Redemption (The Keepers of Hell Book 3)

by James, Danielle

  Laura stood and brushed off her pants. “I don’t either. Let’s call this a safety measure, just in case your demon isn’t friendly. All I have to do is draw the last line of the circle to complete the containment spell.”

  “I don’t think we will need it,” Jason muttered. “I told you Greed will agree to this. He has to.”

  Laura shook her head. “You don’t know that and I am not taking any chances.”

  Jason let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let’s get on with this shit.”

  Laura opened the Grimoire and began to read. The words were in Latin and Jason didn’t understand a word of it, but Laura was a talented dark witch.

  “Shelicapeci, we call to you,” she chanted. “Keeper of Greed, come to us.”

  Jason’s eyes widened as the air inside the spell began to swirl. It thickened and started to take on a color. It was reddish-brown like the color of dried blood. Laura continued to chant the spell as the wind picked up in the house.

  ***

  Shelly was sitting at her desk steaming over that idiot. She had taken off to be by herself for a while after that whole debacle. He was all about breaking the rules and Ash didn’t punish him well enough as far as she was concerned. That human turned angel was a great big thorn in her side. After he had fallen asleep, she snuck out of his room like a thief in the night. But she wasn’t the one stealing anything. In fact, she felt like Jake the Flame had stolen something from her. Something she had guarded for thousands of years. She didn’t have time to dwell on it though. She felt a familiar sensation in her chest. She was being summoned. No one had summoned her for a long time and the last time, it had been Lucifer. Had Ash figured out how to do it? She figured probably so. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to be pulled by the spell.

  When she opened her eyes, she was standing in a house on Earth in front of three humans. Humans! She had never been successfully summoned by a human before. She plastered a fake smile on her lips and said, “You rang?”

  There were two male humans and one female. The men were standing there catching flies in their open mouths, apparently too much in awe of her beauty to speak. The female spoke. “Are you Shelicapeci, keeper of Greed?”

  “I am,” Shelly said with a smile. Oh, goodie, new recruits. “What is it that you desire?”

  “We want to make you an offer,” the man with the dark hair said. “We want to make a deal.”

  “You do realize that I am a demon,” Shelly said.

  “Yes we do.” He pushed his hands through his hair and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He was nervous and that gave Shelly great pleasure.

  “What do you propose?” she asked him. “I haven’t got all day for this. Riches? Power? I can give you those things.”

  The man shook his head. “Blood.”

  Shelly raised a brow at him. “Blood,” she repeated. “Whatever for? And just who are you?”

  “I am Jason and this is Caleb,” the man said. “This is Laura. She is a witch who summoned you.”

  “And the blood?” Shelly asked.

  “We need to summon Balthazar and for that, we need the blood of a demon,” Jason explained to her. “We want to control the gateway between Heaven and Hell. For helping us, we want you to be our second in command.” The little shit beamed as if he were oh so proud of himself.

  Shelly shook her head. “Sorry, boys, but I don’t think that would go over well with the new leader.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like him much,” Jason explained. “You see, we worked for years to bring new souls to Lucifer and now this new guy, he just tossed us away like trash.”

  “Because you are,” Shelly said. “I think I will decline your offer,” she told them, preparing to leave. That was when she looked down and saw the witch on the floor with a piece of chalk in her hand. “Oh, I am terribly sorry that I will have to miss color time. Please, stay clear of pink. It does horrible things to my complexion.” She didn’t know what the witch was up to, but she was certain that they didn’t have the power to hold her. “Bye now,” Shelly cheered just as the witch lifted her chalk from the floor. She had drawn a circle around the pentagram, completing the design. “Nice spell,” Shelly cooed before flashing herself home.

  Except, she didn’t go home. She didn’t go anywhere. “What the hell?” she barked.

  “Confinement spell,” the witch answered. “You aren’t leaving.”

