by Danae Ayusso
The mid-day sun illuminating the walkway was shadowed in a pulsating darkness that appeared from nowhere. Like a rolling bank of angry clouds out at sea; a suffocating shroud of thick velvet that’s only purpose was to smother you; a pissed off airy form that wanted to annoy the living hell out of you before ripping you from one place to another—all of those descriptions totally fit—it reached out for me as I walked towards it. The darkness seemingly rejoiced when I was inside of it—that could be very vulgar if you think about it—and engulfed me. Its non-corporal form wrapped around my body like climbing tendrils, trying to hold me in place, but I pushed forward, eventually stepping out into bright white light. The darkness imploded on itself once I was freed, and I looked up at Central Hub; the massive hundred-story building took up an entire section of Midtown Manhattan.
The large building of vintage stonework and modern metal and glass was a staple in the city for both spectrums. Humans saw it as a bank, which it was, and immortals saw it as a bank, depository, and central operations for the largest soul cartel in the Northern hemisphere—it was more than that but I only had to worry about the above mentioned.
Both daemonic and seraphim use Central Hub, each had their respective floors and everything was divided in good old Deep South styled segregation. Ironically, Upper Management was made up of both, daemonic and seraphic, and working together as if it’s nothing and only the end result was what mattered.
They were right, not that I’d ever tell them that. Upper Management were pricks, just like with all Upper Management in all spectrums, and I had an issue with authority—my words, not the shrink’s this time—and I preferred to be treated with respect as they demanded of us. Most likely that was why I was always on their shit list and seemed to get the problematic repos.
It was another thing to add to the progressively getting longer list of shit to work on.
I pushed my way through the revolving glass doors and crossed the tall, open lobby. The center section of the skyscraper was hollow with glass and metal catwalks that connected the sides and floors, each spanned over the open expanse. Glass and metal escalators connected the seraphic floors, and stairs connected the daemonic floors—we weren’t lazy bastards like the angels. I headed over to the demonic security desk and my ID badge appeared in my hand. I pulled it through the electronic reader and placed Persuader and Precious on the counter. One of the guards ejected their magazines and placed them in a lock box before pulling the slides back on each then placed them in the box, securing the lid. I placed my thumb on the security reader and it locked the contents in the box before it disappeared.
“Sign in,” the red skinned demon barked at me.
I rolled my eyes then licked the tip of my finger and used it to sign the registry; little wisps of smoke rose up from the paper as I signed. “Someone needs to get laid, or at the very least, a hand-job,” I said. “I hear Samuel in accounting likes to bat for both teams.” I winked and smooched my lips at him then started for the elevators on the daemonic side of the lobby.
“I’ve got something right here that would put to good use that mouth of yours,” he growled, grabbing his crotch.
I spun around and smiled. “I’m sorry, Bruno, I have a three inch and over rule,” I said apologetically, and waved at him with my pinkie. “And you missed it by an inch at least,” I teasingly sang.
Bruno snarled loudly, causing those in the lobby to jump and angelic security went on high alert.
When the elevator doors signaled their arrival behind me, I kissed my middle finger and shoved it out his direction, and blindly stepped back into the elevator.
The fuming demon was burning daggers in me with his black on black eyes until the doors closed then I lowered my hand.
“That wasn’t very mature,” someone said from behind me, and I jumped, startled, not realizing that I wasn’t alone.
Reluctantly I looked behind me and groaned.
Damn it, caught by the boss.
I turned back around but my eyes betrayed me and checked his reflection out in the polished metal doors.
“It’s on the list of shit to work on,” I admitted.
Stolas laughed. “Good to know. How is therapy?” he asked and smiled at me, reaching around me to press the button to the seventy-ninth floor.
Damn it, that’s fifty floors over my pay grade and never a good sign when I have to go there.
“Good,” I lied. “I’ve been behaving myself if that’s what you’re really asking.”
