“Bart, look,” she barked into an old-fashioned rotary phone, “you can’t charge me extra for shipping because your guys screwed up the order. It’s not my fault you had to truck it in from New York City. You’re going to give me the same delivery rate you usually do, or I’m simply going to find a new supplier, got it? Fuck credit. I don’t run my business on credit. I’m a cash it or kiss it kinda girl.” A pause as the other side apparently appeased her. Persephone nodded a few times. “Good, good. I knew you’d see reason. So, send us the invoice and we’ll get the payment out to you next week. I have to go, something just walked in.”
She set the receiver down on the base before circling to the front of her desk, where she took a cigarette from a jade box topped with a carved figure of an ox. Her inhale was slow, measured, pleasurable. A release of a cloud of smoke funneled through pursed lips. “What the hell do you want?” she at last asked as she tipped off the first remnants of ashes into the carpet.
“We need to talk. In private.” Ramiel removed his bomber jacket—nothing more than a prop so as to not to gain human attention in late autumnal Boston—and threw it over the back of a nearby sofa. Underneath, he stuck with basics. White tee, and faded jeans that looked as though they had seen better days, despite the fact that they had only come into existence when he envisioned them while materializing on the earthly plane. “Can you release your hound and order him back to his kennel?”
A flick of the two figures anchoring her cigarette accompanied, “Chipper, we’re good. You can go back to sleep.”
The bouncer nodded. “Sure thing, boss. I’m downstairs if you need me.”
“Didn’t know you got the Cerberi in the divorce,” Ramiel commented when they were alone.
The corner of the goddess’s mouth raised. “I’m not divorced. You know that. But, yes, the Cerberi have always been faithful protectors. Lucifer didn’t see a use for guard dogs in Hell, being that he brought a whole gaggle of fallen angels with him, all of them preinstalled with that far-reaching angelic magic of yours. My husband is too busy focusing on the needs of his front side to have someone watching his back, so they came with me. Besides, they work for scraps.”
Ramiel directed his attention back to a woman who, much to his dismay, served as a prototype for mortal beauty. Persephone knew exactly how to package that product to sell, too. The skirt: pencil. The blouse: low-cut and white. The heels: at least four inches, and like pedestals upon which legs perfected like sculptures sat. Her olive skin served as a perfect canvas for the gold chain that hung around her neck. Her blonde locks had been twisted in loops and gravity-defying swirls that would have even pleased Eva Peron. She was the human form perfected. All this, despite the fact that she wasn’t even human. When the Big Boss had made his accommodation to the last remnants of Earthlings 1.0, trapping them in mortal form, it had been a blessing for anyone with eyes, however, the forms he let them take.
Too bad those majestic bodies belied the mass of their egos, which Big Boss didn’t bother to shrink in proportion.
Ramiel took three steps in her direction. “I told you, I don’t want to see you around them.”
“Well, as long as one of them is my brother, you can expect me to pop in from time to time. Learn to deal with it, or arrange for his death. And there’s also the fact that I am technically their landlord, and have certain rights as set forth by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
God, how she grated on his nerves. “I don’t give a damn that your brother is one of my guys. You damned nephilim and your sense of entitlement. You’re all a bunch of arrogant SOBs.”
“We’re not too hot on the angels, either. Celestial ass-kissers,” she spat back with equal vehemence as she crossed her arms over her chest. The gesture perfectly framed cleavage some men had cried to behold.
Two more steps, meant to intimidate. He had at least six inches over her, and about a hundred pounds of muscle in this human form. He might as well have been a flea for all the good that did with her. “And I hate what you’ve done.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Prithee, oh messenger of Heaven, how hath I offended thee?”
“Getting mixed up with Pure Souls business, buying a house for them. Do you know how much Gabriel and Larry are chapping my ass that a nephilim’s name is on the deed of the portus caelestes?”
“I’m perfectly within my rights to provide for my family. You can’t make allowances for me that are even less than the humans’. And your internal politics are none of my concern. Besides, if not for me, your Pure Souls wouldn’t even know that a portus caelestes was an option. You should be thanking me, but since when does any damned angel give a shrug about a poor, neglected nephilim like me?”
