Kiss & Hell

by Cassidy, Dakota

  Clyde’s lips thinned in distaste. “A bribe, no doubt.”

  “Exactly. Stuff like that happened all the time with Vincent. He greased palms and his were equally as greased. He had connections out the wazoo, and he wasn’t afraid to use them or flaunt them to the point of uncomfortable. From having someone removed from his preferred table at his favorite restaurant to once demanding a poor woman’s station wagon be towed because she’d taken his spot in his cushy law firm parking lot. Vincent loved showing off. His father was well known in the community and some kind of Supreme Court judge or something. Vincent told us how important his father had been all the fucking time, and when it became clear he was gunning for the same spot his father once held, I wanted to warn everyone I could get my hands on. I was sick at the thought that he might have the power to do something crazy.”

  “So you were between the proverbial rock and a hard place.”

  Delaney hung her head to fight the shame that even remotely knowing Vincent still brought her. “Yeah. We both were. He held the strings to Mom’s care—and he knew it. If we cut all ties with him, he’d cut my mother’s care off and he didn’t mind telling us he would in his oh so subtle way. We were in deep and getting in deeper. It came to the point where I’d decided to leave college and get a job, and screw Vincent and his money.”

  But then came the day when it all exploded.

  That day. She’d never, ever forget that day.

  “I was at my breaking point. I had a boyfriend at the time. Gary. Gary hated Vincent, and Vincent hated him, but things had begun to unravel between us, compounded further by Vincent’s appearance. Gary and I had been fighting a lot at about the time things started coming to a head with Vincent. We really needed to talk, so I showed up unannounced at his apartment one day and caught him with my roommate—in what I thought was our ‘spe cial’ spot. The roof of his apartment building. We hung out there all the time because you could see the lights of the city. It was romantic. We’d sit up there for hours with a six-pack of beer and whatever our meager allowances afforded us to eat. So color me surprised when I found out our spot was anything but special.

  “Now you’d think it would end there—poor Delaney gets cheated on, boo-hoo. But Vincent found me later that night in my dorm room; I was crying and doing all the stuff you do when you’ve been dumped in such an ugly way. You know, cursing his very existence, hoping his love shank dried up and fell off, making plans to sew a voodoo doll out of his underwear with the dental floss he used—”

  “You can do that?”

  “No, Clyde. It’s just an exaggerated example. Anyway, I was a wreck and when Vincent showed up, I was at the height of a good freak and he was infuriated when he found out why. I ranted and raved, but Vincent said all those horrible things I was wishing on Gary really could happen if I wanted it badly enough. That stopped me cold. I didn’t get it at first, and then he told me something that to this day, I might never have believed if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.”

  “A contract. He had a contract with Satan,” Clyde said with the certainty of his own name.

  She pressed the heel of her hand to her head. “Jesus, did he. One that had been handed down to him from his father, Richard, was what he said. At the time, I thought he was nuts, completely nuts, and I threw him out, but not before he told me that he wanted Kellen and me to join him. He told us we could have whatever we wanted, money to take care of our mother, power—anything. When I told him to fuck off that’s when he spewed some pretty crazy shit I wasn’t sure I believed until . . . until I saw . . . He said little by little, whether do-gooders like us wanted it or not, believers like him would be in all places of power, sort of as a payment for doing Satan’s bidding. He said he’d prove it. And that’s when I got worried. Really worried about what he might do to Gary. Damn it, Clyde, if I’d just been a couple of minutes earlier. If I’d called Gary first, done something to warn him, he’d still be alive.”

  Clyde held up a hand, rugged and tan in the dim light of her room. “Whoa. Hold it right there. As demons we can’t kill anyone, Delaney. That goes for any human who has a contract with Satan, too. I know that for a fact. We can freak them out, create illusions of their worst fears, and aid in driving them to the brink of madness so taking their own life appears almost utopian, but we can’t physically harm them. I may not have liked attending the ‘New-Millennium Demon and Your Role in Demonic Deviltry’ classes, but I heard a thing or two.”

