by Raquel Lyon
Thank Christ. “So, he’s alive?”
“For now—although I hear he’s not having too good a time of it at the moment. I expect him to be joining me very soon.”
“And how much of a hand have you had in that?”
“You want to know whether I’m behind the Lovell apocalypse.”
Like it was up for debate. “I’m thinking it’s a safe bet.”
“Interesting place... your brain,” he said, skirting around the subject again. “Strong. Resistant. Not easy to bend to my will.”
Every part of me tensed as I stepped over to the opposite side of the desk. I braced my hands on it and leaned across. “I knew it. You’ve been in there the whole time, haven’t you, determined to scupper my happiness. Why couldn’t you just leave me be?”
A small laugh rumbled from his lips, then increased in intensity as he spoke. “Does it not impress you how easily I can play with your life?”
“You’re not funny. None of this is.”
“I beg to differ. I find it intensely amusing.” He waved a hand over a slab of stone on the desk to reveal lines of vivid green writing in a language I’d never come across before. “Ever wondered whether you’re still dead? Whether, though apparently alive, you never actually left here and have been walking around in your own personal Hell for the last two months?”
The glint in his eye left a sour taste in my mouth. I swallowed it and narrowed my eyes. “Are you saying that I am?”
“I couldn’t say either way. That would spoil the fun, and I’m having far too much of it watching you squirm.”
“You’re sick, dude, and I’m not falling for it. I did my time. I gave you everything you asked for. What do I have to do to get you to stay the hell out of my life?” I slammed my fist beside the stone tablet, but my outburst merely gleaned a nonchalant huff.
“An apt choice of words, but I’ll never be out of your life. You see, I hate losing, and I have an infinite amount of patience when it comes to getting what I want. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can beat me and get away with it.”
“My mistake was thinking you’d be a man of your word.”
“Oh, I always stick to my word—though I’m very careful over the ones I choose to include… or omit.” He ran a finger down the side of the text as if he were reading it as he spoke.
“Have you ever planned to keep to a deal you make?” I asked.
“Um… let me see. I’m sure there must have been at least one time…” He glanced up at me, and then walked from behind the desk to the edge of the room. Only then did I notice a body lying in the corner. The Devil stared down at it, studying the silent screams that contorted its mouth as a tiny hellhound fed on its flesh. “Good boy. Slowly… like I taught you. That’s right.” He smiled at his pet, and then walked back to me. “No, I can’t say that I remember. But then, most deals tend to work out in my favour. That little job I gave you, for instance, usually ends well.”
Of course. “You thought I’d maybe dispatch a few demons, then slip up and end up back here. You never expected me to survive at all, did you?”
“Why would I? It’s been centuries since another gleaner succeeded.”
“Yeah? And what happened to him?”
“Her. Tough cookie, that one. Filled her hound in record time. So delicious to see her later succumb to madness and take her own life. Her tortured soul was back with me before the year was out.”
“And you were hoping I’d suffer the same fate.”
“I had looked forward to a similar outcome, yes. Your soul isn’t clean, and it pleases me greatly how easily you fell for my lie that it was. You’re a dark creature, Connor Lovell, a murderer. Your soul belongs down here just as much as any other. And so did the ones you denied me. Those people you saved along the way should all have been mine. It was their time. Do you imagine, for one minute, there is no order in this world, that I rule it in a haphazard way? I do not. There is a schedule to keep. Your heroics disrupted that schedule—which forced a slight change of plan to get it back on track.”
“And so you made sure that everyone died anyway.”
“As I said, it was their time, and an opportunity arose that simply allowed me to put them back on the right path.”
“In front of more escapees?”
“Precisely.”
“And then you had a new gleaner clear up the mess.”
“Nice and tidy, don’t you think?”
“Where’s the gleaner now?”
“Sadly, he didn’t make it. Failed to reach his quota, you see.”
“He should take it from me; he’s probably better off. So… Have you got the Scourge Pit fired up all nice and hot? I presume that’s where I’m heading?”
“Not today.” He returned to the desk and looked down at the slab again. “That particular joy will have to be postponed—maybe indefinitely. It is your lucky day, Connor Lovell. Today, there is an alternative.”
“Oh, no. No more deals. You might as well throw me into the fire, straight away, if you think I’m going down that road again.”
“Too late, I’m afraid. The deal has already been sealed. Even if you were dead right now, I would have no power to hold you. It turns out that someone values your life more than theirs.”
“Excuse me?”
“Their soul in exchange for yours.”
“And you accepted?”
“Naturally. Rarely am I offered a pure soul to procure and pollute, and a prize such as that… Well, how could I refuse?”
“Who would do such a thing?” Panic rose in my throat as Sophie’s image flashed before me. Was giving up her soul part of the deal she refused to talk about?
The Devil’s grin stretched wide, but he remained silent as I stared him down, and then raised a brow with impatience.
He rounded the desk and placed an arm around my shoulders to steer me over to the wall of fire. “You aren’t seriously awaiting an answer,” he said as we neared it.
“Actually, I was.”
