by Rick Hautala
“For starters, then,” Claire said, “how about you tell me if…no, not if…how you got that poor man to kill himself.”
The expression on Samael’s face instantly froze, and suddenly it looked like a grimace so intense Claire thought for a moment that he might be in actual physical pain.
Is that even possible?
Could he—or any demon—suffer physical, much less emotional pain?
“Ahh, Ron LaPierre, you mean.”
“No, I mean the Pope.”
For some reason, that joke didn’t fly, and Claire wondered if sometime during his existence Samael had in fact corrupted a Pope.
“The honest truth?” Samael cast his gaze downward again, and Claire wondered if he was looking down to Hell—his home—for strength and comfort. “I didn’t do it.”
“As if,” she said with a snort.
Claire sat perfectly still, waiting for him to respond. Then she let her breath out slowly, like she was exhaling a cigarette. Her insides were jumping when she said, “Seriously, Samael. I don’t believe a word you say.”
The look that passed over Samael’s face stunned her.
There was no way he could be acting.
Is there?
The hurt…the abject misery…the depth of sadness that lined his face and dulled his eyes was palpable. He looked like he was aging even as they spoke. Twisting his hands together like he was wringing out a washcloth, he shuddered. His body appeared to be shrinking…like he was growing smaller inside his clothes even as she watched.
“You have to believe me, Claire. I…You have no idea how difficult this is for me to say.”
“You mean the truth?”
“Yes. The truth.”
There was none of the usual strength and resonance in his voice. His confidence appeared to be gone…obliterated. He looked and sounded like a broken old man. With his shoulders slumped forward, he stared blankly at the floor, shaking his head slowly from side to side.
For her part, Claire knew she shouldn’t, but she wanted to reach out and touch him…maybe take his hand…to reassure him, but she still had colossal doubts that anything he said or did was genuine…She still wondered if this might all be part of an elaborate plan to get her to sell or sign away her soul to him.
Because that’s what demons do.
She knew what she had to say next, and the thought of it bothered her.
How could she deal with any of this?
It was totally uncharted territory for her and, she guessed, for most people.
Or maybe not.
Maybe people dealt with literal demons all the time, and this was just her first exposure to what was a common, everyday occurrence.
That idea sent a tingling rush of fear dancing up her spine.
Maybe people were tempted like this and gave in all the time. How else could you explain politicians? Maybe this was why the world is the way it is. She had never really considered that evil might be concrete and literal; but here it was, sitting on her couch and looking like it wanted to jump out of its skin and take its true demonic form.
She inhaled deeply, ran her fingers through her hair, and braced herself before saying, “Do I have to say it again, Samael?” He looked at her with a most forlorn look. “I don’t believe a word you say.”
She could see that her words crushed him. If he had appeared diminished before, he looked positively devastated now. Blasted. The healthy flush on his face was gone. His hands were chalky white in the dimming candlelight. Every bit of his confidence and power was drained…or maybe they had never been there in the first place. Maybe all of his arrogance had been a ruse…or an illusion.
Maybe he couldn’t stand up to someone who resisted him like this.
“I…I understand,” Samael said, his voice so soft and shattered she could barely hear him.
They looked at each other, and against her will, Claire could feel her heart going out to him.
Again…
How can you do this to him? She asked herself, but the immediate answer was, I didn’t do it…He brought it all on himself.
“Do you…want me to…to leave?” he asked.
Claire sat there, stunned, her mind a roaring blank. She knew she should say: Yes…Get out of here right now and never come back, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Looking at him, all she could do was remember what and who he used to be, and see how much smaller he was now.
I’ve destroyed him, she thought, and then, surprised to hear the word issue from her mouth: “No.”
Her breath caught like a fishhook in her throat, and her armpits were suddenly damp. Little streams of sweat trickled down her sides.
“No?”
He looked at her. A thin trace of hope lighting his eyes.
“At least not before we get a few more things straight between us.”
Samael nodded very slowly.
“And you promise that you’ll be perfectly honest with me?”
Again, he nodded.
“You’ll tell me the absolute truth?”
“Yes…if I can,” he replied.
Claire wanted to ask him what he meant by that. Was he already qualifying things? She had a pretty good idea he was incapable of telling the truth about anything because he would do and say anything in order to possess her soul. That was her biggest fear.
“How about we go for a walk?” she said, easing herself off the couch. She was determined not to jump into bed with him, but she could feel her resolve wavering, and she knew if they went outside…in public…she’d be less tempted to yield to temptation if he managed to break down her defenses.
She didn’t admit to herself—much less him—that he already had.
~ * ~
The night air was cold, as sharp as teeth. Even with several layers of clothes and a scarf and hat, Claire was shivering as they made their way up Congress Street toward Longfellow Square. Samael was wearing a coat, but it looked too thin for such weather. But the cold seemed not to bother him. Claire laughed to herself, thinking that he had his own source of internal heat.