  If she didn’t keep going, she’d never get it all out. “And that’s just what Vincent did. Created an illusion. Gary was terrified of dogs. I know, me with a guy who’s afraid of dogs, right? Either way, he was petrified of them. Some bad experience when he was growing up or something. Gary was on the roof of his apartment building. He and his roommates had been having some kind of party, and he was cleaning up while everyone else was puking down in the apartment.”

  Clyde’s hand jerked through his hair in a rough motion. “Jesus. He didn’t.”

  “Oh, but he did. I know he did because when all was said and done, some of Gary’s roommates remembered hearing dogs growling. A lot of them, but the police chalked that up to their drinking because they found no evidence to support it. Gary must’ve seen those dogs, and in the kind of panic I just know they created for him, he took off running . . .”

  “Right off the edge of the building.”

  Delaney closed her eyes. “An eight-story building.”

  “Holy Christ.” He lifted his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so what happened to Vincent? Where the hell is he?”

  “It gets worse.”

  “As only it can.”

  “When Kellen and I got there, Gary was already dead. A crowd was gathering while someone else was dialing 911. In the middle of this already fucked-up mess, it began to pour. Kellen dragged me away from Gary’s mangled body. God, it was so awful . . .” Her voice hitched, her chest a tight ball of knots. Her mind’s eye had never allowed her the luxury of erasing that vivid visual.

  Clyde drew her to his side, running small circles over her back, massaging the base of her neck, but he remained quiet, allowing her the time she needed to find her breath.

  “So Kellen dragged me away from Gary—his body. I knew there was nothing I could do for him, and so did Kellen. In the middle of this, it began to pour. Thunder, lightning, the whole nine. Violent shit, and Vincent was still on the roof . . .”

  Clyde’s head cocked to the left in question. “I’m going to assume there is justice?”

  Her shoulders sagged as Clyde continued to knead them. “In some weird way, yeah, I guess it was just. Vincent got nailed. We heard his scream, and the cries from everyone around us. Kellen and I both ran to the roof, and we found Vincent, but he was still alive.”

  “Alive?”

  “He was when we found him—but just barely. I helped to keep him alive until the ambulance came. We spent hours in the hospital, and I hope the universe forgives me, but there were some moments when I hoped he wouldn’t live—came close to actually praying for it. I was sick with myself for it—but at this point, even though I didn’t know the whole story surrounding Gary’s death, I knew how evil Vincent was. I knew what he was capable of, and I knew in my gut he’d killed Gary to prove to me what he could do—to show the fuck off.”

  The confusion on Clyde’s face was blatant.

  “Kellen and I were his only living relatives—me being the oldest of the two of us. When the doctors told us Vincent was virtually brain-dead, I felt so little remorse it disgusts me to remember it. But they also told us a decision had to be made about whether to resuscitate him if his heart began to fail. There was all this medical talk of DNRs and he was hooked up to all these machines, and then the words ‘no chance of recovery’ came up, and finally, organ donation . . . It’s still kind of a blur, but I did know one thing—Gary was dead. Vincent wouldn’t ever pay for that by doing time or whatever. He might not have paid for it had he lived because of
who he knew, but I knew he was responsible—so I did the next best thing . . .”

  Clyde’s hands stopped moving. “I’m lost. Vincent’s execution wasn’t enough?”

  “Vincent was healthy and strong. Vital, for all his faults. He took the ‘body is your temple’ to a whole new level. Despite his drinking, he didn’t smoke, he worked out, jogged . . . so I kept him alive long enough to donate his organs. All of them.”

  Clyde’s hands on her back froze, his body stiffening with a rigid clench.

