Vampire Devil

by Rosemary A Johns

  ‘First, we have to win the trident,’ Ash murmured, not letting go. ‘You didn’t pass Lucifer’s test: this, with a bloke whose idea of second chances is to red hot poker you for each mistake.’ How had I forgotten that? ‘When he calls for you tonight — and he will — remember you’re our leader now. He’ll hurt us to hurt you. But you’re stronger than he is. You’re the Protector, and we believe in you. Just…remember that.’

  I held onto his shoulders, trembling.

  Tonight, I faced Lucifer and the consequences of losing the test. Even if I was the Protector, my first job as leader was to let those I loved suffer.

  I understood now that truly was my hell.

  I choked, holding the back of my hand across my mouth. The sulphurous stench rose in a haze of heat off the stagnant pools, which blazed with flames, as if they were coated with oil. I ducked, slinking through the shadows.

  Ash paced along the banks of a subterranean river that curled through the tunnels: The Fire Catacombs, Mischief had told me they were called.

  Nocturnal, since I’d been dragged to the Under World, I’d become used to sleeping away the days in my carriage cell, exhausted from the Cage fights.

  I’d woken an hour ago blissed in a pile of feathers, fur, and inked tattoos: fam.

  I hadn’t remembered inviting Mischief into the mix, but his slim arm had been slung around my neck, and his head had nestled on my shoulder. Rebel had been studying him, almost as perplexed as me.

  Because that had been Ash’s spot.

  I’d bolted upright, knocking off Mischief.

  What had happened to Ash?

  Last night…that couldn’t have been Ash’s way of saying goodbye…?

  Not again…

  Mischief had lain on his back, as I’d shaken him. ‘What’ve you done with our Brigadier?’

  Mischief had blinked up at me, sleepily. ‘Your beloved whore is missing, so you think I…? Why not rather believe him with the Blood Lovers? They are intimate, after all.’

  ‘Or with Lucifer,’ Rebel had added.

  I’d winced, but what if they’d been right? What if Ash, who’d already betrayed me once, had done it again?

  Yet even as I’d thought it, I hadn’t believed it. What I’d feared…?

  That Ash had already sacrificed himself. And I’d never see him again.

  When I’d lunged for the door, Mischief had called out, ‘Do you think I wouldn’t have slipped another tracker onto the Fallen, after we lost him the last time? It’s almost like you don’t know me at all.’

  So, I’d tracked Ash here to the Fire Catacombs.

  Ash hunkered down, holding his arms over his head. Across the tongue of the black river, an island of garbage mushroomed out of the blood-tainted waters, which led to an archway that flickers of light licked around.

  Lucifer’s Light.

  Which was better…betrayed or sacrificed?

  I held my breath as I crept closer.

  Hiss — a jet of fire exploded beneath my foot.

  I rolled to the side, as the catacombs gave birth to a hundred baby fountains of flames. My elbow seared, and my ankle bruised, as I kicked away. My latex top started to melt.

  I screamed.

  Then Ash was rolling me, hissing himself at the burns, before ducking me into the stinking waters. I swallowed slimy mouthfuls before wishing I hadn’t and chucking up; it burned my nostrils.

  Hell, the filth…

  There was a hand at my neck, and I was being dragged backwards onto the edge of Volcano Land before my wet clothes and weapons were ripped off.

  I shivered, staring up at Ash, whilst I coughed.

  Ash’s eyes were red-rimmed, and his face was worn in a way I’d never seen. He avoided my gaze as he slipped off his black shirt and slid it over my shoulders; at least it wasn’t one of his shiny hustler tops.

  ‘You haven’t slept a wink, bro?’

  He sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I meant to be back before you woke up and discovered Mischief drooling on your shoulder.’

  When he eased my wings through the slashes of his shirt, it hung down like a dress. I’d never worn a bloke’s clothes before, and his warmth and scent next to my skin shuddered through me.

  Yet Ash was shivering for a different reason, and it made me want to nuke from orbit whatever had made him look so weary.

  I reached out to touch his cheek, but he flinched back. ‘Don’t…I’m not clean.’

  ‘No one talks about my blokes like that. Even you.’

  We sat eyeing each other, as the fire flared in firework displays behind us, and the river gurgled by.

