“Babe, I was wrong, you’re not looking great at all,” Rosie intruded into her reverie. “I’m sorry. I was insensitive. You’ve been doing so well lately that I was convinced you were getting over it all. Today…not so much. That ‘glow’ might actually be a bit of a fever. Are you sure you should be at work?”
Becky smiled and shook her head, absently scrolling through image folders on her desktop. “I’m fine, Rose, I promise. Just got distracted a little. That dream—” She stopped.
“What about it?” Rosie grew concerned.
“It seemed so real. I dreamed that Ryan was…with me. I could literally feel him in the room.” She flushed, cleared her throat, mortified at the clarity of the images in her mind – as if her friend could have guessed what she was thinking. “I suppose it’s just been so long since…I’ve been held. Maybe I want it so badly my mind is creating its own reality. I dunno…maybe you’re right, maybe I should find me a man,” she grinned and shrugged, trying to make light of it. Rosie saw through her act.
“Oh, hun, be gentle on yourself. I know you’re probably hearing that 18 months is enough time to grieve, but nobody can set a time limit on these things. You’ve barely known a life without Ryan in it. Hell, I barely do! He left a gaping hole in my world, and we weren’t even lovers. I can only imagine what you must be going through.” She reached out and put a hand on Becky’s shoulder, squeezing lightly, knowing that anything more would release the floodgates.
“Well, good afternoon, ladies!” A sharp female voice broke through their moment. “Taking a gossip break already? Or are you going to try to convince me that you’ve been pulling an all-nighter and you’ve been here since yesterday?” A beautiful blonde stood at the entrance to the cubicle, hair slicked back into a perfect chignon, her crisp black pencil skirt and jacket a stark contrast to her starched white shirt. She narrowed her eyes at Rebecca. “Although you might just convince me. What happened to you?”
“Stella! Perfect timing, as usual,” Rosie muttered under her breath and rolled her eyes before turning to face the other woman with a saccharine smile. “Nice to see you looking so well-groomed today. Haven’t had time to ladder those stockings crawling under the boss’s desk yet?”
Stella snorted. “Screw you, Roseanne!”
“If that’s an invitation, I decline!” the brunette quipped back.
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, I imagine … tramp!” she spat.
“Ooh! Good one, Stell!” Rosie responded, undeterred. “Unusual to see you using your mouth for witty retorts instead of ‘the usual’.” She winked and lewdly bulged her tongue against her cheek while jacking her fist in front of her face.
Stella gasped and stepped back. “You bitch!”
“Takes one to know one, sweetie,” Rosie retorted as the other woman spun on her heel and stalked away. “What, leaving so soon? No, please don’t go. I was just learning to love you. Stella! Stellaaaa! Stelllllaaaaaa!” she called out in her best mockery of Brando’s Streetcar role. Rebecca clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter.
“Oh my god, Rose, you’re perverse! I can’t believe you’re actually well-educated,” she choked out.
“My education prepared me perfectly to handle assholes like her,” Rosie laughed. “I know exactly when to engage in a battle of wits and when to go straight for the groin. Meanwhile, did you see her hair? If she pulled it back any tighter, we’d be able to see up her nostrils!”
Rebecca was in fits of giggles, totally distracted from her previous mood. “Shaddup! I can’t breathe!”
“Maybe she’s trying some new facelift technique,” Rosie continued, on a roll. “God knows the botox is pointless – she’s probably never cracked a smile in her life. Why worry about crow’s feet? Miserable cow.”
“Cow, Ms. Will?” a male voice interrupted. “I take it you’re talking about our new logo for the dairy campaign?”
Rosie snapped her mouth shut and then opened it again. “Jeff! Hi! We were just … umm …” She stuttered to silence.
“Never mind, Rosie, I’m just yanking your chain. Stella Segal stopped in at my office to tell me you have something to show me,” Jeff Summerside, head of the design department, smiled warmly. “So, what have you got? Cows could work, you know. Or… or…” He glanced at Becky’s screen, perplexed. “Kittens?” He frowned. “I’m not sure…”
“Omigod, Jeff, I’m so sorry!” Becky covered her eyes with a hand and groaned. “Rosie and I were chatting when Stella interrupted us. I’d been flicking through images from…”
“Another of your pro bono projects?” he finished, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded slowly, utterly embarrassed. “I’m really sorry, Jeff,” she repeated. “I swear I don’t let it chew into company time. I—”
“Don’t sweat it, Becky,” he smiled to set her at ease. Jeff loved smiling. Before his successful marketing career, he’d been a teen catalog model – that smile had probably sold a million baseball caps. “The two of you are my top creative team. I don’t care what your ‘process’ is, it works. And if you want to save kittens in your spare time, I’m all for it. Just sell some yogurt while you’re at it!” he chuckled. Becky’s weakness for charity organizations was well-known, and animals were one of her favorites, especially since her apartment block didn't allow pets. Her quirky memes for homeless animals regularly went viral on social media. She smiled ruefully and tried to brush some wayward curls into obedience.
