by Mandy Lee
Chapter Seventeen
Who knew angels could be so bloody messy. Sergei humphed as he walked around his now-empty apartment, picking up empty pop cans strewn around the room and tossing them into a hefty bag. Both ashtrays were full of butts. That Baal smoked like a friggin’ chimney. Good thing he was immortal or he’d have died of lung cancer years ago. Fifteen minutes and one full garbage bag later, Sergei plopped down on his couch with a sigh.
His date with Katia had been a giant disaster, his home had been invaded by supernatural beings, and he was wiped out from performing the summoning ritual. That kind of magic took a lot out of a guy. He felt like he’d just run a marathon. Sergei kicked his feet up onto the end of the couch and lay back.
No matter what his feelings, he would never be the one for Katia. He’d seen it with his own eyes, though nobody else would have noticed. Sergei was attuned to auras and what he’d seen had made his heart drop to his shoes. The bright gold aura around Katia had constantly been stretching toward Luc, no matter where they were in the room, or how far apart they’d been. Luc’s slightly muddy aura had similarly been drawn toward Katia as though they were connected on some cosmic level that couldn’t be denied. Sergei had noticed it at the café where Luc had sat watching them, but the effect was more pronounced now. No getting around it, she was lost to him forever.
He heaved another sigh and closed his eyes. It figured he’d fall for the one woman that was meant for someone else; the one woman he might have been able to tell about his family; the one woman who might have understood. Then again, now that they knew what she was, it would probably have been a doomed relationship anyhow. He was mortal, a witch, but still mortal with a mortal’s short years. Katia was immortal, she would never age and never die. No matter what their personal situation was, Sergei did know one thing — he would do whatever he could to help. They’d been friends for too long for him to turn his back on her now. She may be hurt that he had hidden the truth which was understandable, but Sergei knew her better than anyone. One day she would forgive him and they would be friends again, no doubt in his mind. That thought did serve to lighten his dark mood. Better to have her in his life as a friend than not at all.
Throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the sunlight streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling window, Sergei settled more comfortably into the couch for a nap. It didn’t take long for him to start feeling the pull of sleep.
A scream ripped out of Sergei’s throat as he woke to find a knife protruding from his side. Glowing red eyes paired with a menacing smile full of pointed teeth floated in front of his face. Gleeful evil laughter rang through the living room. Sergei struggled to sit up, to move away, anything to distance himself from the sound of that laughter. He was unable to move, paralyzed from the neck down.
“Good evening, my new playmate.” Sergei squinted through the pain, trying to get a better look at the intruder. Blue skin, red eyes, and a forked tail. Demon, definitely a demon, he thought. The pain in his side was starting to spread, along with wet warmth, as his blood leaked out around the knife that was still embedded to the hilt.
“Who are you?” Sergei wheezed as he struggled to slow his breathing.
“My name matters not.” The demon replied as he tested the sharpness of a blade on the tip of a finger. Sliding his eyes over to look at his coffee table, Sergei saw an array of his own kitchen knives lined up as though the intruder was a surgeon preparing to operate. So this was it, Sergei thought, this was how it was going to end.
“What do you want?” Sergei asked, dreading the answer.
The demon turned toward him, serrated knife in hand. “Information, my playmate. You will tell me where the girl and the dirty angel are and I may let you live.”
“And if I don’t?”
Thin red lips pulled back in a mockery of a smile revealing those horrifying teeth once more. A forked tongue snaked out trailing mucous over dry lips. “You will die a most painful death.”
“Why can’t I move?” Sergei asked, trying to keep the demon talking. Whatever this was, magic or poison, maybe it would wear off so he could escape. Likely just wishful thinking, but there were no other options.
“A special treat of my own making…the nightshade is quite effective, yes? You cannot move but can still feel the pain.” The demon said as he leaned closer, twirling the knife in his hand. “Enough of the preliminaries, don’t you think? Where is the girl, Sergei?”
