He turns slowly, his hoof scraping across the linoleum, leaving a smoldering black gash through the daises there. There’s no humor in his flaming red eyes, and his fangs flash as a grimace contorts his flat, pinched face.
His voice is a low raspish hiss as he says, “What I needed was for you to do your job, Lucifer. Do it without stabbing me in the back. Did you really think you were worthy of my position? Well, now we all know better, don’t we? You’ve demonstrated your ineptitude quite spectacularly, especially to King Lucifer.”
The smell of dog breath and rotting meat permeates the brimstone. I smell it before I hear the snarls. Hellhounds. Perfect.
“This apartment complex doesn’t allow pets, Beherit. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to take your pooch …” I look toward the bathroom door as three immense black dogs, one with three heads and all with the glowing red eyes that demark all infernal creatures, come slinking out, “oh … excuse me, pooches, and leave.”
“A shame. I thought you’d enjoy the company. You’ve been here for so long I figured you may be feeling a bit homesick.”
“No. I’m really doing just fine, thanks.”
In a smoking red flash he’s across the room, and I’m choking as his burning fist clamps around my throat, nearly lifting me off the ground. And for the first time, I realize I truly am human, because my lungs are screaming for air as he holds me here, suspended and oxygen deprived.
“You’re doing far from fine!” he rages and throws me across the room. I thud hard into the wall, face-first, and drop to the floor at the paws of the hounds, struggling to catch my breath. Turning human is really working to my disadvantage at the moment, and the blood trickling down my forehead and into my eye is definitely not going to help with the hound situation.
I sit up, brushing the back of my arm casually across my forehead, ignoring the throb in my head and the growl of the hounds. “Was that really necessary?”
Beherit’s red eyes flare, and his face stretches into a heinous grin. “Blood? Oh, this is getting better by the minute,” he says, stepping over and drawing a talon quickly across my chest, slicing through my T-shirt and the flesh under it like warm butter. As more blood seeps from the wound on my chest, he raises his head, sniffs the air, and scrunches his face. “I knew you didn’t smell right. Thought I might be coming down with a cold.” His bloody eyes shoot to the hounds. “This will save me having to drag you back to the Fiery Pit. So much easier than Belias and Avaira.” He shakes his head slowly, a forlorn frown on his leathery lips. “Three of my best—what a waste …” Then his eyes flash. “Though, that’s what happens to traitors. King Lucifer will see the error in his judgment when it’s me who tags the child’s soul. You and Belias were never worthy.”
Belias and Avaira, thrown into the Fiery Pit. I should be ecstatic, but instead my stomach turns. No second chances in the Underworld.
He sighs and his frown pulls into a grin. “They say if you want a job done right you have to do it yourself. But I don’t understand, Lucifer. This should have been an easy one. She’s such a tiny, helpless thing.”
Frannie’s face, so kissable, floats in front of my eyes. Tiny, yes—but far from helpless.
He looks to the hounds. “Cerberus, Barghest, Gwyllgi, I’ll leave you to your job. I have mine,” his eyes shift to me, “or, more accurately, yours, to do.” And then he transforms into my human form.
No!
I swallow back my fear with the lump in my throat. “Really, I don’t think we’re going to be able to pull off the twins thing, Beherit. After all, we’re trying to be inconspicuous. Twins draw too much attention,” I say, pulling myself off the floor.
I watch as my face snarls back at me. “No worries. There won’t be two of us for long,” he says, and my face grins at me. He snaps his fingers, and the hounds are on me as he walks out the door.
What I wouldn’t give for a box of Milk-Bones right now.
FRANNIE
When the lightning hits my brain, it shocks me awake. I roll to the side and dry heave into the trash can next to my bed as the image of Luc, laying in a heap on the floor and covered in blood, floats behind my eyelids.
“NO!”
The next thing I know, my mom is at the side of the bed, panicked. “Frannie, are you sick? What’s wrong?”
Through my stupor, “No …” is all I can say … over and over. It’s like every brain cell has short-circuited. I can’t function—or think.
