“I’ll make the wishes,” Wyatt volunteered. “I trust you to take care of the genie when he gets out.”
“I can’t let you do that, Wyatt.” Asta turned toward him, smiling in gratitude. “If you had the knowledge and magic to do the protective circle, then maybe. Otherwise, it’s too much of a risk.”
“And my sister would kick my ass if I let her boy toy get ripped to bits by a genie,” Dar added. “Besides, we’d need to kill Phelps for that to work. Right now he’s the owner, and if he’s already triggered the contract by making that first wish, then the genie won’t serve another until he’s dead.”
“See?” She deliberately addressed her comments to Wyatt, unable to let Dar see the dread in her eyes. “Aaru it is. I’ll take care of a few quick things and have this bottle up there by nightfall.”
“Fine.” Dar threw his hands into the air. “I guess I’m going to Hel and selling my soul for a sorcerer. Fuck knows what Gareth is going to charge me for this one. We’re so over a barrel with him that I’ll probably need to carve out a pound of flesh in payment.” He turned to face Asta, and she recoiled involuntarily as he thrust a finger toward her. “You owe me. This is above and beyond the call of duty. I’m saving your ass from heavenly torture. I get something in return.”
He seemed angry, but underneath it was warmth and humor she couldn’t resist. “Another date?”
“A date and more.”
Asta caught her breath, thinking of their make-out session last night, and the wrestling they’d done in the alleyway today. Was that his ‘more’? In spite of her constant repetition that she wasn’t going to have sex with him, part of her hoped that was what he meant.
“I want you to show me your home.”
“Aaru?” He couldn’t mean that. Demons weren’t allowed there. There was no way she could ever take him to Aaru.
“Fuck no. I mean where you stay here in Chicago. There’s got to be some place you store all your fancy clothes, where you hang out when you’re off duty.”
She was never off duty, but Asta knew exactly what he meant. Her place. That was just as intimate as having sex. “Deal.”
She could do no less. He was sticking his neck out for her, helping her when he had no obligation to. And if he came through, he’d save her from what really would amount to two millennium of torture.
Chapter 16
Dar spent the entire rest of the day frantically trying to score a sorcerer before his date with Asta. Things would go such much better tonight if he could assure her help was on the way from Hel.
As second to the Iblis, the titular leader of the demons, his word alone should cause others to rush to do his bidding. The problem was that no one in Hel really gave a shit about who held the Iblis title, or what his role was in her household. The one sorcerer who was free from elven service was busy and less than excited about racking up one more favor from their household. None of the elves were interested in cooperating with the demons who had made their lives so miserable.
Dar was ready to throw in the towel when he remembered someone. Someone who had the ability to travel from Hel without using the carefully guarded angel gates. He wasn’t a sorcerer and didn’t have any experience in containment of demons, but he was willing to give it a shot for the right price. Negotiations had been tough, but they’d come to an agreement, and the mage would be in Dar’s hotel room by morning. Which gave him the whole evening to spend with an angel.
Asta had given him an address and time. He’d dressed carefully in his favorite of the stolen suits and picked up sashimi and a nice bottle of unfiltered sake. And now he stood before the locked doors, looking up along an endless expanse of glass and steel. It was late. All the office workers had gone home for the night. The residents who owned the condos on the top five floors must use key cards to gain entrance in the off hours. Not that a demon had any problem with a locked door.
Energy snaked through the electronic locks and he was in, the light illuminating via sensors as he walked through the hallways. Thankfully the elevators didn’t require any special codes, as he wasn’t sure his abilities extended to feats of mechanical engineering. The elevator lurched up, nearly dropping Dar’s stomach into his feet. Eighty-two stories, and the elevator opened on the top floor. There were six doors, spaced for privacy, in a square around the elevator lobby. Asta’s was number four.
He knocked briefly, swung the door open, and was amazed to find himself in a giant closet.
