by Megan Hart
She could not get herself clean. Forty minutes in the shower under hot water and another twenty under cold until her teeth chattered so hard she bit her tongue; the taste of blood could not wash away the bitterness of what she'd done. She had managed to get herself onto the bathroom floor wrapped in a sodden, chilly towel, but could move no farther than that.
Jake found here there. She didn't want him to see her like that, but a fever had struck her sometime in between finishing the devil's work and getting out of the shower. She looked at him as though he stood in the waves of heat from a pizza oven, but they came from her.
"C'mon. Let's get you into bed." Gently, he lifted her, but she roused herself enough to push past him and stumble to the toilet, where she heaved up nothing but stringy brown bile and wished she had the strength to tell him to get away.
Nobody should have to see her like this.
Kathleen became aware of a cool cloth placed on the back of her neck. Jake's soothing hands rubbed her back in circles while she shuddered, gripping the porcelain. When the spasms had passed, he helped her up and to the sink, where he put paste on her toothbrush.
"I can do it," she snapped when he tried to help her brush. "You can leave."
He didn't leave.
As he'd done the first night they met, he refused to surrender her to whatever might happen. He helped her into a clean pair of pajamas and tucked her into bed. He sat beside her, reading quietly as she slept fitfully, tossing and turning so much he had to get up and remake the bed where she'd pulled out the sheets from the mattress.
At last her dreams ceased to plague her, and she smoothed into quietness. When she woke, stretching, no longer sick, the sunlight glimmering through the windows told her it was late afternoon. Jake slept beside her on his back, one arm thrown behind his head. She rolled to face him, letting herself drink in the sight of him while he couldn't see her staring.
She kept herself from touching him, not wanting to wake him. She traced the lines of his face with her gaze instead, letting it linger on the curves and hollows. The slight crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The fullness of his lower lip.
He had become so beloved to her, in such a short time.
Quietly, Kathleen slipped from the bed and went into the kitchen to make a mug of tea that she sat with cupped in her hands but did not drink. Her stomach ached with that weird combination of nausea and hunger, but she wasn't sure she dared yet eat. Instead, she sat in the cool dimness and tried to put everything away.
She didn't turn when she heard the soft pad of Jake's bare feet behind her. Without a word he took the seat across from her at the table. She waited for him to speak, but he gave her time to be the first to say something.
"I was supposed to go to an assessment meeting yesterday. To determine if I would be allowed to gain partial custody of my daughter," she said finally. Calmly. Emotionless.
"And you didn't go?"
She shook her head. "No. I went. I took a couple sedatives and drank half a bottle of bourbon, and I went."
She waited for the judgment, but Jake's expression didn't twist into disgust. He reached for and took her hand, tugging it gently away from the now-cold mug. He linked their fingers together.
"I made it impossible for anyone with good conscience to ever allow me to visit my child without supervision, much less have her live with me. Ever. At least not until she's old enough to decide for herself, and that's...that won't happen, because by the time she is old enough to choose me, I will have thoroughly destroyed any chance of her wanting to." Kathleen took a long, deep breath that still tasted faintly of soot and blood.
"Why did you do that?"
"Because I'm an idiot."
His fingers squeezed. "No. You're not."
"Because I have an addiction problem," Kathleen said and pulled her hand from his. "I'm sick. I don't deserve to have her in my life."
Jake shook his head. "No."
"You don't know anything about it!"
"You did it to protect her," Jake said.
Kathleen stood so fast the chair tipped onto its back with a loud clatter that would make the neighbors below her hate her. "You don't..."
Jake didn't stand, didn't come around the table to chase her. She'd have run from him, if he had. Instead she stood, eyes wide and heart pounding, poised to flee but staying because somehow she could not bring herself to move.
"Sometimes, we make choices that hurt because we know in the long run they will be better for the other person than for ourselves," Jake said. "That's what love is. Sometimes, it's hurting yourself to keep someone else safe."
She swallowed the bitterness of tears and let her fingers curl into fists. "What about the rest of the time?"
He got to his feet and came around the table to take her in his arms. "I guess the rest of the time it's letting someone else help you when you're hurting, no matter why. Will you let me help you, Kathleen?"
She couldn't bring herself to say yes, so she let him kiss her instead.
18
The call from her agent came in the middle of the afternoon, just as Kathleen had pulled herself away from the computer for a drink and a snack. She'd been writing since eight in the morning without more than a few minutes’ break. The more new words she wrote, the less she had to think about the document sitting on her hard drive, ready to be sent off to her impatiently waiting editor.
"How's it going?" Richard wasn't one for small talk. "Where's the book, Kathleen? Marianne's been riding my ass about it for two months."
He'd never been the hand-holding sort, either. He was known in the industry as a shark, which was fantastic when he was negotiating top-notch deals for her. Not so great if she were in the midst of a crisis.
"It's giving me trouble," she told him, which was not a lie. The idea of the book, her best work, finished and ready to go but unsent because it was that or her soul...that was definitely trouble.
She heard the click of a lighter, then the slow intake of breath. "But it's finished, right? Tell me it's at least done."
