Malcolm handed me a clean shirt and a pair of jeans to change into. I took them, then fleetingly began to change. I didn’t want to be pulled back to Princess Gluttony mid-way through dressing. It was going to be impossible to explain how I healed so quickly and where the fresh clothes had come from. But I was certain she would get the wrong idea if I was naked the next time she came to visit my lifeless remains.
I shuddered to think of the things she would do to my body if that happened. I involuntarily covered my mid-section as the thought of waking back up in Hell with certain parts of my anatomy missing went through my mind. I caught myself before I squeaked, and cleared my throat as I looked back to Malcolm. One of his eyebrows was raised slightly in an unspoken question. I didn’t answer it.
I nodded to the door after I slipped the t-shirt over my head. “Did she not accept my apology? I already hate myself for shouting at her before.”
Malcolm seemed to study me for a moment. His eyes narrowed in curiosity, and I could tell he wanted to say something other than what he was going to allow himself to say.
“What is it, Malcolm?” I asked shortly. I didn’t have time to play games with him or Josselyn. Death was already playing enough games as it was. I was betting she was coming up with hundreds of different ways to kill me right then. “Just cut the bullshit and give it to me straight.”
Malcolm’s other eyebrow flew up to give the other a high-five and he stared at me in disbelief. “Don’t forget where you are, Rhyan—”
My long strides were swift and I didn’t stop until I was nose to nose with the angel. “I know exactly where I am, and exactly where I’m not,” I growled out through a clenched jaw. “Watching my language is the least of my worries. You have no idea what I’ve been through. Now, tell me what I need to know to get my ass out of there or stop wasting my time by pulling me here. I need to get away from Princess Gluttony so I can find this Abigail girl.”
A slight twitch in Malcolm’s lip caught my eye and I took a forced step back from him, then another. What did he know? He didn’t have to volunteer any information, but he couldn’t lie to me if I asked the right questions. It was impossible for angels to lie. I hadn’t tried it yet, but I bet I wouldn’t have any trouble playing the part of Pinocchio.
“What are you not telling me?” I asked calmly as my head fell. I had a strange feeling in the pit of my gut that I wasn’t going to like the angel’s answer, but it was one of those ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ kinds of situations. I was getting nowhere without his knowledge. I closed my eyes. My molars grinding and the beating of my own heart were the only noises in the room. “I’m asking you…” I raised my head and locked eyes with him. “…I’m begging you, Malcolm—tell me what I need to know so I can come home.”
Malcolm shook his head slowly, pity clear in his eyes. “You aren’t ready to know yet—”
I couldn’t stop myself. I had lunged and tackled him to the shiny floor before I even had a rational thought in my brain. My forearm was in perfect position to crush his windpipe.
“Stop!” Josselyn shouted, and my head shot up to look at her.
Malcolm threw his leg around mine and rolled us into reverse positions. He then had me pinned under his weight. I didn’t have time to be impressed with his ability to overcome me. I was quickly running out of air.
“I said stop, Malcolm!” Josselyn pushed at the other angel and he removed his arm from my throat enough so I could begin my coughing fit and gasps for clean, pure, heavenly air. “If he wants to know then just tell him already,” she snapped at him, but still wouldn’t make eye contact with me.
Malcolm bounced to his feet, but the outstretched hand didn’t appear, to help me to a vertical position, this time. I didn’t really expect it to.
After standing and making several attempts at clearing my throat I glanced at Josselyn. Her arms were folded protectively around her with each hand gripping the other arm like they were safety floating devices and she was in the middle of storm-filled waters.
“Yes—someone please tell me,” I said as I turned my head to one side and then the other, a steady rhythm of spine aligning cracks filling the silent room. I felt old. “I’m a big boy. I think I can handle it after the shit I’ve already seen today. I mean, how bad can it really be?” I said, but Malcolm and Josselyn only stalled more, avoiding my gaze coolly. I knew any moment the Jeopardy! theme music would cue. Jesus. You’d think by their actions I’d have to fight Lucifer himself to get out of Hell.
