Demon Soul

by Christine Ashworth

  A ripping sound caught them by surprise. Rose screamed once, finally, her lungs moving fast as her heart raced to catch up.

  Mephisto looked at her over Satine's shoulder, his handsome face smiling at her. "Rose, my love. Let's get the job done, shall we? Though I will spare you as much as I can."

  "What will I owe you?" she gasped.

  Mischief broke through the sadness in his eyes. "I don't know. A soul like yours – even if just returned - would be quite a coup."

  Mephisto stepped up right behind Satine, wrapped his arms around them both. With his touch, the blood flowing down Rose's arm stopped. His curious eyes seemed to dismiss the vampire struggling between them, as though she were already ash. Satine's screams went higher than normal human hearing but Rose didn't notice.

  Rose was caught in Mephisto's heat. His touch reignited her flame. "Look into my eyes, Rose. Just focus on my eyes." The orange flame she saw there fascinated her. She pressed closer, feeling the cold body of the vampire between them as only a barrier to something she needed. Between the two of them, flame engulfed Satine, her struggles and screams unnoticed.

  The two fire demons, their eyes only on each other, burned the vampire between them almost without realizing it. Once the barrier of her body fell to the ground as ash, Rose sagged in Mephisto's arms. The wound in her shoulder reopened and blood poured down over the soft fur that covered her tawny skin.

  * * *

  Mephisto hesitated. He'd enjoyed his time on her body, had dreamed about holding her in his arms even while she dreamed about the tribred. Leaving her now to die wasn't his first choice. Taking her soul was even less appealing; a first for him.

  Sighing, he knelt down on top of the vampire ash and drew Rose down with him. He put his mouth over the wound in her shoulder, tasted her blood. The vampire had been right. She tasted amazing. Though why that surprised him when her soul also had the most incredible scent and flavor...He drew in a breath, then with all the power available to him, instead of taking her blood, he sent his life and flame into her body.

  The healing fire scorched her on the inside and her body arched as she screamed. Mephisto watched, fascinated. He'd never actually tried this before. He pulled away from her shoulder and eyed her anxiously. He needed her to live, but not at the expense of his own life. He watched her eyes flutter open.

  "Rose. You need to go back to your lover. Go to Gabriel." With a lingering look, he vanished in front of her eyes.

  * * *

  Rose panted as her heart struggled to return to normal, shuddered at the loss of his heat. She pulled herself up off the floor, leaned weakly against one wall. Satine was nothing more than ash. She did it.

  Euphoria caught her, and she grinned up into the darkness. She was free. She was alive. She saved Gabriel. She did it!

  Fine dust, followed by slightly bigger chunks of debris, filtered down through the clogged portion of the stairwell and her true situation settled over her as quickly as the dust.

  Urgency thrummed through her. Her only chance was to get through the debris the same way she did the first time. Then, rage and protectiveness had given her the impetus she needed. Now?

  Her mouth was dry. Her eyes burned and her lips felt cracked. The battle wasn't done, but she was wiped out completely. Rose stood, stumbled and would have fallen, but Maria Therese stood there.

  "Are you so ready to give up, to let my son lose his soul?"

  "No. No! Of course not Maria Therese," Rose cried out, but her vision had faded. "Of course not," she mumbled, and her eyes ached for the tears she could not shed. She blinked, her lids like sandpaper against her eyes. "Onward and upward." She looked up at the debris clogging the way out and felt her wings flutter uselessly on her back.

  "Come on, Mephisto," she implored, but the demon remained silent. "Okay then, the hard way." She filled her head with every memory of fire she could find. The way it looked, the way it felt to hold it, a fireball spattering against the ground where she'd dropped it. The sun and its fiery rays burning her as a child. Marking her? It didn't matter. Fire was hers. She was fire.

  She let the images fill her head, looked up again to where she knew Gabriel waited for her. "Go, Rose. Go now," she whispered to herself, and without another thought launched herself to the ceiling above. But her head never got close.

  She fell back to the ground, and in despair felt herself scatter as flame.

  * * *

  Gabriel ripped the head off the vampire in front of him and tossed it across the room. He staggered when something like a sonic wave hit his chest. That part of him tied to Satine just evaporated. Rose? No answer. Gabriel waited for his soul to return, but nothing else happened.

