A Wilderness Within

by Emma Castle

  “Lucien.” The smooth, dark voice caught Lucien’s attention. He still stood at the edge of the balcony on the top floor of his club that led to his private office. From the relatively secluded spot, he could see the club patrons below him dancing wildly.

  “Yes?” He turned away from the smoky haze of the strobe lights that lit the club below and faced Andras, one of his fellow fallen angels. The blond-haired man had the palest blue eyes, like frozen glaciers. They had once been brothers in the glittering city of clouds, but now they were brothers bound in darkness.

  “You asked me to bring you a list of the deals made on crossroads this month.” Andras walked over to Lucien and held out his palm as though to shake his hand.

  Lucien put his hand into Andras’s, and his head suddenly filled with a flood of images. A hundred souls, a hundred deals made. Deals made out of anger, greed, and lust.

  How utterly dull and predictable.

  Lucien released Andras’s hand and sighed as he turned back to face the crowd below. Andras joined him at the railing and remained quiet for a moment. Lucien again fixated on the feeling that had increasingly haunted him the last few years. He wasn’t content. There was a cloying emptiness that seemed ready to strangle him, and he couldn’t shake it. He was no stranger to that hollow feeling, but it seemed worse of late.

  “Sir, you seem…unsatisfied.”

  Lucien nearly denied it, but he never lied. The devil only ever spoke the truth. Everyone painted him a liar, but it wasn’t true. They lied to themselves and each other in his name.

  “I am unsatisfied,” he finally admitted. From the moment he’d been cast out of heaven, he had been restless and full of rage. The rage had faded over the many years he’d been in hell. Corrupting souls was too easy. A hint here, a little nudge there, and these mortals fell into sin so easily. He craved a challenge. The gates of hell required pure souls to be corrupted in order to stay strong. The more souls he took below, the stronger the powers keeping demons in hell were. In a strange way, corruption of a few protected millions. And it had been a long time since he’d focused on pure souls as targets. The gates were starting to crumble.

  Nothing like a challenge when hell itself needed saving.

  “Are there not any good, incorruptible souls still out there? The gates are weak. I can feel it,” he muttered. It was a rhetorical question, but Andras straightened.

  “There must be. Shall I find one for you? I too have been worried about the gates. It’s been a long time since we’ve gone in search of pure souls to power the portal.”

  Lucien crossed his arms over his chest, frowning at the crowd below him. He hadn’t expected Andras to offer to find one. He’d been thinking aloud more than anything, but Andras was a loyal soldier and clever. If anyone could find what he needed to protect the gates, it was Andras.

  Do I want that? Would the challenge sate my emptiness? Or should I leave it up to Andras to secure the safety of hell?

  No, he had to be the one to do it. When he corrupted the soul and secured it in hell, it kept the gates strong and the demons where they should be—locked away in crushing darkness.

  If there was even the smallest chance of relieving himself of that awful ache, he had to try.

  “Find me a pure soul. One that will be a true challenge. The gates need one that will truly test me if we are to secure the portal.”

  “Understood.” Andras vanished, and the flutter of his invisible shadow wings was the only proof of his ever having been there. When Andras fell, he too had lost his snowy white wings. In their place, the scars had formed what were called shadow wings, and those were all that remained.

  Lucien turned his back on the club and returned to his office. He closed the glass doors to his balcony and sat in his black leather desk chair. Taking a cigar from the cherrywood box, he removed his silver cigar cutter and cut the tip. Then he snapped his fingers, and a flame blossomed from his fingertips to light the cigar. He drew in a slow breath, relishing the rich, sweet aroma of the smoke, and blew the air back out. The smoke escaped his lips in tendrils that coiled into the air to form a slithering snake.

  Andras would find him a soul, a perfect one to corrupt, and it would restore Lucien’s purpose and keep the gates of hell intact.

  It’s time the devil got back in the game.

  Life isn’t fair.

  Diana Kingston knew that was the truth, but it didn’t stop her from hoping for fairness every day. She sat by her father’s hospital bed, helplessly watching him fight for life. He’d slipped into a coma early that morning as the final stages of cancer took hold. Her mother, Janet, held his hand and was talking softly to him about her day, hoping he could hear her. It had been a part of their normal routine before he’d slipped into the coma. When Diana got home from her college classes, she and her mother drove to the hospital to keep her father company while he underwent radiation and chemotherapy for colon cancer. She couldn’t get past the pain of watching her mother lose half of herself with the impending death of the man she had deeply loved for more than thirty years.

  Most days Diana kept herself together, but today was possibly the end. The doctor had called her mother early this morning to say that her father, Hal, had slipped into a coma. Only yesterday, her father had been glassy-eyed and exhausted from fighting the inevitable but still awake and talking. The machines beeping beside his bed showed his life ticking away, slowly fading bit by bit. Her heart was breaking, fracturing like a mirror into a thousand shards. She could see herself in her father’s face, reflected a thousand times over as he gave in to death inch by inch. Would her mother look at Diana and see that reflection of her father? Would it cause her mother even more pain? Diana bit her lip hard enough that the metallic taste of blood surprised her. She licked her lips and rose from the stiff wooden hospital chair.

