Good Side of Sin

by Haigwood, K. S.

  “I’m sorry. I—I’ll go to my room for the night and leave you—”

  Cross’s hand shot out to grab his arm when he stood. She swallowed hard, and then shook her head. “I don’t have a boyfriend, Ethan. Please,” she nodded at the chair he’d risen from, “sit back down and finish your meal. Your comment only caught me off guard, that’s all. I’m not used to getting such sweet compliments.”

  Ethan stared at her with a look of disbelief on his face. He shook his head. “How is that even possible? Just in the short time I’ve known you, the nice things I could say about you just keep multiplying. I swear I don’t know which one to say first because they all sound so cheesy and lame. I’m afraid to say any of them for fear you would take it the wrong way and think I am just another jerk with a line to throw at you. I can’t believe that. I cannot believe that any man you would date wouldn’t make sure that you hear all the awesome things he thinks about you. Because I think you are. I think you are awesome and that you are amazing and I am going to shut up now because I am making a total fool of myself.” Cross watched through her shock as he laid his napkin on the table. “I’m going to tell you goodnight, and then I am going to go to my room before my stupid words lead to stupid actions and you kick me out of your apartment. Thank you, Cross. The meal was fantastic. Good night.” Without looking at her, he turned and walked three steps before she spoke, stopping him in his tracks.

  “Emma.”

  He turned back to look at her, hard lines creasing his brow in confusion. “What was that?”

  “My first name is Emma. My friends on the force call me Cross, my last name, but… I would like you to call me… Emma.” He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. She was scared to death he was going to do what he’d threatened to do and go to bed. She had never minded being alone in her apartment, but now the eight feet between them felt much too distant. She could only imagine how it would feel to watch him turn and walk down the hall, out of her sight completely. “Please… I don’t want you to go. I enjoy your company and I am flattered by your compliments. The guys I usually date are hard-asses, and I guess they think, because I work in a man’s world, that I don’t like to hear such pretty things.”

  Ethan grinned. “You like hearing them?”

  Emma smiled back. “I like hearing them when you say them.”

  Isaiah

  With his hands linked loosely behind his back, Isaiah stood in the shadows and willed Lameria’s mind to wake from her unconscious state. He knew she was awake even before her eyelashes fluttered open, but he didn’t move from the dark corner.

  Her body went rigid in alarm once she realized her wrists and ankles were shackled, and that the chains that bound them were hooked to concrete pillars, both of them at least two feet in diameter. She slumped in defeat without even attempting to free herself. There would be no point. A demon had less-than-human strength when bound with silver.

  He hated to see her like this, but, most of all, he hated the person she had become since her fall. All of the betrayal and hurt he’d felt all those millennia ago hadn’t eased at all over the time they had spent apart. It was all still raw and burning, like salt being poured into an open wound.

  Even with as much as he was hurting, he still wanted to cross the room, free her from her bindings and capture those pouty lips with his own.

  Lameria went suddenly still. “Isaiah?” she whispered, but he said nothing in response. “I was afraid you would never come.”

  He waited a few moments, suddenly unsure of what his wording should be. He’d played out this scene in his head a million times over the centuries, knowing in his heart he would one day meet up with her again. But now none of the scenarios he had come up with sounded right. He could leave here—leave the room—without responding to her at all, but, even as he told himself that was what he should do, he found he still stood in the exact same place, unmoving and refusing to obey his own demands.

  Without taking his eyes from her frail form, he spoke, barely above a whisper. “You knew, if you couldn’t get me to come to you with kind words and begging, that I would eventually come to scold you for your immaturity.”

  Lameria cleared her throat and glared at the darkness. “It worked, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, but not how you wanted it to,” he replied. “Do you honestly think I enjoy watching these silly games you play, these degrading acts of unkindness you bestow upon everyone you come in contact with?”

