Repossessors of Souls: Expendable Pawns

by Danae Ayusso

  “No. It is a shower,” Angelus informed me. “I suggest that you do what you need to do in it otherwise you will catch pneumonia and then what good would you be?”

  Through the wall of freezing water, I watched the angel disappear into the darkness, leaving me sprawled out on the floor like a naked, broken ragdoll that was quickly turning blue from the freezing water.

  I’m so going to kill that sonuvabitch when the opportunity presents itself. Angelus is dead!

  I had taken cold showers before, it wasn’t anything that I’ve had to do lately because of modern accommodations and the invention of water heaters, but I could handle it. I would stay in the shower until I wanted to get out. Not when some pompous prick suggested or told me to get out. He obviously didn’t know whom he was messing with. This caged kitty was going to claw his eyes out as soon as the opportunity presented itself! He was so going down.

  Goddamn the water is cold. Where is he squatting, the damn storeroom to some meat packing plant?! If I see Rocky Balboa pounding on some slab in the back, I am so calling Karael to pick me up. An asshole angel repo man with a clerical error appointment would be helluva safer than staying here with sociopath prick angel boy. I still can’t believe that humans think the demons are the ones that have issues when it’s the angels that are all messed up in the head and socially awkward, not demons. We are sane Brady Bunch material compared to these disgusting winged pigs!

  “Get out of the water,” Angelus growled.

  “Bite me, bitch,” I stammered through chattering teeth.

  “You are going to get sick.”

  “Take your bullshit concern and shove it up your ass!” I yelled.

  I was shivering and convulsing so violently that I couldn’t stand, or attempt to stand, my wings wouldn’t unfold, and hugging my blue knees to my chest was a feat in itself. I lost all feeling in my body twenty-minutes in, and for the past hour the irritable angel had been pacing the perimeter of the shower area.

  When he went to turn the water off, I broke the lever off and threw it at him. Sadly, he caught it before it could hit him in the face, but the sentiment was made perfectly clear: he was an asshole and I wanted to hurt his pretty face.

  “Stop your childish games,” he snarled. “Right this minute.”

  This has got to be the slowest goddamn angel to ever exist.

  “No! You need to stop telling me what to do and stop bossing me around! I’m not some goddamn child. I’m a grown ass woman, and you’ll treat me as one.” Even though I was being extremely immature at that moment and was throwing a fit like a child at that moment. “Stop calling me a whore. Stop saying demon like it’s a bad thing. Stop treating me as if I am some horrible person that you are inconvenienced with and that you can’t wait to kill off yourself because I’m making your perfect life so miserable. I didn’t do anything to you! I didn’t ask you to help me. I didn’t ask to be brought here. I didn’t ask for your company. And I sure in the hell didn’t ask to be treated like the dirt under your nails! Believe it or not, I’m a really shitty demon that hates every last stereotype that’s tied to her race, and I was an even shittier concubine that’s own master wouldn’t touch her!

  “So just stop, please,” I pleaded as tears scorched down my frozen cheeks. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I don’t know what you want from me or why, and if this is your attempt at helping someone, I hate to tell you this, Chief, but you have got to be the least fucking hospitable person in the world, and possibly ever created.”

  Like a bitch on a mission, he stormed into the freezing water and raised his hand. Like a weak girl, I clenched my eyes shut and pushed my hands out to feebly protect myself—obviously I was tired and ready to give up, but summoning a blade or something, especially with that many wards around, could blow up in my face…literally.

  The ground disappeared from under my numb ass, and my eyes shot open. Instead of being beaten to death by a pissed off angel, I was thrown over his shoulder, and he hurried towards the small living area. I really wished there was a way to understand him. He was driving me insane, and not in the cool way that gets you a prescription of pills that you can joke to your friends about how you’re on the latest bi-polar cocktail from your shrink while you down ten dirty martinis or cosmos. No, this was the kind of crazy that you got locked up for, and I’ve been locked up enough in my life.

