[Anthology] The Paranormal 13- now With a Bonus 14th Novel!

by Dima Zales

  “Belial.”

  He tilted his head to the side, and a sheet of that fine black hair slid across the side of his face. It brushed my cheek and made me flinch. “Did you miss me?”

  “Not particularly.” I hated how afraid my voice sounded.

  The demon smiled in a way I imagine a snake would at a mouse. “I suppose not. There’s no need for you to be scared of me this time. If I was going to kill you, I’d have done it while you slept.”

  I licked my lips, mind racing to think rationally. “Like I believe that. Killing me while I was unconscious wouldn’t be any fun. You’d want to do it while I was awake and screaming, right?”

  His sadistic smile widened. “My, my. We are getting to know each other, aren’t we?”

  “If you’re not going to kill me, then would you mind getting the hell out of my personal space?”

  “Why? Am I making you uncomfortable?” He tilted his head so that our lips were almost touching.

  I took a deep breath, preparing to deck him if he dared kiss me. “No, I just hate that cologne you’re wearing. My ex-boyfriend used to wear it.”

  Belial’s eyes widened like I’d surprised him. He stood to his full height, letting out another one of those creepy chuckles. “You really are an interesting girl.”

  Now that I had my personal space back, the tension slid out of my rigid spine. I rested my feet on the floor. Whatever happened, I needed to be off this bed. It was clear that the demon had designs on my soul, but my body was a whole different issue. Better to play it safe. Or as safe as I could with a creature from Hell that wanted me to be his pet for all eternity.

  “I aim to please,” I said. “Now get to the point. If you’re not going to kill me, what do you want?”

  The smile remained intact, unnerving the hell out of me. He could give the Joker a run for his money with that thing. “The same thing I wanted before, my dear. Your soul.”

  I glanced around the bare room. “I don’t see another spear lying around. How are you going to pull that off?”

  “Persuasion.” To my surprise, he began unbuttoning his suit jacket, revealing a cobalt blue dress shirt beneath it.

  I lifted an eyebrow. “No offense, but nudity is not going to win me over.”

  Belial let out an amused snort after he tossed the jacket aside, rolling up the sleeves to the shirt. “As appealing as that sounds, that’s not what I’m going to do. I thought I’d give you a fair chance to fight for your soul. If you win, I’ll let you go. If I win, you agree to go through a ceremony that will bind us together for all eternity.”

  There it was. He had a trap, a plan, and I’d played right into it by coming to this hospital.

  I stood and crossed my arms underneath my chest. “Do you honestly expect me to believe a demon would keep his word? What makes you think I’d agree to something like this?”

  “Because, dear Jordan, you are running out of time.” His voice made a cold and slimy feeling glide down my spine.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Right now, my associate Mulciber is torturing your sweet Michael with the weapons she stole from the museum. She intends to kill him. If you want any chance of saving him, you will play my game.”

  All the blood rushed out of my face. I knew that name. Mulciber, the demon in Paradise Lost who had been responsible for building Pandemonium. The last time I’d seen Michael, he had walked off with Jacob to see Dr. Vulcan. Had that been Mulciber? At the very least, it explained her strange last name. Mulciber and Vulcan were both the name of a Roman god. Figures. An archdemon would compare herself to a god.

  Belial smirked. “Do we have a deal?”

  I answered him with a right cross, which struck him straight in his smug mouth. He rose to full height and touched the blood on the corner of his lips. He licked it away—a slow, intimate gesture that made me shiver. It was a silent threat, a violent promise, a precursor to something truly terrible.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  I let a hateful smile form on my lips, trying to contain my rage enough to remember my self-defense lessons. “You like pain, right? Come a little closer and I’ll give you all you can handle, you son of a bitch.”

  The demon nodded. “I sincerely hope you will.”

  Belial had height, reach, and weight on me, so I knew there would be no point in attacking him first. I needed to use his body against him. That would be the only way I could beat him and get to Michael. Still, the longer we waited the closer, he came to death. The cold fingers of fear caressed my stomach, but I ignored them. I told myself he was an archangel who could handle himself.

