Hell's Bells

by Lesli Richardson

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  “I need to go off-Earth for a little while. The other reason I asked you here is that I need you to be available for me, in my place.”

  Aidan blinked. “Say what?”

  “Did you not hear me, or not understand me?”

  “You’ve never asked me to take the hot seat before.” Ryan always had Will do it, before Abby died. After her death, Aidan didn’t honestly know or care how Ryan managed The Firm’s affairs because he was too busy focused on Will and his own grief.

  Ryan stood. “Well the situation has changed now, hasn’t it? You’re obviously capable of managing it. Will is indisposed. I’d prefer not to distract him if I don’t absolutely have to, because Kal needs him.” He nodded toward Tosko. “He’ll be available to you today in case you need him.”

  “Whoa, today? You’re going today?”

  “Right now, as a matter of fact. Is that a problem?”

  “But I’m…” Well, that would be sort of tacky, to admit he was finally getting laid and too busy doing that to protect the Earth.

  Ryan smiled. “I doubt you will need to deal with anything. I don’t expect to be gone very long, but as you know, I must have a suitable substitute in place. You can return to…whatever you were doing.”

  Fucking ballbuster. The smirk on Ryan’s face told Aidan he knew exactly what he’d been doing. “All right.”

  Ryan waved his hand and Aidan found himself back in his bedroom. Jeff flinched, startled at Aidan’s sudden return.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Aidan nodded as he stripped and slipped back under the covers with Jeff. “Yeah. Everything’s fine. Ryan just needed to update me on a few things.”

  “Any word on Bera?”

  “Nope. Not yet.” His mind raced as he tried to absorb what Ryan had told him.

  Jeff snuggled tightly against Aidan. “Am I safe?”

  Overwhelmingly fierce protectiveness welled up inside Aidan, pushing aside all other thoughts. This had to be love, he’d never felt like this before. Ever. Considering how old he was, that was saying a lot.

  Aidan wrapped his arms around Jeff. “I’ll die to protect you, buddy,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “No one’s gonna hurt you with me around. You’re safe.”

  Chapter 13

  They finally made it out of bed long enough to drive to Publix for groceries. Jeff enjoyed being out with Aidan, the incidental touches of his hand on the small of his back, or tapping his arm to point something out.

  It felt right. More right than anything in his life. If this was a preview of having Aidan for eternity, he was damn glad. He felt connected to Aidan now in a way he’d never experienced before.

  In a good way.

  In spite of his faith and the teachings he’d grown up with, he would never regret this, would never renounce the love he felt for Aidan, no matter what.

  They returned home and Aidan insisted Jeff sit at the counter with a wine cooler while he prepared their meal. Jeff watched Aidan skillfully chop the veggies for their stir fry. They’d talked a lot but there were subjects Jeff stayed well away from.

  Usually.

  Ryan was one of those topics, because Aidan tensed whenever he was mentioned. He also didn’t do a lot of asking about Aidan’s younger sister, other family, or his distant past in general. It was whacked enough dealing with the whole archdemon concept to begin with.

  They wouldn’t have told him that much if one morning he hadn’t been standing in the office Aidan shared with Kal when Will appeared.

  Literally appeared. Out of thin air.

  The horror-struck look on their faces told him more than anything.

  They’d called Ryan in—who also appeared out of thin air. After an hour of demonstrations, Jeff believed their story, even as far-fetched as it was. Kal more than anything convinced him of their sincerity. He’d known her nearly his whole life. Not well, but at least if she was caught up in this then it was most likely the truth.

  Admittedly it was a comfort in the spiritual department to know he wouldn’t spend an eternity in Hell for preferring guys to gals. It made a lot more sense than the dogma he’d been raised on. Let’s see, believing in a virgin birth, a parted sea, and an ark containing all the world’s animals—two-by-two—or believe in a species devoted to keeping humans from becoming lunch for other species.

  Number two was more comforting. Not to mention a dang sight more believable.

  Frankly, he could wrap his head around the concept of Hell being in Atlanta. He’d flown through there enough times to swear a blue streak at the damn place. Any town with an airport that screwed up had to at least be Purgatory, if not Hell itself.

