by Amy Barrett
He waited for Zerachiel. On several occasions he considered leaving and finding something fun to do. But he still hurt a bit and for the first time, he felt like he needed a rest.
It wasn’t long till Zerachiel emerged, wrapped in a towel. He went to another room and came back in clean clothes. He opened his mouth to speak when his phone began to ring from the pocket of his old jeans. He held his breath and walked over to it.
Chapter 16
Zerachiel stood staring down at the jeans where the ringing was coming from. He clenched and unclenched his fists twice. His jaw was tight, and his shoulders were hiked up. Ivan couldn’t hear him breathing and started to worry.
“It’s just a phone mate.” Ivan stood up.
Zerachiel took it out of his pocket and stared at it. He had one hand around the phone and the other by his side. Ivan crept up on him. Ivan was prepared for a joke or to say boo, but when he got there the name he saw over his friend’s shoulder knocked the wind out of him. The screen flashed with the word Christopher.
“Answer him.” Ivan nudged Zerachiel with his elbow.
Zerachiel remained still for another few rings then hung up the phone.
“Hey mate why’d you…”
Ivan didn’t finish the sentence because Zerachiel turned and threw the phone against the wall. It spun through the air faster than Ivan’s eye could follow. It exploded against the wall and the pieces hit the ground with a clatter.
Ivan’s mind raced around like a lunatic trying to find anything to say but nothing came out of his hanging mouth.
Zerachiel rolled his shoulders then went to the pocket again. “I have something for you Ivan.”
“Should I be hiding?”
Zerachiel rummaged around in the pocket of his jeans then lifted out a chain. It was thick enough with a stone on the end. The stone was baby blue in a silver frame. Ivan narrowed his eyes. “Not really my colour.”
Zerachiel didn’t react. “I want you to wear this Ivan.”
“Why? You know that jewellery doesn’t go with this outfit.”
Zerachiel came to stand in front of him. “I have spent so long rolling my eyes when you say things like that.” He held the chain out to Ivan. “But its always the highlight of my day. I am an angel and it was my job to make sure that you did yours. But instead, I became dependent on you to justify my sins.” Zerachiel cast his eyes to the floor. “I made you into something different and I am sorry for that. Not because I think that what you are is bad, but because I know what it feels like to be different.” He made eye contact with Ivan again.
Ivan rubbed the back of his neck. “Mate I’m flattered, but don’t take too much credit. I am fabulous all on my own.”
Zerachiel chuckled. “Then fabulously wear this for me.”
Ivan shook his head. Zerachiel shoved the chain against Ivans chest. The reaper took it and slipped it on. “Okay mate. Fine I will model your bling.”
Zerachiel smiled but there was a tear in his eye.
“You okay mate?” Ivan asked.
“When have I ever been totally okay?” Zerachiel wiped his eyes. Ivan worried that his friend was preparing for their holiday to end.
***
When Nick woke up, he expected to see something horrific. The gargoyle had taken the wheel and that always meant death. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut.
“I’m not that bad.”
The voice was familiar to Nick. He opened his eyes. There was a dim light from a single candle and the darkness was disorienting. Nick had remembered it being daytime. He was covered in goosebumps and shivered against the cold ground on which he lay.
Within the darkness, Abyzou was sitting on a bed. It had a thin metal structure and a ratty mattress. The candle obscured Nick’s view of Abyzou. From where he lay, it was in the middle of her face and the flame wriggled above her head. He sat upright and scanned the room. There was a mouldy chest but no other furniture. Abyzou was seated on the bed with her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand. Her feet were on the side of the metal bed frame, so her knee was elevated.
Nick blinked in the dull. “Its not you. I just thought that, well I thought..”
“You thought there would be blood and gore and eyeballs rolling down the street.”
Nick rubbed his eyes. “Something like that. Where are we?”
Abyzou dropped her feet off the metal. “Its my place when I am not at home.”
Nick tried to stand but found he was still a bit dizzy. “Home?” he asked as he toppled onto the ground again. He hadn’t gotten too high to start with.
Abyzou shrugged. “Hell.”
Nick chuckled without humour. He should have known that someone as sadistic as Abyzou would think of hell as home. His mind summoned up the memory of the screams and pain he had endured down there. “Of course.” He tried to get up again. The room swayed back and forth like a children’s swing.
Abyzou moved to lean against the wall to his left. She was almost close enough to help him but didn’t offer. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Nick groaned. His head hurt, just behind his eyeballs. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Abyzou raised her eyebrows and leaned to look into his face while he bent over to try to stand. “Oh really? Don’t shit me. I know what you meant.”
Nick moaned again. “Just let it go. I didn’t mean anything you crazy..”
“What? Demon?” Abyzou stalked away from him. “I am more than that.”
“You get joy at other people’s misery.” Nick managed to stand but he was unsteady on his feet. He rocked to the left and was headed for the floor. Abyzou ran back and caught him. His shoulder was pressed to her chest.
Nick glanced sideways at her and their eyes met.
“I don’t do much apart from torture. Its not surprising that I learnt to love it,” she said.
Nick flung himself away and used the wall to remain up right. She had given him a stark reminder of who she was. “That’s because you are a demon. That’s what you all do.”
