Unholy Proposal (Unholy Inc Book 1)

by Misty Dietz

  Nate fell backwards on the grass, disoriented from blood loss. Asmodeus pounced on top of him, tearing into his chest, arms, legs, and face until there was blood everywhere.

  She uncorked the chrism oil and splashed what remained in the bottle on the archdemon’s back. He burst into flames, the concussion of the ignition knocking Jessie back ten feet. It gave Nate enough time to knit back together. The two adversaries grappled across the grass, rolling into headstones. Blood poured off both of them, but Nate had clearly diverted some of his Earth energy to free her grandparents. They were suddenly limping across the grass, Grandpa heavily supporting Gramma as they tried to make their way toward her.

  Jessie moaned, trying to hold back her shout to get them to move faster—faster!—but she didn’t want to alert Asmodeus to their movement. The archdemon roared. Six winged devils with talons, long black vertical slashes down their eyes, and massive yellow horns curling from their temples began to circle around Gramma and Grandpa. Tillie stumbled, beginning to cry.

  “Leave them alone, you evil bastards!” Jessie screamed.

  Strains of the Lord’s Prayer drifted to her, her grandparents’ voices trembling, but loud. Could she throw the holy water bottle to them without smashing it to bits? She had to try something without leaving the circle because she realized Nate was right. If she left the circle, the relic would no longer be safe, and she wouldn’t have time to re-fortify it. She had to find a way to get Walt and Tillie into the circle, and then get Nate here so he could do that poof thing with all four of them.

  She grabbed the salt container, opened the dispenser, and lobbed it to where the winged demons had surrounded her grandparents as though scavengers waiting for Tillie to run out of breath.

  Or run out of prayers.

  “Well sorry, assholes, Gramma can probably recite prayers for a week without repeating a single one, so here’s to good ol’ Catholic schools!” She chucked the canister with all she had, salt spraying out every which way as it arced through the air. She heard the sizzle and saw the smoke as the tiny granules pelted the demons. They screeched and retreated, giving her grandfather enough time to snatch the canister.

  “Sprinkle it on the ground around you, Grandpa! And keep praying, both of you!”

  He nodded, and it seemed to work. On the lesser demons anyway.

  She turned back to where Nate had Asmodeus flat on his back. Large, gnarled roots protruded from the ground, wrapping around Asmodeus’s arms, legs, chest and neck, but he still had his claw-like hands wrapped around Nate’s biceps. When Nate drew another root from the ground to wrap around Asmodeus’ neck, the demon’s eyes bulged from the pressure.

  Suddenly a long barbed tongue stabbed out from Asmodeus’ mouth, piercing Nate in the chest.

  As he screamed, Jessie collapsed. The pain—sudden, breath-stealing, unimaginably hot like a bright red iron rod fresh from the coals. She rolled to her side, gasping as Nate tried pulling away from the demon tongue. Had it pierced his heart? If he ripped the tongue out, might he pull his heart from his body, too? Even a Guardian couldn’t recover from a wound like that.

  Her whole body started to shake.

  Nate’s essence was dimming even though she could sense that other Guardians were somehow sending him power.

  How did she know that? How?

  Because our connection is real. True.

  Why hadn’t she noticed how much she’d begun to depend on him? In all her life, she’d never had someone with whom she could share everything. Do anything. Be anyone.

  Even when he disagreed with her, she felt respected.

  Please don’t leave me now. Her fingers flexed on the grass. It was beginning to gather dew. She glanced around in the gauzy red light for a sharp object. Something to cleave Asmodeus’s barbed tongue to release Nate. She made it to her knees. Grandpa was still holding off the winged devils, so she could focus her attention on helping N—

  “Stay…back!” Nate’s hoarse command drew her attention to his position on top of Asmodeus in the grass. The demon snapped through most of the roots Nate had twined around his body and neck, his throat moving distinctively, swallowing, as though a rat was passing through a snake’s body.

  My God, was the Hell Prince feeding off Nate’s blood? Blinding fear surged through her. She jerked the duffel bag open, pawing through it until she extracted what she was looking for. She shot unsteadily to her feet and held up the elaborate frame. “Stop! Stop, stop stop!! I’ll give you what you want! Just let him go.”

