Payable On Death: A Jax Rhodes Novel, Book One (The Jax Rhodes Series 1)

by Rachel Rawlings

  "What if she wasn’t? What if she wasn't crazy?" Dane was right, he hadn't done anything to hurt Joan, not really, not if she wasn't aware of the ruse. I plunged ahead before he made arguments about Joan's diagnosis. "Look, my life is full of demons. Riddled with them, in fact. Five years ago, I… five years ago...." I stumbled on the words, my tongue suddenly tied and unable to say I'd sold my soul.

  "Jax, we all have our demons. You're human—I'd be more worried if you didn't. You can't let what some mentally disturbed woman said to you mess with your head."

  "I'm not speaking metaphorically." I paused as Sal approached with our dinner, not wanting the waiter to overhear and waited for him to set the plates down. No sense in more people thinking I'm nuts. He sprinkled our plates with fresh Parmesan which gave me a moment to think. Sal walked away and I switched tactics. "Have you ever heard of the Elioud?"

  "The what?" Dane eyed the pasta with skepticism, clearly still a little uncomfortable with the name. "I feel like this meal borders on blasphemy."

  "The story goes, the thick pasta was too much for the delicate priests and monks in the monastery. They would choke trying to eat it. What about the Nephilim, have you heard of them?"

  Dane was right, this sucked for dinner conversation. Not that I was going to let up. He’d offered to help—genuine or not, I needed someone to talk through this with me.

  "Isn't that like some half-breed of angels and people?" Dane shoved a fork full of pasta into his mouth, his eyes closing for a moment as the perfect combination of tomatoes and spices hit his tongue. "This is so good."

  "So you've heard of them. What else do you know about them?"

  "Is this what Joan was telling you? Some crazy story about half-angels running around Baltimore? She was sick, Jax. I know it's hard to witness something like that, believe me, but there's no point in driving yourself mad trying to make sense of what she said."

  "Well, if someone told you the Devil chose you above all others, it might give you pause."

  "Is that what she said?" He stifled a laugh. "Come on, Jax, you don't honestly believe that. Do you?"

  "What if I told you I know firsthand the Devil exists?" I watched him evaluate what I said, clearly deciding whether or not to excuse himself and never come back.

  "If you told me you knew the Devil was real, I would probably ask you how." Dane leaned across the table, his voice lower when he spoke again. "Do you think the Devil is real?"

  "Don't patronize me. If you want to go then go, just don't mock me.”

  "How do you know, Jax? How do you know the Devil exists?"

  "Because I sold my soul to him when I was seventeen and demons have haunted me ever since."

  "The other night in the alley?"

  "And tonight."

  "Tonight?" Concern or perhaps fear tainted Dane's otherwise handsome face. It wasn't pity but it wasn't belief either.

  "You saw one take off from the alley. I know you did."

  "So much for not needing to be saved," Dane muttered, before rubbing a hand across his face. "Look, I did some checking up on you. I know about your mom and your stepfather. If you're talking about the night your mother killed him... if someone else was there, this man you think was the Devil, you should be talking to a detective. Did you even tell anyone about this?"

  "I'm telling you."

  Dane let that sink in for a minute, the weight of what I'd just told him causing his shoulders to slump. I'd never shared my side of the story with anyone. And now he knew.

  "Okay, okay." He let out a deep breath. "Start from the beginning."

  I spent the next thirty minutes baring my heart and mind to a man I barely knew, stopping occasionally for a sip of wine to fortify my courage. Before I knew it, I was on my third glass and had spilled all my secrets. I'd told him things I'd never told another human being, things my mother didn't know, even though she should. With the anvil I'd been carrying around finally gone from verbally shedding my burden, I poured another glass of wine to celebrate, polishing off the bottle.

  Dane waved Sal over to the table to let him know we were done. Both plates remained relatively untouched. Dane slipped him two one hundred dollar bills, reassuring him everything was delicious but the wine had caught up with me and he felt it best to take me back home. Without waiting for the check or boxes to wrap up our food, we left the restaurant to head back to my apartment.

