Demon

by Kristina Douglas

  They dragged her away. They’d attached an iron chain to her manacles and they dragged her, refusing to touch her. She never looked in his direction, never made a sound of protest, even when she fell on the cobbles when they jerked her too hard. She simply struggled to her feet before they could yank the chain again. And she was gone.

  THEY PULLED ME THROUGH THE streets as the rain poured down on us. I could barely walk with the shackles around my ankles, and I could feel the wetness between my thighs. From him, from what we’d done. Just before he’d turned me over to the killers.

  Betrayal. I couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, I simply plodded onward, slipping now and then, going down hard and then being hauled up again. I wouldn’t see him again. They would either find out what they needed to know, whatever was hidden in the recesses of my mind, or they wouldn’t. Either way, I would be dead.

  I should care. I should try to escape. But the shackles were iron. Even if they’d been tin, I doubted I would be able to break them. If they’d been paper. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. I was ready.

  They pushed me, sent me sprawling, laughing at me. By the time we got to the building I was bruised and bleeding, barely able to walk as I was shoved forward. Not into the warmth and comfort of Beloch’s retreat, but into a stark white room that looked more like a hospital surgery theater than anything else. There were various pieces of medical equipment and other things that I couldn’t identify. I stared at them, trying to move my mind from the pain in my body and the shock of the appalling thing he’d done.

  They lifted me onto the table, using new restraints even as they kept the iron shackles in place. They’d barely finished when six creatures glided in. They were dressed in enveloping, monklike robes, the hoods drawn low over their heads, their faces in darkness. They said nothing, simply arranged themselves around me, and I knew they must be the Truth Breakers. My stoic façade began to crack, and I looked around desperately, to see Beloch standing behind them with his kindly smile, his gentle eyes.

  “Help me,” I said brokenly. “Don’t let them do this.”

  He moved to the head of the table. “Dear child,” he murmured, stroking my wet hair, “I’m the one who’s told them to do this. I would tell you I’m sorry, but it’s simply the wages of sin.” He leaned forward and kissed me gently on my forehead. And then he was gone.

  I stopped feeling then. Stopped hoping. They would hurt me, they would kill me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I would simply endure, until they ended me. I had no other choice. I wouldn’t beg, plead, and God knew I couldn’t cry. I would endure in dignified, reproachful silence. One of the Truth Breakers raised his arm, and I saw what he was holding.

  And I started to scream.

  C HAPTER F OURTEEN

  AZAZEL DIDN’T GO BACK TO THE house. Instead he walked through the city in the rain. He was soaked through to his skin but he didn’t care. He simply kept his mind a blank as he walked and walked. He couldn’t leave yet. Not until he had the information he’d come to retrieve. Damn Beloch for putting him through this torture. Why hadn’t the old man simply taken her that first night and been done with it?

  The answer was simple. He’d seen that Azazel wasn’t ready to let her go. And Beloch knew he had found fertile ground for the cruel games he loved.

  He should have known he’d end up here at Beloch’s headquarters below the innocuous old restaurant. More proof of her insidious power, he tried to tell himself as he entered through the lower door, but the words weren’t making any sense. His mind was a deliberate blank, because his thoughts were too vicious, too harmful. Her fault, he thought again, and knew he was making excuses. He had done what he had to do. He had no regrets.

  So why was he here?

  He saw Enoch first, playing dice with some of his men in the foyer. He looked up at Azazel’s approach, and grinned. There was blood on his uniform, and Azazel took a deep breath. He could smell it. Rachel’s blood.

  “I knew you’d show up sooner or later,” Enoch drawled. “You look like you swam here. Didn’t you notice it was raining?”

  Azazel didn’t bother answering him, heading toward the hallway.

  Enoch moved quickly to block his path. “And what do you think you’re doing?”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “You can’t change your mind, you know. It’s not your decision to make, it’s Beloch’s. It’s always been Beloch’s, and you know it.”

  “Get—out—of—my—way.” He bit the words off.

