Waltzing into Damnation (The Deception Dance Book 3)

by Rita Stradling

  “Shut up, Nicholas.” Leaning down, I scoop Nicholas bunny into my arms and attempt to hold his wriggling little body.

  “What do you want?” I demand as I fight to squeeze the bunny to me.

  “I want you to kill Andras, the Grand Marquis of Hell. I want you to thrust his being into non-existence. I want his legions to disband and scatter, his seat to sit empty and in eternal shame, and I want to be what made that possible.” He stalks even closer, his breath heating the air between us and reeking of sulfur.

  “You really hate him,” I say because I have no idea what to say and stating the obvious feels relatively safe right now.

  Nicholas bunny starts making that odd hissing sound that was way closer to cute than menacing, and I pinch his mouth shut with my free hand.

  “My only fear is that you will fail me. If you fail, Andras may learn of my aiding you, and I do not seek open war with the Grand Marquis.”

  Barbas reaches forward, and I’m locked in a moment of petrified terror. I don’t know whether to dodge like we’re in a fight or keep pretending like this is a normal chat. My hesitation makes the decision for me, and Barbas scratches Nicholas bunny on the forehead.

  It’s a benign gesture, but I can’t help being hyperaware of how close his hand is to my throat, three, maybe four inches.

  Nicholas bunny bucks and wiggles in my arms, and I squeeze him to me. I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t want Barbas to eat him for being an idiot either.

  “I am prepared to make a deal with you, Raven Smith,” Barbas says as he still scratches the bunny’s soft gray head.

  Deal.

  A deal.

  It’s such a small word, such an overused word, utilized in conversation both over the silliest instances and the direst. I’ve made so many deals with demons at this point, my entire existence is a series of deals. Every deal is a brick, and slowly but surely, they’re building a wall around me, closing me in alive.

  How many deals do I have left?

  “I’m listening,” I say, but my words come out more of a whisper than anything.

  “I’ll give you the information you need to head on the path of discovering how to kill Andras. In return, you will seek that information until you discover the way to destroy him. You will not stop until you have the information.”

  “I’m not going to give up,” I say automatically, “if it’s possible, that is.”

  “To obtain the information is possible. And when you have that information, you will use it to kill him. You will not change your mind. You will not let his incorporeal being survive.”

  “No. No deal. I won’t do it if it means killing someone—someone not Andras.” I shake my head. “This is way too broad of a deal—the answer to killing Andras could be any horrible thing I’m not willing to do. It could be destroying a village.”

  His fist closes over Nicholas rabbit’s head.

  “Stop it,” I hiss, but he’s not squeezing, just holding Nicholas’ little bunny head in his massive hand. Thankfully, Nicholas has the wisdom to stop his furious wiggling.

  Barbas’ yellow eyes burn into mine. “You will not choose to spare Andras, you will not choose for him to live.”

  “I want him dead as much as you do,” I whisper. “I heard your little twist on words with my sister, but you and I know the only lingering emotion I have for Andras is hate.”

  His eyelids narrow. “Hate occurs in two parts of the brain that activate with another strong feeling; can you guess which feeling that is? I believe you humans say it’s two sides of the same coin?”

  “I don’t love Andras, not anymore.”

  “You hate him now, but at the end of this journey, will you still? Or will you betray me? Will you let your former affection win if given the choice? I do not know this for sure.”

  “I won’t,” I say, and even I can hear the truth ringing in my voice. “There’s no way I’m going to choose Andras’ life over Stephen’s.”

  “If you choose to spare Andras at the end of this, your life is mine. I will collect you the moment you show him mercy, and I will take you down to hell with me. Hellfire doesn’t burn you. You will survive a long time before I end you.”

  “What if I say no?” I ask.

  “Then I kill you now, along with your sister Linnet Smith and Nicholas Tapper. Cassidy Dixon will come with me.”

  Great.

  So, the deal he’s giving me is to succeed in the quest I’m already on, or he’ll kill me. And if I don’t take the deal, he’ll kill three people I care about and me. It just can’t be that straightforward. I always miss something, and I know it has to be something big here.