  Oh, God. What had she done in the name of revenge? “I kept him alive just long enough to offer up his organs for transplant. One of those organs was a heart. I know what I did was something Vincent would’ve hated, but he had to, in some way, redeem himself for the shit he’d thrown down. He killed another human being, Clyde. Gary may have been a cheat, but he didn’t deserve to die for it. He was just a kid. I was just a kid. There was no way to make that right, so I did the next best thing—I gave every viable organ to someone who’d hopefully use them for good. And that’s when Satan showed up. Right there in Vincent’s ICU room when we were saying our last good-byes.”

  “If I wasn’t lost before, I really am now. Why would Satan show up for something as inconsequential as some organs and a soul collection? He could’ve sent any one of his freaks in Hell to do that for him. In fact, he rarely if ever shows up. It’s not like he cared about Vincent, Delaney. Satan doesn’t have friends, he has pawns. Vincent was a pawn, and his time was done. Satan essentially won because I’m betting my own soul, Vincent went to Hell. So Satan got what he wanted—a soul.”

  That one fact had troubled her for as long as she could remember. “I’m as lost as you are on that. I only know this—whatever Vincent had was important enough for Satan to threaten me if I signed those papers. Vincent was already dead—if he had a soul, it was long gone from his body and probably well on its way to Hell. If that’s what the devil wanted all along, if Vincent had really sold his soul to him, he’d won hands down. Vincent committed murder—he had no place to go but down. Why his eyes or his kidneys or his heart meant something to Lucifer, I still don’t know.”

  “How did he prove to you he was who he said he was?”

  Delaney snorted. “The usual. Horns, fire breathing, snakes, blah-blah-blah. At the time, I think I almost lost my bladder. Nowadays, it’s like watching reruns of Happy Days. Not nearly as exciting or dramatic as it is the first time around, ya know?”

  “I don’t think I want to know. So next I’m assuming he threatened you?”

  “Yup, and Kellen, too. He said he’d see me in Hell for signing that organ transplant document and having Vincent’s body shipped off before he could get to it. What was worse was his threat to Kellen or anyone who came into my life from there on out . . .”

  Clyde blew out a breath of pent-up air. “Which explains a shitload about how little you interact with the living.”

  Her shoulders lifted. “I was always afraid someone would end up hurt like Gary did. I was terrified Lucifer would send one of his lackeys in to hurt Kellen, but at least my brother knew what to be careful of—how aware he had to be that true evil exists. How do you explain the grim reality of the supernatural to a new girlfriend who isn’t a demon—or to a possible date? I mean, I did try to get out and date. I told you that. But after a couple of failed attempts despite Satan’s warning, the ghost talking only added weight to what was already a sinking ship. So I stopped trying. But I was successful in donating Vincent’s organs—I decided that was enough compensation.”

  Clyde’s eyebrows rose. “And let me guess—when you donated them, you did something completely Delaney-ish, like you stuck your tongue out at Lucifer and said, ‘See this, asshole? Nyah, nyah, nyah.’ ”

  Her smile was grim, but her nod was one of affirmation. “Nuh-uh. Though you did get the asshole part right. I said, ‘The fuck I won’t, asshole.’ Oh, and neener, neener, neener. Not nyah, nyah, nyah.”

  He smirked. “Just as endearing as ever.”

  “Something good had to come out of that night, Clyde, and I was going to be fucked and feathered if I’d let all those good organs go to waste if they could give someone else life. A worthy life. A good life.”

  His finger traced the slope of her nose. “Hey, I’m with you one hundred percent. I don’t know if I would have had the balls to do what you did, but I hear what you’re preaching. So as his only living relatives, please tell me you got his money.”

  Her laugh was filled with bitterness for what that money could have done had they been in Vincent’s will. He’d been smart enough to name Delaney on his DNR, yet keep them from having the help they’d needed for her mother. “No. No money. I would have had my hands severed before I took it even if we had. The only thing I would have definitely done was had my mother properly taken care of until she died. He owed her. The rest I would have given to some humane society or something. But Vincent left it to a political party.”

