Mysteria Nights

For my three children:

Connor and Courtney (the human ones)

and Tala (the furry one).

All my love.

One

The dirty, sweat-soaked demon dropped to his knees. His hands, bound at the wrists with chains, rested awkwardly at the small of his back. Nevertheless, he formed his mouth into a smile he hoped appeared as contrite as his posture. ’Tis better if you do not infuriate the boss any more than you have already, he thought. “I am prepared to pay for my transgressions, Master.”

“And pay for them, you shall!” The Devil’s forked tongue darted out to moisten thin, malice-curved lips. “I have thought long and hard about your crimes,” he hissed with the very faintest of lisps. “Now, prepare to receive your sentence, Demon.”

“Aye, Master.” All the demons were named “Demon” down here in Hell. To their master they were all but indistinguishable. Only Lucifer stood apart, with his trademark black goatee, the horns, the pitchfork, and the crimson suit. Proof that the whimsies of fashion in Hell had been at a standstill since the birth of time.

Fashion? Hell’s bells, didn’t he have more important things to worry about? Like losing his head, or some other body part of which he’d grown fond? The demon winced. His concentration simply wasn’t what it used to be after the century of torture he’d endured for his crimes. Or had it been two or three centuries that he’d been paying for his terrible deeds? It had become difficult to keep track. Ah, but what was an extra century or two in the grand scheme of things? He’d existed for more than ten thousand years, tasked to bring the worst sort of doubt into the miserable, pitifully abbreviated lives of human beings. Far from being just any demon, he was a demon lord, and one of the most ancient of them all: the Demon High Lord of Self-Doubt and Second Thoughts, the bane of many a human failure, simpering creatures all too eager to listen to the fears that he could so easily plant in their weak minds. You can’t, he’d whisper until they believed it. You won’t. Try, and you will surely fail.

Countless men who could have ruled the world had never stepped beyond their front doors because he’d made them doubt their abilities, made them afraid to take chances, to risk failure. Nor were women any safer from his dark murmurings through the eons. He’d frightened countless wenches, silencing their voices by playing up their fears of sounding too shrill, too stupid, too . . . different.

Humanity’s failures—he’d been the force behind so many of them. Until that fateful day when he’d glimpsed true courage and couldn’t bring himself to destroy it, giving the Will-to-Go-On to a small, starving band of settlers wandering in the snowy woods of the Rocky Mountains. He wasn’t sure exactly why he’d spared them, why he’d given them the inner strength to push themselves until they reached warmth and shelter, but he had—and it had felt damned good, too. In fact, it had felt so damned good being good to the damned that he repeated the deed all around the globe, losing himself for years in a virtual frenzy of beneficence. That is, until he was finally caught red-handed in the midst of one of those random acts of kindness, a crime considered so heinous that Lucifer himself had marched upstairs and dragged him back down to Hell.

On the positive side, he’d come out the other side with all his body parts intact, the important body parts, at any rate. It could have gone much worse for him. And perhaps it still would. The devil, as always, was in the details.

The demon bowed his head. “Tell me what I must do to appease you, Master.”

“There will be no appeasement! None! There is but one fitting punishment for such atrocities. Banishment!”

The demon’s head jerked up. “Banishment?”

“Yes.” The fiery red orbs that passed for Lucifer’s eyes narrowed to pulsing slits. “I hereby banish you from Hell.”

It cannot be! The demon had expected a reduction in rank, the loss of freedom to come and go as he pleased, perhaps, but permanent eviction? His salary, his benefits—phoosh, gone! Just like that. Hell’s bells, he’d slaved ten thousand years—for nothing! Done the Devil’s deeds only to end up like this: out of date, out of use, and without a transferable retirement plan!

“Is this truly to be forevermore?” the demon almost croaked, knowing how the Devil so enjoyed toying with his minions.

Lucifer chuckled. “Not really. I have made you mortal, as well.”

“Mortal . . .” The mere word tangled around the demon’s tongue like a serving of snake entrails.

“Never fear. Because of your newly finite life, you won’t have many years to fret your fate. Consider it a favor for your years of service to the Dark Empire.” Lucifer waved a clawed hand. “No need to thank me.”

A growl rumbled in the demon’s throat. Of all the many things he’d like to give Lucifer at that moment, thanks was not one of them. Yet, something told him it wasn’t mortality itself he needed to fear as much as the locale in which he would suffer it. “Where am I to be sent?”

“Why, to the very epicenter of your initial act of kindness.” Lucifer spat out that last word. Literally. A glob of moisture sizzled in one of the many fires burning deep within the bowels of the earth. “Mysteria. I trust you remember the place.”

He remembered it, all right. Remembered it all too well. The settlers he’d helped had founded the village.

The demon shifted his weight on aching knees as he mulled over his options, which were near zero, as far as he could tell. Time was running out to reverse course, so he did what he did best and sowed the seeds of self-doubt. “Are you certain this is the best plan for me, Master? The best punishment? Are you absolutely sure?”

The Devil’s voice turned deadly. “What do you mean?”

“What if it doesn’t work out? What if they don’t want me amongst them?” You can’t . . . you won’t. Try, and you will surely fail. . . . “Imagine it, the Demon High Lord of Self-Doubt and Second Thoughts living across the street, mowing the lawn. Coaching Little League?” The demon curved his lips into a between-us smile. “Absurd, is it not?”

Lucifer shrieked in incredulity. The sound of a thousand screams filled the chamber. Goblins and gargoyles somersaulted through the shadows, fleeing the chamber as a rumbling began under the cold stone slab of a floor. “Your dark magic does not work with me!”

“I’m merely suggesting that you look at all sides of the equation—”

But Lucifer continued to roar. Somewhere far above them, on the surface, the ground also shook. The demon half-wondered how many casualties there would be this time. But that was no longer his job. He’d been fired. He would no longer be tasked with planting defeat in the survivors’ minds, riddling their psyches with despair. At that, something close to relief filtered through him. Doing good has taken the fun out of doing evil.

Aye, it had. The demon sensed he’d never be 100 percent good. Yet, neither could he ever return to being 100 percent bad.

Lucifer grew in size until he towered above the demon, his clothing splitting and hissing as muscled flesh bulged and tore it apart. Horns sprouted from a ridged skull, curling upward, until they, too, were lost in the swirling mist of the chamber. Finally, he spoke. “I do not doubt, fallen one. I do not err. I do not have second thoughts!”

That much was obvious. Couldn’t Lucifer have made the point without all the needless death and destruction? Without the unneeded suffering? A growl vibrated deep in the demon’s throat. He’d witnessed such showy outbursts many times during his long existence, but this time, for the first time, a reaction to the master’s wrath formed inside the demon, as if he had a temper of his very own.

He made fists. It caused the manacles to bite into his wrists, pain he welcomed as a ball of heat swelled and exploded in his chest, a conflagration he couldn’t recognize or explain, for he didn’t have feelings. Never had. He couldn’t have performed his duties if he’d been created any other way. And yet, he felt something now, aye, something too wonderful and terrible to absorb, a sensation too new and yet inexplicably ancient at the same time. The pressure built and built until something finally gave.

The demon gasped in shock. It was as if his very core had wrenched open, releasing all he carried within him. The vileness, the blackness, he realized. The evil.

For half a breath he was so frighteningly hollow, he wondered if he were about to implode; then into the vacuum rushed something so sweet, so indescribably wonderful, that he nearly sobbed. What was happening to him?

“I’m sorry,” the demon whispered on a ragged breath. It was the only way to express what had boiled up inside him. “I am so very sorry. . . .”

“You don’t look sorry,” Lucifer hissed from high above.

The demon glared up at him. “Ah, but I am. Sorry for all the centuries of sowing doubt, of turning back those beings better than I. I am sorry for the evil I accomplished in your name. In fact, I hereby repent!” Aye, take that, you gutless stinking mountain of dragon offal.

“You . . . re-what?”

“I repent. R-e-p-e-n-t.” Was that not an Aretha Franklin song? Or was he confusing his tunes? The demon gave his head a shake. There they went again, his thoughts wandering. One thing was certain, something had happened—was happening—inside him, and he was helpless to stop it.

To stop the emotion, sharp and pure, filling him with anger, resentment, shame at his past. And hope—hope despite the completely overwhelming odds against him. Now you are just like the humans, he thought.

“I ask forgiveness for all the deeds I ever did in the Dark One’s name,” he said quietly. “Aye, I truly do.”

Lucifer’s voice was deadly. “I never forgive. You should know this, my minion. You of all the demon high lords should know.”

“It wasn’t of you that I made my plea.”

Lucifer’s molten eyes pulsed and glowed, his fangs glinting in the cast-off light. “What?”

“You heard me.” Angry now, the demon flicked his gaze upward—heavenward—to make his point clear.

Only the fretful twittering of goblins interrupted the shocked, appalled silence. Then, a strange noise stuttered past Lucifer’s parted lips. The demon marveled at that. It was the first time in all of history that he could remember hearing the Great Satan sputter.

Then, all hell broke loose.

Two jets of searing red lava shot out from the Devil’s eyes and hit the slab where the demon crouched. Rocks exploded, pummeling him as he fell backward. The air was on fire, something that the demon should have been used to—Lucifer lost his temper often; they’d all been charred now and again—but this was different.

This was worse.

The demon spun in the center of a tornado, wrenched and torn in every direction, inside and out. He could no longer see or hear. And, after a blessed while, he could no longer feel the pain that wracked him.

Bathed in white light, he floated. Is this what it feels like to die? If so, perhaps he would not mind. But he knew, even as he tumbled into oblivion—or, rather, into the forested slopes of Colorado—that Lucifer would never let him get away as easily as that.

Two

In a clear, sweet voice, Harmony Faithfull concluded her Sunday service: “Now, go in peace and enjoy this beautiful day the Lord has given us.”

The sound of her six-month-old puppy’s tail thumping on the hardwood floor was all that broke the perfect silence.

“Thanks, Bubba.” Harmony looked up from her handwritten sermon, which had taken all of ten minutes to read to the six rows of pews. Six rows of empty pews, lined up like abandoned soldiers on the pristine, knotty pine floor.

There should be scuffs marring those planks, she thought longingly, lost buttons in the corners, and crushed Cheerios. And under the pews, wadded-up Kleenex, handbags, and colorful hats . . .

Harmony sighed and neatened the lectern. “It’s nice to know someone appreciated the homily today.”

You’re talking to the dog again.

“Yep. And when you’re not talking to the dog, you’re talking to yourself.” Crossing her eyes, Harmony shut off the halogen reading lamp and the microphone. Sometimes, she wondered what she possibly could have been thinking—her, a city girl, relocating to Mysteria, a tiny hamlet in the Rockies, assuming she’d make churchgoers out of the locals here, who, um, weren’t like any people she’d ever met anyplace else. There were supernatural happenings in the town, you couldn’t miss them, really, and she had her suspicions that more than a few of the townsfolk had supernatural abilities. But God loved all creatures: great or small, good or bad, moral or immoral. Mortal or . . . ?

Harmony stopped that train of thought before it jumped the track. She was here because after two tours as an air force chaplain, she’d been looking for a new challenge. It looks like you found it, girl. In spades.

Six months ago, the church had been a tumbledown farmhouse with a barn on five overgrown acres. With the help of her father and brothers, she’d renovated the house, which now did double duty as a public place of worship and her personal living quarters, a cozy little home located in the back. She’d even stitched the white eyelet curtains herself in a spurt of delirious domesticity. Then her family had returned to Oakland, leaving her to grow her flock. Except that, aside from a few curious townspeople, no one had showed up.

Have some faith. Give it time.

Time . . . she had plenty of that lately.

Well, she’d simply have to drum up a little of the faith in herself that she’d always seemed to be able to drum up in everyone else. After all, she was Harmony Faithfull, the daughter of Jacob Jethro Faithfull IV, Oakland’s most famous, and often infamous, but always ebullient, pastor of South Avenue Church. Daddy was a man who could fill football stadiums and concert halls with worshippers, who often traveled hundreds of miles to hear him speak. Charisma and the good word, it was a potent combination.

Harmony thumped her fist on the podium, and the puppy jumped. “It’s in my genes,” she said out loud. “I can’t forget that. God sent me here because I have a job to do.”

Bubba seemed to agree, a long pink puppy tongue draped over one side of his open mouth.

Harmony crumpled one of the sheets of lined paper she’d used for her sermon, crushed it in her fist, and aimed the ball of paper at the wastebasket across from the pulpit. It clipped the rim and spun inside. “Two points!”

She tapped a finger against her chin. “Maybe we can start an after-school basketball team. What do you think of that, Bubba-licious?” The puppy wagged his long black tail.

The idea of an after-school basketball team had worked for her father and some inner-city kids when he was fresh out of divinity school. The hoops had brought the children, and then the mothers, who’d dragged the fathers and the boyfriends, and within the year there was an entire community with Sunday potlucks and a fifty-two-member choir. Not that she could picture any of the O’Cleary great-grandkids shooting hoops, but it’d be a start. It was all about getting people through the door.

MYSTERIA COMMUNITY CHURCH. ALL FAITHS WELCOME. That last part she’d painted onto the sign as an afterthought when weeks had gone by and nary a lost soul tromped through the door. Well, save Jeanie Tortellini, the town sheriff, and sometimes Candice, the high school English teacher. They’d drop by to see how she was settling in, staying for chitchat and coffee but not the good word. But then, Harmony firmly believed everyone was welcome here, for whatever reasons they chose to come. If they preferred their so-called magic, fine, but Harmony’s calling was to let them know God watched over them as well. As a child, her parents had taught her that a true heart excluded no one, and that the church was the heart of the village.

Except in Mysteria, where that honor was held by Knight Caps, the local bar.

Harmony sighed. How could she convince the townspeople to congregate here instead? At least on Sundays. What did she have that they couldn’t find anywhere else? Well, besides the obvious, she thought with a vertical glance.

“God, I need your help. Show me how to fill up this church, and I’ll do the rest. Please.” Harmony squeezed her eyes shut and prayed. Prayed until her head throbbed and her eyes hurt. Prayed until she was all prayed out. And then she started wishing, plain old wishing, like you would on a four-leaf clover, or a star, because sometimes, even in matters of the spirit, and maybe especially in matters of the spirit, you just had to stack the deck. “Show me how to bring the townspeople here,” she whispered. “Give me a sign.” I’m waiting, watching, eyes wide open, Lord.

The floor rumbled. Was that the old furnace kicking on? No, it was warm today, too warm for the heater.

The earth moved again. Harmony frowned at her drinking glass still sitting on the podium. The water was rippling like San Francisco Bay on a windy day. No, the rumbling definitely wasn’t from the furnace. It was coming from somewhere outside. Strange. Everyone knew a major fault line ran through Missouri. But Colorado?

One good jolt almost threw her to her knees. Then it was quiet.

Bubba started barking. In an instant, he’d transformed from drowsy puppy to barking, fur-covered projectile. Zero to sixty in 2.8 seconds, nails scrabbling for purchase on the hardwood, he flew out the front door.

“Bubba!” Grabbing the gauzy cotton of her skirt, Harmony hurried after the dog to the flower garden she’d planted near an ancient, gnarled apple tree. THE GARDEN OF EDEN, according to the ornamental iron garden sign that her sister Hope had mailed her as a housewarming gift. “Bubba! Bubba, come here!”

Three women jogged past on the road fronting the church. They were feminine confections coated in spandex, bling jingling, ponytails bouncing. One woman carried a broomstick gripped in her hand. Hmm, that was a little different, but maybe it was good for the arms. They waved, and Harmony, smiled, waving back. Now she remembered them—the Tawdry sisters. They had the most brilliant hazel eyes that almost seemed to glow. There was something else unusual about them, too, but Harmony couldn’t place her finger on exactly what. But they, like the rest of the women in town, were always nice, if a little racy.

Black lace bra types, Harmony had dubbed them in private. Not meaning any disrespect. Her own sisters were black lace bra types. Not that Harmony had anything against a woman knowing her own charms or being confident about sex. God had never dissed procreation. In fact, He encouraged it—within the context of a committed, monogamous relationship, of course. Nothing you need to worry about, given your current state of isolation.

“Ain’t that the truth?” Harmony followed the puppy across the lawn. Birds chirped; bees buzzed. The sky was a pure, clear blue. And the sunshine, the scent of pine, she could almost taste it. Face lifted to the sun, she inhaled deeply and became so carried away by her appreciation of the outdoors that she swept right past the naked man who was the target of Bubba’s frantic barking.

The naked . . .

. . . man?

Harmony froze, the skirt falling out of her hands. There was no naked man.

Oh, yeah? Then how do you explain the afterimage that just seared itself onto your retinas?

Heart thumping, Harmony whirled around. Yep, there was a man there, and he was most definitely naked, sprawled on his side among the flowers, one thick, muscled thigh thrown forward, the sunshine bouncing off his butt.

Three

Wow. Eyes wide, Harmony stood there, staring, rooted to the ground, as if her foot were locked in cement. She’d asked God to send her a sign. But she’d never expected anything like this! The best naked man she’d ever seen, she decided with no small amount of half-crazed, hormone-driven, lust-fueled objectivity. And she’d seen her share of naked men.

Hmm. That didn’t sound right. But it was true, naked men in her life had been a buck a dozen. Only she just hadn’t slept with them. Her one affair, in college, was a pleasant but distant memory, and since then she’d spied naked men, fairly frequently, glimpses here and there, in and out of locker rooms, military field hospitals, and in the desert, where there hadn’t been much privacy when she’d served as a pastor in Iraq....

Focus, Harmony. There is an unclothed hunk-a-love lying in your flower bed.

Right. And what in the name of heaven was he doing there? Men didn’t just fall out of the sky. Ask and ye shall receive.

“Harmony,” she warned herself.

She dropped to her knees, her fingers going to the unconscious man’s corded neck to feel for a pulse. His skin was tanned, perfectly smooth. Midnight black hair curled long and loose around his neck. Taking a closer look, she saw he appeared flushed, as if he were sunburned or had stood too close to a fire. More likely, he’d collapsed after a night of carousing. He was going to be pretty embarrassed once he realized he’d left wherever he’d been hanging out without his clothes.

