The Last Temptations of Iago Wick

by Jennifer Rainey

  Oh, he knew that worrying hadn’t been for naught. His chest tightened. “What sort of trouble?”

  Gloria continued, “I was collecting the soul of a Gregor Cunningham. Tonight, he took his own life near the Cunningham homestead on the Eastern outskirts of Marlowe. The house burned to the ground earlier this year. All that remains is the barn.”

  Dante cleared his throat. “Ah, yes.”

  “That fire was one of yours, if I remember correctly. Oh, don’t look so surprised. News travels, Mr. Lovelace. It was by complete chance as I whisked his soul home that I heard voices within the barn. I happened to look inside through the cupola. Mr. Wick is in there, tied to a pole. There are two others with him, but I didn’t recognize them.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “He doesn’t look well, but his spirit, we’ll say, does not appear to have been broken.”

  “Oh, in Lucifer’s name, Iago!” he spat and caught Gloria’s critical gaze. “Sorry.”

  “Hmm. I’ve heard worse. These ears are not so virginal as one might think. I must be returning to my work, but I thought you should know,” Gloria said and looked expectantly at Dante as she waited for praise. Angels were always sitting about waiting for praise.

  “Thank you, Gloria,” he managed.

  She smiled. “Your coupling with Mr. Wick is very unique. Very… monogamous. It is something I can only admire.”

  Dante might have taken her comment as a cue to surrender to his emotions and think of every tender moment he’d ever shared with Iago, but his mind was already whirring. There was no telling what Atchison had up her sleeve. It would be foolish to walk in alone. It was with a sinking feeling that Dante regrettably accepted his fate. After all, he had to help his dear Mr. Wick.

  He would need Conjures. It was going to be a long night.

  Lucifer Below, had it been a long night.

  Viola was not one to take risks, particularly now that Iago was feeling more himself again. Her weapon from the night before sat at one hip. At the other was an arsenal of darts laced with lamb’s blood. Her knife was in its sheath, and if all that wasn’t sufficient, she sported a severe and dour look which might have murderous capabilities of its own. Iago was no fool. He was well aware that, if he gave her reason, she would gladly bring him to his knees and send him screeching back to the pit.

  If she could catch him, that is. Though his mind was still a tad sluggish, he’d crafted what he hoped would be a suitable plan for escape.

  “Your strength has returned to you?” she asked as she approached him. Her tweed waistcoat was unbuttoned.

  “I feel well enough.”

  “Well enough to transform for me?” she asked.

  “It’s not so much a transformation as the opening of a window. You’ll be able to see the creature who lives within this human body,” Iago explained. “A warning: I recently frightened a woman to death when I showed her my true form. That is no hyperbole. She died.”

  Viola laughed hawkishly. “Then I am in for even more of a treat than I initially thought.” He knew she was a touch frightened. It wasn’t evident upon her face, but fear had a pungent and unmistakable tang which demons were remarkably good at detecting. “Know that if you make the slightest move to escape—”

  “You’ll tear me to pieces. Duly noted. If I were going to trick you, wouldn’t I have done it already?”

  His plan was flimsy and required perfect timing and speed. Sofia stood at the large barred door with her own set of darts. Iago was not foolish enough to see that as his exit, nor would he attempt the smaller door to the right. His thoughts turned to the loft. He had secretly conjured a spark which sat out of sight in his pocket, and he would use it upon the boarded loft door. Hopefully the confusion caused by the explosion would assist him in his escape. A rough plan, yes, but now was not the time to be choosy.

  “I’m ready if you are. Show me,” Viola insisted, and Sofia stood with pencil at the ready.

  “Of course.” Iago rolled his shoulders and breathed deeply. Unnecessary but delightfully dramatic touches. Viola hovered one hand over each weapon.

  He knew when she saw him, when that usually sour mouth opened in shock. Had he not warned her sufficiently? Perhaps she wasn’t expecting this creature crafted of shards of jagged obsidian or this red gaze fathoms deep and unfettered by the weight of a soul. She took a pace toward Iago. Sofia brought a hand to her mouth.

