Repossessors of Souls: Expendable Pawns

by Danae Ayusso

  “Okay.” I wasn’t entirely sure what to say about that. “What do I do? How do I get this mistake fixed?”

  “I do not think that there is a way to fix it,” he said, sounding completely uninterested in the apparently trivial matter—yes, the loss of my soul and life is a trivial matter to him.

  What a prick.

  “If my life means so little to you,” I hissed, “why did you even bother? I’m nothing more than a disgusting demon whore that keeps disrupting your seemingly perfect life. You didn’t have to pull me out of the pond, and when you saw it was me, you could easily just tossed me back. Why did you bother?”

  Angelus said nothing, not that I actually expected him to say anything. He hardly ever did.

  Leaving me very little choice, I quoted him, well, mostly I adlibbed a lot. “If this,” I said in a low, venomous, tone, “is some elaborate way for you to repossess for your own amusement, to make this woman of lack-of-clothes look ridiculous, like a sacrificial lamb to slaughter, to fulfill some kind of sick angelic perversion that you are harboring, I will kill you.”

  The look he gave me nearly made the shot to my dignity worth it: amusement, trepidation, disbelief, annoyance, and something else I couldn’t quiet put a name to, but it made me smile.

  “Can you at least pretend to be serious for a moment?” he asked.

  I think it was another of those rhetorical questions that he was notorious for, so I shrugged.

  “Does the current situation piss me off?” I asked. “Yes. Am I having seriously messed up genocidal fantasies about eradicating all angels?”

  Angelus looked up at me.

  “Yes.” I informed him and smooched my lips together, and he rolled his eyes. “Everything about this is wrong, and I’m irate about it, but at the same time, I know that there’s nothing that I could have done to stop or prevent it. I learned a long time ago that taking anything too seriously only makes you bitter and cynical.”

  “I suppose so,” he agreed and a smile consumed my face, “in that ass backwards world you live in.” And there it was; he always had to shit on my parade. “You said that you do not own your soul, who owns it?”

  He remembers I said that? Damn it, I shouldn’t have run my mouth like that. This is quite possibly the most embarrassing thing ever.

  “You’ll think that it’s stupid,” I warned, twirling the lock of hair around my fingers again. “When I was pulled from Hell... Let me just say that I don’t know who did it or why, and I never got to thank them for it, but I vowed that my soul belonged to them because if it wasn’t for them, I would be dead.”

  The memory replayed in my mind and I fought to push it away: the burning, pain, the sensation of my soul being pulled from one world to another. It was the most painful thing I had ever experienced, and I had experienced some horrific things in my last centuries in Hell, but that was nothing compared to being pulled from it. According to the scrolls I read through, when a soul is tied to a particular world is pulled from it, a part of the soul is left in that world, almost as if it were straddling two worlds afterwards. At one point in time, it was considered a punishment to put someone through it because of how painful it is.

  I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

  “For centuries I had nightmares after I was freed,” I whispered. “I’d wake up screaming, covered in sweat, sometimes I’d summon blades and accidentally killed those that came to check on me. After the nightmares, I was consumed with something much worse than the nightmares.”

  “What?” he asked.

  I looked at him. “Guilt.”

  “For what?” he demanded.

  I should have been put off by his constant demanding, but I quickly expected nothing less from him.

  “Not being able to say thank you,” I said with a smile, but it was as empty as my heart suddenly felt. “It’s such a simple thing, telling someone thank you, but when you can’t tell them because you don’t know who they are, it eats you up inside. It still eats away at what remains of my soul. A part of me hopes, regardless of whatever their reason for doing it was, that they know how very thankful I am, and that there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of them and the gift they gave me.”

  I shouldn’t have told him that. I hadn’t even told my therapist any of that, and it seriously showed how damaged I was on levels that I didn’t even know I could articulate. Saying it aloud didn’t make me feel better. Sharing it with a stranger really didn’t make me feel better. But a small weight felt as if it was lifted off of my shoulder.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t-” I started to apologize but he interrupted me.