He nodded, his sapphire eyes moving up and down my form, a small smile pulling at the corners of his full lips.
“Stop picturing me naked,” I grumbled under my breath, and tried to keep from picturing him without his clothes.
Stolas was very agreeable: slender, dark tawny skin, wavy dark blond hair, velvety soft hands that knew exactly where to touch and how, full lips and a long tongue that were both much too willing to please for hours and hours while his mouth explored every inch of your body, causing the first orgasm to last for hours, then each after that blurred into one continuous orgasm that made you pass out for nearly a full day afterward.
Remembering wasn’t helping in the least.
“It would be a grave injustice,” Stolas started, “to allow a masterpiece, such as your heavenly body, to simply go to waste and not be properly admired.”
Compliments are always welcomed.
He adjusted himself and raised an eyebrow when he caught me watching, gnawing on my bottom lip.
“Zion, why don’t we take a long lunch so I can show you just how much I’ve missed that heavenly daemonic body of yours?” he sinuously suggested.
Tempting offer.
“Stolas,” I said, and tried to keep from moaning when his name left my lips—the things that damn demon used to do to my body for hours at a time—then cleared my throat before I said something stupid. “I’ve spent nearly ten grand with that goddamn shrink talking about you and the repercussions of the bullshit relationship that we had,” I said instead of offering to take him up on his offer. “Remind me again, what does your wife think…oh wait, it wasn’t your wife that found out. It was I that found out when I walked in on you throwing it in your assistant. How silly of me. What was his name again?” I venomously asked with a snarl.
Of course he simply shrugged and licked his lips as if I was just going to forget the past and pick up where we left off.
Prick.
I crossed my arms over my chest in defiance and glared at the reflection of his perfect chiseled face.
I foresee another three grand being dumped on therapy because of this asshole this week.
When the doors opened, he motioned for me to lead and I reluctantly exited the elevator, and fought the urge to summon a daemonic blade just in case.
Stupid Upper Management.
No.
Correction.
Stupid ex-boyfriends! Did he seriously think that he was going to get laid? If it wasn’t for his daddy sitting on the board of directors, Stolas would be flipping burgers right now. Ugh! Self-righteous, pretentious, manicured, Louis Vuitton wearing assclown!
Seriously, I still can’t believe that I ever thought that asshole was hot. At the time, I thought he was hot as hell, and his strange dedication to giving rather than receiving orally was a bonus, but still, it would not happen again. Never again. And obviously he had forgotten that he was the one that ordered me to go to therapy. I just don’t think he was anticipating me actually sticking with it.
“Hey Volac,” I said and smiled wide then eyed the extremely irritable man. “Full batch ready to unload.” I continued to smile at him, that face consuming smile that bears all of my dazzling white teeth like a damn toothpaste commercial, that smile that irritates the hell out of him because his teeth are all small razor sharp fangs...he almost looks like a Snakehead fish.
“You pulled a gun on a contract in public,” he hissed, his childlike voice matched his cherub appearance, unlike the black leathery wi
ngs holding his short ass up.
Volac never stayed in one place for long, mainly because he could. His wings were always beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings, appearing like a black blur of movement behind his fat bellied, two and a half foot body. The poor, irritable man had to have a workstation designed for normal sized people to stand behind since he couldn’t sit still for longer than a minute.
I knew his reprimanding was coming, but Stolas’ trip to the seventy-ninth floor distracted me.
“He hit me,” I said. “I tried the sensible approach. He ran. I chased...nearly broke my goddamn high heel on a manhole cover. Then he hit me, so I smoked his ass. It was completely justified.”
Volac’s beady black eyes glared at me and his pale round cheeks flushed a deep shade of red. “Ugh!” he groaned and threw his tiny hands up in the air in frustration. “By the Dark Mother, Woman, you are going to give me a heart attack one of these days. Do you have any idea how much shit I have to take because of you and your alterations of the rules?”
