Voices of Hell

by Catherine Stovall

  Izzy caught herself glaring at Rafael, the power she held over his mind slipping. Quickly, before she could let her demon side ruin everything, she rose up on her toes and kissed him. Her lips greedily devouring his, she fought against the fear of death as he melded his body against hers. When she opened his lips with her tongue and their mouths danced together, the zing of electricity returned. Instead of a warning, it became desire, driving her mad as it pulsated inside of her and drowned out the demon’s outraged cries.

  From behind her, she heard Ogwald clear his throat. Reluctantly, Izzy pulled away, her vision filled with tiny stars. “Everything look okay?”

  He nodded his head, his hanging cheeks slightly swaying, “Everything looks fine.”

  “Thank you, Ogwald,” she said the words and meant them.

  “It is my duty and my pleasure, Iyzebel.”

  “I’m going to stay with Rafael for awhile, to make sure that he is okay. I’ll call you for a ride when I’m prepared to go home.” As if just remembering he was there, she turned to Raf. “If that’s okay with you.” As she said the words, she ran a hand down his arm, applying a little persuasion just in case the kiss had not made her offer clear.

  Raf stammered, spitting out, “Yes, of course.”

  As they turned to walk away, Ogwald gently grasped her hand. “May I speak to you for just a moment, Iyzebel?”

  She turned to Raf, “You go ahead, I’ll be up in a minute. Okay?” She waited until he’d agreed and bounded up the stairs before she turned back to the old demon.

  “Iyzebel, I understand the dangers here, even if Ashur does not. He is driven by his own aspirations and is losing sight of what is right in front of him. I will stay in the car, just down the street there.” He paused and pointed to an empty parking spot beneath a streetlamp a few spaces up. “Just in case you need me.”

  The strangest desire to embrace him came over her, causing her tone to become sharp and defensive. “I can do this, Ogwald. This is what I was chosen for.” Unable to hold onto the bitchy side of herself, she softened, “Thank you, though. I will feel safer knowing you are nearby.”

  Ogwald smiled his strange little smile and turned away to get in the car. Feeling more confident knowing she was not truly alone, Izzy climbed the stairs to Rafael’s apartment. With each step upward, she felt her excitement rise, continuing to drown out the demon’s wailing. By the time she walked in the open door to the apartment, she felt a new kind of hunger swelling. She embraced the craving for the body of a man, instead of his soul. The desire to give as well as take was a new experience for her.

  Raf stood in the kitchen, gulping down water from a glass, his hand braced on the counter. He’d taken off his shirt, and his muscles rippled with each movement. The sight of his throat stretched out, bare and exposed, made her want to nibble the richly colored skin in the most sensitive places. The deep indentions that curved down from his stomach and dipped below the top of his jeans made her want to trace the pattern with her tongue until he gripped her hair and moaned.

  For the love of the darkness, he is hot. She could feel her arousal already readying her body for him, and she could no longer resist.

  Crossing the kitchen in a few quick steps, she stood before him, eyes burning with need. She hesitated, giving him time to step back, she wanted the seduction without her gift for such things. To have him submit to her without being wrapped in a demon’s spell suddenly became an obsession. The bond would be stronger if she did, but it was a risk she’d never taken before.

  Raf set the glass down and cupped her face with his hand. His deep caramel eyes filled with the desire, and with her chin between his finger and thumb, he tilted her head back and kissed her gently.

  Bringing her hands up to his stomach, she traced the back of her nails up the lines of definition, loving the way the gentle stroke made him shiver. The kiss was brief, but the effect was exactly what she had needed to happen. Drawing him closer, she pressed hard against him and ran her hands up to his neck, lacing her fingers in his dark hair.

  Rafael gripped her hips, thumbs pressing deliciously hard against the bones as he deepened the kiss and stole her breath away. Spurred by the excited gasp she made, he lifted her onto the counter in front of him, positioning himself between her knees. Pulling his mouth from hers he leaned backward, and smiled, the need for her body. In an instant, he freed her from her top, and buried his face in her breasts. Sucking and massaging his way between the two as she wrapped her legs around his waist, head tossed back in pure bliss.

