The Devil's in the Details by Kimberly Raye Page A

so, the less time they have to plot, the better. Did you call Landon Parks to officiate?”
    I remembered her mention of the demon judge yesterday. “Not yet, but—”
    “Do it ASAP. He’s the only one who can officiate. Now,” she went on, “we’ll do it the Saturday after next, around sixish. Also, I was thinking we might include Cerberus in the ceremony. You know he’s always been such a faithful hellhound, and Cheryl here, being the animal lover that she is, suggested he could be the ring bearer—” She stalled in midsentence and gave me the evil eye. “Shouldn’t you be writing this stuff down?”
    I spent the next ten minutes jotting down a ton of notes that my mother had forgotten to give me yesterday, including Cerberus as ring bearer and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as ushers.
    “Oh, and I’m going with thirteen bridesmaids instead of the original twelve because thirteen has always been my unlucky number.”
    A sliver of hope blossomed inside me. Crazy, right? I was the wedding planner. I didn’t have time to be a bridesmaid. At the same time, she was my mother and I was her daughter, and it would be sorta, kinda nice for her to at least ask. “Who did you have in mind?”
    She shrugged. “Whoever. Just plug in some of your cousins and we’ll be good to go.”
    My chest tightened. Not because I was, you know, upset or anything. I barely got a birthday gift from the woman. A heartfelt invite to be a bridesmaid would have been stretching it way too far.
    “Maid of honor?”
    “Cheryl can stand in. She’ll be in charge of most of the duties anyhow. And that’s it,” Mother finished with a quick glance around, as if seeing the apartment for the first time. “This is where you live?”
    “For the past two years. I know it’s a little rough,” I rushed on when her nose wrinkled in disdain, “but I’ve been fixing it up. I painted last month.”
    She eyed the walls. “If I were you, I’d shoot whoever sold you this horrific color.” And then she disappeared in a sharp staccato of heels on hardwood, Cheryl following. The door slammed and I was finally alone.
    Not that it would last. My voice mail was full and it was just a matter of time before more demons started popping in.
    Or popping me.
    I thought of the threat scribbled in blood and my hands trembled. Someone was really and truly trying to scare the bejesus out of me, and they would try again, particularly since I had no intention of backing off. I was going to see this thing through.
    In the meantime…
    I changed into clean clothes, powered up my laptop, and spent the rest of my Sunday morning lining up venues for the wedding from Hell.

    Five hours later, I’d made twenty-three phone calls, left eight voice mails, and withstood two up-close-and-personal visits from my cousins Marjorie and Gregoria, who just happened to be walking by my duplex.
    Um, yeah.
    I’d
so
had my fill of nosy relatives.
    When it came to warding off evil spirits (that’s PC for The Cousins), I should have been an expert. I was an evil spirit, after all, so I’d learned early on about salt, sage, and horseshoes. They were Demon 101. The thing was, I knew that stuff worked when humans used them to ward off a spirit. I wasn’t so sure they would be effective for one demon to use on another demon.
    And I
had
to use something.
    I decided enough was enough after my cousin Portia just happened to drop in. And my cousin Millicent.
And
my cousin Janna.
    I needed some expert advice on the situation, which was why, after fifteen minutes on Google, I found myself near the Galleria, in the old, revamped Montrose area. A row of houses had been turned into a shopping mecca not too long ago, complete with a coffee shop, an Italian bistro, a gift boutique and…bingo.
    Above a white house with bright-pink trim, a neon sign glowed in the window: Bliss, Bling & Otherworldly Things.
    Yeah, baby.
    I headed up the small walkway and pushed open the door. Forget Scottish