by Мишель Роуэн
Asmo cocked his head, looking at Theo as if for the first time. “You know, you’re very pretty.”
“Pretty?” Theo’s expression soured. “I’m usually called ‘handsome’ or ‘extremely hot.’ But, okay. Thanks.”
“Pretty demon.” Asmo patted his face. “I want you.”
“I’ve, uh. . always preferred women, but. . I suppose I might be open to—” Theo gasped as a stream of black smoke exited Stanley’s mouth and entered his.
TWENTY-SIX
Stanley collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
The demon wheezed and braced himself on his thighs for a moment before straightening up. Then he slid his hands over his now-muscular chest and firm stomach. He reached behind his head and pulled the piece of leather out of his hair and shook it out.
“Way better!” Asmo said. “How absolutely yummy am I now?”
Darrak had a hard time talking at the moment. He kept his arm around Eden. Her fingernails dug into his arm to indicate her current level of stress.
“How can you possess another demon?” he managed. “I never knew that was even possible.”
“He’s on my staff. I might not have created him, but I can control him. Therefore his form is mine to do with as I please. Fun, right?”
“You need to let him go.” Darrak had his problems with Theo, but he couldn’t just turn his back on him now. Theo had tried to help break his curse. He’d stood by Darrak even when confused and dismayed by his behavior lately. As demons went, he was a true friend.
But Asmo didn’t let him go. Instead, he squeezed his eyes shut and held his hands out to his sides. There suddenly was a sound similar to a furnace — a roaring blaze which finished after ten seconds with a sizzling sound.
Asmo opened up his eyes, which were filled with flames for a moment before they darkened to normal. Smoke wafted off his skin in wispy tendrils.
He grinned. “Too late. He’s gone.”
Darrak gaped at him. “What?”
“Remember what I said before about the shell and the yolk? It didn’t take as much energy as I thought it would to fry him up over easy and send him on his way.”
Theo was gone? Just like that?
That was impossible. He couldn’t be gone.
What was this emotion Darrak felt? It didn’t seem all that familiar to him.
It must have been. . grief.
“Darrak. .” Eden said quietly. “We need to get out of here. And we need to get all these people out of here, too.”
Asmo had decimated Theo like he was nothing but a body with no past and no future. A nobody to be discarded to make way for someone more important.
But Darrak still existed. He still had a future. And so did Eden.
Asmo placed a hand over his stomach. “I’m so hungry.”
Eden’s grip tightened on Darrak. “There’s a Greek place next door,” she suggested tightly.
“Oh, ha ha. Shut up, nephilim girl.” He shook his head. “Hey, you’re funny, too, Darrak.”
“I try.”
“If you weren’t tainted with celestial energy, I’d take you back to Hell to entertain me as my jester. I could make you wear funny clothes like an organ grinder’s monkey.”
Darrak summoned up enough strength to push his grief away and deal with the problem at hand. Theo might be gone, but he and Eden weren’t clear of this mess yet. “I don’t come cheap. And I don’t wear little hats.”
Asmo studied him for a long moment. “While I’m in this body, I feel a strange bond toward you. Like we’re bosom buddies.”
“Super,” Darrak said dryly.
“I have an idea and I think it’s a good one. After I finish my meal”—Asmo nodded toward the lounge area filled with waiting human snacks—“I’ll kill your witch. You can possess this bald guy here,” he nudged the unconscious Stanley with his foot. “Then I’ll see if I can burn that celestial energy right out of you.”
“Darrak. .” Eden whispered. “I’m open to suggestions on how you propose to get us out of here. My magic is strong, but—”
“You’re not using your magic,” he said. “There’s no guarantee you could defeat Asmo with it, anyhow.”
“But—”
Darrak shrugged away from her. “You’d do that for me, Asmo? You think it’s the only way I can be restored to my former self?”
Asmo shrugged his broad shoulders. “Dunno. Worth a try though, don’t you think?”