  “Excuse me,” Angelus mumbled then disappeared.

  Angelus’ disappearing act should have pissed me off. I hated it when people, men particularly, just up and vanished on me. Especially after I spilled my guts to him as if I were paying him to listen to me bitch about how crappy my life is, or was.

  But surprisingly, I wasn’t. Even his attitude and the way he snapped at me all the time, and how anti-social and rude he was overall, didn’t bother me. It should have. But it didn’t. And that should have concerned me. But once again, it didn’t. There was a strange sense of contentment that he somehow created within me, and I didn’t want to give that up.

  Obviously, I was losing my damn mind. That was the only thing I could think of. Never had I been so calm and chill about everything before, especially when my life was on the line. Usually I was a slightly high-strung bitch that freaked out over dumb shit, never important world altering stuff, just the not-so-important stuff like some bitch taking the shoes I was trying on or not honoring the sale price. Ask Loke, he had bailed me out of jail in both spectrums more than once because of my short temper.

  And now there was all of that world-shattering shit and an angry, cynical, belittling angel practically keeping me hostage, and I didn’t care at the moment. My biggest concern, and desire, was to take a hot shower or a bath then crawl back in bed and sleep for a few more days. That was the soundest sleep I had ever had.

  How sad was that? I had to be the victim of an attempted repo by a slightly hot angel, that was a total prick, because of a clerical error, then I was sprayed by a cat...I mean an angel, tried to drown myself on accident, and then get saved and practically kidnapped by the biggest asshole I’ve ever met, in order to get a good night’s sleep.

  “Zee, your issues are beyond anything you could have imagined,” I mumbled under my breath and looked around. “Great, now we’re talking to ourselves. This keeps getting better and better.”

  There had to be a shower or bathroom around here. Contrary to popular belief, immortals have to eat, then they digest food and have to pass the waste, it’s just a not-as-frequent personal need in comparison to humans. Not the prettiest mental picture, but there’s no reason to sugarcoat the truth. And Angelus didn’t stink, he actually smelled pretty damn good—clean, slightly spicy with a hint of lemon grass—so that meant he showered frequently.

  Unfortunately, there was no way that I could support my weight with my injured leg, but I could hop along with some wing support. I maneuvered to the side of the bed then unfolded my wings and stretched them out behind me. They eclipsed the overhead light causing shadows to stretch across the stained concrete away from me. Carefully I put my weight on my good leg and stood then pulled around my right wing, the primaries touching the ground and supported my weight on that side. As if it were a crutch, I hobbled around the dark warehouse trying to find a means to clean up.

  The warehouse was huge and dark. Attempting to fly in a strange place could prove to be fatal so I limped. There was nothing inviting about the corrugated steel walls, solid iron beams, and bulb-less metal lampshades that hung in even intervals across the space. The air was saturated with the unmistakable taste of brine, rust, and something stomach turning. It was it so thick and strong that it coated my tongue and flooded my nostrils.

  There was little voice in the back of my head was telling me
to get my happy ass back in bed and wait, but I wanted to get the stench off of me. Besides, I didn’t need the inner voice of reason telling me that Angelus was the paranoid type, to say the least. Being as old as I was, I knew what to look for and how to cover my ass.

  “Ephpheta, quod est, Adaperire,” I whispered then drew a cross in the air in front of me, and a soft white light rippled away from me. Once it passed over the entire area, portions of the floor continued to glow white with delicate angelic script magically carved into the hard surface. “Such a predictable angel,” I mused under my breath and carefully started maneuvering around the angelic traps.

  “Predictable angel… Angel, what about….crap,” I huffed and stopped in mid-step. “Omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Zion,” I changed; I really should have started with that one. Black and red smoke rolled from the small circle of seemingly warded protection I was standing in. When it met the glowing white script, it hissed and burned away leaving only the white. Adjacent to the angelic traps were glowing red demonic traps. “Sneaky little bastard,” I groaned, my good foot only inches from one of the traps.

