by J. R. Rain
“People only have the power that I grant them,” Lucifer said.
“Well, technically, I’m not a person, so go to hell.”
Lucifer gave a sad shake of his handsome head. “It doesn’t have to go this way. We could be friends.”
“I don’t have anything you want and you don’t have anything I need,” I said.
He flashed his grin with its million-dollar teeth. Then he lifted a finger and crooked it a couple of times. Parker/Maria shambled past me like a zombie—and I should know, since I’ve encountered more than a few—heading straight for him. I grabbed her, but she/them seemed to possess supernatural strength. Before I could do anything, Parker/Maria was in his embrace and he was laughing loud enough to make the bricks of the old museum shake in their chinks.
When Parker/Maria kissed him, Dylan, the Count, and I all screamed “No!” simultaneously. What had started as a love triangle had now become like a love to the square root of three or something like that. I was never any good at math, which is why I attended night school in Seattle in my “real life.”
“You say you have no soul,” Lucifer said to me. “Then why do you care what happens to this woman?”
“Women,” I said. “Plural.”
“The more, the merrier,” he said, and he vanished in a puff of smoke and swirling shadows. Parker/Maria vanished with him.
“What the hell?” the Count said.
“Exactly,” I said.
The Count and Dylan both looked wistfully at all the pieces of Maria’s decayed, spiritless body. The two rivals were now so sad, I thought they were going to hug each other and cry.
The Count dropped to the floor and half-heartedly nudged bits of Maria’s corpse back together, as if somehow that could rekindle the magic of their romance. He didn’t seem angry at either me or Dylan now. He’d almost forgotten we were there, he was so lost in misery.
The guy lost his soul and also lost the love of his life. Now that he had heard his true love’s voice coming from Parker, he no longer had a need for the corpse. He wanted the essence of Maria, not just the flesh. Sure, he would have taken the corpse, but now he wanted it all.
Except, of course, she was now in Parker.
Who was presently making goo-goo eyes at the Devil, wherever that might be.
Hell, I suspected.
Of course, I’d also lost my soul—the night I became a vampire—and I’d lost Parker now, who maybe wasn’t the love of my life yet but she definitely had something that kept my blood chugging.
But Dylan...
“What are you smiling about?” Dylan said. “Your fangs are showing.”
“I just got an idea,” I said.
“Do I really want to hear this?”
“Only if you ever want to see Maria and Parker again.”
“I want to see her, too,” the Count said, clenching his fists. He was still really big, despite being a little pitiful looking.
“First things first, you guys need to set aside your personal differences,” I said. “We get Maria back, and figure out how to stop her from possessing Parker, and then she gets to make up her own mind about which of you she chooses.”
“What if she chooses neither of us?” asked Dylan.
“Then I’d call her a smart woman,” I said. “But right now, she’s over there, with him, and we’re over here, in this creepy-ass museum.”
We all looked around the spooky, shadowy museum that still seemed to carry the ghosts of the Civil War soldiers who’d died there.
“So what we have to do is trick Lucifer and then take Maria/Parker back,” I continued. “But we all have to work together to make it happen. Deal?”
The Count, still a little misty-eyed, nodded. Dylan gave a thumb’s up.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the plan. Dylan, you have to offer your soul to Lucifer. He’s so arrogant, that’s the one thing he can’t resist.”
“My soul?” Dylan said. “I only have one!”
“Hey, it’s not like you’re using it for anything.”
“Point taken. Okay, what do we do next?”
Chapter Seventeen
“But first,” said the Count, pointing to the scattered remains of the woman he’d obsessed over in this life and the next, “we can’t just leave my dear, dear Maria here.”
“I agree,” said Dylan. “We can’t just leave her like this. She deserves better.”
“In case you two hadn’t noticed, the real Maria—not to mention someone I’m highly fond of—is presently with the Prince of Darkness in, for all I know, Hell itself.”
“They’re not in Hell,” said the Count, and for the first time since I’d had the displeasure of getting to know him, he sounded reasonable and, well, human. Long gone was the ghost act. He was a fully fleshed entity. How this came to be, I didn’t know, but I suspected it had to do with his little side deal with the devil.
“And you know this how?” asked Dylan.
“Because I’ve been dead for nearly fifty years,” said the Count. “There’s a rule in place here. The devil can’t just take anyone to hell with him, especially the living, and especially not my sweet Maria.”
“My sweet Maria,” said Dylan.
They were about to face off when I grabbed Dylan by the shoulder and pulled him back. “Don’t be an idiot.”
“Well, I love her just as much as this jerk does.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do, and how dare—”
I smacked him upside the head. “Just cool your jets, Romeo. Let’s grab Maria—all of her—and bury her somewhere.”
“On a hill,” said the Count.
“Overlooking the ocean,” said Dylan. “That would be romantic.”
“Oh, brother,” I said, and fetched a hand that had gotten missed.
* * *
We found some shovels in the maintenance shed—the museum was located, after all, on a few acres of land, with much of it occupied by the old fort.