Bubba growled, low and deep. “Shush, boy,” Harmony soothed. “It’s okay. I know martial arts, and you have sharp teeth. If he turns out to be the town serial killer/rapist, we’ll team up and put him away. Until then, Bubba, you behave.”

Harmony pressed her fingers to the man’s neck. There . . . she felt a heartbeat . . . slow, distant, almost forlorn. It was if he’d grown tired of living.

She sat up straight. Gosh, that was a weird thought. Tired of living? Where did that come from? If anyone was a mind reader, it was her great-grandmother Eudora, who was said to be a “seer.” But as a child growing up in the Faithfull clan, the mere mention of Eudora’s psychic talents would have earned Harmony the threat of having her mouth washed out with soap, if not the real thing. Yet, as Harmony studied the stranger’s face, the resignation there, the weariness, she could almost believe it true that he was ready to surrender.

Well, she’d fix that. No one was giving up the ghost on her watch, especially not dressed in his birthday suit and crushing her best zinnias!

“Hello? Sir? Are you okay?” Bubba’s brown eyes were wary and huge as Harmony tapped the man on the shoulder. “Come on, up and at ’em. You can’t sleep here all day. People will talk.”

Not even an eyelash twitched. She took hold of his solid shoulder and shoved. “Okay, Sleeping Beauty, time to rise and shine. I’ll even brew you a pot of coffee to help things along. I make a mean pot of java, too.”

No response, not even a snore. He was dead to the world. As a last resort, she switched to her air-force-officer voice. “Wake up, soldier! Now. Move, move, move!”

The man cracked open one eye, and then the other. At first she thought she saw a red glow, but it seemed to be a trick of the sun, because his eyes were beautiful, reminding her of the mellow gold of good scotch, the kind her father would reverently pour out in a glass once each week, late on Sunday night. “Now that God’s work is done, Harmony,” he used to tell her.

“Hell’s bells.” Sleeping Beauty frowned, squinting as if the bright sunshine hurt his eyes.

“It lives,” she teased.

He peered at the Garden of Eden sign, his parched lips forming whispered words. “I’m dead.”

“You’re not dead. Not even close.”

He turned toward her voice and his confused eyes filled with curiosity, maybe even wonder. “But . . . ye are an angel.”

“Thanks for the compliment, but no. I’m a flesh-and-blood woman.”

His head fell back to the dirt with a soft thud. “Dragon offal . . . goblin scum, he is.” His accent was strong, a cross between a Scots burr and a bad Captain Hook parody. “The bastard did it, he really did, and now I’m here. Aye, and mortal, too. Mortal in Mysteria.”

“Is that kind of like sleepless in Seattle?”

Groaning at her joke, he flung his arms wide and rolled onto his back.

Glory be. Her mouth went dry as she looked him over. For injuries, yes, that was it. Before she administered emergency caffeine, she’d better make darn sure he wasn’t wounded.

Anywhere.

She gave him a thorough inspection. After all, it was her citizen’s responsibility. Her pastor’s duty.

He was built . . . incredibly, amazingly, enormously, and that’s all she’d let herself think on that subject, dragging her eyes away from where she shouldn’t have been looking in the first place. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Or a single scar. He was as sculpted as a statue of a Roman warrior, except with body hair, the perfect amount, too, short and coarse and dark.

Something drew her eyes back to his face, where she discovered he was watching her with something close to amusement. “You seem, uh, to be all in one piece,” she quickly explained.

He flashed a blinding grin. “You like what you see, then.”

She stopped her blush before the heat of it could reach her cheeks. She’d grown up with four brothers, two older, two younger. Like heck, she’d let the fact that a man was sprawled naked in her garden in all his admittedly very magnificent glory distract her.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t like what I see.” Was that the hurt of a wounded ego that flashed in his eyes? Certainly it was surprise. “I don’t care for the sight of a man facedown drunk in my flowers on a Sunday morning—butt naked. But considering that I just got done praying for a sign, I suppose I shouldn’t complain, because I didn’t spell out the specifications!”

She tugged off the butter yellow sweater she’d been wearing over a matching shell and thrust it at him. “Here, put this on.”

Sinew and muscle corded his arm from wrist to shoulder as he peered curiously at the sweater dangling from his fingers. It looked tiny grasped in his hand. Clearly, he didn’t know what do to with the thing.

She waved her hand. “Cover up.” Your huge wing-dinger, she almost shouted. “For modesty’s sake.” Although modesty was way more her issue than his, it seemed.

He pushed upright, clods of dry dirt sprinkling down as he sat up. Tight, defined stomach muscles brought new meaning to six-pack abs. She almost sobbed with relief when he spread the sweater over his private parts.

“I am not drunk,” he argued.

True, his eyes were clear, not bloodshot, as he swept his gaze around the garden, lawn, and church. And he was in top physical form, too, gifted with the well-hewn body of an NFL running back—powerfully muscled, without a linebacker’s bulk. Carving a body like that took time. Alcoholism didn’t lend itself to keeping regular workouts.

“What happened to you?” She folded her arms over her chest. “It usually doesn’t rain naked men. At least not in the six months since I’ve lived here. Unless it’s a seasonal thing.”

His lips twitched, his gold-brown eyes sparkling, as he sized her up in an approving way. “If it is seasonal, lass, then we had better take shelter.”

“Clothes first. Where’d you leave them?” she asked as calmly as she could as he didn’t seem to care that he wore none.

He glanced around. “They took everything. Left me with nothing.”

“You were robbed?”

“Aye, you could say that.” His expression grew bleak all over again. “Robbed and abandoned.”

“Oh, no. I don’t like hearing that. Everyone’s so nice around here, law-abiding folks. I can’t see anyone doing something like this. It makes me sick to find out it may be otherwise.”

“Nay, lass. They were not from here. They were from . . . the south. Aye, that’s it.”

“Oh, you mean Colorado Springs?”

He shook his head.

“Pueblo?”

“Nay. Far, far to the south. Farther south than you have ever been, lass.”

Mexico, she thought, nodding. “That’s okay. We’ll get them. Just because they skipped out over the border doesn’t mean they’re home free. You can use my phone to call Jeanie—Jeanie Tortellini,” she added at his blank look. “She’s our town sheriff. And a good one, too. She’ll file a report.”

He frowned. “Nay. No reports. Will do no good.”

“If you don’t let her know, the thugs who did this to you will do it to someone else next time they cross the border.”

Tiredly but firmly, he said no. “’Tis over. ’Tis done.”

“Wow,” she said in a quiet voice. “Just wow.”

He glanced at her strangely. “Wow?”

“You were robbed, beaten, stripped, and unceremoniously dumped in a pastor’s flower bed. You have every right to be angry.”

“I am angry.”

“Yet, you haven’t uttered one grumble of vengeance or head bashing.”

“’Tis no use, truly, to wish for such things.” He seemed to be ready to say more but stopped himself. “None of it would do any good. ’Tis done.”

“That’s exactly what I mean by wow. It’s not easy to forgive and forget. A true man of mercy; that’s what you are.”

A look of pain crossed his face. “Aye, and ’twas my downfall, too,” he muttered.

“Mercy is never wrong! Never. In fact, showing mercy is good for you. And not only for your body—” She threw her hand over her heart. “Forgiving is good for your soul.”

He choked as alarm lit up his face. “Can you tell if a man has one—a soul?” All at once cynical and wistful, his expression revealed nothing of the reason behind the odd question.

She explained gently, as if to a child. Perhaps, spiritually, he was still very young. “Some people have rotten souls, and some have beautiful, generous souls, but no matter what, they have one. You, me. No exceptions to that rule. Everyone has a soul.”

He made a skeptical sound, but the longing in his face was clear as he rubbed his cleft chin. “How do you know so much about souls?”

“It’s my job. See that church? I’m the pastor.” As much as she loved her chosen calling in life, she deflated a little. Once men found out she was a pastor, they stopped thinking of her as a woman. From then on, they only wanted one of three things: absolution, friendship, or free counseling.

“A woman of God,” he said with dawning surprise. “You are a nun.”

A laugh burst out of her. “It seems like that sometimes, but no, I’m not a nun. I can marry, have a family, just like anyone else.” I can have hot, feverish sexual fantasies about well-built naked men. I can feel so horny I can’t see straight. I sometimes think of “celibacy” as a fourletter word.

She thrust out her hand. “I guess I should introduce myself since you obviously don’t know who I am. I’m Harmony—Harmony Faithfull.” He grasped the tips of her fingers with a cool, dry hand. There was gentleness cloaked in that strength, softness that he seemed to want to hide, but that she recognized anyway, putting her at ease when common sense told her she should be feeling the opposite. Just like when you sensed he’d grown tired of living. “And you are . . . ?” Ironic how she could know what every pore on his body looked like but not his name. “You have a name, right?” she teased when he didn’t immediately answer.

His dark brows drew together in concentration. She was about to suggest he see a doctor for shock or a possible concussion when he blurted out sheepishly, “I am called Demon.”

“Oh. That’s a favorite of mine. My nephew’s name is Damon, too.”

“Demon—Damon.” He looked up, brightening. “Yes, I am Damon.” She smiled encouragingly. “Damon what?”

Again he concentrated.

Boy, he sure did seem rattled. But after all he’d been through, it was understandable. “Damon, you really need to see a doctor.”

“Nay.”

“But—”

“I am Damon,” he announced. “Damon of Mysteria.”

“Damon of Mysteria. It doesn’t sound familiar. Or maybe I just don’t recognize you without your clothes.”

A devilish glint sparked in his eyes, sending shivers from her neck downward, flipping the “on” switch attached to all the neglected places in between as the sensation plunged to her toes. “Well, lass,” he said, winking, “I dinna think you can say that any longer.”

Four

Do not blush, Harmony. Do not. She stood up so fast that she got light-headed, her rational side praying that she didn’t faint, while at the same time the wanton tart she was fast becoming argued that there were far worse fates than landing in that incredible lap. “No, I guess I can’t say that any longer. Next time I see you around town, naked, I’ll know it’s you,” she retorted. Turning on her heel, she took a couple of steps and stopped. “Coming? I have some clothes inside I think will fit. I’ll brew a pot of coffee, too. You look like you could use it.”

“Nay,” he winced, “nothing hot. Water.”

I’m with you all the way on the water, bud. Only, I’ll take mine ice cold and in the form of a shower!

Damon pushed to his feet, her sweater pressed between his massive thighs. Harmony was five-nine, but he towered over her, taller than all her brothers, even Jake Jr. He had to be six-foot-five at least.

That long shadow fell over Bubba, who until now had been hanging close to Harmony. The puppy growled and backed up, teeth bared, fur rising in a ridge along his spine. “Hey, boy. It’s okay,” Harmony soothed, but the puppy started snarling and wouldn’t quit.

Damon turned one hand palm up as he focused on the dog. His gold-brown eyes were arresting as it was, but now they grew so intense that they appeared to glow. It was a much different heat from what she’d seen when he’d caught her staring at his, uh, equipment. Not quite human, Damon’s gaze was animal-like in its intensity and focus, almost as if he were communicating with her dog, wolf to wolf, so much so that she half-expected them to start howling any minute as something went back and forth between dog and man. Then, spell broken, Bubba wriggled over to Damon to lick his hand, that cute little tail wagging furiously.

“Wow. He likes you.”

“He trusts me,” Damon corrected. “The like will come in time.”

Mmm. The guy had a way with women and dogs, she thought. An interspecies charmer.

They started walking toward the house. The road on the other side of the picket fence was empty of cars and joggers. Thank goodness. If anyone saw the new pastor going inside her house with a naked man . . . well, she’d never be able to get anyone to believe the real story.

Even she didn’t believe the real story.

Bubba pranced alongside them as they walked up the porch steps leading to the door at the back of the chapel where Harmony’s living quarters were located. Stepping into her small, cozy living room, Damon looked painfully out of place: a towering, hard-featured, rugged man in the midst of everything small and soft. Or, it could be just that he was naked.

In five seconds flat, she’d found him some work clothes that belonged to her largest brother. When Damon returned to the kitchen after changing into a pair of Jake Jr.’s faded Levi’s and a gray, oilstained, long-sleeved Henley T-shirt, her hunch was confirmed: everything was too tight and too short. At least the buttons and zippers weren’t popping. Yet.

“Have a seat, Damon. I’ll fix you something to eat and drink.”

Looking a little lost, Damon sat at her small table, smoothing large hands over the lace cloth. It was as if everything were new to him, everything a wonder. Even her, she realized with a tiny twist of her heart when his gold-brown eyes found hers for a moment before focusing on the glass of water she nearly spilled in his lap. It was more than her current state of isolation—or intuition; this man did things to her, plain and simple, with his ancient eyes and surprisingly young soul.

She reached into the fridge for a leftover apple pie, a baked ham, rolls, mayo, and mustard. Big men ate big; that, she already knew from the five super-sized men in her family. Grabbing utensils and napkins, she dropped a slice of ham in Bubba’s bowl on her way back to the table, where she cut Damon a huge slab of pie and slid the plate next to the overloaded one that held a lumberjack-sized ham sandwich. After she made herself a much smaller sandwich, she carried her plate to the table to sit across from Damon as he downed his water with thirsty gulps. She poured him some more. “Feeling better?” she asked after he finished the second glass.

“Aye.” He winked, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth, in a truly medieval way, to dab at the droplets of water left behind. “How can a man not feel better, taken in with kindness, tended by such a beautiful wench?”

She lifted a brow. “Wench. Is that Scottish for strong, capable, intelligent woman, I hope?

“Nay. ’Tis old English. Old, old English.”

“But you’re Scottish, aren’t you? The brogue.”

“I do have a brogue, don’t I? You can thank my ex-employer for that, lass. His sense of humor knew no bounds.” He winked at her and lifted the ham sandwich, sniffing it, his eyes closing. His pleasure in the scent was so palpable, his anticipation so sharp, that by the time the breathless second had passed and he’d dived in with a hearty bite, her throat was dry and she was left wondering what she’d just witnessed.

Did he approach all activities with the same explosive, allconsuming passion?

Harmony . . . behave.

Damon was thorough, but neat. Hardly a crumb escaped him. In short order, the massive sandwich was gone. Next, he turned to the slice of pie, hesitating for a moment as if he’d remembered at the last minute that he’d better use a utensil in her presence. In no more than four shovels of the fork, the pie was gone, too.

“More?” Strangely drained, she shoveled another slice onto his plate, and he started on that, too, without taking a breath. She might as well fix him another sandwich, because he was still going strong. “Something must appeal about my cooking, or you haven’t eaten in about a thousand years.”

“Ten thousand,” he said, wiping his mouth and hunting around for more food. She slid the pie plate toward him and let him serve himself, which he did with as much grace as speedy efficiency. When the first bite of pie reached his mouth, he closed his eyes, savoring the taste, and was that a shudder that ran through him?

Fascinated, she balanced her chin on her hand, smiling as she watched him. “I don’t know what to make of you, Mr. Damon of Mysteria.”

“Make of me whatever you wish, fair maiden.”

“Fair maiden. I like that better than wench.”

His gaze went soft again. “It fits ye better, too.”

She swallowed against the feelings his gentle, sexy tone fired up inside her. Sitting straighter, she tried to gather the scattered shreds of her professionalism. “Maybe you’d better call your family to let them know you’re okay.”

He shook his head. “There is no one.”

“No one at all? You’re not married?” She immediately bit her lip.

But he’d turned thoughtful. “Nay . . . never thought of it. My livelihood would have made such a pairing difficult. Impossible, rather. But, perhaps now that has changed. . . .” When he returned his attention to her face, it was with such bold intensity, such raw consideration, that this time she did blush.

Harmony got up too quickly, sloshing water out of the pitcher. She grabbed a dish towel and started mopping at the puddle. Damon grabbed her wrist.

All at once, his thoughts burst inside her skull. His experiences, his emotions, too. They spun in a blur too fast for her to interpret, like subtitles set on fast-forward, but in those few heartbeats, she was able to gain a sense of the man: his confusion, his lack of guile, and his genuine fear—something she sensed he was not used to feeling.

Harmony, you’re not Great-grandmother Eudora. You’re insane. Your overactive hormones are finally taking their toll. You should have stuck to talking to the dog.

She studied his big hand and then his face. She didn’t know how to explain what had just happened—nor did she want to. Her brain felt like a snow globe that had been shaken too hard. If he let go, maybe everything would settle down. “I’m a third-degree black belt,” she said softly. “And my dog will rip your throat out if you try anything stupid.”

Bubba protested with a little whimper, looking from her to Damon and back again. Harmony had the sudden feeling that she might not want to test the puppy’s loyalties.

Damon let go. “I did not mean to frighten you.”

Harmony sat back down, her heart thumping. What had just happened? Somehow, she regained her composure. “I’d like to help you. But to do that, you’re going to have to tell me how you came to be under my apple tree.” She left out the naked part. Those were details he could fill in. “I’ll keep in confidence what you tell me.”

Damon leaned forward. The maple café chair creaked under the shift in weight. “The true story?”

She leaned forward, too. “No,” she whispered. “I want you to lie to me.”

He took a deep breath, and then spilled. “I am the ten-thousand-year-old Demon High Lord of Self-Doubt and Second Thoughts, or I was until I was kicked out of Hell by Lucifer for committing random acts of kindness. After centuries of torture, I forget how many now, I was made mortal and banished to live out my days here, in Mysteria, the site of my original crime of beneficence.”

Harmony stared at him. Damon stared back, as serious as they came. “I was just kidding about the lying,” she said.

He opened his mouth to say something then seemed to change his mind. He drummed blunt-tipped fingers, glanced out the window as if seeking inspiration before returning his gaze to her. “I worked for a corrupt employer for many years. I carried out my orders until I learned what it was to be good. I learned that I liked being good over being bad. My employer punished me for it—for changing—and then he . . . he did this to me. He let me go. And so now I’m here, in Mysteria. With no home, no job, and”—he cleared his throat—“no clothes.”