  Plaster dust and ash swirled in the building, adding to the dark chaos and battle cries. Danny's wolves were fighting alongside Kellan and Gabriel. Fireballs lit up the area where Maggie and Justin worked. Slowly the eight of them prevailed against the newest vampires in the city and quiet returned.

  A pile of body parts had been stacked in a corner farthest from where Rose had gone. Kellan flicked a cigarette lighter on and caught the hair of one vamp on fire. Quickly it spread.

  Gabriel turned back to the hallway to make sure no other vamps were hiding out, relieved when he cleared the area. He went once more to where Rose's scent was strongest. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the purple and blue light, twisting away from him and into and down through the pile of rubble.

  His mother's voice came back to him. You will always be able to find your mate through the bonding threads binding you. You can even travel them, if you don't think about it too much. Gabriel changed shape abruptly, staggered in the hallway in his human form. He touched the soul mate threads tentatively. They were cool, tensile under his fingertips. Unbreakable? Gabriel shook his head. There was only one way to find out.

  Putting all his trust into the Fae heritage he knew nothing about, Gabriel grabbed onto the soul mate threads and willed himself to Rose. His vision shifted, grew better by several magnitudes. His body cooled, and then he lost all sense of who he was. Keeping his focus on Rose kept the world from tumbling by as he traveled through impossible cracks, down, down into the earth. He felt the cool surround him, felt the air expand to accept him.

  Gabriel's hand touched Rose's chest and his awareness of his body sprang to the forefront of his mind. His breath whooshed out of his lungs as his eyes adjusted to the deeper dark. Rose lay awkwardly, partly on a staircase leading up to rubble, her naked human form cool to the touch.

  "Rose. Damn you," Gabriel choked. He gathered her up in his arms very carefully and stood. He had her now, but how the hell were they to get out of there?

  Don't think too much about it. His mother's voice drifted in the air. Gabriel could see the mate-threads binding Rose to him; he let himself remember how he'd ridden the threads.

  Back. He needed to go back, needed to ride the threads that had been there, but weren’t any longer. Trusting again to a heritage he knew little about, he felt his vision narrow, felt how, still carrying Rose, they slipped their way through openings too minute for the human eye to see as they zipped between floors. Up, up to safety.

  The fresh air was his cue. Once again his breath whooshed out as his feet settled on the floor. He staggered as Rose became solid once more in his arms. He whirled, desperate to get her out of danger. Eyes wild, he didn't see the fire bars that had been erected between them and freedom until he walked into them.

  Surprised, he sprang back, but the flame had done its job.

  Rose jolted awake, tongues of fire flickering from her fingertips as she changed again to demon in Gabriel's arms. She blinked her orange eyes up at Gabriel and smiled.

  "Hey. Your eyes are purple and silver. Very cool."

  Gabriel crushed her to him. His breath came hard, each one filled with pain and relief.

  "You can let me down now," Rose said. She coughed and a little bit of smoke came out of her mouth. "Brilliant," she sighed. Wiggl
ing a bit, she smiled again. "No, really. Please put me down."

  Gabriel lowered her feet to the floor and steadied her, one hand on her waist. "Are you - I couldn't follow you. I couldn't hear your mind. I just about went crazy while you were down there and I don't want that to ever happen again, do you understand me?"

  Rose slipped out of his hold. "Satine is gone."

  "I know. I felt the connection dissolve. Thank you," he said.

  She looked around at the room they were in, the doorway blocked with bars of fire. "We're trapped in here."

  "Currently, yes," began Gabriel. "But the others are out there. They'll help us as soon as they can."

  Rose shrugged. "I never thought I'd survive this. Having come this far is kinda neat. Which reminds me, I have something for you." She moved in to him and put her hands on his chest. She smiled up at him. "Close your purple eyes. Wow, you've got to tell me what you've been doing."

  "I won't close them." Gabriel's voice broke. "Not when I've needed the sight of you."

  She closed her eyes. A glow surrounded her that had nothing to do with fire and everything to do with her.