  “The hell I’m not!” Shelly shouted. She tried again to flash but couldn’t. Then, she tried to destroy the chalk drawing that was holding her captive. The fragile design was stable, as if it were drawn in permanent ink. No matter how hard Shelly tried to smudge it with her foot, it wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You are going to help us whether you want to or not,” the witch said.

  Shelly rolled her eyes. This was going to be a long night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Why in the Hell did that woman keep disappearing? Jake stomped his way down the hallway to Greed. He had a bone to pick with Shelly. Twice they had been together, sort of, and twice she had disappeared after the fact.

  What he wasn’t admitting, even to himself, was that he had a bad feeling. A ball of dread deep in the pit of his stomach and he didn’t know why. He was worried about the gorgeous demon who pissed him off like no other. He had woken up with the damned feeling and just couldn’t shake it. He had rolled over to find his bed empty and the pillows that she had slept on cold.

  Whatever was going on, they needed to talk.

  He walked right up to the doors of Greed and pounded on them with his fist. When no one answered, he knocked again. “Shelly, open the fucking doors!” he shouted.

  “What’s going on?” Ash asked him, appearing out of thin air.

  Jake’s heart jumped up into his throat and then back down again. “Shit man, scare the hell out of someone.” He shook his head. “I need to speak to Shelly.”

  “Are you sure she wants to see you?” Ash asked him. “I mean, if she isn’t opening the door, she probably doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jake said with a huff. “She is gonna see me.”

  Ash raised an eyebrow at him. Jake knew that Ash was the only one other than Shelly who could open those doors, and he wasn’t going to do it because Jake was having a He-Man moment. “Look, I’m worried,” Jake admitted. “I can’t explain it.”

  Ash nodded and placed his hand on the electric panel. The doors opened easily, as if they didn’t weigh a thousand pounds each. Jake pushed his way into the realm and went immediately for her desk. She wasn’t there. He looked over the souls that were milling about, but there was no sign of her there either. He walked around, with Ash hot on his heels, but no Shelly. “Shelly!” he shouted into the realm. A few of the souls looked up but went immediately back to their tasks. He walked with purpose around the piles of gold and riches, determined to find her. He kicked a large rock out of the way in frustration when he found nothing.

  “I don’t believe she is here,” Ash commented. He didn’t miss the concern on his guard’s face. “We can check a few other places.”

  Jake followed Ash out of Greed and back to his office. Ash opened another door that Jake had not seen him use before. “Well come on,” Ash told him, and Jake followed him into the small room.

  The only thing in the room was a large mirror. Ash walked up to it and touched it. “Shelly,” he said softly. Jake watched with amazement as the mirror fogged over and the image began to change. He saw flashes of people and places whipping across the glass like a slideshow on crack. After a few minutes, the mirror stopped.

  “Well, that’s weird,” Ash said more to himself than Jake. “Shelicapeci,” he said to the mirror. Still, there was nothing.

  “What’s going on?” Jake finally asked.

  “This mirror is supposed to allow me to see anyone I wish,” he answered. “I wish to see Shelly and it can’t find her.”

  “Can she hide herself from it?”
Jake asked.

  Ash shook his head. “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “What does this mean?” he asked. His stomach was getting heavier with that ball of dread that was in it.

  “It means that we need to find her. Now,” Ash said. Then he called for Antonio.

  “Hey, man,” the angel said as he appeared in front of them.

  “Shelly’s gone,” Ash said. “We need to set up a search and find her. Immediately.”

  “Things gone bad in paradise?” Antonio asked with a sly smile.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Ash told him. “Jake’s got a bad feeling and I’m feeling it too.”

  “Right on,” Antonio said. “I’ll get it going.”

  The angel disappeared as quickly as he had come. “Don’t worry,” Ash told Jake. “We’ll find her.”

  “Damn straight we’re gonna find her,” Jake agreed.

  ***

  They embarked on a search of Hell for the missing demon. Antonio took Malachi and Ameris, the leader of the Playground, and went on to search the first four levels of Hell. Ash, Jake, and Rogue, the leader of Sloth, took the top half.

