by Nicole Thorn
Ezra looked at me pointedly. “I didn’t.” When he finished with his boots, he stood up and strapped his dagger to his side. “I’ll be back soon.”
I sighed.
At least Ezra left the TV remote where I could reach it. I started flipping through the channels until I landed on something I liked. I moved around to see the reach that my new cuffs had. I stood and reached for one of the books that Ezra kept on his dresser. It fell on top of a suitcase on the floor.
Ezra’s suitcase.
Under normal circumstances, I’d never snoop, but I hated Ezra. I didn’t care about his privacy. Especially since he forced me to sleep next to him wearing these skimpy outfits.
I put the book back and opened the case. A black folder rested on top of everything. I picked it up, and sat on the bed. My senior picture stared back at me.
This must’ve been the file on me he talked about.
My eyes scanned the paper. It had my birthday, where I lived, hair color, and eyes. It was frightening knowing that Ezra had a whole file on me.
I couldn’t help but read it. I wanted to know what he knew.
Anastasia Naomi Amarus:
The soul was killed on July thirteenth at six twenty-three PM, during a black magic spell conducted by the soul and her friends: Poppy McGinnis, Benjamin Oswald, and Elisa Gordon. Rose again on December sixteenth just after midnight.
The soul was sentenced to ten years of servitude to work off her purgatory sentence before she could be admitted into Heaven. She was a well-behaved servant, only causing one incident involving two antichrists. Both have a history of animosity towards each other, and it is still unclear if the soul was entirely responsible.
Another antichrist reported when the soul was taken from Hell, and it was discovered that the soul’s friends had conducted another spell as to raise her from the dead.
The friends murdered three people as part of their efforts to revive the soul. The three dead are currently in Heaven, as they were all what would be considered pure.
Further research concluded that the soul would be expected to behave in her typical fashion once returned to her duties as she appears to have been at rest in her death.
The soul. Not even a person. I put the file back in Ezra’s bag, and went to close it. The sunlight hit something metal inside. I pulled out a small gray notebook with a magnetic clasp on it. I opened it and saw the elegant script inside.
Names, dates, entries. This had to be Ezra’s personal notebook. The one he used for his assignments. I flipped through it.
It felt like such an invasion, even with the lack of affection I had for Ezra.
That didn’t stop me.
12/17
I found the target’s home, and watched for any signs of life. Her friends had arrived early in the morning, bringing her things and staying with her for most of the day. Longer than I stayed. No new information.
He called me ‘the target’. Like I was nothing at all to him. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised.
12/18
Made contact with the target. I looked into her eyes and saw nothing. She was in every sense, living-dead. I’d be doing her a favor when I killed her. The first spark of life I saw in her was when she begged me to kill her. It caused me to break my own rule. Don’t ever hesitate. Then her damn friends came to her rescue and ruined everything.
When I said what it cost to get the target back into her body, she was thrown. Upset by it. Most wouldn’t care of the lives lost if it meant that they could be alive again. But she didn’t want this life. It’s my job to make sure she doesn’t get it.
12/19
Again, nothing new on the target. I followed two of the dolts she calls friends. They gave me nothing useful other than a new talent for holding back vomit. The love between them reminds me of an ancient ache in this old man’s soul. Try as I might, she still pops into my head. I can drown myself in drink, but they’ll never be her… she’s lost from me forever. But I suppose that’s my own damn fault. And I’ll carry that pain with me always.
There was a girl? I was desperate to know more, but he left it at that. I read on.
12/20
She looked beautiful as she lay on the grass in that dress. I considered leaving her in peace, but I have a job to do. I approached the target and attempted to make my offer to her. She found it more appealing to try and annoy me. She managed to throw me for just a second when she made some comment about me wanting to sleep with her. The only attraction I have to her is her body. It’s the closest thing to perfection a human could get.
She rejected my offer of trying to end this quickly and painlessly. I decided that since I need her to give me information, I would brought her home with me. Maybe after a few days with me, she’ll be willing to spill.
12/21
Her bedroom is bare, reminding me of my own back home. The dead haven’t much need for material possessions.
She challenged me again when I told her I was going to take her. It wasn’t hard to distract the target long enough to knock her out. I would have actually kissed her, had I known she’d give me Hell either way. Then I would have at least gotten to taste her.
When I saw her in the blue pajamas I got her… it was difficult maintaining the control I had. For a few moments all I could think of was laying her before me and bringing light to her eyes. I wanted to feel her come back to life underneath me. To feel her skin against mine and her fingernails digging into my back. I wanted her to scream for me.
Pity I won’t have the chance to partake in my fantasies.
She watched me undress—of course—and when I got into bed and put the handcuffs on her, I saw real pain in her eyes. My thought was that it triggered some kind of emotional distress over her being buried alive. Another example of how those moronic friends and their half-baked ideas can cause more trouble than they can fathom.