I sighed and rubbed a hand down my face. I was exhausted. “Fine. Send me back and I will figure it all out on my own.”
Josselyn stepped toward me with a panicked expression. “Wait!”
Her eyes scared me, but at least she was looking at me. That was movement in the right direction, I hoped. I had to know, whether they thought I could handle it or not. It sure wasn’t helping me, not knowing. I felt like I was walking around blind.
I walked to her and took her shoulders gently in my hands. Shimmering puddles of tears in deep brown eyes looked up at me. There was something there in those eyes: concern, fear, hope. I didn’t want to hurt her mentally or physically again. I would not hurt her again, I promised myself.
Josselyn glanced to Malcolm. “It can work out differently. I know this fate isn’t set in stone. She messed this up over three hundred years ago. It isn’t his fault and there is another way.”
She looked back to me, determined to speak her mind.
“No, Jossel, there is no other way. Don’t do this,” Malcolm pleaded with her, but she wasn’t focused on him.
She was looking at me and she was smiling. Tears still slid down her cheeks, but they seemed to be happy tears now, instead of sad ones. What had changed? What had I missed? I was confused. Evidently, there was something I could at least be hopeful about.
I smiled and nodded. “I’m listening, Jossel. What is it?”
I could hear Malcolm sigh and I knew he had given up. What I didn’t understand was why he wouldn’t want Josselyn to tell me something that could possibly help me. She had hope it would work, so maybe it could.
She shook her head. “You don’t have to stay in Hell. Of course you wouldn’t be able to stay here either, but—”
“I tried coming back here and I tried popping to Earth when I first got there. I have no abilities anymore. I am powerless.”
She nodded in understanding. “You can’t come here unless Malcolm pulls you here. The guardians don’t know we are helping you.”
She paused, letting it soak into my thick head exactly how much trouble they would be in if they were caught helping me. I nodded.
“I’m sure they put a block on you going to Earth because that is where Kendra is. They want you to keep your mind on your task, but see—” she said and smiled. There was hope in her eyes again, a sort of yearning, too, maybe. She swallowed hard as she looked up at me with nervous eyes. “You still have your soul, and they can’t stop you from going to Limbo.” She took my hands and I looked down at the joined fingers in confusion. “I can go there with you. We can be together. We can be happy together and you will never have to worry about—”
I jerked my hands from hers and took a step back. I heard Malcolm sigh again. I slowly raised my gaze to meet her eyes. There was the hurt I promised I wouldn’t give her. Damn it!
“You know I love Kendra, Jossel. Happiness is not an option for me.” I stepped forward to ease her pain, but she only cringed away, dropping her tear-filled eyes to the floor. I stopped and let my extended arm fall to my waist in defeat. “I’m sorry. This has completely thrown me off guard. I didn’t expect for any of this to happen.”
“Cause you only see what you choose to see,” Malcolm said. “And that is the reason it is too early for you to know what I know about your situation in the Underworld, brother. You are blinded by what you think you feel, so therefore it will be impossible for you to feel what you must in order to return here. You will have to bring her ba
ck with you or accept your fate and stay there in misery.”
I looked up at him then. I supposed what he was saying made some sense to him, but I was convinced I could overcome any obstacle necessary to get back to Heaven and reclaim Kendra as my charge again. I didn’t have to stop loving her to bring some girl back over to the good side. I could do it for Kendra. I didn’t want to think what would happen if I failed this mission.
I would never be happy again, even if I was allowed to go to Limbo. I couldn’t be with Josselyn and put her through that type of misery. She deserved better than what I would ever be able to give her.
“I can handle this. You underestimate me, both of you. I wouldn’t doubt either of you could do what was necessary to return to your charge…”
“It is her…” Josselyn said quietly, and I quickly moved my attention back to her. Her head was still down. The stiff set of her jaw led me to believe she wasn’t at all happy with the path the conversation had gone down. She was upset. And I had a feeling she was upset with me. She was going to try her damndest to hurt my feelings because I had hurt hers by rejecting her.