  Iago experimentally snapped his fingers behind him and conjured a small flame which he then angled toward the rope around his wrists.

  “Do all demons look like this?” Viola asked softly.

  “Like the stuff of nightmares, you mean? Yes, though females are smaller and have white eyes rather than red.” She gave a start at his answer, for the voice she heard was quite unlike the one to which she’d grown accustomed. Demons had a rather screeching quality to their voices—like a cat in peril, Gloria Ambrose had once said. “There are tears in your eyes,” he observed.

  “What?” Viola spat and swiftly brought her hand to brush them away.

  “My true form has a tendency to inspire an acute sense of dread, of utter hopelessness.” He cleared his throat, a bizarre thing for some Hell beast to do, but after four centuries on Earth, he wasn’t at all accustomed to the suitable quirks and behaviors of his true form. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said and extended one hand to his chest to tangle about the cool, jagged fibers of his body.

  She pulled her hand suddenly back and looked up into his eyes. He was of an inhuman height, tall even for a demon. There were times he missed looking down upon others. Viola’s gaze flittered over his face, his pointed nose and black mouth. Iago felt the ropes weaken behind him. She was too awestruck to notice.

  “You’re remarkable,” she breathed, spellbound.

  Iago smiled so that she could see two fearsome rows of pointed teeth. “Thank you.”

  “I can see why you might frighten someone to death. Are you of Lucifer’s design?” she asked and motioned vaguely to her wife to continue writing.

  “Oh no,” Iago said gravely.

  “No?”

  “It is a common misconception. I am a mere millennium old, but my kind predates The Fall. Lucifer merely gave us direction when He chose to have us perform His bidding,” he explained.

  She shook her head. “You are slaves to Him.”

  Iago said, “We were truly monsters before The Fall. He gave us purpose. We owe Him servitude.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  In his foul heart, he didn’t, but calling into question the meaning of his entire existence was a little more than he could muster, given his current predicament. Maybe sometime later the two of them could meet at a cafe and discuss the complicated nature of demonhood. “Perhaps not. I am sorry, Viola.”

  She blinked slowly. “What abou—?”

  The bright flash of white fire conjured from his hands in the dimness of the barn was enough to temporarily blind the inventor and her wife. In that instant, Iago became invisible. As Viola reached madly for her weapon, Sofia blocked the door with her body; it was an admirable effort that wouldn’t have stopped him.

  Iago darted to the ladder which led to the loft. He looked up through beams of silvery moonlight streaming through the narrow slats in the cupola. The spark still sat in his pocket. Viola spat curse after curse in a fashion society would have deemed quite unladylike—not that she would have cared.

  He was halfway through his speedy ascent when Sofia shouted, “The ladder!”

  Viola was perhaps not as blinded as he originally hoped. His hand had just reached the loft platform when he felt the ladder buck backward underneath him. In an entirely undignified manner, Iago tumbled to the ground, the air knocked from his lungs. His concentration was as broken as he feared his body was, and his human form flickered into sight.

  Iago found himself swiftly caught between the inventor’s thighs as Viola thrust one of the darts into his neck. Astounding
how in a matter of seconds, he had gone from charging toward freedom to being pinned beneath his rival in a way that, no matter how one looked at it, seemed incredibly compromising.

  “How foolish to think I could trust you,” she said through her teeth, and Iago felt the lamb’s blood flood his senses again. He was suddenly fighting to stay conscious. “It’s not a mistake I’ll make again.”

  “You can’t blame an old demon for trying, Viola,” he huffed.

  “I suppose not,” she said and pulled her fearsome weapon from her belt. The barn was spinning around Iago. The barrel of the gun was a frightening maw of teeth and metal before him. She paused and reached into his breast pocket to remove the spark.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  Iago laughed. “It’s nothing, I assure you. A trinket. A good luck charm—we can see how well it worked for me.”

  She held the spark just above his sternum and rubbed her thumb over the device experimentally. “Is this jewel in the center a button—?”

  “No!”