I write in this book as she lay sleeping. I woke shortly after I fell asleep—again. And I sit here trying to not look at the girl. I have an irrational worry that if I keep looking at her, my resolve will leave me and either I’ll take her, or I’ll—
The next sentence had been violently scratched out.
Must not entertain the thought. Caroline’s words haunted me. And what am I to do if she’s right? It’s not possible. Not for me. Not anymore.
I wonder when Anna will notice that I cuff her right hand so that she’s forced to face me. My desperation for human contact disgusts me.
12/22
I touched Anna again today. Several times. It nearly made me feel guilty for what I almost did to her.
When she awoke, she decided—as she often did—that she wanted to annoy me. Poking and lurking until she got what she wanted. But I suppose bacon is worth making an annoyance of yourself. Ah, how I wish I had it back when I was first alive. My mother wouldn’t let us eat pork. It was unclean. God wouldn’t approve. What she must think when she thinks of her son… The things he’s done. The creature he’s become. When she held me as a baby, she couldn’t have possibly thought I was capable of the evil I’ve committed. I wonder what Anna would think of me if she knew.
I’ll never find out.
I took her out today. I called her by a name that fits her. Meaning grace.
When I touched her, I thought for a second I saw something in her eyes. It wasn’t there of course. But somehow, I felt warm at the thought of it being possible. A hint of what one girl used to make me feel simply by feeling it for me. But those days are long over.
Nothing I feel is real. Because I AM not real. I am nothing.
This is all just a trick of the mind.
Illusions.
A cruel test my brain is putting me through.
When we got home, and she lay on my bed… I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Her angelic face tilted up towards me. I had the dagger in my hand, but I couldn’t bring it down on her. Then I realized why.
She was a liar. She told me she knew nothing of her abilities
, and she must be lying to me. She didn’t owe me the truth, so I shouldn’t expect it. I needed more time with her before she was to die.
The day would come soon. But for now, I’ll lie in bed next to her until she gives me the truth. Feeling her soft breath against my skin and pulling her hand off of me when she reaches for me in her sleep. I fear for the day I lose the will to.
It ended there.
He wrote that last night… when he almost killed me. I had no clue. I could have just been dead, not even going out fighting. For the first time, I felt truly unsafe with him.
I quickly put everything back how I found it. I couldn’t let him know that I read it. How do I fake not being scared?
He was an assassin. I should have been smart enough to know that the man had not an ounce of care for me. He had been sent to kill me. Nothing more, as he said.
The Target.
I didn’t really know what to think of the rest. I couldn’t lie to myself, and say that reading that passage where he said he wanted to screw me, didn’t sound appealing.
That didn’t change the fact that he wanted to kill me. That he almost killed me. Whatever made him stop, it wouldn’t keep me alive forever. I just waited for him to kill me.
***
“Anna.” I felt a hand on my hip, shaking me.
“Anna’s not here right now,” I grumbled with my eyes shut. “Please leave a message after the beep.”
A sigh. “Anna—”
“BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”
He made a noise that sounded almost like a growl. “Wake up. Don’t make me do something rude.”
I let out a fluttery sigh. “Do your worst, old man.”
“My worst?” I could almost hear him smiling. “Pet, you can’t handle my worst.”
Pet? I’m his pet now? Is this man capable of opening his mouth without pissing me off?
I challenged him. “Only one way to—OH!” I shouted when I felt ice water hit my body. I wrenched my eyes open, and saw Ezra holding an empty glass and smirking. “Did you just have that on standby?” I shouted
“No.” He shook his head. “I was drinking it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I stood up, fuming. “Oh my God. There’s ice in my bra.” The cold started to hurt as I looked down at my soaked dress.
His head cocked to the side and his eyes fell to my chest. “I think it’s an improvement.”
“I think I’m going to wreck you.” My fists clenched so hard that my fingernails bit into my palms.
“Promise?” He winked.
I narrowed my eyes.
The glass exploded in his hand and he stepped back, muttering a curse in a language I didn’t know. He looked at the glass-covered floor and then to me. “Did you do that?”
I shrugged. “Guess so.”
“Fulla secrets, aren’t you?”
“Maybe.” I touched my soaked chest, and said, “Now you’ll have to excuse me while I pick out another slutty outfit to put on since you soaked me.”
He smiled. “Well, I can help you with that.”
I arched a brow. “Oh, I bet you wanna help me change. Are all old men pervs, or are you just especially good at it?”
“Both,” he said, unoffended. “But in this case, I wasn’t trying to get under your dress.” He took a few steps back, theb picked up a large blue suitcase that looked oddly familiar. When he put it on the bed, I walked around to him and looked at it.
I touched the zipper with a Mickey Mouse keychain hanging off it. “Is this—”
“Yes,” he said.
I opened it, and looked at the sharpie drawing I made on the inside when I was seven. My mom bought me this suitcase for our first big family trip. I immediately wrecked the inside. Mom hadn’t even been mad at me.
My clothes waited inside. My real clothes. The ones from home. “You got me my clothes. Why?”
Ezra put his hand on the back of his neck. “I thought you’d want them. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” I smiled as I went through the pile.