  Her hands fumbled at the front of his pants, and he tried to pull away. Not willing to let him, she bit down on his nipple, pinching it between her teeth as her tongue flicked the tip. Raf moaned, his hand gripping the back of her neck as the other slid under her skirt, finding nothing but warm flesh. Together, they petted and stroked until the rise and flow of their passion had them teetering on the edge of orgasm.

  The demon raised its head, all too aware that she was about to forsake her mission for the warm wetness and rhythmic motion of Raf’s fingers dancing within her. In a wailing cry, it reminded her that she needed to form the bond at the moment that their passion crested, or all might be lost.

  Gripping his wrist, she pulled his hand away. “Raf, I want you.”

  The words were all he needed and his resistance fell away. Gripping her ass, he pulled her forward on the counter, and she guided him into the epicenter of the throbbing passion that he had built within her. His gentleness surprised Izzy, she had expected that a man of his endowments and heated passion would have taken her savagely. Instead, he rocked slowly at first, pushing her toward the crest as he stared deep into her eyes.

  Crossing her legs behind his back, nails digging into the flesh of his shoulders, Izzy pressed her hips forward each time he drew back. The taste, feel, and the sweet, heady scent of him filled her senses as he filled her body, causing her to lose all control. The demon erupted from her just as the orgasm exploded in waves of pure bliss, leaving her dizzy. Crying out her final release as Raf shuddered in ecstasy, the demon took over. Long talons ripped into his back, leaving the flesh, and her sharp teeth bit into his shoulder like serrated blades.

  Rafael cried out, pleasure and pain blending together in a concoction of divine torment, and Izzy let go. Shoving backward and jerking her knees up until she sat completely on the counter, she watched in horror as the worst happened.

  Rafael’s knuckles turned white as his fingers bit into the countertop on either side of her. Hunching over, he moaned in pain, the veins in his arms and neck straining against the skin as if they might burst. Sweat broke out all over his body, and he growled her name through clenched teeth.

  Having no way of knowing if the bonding had worked, Izzy timidly reached forward and placed the tips of her fingers in his soft hair. In a hoarse whisper, she said his name, “Rafael?”

  He raised his head, an unbearable look of agony marring his handsome features and eyes blazing with ethereal light. As the sound of cracking bones and tearing muscles faded into a guttural scream, he arched backward, bending at an impossible angle.

  Izzy screamed, scampering backward and falling from the counter as wings, red and matted with blood, sprung outward from his shoulders. She landed on the tile, the hard surface bruising her flesh upon impact and knocking the air from her lungs. As she gasped to regain her ability to breathe, Raf rounded the island, feathery appendages unfolded to stretch out more than twice the length of his arms.

  “Demon,” he growled.

  Izzy scrambled to her feet, backing away in fear. The bonding had not worked, she had failed, and she would pay with her life. A halfling demon, still new to the blood, could never face the great slayer, Rafael, and survive. Even without Damocles, he was a foe to be reckoned with.

  “I’m going to send you back into the pits where you belong, little succubus. You will perish for your sins.”

  Glancing backward, Izzy measured the distance between her and the door.
Her only hope was reaching Ogwald in order to fight together or flee. The space had seemed nothing before, a few steps at most. However, with death staring at her from the face of an angel, the span seemed to increase with ever panicked beat of her heart.

  He saw her look, knew her plan was to escape, and was on her in an instant. Strong arms shoving her backward, Izzy’s head bounced off the wall, and she slumped to the floor in a shower of crumbling drywall. The impact left her reeling, but before she could move, he hit her again. As his large fist slammed into the fragile bones of her face, the pain shattered her flight instincts. Striking outward, her nails caught his thigh, shredding the bare muscle and spraying blood across her face.

  He’d only just awakened, his powers were not at their full strength, and the wounds from her talons ran deep enough to hurt. Roaring in anger, the angel spread his wings, sending more gore flinging through the air as he stumbled backward. Falling against the door, he cursed her in an archaic language that made the demon in her feel fear and the woman in her want to weep.

