by Emma Shade
“Are you okay?” Death asked, his handsome face peering down at me.
“I think so,” I whispered and saw Raven and Coren hovering next to him.
Raven sat next to me on the black leather couch while she blinked back tears. “I didn’t know if we’d be able to save you or not. How did you wake up?”
My eyes swung to Coren. The image of Coren’s decapitation from my vision made me want to cry. The vision from the demon was too real, and I swallowed back the sadness that welled inside of me. Had I begun to develop feelings for him?
Clearing my throat, I said, “I killed it.”
Coren puckered his brow. “You killed an Inimicus inside its own illusion?”
“Yep. I sure did.” I sat up.
The world tilted for a bit and Raven reached out to steady me. I shook my head, letting her know I needed to do this on my own. She bit her lip as she watched me struggle to gain my bearings. Coren kept his hand out in case I tumbled forward or off the couch.
“How is that possible?” Coren asked. “How did you kill it?”
I avoided Coren’s gaze. I couldn’t look at him. Not with that illusion stuck in my head.
Death shrugged his shoulders. “Anything is possible, Coren. You should know that more than any of us.”
My eyebrows rose. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. I was here watching over you is all.” Coren kept his eyes on me to avoid him, but I had a feeling Death knew something about him that Raven and I didn’t.
CHAPTER 16
Find comfort in the chaos.
“Where’s Coren?”
“I snuck away from him this morning, but you can bet he’ll be here in”—I checked the time on my cell phone—“about two minutes.”
Laura’s eyebrows rose. “You have to sneak away from him? Is he abusing you?”
With a sigh, I wished I could’ve said yes. He’d never lift a hand in anger. I began to doubt my judgment skills lately. “No, it isn’t like that. I needed a few minutes away from him. He’s driving me crazy.”
“How so?”
“Well.” I glanced at the door to make sure we didn’t have any eavesdroppers. “He knows how to push all my buttons. He’s constantly around, either yelling at the TV or making me food. Then he’s good looking, but I can’t do anything about it. Not a damn thing.”
Laura wiggled her eyebrows. “He is a gorgeous hunk of man beef, huh?”
“Man beef?” Wrinkling my nose at her choice of words, I said, “I don’t know about that.”
“But you do think he’s handsome?”
“Of course. You’d have to be blind not to see how hot he is.”
A deep voice resonated in the kitchen. “You think I’m hot?”
I froze. Shit. Not even two minutes had passed, but Coren had arrived.
Laura winked at me and I gave her my best I-hate-you-so-much-right-now glare. She had goaded me as soon as she saw him walk through the door. I was going to make her pay for that by giving her dish duty today. As she left the room with a sly grin, I didn’t think she cared.
Not wanting to look at Coren or answer his question, I glanced around the utilitarian kitchen, wishing I’d spot a bottle of tequila, but it was a useless endeavor. SafetyNet banned alcohol from the premises.
“Mara,” Coren said, drawing out my name, “are you going to answer me?”
Finally turning to face him, I asked, “What would you like to help with today? I won’t be doing dishes, so I’ll probably be serving or helping with the kids.”
“You snuck off without me again. That’s dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself,”
“What about Laura? And the people staying here? Can they take care of themselves if a horde of demons shows up?”
Damn. He knew how to hit me in the feels. But he was right. I had put these people and Laura in jeopardy by my actions.
“Who is going to save them from you?” I countered, my voice a bare whisper.
He lowered his voice and took a step in my direction. “Maybe they aren’t the ones needing saved from me. Maybe I’m protecting them from you.”
“I’m not the one who—”
“First, you have a contract on your soul. Second, you hunt demons for a living. Finally, you have Lucifer after your ass, and he’d love to see you land on it. No matter how violent and ruthless, no matter how many people die from his anger.”
I gaped at him. “I’m just trying to help.”
He took another step closer. “What do you think would’ve happened if I hadn’t arrived and masked you being here? Could you live with the consequences?”
