by E. A. Copen
So what was the catch?
I bit my lip. “Children,” he’d said. “I’ll seed a dynasty.” I didn’t know if I was on board for that.
Going upstairs doesn’t mean I agree to anything, only that I’m entertaining the idea of passing a few hours doing something other than negotiating with the others. I sighed and stood, stretching. Why not? It wasn’t like I had anything better to do, and I wasn’t going to get the answers to my questions sitting in the garden like some Victorian socialite.
I went upstairs. Leviathan wasn’t hard to find; there were only so many bedrooms upstairs, and he’d left his door cracked for me. The suite was done up to look like an old Spanish house, the kind only shown in movies. I wandered in, dragging my fingers over leather-upholstered chairs and pillows of velvet and lace. The floor was cold stone, warmed by an intricate but soft rug in red and gold, the deep cherry table covered by a delicate lace runner. Two rapiers hung on the wall, crossed over a flowery fan. All hard, sharp, masculine things, dominated by delicate femininity. Were there ever places like this in history, I wondered? There must’ve been. Where else would the inspiration have come from?
“Well, look at you,” said Leviathan from the archway that separated the sitting area from the bedroom. He’d shed his jacket and loosened his tie. Somewhere in the middle of undressing, he’d decided it would be a good idea to get a drink. He strode into the seating area with a bottle in hand. “I thought it would take you longer than that to make up your mind. Can I tempt you with a drink?” He poured two glasses and held one out to me.
I took the offered drink and held it with both hands. “I want to make something clear, Leviathan.”
“Clarify away,” he said, sinking into the leather armchair.
One thing was for sure. He wasn’t hard to look at. Nobody would ever accuse me of making a poor choice aesthetically. I swallowed some of the wine to cool the fire in my throat. “I don’t do booty calls. This is the one and only time I’ll come to you. If I agree to anything—and whatever happens here is not to be construed as an agreement of any sort—you will come to me, not the other way around.”
He set his drink aside. “I can live with that.”
“If I ever call you.”
He smirked. “Oh, you will.”
Such confidence. I was going to have to put a stop to that before he started getting other ideas. I started to lift the glass for another drink, but another idea struck me. My lips turned up in a wicked smile. “Fine, then. Let’s see how well you can follow orders.” I overturned the glass on my shoe.
He raised an eyebrow and met my eyes. I didn’t let my gaze waver. This was the true test. I could make anyone do as I ordered with a touch. I’d been doing it for years. But I couldn’t make him. He had to choose to do it.
The leather creaked as Leviathan pushed to his feet. His intense gaze never left mine as he approached, hovering so close I barely had enough air to breathe. For a moment, I thought he’d repeat the stunt from the garden—grab me by the throat in a show of dominance, which I wouldn’t tolerate. Not from him.
Instead, he slowly sank to his knees, tugged his loose tie from around his collar, and slowly dragged it down the inside of my leg before using it to clean the mess.
I smirked. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Chapter Eighteen
Josiah
I sat in a chair pulled up by the bed, waiting for something to happen. Maggie had stayed on her side, curled up, and every time I checked her, she was breathing steadily. After so long, it felt like the danger should’ve passed, but it hadn’t. It never would. Of all the demons in all of creation, why did hers have to be addiction?
I wanted to reach out and touch her face, to hold her and tell her how sorry I was. What a mistake I’d made, leaving her alone in the world without the truth. I’d only meant the best for her.
What was there to do now?
A good father would drag his daughter to the nearest rehab clinic and pay for her care. He’d drop everything to aid the child he’d help create fight the battle of her life. Of her unborn child’s life.
But I wasn’t a good father. I wasn’t even a present father. I didn’t know how to be either. What right did I have to insist she do anything? She’d never listen to me, and I couldn’t force her to get help. Well, I could compel her with a spell, but the treatment would not stick if she wasn’t open to it.
The best I could do was talk to her like the friend she’d thought I was and hope she saw reason.
As I was considering what to say, I must’ve dozed off. I didn’t mean to, but I was knackered from carrying her to the bed, and from not sleeping well the night before. The chair was just too comfortable, and the room too warm.