  It was with a primal sense of self-preservation that the word flew from his mouth before he could do anything about it. Viola looked upon the spark curiously. “This is a weapon.” She smiled. “This is an explosive. They said they could not determine what caused the small explosions at the Ackle house. This is it, isn’t it? Oh, Mr. Wick, you were going to use this to escape.”

  “A stunning deduction.”

  “Sofia, take this carefully and place it with our equipment. I wish to study it.” Her wife did as she was told.

  “Listen, please,” Iago insisted, situated pitifully at the end of his rope. “I don’t wish to pursue you any further, Viola. I could have burned this barn to the ground once my strength returned. I could have disemboweled you both. But I didn’t! Let me go, and I promise you, you will never see me again.”

  Viola gave a genuine grin, and Iago found it quite frightening. “How funny that using this gun upon you will have a similar outcome.”

  He gulped. “I could always be the one who got away.”

  The weapon was cold against his throat, and she dragged it downward to settle upon his exposed chest. “You are so utterly in love with yourself, Iago Wick. Can’t you see this is not about you?”

  “I know it’s not,” he admitted. “This is about Thomas.”

  “No. Don’t give him such satisfaction, even in death. No one should have to live knowing that they were a pawn in the game to take some wretched bastard’s soul,” she growled. “Is there anything more insulting in all the world? To know you were only a piece to be played?”

  “You’re not, Viola. Not you. I assure you,” he said weakly. “Now, ah… put the gun away, please?”

  She shook her head, and her finger settled upon the trigger. “No, not this time. We are nearly finished here, and I’ll know for certain that I have in my hands the means to defeat any of your kind I may encounter.”

  He was not given time to respond. Viola Atchison only looked grim and pulled the trigger.

  The weapon was much louder in the confines of the barn. It was a fraction of a second after the disc had lodged in his chest that the small metal teeth began their horrible task. They tore laboriously through his flesh. His skin grew hot and wet with black blood.

  Viola stood stiffly and observed. She removed the cursed disc once it had finished its work. A perfect God’s Eye, smeared with blood, was etched into Iago’s flesh.

  A profound sickness crashed over him, an unsettling feeling which made his insides crawl and his heart hammer frighteningly in his chest. He weakly pushed himself back against the pole. Breath came shallowly, and the pain between Iago’s eyes threatened to split his skull in two.

  “Thomas Atchison!”

  Viola looked up at the sound of sudden voices on the other side of the barn door. There was the patter of feet—a dozen or more outside.

  “Thomas Atchison, come out! This is the police!”

  Agh, the police, Iago thought vaguely as he struggled to hold on to consciousness. Of course, it couldn’t have been someone useful!

  Sofia hurried to her wife’s side. “What’s happening? What do they want?”

  “Atchison! Thomas Atchison, are you here?”

  “We must leave, Viola,” Sofia insisted.

  “In a moment,” she hissed.

  Sofia turned away and collected their various tools. Viola continued to watch with rapt attention, utterly intrigued by the black blood which trailed from Iago’s eyes. More blood choked his throat and nose. His insides cramped, and he pitched forward to spew bitter ink upon the ground.

  And so, this was the end of this grand adventure. Defeat was a hideous thing which took Iago’s swiftly pattering heart in its grasp and tore with vicious claws. In what might have been his final moments on Earth, his mind turned to that morning, to crisp linens and Dante Lovelace insisting he stay. The beautiful bastard was right, as usual. He should have stayed.

  “Thomas Atchison? We’re coming in!” They slammed into the doors with the weight of a battering ram, the wood straining and buckling inward.

  “Surely you didn’t think they would stay away forever,” Iago managed, and with bleary eyes, he noticed Atchison’s knife in its sheath. The police weren’t the only ones knocking. Opportunity had come to call, and he wasn’t in Hell yet. “You’re involved with some individuals already in custody, I’m afraid.”

  “The bastards,” Viola spat. “How did they know I was here?”

  As the inventor looked in frustration to the door, Iago used what little strength he had left to push himself up. It ached to do it, but he charged for Viola’s knife and wrestled it from her belt.

