Where Demons Fear to Tread

by Stephanie Chong

  Her breathing slowed to normal. Her heartbeat stopped its frantic cadence.

  But her chest ached as though it were going to implode. A single tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand.

  I will not cry…I will not cry.

  Her throat swelled shut as she stared up at the riot of stars crowding the night sky above. A jumble of emotions swirled inside her. Hope for the young family she’d saved through her own death. Anxiety about Nick’s safety. Despair at having failed him.

  And something else. A tiny fragment of sorrow for herself. Maybe even some anger. Inside her, a little voice whispered how unfair it was that she’d been taken away from her own family when she was still so young herself. A family that had already been devastated by the death of her father, taken by a heart attack a decade before her own death. Half the family gone within a span of ten years, leaving her mother and brother behind to struggle with their grief. In the center of her chest, she felt a dull ache from missing them.

  Sometimes life was downright cruel. And there were people—demons—in this world determined to make it even crueler. She shut her eyes and wished tonight had never happened. Wished she had never met Julian Ascher. Wished someone more capable had been assigned to guard Nick.

  Wished she had never died.

  But when she opened her eyes again, nothing had changed. Regret was a useless emotion. There was no point in lamenting things that could not be.

  She started the car again and steered homeward.

  Twenty minutes later, she pulled into her driveway in Santa Monica. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back against the headrest, listening to wind rushing through the palm trees overhead.

  Lucky. She’d been incredibly lucky to get out of there tonight. Like he’d said, he could easily have taken what he wanted from her. Why he’d let her out, she didn’t know. It puzzled her—he didn’t seem to be the sort of man to give in. But whatever the reason, she was here now. Safe. She said a few quick words of thanks before heading inside, glad to know that her roommate was at home.

  Meredith’s curtain of red hair swung as she heard the door open, and her eyes flew wide when she saw Serena. “Thank God you’re home! I could sense that you were in trouble, but I didn’t know where you were,” she said. Meredith’s psychic skills, already developing during her human life, were still evolving now that she was an angel. “What happened?”

  Serena collapsed into a kitchen chair and slumped forward onto the table, leaning her head on her arms. One of them was still sticky with beer, so she sat back upright. “Thank God we have each other. Nobody else would understand what I went through today.”

  There were dozens of angels in the city, but none who knew her as well as Meredith. As Guardians, they shared the top floor of this house. But as humans, Meredith and Serena had shared the last few moments of their mortal lives together. It was Meredith’s car that the young mother had hit when she’d hydroplaned on that rain-slick road nearly a year ago. It was Meredith’s door that Serena had scrambled to open, and Meredith’s face that had been the last image of Serena’s human life.

  Now, her roommate handed her a mug of something from a stockpot bubbling on the stove. “Drink this.”

  “Do I have to?” Serena made a face at the murky brown liquid.

  A nutritionist by calling, Meredith was a firm believer in the healing power of herbs, and she liked to boil them in large batches on the stove. “It’s good for you.”

  Serena wrinkled her nose, but downed the liquid. It tasted even worse than it smelled—like old socks and dried mushrooms that had been boiled up in one pot—and it burned all the way down. “What is that?” she asked. “A healing potion?”

  “It was supposed to be hot apple cider,” Meredith said, clearly disappointed.

  It might as well have been truth serum, because Serena’s story spilled out—her problems with Nick, the trip to Devil’s Paradise, the car chase. And Julian. Dark, gorgeous, dangerous Julian. “I let him kiss me,” she said miserably. “And I failed utterly at getting Nick out of that nightclub.”

  “You kissed a demon,” Meredith repeated, her eyebrows creasing together into a little V in the middle of her forehead.

  Heat crept into Serena’s cheeks. “I thought…I thought he might release Nick.”

  “Didn’t you remember Arielle’s warning?”

  “Warning?” Serena’s eyes widened in alarm. She had no recollection of ever hearing their supervisor Arielle mention Julian before.