That was the only way to describe it. Rows of clothing hung neatly on racks suspended from the ceiling and bolted to the walls. A few dresses were displayed on mannequins. Shoes, purses, hats, and scarves filled the wooden shelves that lined every free wall. There were no sofas, no chairs — nothing except clothing and accessories. Dar felt fairly certain that if he wandered into the bedroom or bathroom, he’d find the same. It seemed excessive, even compared to demon standards, but given she’d been here for a hundred years, the volume of clothing and accessories was fairly reasonable. It was a long time to compile a wardrobe.
“Where’s the sexy lingerie?”
He heard a laugh and spun about to see Asta peering at him from behind a row of brightly colored pleather pants. “I’m an angel; why would I have need for sexy lingerie?”
“Why would an angel have need for ugly plastic trousers?”
She stepped around the pants, hips swaying as she approached in jeans and a white oxford shirt. This was the most casual she’d ever been attired — and the most relaxed he’d ever seen her. His usually perfectly put-together angel looked just as gorgeous with high-top sneakers and her hair in a mess of loose brown curls as she did in her designer suits and dresses.
“I’ll have you know those pants were all the rage in the early 90s. I haven’t had the heart to get rid of them.” She looked around fondly. “I haven’t had the heart to get rid of anything.”
And that told him exactly what he’d suspected from the moment he’d nearly knocked her over as she had pressed her nose against the bakery window. “You love it here, among the humans. I always thought you angels suffered your service as part of the Grigori, longing for the moment you could return home.”
“Most do. I’m just more susceptible, I guess. I shouldn’t have taken this assignment at my age, but I was so eager to prove myself. You don’t know what it’s like always being considered the baby, having a fraction of the skill and abilities of everyone around you.”
Dar smiled. “All those other angels are too afraid to risk their purity by leaving Aaru. You’re gutsy enough to give it a try.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Trust me; it’s not guts. Down here I’m powerful. And I like the humans. They face such challenges in their short lives, and the majority of them show amazing courage and morality. I’m happy to protect them.”
“And steal their clothing?” Dar swept a hand to encompass the mind-boggling volume of outfits.
Guilt flashed across the angel’s face. “I reimburse them in some fashion — sort of a barter system. And they’re not all human-made. Quite a few are my own efforts at copies — very poor efforts, I’ll admit.”
“Let’s see some of these efforts. Model for me.” Dar looked in vain for a place to sit, finally plopping down on one of the few bare spots of floor.
“I’m not modeling for you.” Asta’s laugh was tinged with embarrassment. “But here. I made this one.”
Holy shit. It was a 1950s fitted wiggle-dress with alternating panels of dark and light leopard print. The top would have hugged her bust like a second skin, pushing her breasts up like a corset, the wide straps accenting the vast amount of skin exposed across her chest and shoulders. The slides were slightly ruched, which would give the tantalizing effect that the dress was working its way up her body. She spun the dress on the hanger, and Dar caught a glimpse of a sizable slit up the back.
“Put it on.” His voice rasped as he imagined her in it, imagined him taking it off her. “Please?”
“No!” Sh
e turned from him, obviously flustered. “It’s not right. I couldn’t get the gathering quite even, and I couldn’t wear it without fear of falling out the top.”
And now Dar was wild with the image of Asta having a nip slip as they dined. She’d bend over to snare a piece of sushi just out of reach, and rose-tinted brown would peek above the top of the dress. Good thing he was sitting down, because he was hard as a rock just thinking about it. If he’d been standing, Asta could have hung a few of her outfits from his erection.
“It’s one more thing I’m less than skilled at.” Her voice was sad. Dar’s heart ached as she turned to hang the dress back on the rack.
“Bullshit. You’re skilled; you’re just not perfect. No one is, not even those saintly angels up in Aaru who are older than dirt. Do you like it? Do you like creating these clothes?”
“Yes.” Her expression was puzzled as she walked over and sat beside him. “I love how the humans express themselves through their attire. It’s artistic; it reflects an inner mood. Clothing is the paint on your body’s canvas.”
Her words gave Dar an idea. “This body you’ve created for yourself — it’s your art. It’s perfect. Others may create the paint that adorns it, but you’ve created the canvas, and your skill at that is beyond any angel’s I’ve ever seen.”