  ‘This is where he…Lucifer…made me a Seducer,’ Ash finally admitted. ‘Why he made me one. He’d already lost my loyalty…love…to my babe.’ He glanced underneath his eyelashes at me, as if daring me to threaten him with a new form of death.

  The vampiric powers inside seethed to hold him over the fire pools until he roasted, as I had inside, to hear him talk about his other love.

  Were they still alive? Did he still love them?

  I wanted to be the freedom fighter, however, not the tyrant. The psycho powers wouldn’t rule me: I’d rule them. Even if it meant denying the crushing waves of mine, mine, mine every time I smelled the clove scent of Ash on his shirt around my shoulders.

  I clenched my jaw to stop myself spewing out venomous words.

  ‘No hating on the babe?’ Ash ventured.

  ‘You’re not calling me it. So, knock yourself out and call your skank monkey muffins.’

  I didn’t expect the huff of laughter. ‘She’d cut off my head, phoenix resurrect me, and cut it off again if I did that.’

  I tensed, before shoving Ash’s shirt off my shoulders. ‘Keep it for her. I’d rather strut my stuff back naked.’

  Ash caught my wrists, easing the shirt back on me. ‘There’s nobody but you, monkey muffins.’

  ‘I’m not following.’

  Ash’s fangs shot out, and I juddered, as he grazed them along my neck. Yet it was like being home, the same as the first time I’d met him in Hackney Cemetery. ‘I love you, Violet, only you. I needed time here to remind myself why I’m fighting…suffering…and why I gave up Devil.’ His pupils were blown, his gaze desperate. ‘He whispers to me, begging me to take him back.’

  Devil had been running to daddy, using us both.

  I had to salute the manipulative trident. Now I was onto the trident’s tricks, however, he wouldn’t come out as top boy. The weapon might’ve played these games in a supernatural arena for centuries, but I’d learnt them from J and fought them in Hackney. There was no contest.

  I’d win.

  ‘I know you don’t want my protection,’ Ash kissed my neck; his large hands stroked up my spine. ‘All hail the Champion. But just once…pretend. I’m not a hero but I could be—’

  ‘I don’t need to pretend.’

  I caressed Ash’s bare chest, and his wings fluttered. When my fingers moved towards the waistband of his jeans, however, his breath hitched.

  ‘How can you touch me?’ He rested his head on my shoulder. I hated the way the self-loathing spun him as fragile as glass. ‘When you know what I am?’

  ‘You’re mine.’ Those words were halleluiahs. If Lucifer killed us tonight, at least we died claimed and together. ‘Fam. And the Brigadier. No bastard can take that away.’

  I’d show Ash just how much I craved to touch…

  I pushed open the button on his jeans, and although his breathing became harsh, as he clung around my neck, he didn’t stop me this time.

  I slid my hand lower again.

  Suddenly, long steel nails burst out of my hands. I shrieked, as I skewered Ash through the guts with my claws.

  20

  I’ve never had my claws inside a bloke before.

  Maybe in a bloke…

  Not a foot of violet gleaming steel skewering in one side and out the other, whilst a trickle of scarlet gurgled out of the corner of his mouth.

  Yeah,
I knew how to romance.

  First, snuggle next to sulphurous pools that farted fire into the catacombs, which ran with a sewage river and its island of garbage, then run your lover boy through.

  Violet nails, J, violet nails.

  I can see them, Feathery-muffin, both in and out of your brave solider.

  This is a freak out: I’m labelling it. Big arsed freak out. Take them away. No claws for this bitch.

  Hold on one hell fire minute, hooker, you earned those babies. I told you, you’re the Vampire Princess. Down here in the Under World? Those nails are pride. Haven’t your hidden behind your shame long enough?

  Ash had raised his head from my shoulder. He stared with shock and wonder at my nails that had almost unmanned him.

  Shuddering, my body tremored, as I wrenched at the nails.

  Squelch — my claws were caught on Ash’s innards.

  When Ash winced, I hunched. ‘Ehm, sorry?’

  Ash grinned, licking at the blood around his lips. ‘That is…hot. Well, without the kebabbing me part.’

  I glared at him. ‘I thought you weren’t a kinky bastard like Rebel?’