  "I really wanted that pasta. You couldn't have waited a couple minutes for a doggy bag?" Once I'd stood up, I felt every ounce of wine I'd had. This was why I stuck with ciders or spirits. Wine sneaks up on you. Before you know it, the bottle is gone and you're hammered.

  "Call me crazy, I thought your apartment might actually be a better place than the kitchen of an Italian restaurant to talk about demons."

  "Just forget it, okay? If we keep talking about this, you're going to call me crazy. Can we just forget I said anything and go back to the part where you were kissing me in the hallway?"

  "I don't think you're crazy. I think you were a kid, pretty much on your own, and scared. I think you blocked a lot of that night out of your mind and in an attempt to deal with the rest of the memories of what happened created this devil character to explain away what your mother did."

  "Why couldn't we just go back to the kissing?" I counted to ten before I continued, hoping it would stem the tide of my temper. It didn't. "And the rest of the demons? Tell me about them, Doctor Freud. What about the one that attacked me, did my fractured mind make that up, too? You saw him. I know you did. Just like you saw the bruises on my face. You're the one making up bullshit excuses to explain away what their mind can't handle."

  "Stop. Jax, wait. I'm sorry, I'm trying to understand. I really am." Dane reached for me, trying to grab my arm when I started to walk away.

  I jerked out of reach. "I knew this would happen. Deep down, I knew you'd be like everyone else."

  "I'm not like everyone else, Jax. Please, let’s just talk this out."

  I left him standing outside LaScala and went home.

  TWELVE

  A trail of clothes from the door to the dresser in my bedroom marked my path, making changing into pajamas that much easier since I was basically naked by the time I pulled open the drawer. I'd barely slipped on a tank top before the pounding started on my door. Figuring it was Dane trying to smooth over what he'd said and make amends, I took my sweet time answering. The banging persisted until I swung open the door.

  "Dane, I think we've said enough for one night. Tommy? What are you doing here?" I hadn't expected the swell of disappointment when I realized it wasn't Dane at all. "It's late, does your mom know you're here?"

  Tommy forced his way into my apartment, slamming the door behind him. "You were with him again. I can smell the Sin Eater on you. How can you find redemption if you continue to choose the wrong path?"

  "Sin Eater? What the hell are you talking about? What's going on?" How did Tommy even know about my quest for redemption? I was so confused and it had nothing to do with the bottle of wine I’d drank.

  "Did you confess your sins to him? Did he promise you entrance to Heaven?" Tommy's voice filled the room and had me backing up a step.

  "Tommy, calm down. Tell me what's going on."

  "Don't placate me like the woman in the shelter. You are diverting from the path."

  "Who are you and what have you done with the smartass teenager I used to know?"

  Tommy moved closer, the light casting bizarre shadows in the shape of wings behind him.

  "Do not stray, Jax. Or you will truly be forsaken. Your mother has the answers you seek. I suggest you pay her a visit."

  Tommy's advice sounded pretty good. In fact, it sounded a lot like the plan I already had. I was about to tell him as much when he disappeared. Like evaporated. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars, just gone.

  The television flipped to the multicolored bars and blared the deafening tone to let you know you'd stayed up until there was literally n
othing left to watch. The station alarm scared the hell out of me and I fell off the couch and on the floor like a sack of potatoes.

  What the hell was in that wine? It felt like the full Baltimore Symphony Orchestra percussion section was practicing inside my skull and I had absolutely no idea how I ended up in my living room.

  I remembered coming home after a disappointing dinner or lack thereof with Dane, changing into my pajamas, and that was about it. I must have turned on the TV and passed out on the couch. Flashes of weird dreams ran through my head as I fixed a pot of coffee. I washed down two aspirin with the first cup, shivering when the uncoated tablets dissolved on the back of my tongue. I'd never dreamed about Tommy before. Man, it felt so real.

