Sympathy for the devil

by Holly Lisle

  Chapter 37

  Agonostis checked his face in the rear-view mirror. He had the human body back on—he just wished he'd paid a bit more attention to how he'd designed it the first time. When he first squeezed himself back into mortal form, he got the eyes wrong; they looked fine in the fluorescent lights of Satco, but in daylight, he saw that they were lemon yellow instead of amber. She would have noticed that. He tinkered with his shoulders and his waist and the length of his legs—the human clothing was an invaluable help in getting those details right. He just filled everything in.

  But he didn't notice until he pulled into her driveway that his canines were still long and far too sharp. He was under too much stress, and he was getting sloppy.

  Details, dammit, he thought. I refuse to be destroyed by mere details.

  He rang the bell, and heard the sound of bare feet running across wood floors. He clenched his hands and swallowed. Even the sound of her footsteps made his heart pound and his mouth go dry. This was his last day—the last time he would ever do this.

  Dayne opened the door and looked up at him; her round blue eyes could have pinned him to that spot for an eternity; for her sweet smile, he would have willingly been led astray. He wanted to scream. A day wasn't enough time. It could never be enough time.

  "Hi," she said.

  "Hi." His voice broke, and he cleared his throat. "I missed you."

  She grinned. "Good. Come on in." She turned and walked down the hall, and he followed, wishing she were in his arms again. She told him, "I had an awful day and I'm in a terrible mood, but I'll try not to take it out on you."

  "I've seen bad moods before," he told her, thinking that she couldn't imagine the sorts of bad moods he'd seen. "What made your day so awful?"

  She dropped into an armchair where he couldn't sit beside her and waved him toward the couch. While he sat down, she tucked her legs under her and leaned back and sighed. "The problem this time is that I can't get a patient of mine out of my thoughts. I'm sure he was once a sweet little boy, but he isn't going to make it, and that's probably a kindness. A car accident split his skull open, and he lost one of his eyes when he went through the windshield, and asphalt scraped off half his face. He's in a coma. I don't imagine he suffered long . . . but God, it's so sad. I wish I could do something for him." She looked at him, watching for his reaction.

  Agonostis made a face. "That's grim."

  "That's work." Dayne leaned back again and closed her eyes.

  "Um." Agonostis kicked his shoes off. "Anything I can do to take your mind off of it?"

  She opened one eye just enough that he could tell she was looking at him. "Maybe there is. Did you bring another contract?"

  He knew she was going to ask. He knew it, and he'd dreaded it. "Um . . ." he cleared his throat, and checked for spies. Not even Earwax was around right then, though he'd been sticking to Dayne like pain on a damned soul. He blocked Lucifer out of his mind, then extended the block until it became a little bubble of private space that surrounded only Dayne and himself. It wouldn't look like much in Hell if he didn't hold it there for too long. With luck, no one would even notice that he was hiding something.

  Then he said, "I didn't bring the contract."

  Dayne's other eye opened fractionally. "No? I'm surprised. As eager as you were to sign me up, I almost expected you to bring another copy by last night." He watched one eyebrow quirk upward; then she closed both eyes again and lolled her head along the back of her chair.

  "I don't . . ." He took a deep breath. He was about to do something he would never be able to explain away, and his heart started racing again. "I don't think you would like the company," he told her. "I exaggerated its good points a bit—and I'm afraid the salary and benefits wouldn't be as good as I led you to believe."

  "You lied to me about the job?" Dayne sat up and studied him. He couldn't read her expression, but the thing he had most expected to see on her face—anger—was notably absent.

  "I . . . ah . . . misrepresented it." He sighed. "Lied. Yes. I lied. Satco is not a company you would like."

  She smiled at him then. He would have predicted any reaction but a smile. "I . . ." She tipped her head to one side, then rose and walked over to him and kissed him.