  She was a coward; she was weak—she could not sit there and watch him die. It hurt too much.

  “Mom, I’m going to get some air, okay?” She hugged her mother’s shoulders and kissed her cheek before she headed to the door.

  “Okay, hon,” her mother murmured absently.

  Diana paused at the door to her father’s room, drinking in the sight of her parents. Hal was a handsome man with soft gray eyes, eyes that would likely never open again, and brown hair feathered with gray. Her mother, Janet, had been a real beauty in her youth and was still stunning with blue eyes and raven hair. But her father’s illness had aged them both over the last two years, stealing time like fall leaves scattered upon the wind.

  When her father died, the blow would crush her mother. They were soul mates. Diana had grown up in a house filled with life and laughter, songs sung in the sun, and dancing in the moonlight. Her parents had a peaceful life, but now life seemed determined to claw back some of the perfection it had given away too freely.

  Tears welled up in Diana’s eyes as she stepped into the hallway of the oncology wing at Saint Francis Hospital outside Chicago.

  Just breathe, she reminded herself. She wiped her eyes, smearing the tears across her cheeks. She’d been raised Catholic, but her faith had never been that strong, not until her father fell ill. Now she prayed like the world was ending, because for her, part of it was.

  “You okay?” A nurse came over and gently touched her shoulder in the nice way people do to strangers in pain.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “Just a bad day for my dad.” The words “he’s dying” couldn’t come out. She didn’t want—and frankly couldn’t handle—anyone’s pity right now.

  The woman nodded in immediate understanding. “Everyone has those bad days here, but they’re usually followed by good ones. Hang in there, sweetie.” The nurse’s brown eyes were tender as she smiled.

  “Thanks.” Diana tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and glanced around, wishing she could get outside fast, but the hospital was a labyrinth of wings, elevator bays, and nurses’ stations.

  “Why don’t you take a break in the chapel?” The nurse’s sugge
stion sounded good.

  Diana thanked her again and walked toward the end of the hall. She reached it and glanced at the door with a little plaque that said “Healing Chapel.” As she entered, she held her breath, but the chapel was empty. A stained-glass window of Saint Francis of Assisi standing in the woods surrounded by animals was at the back of the chapel. She’d come here often these last few weeks, and while she was a lapsed Catholic, she knew enough of the saints to know Assisi. He’d become a quiet comfort to her.

  The pews gleamed with a splash of colorful light pouring in from the stained glass. Diana walked to the first row and sat down, then closed her eyes as more tears trailed down her cheeks. Two years ago all that had mattered in her life was college. She would be a senior at the University of Chicago this fall, majoring in architecture. When her dad fell ill, her mother had done her best to hide it from her.

  Part of Diana was angry that her dad was ill, angry that he was putting her and her mother through hell. And she was angry that she wouldn’t be able to fix her mother’s broken heart. She was angry most of all at herself for not being able to do a damn thing to help him. Anger felt good, and it made her feel strong, even if only for a short time.

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat there before she realized she wasn’t alone. The fine hair at the back of her neck rose as she had that eerie sensation of unseen eyes gazing upon her. Some ancient instinct warned her that she was in the presence of a predator.

  Turning slowly, she looked over her shoulder, near the dimly lit entry. She saw a figure that was wreathed in shadows. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. It was as if every nightmare she’d ever had about shapes in the dark, choking, suffocating, and endless nothingness buried in layers of smoke were all there in that doorway. Then she blinked and the shadows vanished.

  Instead, a man stood framed in the doorway. His black suit and red silk tie were strangely intense for a hospital setting. She was so used to seeing people in casual, comfortable clothes while they spent long hours at the bedside of a loved one. He held himself in a confident, dominant manner that made her shiver. Gazing upward, she gulped when she realized he was staring at her with the same intensity. The instant their eyes locked, her breath rushed out of her and all the thoughts in her head rattled around. Those eyes—fathomless twin pools of deadly intent that she couldn’t understand—caused fear to sink its claws into her as every basic animal instinct in her shrieked to run. She blinked and the strange, frightening spell was somewhat broken, and she was able to take in the rest of his face.

  He was frighteningly attractive, like a model from a fashion magazine. He had dark hair, not quite black, and his eyes were just as dark. She could see no hint of warmth there. His features were perfect, a straight nose, chiseled jaw, and full lips that a girl could get lost in daydreams about kissing. There was an edge of danger about him, something that warned her deep down to be careful, to not run, because she was prey and he was a predator. As silly as the thought was, she sensed it was true on some level. She had to be careful.

  Yet Diana couldn’t help but wonder about this man and who he might be. He was fascinating to look at. She had dated her fair share of guys, but this man…he made the whole world fall away. He was completely absorbing in a way she couldn’t explain.

  Silence stretched between them. She wanted to wipe away the tears drying on her cheeks, but she couldn’t move, frozen by both fear and enchantment.

  “I hope I didn’t disturb your prayers.”

  She shivered at his low, silken voice. That voice could tempt a woman to think of her darkest fantasies. Fantasies she fought every day to ignore, yet she couldn’t stop her body’s reaction. She pulled her control together and forced herself to finally move. She had to get out of this room. Her instincts still screamed at her to get the hell out of there.