  Clyde’s nod was of understanding, his eyes sympathetic. “And that’s why you quit school? To work to pay for your mother’s care?”

  “That and the crazy shit that began to happen.”

  “The ghost thing?”

  That first time had been killa. “Yeah. They were, like, everywhere. In my sociology classes, when I was in the dorm shower, in a lecture. Before I understood it, and what these spirits wanted from me, I really, really struggled. I went through the whole post-traumatic deal. Then I thought I was just nuttier than squirrel shit. At first it scared the bejesus out of me, then it drove me batshit for a time, and with that, my grades suffered—friendships were lost. I spent all my time at the library researching ghosts and mediums and Hell.”

  “So you weren’t born with the ability to see ghosts? All this time I just assumed that was the case.”

  “No, it happened after Vincent’s death. About two or three weeks or so after.”

  “And you don’t see the connection here, Delaney?”

  “Oh, I see it. I think the horned pitchfork-lover thought he could make me a loon by sending ghosts my way. When I finally realized I could communicate with them, I shoved it up his ass further by helping them cross. I did the lemonade thing.”

  When Clyde smiled at her, despite how dire their situation was, despite how the terror of that night still had the ability to affect her, it made her insides turn to utter goo. “You’re a tough broad, Delaney Markham, but I think the connection goes deeper. I just don’t know how.”

  His silence left her silent, too.

  “And your mother? Did you ever find out why she’d never told you about Richard and Vincent?”

  It still sounded crazy to her, and voicing it sounded like she really should be locked forever in a padded room with an “I love me” jacket. “You know demon magic exists—you made some when you went to your bank. Her memory, and the memory of anyone else even a little involved in their lives, was wiped clean. Richard stole Vincent and raised him for his own sick devices. He just didn’t plan on Vincent being such a fuck-up.”

  “And I’m supposing Satan was happier than a cat eyeball deep in catnip to tell you that.”

  When Satan had shown up and began revealing what they’d done to her mother—that they’d taken her child—Delaney had wanted to scratch his eyes out. “About as happy as I imagine the fucker gets.”

  The breath Clyde exhaled was long. “So what exactly did you donate again?”

  “His eyes, kidneys, heart, and other remaining parts to science.”

  “His heart . . .”

  “A heart I’m almost certain you have. The dates match. November 21, 1994, is the day Vincent died. We need to get a look at your files, Clyde.”

  “It isn’t just that, Delaney. Vincent’s heart’s somehow connected to you and your seeing ghosts. I don’t know how, I don’t understand why, but Satan can’t send spirits who are seeking guidance—especially those who’re stuck in limbo—to freak you out. He has no control over waffling entities. That
much I know. He can definitely throw a monkey wrench in your plans to cross them, and send in a minion to try and talk them into coming to the dark side. However, he only has control over those who’ve landed in Hell. Period. Not those who’re doing nothing more than questioning whether there really is an ‘other’ side.”

  She was at a loss then. “Then what’s the connection? I didn’t have the ability to see ghosts until Vincent was dead for at least a few weeks.”

  “I don’t know, but we need to find out. And I’m not going anywhere—in my body—out of my body—nowhere until we figure this out.”

  Delaney leaned into him with a shaky sigh, their heads bent together. “This is what I wanted to avoid. At first, I didn’t trust you enough to tell you about Vincent. I figured you’d go back to Satan so you could have a good chuckle over how freaked out poor Delaney’s been all these years, and the hell I’d let that happen. I refused to give in to the fear. I decided to piss in his Wheaties by living my life—or semi-living it, if what you’ve labeled what I do is accurate. I was just really careful about who I let into my life. Because even if I wanted nothing more than to spite Satan, I didn’t want to do it at someone else’s expense. But then, I just wanted to keep you out of this thing Lucifer’s got with me because I don’t quite know if we’ve seen the extent of his wrath, but we might if he finds out you helped me and deceived him while you did it.”