  Belial left his arms at his side and began to circle me. I kept my eyes on his posture, waiting for him to betray any kind of movement, and mirrored him to keep him in my line of sight. His left fist lashed out, aiming at my face. I parried it, forcing his arm downward and hitting him in the chin with the back of my fist. It hurt, but not nearly as bad as it would later, for both of us.

  He rubbed the spot, amused. “Not bad.”

  In a flash, he aimed a high sidekick at the left side of my chest. I brought up my forearm and blocked it. Pain crackled down the side of my arm, but it was better than getting hit in the face. The blow knocked me off-balance, giving him the chance to knee me in the gut. Quickly, I blocked it and thrust my palm upward, aiming at his nose. His head snapped back, allowing me a couple crucial seconds.

  I slammed my one fist into his solar plexus and hit him with a powerful roundhouse kick in the same place. He stumbled backward, clutching the spot and trying to breathe. I darted forward to finish him off with a two-handed hit, but at the last minute he grabbed my wrists and whirled, slamming me into the wall behind him. The back of my head hit, stunning me. In an instant he pinned my hands, and stared down at me with a patronizing look.

  “Give up?”

  “Not hardly,” I spat, sliding my right leg forward. I kneed him in the crotch. He hissed, loosening his grip on my arms. While he was distracted, I shoved my foot into his stomach and pushed him away, ignoring the painful bump I could feel rising on my skull.

  Belial let out a rush of breath and nodded in my direction, seeming impressed.

  “It seems I underestimated you, Jordan.”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “A lot of people do that.”

  “Very well. Perhaps I should treat you as an equal.”

  Uh oh. I didn’t like the sound of that.

  Belial unbuttoned his shirt a little more. “You do realize that I could just threaten everyone you’ve ever loved. I could make some grand speech about how they would die in horrible fashions: torn apart, drowned, strangled, stabbed. But that wouldn’t work on you, would it?”

  I focused on his seemingly harmless movements, waiting for the inevitable attack. “No, it wouldn’t. There’s no reason to think you wouldn’t just kill them anyway after you have my soul.”

  Belial nodded, fixing me with his predatory gaze. “Exactly. So that argument would be useless to pursue. However, there is the question of Michael.”

  As soon as he spoke his name, I felt another wave of worry roll through me. How many minutes had we wasted? Where was he? Or was Belial just bluffing?

  The demon moved so fast that I almost didn’t see it. Left jab, right cross, uppercut, left hook. I moved in close so some of them would miss, trying not to make a sound as his knuckles grazed my upper arms. Before I could add space between us, he kneed me in the stomach and slammed his forearm into my back. I hit the floor. I stayed there for a second, trying to block out the pain.

  “Do you see how weak he makes you?” Belial said with a sigh. “The mere mention of his name and your defenses drop. I find it rather upsetting, don’t you?”

  Once I could breathe again, I pushed up from the ground and faced him.

  “What are you getting at, demon?”

  He came at me again, this time trying to trip me. I let my body fall backwards and went into a back roll, coming up on my knees. He kicked
at my face and I blocked, grabbing his foot to throw him off-balance. Mistake. He executed a perfect kick to the side of my head with his other foot. I managed to move mostly out of the way, but it still connected, knocking me onto my stomach again. I’d have a nasty bruise on my face if I got out of this mess alive, not to mention I’d accidentally bitten my tongue.

  Belial knelt in front of me, watching patiently as I tried to shake off the pain.

  “Deep down, you know what I’m talking about. You know that if you join me you will never have to worry about another person again.”

  I spat out a mouthful of blood. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you worry about the people at your job, your waitress friend, even your horrible aunt. You fear they will be targets because of your ability as a Seer. As much as you try to feel nothing, you are a compassionate woman, Jordan. You can never truly forget about them.”