“Don’t listen to him,” Eden said sharply.
Darrak glared at her over his shoulder. “Would you stop nagging me for one minute? It’s really getting old.”
She gasped and her eyes widened with confusion.
“Uh-oh.” Asmo chuckled. “Looks like the angelic honeymoon is over. Always the way with relationships based entirely on lust. They start off with a bang and end with a whimper.”
“We definitely started off with a bang,” Darrak said.
Asmo smiled approvingly. “Now shall we make her whimper?”
Darrak looked at Eden, who gaped at him. He shook his head. “You had to have seen this coming, didn’t you? How can I possibly exist with celestial energy inside of me like this, changing me into this disgusting guilt-feeling, emotional drip?”
“You can’t, that’s how,” Asmo agreed.
“No, I can’t. I want to be who I was. I want to be a demon, fully and completely. And I want to rid myself of everything human that has weighed me down for all of this time.” Darrak’s eyes narrowed on Eden. “And that, I’m afraid, includes you.”
Eden shook her head, but it was barely noticeable. “Don’t do this. You’re better than this.”
“But that’s the problem,” Darrak said. “I don’t want to be better.”
There were tears in her eyes now, and she looked away.
“Going to use your black magic on me now?” he asked. “Maybe my true name so you can boss me around even more than normal?”
“Do you want me to?”
“You know what I want.”
Darrak noticed her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, but he didn’t feel any of her magic in the air yet. She was holding back.
She nodded. “You’re right. I know what you want. After all, you’ve drummed it into my head enough lately, haven’t you? You don’t want to feel this way; you hate it. You want to be a demon, evil to the core and able to go skinny dipping in the lake of fire every morning.”
He almost laughed. “Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”
“I know you hate it here. You try to pretend that you don’t, but it’s obvious to me.” She rubbed a hand under her nose. “Fine. Then do it. Agree with Asmo. Let him kill me and go off and be a demon if that’s what you want so damned much.”
Was she testing him? Pushing him to see if he’d break now that he’d come so far?
She would be sorely disappointed, if that was the case.
“Okay, then. I agree,” he said firmly. Eden visibly paled as he said it.
“Hooray!” Asmo exclaimed. “So happy to hear it!”
Darrak realized the demon lord had dragged Nancy up off the lounge by her hair. She’d been released from whatever spell held her in place so she fought against him now.
“Oh, my God,” Nancy gasped. “What’s going on?”
“Yum.” Asmo sniffed up her neck. “No angel here, that’s for sure. I smell cinnamon and powdered sugar. This won’t take long, Darrak. I just need to reenergize a little bit first.”
He opened his mouth and began to inhale deeper. Nancy let out a frightened scream.
Darrak felt the air begin to energize. This time it was from Eden’s magic, not from Asmo’s. His gaze shot to her.
“We had a deal,” he said. “We shook on it and everything, remember?”
“I guess you’re not the only one who’s a liar in this relationship,” she snapped. Tears streaked down her cheeks. Looked like he’d managed to hurt his little nephilim-slash-black-witch’s feelings.
“Hold tha
t thought for a sec, will you?” he said, and turned toward the body of his former friend. “Sorry, Asmo, looks like this really can’t wait any longer.”
Asmo stopped inhaling Nancy’s energy for a moment. “What can’t wait?”
“This.”
Darrak grabbed him by his long black hair and yanked him forcibly away from Nancy. He grasped the angelheart from his pocket and crammed it into the demon lord’s mouth, as far to the back of Asmo’s throat as he could. Then he held Asmo’s mouth shut, using every last ounce of his strength until he heard the demon gulp.
That was the sound he’d been hoping for.
It didn’t last long. Asmo broke his hold, and Darrak went flying backward and crashed onto a glass cocktail table, breaking it on impact.
Asmo touched his stomach. “What the heck did you just make me swallow?”
Darrak stayed where he was on the floor for a moment, amongst the shattered glass. “Diamonds are a demon’s best friend.”
