by Debra Dunbar
The bartender topped off her ‘purple’ wine, as the man next to her, Dawid, recounted his family’s experiences in World War II.
“I was seventeen and got in just as things were wrapping up. All my cousins went in earlier and so many didn’t return . It was expected that I’d go too. We had family still in Poland, so this was a war that cut close to our hearts.” His pale-blue eyes misted. “But I’ll be honest; I was always glad I was too young to go when the war first started. Call me a coward, but I’d seen my aunts cry over those yellow slips delivered to their doorway, and I never wanted my mother to go through the same thing.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand, feeling the fragile bones and crepe-textured skin under her fingers. “I lost both my parents in a war—a war I was too young to serve in. I know it’s treasonous to think this, but I’m glad I was too young to fight. So many died—beings who were not necessarily evil, but were fighting because they thought they had to. The cause may have been just, but I’m still relieved I didn’t have to look across at another and end his life.”
Suddenly it hit her—that’s what she did. She executed demons. They’d done the equivalent of climbing the Berlin Wall, and somehow that warranted death? What if they were like Dar and just here for vacation? There had to be some way to judge evil intent, to eradicate those who wished to harm the humans without resorting to this kill-them-all-and-let-God-sort-them-out philosophy.
Dawid gave her hand a surprisingly firm squeeze in return. “I’m sorry about your parents. War is the hardest on children, it seems. I hope you’ve been able to find a family here. Family is more than blood, you know. Keep those you love close, and they’re your family.”
She couldn’t help but look over at Dar, arguing good-naturedly with Gerard and Lew about the benefits of unionization in the textile industry. Who did she love? She was very grateful to Gabriel for taking her under his wing and admired many of the angels in Aaru, but... .
“I’ve worked too hard to really think about family,” she admitted. “But you’re right. I need to find someone who I care about, who cares about me, and keep them close.”
“There you go, Asta.” Dawid let her hand go to pat her gently on the shoulder.
She spent the rest of the night listening to stories and good-natured ribbing between men who had clearly been friends for a long time. When the bartender finally ushered her and Dar out the door, pulling the heavy metal gate closed behind them, it was early in the morning.
“Okay, I’ll admit that was fun.” Asta’s head was floating, and she couldn’t seem to keep the smile from her face as they walked the brightly lit, still lively city streets. It was more than fun. There was something fulfilled, deep in her soul, from getting to know these humans. “How do you know them, the men in the bar?”
“I found Stanley’s a few decades ago and try to pop in a couple times per year. About half the original patrons I knew have died. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when the rest of them go. It’s not like that place appeals to the younger, more hip crowd that’s taking over the neighborhood. I keep thinking one year I’m going to come back to find Marsha has sold it and it’s become a gourmet pizzeria or something.” He paused, looking down the street behind him. “That place has been in her family for three generations. It loses a ton of money, but she keeps it open because all those guys remind her of her father.”
Asta felt a prick of tears behind her eyes. Time was so unforgiving to humans. But it wasn’t just the thought of the little bar closing that upset Asta it was the stinging fact that the demon had a closer, more intimate feel for the city’s residents than she did. This had always been her city, and she’d prided herself on how much she’d cared for the fate of the humans here. Now she faced a cold truth—viewing the humans from a thousand feet up and caring about their general welfare wasn’t the same as really knowing their lives, really immersing herself into their hopes and dreams, their pain and sorrow. How was it that this demon seemed nobler than all the angels in Aaru?
Maybe contemplation and grace were nothing without the experience of deep emotional connection.
“Short cut.” Dar pulled her down a side street, holding her arm as she picked her way carefully over the broken bits of sidewalk.
“I don’t want to break a heel.” Asta clung to his shoulder and hopped as she removed her shoes. Stupid shallow angel, worrying about her shoes, the cost of which were probably more than Marsha brought home in a week. Asta eyed the red soles and cream patent leather tops with sudden shame. She would only be here for a few more days. How could she change in such a short time? How could she make a difference in just a few days before she flew back to Aaru?
Aaru. Her homeland had always seemed a refuge, but now the thought of returning sat like something foul in her stomach. How could she go back and sit for centuries in meditation while Marsha struggled to keep her business afloat, Otto mourned the death of his grandson, and Eugene went home and struggled to climb the three flights of stairs to his little apartment.
Tucking the shoe under her arm, she took off the other and stretched her toes, marveling at the feel of rough cement under her feet. There were times when shoes were overrated, and this was one of them.
“There.” She smiled at Dar, realizing she was now the same height as the demon she’d towered over all evening.
“Penny for your thoughts?” He took the shoes from her and stuck them in his jacket pockets. She couldn’t help but notice how they ruined the smooth lines of the suit, heels jutting like weapons from his hips.
“I was thinking maybe Marsha could have a very lucky day with a scratch-off lottery ticket.”
Her brown eyes met his silver-colored ones. Then suddenly her back was pressed to brick and his mouth was on hers.
His body was firm against hers, his lips gentle and soft. They pulled at hers, as his tongue teased and teeth nibbled. Her heart lurched and her hands gathered the fabric of his shirt. For a moment, she was unable to move, unable to do anything as he traced the lines of her mouth, tasting the warmth between her lips.
