Versus

by Nick Freo

  “They also think they’re doing it for the Celestial Court. I don’t see why the Celestial Court would give a fuck about some witch, but even a dumb angel wouldn’t cross the Court. Just ask Cara.” She shook her head, her dark hair bouncing against her shoulders. “I don’t think killing them all is a good idea.”

  I looked up the stairway. “This could be the key to everything, Lilah. We need to know why they think they’re protecting the Celestial Court, and why they think Serena is involved. If we’re powerful enough to deal with all of these demons, we should be able to force some answers out of them. They might even know who killed my father.”

  “It’s incredibly hot that you want to torture some assholes, but it’s a terrible long-term plan—and you should listen to me because I never care about long-term plans,” she said. She took a couple steps down, so we were almost eye level. “You saw how many demons greeted Donnie on our way here and how many knew me by sight. The demon community is close. If you incite a problem with one of them, you better be prepared to fight a war until one of the sides is completely annihilated. There have been vendettas that have been passed down for centuries. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder for the next millennium just because you thought someone might have the answers. I’ll do it, but I’ll be cranky about it for the rest of our lives.”

  I shook my head and started walking down the stairs again. “You won’t have to be cranky.”

  “Good,” she said, following me. “Though, a cranky demon isn’t the worst thing in the world. A cranky angel, however, is fucking insane. Let’s go see Cara.”

  She smiled at me, her ass swaying as she skipped down the steps. I kept following her, a little bit more slowly now.

  Chapter 11

  As we walked back toward the car, I watched Lilah play with a small flame. She rolled it between her hands, tilted her fingers to let it slide up and down, and smothered it in her fist.

  “You mentioned that I get my magical strength from you,” I said.

  “Yep. Technically, you get your newfound physical strength from me too, but if you wanted to be technical, that would be in the realm of magic.”

  “How does that magic relationship work exactly? When we slept together, did that trigger anything?”

  She gave me a sly grin. “It’d seem that way, didn’t it? We gotta do that again. No, though. That’s just tradition. It’s a bit like a regular wedding, where after we become one with your soul, we become one physically.”

  “So, is our bond personal because of the sex or professional because the Celestial Court sent you to help me as the Arbiter? Mr. Gray mentioned that if I die, you die as well. That doesn’t seem solely professional, but you wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t the Arbiter.”

  “Yes, well, the death part does make it seem a bit more intimate than a professional relationship should be,” she said, igniting another flame on her fingertip. She set it on her palm and watched it as she continued to walk.

  “That doesn’t worry you?”

  “No. I’m not going to let you die. I’m not an amateur, Kyle.”

  I concocted my own flame in my hand. It flickered taller and taller, but I couldn’t quite get it to move like Lilah did. I closed my hand around it, suffocating it.

  “The fact that if I die, you die, makes it seem like I have some kind of power over you,” I said, walking around a trash bag. “But you have more control over your powers. Who’s in charge of this relationship? How does it usually work?”

  She laughed. Her flame flickered and died. “It’s like when we fuck. You can have any position you want.”

  She waved at a demon smoking a cigarette in front of a burned down house. He nodded at her.

  “Lilah,” I prompted.

  “In terms of magic, you only have a fraction of my powers. Roughly half. There’s a small percent that depends on the state of your soul. As much as I love you being a top, I’m sorry, but you’ll never be stronger than me when it comes to magic,” she said. “I’m a demon. You’re a human. You only received some magic as part of the deal for sharing your soul.”

  “So, if we go into combat, you can beat me.”

  “Why would we go into combat?”

  “I have no idea—maybe if you decide to side with your demon buddies.” I stepped in front of her, blocking her path. In the distance, I could see the smoking demon watching us. When I kept looking at him, he turned around and continued to smoke. I looked back down at Lilah. “Maybe the real reason you didn’t want to hurt those demons was because you’re on their side.”