  “She told me it was imperative to stay away from demons. I’m pretty sure she even mentioned Julian Ascher specifically. The name definitely rings a bell. I took some notes during my training sessions.”

  While Meredith searched her bedroom for her notes, Serena drank a glass of water and found herself hoping that her roommate was wrong. Why on earth would Arielle warn Meredith and not her? None of it made any sense.

  Meredith came back with a notebook, and as she flipped through it, she muttered to herself. “Protection charms, angelic blessings, patron saints, medals…here it is. Demons. Julian Ascher, two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old Archdemon. Perhaps the most powerful demonic entity in Los Angeles County. Known associate of Corbin Ranulfson. Owner of a nightclub conglomerate that he uses as a front for other activities. Avoid at all costs. Here, I’ve underlined it twice,” she said, holding the notebook out as proof.

  Archdemon. Shit.

  In Serena’s gut, hysteria and Meredith’s cider began to rise, but she swallowed them down. She might not have recognized Julian’s name, but somewhere deep inside, she had known exactly how powerful he was. As an Archdemon, he bore the highest rank among demons, answering directly to the Prince of Darkness himself. Only a few dozen Archdemons existed around the globe, vying among themselves for the devil’s highest favor. Of them, perhaps the most powerful was Corbin Ranulfson. Even the newest angel shook in terror at the mention of him. As his associate, Julian was a demon on the rise, a demon to be feared.

  Serena groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding. I can’t believe Arielle forgot to tell me this.”

  “Arielle never forgets anything.”

  The two women exchanged glances. A shiver stole down Serena’s neck. Oh, please, Lord, let there be some explanation for this. “I’ll ask Arielle at the Company meeting tomorrow,” Serena said.

  Meredith paused, considering her words before she finally spoke. “Sometimes it’s difficult to understand Arielle’s agenda. I’d be careful if I were you. In the meantime, don’t worry about it. It was just a kiss, right?” Meredith smiled, a little too brightly.

  Serena’s stomach still threatened to regurgitate Meredith’s brew, but she forced herself to return the smile and said, “You’re right. It was just a kiss.”

  Just a kiss. She tried to remember that as she took a long, hot shower that did nothing to erase the sensation of his touch on her skin. Lying in bed afterward, that sensation still lingered. Trying to ignore it, she began to think about the real reason the encounter had frightened her so badly. What was this fear that had shaken her so badly tonight? Was it a fear of death?

  No. Now that she had experienced death firsthand, she no longer feared death the same way that most humans did.

  Her memory wandered back to another large gathering that had been held in her honor—her ordination ceremony, the divine equivalent of a graduation.

  In the instant of her death, she had been borne into the angelic realm. Riding on that wave of light, she entered a vast amphitheater where hundreds of ethereal beings had gathered. They had come to witness the sacred calling of a small group of souls—Serena and Meredith’s soul group. There among the angelic choirs, Serena’s ears had filled with the chatter of melodious voices and the noise of iridescent wings shuffling. Wings that shone with colors she had never seen on earth, ruffling as loudly as the rush of a waterfall.

  She was nearly overcome by the exquisiteness in the center of that radiating energy. At the same time,
she knew intuitively that she was part of that energy, as much a part of it as the angels themselves.

  Behind a massive, ornate lectern, stood the Archangel Gabriel. All eyes fixed on his flowing silver robes, the enormous spread of his wings trailing behind him. The angels stilled, waiting.

  He spoke, the clear ring of his voice carrying over the crowd. “Death should not cause fear. Death is simply another event in the process of the soul’s evolution, by no means its end.” Most humans would be returned to earth in another mortal body, he explained, although most of them would never remember the process.

  As Gabriel continued to speak, he explained that all souls were immortal. Every soul would live forever, although the vast majority of humans will never come to that realization within their current lifetimes.

