The Eighth

by Wytovich, Stephanie

  “Specific souls.”

  Paimon should have asked questions, but instead, he dropped to his knees in a fit of admiration and kissed his master’s feet.

  “It would be a privilege to serve you, my lord.”

  Looking back on it now, Paimon shuddered at his decision. He liked to think that had he known what he’d signed on for, he would have walked away. That he would have told the Devil he wasn’t interested in what he offered. But thinking like that is one thing; saying “no” to the Devil is another.

  When the Devil pulled the scroll out from inside of his robe, Paimon gasped. His mother’s voice rang loud in his head, but the severity of the situation overrode her. The parchment was frayed at the sides from the heat the Devil’s touch, and steam climbed the air above it. The Devil rolled the cylinder open and flattened its contents out one of the tables in the gathering hall. He turned to Paimon and handed him a quill.

  “All I need is your signature.”

  As Paimon eyed the contract, the letters seemed to move and reconstruct in patterns that he couldn’t understand. Damn it. Even after centuries in Hell, Paimon didn’t have a good grasp on the old language, and the inscriptions on the page would take him hours to translate, if he could translate them at all. Sweat formed on his brow. If he admitted that he couldn’t read the contract, he might lose his job. Collectors were held in esteem and being illiterate wasn’t acceptable in a position of authority.

  Out of fear for his rank, Paimon grabbed the quill and began to write. Further binding him in his oath, the metal tip drained his blood with each letter he wrote in lieu of ink.

  When he finished, he gave the quill back to his master, and for the second time that day, the Devil laughed.

  Even now, walking the woods on mortal ground, Paimon perceived his mockery. It rang in his head, a shrill cackle, and the thought of hearing that laugh as he plummeted down into the darkness of The Pit made him sick. He didn’t have any options. It wasn’t as if he could run. No matter where he went, the Devil would find him. And if Paimon wasn’t back by dawn, he would come looking.

  Defeated, Paimon made his way back to the portal, and when he closed his eyes, he saw the circle, heard the laughs. Each step proved harder than the last as the darkness of The Pit moved closer. When he cleared the woods, a blinding light pierced his eyes and drew him back to the shadows. What in sin’s name? Headlights. The outline of the truck was obvious now as the lights projected toward the house. But if Caden’s not…

  Paimon smiled as reality set in.

  The game was still on.

  Chapter 9

  Rhea sat with her knees folded underneath her as she stared through the wooden slits of the closet doors. Jayme’s laugh filled the house, and Rhea rolled her eyes at the choir of drunken giggling. Patience. Caden and Jayme made their way up the stairs, not paying any attention to the creaks and sighs of the house. Wait for it. The two of them fell into the room, pulling at each other’s clothes, their mouths hungry for each other. She watched as their tongues explored what was obviously familiar territory Rhea’s hand slid down her navel as sin snuck in between her legs.

  Caden pulled at Jayme’s shirt and Rhea slid out of her jacket. Without taking her eyes off the two of them, she peeled off her blouse and folded it, along with her jacket, in a neat pile next to a mound of dirty laundry. Her nipples, erect from a combination of cold and arousal, hardened as Jayme buried her head in Caden’s lap.

  When Caden closed his eyes to ecstasy, Rhea opened hers to rage. She stood up and kicked off her boots. When Caden started to moan, Rhea stepped out of her jeans and opened the closet doors.

  Everything was red.

  “Mind if I join?”

  Jayme froze and Rhea could see the fear in Jayme’s eyes. Caden’s back instinctively found the wall in panic. When he saw Rhea, naked in front of him while another girl sucked his cock, the lies shot out of his mouth like poison.

  “It’s not what it looks like.”

  Rhea nodded her head. “So she’s not blowing you?”

  “This is the first time, I swear.”

  “I believe you,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “Of course. I love you, Caden, and I want to make you happy,” she said. “I’d do anything for you.” With that, she leaned into Jayme and put her hand on the girl’s shaking cheek. Her skin, hot with tears and passion, made Rhea wet, and she couldn’t help herself. The situation was just too good to pass up. Rhea traced her tongue against the outline of Jayme’s lips. They tasted like whore.