I dreamt of that night, reliving every harrowing moment. It was so real, I swore I could smell the heavy iron scent of blood and feel the weight of the squirming baby in my arms. Christian’s voice echoed through my mind as he held out the knife. “Do it, Josiah. Sacrifice her and ascend. We can be gods.”
My arms trembled, almost too weak to hold the tiny, struggling thing. She was so small, covered in red streaks and a thin mucous-like slime. Too small. Weren’t babies supposed to be bigger? Maybe she’s not real. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing her to disappear, but when I opened them, she was still there. Christ, she was ugly. And loud.
Yet, when I looked down at that red, wrinkled skin and those toothless gums and the fuzzy head, I saw Evette in the shape of her face. The only woman I had ever loved—and had maybe never stopped loving—lay dead just feet away, but here she was, born anew. Innocent. A living vessel full of potential to do good. God knew the world could’ve used some good in it.
Christian offered me the knife again, and with it, all the power I thought I wanted. One slice, and it was mine. I could do whatever I wanted, go where I wanted. Power was freedom, but it was freedom at a heavy price. All I had to do to claim it was become the man I abhorred above all else.
I grabbed my magic, gathering the power to me and letting it rise like a pillar of flame around me, then bending it to my will.
“What are you doing?” Christian snarled.
I didn’t answer. There were no more words for him, for a madman so drunk on power and secrets that he would murder one of his own. I wouldn’t be that. I couldn’t become that.
The magic surged when I spoke in my native tongue. Enochian bounced off the walls, the sharp edges of the words shattering the glass windowpanes. I squeezed my eyes shut. Desperate screams erupted, along with the wet sound of exploding meat and crunch of breaking bone.
Christian screamed my name, but the whirlwind burned him to ash, along with the rest of them.
I held my daughter to my chest, shielding her from it while she cried. Don’t worry, child. I’ll protect you. I will always protect you.
My eyes snapped open, and I caught myself from falling out of the chair. The room had darkened, but it wasn’t dark outside. Not yet. The sun had just shifted position, moving closer to the horizon and lengthening the shadows.
Maggie. The bed was empty. I rose and put my fingers to the blankets. Cold. She’d left some time ago, but to go where?
The door closed and I spun, pulling a ball of flame into my hand on instinct.
Remiel. He’d changed bodies, jumping into someone younger and stronger—a Hollywood type, complete with the pressed suit and gold watch. He smirked at the fire in my palm. “Are you going to burn me like you did your last messiah?”
“You’re not anyone’s messiah.” I shook the flame away. It would do precious little against him. “Where’s my daughter?”
The heels of his shoes struck hollowly on the floor as he took two steps into the room. “Downstairs making friends and enemies, I suspect. Not that it matters. Everyone on Earth will be dead soon enough. Well, almost everyone. I did promise Spyder I’d leave him enough human chattel to survive.”
Spyder, that bastard. Of course, he was working with Remiel. “Wh
at did you promise him? Dominion over the Earth? You get Hell? Is that how this is supposed to go?”
“You’re thinking much too small, son. I don’t just want Hell. I want Heaven. I want to build new life in my image. Let the vampires have the ashes of this world while I build the next.”
“Christ, you think you’re going to be the next God.”
He shrugged. “And why not? God has abandoned his post in Heaven, and Michael is unfit. Surely even you agree with me on that?”
I clenched my jaw and ground my teeth. I didn’t want Michael running the show upstairs, but I wanted my father in charge even less.
Remiel picked up one of the knickknacks from the dresser, a ceramic figurine of a dove. “I would’ve made you a god.”
“You would’ve committed systemic genocide of the human and demon races.”
“Neither of which you like,” he snapped, turning to face me. “Or at least, you didn’t. Then you had to go and fuck the devil’s daughter, then fall for the Oracle. Is that all it takes to sway you, Josiah? A good fuck?”
“Seems to me you’ve got a bit of a weakness for it too if Maggie’s anything to judge by. At least I can get laid outside the family tree.”
