Dan rolled over and opened one eye only enough to catch the green glow of the clock radio.
Seven A. M.? Seven A. M.?!
In the instant when he was certain that his alarm had failed to go off and that he was late for work—really, really late—his entire body tensed, his heart raced and his mouth went drier than North Carolina pavement on a hot day in August. Then he relaxed. Day off, he thought. Day off. Day off. He willed his heart to slow down, reminding himself that he wasn't late. Day off. He had a glorious day alone, with nothing to do but sleep, or watch television, or kick around town looking for a movie that was worth seeing.
He let go of his tension. He breathed in and out slowly, and like a cat, stretched his entire body and yawned, feeling every muscle pull deliciously. When he finished, he wrapped his arms around his pillow and curled on one side. The waterbed shifted around him, conforming, seeming to blend with him until his awareness of it as a thing apart from himself disappeared, the bed temperature, neither too cool nor too warm, lulled him. He drifted in a soothing, linen-scented, floating half-dream lit by the soft warm fall of dappled sunlight through patterned curtains . . . .
"YOU'RE GOING TO BE LATE!"
The bellow, next to his ear, shocked him out of his fetal curl. He tried to bound upright but the waterbed confounded him, sinking under him where he most needed resistance, rising up where he most needed clearance. The sheets came to life, rolling around him and tangling his flailing legs, until, flopping like a fish, he heaved himself over the side of the bed, and trailing sheets and comforter and pillows, crashed to the floor.
A devil stood over him. Oh. Right. Puck stood over him, grinning slightly, shaking his head, gleaming like an oversized, butt-ugly penny. "You okay?"
Dan rubbed his head. "Other than the concussion, you mean? Yeah, I'm swell." He looked up at the devil. "What are you doing in my room?"
"It's after seven; you're going to be late for work." Puck motioned toward the shower with his thumb.
"Puck, before the temptation to strangle you overcomes me, I should tell you that today is my day off."
"Yeah? Yesterday your boss' secretary told me that I had to be kind of presentable because today you were going to take me to meet sponsors for a couple of . . . on-site promotions?"
Shit, Dan thought. He's right. I was supposed to call in and find out which sponsors were wiling to meet with him.
"You're right. I forgot. Give me a minute to get showered and changed. You can borrow some of my clothes . . . you sure can't go in the shorts and T-shirt."
"Why not?"
"Because it shows too much of you, Puck. Way too much. The less anyone can see of you, the better. If we could hide your face under a paper bag, we'd be in there." He sighed and untangled himself from the sheets. "Dammit. And I was ready to sleep, too." He climbed to his feet. "Puck?"
"What?"
Dan pointed at his bedroom door, which stood ajar. "Don't come in here without knocking. Okay?"
"That was wrong?"
Dan nodded emphatically. "Way wrong. Always knock on a closed door before you enter it."
The devil nodded. "Sorry. I didn't realize that was wrong. We don't have doors in Hell. Well," he shrugged. "We do, but they aren't doors anyone would want to be behind. And the people who go through them don't come back out. Doors are still a bit of an awkward concept for me."
"S'alright."
Dan shaved and took a quick shower. He spent more time than usual picking out his clothes. The local businessmen weren't impressed by his usual look—loud Hawaiian shirts and khakis. No pleasing some people. But he had a couple of silk shirts—one of those would work. Something light-colored, he thought; after all, the rain had stopped, the sun was back, and by noon it was going to be hotter than . . .
Well. No, it wouldn't. But it would be pretty hot.
He found one in a dusty green. He dug though his jeans until he found a cream-colored pair of chinos. He thought about adding a vest, but decided against it. In fact, he rolled up the sleeves and decided to skip the tie. He was a DJ, after all. People cut him some slack. And besides, the night before, Channel Five had predicted the temperature would hit a high of one hundred and one, with eighty percent humidity.
He shoved his wallet into his hip pocket, then went to tell Puck it was his turn in the shower.
"Wha—?"
Dishes, empty and full, covered the dining room table. Puck waved at him. "Hey, come on! We made breakfast for you!"
Oh no, he thought. The kitchen . . .
Puck followed Dan's look. "I wouldn't go in there just yet. But don't worry; the imp will have it clean in no time!"
Dan studied the meal Puck had prepared. Sausage, swimming in grease. Bacon, done to a carbon black.
"What's that?" he asked Puck.
"Huh? Oh, those are eggs."
Dan shook his head. "I've never seen blue eggs before."
