I hear Damien's boots clunk along the boardwalk and in another few paces, I force myself to pick my head up and watch where we are going. We're around the area where Dante commandeered the hot dog stand and beside it next to the public restrooms is what appears to be a man. Except, he's not a man. He flickers like a hologram and I see three versions of him. Or maybe it's the lust I feel regarding my own life. Freedom from a past I can't change, freedom from the present conflicts I must overcome, and freedom in the future to be untethered to everything I have endured in my human life and my past life.
I catch glimpses of his demon form with a phallic-shaped tail and great sinewy wings. His eyes aren't cold like a demon, but full of the very sin with which he weaponizes. They're charged, molten pools of depravity and debauchery. It is the in-between form confusing my mind. It flickers in between the man and the demon, but it is the shape of the lust in which all of humanity craves and there is no solidity in the black cloud that like a Rorschach test, befuddles the mind.
Part of me wishes Damien would put me down. The other part knows if he does, I will crawl and beg again. It goes against the very fiber of my being to stand on my own to gain independence, but worse, I hate knowing I have to rely on him to protect me.
"Asmodeus, how are you, uncle?" Damien's tone is casual, and I wonder if he is about to offer me up like a lamb for slaughter in his new deal with Asmodeus. It would be the perfect opportunity for him to backstab me, as I've suspected he might do. The only thing keeping me from not attempting to throw stones back in his direction is because if he does overthrow his father, then my girls and I might stand a chance to gain our freedom.
"Damien.” Asmodeus turns and smiles.
"Please contain yourself for a moment so I can put Catriona down. We have a proposition to discuss with you and I feel she would be more amiable to negotiating terms were she to have equal footing.”
He smiles again and I grit my teeth. Even without his effects, his particular sin is inherent in all of us. I wonder why Damien isn't crippled by its effect and I find it annoys me more than the irritating twinge I feel as a residual effect of my own inner shortcomings.
I don't feel a massive wave in the change of atmosphere so when Damien slowly lowers me to my feet on the boardwalk, I hold my breath, waiting for the debilitating feeling to assault me again. I let the breath out slowly when my feet touch the sea-worn planks and nothing happens. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells, knowing at any moment, if Asmodeus decides to Humpty Dumpty my kingdom of relief from my overwhelming desires, there will be nothing I can do to stop the wave of need like before.
Which is why I turn around and land a right hook into Damien's jaw for not preparing me for everything that has happened since going along with his little plan to make deals with his Daddy's demons.
Damien's head snaps back and his hand goes to his jaw. “What in the seven sins was that for?" He glares at me and there is a sheen of silver and mist clouding his eyes.
"Why aren't you affected by him?" I hook a thumb over my shoulder at Asmodeus, who is laughing.
"What makes you think I'm not?" Damien rubs at the spot.
"Because you're just standing there. You weren't affected at all! You watched me…you watched me crawl.” I feel my tail and fangs snap out. It's painful because of how quickly it happens and I hiss. “Besides, you would never admit your shortcomings to anyone, least of all me.” I jab him in the chest with my finger and one of my claws rakes down his shirt, ripping it and perforating the skin underneath. It's interesting to see Damien bleed. I don't know why I ever thought he was incapable of doing something so human-like. It calms me down a bit as I watch the trickle of blood run down his chest. But just as quickly as it came, the skin seals itself and he looks up.
"You might think I'm infallible, Catriona, but I assure you, I suffer from many of the same afflictions you and your Hellcats do.” With those words, he strolls past me and walks up to Asmodeus.
Maybe he has a better grasp of his inner lust? What would someone like Damien lust after? I turn around, taking a few deep breaths, and walk to Asmodeus with him. There is no way I am going to apologize for hitting him. He watched me beg. Maybe he has made peace with his faults, but I will never accept mine.
"Well now, what kind of a deal would the rogues of Hell have for me?" Asmodeus clasps his hands in front of him. His grey t-shirt and jeans do nothing to glamorize the already plain visage he is wearing.