  He thought receiving his soul would hurt as much as having it taken from him had. Instead, his heart expanded with wonder as, unbidden, the three parts of himself; human, demon, and Fae separated in front of his eyes, clear and distinct, before swirling together, stronger than ever, and disappearing inside him. Gabriel felt whole, perhaps for the very first time.

  "Thank you. Again." His voice was hoarse, but she heard him and stepped away.

  "What is it about your eyes? Some sort of demon thing?" She tilted her head up to his.

  "Fae, not demon." He eyed her warily. Should he tell her they were mated?

  The air shimmered at the edges of Gabriel's vision. He shifted slightly, watched as another fire demon came into being. He wasn't that much bigger than Rose. His skin reflected Rose's light, turning it redder than it might have. His black hair gleamed. Gabriel's muscles tensed and he phased into his demon form, grateful now for the practice. He noted with pleasure that he stood almost twice the other demon's size.

  Mephisto.

  Gabriel put Rose behind him.

  The newcomer winked at Gabriel and gave him a short bow. "Gabriel Caine."

  "Yes."

  "I have been watching you from my vantage point on Rose. What a fascinating experience." Mephisto folded his legs and sat on the air.

  "You're free," said Gabriel. "Not constrained in any way."

  "Observant. Yes, I am. But she's not," and he smiled at Rose. "You see, she bargained with me. But she didn't know she was bargaining, so we've got that bit of business to finish before we can move forward."

  Quicker than thought, Gabriel's hand shot out and punched Mephisto in the nose. Mephisto careened backwards in surprise but Gabriel plucked him out of the air and shook him, one big paw dwarfing the other demon. Rose cried out, but both demons ignored her.

  "That's for Marianne, you bastard," he growled, and punched him again. "Give me one good reason to spare your life."

  Awareness flickered in Mephisto's black eyes. "She wanted me," bit out Mephisto. "Marianne's soul was black. Taking it was too easy. You wasted your time with her." Blood flowed from his nose but he made no effort to staunch it. Gabe's fist plowed into Mephisto's abdomen, causing the demon's eyes to bug out.

  Flame flickered along the demon's arms as he caught Gabriel's hand. "Burn again, if you must," gasped the demon. "Rose will die if you do."

  Gabriel's tail whipped around Mephisto's waist, holding him in mid-air. Gabe stepped back, slapped at the fire that had danced along his forearm, and prepared to hit the demon again.

  "Wait!" Rose was there, pressing herself up against him. "Don't hurt him."

  Gabriel turned to her in disbelief. "What?"

  "Please. He saved my life. Can’t you tell he's exhausted? He can barely fight you. He hasn't taken a swing, has he? Let him go," she insisted, pressing kisses across his chest. "Please, Gabriel."

  Reluctantly, Gabriel's tail unwound itself from the demon.

  Mephisto dropped lightly to the ground, his eyebrows high as he glared disapprovingly at Rose. "What are you doing?"

  Rose put herself between the two demons and lifted her head high. "We made a bargain down there?"

  "Yes," admitted Mephisto, wary.

  "You gave me a part of yourself. That’s why I’m still a demon, yes?

  “Yes. It’s temporary. The bars of fire called it out of you so you wouldn’t burn.”

  “I'm going to give you something that you desperately need." She glowed, shades of gold and silver sparking a web around her demon form.

  Mephisto paled, his face going gray as he grasped her meaning. "How?"

  Rose shrugged a shoulder. "Found it in Satine. I don't know how she got it, but I thought you might want it back. It's not much, there are pieces missing."

  "I'll take it." The words rushed out of his mouth. He bowed his head in supplication. "If you please." Rose stretched a hand out to Mephisto and took a step toward him.

  "Wait," commanded Gabriel. He turned to Rose, beyond exasperated. "What are you thinking? You're giving a demon back his soul? Wait. Do full demons even have souls?"

  Rose turned to Gabriel. “He gave me a part of himself. Right now, I have strength. I don’t know how long I’ll have it, but the fight’s not over. So let me do this, okay?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  "You don’t have to." She eyed him. "I'm giving his back, just like I gave you yours back. Is that a problem? Satine had it. When I took yours back from her, I got mine back and Mephisto's came, too, as well as all the others she’d amassed through the years." She cupped Gabriel's cheek with one hand, her eyes steady on his face. "He just saved my life, Gabriel, and now I have his soul. I'm not about to withhold his soul from him."