  “You don’t trust me and that’s fucking great, but like you said before, if you die, then I die,” she said. “That makes damn certain that I will always have your best interests at heart. Your lack of trust in me only hurts you because that makes it less possible for me to help you. Or fuck you. Your loss.”

  She moved around me, continuing her previous stride, but now her hands were folded over her chest. I picked up my pace and walked up beside her.

  “You need to dump Cara,” Lilah said without looking at me. “She’s a liability. You saw how Donnie reacted to her. Imagine your distrust toward me and multiply it by a hundred. That’s how angels and demons feel about each other. I was amazed that Cara was willing to turn her back on me and Donnie. If I didn’t know her, I’d think she was brave. But I do know her, so I know she’s just incredibly arrogant.”

  “Cara’s healing abilities could come in handy,” I said, not adding the fact that I still trusted an angel over a demon, especially after meeting all of these other demons. Besides, having Cara around made me feel more cohesive—since she’d left, it almost felt too easy to want to hurt those demons. Plus, she was hot.

  As we approached the BMW, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us. I glanced behind me, but there was nobody there. Lilah must have felt something too because the flame in her hand flared.

  “Son of a bitch,” she muttered, closing her fist. I followed her gaze. Standing on the edge of the running board on the passenger side, the door of the BMW wide open, was Cara. Lilah grabbed my arm. “Last chance, Kyle. We get rid of this bitch and everything is smooth sailing from here. You know that you and I can take care of all of this. We don’t need a third wheel. I promise you the dirtiest pleasures if you get rid of her. You can just lie there, and I’ll ride you like we’re the Pony Express. I haven’t blown you yet, but, trust me, my tongue is world-class nimble, and I have no gag reflex, which is amazing because I have a small throat. I can gag, too, if you like it that way.”

  “That is…a lot of information,” I told her, continuing toward the BMW, though it was nearly the last thing I wanted to do. She grabbed my arm again, yanking me back.

  “Kyle. Come on. You’re human. You’re closer to us than them. She’s not worth it. Get rid of her.”

  “We need her,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if that was so true after Lilah’s bargaining. She let my arm go, looking perplexed.

  I opened the driver’s door as Cara ducked back into the car. Lilah cursed under her breath but sidled into the backseat.

  “Did you walk all of the way here?” I asked Cara before I noticed her clothes. She had changed. The long black cashmere coat, the silk top, and the black pants were gone and replaced by a red dress with a plunging neckline. The material on the sides—near her lower ribs—was cut out to show her bare skin. The hem was an inch above her knees. As she turned to put on her seatbelt, I realized there was no material on the back until her hips. It dipped dangerously low to her ass. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but for humans, it was just another perk in the day.

  “Hey!” Lilah yelled punching the back of my seat as Cara clipped her seatbelt. “Let’s go! Got shit to do. Witches to track down. Arbiters to fuck. I’m a very busy demon.”

  “Was she trying to convince you to get rid of me?” Cara asked, brushing a strand of her hair off her bare shoulder.

  “We were just d
iscussing possibilities about how to go forward,” I said, starting the BMW.

  “She told you to get rid of me and you didn’t agree?” she asked, her voice tinged with curiosity.

  I shrugged, risking another look at her. God, I had no idea how I ever thought she was cold. She was classic Hollywood beautiful but with all of the sexual freedom of today. “You’re part of our team.”

  “But you gave her your soul,” Cara said.

  “Yeah, don’t forget that part.” Lilah set her elbows on the center console and rested her head on her fist. “I’m the one he chose, so don’t get cocky over him tolerating you.”

  Cara’s head tilted, but she barely glanced at Lilah. She looked at me like I was something brand new, something rare and worthy of further investigation. I wouldn’t mind cooperating with her investigation.

  “But once you offer someone your soul, they should be able to influence your decisions easily. I suppose it’s like what you think humans are doing when you talk about offering someone your heart. If Lilah told you to do something, and she strongly desired for you to do it—it should have been nearly impossible for you to resist her.”

  I turned to Lilah. “Really?”