"What rumors have been going around the Underworld, Uncle Asmo?" Damien claps his palm in a handshake and it is strange to see him making friends with the enemy who could cripple us both if he wanted. I guess niceties are observed in negotiations for a reason. I keep my mouth shut. This is Damien's plan and since he holds the rules to whatever this game is and isn't reading them all off yet, I don't know how to play.
"Everyone's talking about the revolt. Exciting, isn't it? The commotion you two have stirred up.”
"And so my father has sent you?" Damien looks around as if he is expecting the rest of his uncles to pop up.
"Satan has decreed you and your pet be brought in immediately.”
I consider speaking up and telling him I am no one's pet. But the fact he didn't specify we should be brought in unharmed or not is what makes me bite my tongue hard.
"And what if I were to offer you freedom my father has never given any of his brothers?" Damien glances down at me and I am about to argue, but Asmodeus starts to laugh.
"What freedom could you give me my brother hasn't already granted?"
I look around at the comatose people on the beach. Whatever Hellish agony they are lusting after, it is within the confines of their own minds because they appear as if they are sleeping and nothing more. They're trapped within themselves, imprisoned forever until Asmodeus lets them go or they die from the elements or old age. Oh god! Coma victims are tragic enough, is this…is this what happens when Asmodeus is permitted the kind of freedom Damien is offering him? All of these people…
"No!" I can't contain my argument any longer. “Damien, you can't let him get to all of these people like this. You can't--"
"Trina--"
Before he can argue further, I act. I launch myself at Asmodeus, shredding my clothes as I do. I don't permit myself to lose full control often, but when I fully transition to a demon, it's not a fluffy housecat pouncing on the lap of an adoring middle-aged woman with a coffee addiction and the predilection to be eternally single, save her feline family. There's a reason saber tooth tigers no longer roam the earth. It's not, we ever went extinct, it's demons were put on house arrest so to speak, forbidden to roam freely in the mortal realm. I feel my teeth elongate like the fangs of a saber tooth. Fur erupts all over my body and I catch my reflection in the metal siding of the hot dog cart and see the fire erupt in my eyes. My fur itself is also live fire, not something scientists have ever been able to discover, even with the discovery of dead demons around the world, fossilized in ice and stone. There's a reason there are so few of those discovered as well. Demons are hard to kill.
I catch Asmodeus by surprise, which is my intent. It's not every day someone, even a demon, is tackled by a 300-pound prehistoric cat. I sink my claws into his chest and he begins shifting immediately. I feel the pain erupt in my skull as the niceties he'd temporarily put into place dissolve. Want and need consume me hotter than the flames of my fur and the only reason I don't succumb to them is at this moment, there is something I want more; to take Asmodeus down so he can't hurt anyone else here on the beach tonight.
I hear the screams of people who are coming back to themselves through a haze of confusion, but I can't lose focus. Asmodeus vanishes, deciding taking on one of the other Princes of Hell and a Hellcat is probably not in his best interests. The problem with the vanishing act is he leaves behind an agonizing wake of misery and fear. The few remaining people on the pier begin scrambling in panic. New York is full of some hot stuff at night, but a saber tooth Hellcat usually isn't one of them.
"Oh my God, do you see this?" is quickly followed by an "Aww man, oh shit!" from the guy who is clearly tripping. The pockmarks on his face combined with the chemical stench of narcotics makes my nose twitch. I growl at him and he takes off running down the boardwalk faster than a coyote with a hunting hound on his tail.
I claw at the pier in frustration, having needed to sink my claws into something, but then I am blindsided by a massive form tackling me, pulling me out of my enraged fugue. I slam into the side of the hot dog cart and crumple the tin siding. In a moment of blind pain, I look in time to see a huge form looming over me. It's Damien, but it's not Damien.