“You’ve been through hell, haven’t you?” With a bit of an alarmed expression, he agreed. She shook her head sympathetically. He was a strapping, healthy guy down on his luck; admitting he was jobless and homeless couldn’t have been easy.

Jobless. Homeless. Here.

Inspiration hit like a thunderbolt straight from heaven. “I have an idea.” She opened her hands so Damon could see the calluses, cuts, and paint stains. “I’ve been looking for someone to hire—a handyman and groundskeeper. It’d be a huge help to have someone here for the heavier work, so I can concentrate on the church. The fields haven’t been planted, the fence needs repair, and the barn needs fixing. I’d like to make it into a social hall, eventually, maybe a school, or even a gym, and I thought if I had some help, it’d leave me more time for recruiting more parishioners. In fact, any parishioners.” She sighed.

“No one comes?”

She shook her head. “Just this morning I asked God to help me. To show me how to bring people here. I asked for a sign. And what do I find in my yard? A naked Demon. Oh! I meant Damon. Sorry!” She threw her face into her hands to muffle the giggles bubbling up.

Through her fingers, she heard Damon assuring her, “’Tis an understandable mistake,” in a surprisingly earnest tone.

She peeked between her hands and saw that his expression matched his dead-serious tone of voice. Her giggles turned to laughter. Something must have struck Damon as funny because he, too, fell into genuine laughter, rich and deep.

Finally, she got hold of herself, wiping her tears. “Oh, that felt good. I needed it, too. I think this is what’s known as divine intervention.”

Damon’s sparkling eyes seemed at once impossibly ancient and like those of a newborn baby. “Aye, more than you know, my fair maiden.”

“If I’m the fair maiden, then you can be my knight in shining armor. My hired knight. How does that sound?”

He dipped his head once. “’Tis a fair offer.”

They exchanged a smile that left her feeling cheerful and optimistic and warm all over. Really, really warm. Then she thought: what was she saying? Her smile fell as reality set in. “I can’t afford to pay much.”

He lifted his hands as if to say he didn’t care.

“Actually, I can’t afford to pay you at all.” She pushed back from the table. “I’m sorry. I made a promise I can’t keep. I’ll give you a ride back to town.”

“I don’t require money. I’ll work for . . . sustenance.”

She shivered at the look in his sexy eyes, the way he drew out that last word.

“Food,” he clarified. “And a place to lay my bones at night.”

Bones . . . bones . . . she tried to keep her mind out of the gutter. “Okay.” Why was she whispering? She thrust her hand at him. “Deal.”

He took her hand, and she got the most curious feeling that he’d rather lift it to his soft lips than shake it. “You’ve been kind to me, Harmony Faithfull. Yet, you ask nothing in return.”

“Why wouldn’t I be kind to you?”

The hard line of his lips softened into an expression of surprise and pleasure. “That question alone answers mine, lass.” He searched her face in a deeply intense, almost intimate way that made her go all squishy inside. Then he murmured, “Your goodness, it sits around ye like a halo. Are ye sure you’re not an angel?”

Her smile came partly out of pleasure from his compliments, and partly out of the irony of being viewed as an angel. While her attraction to Damon was definitely heavenly, it was anything but angelic. “Very sure. Kindness exists outside heaven, too, you know.”

“I’ve not much experience with kindness. With goodness.”

“We’ll have to change that,” she said, her heart squeezing again.

“Aye, we will. . . .”

He released her, then, and she slid her hand under the table. Closing her fist, she secretly held on to the feel of him.

Five

Harmony stood on the porch as Damon strode off to the barn to arrange his new home in the hayloft with bedding, supplies, and a box of Oreos (the taste of which had rendered him nearly orgasmic).

Damon held no menace—raw, smoldering male sexuality, yes, but not menace. But she was an urban girl, born and bred, and it was always wise to make sure a person didn’t have a record a mile long. She considered herself street smart, observant, and never blindly trusting, but she wanted to make darn sure Damon’s looks, charisma, and charm—not to mention her hot-running blood and his miraculously timed arrival—weren’t interfering with her better judgment. Having his fingerprints checked out was the way to go. Any employer would do the same thing.

Harmony returned to the kitchen and wrapped the glass Damon had used with a paper towel. Carefully, she slipped it into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder. “Come on, Bubba. Let’s go shopping.” She needed to buy Damon some work clothes that fit, but first she’d pay a little visit to Jeanie Tortellini, the sheriff.

She cut across the field to where a stand of aspens and tall pines marked the beginning of the Rocky Mountain National Forest. After turning right, a quick walk on a dirt trail would bring her right up behind the Mysteria police station and jail.

Bubba jerked on the leash and started growling. “What, boy, another naked hunk?” At this rate, she’d have a whole staff of them working for her. Not bad for a single girl. But part of her didn’t want an army of muscles at her disposal. She’d rather have Damon, who engaged her on all levels, swinging from weary and jaded to boyish and full of wonder in the space of a heartbeat.

The puppy tugged hard on the leash and tried to run into the woods. Harmony held on with both hands. “Bubba, stay!”

Jeanie Tortellini burst out of the forest with a tall blond man trailing behind her. His wrists were bound with her police belt. The loose end Jeanie gripped in her fist.

Bubba broke into a full-fledged bark. “Hush, boy!” Harmony tried to quiet the pup.

Jeanie’s smile when she saw Harmony was genuine, if not a little startled. “Good morning!” She used her free hand to brush loose strands of hair away from her face. With pink cheeks, messy hair, and strangely bright eyes, Jeanie looked as if she’d been in a scuffle. But it was the woman’s appearance of having dressed too quickly that puzzled Harmony the most.

Jeanie’s hand went to her uniform shirt as if she, too, just realized the buttons were in the wrong holes. It must have been quite a struggle, her apprehension of the lawbreaker.

Harmony stopped about twenty feet from the pair. “I was on my way to see you. I need a favor.” She stole a glance at Jeanie’s prisoner. His white-blond hair swung around his waist, some strands tied in braids. And were those pointed ears peeking through the spun-silk hair? A bit of an unfortunate birth defect, because with his archer’s quiver, dark green tunic, and thigh-high leather boots, he was a dead ringer for Legolas from Lord of the Rings. “But, I see you’re busy.”

“I was,” Jeanie said. “But I’m not now.”

Making a quiet sound, the prisoner cast Jeanie a smoldering glance, and Jeanie’s mouth quirked in the barest of smug little smiles. Harmony got the feeling that there was more going on than she probably wanted to know. Par for the course in Mysteria.

“Behave.” Jeanie tugged on the belt and I’m-too-sexy-for-my-suede-tunic Legolas lowered his eyes dutifully. He had the perfect male pout, sullen and sensual. “How can I help you, Reverend Faithfull?”

Harmony unwrapped her paper-covered package. “I hired someone at the church this morning—a groundskeeper.” Deciding it was better to keep the lurid details of Damon’s arrival to herself, she moved the paper so Jeanie could see the drinking glass. “He’s not from around here, and as much as I think I believe what he’s told me about his background, it pays to be sure he’s not wanted for a felony. Can you check out his fingerprints?”

Jeanie took the paper-wrapped glass. “No problem.” The sheriff slid her gaze over the prisoner. Harmony could almost feel the electric surge of their eye contact. “If that’s all you needed, I’ve got to get this bad boy under lock and key.”

Legolas’s mouth curved. The idea of a lockdown seemed to invigorate the sexy pseudo-elf. Or did he just like being called a “bad boy”?

“Thanks, Jeanie,” Harmony said, unable to keep from staring at the man’s pointy ears. “Stop in for coffee this week.”

“I’ll be there. And be careful with your new help. If you need me, just call.”

“Will do.”

Jeanie grinned and gave Harmony a little salute. Then she frowned at Legolas, using the belt to jerk him forward. To Harmony, his stumble seemed a little staged.

Harmony gave Bubba’s leash a much gentler tug and continued toward town, and the One-Stop Mart, which conveniently did mean one stop in the true rural tradition of general mercantile stores. Since Wal-Mart hadn’t yet invaded Mysteria, and probably never would, it was the only place she’d be able to find work clothes for Damon.

Puffs of pink pollen whooshed with each of her footfalls on the path, drifting in cotton-candy mounds, a phenomenon that no one seemed to be able—or was willing—to explain to her, and that included the town physician, who Harmony swore, even if she wasn’t supposed to swear, that she’d spied waving a wand as she drove past his office the other day. A wand, as in magic wand, a fairy-godmother model, too, she assumed, because it had sported a shiny star at its tip. Harmony couldn’t imagine what the handsome but terminally distracted Dr. Fogg had been doing, circling the wand over old Mrs. O’Cleary’s white-haired head, but the very next day, when Harmony had seen Mrs. O’Cleary at the One-Stop, not only was the old woman’s arthritic limp gone, but her snow-white, overpermed pin curls had relaxed into soft, shiny blond waves! It was just the sort of weird, supernatural happening Mysteria produced in abundance.

And you expect people to come to church when the local doctor can perform miracles? How could she compete with that? How?

After tying Bubba’s leash to the bike rack in front of the store, Harmony pushed open the door to the market. Tin chimes clattered against the glass, and air thick with the scent of vanilla, peppermint, and old cardboard hit her nostrils with her first full breath. A cloud of pollen that had collected by the threshold spun in a powdery pink tornado. Unintentionally, Harmony inhaled a stream of the stuff and sneezed. Eyes tearing, she grew warm all over. Not as warm as when she was around Damon, but the same parts were involved. It was really distracting.

Mrs. O’Cleary beamed at her from behind the counter. She looked ten years younger than the last time Harmony had seen her—before her visit to Dr. Fogg. “It looks like love is in the air today, Reverend Faithfull!”

“It’s the pollen.” Harmony dabbed at her eyes. “I think I might be allergic.”

The woman winked. “Who’s the special man?”

Harmony’s heart fell to the plank floor with a thud. Or at least it felt that way. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

Mrs. O’Cleary winked and wagged her finger. “Don’t deny it. I know just by looking at you, young lady. You’re in love.”

“What you see is my love for my work, Mrs. O’Cleary. I love this town and the people in it.”

“Pah.” She waved her hand.

“I haven’t been dating anyone. I haven’t met anyone.” Except for Damon. Harmony’s face flooded with heat. “I haven’t known anyone long enough to be in love.”

“Silly girl. Time makes no difference. Sometimes you just know.”

Sometimes you just know. Harmony thought of Damon and her heart contracted. Then she shook her head. She couldn’t let the eccentric residents of Mysteria—or the pink pollen—get to her. It was her job as pastor to be the voice of reason—of God—in this town. “I need to pick up a few things for the church,” she said, changing the subject as she stepped sideways down the aisle that contained everything from baseball caps to panty hose—and a display of Hanes underwear.

“Nails? Plaster? A nice . . . long . . . screw?”

Harmony shot the old woman a startled glance. The knowing amusement she saw in those crinkly blue eyes almost made her blush. “I hired someone at the church. He needs clothes.”

The old woman grinned wickedly.

Harmony tried not to react. “Work clothes,” she explained, choosing jeans, shirts, thick cotton socks, and boots, hesitating only when she turned her attention to the Hanes display. Boxers or briefs?

Harmony could feel Mrs. O’Cleary’s eyes boring into the back of her head. “Do you need a particular size?” the woman inquired helpfully.

“Extra large. I mean, he’s not fat. He’s just . . . large.” Incredibly so. She squeezed her eyes shut. Just shut up, Harmony. She chose several pairs of boxers in generic colors like beige gingham check and powder blue, studiously avoiding the designer black silks that practically begged to jump into her arms. Would Damon look awesome in those, or what?

Or did he look best in nothing?

In nothing, she decided.

Harmony, please. He’s your employee.

Not trusting her facial expression, Harmony kept her chin buried in the pile of clothing in her arms and dumped the entire pile of clothes on the counter by the cash register.

Mrs. O’Cleary smiled at the Hanes packages as she rang them up. Harmony paid for the purchases with as much self-consciousness as if she were buying a package of condoms.

It was a relief to return to Bubba’s innocent, unquestioning eyes. With several heavy shopping bags hanging from her hands, she headed home with the puppy. The closer she got to the farm, the faster she walked. And the only reason she could come up with was that she anticipated returning home to Damon a little more than she felt comfortable admitting.

Six

Sated with a belly full of the divine delicacy called Oreo—and he’d eaten every last one in the box—Damon sprawled on his back in bed in the hayloft to the rear of the vast empty interior of the barn. Sunlight leaked between the timbers and provided the only illumination. He breathed deep, sampling the air. The scent of Mysteria had not changed much in three hundred years, aside from the oily background odor of fossil-fueled machinery and the more acrid smell of electrical equipment. The barn smelled like dust and hay, and faintly of livestock that had not lived here for a year or more. Although his animalsharp sense of smell was fading rapidly, he could still pick out the faint pungent odor of mouse droppings and that of the young black dog. Despite so many different scents, Harmony’s scent stood out above all else, perhaps because he’d so focused on it. Her essence was on the wooden handles of the tools, on his very skin.

She had not the scent of another male about her; he’d noticed that straightaway, glad he’d held on to his demon’s sense of smell long enough not to have to guess. She was free, unattached.

Smiling, he wedged his hands behind his head, laced his fingers together as he inhaled the lingering scent of the beautiful lass. Harmony had ordered him to get some rest, and he was trying—without much success. He had not done the labor required, he supposed. Tonight, it would be different, for this afternoon, he’d start work. Aye, but there were some other labors he had in mind when it came to Harmony Faithfull. Exhausting labors he would more than care to try.

“Ah, lass,” he murmured, “ye are beautiful; no denying that. Inside and out.” He liked the way she listened to him, so very carefully, how she’d taken him in and given him shelter with few questions asked.

Harmony’s open and generous heart was something that not all humans possessed; but rarer still was her uncanny ability to look him in the eye and sense his needs, his fears, even—a gift that brought great risk for him. If the lass ever discovered that he had no soul, she’d be repelled by him, would even fear him.

“Everyone has a soul,” she’d insisted.

Bah! ’Twas an observation based on her innocence of creatures like him, a demon that was never meant for a mortal life, a good life. He was a monster created out of darkness and intended to remain in the shadows, carrying out the Devil’s deeds. The fact he was here at all was due to the Devil’s whim, and the Devil’s whim was never good, not in all the ten thousand years Damon had watched Lucifer in action.

There was only one solution: stay far enough away so that Harmony didn’t discover his dark secret, and yet close enough to savor the way she made him feel: warm, happy, hopeful—just the sort of emotions to which he was unaccustomed and woefully ill-equipped to sort out. He couldn’t have her, not in the way he wanted, but he could do good deeds for her, become indispensable in other, less intimate ways. Perhaps this was Lucifer’s plan all along, this punishment of placing him within arm’s reach of a woman like Harmony Faithfull, without being allowed to truly touch her.

Damon could think of no crueler sentence.

A scrabbling noise in the barn dragged him to full alert. He peered into the dim light, scanning for an obvious explanation for the brief sound. His demon eyesight was still strong enough to discern what crept down there in the shadows. Although he saw nothing, he knew he was no longer alone.

A dark creature had joined him.

With stealthy quiet, Damon vaulted off the sleeping berth and landed in a crouch, hands up and ready for battle. “Show yourself!”

“She likes you,” rasped a voice from the shadows. “Yes, she does.”

Hell’s bells, ’twas a goblin! Useless monsters, always underfoot. “Too many eyes,” Damon growled. “And too few brains.”

The creature came into view. It had the dark green skin of a frog, gleaming and lumpy with boils. That the little goblin hadn’t called him “Lord” reminded Damon just how far he’d fallen.

No, not fallen. Risen. Damon had to think differently now.

The little monster waved something at him. “I have me a souvenir.”

Between the goblin’s spindly fingers was a long strand of wavy dark hair. Harmony’s hair. Damon’s heart dropped. If the goblin brought part of Harmony back to Hell—any part: a fingernail, this strand of hair—it would forge a link between the underworld and this farm, and would make other night creatures more brazen. They’d come looking for souvenirs of their own, mementos far more precious.

Damon advanced on the goblin, snarling, but the goblin danced out of his reach. “No, no, you can’t have it, mortal. It’s a prize too sweet. A prize all mine. Mine, mine, mine. Soon she will like me, too. She will like me, she will, better than you.” A slimy, warty tongue darted out between the goblin’s lips and slid down the entire length of the hair, a sensation Harmony would feel in her sleep night after night unless Damon ended it here.

Rage boiled up inside Damon and made his blood burn. Snarling, he grabbed for the little beastie, but it slipped out of his grip. Fury was making him sloppy. In the past, he’d always acted efficiently and without emotion. Now anger drove him. Aye, anger and fear.

Slow down. Concentrate. Damon forcibly unclenched his teeth and extended an open hand. “Give.”

“No, no, no. Oh, no. Mine, mine, mine. All mine, not yours.”

“But all Hell-born are brothers, yes?” The mere thought of pledging a blood bond with a goblin almost made him puke. “’Tis simple. You help me, I help you.” He advanced another step. “Give me the hair and no harm will come to you for your trespassing.”

“Harm, harm will never come,” the goblin sang. “Your powers are gone, yes, they are.” Spinning in a careless little pirouette, it waved the strand of hair like a victory flag.

Damon watched. Waited. His gentler tone had made the thing careless. Lost in celebrating, the goblin spun closer.

Damon bolted forward and grabbed the creature by its skinny wrist before it could dart away. The goblin shrieked in surprise; its lips pulled back in fear, revealing rows of yellowed, needle-sharp teeth. “Ouch, mortal. Hurts—hurts, it does!”

Damon brought his face very close. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not yet mortal enough to care.”

With the wriggling, screaming goblin in one hand, he strode across the barn. “No, no, no!”

“I think yes.” Damon reached for a bucket and threw it under a spigot, turning on the water. A few drops splashed onto the creature’s belly and sizzled like hot oil.

The beastie screamed in agony and fright. “No! Not that! My lord and master, not that.”

“Ah, so I’m your lord now, eh?” Methodically, Damon filled the bucket. “Interesting how desperation breeds respect.”

“Master, Master, please. Let me go!”