The Count spied a sand dune knoll, which proved to also offer a view of the ocean. Both love bugs approved of the site, and I used all of my supernatural strength to dig the crap out of that hole, all while cars roared by us and a warm wind whipped sand and salt in our faces.
When the grave was deemed deep enough, I gave the two fools a few moments alone with Maria’s remains. Once deposited within, we spent the next thirty minutes re-burying the poor girl who had the misfortune of meeting the Count nearly half a century earlier.
Luckily for me, my back doesn’t hurt, because this would have been back-breaking work. Dylan paused once or twice, huffing and puffing, but he powered valiantly through, driven past pain and exhaustion by the love of a woman he had never seen alive.
Now, with the poor girl finally being given a proper burial, on a knoll overlooking the ocean, no less, I turned to my two companions, both of whom were crying on each others’ shoulders.
“Snap out of it, you two. It’s time to rescue the real Maria’s spirit and the still-living Parker.”
They stopped blubbering enough to turn to me and, with the moon having risen high above and the sound of the surf crashing nearby, I told them my plan.
The Count approved; Dylan, not so much.
“And this loophole, as you call it,” he said, “how do we know the devil won’t see through it?”
“Because he’s an egotistical maniac in every sense of the words.”
“And how do we know he’s not listening to us now?” asked Dylan. “He’s the devil, you know. He was like God’s right-hand man, or something.”
The Count shook his head. “I know a little about how he works. The devil can only come to you if he’s summoned. We haven’t summoned him.”
“But he came to us in the museum,” said Dylan. “I don’t recall anyone summoning him. I know I sure as hell didn’t.”
“He came for me,” said the Count.
“Why?”
“To collect my soul.”
“At that exact mom
ent?” asked Dylan. “And we just happened to be there? You’ve been dead for, what, fifty years?”
“Fifty-three years,” said the Count. “And my deal with the devil was simple, really. Every decade or so, he releases me to be with her again. For just one day.”
“And today was the day?” I asked.
“Yes. And now it’s almost over. The bastard likes to come early. Says it’s midnight somewhere in the world.”
“A loophole,” I said. “That he’s exploiting.”
“Right,” said the Count. “But he backed off this time because of the girl.”
“Parker,” I said.
“Parker and Maria,” said the Count, maybe a little dreamily.
“Wait,” said Dylan, “you’re telling me that you sold your soul to the devil just to spend one day with Maria every decade?”
“Right.”
“Sweet deal! I’m totally up for that—anything for my beautiful Maria! Where do I sign up?”
I smacked him upside his head again. “No, you won’t sign up. Not for that deal. I have another deal.”
“The loophole deal?” asked Dylan.
“Yes. Now, do you remember what to do?”
“I do,” said Dylan, slapping his hands together. “And I’m ready. I’ll do anything to save my sweet Maria.”
“My sweet Maria,” said the Count.
I shook my head. These two were close to driving me nuts. I turned to the Count. “Okay, you’re the expert at this...summon the devil.”
The Count nodded, took in some air that I doubted he needed, and muttered a handful of dark words better left unwritten.
Chapter Eighteen
The Count turned around three times and faced the west, then intoned in a deep voice, “It’s midnight somewhere, and my day’s up. Time for you to make me dead again.”
Sounded pretty lame to me, but the hill shook beneath our feet, and then Mr. Good-Looking appeared in a thick mist that slowly drifted away like lost spirits. He was alone.
“Where is Parker?” I demanded.
“Don’t worry, she’s somewhere safe.”
“You can’t have her. She never offered you her soul.”
“She came willingly. Although, come to think of it, that could have been Maria.” He grinned. “I guess neither of them had much keeping them here on this side.”
Bastard! I thought, and then remembered he could probably read my mind. His smile didn’t budge, though. He was one cocky son-of-a-bitch. Can’t say I blame him.
“We have a bargain,” the Count said to Lucifer. “I expect you to keep your word and make me dead again.”
“Yes, we have a bargain, but don’t forget that one of my nicknames is the Prince of Lies.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” the Count said.
“I already own your soul. There’s not much left for you to worry about.”
“So you’re into souls,” I said. “Guess you can never get enough, huh?”
“The more, the merrier. That’s why Parker/Maria is going to be so much fun.” He flashed his devilish grin. “In so many, many ways.”
“Well, he’s not as much fun as them, but Dylan here has a soul to spare,” I said.
Dylan had been quiet throughout this exchange, standing mournfully over Maria’s grave, but then he perked up. “There’s nothing on Earth for me anymore. Please take me to hell.”
Lucifer rubbed his perfect chin thoughtfully. “Hmm, well, that’s nice of you to volunteer, but traditionally we need to make some sort of bargain. I give you some kind of gift that usually has to do with one of the seven deadly sins. Lust and greed are two of the all-time favorites, in my experience.”
“I want one of the deals that you gave Maria,” Dylan said. “Where we just kind of skip the middleman and I go directly to hell.”
“That was an exception,” Lucifer said. “Two souls at once. And, I must say, they are a little more physically appealing than you are. They’re a nice addition to hell, but you’d be just another loser soaking up heat and wasting gasoline. On the other hand, a soul’s a soul.”
