by Amanda Jones
As she struggled ineffectually against his hold, she felt a sharp pinch in her neck. “What the…,” Katia began, but almost immediately started to feel heavy and disoriented. She stopped struggling and sagged back against the stranger’s chest, her head leaning backwards onto his shoulder. Just as her vision winked out and the sounds of the world went dim, she heard him as though he were speaking from the end of a long tunnel, his breath warm against her ear. “Why did you do it?”
And then her world went dark.
Chapter Seven
Lucifer
“What in all of Sheol is wrong with me?” Luc wondered aloud as he wore a track in the carpet of his bedroom floor. He had been pacing back and forth for the past hour trying to find the answer to just that question. He was supposed to grab the woman, bring her back to Outer-Sheol, and take her directly to Satan, same as always. But here he was, at his apartment, with the woman drugged and cuffed in his bedroom. What the fuck was wrong with him? Rubbing at his temples and shaking his head, Luc sat down in the leather wingback chair in the corner of the room and looked at Katia’s unconscious form lying on his bed, her right wrist cuffed to the headboard, hair fanned out over his pillows.
Calling himself ten different types of idiot, he got back up and moved over to sit on the edge of the bed. Looking down at her he sighed and reached out to brush an errant strand of her inky black hair off her cheek. She looked so peaceful, so perfect…like a sleeping beauty waiting to be woken. She murmured quietly in her drug-induced sleep and turned her face into his palm. She would be awake soon, the tranquilizer he had given her must be wearing off. He rubbed the pad of his thumb gently along her cheekbone, then slid his hand away from her face. She frowned softly at the absence of his touch. Luc’s lips twitched upwards in a half-smile. Shit, this wasn’t good.
First, he had mooned over her in the café like a moron wishing that every smile she had given her date had been directed at him. Now he was harboring her in his apartment and acting like a teenager with a crush. He was a dozen different kinds of idiot!
Something must be wrong with him, he thought. He never felt anything for or about the souls he retrieved. He didn’t feel much of anything for anyone, with the possible exception of his buddies and Amir. He certainly hadn’t felt anything for a woman in centuries beyond lust, and had never cared what they thought of him or about how he made them feel beyond the basics. They had all been demons, never a human woman, and certainly not a human woman who had sold her soul.
This was clearly a conflict of interest, but no matter how hard he tried, Luc found he wondered what Katia would think of him when she woke up. Would she be afraid? Was she comfortable? Should he have given her another pillow? Cursing himself for a fool, Luc stood abruptly. Of course she would be afraid — he’d kidnapped her from a goddamned café! She would hate him. What was all this nonsense going through his head anyhow? He had a job to do and he was bloody well going to get it done. As soon as she woke up, he would find a way to get them to Halja and hand her over. Rubbing his hand over the sigil that had started burning again, Luc grabbed his Blackberry off the dresser and texted Amir. He hoped Amir would be willing to make another trip on short notice.
Hearing the clink of metal on metal, Luc turned back to the bed and looked directly into Katia’s astonishing mismatched eyes. They were the most captivating eyes he had ever seen. They stared at each other in silence for a moment before suddenly Katia screamed. Luc took a couple of steps towards the bed, arms out in front of himself, palms up. Katia scrambled backwards to the corner of the bed as far as her cuffed wrist would allow. “Who the fuck are you? Don’t come any closer!” she yelled as she yanked on the cuff tethering her to the bed.
“Calm down and stop jerking your arm like that; you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Hurt myself? Hurt myself?!? Fuck you! Like you give a shit!”
“Oddly enough, despite appearances, I do. So, stop it okay?” Luc added quietly as he continued forward until he was able to perch on the edge of the bed again. He reached forward slowly toward Katia’s wrist in order to get a closer look at any damage she may have done in her struggles. Without warning, Katia kicked out and caught Luc in the ribs, knocking him onto the floor.