"Oh, that was the imp. It got a little crazy with the food coloring." Puck held up a bowl. "Want some grits? They were blue too at first. Then I dumped two sticks of butter in." The devil looked at the bowl. "What color would you call that, exactly?"
"Baby-shit green. Look, Puck, I appreciate the effort, but—ah—I'm not much of a breakfast person."
Puck, crestfallen, studied the food spread across the table. "Oh." He ran a talon across the tablecloth they'd put out (Tablecloth? I don't own a tablecloth. )—across the bedsheet they'd put out, and sighed. "You don't mind if we eat it, do you?"
Dan spread his arms. "Please. I'd hate to see it all go to waste." Especially since that looks like most of what I had in the fridge. Dan stepped past the table into the kitchen.
"Christ!"
Puck materialized at his shoulder. "Where?!"
Technicolored glop smeared down the walls and across the floor and hung in pendulous globs from the ceiling—one reached the critical breakpoint as Dan glanced at it and dropped to the floor with a splorch. Bright orange globlets spattered across the floor and Dan jumped back to avoid being hit. Broken glasses and broken dishes and pans full of burned food filled the sink and overflowed onto the counter. And someone had unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper in great loops across the table, between the table legs and across the spindle arms of the lamp. "It looks like chimpanzees went to war in here. Or like some of my old fraternity buddies dropped by for a drink," he added.
"Well . . ." Puck stared at his feet. "Fetch started it."
"Fetch . . . started . . . it." Dan remembered that tone of voice from his childhood. "Fetch, huh? You're supposed to be the responsible one," he said, and immediately wished he hadn't. The line—patently his mother's—sounded wrong coming out of his mouth, and made him feel suddenly old.
"Fetch will fix everything. Might as well start now." Puck walked back into the dining room and picked up the imp by the scruff of its neck. He whispered into its ear, then dropped it to the floor.
The imp squeaked, then dashed by Dan through the doorway.
"It'll be fine, you'll see," Puck said. A loud crash came from the kitchen. "It's really good at putting plates back together too. Come on, sit down and have some coffee."
I don't think they're going to be able to stay with me after all, Dan thought. Maybe the street would work until someone else found them a plaice.
"You know what the problem is with you humans?" Puck poured coffee into Dan's Renaissance Fair mug. "You don't know how easy you've got it. If you had to spend one day in Hell, you'd have a different attitude, let me tell you. Hey, is black okay? We're out of creamer and milk. Oh, and sugar. And bacon, sausage, eggs, flour, orange juice, salt, pepper . . ."
Oh my aching bank account, Dan thought. He took the mug and sipped. "Oh!"
"What's wrong now?"
"Wrong? Nothing." Dan took another swallow. "This is the best coffee I've ever had."
"Yeah, if there's one thing a devil knows about, it's how to apply heat."
"I'll bet." He didn't do anything to encourage that line of conversation, and this time Puck opened his mouth, then closed it again without adding any further insights into his work. When he finished the coffee, he rose and put the cup down on the table.
"Get your shower and put on the clothes I laid out for you. I'll call Darlene and find out who we need to meet today. And hurry, okay? We may need to get on the road right away."
By the time the devil had showered and dressed—dusty pink seersucker jacket, navy shirt, navy tie, and navy slacks—Dan had his day's itinerary. Amazingly, it was a long one. Darlene said everyone at the station had been stunned by the response among advertisers.
He hung up and turned to Puck. "They're ready to give you a chance, man. Let's go."
The devil nodded and shuffled toward the door. Dan noticed his unshod clawed feet—definitely not in keeping with the rest of his look—and sighed. "Shoe store first." He'd keep the receipt and pay for the shoes out of his own pocket.
Halfway down the stairs he remembered the imp. "Wait. We've got to go back."
"Why?"
"Fetch is in the apartment."
"I know. It's still cleaning." Puck grinned, and this time Dan was certain his fangs really were a little smaller. "Don't worry. I told it to scrub the place down, then crawl into the tub until we got back. It won't hurt anything, I swear. Anyway, you don't want it around your sponsors. If it gets excited, no leg is safe. Understand what I'm saying?"
"Oh. Yuck." Terrific, Dan thought. Either he trusted the imp alone in his apartment for the day or he risked ruining the entire Makeover project because it had a penchant for the shin shimmy. His mom always said if no choice was good, to take the lesser of two evils.
Or leave the lesser of two devils.
Or something like that.
"We'll leave it."
"Good. Don't worry! You won't recognize the place when we get back."
Probably not, Dan thought. Probably not.