by L. C. Davis
When his teeth finally left my neck, I still hadn’t managed to catch my breath. He froze, and I could still feel his pulse inside of me, as rapid as my own. Despite what had just happened, despite the pain in my neck that lingered even as the intoxication of his bite faded, I didn’t want him to pull out. When he did, when this moment came to an end, there would be questions to ask and answer that I wasn’t sure I was prepared for.
“Oh, God,” he moaned, as if he was just coming back to himself. I winced as he dismounted and scrambled back, staring at me like he was the one who had any reason to be alarmed. “Daniel, I --” He reached out, his hand jerking back just before it reached my neck only to clamp over his mouth. “Fuck.”
“You bit me,” I murmured, sitting up carefully. The dull ache from being fucked barely even registered in comparison to the sharp hum of pain from his bite, and when I pulled my hand away, it was covered in blood. I’d never been squeamish, and years of veterinary practice had turned my constitution to solid steel, but the sight of the blood in this context made my head spin.
“I’m so sorry.” His voice was strained as he moved closer and I flinched instinctively. Guilt flashed in his eyes, but he leaned in, running his tongue along the wound his teeth had opened. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, pulling me closer as he laved the bite. The fact that he was licking the blood off my skin should have been the final nail in the coffin of my composure, but whether it was shock or the fact that his touch had a strangely soothing effect, I found myself relaxing. I remembered the way Nick had healed my cut at the gym. Something about werewolf spit healing wounds. The stinging subsided, but it was hard to tell if that was the result of his ministrations or simply the fact that I lost the ability to focus on anything other than him when he was in such close proximity.
He pulled away and this time, when I touched my neck, my hand came away clean. I stared at him and he stared back at me. “Are you okay?” He sounded as horrified with himself as he looked, which was somehow keeping me from panicking.
“I think so.”
Nick reached out to touch my neck. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“Do you always bite when you fuck someone?” I asked warily.
“No.” He grimaced. “No, I… That’s not supposed to happen. Not unless I -- Oh, God,” he groaned, clenching a fistful of his own hair as he slumped against my headboard.
“What?” I asked, still dazed. I just wasn’t sure if it was from the orgasm, the bite or both. “Unless what?”
“Unless we’re marking our mates,” he said quietly. He wasn’t looking me in the eye.
“Marking?” I echoed. He’d mentioned the concept a few times, but only ever in reference to Holden. “I thought that was just supposed to be for the person you imprinted on.”
“It is.” His eyes searched me worriedly and he frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Not like it’s the first time I’ve been bitten.” I paused. “I must be delicious.”
He gave a strangled laugh. “You have no fucking idea.”
I’d meant it as a joke, but I was weirdly flattered. Then, something occurred to me. “I’m not gonna turn into a werewolf now, am I?”
Nick cocked an eyebrow. “I just marked you and that’s what you’re worried about?”
“I don’t know how any of this works. It’s a valid concern.”
He sighed. “No, you’re not going to turn into a werewolf.”
That was all I needed to hear. Exhaustion overwhelmed me and I let my head fall back against the headboard, telling myself I was only going to close my eyes for a few seconds before I went to take a shower and tried to make sense of what had just happened.
“Daniel?” Nick’s voice sounded far off and when I opened my eyes, he was wearing sweats and leaning in like he’d been standing over me for a while.
“Hmm?” I asked, yawning.
Nick pressed a hand to my forehead, and for once, his skin wasn’t hot to the touch. In fact, it almost felt cool. He was saying something, but his voice was garbled and the need to close my eyes won out as I slipped into the deepest sleep I’d known since my death.
Twenty-Two
HOLDEN
One moment, I was thrashing and struggling against the current that dragged me ever deeper under the River Styx and the next, one of the dark shapes that had been swirling around me collided with me hard enough to knock me out. When I opened my eyes, I found myself on a dark shore with sand the color of slate as foamy waves lapped at my fingertips. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and coughed up a bellyful of water as I struggled up onto the shore.
Hanael was gone, and as far as I could tell, I was alone in a vast desert landscape that bled into the water. Hell wasn’t nearly as hot as I’d imagined. In fact, the air was almost balmy if eerily still. I got to my feet, stumbling a bit before I regained my balance. The sky and the desert plains didn’t seem all that clearly defined from one another, and as the clouds stretched out above in monochromatic hues of blue and grey, I felt like I was in a painting.
“Locke?” My voice was frail and strained, and I coughed up another mouthful of water that left a metallic taste in my mouth. I tried not to think about the likelihood that I’d swallowed part of one of the souls that seemed to make up the river. Without any differentiation in the landscape to track my progress, it felt like I had walked forever without really going anywhere. My legs were starting to ache and the sky hadn’t changed. The clouds were too thick to be sure, but it didn’t seem like there was any celestial body in the sky that was giving off light.
This wasn’t good, but at least I wasn’t in the attic room. I told myself the change was a positive one and kept walking long past the point where it felt like my legs were going to give out. On the edge of the horizon, I caught sight of a dark shape. It might as easily have been a pile of rocks as the cluster of buildings it resembled, but it was the first sign of anything I’d seen since waking up and it gave me the drive I needed to keep on moving.