Grim, Damon shut off the water and turned to the goblin dangling from his grip. Its eyes were wide, each blinking at different rates. Thin, blistered fingers curled around his forearm. Damon could feel a rapid pulse in the press of its fingertips. Harmony’s hair still curled from one knotty fist.

One dunk was all it’d take to silence the despicable creature forever.

Frantic yellow eyes searched his face. Damon knew he looked fearsome to the goblin, what with the rage he felt glowing in his gut. Sensing its demise, the goblin went very still. “I’ll do anything, Master, anything.”

Damon lowered the goblin until its bare feet hung inches from the water. Fear trembled through its thin frame. “Mercy,” the goblin wailed. “Oh, please. Mercy!”

Damon went very still. Mercy . . .

Harmony’s words echoed in his memory. “You’re a true man of mercy.”

But was he? Damon swallowed, frozen to the spot, almost forgetting about the struggling goblin that was so far too panicked to sense Damon’s hesitation, his weakness.

Nay, not weakness! Mercy was not a weakness. Mercy was never wrong!

’Twas it not time to prove he believed it?

Damon turned his attention to his prisoner. “Give me your prize, goblin. Give it to me and I will let you live.”

The goblin’s little hand unfurled. “Here, Master. Here, here. You take—please take.”

Damon snatched the curly black strand and slipped it into his trousers pocket. Then he brought his nose very close to the little creature’s maw. The goblin’s breath was fetid and warm. Wisely, the creature chose silence, or Damon might not have trusted himself to maintain his compassion. “Never come here again—you or your cohorts. For if you do return here, ’twill not go well for you the next time.” He lowered the creature, slowly, until its heels just barely brushed the water. A sizzle and a scream brought a smile of satisfaction to Damon’s face. “Not well at all . . .”

He threw the goblin to the ground. “Go! Return here and ye will perish.”

“Don’t want to perish. No, no, I will go, go.” Gasping, the goblin scrabbled, limping, across the hay-strewn floor and disappeared into a small Hell hole that opened only wide enough to allow the creature to disappear.

Sniffing the air one more time to check for subdemons, goblins, and other dark creatures, Damon had almost convinced himself there were none close by when another dark form came barreling into the barn, snorting and snuffling. A breath away from flinging the creature into the wall, Damon saw that the intruder was Harmony’s dog.

Bubba leaped up on him, black eyes shining: a wriggling, roiling mass of pure eagerness—eagerness to see him, to smell him, and above all to please. Damon scratched him behind the ears. “Aye, I’m glad to see ye, too.”

Next, Harmony swept through the door, her arms filled with bundles. She’d changed clothes from earlier. Her blouse was pink and form-fitting, worn over faded blue pants that hugged every inch of her long, firm legs. The flesh of her ankles peeked out between the pants and pink-and-white rubber-soled shoes.

“Down, Bubba!” Harmony’s hair bounced in a mass of dark ringlets around her shoulders. “Damon does not want to be mauled.”

Mauled by the dog, no, Damon thought. But mauled by you, lass, well, that would be an experience to be savored, indeed.

“I’m sorry, Damon. He’s all over you.”

“’Tis not a bother.” Damon took the pup’s head in his broad palms and held eye contact with the squirming animal. Be still, boy. Be still.

The dog immediately sat on its rump. Only its tongue fluttered.

Harmony laughed. “How do you do that? It’s amazing. I’m going to start calling you the dog whisperer.”

“’Tis a lot like whispering,” he conceded, sorry that the talent to communicate with animals would soon leave him. With one last affectionate rub behind Bubba’s floppy ears, he turned his full attention to Harmony. His heart gave a little leap at the answering spark of interest he saw in her eyes.

She was full of life. She filled him with life.

Harmony smiled and reached for him, and his breath caught as he waited for her touch, but all she did was pluck a piece of straw from his shirt. “I thought you were going to rest.”

He glanced at the portion of the floor where the Hell hole had opened. It was gone. Only displaced straw indicated where the struggle had taken place. His shoulders sagged as he dashed an unsteady hand across his forehead. He hadn’t been weary before, but he was now. Battle, he’d overheard many a mortal warrior state, exhausted a man.

But his weariness was more a mental matter than a physical one. After tonight he might no longer be able to detect such monsters before it was too late. How then, will you protect Harmony? Hopelessness threatened to swamp him. Like the tumultuous sensations coursing through him in Harmony’s presence, he did not know quite how to quench such emotions. You must fight to control them, then. Aye, fight as he’d earlier fought to control his desire to take Harmony to the kitchen floor and make wild love to her. A shudder ran through Damon at the thought. In the silence of his mind, he tried to pray, though he knew not how. Who would listen to a prayer from a soulless demon? Certainly not God. As for the angels, he’d made enemies of most of them. Instead he simply made a plea: Help me to keep the lass safe. Give me the strength.

“You’re exhausted,” he heard Harmony say.

“I’ve rested long enough, lass. It’s time to put me to work. You name the task, anything at all, and I will devote myself to its thorough completion.”

Another contemplative spark flashed in her brown eyes, quickly quenched, but not before he felt the answering heat in his loins.

Hell’s bells, living in her presence was going to be torture. Lucifer, you have truly crafted the ultimate punishment.

Rather hoarsely, Damon said, “Show me where I might find the tools of my labors.”

Harmony’s gaze dropped. Then the red patches on her cheeks flared and she cleared her throat. “Oh, tools. Right. Everything’s over here.” She walked away very fast, but somehow he knew she wanted him to follow. “Everything you need. Thanks to my brothers and Home Depot.”

“The men in your family have chosen well for you.” Damon selected a shovel, hefting it into his hand, and heard the tear of fabric. He glanced down with dread at the same time Harmony made a small sound. His shirt had split, exposing much of his chest and torso.

Harmony ran off. For an instant he wondered if he’d scared her off for good, but she hurried back to him with the bundles she’d carried into the barn. “These are for you, and none too soon.” She shoved the packages into his hands, her attention shifting somewhere else, as if she were both tempted and afraid to look at the strips of fabric hanging from the ruined shirt. “New work clothes—and in your size, too. Now you don’t have to worry about them coming off until they’re taken off!” Her eyes squeezed shut, as if the comment about taking off clothing had embarrassed her.

“Lass, you’ve given me too much as it is—”

Her hands came up to stop his protest. “Don’t worry about the cost. We’ll work it out.”

“Aye. That we will.”

She met his eyes and blushed deeply, and he wasn’t sure why. Again, Damon tasted the air, trying to gather more information to help understand her baffling reactions—and his. She desired him, as he desired her. She could not hide the fact. It hung in the air, it permeated his senses.

Harmony’s attraction to him, combined with his for her, was sharp and powerful, fueling passionate thoughts of sliding his hands under the garments she wore to feel the heat of her bare skin, which only exacerbated the sexual hunger building with each breath he took. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he reacted physically with the thought, growing rock hard with a new-to-him ache that left him barely able to breathe. It reminded him of the sensation when Lucifer set fires so intense that they sucked all the air from the chambers of Hell. Only this was nothing close to suffocation!

Damon clutched the bundle of clothes to his lower abdomen, sharply relieved at having a way to cover up as sexual desire, a cataclysm of need, boiled up inside him. Never before had he been forced to face his reactions to a mortal. To a woman. To anyone.

But ye will have to behave. You’re a man now. A good man.

Good, good, good, good. If he chanted it, it might sink in. Good men did not drag women like Harmony to their mouths to kiss deeply as they fell, clothes scattering, to the ground, where he’d kiss her everywhere else—

Damon made a sound in the back of his throat. Good, good, good . . .

A chiming little tune rang out from Harmony’s pants, startling Damon as much as it did the lass.

She tore her eyes from his, mumbling something about taking a “call” on her “cell phone” as she pulled a little silver rectangle from her pocket. “I should have guessed,” she said, reading the glowing numbers. “What is it about fathers and timing?” She pushed a button and spoke into the phone. “Hi, Daddy!”

While Harmony was otherwise distracted, Damon, trying with all his might to block the distraction of her scent, grabbed a pickax off a hook on the wall.

She had a family, he thought, and then wondered at his surprise. Of course she had a family. All humans did. Unlike him, they weren’t born of shadows and darkness, the Devil’s spawn.

“I’m doing great. How are you and Mama? And Great-grandma?” Harmony nodded, smiling as she listened. Then her grin faltered. “What did Great-grandma say?” Harmony’s gaze shifted to Damon and darted away. The red patches were back, one on each cheek. “No, I haven’t had much time for a social life. No, really! I’ve been too busy—yes, busy with the church. Oh, yes, the people here are wonderful. Just great. I’m so happy—you’re what?” She almost dropped the cell phone. “You’re coming here? In August?” she squeaked. “No, it’ll be no trouble. I can’t wait to see you, Daddy. Look, I gotta run. Church business. Give my love to Mama and everyone else. Miss you.”

Harmony sighed as she wedged the cell phone into her pocket. “Why did I do that?”

Damon shook his head. “Do what, lass?”

“My father’s coming for a visit, in less than two months. With the entire family!” She pressed her fingertips into her temples, muttering, “And they’re dying to see the thriving church community I just told him about.”

“You dinna tell him that,” Damon pointed out tactfully. “I was listening.”

“My father made a guess based on what I told him, and I didn’t deny it. That’s just as bad! I lied to a pastor—and I am a pastor!” She glanced heavenward, appearing truly repentant as she murmured a prayer. Then she wiped her hands on her pants. “Well, there’s only one thing to do, Damon, and that’s to make what I told my father true. Somehow, I’m going to come up with a way to reel in the townspeople to this church on Sundays—and fast.” She started walking to the door. “When all else fails, cook on it.”

“Cook on it?” he asked and she laughed from where she stood near the open door encircled by sunshine streaming around her like a halo.

“When I have problems to solve, I head to the kitchen. I think the best when I’m cooking things. Always have, always will. Since this is a big problem, you’ll have a big dinner to look forward to.”

Damon remembered the food from the midday meal and salivated. His stomach grumbled so loudly that he was surprised she didn’t hear it.

“Home-made fried chicken,” she muttered as she walked away, already deep in thought. “Mashed potatoes and gravy . . . buttered corn . . . peach cobbler for dessert . . .”

He watched her go. Well, lass, ye are not in this alone, no matter what ye think. This was his chance to help her, to prove himself worthy of her generosity. If his fair maiden needed a knight in shining armor, then that was what she’d get. While he worked at his assigned labors, he’d come up with a way to help her, though he knew not how a former demon could help fill a church with the faithful.

Aye, but he’d figure it out. Yes, he would, and quickly.

There was no time to change into his new clothing. In his new and very mortal life, there wasn’t a moment to waste. Not having eternity before him cast everything in a different light, in fact. Although he’d developed a certain respect for humans when he’d committed his crimes—no, his deeds—of mercy, only now that he was one of them did he fully appreciate the humans’ courage in facing a finite life. With the puppy trotting after him, he strode out into the sunshine with the promise that he, too, would brave his mortality like the man he was—or at least like the man he hoped one day to be.

And so it was that Damon of Mysteria officially began his new life as a mortal: by digging postholes to shore up a weakened section of the front fence.

Seven

After an hour of working outside, the weather grew so hot that sweat soaked through his ruined shirt. Tossing aside the tattered garment, he continued bare-chested.

After a dozen more strikes of the pickax, he scented something new and different in the air—something far more pleasant than his sweat. Damon looked up, the ax held in midair. Three women stood across the fence, staring at him.

Their sexual interest washed over him in pheromone-laden waves. There was the aura of the dark arts about them but not evil, nay, none of that, but sorcery and magic. And their brilliant hazel eyes were afire with a light all of their own. For one panicked moment, he thought they’d figured out what he was; then he realized they were more interested in what he was now. Or at least what of him existed below his neck.

Bubba didn’t growl, which told Damon that Harmony knew these women even if he did not.

Slowly, Damon lowered the pickax. “And who might you pretties be?”

The wench with long dark hair stepped closer to the fence. Her face was serious, but her sensuality smoldered. “Genevieve Tawdry. And these are my sisters—Glory and Godiva.”

“Hello, stranger.” Glory twirled a finger in her red hair as she licked her lips. Her bosom was ample, would make many a man happy, and she eyed him with the kind of come-hither smile that had remained unchanged down through the ages. Mortal men would take it as an invitation to share in the bounty of her body. You are now mortal, too, Damon, are you not?

Aye, he was. But as much as he found all three wenches attractive, it was only Harmony he desired.

The wench named Godiva observed him with perceptive eyes. She had a powerful magic about her, this silver-haired witch. Could she tell his origins? He hoped not. If Harmony were to find out through her friends that he’d come from the depths of Hell, she’d banish him from her church for good. He wouldn’t lie to her, when that time came, but the longer he could put off the truth, the better. “If I’d bumped into you before,” Godiva said, “I’d have remembered. You’re new here.”

“Aye, I am.”’Twas not really a lie. It had been three hundred years since he was last here; it was almost like being new in town all over again. He stood proudly, the ax resting on his shoulder. “I’m the new church groundskeeper.”

“Really.” Glory exchanged a speculative glance with her sisters. “We didn’t know there’d been an old groundskeeper.”

“There wasn’t. I’m the first.” Damon folded his hands on the tip of the shovel handle and three pairs of hungry eyes shifted to his bare chest. Their sexual interest thickened the air.

The trio paused to whisper among themselves, glancing at him often, sometimes even his face, but mostly from his neck down. Damon noticed the shopping bags they carried. They’d been on their way home from shopping when they’d spotted him and stopped dead in their tracks. If townsfolk regularly passed this close to the church, why then couldn’t they spare a few moments more and visit on Sundays?

An idea began to form. A magnificent idea. Harmony needed a way to lure the townsfolk inside the church. Perhaps he was the answer to that problem.

His body had been put to far worse uses, certainly. And he’d spent ten thousand years planting doubts and fears. Could he not do the same with the women in the town, but planting interest to attend Harmony’s church instead? He wouldn’t be able to convince them in his typical fashion, for he’d lost the ability to circumvent free will when he was banished from Hell, but he could influence others, especially female others, in a much more primitive way. Aye, an age-old way.

Damon’s mouth curved in a slow smile he was sure all three women felt to the very tips of their toes. Then, stretching his arms over his head, he worked a kink out of his back. The women looked faint as he hefted his pickax. “Alas, I cannot dally any longer. I am behind in my labors. Reverend Faithfull will beat me if I dinna get back to work.”

Glory’s lush mouth fell open. “Harmony beats you?”

“Only if I misbehave,” he confided in a deep and sexy burr.

One of the witches made a small, soft sound.

“But I’ll be doing maintenance on the church on Sunday—Sunday morning.”

“What time?” Glory whispered.

“A quarter to nine.” Damon winked at her, picked up the pickax, and went back to work. When he next glanced up, the sisters had walked away, but as they disappeared around the bend in the road, he saw them murmuring and giggling among themselves.

Aye, he’d planted his seeds of interest. If things went as he hoped they would, by next Sunday, Harmony would be reaping what he’d sown.

Eight

On Sunday, Harmony stood on the front lawn of the church, watching in happy amazement as woman after woman filed in for the nine A.M. service. Smiling and shaking hands, she welcomed the women she’d previously seen only at the One-Stop, the gas station, or on the streets of the town.

In uniform, Jeanie Tortellini walked up to her. Harmony couldn’t help thinking of Legolas. In fact, the other day when she’d visited the sheriff, the jail cell had been empty. Although she often wondered what had happened to the sexy elf, she hadn’t come up with a tactful way to ask the question.

“You’ve got yourself a nice crowd this morning, Harmony,” Jeanie said.

“I do.” Harmony tried to keep the bewilderment from her voice. It was only 8:45 and the pews were already one-third filled. With eager women. “And you’re here, too, Jeanie. I thought you had to work Sunday mornings.”

“I do. I’m here on official business.”

Harmony lifted a brow. “What kind of business?”

“Crowd control.”

Before Harmony could ask how the sheriff knew there’d be a crowd at church, Marie, the UPS driver, poked her head in their little huddle. “Where did you hide him, Reverend?”

“Hide who?”

“Your new groundskeeper.”

“You mean Damon?”

Jeanie shook her head as if Harmony was beyond all help. “Yes. Damon. He’s hot. If you haven’t noticed.”

“And if you haven’t noticed,” Maria put in, “you might want to stop by Dr. Fogg’s office and take a gander at the eye chart, because I would say you need those peepers examined.”

“Or get her heart checked to see if she has a pulse,” Jeanie teased.

Harmony supposed it shouldn’t surprise her that it hadn’t taken long for word to get around about Damon. Almost as much as they appreciated the attributes of a good-looking man, the women of Mysteria loved juicy gossip, particularly when the latter concerned the former. Everyone, it seemed, even the pets, had a libido running in constant overdrive. Maybe it was that strange pink pollen. Nevertheless, she mumbled something about it not being professional to view her new employee in that way, which was such an obvious lie that the sheriff’s eyes twinkled in merry amusement.

“Ooh, there he is now.” Maria hurried off to where a small crowd of women had gathered around Damon, watching as he fiddled with a repair to the door frame at the front entrance of the church. Why was he doing that now, of all things, right when services were about to start? He’d been busy with the fence all week, and she’d assumed he’d take Sunday off, which was his free time by rights.

Laughter rang out from the group of women surrounding Damon. He appeared to be charming the panties off them as he ushered them inside. As if he’d sensed she was watching, he turned and caught her gaze. Immediately, his expression changed into something warmer, more personal, telling her that he viewed her differently from the other women.

Differently, because he thinks you’re a nun, Harmony.

Harmony shifted her attention to Bubba, who sat adoringly at Damon’s feet, the cute little traitor. But who could blame the dog? Damon occupied Harmony’s thoughts day and night, too. Especially at night. She’d added an extra two miles to her daily jog, but it didn’t seem to be helping.

Jeanie lowered her voice and spoke in her ear. “If I can tear your attention away from the groundskeeper hunk for a second, I have the information you requested.”

Harmony’s heart skipped a beat as she whirled around. “Damon’s fingerprints.”