  Asmodeus immediately withdrew his tongue, bloody and raw with sinew from Nate’s body, and burst through the remaining roots that had been restraining him.

  Nate slumped to the ground. The monster reached down for him, then drew upright, practically vibrating with power now that he’d fed on Guardian blood.

  “Put him down. P-please. I’ll give you the Veil. I just want him…and…and my grandparents.”

  Asmodeus’ deafening screech made her cry out. One moment, Nate was in the demon’s grasp, the next, he was thrown against a massive headstone as though he weighed little more than a rag doll. The monument cracked down the middle.

  Nate didn’t move or make a sound.

  “Nate!” Jessie’s blinked through a surge of tears. This couldn’t be real.

  Asmodeus approached until his cloven feet were an inch from the chrism oil line.

  Don’t look at him. She’d lose her soul. Nate’s fight would be in vain. “Nate, I love you!” When Asmodeus screeched again, she proclaimed her love one more time. Louder.

  Was he dead? He’d been trying to protect her. Like he said he would. Like he said he’d die to do.

  The duffel glowed, casting light on the gold frame she held in her hands…and upon the hideous visage of one of the Princes of Hell.

  “Give it to me!” he roared, holding out a black box the winged demons placed in his clawed hands. Jessie remembered Nate telling her demons couldn’t physically touch relics, but possession of one fed their powers exponentially.

  Her legs quivered, and the skin on her face felt like it was peeling off from the putrescence of his breath. “Not until you let my grandparents and Nate walk into this circle.”

  “They are nothing compared to this relic!”

  Her Gramma screamed, swinging her arms wildly above her head, fending off the winged demons. Jessie’s vision grayed around the edges with lightheadedness. “T-then do as I ask!”

  “Step outside the circle, and I will put them in your place.”

  A trick? She swallowed hard, her face sticky with tears. Something moved in her peripheral vision. She looked at her grandparents, but couldn’t see them anymore with demons landing so close around them.

  “Jessie, no! He is a prince of lies. He’ll kill you and your grandparents the moment you step out of that circle.” Nate staggered to his feet. Oh, God, how could he still live with the amount of damage to his body? Asmodeus snarled at Nate and lifted his clawed hand to send a bolt of electricity at him that lifted him high into the air and impaled him upon the T-bar of a metal cross.

  Jessie’s throat seemed to tear in two as she screamed, her world breaking apart. She flung the gilded frame at Asmodeus who snapped it in the black box as she ran toward her grandparents, flinging holy water at the winged demons. She was nearly to her grandparents when they vanished. She yelled in rage and spun to find her grandparents on their knees in front of Asmodeus. His deep laughter made her gorge rise.

  “So easy to manipulate, like always, Jessica. I like you, though I’d hoped for more of a challenge.”

  “So you pick on elderly mortals? Weak! What would your daddy Satan say if he found out you’re such a coward?”

  The demon opened his mouth, and the sound that erupted, piercing and horrific. She shook her head to clear the pain as a massive white light exploded, and an enormous wave of energy surged her way. She braced herself for impact. When none came, she opened her eyes, catching Asmodeus’s brief look of disbelief before h
is features contorted in rage to see her grandparents now safely inside the chrism oil circle.

  What?

  Indistinct sounds began to filter in behind the mental block she’d put between her and Nate. Chanting. It grew louder, and then she knew. Nate was using the last of his energy to channel his Guardian family who were off fighting battles of their own.

  Run…grandparents…Jessie….will love you…forever.

  No, Nate. You don’t get to save us and then die!

  Asmodeus reached for the black box. Before he could discover she’d tricked him, she ran. Ran to the man she loved like nothing else mattered. Teeth chattering, arms shaking, she climbed up on the headstone where Nate was impaled on the uppermost cross and looked into his beautiful eyes.

  “G-get…to…circle, please, Jessie.”