“I don’t know,” Sergei answered truthfully. He hadn’t been told the location where Katia and Luc would be spending the next day or so, nobody new aside from Amir.
“Such a shame,” The demon replied, his sick smile belied his words. Reaching down, he ripped open Sergei’s shirt exposing his chest and stomach. Licking his lips again in anticipation, he lowered the knife point and slid it into Sergei’s skin. With a quick jerk of his arm, the demon slit him open from navel to sternum. Sergei screamed, the demon to laugh gleefully. Blood ran freely down Sergei’s sides, soaking into the couch and dripping onto the hardwood floor. He began to babble as hot tears of pain cascaded down his face. “I don’t know where they are, I really don’t. Nobody does. I’m not useful to you, I don’t know…I don’t know.”
Wiping the knife on Sergei’s pants, the demon stared at him, red eyes boring into his soul. “That may well be, but you are a witch, are you not? You can locate her, yes?”
Sobbing, Sergei replied quietly, “I won’t do it. You might as well kill me.”
Those piercing eyes bored down into Sergei like twin lasers. Anger and frustration seemed to roll off the demon in waves. “That can certainly be arranged,” the demon hissed. “But I will be having my fun with you first.” The demon raised his hand up in front of Sergei and he watched in horror as the nails elongated into the sharpest talons he had ever seen. Without any warning, the demon clawed Sergei across the face, opening deep gashes from his forehead to his chin, raking all the way down to the bone. Blood splattered the nearby coffee table. Crying out in pain, Sergei squeezed his eyes shut and tried to will his body to go into shock. The gashes in his face felt like they’d been filled with acid. The demon’s claws must have been tipped with venom. The fire began to spread from his face through his veins to the rest of his body. He was burning from the inside out, filled with molten lava. Sergei heard a dim ringing noise. Unable to determine whether the noise was real or only in his head, he prayed he would pass out. Opening his eyes, he saw that his torturer had moved over to the coffee table and was rooting through the papers strewn across it's surface. The ringing stopped as the demon straightened with Sergei’s phone in his hand. Confused, Sergei watched as he scrolled through the device. When the demon suddenly smiled, Sergei shuddered. Walking back toward him, the demon shoved the phone in his face, one contact had been pulled up on the screen…Katia. Sergei felt his heart fall. He would die like this and all for nothing. They would find her anyway…without magic, with technology.
“It seems as though I no longer have a use for you my friend,” his torturer said. “However, I will be taking your communication device with me. Technology is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?”
Despite the pain and paralysis, Sergei’s anger began to overtake him and he instinctively tried to reach for the device. Much to his surprise his fingers twitched; the paralytic was wearing off. If he could only stall this demon a while longer, he might be able to do something useful. As though reading the direction of his thoughts, the demon shook a finger at him. “Ah ah ah…no, I don’t think so, my friend. I plan to finish with you before I take my leave.” Dropping the phone into his pocket, the demon looked Sergei over from head to foot, lingering on his legs. “We can’t have you trying to get away while I’m still working on you, can we?” Reaching down, he grasped Sergei’s right leg, wrenching it so hard his shin snapped loudly. Sergei screamed again, this time so loudly he was convinced he was close to destroying his voice box. He tasted blood. The demon reached back down and snapped his left leg. The pain wa
s so intense Sergei silently prayed for death.
The torture went on and on. Minutes or hours, Sergei lost all track of time. The demon never punctured his major organs, and Sergei realized he was drawing out the torture, ensuring he wouldn’t bleed out and die prematurely. Flames still licked at him from inside his veins where the venom pumped through his system, killing him slowly from the inside out. Unable to open his swollen eyes, Sergei heard the demon approach yet again. He’d long since resigned himself to the fact that he would die soon. He hoped the time had finally come.
“I must return to the master with your communication device now. It has been fun playing with you, my friend. You have lasted longer than any other human I’ve met. Unfortunately, I will be killing you now.”