Sure enough, the outline of buildings came into view. I knew if I was really where Hanael claimed she was sending me, those buildings certainly didn’t hold any sanctuary, but it was better than wandering aimlessly in an eternal painting. Supposedly, Locke would be able to find me here, but I didn’t have great faith that he would bother. After all, I hadn’t contracted with him yet.
The first building that came into view wasn’t marked, but it was the only one on the street that didn’t look abandoned. Everything was dull and gray and the whole place had the dreary essence of the earth after a violent rain. Nothing seemed to move of its own accord.
There was noise coming from behind the darkly tinted doors of the first building, and I hesitated only a moment before going inside. Whatever awaited me, it couldn’t be worse than the desolation outside. There was madness in silence, lurking at its edges and waiting to swallow up anyone who lingered too long. I didn’t know whether I had been in Hell for a day or a year, but the decade of isolation I’d endured in my father’s basement hadn’t come as close to making me doubt my own sanity as this place had.
I entered a dimly lit lobby and came out on the other side of a sheer curtain to be enveloped in the swell of lively jazz music and the hum of the bustling occupants inside. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d been expecting to walk into, but certainly not a bar. At least, not a classy one. Women in high heels and high-cut black leotards darted between high mahogany tables, carrying perfectly balanced trays of drinks on their manicured fingertips. The waitstaff appeared human, but the tables and the bar were filled with a curious blend of humans and monsters who seemed perfectly content to coexist. The monsters I assumed were demons, given their mostly humanoid shapes and strange, animalistic features. A tall, broad man loomed over the bar, nursing a pint in a clawed hand the size of my head. Black wings stretched out from his bare back, tattered and leathery. Curved horns like a ram sat on either side of his head, but other than the reddish-black eyes that flicker
ed over me with fleeting interest before he went back to his drink, his face looked almost human.
One of the waitresses collided with me and I looked up, realizing she would have towered over me by a good foot even without her stilettos. A giant? She scowled down at me, righting a spilled drink on her tray. “Watch it, pipsqueak,” she scolded, muttering something about “newcomers” as she carried her tray over to a waiting table filled with horned men and women. The sturdy looking woman at the edge of the table had cat eyes like Locke’s and a forked tongue that swept out over her lips as she winked at me.
I quickly made my way over to the bar where a man who looked human was leaning boredly on the counter, polishing a glass in his hand. He looked me over with the same casual apathy as the waitress and asked, “What can I get you?”
I climbed onto the barstool that was clearly meant for someone a foot taller and tried not to look as out of place as I felt. “Something hard,” I said, leaning on the counter. It felt good to sit down and my clothes had dried, lending credibility to my theory that I’d been walking for at least a fraction as long as it felt like I had.
“You’re new, aren’t you?” the bartender asked, pouring a glass of some dark liquid from a solid black bottle. The fact that there was no label made me wary, but I was already in Hell, so I decided to be brave and take a sip. It burned on the way down my throat, but at least it tasted like alcohol rather than blood or whatever else the denizens of hell might drink.
“Is it that obvious?”
The bartender grinned. He was an innocuous looking man in his mid-thirties with a handsome if generic face and he would have seemed perfectly in place within any American office building. The crisp white shirt and black vest gave him an air of sophistication that matched the elegant vibe of the place. “We don’t get many witches here. At least, not without escorts.”
“I’m between demon masters at the moment,” I mumbled into my drink.
“That’s a shame. This isn’t exactly the best neighborhood you could end up in.”
“It’s Hell. Is there such a thing as a good neighborhood?”
He laughed, offering his hand. “Alois. And you are?”
“Holden,” I said, shaking his hand. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of a demon called Locke?”
“Locke?” He frowned, tilting his head. “Can’t say that I have. Now I do know of a Sherlock.”
“Sherlock?” I snorted so hard that whiskey--or whatever I was drinking--nearly shot out of my nose. “Seriously?”
Alois chuckled. “That’s what he was going by last I heard. His real name was something like… Dhavi… Dhoval…”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Nah. I’ve never seen him in person, his kind don’t usually slum it with the likes of us,” he said, grinning.
“His kind?”
“A noble. Lilith’s kid, as a matter of fact.”
“Do you know who his father is?” I asked warily.
“Rumor has it that it’s Samael, but who knows? Lilith’s never been the monogamous type.”
“I see.” Maybe that was where Locke got his ideas.
“Why are you looking for him, anyway?”
“He’s kind of my ticket home,” I admitted.
“Well, good luck with that,” Alois said, excusing himself to take care of a rather rowdy group of customers further down the bar.
I took another sip of my drink and felt like there should have been less of it left than there was. Hanael had seemed sure that Locke would be able to find me in Hell, but what if he didn’t? I knew I should at least try to look elsewhere, but I was so tired and even being surrounded by a roomful of demons was less unnerving than the thought of going out there again. At least no one was paying any mind to me. I finished my drink and laid my head down, telling myself I was only going to close my eyes for a second. I felt someone move next to me and jerked upright.
“A glass of the Glen, please.” The smooth, familiar voice had to be a dream. When I saw Asher sitting on the stool next to me, I knew it couldn’t be real.