Two more steps, and the only remaining distance between them disappeared. Though she maintained her go-fuck-yourself glare and matching set of screw-you gestures, he sensed his effect on her, both with his spirit and his eyes. With speed not afforded to any of those except the elites, he reached out, docked his fingers in to her hips, and brought her body crashing into his.
“Oh, believe me, I’m not planning on neglecting one, single part of you.”
Her lips were soft under his, gentle against his efforts, just firm enough not to suggest a response. Oh, how she teased. He pressed harder against her, moving his mouth in pleading innocations of his name. His kiss was hard, demanding, expectant. Persephone didn’t like gentle or moving slowly. She was an all-on or all-off type of gal, and he was all too eager to get her switched to a full-throttle on position.
“I told you it was too dangerous to come here,” she breathed out when he moved his mouth down her jawline, under her ear, to her neck. “Someone is going to see you coming in and out.”
“I couldn’t stop,” he growled, maneuvering her until her desk hit her backside. “I’m trying to stay away, but … I need to feel you. You have no idea how.”
His hands fell away from her arms and slid down her sides, around her back, and down the back of her legs. In one swoop, he cupped her legs, his longer fingertips finding anchor on her inner thighs. He picked her up, simultaneously setting her on the edge of the desk and opening her. The pencil skirt didn’t have a choice but to rip in two, baring the smooth skin, the exposed elements of her composition.
He looked down at her naked feminine graces. “No panties?”
She grinned, leaning back and palming the desktop behind her, moving herself back just enough to allow her to perch on the edge without his support. As she created distance, a little devilish grin came over her face. She rolled her back so her breasts stuck out even further. “You disapprove?”
Hell-to-the-no. Before he could breathe in a full breath, his hand was at his belt, undoing the catch. Why he wasted time materializing the meaningless garment was beyond him. He should have envisioned himself in rip-away exercise pants. Sure, the look was primo whiskey tango, but the practicality was hard to argue with. Ramiel pulled Persephone’s lithe figure to him and in a single, pounding heartbeat, buried himself deep inside her, feeling Earth’s closest approximation to Heaven wrapped around him.
“Fuuuuhhhhcccck.”
The sensation overwhelmed. How could something so temporal make him feel so spiritual? Ramiel hadn’t really understood at first Big Boss’s insistence to craft the human form to be able to achieve such ecstasy while flesh. But, damn, if he wasn’t ready to admit he’d been short-sighted on that one. As he began a feverish wax and wane of his hips, pushing into the nephilim with an equal drive to conquer and to be conquered, he understood this shit like a Rhodes Scholar.
“Never gets old, does it?” she teased as she nipped at his ear. “You like it, angel?”
Was she kidding? “With you, I love it. Every.” His hands slapped her ass. “Fucking.” And pulled her hard against him, driving deeper. “Time.” And went ballistic.
She came hard, hot, and wet as rain against him, giving him leave to unleash the gates he was so adept at controlling until she had reached he
r zenith. He let the wave of this tangible pleasure wash over him as he spilled into her. For a few moments, they stayed interlocked, breath racing, sweat glistening. The world outside the Grotto moved on, but they had this moment to ignore it.
Ecstasy looked so fantastic on Persephone: the way strands of her hair stuck to the sides of her face, how her chest speckled with patches of red, the way her lips swelled in response to his kisses. He leaned his cheek against hers, breathing deeply her scent, feeling how it tickled his senses.
He couldn’t really blame Hades for being obsessed with her. Succumbing to Persephone’s charms proved all too easy for any man with human eyes, and a good number of the women, too. Though that fervent possessive side of him waned whenever he felt a need to spread his seed in new fields, unfortunately Hades refused to release her from her commitment. God, how Ramiel wanted her to find a way to be rid of the ass. If only the bastard would finally tire of this worldly existence and give him a request for death, Ramiel would be all too happy to end that asshat’s tenancy on planet Earth.