  The tenor of his voice, the size, everything was off. Tommy was just a kid and the person in my dreams was a man with Tommy's face, like Tommy in ten years. My subconscious was obviously trying to remind me of the talk I needed to have with him. I wasn't exactly sure what my subconscious meant by giving him wings. At least my conscious mind understood the part about visiting my mother.

  Regular visiting hours weren't for a couple of days— this visit wouldn't be at a table in the open room for families. It probably wasn't a bad idea for us to be separated by a pane of glass this time.

  The guard walked me to the booth at the end of the row where I waited for my mother, twirling the phone cord around my finger to kill time. She took her sweet time gracing me with her presence. All the guilt, all the remorse over the choices I'd made, vanished the moment she walked through the door and sat down on her side of the booth.

  My mother saw it, too.

  With all the grace and dignity of a woman at Sunday service, my mom sat ramrod straight in her chair, her hand on the receiver, waiting for me to pick up on my end.

  "Jacqueline."

  "Mother."

  "You finally know."

  "No thanks to you."

  "So you met Joan. She finally found you. Your mother is a relentless woman. I'll give her that." A sly smile worked its way across her face, never quite reaching her eyes. They remained cold and lifeless.

  "What? What did you say?"

  "Did I stutter, dear? My sweet, innocent sister Joan. She went completely insane while she was pregnant with you. You drove your birth mother mad in less than nine months. I suppose I should be grateful you took your time with me."

  "She was your sister?"

  The woman who sat across from me looked and sounded like the woman who'd raised me, fed and clothed me, but I didn't know her at all. I stared at her in disbelief and the evil inside her stared back.

  "What do you mean was? Is Joanie dead?"

  For a moment, the woman I knew broke through, much like Joan had her moment of lucidity before she died and I saw the resemblance for the first time.

  "Is my sister dead?"

  "She killed herself."

  "You're a liar. My sister wouldn't kill herself. After she fell for the half-angel and wound up pregnant with you, even after the first dream of demons and the first time an angel spoke to her, she just prayed harder. The doctors just thought she'd had some sort of mental breakdown when your father died. They believed in science, not the supernatural. They refused to believe she'd been touched by Heaven. Joanie knew and she clung to her beliefs.” She clasped her hands in mock prayer.

  “So you see, my sister wouldn't kill herself. She wouldn't commit the ultimate sin and turn away from the one person she believed loved her. Unless.... Sin Eater. No, he wouldn't dare." She slammed her right hand on the table, her left still firmly grasping the receiver.

  A guard stepped away from the wall he'd been leaning on, ready to end our conversation and take her back to her cell, when she reassured him everything was fine. She told him she'd just learned her sister died and she was distraught, promising not to make a scene if he let her continue to visit with her daughter. The crocodile tears stopped the second she turned to face me again.

  "Who is the Sin Eater?" I'd heard that name before in my dream. Tommy said I was with him. It didn't make sense earlier but it couldn't be a coincidence. I had to find out who or what he was.

  She ignored my question, rambling on about her master and her betrayal instead.

  "He told me to take you, told me to raise you like my own, and I would be provided for. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind; however, I am a patient woman. I passed every test set before me, each vile creature who laid his hands on me and then laid in bed beside me. And so did you. You passed his one and only test. You came to him so easily, so willingly."

  "I did it to save you."

  "You did it to save yourself. By then, you were filled with hate and resentment. Be honest with yourself for once because when you die, which will be soon I think, you will be his, body and soul. And I will finally get what's coming to me."

  "Oh, you'll get what's coming to you. As soon as you step outside these walls, you'll get what's coming to you."

  "As powerful as you are wicked." My aunt, the woman who’d pretended to be my mother, who dragged me from one abusive home to another just to soften me up for her master, smiled and this time it was genuine.

  "You are the last and he has waited for you for so long. He's always been there, you know, watching from the shadows. You're his favorite—he's saved a place for you by his side. I thought you'd realize this once the church denied you but even then you refused to see the truth. Stop denying him, stop denying yourself."