“And I’m supposed to be dead, so I’m ready to go back to hell, too,” the Count said.
“Wait a second,” Lucifer said. “Both of you are crushing on Maria, who now looks like Parker. But Spider here doesn’t seem to care much that I have Parker, too.”
I shrugged, wondering why he had such an interest in me. “Easy come, easy go. When you’ve been around a couple of centuries, you learn to love ‘em and leave ‘em.”
I wondered what Parker would say if she’d heard me. I also wondered if she could read my thoughts right now. I didn’t feel any psychic connection, but the rules might be different in whatever netherworld Lucifer had her stashed away in at the moment.
“You truly are soulless,” Lucifer said to me. “I like that. Maybe we can work together sometime.”
“As I said before, you don’t have anything I need. Plenty of blood around.”
“I could give you so much more. Just think how much power an immortal can accrue. You could be a rock star and have the world at your feet, all the money and women you could possibly want. That’s every boy’s dream, right?”
“I stopped dreaming over a century ago.”
“Politics. You could be president, or the new tsar of Russia, or king of an island.”
“No, thanks. If you’re a leader, that means you have followers. Sounds like a drag.”
Lucifer’s cool façade seemed to slip a little bit. He was an all-powerful creature used to getting what he wanted, but he had nothing to bribe me with. He had to feel a little bit frustrated, which is what I was counting on. I could tell he was a vain son of a bitch, and maybe we could use that against him.
“Okay,” Lucifer said. “This sounds like a challenge. How about if I give you a chance to prove you can withstand temptation? To prove you are morally superior?”
“Like a bet?”
Both the Count and Dylan drew close, eager to hear the deal. This might work with the loophole after all. Lucifer was getting a little desperate, which made him vulnerable.
“Yes, a bet,” Lucifer said. “Since you don’t have a soul to offer, if I win, you serve as a free agent on my behalf for a century.”
“Don’t I already do that by turning people into vampires?” I asked.
“No, you cause them to lose their souls, but that doesn’t do me any good. If they don’t have souls, I can’t cash them in later when their natural time comes. But if you can recruit souls for me, that’s a different matter.”
“And if I win, what do I get?”
“You get Parker back.”
“What about Maria?”
“Dylan’s already given me his soul for her.”
“Wait a sec,” Dylan said. “We didn’t shake on it or anything.”
“Besides,” the Count cut in. “She’s mine. I gave you my soul already. A deal’s a deal”
“That’s right,” I said. “A soul for a soul. Dylan’s isn’t for sale. Not any more.”
“And who made this rule?” asked Lucifer.
“It’s called a loophole, motherfucker,” said Dylan, stepping forward, jabbing his finger, obviously finding his courage.
“I invented loopholes,” said Lucifer, and that’s when Dylan’s fingertip caught fire. He yelped and shook his hand, then shoved his smoking finger in the cool grass. Lucifer smiled and added. “I’m also the Prince of Darkness for a reason. You would do well to remember that. Motherfucker.”
“I-I’m not afraid of you,” said Dylan from his knees, and I realized his love for Maria had given him a potentially deadly case of bravado.
I stepped between them before this turned ugly. “About our showdown,” I said to the Devil, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Dylan. There was literally a fire smoldering just behind his pupils. “I want it on neutral turf. Purgatory, limbo, the netherworld, whatever name for it you prefer.”
Satan flicked his gaze reluctantly onto me. “I can d
o that.”
“When do we start?”
Lucifer smiled, cocky again. “We already have.”
I looked around. The hill hadn’t changed, but Dylan and the Count were nowhere to be seen. The lights of Key West were off in the distance, and the salt air blew in from the ocean. “But...we’re still in Key West.”
“What did you think Purgatory would look like?”
Chapter Nineteen
“And away we go, Mr. Spider,” said the Devil. “Speaking of which, what’s your first name?”
“I’m Spider to you,” I said, not liking what I had suddenly found myself in. Lucifer’s ability to instantly transport me into Purgatory was unsettling at best. That Key West was really Purgatory was debatable. That the devil had the ability to manipulate Purgatory to suit his wishes, was something to wonder about...and to learn from.
With the beautiful entity sneering down at me with his usual look of contempt, I considered, then closed my eyes and imagined the skyscrapers of my hometown of Seattle. When I opened my eyes again, I gasped, despite myself.
We were in bustling downtown Seattle. Cars and trolleys whipped past. The homeless lurched past. And the skyscrapers towered. All mixed with a pungent smell of exhaust, sea salt, city grime, and fish. In other words: home.
“Very good, Mr. Spider,” said Lucifer. “It’s almost as if you’ve been in Purgatory before.”
“My life is Purgatory,” I said. The truth was, at times it was a living hell, too. I considered further. If this was Purgatory—and I suspected it was—I was seeing dead souls. They were in neither heaven nor hell, but somewhere in-between. Which is why the expressions of those around me ranged from joy to unhappiness...and everything in-between. Just like in real life. Purgatory was, if my guess was right, an extension of real life...but forever.
“Are they real?” I asked, reaching out and passing a hand through one of the shuffling homeless.