“What? Who is?”
“It will only make it more difficult for him to accept, Jossel. If you want him to return please don’t do this,” Malcolm pleaded with her, seemingly ignoring the fact that I was encouraging her to do what he was begging her not to.
She didn’t look at him. She looked at me again, her jaw still set and fire in her glistening eyes. “Abigail. It is her.”
I threw my hands up in total confusion. “Abigail is her…” I was obviously missing something big and important. “…I don’t get it.” Was it possible my IQ level had dropped when I fell into Hell? I wasn’t feeling smart. Or maybe they were just making me feel dumb by skirting around the obvious instead of just being as blunt as I would be about it. Yes. That had to be it. I was even beginning to confuse myself.
I sighed. “Abigail is her, but who is…her?”
I knew they couldn’t be talking about Kendra. She was on Earth. I was sure of that. And she’d met her soulmate. I was also sure of that.
Josselyn only continued to stare at me in anger. What was her problem? “I haven’t met any girls in Hell.” If either Pogo or that minion that had bit me was somehow a girl in disguise I would choose to be alone in Limbo. I wasn’t going to even pretend to like something that hideous.
“How’d you get that hole in your heart, Rhyan?” Josselyn asked.
“Princess Gluttony wouldn’t accept the fact that I refused to be her sex slave,” I said, then froze as one of her eyebrows lifted.
No. It couldn’t be possible. There was absolutely no way that demon bitch could be the Abigail my soul was supposedly connected to. No. I refused to accept it. Nobody in Hell even had a soul. How could she be my soulmate? No. I hated her. How could I possibly be expected to love her? No. No. No.
“No.” I shook my head. “No! It’s not her!” I shouted and my voice cracked. I suddenly noticed my own face was wet. I covered my eyes with the palms of my hands and fell into a chair, shaking my head in denial. There must be a mistake somewhere, I thought, then voiced it, “There has got to be a mistake. Um, maybe I fell into the wrong place,” I said, hopeful. “You did say that I was supposed to be informed I could return to Heaven if I completed the task. Maybe I should have fallen into the Syde of Lust, because of the thoughts I have for Kendra.” I got swiftly to my feet in anticipation that I might actually be right. “That has to be it.”
Malcolm snickered, and I found that extremely irritating. I’m sure, if the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t think the situation so funny. I glared at him and his smile faltered.
“Sorry,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I just had a mental picture of your reaction to landing in that syde and being expected to fall for that guardian demon.”
“She couldn’t be any worse than Princess Gluttony,” I said, instantly feeling ill.
“You don’t think so? The Prince of the Syde of Lust is named Thoros. I doubt you’re his type, though.”
I rolled my eyes and he chuckled again.
“How the hell do you know all of this anyway?” I asked, forcing myself to calm down a little. Being irate and irrational wasn’t helping anything, and I had just informed them both that I could handle anything they told me. I had to handle it, at least in front of them. I could freak out later.
I glanced at Josselyn. She had gone back to staring at the floor. It was clear she was still upset, but I thought now maybe it was because her plan had backfired. I could clearly see that she had intended to tell me Princess Gluttony was Abigail so I would agree to her plan of being with her in Limbo. I couldn’t do that to her. She would be miserable with me. I wondered how long her feelings for me had been more than friendly.
I glanced back to Malcolm as he spoke. “It’s my job. I’m on the LOD, so it’s my job to find out all there is to know about anything that could possibly be a threat to Heaven. Hell is at the top of the list. I’m sure you already knew that, though.”
“So, the Line of Defense knows more about Hell than the rest of us?” I asked, and Malcolm smiled.