  Leaping to her feet, the threat of unconsciousness blackened the edges of Izzy’s vision. She stumbled as she ran, too afraid to look back as the sound of Rafael’s footsteps pounded behind her.

  “There’s nowhere to run, little demon. Nowhere to hide,” he called out in a voice that was heavenly and frightening all at once. To Izzy, it was like watching a tornado rip across the plains with deadly precision and beautiful tragedy.

  Barreling through an open door, she slid, her knees bouncing off the arm of the couch. In a flurry of flailing arms, she tumbled to the floor—easels, paints, and portraits falling like a landslide. Rolling onto her back, she saw her death reflected all around her. Dozens of paintings, filled with blood and gore, stood like beacons of her demise. Their darkness and the constant depiction of her downfall by the angel’s hand, a foretelling of what was about to come.

  Rafael stalked into the room, his mighty wings tucked behind his back, and a butcher knife in his hand. Blood ran from his wounds, and hate seethed from his eyes as he looked down on her. The twisted smile of victory that stretched across his face took away all vestiges of the human man he had appeared to be only minutes before.

  “Rafael, stop!” Izzy tried to put as much of her power into the words as she could. Hoping to hold him in thrall long enough to attempt to escape once more, she begged, “Please, don’t hurt me. I’m not truly a demon. Ashur tricked me. He made me this way. I wanted you to save me. I want you to heal me, Rafael. I’ve heard the stories. Not just the ones of your power to destroy a demon, but of your ability to heal.”

  He spit on her, as if she were nothing. “Heal a demon. Never!” his voice roared, rattling the windows. “You are an abomination, you don’t deserve to live.”

  Even the demon inside her shook with fear. Claws and teeth could not stop the demon slayer. Nothing could prevent her from ending up like one of the paintings that stared at her through dead eyes.

  Raising the knife above his head, Raf plunged downward, the sharp tip of the blade aimed for Izzy’s heart. His knees landed on either side of her, so that he straddled her body, and his arms crashed downward—the knife gripped between his hands. In the last seconds she screamed, and a single tear escaped the corner of her eye as she boldly looked into the face of death. The thud of the blade resounded as it struck, but Izzy felt no pain.

  Gasping, she caught the gleam of light off the knife’s handle in the corner of her eye, and she looked into the face of the angel. Tears stood in his rage-filled eyes as he stared back at her, his hand still on the weapon he’d slammed into the floor. Unable to speak or move, she waited to see if he were toying with her, or if he’d really chosen to spare her life.

  “God, help me,” he whispered as he bent to kiss her lips.

  Instantly lost to the passion, Izzy responded, her hands reaching around to dance along the edges of his wings as she gave herself to him. It felt wrong, but she couldn’t resist. She’d tried to conquer the angel, and he’d tried to destroy the demon. Neither had succeeded, and in their failure, they were both victorious.

  When they had finished, she dressed in one of his long t-shirts, her shapely legs bare beneath the hem. Strangely content, despite all that happened, she allowed Raf to take her by the hand. Leading her to the roof, he wrapped her in the warmth of his arms, and Izzy looked out over the city once again.

  “When I was young, when they took me away to the hospital, I used to think this world must really be Hell. I thought Ashur had lied to me, and that he’d condemned me to my own private torment. Now, I know I was wrong. This is Purgatory. Hell is warmer and has a better view.”

  Raf chuckled, bringing his wings around them both to shield her from the chill in the night air. “This is could be Eden, if only humanity had not faltered and fallen so low.”

  Bringing her hand to the back of his neck, Izzy leaned against his bare chest and tipped her head so that she could coax his lips to hers. “You, and this, are the closest to Heaven that I will ever be. I am damned, Raf. I am a demon, you are an angel, and there’s nothing that can change that. When Ashur learns of this betrayal, he will kill me. I will be a mindless shade, twisting in the flames of the eternal fire.”