Then, as quickly as he’d made a move, his mouth left hers. She felt the loss, her insides a mess of hot liquid as she dragged in a breath.
I’m not going to have sex with you. Asta opened her mouth to voice the words running through her head like a worn-out mantra.
“I know, I know.” Dar’s breath was soft against her face. “You’re not going to have sex with me. I get it. Doesn’t mean I can’t steal a quick kiss before you fly off into the night.”
There was no way to adequately reply to that. Asta moved her hands from his chest, running them up the demon’s arms to push him away. He was excessively muscled for a demon. She frowned, wondering what he’d been doing. Physical combat? Did demons do that in Hel? Or had Dar taken to more human methods of defense since his immunity restricted his ability to use lethal force.
Drat. Her thoughts had halted her hands against the demon, and with an involuntary action, her fingers curled around his shoulders, pulling him close. A thousand reasons why she shouldn’t do this chased across her mind, followed by a thousand reasons why she should. Millions of years of distrust fell by the wayside, overcome by burning need, by the glorious feel of his warmth against hers.
Once more he was kissing her, but this time she mirrored his actions, opening her mouth, and so much more, to let him in. His spirit-being swirled against hers, as intoxicating as the mouth that now trailed a series of feathery kisses down her neck. Molding herself to his hard length, she skated her hands around his waist and down his back, diving up under the jacket to frantically pull his shirt from the waistband. Skin. She needed to feel his skin against her hands as intimate as his spirit was against her own.
His arms tightened around her, pulling her from the brick wall. One hand drifted to cup her rear end, gathering her skirt up to give him access to her naked flesh. Leaving her neck, his mouth moved upward, kissing her with fierce passion that curled her bare toes agains
t the pavement.
Fire shot through her as he explored her mouth with greedy hunger. Asta felt herself swept away, everything vanishing except for a lightning whirlwind of passion. His hands, his mouth, his tongue—she loved the taste of him, the feel of his body against hers. When he pulled his mouth from hers, she shook with need, a rhythmic ache deep inside her body.
“No.” It was all she could manage.
She meant that she didn’t want him to stop kissing her, to stop his hands from exploring her body, but he misunderstood and stepped back. The evening was warm, but the sudden loss of his body against hers made her shiver.
“Are you sure? I know you said no sex, but maybe you’d reconsider?” His eyes blazed down into hers, his voice a sexy rasp. “You can easily kick my ass, so you don’t have to worry about me doing anything non-consensual. We can see where this goes. You set all the limits; you make all the rules.” Then he dipped his head so his mouth found the hollow where her neck and shoulder joined. Asta arched her back.
“Tub.” It was hard to get that one word out, let alone the rest. “It’s big enough that I can reveal my wings. And... yes, I might reconsider.”
Who was she fooling? She was ready to rip off her dress and do him right here in a dark alley.
Dar shuddered against her, his breath catching. “Will there be room for me in that tub, with you and your wings?”
Oh, this was glorious. All the surface nerve endings of her skin were firing like Independence Day pyrotechnics, and the whole time, his spirit-being was pressed to hers with almost unbearable intimacy. That time she’d joined with Kfial had never felt quite so right as this did.
“I’ll make room.”
His hands tightened, one gripping her waist and the other curling against her ass with almost painful strength. Once again, his mouth dropped to hers, leaving all to soon to taste a line down her neck. He bent his head further, and she raised on her toes, feeling his mouth slide down her chest and across the tops of her breasts. This was better than meditation, better than espresso, or double chocolate cake, or those red Prada sandals she’d scored last week. This was better than flying.
This was insanity. One week. Less than one week and she could wash all this sin clean. The thought was depressing.
Then Dar pulled away, running a hand through his hair. “I... before we... I need to tell you something.”
Huh? No, he didn’t. She reached for him, but he grabbed her hands in his. “Our date is technically over, so I need to tell you something before we get carried away.”
Chapter 9
Even though his voice still held that husky, desperate sound, it seemed oddly businesslike. What could he possibly need to tell her right now when she was on fire for him?
“Our deal was a night of dinner and fun in exchange for information. Naked tub action isn’t part of that. Before we... well, I need to give you the information. Then if things continue, it’s just us. I want whatever happens to be just us, not mistaken as part of our contract.”
Asta looked into the silvery gray of his eyes and nodded. Whatever this information was, she had a feeling the magic of the moment wouldn’t be recaptured.
“We’re not chasing a sorcerer summoning a demon. We’re after a genie in a bottle.”
What in all of creation was he talking about? “Like that old sitcom with Barbara Eden?”
“Not really. I don’t know who the trapped demon is, but I doubt he’s that attractive. What I do know is that he’s going to be pissed as all fuck. Getting summoned is bad enough, but being stuck in a bottle for hundreds of years wouldn’t do much for anyone’s temper, let alone a demon.”
Asta stepped back, pressing herself against the wall, all thoughts of soaking her wings in a tub vanishing. “Why would someone put a demon in a bottle? I thought the idea was to summon one, get him or her to do something for you, then banish them back to Hel. What’s with the bottle?”