She smiled. “Thank you.” Sighing, she reached out to finger a cashmere peacoat. “It’s a shame I’ll have to leave all this behind. Neither my paint or my canvas will come with me to Aaru when I return.”
“Well, that’s a long way off.” Dar laughed. “You’ll need to rent the whole floor before you leave at the rate you’re shoplifting.”
For once his reference to her larceny didn’t get the usual response. Instead, she frowned, her eyes troubled. “I’m leaving in two days. My service was for a century, and it’s up.”
Breathe. Breathe. Dar’s heart seemed to have dropped down around his shoes, and the room narrowed to a pinpoint. She was leaving in two days? Two days? That’s all he had before she’d vanish from his life forever? Gone were the thoughts of tempting her into sex as some kind of conquest. He wanted more than just a conquest, more than just sex. Two days?
Snap out of it and think of something, his rat-brain commanded. “The mage is coming tomorrow morning, but there’s still a chance this genie issue won’t be resolved before you’re due to leave. You wouldn’t fly back to Aaru leaving unfinished business, would you? You wouldn’t expect some poor new enforcer to take over in the middle of this?”
The angel shook her head, dark corkscrew curls bouncing. “It’s not my decision. I’ve asked for an extension, asked for another century of service, but I get the impression it will be denied.”
This couldn’t be happening to him. “Go rogue. Refuse to leave, or sneak back from Aaru. Other angels have done it; you can too.”
The longing on her face twisted him up inside. “I want to. Trust me; I love it here. I love the humans.” A faint smile quirked up a corner of her mouth. “I love macarons and purple wine at Stanley’s. I love flying down Michigan Avenue, and karaoke. I love kissing a certain demon in a dark alley, feeling him up against a smelly dumpster.”
His insides felt like they’d shriveled to dust. “Then why are you leaving?” He meant to ask ‘why are you leaving me?’ but that last word wouldn’t come.
“I want to stay, but I can’t help but second-guess myself. Has my time here warped my sense of judgment? Have I l forgotten the joys I felt back home? The longer I stay here, the farther I stray from Aaru. I fear I’m becoming less of an angel and more of a demon.”
Dar felt a foreign sense of shame. Was it so bad to be a demon? It’s not like he had any choice in the matter of how he’d been born. But Asta’s words seemed to indicate she thought nurture ruled over nature in a being’s moral foundation. “Would any experience change you from the angel you are? Are we demons because of Hel, and you’re an angel because of Aaru? Do you think the fall is what caused us to be as we are? You’re not one of the angels who believe we had these demonic traits before we left Aaru?”
She tilted her head and put a reassuring hand on his arm. “I didn’t know any of you before you left Aaru. Some angels claim that demons have always harbored darkness, but others speak with nostalgia and longing of a time when our differences were a compliment and not a conflict.”
“Romantic,” Dar teased, determined to somehow lift this evening from grief into something they’d both remember all their lives. “So this is where you eat and sleep? Surrounded by eighty tons of clothing and footwear?”
Her eyes were drawn to the box of sashimi he waved temptingly before him. “No. I simply have this condo for storage. I really live on the roof.”
Dar felt his heart rise in his throat. Roof? Oh no. They had to be almost nine-hundred feet in the air. Hopefully the roof had a large, sturdy balustrade around the edges. The demon swallowed a few times. “Well then, let’s go to the roof to see where you actually spend your down time. I brought sashimi and a nice sake. We’ll have a lovely romantic open-air dining experience.”
Yeah. If he didn’t puke his raw fish all over the place, he’d be lucky. Chicago wasn’t nicknamed the ‘windy city’ for nothing, and all the buildings swayed as an engineering precaution against structural failure. Shit. Nine-hundred feet up and rocking like a willow in the wind. He should have brought a bottle of Xanax to go with his sake.
The rooftop was as he’d feared. Thankfully it was flat, but the edge was a scant six inches higher than the black pvc membrane he stood on. Winds buffeted the building, and Dar felt it sway. There were taller buildings a few blocks away, but this one towered above its neighbors and took the full force of the tunnel effect as gusts roared through the spaces between skyscrapers.