“Uh-huh. And I don’t have anything on him.”

“Great!” But Jeanie appeared more troubled than relieved. Harmony frowned. “Isn’t that good?”

“I mean I have nothing on him, Reverend. Nada. Zilch. We ran his prints and not a thing came up.”

“What are you saying—that he doesn’t exist?”

Jeanie spread her hands. “My research went beyond prints. I have friends in high places, and they helped. As far as the government goes, no. He’s never applied for a passport, or registered to vote. He’s never paid taxes, either, but then he’s never held a job that required even the simplest background check. It goes without saying that he’s never seen the inside of a prison—which was what you were worried about, right?”

Harmony thought back to the day it seemed that Damon had literally appeared out of nowhere in the garden. “What if he switched identities? What if he’s a fugitive trying to escape his past?”

“We’d have picked it up. Prints are prints. I had an expert check them out, too, a CIA buddy who owed me a favor. Your hunk’s fingerprints showed no evidence of being altered surgically or by any other method.” The sheriff shrugged. “I don’t know what else to say, but that he’s clean. Real clean. Count your blessings.”

“I will.” Harmony took a steadying breath. “Speaking of blessings, I’d better get this service started.”

She left the sheriff’s side in a happy daze. “He’s clean,” she whispered to herself. “Real clean.” Her intuition had been right—she wasn’t falling for the devil’s spawn, after all. Next time she had her doubts about anything, she’d listen to her instincts. Thank you, Great-grandmother Eudora!

Harmony breezed past Damon, hitched herself just high enough on her tiptoes as she passed by to whisper in his ear, “Dinner at six-thirty. Inside. Dress nice.”

It would be the first time since the day he’d arrived that she’d invited him to dine in the kitchen. Not knowing if he had a record or not had hardened her resolved to wait before taking the chance. Now, she knew.

The glimpse of his shock slipping quickly into pleasure lingered in her mind as she took the pulpit with true excitement coursing through her. She was finally beginning what she’d come to Mysteria to do. Her smile was contagious: a chain reaction reflected by the happy faces of the townswomen. But when her gaze settled on Damon, who stood in the doorway a few careful steps outside the church, she felt a bolt of pure energy. How could he not be heaven sent?

Harmony raised her hands and belted out a hallelujah. Her heart, filled to bursting in more ways than one, was in every single syllable.

At dusk Damon showed up at her front door with a thick bouquet of wildflowers. He’d showered and combed his hair. Although he had only work clothes to wear, he’d ironed them and she decided that no matter what he wore, everything or nothing at all, he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. And tonight he was all hers.

“Thank you,” she sang out, taking the flowers. “They’re beautiful.” The heat in his eyes was especially intense as he took in the sight of her in the red-hot form-fitting sheathe dress she’d bought on impulse in town after the service was over. Sometimes even a pastor had to break the rule of resting on Sundays. “You look very nice tonight, too, by the way.” She came up on her toes and planted a kiss on his cheek. A nun’s kiss. She wanted more, she thought as she stepped back.

Behave, Harmony. Be professional.

Damon’s whiskey-gold gaze glinted, as if he sensed her inner battle. “You have the devil in your eyes tonight, Damon of Mysteria,” she said, imitating his accent.

He looked suddenly troubled. “Sorry, lass. I dinna mean to.”

“It’s just an expression! You can be so literal, at times.”

He flashed his famous smile, one tinged with relief. “Aye, and tonight you’ve got a bit of the devil in ye, too, I see.”

Because I’m hoping to find a little piece of heaven in your arms.

“Sit, make yourself at home,” she told him while she wedged the flowers into a water-filled glass vase and placed them on the kitchen counter because already the little eating table was half-filled with plates. On the stove in a cast-iron pan, four bone-in country ham slices, each a quarter-inch thick, sizzled in butter. While she finished cooking, she chattered from nervous excitement. The artificial barrier she’d erected between herself and Damon, one held in place by her lingering worries that he was a criminal, had crashed into so much dust. “So, how about that attendance at church today, huh? It’s a miracle! A real miracle.”

“Nay. Take credit where credit is due, Harmony. Word about your church has spread far and wide. ’Twas only a matter of time.”

“Hmm. I’d like to believe it. But where were all the men?”

Damon’s smile faltered. “Were there no males present?” he asked innocently.

“Except for you and Bubba, that crowd was a hundred percent female, and don’t pretend you didn’t notice. It doesn’t make sense. But I guess it’s not gracious to look the Lord’s gift horse in the mouth.”

Especially not with Daddy coming. A robust church community was a source of Faithfull pride. She couldn’t let her family down.

Oh, but they’d be impressed with Damon, though, she thought happily. He was such a gentleman, so much like her brothers. And when all-seeing Great-grandmother Eudora stepped through the front door, one look at Damon and she’d see him for what he truly was!

Oh, yes, things were looking up. Yes, indeed.

She tried to forget about the strange gender imbalance at church and instead focused on the pleasure of cooking and Damon’s company.

With a spatula, she flipped the ham steaks. “I’m fixing us ham and red-eye gravy. A Faithfull family favorite. Ever tried it?”

“Nay, lass. But I canna wait.” Damon closed his eyes and inhaled the aroma. Even from the stove, she could see the shudder that rumbled through him.

She couldn’t help laughing. “In all my life, I can’t say I’ve ever had more pleasure cooking for anyone.”

His smile was brilliant, as if he savored her compliments as much as he did his food.

She bustled about the stove, crashing pots and pans onto the burner as she hummed to the music playing on the stereo. Damon watched her with an affectionate, amused gaze that made her heart beat even faster. “My mama made me and my sisters help her with Sunday supper since we were little girls. We’d turn up the radio and listen to our favorite songs. Sometimes we’d dance more than we’d cook, and Mama would scold us.” Harmony gave her butt a defiant little shake. Her tight, red-sheathed butt.

The look on Damon’s face sent heat shooting up and down her spine. Harmony, behave yourself.

Do I have to?

It was almost like being a teenager again, except that the voice of reason she battled was her own.

She turned back to the stove and heard a loud scratching noise behind her. Damon growled, “Trolls—be gone!” Then there was a splash, a prolonged sizzle, and an abbreviated squeak.

Nine

Whirling around, she caught Damon just as he sat back in his chair. He looked shaken and was trying to hide the fact.

Harmony’s brows went up. “What was that? What just happened? What did you mean by a troll?”

Damon flushed. She’d never seen his face color like that before. “’Twas a . . . mouse,” he explained. “We call them trolls in Scotland.”

“Oh.” She pondered that. Then she glanced around her clean kitchen, the spatula gripped in her hand like a weapon. “Where’s the mouse? I haven’t had a problem with mice before.” That’s when she saw the puddle. And on the table, Damon’s empty glass.

“I chased it off,” he explained. “They dinna like water.” As if he were reloading a six-shooter, he refilled his glass from the pitcher on the table.

Harmony stared at the puddle. “That’s weird.”

“What is?”

“The water’s smoking. No, that’s steam.”

“Condensation.”

“Hmm. Well, it is a little humid tonight after that thunderstorm.” Before she could get to the puddle with a dish towel, it had evaporated. Humidity wasn’t the problem. But she wasn’t sure what was. Except that there had been a mouse that Damon called a troll that had disappeared as quickly as the puddle he’d made on the floor.

Keeping her eyes open for rodents, she mixed brown sugar, a half cup of brewed coffee, and a cup of water for the gravy, stirring until the sugar dissolved.

From behind, she heard Damon’s chair scrape backward. Not another one. A splash and a startled squeak signaled a hit. Almost too fast to register on her retinas, something larger than a mouse but smaller than a bunny darted out through Bubba’s doggie door, something that had appeared to run on two legs, not four, though she was sure it was a trick of the eyes.

Delighted barking from outside told her that the puppy had given chase to whatever it was. “Damon, I don’t think they’re mice.”

Panic flashed in his eyes, as if he didn’t want her going down that road. “What else would they be, lass?”

“I mean, I think they’re rats. Why are you acting so worried? Is my hulking, six-foot-five knight afraid of little rodents?”

“Nay.” I am afraid for you, his eyes said.

What a sweetie. He took his role of protector so seriously that it had extended to pest control. She wanted to hug him, but her hands were sticky with sugar. “I don’t like mice, but I’m not afraid of them, Damon. The desert rats we had in Iraq were way worse, and I saw cockroaches in Biloxi that were as big as small horses, so don’t worry about me.” Despite her big talk, she did react with a little shudder as she envisioned mice scampering through the house at night, popping out of the medicine cabinets in the dark, nesting between her bedsheets. “Do you know where they’re coming from?”

“I’ve seen one or two in the barn,” he mumbled.

Where he slept. Again, she shuddered. “I’ll buy some traps tomorrow. Or a cat—a hungry cat! I just want them gone before my family gets here.”

“Trust me, lass. I dinna want the little beasties around, either.” He said it like he meant it, too. She was confident that tomorrow, the rats would be history.

Harmony drizzled gravy over the ham steaks. Red-eye gravy was thin in consistency but potent in flavor. Her mouth watered in anticipation. Careful not to step on any stray creatures, she carried the platter to the table, setting it down amid bowls of mashed potatoes, vegetables, and biscuits.

“Oh, I baked us a special dessert, too.” She carried the cake to the table and announced proudly, “Devil’s food!”

Damon choked on the water he’d just sipped.

“What’s wrong? It’s just chocolate on chocolate, and I know you love chocolate.”

“Aye, I do,” he rasped. “The name—it merely startled me, lass.”

“You’re so darn cute sometimes, Damon of Mysteria.” Tossing aside her apron, she grabbed a book of matches and stood next to his chair to light some candles. He smelled clean, like coconut soap. His skin radiated heat and his personal scent that she found so distracting. She wouldn’t mind a chaste kiss. Get real. She craved a real kiss, a hot, deep, toe-curling kind of kiss, the kind she daydreamed about when she was supposed to be working on her sermons.

His hand slid around her waist. “Cute? I dinna know if I’m that, lass, but ye do make me happy. Very happy.”

He’s never felt like this before. He’s never been this happy. She shook off the strange, unbidden thought. Why were those things jumping into her head? It always seemed to happen when he touched her.

Harmony tried not to think about latent seer genes coming active, and instead turned around in the circle of Damon’s arms and slid her arms over his shoulders. “You make me happy, too.”

They’d never touched like this, so casually, so intimately. It had never been for the lack of wanting to, of course, but suddenly she wondered what in the world she was waiting for when it came to that real kiss she’d been wanting. And so she bent down and brushed her lips over his.

Just a taste, that was all she intended, but his lips were soft . . . warm. Perfect.

Damon made a soft sound of pleasure in his throat, opening his mouth to hers as his fingers slid into her hair at the back of her head to bring her closer. Her tongue brushed his, and soon they were kissing more boldly, her hands framing his jaw.

The next thing she knew, she was in his lap with her butt nestled between his hard thighs. Damon didn’t just kiss; he savored her, relished her, drawing out the tender kiss the same way he’d delighted in every morsel of food from the day he arrived. Maybe even more so, made her feel as if she were the best thing he’d ever tasted, that his appetite was endless, insatiable, and that it wouldn’t stop here, that he’d want more and more and . . .

Damon released her like a hot potato. “Good, good, good,” he mumbled into her hair.

Laughing and gasping, Harmony rested her cheek against his jawbone. “Good. It was definitely that. Good, good, good.”

“I dinna disagree. ’Tis why I’m trying to remind myself to behave.”

She rubbed her thumb across his lower lip. “A good man, you are, Damon. A gentleman.”

He glanced away, as if suddenly afraid of what she’d see in his eyes. “I haven’t always been good, Harmony.”

“The corrupt job with the corrupt boss . . .”

“Aye.”

“But you’re starting over. You have a new life.” You’re clean, she almost blurted out, but she couldn’t tell him that, couldn’t admit she’d checked up on him. It seemed a betrayal of everything he’d been so far, which was nothing less than, well, than good. “Only God’s perfect, Damon. The rest of us do the best we can.”

It always amazed her how his smile transformed his face. His bone structure was strong, and he could look almost cruel when his expression was serious, but whenever he grinned, he became so roguishly handsome it took her breath away. “I will always do my best for you,” he said, pulling her close again. “Better than best.”

Folding her in strong arms, he hugged her to his chest for the longest time, as if she somehow anchored him here on earth. The thought made her heart ache when she remembered how lost he seemed when he’d first arrived. Then, he pressed his mouth to her forehead in a kiss so achingly tender that it left her awash in goose bumps all the same.

Bubba crashed through the dog door, and they jumped apart.

“He’s got something in his mouth.” But Harmony only caught a glimpse of the rat-sized thing in Bubba’s mouth before Damon blocked her view with his big hand. “Hey!” She tried peeling his fingers from her eyes. “I want to see.”

“Nay. ’Tis not a pretty sight.” Damon held her head to his chest with his left hand as he threw something with his right. She heard more water splash and a shriek. Did rats shriek? Several pairs of paws scrabbled on the floor. Then two loud swishes of the dog door and a lot of barking told her that whatever Bubba had caught managed to escape.

Harmony wriggled off Damon’s lap. “I’m going after Bubba.”

“Nay, lass. He’ll be fine.”

“What if the rat bites him?”

“The troll—er, rather, the rat—’twill have disappeared underground before the pup catches up.”

“Underground? What are they—part gopher?”

From outside, Bubba yipped in frustration. Apparently, the rodent had indeed disappeared down its hole.

Harmony tugged on the hem of her blouse to recover some of the modesty she’d thrown to the wind. To forestall any further interruptions of dinner, of kisses, or of anything else, she shoved an empty chair in front of the dog door. Then she plopped down in her chair, clasped her hands under her chin, and whispered a quick and silent prayer to compose herself before saying grace. “Thank you, Lord, for the bounty we are about to eat. Thank you for bringing Damon here to help me.” And thank you for making him the most amazing kisser in the whole wide world! “Amen.”

For the first time in her presence, Damon murmured “amen,” too. It sounded rusty on his lips, as if he’d not had much practice with prayer. It didn’t trouble her; she’d seen inside his soul. He was cleaner and purer inside, where it counted, than some pastors she’d run across.

“Sometimes, lass, I dinna know if I have brought you help or harm.”

She shook her head in confusion.

“Your thanks to God,” he explained. “You gave thanks for my help, such as it is.” He waved at the chair blocking the dog door. “It seems I have brought you more harm than good.”

“You mean the rats? You can’t blame yourself for that. We probably stirred them up when we cleaned out the hayloft.”

He made a scoffing, grumbling sound in his throat.

“We’ll get rid of them tomorrow. Besides, like I told you, they don’t bother me that much. They bother my mama, though, so as long as you eradicate them before she gets here, I’m happy.”

“I will try,” he said with such pained seriousness that she put down her fork and knife to stare at him. “I’ll do everything I can, lass. Everything. Until then, you must promise me never to be alone with them. Never fight them without me at your side.”

“They’re not monsters, Damon,” she said with a laugh. “They’re rats!”

He laughed weakly.

“And I know you’ll slay them for me, brave knight, right?”

“Aye, fair maiden,” he said with more vehemence than what seemed to fit the task. “’Tis my job to slay the beasties.”

Nevertheless, through the rest of the supper, Damon acted edgy. Peering around the kitchen as he ate, he squinted at the corners, studied crevices, kept watch on the dog door she’d blocked.

When they’d finished, they didn’t linger over conversation. Damon appeared too distracted. Harmony walked him to the back door. The air was warm for nighttime in these parts. Distant thunder echoed from somewhere over the Rockies. “It’s going to be a hot one tomorrow,” she observed, trying to act casual though she was acutely aware of his body so close to hers.

He turned to her. “Thank you for tonight.”

“My pleasure.”

“Aye, your pleasure will always be mine, lass.”

Harmony gulped. Sigh. He had no idea. . . .

He stood there for a moment, studying her with a look that pingponged between desire and regret, then, chanting “Good, good, good” under his breath, he bid her good night as any respectable gentleman would a nun and walked away.

It was all she could do not to follow him back to the hayloft.

Behave, Harmony. Although she wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be able to do so.

Pressing a cool glass of water against her cheek, she watched him go, wondering just what it was going to take to bring out the devil in Damon.

Ten

The next Sunday the men began trickling into church to see where the women were going. With every passing week more townsfolk came, until Harmony had to ask Damon to build her some more pews.

He did so gladly, though it took him away from his pet project, the installation of an expansive automatic sprinkler system surrounding the church. “The beasties don’t like the water,” he’d explained.

He must be right: ever since the water had been coming on every night, there hadn’t been any more problems with rodents in the house. And as a side benefit, the lawn looked great, too. Unfortunately, they now had a glut of water-loving garden slugs to deal with. But at least those hadn’t tried crashing dinner. Yet.

It was Sunday, T-minus one week and a day until her family invaded Mysteria, and Harmony was in the midst of delivering her sermon to a full house. Standing a few careful steps outside the halfopen door, her loyal knight Damon stood guard, his arms folded over the end of a pitchfork as he leaned against the outside wall. Although he never stepped foot inside the church—“’tis not right,” he’d insist so mournfully—he always listened carefully to her weekly message. Often she’d work in little things she hoped might help him escape his dark, mysterious past, something he remained reluctant to share. “I wasna good,” he’d say in his brogue. Yet, without a criminal record anyone could unearth—and Jeanie had never stopped trying—how bad could he have been?

No sooner than Harmony conjured the thought than an unseasonably cold breeze whooshed inside the church. “Bad, bad,” the wind seemed to whisper, a crackly, desiccated noise like the scratch of crinkled brown leaves on the sidewalk in autumn. With one hand fisted in the fabric of her cotton skirt to keep it from flying up, she tried to snatch back her papers from the whirlwind, but it only blew harder, whipping her hair around her face. “Evil,” it hissed, drawing out the word. “Evil demon, baaaaad.”

Then the wind surged in velocity, gushing between the pews, tossing off hats and whipping hair, until it hit Harmony full on and whirled around her like her own personal tornado, scattering the pages of her sermon. “Bad . . . bad . . . bad . . .”