Asmo gasped. “A — a diamond? That’s not even funny. What was the point?” After a second, he touched his chest. “Oh. . okay, wait. That burns a little bit. It almost feels like. . like. .”
“Like angel juice, straight up?” Darrak slowly got to his feet. “Yeah, there’s a really good reason for that. You’ll find that having a body does have its downside. When you’re incorporeal, you can’t easily be hurt. But in a body — even a demonic one — well, that’s a whole other story.”
“Angels? I hate angels.” Asmo looked incredibly confused.
A fine white line appeared on his forehead, slowly snaking its way across his stolen skin. He touched it gingerly. Then another on his cheek and chin. The lines traveled down his throat and down his arms under the black shirt to his hands.
“What is this?” Asmo asked, looking down at himself. “What did you do to me? I thought you agreed to my plan?”
“Yeah, about that,” Darrak said. “I guess it’s not the first time I lied today. Sorry about that.”
“Do you want to be this way? You’re tainted. You’ll never be able to step foot in Hell again without drawing attention to yourself. You’ll be destroyed if you ever try.”
Darrak nodded. “One problem at a time.”
Everywhere the lines had appeared on Asmo’s skin, light began to pour through like cracks on the surface of a volcano. His eyes widened and light poured out from there as well. It didn’t take long before his entire body, stolen from Theo, was bathed in bright white light like a star about to go supernova.
“Get down,” Darrak yelled at Eden.
She didn’t hesitate. She scrambled to get behind the nearest leather armchair.
Darrak shielded his eyes. Even he was bothered by light this bright and pure.
There was a loud crackling sound, like a thunderbolt, and the next moment the light extinguished completely.
Something solid and heavy hit the floor with a thump. It was the black diamond. It lay exactly where Asmo had stood a moment before.
The demon lord had left the building. And the universe as well.
Stanley blinked, stretched, and pushed himself up off the floor. He peered around cautiously. “Did something major just go down here?”
“You could say that,” Darrak said. “Do me a favor and help get these people out of here, okay?”
The zombies were no longer zombielike. They shifted and stretched as if they were coming out of a deep sleep. Otherwise, they all looked healthy enough, if a bit confused.
“Where’s Theo?” Stanley asked, turning around in a circle to check the rest of the club.
“Gone,” Darrak said simply.
“Oh.” Stanley nodded, as if he understood that gone truly meant gone for good. Then he ran over to Nancy and helped her up to her feet. They embraced.
Together they helped usher the trance-free regulars from Luxuria out of the club.
Darrak finally looked at Eden. She was staring at him with shock.
“What?” He shrugged. “You honestly thought I was going to let him kill you?”
“I didn’t think so.” She pushed her long hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ears. “But I. . I didn’t know for sure.”
He nodded. He wasn’t surprised by that. What did he expect? That she’d give him the benefit of the doubt after how he’d been acting lately? All “when the curse is broken I’ll be evil again! Yippy!”?
Trust had to be earned. And he sure as hell hadn’t earned any from her.
Eden stared at him for a moment longer, then walked toward him. He wasn’t sure if he should expect a kiss or a slap. He got neither.
She leaned over and picked up the diamond and then turned to her left.
“You,” she said. She didn’t sound surprised.
Someone else was there. Darrak hadn’t even noticed him enter the club.
Lucas stood at the far end of the bar. “Hope you don’t mind that I followed you here. Missed most of the drama, but then again, the day is still young.”
His gaze moved to Darrak, and he saw it clearly in the Prince of Hell’s very human eyes.
He was going to be destroyed.
And there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Eden hadn’t even gotten a chance to catch her breath and process everything that had happened. She’d been on the verge of using her magic to try to stop Asmodeus. She would have tried to stop Darrak as well, feeling he was lost to her.
But he’d been playing a game.
Eden did wish she hadn’t doubted him, but she had. And that was just the way it was.