  “Exactly,” he says.

  “Please let go of my bunny before I discuss this more with you . . . as a show of good faith,” I say.

  “If you wish.” He releases the bunny’s head, stretching his fingers out a few times before dropping his hand to his side.

  “If I take your deal, you need to leave me, Linnie, Nicholas, and Cassidy alive, unhurt, and you need to release us. You can’t keep us prisoner anywhere.” I’d been burned by that technicality before.

  “That is agreed upon.” He nods.

  “And if you’re just going to tell me who or where I can get information from without giving me the information I need to do it, you need to take all four of us there—unharmed, alive, and free,” I reiterate because it really needs to be.

  “Agreed. Upon the completion of this deal, I will take you to the man who can help you obtain the information, alive, unharmed, and free,” he says.

  “And all I have to do is keep trying to find a way to kill Andras and not change my mind about wanting him dead? I don’t have to actually kill him if I’m not willing to do what it takes to kill him? I just can’t have a change of heart toward him specifically?”

  “Exactly.” He grins, and the smile chills me to my core. I have to be missing something. “How would you know if I had a change of heart or if it was something so evil, I wasn’t willing to do it? How would you judge that?”

  “A mark.” Reaching down, he touches the arm that doesn’t have Räum’s mark.

  Don’t let yourself get a fourth mark.

  Stephen’s words echo in my mind. He never explained what would happen if I had a fourth mark, but it sounds like it’s some sort of power boost.

  “Räum’s mark changed me, gave me powers. Will yours do something like that?” I ask.

  “There might be some leakage, but unlike Räum, I don’t want to give my powers away.”

  Really. I don’t have a choice, not at all. Steadying myself, I tell the demon, “I accept your deal.”

  Chapter Ten

  Three Days Before

  We stand there, the demon and I, staring at each other as if we’re each waiting for the other to speak. Or perhaps I’m waiting for crashing symbols or something other than the silence that follows me making my fourth marked deal with a demon. Part of me can’t believe my luck at the deal I need to make to get all of us out alive. Basically, I’m agreeing to Barbas helping me on my quest in exchange for me keeping going unfalteringly on the same course.

  Most of me is waiting for the catch.

  Demons never make deals that don’t have a big catch, and it’s more than possible that some footnote to our recent deal means I just signed the world up for a demon apocalypse.

  Scratch that; it would be demon apocalypse the sequel, in which the stupid heroine makes the same mistakes she’s been making all along and everything falls apart.

  Yep, most of me is waiting for that shoe to fall.

  “Drop the bunny,” the demon says.

  “What?” I look down at bunny Nicholas, who’s glaring daggers at me.

  Obviously, he’s not a fan of the deal I just made. Maybe he would have preferred me to allow the demon to turn us all into animals and eat us?

  I set him down, and he immediately rams his head into the demon’s leg.

  The demon completely ignores bunn
y Nicholas, who just keeps on headbutting Barbas’ black suit pant leg and reaches between us.

  I lean back. “You need to touch me? No one’s ever needed to touch me before to do the mark . . .”

  He snarls. I didn’t mean it as an insult, but he definitely takes it that way. Instead of reaching for my arm, he reaches for my head. He’s so fast, I barely see him move, and then he has a vice-grip on both sides of my head. “Please struggle. It will hurt more if you struggle.”

  Even though I try to control it, I know my whole body trembles as I glare up into his face.

  Barbas’ skin feels warm and flesh like, even if this close, his golden inhumanness is more obvious. If his skin holds any blemishes, scars or imperfections, I can’t see them. There isn’t even any hair on his hands or arms, or, you know, visible pores.

  A splitting pain strikes up the side of my head behind my ear, and I try to yank away, but his grip tightens into an unbreakable restraint.

  As quickly as the pain struck, it vanishes, and Barbas releases me.

  I reach my hands out to catch my balance and then return my glare at Barbas.