  Ash rolled his eyes. ‘You came into your claws, and they’re gorgeous. Thinking about someone…something…sexy, were you?’ He bucked his hips, then groaned at the rip, as my nails slid even deeper. ‘Can we finish this with less of the Wolverine?’

  I blushed. ‘They just…pop out…when I’m getting a happy?’

  ‘Or in throat slashing mode. You were tingling good, not tingling bad?’ Ash smirked. ‘Relax. Imagine drawing them in.’ I tugged, shaking with frustration, and Ash yelped. ‘Ninja-like, as if you’re slipping a blade up your sleeve.’

  ‘How’d you know? You don’t even have this mod.’

  Way to emasculate a bloke, almost literally.

  Ash stilled; he couldn’t hide the pain fast enough before he forced a smile. ‘Ouch, and that only hurt two on a scale out of ten. Your dad managed the full ten out of ten when he ripped out my claws right here in these catacombs, and unlike fangs, they don’t grow back.’

  That killed all happy tingles.

  My claws shot back into my nails, just like Ash had said.

  Shanks had become part of me. Or I’d become a shank.

  I’d always loved the feel of the blade in my hand, slicing through skin. I’d fled from that truth, but I was the weapon.

  Ash hollered, falling onto his back. ‘Now you’ve made it up to a solid three.’

  I leaned over him, pushing his sable mane away from his forehead. ‘Why come here? Why did Lucifer make you a Seducer? Why did he steal your claws?’

  ‘Disobeyed,’ Ash whispered, shaking, yet his charcoal gaze never left mine. ‘Rebelled. Fought the Light.’ He glanced across at the flickering archway. ‘Every empire makes examples: don’t misbehave or you’ll become nothing but a whore like the dark Brigadier. Who’ll stand up after they witness…?’

  ‘The Bitch of Utopia will,’ I flared my wings behind me, forcing his gaze back to mine. ‘And what did I say about disrespecting my blokes?’ My fingers cramped with the desperation to touch, but Ash had been used enough, and this time I craved his permission. ‘Trick says a Seducer is only there to bring pleasure to others. I say: screw the bastard. Let me bring pleasure just to you.’

  Ash wet his lips, before nodding.

  ‘Words would help, bro.’

  ‘Please…’

  I’d take that.

  I kissed Ash softly, trailing my fingers down his neck, across his fluttering pulse. He jolted, as if expecting roughness, yet twined his tongue with mine, when all I did was circle his nipples. He quivered with hypersensitivity, still on edge. This time, however, I didn’t tease. I’d only started touching him, yet already he arched beneath me. I pressed closer, ignoring the winding coils tingling through my wings, gums, and deep inside.

  This wasn’t for me.

  Ash had been transformed into a creature of pleasure, but that pleasure had been turned against him to torment. How long had it been since he’d been touched out of love?

  I almost paused in my caresses at the revelation.

  Hell, that’s what this was: love.

  When I stretched out his wings, Ash closed his eyes. I sucked the tips of each feather between my lips, mouthing along the line of Ash’s right wing, whilst he moaned, fisting his hands in my shirt — his shirt.

  I trembled at the intimacy.

  Just release, I swore mantra-like, a wank mate helping to release…

  But it was more than that. A reclaiming of identity. Self. Manhood.

  Love.

  I kissed Ash’s pulsing wingtip. He bucked, his eyes flying open. His fingers tore at my shoulders, as if he was drowning. Then he slumped back, blacked out.

  I smiled, settling my wings over him like a blanket.

  Then fireflies blazed, bobbing across the pools: Lucifer’s Lights.

  I froze.

  Being discovered half naked with my dad’s favourite whipping boy — in the fiery catacomb where he first took his whip to him — didn’t scream loyalty.

  To a paranoid despot like Lucifer? It’d sing gunpowder, treason, and plot.

  And, of course, the bastard would be right.

  I cringed in the gloom, shielding Ash’s still body, as the flames died in my wings. But if the fire pools behind us exploded again? We’d be lit up like shadow puppets.

  I slowed my breathing, ducking my head over my wings, as the lights wove closer, questing.