  She shrugged. “So, maybe I skipped over that part. And maybe I’ve not only been using my physical charms. Maybe I attempted to use our shared soul to get rid of Cupid here, but maybe you’re just…naturally resistant. Maybe your soul is less temptable.”

  “Or maybe he just doesn’t want you as badly as you thought,” Cara said, a laugh nearly spilling into her tone. “Maybe it doesn’t work if he didn’t truly want to give up his soul.”

  “Maybe you should shut the fuck up. This conversation is only for people who share Kyle’s soul, which includes Kyle, me, and not you.”

  Cara leaned her head against the headrest, gazing at me again. “This is fascinating. Were there other times she tried to manipulate you into doing what she wanted and you ignored her?”

  “I wouldn’t manipulate him,” Lilah said. “I was giving him advice on what to do that would give him the best chance of survival, which involved kicking your ass to the curb.”

  “Is there anything else I need to know?” I asked, turning off the car and turning to the two of them. “Every time I turn around, there’s something new about this soul-selling business. Am I going to die in a year and be tortured in Hell? Am I going to start craving human flesh? Will my hair start falling out?”

  “Those suggestions seem to be getting less and less dire,” Cara noted. She reached forward to take my hand. I pulled away from her. She let her hand drop onto the center console. “There are…stories…about soul-selling. Allegedly, it’s possible that you only gave a fraction of your soul or somehow retained ownership of your soul and managed to only lend it out. Usually, a person can only sell their soul once in a soul-marriage, but if this magical contract is different, it’s possible you could sell your soul again. There’s a simple test we can do.”

  “Or you could not do it,” Lilah said. “Nobody likes tests. They’re for people who don’t know shit.”

  “All you would have to do is let me take some of your soul,” Cara said, placing her hand over her heart. “If the soul-marriage works a second time, we know that you only gave a fractional part of your soul to Lilah or only lent it to her.”

  “Again, it’s also an option to not do that.”

  Cara smiled at me, reaching forward to touch my arm. This time, I let her. “Imagine what we could do together, Kyle. Do you know how good it feels to heal people? It’s like touching the most intimate part of them and bringing it to the brink of rapture.”

  Her hand moved over to my chest and settled over my heart. She must have felt how hard it was beating because she leaned over the center console more. Her hand slid down from my chest, curving around my waist, and her mouth was so close to mine, I could feel her breath.

  “I can show you,” she said. “I can bring you to that brink. I’ll summon Mr. Gray to perform the binding, and we can do what tradition dictates.”

  As I looked at her, her icy blue eyes showing my reflection, she yelped. As she jerked back into the passenger seat, she rubbed her side where the dress had a triangle cut-out near her ribs. When she checked her side, there was a red burn.

  “My bad,” Lilah said. “Demons are a bit territorial, and you’re sure as fuck on my territory.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not your territory. But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to do any more soul-selling. I’m not going to just start handing out parts of my soul to anybody who wants it. For all I know, you two are going to suddenly mention that I’ll grow another arm, or that I’ll age twice as quickly.”

  “I can’t believe she burned…” Cara muttered, rubbing her side. She stopped, her face going white as she looked out the windshield. As I turned to look, she smacked my arm. “Drive. Drive right now.”

  I looked out the window. Standing in his loose black clothes and an embattled face was the Dead Man.

  Chapter 12

  Adrenaline was shearing through my veins. I gripped the steering wheel. My palms were scalding, though I couldn’t be certain if that was from how tightly I was grasping the wheel or if adrenaline affected hellfire.

  “We need to go,” Cara urged. She reached around me, turning on the car. “Stomp on the gas.”

  “It’s too late. We have to fight,” Lilah said, grabbing my shoulder. “I hope you’re ready, Kyle. I have a feeling we’ll need a bit more firepower to scare him away this time.”