  “I do not care if you enjoy them—”

  “You do!” he shouted, losing his temper with her petty childishness, and then stepped into the light of the room, so she could take in the full effect of his anger. “You care a great deal,” he said more calmly. “If your pretty lies fail to lure me in, you say and do hurtful things to other people to get my attention. It sickens me to watch the things you do to get your way, Lameria! You are not the girl I once knew, the girl I was made to cherish and love for all eternity, and it pains—” He stopped to force control over his emotions before they could take control of him. “It pains me to think you never will be again.”

  “I can’t be that girl again, Isaiah.”

  “You cannot or you will not?”

  Her eyes filled with tears as she glared at him. “I am ashamed of what I have become and what I’ve done. Hell has taken everything good from me and replaced it with what you see now: an evil, treacherous bitch that cares about no one but herself. I don’t know how to be a good girl anymore.”

  Isaiah’s cheeks inflated with air, and then he released it in one huge blow. “Well, I guess that’s something I have to look forward to. At least soon enough I will not care what you say or do to others.”

  He turned to walk back into the shadows and, hearing the quick rattling of chains, knew she had stood.

  “Isaiah, wait!” she shouted, and he stopped, but didn’t turn to face her. He wasn’t sure he could look her in the eye and say what he had come to say. Not yet. He could hear the quick beating of her heart and the heavy pants of her breathing as she pulled the oxygen in and pushed it out of her lungs. He knew she was finally scared, finally afraid, and he also knew she could sense this hadn’t been just a social visit to scold her for acting like a spoilt brat. He could hear in her voice the fear that she may never see him again. So she did care about someone other than herself. “What are you saying?”

  Without turning, Isaiah answered her. “Heaven is crumbling and it is my fault. My soul is being damned to Hell at the end of the quarter.” He turned to look at her then, not bothering to hide the tears in his eyes. “I came here to tell you goodbye, Lameria.”

  She jerked back as if he had slapped her, and then tried to place her hand over her heart but the chains stopped her. A sob escaped her throat as the tears fell in a steady stream over her cheeks. She shook her head in denial, obviously refusing to believe the words that had left his mouth. “No—”

  “Goodb—”

  “NO!” she screamed, and continued to wail and jerk at her bindings as if she was being tortured in the Syde of Wrath, but Isaiah only swallowed and looked down at the cement floor.

  He wanted to go to her, allow himself to comfort her one last time, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t stop the sob that left his throat and his tear ducts betrayed him as he looked at her. “I’m so sorry that we failed each other, my love. Regardless of what you’ve done to Heaven, to others, to me or to yourself, I never stopped loving you. Goodbye, my beautiful angel.”

  He couldn’t stay any longer. Although he hated to see her in such misery, he couldn’t go on this final mission without telling her goodbye. His hopes were not high that Josselyn could fix the damage that he and Malcolm had caused, but he had refused to stay in Heaven and let her do it alone. And there was nothing that could be said or done to comfort Lameria, or him. So he did the only thing that was left for him to do, he turned his back on her and fleeted from the room.

  Chapter 18

  Josselyn

  I w
as still giddy with excitement that the Council had granted me the chance to fix this, and in the process, save Isaiah and Malcolm’s souls. That was a reward like no other, that if I accomplished said mission, they would be allowed back into Heaven, no questions asked. I could live out the rest of my eternity knowing I had accomplished something to be proud of.

  I was even looking forward to telling Thoros the good news. I had already made up my mind that I would go to Limbo, get this Melina chick to give me the spirits of Malcolm and the innocents Thoros had taken the souls from, ask her to erase the evil plague creeping through Heaven, and then come back here and fix Thoros’ soul-eating issue. He had two choices: go with me to Limbo or Baddon was going to lock him up in silver chains—facing Lameria.

  I giggled to myself as I turned the knob of his door and let myself into his bedchamber. My brow drew down in apprehension, and a feeling of dread washed over me as I looked around the empty room. I ran to the dark bathroom and flipped on the light, but it was vacant, too.