  Angelus tossed me on the bed then turned and hurried away from me.

  That’s just lovely. Is this when he goes and gets his angelic Dexter serial killer kit or something?

  When he came back, he had a couple of towels in hand and was watching the floor as he walked, as if he couldn’t look at me. He sat down next to me on the bed then wrapped a towel around my shoulders and used the end of one to dab my mouth.

  “You bit your lip,” he explained when I started to pull away from him.

  I was unaware of that; I thought the rust taste was just the air.

  “You are very stubborn,” he said—as if I didn’t know that—“and you need to get warmed up so you do not get sick. You will need your strength.”

  Am I getting laid?

  “For what?” I stammered, my teeth chattering and body convulsing.

  In typical Angelus fashion, he ignored my question and pulled the blanket up around my shoulders, and carefully pulled my wet hair from under it. “I need you strong,” he said, in a surprise move of answering a question finally, “because I’m going to use you as bait in order to kill Karael.”

  That sucks.

  I ran, stumbling and tripping over the uneven surface. Both of my eyes were swollen shut from the weeks, months, years, centuries even, of violent beatings that I had endured. The only thing I had, my only chance at surviving, was the life preserver I was so desperately clinging to. The callused hand that both of mine were wrapped around pulled me along to where, I didn’t know, yet I knew that I was safe with him. I didn’t know who he was or why he was seemingly rescuing me, but I was grateful...paranoid on some level, but grateful overall. Anything had to be better than what I just left.

  The clashing of blades echoed down the corridor, the heat rolling off of them was asphyxiating and more than once I felt a sword pass by me dangerously close. Between the ringing of metal against metal, there was the deep, low, grunting of the wielder I was desperately clinging onto. For days, maybe decades even, we ran, and I stumbled while he fought. He never said anything, never even acknowledged that I was there with him, but his hand was squeezing onto mine as if he couldn’t lose me no matter what.

  When silence returned to the bowels of Hell, we didn’t slow, if anything, we picked it up and sprinted. Eventually I couldn’t run anymore, and I found myself in his arms; both of my broken and bloody arms were wrapped around his neck, my head unbelievably heavy from exhaustion and resting against the nap of his neck. His strong fingers dug into my exposed thighs and hips. Every time I tried to thank him, my words came out in a mumbled string of grunts and moans, my lips caressing his skin with each word. The taste of his skin, the warmth of his touch, the tender yet possessiveness in it, caused my head to swim....

  My eyes shot open and I gasped, desperately trying to catch my breath. It has been over a century since I had dreamt of my rescue from Hell. Why was I dreaming of it now?

  There wasn’t much that I remembered from the entire ordeal, I was heavily drugged and beaten senseless. But I vividly remembered the taste of his breath on my tongue. I remember that I found comfort in the heat radiating from his body that was seemingly absorbing into mine. I remember that I had never felt safer than I did in his arms. And I remember that for the first time in my life, I felt loved. At least what I thought was love. I was sure that it was just a delusion, and that I was out of it even more then I realized, but I liked the way it felt in his arms.

  Sadly, I had never felt it again, but I remembered how it felt, and I had been content with that. Not everyone could say that a knight in missing shining armor saved th
em from Hell, and that for a fraction of a moment, only a few countable breaths, they felt loved.

  Softly I sighed and two strong arms constricted around me, pulling me back against their body.

  Okay, that’s pleasantly awkward. What happened, and where am I? Do I know whose arms these are? I hope so.

  A few slivers of lights broke through the blacked out skylights from where the paint has chipped off. They dotted the white bedding, and nothing else, in light and I watched the dust motes dance in the golden rays. Obviously I was in the warehouse, in bed and comfortable, naked still, but overly hot and no longer tinted blue. The entire length of my body was pulled tight and wrapped around another, Angelus I was hoping on one level—mainly because I knew who he was, and if a bum got bored and broke in, wrapped his dirty ass around me, that would be really awkward.