Something pressed in on her mind, bitter, distasteful, like a taste of bile. She mentally flung it away. “The basement’s unlocked,” she shouted to her dispersing flock. “It may be a tornado. Get inside, take shelter!” But the wind erased her words.

“Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad,” it rasped.

Stay away. Harmony shut her eyes and shoved. She didn’t know what it was that she heard in the wind, only that whenever it touched her mind, she shuddered, repulsed.

“Reverend!” Jeanie Tortellini tried to assist her but the wind blew the woman backward.

“I’m okay!” But was she? She had to squint against the whistling gale in order to see. Damon was no longer at the door. Knowing him, he was outside helping others. “Find Damon. You two make sure everyone’s okay. Get them in the basement if you have to.” Barking the orders, the blind trust, it reminded her of when a missile had struck outside the field hospital in Iraq and she and the doctors were trapped inside. “Go, Jeanie! You know what to do. I’ll be right there.”

Jeanie ran off. As Harmony struggled as if swimming upstream to follow, she glimpsed Dr. Fogg, as calm as could be, observing the scene like the scientist-physician he was, jotting down notes on his Blackberry as he evacuated the building along with the rest of the townspeople.

Finally, Harmony fought her way outside to the porch. Outside, shadows arced and swooped. Birds. First a rodent invasion, now a bird invasion?

The wind subsided the moment Harmony exited the church, as if it had tried at first to keep her from doing so before giving up.

That’s a weirder thought than the talking wind. No more of that, okay?

“I’m sane,” she muttered. “Really I am. I just live in Mysteria, that’s all—” She froze on the top step, her mouth falling open. The scene before her was so inexplicably impossible that her mind almost couldn’t process it.

What at first glance she thought were birds weren’t. “Flying monkeys?” she whispered. Good heaven, they were! From their little gold-trimmed suits to their Dixie-cup hats, they were replicas of the winged assistants from the movie The Wizard of Oz.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Damon stood in the eye of the furry hurricane, fighting back as if the whole thing were personal.

Eleven

Damon swung his pitchfork at the flock of subdemons. “Be gone! Back to your Hell hole!” But with his powers reduced to what he could conjure as a mortal man, he could do little more than issue threats.

The subdemons had started emerging from a Hell hole in Harmony’s vegetable garden while she was preaching. More and more of them. Damon had tried to get them all stuffed neatly back down the pit before church was over. He could turn on the sprinklers, aye, and wash them all away, but what a muddle it would make, melting, sizzling subdemons everywhere. And how would he explain the little articles of clothing left behind? Nay, ’twas better to scoop them up by the pitchforkful and shove them back to Hell before Harmony emerged from the church.

He’d actually gotten ahead of the game when the winds began. Filled with dread, Damon turned around, a wriggling subdemon, caught by the collar, still dangling from his pitchfork as townspeople poured out of the church.

Hell’s bells. He should have known Lucifer would not let him win, would keep trying to sabotage the trust Damon had built in Harmony. For if Damon were to win over Harmony Faithfull, Lucifer would lose. Over the past few weeks, the Devil had shown no signs of giving up on his quest to assure the defeat of his ex–demon high lord.

How many incidents such as this had there been over the past months? Too many to count. First there’d been the goblin in the barn, then the minitrolls in Harmony’s kitchen. Now this, a flock of subdemons in the middle of the lawn in broad daylight on a Sunday morning, the most brazen violation yet! Well, except for the naked incubus he’d found sneaking through Harmony’s bedroom window one night, but that may have been only a coincidence, the wrong window on the wrong night for the unfortunate dark creature.

Damon redoubled his efforts to get rid of the subdemons, but they swarmed. He’d seen a lot of scenes during his long years working for the Devil, but few as chaotic as this one unfolding on the front lawn of Mysteria Community Church. Townsfolk ran every which way, complicating his efforts to chase the beasties from the churchyard. Damon attended to the subdemons while simultaneously trying to joke about the infestation to impart calm to the crowd. Even for Mysteria, this was a strange happening, although many of the locals took it in stride. It would not be so in any other town.

Competing with the subdemons’ raucous noise were the howls of the O’Cleary great-grandchildren, who ran wild like little demons themselves. Damon fancied that he’d like a family of his own someday, but two minutes spent with the O’Cleary offspring was almost enough to convince a man to drop all thoughts of procreation.

And then there was Dr. Fogg. His hair windblown, his tie whipping in the breeze, he pushed spectacles up the bridge of his elegant nose with one hand as he crouched down low, attempting to entice a subdemon with a broken Saltine cracker. Consorts with elves, that one does, Damon thought. The same with the sheriff. Damon could smell an elf a mile away, and even with his demon’s senses almost gone, he knew well what the doctor and especially Harmony’s friend Jeanie did in their spare time. Elves, too sexy for their pointy ears, they were. The town jail stank of them.

Damon knocked several more subdemons unconscious and dragged them to the Hell hole, shoving them back into the earth. “Tell your master his efforts are in vain. He’ll never destroy me. He’ll never turn me back the way I was before!” A derisive sound came up through the Hell hole, like a deep belch. The warm, moist breeze ruffled Damon’s hair. ’Twas Lucifer himself answering him.

Damon’s lips pulled back over his teeth. “Are you such a coward that you send your minions to do your dirty work? Why don’t you come out and fight me yourself?” Damon raised the pitchfork. “Come on. Come up here and fight like a man. I may be mortal, but I’m ready for ye.”

“Damon, who are you talking to?”

At the sound of the familiar voice, Damon’s heart plunged into his stomach.

Harmony sounded poised at the razor’s edge of hysteria.

“Dinna be afraid, lass!” With a sweep of the pitchfork, he took out several of the more brazen of the subdemons before her eyes, her wide, brown, disbelieving eyes. Some of the creatures lay dazed on the ground. A few crawled, pulling their broken bodies toward the Hell hole in the garden. Damon puffed up his chest and assured her, “They’ll soon be gone.”

“Gone . . .”

“Aye.” That’s when he noticed how brightly her eyes glowed, how her lips were so pale and tight, contrasting with her flushed cheeks. But what he noticed most of all was the shovel gripped in her white-knuckled hands, as if she meant to clang it against the side of his head. Nay, she was not frightened, not at all; she was as furious as the wind that had whipped her long hair and skirt only moments before.

Harmony’s glare intensified. “Gone, like those so-called rats you found in my kitchen?”

Instinct told him no answer he gave would be the right one.

“Gone where, Damon? To the south, maybe? Isn’t that where you told me you were from, Damon? Farther south than I’ve ever been? You weren’t talking about Mexico, were you?” Harmony ducked as a subdemon swooped low overhead. Then she advanced on him, her nostrils flaring. “Were you!”

Damon hesitated, the pitchfork raised in midair as his heart sank. A thousand alternate explanations came to mind, but with those excuses, would he not be slipping back into the lies that so characterized his previous life?

“Nay,” he said gently. “I was not talking about Mexico. But I can explain. I . . .” Say it. He jerked his pitchfork at the sky. “I was one of them.”

Harmony’s eyes went wide. “A flying monkey?”

“Nay, lass! I was a demon.”

Twelve

There was a terrible pause. Then Harmony asked, “A demon demon?”

“Aye, a demon demon.”

“This is the truth, Damon. You swear?”

“I do.”

Harmony made a strangled sound and raised her shovel high. For a moment, Damon was sure she’d whack him in the head, but she struck at a low-flying subdemon instead, and then another as they wheeled overhead, taunting him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Clang. A subdemon fell to earth, another victim of Harmony’s vicious swing. “Why didn’t you?”

“I did! That very first day. In the kitchen. Ye thought I was lying.” As she stared at him, he saw her gaze turn inward and knew she remembered. “But ye took me in all the same. Deny it you might, lass, but ye are as close to an angel as I’ve ever encountered.”

She snorted. “What do you know about angels? You’re a demon.”

“Was a demon, lass. I was fired. Terminated without benefits.” Crash. Thwap. A little red hat sailed down to the grass. “Benefits. Oh, please. Hell has a retirement plan?”

“They did, once,” he muttered. “No longer, it seems.”

“Is nothing sacred anymore?” Her sarcasm was as sharp as a blade. “Well, there’s always social security.” Thump. Another subdemon dropped from the sky.

Water erupted from the grass, engulfing them in a drenching cold spray. Shrieking accompanied the deluge, but human shrieking this time. Semihuman, Damon qualified. Mrs. O’Cleary’s great-grandchildren had somehow turned on the sprinklers. Any subdemon unlucky enough to be hit hissed and sizzled, screaming as they dissolved into little piles of doll-sized clothing.

“Who turned the sprinklers on?” Jeanie Tortellini ran across the churchyard, yelling, trying to regain control. The preteen Desdaine triplets, Withering, Scornful, and Derisive, whooped in delight. “How come no one’s watching these kids?” she demanded of the parents who were wisely hiding behind some lawn chairs.

“Wait!” Harmony yelled to the woman. “Leave the water on! It’s . . . it’s killing them.” She swung her glare around to Damon. “Just like what happened to the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. She melted. You knew this all along; you prepared for it by installing these sprinklers. And here I thought you were just a fan of irrigation!”

At that moment, Damon again understood that the best answer was no answer.

The lawn turned into a sea of mud. Children squealed with laughter as they grabbed the sprinkler heads and aimed water at the subdemons. Harmony’s pumps made sucking noises. She snarled and threw her shoes one at a time at the creatures, striking one and knocking off its little red-and-gold hat. A jet of water clanged off the handle of Damon’s pitchfork. He lost his balance. Harmony tried to steady him, but she slipped. They went down hard in the mud.

He turned to find her lips an inch away from his. His body was wrapped around hers as they lay sprawled on the ground, the same body that now reacted rather briskly to that pleasant discovery. He’d come to enjoy the sensations of his new body—advantages to being mortal that he’d never realized. But also disadvantages, one of which was poor timing, he decided quite quickly upon noting the fury contorting Harmony’s face. “I should have been happy talking to the dog!”

Damon shook his head. “I dinna follow, lass . . .”

“I should have been satisfied with the simple things, the solitude, but no, I had to want more. A full house on Sundays.” She gulped several breaths. “But what did I get? Demons and flying monkeys!” She threw down the shovel.

Her face was streaked with mud. He reached up to wipe her cheek with his thumb, but she recoiled as if she feared him. Feared what he was. He couldn’t blame her.

“I kissed you, Damon!” she accused. “I kissed you!”

Aye, and he’d not stopped thinking about it, either.

“I cooked for you. I bought you underwear. I . . . I wanted to make love with you!”

You could have heard a pin drop in the sudden silence. Damon wasn’t sure which one of them looked more shocked by her confession.

Then there was a loud whoosh. Water gushed out of a hijacked sprinkler and, aimed by mischievous little hands, ricocheted off a metal fence post, zinged overhead, and clipped off one of the chains holding the Mysteria Community Church banner over the church door. As if in surrender, the banner slid off the wall.

A fitting end to a terrible day.

Harmony watched the sign fall. Looking as if she were about to cry, she stopped herself and dashed the heel of her palm across her eyes. Muddy water streamed from her hair and dribbled down her ruined dress.

“Lass . . . ,” he tried, lifting a hand to her. Then he hesitated, fearing her vulnerable stance was deceptive, that if he touched her, tried to hold her, she’d snap like a too taut spring and fly away from him. As it was, she pushed to her feet without another word and went to join Jeanie in restoring order.

Damon watched her go. So much had changed since he’d come to Mysteria, and yet so little. He was as much a reason for doubt and second thoughts as he ever was.

An oddly pitched scream tore into his self-pitying thoughts. He saw an O’Cleary child go down under the weight of several angry subdemons, a situation missed by others in the chaos. Subdemons were dark creatures with little power, but enough of them could kill a small human. Could kill a child.

Damon surged to his feet, the pitchfork in hand. A half-dozen strides brought him to where the child’s thin legs kicked. Damon grabbed one beastie by its collar and threw it to the ground. Then he dragged the remaining creatures off the frightened child.

The little girl’s face was without color, her blue eyes wide and tearfilled. “Are you hurt, little one?”

She shook her head, but her lower lip trembled. “Scared?” he asked gently, coming down on one knee.

She nodded, her mouth wobbling. Damon lifted her fist, which was still clamping a plastic water gun. He smiled. “Would ye like to get them back?”

She grinned. “Yeah!”

“Then let’s do it.” He hoisted her under his arm. “Fire away!” With the child pumping water out of the little toy gun, he chased fleeing subdemons to the Hell hole, followed enthusiastically by a wildly barking Bubba and a herd of miniature O’Clearys. When every last one had either melted or vanished into the depths of Hell, Damon lowered the little girl to the ground. Her skinny shoulders felt so delicate under his hands. A sudden rush of emotion threatened to swamp him, a sensation still so new. This child encapsulated all that was fragile and good on this earth; all that he’d hoped to protect, to cherish. “What is your name?”

“Annabelle,” she answered in a tremulous voice.

“Bullies, that’s all they are, Annabelle. Ye canna be afraid. Your goodness, ’twill always win out. Ye are stronger than them. Far stronger. Do ye understand?”

Annabelle nodded, and he touched a fingertip to her little freckled nose before rising to his feet. His breath caught in his throat when he realized Harmony had been watching him the entire time, her face so full of pain that he had to turn away from her horrified gaze.

Damon trudged to the sprinkler timer box to shut off the water, but before he reached the shutoff valve, and as everyone began to come up from the basement and from behind chairs and under tables—just as everyone thought it was safe—little Annabelle O’Cleary fired off one last salvo with the hose, aiming the water at her parents as her brothers and sisters, not appearing a wee bit sorry, fled the scene.

Damon wrested the hose from Annabelle’s little hands. “Off with ye now, little hell-raiser.” With grudging admiration, he sent her on her way. Then he tended to the shaken townspeople, working his charm as best he could to coax assurances that they’d return to church the next week. All the while he felt Harmony’s gaze on him, and his face burned in shame.

Jeanie sauntered up to him. “I’ve seen a lot of unusual goings-on in this town, but not this. What were those animals?”

“Are they not from Mysteria?” Damon tried charming the sheriff with one of his smiles, but her gaze sharpened.

“It won’t work, Damon. Not with me. And just for your information”—she bobbed her chin in Harmony’s direction—“it won’t work with her, either. I want the facts, not the glossed-over version.”

“Aye, I know,” he said with a sigh. “I’d tried to keep it from her so I wouldn’t lose her, but now that I have, secrets do me no good. In Satan’s army, there is a hierarchy. At the apex are the demon high lords, Lucifer’s commanders. Then there are the foot soldiers, the scores of classes of underlords, demon worker-bees, and subdemons. They can take the form of almost any monster, from ant-size on up, and with more ways to intimidate, frighten, and kill than can be counted. New versions are created every day.”

“Like . . . Demon 8.0,” Jeanie joked, jotting down the information.

“That is a way to look at it,” Damon said sadly, gazing over at Harmony, who refused to meet his eyes.

Jeanie noted the exchange and put down her notepad. “You’re in deep shit, aren’t you?”

“Deep, really deep, aye.”

“We Mysteria women call it doghouse deep. And there’s only one thing you can do. Go fix it.”

“I dinna know if it’s possible.”

“Her job is to forgive, Damon. That’ll be the easy part. All you have to do is to convince her to put her heart into it.” She chucked him on the arm. “Good luck. I know you can do it.”

Could he?

Damon found Harmony in the barn, washing mud off her hands and face at the work sink. Harmony turned around, wiping her hands on her soiled skirt. Water and tears had smudged the makeup under her wide, expressive brown eyes. She studied him for a moment, as if he were a stranger. Then she blew her nose in a paper towel. “No wonder you didn’t like devil’s food cake.”

His chest hurt. “Yes, I have a past, of which ye know little.”

He told her everything, as best a man could summarize ten thousand years of walking the earth.

“Ten thousand years.” Harmony’s voice came out as a squeak. “A hundred centuries.”

“Aye, but I’ve lived more in these past few months than in all the time before.” He told her the story of the starving settlers of Mysteria, how he’d given them the Will-to-Go-On, how he’d repeated such acts all around the globe until Lucifer found out and captured him. He told her about the torture, his being made mortal, and finally how he’d woken, dazed and naked, in her garden, terminated and pensionless. “I thought he was done with me, then, Lucifer was. But ’tis clear he’s not yet finished. And for that, lass, I am truly sorry . . . for what you’ve suffered as a consequence. And ’tis about you, for the Devil does not want me to have something good, you see. Then I’ll have won. If there’s one thing I know about Lucifer—he does not like to lose.”

“Is everything okay in here?” Jeanie Tortellini poked her head in the barn.

“Fine!” they both shouted a little too quickly.

The sheriff shot Damon a you-poor-bastard wink. “The water’s off, Reverend; I locked up the church. Everyone’s gone home—it’s a ghost town out there.” Jeanie clamped her mouth closed, as if realizing that was a poor choice of words, given Harmony’s profession—and mood. She held up a little gold-trimmed red coat. “But on the plus side, there are enough doll clothes left behind to supply every little girl’s collection in Mysteria.” She sniffed at the garment and grimaced. “Once they’ve been through the wash, that is. Hey, I’ll be down at the jail, so call me if you need me.” Jeanie waved good-bye and slid the door closed.

Damon sighed. It was time to pack up his things, tidy the hayloft, and leave. But there was one last thing he had to say. “I am sorry, lass. I know those words do not come close to making up for all the disasters I’ve wreaked here, but know this: What I did, what I said, I did in hopes it would keep ye close—close to me. Know that. But I see now what I feared most has come to pass. I’ve lost you,” he finished valiantly and turned away.

“Damon, please.”

He stopped.

“You haven’t lost me.”

His head snapped around. “Say it again, lass. I dinna think I heard you.”

The ends of her luscious mouth curved slightly. “You haven’t lost me.”

A harsh breath escaped him. He hadn’t lost her; somehow, he hadn’t chased her away.

What if Lucifer learns of this?

Damon squeezed his eyes shut. Dinna think of it. Like he’d told the child Annabelle, good always triumphs over evil, and he must summon the faith to believe in it.

