Page 59 of Grave Humor

Uh oh. “That does not sound promising. What do you mean by Sunset’s fate?”

“That director has put some things into motion that cannot be stopped. He has awoken the fates, he has summoned death itself to Sunset. Both have consequences. Death had already begun awakening in earnest. Add in the node here, and it was inevitable, I suppose. Some things are. Using the Book of Life contained some of the consequences, but not all. Sunset’s fate can still be altered, but it will require work on your part.”

“On my part?”

“We have rules we must follow—the universal laws. Mortals are often cheerfully unaware of the universal laws. Few immortals can bend said laws. Death is one of them, but even Death cannot break all the universal laws—only a few.”

“Wait. I thought death was one of the universal laws. You can’t raise the dead and bring them back to life.

“No, not precisely. Death, the event, is not the same as Death, the being. Death is a being of three parts. Azrael is one of those parts.” The devil leaned to the side and hollered, “Azrael, come be useful.”

The archangel representing death appeared in the kitchen. “You have a lovely truck, Anwen. Would you permit me to ride in it soon? I would like to try this.”

“Sure. I don’t mind taking you for a drive.”

“My many thanks, Anwen.”

Life had become strange, and I wondered what the town would say about me taking an archangel for a ride in my truck. “Death is a being of three parts. Azrael is the best known of them. He shepherds souls as a being of law and order. Then there is the neutral version of Death, who welcomes all.”

I sucked in a breath. “Eoghan had mentioned death being neutral.”

Eoghan scowled. “Azrael and I do not see eye-to-eye on this matter.”

“You can’t see eye-to-eye with him. He’s hiding his head,” I replied.

The devil burst into laughter. “Yes. All angels hide their heads. There is a good reason for that. To look upon the face of an angel is to look upon His face, and that would result in the destruction of the mortal form. His face is only meant for those who have moved beyond this realm—and those who look upon His face cannot remember it here.”

I frowned, remembering the carvings in the catacombs. “But wouldn’t that make His face the face of humanity? The angels look human. The carvings looked human. His skull was human, but an old human—he lacked a sphenoid.”

The devil’s sly smile chilled me. “Your Eoghan lacks a sphenoid, too.”

That caught my attention, and I straightened, regarding the antique with open curiosity. “Let me feel.”

“Pardon?”

“I want to feel your head.”

Eoghan scowled. “What nonsense is this?”

“Just humor her.” The devil rose and approached Eoghan, waving for me to join them.

I did, stepping closer to the archangels. The unsettled feeling remained, but it didn’t strengthen.

Eoghan heaved a sigh and tilted his head towards me. “I do not know why I’m agreeing to this.”

“It’s not worth the fight, and it proves many things.” The devil patted Eoghan’s shoulder. “It establishes some things for her.”

I touched above Eoghan’s eye and applied pressure enough to feel the shape of the bone beneath my fingertips, moving to the temple towards where the sphenoid would be in a modern person. My fingers located a slight ridge marking where the frontal bone extended beyond where it would in someone like me, a homo sapiens. “Oh.”

The devil took hold of my hand, placing my fingertips near my temple where I’d located the ridge on Eoghan’s skull. “Feel.”

“There’s…” I frowned, giving my skull a rub to discover I had a similar ridge to Eoghan’s. I’d rarely rubbed my temples; I’d been told early I could die if I damaged that portion of my skull. I’d learned later in life my parents had been bullshitting me, and it took quite a bit of force to kill someone with a blow to the temple. “That doesn’t feel right.”

“It doesn’t feel right if you were homo sapiens,” the devil agreed. “That is why your DNA record is unusual. It’s because you are not homo sapiens. But because the CDC lacks DNA records for what you are, they could not match the missing fragments of your DNA. As your arm was injured rather than your head, they had no reason to do a scan of your skull. Had a scan of your skull been done, it would have been discovered you lack a sphenoid. That would have led to some studying on the CDC’s part, especially as both of your parents are homo sapiens.”

Great. I’d gone from weird to weirder. I rubbed the odd ridge I’d never noticed lurking beneath my skin. Had I never noticed it, or had I assumed everyone had the same ridge? “How do you know this?”

“I am who I am, and I am known to cheat as often as possible. It is one of the perks of being the Lord of Hell.”