Anna (Book 2, The Redemption Series)

by S. J. West

  I feel lonely all of a sudden. I’ve come to love Jered as a friend and confidante, but the person I really need standing by my side is Malcolm. I need the strength I feel when we’re together, like nothing is beyond our ability to make right.

  Jered and I stand in mutual silence for a while before I feel the presence of someone I wasn’t sure I would ever see again.

  I look to the edge of the sandy beach we’re standing on and see Lucifer leaned up against a rock formation.

  “I think I have someone who wants to speak with me,” I tell Jered.

  Jered follows my gaze, and I feel his body stiffen when he sees Lucifer staring at us from beneath his hooded cloak.

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Jered asks. I can tell by the tone of his voice that he doesn’t really want me to be alone with my biological father. I imagine years of feuding has made Jered overly cautious.

  “No,” I tell him. “He won’t hurt me.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because if he wanted to, he would have tried something before now. Plus, if he left me with Andre because he didn’t trust himself to raise me right, I doubt he’s come here to kill the only living reminder left on this earth of the woman he loved.”

  Jered’s stony expression tells me that he still doesn’t want me to be alone with Lucifer.

  “I’ll be here if you need me... watching,” he says as a compromise.

  I nod letting him know I understand his concerns, and that I’m grateful he’s showing so much self-control. If Malcolm had been there with me, there isn’t a doubt in my mind he would have tried to prevent me from going to speak with Lucifer.

  I walk up the coastline to where Lucifer is waiting. I can feel him studying me as I approach, and I wonder what must be going through his mind.

  “How did you know where I was?” I ask him as I come to stand in front of him.

  “Fatherly instinct I suppose,” he answers with a shrug. “I assume I can say that now. I doubt you waited very long to have your suspicions confirmed.”

  “Yes, I know you’re my biological father. I know everything.”

  “I seriously doubt that,” Lucifer scoffs.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” he says stubbornly. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It must matter to you or you wouldn’t have said it.”

  Lucifer is quiet and just stares at me. I have no idea what he’s thinking. His expression doesn’t give anything away.

  “Levi tells me you’ve chosen Malcolm to be your mate.” Lucifer say derisively while shaking his head at me. “Anna, you could do so much better than that over-grown man child. Why on earth are you settling for him?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but Malcolm and I are soul mates. I would think you of all people should understand how strong that bond is.”

  “Yes, I understand its strength,” Lucifer says, his voice rising in volume. “But for him to be yours is a completely ludicrous concept! Either that or my father is truly trying to torture me for my past misdeeds.”

  “Why do you hate Malcolm so much? What has he ever done to you?”

  “He exists,” Lucifer snarls. “Every breath he takes makes my hate for him grow even more.”

  “But why?”

  “I don’t need a reason!”

  “Don’t raise your voice to me,” I tell him, keeping my own steady but forceful. “I won’t stand here and be yelled at by you. If you want to talk to me, keep a civil tongue in your mouth, or I’m walking away.”

  “You act like that’s supposed to be some sort of threat.”

  “I don’t think you would seek me out if you didn’t want to speak with me. Why is that anyway? What’s your real reason for being here?”

  Lucifer is silent.

  “I needed to come and confirm a suspicion.”

  “What suspicion?”

  Lucifer reaches out and gently places a hand on my shoulder. His face suddenly looks drawn with disbelief.

  “How?” He asks. “How did you get Amon's seal?”

  “I'm not completely sure how it worked,” I say, realizing my secret mission for God isn't quite so secret anymore. “But after I killed Amon, the seal he carried was transferred to me. You should know that I plan to get them all back and return them to Heaven. It's one of the things I was born to do.”

  Lucifer remains silent, but I can tell what I just said troubles him.

  “How did you know I had it?” I ask.

  “I sensed it the last time I saw you,” he tells me. “I just couldn't believe it was true. I needed to confirm it for myself.”

  “Is that the only reason your here?” I ask him.

  “No,” Lucifer says, letting go of my shoulder and letting his arm return to his side. “I also wanted to come and warn you.”

  “Warn me about what?”

  “That you can’t trust Levi to do what he says. I know what he wants you to do for him, Anna. Once you give him the princes, there’s no guarantee that he will keep his end of the bargain.”

  “I’m not a fool, Lucifer. I understand the risks.”

  “You’re a fool if you think Levi will just give you what you want.”

  “I may not want the princes released but it's a necessary evil.”

  “Why?”

  “If they're free, it will be easier for me to kill them.”

  “Sounds a bit bloodthirsty of you,” Lucifer quips.

  “Why are you warning me about Levi anyway?” I ask. “I thought if anyone would want the princes released it would be you.”

  “If Levi is the one who orchestrates their freedom, they’re no longer my men,” Lucifer tells me. “They’ll feel loyal to him, not me.”

  “Is that what you’re really worried about? Losing control over them?”

  “Doesn’t every great ruler worry about that?”

  “I think great rulers worry about those who depend on them more than they do themselves.”

  Lucifer looks at me and then busts out in laughter, like what I said is the funniest thing he’s ever heard.