  The Dead Man was only fifty feet away, and he was moving closer. I could stomp on the gas—I could turn him into roadkill and be done with him forever. But he’d started coming after me the night my father died. That couldn’t be a coincidence. And if he killed my father, I didn’t want his death to be simple or fast. I wanted to redefine pain and serve it to him on a silver platter.

  “No,” I said.

  “No to what?” Lilah said. “Cara’s plan is stupid. If we try to turn this vehicle around anywhere, he could—”

  “We have a chance of survival if we run,” Cara said. “If we fight, it will only instigate him more. He’s like a wild dog and wild dogs—”

  “And a wild dog will chase anything that runs.” Lilah’s nails sunk into my shoulder. “Are you ready? Do you want me to cover you, or do you want to cover me?”

  “No,” I repeated. “We’re not going to attack or run. Not yet. I just want to talk to him.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Cara blurted out.

  “For once, I have the same thought as Cara,” Lilah said. “But my thought had a lot more expletives.”

  I opened my door. I stepped out slowly. Cara was right in a way—the Dead Man did seem like a wild dog, and I didn’t want to spook him into attacking. I kept my eyes on him as I moved away from the BMW. I lingered near the edge of the door. The Dead Man was a little less than thirty feet away.

  “Hey,” I called out. I heard Lilah and Cara’s doors open. Lilah stood right behind me. “Do you know anything about the last Arbiter?”

  The Dead Man stopped walking and stared at me. He appeared human, but he lacked the fluidity of humans, and his dark eyes portrayed a lifelessness and a crawling idiosyncrasy that provoked agitation deep in my chest.

  “Yes,” the Dead Man said, his voice guttural. I sensed Lilah shivering behind me. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get to end his life.”

  Cara made a sharp noise in the back of her throat. Lilah jolted behind me.

  “What the hell,” she muttered. “Nobody should know about his death, Kyle. It’s still classified.”

  “It also sounds like he isn’t a fan of Arbiters,” I hissed to her. The implication of his words was more significant than the fact that he knew my father was dead.

  The Dead Man took another step forward. I could see the cracked lines in his face, but now they looked more like scars than cracked porcelain or veins.

  “Hello,” he said, his gaze locked on me. His voi
ce wasn’t loud, but the sound carried. “It’s nice to finally meet Morgan’s son.”

  “Fuck,” Lilah said as Cara took a step back. Lilah didn’t need to spell it out for me—he should not have known that I was Morgan’s son. Nobody should have known that my father even had a son.

  “Nobody can know that,” Cara said, glancing around for eavesdroppers.

  Lilah took a step up, standing next to me.

  “Hello, Mr. Dead Man,” she said. “My name is Lilah. Demon. Lover of dark alleys, fires, and Kyle. I hope you had fun, but the party’s over.”

  She lifted her hands, showing a large ball of hellfire she’d forged. She threw it. Instead of remaining a ball, it fell out of her hand like a stream. It slammed into the Dead Man, the flames licking at his sides. The red and black fire smothered him, wrapping around him like bindings. He didn’t scream. He didn’t look at it. He walked forward as Lilah continued to shoot the flames. With every step, the flames shed off him.

  Lilah was cursing so fast that the words were slurring together. The agitation was growing in my chest and evolving into fury. With my new knowledge about soul-marriages, the agitation and anger could have been mine or Lilah’s, but I was pretty damn certain it was mine.

  This supernatural abomination may have said he didn’t kill my father, but he wanted to. He was an enemy of my father’s. Even if he hadn’t killed my father, he had a grudge against my family, and he wanted me dead.

  Lilah lowered her hands, the flames dying out. She stared at the Dead Man, her eyes shifting back and forth like she couldn’t quite figure out the math for why he wasn’t dead. But I still saw red, and I still felt rage.

  As I charged at him, I heard Cara shouting about his fatal touch and Lilah yelling to attack from a distance. But nothing could have stopped at me. I was going to do worse to the Dead Man than I did to that angel guard. I was going to make him regret tracking me down. There was no possible way I was going to allow some freak to be a threat in my life.