  “I just don’t understand,” Jake muttered under his breath. “Does she have a habit of disappearing?”

  Ash shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. At least, not as far as I know.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Rogue piped in. He ran his huge hand over the horns on his head. “Shelly usually sticks pretty close. Even if she left the realm, Ash should have been able to find her. He is supposed to be able to find anyone, anywhere. That’s part of his gift.”

  Jake grunted a muffled response. This whole walking through each and every corner of Hell was taking too long. His wings itched to fly, but some of the caverns were too small for him to stand up in, let alone fly. He kept his eye on Ash in case he got word from Antonio.

  They searched for hours, leaving no sanction unturned. Jake’s frustration was growing by the minute. It wasn’t as if he liked her or anything, he was just upset that she would take off and leave nothing to indicate where she had gone or when she would be back. She had gotten all over his ass about being irresponsible for helping that woman survive the car accident, and here she was leaving her realm unprotected. If anything, she was the irresponsible one.

  Or at least, that was what he told himself. He wasn’t really angry with her, though. Deep down, he knew it. He was worried. Somewhere along the line he started giving a shit about the pretty red headed demon.

  That was a whole new kind of what the fuck in his book, but he wasn’t prepared to think it out at that moment. He watched Ash’s back as they rounded the wall of fire and went back to his office where they were to meet Antonio.

  The ride on the elevator was a silent one. Jake glanced over at Ash when they stopped at Sloth to let Rogue out. He needed to do his job too. Jake didn’t miss the slight frown Ash wore or the way his brows crinkled over the bridge of his nose. If Ash was worried, that just made Jake worry more. He hadn’t been at this angel thing for very long, but his instincts were practically screaming at him that something was very wrong, and Jake had learned over his human life to trust his instincts.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  As they arrived back in Ash’s office, Jake was shaking all over. “You have to calm down,” Ash told him as the leader of Hell took his seat behind his desk. “Go make yourself a drink,” he said. Antonio and Mali hadn’t made it back yet, so Ash decided to check his computer.

  Jake didn’t know what exactly Ash was looking for on that thing, but he didn’t ask either. He walked over to the small cabinet that held several different brands of alcohol. He let his fingers travel over the tops of the bottles until he came to the twelve year old Scotch. He cracked the seal on the bottle and poured himself a double shot. He didn’t delay bringing the glass to his lips and downing the amber liquid in one gulp. It burned the back of his throat all the way down to his stomach and settled like a heavy weight. Then, he turned to his boss. “What are we going to do?”

  Ash kept his eyes on his screen as he typed. “If Antonio didn’t find anything, and I doubt he did, we are going to have to search Earth.”

  Jake shoved his angst down and took a deep breath. “Pretty big place to search,” he muttered.

  “I know,” Ash replied. “I just sent a witch I know an email to let her know we are coming. She helped me before I was an angel.”

  Jake poured himself another drink and went to sit across from Ash. “What did she do? Hell, what did you do before all of this?” he waved his hand around to gesture their current situation.

  Ash looked up and into his eyes. “I was a young boy when I made a deal with a demon named Shax,” he told Jake. “I killed demons for him and he let my sister live.”

  “I am assuming you don’t work for him anymore,” Jake said, leaning forward. His leader was talking more than he had heard since Jake arrived.

  “No,” Ash answered. “He wanted me to kill Elizabeth. I couldn’t do it. So I killed him. One thing led to another and here I am. The witch, Laura, had made an amulet for me that eased my travel from Earth to Hell. I think she might be of some use now.”

  Jake nodded. He could understand that. He couldn’t kill someone he loved. But what a mind fuck to have to grow up under a deal with a demon!

  Jake didn’t know what he would do in that situation. Hell, he himself had been offered a deal by a being in Hell, and he took it. He couldn’t and wouldn’t judge Ash for that. If anything, he had a new respect for his boss man. He also found himself hoping that this Laura witch could help them. That feeling of dread was getting stronger and his neck ached like someone had poked him with an ice pick.