Remiel placed the figurine back on the dresser and gave me his full attention. “It’s not about the sex. It never is. It never should be. It’s procreation, Josiah. The act of creation. That’s its own reward. The purest magic there is, isn’t it? Taking two distinct things and merging them to create something greater. It’s the function of all things in God’s creation to procreate. Those who can’t, either through disfunction or sexual preference, exist within a species solely to assist those who do.”
I crossed my arms. “That’s utter bullshit if I’ve ever heard it.”
“If that’s not true, why then did God make us with a drive for sex? Why create a thing that is both pleasurable and bonding and then forbid us from engaging in the act?” He made a fist. “That was my only sin, Josiah. He sent us among the humans, made us live with them, watch them, speak and act as they do, and then commanded us to love them. For this, I was cast to Hell and made to bow to that creature, Lucifer Morningstar. Morningstar didn’t deserve his throne either, so I rebelled there, and was cast again into a pit of tortures.” He put his hands to his chest. “My sin was obedience to my nature, the nature He gave me. And now He’s gone, and little brother Michael is in charge.”
I shook my head in disgust. “Don’t frame this like you’re the victim. I know better. Yours isn’t a tragic love story. You raped the very people you were sent to protect. That was why you were cast out of Heaven. When you got to Hell, you wanted power, so you tried to take it, and you paid the price. I know that’s true because it’s a pattern you’ve demonstrated time and again.” I made a fist, and fire erupted around my knuckles. “You raped my mother. You broke her will and her mind and destroyed everything she could’ve been. Then you and your vampire allies destroyed everything that was left. I don’t give a fuck whose arse warms the throne in Heaven, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you have anything you want.”
He smiled. I laid his crimes at his feet, and the bastard fucking smiled at me. That was all I could stand. I swung at him, practically blind with rage.
Remiel caught my fist and tightened his fingers around the knuckles, sending the flame roaring higher despite the burns he took to his hand. “Careful, Josiah. You don’t want to set the house on fire, not with your lover and your daughter still trapped inside. Or would you sacrifice them to get to me?”
I kicked him back. “Why Maggie? Why her?”
“Because,” he said, pushing away from the wall, “she shares your blood. Because you said no. What choice did I have? I need a body that can hold me, a powerful body with angelic blood in its veins.”
I grabbed him by the collar and slammed his back against the wall. “She’s a child!”
“She’s a woman, and you abandoned her without telling her anything.” He grimaced. “I didn’t make her do any of it. I just told her the truth about who she was. She didn’t believe me at first, you know. That was why she called you. She wanted you to come here and tell her it wasn’t true.”
I slammed him against the wall again, this time cracking the plaster. “Then why was she gone when I got here?”
Remiel smirked. “I guess she decided she didn’t need you. She had all the family she needed right here.”
With an enraged growl, I threw him into the mirror, shattering it. Glass rained down on him as he lay bloodied on the floor.
Remiel pushed himself up. “Go on. Beat me. Break me. Kill this body if you want. It won’t change anything. You had your chance to be there for Maggie, and you threw it away! It’s because of you she’s broke and living in a shithole. Where were you when she was curled into a ball while her last boyfriend beat her nearly to death? Where were you when Ron Sloch tossed her over a desk and raped her for her ‘audition?’ Or when he laughed her out of the office when she tried to quit? Or when Amy Gruterman turned her away? You weren’t there when she needed you. I was.”
I kicked him in the face. Bone crunched, and his nose shifted to the side under my heel. I kicked him again, then punched him until teeth cut into my knuckles, screaming and cursing his name the entire time. He wasn’t fighting back. Why the fuck wasn’t he fighting back?
A soft thump behind me made me pause with my fist drawn back and look over my shoulder. Maggie stood in the doorway, her hand on the doorknob and a horrified look on her face. Her jaw shook. With the next blink, tears went cascading down her cheeks.
