Today is moving day. Thanks to Lucifer and his connections (whatever those might be) we closed on the property that Anastasia finally approved of in what Kathy with K called record time.

 

I stood in the brilliant Florida sunshine, sweating like a draft horse beneath the heavy brocade of my coat. Anastasia directed the movers Lucifer had assigned to us inside the house while I handled the outside.

 

The movers appeared like normal human movers thanks to Lucifer’s glamour, otherwise I imagine the normal human neighbors would be gathering with pitchforks and flaming torches when they saw all the wings, horns, and tails.

 

“That one goes in the backyard,” I told Bartholomew, a young, up and coming imp who toted a wooden stake three times his size that appeared to humans as a huge potted plant.

 

“Got it, boss,” Bartholomew growled in a voice like pulverized boulders.

 

“Where does this go?” A lesser demon we were calling Andy stopped in front of me carrying another stake.

 

“Backyard.” He gave me a salute.

 

“Backyard?” another imp—Fernando—asked. This stake had a body hanging halfway down it that appeared to be a lawn umbrella.

 

“Absolutely not. Front lawn,” I told him, not entirely sure what constituted a lawn, but I’d heard Kathy with a K say it.

 

“On it.”

 

Fernando made for the front of the house, nearly knocking into an older woman dressed in aggressive florals coming up my driveway. I continued to direct my minions, waiting to see what this woman wanted. Battle strategies come into play in social interactions; I was allowing her to make the first move.

 

“Helllloooo!” The woman waved in my general direction.

 

I beckoned her to come closer. “Backyard,” I told the imp carrying my favorite stake, Mehmet.

 

You might find it strange that I named something beloved after an old enemy, after the man who had me executed. I respected Mehmet despite our differences. Didn’t mean I wouldn’t gut him like a fish and leave him dangling on a stake if I met him today. I am nothing if not consistent.

 

“I’m Barb Delancy,” the floral bedecked woman said once she stood beside me. Her icy-blond hair was cut to her shoulders in a severe manner that framed her tanned features to great effect. “I live three doors down from you and I thought I would come over and welcome you the neighborhood!”

 

I craned my neck to see where she indicated with her pointing. A similarly appointed one-story ranch home—a ranch was safer for Anastasia since it offered less places to test gravity—this one painted a unoffensive cream color, squatted behind an emerald green swath of land dotted with large palm trees.

 

“Where to, boss?” Another demon emerged from the moving truck, holding one of my smaller stakes, followed by almost a dozen others.

 

“Those in the front yard.” They trooped by us, each stake looking like a bright pink lawn flamingo.

 

“Aren’t those, uh, festive,” Barb Delancy observed brightly, though her expression belied her cheery tone.

 

I turned my attention to the woman. “It is nice to make your acquaintance, Barb Delancy. I am Vlad Drake,” I said—I hated the name that Lucifer had chosen for me but beggars and all of that—and extended my hand.

 

She gripped my fingers loosely before clasping her hands in front of her stomach. “You have a bit of an accent,” Barb Delancy noted.

 

“I do,” I acknowledged. I saw Anastasia exit the house, wearing a furious expression. “Ah, here comes my wife."