Hot House: Dante and Hayley

by Sheri Gilmore

  Women!

  With a growl, he slung the bottle across the club. Dancers dove left and right. Screams of terror echoed through his mind. The room dipped and swirled. He stumbled, but Gar caught him. Hayley and the demon never missed a step.

  “I’ve got you, Master.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Well, well, well.” Zeus clapped his hands together and smiled at Hades. The two peered into the prophetic depths of the River Styx. “We should be back in business in a matter of days.”

  “Don’t become too ambitious, my lord. Dis may be back in a weakened form, but Dante is still lingering.”

  “Hades, dammit. You could ruin a god’s best wet dream with your optimism.” Zeus glared across at his brother, the ruler of the underworld.

  “Sorry, my lord, but I’m not known for my levity.”

  “True.” Zeus sighed. “Okay, look at it from my point of view. Dante is in a weakened form, too. He’s still fighting this rejoining with his darker self. He’ll be confused and indecisive. The perfect time for me to send in my troops.”

  Hades nodded, and his frown dissipated. “You may be right. He is concerned over the girl’s welfare. He may despise Lilith and Beatrice, but he still wants them, and Hayley, too. If Talos could abduct her when our troops reach the inside of the gate, we would be better able to convince the Magician to surrender his reign.”

  “Now you understand.” Zeus glanced around the rank banks of the river. “Charon, where are you, you filthy demon?”

  The mists of the river separated to reveal a haggard form, poling his boat to the shore. The demon’s red eyes shone through the gray fog. “I am here, o great Zeus.”

  “Cut the dramatics, you scum, and take me back to Olympus. I’ve got plans to work out.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  Hades walked with his brother. “How is your daughter, Mercy?”

  Zeus sighed, the expression on his hardened face softened. “She’s as lovely and talented as her mother.”

  “Have you told her you are her father?”

  “No. To her I am Uncle Zeto, her mother’s longtime friend and companion.” The features hardened. “No one need know I am her father. She deserves a chance at a normal life. Something I’ve not afforded any of my other children. Look where that got them: doomed to feed the demons of Hell instead of walking freely through the Elysian Fields.”

  Hades touched his brother’s shoulder. “We will rectify that soon, my lord.”

  Zeus nodded, then stepped onto the ferryman’s barge.

  Hades watched the demon narrow his gaze on the mighty Zeus. He’d have to keep an eye on that one. Hades’s concern lay with whose bid would win the old demon’s fealty in the long run. Zeus needed his silence, but Dante needed his information. Who would meet the demon’s price?

  Chapter Ten

  Flames flickered in eerie shades of red, orange, and yellow against the stone walls. The band’s music lay muffled behind the massive wooden door to his sanctum, but Dis could hear every note played, and every word spoken throughout his kingdom. Such was the life of an angel. Senses magnified so sharp and perfect that he could hear an ant crawl across the ground a mile away.

  Lot of good that does me. He rolled onto his back across the silk divan and stared at the ceiling. The sound of Hayley’s conversation between her demon and herself echoed off the stone walls. He sifted all other sounds into the background.

  “Umm, that feels so good. Where did you learn to dance like that?”

  Dis closed his eyes. Jealousy burned and boiled in his gut. Why didn’t he stop her? He could. He was the chief of satans, the master magician. But he wouldn’t. The House of Purgatory was designed for the enjoyment of his demons and the atonement of the human souls sent here. If they chose to use her for their pleasure, and she allowed them, by law he couldn’t stop them.

  He twisted the sheets beneath his hand. A slight breeze feathered his cheek like a spiderweb. He turned his head away. Even if he wanted to kill them, he wouldn’t. One thing he’d learned the hard way: don’t break the rules.

  “You gonna let that blue-balled devil fuck your woman?”

  Dis shot off the bed at the sound of a male voice near his ear. His body rolled to the floor and took a defensive crouch. His head lifted in instinct, and his nostrils flared to smell the intruder’s identity as his eyes narrowed on the shifting shadows around the room. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood erect. The light brush against his cheek should have warned him of a psychic scan, but he’d been too occupied with thoughts of Hayley and Lilith.