She starts to lift me to sitting. “Come on, honey. We’re going to the doctor.”
I find my voice. “No! I need Luc.” My heart is beating impossibly fast, and I’m inching toward hyperventilation as stars dance in front of my eyes. “I need to find him.”
And just then, there’s a honk from the driveway. I spring from the bed and fly to the window. Luc is parked there in the Shelby. He smiles up at me and sticks his arm out the window, waving me down.
“Oh God!” I feel my blood start to flow again. He’s not dead. “I have to go, Mom,” I say, tugging my jeans on under my baggy T-shirt and running for the door on shaky legs.
“Frannie! What’s this about?” she says as she chases me down the stairs.
“Nothing. Just give me a minute.” I step through the door and slam it behind me. I run to his car and jump in, throwing myself around him.
“I’m happy to see you too,” he says, a wicked gleam in his eye.
I pull back and look at him. He’s alive—for now. “Something’s going to happen. I saw you …”
“What, Frannie? What did you see?” He doesn’t look frightened or concerned. If he looks anything, it would be eager—hungry.
“There was blood … you were …”
“Dead?” he finishes for me with a grin.
I just nod.
“Do I look dead, Frannie?”
“Not now. But it’s going to happen.”
“What? What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know … maybe Belias …”
He interrupts me, shaking his head. “I’ve taken care of Belias. No need to worry about him anymore.”
“What do you mean? Is he gone?”
“Very.”
“So, something else, then … I know you’re in danger.”
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
But I am worrying. He reaches for me, and, as he pulls me into a kiss, I begin to calm down. My breathing slows and my heart ticks back down to a nearly normal pace.
I look up at him. “It was really creepy, Luc. Promise me you’ll be careful.”
“I was born careful. Nothing’s going to happen.”
I wish I could believe him. I look up, and my mom is staring out the front window at us. I’m sure she thinks I’ve lost it, which isn’t going to help our cause at all. Especially after the Gabe thing earlier. I sigh. “So … you ready?”
“For what?”
“You know. The whole impressing the parents thing?”
“Oh. Yeah. About that …”
“Come on, Luc. I thought you were good with this. I really want you to be able to hang here this summer.” More so now. I want him close.
“I’m really not up for it right now. I’d rather be alone with you,” he says, and his eyes are on fire, making me tingle all over.
“What are you thinking about?”
“All the really outrageous things I could do to you—how I could make you feel if you’d let me.”
I swallow thickly and take a deep breath as he pulls me to him. “Where’s this coming from all of a sudden? You’re the one who said we couldn’t … you know.” But the thing is, I’m starting to think about some of those “outrageous things” too.
“I’ve changed my mind. I want you,” he says, his lips hot on my neck.
I tip my head back, giving him easier access. “So the whole lust thing is … what? No big deal now?”
“Nope. No big deal,” he repeats as he reaches under my shirt. “We could just slide into the backseat …�
�
“Jesus, Luc! My mother’s looking out the window at us right now,” I say, pushing him away and tugging at my shirt. “Why are you acting so weird?”
He smiles wickedly. “You’re driving me crazy.”
“Fine, then let’s go to your apartment.”
“It’s sort of a mess right now. Someone let some dogs in and they got into the trash. Tore it to shreds.”
“What? Who would do that?”
“Just an old friend. Nothing to worry about,” he says with a wildly wicked grin, and, just for a second, I’m sure I smell rotten eggs. “Let’s go somewhere else. I want you where I can make you crazy.” He kisses me, hard and deep, then slides over in the seat and starts the ignition. He lays his hand on my thigh as he pulls out of my driveway.
We pull over on the corner of First and Amistad, near the park at the edge of my neighborhood. Almost before the car has stopped, he’s all over me again. I look around and see the park is nearly empty. The play structure is abandoned, and the last of the moms is just pushing her stroller across the street in the pink dusk.
