katra asked.

"Very funny. It's your mother."

"Oh, great. She's probably wondering why I'm not hanging out at the bowling alley picking up men. She

wants a grandchild so bad it hurts--me."

Still, she took the phone. "Hello."

Katra listened, obviously able to get a little more from her mother's screaming than Sara had.

After a minute or so, the screaming died down and Katra hung up the phone. She glared at Jack. "What

did you do?"

"Three wishes." He paused, then looked at Sara. "Next."

Since Katra's mother screamed like that over winning a free burger in the McDonalds' scratch-off game,

Sara hadn't taken the call too seriously. But Katra looked like she was going to faint. "What's the story

with your mother?"

"That's what I need to find out," Katra answered. "Are you going to be all right if I go home? Either my

mother has flipped out or my wishes just came true."

Robert Preece - One Handsome Devil

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