  “I can’t believe how naïve you are, daughter. But, then again, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected more from you since Andre was the one who raised you.”

  “No one else seemed up for the challenge,” I say bitingly. “At least he was man enough to take on the responsibility and not run from it.”

  “You wouldn’t have wanted me to raise you,” Lucifer says with so much conviction I know he believes his own words. “Life is much easier to live if you view it through rose colored glasses instead of a hate that eats you up from the inside out. Trust me. I know.”

  “If you really loved my mother, I don’t think you would have allowed yourself to raise me to just become a mirror image of you. You would have wanted better for me.”

  “I did love your mother,” Lucifer says. “I loved her enough to let you be raised by someone she trusted.”

  “Is that what she wanted?” I ask. “Did she want Andre to raise me?”

  “She didn’t know what she really wanted,” Lucifer grumbles.

  I stop a moment to think about what he actually just admitted to.

  “She asked you to raise me, didn’t she?”

  “Like I said, she didn’t really know what she wanted. She was in no condition to think logically. I had to do that for the both of us.”

  “Or maybe you just didn’t love her enough to carry out her last wish.”

  Lucifer leaps to his feet and stands directly in front of me with our faces barely an inch apart.

  “Don’t ever question how I felt about Amalie!” He roars, his face twisted in anger. “I’ve killed people for doing less!”

  “Is there a problem here?” I hear Jered say behind me.

  Lucifer raises his eyes from my face to look at Jered over my shoulder.

  “Hello, Jered. I have to say that I’m a bit surprised by you.”

  “Surprised…” Jered says like he’s
mulling over the meaning of the word. “In what way exactly?”

  “Surprised you’re giving my daughter such bad advice. You should know better than to trust a word that comes out of Levi’s mouth.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Jered replies. “But we don’t have a lot of options left open to us. Unless you would like to give us a better idea?”

  Lucifer grins smugly at Jered. “And why in the world would I do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…to help your daughter save her family?”

  Lucifer’s grin falters, and he looks back at me.

  “I’ve done all I can for her,” he says before looking back at Jered. “The rest is up to you.”

  Lucifer phases. Just like the first time I saw him, I notice that his phase trail leads to somewhere that is in total darkness.

  “Where did he go? Why is it so dark there? It looks more like a hole in space than an actual place,” I say to Jered, staring at the void Lucifer has left with his phasing.

  Jered doesn’t answer me which prompts me to look back at him.

  “Jered,” I say, bringing him out of his quiet reverie as he stares at the darkness, “where does this phase trail go?”

  Jered drags his eyes away from the black void to look at me. His expression looks haunted. It takes him a few more seconds but he finally answers.

  “Straight to Hell.”

  Chapter 6

  “Hell?” I ask, sure I misheard Jered. “You’re speaking in literal terms, right?”

  “Yes,” Jered says, his eyes narrowing on me. “Why does that surprise you? It’s Lucifer’s domain.”

  “I guess I just never thought about it,” I admit. “I know there’s a Heaven and a Hell, but I guess I always considered them faraway places, unreachable except through death.” I look at the phase trail again and reach out a hand towards it. “Not real places that I could actually go to while I'm still alive.”

  “Well, you don’t want to go there,” Jered says with conviction, putting a hand on my raised arm and making me lower it from Lucifer's phase trail. “And you should never follow him, Anna. Never. There’s no guarantee you would make it back out.”

  “Why?” I ask, looking at Jered. “Would he trap me there?”

  “No, not Lucifer directly. It’s Hell itself. It loves to play tricks with your mind. You could become lost in your worst memories and never find your way back out again.”

  “You make it sound like Hell’s alive,” I say, thinking Jered is over-exaggerating. The look on his face tells me otherwise.

  “That place is filled with pain. In a way, it is alive because it draws its power from the torment of all the souls trapped there.”

  “Have you ever been to Hell?” I ask.

  “I used to be on Lucifer’s side once, remember? I know what he and the others are capable of. I’ve witnessed it firsthand.”

  I don’t ask Jered to expound on his statement. I get the feeling he would rather keep his past behind him, and I have no intention of making him relive any bad memories just to satisfy my own morbid curiosity.

  So, I decide to change the subject.

  “Who are we going to go to next? Brutus or Daniel?”

  “Brutus,” Jered says with a heavy sigh. “I could use a drink right about now.”

  Something tells me he’s not simply wanting to quench his thirst, but I don’t ask any more questions.

  We phase to the teleport terminal right above Barlow’s hideout. It doesn’t take me long to fly us through the tunnels this time because I know the way now. As promised we find Jake, Barlow’s helper, waiting for us.

  “Jake,” Jered says when we walk into the glass enclosed teleporter room. “Can the empress borrow your clothes?”

  “Uh, sure,” Jake says uncertainly, looking confused by the request. “All of them?”

  “No, just your coat, hat and scarf.”

  “Why do I need his clothes?” I ask.

  “Camouflage,” Jered says, taking Jake’s hat and scarf from him first and placing them on me. He wraps the scarf around the lower portion of my face effectively hiding it from view before putting the black knit cap on my head.