“’S cold as Hell,” she said to herself.
Without looking at her and scowling as he looked down at the snow-crusted sidewalk, Samael muttered, “Hardly.”
The streets were mostly deserted, even this early. No one was heading out into the cold without a purpose. Cars and taxis and a city bus or two roared by. A few people—some young and walking quickly; others, shabbily dressed and obviously homeless—went by with shuffling gaits. Claire couldn’t explain it, but she felt as though she and Samael moved in their own little protective bubble.
Is that something he can do? She wondered…Create some invisible thingie to separate us from the rest of the world?
She wasn’t going to worry about something like that when there were so many other pressing issues.
“So you really didn’t do it? Make that man kill himself?”
Her breath came out as white puffs that were quickly whipped away by the wind. She looked to see if the same thing happened to Samael’s breath, but she couldn’t be sure.
“I told you…honestly…I’ll admit I wanted to. I went to his condo with every intention of tripping him up so I could…You know…”
“Whoa. Wait a second. What do you mean by ‘tripping him up’?”
She stopped short and held him by grabbing him by the crook of his elbow. His body heat was throbbing beneath his coat and shirt.
“Claire…it’s what I do,” he said. “It’s my job—I guess you could call it my job. I never thought of it like that before, but it wasn’t until recently. When I—”
His voice faltered, and he had to look away, blinking his eyes. After a long, awkward silence, Claire started walking again, and he quickly caught up and kept pace with her.
“I never considered it a job until recently. Before I met you, it was…” He let out a faint gasp and shook his head as though contemplating something he simply couldn’t believe. “It was all I
cared about. I gladly, willfully, and willingly collected souls for my master…my boss.”
“Your boss…Who is—?”
Samael cast a sidelong glance at her and said, “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not say his name out loud.”
Claire nodded, thinking, “Speak of the Devil, and he’ll always appear.”
“So you swear—you promise me you had nothing to do with LaPierre killing himself.”
“I can’t say I had nothing to do with it, but when I left him, I didn’t want him to do it. I—” He gulped and swallowed hard. “I pitied him. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
Then he told her, in great detail, what had happened that night at LaPierre’s condo, and against her better judgment, Claire believed—or began to believe—him.
“I’ll have to take your word for it, then,” she said. Yet even as she said the words, she knew there was still too much distance between them. She wondered if they could ever bridge the gap between human and demon.
They walked for a while in perfect silence, past restaurants and closed stores and the occasional person. Claire wondered if they might also have passed the occasional demon. Two men were having an argument in front of Joe’s Smoke Shop, so Claire crossed the street with Samael at her side. It wasn’t much better there because a man wearing a dark coat was huddled in the darkened doorway of the porn shop. Claire was confident she was safe with Samael, but she didn’t want to interact with anyone else if she didn’t have to.
When they rounded the corner of High Street, heading down toward Commercial Street and the docks, the wind whipped at them so hard it took Claire’s breath away. She pulled her hat low and snuggled down deep into her scarf, wishing she trusted her impulses enough so they could be back in her apartment. If they were warm and comfortable, though, she was afraid she’d lose her resolve to end it tonight with Samael.
Get out now, while you still have your soul.
“But do I?” she said out loud.
Without missing a beat, Samael asked, “Do you what?”
Claire was taken aback. She didn’t realize she had spoken out loud. When she saw Samael looking directly at her, his gold-flecked eyes glowing in the darkness, she never felt more vulnerable and alone in her life.
He was smiling, and she was suddenly convinced that she had been right all along—that this had all been an act so he could seduce her and claim her eternal soul.
“My soul,” she said, painfully aware of the tremor in her voice.
“What about it?”
“Do I still have it?”
“Of course you do.”
“But it’s what you want, right? You don’t really care about me. You don’t love me…maybe you don’t even like me. You’re just using me and my…my weaknesses to get to me, aren’t you?”
Samael remained perfectly silent for the longest time. The panic rising inside her was gathering strength. Claire listened to the loud crunching sounds their footsteps made on the icy sidewalk. The wind whistled in the wires on the telephone poles overhead like unseen hands, strumming a guitar.
“Do you really want the truth?”
Claire bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling and nodded.
“I do.”
“All right, then.” Samael cleared his throat. “At first—yes. All I was interested in was getting you to damn yourself.”
“To damn myself,” Claire echoed.
“Come on,” Samael said with a brief wave of his hand. “I mean—It’s not that bad. Fact is, you’ll hardly know you’re damned.”
“What?”
“If you were damned…you’d barely notice. The soul’s not such a big thing.”
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have one.”
Samael looked skyward and shook his head. Something—a smile or a sneer…Claire couldn’t tell exactly what—twitched both corners of his mouth. When he looked at her, his gold-flecked eyes held a faraway gaze, like he was focused on something far off in the distance.
“That’s just it,” he said at last. “I do.”