“Okay, now that was completely unnecessary.” Luc stood, rubbing the sore spot on his ribs. This woman was small but mighty, definitely stronger than she looked. “I just wanted to see if you’d cut yourself on the cuffs.”
Katia narrowed her eyes at him accusingly. “You drugged me!”
“Yes.” Luc said matter-of-factly.
“With what?”
“Horse tranquilizer.”
Katia’s jaw dropped as she took this one in. “A horse tranquilizer! Are you crazy?”
“Ketamine. Don’t worry; it’s used on humans, too. There shouldn’t be any lasting effects.”
Rubbing her face with her free hand, Katia yanked on her cuffed wrist again. Shaking his head, Luc took a tentative step closer to the bed again. “You should really let me look at that to make sure you haven’t cut yourself.”
“I’m fine. Now tell me where the hell I am.”
“Interesting choice of words. That’s exactly where you are, hell…in a manner of speaking anyhow.”
“Great,” Katia murmured, “I’ve been kidnapped by a lunatic.”
“Not a lunatic, just a guy doing his job. There’s someone you should be familiar with that wants to collect what you owe. You must have known that someone would come for you sooner or later.”
“Could you possibly be any more cryptic? That’s like saying “the thing with the stuff in the place that’s not here.” I mean, seriously, where am I? And who the fuck are you?”
“Outer-Sheol, my apartment to be specific. And my name is Luc — not that it has any bearing on your situation.”
She was looking at him like he’d just escaped from the mental ward. Not the reaction Luc had expected. Satan’s souls typically fought him when he came to collect, but they weren’t confused about the specifics of what was happening to them; they’d never doubted who he was or where he said they were. The deal was always clear — they got what they wanted in the human world because of demonic magic. In return, Satan owned their soul, to be collected at a time of his choosing. They were all made aware of Sheol and certainly knew that demons existed because they’d have had to call on one in order to make the pact with Satan in the first place. The human had to perform a specific incantation on a particular day of the month in order to summon the demon that best represented what they were seeking, be it wealth, beauty, knowledge, fame, or any other potential options. Once the demon arrived, the pact would be sealed with blood and Satan’s mark would appear on the skin of the human. If this girl wanted to take the confused, innocent route, Luc had no time to play that game.
“Look, you can pretend not to understand what’s going on if you want, but it won’t change the outcome.”
“Then could you possibly shed a bit of light on what the outcome of my situation is?”
Sighing and rolling his eyes, Luc decided to nip this crap in the bud. “As per your agreement when you sold your soul, Satan has decided to collect. I’ll be dropping you off in his custody as soon as I can find a demon to give us a ride.”
Katia continued to stare at him like he had two heads, a look of confusion mixed with fear. “Let me get this straight. You think that I sold my soul to the devil, and you also think demons exist?”
“I guess that’s the short and dirty version.”
Luc watched as a dizzying array of emotions flitted across Katia’s face, finally settling in a mixture of hope and determination.
“You know,” Katia began kindly, “I’m friends with a doctor down at Grace Hospital. He was there for me when my parents passed away…maybe we can go talk to him…he might be able to make the demons go away.”
Luc looked at Katia in total confusion. This was new — a human trying to convince him that he was insane. How could she not kn
ow what was going on? The weird thing was that she didn’t look like she was lying. …Then again she had been with the witch…
Walking back to the corner of the room, Luc resumed his seat in the wingback chair, steepled his fingers, and gave Katia a long look.
“The man you were with at the café…what is your relationship to him?”
Katia’s expression fell. He’d clearly not given her the response she’d been hoping for.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but we work together as musicians at the Met.”
“You looked pretty comfortable together for colleagues.”
“He’s my accompanist. I play the violin; he plays piano. We’ve worked together for a few years. So yeah, we’re comfortable.”
“You kissed him.” Luc tossed out to her in an accusing tone that took even him aback.
Katia threw up her un-cuffed hand and sighed. “We were on a first date, okay! Again, it’s none of your business.”