  It was a death trap, an honest to the Dark Mother death trap. I wondered how he even moved around it! Even the air was shimmering slightly from the wards suspended in it. It was a good thing that I didn’t fly through because I would have ended up a crispy critter.

  Damn it.

  “Tædet ánimam meam vitæ meæ,” I started, “dimíttam advérsum me elóquium meum, loquar in amaritúdine ánimæ meæ. Dicam Deo: Noli me condemnáre: índica mihi cur me ita júdices.” Then I sighed in resignation.

  “Doth it seem good to thee that thou shouldest maltreat me,” a low voice said from behind me, “that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked? Hast thou eyes of flesh? Or seest thou as man seeth? Are thy days as the days of man? Are thy years as the times of man, that thou inquirest after mine iniquity, and searchest after my sin? Yet thou knowest that I have done no wrong, and that there is none that can deliver out of thine hand.”

  Again, damn it; caught by the warden.

  “I did not know that you were versed in the bible,” he commented.

  “I didn’t know that you were a paranoid freak that warded his home as if it was the love child of San Quentin and Fort Knox,” I countered. “Okay, that’s a total lie. I knew you were psycho like that.” I laughed.

  Angelus appeared next to me. “What are you doing? I told you that you needed to wait to run.” He sure did like to boss me around.

  “I wasn’t running,” I informed him. “I was hobbling around like a drunken demon on a police video.”

  “What are you doing?” he repeated—he needed to find a damn sense of humor.

  I rolled my eyes. “I was looking for the bathroom. I’d like to shower.”

  “Why did you not ask?”

  “Seriously?” I scoffed. “Did you totally miss the part where you just up and vanished on me, leaving me God knows where, without anything? Because if you want, I can give you the recap. ” I made a face at him.

  His head tilted to the side. “You just gave me the recap.”

  “Yeah I know. It was a rhetorical question.”

  “You ask many of those,” he pointed out—as if I didn’t know—and offered me a hand. “I would advise against going forward with your wings. They will most likely get burned off...unintentionally, I assure you.”

  I figured that out for myself.

  Reluctantly I took his offer for support then balanced my weight on my good leg and carefully folded my wings away. Once I had straightened my back out, popping my spine in the process, my feet disappeared out from under me, and I was in Angelus’ arms.

  “Hey!” I squeaked—yes, I actually squeaked—in surprise.

  It was one thing to sweep a girl off her feet, but it was another to sweep said girl off of her feet when she was buck ass naked and smelled like a dirty pond, sweat and armpits. Not to mention, that the boy in this particular equation was an angel, a rather foul mood and short tempered angel, that was only half-clothed himself, and pretty hot in his own little pissed off angel sort of way, and was carrying you some place, where, you didn’t know, but you were slightly aroused by the entire scenario and the mystery surrounding the angel.

  I had so many issues that I couldn’t even begin to unravel them all.

  Carefully he stepped around the wards, leaning and ducking his way through the maze of protective death. To the far corner of the warehouse he carried me, and a slight chill ran down my spine when a frigid gust of air assaulted my body, causing it to perk in all the right places, and Angelus’ arms constricted and held me tighter against his chest. I really shouldn’t have been enjoying being in his arms, but I was, and as pathetic as it was for me to admit, it was the most romantic thing I had experienced in my more than nine-centuries on earth.

  Even when I was with Stolas, there was no romance. It was always takeout and sex in the office. That was it. On occasion we’d talk, but it was always he that was talking, and I had to listen. Sometimes, when I was with him, it as if I was back in Hell in the harem.

  I suppose that wasn’t important at that moment, but what was important was that I liked it way more than I should have. Why was that? Was it some deranged demonic form of Stockholm Syndrome? Obviously I had read way too many medical journals in the waiting room while awaiting my turn to lie on the couch and bitch for an hour. Adding brainy bitch to my resume wasn’t something that I was really longing to do. Smart girls didn’t look as good as me. In my experience you were either lying about being smart or you weren’t as good looking as you thought you were. I knew I looked good, and had many confirm my assessment, thus I was too pretty to be brainy.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I am going to kill you, what do you think,” Angelus informed me in that level-tone of his that silently conveyed that I just asked the dumbest question in the history of dumb questions. Since he was going to be an asshole, I was going to be an even bigger asshole.