  “It’s too late. The Truth Breakers have had her for a long time. She stopped screaming hours ago.”

  Enoch stood even taller than Azazel’s six feet two and outweighed him by forty pounds of muscle. Azazel didn’t even hesitate. He went for him, rage filling his body with such strength that Enoch fell back in astonishment. He tried to rise, but Azazel hit him again, so hard that Enoch skidded across the room, landing in a crumpled heap against one wall, and stayed down, dazed. Azazel walked on into the building.

  There was no noise, apart from the usual sound of the diners overhead, politely stuffing themselves. As he made his way down the corridor purposefully, Edgar appeared, unruffled as always.

  “Were you wishing to dine with us upstairs, my lord? I’m afraid we cannot seat you dressed as you are,” he murmured, unctuous as ever. “But I am certain I can find you some dry clothes to make you more presentable, and then we can most assuredly—”

  “Where’s Beloch?”

  Edgar didn’t blink. “I presume in his rooms. He’s made it clear he doesn’t wish for visitors tonight. He’s been busy with a, er, project and doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “I know what his project is. How do I get to his rooms?” The rooms and hallways in this rabbit warren of a place shifted daily, and there was never any way to tell where Beloch resided. It was part of his elaborate defense system.

  “In fact, my lord, he’s not in his rooms.” Edgar hesitated, then leaned forward and said in a whisper, “He’s spent the last few hours observing the extraction room. A particularly difficult case, I gather.”

  He knew the extraction room. It was where the Truth Breakers worked. Very few people had survived the extraction room. He was one of them.

  “It is still on the lower level?”

  “Of course, my lord,” Edgar said with a disapproving sniff. “I can’t have my guests’ meals interrupted by screaming, can I?”

  Without another word Azazel turned on his heel, ignoring Edgar’s sputtered protests. He took the steps two at a time into the bowels of the building, then came to a halt. He could smell it. A thousand things. Her blood. Her fear.

  He could smell the stink of death and shit, but those were older smells, not from today. He was past feeling relief. He didn’t even know why he was here.

  “Hello, dear boy.” Beloch’s voice came from behind him. He was sitting in state in a high-backed chair, a jewel-encrusted goblet in one hand. “I was expecting you to show up sooner.” He waved his hand toward a less ornate chair beside him. “Sit and tell me why you’ve come.”

  As if he could. Azazel took the seat, trying to stall for time. “Have you found out her secrets?”

  A smile curled Beloch’s mouth. “Of course we have. Not everything, of course. She’s resting while I decide her fate.”

  The cold knot that filled his chest seemed to expand into his gut as well. “And you discovered what she knew about Lucifer?”

  “We did indeed. I must say, Uriel is very pleased with you right now. You’ve almost redeemed yourself.”

  Azazel froze. “What does Uriel have to do with this?”

  Beloch shook his head. “Dear boy, when will you understand that Uriel is part of everything? Your actions have been very beneficial, and he’s willing to reward you for them.”

  “Beneficial how?”

  “He’s been looking for the Lilith for hundreds upon thousands of years, yet all he had to do was wait for you to do something about the prophecy.
He knew you would lead her to me, and that he could then rid the world of her foulness. If you continue to serve the archangel well, I imagine there might be redemption for you.”

  “There is no redemption for me.” He looked into Beloch’s milky eyes. There was something there, something familiar, something wrong, in his calm gaze, but Azazel didn’t have the stomach to try to place it. “The Supreme Being cursed us. It could hardly be up to his minion to reverse that curse.”

  Beloch glared at him. “Uriel is not his minion!” he snapped.

  Azazel was past taunting him. “What did she tell you?”

  “What you already know. That she was confined near Lucifer when she refused to obey the Supreme Being and lie beneath Adam.”

  “But he released her.”

  “To rain terror on mankind. To seduce men and take their life essence so their seed is barren, to smother newborn babes and steal them from their mothers’ arms.”

  “And why would God do that?”

  “Who are you to question the Almighty’s word?” Beloch thundered, and again Azazel had that eerie sense of recognition. He tried to remember where their enmity had started, but whatever had caused it was lost in the mists. It seemed as if it had always been there.