  There!

  The interloper moved from behind a column into the light, which flickered across his skin and face. Blue eyes glowed with menace, but Dis met the divine being’s gaze. He knew this one well, though they had not been face to face for thousands of years. He stood to his full height and inclined his head without breaking eye contact. From past experience, Dis knew not to trust this one.

  Roped muscles rippled beneath tanned skin showing scars from past battles. A leather vest emphasized the breadth of shoulder and depth of chest. Skilled in the many techniques of war, weapons, and killing, this one was God’s ultimate warrior.

  “Michael.”

  “Samael.”

  “I’m called Dis now, or Dante.”

  “I thought Dis was a nickname Hades preferred.”

  “What, never wanted to change your name? Be something or someone else besides a glorified watchdog?” Dis shrugged. “I liked it so much, I used it as the name of my city of Hell in a poem I wrote a few hundred years back, during my last stint on earth.”

  Michael nodded. “I’ve read it. It’s ... interesting.”

  Dis watched the archangel move to the nightstand and pick up one of Hayley’s earrings. He brought the object to his nose, then frowned. With that one sniff, Michael would be able to track Hayley anywhere in the universe until the end of time. He had the same gift, as did all angels and demons. The ability allowed them to hunt the souls marked for either salvation or damnation.

  Dis stepped forward. “Well, you didn’t come here after ... oh, what, several thousand years? ... just to discuss my literary achievements.” Dis’s voice lost all civility. He grabbed Hayley’s earring. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I’m here to warn you.”

  “What about? Zeus’s attempt to overthrow me and get the underworld back in operation? Too late. I already know about his plan.” The whiskey and the thought of Hayley lying with the demon made his speech careless.

  “Then you also know they’re going to use your woman to get to you.”

  Dis narrowed his gaze on Michael. “I reached that conclusion when I first saw her walk through the gate.”

  “Why aren’t you doing anything about it?”

  “Don’t come down here and tell me how to run my kingdom. I know all the rules inside and out. None have been broken by me, so you can go back and tell your Boss everything’s fine.”

  “Yeah, except, at this moment, your woman is about to screw everyone, including the enemy, but you.”

  Dis felt his arm burn and knew his eyes were glowing. The smell of sulphur intensified. “Leave Hayley out of this.”

  Before he could blink, Dis found himself shoved against a pillar, with Michael’s hand wrapped around his throat and the angel’s face an inch from his nose.

  “You always had a weak spot for the girls. When are you going to learn they’re poison? You can’t trust any of them.”

  “What would you know about it, Mike? Have you ever sunk your cock so deep into a hot, wet pussy that the feeling made you want to die?”

  The hand around his throat tightened, and he was pushed further against the pillar. His lungs burned with the lack of oxygen, but he ignored the discomfort and laughed. The sound was strangled. He knew Michael hated any shortened version of his name. The angel took great pride in the name the Creator had given him and the duties he was assigned to carry out.

&n
bsp; Michael’s eyes burned with anger and something like satisfaction. “You know I have, brother, but unlike you, I refuse to be pussy-whipped. If that bitch was mine, I’d beat her for acting a whore.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not yours.” Dis coughed, his voice hoarse and raspy. “No one has broken any rules, bro.”

  “Since when have you followed rules, Samael?” Michael’s voice held a curious note of surprise. He gave Dis one final shove before he released his grip.

  Dis fell to the floor, coughing with the effort to breathe. He crawled forward on his hands and knees. When he got his feet under him, he stood. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d allowed himself to get this inebriated. His legs stumbled, but he forced them to support him, and faced Michael.

  “What are you trying to say, Michael? I know you didn’t come here out of any brotherly concern for me. You only do what He tells you to do.”

  Dis watched the warrior pace the cavern with his long, leather-encased legs eating the ground beneath in two or three strides. Damn, he’s magnificent. Dis had forgotten the raw power his brother exuded. Another flash of jealousy hit his gut.