“How unfortunate, then, that it is time for you to return topside.” The flames parted, and a sharp jab between my shoulder blades accompanied the final sentence he shouted as he propelled me forward. “Don’t take what happens next too hard.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
My eyes eased open, and I stared at the face towering over me as it suddenly occurred to me what the Devil had meant by family reunions.
Her face was older, and her dark hair held the first traces of grey, but there was no mistaking the eyes looking down at me. They might have lost their youth and sparkle, but they were undeniably the same eyes that had caused me much consternation over the years.
“Hello, Connor,” she said.
A glint of metal caught my eye: the dagger that had pierced through Sophie’s chest in my dream, only this time it was aimed at my heart and being held by the woman who had given birth to me. “You? You’re behind all of this?”
“I had to see you.”
Careful to keep both eyes firmly on her as I did it, I hurriedly bottom-shuffled away from the dagger and stood up. I was back in the hallway of the Towers as if my meeting with the Devil had all been a dream. Had it?
“See me?” I turned my back, unable to look at the woman who’d abandoned me as a baby and only returned to have her merry band of fuckwits murder the people I cared about. I had to think. It didn’t add up. I’d been brought up to believe my mother was a deeply religious woman. How could she have any connection to the Devil? “You’ve had twenty-six years since you gave me up to knock on that front door, like any normal person would have.”
“I never gave you up, not willingly. You were stolen from me.”
I spun back, deciding it was better to keep the enemy in sight, because that was what she was, mother or not. “That’s not what I was told.”
“Then you were misinformed. Unsurprising, really, considering the lengths taken to keep us apart.”
“What lengths?”
&nb
sp; “This isn’t the time or the place for a heart-to-heart. We have work to do.” She stroked the dagger with far too much affection for my liking.
“We? We won’t be doing anything together. Don’t even think about including me in any part of your sick plans. This is my family!”
“I am the only family you need now, and we have years of missed life to catch up on.”
My brain screamed for me to wipe the murdering scum from existence, but my heart held me back. After two decades of wondering who my mother was and how she could abandon me, I deserved an explanation. I faced up to her and nailed her with a cold stare. “Listen, lady. Unless you want me to kill you where you stand, you’d better start talking, because none of what you’re doing makes any sense.”
She paused for a second, then lowered the blade slowly. “All right. If you insist. I’m sure my men will have the situation contained by now.”
Don’t bank on it crossed my mind as she averted her gaze and took a long breath. The Devil had already told me that Seb was still alive. If that were the case, her men would not be having as easy a time of it as she thought. Of that, I was sure.
“When my parents found out I was pregnant,” she began, “they were ashamed to call me their daughter and forced me into a nunnery. There, I was treated like a slave until the moment you were born and subsequently ripped from my side before I even knew whether I’d given birth to a boy or a girl.”
Her story was in complete contrast to the tale my father had told me about her putting me up for adoption. The nunnery part kind of made sense, but… “Don’t tell me you’re trying for the sympathy vote?”
“Merely stating the truth.”
I supposed her story could have been possible, and I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, however much it stunk of overkill. “You didn’t see me at all?”
“All I was told was that my baby had gone to a good family and would have a better life without me.”
Also possible. “Go on.”
Lines deepened on her forehead as she reminisced. “You might think that would have been the end of my suffering, but no. My parents refused to take me back and left me to rot in that terrible place. I lost count of how many years I was in there. Every day was the same round of prayers and cruel punishments for my sin. I prayed to God to save me, to tell me what to do, but when I realised he wasn’t listening, I stopped trying. Gradually, my hope turned to a hatred for the religion that had previously been my life, and then all I could think about was plotting my escape.”
Part of me wanted to empathise, but I didn’t know the woman, and the way her finger circled the dagger’s tip as she talked reminded me that I was dealing with a psychopath and stole any compassion that might have been nibbling at my conscience. “Which you managed, clearly.”
“Eventually, yes. One day, I hid among the waste and let the refuse collectors take me to the city dump. I had nothing and no one. For months, I lived on other people’s scraps before I was found and taken in by a kind woman. I told her my story, and she said she knew of someone who would help me to find my child. I thought she meant someone like a private investigator, but she went on to explain that she was a demon who worked for the Devil.”
“And that didn’t strike you as odd? Unbelievable? Ridiculous?”
“Of course it did. I thought she was joking and that fate had been cruel to me once more, sending me hope only to dash it again. But her face remained serious, and she had been good to me, so I listened to what she had to say. After all, you don’t spend years serving God without believing in Satan, too. She showed me her true face and, over the following few weeks, told me many stories of the supernatural world. She painted the Devil as a benevolent and misunderstood figure whom she was most insistent could help me, and because I was beyond desperate to know who you were and that you were safe and happy, I agreed to meet him.”
“I think I can guess how that went.”
“I’m sure you can. He told me that you and he were well acquainted, and that he would be willing to disclose your identity in exchange for a deal.”
“And you believed him?”
“I had no reason not to.”
“So you made the deal.”