I lean into Luc’s burning kiss as his touch, hot on my skin, raises goose bumps all over. After a long, deep kiss, I pull back gasping for air, my heart hammering, and hear his honey sweet whisper in my ear, “I want you so bad.” I shudder as he eases his hands under my shirt and unhooks the clasp of my bra. My hand skims across his chest and under his T-shirt. “You won’t ever forget this. I promise,” he says, and I feel his fingertips burn a track across my belly toward the button of my jeans.
And it’s then that I notice he’s on fire. Hotter than he’s been in a long time. My breath catches. “Hold up,” I say, grabbing his hand just before it reaches its target. “I don’t know where this is coming from. You’ve been telling me for weeks that we can’t go there. I need to think.” But it’s really hard to think when he’s offering me what I want more than anything.
For just an instant I swear I see rage darken his face before it smoothes into a perfect calm. “What’s there to think about? I’m tired of waiting, Frannie. I want you so much I can’t stand it anymore. I promise I’ll make it amazing for you. The things I’ll do to you …” The rest is lost as his hot tongue slips into my ear.
I can’t focus, thinking about the things I want him to do to me, but what he said before still echoes in my head. We can’t do this until I know it’s safe for you. I take a deep breath and work to connect my last rational brain cell to my mouth. “What’s changed, Luc?”
“Me. It’s safe, I know it is. I’m human now. They can’t get to us.”
I want so badly to believe him, but that brain cell is fighting to be heard. I push his hand away from where it’s working the button of my jeans. “That doesn’t make any sense. You said we were in more danger now ’cause you couldn’t see them coming.” And all of a sudden I smell it again, rotten eggs. Oh God—brimstone. Belias?
Luc’s eyes flare red, lighting up the dark car. “Come on, baby. You’re killing me,” he says. I feel like gravity just doubled and all the oxygen has been sucked off planet Earth. Luc would never call me baby.
Holy shit! Belias. Think!
I hear Gabe’s voice in my head: If you ever need anything, you know where to come. And even though I know it’s probably a bad sign that I have so many voices in my head that aren’t mine, for the moment, I’m okay with it.
“I know where we can go,” I say, hooking my bra and trying not to panic. “We’re house-sitting for a friend, just around the corner. The house is empty. We’ll be all alone.” My voice shakes, and my heart’s trying to commit suicide by throwing itself relentlessly against my rib cage.
“Now we’re talking. Where to?” he asks, starting up the Shelby.
“Take a left here.”
I take him on a loop around the neighborhood, past Taylor’s and back past my house, pretending to be lost, before I make up my mind what to do. Then, as we drive by the house with the huge potted Christmas cactus and porch swing I say, “Here,” pointing to Gabe’s house.
“Finally. I was starting to think you were just being a tease.”
This guy is majorly pissing me off. “Just pull into the driveway.”
He pulls in and I’m wondering if I did the right thing. Am I putting Gabe in danger? Will he know this isn’t really Luc? And my biggest question, the one that’s been eating me alive—if this is Belias, where is Luc? The vision of his bloody body crumpled on the floor taunts me, and I swallow back my terror along with the bile rising in the back of my throat.
As I step out of the car, my panic slips into despair. The house is dark. What if Gabe’s not here?
Luc-a-like is around the car, grabbing me, and we start heading for the front door. It’s only then that I realize I don’t have a key, and I can’t exactly knock, since the house is supposed to be empty …
“I think the front door might be unlocked,” I say, hoping I’m right.
When we get to the door, I see I’m more than right. The door is actually swinging open, exposing the darkness within.
“Remind me never to have you house-sit,” Luc-a-like snorts.
“Yeah … well …” My mind is racing. Maybe Gabe has something gold or silver that I can use.
He pushes me through the door and closes it behind us. It’s pitch black, and he’s all over me—hands everywhere. As I look desperately around in the dark, I don’t need to see it to remember that everything is white. No gold, no silver. No nothing.
“Let’s find a bed,” Luc-a-like rasps in my ear.
“Um … maybe upstairs,” I say loud enough that if anyone is here they’ll hear me.
He pulls me toward the stairs, lit only by a thin silver slant of moonlight crossing the family room from the window and trailing up the lower few. But as we reach the banister Luc-a-like freezes in his tracks and looks around warily.
