The Sinner

by Emma Scott

  The thought nearly stopped me in my tracks. It didn’t make any sense, but then again, I reasoned, none of this did.

  We left the store in silence and headed to a nearby Mexican restaurant. The bright colors and warm scents from the kitchen helped dispel some of the otherworldliness of the moment in the department store. Everything seemed so…normal.

  Except for Casziel’s appetite.

  I watched him over my taco salad as he scarfed down a burrito, two chicken tamales, and an entire sizzling fajita platter.

  “But you don’t need to eat,” I said, grimacing as he followed a swig of beer with a gulp of Horchata.

  “All demons crave food, time, and sex.”

  Another flush of heat burned through me. “You crave time?”

  “There is no time on the Other Side. Not as you know it. No neat, linear march of weeks, months, and years. It’s a nebulous cloud in which every yesterday can be tomorrow, and a thousand tomorrows are happening all at once. On This Side, the monotony of immortality is broken with every new sunrise.”

  I leaned my cheek into my hand. “Despite your questionable table manners, you’re something of a poet, Cas.”

  He glanced at me, then focused on his food. “Cas?”

  “Is that okay?” I toyed with my napkin. “It just started to feel more…right.”

  And familiar. Because everything about Cas was growing more familiar to me with every passing minute. I lifted my head to catch him watching me. He looked away.

  “There’s nothing poetic about wasted time,” he said irritably. “The ticking clock is supposed to make life more exciting and precious, yet the great majority of humans squander it. If you lived forever, you’d be an even lazier lot than you are now.” He pushed his plate away, muttering almost under his breath, “And Cas is fine.”

  I grinned. The demon was sort of adorable when he was contrite.

  And sexy.

  It was unescapable. Casziel had an otherworldly magnetism, true, but he was also just flat-out hot. I cleared my throat. “Okay, we’ve covered time and food, but demons also crave…um…?”

  “Sex?”

  Heads turned. Someone’s fork clattered to their plate.

  I hunched lower in my seat. “Say that a little louder; I don’t think the chef heard you.”

  Cas shrugged, unperturbed. “Yes, we crave sex. Some more than others. One of my subordinates, Ambri, for instance, missed his calling as an incubus. But then, he’s not interested in being saved.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There is a risk of forfeiting my redemption if I—pardon my Gallic—fuck a human.”

  Holy crap, the way those last three words zipped down my spine and burned like a flare between my legs stole my breath.

  Get a grip, girl.

  I took a long pull of cold water. “Why? Because sex is considered a sin?”

  “It’s not sex but the creation of Nephilim that’s forbidden. The offspring of demons and humans.”

  “There are Nephilim here?”

  “Of course.”

  “Would I know them if I saw them?”

  “Very likely. They tend to gravitate toward politics.”

  I laughed, and his lips tilted in a small grin as the waiter dropped the check.

  “Maybe your redemption is getting a job to help me pay for all this,” I said after paying the bill and tucking my credit card back in my wallet. We stepped out onto the street. “I didn’t have ‘bankrolling a demon’s Earth vacation’ on my bingo card this week.”

  “This is no vacation.”

  “So you keep saying,” I said, smiling to myself as Cas wordlessly took my dress bag out of my hands and added it to those he carried. “But I’m not feeling a real sense of urgency from you about your ten days.”

  He shrugged. “It serves no one if I’m desperate and panicked every waking minute.”

  “True, but…”

  My words trailed as we came to a street corner. Our light was red, and we stood with a small group of people waiting to cross. A homeless man was leaning against the pole. Shirtless, skinny, he had shaggy hair that fell over his eyes. He mumbled a request for spare change, but no one waiting at the corner answered. No one even looked at him.

  I dove into Cas’s bag that held the “donated” Metallica shirt. I gave it to the homeless man, then rummaged in my wallet that had nothing left but a ten-dollar bill.

  “Thank you, miss,” the man said with a grateful smile that was missing a few teeth. “Have a blessed day.”

  “You too,” I mumbled back, my throat thick, and crossed the street. Casziel fell in step beside me.