She hesitated. "Yeah, I mean, the word count's there."
"So send it in. That's what your editor's for. I know you pride yourself on sending in work that's as clean as possible," Richard said, echoing the devil's earlier suggestion, "but just send it in."
"I can't."
There was a silence and the sound of another long draw. "Look. I wanted to hold off on this because I thought you'd get your shit together, Kathleen, but I have to ask. Do we need to talk about getting you some help?"
For a second she thought he meant with the book. Then it hit her. She'd have laughed if it weren't so raw, so terrible, so deserved.
"I'm not drinking, Richard."
"You sure? I heard something about a custody assessment meeting."
The rumor mill. Part of the price of fame. She couldn't buy a pack of cigarettes at the bodega without it showing up somewhere on the internet as bad behavior. She didn't reply.
"Because there's no shame in it, Kath," he told her, making her cringe at the shortening of her name. "Lots of people get the help they need in rehab. Hell, King spent years working on his addiction issues...."
"I'm not drinking again," she repeated and knew he didn't believe her. That was the problem with losing your mind, she thought. Once you let anyone see you as cracked, nobody could ever trust that you weren't always on the verge of breaking.
"Then what is it? Because I have to tell you, they're making noises about bringing legal into this. You're four months late on deadline, and you know it was a tight one to begin with. They put a lot of money into you --"
"They've made their money on me, Richard, dozens of times over, and you know it. They know it. I never wanted that tight of a pub schedule to begin with, you know I had concerns about what might happen if I got sick or something..."
Richard coughed. "Are you sick? Is that what this is?"
"I'm not sick." She closed her eyes, feeling sick enough to vomit. "I'm just h
aving a hard time with the book. It happens. Tell them I need another two months."
"Shit."
Neither of them spoke. She had nothing to say, and apparently Richard was also without words. He sighed after a bit.
"Fine. I'll tell them. But are you sure you don't need me to get you some help?"
"It would get them off your back, wouldn't it? If you told them I was in rehab."
Richard laughed without humor. "Well. Yeah. And yours. And think of the press, Kath."
"You want me to capitalize on my health in order to sell books? Fuck you, Richard," Kathleen said evenly, without malice. "Fuck. You."
"I'm sorry." He sounded very far from sorry.
"Two months," she told him. "That's how much time I need."
Without waiting for him to reply, she disconnected the call. She heard a noise from the doorway to her office and turned to see Jake. She sighed.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
The truth rose to her lips, a burble of syllables and sentences she knew she couldn't say aloud. Not without sounding as though she'd lost her fucking mind. She clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.
Jake held up a plate of toast glistening with butter and cinnamon. Her stomach rumbled. A rush of emotion turned her topsy-turvy.
It was just toast, she told herself. Just a plate of fucking toast.
"You need something in your stomach," Jake told her. "C'mon. Eat this and then take a nice hot shower. Everything will seem better."
It was exactly the right thing to say. "How is it that you always have the right words at the right time?"
He shrugged and came to the desk to put the plate on it, then pulled her hair to the side to press a kiss to the back of her neck that sent shivers all through her. She closed her eyes at the touch of his lips. She wanted to turn and kiss his mouth; she wanted to have him take her right there on the floor of her office. She didn't move though, not even when he slipped his arms around her and pressed his cheek to hers to he could speak directly into her ear.
"It's all going to be all right, Kathleen."
She drew in a hitching breath. The burn of tears threatened, and she wanted to let them free, but as always since she'd made her deal with the Morningstar, she could not weep. There was no release. Only the pain and sting of wanting to cry and being incapable of it.
She turned in her chair to hug him around the waist. "I've never been late on a deadline before. Never, not once."
"Everyone's late sometimes, right?" He went to his knees in front of her, holding her hands, to make their position more comfortable. "It happens. You can't force what isn't there."
How could she tell him that was not the problem? They'd spoken at length about the writing process, how it worked for her, how sometimes it was true, that the words would not come when she needed them to. Of how sometimes writing was as fluid and easy as slipping on her silk kimono, and sometimes it was more like taking a razor to her flesh and peeling it off in strips, one at a time, while she bled all over the keyboard.
"It's more than that this time, Jake."
"What is it?"
Again, she meant to tell him, but how could she? Richard had been ready to send her off to rehab; if she told Jake the truth about the agreement she'd made with Satan, he would surely call for the men in the white coats to come for her.
"I can't...it's just...self-defeating sabotage. I don't know why I do it."
Jake's hands moved around to cup her breasts through the silk. Her nipples tightened under his palms. She arched into the touch.
He made love to her on the rug in front of her desk, taking his time. An hour loving her from top to toe, his mouth discovered and learned all her secret places. They moved together, bodies dancing, and when she broke apart, he was there to mend her.
After, sated and lolling, boneless and breathless, Kathleen smiled up at the ceiling. "That was nice."
"Just nice?" He poked her in the side until she giggled and twisted away from him.
She faced him. She touched his face. She let her fingertip stroke along his lips, parting them so when she leaned to kiss him, she could take a little of his breath as her own.