I opened my mouth to respond and closed it with a snap.
“These innocent humans would’ve been ripped to shreds and dragged through the pits of Hell. What kind of a monster risks the lives of people they want to help?”
My eyes stung as they watered. Tears accumulated along my eyelids. I looked up at the tiled ceiling as I willed the unwanted emotion away. I felt like an asshole, an utter failure as a person. I had risked the lives of so many people who wanted a fresh start, a new life past abuse and chaos. I had nearly introduced turmoil beyond what they had ever experienced in life.
Turning on my toes, I spun away from Coren and went out the back door of the kitchen. I shivered from the cool air and wrapped my arms around my waist as I inspected the parking lot covered in dried leaves. I took a few deep breaths to calm my thundering heart and blinked away the tears. The door opened and closed behind me, and a warm jacket that smelled like sandalwood and citrus covered my shoulders.
“I know I shouldn’t have said it like that,” Coren muttered, his hands still sitting on my shoulders over his leather jacket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to get through to you.”
I took a deep breath. “I should’ve known better, but sometimes I act without thinking. That’s how I got in this predicament with you and my boss. Sometimes it’s hard to realize you’re the reason for the bad when your heart is in the right place.”
“Sometimes you can try to do the right thing, but it ends up being the wrong one instead. That doesn’t make you a bad person, Mara. You’re only human.”
“Human.” I snorted. “I’m not sure if there’s any humanity left inside me.”
“Yes,” he stated and turned me to face him, “there is. You slaughter demons to save humans, not because you like to kill them because they’re evil. You are a good person in a bad situation.”
We stared at each other; Coren’s face a mask of compassion and understanding. The back door squealed on its hinges and we turned.
Laura asked, “Are you guys heading home?”
With a sigh in resignation, I looked back up at Coren. “This is the one place I feel normal. I can do the dishes, help people, and do mundane chores. I’m asking for your help. Please.”
There was a moment or two of hesitation before Coren said, “We’ll be in shortly, Laura.”
She went back inside, the door creaking behind her.
As I walked toward the door, with Coren behind me, he whispered, “You still owe me, Mara. Don’t forget that.”
So we were back to that. His favor. The one he could collect at any time. I let out a grunt of annoyance, which sounded more like a growl.
He chuckled.
*****
After the shift, we stopped at my coffee haven. I ordered my usual and sat at the back corner booth with my back against the wall. The cool metal of the chair felt good against my tender muscles and I let out a breath. Mopping sucked, but I hadn’t complained one bit. Coren’s black coffee was up in no time and he sat across from me.
I drank a few sips before I set the coffee on the copper table. “So, are you going to tell me what this favor will be?”
His eyes twinkled over the mug. “I don’t even know what it’ll be just yet. When the time comes, I’ll let you know.”
“Are you going to give me more than a moment’s notice?”
&n
bsp; “I wish I could say I will, but I don’t know.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know much, do you?”
“Well, do you know everything you’ll need from Raven, even if it’s weeks or months in advance?”
He had stumped me, so I shrugged.
“That’s what I thought.” He smirked and took a drink of his steaming mug.
“I don’t like owing people. Even if it’s Raven or her father.” I took another sip of mocha goodness.
“Speaking of those two, mind telling me how you met them?”
“When I signed the contract, I could see things here and there. Mostly out of the corner of my eye, but the closer I got to my sixteenth birthday, I noticed two beings hovering near the apartment. I chalked it up to what I saw after I signed the contract, but then my mother died. Her soul was ripped from her body. I saw it happen. To the shock of everyone involved, I spoke to Raven and her father that day. That’s about it.”
“I doubt it’s that simple, Raven.” Coren tipped his cup in my direction with his eyebrows raised.