  Add to the mix that whenever Aidan flashed his big, sweet butterscotch eyes at him, Jeff couldn’t think straight.

  No pun intended.

  Jeff always got the distinct impression there was a long-buried past between Aidan, Will, and Ryan. Kal alluded to it. Jeff had the feeling she didn’t know the full story either.

  Maybe it was the wine cooler or their recent change of relationship status, but Jeff felt like asking tonight.

  “What’s the deal with you and Will and Ryan?”

  Aidan tensed, paused. When he started the rhythmic chopping again, his green peppers weren’t as neatly diced as they had been before Jeff spoke.

  “Long story,” Aidan grunted. “Old news.”

  “I’m listening. I like old stories.”

  The knife paused again. Aidan’s knuckles whitened around the handle as he gripped it tighter. “I don’t know the full story.”

  “You lived it.”

  “Doesn’t mean I know it.”

  After a few strained moments, Jeff tried again. “Tell me what you know.”

  “You won’t let up on this, will you?”

  “Nope.”

  Aidan lifted his gaze. His sweet, honey-hazel eyes nearly soaked up all of Jeff’s reserve. “We’re soul brothers.” He didn’t continue, switched to chopping a Vidalia onion.

  “That tells me nothing.”

  The cadence of the knife against the wooden cutting board didn’t sound as smooth as it had. “Ryan’s dad bound the three of us as soul brothers a long time ago. He had to. Ryan would have died, and he was afraid I might have died, too.”

  “Why?”

  Aidan’s hands stilled as his eyes closed. It took him several long moments to answer. When he did, his voice sounded soft and sad. “Because Chloe was murdered.”

  * * * *

  Aidan hated revisiting those times. He didn’t want to think about her, about how she died. He wanted to remember his baby sister, watching her grow as he raised her after her human mother died when she was still an infant. Their archdemon father practically disappeared after dropping Chloe on his doorstep. None of his other siblings wanted to raise a child, so his father assumed that since Aidan was single—without a real life, as he’d phrased it—that he would be the perfect surrogate dad for the baby.

  Aidan wanted to think about playing hide and seek with her, about holding her through nightmares and waking with her beside him. He wanted to think about all the hours they talked together, about everything and anything. About teaching her to ride, to hunt, to wield a sword and shoot a bow.

  Even thinking about her meeting Ryan was a better memory than thinking about the day she died, the day Ryan nearly died trying to protect her.

  “Chloe went to a meeting with me this one time. Hades and some of the other archdemons. I’d met Ryan before, but didn’t know him very well. I wanted to keep guys away from her. She was my baby sister, even though she was nearly thirty and half demon. Beautiful, long amber hair and eyes the color of wheat. Then Ryan walked into the room and I knew I’d have to step aside. Not just from the look on Ryan’s face, but hers, too.

  “Two weeks later, they were inseparable and she was his soul mate. For better or worse.”

  “How did you get along with him back then?” Jeff asked.
>
  “Not always the best, at first,” he admitted. In the beginning he resented Ryan taking his little sister, worried he wouldn’t be good enough for her. As the years wore on their happiness was transparent, and Chloe insisted on Aidan living with them, knowing he might never find a soul mate of his own. Knowing his secret and loving him regardless.

  When Aidan realized Ryan also knew, he was surprised to find that Ryan didn’t care. It wasn’t a topic of discussion, as far as Ryan was concerned. He was glad to have Aidan around to look after Chloe when he wasn’t home.

  They butted heads on occasion. Aidan felt duty-bound to distrust him on general principles.

  She was, after all, his baby sister.

  But they both loved her and that was enough to usually keep the peace between them.

  Pulling himself from his memories, Aidan looked at Jeff. This was something he struggled to forget, seared into his memory by countless centuries of grief.

  “Ryan was Chloe’s husband, her soul mate. I didn’t know Will back then even though we were cousins. I knew of him but we’d never met.”

  He slowly chopped the Vidalias, being careful not to lop off a finger in the process. “They were together for a couple hundred years, Ryan and Chloe.” He wistfully smiled. “If she had told him to jump, he’d have said, ‘How high?’ and that’s not a bullshit cliché or exaggeration, that’s the truth. His world started and ended with my baby sister. She was his everything.”