“I lost sight of something today, something very important.” Harmony brought her hands together, clasping them tightly as if she were nervous, nervous as he. “The best sermons are lived, not preached. I’ll never forget the day my great-grandmother Eudora said that to my father, when she disagreed with something he’d done. She’d have scolded me today, told me the same thing, when she saw how quickly I wanted to condemn you. Seeing that God’s forgiven you, it might be a little arrogant if I didn’t. Ya think?”

“Only God’s perfect, Harmony,” he said, reminding her of her words to him shortly after he arrived in Mysteria. “The rest of us do the best we can.”

“Yes, we do.” Her eyes were luminous with tears as she walked to him and lifted a trembling hand to his cheek. He pressed his hand over hers as his emotions soared to heaven. “It doesn’t matter what you were before, Damon. It doesn’t. I had a calling to come here, and when I did, nothing was what I’d expected. But I knew God watched over everyone who lived here, whether they chose to see it or not. And then you came, and through you I fulfilled my calling here, through love. You’re so full of love, Damon. What went down before doesn’t matter. You’re a beautiful man with a beautiful soul, and that’s all that counts.”

His mood crashed immediately. A beautiful soul? “Lass, I was a demon, born of shadows. I know you’ve insisted that all humans have a soul, but I was not created as you were. The Devil crafted me, not God.”

She propped her hands on her hips. “Is this why you’ve never wanted to step inside the church?”

“I feared holy retribution—plagues, lightning strikes, and the like.”

Harmony snorted. “Oh, puleeze. You’ll have to find another excuse.” She poked him on the chest with her index finger. “You can’t fool me when it comes to souls, sir. I’m a Faithfull. Knowing souls is in our blood. I saw what you did to help little Annabelle O’Cleary. A man with no soul never would have done that, alleviated a little girl’s fear, or have run around afterward, convincing everyone they needed to come back to church next week, and not to be scared—and they believed you, Damon. A man with no soul never would exude the zest for life that you do, or the energy, your ability to make people laugh and feel comfortable. A man with no soul never would have . . . never would have . . .” Her finger trailed down his stomach, and she blushed deeply.

“Never would have what, lass?” he coaxed.

“Never would have made me fall in love with him.” She smiled softly. “With you.”

Damon’s heart crashed against his ribs. She loved him! ’Twas everything he’d ever wanted, for so many hundreds of years, to know love, to experience the pure and simple joy of it, the giving and receiving. To be human enough to share himself with someone else, to sacrifice. And now that it was placed before him, this miracle, he was all but paralyzed for fear of breaking the spell.

“Oh, lass,” he managed stupidly. “Are ye sure?”

“Never been more sure of anything in my life.”

Slinging an arm low around her waist, he drew her close. “Never been more sure,” she whispered against his lips. In the next instant, he was kissing her, falling head over heels into the well of joy that was this woman, who said she loved him. Loved him! Who said he had a soul.

From the conviction in her voice, he believed her. He remembered the feeling that had surged into him the moment he’d defied Lucifer. But even that explosion of joy and rightness dimmed with the knowledge that Harmony Faithfull loved him. Wanted him.

Then something Harmony had said earlier came crashing back into his mind. “Lass, forgive me if I misunderstood you out there on the lawn, but didn’t you mention you’d wanted to make love with me?”

“Yeah, I did.” She grabbed his butt and hauled him close. “And if I don’t do it soon, I might explode!”

“Hell’s bells, so will I.” Grinning eagerly, he swept her off her feet and carried her swiftly to the bedchamber in her house.

Thirteen

Together they fell onto the bed. Harmony laughed, exhilarated; being with Damon was like riding a roller coaster, and now it was perched precariously on the highest hill.

Damon’s weight pressed her deep into the mattress. It felt delicious. He was delicious! Her hands slid everywhere, his muscled back, his abs, the thickly muscled arms. That amazing body, she had it all to herself—and everything else that came with it. Yes, everything else, and God forgive her for going after it so greedily.

“Kiss me,” she told Damon, her fingers curling in the damp fabric of his shirt. She dragged him down to her mouth and kissed him, hard and deep. Dark, sweet heat. Slick and wet. The rasp of his whiskers as she explored with her tongue. He was the best thing she’d ever tasted, and she was hungry for more.

A deep sound rumbled in his chest in reaction to her eagerness. Shyness hadn’t entered her mind, only that she’d wanted him like this for so many weeks.

A beautiful man. A beautiful soul.

But he was a demon! Satan’s helper.

He’s starting over. A new life. He’s clean, real clean, remember?

As for his kiss? Hoo boy, it burned so hot it made Hell look cold. She’d gladly pay penance for that decidedly unholy thought—but tomorrow. Not now.

“Mmm,” she murmured as they kissed. “Mmm.” Smiling, she tore through the buttons on his shirt.

The scrape of Damon’s teeth on the side of her throat made her shiver as he fumbled with the waistband of her skirt. His hand slid up her inner thigh, and she could feel him tremble. When he touched her between her legs, the spasm of pleasure was so intense that her body gave an involuntary little jerk. If that was what his fingers could do, then she could only imagine—

“Too many clothes on ye, lass.” Her panties came off next, and the rest of their clothes went every which way.

Damon flipped her over, kissed her behind her knees and made her giggle. “’Tis my first time, ye know,” he told her as he trailed kisses up her spine, pausing to lick a sensitive little place between her shoulder blades that she never knew existed.

“First time what?” she gasped, delighted with his creativity with all the places he found to touch with his tongue and his lips.

“My first time making love.”

Harmony rolled over to stare at him. Sometimes lip reading helped with communication, especially when the messages were garbled. “You’re not a virgin.”

“Aye, I am.”

“Listen, if this is something you’ve come up with to make up for the whole demon thing—”

“Hush.” He pressed a finger to her lips. “’Tis the truth. Ye are my first.” He didn’t seem bothered by the fact in the least, nor hindered by any lack of confidence, she thought, as he pulled one bra strap down, then the other, lowering the lace until he found her nipples, lavishing each with attention as if they were made of the finest, most delectable chocolate. “No need to worry, lass. I know exactly what to do.”

She tipped her head back to the pillow and moaned. “I can’t argue that, baby.” Her sexy Scottish hunk was a virgin! She nearly whooped with delight. “You don’t act like it’s your first time.”

“I’ve experienced little, aye, but have seen much,” he murmured as he concentrated on pleasuring her. “Pagan lovers mating inside stone circles on Midsummer Eves . . . Viking wedding nights, the harems of Arabia . . . Roman orgies.”

Pagan mating rituals? Harems? Roman orgies? “Damon, honey, I don’t know if we’re on the same page.”

“I know the difference, love, between what I saw and this. Trust me. My instincts are good.” His arms bulged with muscles as he did a push-up over her, dipping his head to kiss her neck. Then he flipped her over and bit her on the butt. She squealed, and he laughed, soothing where he’d nipped her with kisses, then tossing her over again only to enter her, thickly, deeply. Her breath caught as her back arched, and she made a little gasp of surprise. Damon’s expression shifted from astonishment to tenderness to hunger; his eyelids fell half-closed, and the softest groan of pleasure slipped out after he breathed her name. Although she could feel the intensity of Damon’s emotions pressing on her mind, all she needed to know was right here, written on his face, everything he felt being with her, out in the open.

Her belly squeezed as he pushed slowly deeper, filling her, stretching her. She was glad he was going slow. It had been a long time for her, and she hadn’t expected he’d take her this quickly. But maybe foreplay wasn’t as popular in ancient times as it was now. Then again, she hadn’t been waiting ten thousand years to “do it.” Only since college, which had sometimes felt as long.

Yet, her body was ready for him—whoa, more than ready. The mere weight of his body pressing her into the mattress had her panting in anticipation.

“Ye are my first,” he squeezed out in a harsh breath. “My first, aye, my only, and my last.” Clutching her hips possessively, he pushed all the way home, sending shockwaves clear down to her toes.

He moved slowly, at first, not hesitant but most definitely reined in. She drew her knees higher on his hips, squeezing him with her thighs, to hold him there, to hold him close. Gradually, he gained confidence with her moans of delight. And when he finally found his rhythm, it was all she could do to hold on and ride the storm.

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any better, he rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, somehow remaining deep inside her.

She straddled him, astonished, her hair tumbling over his chest. But he moved her backward so his hand could slip between their bodies. And watched her, as she’d watched his reactions earlier, his fingers dipping between her legs where she was so wet, teasing, circling, as he thrust faster and deeper. Her head fell back. “Damon . . .”

Tremors fluttered in her stomach, sharpening, hot, so hot. The quivering built to an ache that swelled until it was almost unbearable. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Heaven help her, she never knew it could be like this. Never knew it could be this good.

Damon touched her again, and her climax took her; she cried out, grabbing the bedsheets, as if to keep herself from flying away.

In the midst of it all, Damon went rigid and gasped her name. It seemed to go on for a long time for him, his release, powerful and intense. Then, as he collapsed in a panting heap on the mattress, he reached blindly for her and pulled her close.

Sweat dampened his skin, and hers. Exhausted, she kissed him, tasting salt, inhaling his scent.

“Ah, Harmony, love.” His deep voice vibrated in his chest, his breath hot against her ear. “Ah, my sweet angel.”

She came up on her elbow and smiled at his stunned expression. “Happy?”

“Aye . . .”

“So, it was everything you hoped it’d be?”

He let out an amazed chuckle. “If this is what it feels like to be human, lass, then I’ve but one thing to say.”

She grinned, trailing her fingertips over his lips. “What’s that?” “Immortality is highly overrated.”

Much later, they lay abed, dozing, limbs tangled after making love yet again. Damon couldn’t get enough of Harmony, but was trying to control his appetite so as not to hurt her. She didn’t seem to have suffered overly much, though, he thought with a smug smile.

He gathered her in his arms as she slept. Deny it she might, but Harmony Faithfull was as close to an angel in human form as he’d ever encountered. And he would know. It’d been many thousands of years since he’d crossed paths with the angels, and even then it was to do battle with the archangels, like Michael and Gabriel, fearsome warriors, equals to him in all ways of war. But it was the stories of the lesser angels that had always captivated him through the long centuries. Sweet, they were said to be, and mysterious, beautiful enough to bring a mortal man to tears, he’d overheard some humans say. Some of the angels were so pure of heart and intentions that they could lure a demon from the inexorable pull of the depths of Hell to the plains of the mortal world. Aye, Lucifer raged for many days after losing one of his best demon high lords in such a fashion. Pompeii was the result of that particular tantrum. Damon knew, because he’d been dispatched on assignment to do Lucifer’s dirty work immediately after. Memories boiled up: Fire . . . the stench of cinders and death. A sky roiling with black, sulfurous smoke. Damon had walked the destroyed streets of the city, feeling nothing, simply doing what he’d been brought into existence to do: planting fear, doubt, and second thoughts, and accomplishing it with no emotion at all. He may have lost his demon’s heightened senses, but not the memory of how it felt to have the darkness inside him, the coldness. How it felt to be empty.

“Unlike now,” he murmured, burying his face in Harmony’s curls. “Unlike now . . .”

Time seemed to stand still as the sun slowly rose. It reached the level of the windowsill and spilled into the bedroom, waking Harmony. “I suppose we should get up.” Her voice was thick from sleep and spent passion.

Damon pulled her close. Slid his hand down her warm belly to find her moist and hot. “Why not stay abed a while longer?”

“Mmm.” Harmony turned in his arms and they kissed, and then he loved her, slowly, carefully, savoring her. Afterward they drowsed in each other’s arms. Damon had never imagined this sort of contentment existed. This happiness. He did not want the day to arrive and interrupt it all. And apparently, neither did his lover.

They dozed a while longer until Bubba came to the bedside, whining to be let out. Since more than dogs could squeeze through the dog door in the kitchen, Harmony kept it locked at night.

Damon offered, “I’ll take him.” Naked, he flung open the door to the solitude of the backyard, scratching his chest as he yawned and waited as the dog trotted onto the lawn.

Bubba lifted his leg and did his business, but instead of returning, he darted across the lawn, barking his announcing-visitors bark.

“Who’s here?” Harmony called from the bed.

Damon squinted toward the road. “Someone’s driving through the front gate. ’Tis a large, silver boxy vehicle.”

“Is it a Humvee?” Harmony’s voice sounded a wee bit strange.

“I dinna know,” he said. “But the license plate says . . . #1 Pastor.”

“Oh, no! No, no, no.” Harmony leaped out of bed, tripping in the tangled sheets as she shoved one arm into her robe and then the other. Damon’s heart sped up at her panic. “They’re here. I can’t believe they’re here. Why do these things always happen to me? I try to live a godly life, and I do . . . well, except for last night, and I don’t regret that for a moment, but this—this is just so typical of my life.” She whipped the robe around her lush body. “I am so busted.”

Damon grabbed her shoulders and steadied her. “Tell me. Who is in that car?”

“My father. My family. They showed up one week early!”

Fourteen

After the initial burst of panic from the shock of her family’s unexpected arrival blew past, Harmony forced herself into combat mode. It was like the time in Iraq when the shell hit right outside the hospital.

She shoved the rumpled quilt over the sheets, collected scattered pillows, and arranged them hurriedly, wondering where she could arrange Damon where no one would notice him but quickly coming to the conclusion that not a single nook or cranny in the farmhouse would hide a six-foot-five-inch-tall ex-demon.

The doors to the Humvee slammed. Her heart tumbled as she peeked around an eyelet curtain. “They’re unpacking the car, they always do it before coming in, and they’re slow. It’ll buy us some time, but precious little. Just enough time for a shower, I think.” She slapped her hands on his gorgeous bare butt and pushed him toward the bathroom. “We have about two minutes. Maybe less. So I’m coming with you.”

Damon appeared delighted by that fact, until remembering the car in the driveway. Harmony pulled him under the gushing water with her. “This is going to be the fastest shower you’ve ever had.”

They soaped each other hastily.

Harmony grabbed blindly for two towels as water from her soaked hair streamed over her face. “Here’s the plan. I’ll get dressed and go meet them. You go out the side door—grab anything, tools, whatever, make it look like you were working—and I’ll bring them inside and distract them with breakfast.”

He brought his hand to her cheek, a calming touch. “I willna do anything to embarrass you.”

“I know, honey. I know. You’d never embarrass me, Damon. I’m proud to be with you. It’s just that . . .” She waved at the bed. “This isn’t exactly proper behavior for a pastor, and especially for Reverend Faithfull’s daughter.”

He pressed a hurried but heartfelt kiss to her lips. “You dinna need to explain. I know what to do.”

Harmony uttered a prayer of thanks for Damon’s understanding as he grabbed his clothes and hurried out the side door.

Somehow she got herself together, pulling on yoga pants and a T-shirt. She secured her thick mass of soaking wet curls atop her head, jamming in a couple of pins to hold it in place, and burst outside, where Bubba pranced and jumped around her family and their suitcases. Car doors slammed, and her family bustled around the luggage, chattering and laughing, clearly excited to be there. Harmony smiled, her heart filling at the sight of them: Daddy tall and graying, but still so handsome, looking strangely underdressed in his sweatshirt and ironed Levi’s; Mama, regal as always in her role as Reverend Jacob Jethro’s wife but as light on her feet as the star athlete she once was when she met her husband at their high school track meet; Harmony’s oldest brother, Jake Jr., was busy unloading the trunk—one thing about the Faithfulls, they didn’t travel light. And Robbie had come, too, at sixteen the youngest Faithfull, attentive and respectful as he helped Great-grandmother Eudora step down from the rear passenger seat.

Harmony gulped, her stomach dropping. What would the woman see? What would she know? Too much already, Harmony thought, remembering the phone call with her father, when Eudora seemed to know about Damon.

Walking carefully, methodically, Eudora leaned on her cane. As always, she was dressed to the nines: a sapphire blue skirt set, with clusters of pearls clipped on her ears and around her neck, and a chocolate brown wig slightly askew. Step by careful step, she walked around the front of the truck, sucking on her false teeth. Her cane sank into the squishy, damp grass, and she stopped. Frowning, she shook her head in disapproval. Wheeling a bright red suitcase, Mama joined her to stare at the clods of displaced sod, the gouges and skid marks, the broken sprinkler heads, pieces of tattered cloth, and someone’s forgotten sneaker.

The ruined yard.

“Hell’s bells,” Harmony whispered. She hadn’t realized so much damage had been left behind. Her shaking hand crept up to the little cross she wore around her neck. Lord, give me strength—oh, and the creativity—to come up with some really good answers to their questions . Then, with her mouth formed into the biggest, most welcoming smile she could muster, she glided out to them, her arms wide open. “Wow, isn’t this just the best surprise!”

In the next instant, she was swallowed up in a huddle of love, hugs, and kisses.

“We were going to spend this week in Rocky Mountain National Park,” her father explained, “but when we saw the exit leading to Mysteria—”

“We simply couldn’t pass it by,” Mama finished for him. “I had to see my baby.”

Eudora grasped Harmony’s hands in hers. Her skin was once the color of rich caramel; now it was almost transparent over a network of bluish veins. Despite mild palsy, her grip remained as powerful as her intense gray-brown eyes. “Ah, you’re happy, girl, aren’t you?”

“I am, Great-grandma,” Harmony replied shyly. “Very happy.” She knows what you did last night. The thought popped into Harmony’s mind, clear and simple. Her first instinct was to look away, to break the eye contact, but she stayed strong. Fact: Eudora knew what was going on between her and Damon. No way could she hide it. The best Harmony could hope for was for Great-grandmother not to say anything.

“What happened here?” Mama waved a manicured hand at the lawn.

“Um, a circus,” Harmony blurted. Good one. “Yes, we had a bit of a circus here yesterday after services.” That wasn’t really lying, was it?

Mama brought her hands together in delight. “Isn’t it wonderful, Jake? Our girl’s as creative in spreading the good word as you.”

Harmony shrank back in shame as her father puffed himself up. “I’m proud of you, Harmony. So proud of what you’ve done here in so short of a time.”

Oh, boy. If you only knew.