Rosie broke the tension, snapping off a smart salute and clicking her heels together. “Yessir, Sergeant Summerside, Sir! Selling yogurt, on the double, Sir!” she quipped. The women collapsed into giggles again, and Jeff headed back to his office, shaking his head.
“Nutjobs,” he chuckled.
“That was close,” Becky grinned.
“Tell me about it,” Rosie agreed. “That damn woman won’t rest until she makes everyone as miserable as she is. I’m sure she has a screw loose!”
“Don’t be ugly, Rosie,” Becky chastised her. “She’s probably just having a bad day.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “Bad life, more like,” she huffed. “Stella’s had it in for us since she first started at this company! You’d think she’d soften up with you after Ryan’s accident, but it just made her worse. She’s like a flipping shark! Smelled blood in the water and went in for the kill!”
Becky had to admit, the woman had been unforgiving, even in her darkest hours. She battled to have any warm feelings toward the woman – which was unlike Rebecca, who could see the good in almost everyone she met.
“Okay, enough messing around – let’s get to work,” Becky changed the subject and got back to business.
Chapter Four
“So, has it begun?” The expressionless voice seemed to waft through his consciousness. The face of the speaker was equally blank, although the man’s keen dark eyes were clearly capable of unnerving intensity.
“Yes, Lord Salazar.” His response was clipped. Xander always found the need to stand to attention when in the presence of the Council – a reaction which he was sure they purposely orchestrated. He was standing in a vast hall, surrounded by a circle of podiums, each occupied by an iridescent presence. The hall – if it could be called that, for it had no walls, floors or ceiling – stretched beyond the boundaries of his sight, enclosed by a shimmering field that resembled the ripples of a heatwave. Blue sky enveloped them, clouds scudded beneath them, and when he looked down, Xander could see what he imagined was the whole of the Earth at his feet.
“And are you satisfied? You have made the right choice, Anaxandridas?” Salazar’s voice remained devoid of inflection. Xander blinked and returned his attention to the tall, lean man before him.
“I am. It is right.” His own tone was equally neutral. There was a pause, a swirl of cool air, and then another voice chimed in.
“Is she the one?”
“She is,” he replied, turning to face the new addition to the conversation. The C
ouncil of Ten Powers was a constant in his existence, had been there since he’d begun his cursed path millennia ago. Yet, despite the thousands of years that bound them together, he still found it difficult to read their expressions. Probably because they so often chose not to take on a tangible form. Every interaction he’d had was a blur of impressions: light and dark, iciness and heat, love and hate, day and night, pleasure and pain…but with all these extremes, they remained consistently neutral. As if they took satisfaction in embodying everything and nothing at the same time. It was only when they came together as a group that he got to see them in their earthly forms – perhaps because they’d found it easier to recognize each other this way too. Now, he spoke to the man called Cato, a tall, powerfully built figure whose leather tunic looked designed to emphasize his muscular frame.
“How do you know this,” Cato pressed, his mouth set in a grim line.
“I feel it,” Xander answered simply.
“Feel?” came the question. “After all this time, you still trust your feelings?”
“It’s all I have,” he said, grimacing. Unlike many other denizens of Purgatory, he clung to the familiar form of himself most of the time. Although he was no more substantial than the wind, he chose to appear as the man he’d been all those years ago. Tall, muscular, athletic…a warrior. It was what felt right. But he could be anything. Anyone. All it took was a simple shift, like changing his mind, he could change his image.
‘Why not?’ he thought. ‘Even as humans, we are simply a collection of cells held together by the strength of our DNA. Why not change our appearance at will?’
Over the years he had taken many forms. First, as the demon he’d become, gnarled and hideous, a twisted, slavering fiend. He’d felt he deserved it…until he had realized that his victims had suffered more than he did. The terror in their eyes as he’d taken them – it was worse than his fear of the eternal fires. What woman wanted to be ravished by a monster? Eventually, the visits had disgusted him, even though he needed them to survive, drawing life essence from their pleasure as they had writhed beneath him.
When his spirit had left his body, he’d simply become a fragment of that man; a swirl of the energy that had driven the human shell. Now he opted for what felt familiar – honed fighter’s body dressed in warrior's leathers, thick dark hair swept back, smooth-shaven jawline defined by a precisely groomed strip of beard.
The only thing he struggled with were the eyes. His own had been dark, intense. Now they glowed red when he wasn’t controlling them. He imagined them to be a reflection of the hellfires that waited for him if he failed.
For his women – that is how he viewed them, his women, the humans who held the key to his redemption – he’d turned to familiarity too, taking the form of a lost lover, someone their heart desired. It made it easier for them to accept his visits. His skills made it easier too. With his new ‘life’ had come a mastery of female pleasure that he didn’t quite comprehend.
“Think of it as a perk,” a spirit known as Alaric had said during one of their regular gatherings. Human nature being what it was, it was no surprise that he wasn’t the only one of his kind. The otherworld was literally crawling with damned souls seeking salvation. Alaric was one of them, a Visigoth warlord who claimed he was responsible for the fall of Rome. He maintained an irreverent attitude, but beneath it, he admitted he had learned humility.