“How do you stand this?” Dar sat on what seemed to be an electrical box and opened the container. With careful attention, he placed the dishes of hotate, otoro, and tako next to a small container of fugu.
“Stand what?” Asta’s curls blew away from her face, a blinking antenna light sending her features into sharp relief.
“Spending your nights up here. I feel like I’m going to be blown over the edge any second.”
The angel shrugged as she snagged a piece of pickled ginger from one of the trays and deftly popped it into her mouth. “I regain a sense of perspective up here. It’s like being perched on the edge of a cliff, where you can survey the world below. Besides, if I get blown off, I’ll just fly back up.”
“Here. Tako. You’ll either love it or hate it.”
“It’s beautiful.” She examined the sashimi intently. “The little round holes and bumps in the grayish brown are so pretty against the white inside.”
“Octopus,” Dar told her. “It’s rather chewy and has a very subtle taste. Some prefer to put wasabi on it, but I feel that completely masks the flavor of the tako.”
She smiled, and he caught his breath at the trust in her dark eyes. Gripping a piece with awkwardly held chopsticks, she popped it in her mouth and chewed. And chewed and chewed. Finally she swallowed, her nose wrinkling. “Not sure about that one. It feels like parts of it are trying to attach themselves to the inside of my mouth.”
“That’s the suckers.” He let that sink in for a moment and extended another tray toward her. “Basashi. Here, I’ll help you with this one.” Dar placed a bit of ginger and onion on top and deftly plucked it from the tray with his chopsticks. Asta leaned forward, and again he felt the lower regions of his body come to attention as her full lips closed around the meat.
“This is good. It reminds me of the tartare from the other night.”
That had been especially good with the raw egg yolk on top. Dar grinned. “Yes, although this isn’t minced, and it’s horse meat. You have no idea how hard it is to get in the States. The humans here seem to consider it one step away from cannibalism.”
“And this?” Asta grabbed a piece of toro and nodded enthusiastically as she chewed. Dar couldn’t help but laugh
at her expression. “It’s like butter. Tuna?”
Dar nodded. “The best cut of Bluefin — anterior belly, up near the head. And now for the fugu, which might kill you.” He smothered a grin as her beautiful eyes widened. “The chef I got it from isn’t exactly licensed, so if you become paralyzed and die of asphyxiation, you’ll know he fucked it up. If not properly prepared, puffer fish is tainted by the animal’s poison. Are you willing to take the risk?”
She looked excited. His angel, living life in the fast lane. Damn, how he wanted her — wanted her forever.
“Mmm. Not chewy like the octopus, but similar in subtle flavor. Almost flaky in texture,” she mumbled, her mouth still full. “My mouth is a little tingly, but I haven’t died yet.”
Dar laughed and continued to present her with the other sashimi he’d brought, urging her to try the unfiltered sake after they’d finished eating. Lying back, watching the stars drift above them as they drank from the little cups he’d bought in Chinatown that evening, Dar felt incredible peace. He’d never felt this way in all of his centuries in Hel, never felt this way on his vacations across the gates. It was her. Life was better when he was sharing it with her.
“So, how do you like my special place?” Her voice was an odd combination of flirty and shy. “This has been my home for the last thirty years. Before that I had a spot over on Rush, but as soon as they built this high-rise, I knew I wanted to be on top.”
On top. He envisioned her on top of other things too, but even as he lay next to her, feeling her warmth and wanting her, Dar couldn’t put the thought of being at the top of a very, very tall building out of his mind. “Have you always been this way? You’ve always liked living so high in the air?”
“Yep.” She rose and wandered to the edge of the roof. “The head of my choir, The Most Ancient Revered Archangel Gabriel, has an affinity for water.” Asta plopped down and swung her legs back and forth over the edge. Dar felt the beginnings of a panic attack just watching her. “I, on the other hand, have an affinity for air. It’s why I cannot keep from flying, even though to do so is an infraction.”
Demons & Djinn: Nine Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy Novels Featuring Demons, Djinn, and other Bad Boys of the Underworld Page 44
