Page 101 of My Funny Demon Valentine
“That makes sense,” Belial finally said, and she breathed a silent sigh of relief. He shrugged enormous shoulders. “Too bad it wears off eventually. Ash said that after a few hours, he was back to normal.”
Jacqui smiled, setting the dried plate on top of the stack in the cupboard. “Then I guess he’ll have to keep playing music regularly, won’t he? I bet that if he keeps fostering this new side of himself, the curse will eventually go away forever.”
Belial’s mouth lifted in one corner, and the dimple that appeared in his cheek nearly knocked her flat. “You’re right.”
Underneath that aura of danger, there was a powerful charisma to him that was profoundly compelling. And he was, of course, devastatingly handsome. All the demons were. Eva had warned her about his short temper and the resulting chaos, however, so she remained wary.
That half-smile suddenly became a full-fledged grin, upping his devastating handsomeness to an eight-point-oh on the Richter scale. “You know, I’ve been searching for ways to break Asmodeus’s curse for millennia, and you’ve gone and solved it in one go. What’s more, he’s obsessed with music. And you’re telling me all he has to do is keep playing.”
“It’s probably the same with your love of cooking. Cooking is an art form, a passion for creation. It’s an expression of divinity.”
Just as suddenly as it had arrived, the smile disappeared, and his face hardened once again into an impenetrable mask. “My problems are a little too complicated to be solved by cooking.”
“Nonsense. I happen to believe art is, in one way or another, a solution for everything. In fact, my husband and I use that concept behind all our...” She trailed off, her whole conversation with Dan coming back in a rush.
Belial glanced at her as the sink drained with a gurgle. “What?”
She sighed. “My husband has been hiding something from me. Eva must have told you about that book I found in his studio, and he’s been acting very strange.”
“I may have overheard something about it over the phone, but Eva didn’t tell me about a book.”
“I think it’s a grimoire. It was full of symbols like the one I had to draw to get you here.”
His eyes widened and suddenly, he was radiating intensity. “What’s he doing with a grimoire?”
“That’s just it. I have no idea.” She sighed, hanging the dish towel off the stove handle. “We’ve been married for twenty-seven years, and he’s never given any indication he knew about all this supernatural stuff, and yet he obviously does.”
“What’s in the grimoire?”
“I don’t know, since I can’t read Latin anymore, but I found four pages he had drawn himself that very clearly had your names on them.”
Belial’s stare intensified until actual flames flickered in his eyes, causing her to recoil. She could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped several degrees.
“He has a sigil withmyname on it?”
She nodded warily.
Meph and Raum appeared in the kitchen.
“There’s no way it’s your seal,” Meph said. “And if it was, it’s not like he’d be able to use it.”
Bel looked at Jacqui. “Could you show us this grimoire?”
She hesitated. “What kind of seal are you talking about?”
“Every demon has their own unique seal that can be used to summon and bind them,” Meph explained. “For greater demons, it’s extremely difficult to do, and most of the time the summoner makes a mistake and ends up dead.”
“But occasionally, they get it right,” Raum added.
“And when they do, the demon is bound to the summoner. He has no choice but to obey. And the more powerful the demon, the more chaos the summoner can make him unleash. And good ol’ Bel here”—Meph slapped his brother on the back—“is one scary motherfucker.”
Bel shot him a dark look but said to Jacqui, “If someone were to bind me, the destruction I could cause would be apocalyptic.”
“It could literally start the apocalypse,” Meph supplied.
“You erased all records of that seal thousands of years ago,” Raum grumbled. “There’s no way Eva’s dad has it.”
Jacqui stared at them, horrified by the implications. “Well, we should probably make sure, just in case. Follow me.”