  And then he said to Serena and Meredith, “If you so choose, you will be sent back to earth in your human body, not as a reincarnated mortal, but as an angel in order to blend easily among those who are mortal. But once you decide to return in physical form, you will not be able to disincarnate without our assistance. In time, you may earn the right to transition between the angelic and the earthly realms. Your spiritual abilities will increase as you continue to evolve. One day, you will ascend from earth on your own energy and receive wings.”

  As Guardian angels, they would be impervious to injury and immune to aging and death, Gabriel said. The only threat to their existence was demonic energy.

  Only a demon could kill an angel.

  If a demon did manage to destroy the physical body of an angel, most likely she would be reprocessed. Sent back in her human body to continue her work where she had left off. Recycling, Gabriel called it, which caused the angels to thunder with laughter in the stands of the amphitheater. Serena hadn’t found it that funny, but apparently they had a different sense of humor here in the divine realms.

  For both Serena and Meredith, the choice was clear. There were so many souls who needed guidance here on earth. In these challenging times, humans needed help.

  And so Gabriel continued to lecture, outlining their duties and responsibilities. At the end of it, he explained, “Every soul has free will. Every soul has choices. In the material world as it currently exists, there are consequences to these choices.”

  What he meant was falling. If an angel fell, she risked going to hell. Just like any other soul. No being, including an angel, was immune from the consequences of free will. And plenty had fallen. Every last one of them, from the most exalted Seraph to the newest Guardian, was responsible for the consequences of her deeds. Gabriel delivered that last point slowly, his face stoic with the gravity of his message. Every angel in the amphitheater stilled, the stirring of wings silenced as he spoke. It was a warning, Serena knew, as she and Meredith stood trembling before the immense power of the divine.

  Staring up at the shadows shifting across her bedroom ceiling now, Serena understood the reason she had felt so afraid tonight. Not because she feared death. No. She feared Julian because of the possibility of going to hell.

  Just a kiss. She tried to comfort herself with that thought as she lay in bed, remembering the delicious heaviness of Julian’s body weighing down on her and trying not to think about falling.

  Chapter Three

  Shame. Sunday morning, the memory of Julian’s touch still hovered over the surface of her skin. Serena dealt with her shame in the way she always handled such emotions—she took it to the yoga mat. Nick won’t show up, she thought as she drove to the studio. After last night, there was no way he’d make it to his private lesson scheduled this morning.

  God only knows what that bastard Julian did to him.

  But Nick was leaning in the studio’s doorway, waiting for her with his rolled-up mat tucked under his arm. He was hiding behind silver aviator sunglasses and a baseball cap, with a scruff of beard stubble on his face. But he was here nonetheless.

  When he took off the sunglasses, she saw the dark circles beneath his eyes. “You came to Devil’s Paradise last night. I’m sorry I missed you,” he said, his voice still hoarse.

  In his raspy apology, she detected genuine regret. There was something else, something different in his soulful brown gaze. Perhaps a little more tenderness, almost as though he… She gave a little shake of her head, refusing to think about it.

  “That’s okay. I’m glad you made it this morning. It’s good to see you,” she said brightly.

  She unlocked the door and led him into the studio, exhaling a sigh of relief as she passed beneath the vibrantly colored Indian scarves hanging from the ceiling. Inhaled the faint trace of incense that lingered in the air. Nick grinned, and it was almost enough to make her forget what had happened last night. It was his smile that set him apart from all the other hot young actors in Hollywood. His smile that made young girls scream hysterically when he walked down the street. Made grown women contemplate shameless acts.

  She unrolled her mat on the hardwood floor. If she’d been human, she would have melted, too. But as his Guardian, what she felt was an overwhelming sense of platonic love, an emotion verging on the maternal. She wanted to protect Nick. He was here, back under her watch. Far from the grasping hands of Julian Ascher. Safe. She would do what she had to do to keep him that way.

  They began to flow through the postures she’d taught him over the past few weeks. Nick’s toned body seemed to soak up the movements easily, executing them with a natural grace. She alternated between demonstrating the poses and adjusting him, guiding him deeper into the postures.