“Asher?”
“Guess again,” he purred, turning to face me.
One look in those eyes and my blood ran cold. “Dennis?”
“Now, don’t be afraid. We have a lot in common, you and I. We’re both killers,” he said coolly. “And we’re both looking for the demon Locke. Maybe we can help each other out.”
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said, stepping off the stool.
“Come now, don’t be like that. You’re no saint yourself.” His smile turned menacing. “As a matter of fact, you’re quite the opposite, aren’t you? It would be a shame if anyone in here caught wind of the fact that the Whore himself has graced us with his presence.”
I flinched. “How do you know who I am? You’re dead.”
“The dead do talk, but Locke and I go way back,” he said bitterly. “You reek of his energy. I know it’s you. Come with me, unless you’d like to be ripped to shreds by demons fighting over you in a desperate bid to buy their way out of hell.”
Dennis rose from his stool, leaving his drink behind as he moved toward the door. I hesitated only a moment before following him. Maybe he was a murderer, but he was still human and I liked my chances against him better than my chances against a few dozen demons. The air was stale when we made it outside and the sky had turned so dark I could barely see a few feet in front of me. It looked like Hell had two lighting schemes: dank gray and pitch black.
I followed Dennis down the street, keeping an eye out for anyone else who might be watching. “Where are we going?”
No response.
“How long have you been here?”
Dennis turned back, and I could see why they’d had trouble finding the murder weapon when he looked at me like that. Those eyes could kill. “Does it matter? A day, a year, it’s all the same in this hellhole.”
“Technically, I think it’s just Hell.”
Dennis came to an abrupt stop and turned. I flinched, but he didn’t make any move to hurt me. “What is that thing doing nowadays?”
“Asher?” I asked warily.
“Is that what it’s going by now?” he sneered.
“He’s a defense attorney,” I replied. “And a member of the town Council. He helps people.”
“I’m sure my mother is ever so proud,” he said bitterly. “She should be. She’s the one who traded for me.”
“She...what?”
“Oh, he didn’t tell you? Asherath is a changeling.”
“A changeling?” I frowned. “Like a fairy?”
“Not as charming as they are in books, I assure you.” He stepped closer. “Do you know what it’s like to be consumed alive, Holden? To be pushed to the very brink of your pain threshold while some monster feeds on you?”
“Asher wouldn’t do that…”
“Oh, but he did. You’ll find out soon enough, I suppose,” he purred. “You belong to a demon.”
“Not yet. How do you know Locke?”
“He made my mother a rather enticing offer. Her cruel child in exchange for the perfect son,” he chuckled. “In the end, I suppose she’s the one I got it from.”
“You’re a murderer. Don’t pretend like you’re some innocent victim here.”
“Victim?” He tilted his head. “No, that’s never been me. I prefer vengeance, and I’ll have it soon enough. Tell me, how is Daniel? Has he put it together yet?”
I gulped. “He knows Asher isn’t you.”
“Of course he does. Dear, faithful Daniel,” he mused. “How old is he now, twenty-five?”
“Uh, more like thirty-two. It’s been a long time.”
For once, something seemed to bother him. “I see. Well, no matter. I’ve got a few good years left, at least.”
“What are you talking about? You’re dead, you can’t go back.”
“Not without my ticket.” He grabbed my arm and started dragging me toward the edge of the ghost to
wn. I recognized the roiling blue mass of the River Styx on the horizon and planted my heels in the ground, but he was stronger. “If demons can make deals, so can angels. Something tells me Michael will be willing to negotiate if I offer you up on a silver platter.”
“No!” I cried, straining in his grasp.
Dennis tossed me to the ground effortlessly, looming over me. “You know, you’re exactly the way you looked in that picture.”
I stared up at him, horrified by the way his familiar features could be so foreign. Asher’s expression was always gentle and serene, but there was nothing soft about this man’s soul. He belonged in this place. He belonged to it. “Picture?”
“The one Locke showed Asher. The trade wasn’t just for me, you know. It was for you.”
“What? I don’t --”
“God, you really haven’t figured it out?” He scoffed. “No wonder Locke is so fond of you. You’re just like Daniel, a useful idiot. I’ll make it simple. Once upon a time, there lived a wealthy queen who had everything in the world. A doting king, a beautiful castle made of glass and all the jewels she could wear on her greedy fingers. The only thing amiss in her perfect life was her wicked son. One day, the wicked prince pushed the limits just a bit too far and killed a common girl. The queen was tired of cleaning up his messes, so in desperation, she called for help and a trickster answered.”
“Locke,” I breathed.
“That’s right. An opportunistic demon used the queen’s desperation, offering her a trade she couldn’t refuse. Her wicked son in exchange for a true prince, an abomination whose own people wanted to kill him. The trickster had his own motives, of course, but the queen didn’t care. All she wanted was to be rid of her son and it didn’t matter if the thing who took his place was her own flesh and blood. It didn’t even matter if he was human,” he spat bitterly. “In return for taking the prince’s place, the imposter would be granted asylum in a strange world along with the promise of something he never could have had in his own: a mate.”