  He only grins, but thankfully, his sharpened teeth recede, leaving a set of pearly whites in his too-perfect face. “Now listen to my words, Raven Smith, for this is information I shall never repeat in the time of men and angels. A sorcerer once summoned Satan into a circle of power. This was at a time when Satan was dissatisfied with his agent on Earth, Andras.

  “The Grand Marquis Andras had in his hubris, seduced the wife of a living prophet of the angels, Tobias Leijonskjöld. The wife had fallen for the demon and run away with Andras to another country where her husband’s family could not find them. At this point in time, Satan expected Andras to leave this woman, Elena Leijonskjöld, and return to his true purpose. Andras did not. For many decades, he remained with this woman, ignoring his duties and denying his calling.

  “The body Andras possessed then once belonged to a young magician named Karlsson, who drank Andras’ blood to increase his powers. Before Andras took Karlsson’s body and life, he had a brother, Ulric, who had similarly drank the blood of the Grand Marquis of Hell, strengthening his power.”

  He pauses as if giving me a moment to digest the giant info-dump he just took all over me. “Andras possessed Karlsson, seduced Elena, and then Karlsson’s brother Ulric summoned Satan?”

  He doesn’t respond to my half-question, half- repeating what he said, and just continues info-dumping all over me.

  “As I said in the beginning, Ulric summoned Satan in a time when Satan was angry with his Earth-bound agent, Andras. Ulric sought a way to kill Andras inside Karlsson’s body and leave Karlsson alive after the demon’s death. Ulric sold his soul for the information, and he believed the knowledge he gained could both kill Andras and save Karlsson, or so he told his mother, Nadya.”

  “But he didn’t tell his mother how to do it?” I ask.

  “As I said, no.” Barbas growls before continuing. “Nadya and Ulric travelled up to England and found Elena alone. Satan had called Andras away to aid Ulric in his purpose. Ulric believed only Elena could kill Andras and save his brother, so he told her the secret given to him by Satan.”

  The implications of his words smash into me. “You mean he told me—in my past life, this man Ulric told me how to kill Andras? That’s what you’re saying?”

  A small smile touches the corner of his lips before he plunges into the rest of his story. “Elena was shocked by who Andras truly was. All these years, she had not known what the man she cared for was or what he did. At first, she resisted, but eventually she agreed to help Ulric. Ultimately, she told Ulric she would not do it.”

  “And then Ulric killed Elena . . . he killed me,” I whisper. “And Andras killed him right after. But . . . okay, something in this story doesn’t add up. Where do you come in, exactly? How do you know all of this if you weren’t there?”

  “Andras went to great lengths to conceal Elena while she was alive. He was easy enough to track down after her death, as was the story of Elena’s death at the hands of a Swedish soul-bound soldier—or that was the tale that was spun. Ulric was soulbound, but so much more as well. I took it upon myself to track down Ulric’s mother Nadya before she too died.” He sighs. “Alas, only to find that Ulric had never told her the information. She suffered before she sold her soul to hell, and then a demon possessed her body and inhabited it until Tobias Leijonskjöld killed the human vessel.”

  Full circle.

  Sort of.

  I knew chunks of the story from what Tobias Leijonskjöld himself told me on his deathbed two years ago, but not the bulk of it. Knowing this full version doesn’t improve the account of events at all; the entire story is only more horrible and sad for all involved.

  My past-life self definitely isn’t the best character in the account. Though from my strange dream memories, I get the feeling there’s more of a story there too.

  All I want to do is ask Barbas to repeat the information and maybe wait for me to find a recording device before he does. But from the whole ‘Now listen to my words, Raven Smith, for this is information I shall never repeat in the time of men and angels,’ I’m pretty sure my request would be a non-starter.

  “So—you’re saying I know the information?” I ask because that’s what I think he’s getting at.

  He cocks up a dark, sculpted eyebrow. “Do you know?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know. But I do see your secrets. I know about your dreams as Elena. Her memories are inside you. This is the reason I chose not to kill you today. Satan may never give this information again; it was only in his rage that he gave it. In your mind is a record of how to permanently kill the Grand Marquis, and you have now committed to pursuing the information until you can accomplish your task.”