  “You don’t know shit,” I growled, standing abruptly. I knew it was stupid to try to catch him off-guard but I didn’t have much of a choice. He was wearing me out little by little, and time was slipping away as he talked. I poured it on with all my energy, using my agility to drive him backward. He blocked my blows with ease, acting as though he were humoring me.

  “I know more than you think, my dear. Just as I know that you’ve figured out what’s going to happen at the end of this fight.”

  Belial caught my right arm and punched me in the stomach. My body crumpled forward, leaving me almost limp in his grip. Pain exploded through my entire midsection and straight down my legs like bolts of lightning. He flung me backwards onto the bed and held my arms down, staring into my contorted face. He sighed and watched me writhe beneath him as if disappointed.

  “You knew when you first hit me that it would end up this way, and yet you still fought. You foolishly reasoned that you could beat me even though you know I am five times stronger than you are. Why is that, Jordan?”

  “Go to Hell,” I managed to hiss through gritted teeth.

  Belial grinned. “Still stubborn, I see. I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

  He leaned down until his lips were level with my ear, making me shudder as his hot breath touched my skin. “There is a part of you that wants to give in to me. It was there when we first met in your dream, and it is still there even now. You may think me a monster, but if you were honest with yourself you would realize that my monstrosity just might be that thing you have been searching for. How long do you think you can hide the darkness of your soul from the archangel? How long before he realizes the sin you carry in your heart is not worthy of his love?”

  The weight of his words made me feel raw and empty inside. In his own sick way, he was telling the truth. Just hearing it made me feel ashamed of myself. I shook my head, trying to free my arms from his vise-like grip, but it was useless. “And I suppose you’re any better? I’ve read the Bible, Belial. Spoiler alert: you lose. So I’d rather let you beat the crap out of me than give you my soul.”

  His voice came out a whisper. “Even if I could help you find out about your mother?”

  I froze. Belial lifted his face mere inches above mine, waiting for me to react.

  “What about my mother?”

  “You have spent your whole life loving her, and yet you know nothing about the last days of her life. If you agree to be mine, I will help you find out the truth about her and about the unfortunate man who saved your life. Isn’t that what you want, Jordan?”

  He sounded so terribly convincing. I slowly realized that I actually wanted to believe him. I knew that Michael and Gabriel had orders not to tell me about Mr. N, but maybe, just maybe, this demon knew about the both of them. Was the truth about my mother worth my soul?

  I took a deep, slow breath and met those pale blue eyes. “What exactly would happen if I agreed to this ceremony?”

  Something inhuman slid across his face. I’d seen desire before, and this seemed like a dark cousin of the feeling. For the first time, I truly noticed the demon beneath the handsome exterior, and it frightened me down to my core. His hands relaxed on my arms a bit, signaling the fact that he thought he’d finally gotten to me.

  “It’s quite simple. Just as your Michael can mark things, so can I. We would exchange blood and you would pledge your soul to mine. You will be my servant and I will be your master.”

  Belial lifted one hand and cupped my chin in a surprisingly tender gesture, his voice dropping to a seductive tone. “And believe me, it does not come without certain pleasures.”

  He kissed me and I let him. His mouth was hot and tasted faintly of blood, both mine and his—somehow just like I thought a demon would taste. After a moment or two, I broke from his rose-petal-soft lips enough to speak.

  “If I do this, will you let Michael go?”

  He dropped his mouth to my throat, kissing the skin as he began to unbutton my blouse. “The archangel is no concern of mine. He and Mulciber are on the basement floor where there are no cameras. It seems we both got what we wanted.”

  “Seems so,” I murmured, shivering as he spread the cloth away from my chest. He tore off the bandages one by one, leaving little stinging patches on my chest. His eyes found the mound of scar tissue where the spear had stabbed me. Belial ran his fingertips over the stitches, tracing them down my bare stomach. He lowered his face and then his lips followed the line his fingers made while he unbuttoned his own shirt, exposing more ivory skin. He licked my navel slowly and then rose up enough to look me in the eye again.