Abyzou shoved him and he fell onto the ground with a dull thump.
“Abyzou!” Nick rolled around to attempt to stand again. He didn’t know what her problem was. She was a demon and she had tortured him and stopped Dan from escaping hell. What did she think he was going to say about her?
“Don’t dare paint me in the same light as Mephistopheles,” Abyzou snarled, “not you. You have done just as terrible things as I have, maybe worse and you have no idea what I have done to get me here. I could have gone home. Just don’t… don’t say that…” The energy fell out of her and she settled to the ground beside Nick. She huffed out a breath.
Nick had no idea what she was talking about. What did she mean when she said she could have gone back to hell? Why didn’t she? Nick’s head was aching.
“If you want to go back to hell so badly then go! I’m sure that you will have the time of your life torturing my best friend for eternity!” Nick knew he sounded childish, but he didn’t care. He needed her to know why he had to hate her. He wouldn’t let himself feel bad for her that she wasn’t where she wanted to be. He had to remind himself of what she had taken from him.
“I can’t!” she screamed, “I betrayed hell when I decided to try and keep you safe instead of turning you in.”
She must be lying, Nick thought. No way would she give up everything she loved to set him free. She had tortured him in hell. None of it made any sense. Yet when he looked into her eyes he knew she was telling the truth. She didn’t waver in her stare and her eyes glistened.
Nick didn’t know what to say. His heart was pounding, and his idea of reality was crumbling inside his head.
“Plus, it would be no fun,” she said, “your friend’s soul escaped hell when I killed him.”
The more she spoke the less he was able to keep his image of her in one piece. She had hidden her demon face from him, Dan’s soul was in heaven and she had betrayed hell to save him from having to go back there
.
He remained on the floor having given up on trying to stand for any length of time. The angel blood had hit him hard and it would be a while before he would be able to see straight. The bed frame still wobbled through his eyes like ripples in a lake. He took a minute to gather his thoughts before he spoke. “I don’t think of you in the same way as I do that evil thing,” Nick whispered. Knowing what he did now, he knew that she was nothing like Mephistopheles.
“Thank Satan for that,” she said.
Nick laughed.
“What?” Abyzou made ready to punch him.
Nick threw up a hand to defend himself. “Nothing its just, I find it really funny now.”
Abyzou kept her fist raised. “What?”
Nick sighed and laughed in a nervous way. “How little the saviour actually knows.” He had been wrong about so much; Abyzou being pure evil, reapers being mindless slaves, angels being guardians. He had been leading his people this entire time when he had no idea where they were going or what they were fighting. Nick wasn’t even sure that if they killed the demons then they would be free from having to turn every full moon. It was an old wife’s tale that people had been desperate enough to believe.
Abyzou lowered her fist. Nick could feel her relax. Her body was an inch from his and it was like their auras, or something, were intermingled. He couldn’t explain it, but it was as if when she was close enough to him he got a sense of her, like they were somehow linked.
“Why did you bring me here? You don’t expect us to hook up?” Nick nodded to the bed.
“No not anymore.”
“Then why? It is not really the top location to take a sick person.” Nick rubbed his eyes again as a new headache piled on top of the first one.
Abyzou looked around. “I don’t know. I think my home is a worse option.”
It occurred to Nick that Abyzou had been given one last chance to change her mind and send him to hell. While he was asleep she could have wrapped him in the chains and killed him. He would have been back in hell to be tortured again. He looked sideways at Abyzou and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yea there is that”
Neither of them spoke for a while. Each time he tried Nick felt like the words got stuck in his throat. He didn’t know what to say to sum up what he was feeling. He was scared of her, but he lusted for her. He wanted to make her pay for everything she had done yet believed she had given enough. He wanted to move closer to her but held himself back.
“I don’t love you,” she said.
Nick didn’t respond. Outside, there was no noise. Nick thought he should ask where they were but decided he didn’t care. He was glad to be away from the wolves.
“You need to know that I am not lovesick.” Abyzou pulled her knees up to her chest. Her hands poked the tops of her shoes. “That’s not why I..”
“Tried to get in my pants?” Nick asked. She chuckled.
“Yea.” Abyzou let her legs fall and then stood up. The motion was fast. In a few seconds Abyzou had paced away from Nick and stood with her back to him. She folded her arms.
From the back, without the piercing stare, Nick didn’t find that he was looking at a demon. Just a person.
“It was just a sensation.” Abyzou’s voice was distant. She didn’t move a muscle. It was as if she was talking to herself more than him. “When I saw you come into hell, something strange happened to me that had never happened before. I would love to say what I was thinking when I saw you, but it was as if I stopped thinking all together.”
“You killed Dan.” Nick licked his lips and rose to follow her across the room. He reached her shoulder and stopped. He knew that Dan was in heaven, but he was also painfully aware that he could have come back to his life. “The only person who always saw me as the gobshite I am.”
Abyzou swallowed audibly. “I’m not sorry I killed him.”
Nick had expected the answer. “I know. But I am sorry I don’t hate you like I should.”