Was that a rhetorical question?
“Um, no?” I shrugged and he glared at me even more, his eyes completely disappearing under his furry unibrow.
It wasn’t my well-being or the rules that he gives a shit about. He simply needed to vent, and since most people didn’t give him the time of day because he was a real piece of work, and honestly, overall, was a miserable person in general, I usually gave him the benefit of the doubt and let him ramble incoherently and have his pity party for one then all will be well in Little Man’s world. Plus, he liked looking at my tits when he didn’t think I was looking and that always helped to keep me from any real trouble.
Patiently I waited for him to get done rambling; after the first three high pitched shrilled sentences, I tuned him out. In my head I was picturing those amazing pair of Jimmy Choo high heels. Feline; this evocative design is the essence of femininity and strength; comprised of sumptuous navy satin, corsetry lacing and exotic Elaphe Snake. I had a picture of the navy and black ones on my fridge at home. Since they were part of the fall collection, they just now hit stores and cost more than a grand.
Shoes or groceries?
Shoes or groceries?
Damn it. I hate making tough decisions on an empty stomach. I should get some pie and coffee, everything is always better with a slice of pie and a cup of coffee.
In my opinion, wars could have been prevented if they only took the time to sit down and eat some pie, talk it out a bit, and then they would have discovered that the biggest problem they faced was whether to have it alamode or not.
Yeah, I want some pie.
“So, are you going to unload or what?” Volac asked and cocked a furry blond eyebrow.
“But of course,” I sang and ran my badge through the electronic reader and punched in my access code: 36-24-36...my measurements of course. Honestly, I don’t why my therapist thought I had issues and suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It was in my non-professional opinion that the cow was just jealous.
Volac looked at his computer. “Dock fourteen.”
“Thanks, Little Man.” I blew him a kiss and he glared at me, but the corners of his mouth twitched, struggling to contain his amusement.
The steel door next to his workstation slid open without a sound, and I hurried inside before Volac could follow and continue to bombard me with more of his bitch fest.
The long, white corridor was lined with frosted glass and brush nickel doors, and overhead lights made it bright as day—it wasn’t enjoyable when nursing a hangover. At each end of the hall was an access door; I went through the door on the daemonic side, the door lead to the seraphim side of unloading. Why waste space when we unload all the same? Dispatch was the same way. Upper Management split the floor in half down the middle; angels on one side and demons on the other. Above each door was a digital reader: red scrolling font meant the dock is in use, blue meant it wasn’t. It wasn’t rocket science, but you’d be surprised at what you found in the angelic ranks.
“Twelve….thirteen….fourteen,” I counted aloud under my breath—a bad habit I had picked up from my best friend that suffers from a mild case of OCD. “So we meet again, Dock Fourteen,” I mused.
Great, now I’m talking to inadament objects.
I ran my identification card through the reader then placed my hand on the biometric scanner. After it beeped twice, the opaque glass door slid open, and I took a deep breath before stepping inside the tiny box of a room. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but I had a very real fear of being buried alive. I think it stemmed from my escape from Hell…not something I wanted to think about when unloading.
The door slid shut behind me, and I closed my eyes seconds before the room illuminated painfully with bright light: the walls, floor, ceiling, even the glass door behind me. A thin red light broke up the light of purity—Heaven named it, obviously—and it moved up and down the length of my body, scanning over me many times, each complete pass pulled a repoed soul from my body and sent it to Containment before it went to the Depository. With each soul that was pulled, the delicate faint tattooing on my side vanished since its name was no longer tied to my soul.
During the twenty minutes that I was subjected to this draining, blinding light—no wonder our vision insurance was ungodly expensive—my mind tended to wander. After six-hundred years of this, you’d think that I’d be used to it, but I wasn’t. With the advancement of modern technology, I just had to stand there and get a tan, in essence. Back in the day, they used to bleed the repo man half to death to pull the damn soul out; it was hell on earth...at least that is how it felt to me.