  “The shirt off your back,” he said quietly.

  “He needed eye-contact almost more,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Being seen…someone acknowledging that you exist matters. It matters a lot.” I inhaled shakily. “Never mind. What now? We still need to figure out a plan for you.”

  Cas was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I wish to go exploring,” he said finally.

  “You just said this wasn’t a vacation.”

  “I changed my mind.”

  “See, this is the lack of urgency I was talking about.”

  “The answer will come. I haven’t seen the city in many years, Lucy Dennings.” He peered down at me. “I’d like to, one last time.”

  The depth of his gaze and the longing that lurked beneath it made my heart pound.

  Because this is his last chance for redemption. It’s a big deal and has nothing to do with you.

  I vowed to stop going all soft and fluttery every time Cas pinned me with those amber eyes of his and remembered he was a demon. A demon who had, in his own words, committed a multitude of sins. But he’d chosen the right human to help him. He deserved a chance and not just because he was gorgeous. Or because I caught him looking at me sometimes the way a condemned man looks at the world on his last day of freedom.

  Ah, Silly Lucy is back, sneered Deb or K. Silly Lucy with her silly romantic notions from her silly books—

  Casziel whirled on me, snarling. His eyes flashed pure black, and for a split second, I saw the demonic form lurking within the beautiful human man beside me. The cold dread I’d felt when I’d first found him reached for me with icy fingers. Like what I imagined Harry Potter felt when a Dementor tried to suck out his soul.

  The voice went silent, and Cas’s eyes reverted back to amber. He blinked innocently at me.

  “Shall we?”

  Eight

  For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, I took Casziel all over Manhattan. We stored our purchases in Grand Central Station, then strolled the paths at Central Park, took in the garish lights of Times Square, and watched the sun set from the top of the Empire State Building. I’d lived in NYC for years, yet this excursion felt like the first time I really appreciated the city. As if Cas were reacquainting me with an old friend.

  After a dinner of Korean Barbeque, a dessert of ice cream sundaes, and—because he was a bottomless pit—a second dinner of pizza for the demon—we grabbed our bags and headed back to my neighborhood in Hell’s Kitchen.

  The night was warm and soft, and I felt content in a way I hadn’t in a long time. I’d been out in the world, talking easily with Cas about my studies at NYU and an idea I had to repurpose plastic scrubbed from the oceans to make athletic shoes. Somehow, being with Cas tore down the barrier between me and my feelings and my shyness about sharing them. Maybe it was because he’d scared my demons away for the time being, but I didn’t feel foolish or silly. Hearing my idea out loud, it didn’t sound stupid either. It sounded workable. Necessary, even.

  “Perhaps it’s time you shared your ideas with the people at your job,” he mused as we strolled through my neighborhood. “They’re all like-minded humans, desperate to save the oceans, are they not?”

  “Yes.” I glanced up at him. “And I know what you’re going to say next—my big ideas can’t go anywhere if no one hears them.”

  “Act
ually, I was going to say ocean preservation is a waste of time. In five years, a meteor is going to hit the earth and humans will share the fate of the dinosaurs.”

  I gaped. “What…?”

  “I’m kidding.” His lips twitched. “Maybe.”

  I laughed and nudged his arm with my elbow. Cas almost smiled when something across the street caught his eye. I looked in time to see two shadows fleeing from the yellow cone of a streetlight.

  “Let’s go there,” Cas said, nodding at Mulligan’s, an Irish pub just up the block.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I feel like having a drink. It’s a well-populated establishment, therefore, it must be good.”

  I looked away. “I wouldn’t know.”

  “It’s ten steps from your home. You’ve never been?”

  “Never.”

  I braced myself for his cutting remarks. Instead, he cast a final glance across the empty street and steered me toward the pub. I wasn’t a big drinker, to say the least, but after the events of the last two days, getting a little tipsy seemed like a very good idea.