Luc frowned inwardly. He couldn’t understand this growing sense of irritation that was setting up shop inside him at the idea of Katia kissing her date. Getting sidetracked by a pretty face and a set of beautiful, intriguing eyes would only lead to trouble. Luc already knew enough about trouble and certainly wasn’t in the market for more. Raising his eyes to the ceiling, Luc almost sent up a prayer to the Deity that had abandoned him to deliver him from this woman. “The ring he wears, do you know what it is?”
Shooting Luc a quizzical look, Katia nodded. “Sergei told me it was a family ring that had been passed down for several generations.”
Nodding, Luc leaned his elbows on his knees and sharpened his gaze on her. “Do you know what it means?”
“Well, no, I just assumed it was originally part of the family’s larger crest. Maybe it had been on their standards or something. Sergei is descended from a very old, noble Russian family.”
Pursing his lips, Luc nodded. “Yes. The family that bears that crest is very old and was connected to the nobility.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes sizing each other up. As Luc watched her, Katia broke eye contact and looked down at the blanket she was sitting on and picked mindlessly at an errant thread. She peered up at him through her lashes, her eyes narrowed as she tried desperately to focus on something.
She took a deep breath and spoke quietly. “Can I ask you something?”
Luc raised an eyebrow and nodded at her.
“Did you put any of that tranquilizer in my latte at Insomnia?” Katia visibly held her breath as she waited to see how he would react to her question.
Confused, Luc shook his head and frowned. “Absolutely not. Why do you ask?”
Katia frowned. “It’s just that ever since I noticed you at the café, I’ve been seeing this weird light around you. I know it sounds crazy…maybe I’m going nuts…probably am.” She waved her free hand in a dismissive gesture, looking back up at Luc as she did so. “I guess I was hoping it was the drug that did it.”
Luc’s jaw dropped and he stared at her in shock. It wasn’t possible! Humans weren’t able to see the aura that surrounded angels. His mind spun trying to make sense of this new information. After all this time away from the heavens, his aura should barely be visible. Yet here was Katia telling him she could see it. He could barely see it anymore for The Deity’s sake. As the blackness had spread like a cancer out of his Sigil, his aura had become increasingly faint.
Luc had picked up a low-level supernatural energy pulsing off her skin whenever he had touched her, like static electricity. He’d assumed it was residual energy from being in constant close contact with the witch, but evidently he had been mistaken. There was only one conclusion here, and it certainly complicated matters. Katia couldn’t be human. “What are you?” He asked Katia, total confusion evident in his voice.
“I’m not sure what you mean…I’m a musician…?” Katia raised her eyebrows at him.
Shaking his head, Luc tried again. “No. That’s not what I meant.” Looking back at Katia, Luc could see the trepidation on her face. Muttering to himself, he tried to reason out this situation. “I thought it was energy from the witch, but it can’t be. She can see my aura when she shouldn’t be able to. Most demons can’t even see it anymore; humans never could. As far as I can tell, only Amir and the guys can see it…What are you?”
As Luc muddled his way through this new development, he watched Katia become increasingly alarmed. A shimmering began in the air a few feet from the bed. She blinked repeatedly as though trying to shake the effect of the drugs. Suddenly, the wavering patch of space began to tear away from its surroundings. With an audible rip, the doorway opened revealing a handsome, darkly tanned man with glowing yellow eyes in a designer suit.
Amir stepped through the doorway into Luc’s bedroom, the tear in the fabric of space weaving shut behind him. As Luc rose to greet him, a scream pierced the air. Katia was terrified, screaming and yanking at the cuff securing her to the bed. Even from a couple of feet away, Luc could see the blood that had begun to run from the violent friction of the cuff against her skin, the droplets standing out like rubies against the milky whiteness of her wrist. “Shit! Amir don’t move; she’s freaking out. I’m gonna have to put her out before she really hurts herself.” Luc dashed over to the bedside table, tore it open, and pulled out a syringe. Good thing he’d thought to keep an extra dose just in case.