  “Er…no, I was just leaving.” She stood and exited the pew.

  He took a step closer, sliding his hands into the pockets of his black pants. The light from the windows moved over him in the strangest way, as though he was bending the light to move away from him, leaving him more in shadow.

  Was that even possible? Diana glanced around, very aware that she was alone with this man, and the cold, emotionless faces of the occupants of the stained-glass windows weren’t there to help her.

  “Visiting someone?”

  “My…dad.” Just saying it dispelled the fear and desire that this man created inside her. She wiped at her eyes, making sure he couldn’t see any fresh tears.

  “I’m sorry.” He took another step closer, his gaze sliding from her to the stained-glass window behind her. He stared at Saint Francis with an odd, knowing smile as if he were intimately familiar with the saint, which of course wasn’t possible.

  “Thank you.” She grappled for something polite to say. “Are you visiting someone here too?” She studied his profile and the way the light from the stained glass fractured over his features in dozens of colors.

  His lips curled in a ghost of a grin. “Not exactly.”

  “Are you a doctor?” If he wasn’t there visiting, he had to be there for some reason, right?

  He suddenly chuckled as if at some private joke. “Do I look like I save lives?”

  “I…I’m sorry, I just assumed.” She started for the door again, disturbed and way too interested in the man.

  “Diana, wait.”

  Her name upon his lips stopped her dead in her tracks.

  “How do you know who I am?” Terror clenched her throat so hard the words barely escaped her mouth.

  The man turned to face her. His head inclined toward her, his body moving with a slow grace, his eyes pinning her in place as he came closer.

  “You sent a prayer out for your father.”

  Stunned, she nodded.

  “I’m here to answer your prayer.”

  His dark eyes seem to swallow her whole as his words punched her gut. Was this some kind of cruel joke? Was he a doctor playing a game? Or worse, just some creep who lurked in hospital chapels to prey on emotional women?

  “I’m not a creep lurking around waiting to prey on emotional women.”

  He chuckled again, the darkness edging the sound giving her chills. He’d heard her thoughts. “But…how? You’re not a doctor. You said you don’t save lives. I don’t understand—”

  He raised one hand, his index finger pointing up to command silence. She closed her mouth. The man drifted closer step by step, and she still couldn’t move. They were now only a foot apart, and she could feel that awful, crushing darkness rolling off him in waves.

  “I’m not a doctor, and I only save lives when there’s something in it for me.”

  Diana wrapped her arms around herself. “I still don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t. You’re a sweet, innocent mortal. No need to worry. I am happy to spell it out for you.” He reached out to touch her cheek.

  Suddenly the chapel vanished around them and they were in front of her father’s room, peering in at him and her mother from the doorway. Her father lay still, his face waxen with approaching death, and the sight tore at her heart so fiercely she nearly cried out. The man from the chapel was right behind her, his warm breath fanning against her neck. She shivered.

  “I make life-changing deals.”

  “Deals?” She didn’t understand how they’d gotten from the chapel to her father’s room.

  I’m dreaming. That has to be it. No one around them moved. The nurses at the station were frozen, her parents too. The multiple monitors connected to her father were still and silent. This was how all her nightmares went. She couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, she just had to face whatever was happening. This was most definitely a dream.

  “Yes.” The man’s voice was low, seductive, like a lover. “You want your father to be well again, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do.” Diana stared at her father, his face a mask of pain and exhaustion.

  “What would you give for him to b
e healed?”

  She spun to face the dark-eyed man and came face-to-face with his red necktie. He was towering over her; he had to be at least six foot three. She barely came up to his shoulders.

  “I…”

  “Think now, think hard.” The man’s dark eyes lowered to her lips as though he was thinking about kissing her. A wild flush rippled through her.

  “I would give anything.”

  “Anything is an awfully dangerous word.” His dark eyes were like fathomless pools, but in them she saw her father walking, laughing, alive. The hunger for that moment, to see her father healthy and happy, was so strong that she was able to shed her fears of this man and bravely speak the truth.

  She pursed her lips for a minute but then nodded. “Anything.”

  He studied her, and she refused to flinch beneath his assessing gaze. She straightened her back and lifted her chin, wanting to project confidence. The man seemed amused by her sudden change, and a slow, seductive smile lifted the corners of his lips.

  “Would you give yourself to me? Sell your soul?” the man asked, his voice hard-edged beneath that layer of silken seduction.

  “Sell my…”

  “Soul.” He opened his palm, holding it flat as though waiting for her to take his hand.

  “What do you mean, my soul?”

  “I’ll show you.” He extended his hand closer to hers. She reached out, hesitating, but then finally placed her hand in his. The second his fingers curled around hers she was swallowed by darkness.

  Fluttering sounds like the rush of a raven’s wings in the night made her shiver, and she clung to his hand, which still grasped hers. All around her was nothingness, and she couldn’t seem to get any air into her lungs for a long second. Then finally she was able to speak.

  “What is this?” she whispered, fear choking her.

  “The end of everything you know and love.”

  “Hell,” she breathed. Where were the fires and the evil souls?