If you think about it, the term Repo Man was rather ridiculous. The name and title had changed throughout the ages: spiritual specie collector, soul hoarder—not my personal favorite—acquisitions, soul collections services, and most recently, repo man. There was something overly amusing about being called a repo man when you had tits like mine. I wasn’t the first female repo man, but I was only one of four at the NYC hub. Six-hundred years ago, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot for female demons to do, aside from the eating babies, bathing naked in the blood of a young virgin under the full moon, sucking a man’s soul out through your vagina— succubi are real bitches to say the least—or terrorizing humans, being a whore or concubine, and fighting with angels…
I will be the first to admit that I wasn’t a very good demon because none of that appealed to me.
In Hell, I was one Adramelech’s ten-thousand concubines. Sure, he was a demon, a bad ass high ranking, had his own choral of archdemons under him, everyone bowed before him, superpower of the second highest level of Hell, but I wasn’t his type.
Somehow I was broken out of Hell. I didn’t remember how exactly, but I knew that someone helped me. Who? Only the Dark Mother knew. Every now and then my path would cross with Adramelech’s whenever he ventured topside. He was always nice and hadn’t tried to take me back to Hell. That was a plus. Honestly, I don’t think he cared that I left. Adramelech didn’t like blondes. He liked red, super pale and black skinned women with dark hair, bald, or flaming red hair. My blonde hair and tan skin did nothing for him. When it was my time to offer companionship, we’d play chess or he’d have me read to him...
But not all of my time in Hell was that great.
That thought alone made me shiver, even now.
“I don’t want to think about that right now,” I scolded myself.
Like an oven timer, the room dinged, singling the process was completed and the lights clicked off. The door silently slid open behind me and I stepped out, awkwardly rolling my ankle in the process, and stumbled into the hallway and into someone.
“Sorry,” I mumbled under my breath and rubbed my eyes, trying to clear my vision.
A warm, calloused roughened hand wrapped around my wrist, pulling me away from them, but kept me upright until I got my bearings. “No you are not,” a deep, raspy voice corrected, and then his hand was gone.
My hair blew away from me and I blinked rapidly.
“What in the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I demanded, my vision quickly returning but I was alone.
I looked up and down the hallway.
All the rooms had blue scrolling showing that they were empty.
What in the hell is going on? Damn it. I hate unloading. It always messes with my head! I need to see if I can remotely unload like the top tier repo men, it’d be less disorientating and I wouldn’t have to get out of my pajamas.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up and an unfamiliar sense of warmth and contentment flooded me.
“Huh,” I huffed and pushed my hand through my hair in frustration. “Hello?” I called out again. “Is someone there?”
No one answered.
“Perhaps I need more than just pie because I think I am losing my mind,” I grumbled under my breath and headed down the hall. When I reached the door, I stopped and looked over my shoulder back down the hall, my eyes lingering on a spot on the smooth wall for some reason. My heart started to race but I wasn’t entirely sure why so I exited the hallway incase I was having a stroke or something far worse.
Volac was flitting around behind his desk when I exited.
“Who just came out of unloading?” I asked, looking back to the closed door.
He looked up at me curiously. “No one. Zephaniah and Jules finished up about fifteen minutes ago. You know how those two are, they never stick around for pleasantries. Rude ass Fallens,” he grumbled under his breath and started tapping away at his computer. “Forty deposited into your account.”
Wait, what?
“No, it should be fifty,” I corrected.
“You shot one in public,” he enunciated each word slowly, popping the P and clicking the C in the word public just to be an asshole. “You’re lucky that you’re getting anything for that repo. You know as well as I do that they only pay full price for repos done with tact.”
Fuck!
“Next time I’ll just let him beat the living hell out of me before I send him a written invitation cordially inviting him to throw himself on my demonic blade for failure to pay,” I shouted, causing a scene.
