Dazedly, she nodded and plopped down on the edge of the bed.
I briefly explained about my body being bound to Hell and all that, her eyes growing wider the more I talked.
“My hands,” she said, curling and uncurling her fingers, “they’re in dire need of a full popcorn bowl to hold.”
I huffed a laugh. “So, anyway, he said I’ve got an hour, and—” I glanced at the digital clock on her nightstand “—we still have about forty minutes left.” My initial attempts to move the damn pillow had eaten up more time than I’d like.
“He.” Taylor raised a brow. “Your demon. Wait, excuse me—your demon husband.” She gave me the biggest I’m-going-to-need-you-to-elaborate-on-that look I’d ever seen.
“Yeah…” The word came out as a five-second-long syllable.
“Okay.” She held up a hand again. Taylor was very fond of handsy talking. “Okay. The last time we spoke, you were running from him and you sounded scared as hell.” She paused, considered. “Is that a bad pun to use?” Shaking her head, she went on, “And then you sent me this text—” she pointed a shaky hand at her phone on the nightstand “—this horrible goodbye text which I totally did not re-read every damn day like some weepy masochist, and I’ve been here, ever since, worrying about you and unable to talk to anyone about it because everyone else thinks you either just ran away or got human-trafficked or some shit, and I’m the only one who knows you actually got dragged to Hell by some lunatic demon who can’t take a joke—”
“That’s what I said!”
She glared at me.
“Right. Sorry. Go on.”
“—and I’ve been going crazy over here, Z, like straight-up certifiable and ready-to-be-committed mad with all these whacky ideas of what you might be going through and—” She squeezed her eyes closed, her lips quivering.
Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. Taylor barely ever cried. She was the tough-as-nails one in our friendship. The one not afflicted by the angry-cry curse. I could count the number of times I’d seen her in tears on one hand.
“Tay?” I asked gently. “Tay, please don’t.”
She sniffed.
It felt like a cold knife to my heart.
“Don’t cry,” I whispered.
“I thought you were—you were—” Her voice was so broken, I couldn’t stand it. “But you’re okay. You’re—wait, are you? Okay?”
I nodded vigorously. “I’m fine, Tay. Really. This form is just weird, that’s all.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Has he hurt you?”
“No,” I said gently.
“But he’s a demon. Who dragged you to Hell.”
“He didn’t actually drag me so much as carried me, and I kind of went willingly, considering the alternative would have been to burn in Hell as a damned soul.”
She blinked.
“Neither of us had a choice,” I explained. “We’re both bound by that contract I made back then. And he’s been...um…” I rubbed my nose, realizing—once again—that I couldn’t feel it.
“What?”
“I mean, we had a bit of a rocky start, but now we’re...uh...on good…” I waved my hands. “...marital...terms.”
Her eyes rounded. “Oh, my God. Zoe Elizabeth Williams! You’re having sex with a demon?”
“Shhh!” I made calm-down gestures and threw a glance over my shoulder. “Why don’t you yell louder so the whole building hears you? He’s right there on your balcony!”
“HE’S HERE?”
“Tay!”
“I can’t believe you’re screwing a demon,” she stage-whispered. “A demon!”
“I know it sounds bad—”
“Wait—what does he look like?”
And there was the Tay I knew and loved. “Okay, so you know the demons from Constantine?”
“The movie with Keanu Reeves?”
“Yes.”
She grimaced.
“He’s nothing like that,” I hurried to say. “I mean, there are ugly demon species down there, don’t get me wrong, but Azazel and his kind...they’re descended from fallen angels, and they all look the part. All of them.”
She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips. “So on a scale of one to Tom Ellis as Lucifer…”
“He’s off the charts. Like, not even on there.” I made a pew sound and mimicked a rocket taking off. “Through the roof.”
“And he’s a literal demon in the sack?”
“Tay!” I laughed.
“Just making sure I get the details right.” She wiggled her brows, then her face turned serious. “Okay, I’m gonna need you to walk me through it. The whole thing. Start with what happened after we hung up that night. I wanna know everything.”
If I’d been in physical form, my eyes would have filled with tears, for the sheer relief of having someone to talk to about this. And not just someone...but my best friend, who understood