  “I have never been afraid to question God’s word. It was for that very transgression that I was thrown out of heaven, if you remember. For falling in love and for questioning.” He sounded remarkably cool.

  “If you ever want to go back, you’ll have to learn acceptance. That’s what faith is. Obedience without question,” Beloch said in a petty voice.

  “And why should I want to go back?”

  Beloch looked startled. “Of course you want to. Everyone does. It’s perfection, the epitome of all that is good, the pinnacle—”

  “It is heaven,” Azazel said flatly. “And I prefer humanity, with all its flaws.”

  A slow, secret smile twisted Beloch’s withered lips. Azazel knew full well that Beloch could take any form he wanted, and he wondered why he’d chosen the old man this time. He probably enjoyed fooling the unsuspecting into thinking he was kindly and caring. He’d managed to fool Rachel at first.

  Azazel needed to get the hell away from here before he heard her crying out. “What exactly did she tell you? We knew she was imprisoned with the First. We went through all this to find out what else she knew. She holds the secret to Lucifer’s prison. What has she told you?”

  “You’ll have to apply to his holiness, the archangel Uriel, to discover those answers. In the meantime, there’s cleanup to complete. We will make certain there’s nothing else locked in the recesses of her memory, and then the Truth Breakers will finish her.”

  He was going to throw up. He should have known that Uriel would find a way to trick them. He stared into Beloch’s oddly familiar face, and knew demands or pleas would be useless. “They will be merciful, I presume?” It wouldn’t help the way his gut was twisting inside him, but it would be easier on her.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. The words of the dying are often their most interesting. The Truth Breakers will continue in a few hours.”

  Everything roiling inside him stopped. “Why are they waiting? Is any other outcome possible?”

  “Of course not. This happens quite often. When the Truth Breakers are given orders to be brutal, as Uriel has decreed, then the initiate gets so covered in blood that it’s hard to get the other information she might carry within her. And there is the question of her voice.” Beloch gave him that smug smile.

  “Her voice?”

  “Her screams have left her without a voice. It should return shortly, at least enough for us to glean any final information.” Beloch chuckled. “Did you wish to say good-bye to her? I’m not sure she’ll be able to respond very well, and since you were the one who brought her to us I doubt she’d welcome having your face as the last thing she sees, but it’s up to you.”

  The cadence of his voice was oddly familiar as well. The impossible suspicion was born, and even as he told himself it was insane, it grew stronger and stronger.

  “I will see her,” he said.

  Beloch looked startled. “I don’t think—”

  “I will see her.”

  He knew that disapproving huff, the narrowing of the familiar eyes. And suddenly he knew. And his rage was so powerful he was paralyzed as the man calling himself Beloch continued, “Enoch will take you.”

  The Nightman was walking with a limp when he appeared, and his fury was palpable. Azazel knew him as well, with a certainty that shocked him. How had he been so blind before?

  He cast one last look at Beloch. At the old-man disguise, the cruelty and hatred that hid inside. The last of the archangels, hidden by the ancient flesh. He was Uriel, and always had been. Just as Enoch was his most trusted soldier.

  He followed the Nightman’s limping figure and rigid shoulders, down into the shadowy lowest levels of the old house, into the empty corridors, and he knew that Enoch would try for him again.

  Enoch stopped outside a heavy door and turned to face him. The long dagger in his hand was no surprise. Nor was the fact that it glittered with celestial power.

  “You’ve made your final mistake, Azazel,” he said, his eyes shining. “He’s ordered me to finish you. If it were up to me, I would let you see what’s left of the girl, but I am one who follows orders.”

  “Of course you are, Metatron.”

  The king of the angels, ruler beneath Uriel, looked startled. “You know?”

  “That this is Uriel’s idea of heaven? That the charming old man is the archangel himself, playing games of pain and pleasure? Those poor, colorless people who wander these streets must be the few he considered worth saving.”