“It’s most of what was in your room. You know you own far too many socks?”
“Yeah, I really do.” I picked out a t-shirt, shorts and one of my old comfy bras. “Ah, I’ve missed you,” I said to it.
“And I’ll miss the lovely cleavage that the new ones gave you,” Ezra said, mockingly sorrowful.
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t you worry, Ebenezer. There’s never a time I don’t have cleavage. It’s a gift and a curse.” I looked down at my chest, then adjusted myself.
“Hmmm.” Ezra’s eyes locked onto me. “Shame that such beauty was given to such a little nuisance.”
“I could say the same to you.” I left to change.
When I got back, Ezra looked through a black folder. Mine? I stood by the bed until he looked at me. “What’s that?” He patted the empty spot on the bed next to him. I took the seat.
“I went down to Hell to check in, and I was given an additional assignment,” he told me.
“They can do that?”
He smiled, and looked down at me. “They own me. They can do whatever they want.”
“Why?”
His dark eyebrows knit together in confusion. “I just told you.”
“I mean, why do they own you. Why are you a hellion and not just…”
“Dead?”
I nodded tentatively.
“I was offered the job when I woke up at the bus stop. Not actually a bus stop at the time…”
I didn’t say ‘why’ again, but he read it on my face.
“In my life,” he started, “I did some things that attracted the attention of Lucifer. He wanted me to work for him.”
“What did you do?”
Ezra looked back at the file in his hands. “Bad things. The kind of things that would attract Lucifer. Those are stories I’d rather not share with you.”
“Because?”
“Many reasons, Anna.”
“Come on. You know how I died.”
“No,” he said, and the subject closed.
“So, what’s our case, Watson?” I inched closer to him to get a better look at the file.
“First off, I am not the Watson here. You, my Pet, are Watson, at best. Honestly, I see you more as one of Sherlock’s street urchins. I of course am Holmes.” He put his hand to his chest.
“I’m not a street urchin. Take it back.”
Ezra shook his head.
“Take it back.”
“No.”
I pounced on him, holding his shoulders down with my hands, and my knees locked on either side of his hips. “Take it back!”
“Never, urchin!”
His attempt to throw me off made us land on the floor, with me on top of him. Ezra’s head hit the ground and he groaned.
“Oh my God!” I sat up on him. He also sat up and started rubbing the back of his head. I pulled his head down, so I could check him. “Are you hurt?”
He chuckled. “Why would you care if I was hurt? You hurt me all the time.”
He had a point. I didn’t have an answer as to why I cared.
“True,” I lifted myself off of him, and fell back on the bed, letting my legs dangle off of the side. Ezra batted at them before he stood up, and sat back down.
“Do you want to hear about this or not?”
I waved my hand, “Do tell.”
“His name is Travis McGuire. Made demon. He was a power mule for Lucifer. My boss gave him mind reading to deliver to some idiot topside who sold his soul. Travis decided to keep it and skip town.”
I sat up on my elbows, and looked at Ezra with clear confusion.
“Made demons have the ability to become conduits of power for the Devil, only when he lets them. He can give abilities to whomever he wishes. On occasion, a demon wants more than they were born with. They make a deal, and they get the power.”
“That’s stupid. Selling your immortal soul for a few decades of power. How is Hell worth that?”
He shrugged.
“People do what they do. Some smart, some not. Some impulsive and some, some with control.” He gave me a look I couldn’t understand.
“Where is this Travis?”
“California. Near Anaheim, as of this morning. I can’t leave you here, lest you starve to death on my bed. Tomorrow morning, we leave. I rented a car for the trip.”
Goodie. Now I’m going on a road trip with the king of the arrogant pricks. All of my dreams are coming true.
“I should pack the rest of my clothes.” I looked to the bags in the corner.
“But I got you your old ones.”
“You did, but maybe I’ve grown attached to some of the dresses you got me.” And that far too comfy blue pair of jammies.
“Have you?” He looked pleased.
“I said maybe.”
“Just can’t let me win one, can you?”
“Well, our relationship would be very different if you didn’t keep promising to kill me.”
He leaned forward. “How so?”
I would have ripped your pants off several times over by now.
I considered my words. “We’ll never know.”
Chapter Ten: Magic Kingdom
Ezra
I woke up early to load the car with our suitcases. Anna still slept when I finished. I didn’t want to wake her. She seemed the kind get cranky if at five in the morning.
Normally for an assignment like this, I’d use my teleportation, but I didn’t want to bring her down to Hell. Too complicated for this situation.
When I got back up to the loft, I sat on Anna’s corner of the bed. I put my hand on her leg, and said her name quietly.
She grumbled, and I laughed. “We need to leave soon.”
“No. I’m not going to school today. I have a tummy ache.” She moved from her side and flipped her body so that her head laid right next to me.
“No school today, Pet. Just a long drive.”
Her hair hung in her face, obscuring my view of her. I brushed it away and watched a smile spread across her lips.