  “Are we going somewhere public to see Brutus?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Jered says, taking Jake’s coat and holding it out for me to slip my arms into. “Brutus owns a bar in Kathmandu.”

  “With the time difference, it should be in the middle of the day in that part of the world. Shouldn’t it be empty?”

  “Not necessarily. People pass out all the time in bars and just lay down to sleep it off instead of trying to make it to their homes,” Jered answers. “This is just a precaution.”

  “Why don’t I just use the jacket to make me invisible?” I ask.

  Jered grins looking a bit on the mischievous side.

  “Because I want to see Brutus’ reaction to you walking into his bar.”

  “Um, should I be worried about his reaction?”

  Jered chuckles. “No. Just humor me. I want to see what he does.”

  Even though Jered tells me not to worry, I have to admit I am a little bit. From what I remember, Brutus was very…large. He looked like someone who could crush a man’s head between his beefy hands without much effort.

  Jered gives Jake a set of coordinates, and we’re promptly teleported to the next Watcher on our list.

  I soon find us standing in front of a two story wooden structure with a set of large ram horns perched on the overhang above the front door. The wind is biting cold and snow pounds us from every direction. I look down and see that we’re standing in a snowdrift that reaches up to my knee caps. We’ve obviously teleported straight into the middle of a blizzard. Jered takes hold of my hand and tugs me forward. I’m not sure if he’s holding my hand to lead me where we need to go or if he’s trying to make sure I don’t get blown away by the elements, possibly both.

  We walk up a short ramp to the front door which is just high enough to not be blocked by snow. Jered opens the door and pulls on my hand telling me to go in before him while he holds the door open against the wind’s insistence that it be closed.

  I step inside and instantly feel the warmth of the interior on the exposed parts of my face. The room we enter is very rustic in design with its outsized, exposed wooden beams which support a cathedral ceiling. The second floor of the establishment is easily visible from the first and marked by a railing all around the room. To the right of us is the bar area which is home to a variety of glass bottles lined up on the staggered shelving sitting in front of a large mirror mounted on the wall. To the far left is a stone fireplace so large it could easily be considered a room all by itself. The heat it produces keeps the interior a warm and toasty temperature even in the face of the blizzard outside.

  There are about five people scattered around in different states of slumber. Some are sitting at the round tables in the room slumped forward in their chairs, heads resting against the tops, and some are curled up in front of the fireplace to soak in the waves of warmth it’s generating.

  Brutus comes in from a room behind the bar whistling a happy tune while he carries in a tray of clean shot glasses. When his gaze settles on me and Jered, he promptly drops the tray he’s holding causing the tinkling of broken glass to echo within the room. Some of the slumbering patrons groan their protestations at being awoken by the noise but promptly lay back down to go to sleep.

  Brutus comes straight at me.

  Before I know it, he’s picked me up like a child does a doll, hugging me to him and spinning me around in his arms laughing heartily.

  Finally, he sits me down in front of him but squeezes me tightly to him before taking a step back.

  “I wish you had warned me you were bringing her here so soon, Jered,” Brutus says, moving the scarf hiding the bottom of my face down so he can kiss me on both cheeks.

  “We’re not here for what you think,” Jered tells Brutus, a warning in his voice that all is not well.

  Brutus’ promin
ent eyebrows lower. Apparently he knows Jered well enough to understand there’s trouble. He crosses his muscular arms over his broad, chest and says, “Tell me.”

  Jered looks at the patrons in the room. “Are you sure we can speak freely?”

  “They’re all passed out from drinking all night and into the morning. They’ve been trapped here by the snow for more than a day. Even if they did hear anything, they would just think it was a dream.”

  “Got any of that drink left?” Jered asks. “I could use something to take the edge off.”

  “Always for you, my friend.”

  Brutus walks behind the bar, being careful to step over the broken glass on the floor, and grabs a small drinking glass from underneath the counter. Jered and I sit in stools at the bar while Brutus grabs a bottle of whiskey from the shelf on the wall behind him. He pours a good serving of it into the glass on the counter and slides it closer to Jered.

  Jered takes a long swig, drinking half of the contents. He sits the glass back down and clears his throat to tell Brutus the dire situation we find ourselves in.

  After Jered is through explaining everything, Brutus slams his fist against the bar in frustration, making such a loud thud the patrons inside grumble again about keeping the noise down before falling back to sleep.

  “Just when we thought this would all be over soon, this happens,” Brutus sighs. “I was hoping…”

  Brutus doesn’t finish his sentence, just shakes his head like his unvoiced hopes were those of a fool. I think I know what he was hoping for. It’s the same thing I am. If he’s truly found his soul mate in Kyna Halloran, he wants to be with her, just like I want to be with Malcolm.

  “Jered,” I say, looking over at him, “don’t forget to give Brutus what Desmond sent for him.”

  “Oh yes,” Jered says sliding a hand into an inside pocket in his coat and pulling out the small metal box Desmond asked us to deliver to Brutus. The one with the neural memo from Kyna.

  Brutus’ dismay at having to give into Levi’s demands vanishes for the time being. His eyes light up with expectation.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Brutus asks, taking the box from Jered.