"I have an idea," Jake said after a second or so.
"What's that?"
He sat up with a grin, his hair tumbling over his forehead. "C'mon. I'll show you."
19
In all her years of living in the city, she'd never been to any of the places Jake took her. Small museums, a family owned deli tucked away down a side street, a place in the park where they could sit quietly and eat an ice cream cone while watching the squirrels play. He took her to dinner at a Russian restaurant, where they indulged themselves on chicken Kiev and thick slices of brown bread and cabbage, and with laughter and the enjoyment of each other's company.
The devil stopped them outside the restaurant. He wore the shape of a homeless woman, clad in layers of tattered rags. Graying, straggly hair. Dirty fingernails. She had a shopping cart overflowing with junk wrapped up in black garbage bags. She didn't ask for money.
She didn't say anything at all.
Still, Jake tossed a ten spot into the cup in front of her. Kathleen held tight to his arm not from any drink but from the hours they'd spent together, sheer joy running through her veins better than any alcohol. She waited for the devil to call her by name, to make his demands of her. He didn't.
He waited until later, when she and Jake had made love and were in bed together before he appeared, standing over her in the darkness. Still silent. The silhouette of him had horns, a tail, a pitchfork. His eyes gleamed from the shadows, and so did his teeth.
Kathleen got out of bed and went to the living room, where she turned on him, this cartoon devil who kept himself hidden in the shadows there, too. "What do you want? Can't you just leave me a note or something? I don't want him to see you!"
"What makes you think Jake could see me?"
"You're not invisible," she said.
"Oh, I can be. Of course I can, as you should guess." The devil flicked a forked tongue along the sharpness of his teeth.
"So then he would see me talking to myself and definitely think I'm insane." Kathleen frowned. "What do you want?"
Lucifer drew his tail through clawed fingers, twirling it. His cloven feet left dents in her thick carpeting. He shook his hips.
"Dance with me."
"Oh," she said, recoiling. "Really? No."
His teeth snapped. "Is that your choice?"
"No, of course it's not. You won't get me like that," she said at once. "What do you want to do? The Jitterbug? Waltz? What?"
"Dance with me," the devil whispered and drew her into his arms as tenderly as any lover.
Cheek to cheek, he led her in a small pattern of circles across the floor. The devil was an exquisite dancer, of course. Not a step out of place, and even though she was a terrible dancer, Kathleen managed to keep up.
"The conference," he told her. "The big one you're going to next month."
She pulled away to look at him warily, though they kept moving. Never stopping. Around and around and around.
"There's that big launch party for your publisher, announcing next year's titles."
Her book was one of them. There was cover art, a blurb. Promotional party favors for the booksellers and reviewers who'd been invited. It was listed in the catalogs. There were pre-orders in the hundreds of thousands, according to an email that had come in from Richard only a couple days ago.
She still hadn't turned it in.
This would be the third year Kathleen had been invited to this party, though it was the first she was the spotlighted author. She'd bought a new dress and shoes. She'd asked Jake to go with her, officially her date.
"Are you going to tell me not to go?"
Kathleen's grandmother had been fond of saying, man plans and God laughs. Well, in Kathleen's experience, the devil laughed too. Always, the devil laughed.
"Oh, no. You need to be there, Kathleen. With be
lls on. Don't worry, not literally, though it would be amusing." The devil ceased the dancing, though for a few seconds after he stopped, Kathleen still felt like they were moving. "You need to be there. But I want you to tell your publisher you're the only author allowed to be there."
Surely she hadn't heard him correctly. "...What?"
The devil spun her, slowly. "Tell your publisher that unless you're the only author at the party, you will not turn your book in on time."
She tried to tug herself free, but the Morningstar's grip on her was too strong. Maybe she was too weak. Either way, all she could do in the end was allow him to keep her close.
"I'm already late, they could already take legal action against me...I can't threaten to simply not turn it in!"
"At this point, they have more to lose than you do." Lucifer's features shifted, blurring and running together.
He was right. She had enough money in the bank to go up against any lawsuit they brought against her, because even though they certainly could sue her, it would put financial pressure on a business already struggling against the changing face of publishing. Ultimately, the truth was, nobody could force another person to complete a creative work. They could go after her for the money they paid her, perhaps even a bit more for damages or something like that if the publisher was really going to be vindictive, but in the end her pockets were deep enough to win.
"It will be professional suicide not to turn in that book," she said and for a moment thought it might be a literal suicide, as well. "It's the best thing I've ever written."
"You're going to turn it in. As soon as they make sure you're the only author at the party. Simple." Lucifer snapped. His features settled into a familiar face, one he'd worn many times before. A handsome older man, dark hair going silver at the temples. Twinkling eyes.
She wanted to gouge them out.
"Now, now, now," the devil said mildly. "It will feel great to be the only Cinderella at the ball."
She shook her head and at last managed to free herself from his grasp. She took two steps back. "You're going to ruin me, you know that? I will have no friends in the business after this. I will be reviled."