  Jayme pulled back, but Rhea was stronger, more convincing. She tugged at Jayme’s curls, twisted her locks in between her fingers and forced Jayme’s face to hers. Their teeth smacked against each other as Jayme resisted the kiss.

  Rhea laughed and shoved her out of the way. Her body hit the bed like a discarded doll, used up and worthless.

  “Not much of a whore, is she? She doesn’t even know how to play,” said the voice.

  Jayme panted.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “What? Not in the mood anymore?”

  Jayme’s eyes grew sad, scared. She reached out to Rhea, trying to extend some fraction of peace as she covered herself with the sheets.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. For you to find out like this.”

  Rhea rolled her eyes. “Oh for Christ’s sake. I don’t have time for this.”

  She grabbed the gun from under the mattress and shot Jayme in the head before Caden could react. Blood sprayed the walls and blankets, and bits of brain matter collected in Jayme’s curls. Her eyes went blank and her lips stayed parted in mid-apology as her body hit the floor and slunk against the bed.

  “FUCK.” Caden slid down the wall, his hands trembling as they covered his mouth.

  “No, dead chicks don’t really do it for me.”

  Rhea crawled over Jayme’s fresh corpse and stared at Caden down the barrel of the gun. “And I lied about what I said earlier, you know. I have no intention of making you happy.”

  Color drained from his face. His body shriveled up and folded in on itself as the stench of death wafted toward them.

  Rhea smiled as she took a deep whiff of air.

  “Breath it in, Caden. You recognize that smell?”

  “Uh—”

  “That was rhetorical,” she said. “It’s guilt. Something I want you to feel for the rest of your life. When you look in the mirror, you’ll see the face of a murderer, of a man who killed his girlfriend, his lover, his parents.”

  Caden’s eyes swelled and looked like two black olives as her words sank in. Rhea smiled and put the gun to her chin. “I didn’t lie about loving you though. That part was unfortunately true.”

  She closed her eyes and prepared for pain, but Caden moved too fast and he knocked the gun off its angle when she squeezed the trigger. The bullet clipped her throat and her neck squirted blood. It sprayed the walls and dripped down her breasts, painting everything her red. Rhea collapsed on the bed, her hand glued to the wound on her neck.

  It was hot, slick, and she liked the way it moved through her fingers.

  Talk about irony.

  Blood seeped from the corner of Rhea’s mouth.

  But she couldn’t stop laughing.

  Chapter 10

  Caden ran out the garage, fumbling for the keys to his truck. He grabbed his cell phone off the dashboard and punched in 911. “Hello, this is Caden Morrison and—”

  Paimon snapped his neck before he could finish his sentence. The body dropped to the ground like a sack of flour and Paimon nudged him out of the way with his foot. Where is it? Paimon found the phone under the tire, picked it up and crushed it with his hand. Nothing could be left behind. No matter how small.

  A faint light peaked through the trees.

  In less than an hour, the sun would be up.

  Paimon threw open the side door to the house, ripping it off its hinge. Where are you? He searched for Rhea with his mind: ran down h
allways, looked around corners. He had to find her, had to protect himself. Come on, where are you? You have to be here. If he was wrong, if she was already dead…

  But there!

  The connection was weak, but it was enough

  Paimon took the stairs two at a time and ran for the bedroom. Two dead women, still as stone, were spread out on the floor, eyes open, arms limp at their sides.

  Propped against the bed, the one had short, curly brown hair and a bullet hole burned in the middle of her forehead that resembled a ruby, shined and shaped to perfection. Hello, Jayme. Paimon ran his hand over her chest. The girl wore her skin like a blanket of fine silk, but her body, a now empty husk, was already cold. No movement, no life. Her soul had already passed over.

  That left the girl in front of her, the one splayed out on the floor like a chalk outline with blood dripping out her mouth to be…

  Marissa?