  “Let’s bond. Right now, Nate. Show me what to do. What to say.” She’d brought along her grandfather’s buck knife. “You told me it involves blood, right?” He’d also said it involved sex, but hopefully that wasn’t mandatory. She removed the buck knife from the sheath at her side, took a deep breath, and sliced vertically down her forearm. She laid her arm against one of the gaping wounds in his chest. “Tell me what to say,” she whispered. He only blinked vacantly at her. As their blood mingled, her body warmed, chasing away the deep cold that had seemed to come from the inside out. “Fine, I’ll make up my own vows. I choose you, Nathaniel Temple. I love you with all that I am. Take my blood and live.” His color was improving. Yes! “Live to guard us mortals from those who seek to do us harm.”

  In the background, a yell echoed, bouncing around the treetops. Suddenly she was vaulted up in a great whirl as though plucked from the headstone by a giant. A warm white light expanded, peace oozing into her, filling her with joy.

  Then Nate was standing in front of her in the brilliant light. Whole. Gloriously alive. His hands came around her waist, steady and strong. He placed her on the grass and stared at her for a moment. “You didn’t give it to him, did you?”

  “No,” she whispered back.

  “Where is it?” Nate spread his stance and prepared for the assault.

  “In the duffel!”

  “I’ll hold him off while you get into the circle.”

  “No, Nate, I can help you!”

  “I know. I know you can. But you need to protect them, Jess. My Guardian brethren are bolstering me. Now go, run, and don’t look back!”

  Asmodeus’ barbed tongue was out as he charged.

  Nate lunged twelve feet into the air, bounced on a tree limb to do an aerial somersault and land behind Asmodeus.

  Jessie ran for the safe circle where Walt cradled Tillie in his lap on the ground. She was almost to them when she felt her muscles seize, a feeling of dread creeping through her chest. But it abruptly ended, sending her sprawling face first into the grass in the safe zone. Her skin beaded with sweat as she rolled to her side and then pushed once more to her feet to hurry to her grandparents.

  She watched the battle between Nate and the Hell Prince as she bent down to feel Tillie’s forehead. She looked at her grandfather. “Is she okay?”

  “She will be.” Walter Jacobs glanced at the demon and Nate, then back at her before glancing down at his wife. His hand trembled as he stroked Tillie’s cheek. “I saw that monster in a water-logged rice field in Korea.”

  Jessie brought her attention back to her grandfather. “What? During the war?”

  Walt nodded. “That barbed tongue has haunted me nearly as much as the sounds of men suffering and the bodies of the dead stacked like timber.”

  Oh God. The horrors of war. She touched her grandfather’s shoulder. “What was it doing?”

  “After one of the fire fights, I peeked out from the foxhole we were in and there he was…laughing. Stabbing that tongue into fallen men.” Walt shuddered. “But then I saw someone—I never knew or understood who or what it was—he somehow slowed it down. I don’t think you can kill it, but it appears you can make it go away until it figures out how to come back.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Doused it with holy water and put a rosary around its neck while saying the Our Father.”

  She nodded, then leaned in to kiss both her grandparents’s cheeks. When she made to stand, Walt grabbed her arm. “Tillie has had many dreams about this. You…and that man you exchanged blood with.”

  “She did?” Please let them be good dreams.

  “Most of the situations in them made her afraid, but she always said the way the man looked at you gave her peace. I can see now that she was right.” He pulled a rosary out of Tillie’s pocket and put it in Jessie’s hand. “I wish that I had the physical strength to help, but I will be praying. And take whatever is glowing in that bag.”

  Yes, the Veil. How could she use it to neutralize Asmodeus? Would it weaken him enough to send him back to Hell?

  The earth started rumbling, making gravel bounce on the road. Jessie glanced to the tree where Nate had a large limb wrapped around the Prince’s scaly chest. How many Guardians were funneling power to him and would they sustain him long enough? The wind picked up. When Asmodeus opened his mouth to howl, mounds of grass spewed dirt and the winged demons surged toward Nate.

  Jessie grabbed the holy water to spread a fresh, tight circle around her grandparents, then ran toward Nate. The element of surprise on her side, her first holy water spray set fire to three of the winged creatures.

  Unfortunately, there were still three more.

