Divine Fraud

by Thomas Green

I found my car where I left it, sat inside, and popped the painkiller box. I needed more than a few. Staring in front of me, I couldn’t take my mind off Evelyn. Where was she? I didn’t know and had no suspect to follow. She was locked in a cell somewhere, waiting to be rescued. But the help wasn’t coming because I didn’t know what to do.

  Worse, I couldn’t even continue searching. After I swallowed a fistful of painkillers, I drove to Queens. Angering Vivian wouldn’t help anyone, and I had already more than pushed my luck.

  The Presbyterian Abbey lay dark in the small park, illuminated only by moonlight. I got out of the car and pocketed the last set of pills. I didn’t want to take them unless I had to. The last thing I needed was a night-long boner without anyone to peck.

  I got out of the car and slouched toward the abbey’s church. The time on my phone said 23:58. Good, at least no one innocent was about to die because of this.

  I entered the church.

  Vivian and I spent past year reconstructing this place. Since it was just the two of us and we had no machinery, we weren’t terribly quick. But we had rebuilt the roof, the walls, the balconies on the sides and now were in the middle of restoring the statues of saints.

  As I stepped into the church, only darkness lay before me. Not a good sign. I closed the door behind me and entered.

  Fire crackled into the night and two pyres lit up by the far end. A massive cross painted with blood covered the church’s far end. Vivian sat on the scorched stump that was once the altar, her legs crossed. She wore a tight black dress, bright red heels that matched her lips and nails. Her sapphire eyes blazed with inner light. A mixture of duvets and furs lay on the ground behind the altar. Her mouth twitched as I entered. “Well, well, well, looks like someone finally showed up.”

  I drew the pills from my pocket and swallowed half a dozen. I was about to need every card I could play.

  Chapter 15

  Vivian kept looking at me like a man who had crossed a desert would look at a barrel of beer. The technicality of this realization made me sweat – in front of the former vampire queen, I was effectively a self-refilling barrel of liquid she liked.

  “I see you’ve started decorating,” I said as I crossed the church and stopped right in front of the altar, looking up at her.

  Her eyes narrowed. “This is not the entrance I was hoping you would make.”

  “Had a rough day.”

  “This looks more than rough.” She scowled. “What happened?”

  “Evelyn disappeared.” I leaned against the altar. “And I can’t find her.”

  She softly slid her legs under my arms and caught my head with her hands. Her touch was blazing as if her hands were made of lava. Vivian’s temperature roughly matched the amount of blood she had in herself, since the more compressed blood circulated through her body, the more friction-induced heat it generated. Even the golden bracelets were hot to touch.

  That didn’t mean she wouldn’t drink more though. From what I knew about Vivian, she didn’t have a limit on how much blood she could drink.

  I still relaxed into her hands though.

  “Such a shame,” she whispered. “I am sure the pet will be fine. So, from the important matters, where are the statuette and the thieves?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” I sighed. “I have to find Evelyn.”

  She slowly turned my head to make me look at her. Her eyes shone even brighter and her smile broadened. That sent a chill down my spine. “No, you do not. What you have to do is have the statuette and the perpetrators ready in about six hours. You don’t have much time given what you owe me.”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t care less about that. The only thing I have to do is to find Evelyn and I don’t know where to look. If it’s about the money, I’ll give back Lucielle whatever she sent me and make up for any incurred loss.”

  “Oh, no, that is not what this is about.” Her tone dropped so low it made my blood freeze. “I promised Luci you would do the job and then kept covering for you, telling the Devil your progress was great. With that, I am responsible for you delivering.”

  “Just lie your way out of it then. Feel free to throw all the blame on me. I don’t care.”

  “But I do.” Two long fangs protruded from her upper gum and her skin paled. In a second, she stopped looking like a person and became a corpse with shining eyes. “You are misunderstanding the situation. The job is your promise to me and choosing to hunt Evelyn instead tells me you care about her more than about me. And that is unacceptable.”