“You got someone to put in sprinklers,” Jake commented. “Looks like a first-class job. You didn’t do it yourself, did you?”

“I did,” said a familiar deep voice.

Harmony’s heart bounced as Damon strode toward the group, a length of PVC pipe and a new sprinkler head in one hand, his other hand extended in welcome. “I’m Damon, the church groundskeeper.” Dressed in clean clothes, his hair brushed neatly away from his freshly shaven face, Damon looked so bright and alert that no one would ever guess he’d been doing anything other than . . . well, than what he’d been doing all night.

Harmony blushed; she couldn’t help it. “I’d been looking for someone to hire, a handyman and groundskeeper, when Damon came along looking for work. He’s been wonderful, such a help, a blessing, truly.”

At her gushing, Damon seemed almost bashful. The part that touched her the most was that it wasn’t an act. “Reverend Faithfull needed someone for the heavier work so she could concentrate on the church. I’ve been busy making repairs and working in the fields”—he pulled a plump ear of corn from his overalls pocket, to the obvious delight of her family—“and once Harmony approves the plans I’ve drawn up for the barn, Mysteria Community Church will have a new social hall and gym.”

“We will?” Shocked, Harmony watched Damon withdraw a folded piece of paper from his pocket. On it was a detailed drawing that he’d clearly spent a lot of time on and that she’d known nothing about. “Well,” she said, “as you can see, Damon is indispensable.”

Eudora cackled and patted his hand. “I see a lot of things about Damon.”

Harmony’s smile was wooden at best. Why, oh, why did she have to have a seer as a great-grandma? Why couldn’t she have a normal family, who wouldn’t be able to tell that she’d acquired a decidedly out-of-the-ordinary boyfriend?

“You’re a good boy,” the old woman said. Then she winked. “Good, good, good.”

Damon coughed. It was the first time Harmony had seen him blush.

Eudora ran an admiring gaze over Damon’s muscular frame, nodding, her eyes crinkling, then she gave Harmony an admiring, conspiratorial he’s-hot wink before hobbling away to lead the clan to the house.

Harmony sidled up to Damon as her family walked on ahead. Pointing to her eyes, she whispered, “She’s a seer. She can read thoughts sometimes. Just don’t say it out loud.”

“But she knows, lass. She knows what I am.”

“She knows what you were.” Harmony took a deep, calming breath. “And all we have to do is keep the rest of the family from finding out.”

It was like old times with the family hanging around the kitchen counters and table just like they did in the big house in Oakland. After everyone had had a tour of the property, the church, and the house, Harmony prepared a late brunch, laughing and catching up.

Bacon sizzled in a cast-iron pan; grits bubbled thickly in a pot, while Mama stirred gravy for the fluffy, towering biscuits in the oven. Eudora sat at the table, sucking on her false teeth, while the men argued about basketball. “We didn’t have basketball in Scotland,” Damon was telling them.

“Hoops after breakfast,” Robbie decided.

Her father wouldn’t hear of letting Damon sneak away to work, and held him captive in the kitchen as if he were already a member of the family. Damon soaked up the noise and laughter. Harmony’s heart squeezed tight when she realized that this was something he’d never had—a family.

This was all going much better than she’d expected. When was the other shoe going to drop?

It’s not going to drop. After yesterday’s disaster, what could happen today that would be worse than that? Smiling, Harmony set the table, expanded with two extra leaves, and placed a strawberry dipped in powdered sugar as a garnish next to each person’s antique china coffee cup.

She straightened, admiring the festive look the fruit and china brought to the table, and was about to tend to the bacon when in the corner of her eye she saw something move.

She blinked. Surely it was lack of sleep playing tricks with her vision. Please, Lord, let it be that.

She waited for more movement. Nothing. She was seeing things. As soon as the food was ready, everyone sat around the table. Damon, bless his sweet heart, pulled out her chair, taking cues from her father and brother Jake, who did the same for Mama and Eudora.

Even though only one-third of the Faithfulls were in attendance, they were a noisy group, and the conversation filled the small kitchen. Dishes were passed around. When everyone’s plates were filled, they joined hands to say grace.

In the hush that came over the room, Harmony’s coffee cup scraped sideways. Her hand shot out, stopping it. “Fly,” she explained urgently, her heart in her mouth. “They’re really in abundance this time of year.”

The moving cups had been no trick of her eyes. She prayed for inspiration, for an excuse, an explanation, anything at all to hop into her head and out her mouth, but the prospect of monsters from Hell appearing while her family was here had all but paralyzed her.

“Hold Great-grandma’s hand, baby,” her mother urged. “Your father wants to say grace.”

Ever so reluctantly, Harmony withdrew her hand from the cup and slid her fingers back into Eudora’s cool, dry palm. As Reverend Faithfull’s resonant voice boomed, everyone’s eyes were closed, except for Harmony’s. Eyes wide open, she stared at the cup. But from across the table, she heard a soft scrape. Heart pounding, she watched three of the cups slide across the table, pushed by the strawberries. Switching positions, the cups moved around in some sort of paranormal shell game. Harmony made a squeak, and both Eudora and Damon squeezed her hands.

“He plays with you because you don’t know how to fight him,” the old woman whispered. Instinctively, Harmony knew her great-grandmother meant the Devil himself. “If you fight his evil with goodness, he’ll lose interest and cease his games. Not forever, mind you, but for now.”

Damon murmured back, “My powers, they are gone.”

Eudora clucked in disapproval. “They’re different now, your powers, not gone, and stronger than ever for the enemy you will face for a lifetime.”

Mama opened an eye. “We will discuss the flies once your father is done speaking.”

They were silent for a moment, then their furtive whispering continued.

“Harmony has never accepted she has powers,” Eudora continued, “but she’s come into them now. It’s what drew you to her, Damon, and her to you. And what still attracts Satan to you both. He feels the power, the power of good, and it threatens him.”

With that scary thought lingering in the air, Harmony’s father finished grace. “Amen,” they all said, and with a clattering of plates, silverware, and voices, the brunch began.

Harmony’s appetite had vanished. Damon sat tense and ready for battle.

“Who moved the strawberries and mugs during grace?” Jake Jr. asked, laughing. “You, Robbie?”

His little brother looked indignant. “It wasn’t me.”

“When we were kids, we used to play pranks when everyone’s eyes were closed during grace,” Harmony explained to Damon. To the others, she said, “I . . . um, thought it’d be fun to take a trip down memory lane.”

Everyone moaned at her. “Harmony . . .”

Her laugh was brittle. “Sorry, it was too much fun to resist,” she said, thankful for the chance at an excuse for the displaced cups.

Then her strawberry bounced into the air. She snatched it. Before she could take a bite out of it and pretend nothing was wrong, she saw a tiny green creature hanging from the stem.

A little green man.

“Ah!” She dropped the berry into her grits with a noisy plop. Her mother glanced at her sharply. “A caterpillar,” she explained breathlessly. “The countryside is full of them.” Where did the green man go? Was it drowning?

Then Damon’s cup jerked forward. His hand slammed over it. “Aye, nothing we do seems to stop them.” Then he leaned over and whispered in her ear. He sounded sick at heart. “Snotlings.”

“What are those?” Her voice sounded strained and shaky, and a little bit crazed. “Wait, it doesn’t matter. How do we get rid of them?” She reached for the pitcher of water, and he caught her hand.

“Water has no effect,” he whispered. Harmony could see her family trying to catch a snatch of their hushed conversation. “They are the smallest of the green-skinned races. The orcs and goblins use them as slaves for simple tasks because they’re not intelligent creatures.”

A snotling peeked out from under her father’s plate. Harmony watched in dread as her father cut into his strawberry with his knife and fork. “They seem smart enough to me.”

“I mean, they are not a threat on their own to other creatures. They form gangs to attack.”

Jake Jr.’s strawberry rolled to the edge of the table. He caught it in his palm before it leaped off the edge. “Your table needs leveling, kiddo,” he informed Harmony. “The food is rolling off.”

She made a weak laugh. “There’s still so much to do around here.” Something green darted across her plate. She squished it under a biscuit. Her mother frowned at her, as if she were a child playing with her food. But that impression was better than the alternative.

The fork on Great-grandma’s plate rattled. Utterly calm, Eudora covered it with her napkin. What if Daddy’s plate was attacked next? Or Mama’s? What if they saw they weren’t caterpillars or flies? Perspiration trickled between Harmony’s breasts. Her heartbeat was erratic. She was never going to make it through this meal without passing out. Short of screaming fire, how was she going to evacuate her family from the kitchen?

“Bullies,” Damon muttered softly. “That’s all they are. Ye canna be afraid. Goodness will always win out. We are stronger than them. Far stronger.”

“Then why do they keep returning?” Harmony whispered.

“Because they can,” Eudora said. “Damon is correct. You have the power to eliminate them.”

“We’ve tried. Nothing works.”

“Call a pest control company,” Jake Jr. suggested, biting into a piece of bacon.

“Monday,” Harmony mumbled. “I’ll give them a call. If I’m not dead by then.”

The old woman frowned. “Satan torments you because your panic makes it fun. Take away the reason for his amusement, and he’ll forget about this place and move on. Not forever, mind you, but for now.”

Harmony tried to read the woman’s mysterious expression. “How do you know so much about Satan?”

Her eyes seemed suddenly ancient. “Oh, we’ve crossed paths before.”

“Grandma . . . please.” Daddy shook his head. “Let’s keep our mealtime conversations on happier things. Heaven, for instance, as opposed to Hell.”

Eudora placed her hands in her lap, primly, but Harmony didn’t buy it for a moment. “It’s always good to be grateful for what we have so much in abundance in this family,” she reminded him. “Our goodness.”

Murmurs of agreement went around the table.

Eudora continued with her little homily, addressing her father, even though Harmony knew the lesson was intended for her and Damon. “Because of your position and power, Jake, Satan toyed with our family more than once. He places temptation in our path, tries to ruin us, but I’m always ready for him. Always ready.”

She took Harmony’s hand and Damon’s and brought them together under the table. Damon’s fingers were hot and dry. Her body gave a little leap, remembering the feel of that hand sliding over her bare skin, doing the most amazing things. . . .

A cup clattered against a plate. Harmony squeaked and tried to pull away, but Eudora hissed at her. “No.”

“But—”

“No!” Eudora placed her arms over Harmony’s shoulders, Damon’s, too, and drew them close. “Believe in your power to defeat him, and you will. Fill your minds with goodness, and together push it outward. He’ll not be able to stand against you.”

“That sounds too simple.”

“It is. That’s what too few people remember. Good and evil. Right versus wrong. Yes versus no. There’s nothing complicated about it. Good repels wickedness. If it were otherwise, the world would have gone to hell in more ways than one eons ago.”

“Aye,” Harmony heard Damon murmur, as if he understood.

“Hold it right there, you three.” Robbie pushed back from the table. “Great picture!” He snapped a shot on his digital, and in the distraction of showing everyone the image, Eudora spoke under her breath to Harmony and Damon.

“Whenever it seems the Devil is near, join hands and think of goodness—of God.”

“Like a séance?” Robbie asked.

Eudora frowned at him. “Eat your eggs. Go on,” she urged Harmony and Damon. “The two of you. Try it. You are weak alone and most powerful together against the force of evil. Gather the light of goodness around you, the power, and then use it to fight Satan—to thrust him away. Let the light expand out from you, then push. Together, you will not lose.”

“Grandmother,” Daddy warned.

“Hush, boy! Can’t you see I’m teaching a lesson here? What is it with this family sometimes?” Eudora made a cluck of annoyance. “Together you can fight him off. And in fighting him off, you can fight them off.”

“The snotlings,” Harmony whispered.

“Now, let’s practice. Close your eyes and hold hands.”

Damon’s hand closed over Harmony’s as he shut his eyes. Their arms rested on Eudora’s lap, on the bright blue wool of her skirt.

“You, too, girl. Close your eyes.”

“Yes, Great-grandma.” Oh, how she didn’t want to listen! Not with little green men on the loose. If her mother were to see them, or Daddy, then the explanations would have to follow, and they’d learn about Damon—

“Now,” Eudora growled.

Harmony squeezed her eyes shut.

She could hear something scratching on her plate. Maybe the snotling was trying to dig out from under the biscuit. If she could just squish it back down . . .

But Damon held fast to her hand. Eudora pressed her hands over their clasped ones. “Think of good . . . as hard as you ever have.”

Harmony pursed her lips and concentrated, thinking of heaven and light, of faith and eternity . . . and the quiet hush of a snowy morning, of the softness of a baby’s head, the ripple of grass in the fields . . . the tenderness of Damon’s kiss, and that way he looked at her that morning in the twilight of dawn, when he’d held her so close. . . .

To her amazement a sense of assurance came over her, a strange and quiet confidence. And then, she sensed the press of Damon’s mind against hers, the first time she’d felt him reaching out to her with his thoughts. Taking a deep breath, she opened up and let him in.

A burst of light exploded behind her eyes. Damon’s hand convulsed in hers, and Eudora made a quiet sound of approval. “Yes, children. That’s what you do. Now fight. Push.”

Gather the light, Harmony thought. Gather the light and throw it outward. In her imagination, she visualized pooling her strength with Damon’s, and together they chased away the shadows, letting the light seep into every crevice, letting it pool and overflow, until there was no darkness left.

The table started vibrating. Harmony’s eyes shot open. The orange juice in everyone’s glasses shook, and the silverware rattled.

“He’s angry,” Damon murmured.

The shaking continued and Mama made a gasp. “What is it, Jake? An earthquake?”

“A small aftershock to one we had some time back,” Damon explained with utter calm.

The little kitchen chandelier swung crazily, and juice splashed on the tablecloth. But Harmony wasn’t afraid anymore. She had control now. “Bring it on,” she told Lucifer and gripped Damon’s hand with all her might. “I’m ready to kick some devil’s ass.”

“Harmony!”

Harmony smiled a bit sheepishly at her mother’s incredulous glare. “Sorry, Mama. It just slipped out. Great-grandma’s got me all fired up about good versus evil.”

Her brothers laughed.

A tearing noise dragged all their gazes upward. The tremors had knocked the chandelier loose. Plaster sprinkled down. It dropped a couple of inches, swinging on its wire. Then it plunged to the table with a mighty crash.

The tremors stopped. Bracing herself, Harmony glanced around the table with the fallen chandelier looking like a gaudy centerpiece. The strawberries were behaving like strawberries were supposed to behave. Same with the cups. And no little green men cavorted over the tablecloth.

“Yes,” Harmony whispered. “Yes. Thank you, Great-grandma.”

Cackling softly, Eudora patted Harmony on the thigh and resumed eating her breakfast. Jake Jr. moved the chandelier to the floor, and Mama plucked a piece of plaster out of her coffee. After a few nervous comments about the rarity of earthquakes in the Rocky Mountains, the conversation returned to its normal volume and enthusiasm.

“A toast,” her father called out and raised his glass of orange juice. “To getting to know our daughter’s new friend. Damon.”

“Do you think you can join us for Christmas, honey?” Mama asked him. Then her apologetic gaze swerved to Harmony. “Or will that be too soon?”

Harmony smiled. “No, not too soon at all. I’m kind of hoping he’ll be staying around for a while.”

The look in Damon’s gold-brown eyes was one she’d never forget. “Aye, lass. I’ll be around for a while. As close to forever as heaven allows.”

Harmony was terrified no one would ever return to church after the flying monkeys, but as the week went on the casseroles started arriving, brought by sympathetic townspeople, and even cookies, baked, incredibly, by the terror triplets Withering, Scornful, and Derisive. Jeanie stopped by, of course, and the Tawdrys, Mrs. O’Cleary, and her great-granddaughter Annabelle, all impressing the Faithfulls with their good words about Harmony and Mysteria Community Church, while Damon devoted his energy to acting the part of the perfect suitor, an ex-demon trying to win the hand of the preacher’s daughter. It drove home the uniqueness of Mysteria. Everyone was welcome here, no one was ostracized, no matter who—or what—you were.

When the crowds returned that next Sunday, Harmony smiled from the pulpit at her father, looking so proud as the guest of honor in the front pew. Next to him were her brothers, Mama, and Great-grandmother Eudora, whose hand rested affectionately, and rather appreciatively, on Damon’s rock-hard thigh.

Later that night, after the Sunday dinner dishes were cleaned and put away, and her family was gathered around the television in the living room, Harmony and Damon sneaked outside.

Taking her hand, Damon led her to the garden and under the apple tree where he’d landed naked only a few months before. Fireflies floated all around them. Frogs and crickets provided a ceaseless chorus. Damon slung his arms low around her waist and pulled her close. They stood there simply holding each other. With soft, warm lips, he nuzzled her neck. “Good, good, good,” he murmured.

She giggled. “They’ll be gone tomorrow and we’ll finally have some private time to . . . well, you know.”

“Aye, I do know. How could I forget? I’ve thought of it day and night, lass. Day and night.” He slid his hands over her butt and pulled her closer. Yes, he was thinking about their lovemaking, no doubt about it. His body made that fact obvious.

She tipped her head to gaze up at him. “At one time, you weren’t too happy about being mortal in Mysteria. Does this mean now you are?”

Damon chuckled. “Aye. ’Tis all I ever want to be.”

“When I used to look at this church, all I could see was its emptiness, but it was my emptiness that was the problem,” she confessed. “And then you came and everything changed.”

His handsome face was luminescent with love. “This is only the beginning. ’Twill get better and better with us.” Swallowing nervously, he crouched down on one knee. “Forgive me if I dinna do this properly.” Then he clasped her hands in his. “Harmony, will you do me the pleasure of one day taking me as your husband?”

She whooped then slapped a hand over her mouth. “Yes,” she mumbled joyfully through her fingers. “Yes.”

He lifted her up and swung her around, kissing her hard. Then, with devilish intent and one hell of a bad-boy grin, he carried her swiftly away from the house to where the lights didn’t reach.

And so, the fair maiden married her dark knight the following spring, and all was right between them . . . or as right as life could be in the strange little hamlet of Mysteria.

That was, until they began to wonder if demon genes could be passed on to their children, the first of which arrived within the year. But that is a story for another day. . . .