Today, however, there was no gathering of souls. Simply another summoning by the Council to test his case. During his trial, when he’d hung on the verge of damnation, it was these entities he’d stood before, and they had been the ones who had offered his chance of salvation.
Then, as now, he’d been standing in this vast, borderless hall, surrounded by these shifting presences, knowing he was being judged. As time had passed, he’d come to know their names – Salazar, Calliope, Azazel, Lilith, Cain, Jezebel, Arawn, Cato, Imentet, Marcia. Some seemed familiar to him, others were entirely foreign but eventually, he’d grown to realize that they represented the darkest parts of almost every society and creed. Yet, in themselves, they were not evil. They were there to oversee and guide those who came after.
At the time, he’d been too stunned to respond. Yanked to his untimely death – although in war, no death is truly untimely – he’d still been reeling from the realization that he was no longer alive. His faith had told him that there would be an afterlife, but in truth, he’d never really considered what it would be. That he was destined to pay for his crimes made sense to him, but he was ill-prepared to stand trial to defend himself. Now, once again, they had questions for him.
“The woman, Rebecca, is pure,” the voice of the spirit Azazel stated simply. He didn’t have to confirm the statement, they already knew everything.
“Yes,” Xander responded, regardless. “She is … angelic.” He whispered the last, remembering the sight of her, golden curls framing her face like a halo. Even her name was perfect…Rebecca…the beauty that binds. She was all he could think of. This was another characteristic of his kind. They would single out one perfect lover and become enthralled. Obsessed.
A voice snapped him back to the present.
“Good. She will be your last. You know this,” the woman, Lilith, intruded. Her voice was sharp. Of all the Council, she’d seemed to favor him the least. Xander had never determined why, merely put it down to a rivalry between members. If this was the case, she and Salazar were probably not good friends.
He nodded. His time was up. Each visitation over the millennia had been an opportunity to redeem himself – yet each had failed. He knew he’d improved along the way, learned lessons in humility, patience, temperance, even kindness. It wasn’t enough, though – they needed more.
“Use the tools at your disposal, but know this, if this woman cannot see who you truly are and love you…if you cannot give everything up for her, you will return to face Council, and this time, you will be condemned. We’re sure there will be countless souls in hell who are eager to see you suffer the same fate you doomed them to when you took their lives,” Salazar continued. In dealing with Xander, the spirit often assumed the role of spokesman for the Ten, but now, as one of Anaxandridas’ original supporters, he spoke for himself. “Xander, I would not like to see that happen.
“Yes, my Lord,” he replied, aware of the murmuring voices that swirled around him. He glanced around the circle, taking in each face in turn. “I’ll get it right this time.”
***
“So, what’s the verdict, Xander?” asked Alaric, as his presence rejoined the group of souls swirling around the central hall that they found themselves drawn to when not on an earthly assignment. Some might find it odd that the space had taken the identity of an oversized sports club, but considering the strange assortment of characters that populated Purgatory, suspension of disbelief had become wired into Xander’s mental make-up. He was dead yet visited the living as a sex demon, why would he ask who’d picked out the décor in Hell’s waiting room? Though if he reeled his mind back, the place had often changed its image over the eons – he’d hung out here when it was a saloon, a grand courtyard, a sultan’s sumptuous baths… A sports bar seemed as good a venue as any.
What did remain constant, was the steady hiss of sound, as if he was surrounded by the whispers of every spirit in the universe. The occupants of Purgatory were uniquely attuned to these whispers, because it was from these quiet thoughts, silent screams, burning moans that they received their callings. It was as if they were inexplicably connected to specific living souls who might hold the key to their salvation. Even now, he noticed how, occasionally, an entity would pause, listen intently, and then flash out of the space they all shared. It was what he had felt with Rebecca that first time, her need had sung through the universe like a clarion call. He’d known it the moment the energies had snapped her heart’s connection to her lover as he died. He’d felt her soul searching for comfort. In some strange way, he wondered if Ryan had called to him too, seeking a
guardian for her when he was gone.
“Spartan!” Alaric’s deep voice bit into his reverie and he snapped back to attention. Xander had never understood real friendship outside of the brotherhood of war, where the constant proximity of death drove men to forge bonds that may not otherwise exist. Alaric was as close to a friend he’d ever known. Xander faced the man now, a rough-hewn mountain of muscle who, like him, had led men to battle, and often death. Perhaps it was why he respected him more than so many of the others in this place.
“I have been given a chance,” he replied. “They say it is my last one,” he added. The mountain nodded. Despite his barbarian appearance, there was an intelligence to Alaric that had served him well through the ages. He’d quickly found his way through the tangled world they existed in, understood its bizarre rules better than any other.
“Who is she?” he asked. “What is your connection?” The question didn’t demand an answer – in many instances, the Incubi had no idea what their true mission was. Many, like Xander, toiled for centuries, even millennia before they achieved their ascension.
Xander shook his head. “I wish I knew, but she is…unique…this much I know. An angel.”
“They are all angels, my friend,” Alaric replied. “If only we’d appreciated that before we got here.” He ran a glance around the unearthly space around them. “What did the Council say?”
Saved By Her (Soul Searchers Book 1) Page 4