Throwing himself across the bed towards her, Luc plunged the syringe into her arm and depressed the stopper. In seconds, Katia’s screams stopped and her breathing began to slow. Moving to her side, he pulled her gently into his arms. Lethargically, she tipped her face upwards to look him in the eyes. The tracks of tears running down her face caused his breath to stick in his throat. For the first time in centuries he felt like someone had taken a hammer to the wall of ice around his heart, a small piece breaking away and melting into his blood. Reaching out, Luc traced the path of her tears. “I’m so sorry,” he said, voice catching. Katia looked up at him with watery eyes and shook her head as it rested on his shoulder. “Thank you.”
Chapter Eight
Satan
The light from the gothic, cast-iron sconces illuminated the winding stone staircase leading down into the dungeons. Moisture seeped in from between the stones in the walls feeding the moss that grew in patches. Pink-tinged from drawing its life from the bloody river below the castle, the patchy plant life gave off a scent of rot and death. His footsteps echoed on the stone flags as Satan made his way down to the cells located in the bowels of the castle. This was a visit he made on a regular basis. Only a select few of his minions knew about this particular prisoner. Locked behind two separate doors, crafted of spelled Wolframite, was one of the most powerful beings in the world. If his plan went off without a hitch, this prisoner would play a part in Satan’s ultimate bid for power. Smiling to himself and whistling “who’s afraid of the big bad wolf,” Satan congratulated himself on the impending success of his plans. Centuries ago, he had given up on this route to becoming the most powerful force in existence. That had all changed thirty-five years ago. In the larger scale of things, three decades wasn’t long to wait for a plan to come to fruition, but he was still anxious to get the show on the road. It was only a matter of time now. He had almost all of the pieces on the chessboard in play and was only waiting for the delivery of the queen. Earlier that day he had received a report from his minion, Voss, that the woman he needed to complete his plans was in the company of his go-to procurer, Lucifer. Soon the binding would take place and he would leave this shithole for good. Time to get cracking on ideas for re-decorating the Deity’s palace. Heofon would make a great new home base.
Almost at the end of the staircase, Satan felt like he was entering the bowels of the earth. The heat began to waft towards him from the enormous boilers set up to heat the castle. It was cold as a witch’s tit here; boilers operated around the clock to combat the constant chill. Soon that would all be a thing of the past. Finally
hitting the landing, he began the long walk towards his VIP’s cell. Striding along the hallway, he smiled at the sounds of pain echoing from the cells on either side of him. Nothing brightened his day like the sounds of suffering. Being the primary source of evil made his existence, but the downside was his entrapment in this fucking castle. That was the deal — Satan stayed put in Halja and the Deity was restricted to Heofon. Balance had to be maintained to promote free will. Demons and angels were able to influence humans, but the ultimate ability to decide the fate of their souls rested with the individual. Balance be damned as far as Satan was concerned. Things had changed too much for his liking over the centuries. His demons had begun to break his hold over them. Now only a few species remained with no will, existing only to serve. The others had become so human, able to decide the fate of their own souls. That was all going to change…soon. Soon he would be able to put a stop to the positive influence of those bloody angels. He’d fill his dungeon with them, ripping off their wings and feeding them to his sisters.
Reaching the door to the specially-charmed cell, Satan reached out and placed his palm near the handle. The sound of tumblers rolling echoed around him. With one final click, the door swung open. As he entered, he muttered a command, causing the door to close behind him. Marching forward, he repeated the process with the second door. On the other side of the door was a large room, walls, floor, and ceiling were all cold stone. The heat from the boilers was unable to penetrate the thick stone and Wolframite doors. Satan’s breath puffed out in front of him like a fluffy white cloud. A thin layer of frost was evident on the stone walls surrounding the single barred window on the far wall. The dungeon level of the castle looked directly out onto the winding vines that crept around the building, allowing some of the black sludge to ooze through the cracks of the window.