  He dropped his shield. Lucifer, should he chance to spy now, would only be able to assume that things were going well in the damnation of Dayne Kuttner. She was climbing onto his lap, and kissing him, and unbuttoning his shirt. He wished he understood how his failing to get her the job he'd promised her had resulted in her halfway undressing him. He would fail to get her a different job every day, if this was the way she took news.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, marveling at her body, which was both so soft and so hard.

  Then she whispered in his ear, "Why don't you carry me upstairs?"

  "I don't think I . . ." He clamped his shield around them for just an instant, and said, ". . . should." He had not protected her from damnation one way just to damn her another. But even as his mouth was saying he wouldn't, his body was saying he would. He wanted her. He desired her. The old line about the spirit being willing, but the flesh weak, he discovered, was based on nothing less than the truth.

  Holding her tight, he stood and carried her up the stairs.

  Chapter 38

  "What do you mean, `He's taking her to bed?!' " Jezerael snarled and held a tiny brown imp off the ground by its throat. It gurgled and gasped, but was unable to speak. She dropped it then, and it lay on the floor, its chest rising and falling, until she wearied of waiting for her answer and kicked it. It bounced off the wall and dropped to the floor a few feet away from her and cowered there.

  "Answer me, damn your eyes."

  Its eyes suddenly grayed, then dried in their sockets like raisins in the sun. "I couldn't hear all he said," the imp screamed. "But he carried her up to her bedroom—and when I came to you, the two of them were undressing each other, and doing other naughty things."

  "No!" Jezerael screamed. She grabbed her hair and, enraged, ripped out two handfuls. "No!" She grabbed up the imp and ripped it apart, then flung the pieces around the room. "No! I will not spend eternity as the slave of Agonostis."

  She stormed around the office for a few moments, then got herself under enough control that she could plan.

  "He hasn't necessarily won yet," she told herself. She felt around for Dayne's soul, which she had tagged while she was "working" in the ICU. Following the call of the marker, she appeared in Dayne's apartment . . . but not in the bedroom. She didn't want to take the chance of making the situation worse, or of inadvertently doing something that might work in Agonostis' favor, instead of against him. So she was moving cautiously.

  Once in the kitchen, which was disgustingly clean and cheerful, she looked up through the walls, straight into Dayne's soul. That, too, was disgustingly clean and cheerful—and completely healthy.

  She frowned. If Agonostis had done his job right, Jezerael ought to have been able to see dead places in the glowing fabric of the soulstuff—she should have been able to mark a change in the overall color of the soul, too, from the gold of sunlight to a dull and angry red. But those signs of corruption simply weren't there.

  She shook her head and pondered. There was no way Agonostis could think Dayne had fallen. The blind imp Jezerael had shredded could have just looked at the mortal and proclaimed her still aimed straight for Heaven.

  Jezerael felt sure she was missing something. Agonostis evidently felt he was going to corrupt the girl in one vicious stroke, but he had to be laying the groundwork for that. A spiriscopic analysis would tell Jezerael what he'd done, and in which direction he'd planned the young woman's damnation.

  She commandeered a spiriscope from Hell's main office. The bill came wrapped around it—it was hellish, and if it couldn't tell her anything she didn't already know, she was going to regret getting it for a very long time. She flipped the ON switch, and the puny little soul inside whined.
Then she aimed it at Dayne, and line by line read the analysis of the contents of the soul of her intended victim.

  When she finished, she smiled.

  Not only had Agonostis failed, but in the very form of his failure he had created a lever by which Jezerael could throw the girl straight into Hell, and Agonostis into slavery. And it was because of sheer stupidity on her archenemy's part.

  Agonostis deserved what he had coming.

  Chapter 39

  "Oh, God . . ."

  The angel at the computer terminal bit his lip and studied the screen; he twisted the plume of the pen for the Book of Names until the feather broke; then he winced. He wasn't supposed to break things. However, Dayne Kuttner and one of Hell's angels were in bed together, and the angel couldn't help but think that his trip to the water fountain was going to get him in serious trouble for negligence.

  He hit the panic button.