  Paimon stumbled over his thoughts. Everything inside told him the girl was Rhea, but the resemblance to his wife was uncanny. She looked different somehow, the same, yet slightly changed. Transformed. Death improved upon her and it had reconstructed an even more beautiful angel, one who Paimon thought he’d killed all those years ago. From the hook of her nose, to the gold flecks in her eyes, she was a mirror image of the woman he loved. Sweet sin, you came back to me. He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and caressed her cheek.

  Her body was still warm.

  “All these years I’ve waited for you. I’ve prayed every day.”

  Paimon fingered his wedding ring.

  The storm that brewed in his chest awakened desires he’d forgotten he had. He yearned for love, lust, companionship. He wanted all that she was and all that she could be.

  And this time, he wouldn’t lose her.

  Not again.

  So he waited.

  Waited for the moment, the split second, when the soul leaves the body and passes over. He wouldn’t give her a chance at Heaven. No. He’d just take her, claim her. And he could tell she was close because the air smelled of baby’s breath and rain. The scent of afterlife.

  Paimon bent over, his chest inches from hers, and inhaled in her scent. Now that’s curious. A sweet musk filled his nostrils with an earthy aroma, a hint of pine. There was something distinct, familiar about it. Where have I smelled that before? Paimon backed away as a growing pit of nausea moved through his stomach.

  Sage. The scent of possession.

  She’d been entered.

  Paimon paced the room, his hands pulling at what little hair he had. Who could have gotten here first? The fact that someone touched his wife, wore her body like a glove, set him spiraling into rage.

  It’s not Marissa.

  It’s not Marissa.

  But it might as well have been. The two were almost identical, and the thought of another man touching Rhea now sent him into a rage. He raked his nails against his scalp, growling as his fangs slid out from underneath his gums. He wanted her, deserved her, and too much time had already been spent in her absence. Now that they were together, he’d be damned if he was going to share her.

  This time, things would be different.

  No one, other than himself, would ever touch his partner again.

  The room grew warm. Lines of sweat dripped down his back. Paimon unbuttoned and slid out of his shirt, his eyes never leaving Rhea’s. He knelt next to her and put his hand over her mouth. The touch of her skin made him hard as he laid his head to her chest.

  Coldness enveloped him.

  The scent of rain saturated the air.

  It’s time.

  He moved on top of her and inhaled the gray mist that flowed out of her barely parted lips. She tasted like Christmas, warm with a hint of spice, and for the few moments her soul hung in wake between life and death, the two of them were connected, bound together by their sins.

  Paimon drank her in and she filled him with a richness that he’d been missing for centuries. Rhea’s soul moved inside his body, chipping the ice from his regret and breathing life back in to the man he used to be. A husband. A lover. He started to feel—a horrifying change for someone who had been dead to love for so long—and the blood that coursed through his veins grew hot with desire.

  But the more he lived, the more she died. Each time he inhaled, he took more of her soul and soon enough there would be nothing left but a corpse, a shell of the person that she used to be.

  He stopped to look at her.

  Her black hair grayed in the moonlight, and her milk-bathed flesh looked jaundiced and wrinkled. Crow’s feet stamped the corners of her eyes and her cheeks were sunken and sallow. Her body broke down in front of him, and while the sweet nature of her soul flourished inside his own, he knew he couldn’t keep her.

  She didn’t deserve to be a prisoner, not his or the Devil’s, but he refused to lose her again. There would be no more sleepless nights or agonizing days wondering what he could have done differently, how it all could have been. This was his second chance. A shot at redemption, forgiveness, love.

  He gently pushed down on her chin and opened her mouth a little more. Paimon leaned in, his lips grazing hers, and breathed Rhea’s soul back into her. An ethereal mist crept out his mouth and down her throat, filling the room with the sweet scent of cloves. Her body warmed to his touch as it took in her life’s essence and restored her natural glow. Her hair blackened, her skin tightened, and her lips became full and moist.

