Free 03 Before The Devil Knows You're Dead-Speak Of The Devil by Patricia Eimer Page A

between all of us we’ll think of something. What about surgical gloves? They should keep a virus out. That’s what they were made for, after all.”
    “Maybe.” I nodded my head weakly.
    Malachi stood and walked over to me, his eyes a brilliant, flaming red. “I will find a way to fix this, my princess.”
    “What if it can’t be fixed?”
    “We’ll fix it even if I have to go and hunt down Death itself and make him come back up here to take the job,” Matt said.
    “I know where he lives,” Malachi said. “I’ll open a phase portal, you get some rope and a baseball bat, and we can have him back here within the hour.”
    “No,” I said before they could continue planning felony kidnapping against an unsuspecting angel. “I’ll go. I can talk to him.”
    “You can’t,” Tolliver said. “What if you accidentally touched him? His mortal body would be destroyed before you ever got him back here.”
    “That means it’s up to me and Mal,” Matt said and then stood. He started toward the door, his shoulders tense. Mal followed along behind him, his hands clenched into tight fists at his side, as they stalked out of the apartment and Mal slammed the door closed behind them.
    “Where do you think he’s going?” Lisa asked as we all sat there, staring at the door.
    “If I had to guess?” Dad asked. “The Angel Formerly Known As Death is about to get unexpected visitors in his beachfront home. One of whom may be carrying a baseball bat.”
    Chapter Seven
    “Come on, you.” Hope leaned over my bed later that afternoon, doing her very best not to touch me, her long, perfectly straight blond hair hanging less than an inch from my nose as she jabbed at my foot with something pointy. “Up and at ’em. Rise and shine and all that good crap.”
    “Up and at what?” I flopped over and buried my face in the pillows. Couldn’t she see I was in the middle of an epic sulk? Less than six hours ago, my whole life had gone down the toilet and her response was “Up and at ’em?” Hello? Wasn’t I allowed at least a small hysterical cry?
    “We’re going to start finding a way to get you past this.” Hope poked me in the ass with the pointy thing and I briefly considered poking her right back. “Now get up. The pity party is over.”
    “It was just getting good.” I burrowed my head farther into the pillows.
    “Get up.” I felt a swift jab in my side and my head jolted up. Whatever she had I was going to take it from her and get my first soul as the Angel of Death—by beating my older sister’s skull in with a… A mop? Damn it, there was nothing even remotely stylish to be salvaged from this.
    “Or what?”
    Hope, holding the mop by its head, tapped me in the ribs with the end again. “Or I’m going to go dunk this in the toilet and come back in here and hit you with the sponge end and, FYI, your dread demon doesn’t always flush.”
    “Eww.” I sat up then and swatted at the end of the mop. “Why do you want me to get up so bad?”
    “Because we can’t solve this if you’re lying in bed sulking like some sort of angsty damn teenager. Matt and Malachi are off abducting the original Angel of Death. Jesus and Tolliver are questioning everyone they know, and everyone that everyone they know knows, to try to find some way to solve this.”
    She poked me again, this time in the kidneys and I rolled over, trying to get further away from her and the pointy mop end of pain.
    “Look, Lisa is on the Internet scouring medical journals for ideas to neutralize your killer touch in case the guys can’t find anything. Dad has Mom at home with him so she’s out of our hair while he and the Alpha strategize about how to break their own rules without somehow bending reality in a way that shoves its head up its own ass. We’re all working to fix this, so you need to get up and help us.”
    “I’m in quarantine. So I am doing something. Something very important if you think about it.”
    “What?