The demon leaned down and bit viciously into Sergei’s neck, tearing through his flesh. “You will die soon, my mortal friend. I will leave you to it.” With that, the demon disappeared, the echo of a chilling laugh all that remained.
Sergei shivered. Numbness and coldness were creeping in. He was dying, all he had to do was wait. His head lolled to the side. Cracking his eyes as wide as he could he saw the coffee table, and got an idea. Using what little strength remained, Sergei rolled himself off the couch, slamming down hard onto the floor. If he could just reach the pentagram, he could send out a warning before he died. He managed to slide himself slowly across the floor, leaving a trail of blood smeared behind him. He noticed an empty pack of cigarettes lying just under the lip of the coffee table. Sergei put the empty pack in the center of the pentagram, wiped his hand through the blood running from his neck and began drawing demonic summoning runes. Unable to speak the incantation, he prayed that the runes alone would be enough to summon the owner of the cigarette pack. Closing his eyes he pictured Baal, holding onto the image and reciting the spell over and over in his mind until the darkness closed in around him.
Chapter Eighteen
“Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey. Get up you two, we’ve gotta go.” Katia rolled over in bed and groaned. Whoever that was, they were annoyingly perky. Sun streamed in through the blinds that had been thrown open. Luc was blinking and rubbing his eyes as he sat up from what looked like an extremely uncomfortable sleep on the chair. Amir stood at the foot of the bed tapping his finger on the face of his watch. “Come on! I got an emergency call to get you guys to The Advocate right away.”
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Katia frowned. “The Advocate?”
“Demon bar,” Luc replied yawning. “What’s the emergency?”
“Something about your buddy, Sergei.” Amir replied.
“What happened?” Katia said, popping up from the bed and grabbing for her clothes.
“Not sure. Guess we’ll find out when we get there. I’ll give you guys five minutes. Meet you outside.” Amir backed out of the room, pulling the door closed with a click.
Four minutes later, they were all standing together outside as Amir opened a portal. Grasping his shoulders, Luc and Katia stepped into the dimensional rift. Katia was amazed that this no longer fazed her. What a difference a couple of days could make. As they moved through the fog, Katia kept shooting glances at Luc. It felt awkward. She would catch him looking at her from the corner of her eye, but, as soon as she turned toward him, he would glance away. Picking up on the tension, Amir sighed. “Look guys, I don’t know what happened between the two of you and it’s none of my business, but you’re in this together so I hope whatever it is, it won’t be a problem.”
“You’re right, it’s none of your business. And everything’s fine,” Luc grumbled in reply.
“Sure it is,” Amir muttered. Stopping suddenly he pointed to a doorway. “We’re here.” Reaching forward, he grasped the knob and turned. The door opened to reveal the back entrance to a brick building. They stepped into the alley. Amir opened the door to the building, ushering Katia and Luc in. Katia was struck by how much this looked like a normal bar, a place she’d hang out in with Sergei drinking a few beers and playing pool. “This is a demon bar?” she asked.
Amir laughed. “What did you expect? Body parts lying around? Blood dripping from the walls?”
“Something like that,” she replied with a wry smile.
Sam and B were sitting together at a table in the corner, both men looked subdued. Panic started to bubble up inside her. Picking up speed, Katia made her way directly over to their table. The men looked up at her with matching pained expressions that did nothing to calm the rising tide of fear. “What happened? Where’s Sergei?”
Sam and B exchanged a look. Sam picked up his cup of coffee and shook his head. “You tell her. You found him.”
Heaving a huge sigh, B motioned for Katia to sit down. “You’ll want to sit down for this,” he said.
Pulling out the chair with a shaky hand, Katia sat, never taking her eyes off of B. “Okay, I’m sitting.”
“First off, let me say that Sergei is here right now. In the basement to be specific.”
“All right…” Katia replied.