  Only I was going to do it Zion’s way.

  “Oh,” I sighed and pouted my bottom lip out then wrapped my arms around his neck, nuzzling my face against the side of his neck. “I appreciate that you waited until I was conscious to kill me,” I whispered, my lips caressing against the base of his neck with each word. “It was very polite and cordial of you.” Teasingly, my lips parted and I softly licked his skin and fought the urge to moan; he tasted beyond words. There honestly was no way to describe it, but I could confidently say that it was the single most delicious and addictive thing that had ever coated my taste buds...and, for a fleeting moment, a sense of familiarity washed over me.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded, but his voice was an octave higher than it normally was.

  Perhaps he liked Zion’s form of being an asshole as much as I did.

  “Nothing,” I said as innocently as possible then started kissing along his collarbone before dragging the tip of my tongue up the length of his neck.

  “It does not feel like nothing,” he pointed out.

  Yeah, he totally likes it.

  “What does it feel like?” I purred before softly sucking his earlobe between my teeth.

  His fingers dug into my thigh and hip. It was painful, but I liked it rough so it was completely acceptable. “A whore trying to do what she does best,” he snarled, his hold on me tightening even more.

  Holy hell this prick is an asshole.

  “Bitch,” I agreed. “Slut. Jezebel. Prostitute. Call girl. Escort. Fallen woman. Harlot. Hooker. Hustler. Lady of the night. Streetwalker. Strumpet. Tramp. Working girl-”

  “What are you doing?” he interrupted.

  “Pointing out some of the ones that you’ve missed,” I stated the obvious, because it should have been since he was the one that keeps calling me a whore. But, I really didn’t want him, him of all people, to know how bad it hurt to hear. I was none of the above, yet I had been called
those names my entire life.

  Do I like sex? Yes. Who doesn’t? Do I need to have it all the time? No. Have I ever gotten paid for sex? Not directly. Sleeping with my boss and having a couple of ‘sugar daddies’ was the extent of the getting paid comparison. Have I ever done anything that would hint at me being a whore, other than using my sexuality as a weapon and flirting to get what I wanted and needed from someone without actually having anything close to sexual relations or foreplay in order to get it? No. And yet WHORE appeared to be stamped on my forehead.

  “Why are you crying?” Angelus asked, sounding almost disgusted.

  “I’m not,” I assured him and smiled wide, showing that million-dollar smile of mine: a horrible attempt at keeping my emotional well-being, or lack thereof, hidden and under control.

  He put me down not far from where I had initially started out, and steadied me with one hand while the other tentatively reached up. I flinched when his fingertips followed the path of the tear that I didn’t know had stained my cheek. He watched what he was doing as if it were pleasantly surprising to him.

  So of course that caused me to cry more.

  “Why are you crying?” he repeated, his question fading to silence after the first two words.

  “I’m not,” I repeated, but I ended up mouthing it; my bottom lip quivered and my smile faltered.

  “This,” he whispered, holding his finger up and examined it, “is a tear.” The salty drop of moisture rolled down his finger to the palm of his hand. “Demons do not cry,” he whispered before his eyes snapped up to mine.

  “It isn’t a tear. I just sprayed you like a cat!” I snapped back at him, pulling away from his hand, lost my balance and landed hard on my ass.

  Angelus glared at me and hit the red lever on the metal pipe hanging from the rafters. The industrial styled showerhead above me knocked and groaned in protest a couple of times before water exploded from it.

  I screamed and tried to scramble away from the freezing water, slipping and sliding across the slick concrete as I went. “What is wrong with you?” I demanded. “Is this some kind of joke? Turn it off!”