  He looked at Jeff as his voice softened with emotion. “You don’t see the guy Ryan was before. He was a different man with her. He was a normal, loving guy. We laughed all the time together. He was always smiling. I don’t think I’ve heard a deep, genuine laugh out of him since…” He went back to chopping vegetables.

  Jeff didn’t speak, watched Aidan, knew this had to be painful for him. After a few moments, Aidan had chopped all the onions and moved to the bok choy. “The bottom line is, Chloe was murdered. The guy almost killed Ryan in the process, he nearly died. From his injuries and from losing Chloe at the same time. So what’s Hades going to do, let his son die like that?”

  Aidan rubbed his face against his shoulder. Jeff didn’t miss the way Aidan’s eyes looked moist.

  “I don’t understand how it all works,” Aidan continued. “Hades brought Will in and bound the three of us as soul brothers. Because of that bond, Ryan could draw strength and energy from both of us to survive. Being bonded to both of them helped keep me moving forward. If you have a soul mate, you can heal from damn near almost everything. Ryan was severely injured and had just lost his soul mate. It was a double whammy.”

  “That must have been rough on you, too.”

  “Yeah. If Ryan could have found a high enough cliff to jump off and kill himself, we would have held hands on the way down, believe you fucking me.”

  He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. “She was my baby sister,” he softly said. “As much as it nearly killed me to lose her, Ryan was so injured that he would have died if Hades hadn’t done it, bound us as brothers. Will’s a full-blooded archdemon too, he was strong and young, really young then. Jesus, he was younger than Chloe.” He paused, chopping. “Between the two of us, we finally pulled Ryan through. Will’s strength helped both of us get through it.”

  “Why did the guy kill her?”

  Aidan was slow to respond. “We don’t know. We think he wanted her. Assholes used to cross over all the time from other realms, tried to steal women, especially half-demon ones. Full-blooded ones were usually too strong for them to try to take.”

  “Steal?”

  Aidan nodded. “Yeah.” He continued chopping. “Apparently, he’d set his sights on Chloe. He picked the wrong woman to fuck with.” Aidan wistfully smiled. “I taught her how to fight. She could have kicked my ass if she’d wanted. She didn’t go down without a fight. By the time Ryan got there it was too late to save her. The guy attacked him. Ryan had to fight to save his life at that point.”

  Jeff remained quiet for a moment. “What happened to the guy who killed her?”

  He shrugged. “He got away. We never did find him. Ryan put a fucking hurting on the son of a bitch in the process. It wouldn’t surprise me if he died later. Ryan nearly put his sword through the asshole’s face. We think he jumped off-Earth because Hades and the others couldn’t track him. Back then it wasn’t as easy for us to cross like it is now. I don’t know why.”

  Jeff carefully worked on the wine cooler label, slowly peeled it from the chilly bottle. “Then what happened?”

  “We survived.” Aidan’s face darkened. “It took a while. Took a long fucking while before Ryan tried to live again, even longer than me. Will kept us going. Then the three of us stood together, taking on the world.”

  A sad smile caressed Aidan’s lips. “Like real brothers. Going on assignments together, fighting side by side. No one could get past the three of us. For years we were like that, you know?” He chopped some more vegetables, his face darkening again. “In some ways that was a good thing. Used our rage in a constructive way. Hades made us the head Enforcers.”

  It struck Jeff for the first time that the kind and gentle man he’d given his heart and body to had a bloody history he might not want to know more about.

  Now that the story was coming, Aidan would finish it. “One day, Ryan and I went on an assignment while Will went to a nearby village to scope things out, right? We met up again in three days and dude, it was like a fire had lit inside Will. To call him glowing was no understatement. He’d met a girl and wham, love at first sight. Me and Ami—”

  “Ami?”

  Aidan dumped the veggies into the wok. “Amiago. We called him Ami. That was Ryan’s name back then. We were happy for him, right? Our brother found a soul mate. Then we went back with Will to meet her.”