  “Come on, Vivian, you’re too old to be this childish.” Okay, that wasn’t the smartest sentence I’ve ever said, and I realized it about a second after it left my mouth. But the pills kicked in already, so I was hard as a rock and thus severely disadvantaged in this argument. I needed the top brain for this, not the bottom one.

  “You know, if you were to truly choose her over me, I would be hurt. And, despite not being the vengeful type, I could slip into the old habits. You see, I lived in ancient China for a few centuries. There, they had this beautiful method of executing people called death by a thousand cuts.”

  She was angry, wasn’t she? Well, fuck.

  “In essence, it comprised of tying a man to a pole in the middle of the square and trying to cut him as many times as possible without him dying. The old masters got to six thousand. I never tried, but if I tie you in my chambers and have my servants keep you alive, I think I could do tens of thousands of cuts on you.” She smirked. “I wonder, how long would it take before I would get tired of you begging me to allow you to die?”

  She wanted me to choose her over Evelyn. How was I supposed to do that? For Vivian, me not delivering on the statuette was a minor inconvenience. But Evelyn could die if I wouldn’t find her. There was no way I could make such a choice.

  Yet Vivian made it clear she would be extremely vengeful over this and I had no way to avoid her revenge. If she at least had a good reason, I might understand.

  Like a lost son.

  That thought crossed my mind and I froze. I had been blind. The first night I met Miller, he sought me out because he was investigating me for the nightmare plague. Since then, I completely forgot about that and saw in tunnel vision because I was focused on the statuette case.

  Miller never stopped investigating me. The cooperation we had was nice, but he lost his son to the nightmares so in his eyes, I was irredeemable. The same son whose house I visited when investigating Miller. The reason I saw both children there and why the woman matched the age on the picture, despite the man being younger than Miller, was because she was his son’s wife. He must have been staying with them to help her cope with the loss and take care of his grandchildren. He likely slept in a guest room, which I didn’t see because they interrupted me during the investigation.

  And he kidnapped Evelyn because she was living with me. I led them to our apartment by taking the ride from Miller’s agent. They were watching the place and took Evelyn when she walked out to interrogate her.

  Meaning Evelyn was now in the FBSI base, being interrogated for my involvement in last year’s events.

  This was all my fault.

  But I wasn’t out of the game yet.

  I smiled at Vivian. “I need you to help me with something.”

  “Really?” She sneered. “Did you not hear a single word I said?”

  “Sure, I heard your yapping and bickering.” I grabbed her by the hips, raised her and then put her on the ground in front of me. Even with the heels, she was smaller than me.

  She kept her hands around my face and stepped closer to me after she landed, leaning her blazing body onto mine. “You think I wouldn’t do it?” She laughed in a way that would make a corpse run. “As a fun fact, all my previous loves ended with me murdering the partner. What makes you think you’re so special that—”

  I grabbed her nape and pressed my lips against hers, pushing my tongue into her mouth by sliding it between her fangs. She retracted her fangs
to be able to kiss properly and pulled herself in, hungrier than I had ever seen her. My mind blanked for a moment. When I returned to my senses, we were still kissing, but Vivian had already peeled the coat off my shoulders, unbuttoned my shirt and was unlocking my belt bucket.

  I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her off. As I did, she sprung her hands behind my back and dug her nails into my skin. I forced her from me while she scratched me on my lower back, her nails sprinkled in blood.

  She shuddered and looked at me with gaping mouth.

  “Nah, I’ve changed my mind,” I said with a broad grin.

  Her mouth formed a thin line and her fangs slid out again. “For this, I’ll torture to death everyone you’ve ever loved right in front of your eyes before I even consider ending your life.”

  “Perhaps.” I let go of her and stepped by her side, walking by the former altar deeper into the church. I closed my belt and started buttoning up my shirt when I glanced back at her. “So, what would it take me to get two hours of your help?”