  Mulligan’s interior was dark with a few neon signs for Guinness and Murphy’s glowing over the faces of the many patrons on a Saturday night. A TV blared from a corner, showing World Cup highlights, and competed with music from the jukebox. Even the toughest men gave the demon a wide berth, while women eyed him up and down. One caught my eye and mouthed well done.

  Every barstool was taken. Two guys at the end were in deep conversation but froze at our arrival. Cas’s eyes flashed to black-on-black again, and I felt the dread pour out. Without a word, the guys grabbed their pints and scurried away.

  “Oh my God.” I elbowed Cas and glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed. “You did not just do that.”

  He shrugged and pulled one stool out for me. “I don’t like waiting.”

  I started to scold him when “Devil Inside” by INXS began to play.

  “You?”

  His lips twitched. “Maybe.”

  “Now I really need a drink,” I said, laughing. “And stop doing stuff like that.”

  The bartender came around and I ordered an Irish Old Fashioned. Casziel asked for a glass of red wine.

  “Only wine?” I teased. “I figured you’d have one of everything and I’d have to take out a loan to cover the tab.”

  “Wine has been one of my few constants over the changing centuries on This Side.”

  “Centuries.” The bartender set our drinks down, and I took a deep pull. My eyes watered as the whiskey hit the back of my throat, but it settled warmly in my stomach, making me pleasantly loose. “I can’t imagine all you’ve seen over the years. You’re a time-traveler, Cas. Which is easy to forget until you speak.”

  “How do I speak?”

  “Like you’re in the wrong era. You’re a walking anachronism. No guy I know has the kind of polish and refinement you do.”

  Because he’s not a guy. He’s a man.

  “You’re an outlander,” I continued, grateful that the dimness of the pub hid my blush. “Like the book, except if Jamie did the time-traveling and Claire stayed put.”

  “The book being a romance novel, I presume.”

  “Well…yes.”

  I toyed with my cocktail napkin, expecting his ridicule, but Cas looked thoughtful.

  “Outlander,” he mused. “A fitting title. I am out of my land—my home—and no longer belong anywhere.”

  “Were you always…what you are?”

  “A demon, Lucy Dennings?”

  The bartender gave us a funny look and moved to the other side of the bar.

  “I was born a human.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “I keep forgetting, since you act like humans are beneath you.”

  “The internet makes a strong case.”

  I laughed. “You also didn’t look very human when I found you.”

  “You discovered me in my true form.” Cas gestured at himself, handsome in all black. “This was my human body. I must wear this ugly, tight-fitting suit to blend in on This Side.”

  “Ugly?” I snorted, already a little buzzed. “Have you seen you?”

  He frowned, a perplexed little smile touching his lips.

  I cleared my throat. “I mean, this is who you were in life.”

  “In life.” He spat the words as if they tasted foul. “In life, this body is fragile and easily broken. The form I was born into after death is powerful. Invincible.”

  “And demonic,” I said carefully. “I thought you were trying to change. Doesn’t that mean becoming human again?”

  “No.”

  “An angel?”

  “I am not, nor will I ever be, an angel.”

  Maybe it was the whiskey already going to my head, but his words sent a little shiver of heat dancing over my skin. But he clearly didn’t want to discuss his post-redemption fate, so I changed the subject with all the grace of a tipsy person.

  “Where were you born?” I blurted.

  “Sumer. What you once called Mesopotamia.”

  My eyes widened. “The land between two rivers. The Cradle of Civilization.”

  Casziel’s eyes flared almost imperceptibly. “How do you know of it?”

  “I took an anthropology class at NYU. I don’t know why; it wasn’t part of my curriculum, but something about that time period fascinates me.”

  “Is that so?” he said into his wine glass.

  “Absolutely, but no textbook can compete with someone who lived it. What was it like? Where did you grow up?”

  “Larsa. A city-state in the southern region, near the gulf. I was born there in the year 1721, before the Common Era.”

  My eyes widened. “Holy crap. So that makes you—”

  “Sumerian.”

  “I was going to say old.”

  Cas laughed a little, low and gruff, but his smile was beautiful. And short-lived.