“Well, that’s the watered-down version. I’d rather not relive my life before her death, especially after it was relived with the Immicus demon.” I shuddered when I remembered the other illusion, and then my heart constricted as Coren’s dark gaze bored into mine. I imagined his face spinning away after I sliced his neck. I knew it wasn’t real, but the image floated in my memory like smoke in the wind.
His head tilted as he watched me. “Are you okay?”
I blinked a few times to clear the image scorched into my mind and nodded. “Yeah. Just bad memories. Memories I’d rather forget.”
Hoping for a change of conversation, I almost jumped for joy as Coren said, “I’m sorry you had to see all that again. Anyway, what are the plans for tonight? More demon hunting?”
I looked at the time on my phone. “Of course. But I have a few hours to take a nap.”
“You can nap after all this caffeine?”
“I can nap even if I have only been up for an hour. Let’s go.”
Coren shook his head, and we both left the building after returning our mugs to the counter.
I did get my nap, even if it was only for an hour. I thanked my lucky stars that Coren let me sleep without interruption. I felt a presence in my bedroom and creaked an eye open. A scream escaped and I stumbled out of bed onto the hard floor.
Coren busted into the room, his eyes taking the creepy white hue. He spotted me on the floor and Raven snickering at me.
“Why did you scream?” she asked, her voice still tinged with laughter.
“Because your damn face was like an inch away from mine! Why would you do that?”
She threw her hands in the air. “I wanted to make sure you were breathing!”
“You two are going to be the death of me,” Coren grumbled. He left my bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
Once I threw on a pair of sweatpants and climbed back under the covers, I gave Raven my best I’m-going-to-kill-you stare. “Where have you been?”
She sighed and sat on the bed. “Dad and I have been busy protecting your ass. Something is going on with Ol’ Luke, and we can’t figure out what his angle is with you. Not yet, anyway.”
I softened immediately. “You two don’t have to do that. I can take care of myself, you know.”
“Yes,” Raven agreed, “but you’re our family. And family takes care of each other, even if they might lose their soul.”
Staring at the ceiling, I puffed out a breath from my lips. For the second time that day, my heart constricted behind my cage of ribs. Usually, that cage held my heart in an emotionless prison, which was where I liked it to be. Lately, the enclosure had cracked just enough to let little slivers of emotion seep through. At first it was for Raven and her father, and now, after the deception with the demon, those fissures started opening for Coren.
“Did you hear me?”
I turned my attention back to Raven. “You and your father mean so much to me, and I don’t say this enough, or ever, but I do love you two. You both put your life on the line for me all the time, and if that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.”
Raven’s eyes widened. “You’re scaring me. You don’t plan on doing something stupid, do you?”
“When do I not?” I said with a laugh.
She slung her arm around me. “At least this time you have several people on your side and you won’t be doing stupid stuff alone.”
Leaning my head on her shoulder, I chuckled. “We’ll see about that.”
CHAPTER 17
Two steps from Hell, don’t ring the bell.
“You stupid asshole!” I screamed at the scaly demon slithering down an alley.
For a snake-like creature with only two front arms, the sucker was fast. I was already out of breath, and I cursed Coren under my breath. His idea was to stay out of the way and let me do my job to let Lucifer think he hadn’t helped me when I sent this hideous thing back. Demons, according to Coren, lived off gossip. I guessed there was nothing to do on the lower levels of Hell except blab their mouths, and Satan would know instantly if I’d had help.
My boots slid on the wet concrete as I rounded the corner next to an abandoned laundry mat. I was going to have to tackle the demon if I was ever going to catch it—or do something smarter than run around buildings like I had the past ten minutes.
Finally, without a second thought, I flung my sword and watched it sail through the air. Luck was on my side as it slid through the tail of the beast. A deafening shriek filled the night air and I winced at the sound, but I rounded the demon.
“You will not sssseee the earth for long, my sssweeet girl,” the demon hissed through a forked tongue.