Running his tongue over his teeth, B looked back over at Sam who waved his hand indicating that he should continue.
“Okay. Sergei summoned me last night. It looked like he’d gotten a visit from Voss.” B looked up at Luc as he said this. Twisting to look back at Luc, Katia watched as his eyes went wide and all the color drained from his face. Terror began to inch up her spine. “Who’s Voss?” Katia asked Luc with trepidation.
“One of Satan’s minions. He usually handles…interrogations,” Luc replied as he looked down at her, pain in his eyes.
“So...you mean torture,” Katia replied quietly. “Sergei was tortured?” She turned back to B. “What was done to him?”
“Are you sure you want to know?” B asked equally quietly.
“I have to. It happened because of me.”
B nodded and replied, “His throat had been ripped out, his legs and an arm were broken in multiple places, there wasn’t an inch of him that hadn’t been cut or burned, and he was eviscerated.”
Katia made a gagging noise before she choked out, “Oh god. Oh my god. This is all my fault. Is he…is he dead? I mean, how could he survive that?”
“He managed to contact me before he bled out. Katia, I don’t want you to be angry with me. We didn’t have time to contact you to ask you what he would want. I had to make a decision…”
“What do you mean?” Katia asked.
“There are always vampires here, Katia. It is a demon bar after all. I asked one of them to turn him. He’s in the basement right now. We’re not sure if this is going to work because he’d already lost so much blood, but if it does, he’ll wake up at nightfall as a vampire. I just hope I made the right call.” B looked at her hopefully.
Katia let out a shaky breath and launched herself across the table to hug B hard. “Yes, you made the right call.” She gave him a hard squeeze and let go. “Can I see him?”
B looked up at Luc and shrugged. “I see no reason why not. Mara's down there watching over him."
“Yeah, go ahead. The four of us need to make some plans. We won’t be able to stay here long though,” Luc said, looking down at Katia.
She stood. "Fair enough. How do I get to the basement?”
Pointing to the stone doorway, Luc replied, “Through the door and down the stairs. Whatever you do, stay away from the portal. You’ll know it when you see it.”
Nodding her thanks, Katia made her way toward the doorway. The bartender tossed out a quick hello as she passed the bar. Stopping, Katia turned toward him. In a true sign that she was getting used to this world, the man standing before her with his nondescript blue eyes, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, sandy hair swept over his forehead disguising a small pair of horns didn’t seem the least bit strange to her.
“Get a lot of day drinkers among the demon crowd?” Katia asked.
The bartender laughed and smiled at her. “Depends on what kind of drinking you’re referring to,” he said with a wink. “We’re alw
ays open, and we cater to a variety of thirsts.”
“Oh, I see.”
The bartender waved toward the doorway. “I’m guessing you’re looking for our unexpected guest. He’s in the basement with Mara.”
“Thanks.” Katia replied.
“Anytime. The name’s Theo by the way…in case we meet again.” He gave her another smile and a wink and headed toward Luc’s group that were now huddled together at their table, arguing back and forth.
Continuing on her path toward the basement, Katia passed through the stone doorway and headed down the well-worn steps. As she entered the basement, she was bathed in the soft flickering light cast by the candles illuminating the room. Katia glanced around the large open space and saw a young woman sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. In one hand she held a book she was reading, in the other she held a medical blood bag. As Katia watched, the young woman brought the bag up to her mouth and sucked the red fluid into her mouth through a straw. Taken aback by the sight, Katia stumbled, the noise alerted the young woman to her presence. Her head shot up and her eyes locked on Katia’s. She put her book down and sprang to her feet faster than Katia could track. A split second later the woman was standing in front of her with a smile on her face and her hand held out in greeting. With a surprised cry, Katia stumbled backwards.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” The woman said with an apologetic look. “When I’m at The Advocate I usually don't have to watch my speed. I guess you haven't spent much time with vampires.”