Page 33 of Grave Humor

“Quadruped?”

“Four legs. Shapeshifters include anyone who can transform from a human to an animal without the lycanthropy virus.”

“This is like lycanthropy, then? It doesn’t matter what they actually are, but because horses were the first, the whole species takes their name?”

“Yes. It simplifies things. How are we supposed to name every centaur species? There’s a lot of them.” After a quick count, I spotted seven different species of centaur loitering in the food court. “The food courts in the malls are favored gathering points.” After pointing across the food court to one of the other wings, I picked my way through the crowd, careful to avoid stepping on any rogue tails. “If you want to see all the weird people of the world, you eat at the food court. Within an hour, you’ll see a pretty good variety.”

“This isn’t a pretty good variety?”

I considered the gathering and shrugged. “This is just scratching the surface, I think.”

“How curious. And sorcerers?”

“Sorcerers?”

“Users of arcane arts.”

I frowned, stepping around a few more centaurs of the feline bent. “You’re going to have to help me here. How do they do their magic?”

“Through spell books and spoken incantations and rituals.”

“Those would probably be practitioners. You can’t tell who those are from a glance. You’d have to see their driver’s license. I’m not one, but anyone can learn to be one for the most part. Desperate vanillas will become practitioners to protect themselves if they’re worried. I’ve thought about it, then I could justify that damned ping on the scanners.”

“They are not evil in this era?”

“No. Why would they be? A lot of people pick up a few practitioner tricks. It’s convenient when you can draw a rune on a piece of paper and have it glow in the dark, for example. There are rules about what sorts of tricks people should do. They’re on the CDC’s website. That doesn’t stop people from experimenting with magic they shouldn’t, but practitioners are practitioners. They have their purpose, I guess.”

“Priests?”

“That I can’t help you with. I generally avoid religion. An angel appearing on my doorstep is as close to religion as I get, and let’s just say I’d rather skip that again. I’m pretty sure I’d rather deal with the devil after having an angel show up, but I might give his wife a call. She has to be an interesting woman.”

A faint pop behind me and a faint hint of brimstone in the air froze me in place, and every hair on my arm stood upright.

When the angel had warned me that the devil sometimes listened in on people who said his name, I hadn’t thought he’d been serious.

Eoghan turned. “Well, I’ll be.” The antique whistled. “You’re not anywhere near as horrific as depicted.”

“Your people had overactive imaginations,” a deep voice rumbled, and the stench of brimstone strengthened. “As for you, yes, I do have a rather annoying habit of listening in on people who invoke my name, especially when one of my brothers is involved. Which one was talking about me this time?”

“Dimitri,” I answered, taking a deep breath before turning around to face the devil. The devil wore an Armani, gave the incubus a run for his money in the looks department, had skin paler than mine, and sported a pair of ram horns and flaming hair. “I thought you’d at least have a tan,” I admitted.

“When I want to scare people, I go for the ebon look, but right now, I’d rather mesh. I like keeping people on their toes.”

I pointed at his horns and flaming hair. “You’re not going to be meshing with those.”

Both the flames and the horns disappeared. “How right you are. Naughty horns, showing up. I even remembered to skip the hooves this time. And the wings. Nothing turns heads quite like wings. What brings you to the mall tonight?”

The devil wanted to know about my errands? “I need a phone, maybe a computer, and I was thinking about getting a television.”

Something tickled the inside of my head, and I winced at the sensation. “And you have a good truck for taking it all home with you. Excellent.” The devil rubbed his hands together. “I’m in a mood tonight, so call me Lucy. It beats what my daughter has been flinging at me all day. I could use some sensible company, and it’s not often I can take a night off.”

Okay. The devil wanted sensible company. I looked around, wondering where the hell he was going to find sensible company in my neck of the woods. Shrugging, I gestured in the direction of the cellular service store that actually worked in Sunset somewhat reliably. “What can we do for you, Lucy?”

“It’s less you and more your companion, Anwen. The dragons beat you awake, Eoghan.”

Eoghan sighed. “They’re probably the reason I’m awake.”

“Oh, no. My daughter is why you’re awake. I’d apologize for that, but I’m not at all sorry. It was either that or the beginning of the end. Well, that’s mostly why you’re awake. You were right about there being a node in the area, but it’s not what you think. Alas, you’ll just have to figure that part out. Mostly, you’re here because we missed our date with the beginning of the end.”