  “Good job. Your practice is really coming along,” she said. “You’re getting it, Nick.”

  He stopped and stood at the front of his mat, breathing deeply from the effort. In the sunlight filtering through the windows, she saw in his eyes the look she’d tried to ignore earlier. The look that was unmistakable now. The look that said, I’m in love with you. She’d seen it in the eyes of many different men, but never yet in the eyes of the right man.

  An image of Julian flickered through her mind. She blinked, blocking it out and bringing her attention back to her Assignee.

  Who was leaning in to kiss her.

  Caught off guard, she pushed him away more abruptly than she intended. “Nick, don’t!”

  “Why not?” he said, pushing his hands through his tousled hair. “You’re the only one who understands me. My parents don’t give a shit about what I’m going through. I have no real friends. Everyone else just wants a piece of me. I thought you really cared.”

  She backed away, not sure how to respond for a moment. Nick’s frustrated sigh tugged at her heart-strings. “I do care about you, Nick. As a friend.”

  He just wanted to be loved, she knew. In many ways, she could relate to the void he felt inside. Sensitive and artistic from an early age, Nick had been a misfit all his life. Ignored by his austere father and disliked by his high-strung diva of a mother, he was still struggling to find his own place in the world and to win their approval. His so-called friends treated him like a never-ending fountain of free drugs and alcohol. The women he slept with were mostly professionals who demanded payment for their services. Serena did understand him, though. She’d felt that same kind of void inside herself when her father had died. Like something had broken inside her that could never be repaired. Perhaps she had managed her hurt differently. Whatever the case, she knew she had been very lucky. For her, things could easily have gone very wrong.

  The line between angels and demons was a fine one.

  Yes, she understood Nick. But her job was to guard him and guide him; she could not return his desire. In time, he would deal with his feelings and they would evolve into a purely platonic relationship. At least, that was what she hoped.

  Centering herself with a deep breath, she gave him an empathetic smile. “Come on. I’ll help you with your handstands.”

  “Bet I can hold it longer than you,” he said, grinning to cover his own embarrassment. “I’ve been doing handstands on grass since I
was a kid. What’s the difference between yoga and just showing off?” he teased.

  “Yoga’s not a contest,” she said mildly, trying not to sound preachy.

  “Afraid of a little healthy competition?”

  They kicked up at the same time. Balancing in the center of the room, Serena concentrated on a spot on the floor. Felt the strength of her arms and of divine love supporting her. For one moment, everything in the world seemed right again. She felt the joy of pure play flowing through her body, felt it radiating out from her student, too. Finally, Nick gave a loud yelp and collapsed in a heap beside her, laughing while she remained balanced in the posture.

  At the edge of her vision, something moved. From her upside-down position, she saw a familiar figure leaning in the doorway, watching.

  “Hello, angel.” His low, velvety voice swept over her calm like a swell crashing on the beach, and she felt herself falling, falling…

  Deva Yoga Studio was exactly the kind of place Julian hated. It was as though someone had taken Devil’s Paradise and created its exact opposite. Here, they served tea at the front desk instead of tequila shots. The quiet unnerved him; he was used to the noise and chaos of nightclubs. The only thing that broke the silence was the sound of trickling water, surely designed to create a peaceful ambiance. It grated on Julian’s nerves like Chinese water torture.

  Serena, too, was the exact opposite of him. Maybe that was why he found her so incredibly attractive. There was something utterly compelling about the love/hate dynamic that he’d never been able to resist. He wandered down a quiet hallway, peering into empty rooms in search of her. In a large, sunny room at the end, he found her with Nick.

  Balancing in a handstand on the hardwood floor, the line of her body was perfect. She was some sensualist god’s idea of a celestial being. An homage to the human form, wrought by a divine hand and sent to torture him by deific forces. He prided himself on being a master of temptation, but somehow, with her, his finesse had abandoned him. No clever flattery came to mind, only animalistic instinct. He’d wanted her so badly last night that he’d botched a seduction that had practically been handed to him on a plate.