“Whose house did you say this was?”
“Just a friend’s.”
He looks at me with a grimace, and, as I watch in the pale moonlight, he morphs into—something. In just a few seconds, he’s towering over me, the heat burning my scalp where he’s grabbed a handful of my hair. The stench of singeing hair and rotten eggs is unbearable, making my eyes water.
Reflexively, I drop into a crouch and swing a leg high into his chest, but he’s suspending me by my hair, so my balance is off and I don’t get any leverage behind the kick. Still, the crunch of his bones under my foot is unmistakable.
I think the thing is chuckling—not the reaction I was hoping for—except it sounds choked and dry, almost like coughing.
“Oooh … fire!” he rasps. “I like that.” Then he drags me a step back from the stairs. “Very clever, mortal. But, see, we demons have a sixth sense.” He turns and hisses loudly, “You’re too late, Gabriel.”
I regroup and take another swing, this time at the arm holding me suspended. But I barely connect. He leers down at me, shaking me by the hair. “This was charming before, but now it’s becoming annoying. Stop.”
Just as my heart sinks, Gabe’s symphonic voice comes from everywhere all at once—surround sound deluxe, “You’ll want to let her go, Beherit.”
And then he’s there, at the top of the stairs, except I can’t see him. All I see is a vague shape from which intense white light is emanating. His glow illuminates the whole room, including the monster holding me captive. I look up at its hideous face and hear myself groan as all the blood in my body runs instantly cold. It’s not Belias. This one is bigger and nastier-looking, if that’s possible, and smells much worse—as if breathing wasn’t already hard enough through my panicked gasps.
“Gabriel, you’ve always had a wonderfully droll sense of humor. Why would I let my prize go?”
“Because she’s not your prize. You don’t have any claim to her. Her soul is clean.”
“Hmm … yes, Lucifer didn’t give me much to work with, did he? He found this assignment … challenging.” He scowls down at me and chuckle-coughs
again. “Falling in love. Love!” He lets out a sharp bark of a laugh. “How quaint is that!”
“Yes, it was a completely transforming, life-altering event. You’ve heard the saying, love conquers all?”
“Well, in the end, it hasn’t conquered anything, has it? He’s dead and I’m holding the prize.”
“Dead is all relative, don’t you think?”
My heart soars at the sound of Luc’s voice. But as I pivot toward the kitchen, like a Christmas tree ornament dangling from a string, my heart sinks. Luc is covered in blood, his T-shirt in tatters and several deep gashes across his chest, shoulders, and right cheek.
“Oh my God,” I gasp.
“Your God can’t save either of you,” the monster rasps and chuckles. He lifts me up to his eye level by my hair and it feels like my head is ripping off my body. “You belong to the other team now.”
“You seriously want to rethink that, Beherit,” Luc says, stepping through the kitchen door into the family room.
Beherit laughs—a thunderous bellow that shakes the entire house. “You’re making threats? You—a half-dead mortal with no leverage?” he snarls, lowering my feet back to the floor, where I continue to dangle like a marionette. “I’ll deal with you when I’m finished with your little pet.” He shakes me by my hair.
“Oh, I’ve got leverage. And it’s ironic that you should mention pets …” Luc’s smile makes my heart sputter, and I feel my arm reach out to him. His eyes bore through mine, and in the door behind him, I see five pairs of huge, glowing red eyes staring back at me from the dark of the kitchen. Luc steps sideways at the same instant he snaps his fingers, and three ginormous black dogs, one with three heads, explode from the kitchen door, teeth bared, and are on me in a heartbeat.
Except, they’re not on me, they’re on him—the thing holding me. And Luc is there too. He has my hand and he’s yelling something at me. With the noise of the dogs and my confusion, I don’t get it right away, but then I understand. He’s saying, “Use it, Frannie!”
My Sway. What do I do? I don’t even know what it is or how it works.
“Let me go.” It comes out as a strangled croak and nothing happens. I try again. “You don’t want me! Let me go!” I say louder.
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