Happily Ever Awkward (The H.E.A. Files, #1)(49)

Paul couldn’t believe what he was hearing. With a snort of disgust he said, “You’re as bad as my father—” Then he remembered this was not his father, that this was an omnieverything heavenly being, and he immediately dropped to his knees. “Have mercy, lord! Forgive my disrespect. I meant no offense!”

“None taken. I like your father’s style.” He reached out and gently rested his hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Now it’s time for you to go.”

“But… but Lord Jahalael, you have to step in!” Paul pleaded. “I’m cursed, you must know that. I’ll just fail again!”

Jahalael looked upon Paul with the kindest, most compassionate eyes in the universe. As unending rivers of love and warmth flowed out of him, he said, “Paul, that curse is a lie, nothing more. You give it power over you if you choose to believe in it. So… don’t believe in it.”

Paul blinked his transparent eyelids.

He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.

“Um… that’s it? Really?”

“Yes,” Jahalael said.

Then he said, “No.”

Then he sagged back in his cloud and said, “Okay, Paul, I’ve got to level with you about this, and I don’t want you to get mad. Yes, you are cursed… but it’s my fault. You see, I set the whole thing up to skew the odds against you.”

“What?!”

“When you’re playing dice with the universe, you’ve got to do something to hedge your bets. But I can fix you — that’s my ace in the hole!”

He pointed a finger at Paul and a little squiggle of lightning zapped out to touch Paul’s chest right above his heart. And that was it.

“There, all better,” Jahalael concluded, as if that did, indeed, make things all better. “So, are you ready to go save the world now?”

Paul was not. He felt no different than he had a moment before. He just felt angry. “I can’t believe it. My own god. You had no right!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Jahalael said, tapping his lips thoughtfully. “Your creator… omnipotent… all-knowing… technically, I had every right.”

Paul couldn’t argue with that. “Maybe so, but… do you have any idea what you put me through all those years? For a bet?! Why… why should I do anything to help you?”

“Paul,” said a soft, deep voice behind the prince.

A stern-looking figure wearing the most glorious suit of shining armor Paul had ever seen stepped before him. In his hand he carried something Paul knew well from the sketches in countless history books — a distinctive oblong shield.

“Sir Whitethorne?” Paul said as the air whooshed out of him.

The mighty warrior looked even more regal in death than he had in life. Paul immediately fell prostrate before him.

“Hey, who’s the god here?” Jahalael asked with mock indignation.

Sir Whitethorne leveled his iron gray eyes upon the prince. “If you can’t do it for the universe, or your father, or even for him… then do it for me. I’m dead and gone, but the world still needs heroes. The world needs you.”

The Father of Chivalry gently tapped Paul’s shoulders as if knighting him.

“You’re the only one who can save her, Paul,” the legendary hero said. “And she needs you — now.”

Paul looked up and his shimmering, translucent image flared hotter, his eyes flashing brighter. “For her. Yes, you’re right. I would die for her — again.” He leaped to his feet. “I must return! And I will make Seeboth pay!”

Jahalael nodded appreciatively. “Righteous anger — it’s a good look on you.”

He waved his hand and Paul dissolved.

Moments later, back in the casino, he waved his hand again, rattling a pair of dice.

“Come on! Daddy needs a new halo!”

He rolled, and thunder split the sky.





34



THE DEVIL YOU KNOW


A motley collection of ships rocked at anchor before the ramshackle outpost of Vanguard. Beneath a murky sky a’grumble with thunder, surly sailors slouched along the dock toward the island’s lone structure, a seedy, tottering patchwork of driftwood and wreckage that defied all reasonable theories of engineering and architecture to remain standing.

This tavern was called The End of the World, and that night it was unusually still.

Except for one voice.

“You think you little flesh sacks have it tough? I could tell you stories…”

A dark and smoky no-nonsense affair greeted the hardened visitors who chanced within the tavern. At that moment, though, every hardened visitor was finding it surprisingly difficult to maintain his or her hardness. Every one of them cowered at their tables, their frightened eyes frozen on the bar.

The barkeep himself, a towering man with skull-cracking hands who up until that moment had feared nothing, now busied himself with the improbable task of wedging his body into a six-inch gap between a stack of ale kegs behind the bar.

Not one person inside the tavern wanted to be near the thing that stood hunched over the bar, but everyone inside the tavern was too terrified to move.

Worrt the Demon had that effect on humans.

He towered over the bar, throwing back one ale after another. Already, he had emptied nearly every jack in the place, and they cluttered the counter all around him.