He is somehow more as his eyes glow silver in the night and gnarled black horns have sprung from his head. Large wings with black feathers and silver tips have sprouted from his back, a genetic gift from his father the fallen angel, and his mother rumored to be a Nephilim. In a catastrophic curse to the Cosmos, Damien was born of the forces of light and dark because the aura glowing around his enlarged form is silvery tendrils mixing with inky black vines of smoke and light. I see him now. I see the duality of all he is. I see the pain and the pleasure and the everlasting internal anguish of constantly warring within himself and my heart breaks for him. I thought I was so conflicted. Eternity felt like forever with such mixed emotions and feelings. He is the very definition of internal struggle.
I stand, shaking my body, but not attacking. I can already feel my spine start to arch as my tail and claws recede back into my body. The flames igniting my fur are tamped out and I can feel the heavy coat against my skin while I shake a cloud of ashes and singed fur off myself as it too rescinds into my body.
As the transformation back to my human form is complete, I am left kneeling on the pier with the grit of sand cutting into my knees. I slowly stand, feeling the ache of the full transformation as my bones and organs realign themselves. My skin and eyesight are extra sensitive and I squint as I look up at Damien. His true form is twice the size of his six-foot frame. I have the feeling he can be bigger, as he defines light and dark, he can also define space and time and manipulate it.
I hold my hand in front of my face as he starts walking toward me. My clothes have been reduced to ashes. If it wasn’t for the massive cat's body forcing itself through and shredding them, the ignited flames of fur have reduced the rest to ashes. I press my back to the demolished hot dog cart, feeling the cold metal pressing into my back as he draws nearer. There is no escaping him. I wondered when he might turn on me, apparently me disobeying his order to heel like an obedient dog is his breaking point.
I refuse to cry, beg, or even cover myself up. Demons don't have the luxury of being modest. I continue to try to look at him through slatted fingers, but just as he stops right in front of me, the light and shadows swirling around him in a yin and yang miasma of color are too much to look directly at. I flinch as he reaches out and in his terrifyingly beautiful form, he grasps my upper arm and pulls me into his embrace. I struggle for a moment and then freeze. The heat from his light mixed with the cold from his shadows has an odd effect on my skin. It's the cloak of pain and pleasure from his aura and I am now aware of what he feels every minute of every day.
I try to open my mouth and say something, but it is raw from the heat of my true form. My singed vocal cords don't want to work properly and we have bigger issues than my discomfort and pain.
I try to express this, but as he hugs me to his chest, time seems to slow around us as he bears the mantle of his title, Master of Manipulation. I don't know how he does it, but his aura swirls faster and faster around us as if it is bending the rules of the universe. My clothes begin to slide back across my skin. Where they were once destroyed, they are now created. Perhaps it is the purpose of his existence. To create and destroy or to destroy and then create. He builds things up to tear them down, like a wayward child with blocks he develops into turrets and towers, but to create again, to form something new, he must destroy what is already crafted.
He smiles down at me as he finishes, giving me back what little bit of dignity I have left. I stare down at my body and see the same boots I'd pulled on this morning. I hear the creak of leather and hold out my arms to see my beloved colors are slung back over my arms and shoulders.
"That was a very stupid thing to do, Catriona.” His voice is quiet as he fades into something less. If he is to be defined as more when he is in his true form, unencumbered by dimensions defined by humanity, then in this form he is diminished.
I try to stare around him and through him. I can't explain why, but I hate he has squashed himself into the profile of a man. It doesn't seem right somehow. Not now anyway. It's like a cockroach, manageable by the definition of its physical arrangement, but not by the fear it invokes upon sight.
"I'm not apologizing for attacking.” I fold my arms across my chest, very aware since he gave me the clothes, he is quite capable of taking them back. It's twice now he's helped me out without an explanation. I don't trust it and even worse, I hate feeling indebted to him.
His lips twitch, "No, I didn't think you would. Always the champion for the people, Trina. The problem is he would have been a useful ally.”