  “You and the girl are the ones without color, you fool. It makes killing easier when the blood isn’t red.”

  “I do not care what color your blood is. Just that it spills.”

  Metatron’s mouth curved in an ugly smile. “My sentiments as well. But I have the knife and you have nothing.”

  Azazel returned the smile with a calm one of his own. “You have fought me in years past, Metatron. You should know I don’t need weapons.”

  “Nor do I,” he snarled, dropping the glowing blade and advancing on Azazel with the cold certainty of physical superiority.

  It was over quickly. A kick to the groin brought him down, fast and in shock; a hard chop on the back of the head and he went sprawling, unconscious. Luck and surprise had helped him, Azazel thought. Arrogance on Metatron’s part had brought his fall. He wouldn’t make that mistake the next time. And there would be a next time, Azazel knew full well.

  He stepped over Metatron’s body and reached for the door. She wasn’t dead, he knew that much. He would know, he would feel it, if she ceased to exist. Uriel was never going to tell them the secrets that she’d unwittingly held. He’d put her through that torture for nothing.

  The room was dark, but he could smell her blood, and for a moment he halted. It was unavoidable, instinctive, powerful. He wanted that blood flowing down his throat, coating his tongue. Almost as much as he wanted the source of that blood.

  It took him a moment to get his fierce need under control. He switched on the light, and looked at the creature lying on the stretcher.

  He knew her by the red hair, even though it was dark with blood. Her face was so battered and swollen she could be anyone. Her torso and legs were a mess, her wrists and ankles bleeding from the shackles. She must have struggled against them. They would have liked that.

  He couldn’t help her—she was too far beyond his meager gifts of healing. She was near death, in truth, but when he leaned over her and unfastened her shackles, she opened her eyes through the swollen bruising and looked at him.

  Her mouth moved, and he put his ear to it, but the rasp was too raw to understand. He didn’t want to see the hatred in her eyes, so he concentrated on the shackles on her ankles, then undid the other restraints. There was no reason to keep her bo
und like that—she was too weak to fight. It must have been for their pleasure in her pain.

  He slid his arms under her fragile body, and she jerked in silent agony. He had no choice—he had to get her out of there. He lifted her carefully, cradling her against his chest, and his hands were wet with her blood. He kicked open the door, stepping over Metatron’s body, and headed toward the street.

  He could sense it, a door to the outside that few used. He could carry her up the stairs, out past Uriel-Beloch and the other angels, but he could not kill them all without putting her down, and that he wouldn’t do.

  And he couldn’t kill the archangel. In a battle he could hurt him, but only temporarily. Assuaging his vengeful fury and his crushing guilt wasn’t important. What mattered was getting Rachel out of there. To someplace where they could find help. To Sheol.

  The hallways were more like dark tunnels, but his sense of direction was infallible, and he followed the twisting path toward the exit, almost there when a shadow crossed his path. More than one. Truth Breakers.

  “You think you can ignore Uriel’s commands,” one of them said in its hollow voice. “You are foolish. Put her down.”

  He didn’t tighten his grip on her. He had hoped to avoid them. Beloch must have been waiting. “I’m not accountable to Uriel anymore,” he said evenly. “I refuse to bow to his tyrannies. Get out of my way if you wish to live.”

  “You are mistaken,” the Truth Breaker said. “You are the one who is going to die. Set her down, or she will die with you right now.”

  The Truth Breakers were gifted bringers of pain and death. But they were neutral, unfeeling. They didn’t have his fury. “Gladly,” he said, setting her down carefully. He had no choice. She must have lost consciousness, a small blessing for her.

  Despite his fury, something had held him back from killing Metatron. He felt nothing for the shadowy torturers surrounding him, and it was over far too quickly for his taste. He was fast, brutal, and efficient; their surprise at his strength was their downfall. He refused to think about what he was doing, the rending of flesh and bone, the carnage caused by him alone. Perhaps it would haunt him late at night, perhaps it wouldn’t. Within moments the six of them lay at his feet, whatever strange form of life they’d possessed now gone.