  I growled, and then turned and ran out his door and down the grand staircase of the mansion.

  Baddon was having a conversation with Troy and some pretty girl in a white dress and whoa, man, did she have some energy. The moment they saw me, their features became panicked, and Troy held out his arms to catch and steady me once I got to him. I hadn’t realized I was running so fast until I slammed into his abdomen and felt my teeth chatter together from the force of the impact.

  “Jossel, what in Heaven is going on with ye—”

  “Has anyone seen Thoros?”

  “Yes,” Baddon replied. “He’s with Phoebe.”

  What? He is with Phoebe? Doing what, exactly? I stepped out of Troy’s arms and blinked a few times. I knew it had all been a lie.

  “Whoa, Josselyn,” Baddon said, and I felt him take me by my shoulders, and then I looked into cerulean blue eyes and felt myself begin to calm down a fraction. “It’s not what you think.”

  Anger flared in me and I jerked out of his grasp. Not what I think? How the hell could he know what I’m thinking? He’s the one acting all weird, like I am jealous or something.

  “Calm doon, ma wee lassie—” Troy said, and I felt like everyone in the large foyer was looking at me, closing in on me. I was having trouble breathing.

  With my arms pulled in close at my sides and my hands balled into tight fists, I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed at the top of my lungs. I could feel the floor trembling beneath my feet, but I didn’t care. At that moment I didn’t care what happened, but I did know what was going to happen to Thoros when I got my hands around his neck.

  “What the hell’s going on? Angel forget to take her meds?”

  I took a shuddering breath, and then opened my eyes to a room full of people. I realized the voice that had spoken belonged to the scarred demon that Thoros was supposed to be entertaining, Phoebe. I didn’t know if it was just my emotions all over the place or what, but she looked prettier now than she had the first time I saw her. Of course Thoros would want her.

  I shook my head to squash the thought, and then glared at her. “Where is Thoros?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. After he made sure I was going to be okay, he got a strange look in his eyes, said something about tracking some guy and then just left my room.”

  After he made sure she was okay? For what reason? What had happened in my absence? And what guy?

  “I asked him what he was talking about,” Phoebe continued, “but he didn’t respond as he left my room, so I took it as it wasn’t any of my business. Most things said around here aren’t.”

  “That’s not true. You are just as much a part of this family as any of us are,” Baddon scolded her, his finger coming up to point in her face. “We all left through the same gate of Hell, so stop feeling sorry for yourself, Phoebe.”

  My new heart picked up its pace. “How long ago was it that he left?” I asked as calmly as I could manage, given the immediate pressure I was under. I couldn’t leave for Limbo with Thoros running around Las Vegas killing people!

  “Thirty minutes or so, I guess.”

  “Shit!” Baddon shouted.

  “Can you locate him? This is the third time he’s mentioned this mysterious guy. I think we need to find him before the Soul-Eater gets his hands on his soul.”

  Baddon closed his eyes and I fidgeted as we all waited for him to open them back up. Damn! How long did it take to find one demon in Sin City?

  “I know where he is.”

  My head shot up and around to Isaiah as he walked up to the quickly growing group of angels and half-demons and one very weird mortal woman that kept grinning at me.

  “How do you know where he is, Isaiah?” I asked, the gears in my mind turning round-and-round, but coming to no conclusion. And why did he look so distraught and… and nervous all of a sudden?

  He smiled, making his face a mask again, so I couldn’t read him. Was he hiding something from me? Again?

  “My dear, I am an archangel. I know it all.”

  “But you said…” Hadn’t he said that people with a soul couldn’t detect the soulless? I was sure he had said something of the sort when Thoros had shown me Malcolm in the gray cloud when I’d first arrived.

  My thinking was cut short when I felt someone take my hand. I looked to my right and saw that it had been Troy, and that everyone in the room was linking together. My other hand was grabbed and then we were all whisked away in a giant fleeting circle.