  “I am considered old by human standards, but I died in 1699 BCE at the age of twenty-two.”

  “How did you die?” I waved my hand. “Sorry, that’s a personal question. At least, I think it’s a personal question. I’ve never been able to ask someone how they died before.”

  “King Hammurabi of Babylon waged war on Southern Mesopotamia,” he said. “He sought to absorb Larsa into his empire. I fought for my king, Rim-Sin the First, leading his army in many battles, but eventually we were overwhelmed. Rim-Sin fled.” Casziel’s eyes hardened. “I stayed.”

  “You were a warrior,” I said, remembering one of our first conversations.

  Cas nodded. “I defended my homeland to the bitter end, but it was useless. Hammurabi cut off the city, burning crops, starving the people. Women and children were dying. I had no choice but to surrender. I was captured and put to death.”

  “I’m sorry, Cas,” I said, my fingers toying with a fresh cocktail I didn’t remember ordering. “But you died defending your homeland from invasion. That doesn’t sound like a bad thing. Certainly not bad enough to…”

  “Condemn my soul to eternal damnation?”

  “Yes…um. That. How did that happen? If you want to tell me.”

  He twisted the stem of his wine glass and became lost in the deep red depths.

  “Hammurabi’s hatred for me ran deep,” he said. “We’d been at war for four years. I fended off his attacks and had led successful raids into Babylon. He blamed me for Larsa’s defiance more than he did Rim-Sin.”

  I stared, wide-eyed, that Casziel lived through events I only studied in history books.

  “Upon my capture, Hammurabi dragged me into the bowels of the ziggurat—our temple to Utu, the sun god. There, I was tortured and brought to the brink of death again and again. To punish me for my rebellion.” His voice stiffened, his eyes full of memories. “He defiled our temple and Utu himself, soiling the walls of the god’s house with my blood. But Hammurabi wasn’t satisfied. He ordered his generals to round up my parents, my sister…” He took a long pull from his wi
ne. “And my wife.”

  I remembered the strange vision I’d had when I first found Cas. His memories, I guessed, from the last night in the temple. A stab of jealousy knifed me in the chest. “You had a wife?”

  He nodded. “It was an arranged marriage, as was custom. Hardly two months after our wedding, Hammurabi mounted his final, victorious attack, and Larsa was defeated. My wife was slaughtered with the rest of my family and her father, the high priest. One after the other, they were murdered right before my eyes.” He inhaled through his nose, steeling himself. “Only when their blood ceased to flow was I allowed to die.”

  His pain slammed into me like a hammer. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound stupid and weak.

  “The helpless rage and grief came with me as I Crossed Over,” Casziel continued. “And Ashtaroth, drawn by that pain, was waiting for me on the Other Side.”

  “Ashtar—?”

  Casziel’s finger flew to my lips. “Don’t say his name. You don’t want him in your world, Lucy.” He released me. “He must remain in mine.”

  “Who is he?”

  “My commanding officer, so to speak. I am his servitor. His soldier.” His mouth drew down in a grim line. “Stoked by Ashtaroth, my wrath worked fast to corrupt me. Under his guidance, I grew very powerful. There are few demons mightier—or more infernal—than he.” He raised his gaze to meet mine. “Or me.”

  I sat back. “Oh.”

  “Ashtaroth welcomed me into a realm in which the rage and horror of my fate could be channeled. I stoked it in humans until it became something outside of me. I didn’t have to suffer it; I reveled in it. My grief was no longer weakness but power.”

  “Grief isn’t weakness,” I said quietly. “It’s a sign of love. It’s love that endures—”

  “And what of the love that is murdered before your eyes?” he demanded with sudden fire. “What is love when it screams your name on bloodstained lips, calling for help that you cannot give? Tell me that isn’t weakness, Lucy Dennings. The ultimate weakness. To be unable to save them. I couldn’t save them…” He shook his head with finality, his voice hard again. “Grief is not love. Grief is penance for living after love has died.”

  I swallowed hard. “What happened to you and your family is unimaginable, Cas. But the fact that you’re here—”