  She narrowed her eyes and stepped toward me. I turned away from her and made two more steps, stopping by edge of the pile of furs and duvets, looking at one of the pyres. The blazing flame refilled the heat my body was losing when I stopped touching Vivian.

  She walked to my side and raised her chin. “With how much you owe me already, you will be lucky if you manage to get my permission to live.”

  “Will I?” I ran a finger from her shoulder down to her waist, tracing her body curve. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”

  She snarled and raised her chin. But she also shuddered at my touch and leaned in closer. “No.”

  I had Vivian figured out by now. Yes, she would fulfill her every threat without blinking once. But she also spent her entire life pretending to be a human, hiding her all-killing nature from everyone she ever called a lover. No wonder, since humans were her food in every meaning of the word. “So, how do I earn your help?”

  “You can’t.” She tilted back her head slightly and spread her legs a bit. “But you can start from your knees.”

  Funny, how she always said one thing and meant another. She didn’t want a slave to lick her from his knees. She could have a thousand men who would do that any time she pleased. I pulled her onto me and kissed her.

  When our tongues met, I grabbed the back of her dress and tore it down from her in one move. She wore nothing beneath, her skin smoother than silk.

  She detached from the kiss, opening her flaring eyes. “That was my favorite, six-thousand-dollar dress.”

  “Guess I should go then.” I turned away from her and made a step toward the exit. As I heard her snarl behind me and felt her magic swell in the air, I spun, tore the golden necklace from her neck, grabbed her nape and pulled her in for another kiss. The golden chain fell apart in my hand and the sapphires scattered on the ground. I tossed away the rest and reached down. Her thighs were unbelievably soft on the touch. After gripping them, I spun with her and tripped her, falling on the furs and duvets.

  She let go of my head. Her wrists split up and blood flew into the air. Her magic turned the liquid into tendrils, which flooded over me and started removing all my clothes at once.

  ‘Now, I’m getting curious what will you do once you are both naked?’ Lucifer said into my mind, his tone laced with disgust but also amusement. ‘From what I have seen in your memories, this is the furthest you ever got.’

  I’ll figure it out. I kept kissing Vivian and tried not to think about it. Yeah, I didn’t really have an idea of what to do next. I was kind of hoping she would lead me.

  ‘Oh, will you?’ He laughed ‘Perhaps you could do that with the pet who’s got no experience herself. But this undead whore had thousands of lovers before you.’

  Including you. Come to think of it, who was the foundation of the phrase ‘devil in the sheets’? You or Lucielle?

  ‘Me, obviously!’ he snapped. ‘That frigid fossil…’ his words died off as he realized. ‘Oh, no, don’t even think about this. Never again am I—’

  I drew his spirit into my body. His cold power filled my body, blending with Vivian’s blazing heat. Instinctively, I now knew what to do. As Vivian sunk her nails into my back, I got lost in the heat, in the moment, in her.

  When I forced Lucifer out of my body, we laid still. Vivian was resting on my heaving chest, panting. My body felt like I got cooked in an oven and my back, arms, and thighs were scratched as if I had wrestled a pack of wild cats. The bites on my shoulders and neck burned, especially the one on the scorched shoulder. Yet a smile played on my face.

  And on hers. She ran her blood-stained finger by the edge of my face. “You will have a very difficult life from now on.”

  I arched an eyebrow, chill running down my spine. That wasn’t what I expected.

  “You fell in love with the wrong vampire.” She chuckled. “And for that, I will bring you endless suffering.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because that’s what I love.” She pulled herself up, placing her face right in front of mine. “You are the first man who ever kissed me when I had my fangs out. For that, you will be mine forever.”

  That sounded a lot less romantic coming from her. Mostly because she was practically immortal, so forever had the literal meaning when coming from her mouth. “I’m not going to abandon Evelyn.”

  “Oh, no, of course not. You can keep your pet. There needs to be someone who takes care of your house, cooks for you, washes your clothes, and heals your wounds. I am not into those things. But this.” She jabbed the nail into my chest, straight above my heart. “Will is mine.”