  Golden lights flashed, harp-timbered klaxons sounded, and God appeared, looking rumpled and smelling strongly of mead, glaring from a single blue eye. His Viking hat was askew and his fingers were greasy, and he had bits of food caught in his short golden beard. The giant raven on his shoulder cawed angrily at the angel, then jumped into the air and flapped slowly away.

  Apparently God had been in Valhalla with the rest of the Heroes—the angel immediately regretted having to interrupt him. God always enjoyed his role as Odin, though he didn't get to play it often.

  God wiped at the food in his beard and replaced the missing eye. "What's the emergency?"

  The angel pointed at his computer monitor and said, "From the looks of things, we've lost her, O Righteous and Glorious."

  God studied the screen and frowned. "They're kissing."

  The angel saw the frown and shivered. "Yes, sir. But they were doing quite a lot more than that a moment ago."

  God raised an eyebrow, then shook his head. "What's the problem?"

  "Your Holiness . . . they aren't . . . um, married. And he's one of the Fallen. And . . . well, sir, you have to admit it would look bad if she were damned."

  God-as-Odin squinted hard at the monitor screen, then sighed deeply and turned to his secretary. "Of course it would look bad . . . if she were going to be damned for this. She loves him, though. There is no room for love in Hell."

  "Fornication . . ."

  ". . . Is a sin of evil intent. No such intent exists here." God banished his spare eye and, once again pure Odin, told the angel, "Don't panic. Dayne is made of strong stuff. It would take more than a good-looking devil to lead her astray."

  The angel watched him disappear, then turned back to the monitor, where Dayne and the fallen angel Agonostis still gently touched; smiling, whispering, looking into each other's eyes.

  If that wasn't a sin, he thought, there were going to be one or two of Heaven's angels complaining about the fact that Hell got to send representatives to Earth but Heaven didn't. Or at least petitioning for a tour out of Christian Heaven, which had eliminated sex from its activity list. The angel, watching, thought he would be one of them.

  Chapter 40

  Hell's fallen angel woke weeping.

  Agonostis felt the hot tears rolling down his cheeks, and jerked upright in the bed, gasping—for a moment he thought he was drowning. He wiped his eyes and caught his breath. Crying? He hadn't cried since . . .

  He couldn't remember if he had ever cried, but he didn't think he had. He hadn't ever slept before, either. Neither the angels of Heaven, nor of Hell, had any need of sleep—and yet he had been as soundly asleep as any human. What did it mean?

  He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stared at his reflection in Dayne's closet doors.

  It means, you damned idiot, that you could have held her all night and watched her sleep, and instead you missed it. And today, everything comes to an end.

  Dayne was gone—he'd known that even before he rolled over to look for her; the emptiness of the apartment around him ached like an old wound. The only sound in the place was his own breathing. The cats sat, noiseless, glaring at him from atop Dayne's dresser—cats loathed the Hellraised. He stared at them, then turned away. Everything loathed the Hellraised. Dayne would look at him the same way her cats did, if she knew what he was.

  Agonostis hugged Dayne's pillow to his chest and pressed his face into the flannel pillow case. The pillow was rich with the scent of her—hay and sunlight and some earthy shampoo. There were no such scents in Hell—he drank that one in, knowing he was losing it as surely as he would lose her. He wondered if he would even hold her again, or bury his face in her hair, or taste her lips against his, before Lucifer dragged him back into Hell. Surely the Lord of the Damned would discover Agonostis' deception before he had that chance. The Father of Lies intended to drag his one-time second-in-command back to Hell to turn him into an imp of the smallest and tastiest sort, and wasn't likely to wait until the stroke of midnight—not when he had the opportunity to change the rules yet again.

  A piece of paper lay on the bed, where the pillow had been. It was a note from Dayne to him.

  "Adam—I had to get to work, but you were sleeping so soundly, I hated to wake you. I'll see you this evening if you can get free from work. Love, Dayne."