  I hung up the phone and stood. She kept talking. The glass muffled her words and I didn't care enough to read her lips. There was nothing left for her to say. I walked away from her for the last time mourning the mother I thought I had and the real mother I’d never known.

  The last bus back to Fells pulled up as the sun set behind the prison. After paying my fare, I made my way to the last seat and wedged myself into the corner of the back of the bus, my feet dangling off the edge. I slipped my earbuds in, shuffling through my iPod for a playlist that matched my mood. I doubted one existed and settled on playing Wrong Side of Heaven by Five Finger Death Punch on repeat. It seemed apropos.

  Night unfolded over the city, casting buildings into shadow, offering safe haven to creatures who preyed upon the innocent. Two scurried deeper into the darkness when I got off at my stop, no doubt following me home, so I decided to follow them instead. I'd been a pawn in a game where everyone knew the rules except me. And I was tired of it.

  I was the freakish offspring of an angel half-breed. I was damned. According to my so-called mother, I was powerful. It was time to see if she'd spoken the truth for once in her miserable life and two perfect test subjects just dodged down the alleyway beside my apartment.

  I'd banished my share of demons. I wasn't in the praying mood. I wanted to hit something and the gym was closed. A few days before I wouldn't have thought about fighting two demons in alley but a lot can happen in a week. I'd gone toe to toe with Lazarus. Sure, he beat my ass, but I'd gotten a couple good shots in and that was when I thought I was just your everyday sorta girl who happened to have sold her soul to the Devil. Given the knowledge of who I was, I felt a confidence I hadn't before.

  Probably too confident.

  The demons moved deeper into the darkness. The abutment created by the buildings provided the perfect place for them to lure me in. Only one way in or out. The moon peeked out from the clouds, providing just enough light for me to see their eyes. Unable to take any weapons into the prison, I’d left my brass knuckles and billy-bat on the kitchen counter when I left the apartment. Armed with only my fists and the fighting skills I'd picked up at the gym, I advanced.

  Two on one. Not the best odds—not that I cared. The first came at me in its true form, razor sharp claws and teeth. Salvia dripped from its mouth, running down its blackened skin. The charred flesh cracked and flaked off, exposing the hell fires that burned inside, fueling its powers before the skin regenerated. The beast ran at me and with an aikido move I'd picked up from one of t
he MMA guys training at the gym, I tossed the demon into the side of the building on my left.

  I had less than a second to recover before the other demon made a move. It scurried up the wall like a wharf rat, small chunks of brick and mortar falling to the ground as its nails dug in. Hind legs coiled, it lunged, trying to take me down. I attempted to dodge right, hoping the creature would overshoot and crash into the building where I'd tossed his partner, and came up short. It latched onto my back, grabbing my hair and pulling hard.

  Staggering from the added weight and jerking of my head, I used the momentum and smashed the demon into the side of the building behind us. Its nails dug into my scalp, sending small trickles of blood down my neck. I had to get that son of a bitch off before it fingered my brain. Leaning forward and then back, I slammed the demon into the wall, repeating the process a few times until it finally let go of my head.

  Its partner stood up from the trash littering the alleyway and came at me. I threw a few right elbow jabs into the side of the demon still latched onto me while blocking a strike from the other with my left arm. Claws raked down my forearm, shredding my jacket and my skin. Blood flowed from the wounds. Clenching a fist to ensure I could still make one, I forced myself to push through the pain. Injuries would be assessed and treated later.

  Something moved above us, leaping from one rooftop to the other. The demons watched it pass overhead and something close to fear crept into their eyes. I took advantage of the momentary distraction, kicking the demon in front of me between the legs as hard as I could. It dropped to its knees, clutching my leg on the way down. The demon on my back bit my shoulder, its teeth scraping my collar bone.

  My legs buckled, finally giving under the extra weight and pain. I went down hard on my knees. Bent over, out of breath and strength, with one demon relentlessly perched on my back and the other poised to separate my head from my body, I wasn't sure I'd make it out alive. Part of me wondered if that wasn't for the best.