  “Is this everything you wanted?”

  “Not quite,” I whispered, trailing one hand down to the clasp of the bra. He watched hungrily. My fingers closed around the item tucked within the cup. I withdrew Gabriel’s feather from the inside of my bra and stabbed Belial in the chest.

  He screamed as it seared his skin, burning as if I’d placed a red-hot poker against him. I slammed my knee into his side so that he rolled off the bed and fell with him, landing on the floor astride his waist. He convulsed below me, writhing with pain and cursing me with every breath he could draw.

  “Tell me how to get out of this room or I’ll burn you alive,” I demanded, shoving the feather in deeper for emphasis.

  He cried out, gasping for air. “Lying bitch!”

  I spared him a mean little smile. “I learned from the best. You weren’t going to hold up your end of the bargain anyway, right?”

  He glared up at me, his large hands closing around my waist and squeezing to the point of bruising. “I should kill you.”

  I jabbed him in the chest again. He growled in pain, letting me go. “Likewise. Now tell me.”

  “Keycard…in my left pocket…” he ground out.

  “Move one inch and I’ll shove this thing right out the other side of you.”

  I lifted up enough to slide my left hand into his pocket and found a keycard. Surprise, surprise. Demons were really honest when you threatened to burn holes through their chests.

  “Stay on the floor. If you try to attack me, I’ll make sure it stays in you this time.”

  I kept a careful eye on him as I removed the tip of the angel feather and stood up, making sure he didn’t follow me. I slid the keycard through the slot next to the door and it popped open with a click. Belial spoke just before I opened it all the way.

  “You just proved my point, you know,” he rasped, pushing up on one arm to fix me with a spiteful stare.

  “Your soul is as black as mine and you know it.”

  I glanced at him over my shoulder enough to send him an ice-cold stare. “I’ll learn to live with it.”

  I closed the door behind me and didn’t look back.

  14

  The basement floor was cold, damp, and empty. I had to swipe the keycard in the elevator just to get to it. Like I’d thought, there were hall closets and places used for storing medical supplies and patient files, but no one was on the floor except for me. It did not bode well.

  However, I could hear s
ome kind of commotion at the end of the hall coming from the last room to the right. The walls were concrete and hadn’t been painted over, so they were dark grey, almost like a dungeon. My skin sang with tension as I crept closer to the room. I could hear something and it sounded like…chains.

  The door was like the one I had encountered with Belial. Only a key card could open it. This one had a window, though. Dim white light poured outward. Well, I hadn’t come all the way down here for nothing. Better take a quick look.

  I pressed my right side into the door and slowly lifted up enough to see inside. What I saw made my mouth go dry.

  Michael was chained to the far wall with what looked like the restraints used on patients in a hospital, except they were crusted over with some sort of red substance that may have been blood. His shirt had been torn off and deep gouges covered his formerly perfect skin. From here, I could see his bloody lip and a bruise marring his left cheek. God in Heaven, what had happened to him?

  Just then, I heard a woman’s voice so I eased over until I could see the opposite side of the room where Mulciber stood. She was breathtakingly beautiful, or would have been if she didn’t have a completely sadistic expression on her pale face. Her smile was toothy and her eyes held the kind of malice you only saw in horror flicks. She wore a cream-colored tank top and navy skirt. Pretty good fashion sense for a psychopathic monster. Still, the thing that bothered me most was the object in her hand that looked like a hand-held sickle.

  Mulciber hummed as she walked toward Michael, her lipstick glimmering as red as the blood on his chest. “Know where this one’s from?”

  Her voice was thick with a French accent. Michael summoned enough strength to spit in her direction. She clucked her tongue, shaking her head.

  “You have such bad manners for an angel, mon ami. Anyway, this little number is responsible for forty-three deaths in Scotland—ten of which were children. They say every drop of blood it spilled is still soaked into the handle. It goes for about $20,000 on the market. Think it’ll be more or less effective than the blade before it?”