  “Sorry, but I need to keep that. Can’t live without the heart.”

  She snorted. “Nice try, but no. You know what I meant. From now on, you aren’t allowed to kiss or intimately touch any woman I haven’t approved beforehand. And when I said not allowed, I mean that I would kill her and punish you for every instance of disobeying me.”

  I gulped and my stomach clenched. She meant that. Bedding her may have been a mistake.

  “And I will have so much fun toying with you.” Her eyes became glazed. “Especially since you will stop ageing when you merge with Lucifer. Oh, yes, I will have so much fun with that.”

  Okay, I’ve made a huge mistake. All the playing with her for the past year, the fake refusals, coming here tonight, all of that wasn’t as innocent of a game as I thought it was. I played with her heart and this was her way of telling me that stopping wasn’t an option. But I couldn’t exactly turn back time, so I had to at least make something out of the situation. “So, want to go do something evil?”

  “Always.” She gently kissed me on the lips. “I’ve got spare clothes in the refectory.”

  I rose, watching her perfect body in the moonlight that was coming in through the window hole. The air smelled of sweat and burned wood. I put on my pants and shoes and walked to the refectory through the cloister. The old, rotten tables were long gone and racks full of clothes stood within the long hall.

  Since Vivian wore nothing but black, I picked the first black dress I saw and a matching pair of ankle-high boots with a low heel.

  From a golden chest that sat opened in the hall’s center, I took an amulet. Since they were all golden with sapphires, there weren’t any wrong options.

  When I came back to the church, Vivian sat in the furs. In her hand, she held a golden goblet full of red liquid while an opened wine-bottle stood behind her. She smiled, made her fangs stretch out from her upper gums and sank them into the liquid.

  I placed the clothes next to her. “Got something a human could eat?”

  Sensually, she spread her legs and motioned to her crotch.

  I laughed. “Maybe later. We need to go, now.”

  She put the goblet down and returned to the lying position. “Nah, I don’t feel like it. How about you come convince me?”

  My phone displayed 4:06. “No time. If you want to stay, go for it, but you will
lie here alone and bored. On the other hand, should you come with me, we might find some time for your entertainment.”

  “Promise?”

  I wish I had a plan that didn’t involve her. “Promise.”

  She got up and started to dress, making a show of it. I loved every second and once I placed the necklace around her neck, we walked outside the church.

  The dawn was almost three hours away. The Devil would arrive in two hours, so if things went the way I hoped, I could still get the statuette and rescue Evelyn.

  I headed to my car and, to my slight surprise, Vivian followed. After I opened the door and sat inside, she stepped next to me. “Nice try, but I always drive.”

  “Not in my car.” I motioned to the seat next to me. We glared at each other for a moment.

  “You will pay for this.” She walked around the car and sat inside, instantly scrunching her nose. “When’s the last time you cleaned the interior?”

  “Never.” I started the engine and headed toward the house of the statuette thieves.

  Chapter 16

  BY THE TRACKING APP on my phone, the GPS trackers haven’t moved in the past twelve hours. No wonder since the deal I struck with the statuette thieves put them at rest. It was perfect for them… and for me.

  I stopped the car on the pavement and got out. The night’s air flowed calmly, and the house stood lifeless in front of us. By my phone, the trackers were in the bottom floor in the living room, exactly where I last saw the wounded thieves. I got out of the car and took my backpack from the back seat.

  “I need the one with rollerblades unharmed and the rest alive,” I said and stepped to the garden gate.

  Vivian followed, the corners of her mouth twitching. “Should I start feeling jealous?”

  “He’s a man.” I knocked open the gate and crossed the garden to reach the door.

  “And?” Her eyes’ inner light brightened.

  I sighed, fuelled my hand with aether and hit the main door’s lock. My fingers passed through cleanly, breaking through the door with a crash. I burst inside and headed straight into the living room.