I glanced at what was left of Remiel’s human face. I’d smashed it to pieces, leaving it looking more like a swollen hunk of meat. He bled from his nose, his eyes, and his mouth. Christ, there was so much blood, I didn’t even know where it was all coming from. How it must’ve looked to her! I wasn’t doing a very good job of being the good guy.
I dropped him and spun around. “Maggie, I—”
She turned and fled.
“Maggie, wait!” I took a step forward, only to pause when I heard wet laughter behind me.
Christ, this had been his plan all along, hadn’t it? She hadn’t loved me before, but now I’d proven I was a monster, while Remiel had acted like a saint. To Maggie, I was a killer who’d abandoned her to the wolves of the world. Remiel was her savior. There would be no coming back from what she’d just seen me do.
Remiel’s laughter heightened in pitch.
I turned and gave him a few more good kicks to the head until it caved in. “I don’t give a shit if it doesn’t kill you for good, cunt. I hope it hurt.” I spat on his body and rushed from the room to find her before she could do something stupid.
Chapter Nineteen
Khaleda
We gathered in the meeting room again at the agreed-upon time. Most of us did, anyway. Even as Leviathan sank stiffly into his seat across from me, there was no sign of Maggie, Stefan, or Josiah.
“Let’s get this over with,” Spyder said and slunk to his chair.
I frowned. “Shouldn’t we wait for the others?”
The doors opened and a furious Maggie stormed in, her eyes dark and her hair undone. She stopped between the door and the table, her fists clenched, eying all of us with fresh anger. “None of you came here looking for a peaceful solution. You came looking for allies. You came to scheme and murder and betray. That’s all you demons are capable of. You’re no different than the humans. Well, I’ve spent my entire life being beaten, abandoned, and betrayed. I won’t sit in here and wait for you people to stab me in the back. Spyder?”
He stood. “Are you sure? I thought he wanted to wait.”
My fingers tightened around the arms of my chair, and I met Leviathan’s eyes. Something was about to happen. Something bad.
“Fuck what he wants,” Maggie shouted and lifted her hands. “I want them dead now. All of them!”
Beelzebub stood and shoved his chair back. Before he could speak, a sharp beam of light
erupted from Maggie’s hands and pierced him like a spear. He screamed as his skin bubbled, his blood boiling, back arching in pain. The demon exploded into ash that rained down on the rest of us.
I rose and flung an obsidian knife at her, but she moved two fingers and deflected it with magic, sending it blade-first into the wall.
Leviathan shoved the table at her, and he didn’t miss. It struck her in the stomach and pinned her to the wall, where she screamed in frustration as she tried to push it away and free herself.
Spyder hissed and dove at me, raking the air with his claws. I lifted my forearm, and he cut nearly to the bone. A chair broke over the back of his head and he hissed again, turning to face Leviathan. Leviathan’s eyes had turned blood-red, his face shifting to something subtly serpent-like. He opened his mouth to reveal fangs and spat a wad of steaming black venom at Spyder. It struck the vampire in the face and he fell to the floor, screaming and trying desperately to wipe it off.
Leviathan grabbed my arm. “We need to go. Now.”
“No.” I pulled away. “Josiah and Stefan are still here.”
“They’re not worth dying for, my queen.”
I struck him in the shoulder, pushing him back. “I don’t leave my allies. Help me or get out of my way.”
Maggie finally managed to shove the table away from her. With a howl of anger, she pulled herself up onto the table and unleashed a spray of blue fire. Leviathan and I had no choice but to part or die. He went right and I went left, throwing myself against the wall while flames bit at my back. Dammit, I should’ve brought more knives, but the vampires would’ve just confiscated them. I’d barely managed to smuggle that one in.
Maggie moved her hands, aiming her never-ending stream of fire at the walls. Flame licked the ceiling, while black smoke choked the air. I coughed and dropped to the floor. There was no way I could fight her, not and escape the burning room. I needed air, which meant I needed to get out, but the smoke was so thick, I couldn’t find my hand in front of my face. Still coughing, I felt across the rug toward where I thought the center of the room was. It was the only place that wasn’t on fire, and the smoke seemed thinner there.