  He closed his eyes. After a forced state of dormancy for over three hundred years, he didn’t know if he could handle the flux of emotions he had experienced in the past couple days. They made him weak. He rubbed his temple. His mind twisted and turned in a pit of confusion, but somewhere in the turmoil, he registered Michael. His brother had quit his pacing.

  “This has always been your weakness, Samael. You are too quick to get your feelings hurt. You always think everyone else is getting a better deal than you.”

  Michael shook his head, and a look of sadness crossed his face. “How can you be so jealous of me when you are the one He created most beautiful of us all?”

  Michael moved closer. His eyes glowed with renewed anger, and his mouth pinched in pain. “He loved you above us all. He covered you in the finest jewels and made you the ruler of Eden.” The angel stopped in front of him.

  Dis felt the heat from Michael’s breath against the skin of his face. They were so close he could count the pores in his brother’s skin.

  “You threw it all away because of your jealousy over Adam. Your name suits you well, Sami, for you truly are blind, you fool!”

  Dis felt his body stiffen at Michael’s accusation. “Yeah? Weren’t you just a little bit angry when He made man? We were already perfect. And, to top it all, He gave Adam a woman, a companion, like all the other animals, to enjoy their sexuality and reproduce.”

  Dis’s hand cut through the air. The old hurt gnawed at his gut. “He gave us no one.”

  Michael looked at him, and Dis thought he saw sadness replace the anger in his brother’s eyes.

  “That’s who we are. We were made to serve Him. We can’t do that if we have a mate.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t live like that. I won’t.” He circled his brother and came up behind him with his mouth to Michael’s ear. “Tell me you don’t crave the feel of a woman’s hands on your body and her mouth sweet and warm against your lips.”

  The last he whispered for effect. He wanted Michael to know the ache he’d felt for so many years. He wanted his brother to know the loneliness that ate at his soul. That was his true Hell, not this fiery pit of damnation.

  Michael turned his head to him, and his eyes were bluer than the earth’s reflection in Heaven. Michael moved away, toward the divan, and picked up a pillow.

  “Do I crave the feel of a woman?” His smile was bitter. His large hands squeezed the pillow so hard that feathers erupted from the seams, but he didn’t seem to notice. His eyes never left Dis.

  “Yes.” Michael snapped his fingers. “But not just any woman,” he whispered. “I crave the woman this one used to be.”

  Dis stepped back, and his eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

  “Let me show you how much I crave the feel of a woman, Sam.”

  Michael turned to the cavern wall. With a wave of his hand, images merged, then swirled out of focus.

  “Let your mind and body hear and feel what I felt. What I still feel when I allow myself to remember.” Michael’s hand touched Dis on the shoulder.

  A tingling sensation burned and spread from his shoulder throughout his body, and up his neck to his head. A wave of nausea hit, and he clutched his gut.

  “Don’t fight it, Sam. Relax and the pain will go away.”

  Dis took a deep breath and exhaled through his mouth. He let his mind merge with Michael’s until the scene before him unfolded. He didn’t just see Michael’s thoughts cast upon the wall -- he was there. He was Michael. His lips were Michael’s lips. He could feel and taste and smell everything his brother experienced in that projected moment.

  Two figures, a man and a woman, kissing ... caressing. With a shock, Dis realized Michael was kissing Lilith. He could taste his wife’s lips and her neck. His tongue circled lower. His mouth closed, and he suckled her nipple. He could hear her groan, and his cock hardened as Michael’s hardened.

  “No.” Dis tried to pull away, but Michael tightened his grip. “This didn’t happen.”

  But his mouth went dry with desire. In his mind, he could feel everything Michael did to her, to his wife! With weakened legs he sank onto the side of the bed. Every cry of pleasure Lilith uttered raced down his spine to pool in the tip of his penis. Their pleasure was his pleasure. The images of Michael and Lilith seared his mind, but he couldn’t shut the stimuli out.

  Michael raised his head and stared the woman in the eye. Dis looked into his wife’s eyes, green and bright with desire. She was beautiful. Everything a male, human or angelic, could ever want in a female -- except faithfulness, or loyalty. Dis went still. He knew what Lilith asked of Michael. He waited for his brother’s decision. He could feel Michael’s need. He could feel how the angel’s heart was torn between loyalty to his brother and desire for his brother’s wife.