  She rarely got away from her job before seven P.M. He was likely to be gone before she got home—no, he was likely to be ground into component atoms and strewn about the Pit before she got home—and she would never even know what happened to him.

  He could leave her a note. Something that explained his sudden, unwilling disappearance. She kept pens on her bedside table. He found one, turned her note over, and on the back started to print a quick explanation.

  "Dayne—I was recalled to . . ."

  He paused. Did he really want her to know what he had been? Did he really want her to hate his memory? He didn't—but suddenly he didn't want to lie to her, either.

  ". . . Hell. If you can, please think of me with kindness when you think of me. I'm sorry that I tried to tempt you, but pleased that you didn't fall. I will always love you. Adam D'Agonostis."

  He sighed and stared at the wretch in the mirror, and wondered if she would miss him. He hoped so.

  None of this had worked out the way he'd expected. He'd forgotten so much in all those millennia in Hell. He'd forgotten beauty, and the joy of silence, and the pleasure of being alone without being lonely. He'd forgotten the feel of being loved. Moreover, for the first time, he had discovered the thrill of a challenge, of being set to a nearly impossible task, with only his wits between himself and disaster. This thrill was something humans lived with daily—the opportunity to succeed or fail by their own effort. He'd tasted that opportunity in the task Lucifer had set for him, and had seen the same pleasure in Dayne's eyes when she talked about the challenges of her work—the importance of being right the first time, of thinking fast, of doing something that mattered.

  She played for life, against Death—and in the brief time Agonostis had known her, he'd seen the zest she displayed for every aspect of living, because she knew from experience how thin the line was drawn between living and dying.

  "God was right," Agonostis whispered. He couldn't repent—not after what God had put him through. But he could see that he'd made a mistake in supporting Lucifer's stance.

  At the time, the situation had seemed so clear cut. Lucifer petitioned God for the right to give humans the knowledge they lacked. God turned down the petition, stating that humans would respect the things they earned more than the things they were given. Lucifer, incensed, played Prometheus—and in fact, most human religions still remembered his role, though imperfectly. He gave humanity the secrets of fire, and simple technology, and simple writing—and as God predicted, humanity, with no respect for its windfall, had subverted those gifts into the tools of deceit, greed, and war.

  Pity he hadn't come by his wisdom millennia ago, when it could have done him some good. Now nothing but the agony of Hell's fiery Pit awaited him.

  "M
ight as well go in to the office," he muttered to his reflection. He could completely screw up his records in just a few minutes—might as well make life miserable for Jezerael. He stood, and so did his mirror image. He cocked his head and stared at himself. He didn't look right—he'd missed something subtle.

  He frowned and walked closer to the mirror, trying to figure out what was out of place. He'd gotten the look pretty close to the first incarnation of his Adam persona, but he'd made some sort of mistake in reforming himself into human shape.

  "Oh, my God," he whispered. He stared at his midsection—nicely muscled, lightly furred with curling black hair that narrowed to a thin line down his lower abdomen. A thin line, unbroken by a belly button, or anything that might be mistaken for one.

  "Not even a mole or a freckle there," he muttered, running his fingers across his inhumanly smooth stomach. He took a deep breath. "The bedroom was dark . . . most of the time. She couldn't have noticed."

  It didn't matter. He'd lost, and he was going to end up serving Jezerael, and the fact that he'd forgotten to give himself a navel in his haste to get to Dayne would not cause so much as a blip in the currents of eternity.

  He pulled on his clothes, and trudged wearily out of the apartment, carefully locking the door behind him as he left.

  Chapter 41

  Lucifer drummed the talons of one hand on the red lacquer of his desk, and with his other hand, twiddled the antenna of a little copper box sitting in front of him. A worried demon stood at his side, peering nervously at the speakers that still emitted only the total silence of dead air.

  "I am not pleased by this, Bilgemire," Lucifer said.

  "Agonostis is blocking his thoughts . . . that's all. It isn't a malfunction of the machinery. Although if there is a problem with the soul-scanner, it's Toejam's fault. She designed the main board."