  Oh no.

  I step back from him and toward my sister, who is still miraculously curled in a ball on the floor.

  “I read your secrets as easily as your expression.” He steps forward, meeting my pace. “You want to keep from me your lack of control over the memories, but I already knew.” He nods as his shoulders shake with mirth. “To fulfill the terms of our bargain, I’m sending you and your three companions now to Santiago Diaz Martin, the greatest living hypnotist in the world. From my limited understanding, it is only by the abilities of a hypnotist of his unmatched power that you can unlock your past by recovering your memories.” A wide grin spreads across the demon’s face, and I can just feel that second shoe about to drop and stomp me in the face.

  “As Santiago is the only person who can unlock your memories of Ulric, if you fail to convince Santiago to uncover your memories before moving on to any other pursuit, it would also mean that you stop searching for the truth. I suggest you convince Santiago to help you regress your memories before Andras comes to collect you, because even if Andras forces you to halt your quest at any time, you’re mine. The instant your every waking moment stops being directed in the quest to kill Andras, I’ll drag you down to Hell by your pretty, shiny hair.”

  “That’s three days—you’re giving me three days to figure out something you haven’t figured out in centuries?”

  “Depending on if Andras forces you to leave Santiago, I’m giving you three days to convince the hypnotist to unlock the information in your mind. After that, it is my guess that your pursuit of answers can be accomplished anywhere, as the answers are inside your own mind.” He shrugs, and a peek of fang shows at the corner of his mouth. “That’s only a guess though, I am not precognizant. You’ll have to follow the terms of our agreement no matter the situation you are in, or I will make good on my threat.”

  Shaking my head, I insist, “Even if Andras takes me, I can still focus on finding answers—”

  “Of course,” he interrupts, holding up a finger and pressing it to my lips, “but do remember there is only one Earth-inhabiting mortal who can unlock this secret. You could, of course, summon Satan for the answer
s if you fail to gain Santiago’s help in time. He may even give you the answer you seek; I hear he’s hoping to make a deal with you.”

  I lean back away from Barbas’ finger just enough to give myself a little space. I don’t want to have any part of Barbas touching me, but I’m also afraid my rejection of his touch might incite him to touch me again just to prove something. Thankfully, he drops his hand to his side.

  “What are you going to do with the goats?” I ask because I know I should ask something. The crowd out there is far from my favorite people, but the Leijonskjöld soldiers don’t deserve to be slaughtered, no matter their many and varied faults.

  “I’ve never liked the taste of goat. Rabbit, however . . .” We both look down to where Nicholas is still head-butting the demon in the legs, making no difference whatsoever.

  “Does he have the intelligence of a rabbit now?” I ask with a bit of a wince.

  “No, he should have retained all of his human intelligence and cognitive ability,” the demon says with a touch of confusion in his voice.

  “He’s smart—I think, he’s just a bit hard-headed and stubborn. My guess is, he doesn’t want to risk biting you, he can’t use the guns and . . .” I just sort of trail off because why the heck am I trying to defend Nicholas’ intelligence to a demon? Shaking my head, I focus back on Barbas. “Is there any other information you want to give me? What are we waiting for?”

  “Absolutely nothing, Raven Smith.” Barbas raises his hands, and the bedroom around us explodes in fire.

  Everything happens at once. Nicholas bunny hops toward Cassidy, I leap toward Linnie, the entire world falls away in a blazing white light, and all of us plunge into water.

  Chapter Eleven

  Three Days Before

  My head plunges underwater, and I’m so shocked, I just sink. The bright sun glimmers through the shining surface of a pool, and my black hair fans out around me. Colorful bathing suits and the bare legs of swimmers undulate through the water.

  A moment later, Nicholas bunny plunges down beside me while bubbles erupt from his little mouth. His paws scrabble wildly, struggling to swim.