Its breath was putrid, the teeth yellowed with age. Small breasts protruded from its chest, and the creature’s face resembled a human’s, albeit mottled with avocado-colored scales and scabs. Snake-like eyes the color of Cheetos stared at me with disgust.
“Oh, really? Says who?” I questioned, trying to get some gossip out of the snaky shithead before I sent it packing.
“Lucifer.” Only, the pronunciation sounded like Lusssssifer.
“And how does he think he’ll get me there? I won’t give up without a fight.”
“Trickery and bribessss.”
“Kill the lamia,” Coren ordered from beside me.
Looking up in surprise, I saw him lean against a brick wall like he were bored. He picked his nails and disregarded the demon currently staked to the ground with my sword.
“Pleasse,” the lamia begged Coren, “let me enjoy one night on Earth.”
He looked at the demon now, his eyebrows raised. “And if I allow it, what information will you give me?”
“Anything. Pleassssse.”
“Why is Lucifer desperate to get Mara’s soul?”
I blinked in surprise. Coren didn’t make idle conversation with the demon. Point for him.
“I don’t know...”
In a lightning-quick movement, Coren removed my sword from the tail and rammed it through the lamia’s right shoulder. It screeched in agony.
He leaned close enough for the lamia’s snake tongue to dart out and flick against his chin. “I’m not going to ask again.”
“We’ve only heard rumorsss, but we aren’t sssure if it’ss the truth. But we’ve heard it’ss because of her abilitiessss after she sssigned the contact.”
“And what abilities are those?” Coren asked, and when the lamia didn’t answer, he flicked the sword handle, causing the sword to painfully dance against the scaly skin.
With a cry of pain, the lamia groaned out, “Being able to see the shadowsss.”
Coren’s gaze darted to mine for a quick second and then back to the demon. “And why would that be a big deal to him?”
“Becaussse she can talk to them.”
He waved his hand at the lamia in dismissal. “Finish it.”
“Nooo!” it cried.
I n
oticed Raven arrive in my peripheral. I took the sword out of the lamia’s shoulder with a sickening crunch of bone. With as much strength as I could muster, I swiped the blade through its neck. In a matter of seconds, Raven and the demon disappeared.
Pressing my back against the brick wall behind me, I let out an exhausted breath.
Coren rested next to me. “When were you going to tell me you could talk to shadows?”
“I didn’t know I could. I never tried because I was scared of them,” I replied with a shrug. “Until that day at the restaurant when the guy died, I never had one really notice me.”
“Do you know what this means, Mara?”
Shaking my head, I looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
“It means that if Lucifer is scared about your abilities with shadows, then we may have found his weakness.”
“Shadow beings are his weakness? This is the same guy that has a screaming wall of souls. Surely it can’t be that simple.”
“Nothing is ever simple. Somehow, the shadows are the key. Let’s keep this between us for now. I don’t want to freak out Raven or Death if the lamia lied.”
I snorted. “A deceitful demon? Say it isn’t so.”
A shadow figure hovered near the chain-link fence. He had watched the entire scene unfold with the lamia, and happened to be the same entity from the restaurant. His glowing red eyes scrutinized me with interest, and I had no idea if he already knew what the lamia had said, or if he had uncovered I could speak to him.
“There’s a shadow here,” Coren whispered. “I feel its presence, but I can’t see it.”
“There is?” I asked, hating myself for lying.
“Maybe we should keep moving and try to see if the lamia told the truth later.”
My eyes swerved to the shadow and then back to Coren. “Okay. I’m exhausted, anyway. Can I use the restroom in the diner before we leave?”
“Sure,” he said and walked me to the door the next block over and leaned against the side to keep watch. We weren’t in the best neighborhood.
Since the being had followed us, I tilted my head ever so slightly at the shadow to let it know I was going inside if they wanted to make contact. As I rounded the corner to the restrooms, I met the ruby-red eyes of a gorgeous half-naked male outside to the women’s restroom.