  Closer, closer, and closer…

  I struggled back to the skills I’d honed in Angel World, throwing up mental walls in my mind to shield us both. Yet unlike when I’d protected Rebel and me from discovery by the Mage, I couldn’t reach through a bond to pull Ash behind my wall because Ash wasn’t my Marked Wing and I hadn’t Bonded with him.

  Why did that make me feel so isolated from Ash my chest ached?

  At last, the lights veered away across the river, hovering around the archway.

  I risked peeking through the damp strands of hair that stuck to my cheeks.

  A giant bat soared along the roof of the catacomb. In the dark, all I could see were grey wings and chocolate body.

  I shuddered.

  It circled, high above, before plummeting down, as if guided by the lights. Except, it wasn’t a bat: it was Wild.

  Wild clutched a boy to his chest: an inked Blood who was crimson in tattoos.

  Beautiful.

  Yet the Blood trembled, weeping. When they landed, the only thing holding the boy on his feet were Wild’s arms around him, like a dad supporting his son. Yet it was less paternalistic and more punishing.

  ‘Rejoice, the king has ordered your sacrifice. Today, you walk into Lucifer’s Light. Thank him in your bones and blood for the honour.’ They didn’t sound like Wild’s words. They were stilted as a ritual, as if he’d said them enough times to become bored of the routine.

  He didn’t even react when the boy wailed.

  Still the Blood didn’t say a word.

  And that’s what did it: I didn’t know what freaky sacrifice went down in these catacombs but it wasn’t happening today. Because the kid wasn’t even allowed to speak in his defence. I was his Protector, however, and I bastard would.

  When I tried to shove myself up, however, snatching Flight who hummed approvingly from my pile of sodden clothes, Ash’s hand shot out, dragging me down by the wrist.

  His eyes snapped open, sparking with rage and misery. ‘You wanted to know why Lucifer punished me?’

  ‘Not a good time.’

  ‘This is why.’ Ash yanked me back onto him. ‘I defied his order to burn the dissenters.’

  My heart lurched.

  Burn? No way in hell I was letting that happen to the inked kid.

  Wild shoved the Blood, and he stumbled, catching himself against the rock archway. His bare feet sank into the garbage.

  ‘And now I’m going to defy the bastard as well.’ I pulled my wrist fre
e.

  Ash wrapped his wings around me, however, tumbling me around, knocking Flight out of my hand, and pinning me beneath him.

  Hell, he was strong when he wanted to be.

  ‘You’re not,’ Ash barked in the commanding tone of the Brigadier freed again, ‘you’ll listen to me. This boy’s execution is on Lucifer’s order. There’s no way to stop it. If you try and save even one, then ten will die in their place.’

  The flickering lights dimmed, as the Blood stepped hesitantly through the archway into the crevice beyond.

  I almost murdered ten kids. I could’ve…

  You almost did nothing. Your daddy set up this nightmare carnival, and you’ve been caught in the show.

  Cold choked me. I clasped at Ash’s wings, my throat tight. ‘How…?’

  ‘I tried…’ Ash’s gaze was empty. ‘When Lucifer first started cleansing our ranks. I won’t ever forget the deaths I caused because I tried to save triplets…’

  Tears dripped from his eyes, yet still he only stared with that blank, broken stare.

  I shook him. ‘You tried. You lost your claws, trident, right to be anything but a Seducer because you tried to stop Lucifer.’

  ‘But I lost.’

  ‘You didn’t have me. Now you do.’

  Ash scrutinised me in a way I couldn’t understand, although anything was better than the lost look he’d had going on before. ‘Good to know I have the Protector this time.’

  He linked our hands.

  Clank — a steel door smashed down, shutting in the kid.

  There was a clear viewing panel through into the light chamber, like this was just another Cage fight. Somehow, however, I didn’t think a Champion would be stepping away free.

  ‘We can try—’

  ‘Ten kids, Violet, in place of one. We can’t fight the entire FF, Under World, and Lucifer. Not yet…and not before those kids would die.’

  ‘What happens next?’ I tightened my fingers around Ash’s, my pulse pounding.

  The powers inside howled to jump up and battle for the kid, even as I knew that’d kill ten more.

  How could I judge to allow one to die to save a theoretical ten? Ash had been presented with the same choice, and he knew the consequences. I allowed him to hold me back, even as part of me hated him for it.