“No. Not at first. When he requested my soul plus a thousand others, I refused. To see my child, I would have sacrificed my own soul in a heartbeat, but as angry as I was with God for deserting me, I couldn’t deny a thousand innocent people their chance at paradise.”
“He must have put up a compelling argument for you to change your mind.”
“He did. He told me he required specific souls, none of whom were innocent, and that every one of them belonged with him and had evaded his clutches because of you.”
“That dude has a twisted way of looking at things.”
“He went on to explain what you were and how you had interfered with his plans, and that if I corrected your mistake, he would relinquish his claim on your soul and you would find me. But if I refused to comply, he would ensure that not only my child suffered for all eternity, but my grandchild, too.”
“He mentioned a grandchild?”
“Yes. Seth. And for added inducement, I was shown a vision of him. Such a sweet little boy. So pure. I had to save him from the evil in this world.”
So, Seth was my son. I’d been ninety-nine percent sure he had to be, but now I knew for certain. Damn it. Why was nothing in my life easy?
“The Devil was lying, like he always does,” I said. “Seth is only one-quarter werewolf, and the Devil can’t claim his soul without it being tainted first.”
“But he could make sure that it would be. And with a mother like Charlotte, neglecting her responsibilities and exposing him to dangers, it would only be a matter of time. Seth deserves better than her.”
“Is that why you kidnapped him?”
“Kidnapped.” She jerked forward with a derisive laugh. “He’s my grandson. I’m saving him.”
“Is that what you’ve told yourself? Can’t you see that you’re just as bad as those nuns? You don’t take a child from his mother for no reason.”
“Your father did.”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I told you you’d been misinformed. After I’d agreed to the deal, I learned how your father was the real force behind my suffering. He stole you from me.”
No. My father had taken me in to prevent me from being adopted by a human family. He’d told me. I knew he hadn’t really wanted a child, but our kind stuck together; that’s just how it was. “You’re lying.”
“Am I? Why don’t you ask your father to tell you how he had my parents enchanted into believing their daughter was evil? That’s the real reason they wouldn’t take me back.”
“I guess you proved them right… about the evil thing.”
“I’m no different to you.”
“You’re a murderer!”
“So are you.”
“That’s different. Where is my son?”
“Safe. Away from all this. And when my job here is done, we will return to him.”
The woman seriously had a screw loose. “Just out of curiosity, how do you see that going?”
“You have to realise I’m doing all this for you. For us. Once I’ve dispatched the last soul, we can be a family: you, me, and Seth.”
“My family is here.”
“You call this a family? This is nothing but a bunch of monsters and misfits.”
“Maybe. But I’m a monster, too, and they’re my misfits.”
“Not anymore. Now it’s your turn to be saved.”
“I don’t need saving. I was doing perfectly fine before you came along.”
“Were you? Were you really? Or were you just living in denial?”
A slow, muffled scraping noise resonated from somewhere to my left, and I flung my head around.
“What was that?”
“The sound of my men doing their job, I expect,” she said calmly as the dining room door burst o
pen.
A demon with glowing emerald eyes strode through the opening and bared his rotten teeth at me as he slammed the door behind him, and then approached the woman at my side. “All done as ordered, boss,” he grunted. “You coming before the vamp rips out the rest of their necks?”
Seeing him, it suddenly dawned on me how stupid I’d been. While I’d asked for an explanation, somehow I’d envisaged it being shorter, and until now, it hadn’t occurred to me that I’d wasted time standing here listening to my mother’s long-winded bullshit when anything could have been happening in that room. Call it a hunch, but part of me suspected she might have had an ulterior motive to cause the delay.
“What have you done? Who have you got in there?” I demanded.
The demon opened his mouth to reply, but his boss raised her hand and placed it on my shoulder. “Why don’t we take a look?” she said.
Time seemed to stop as we crossed the short distance to the dining room. Anxiety over what might await me stabbed at my insides. The clunk of my boots echoed all the way up to the top floor staircase and mingled with the throbbing pulse constricting my throat. It had been hours since my last drink, and I swallowed hard in an attempt to force the dryness down as our demon escort flung open the door.
My gaze shot to Sophie, and my heart almost stopped. She was alive! But then my breaths came heavy and fast at the sight of her battered and bruised human face. Had she been forced to transform? I gritted my teeth to prevent cursing out loud and tore my gaze away from her to quickly assess the rest of the room.
To say I was floored at seeing so many of my loved ones alive after I was certain they’d bitten the dust was an understatement, even if they were all tied up like chickens for the pot. I tried to find a positive in the fact that they remained flesh and blood, but all I saw were negatives.
The dining chairs had been pulled out from the table and placed in a long row. Each one of them held a member of my family with their ankles bound and their hands tied behind the chair backs.
Everyone’s head had turned as I entered: everyone’s but Sebastian’s. His head remained bowed to his chest, his ripped and bloody clothing the evidence of why. He’d certainly had one hell of a number done on him, for him to be bound and stuck in his human skin. I snuck a sideways look at the half-dozen halfwits standing guard over my nearest and dearest and wondered if one of them was the instigator of the beatings. If so, they’d be the first to die—just as soon as I figured out what the blazes was going on.