It hadn’t been a fabulous week, to say the least.
“Is that it?” Lucas asked, nodding at the diamond.
She held it out to him. “Here you go, one black diamond delivered as per our agreement.”
He took it from her and held it in his palm as if weighing it.
“There’s a problem,” he said.
Yeah, she already knew that.
“Oh?” She feigned surprise anyhow.
“It’s already been used to destroy Asmodeus. I did manage to catch the last-minute fireworks to prove that the angelheart does indeed work as advertised. Certainly not a huge loss to the Netherworld. Never liked the guy. However, now it won’t work again. The power is gone. It’s only a pretty paperweight now, isn’t it?”
Eden glanced at Darrak. He stood watching their discussion, and he didn’t look as panicked as she felt, or fearful, or anything. No, he looked oddly calm.
Thanks for the support, she thought, wracking her mind to figure out what to do or say next.
Something Lucifer said came back to her then.
“You’re very lucky that I always hold true to the exact wording of my bargains.”
“Our deal was for the black diamond,” Eden said then, firmly. “You didn’t say the angelheart specifically. I’ve delivered the black diamond.”
Lucas looked at her without speaking for a while. It was uncomfortable. Eden willed herself to remain calm.
“Did I say the black diamond, not the angelheart?” he asked.
“I have a feeling you remember exactly what you said.”
“You’re right. I do.”
“And you said you always stick to the exact wording of your bargains.”
“I said that, too, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
Lucas’s lips curved. “Tricky, aren’t you?”
Eden didn’t feel very tricky. She was just doing what had to be done. “You will release my mother’s soul, right?”
He curled his fingers around the diamond and slipped it into the inner chest pocket of his jacket. “A deal’s a deal.”
“Thank you.” Eden finally allowed herself a measure of relief and braved another look at Darrak, before returning her attention to Lucas.
Lucas touched under her chin and brought her gaze up to meet his own. “I haven’t forgotten about the second part of our deal, either.”
“There’s a second part?” Darr
ak asked warily.
Lucas smiled. “Why, yes, there is.”
Hope sparked inside her chest. “That’s right. You’re going to help me and Darrak.”
“Well, I believe the exact words were that I would fix things and make it so Darrak no longer has to possess you. That is what you agreed to, remember?”
“Of course. But, I. .” Eden felt a strange sinking sensation. “But, of course I meant that I wanted his curse to be broken so he could have his body back all the time and everyone would live happily ever after.”
“Right. Well, you should have been a bit more specific, then. But it’s your lucky day, Eden. I can make it so he no longer possesses you. I’d be happy to destroy him for you.”
Destroy him?
Lucas had called her tricky. She thought she’d gotten away with something — only giving him the black diamond, but making him stick to his deal to release her mother’s soul, but. .
He was tricky, too. Although, that really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to her.
“It’s okay, Eden,” Darrak said quietly. “This couldn’t have ended any other way.”
She could barely breathe. She moved as if in slow motion toward the spot where Darrak stood, but it was too late.
The next moment, Darrak convulsed and dropped to his knees. His face was strained, and when he looked up at her, his eyes were filled with agony before flames filled them. He was burning from the inside out.
“Don’t. . come. . near me,” he bit out. His entire body shuddered.
“You’re hurting him!” Eden yelled.
“That’s sort of the point,” Lucas said. He hadn’t even broken a sweat yet. “I’m returning him to his base parts. A bit of hellfire and some magic. Shouldn’t take too long.”
“You have to stop!”
“But this is what you wanted.”
“No, it’s not!”
“Then you really should have been more specific.”
Eden collapsed next to Darrak as he suffered this torture in near silence. She reached to touch his face but pulled her hand back the moment she made contact. His skin burned like fire.
“I’m sorry,” Darrak managed, before a tremor went through him. “I should have told you that Asmo killed the women. I should have told you about Graham. But I didn’t want you to try to get revenge. It was too dangerous.”