“No, you now know more about the Syde of Gluttony than even we do. I was hoping you would spill the beans, so-to-speak. We will heal you and possibly slip you some weapons, small amounts of power, a little at a time, of course. We don’t want certain people suspecting you’re a spy from Heaven. I could only imagine how painful that might get for you if you were discovered.”
“You don’t say. Super glad I was volunteered for the job,” I said dryly.
Malcolm held up his hands, palms facing me. “Hey, man, you’re already down there. Just thought you might want to help us out in exchange for a little fire power and some fast-acting band-aids. Besides, it’s your soulmate you’re dealing with, not mine.”
“And just where is your soulmate, Malcolm?” I asked, and he squirmed under my stare a little, obviously avoiding my gaze at all costs. I couldn’t read his mind anymore, but I bet he had it locked up tighter than Heaven’s gates anyway. “Uh huh. I see. I’m being forced to, ah…”
My words were cut off because all of a sudden I was drunk. The dizzy feeling made me ill at my stomach. I shook my head to focus my blurred vision, but nothing seemed to help. I swayed left. My hand shot out to grab the back of the chair to steady my balance, but my double vision had over shot the distance and the floor rushed up to my face.
Again I heard Malcolm’s voice as I fell away from Heaven. Only two words. “Kiss her!”
All went black.
Chapter 13
Abigail
“Leave us,” Abigail said, after she was positive the handsome stranger was secure.
Miles and another minion, whose name she’d yet to remember, hurried out of her quarters.
Miles had injected a high amount of sodium pentothal, a powerful truth serum capable of making even Lucifer speak the truth, into the vein of the stranger.
She wasn’t waiting for it to take effect; she could tell it was working. What intrigued her most was how his body was as perfect as it had been the first time she’d seen him. There wasn’t a scratch on him. Anywhere. He was also dressed in clean denim jeans and a black cotton shirt, nothing that could’ve been found in any of the sydes of Hell.
Could Lucifer have been right? Could he really be holy? That would explain a lot of what she hadn’t understood earlier about him, but it didn’t explain why he was there in the first place.
She pulled the reaper’s cape further down, to hide any exposed skin, as the man’s head lifted, then bobbed a little on his neck. He moaned a bit, then his eyes fluttered open.
There they were. Those beautiful sky-blue eyes of his that were deeper than any ocean she had ever encountered. He stared at her, but he wasn’t fully alert yet. It would take him a few minutes.
Why would Lucifer set rules for her now? After three hundred years? She liked this new minion. She craved to touch his body now, even after what
she’d just gone through with the master. It wasn’t a sexual feeling; well, not all of it seemed to be sexual. He made her want to…lay beside him and just let him hold her. When he was near she felt comfortable and secure. It seemed as though all her problems just floated away. She wanted more of that feeling.
The lesson she’d been taught earlier was quite mild compared to what would happen to her if she disobeyed Lucifer’s request for information about the newcomer. Her fantasies of being with the man could only be dreams now. She wasn’t allowed to touch anyone, nor they her.
She could tell he was about as ready as the medicine was going to get him for questioning, and she was tired of waiting. She needed to get this over with as quickly as possible and get him out of her sight before she did something Lucifer wouldn’t show mercy about.
Her movements slow and easy, she placed one foot on the floor and then the other. It was impossible to appear strong when one was so physically and mentally broken. Maybe it was too soon to do this, she thought as another sharp pain shot through her belly. It was all she could do not to show her weakness in front of the stranger, but maybe he would be too out of it to know any better.
The blank look the new minion was giving her made it a little easier. She never would have been able to go through with it if he hadn’t been drugged and incoherent. She couldn’t handle his arrogance at the moment. Her mindset was too rocky. She needed rest before she faced him at his strongest. Or maybe she could just keep him weak, she thought.
“You have been injected with sodium pentothal. It is a truth serum that will encourage you to tell the truth. Do you know where you are?”
His lids closed lazily a couple of times, then seemed to focus on her again before he spoke. “Yes,” he said, seemingly satisfied with his answer, and nodded once.
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