Persephone placed her hand on the side of his face and worked a thumb over his cheekbone. “Every time, I swear it gets better. Why did we wait so long to do this? We could have been fucking for thousands of years instead of just these last few weeks.”
“We have forever,” he reminded her. “Unless the Pure Souls really screw things up and allow Hell to unleash on Earth, we can keep going at it.”
“Or half of the year, anyways.” He felt a laugh rumble in her chest. “What a wonderful thought.”
He leaned in to kiss her as he slid out from her slowly, already missing her warmth. She reached back on her desk for the wooden case and fished out a hand-rolled. Smoke soon wafted through the room, bringing with it the pungent aromas of ash and sweet tobacco.
“It doesn’t bother you that our relationship is forbidden?” she asked as she slid off the desk, mending the rip in her skirt with tendrils of magic. “Remember? The whole ‘nephilim may take as mates those humans who please them and who give leave to be joined, but they may not with angels company keep?’ I don’t know who negotiated that clause in the HHA, but I think he was short-sighted. Or jaded.”
“Gabriel, and the latter,” he assured her as he pulled a cigarette when she offered the opened box his way. He lit it with a lighter that looked more like a perfume bottle than a zippo. “He had a thing for Isis, but she was hot for a run-of-the-mill angel way down the pecking order. Guy decided that if he couldn’t have her, no one from Heaven would. Then again, Gabe stuck quite a few things in the Hell-Heaven Accords I didn’t approve of.”
“I guess he didn’t consider her getting with another nephilim,” Persephone interjected. “I heard that she and Thor had a fling.”
Ramiel nodded. “He was sure Isis would have chosen going to Heaven rather than having her soul obliterated when she died. She asked for death not long after the rapture, from what I heard. Guess he got gypped on that one.”
“Well, we all chose what we thought best when the rapture came.”
She shrugged, but even Ramiel could hear the sadness in her words. It wasn’t exactly the conversation he expected to have with her tonight, but now that she’d brought it up, he had to quench his curiosity.
“Why did you stay, Steph? Why didn’t you transition to an angel when you had a chance? If I had found you there … You have no idea how sex between souls makes this flesh-based thing look like foreplay.”
A disbelieving grin stretched across her face. “Honestly, you don’t know this tale?”
He shook his head.
She laughed. Not with humor, but from a dark place born of regret and contempt. “I wanted to go to Heaven. But my father decided he was staying on Earth, and he wasn’t about to let any of his kids get away with sneaking in to Heaven behind his back. Most didn’t want to, mind you. Athena, Hermes, Apollo … They all liked Earth, couldn’t see how anything in Heaven could equal all humans attributed to them. The glory, the reverence, the offerings of wine, women, and wealth. Booze and babes have pretty much wiped out the higher brain functions of most of my male relatives. But I wanted Heaven. Turns out Dad found out I was planning to defect, and he worked out a deal with Hades, who’d always had his eyes on me. If Hades took me to the Underworld and kept me there until after the raptu primus, he could keep me as a wife.”
He embraced her the moment she finished. “I had no idea. I’m so sorry, I should have asked. I guess I assumed that most of the Greek myth stuff was just that: myth. If I had known …” Then he pulled back, contemplation normalizing his features. “There’s got to be a way around that. Your free will was compromised. If the Prince knew that you’d been held prisoner during the nephilim’s rapture, I’m sure he would have made an exception and—”
“Free will is a double-edged sword, you sexy beast. The same will that sets men free is also the one that keeps him in chains. It’s a case of whose will wins out in the end.”
“But if you were in the Underworld, you never got asked what fate you had chosen. You weren’t given an option.”
“Fate is not always in our own hands. I have an option every day. I choose to live. Besides, knowing Earth is the end of the line for your soul gives you other advantages. I have a good reason for wanting to stick around, especially knowing my soul won’t end up in Heaven or Hell.”
He leaned in, capturing her lips again. “What could keep you here?”
Storm clouds gathered in her eyes. “Revenge.”