  The flames shooting off the burning demons combined with their inhuman shrieking gave Jessie her first true impression of Hell. The three demons flapped their wings to get airborne and out of range of her dwindling supply of holy water. She thrust the glass bottle above her. “Stay back!” Get to Nate. Pour this on the Prince.

  Then she’d press the Veil to his face.

  Maybe.

  No, it would work. She could do this. The unharmed demons’ wings fanned the flames of the other three shriveling devils, causing the temperature to soar. Asmodeus roared and two of the demons dove at Nate, raking at his shoulders and scalp with their taloned feet. Almost there. They’d do this together. Together they were strong.

  Invincible. Good always won in the end.

  Please let me be right. She ran as the demons dove for another attack on Nate. Power poured from Nate’s hands to the tree on the right, snapping a massive branch, causing it to take down one of the demons.

  Only two left.

  And Asmodeus.

  Blood ran down Nate’s back and into his eyes. Even powered up by other Guardians as he was, Jessie could feel him tremble with growing fatigue at holding Asmodeus captive against the tree. He couldn’t hold on to him much longer, especially with the winged demons battering him.

  I’m coming, my love.

  Nate turned around to look at her. Reached out his hand. “Jessie! Give it to me!”

  He couldn’t see the demon arcing toward him. Couldn’t see Asmodeus’s awful barbed tongue sliding out from between his lips.

  She reached into her duffel and withdrew the ancient, glowing Veil, its power singing through her body. She thrust it into Nate’s outstretched hand. “End him!”

  The moment it transferred to his fingers, the power vanished from her body. She sagged to her knees. The bottle of holy water rolled several feet away, but she was transfixed by the glow of the Veil. Nate yelled for her to wrap her arms around him, but she couldn’t move.

  So tired.

  End this.

  She just wanted to go home. With Nate. Her eyes fluttered, then opened as a dark shadow passed over her. She staggered to her feet. Nate leapt at Asmodeus, the Veil outstretched in front of him like a shield.

  Asmodeus opened his bloody mouth and shot his barbed tongue like an arrow a moment before Nate wrestled the Prince to the ground and wrapped the Veil around his face.

  Bright burning fire slammed Jessie in the chest, knocking her back ten feet. She gasped, the grisly
sound of Asmodeus’s defeat mitigating the horror that was dawning upon her. She tried to get away from the pain that was crashing through her, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t lift her arms. The only thing she felt…

  A gurgling wetness.

  And peace that her people were safe.

  Her eyes blurred. Her chin dropped, her neck too tired to hold her head up any longer.

  She blinked down at her chest where Asmodeus’s tongue skewered her to a tree.

  A sound born of desperation and grief ripped through the night sky, creating shock waves in blue, green, and gold. Nate’s voice—so beautiful even in pain.

  Everything about you. Beautiful.

  His hands gentle as could be as he took her grandfather’s buck knife from its sheath and freed her from her mortification. His face above her as he laid her in the grass. Weeping. She tried to stretch out her hand, wanting to caress his face, but she couldn’t feel her arms.

  “I love you, Jessie. You can’t leave me, goddammit!” His tears falling to her forehead as he turned his face skyward and screamed into the darkness.

  No, Nate. I.

  Love.

  Y—

  Chapter 36

  Nate cradled Jessie in one arm and shook out the glowing Veil. “Jessie.” Stay with me.

  Her eyes fluttered open and a faint smile creased her lips before she coughed, sending blood oozing out her nose, ears, and corner of her lips. No! He wouldn’t let her die! Not after they’d defeated Asmodeus. Soon after he’d wrapped the Veil around the demonic prince and sent him back to Hell, the barbed tongue had vanished, but the damage it had done to her was unspeakable.

  He positioned her more carefully between his legs, and placed the Veil over the grizzly hole in her chest. This will work. It will. I believe. I do. Good always conquered evil. It had to. She would therefore live.

  Or he would lose his mind.

  Her heartbeat. Slow. He felt it. Ebbing. A quaver shook his frame.

  Her voice in his head.

  I.

  Love.

  Y—

  His hands pushed down harder on the Veil, heating it, trying to fuse it to her devastated flesh, but…