  Michael’s eyes narrowed, and his jaw clenched. His nostrils flared with the shallow, rapid breaths he took. He looked from Heaven to Lilith and back. With a groan, he closed his hands over soft, yielding flesh. “So be it. You will be mine this one time.”

  Dis gasped when Michael drove his cock into Lilith’s heat. He rocked his hips and slid deeper into her pussy. “God, yes.” The remembered heat from last night wrapped around his cock, too.

  The words were spoken by his brother, but Dis closed his eyes at Michael’s satisfaction. He knew what his brother felt, for he had felt the same so many times. Lilith’s body had been made for fucking. Her cunt sucked a man in so deep, he couldn’t fathom a way out. His own cock throbbed to the rhythm of Michael’s hips. Not long now. Any second ...

  “Yessss!” Together, their minds joined. They cried out and came in unison.

  The scene flicked forward to hours later, and Dis looked down on the sleeping form of his beautiful, cheating wife, stretched out on her belly across the grass. Michael stood beside her, trailing one finger over the creamy white skin. He’d had Lilith not once, but several times. At that second, what little love Dis had saved through the years for her vanished.

  He had watched, taking pleasure and pain in what he’d observed. The woman Michael had fucked may have been his wife, but she was truly a whore. He closed his eyes and willed the release from his brother’s mind. He’d had enough. She not only fucked every man and demon fool enough to allow her in their bed, but his own brother, as well.

  Michael moved away without a glance. “She was one of a kind.”

  Dis snorted. “You can say that again, but I’m not sure that’s such a good thing ... brother.” He tried to keep the jealousy out of his voice, but knew he hadn’t succeeded.

  Michael’s jaw clenched. If in guilt, Dis couldn’t be sure.

  “She is dead, Samael. If you wish to save Hayley from her past, there are ways to suppress her memories of Lilith.”

  “I’m not so sure. There were moments the last couple of days when I looked int
o her eyes ...” He paused. “It was Lilith whom I saw. Certain things she did --” He waved a hand at the wall. “-- like that little whimper she makes when she feels my tongue -- excuse me, our tongue -- on her clit for the first time.”

  “What do you mean? All women make noises when they’re in the throes of passion, Sam.”

  “I know my own fucking wife, Michael. That’s her out there, whether she looks different or not. Hayley is gone. I initiated her into my kingdom last night. All past memories of previous incarnations have merged. The strongest incarnated soul has taken over -- Lilith.”

  Michael shook his head. “She is Lilith, but she’s not. Just like she’s Beatrice. Everything she was before has made her who she is now. This place has brought her suppressed memories forward. That is why she acts like your wife.”

  Dis paced in front of Michael. His agitation returned with the words he heard. Michael moved to him and grabbed him by the shoulders.

  “You can save Hayley if you want to.”

  “How?”

  “Do you love her?”

  Dis stilled. His brother’s question took him by surprise, and his heart skipped a beat. He’d thought he loved Lilith and Beatrice, but what he had felt for them was first lust and then worship for an ideal. Lilith had been, and always would be, a slut. He now saw Beatrice’s lust through new eyes. She’d only used him for a diversion from the tedious life she led as a rich man’s wife.

  But Hayley ... She was different. He’d known that the instant he’d seen her.

  “Yes.”

  “Then put this on her and send her home, and her memories of Lilith and Beatrice will return into the pit where they belong. Her soul has evolved into a better person.” Michael offered him a piece of jewelry. “You can’t keep her, brother. She does not belong here.”

  Dis looked at the object Michael held in his hand. A necklace. Dis frowned. It was Hayley’s necklace. “Where did you get this?”

  Michael raised an eyebrow. “On the nightstand.”

  Dis grabbed the silver chain and studied the talisman. On the front he recognized the three initials that had told him Hayley was Lilith and Beatrice. He flipped the talisman over. Engraved in the silver were three names. He read them out loud.