My throat is raw and I clear it, wishing I hadn't dumped the bottle of water on Zeke's face. “You saw what he did to me, to the people on this pier. If you gave him free rein…"
"Catriona.” Damien sighs, rubbing his jaw, "You still don't get it. Lust is inherent in us all. He already has free reign. People who succumb to comas, most of them have such a strong desire not to be in pain anymore, it’s the result of such fierce lust. Lust isn't entirely defined by sexual desires; it's what makes Asmodeus so powerful. He is not a prince of Hell you want to piss off.”
Too late would be the understatement of the night. My actions might have just jeopardized the human race. I think about this a minute and then turn around and kick the hot dog stand. The metal screeches as it scrapes on the pier.
"Then what could you give to him he doesn't already have? I mean is this a battle we are just setting ourselves up to lose?" I want to punch him again, but it isn't going to do me any good.
"My willingness to offer him more was the deal, Trina. Now we'll be lucky if we make it off Coney Island without him coming back with a horde from Hell hot on our tails.”
"Great. Just great. Maybe if you told me the plan…"
"Maybe if you stopped long enough to let someone into that thick head of yours to…"
"Stay out of my head!" I realize we are standing nose to nose shouting at one another and when I look around, I see the pier is completely empty. Pretty soon we'll hear the sirens from the 911 calls. “We’d better go find Tabby and see what's up. I don't like her being away so long. He might have…he might have gotten to her.”
"Are you prepared to deal with the consequences if he did? It's a lot of responsibility to have put on Tabby. You know she's your wild card. As a leader, taking one for the team…"
I hold up my hand, cutting him off. I don't need the lecture right now. I get it. My leadership skills can arguably be deemed as sub-par, but my intention is even with the hits to myself and my girls, there's some big old purpose for the greater good or some bullshit. Damien falls into step beside me as I make my way to the police's kiosk and I don't answer him. Tabby hadn't crossed my mind since encountering Asmodeus and now I'm wondering what kind of mess she might have made with the effect of Uncle Asmo on the pier, the feeling of uneasy queasines hitting my stomach, doubles when the rusty scent of blood assaults my nostrils.
"No, no, no…" I reach out with a shaking hand to open the door and then I feel Damien's warm fingers close over my own.
"Let me.”
I'm already shaking my head. “I asked her to do this. She's my responsibility.”
"There are things you are going to have to trust me with, Catriona. If you are going to rule by my side…"
"I trust myself. That alone will ensure I survive when I am forced to rule by your side.”
"I'm not forcing…"
I shake my head, blocking him out. I don't need him to sugarcoat the reality. I close my fingers tighter around the cool metal handle and push the door open. The sight greeting me is worse than I thought. I expected to see Tabby sitting in a pool of blood and fleshy remains. But instead, I find Tabitha, huddled in the corner, naked, rocking back and forth with her tail and whiskers twitching in agitation as she stares at the remains of the two police officers, who judging by the scene, had succumbed to their inner lust and torn each other apart.
"Tabby?" I step into the small room and around some shredded remains of one of the officer's uniforms. “Tabby, sweetheart, can you hear me?"
She rocks back and forth some more. I hear Damien clear his throat behind me, but I ignore him. I skirt around the edge of the kiosk without disturbing the remains as best as I can. I watch as the pool of blood seeps toward Tabby's toes and some part of me, overwhelmed with the urge to protect her from the sight, steps in the path of the pool and I squat down. Tabby blinks and looks up at me.
"Tabby, come back, kitty cat. I've got you.” I hold out my hand and she glances at it. I wait patiently, not wanting to spook her into shifting in the small space.
Tabitha reaches forward with trembling fingers and takes my outstretched hand. I close my hand, squeezing her palm and gently pull her to me. As she begins to stand, I rise with her and pull her into a hug, shielding her from the carnage behind me. I cradle her head to my shoulder and walk her out the exit, cringing when I hear the wet squelch underneath my boots.
Highway to Hell Page 15