  I weaved my fingers through the hand that was pressed against my lower abdomen, holding me tight against him. His fingers tightened around mine and I pulled them up to my mouth then licked across his knuckles. The taste, there was no mistaking the taste: Angelus. I had no idea how we ended up like that, but I liked it way more than I should have. I felt safe in his arms, and that wasn’t something I had felt in far too long time.

  Content, I sighed and rested our hands against my lips, reveling in the moment. Not really thinking about it, I scooted my ass back against him and he groaned. Ken doll he was not. That realization made me smile against our entwined fingers.

  “Stop being a pain in the ass,” Angelus mumbled against my hair.

  “You lied to me,” I tried to say with a straight face, but it was impossible.

  “About what?” he asked but didn’t sound interested.

  “You’re not a eunuch,” I informed him, grinding my ass against his crotch and moaned from the arousal I caused.

  To my surprise, he bit my shoulder and I gasped from the pleasure that ripped through me. “Did you lie about being a whore?” he countered, his lips brushing against my skin with each word.

  Damn it.

  “No,” I pouted.

  “Then stop acting like one,” he scolded, but made no attempt at moving. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Compared to what?”

  “You were freezing last night,” he whispered. “I did not have enough blankets to heat you up with, so you suggested the arctic approach before passing out. I am assuming that this was what you were referring to, because I do not know where I could have found a whale to melt its blubber down and to use to coat your body with in order to maintain your rapidly falling body temperature.”

  Holy hell.

  I laughed. “Did you just tell a joke?”

  “Was there infliction that would suggest that I did?”

  “No,” I admitted and made a face even though he couldn’t see it. “Thank you for keeping me warm, you didn’t have to do that.”

  “Yes I did. I need to use you as bait,” he said as if it were obvious.

  I rolled away from his embrace to my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows so I could look at him. “Angelus, can you just pretend that you aren’t a complete prick for two seconds and give me the benefit of the doubt that I’m worthy of pretending to save? Please.”

  “I cannot do that,” he informed me, propping his head up on his hand, his elbow touching mine. “I do not lie, often,” he quickly added when I opened my mouth to counter his Ken doll lie. “Not about the important things. Would it have mattered if I were a eunuch or an endowed man? No. You are a woman, a concubine at that, that wears her sexuality on her sleeve and is hyper aware of the affect that her body, face, mind and presence has on those of the opposite sex. It would be anti-productive to give false pretenses. We are only crossing paths and at the moment, those paths are crossing at a point that would benefit both of us. Karael wants you dead, and I want him dead. It is a win-win for all parties involved.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Not a win for Karael.”

  “No,” he agreed with a smirk, “I suppose not.”

  “What did he do to you to deserve the most likely painful death that you wish to exact?” I asked. Honestly, I didn’t give a damn, but I needed to distract myself from getting shot down, once again, by this angel.

  “He took something from me,” he said softly, and his eyes moved around the dark warehouse.

  That explained everything.

  “Can’t you get it back?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?” Why was it like pulling teeth to get anything from this man?

  “It is time that he took,” Angelus said and looked at me. “And that is all you need to know.”

  And now it all made sense.

  I nodded my understanding. “Bad breakup, huh? I go to therapy twice a week to deal with my last relationship, if you want to call it that. It was more like office sex, and I was the mistress that caught him throwing it in his assistant. Oh yeah, did I mention that the assistant was a dude? I’ve started, and you totally aren’t helping with this either, to doubt my abilities at pleasing a man. I know it sounds ridiculous, especially to an angel such as yourself that only has eyes for one man, and I have to admit Karael is kind of hot, but I would have never thought he was gay considering how much he was looking at my tits, but still, if you need someone to talk to, and I mean this, I’m here for you because I went through it as well.”

  The expression on his face was priceless; shock, confusion, amusement, irritation, disbelief.