Chapter 9
The visitor log made her feel sad, then guilty, then angry, and then drop kicked her right back to sad again. There were at least fifty residents at the old folk’s home, yet the last official family visitor signed in at the front desk three days before. Riona was half-tempted to demand the names of the next-to-kin of each and every resident in the building so she could do a round up and curse them all with demonic flatulence. Then she recalled that she herself had not visited the facility in the better part of three months.
“Your mom’s old enough to be in a senior center?” asked Jerry as he watched her loop the letters in her last name.
“Momma was forty-three when I was born. Guess she heard her biological clock ticking, although that could have also been the bomb I’m sure some Good Samaritan planted in her engine. She had enough vim and vinegar in her to keep herself going until a couple of years ago. She came down with pneumonia, had trouble taking care of herself, et cetera. So, it was either move in with her, have her move in with me, or …” Riona splayed her hands out. “Hanaford.”
Jerry failed to hide a laugh.
“What?”
He shooed her curiosity with a swish of his hand. “Nothing, just kinda funny. Of all places, you stick her on the outskirts of one of the world’s wiccan strongholds. It was like, on some level, you knew she’d be best protected here, if Hell ever broke loose.”
Rolling her eyes, Riona dropped the pen and pushed the book back toward the administrator behind the welcome desk. The scrub-entombed woman checked the signature against her files, then handed Riona two guest badges.
Riona turned to pin a badge on Jerry, keeping her voice low. “Watch it on the w-thing in public, okay? And like hell. This was the one that kept her close enough for me to come to quickly if she got sick, far away enough for me not to worry about her showing up at my place, and in my price range. Don’t give me airs. I love my mom—on some primal level, I’m sure—but if I spent more than a few hours with her without an escape, I’d kill her. And now with all my new, dope skills ...”
But Jerry kept his voice at full volume. “And to think, I put so much time setting you up with your meat locker of destiny, when there was a matricide bomb already wired and ready to blow just a short drive away.”
The nurse at the front shot daggers at Jerry. The ex-demon threw his hands up in exasperation.
“I’m just joking, sheesh. But do you hear the stuff she’s saying about her own mother? Aren’t you appalled?” He
pointed at Riona.
The nurse coughed a laugh. “Unlike you, I’ve met Ms. Dade. Please keep your badges on while you’re in the facility. You’ll probably find Molly in the back garden. She’s usually outside this time of day.”
Riona led Jerry through the corridor, past the nurse’s station and cafeteria, toward the backside of the house. He opened the white-washed door when they reached the end of the hall. Cool air rushed in, giving both a shiver. Riona felt Jerry move closer, felt his arms start to rise to embrace her. Felt herself start to lean in to him. Old habits, they die hard. Luckily, she caught herself in time and bolted out the door.
From the back porch, a garden fallen to winter rot looked like Mother Nature was experiencing a terrible hangover. Brown, wilted, crisp in some parts, soggy in others, the flora appeared used up and left for dead. At first, the garden proved empty. Then, across the yard, in the far corner where a fountain should have allowed a quaint, twinkling noise if not for a collection of leaves, a single, twisting column of cigarette smoke spiraled into the air. A smallish woman with painfully artificial red hair sat, using a shaky hand to maneuver a cancer stick.
“I see your guilt has finally reached irrepressible levels. Or did your shrink cut off your prescriptions again?” Molly Dade chewed on insults and spit them out the way old southern men did with snuff. “Come to tell me more silly ghost stories, or you here to take me away and put me in some place more befitting my status?”
“No, the city zoo says they’re fully stocked on the New England Crazy Loon.”
Molly went on unfazed. “Is that right? Must be here to ask about the money, then.”
“No need, Momma,” Riona returned as she walked in the harpy’s direction. “The IRS already found all that and carted it away. Good news, too; there was enough left over to pay off the state.”
Molly smashed the butt of her cigarette against the side of her oxygen tank. “Fine, fine. No money then. Who’s the guy? Latest boyfriend?”
Once You Go Demon (Pure Souls) Page 6