They hadn’t slacked their pace even though the wound on her foot was aching in the cold. They walked past the Mercy Hospital parking lot when Claire paused in the bus stop enclosure, hoping to relieve the pain and get out of the wind for a few minutes. She glanced up at the warm, yellow glow of lights spilling from many of the hospital windows. On a cold night like this, it looked so warm and inviting, but all she could think about was all of the suffering and death and despair that was taking place—right now—inside that building.
“You’re telling me—You want me to believe you have a soul?”
Somehow, she had regained a grip on herself because, as afraid as she was, she had to know the answers to the questions that were tormenting her.
And then another thought hit her.
What if this is all part of his plan, too?
What if his goal is to tease me and torment me with all of these questions?
Samael nodded.
“I do or, at least, I did. But you see, that’s what’s wrong.”
Samael’s voice was so faint and strangled it sounded as though he was much further away than he appeared to be. Claire wondered if this, too, was another trick of his to get her to lower her defenses.
“But,” he said in a low, gravelly voice, “ever since I—”
His voice broke, and he turned and grabbed her by both arms and pulling her so she was facing him directly. Claire winced and shied away, bracing herself because she was convinced he was going to either kiss or kill her right there on the spot. The wind hissed loudly as it blew up the street, but his voice was pitched with frantic desperation that was mirrored in his gold-flecked eyes when he said, “I had a soul, and ever since I met you, I want it back.”
Claire was speechless. She put her hand out and touched his arm. He folded her gloved hand into his bare, warm ones.
“At first, I thought you were just another score—a single chick on the make. An easy mark for someone like me. But as I got to know you—that night. When I saw how you handled yourself when you were attacked, I realized that you’d be a unique challenge.”
Claire frowned, not sure she liked what she was hearing.
“You’re strong, Claire, in ways I don’t think even you fully understand. And you’re…you’re kind and gentle and caring. I like being around you.”
“Well, thanks…I guess.”
She eyed him warily, but Samael’s eyes were blazing with a shifting golden glow.
“And the more time I spent with you, the more I wanted you.”
“My soul, you mean.”
“No. Not your soul. Your—”
He paused, unable to say the word.
“My what?”
Samael tilted his head back and, looking skyward, cleared his throat.
“When you sent me away last Sunday, I actually felt pain.”
“Demons can feel pain?”
“Not usually like this. For the first time in…in a long time, I felt like my heart was breaking.”
Tears welled up in Claire’s eyes as she looked at him. He was still staring upward.
“Somehow…I have no idea how…you’re bringing me back to my better nature…my angelic nature.” He heaved a heavy sigh that was whisked away on the breeze and then lowered his head to look at her.
“But why me?” Claire asked as tears carved warm lines down her face. “I’m nothing special. I’m not pretty or even interesting. I’m just a girl from the County. I don’t get it.”
Samael shrugged, and a sly smile lit his face.
“Maybe it’s your hair,” he said.
“My hair?”
She couldn’t tell if he was putting her on now or not, but hearing him say that, in that tone of voice, somehow made up for all those years of being called “Carrot Top” and “Ginger.”
“I’ve always had a thing for redheads.”
“Oh for Chr—for Pete’s sake,” she sai
d, swatting his arm.
“That doesn’t help, either,” Samael said, his smile widening.
“What?” Claire asked, confused.
“Saying ‘for Pete’s sake.’ It’s a reference to Saint Peter, you know?”
“Yeah…I guess so.”
“Well, he and I had a bit of a falling out a few…well, millennia ago. But the truth is, Claire.” He turned and stared straight into her eyes. “I love you.”
“Was that the word you weren’t able to say earlier?”
Samael nodded and said, “But I can now.”
Chapter
8
Samael and the Detective
The next morning, Claire woke up early—an hour or so before sunrise. She didn’t have to get up and start getting ready for work for another hour or so, but she was already thinking about calling in, asking for a “mental health” day.
Mental health…There sure as Hell is some irony in that!
Smacking her lips and wincing at the sour taste of “morning mouth,” she sighed, rubbed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She didn’t need to reach out or roll over to know that Samael was still lying in the bed next to her. The mattress sagged from his weight.
Rolling over onto her back, she laced her hands behind her head on the pillow and gazed up at the ceiling. It was a gray blur in the predawn light. Thin, hazy floaters drifted across her vision every time she blinked.
You’ll hardly know you’re damned.
Those words echoed in her memory, and she couldn’t stop wondering if she was damned already and simply didn’t know it.
It certainly seemed possible.
Most people didn’t fall in love with a demon without losing at least a little piece of their soul.
She let her gaze shift over to Samael. He was still asleep—
Or is he faking it?
—with one leg lying outside the covers. The smooth, dark skin of his thigh and calf, nearly hairless, looked like hammered copper in the early morning light.
They had covered a lot of ground last night, but Claire still felt unsettled. She kept telling herself she had to accept things as they were—that she would never really know if anything Samael said or did was true…or a wide open door to Hell.