Abyzou stopped breathing. Nick felt the tension in her body. He equally wanted to reach out to hold her and push her away. He settled for placing a hand on the side of her arm. The touch was innocent, but it sent a fiery sensation up his arm and all over his body.
Abyzou put some distance between them, spinning around to keep an eye on him. “You still hate me though. I won’t ask if you do because I know that you do.”
Nick shook his head. The effects of the poison were weaker now, but they still played on him. “Yea.” Nick didn’t want his hatred to change. He wanted to hate her forever. He wanted to want to kill her. He didn’t want to yearn for her every time she moved too far away.
“Yea, I do. Is that a surprise?” Nick advanced on her. With every step he took, Abyzou took one back. Her boots scuffed on the floor. Nick dropped his hands to his sides then lifted them again to gesture to Abyzou. “Did you think I would want to settle in a farmhouse, or somewhere else far away from here? To run away with you and forget all this shit. To live just the two of us in some place where life can’t find us and leave behind the memory of all the terrible things we have done. The idea makes my stomach turn.” He had her backed against the wall now. Their thighs were pressed together, and Nick could almost taste her on the breaths of hers that hit his lips. He told himself that he shouldn’t like it, but it was no use. It was part of his blood and bones now, clinging to the walls of his veins and making his heart quake dangerously. “The thought of any of it,” he whispered, “I’d rather go back to hell.”
Abyzou looked at him through half closed eyes. She snatched the collar of his t-shirt and yanked him closer. Nick was still too weak to stop her and he wasn’t sure he wanted to fight anymore. He stumbled forward, letting his body lean on her. Tingles raced along his nerves and he felt himself becoming aroused.
Abyzou licked his bottom lip then slowly moved over and nibbled on his ear. “Does it make you sick? Are we both sick then? If this feeling is sickness I never want to be well.” She brushed her lips on his jaw. “And neither do you.”
It happened before Nick could think. Abyzou’s teeth grated over his stubble and Nick brought his hand up and grabbed her chin. He altered their position until he had access to her neck, and he started firing kisses along the smooth skin.
Abyzou sighed and clawed into his arm, denting the mass of muscle there with her fingernails. Her other hand looped up and combed into his hair. Nick jerked against her. He had never hungered for something so much in his life. The room was blurry and insignificant. His clothes were too tight and warm. The world could end, and he would still have her. His movement made her gasp and tighten her grip in his hair. She pulled and his lips were torn from her neck. She used the advantage to kiss along his windpipe, making her way to his chin, then up to his lips, stopping just shy of them.
She froze, gazing into his eyes. Her lips were damp, and her face was flushed.
Now that he was looking at her face, Nick’s mind came to a screeching halt. The memories of hell, of Dan and the wolves and of the promises he had made to them floated around his head and the tight guilt in his chest came back with such force it made him cringe.
Abyzou leaned in to kiss him. Nick ducked his head, turning it to the side. Abyzou breathed in the scent of his hair. “What is it?”
Nick looked down at their bodies. With very little effort they had fit together. He felt dizzy and confused. In this state, it was difficult to tell where she ended, and he began. “I can’t.”
Abyzou let go of his hair. She brought both hands up and cupped his face. “You don’t need to feel bad about this.”
Nick shook his head. “If I let myself go like that how do I know I will ever come back.” Tears welled up in his eyes.
Abyzou watched him intently. “What do you mean? I won’t let you disappear inside the monster.”
Nick believed her. “I mean how will I get the me who wanted to save everyone back. The one who didn’t hate the idea of being a saviour. The one who wanted to do it and didn’t want to run
away.”
Nick’s breathing was shallow, and he was shaking with tension and lust. In his current state, it would not take long to break him down. He would give himself to her and he knew it. He prayed that the side of him who still wanted to be good, the side that Dan believed was all of him, would hold on. He didn’t have the strength to turn away from something that felt this good again. Nick closed his eyes and waited for the moment when his selfish monster would take him into her arms.
Abyzou stepped back. She still held his face gently. “If you want to be a saviour, who am I to stop you.”
Nick opened his eyes. He had expected her to take him. He watched her and saw what he had missed all this time, a softness to her wicked eyes.
She dropped her hands and let go. “I was right about us. Remember that at least.”
Nick knew she spoke the truth, but he could not admit it. He spun around and cleared his throat. “We need to take down Mephistopheles.”
Abyzou sat on the edge of the bed. “Yes. I could maybe do it”
Nick chewed on his thumb nail. “The gargoyle has proven time and again that in a one on one fight it can take him on.”
“You would trust it to do that?” Abyzou peeked at him through her eyelashes.
Nick shrugged. He took a few more steps away from her. Leaning against the wall he rested his palms on his thighs. “I know it won’t hurt you.” He hesitated for a second. “We may have to leave the others out of it.”
Abyzou rubbed her fingers on the fabric of the mattress. She watched her own movement. “Ignoring the fact that the angel would be a huge help for taking down a demon, if you kill Mephistopheles it is likely they will send someone in his place. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but the number of demons that attacked us in the apartment leaves no doubt. There are plenty of demons who would come after us.”
Nick nodded. “I figured as much.”
“What then?” Abyzou reclined onto her back.