  Her mouth, wet with new possibility, glistened against the pre-dawn morning light and Paimon couldn’t resist. The temptation was too strong.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman—across realms, across centuries—that I’ve ever seen.”

  He traced the outline of her jaw with his hand, letting it linger on the softness of her neck. So beautiful. He gave into the space between them and painted her mouth with his. It was slow at first, a light brushing of lips, but his kisses soon became bites. He pulled at her bottom lip, massaging it between his teeth until he drew blood. He licked at the crimson drop and felt his body tense.

  Her blood drove him stiff with hunger. It tasted of cherries and wine, an intoxicating blend that left him breathless. Paimon grabbed a handful of the sheets and growled. He threw himself off the bed and paced the room, sorting through years of scripture in his head. There had to be some way to bring her back as one’s soul did not equate the originality of life. Ceremony after ceremony, line after line, he sifted through memorized prayers and practices, but found nothing. He searched songs by the lyrics, ran through rituals step by step, but it wasn’t until he looked back at her face that the obvious clicked.

  Blood.

  A crimson line dripped down her chin from where he’d bitten her, making Paimon smile. The binding. It was an old prayer, something he’d long since forgotten, but it was liable to work.

  I need to remember to thank Arazel for this one day.

  Arazel, his tutor, was the only person in Hell who knew Paimon’s struggle with literacy. She’d spent hours reading to him, slowly teaching him scripture as he memorized her words. Together, they’d committed years of prayer, magic, and song to mind, and now thanks to those secret nights, Paimon remembered how to bring back the dead.

  But first, he needed to attend to the spoils.

  His brothers and sisters would be hungry.

  Paimon held out his arms—his hands two open platters—and called for the horde.

  “Depths of darkness and unholy Earth, I summon thee to me on this night to avenge the spirits of our brothers and sisters. To feed the family of our Lord, he who bathes in the blood of the innocent and drinks from the fountain of damnation. In his name, I summon thee.”

  Swarms of black mist circled in the bedroom as the demons took shape. Pairs of emotionless eyes searched the room, while blackened hooves scraped against the floor, leaving trails of burning ash on the carpet. Their tails scratched the walls like broken nails, and their breath smelled of fire.

  “My liege,�
� Hieronymus said as he bowed. “At your request.”

  The demon was short, stout. His hair was matted to his head and his eyes bulged out his face as if he were in a state of permanent shock.

  “Stand up, my child. There is no time to waste.”

  Hieronymus nodded, and the rest of the horde gathered in as Paimon addressed them.

  “I need you to take the stray bodies back to the feeding ground. Let the Devil know that I’ll be arriving soon. He’ll be waiting for the delivery and my quota is due at dawn.”

  “Have they been marked, sire?”

  “No.”

  “But protocol dictates that the flesh-”

  “I know what it says, groundling, and I suggest you watch your tongue unless you wish to lose it.”

  Hieronymus hung his head in shame. It was blasphemy to challenge a collector, and more often than not, the result of doing so landed one in The Pit. Paimon laughed as he watched the blades dance in the demon’s head. They all had their own version of what happened down in the hole. The groundling was afraid, and on any other night, he might have taken advantage of it. But with Rhea only a few feet away from him, Paimon knew he didn’t have time.

  She’s the priority.

  He would never again put himself before his female.

  Paimon walked toward Hieronymus and bent down so he was inches from his face. The sour smell of fear hung strong on the demon’s breath, and Paimon shook his head.

  Pathetic.

  “I don’t have time to hand out punishments, Hieronymus, so surely you can muster up some strength and do what I say, can you not?

  “My liege…

  Paimon raised a hand to silence the apology and moved toward Jayme’s body. She lay there, her hair draped in dried blood and matted down with sweat. He knelt down and turned her face so he could get a better look at her. Such a young girl to cause so much pain. The Devil would like her. He would be displeased when he realized it wasn’t Rhea’s corpse coming through, but there was no denying that Jayme’s body was desirable. Her eyes, while dead, still shone with a warm hazel that acted as an open invitation to her mouth and everything below.