  He fell silent. Jeff was loathe to interrupt him again. Eventually, Aidan continued. “I couldn’t understand it. I loved her immediately. Like a sister,” he quickly added. “She was great. Abby was wonderful. Real feisty woman, too. Perfect for Will, a young human woman.”

  He stirred in some garlic and whisked the contents around as it cooked. “Ami, man, he looked like someone socked him in the gut when he shook her hand. He wouldn’t talk to us. He walked away from us later that night without explanation.”

  “Walked away?”

  The sadness etched on Aidan’s face nearly brought Jeff to tears. “No explanation.” He shook his head. “We tried to get him to tell us what was wrong, but he wouldn’t. Finally, the chickenshit sent word through his old man that our trio was now a duo.”

  “Except for Abby.”

  “Yeah, well, that. It was the three of us in that way, yes. Abby insisted I stay with them and it was almost like having Chloe back in some ways, right? That’s the kind of relationship I had with her. Like my little sister all over again.”

  “So the soul brother bond…?”

  “We’re still bound. That’s the only reason Will survived Abby’s death. There’s other archdemons out there, not just the group of us. We’re the ‘top three’ so to speak. Being bound to Ryan makes us both line heirs for The Firm. Ryan was working under his old man back then, of course. Hades was actively running The Firm for a lot of years. After a while, Ami—Ryan would give assignments to Will through Abby if I wasn’t around. They started talking and they got along great. Ryan never would tell her why he walked away.”

  He paused again, considering it. “I thought maybe he was jealous, or maybe because he lost Chloe he didn’t want to see Will happy, but then I realized that wasn’t it. I don’t know what it was, but he and Will were never on good terms since. I hung my hat with Will. I couldn’t desert him, man. He’s my cousin by blood, but he’s my soul brother. Ryan might have walked away from us, but I damn sure wasn’t walking away from Will.”

  Jeff had never mentioned to Aidan the look in Ryan’s eyes when the man talked with Kal when the other men weren’t around. Perhaps that was something best left unsaid for now.
“Ryan gets along good with Kal.”

  Aidan nodded. “Yeah. Like Abby all over again. Kal’s so much like Abby—” He stopped talking, pursing his lips as if he’d almost revealed something that should remain unsaid. After a moment he spoke again. “She’s good for Will. I don’t agree how the shit weasel brought them together, but I won’t deny she’s good for Will and I love her like a sister.”

  He met Jeff’s gaze. “I don’t have a beef with Ryan except for him walking away the way he did. Part of me still loves him as my brother-in-law, and I always will. He took damn good care of Chloe. He really, truly loved her. Part of me still loves him as my soul brother. As far as I’m concerned though, he’s my boss, and not someone I’d call a friend. I mean, yeah, we’re getting along better now than we have in a long while, mostly because of Kal. I’d rather not spend our evening talking about him.”

  Jeff had finally denuded the bottle of its label during their talk. He nodded. “Sure.” He thought for a moment as he watched Aidan cook. “Has your name always been Aidan?”

  He laughed. “No, but it’s been that long enough. Chloe…” He looked wistful again. “Chloe sort of named me that. When she was a baby and learning how to speak she’d call me daddy and I’d say no, big brother. ‘Frère ainé.’ Eventually she shortened it to ‘ainé’ and it morphed into Aidan after a while. She liked it, so I never changed it. I didn’t have the heart to change my first name after she died.”

  His voice softened. “Ryan changed his name after he left us, but kept his original given name as his last name over the years. I’ve been changing my last but not my first.”

  “What about Will?” He’d been wanting to ask this. “A demon named ‘Hellenboek’?”

  Aidan laughed. “Yeah, that was Abby’s idea.” He grinned. “She did it just to bust Ryan’s balls. She loved puns and stuff like that. I thought Ryan would pop a gasket when she told him what she’d come up with. It was pretty damn funny.”

  “So what were your names before you were Aidan and Will?”

  He stirred the wok’s contents. “My given name was Camulos.” He looked at Jeff. “Please don’t Google it. Remember, you can’t believe everything you read on Wikipedia. A lot of shit’s been spliced together over the years and no one has the whole story right.”