“Think of it as a savings account. Summon a demon, put a series of parameters around his release as usual, and then put him somewhere safe for later, when you’re ready for him to do his thing.”
“Why not just banish him with a contract for future service?”
Dar nodded approvingly, stepping forward to put his hands on her waist. “You’re thinking like an angel. I like that, but humans aren’t angels. Most don’t have the skills to protect themselves from us. They want us to do things for them but are pretty scared of us. Keeping us safe in a bottle no doubt sounded like a good idea. Of course, it just pisses us off even more.”
“So why is this guy still in the bottle? Humans don’t live for hundreds of years. Why didn’t the original sorcerer collect his service and send him back?”
Dar shrugged. “Humans die unexpectedly. A bottle would be passed down for generations, or most likely sold off by a frightened relative. Genies become a sort of hot-potato, handed off to different owners, all of whom are too frightened to activate the contract.”
This was beyond stupid. “Okay, so the fading in and out of demon energy we’ve been sensing is this genie. Let’s get the bottle, smash it, and send him back to Hel through the closest gate.”
“Not gonna work.” Dar shook his head. “The bottle won’t break, and the genie can’t be released until he performs his service.”
“Any idea what this service might be?”
Dar grinned, his teeth looking dangerously sharp in the moonlight. “I don’t know in this particular instance, but traditionally it’s always three wishes.”
What a scenario. They could find a human with a minimal amount of self-preservation instincts and convince him to wish the genie out of the bottle while they stood at the ready. Or they could just let the thing stay where he was, hoping if some human was foolish enough to set him free, an angel could get there in time. Hundreds of years in a bottle. The genie could spend hundreds more in there before being released. Asta would be long gone, back in Aaru, and this genie would be someone else’s responsibility.
Temptation gnawed at her. This genie was powerless right now. She could continue her days of fun and just let the next enforcer deal with it. The idea had appeal, but she thought about Gabriel’s disapproval, of the hundreds of humans who might be killed before the genie was stopped. No, she had to do something now, before she left.
“Can you tell if he’s in the process of being released or not?”
“Nope.”
Asta frowned, tapping her lip with a fingernail as she thought. “The bottle can’t have been in Chicago for long or I would have sensed it before now. Who has it? And are they aware of what’s in it?”
Dar gave her an odd look. “It’s in Carter Phelps’s hotel room. You know, the human who gets all doe-eyed whenever you’re near? The one who seems oddly convinced you’re a survivor of a conflict in Rwanda? He’s got a little display on top of the dresser in his bedroom—a bunch of different objects. It’s a fucking shrine, although why playing cards and other crap are worth lugging to a convention, I’ll never know.”
Carter. Her heart lurched as she remembered the man discussing his childhood. The shrine of objects must have something to do with his grandmother. If so, he might not even know what the bottle held. She couldn’t just leave the genie with him and risk that he might inadvertently free it. People wished for things all the time. The wording of the original contract may leave room for an accidental release of the genie.
“I’ll talk to him. I’ll see if he’ll give it to me.”
Dar snorted. “Did you not hear me say it was part of a shrine? Unless your compulsion or entrancement abilities have magically increased a hundred-fold overnight, you’re not going to sweet-talk him into giving it to you. He might want to get in your pants, but there are limits to what horny humans will do.
“Besides, what the fuck are you going to do with it? You can’t break the bottle or release the genie. Are you going to just hide it away and guard it until the end of time?”
Asta winced. A demon summoned
into this realm through no fault of his own, trapped in a bottle for all eternity... yes, she needed to protect mankind, but what about this demon’s rights?
And when did she start thinking that demons had rights?
“Asta, just let it go,” Dar said softly, his hands still warm against her sides. “This will all play out eventually as fate decrees. Some idiot human will release the genie or not. In the meantime, it’s just a pretty bottle.”
Having her earlier thoughts voiced made her realize again how much they had in common, even with almost three-million years of conflict.
“I can’t. What if Carter releases it by accident and it kills him? What if it’s an ancient or massively powerful demon, and he manages to destabilize half the planet before we catch him. The world could be wracked in plague, famine, or war, and it would be my fault for turning my back on my duty.”
Dar sighed and ran a hand through his hair, causing strands to stick out at odd spots on his head. The effect was strangely endearing. “The only thing we can do then is try and find a human who can safely release the genie while we stand by to kill him before he goes on a rampage.”
Why did he care? He’d helped her find the demon as agreed, and she’d had a date with him. Why was he acting like this was their problem instead of just her problem.
“I don’t want to ask a human to take that risk.” And part of her felt guilty about executing a demon who hadn’t voluntarily violated the terms of the treaty. Maybe they could give him an ultimatum—immediately return to Hel or die. The thought of proposing such a choice to an enraged genie released after centuries of captivity was ludicrous.
Dar threw his hands outward. “Asta, humans have been taking that risk since they first walked upright. One of them took a huge risk in summoning this guy and trapping him. The only way this is going to be resolved is if a human releases the genie and banishes him back to Hel. We need a sorcerer.”