  The sadness and regret in her voice called out to him, and Raf saw hope where no one else could have. “Iyzebel, sweet girl. It doesn’t have to be this way. When Ashur came to you, you were a child, an innocent. You saw no other way than to do as he demanded, because in your heart, you wanted to save the world.”

  She hung her head, “But when he returned…. The things that I have done, I am a lost cause.”

  Rafael nuzzled her neck, kissing the pulse there with tenderness. “But what were you when he returned? Nothing but a mindless wraith of a woman who had been left to rot in a coma of chemicals and psychobabble. Did you have a choice? What would you have done? The deal with the devil had already been made, your fate was sealed the minute Ashur cast his eye upon you.”

  Izzy remained quiet, her mind forming answers that she knew he would not accept. Somewhere from deep inside, the demon clawed at the darkness, screaming to reach the surface once more. Rafael’s touch had silence the creature for awhile, but she knew that it would soon come again. The hunger would follow, burning and twisting her insides.

  “Izzy, do you want to be free from Ashur?”

  “I-I can’t,” she mumbled, turning so that she faced him. Burying her face in his chest, she added, “He hurts me, sometimes. He has a strength that I cannot resist. He draws me to him, and he holds me there by force and fear. I hate him, Rafael. I hate him so much.”

  Kissing the top of her red hair, he smoothed his hands over her back, “I’ve not come here to be your hero. I have never been such a thing, even when I was first born to Heaven. My mission is to destroy demons, but I will not harm you. I love you.”

  Her eyes were round, tears dancing against the sapphire blue. “How? How can you love me, when you don’t know me? I am a demon, you are an angel? Is it possible for you to love such a thing?”

  “I believe that it is God’s plan, because I loved you the first time I saw you, many years ago.”

  “I don’t understand. We just met.”

  “An angel is an infinite soul, Izzy. I am both Rafael, the man born to house this soul, and Rafael, the eternal being which has existed since the time of the Creation. When you awakened the spirit of the angel, you brought those memories back.”

  “You knew me before? But how?”

  “After Ukaralys, the demon lord, cast me from the earthly realm, I drifted. Unable to return to Heaven because my mission to destroy demon kind had not been complete, I waited for my spirit to be resurrected. In that time, I was drawn to you. You were a child, and I loved the joy in your heart. Then Ashur came, and I loved you because you would sacrifice yourself for the sake of all others. Years later, I loved you because you were not broken, despite what they had done to you. I love you now, because you awakened me and you are
here by my side. Those paintings were the mortal mind’s way of facing the difficulty of what the angel inside was meant to do and what the heart wanted. However, you must choose. Either you follow this path with Ashur, or fight the darkness he placed within you and join with me.”

  The ultimatum was clear, she must choose between the demon that had saved her or the angel that loved her.

  “They turned their backs on me, Raf. They left me in that asylum, never believing that I had given my soul to save them. All those years, the wounds festered, and from those sores came hatred. I am not good. I am an evil thing that wishes to watch them all suffer for their sins and for my sake. I don’t know how to undo that. I don’t know that I could forgive or forget. That little girl inside of me can’t let go of the pain.”

  He brushed his lips against hers, “Let love take it away.”

  Burying her face against his chest, she breathed, “I choose you.

  Chapter Eleven

  As Rafael showered away the blood and gore, Izzy took out her cell phone. Unable to bring herself to call Ashur, afraid he would hear the truth in her voice, she dialed Ogwald.

  “Iyzebel, are you well?”

  “Yes. I’m fine. You can go on home now. Tell Ashur that we were successful. The angel has awakened, but he is under my control. I need time to recuperate. Time to seal the bond. Tell him to prepare for the culling, but wait until he has word from me.”

  “Izzy? Are you sure you are unharmed?” his voice was thick with disbelief and concern.

  “A little banged up, but nothing that won’t heal within a few hours. The bonding took a minute to click, but he is quite smitten now. Just do as I ask, Ogwald. Tell Ashur to give me time. I’m exhausted. This little trick has taken its toll. I wish to rest, but I can’t leave the angel without snapping the ties that bind us.

  “As you wish, Izzy. If you need me….”