  He took the blade quickly to his chest, slashing fully across the God’s Eye. With that final streak of blood, Iago felt his body calm and the hideous pull to the depths diminish. Still, he coughed up another blot of inky blood and bile, spitting the foul taste from his mouth. He drew a deep breath and then another before he was certain he could classify this debacle as nothing more than a close call.

  An outrageously close call, but a close call nevertheless.

  “Thomas Atchison!”

  Atchison’s mouth fell open. Iago gripped the pole for support. He hacked another smaller spatter of blood on the back of his hand. “You interrupted the God’s Eye,” the inventor said and brought an exploratory hand to the wound upon his chest.

  He hissed in pain. “I am full of surprises, am I not?”

  “Atchison! Marlowe Police Department! We know you’re here!”

  She muttered, “This is a quandary I did not ponder while designing the gun.”

  “Glad I could be of service,” Iago said.

  “You are quite a hearty creature, Mr. Wick. A punier demon would not have stood a chance.”

  Sofia hurried to the ladder with a python-sized rope over her shoulder. “Viola!” she spat.

  The pounding intensified. Viola Atchison looked upon him with a slight glow of reverence. Wood cracked and splintered, and she suddenly valued her own escape over destroying Iago. Viola paused to examine the spark once more as she quickly gathered the remaining equipment, as though there might be some benefit to setting it off and ending the night in a blaze of glory. Thank Lucifer, Iago thought, that she ended up placing the device in a satchel.

  “Just go,” Iago insisted. “I’ll keep them occupied.”

  “How noble.” She threw the bag over her shoulder, and her blazing blue eyes met his one last time. “Until we meet again, Iago Wick.”

  Again? Lucifer Below, he barely made it through this encounter in one piece! And yet, he knew this was not over, and what’s more, he didn’t want it to be. She followed Sofia up the ladder.

  Iago could hear them removing the boards over the loft window at the back of the barn as the door finally burst open. The wood splintered in all directions. There stood a dozen large, uniformed men with preciously angry faces. The one at the front opened his mouth and called for Atchison again with a l
ook in his eye as though he weren’t even certain what the words meant. He might have been shouting “Herring sandwich!” for all he knew or cared. Iago knew this utter stupidity, this strange indifference to the more delicate nuances of life.

  The two in the middle moved aside to reveal their master. Dante Lovelace and a dozen Conjures in uniform stood before Iago.

  “Dante!” Iago cried. He wiped black blood from beneath his eyes. “You have an impeccable sense of timing.”

  “Iago! Where’s Viola?” he asked.

  Iago looked knowingly to the loft. There was silence above them. “Gone, I’m afraid. As I said, you arrived just in time, my dear. I fear I’d be downstairs again if not for the adequate distraction you provided,” Iago explained.

  Dante looked stricken at the very idea. “Lucifer Below, what has she done to you?” He charged to Iago, hastily examining each of his wounds. “Are you well? What is this? A God’s Eye? She used that gun, didn’t she?”

  “Dante, I assure you, all is well. It was only—ack!” Mr. Lovelace took him tightly into a rib-cracking embrace. Iago sighed and limply stroked his partner’s hair. “My dear. Not in front of the Conjures.”

  “Thomas Atchison!” one of the uniformed brutes yelled. “We’re taking you to the station!”

  “You taught them to speak,” Iago said in awe.

  “You can teach them a lot of things with a little patience,” Dante explained. “They were only to be a diversion while the two of us escaped. I knew Atchison wouldn’t be fooled for long, and I could only hope she hadn’t any blessed brimstone.”

  “And how did you find me?” He managed to pry Dante off of him, though he did appreciate the grand display of affection.

  Dante said, “Gloria Ambrose spotted you here as she was collecting the soul of Gregor Cunningham, who shot himself on this property this evening. She appeared in my parlor to tell me where you were.”

  The gunshot and the humming, Iago thought. He might have been spared quite a bit of pain had Gloria just intervened herself. This was already leagues beyond customary angel-demon relations. He supposed he could only be grateful. “Wonderful. Now I owe her something.”