  “You think that Karael and I dated…were intimate?” he asked in disbelief.

  I shrugged and nodded at the same time.

  “Why would you think that?” he asked, making a face.

  “Because you don’t find me attractive,” I said, making a face in return. “You’ve seen me naked, undressed me even, held me in your arms completely nude, I licked and kissed you, not really attempted to seduce you, but it seems like it would be pointless if I did, and yet it did nothing for you. Yes you had a sizeable friend pressing against my ass when you woke up, but men get that regardless of having a hot woman grinding their firm round ass against them or not.”

  Again, that look of disbelief, amusement, and irritation. “Thank you for not trying to seduce me,” he said and the corners of his mouth twitched slightly. “No, Karael and I were not like that. We stood on opposite sides of the war. Karael whispered in Gabriel’s ear and helped to instigate what he said they were interpreting from Father’s silence. And I stood by Michael and honored Father’s word and directives from when he was there. Karael was always able to sway people with his words, and that is why I was pleasantly surprised that he was unable persuade you into bed. I was one of those people that he could not bullshit and it started a ridiculous competition between us.” Angelus paused and shook his head. “It does not matter. When I see him, I will kill him.”

  Well that is rather inconvenient for me.

  “Can you wait until I talk to him first?” I asked.

  “Why?” he demanded.

  Now it was my turn to look away, so I intently watched the lock of hair I was twirling around my fingers. “No reason...well, one reason,” I admitted. “He says he knows who freed me from Hell.”

  “I see,” Angelus said. “What else did he say?”

  I swallowed loudly, and closed my eyes. “‘It amazes me that anyone would make an effort to save a disgusting, useless woman, whose only purpose is to sit there and look pretty and take it anyway the man wants to give it to her, like you. I wonder if he hates you as much as he hates himself for sacrificing so much, and for the imprisonment and banishment that he has had to endure for breaking the rules, all because of you.’ That’s what he said.”

  Patiently I waited for him to snarl, get pissed and roll off of the bed, to tell me that Karael was right, and that I shouldn’t cause my knight in shining armor any more pain and regret than I already have. But he didn’t. He just laid there looking at me.

  “It’s okay, you can agree with him,” I mumbled, trying
to keep from crying—why was I so emotional around that angel?

  “I would never do such a thing,” he assured me. “Karael has a way of pushing people’s buttons. If they think he knows something that they do not, or that they long to know, he will wave it in front of them as a get out of jail free card. Think of it as his last means of escape. Could you kill the only person that holds the secret that you have been trying to figure out for centuries? However, it does not mean that Karael actually knows what he is talking about. I would not worry about it.”

  Damn, I was hoping that he knew or would tell me. Why would he though?

  “Do you know who pulled me from Hell?” I whispered.

  “Angels do not meddle in demon business,” he said.

  Of course not, why would he? It isn’t as if it was some big joke in Heaven that they all laugh at.

  “Karael said that the person was punished and banished. Is that true?”

  He forced a smile, but it quickly fell. “Every world has laws, Zion, and when you break those laws, you get punished.”

  That didn’t answer my question.

  “Is it against the rules of Heaven to pull someone from Hell?” I clarified.

  “Of course,” he scoffed and looked away from me. “It is against the rules of Hell to pull someone from Heaven, just as it is against the rules to pull a human to Heaven or Hell. So yes, if someone of Heaven pulled you from Hell, that person would have been punished and would have most likely been banished.”

  “Why would someone do that then?” I demanded. I didn’t know why I was demanding anything from him, but that revelation pissed me off. I sat up and pulled my hands through my hair. “Why would, if they knew what the consequences were...why would they do that? No one, especially me, me of all people, a sexless whore, is worth that!”

  Angelus slowly sat up then crossed his legs in front of him, his head titling to the side as his eyes worked over my face many times. “The actions of a man,” he said softly, “are unknown, even to the man that does them. You should not concern yourself with the past, Zion.”