  Antonio bounced through the door right about that time. “I got nothing,” he said, running his fingers over his head and through his hair. That man had hair that was black as night and touched his shoulders. Combine that with the subtle Spanish accent and Jake was betting that he had the women lined up at his door. Women like Shelly. The thought that Shelly might find this angel attractive made Jake’s stomach twist in an even tighter knot. He squashed down the urge to pummel the angel right then and there. He had to remind himself that Antonio was a good man, angel or not.

  Ash nodded. “I thought it would be that way,” he told his angel friend. “I sent a message to Laura. We’re going to need her help.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Antonio agreed. “Shall we go?”

  Ash nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  All three men stood shoulder to shoulder and let Ash’s power take them to Earth. Jake felt the soft grass under his feet and he immediately took off. He didn’t know which direction to start, but he had spent the entire time he had been in Hell following someone else’s lead. He was ready to get out on his own. He was ready to do something. Anything. He needed to find Shelly. He didn’t understand why, but he needed to know that she was safe. It was a soul-deep yearning that refused to be ignored.

  “Hold up there, Firestarter,” Antonio laughed and grabbed Jake’s arm. “Where ya off to?”

  Jake spun around to face the angel. “I’m going to find Shelly,” he growled.

  “Whoa,” Antonio said, holding up both hands. “Why does everyone want to growl at me?”

  “You do have that effect on people,” Ash reminded him. “I thought about killing you more than once.”

  Antonio grinned. “You love me.”

  Ash shrugged his shoulders, but did not answer that. He didn’t confirm or deny it.

  “I knew it!” Antonio beamed. “You’re like my brother from another mother.”

  “Shut it, will ya?” Ash said, playfully punching Antonio in the arm. “I don’t even like you.”

  Antonio wagged his eyebrows. “Yes you do.”

  What the hell? Jake thought. These two were joking it up like Shelly wasn’t in danger. Didn’t they have priorities? “Can we please get back to the task at hand?” Jake yelled at them. “Shelly is out there somewhere and we need to f
ind her.”

  “Easy there,” Antonio said carefully. Jake’s eyes had started glowing and he didn’t want the man to start any fires on Earth. “You gotta stay calm. We’re going to the witch’s house right now. She can help us.”

  “Fine,” Jake muttered. “Which way?”

  Ash and Antonio both spread their wings and shot into the air. Jake watched momentarily in awe of the angels. They looked like giant birds in the sky, Ash’s black wings and Antonio’s white wings as different as the men were themselves, and yet, they made a great team. It reminded Jake of his buddies at the fire station. They all ribbed each other incessantly, but when it came down to it, they were brothers. Jake had a feeling that these two were no different. He watched as they circled above him. It was an amazing sight.

  “Hey, Firebug!” Antonio called out from high in the sky, “you coming or what?”

  “Right,” Jake said out loud. He had damn near forgotten that he had wings too. They were such a perfect design that they fit as if he had always had them. As he spread those wings he hoped that he remembered how to fly.

  He pushed the air down with his powerful wings and his body lifted into the air. He caught up to Ash and Antonio and they shot off to the East. He was pretty sure he heard Ash mumbling about Jake’s ability to take to the air, and how it shouldn’t be that easy.

  They circled a mountain and then landed on a rooftop in a small town. The building was two stories and hand apartments on each floor. “Laura is in 106,” Ash told them. They made their way down to the lower level and Ash looked at Jake.

  “Time to get visible,” he told him. “Laura knows what I am, but she doesn’t about you two. Hide those wings.”

  Jake concentrated. He had only tried to make himself visible one other time and there was so much alcohol involved that he wasn’t sure he could do it again. See me, he said in his mind. Then he thought, but not the wings. He guessed he got it right because Ash nodded his approval just before the door to the small apartment opened.