  Thoros

  Thoros’ vision was blurred, but he struggled to stay in control of his body and thoughts. When he’d felt a strange sensation pass over his skin and nudge at his mind while checking up on Phoebe, he had known something unusual was happening to him, so he forced himself to stay alert.

  He meant to put a stop to whatever was possessing and manipulating his body to steal souls, so he’d left immediately, leaving her question of where he was going unanswered.

  It wasn’t Josselyn’s job to babysit him or waste her time here on Earth when she could be searching for her angel friend. If this Malcolm guy was only half as important to her as she was to him, then Malcolm was one lucky son of a bitch. The angel better damn well treat her right, because he had every intention of busting through the gates of Heaven to beat him to a bloody pulp if he didn’t. Well, if angels could bleed or feel pain, that might work, Thoros thought, and then frowned in frustration. He would definitely have to come up with an angel torture device that could actually torture them.

  Gritting his teeth and growling in frustration when the needles on his flesh threatened to overpower him, Thoros stopped his fleeting journey and dropped to his feet on a sidewalk outside an apartment complex. Night had fallen, and the dryness of the air offended his senses.

  A shiver ran up his spine, and, knowing exactly what the cause was, he turned to confront his enemy head on.

  Oh shit! he thought, but didn’t let his guard down.

  Standing under the yellow illumination of a street light was a red-haired beauty with ivory skin in a short, tight-fitting, emerald green dress. The five inch stilettos on her slender feet complemented her already lengthy legs.

  His manhood gave a curt jerk behind his zipper, but his jaw flexed in irritation. He knew it wasn’t because he really wanted the woman. She was toying with him. Bad news for her; he didn’t enjoy playing games anymore.

  Thoros knew she was bad news, but he couldn’t fight off her dark magic. He knew the guy he was tracking was close by, but he didn’t want to investigate that now, with this demon chick so near. She might kill him before he knew the reason he was even drawn to the guy. Maybe he was the key to stop all this.

  Who is this woman? he wondered, and then huffed. Well, there is only one way to find out, since it doesn’t look like she’s leaving until she gets some attention.

  Under her narrowed gaze, he stood upright and forced his muscles to relax, so maybe he could get through this night unscathed. Not likely, but he was damn well
going to try. The demon looked harmless—in a tie-me-up-and-do-bad-things-to-me sort of way—but Thoros knew it was all a front, the whole devil-in-disguise type thing.

  He sauntered over and stopped when he was within ten feet of her. “You come here often?”

  She gave him a sly grin, advancing on him slowly, like a cheetah stalking its prey. She never once took her eyes from his. And he didn’t dare move. He had a feeling she was more dangerous than he had given her credit for. Damn!

  “You’re stronger than I thought,” she said as she placed her hand to the center of Thoros’ chest. Her eyes immediately flicked up to his and something flashed across her face: fear maybe? “Where are they?”

  The souls? Ahh, yes, she was the one making him eat the souls of the innocent in Vegas… This woman was definitely trouble. He stopped himself just before summoning Baddon. She would sense it, and he didn’t know if her power exceeded his own. Surely Lucifer wouldn’t send someone weaker than him to take on a task this important. No, he concluded, he wouldn’t. This little vixen was probably Hell on heels. “Who are you?”

  Her emerald green eyes flooded black and she gripped Thoros’ neck with her hand, digging her sharp, claw-like nails into his flesh, and then quickly jerked the toes of his boots from the concrete. “I want the souls,” she said in a distorted voice, as if she were using more than one set of vocal chords, feminine and masculine. “You had them. Where are they?”

  A loud shot sounded through the air and he felt her grip slip as she nearly lost her balance when the ground shook beneath her feet.

  “Hey!” a voice shouted, and Thoros and the demon both cut their eyes over to see Josselyn with a small army of angels and half-demons behind her. Oh, yeah… the seer chick was there, too. “You wanna pick on someone your own size, fiend?” he heard her say, and thanked his lucky stars she was on his side.