  "Okay, okay. But we'll do it my way." He turned Rose toward Mephisto, and held her back to his front, one big arm across her body protectively. "First," he said, addressing Mephisto, "if she does this for you, then you leave the greater Los Angeles area. If I catch even a whiff of your stench on the air, I will find you and crush the life out of you."

  "Agreed," Mephisto said, his eyes not leaving Rose.

  "Second. Release all claim on her soul."

  He rolled his eyes. "Fine. I release my claim on her soul." He waved a hand and the bars of fire melted away, leaving a slightly sulfurous scent behind. “Not that I really had a claim there, so that one was easy.”

  Gabriel kept tight rein on his temper, wanting nothing more than to hit him again. "Third. If we ever need you, you come."

  Startled, Mephisto looked up at Gabriel, wary. "Why would you want help from me?"

  Gabriel shrugged. "I've heard about the rumblings from the Chaos Plane. You could come in handy if it ever comes down to a fight between Chaos and humanity."

  The demon's eyebrows rose. "Interesting. Agreed. Now, dear Rose." Expectantly, Mephisto turned his charm toward her. "Whenever you're ready."

  Rose patted the arm across her body. "Gabriel?"

  Reluctantly, he released her and took a half step backwards. "I'm here if you need me," he grumbled.

  She flashed a grin at him over her shoulder. "I know."

  Turning back to Mephisto, she smiled. "You've had a tough time of it. Hopefully, this will bring you a measure of peace. I did what I could to heal it, but I don’t know much and there was little time."

  She reached out and put her hand onto his bare chest.

  At her touch, Mephisto's body arched and a look of pained surprise crossed his face. Gabriel could almost see the demon's soul pass through Rose and into Mephisto's chest, a silvery, glittery, jagged burst of light, surprisingly small, that spread through him.

  Mephisto sank to his knees, agony contorting his features.

  Rose snatched her hand away and stepped back, alarmed. Gabriel's arms came around her protectively. "Gabriel! What did I do wrong?"

 
They watched as Mephisto, his face bloody, bowed his head to the floor and howled. Flame burst along his arms and streamed down his hair. He flung his head back, caught Rose's hand in his and pressed a kiss on the back of it. His flame didn't touch her. "Thank you," and his eyes glistened with moisture. "It has been too long housed in others," he gasped. "My body is making room again."

  “I understand now. Blessings, Mephisto," she murmured. The demon cringed. His flame flared high and both Rose and Gabriel blinked at the brightness. When they could see again, Mephisto had vanished.

  Kellan appeared, backlit by firelight. "We've gotta get out of here. The building's gonna go."

  Rose turned to look at Gabriel, her face paling. "Mephisto. He's leaving me. I mean, I know he left, but he's leaving me," she whispered, agonized.

  Gabriel lifted her. "Stay with me, Rose. Stay with me." Her body had grown very cold, a last flush of heat on her cheeks slowly paling.

  "I'm here," Rose whispered, clutching at his shirt. "I'm not leaving you. Not now."

  As he held her, her fire demon form wavered and vanished, leaving the human Rose in his arms. "I'm just plain me again," she sighed, and a tear rolled down one cheek. Her head lolled back over his arm.

  The building rumbled beneath his feet as his fear and anger surged. He held her tighter to him and ran for safety through the scent of hellfire and smoke.

  He emerged into the night and ran to the far edge of the parking lot where his brothers and Maggie had gathered. A rumbling behind them had them moving again into the alley.

  "Quickly," said Kellan, and waved Gabriel through the hole in the fence. "Get her to Doc Cavanaugh. We'll follow."

  "No. Get my clothes, and a coat, a blanket, or something to cover her up," Gabriel ordered. As the others hesitated, he growled. "Now!"

  "Blanket, coming up," promised Maggie. She flew through the darkness out of sight.

  Justin tossed him a bag. “Your clothes. Well, my clothes, but you’re welcome to them.”

  Gabriel held Rose close to his heart, feeling her strength slowly slip away. Fear, unlike any he'd ever known before, set his heart sprinting. He rocked her. "Stay with me, baby. Stay with me. Come on, you can do it."