Paid In Full

by Rachel Rawlings

  Melina King had been slain in this room. She was long since gone and buried, but Maloney hadn’t moved on. He’d kept everything in the room the same. A shrine to his dead mother.

  “I know what you saw in the papers. My mother was no demon.” He slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. “I know what you are, Jacqueline. Do you know why the angel sent you to talk to me?” Maloney leaned in, elbows resting on his knees, and steepled his fingers.

  “I assume it has something to do with demons. And no, I’m not speaking metaphorically.” Pulling up my sleeve, I offered him a glimpse of my tattoo, the one that marked me as a hunter. After waiting a breath, when he was neither shocked nor puzzled by my mention of real demons, I continued. “Tobias didn’t say why I needed to speak with you, just that I did. So here I am.”

  He leaned back in his chair, one leg casually resting on the other. He didn’t bother to hide the fact that he was sizing me up. But there was something else in his eyes as they raked over my body. Hope?

  “You bear the mark, but I’m not convinced of your worth.” Maloney wasn’t trying to insult me. He was just being honest, but it still stung.

  “I didn’t realize I needed your approval. I’m not working for the local Romani tribe.” The conversation was going nowhere. Maloney wasn’t going to give up whatever it was Tobias wanted me to find out. I stood up, ready to leave.

  “Actually, Miss Rhoades, you are. Have a seat.” Pointing to the seat I’d just vacated, Maloney waited for me to settle in before filling me in on the reason I was there. “You need information about the spear, correct?”

  Suddenly interested in what he had to say, I perked up. “You know about the spear? Let me get Dane. He needs to hear this.” I shifted, about to pull my phone out my pocket, but Maloney stopped me.

  “The Sin Eater stays outside.” The Romani prince was fast, closing the distance between us, his hand clamped around my wrist like a vise.

  “I assume putting him on speaker is out of the question, then?” I tried not to flinch as Maloney freed my hand of my pocket and set my phone on the end table.

  The settee felt small and cramped with him beside me. That close to him, I realized how wrong I’d been about his physique. He wasn’t shredded like the boys at the gym, but he wasn’t as wiry as I’d thought at first glance. His height had distracted me from the muscular build he kept hidden beneath the loose-fitting shirt he wore, but this close there was no denying I was at a disadvantage should things take a turn for the worse.

  Flipping my hand over, he examined my palm, gingerly following the lines with his fingertip. I stifled a giggle – the featherlight touch tickled. He smiled, the expression reaching his deep brown eyes and taking years off his face. He looked at me through the dark brown hair that had come loose from his low ponytail. Something close to desire swirled in his eyes, and if I’d met him another time, in another life, I might have succumbed to the that gaze despite the ten years between us.

  “Are you going to tell me my fortune Mr. King?” My voice sounded huskier than I’d have liked. Clearing my throat, I asked the question I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to know the answer to. “What does it say?”

  “You see this line here, under your pointer finger?” Maloney traced the small semicircle beneath my finger. “This, the Ring of Solomon, is what I was looking for. This line means you are the one.”

  “I’m Neo?”

  Clearly unimpressed by my Matrix reference, Maloney waited for me to finish with the pop culture jokes before telling me what it really meant.

  “The Ring of Solomon means, despite your earlier misstep, you have the ability to serve for the betterment of mankind.”

  “I think I proved that already. I’m not closing those portals and sending demons back to Hell for the fun of it.” Jerking my hand free of his, I realized that was only a half truth. My motives weren’t entirely selfless. After years of torment, sending demons back to Hell was a mutually beneficial arrangement. “Wait, what misstep?”

  “The Sin Eater, of course.” Maloney sounded bored, as if he were stating the obvious, and took my hand again to continue studying the lines.

  “Dane? How is he a mistake?” I knew all about making mistakes. I was practically an expert, but nothing about being with Dane felt like all the other cataclysmic decisions I’d made in the past.

  “This is the Saturn line.” He drew a line across my palm with his index finger. “The fate line. Yours ends abruptly at the head line. You have poor judgment.”

  “Well it doesn’t take divination to know that. I sold my soul. I’d say poor judgment is obvious.” Tired of the lesson in palmistry, I still managed to pick up what he was insinuating about my judgment and Dane. “Tobias didn’t question my choice. In fact he encouraged it. You might as well put a Papal seal on the deal, as far as approval goes.”

  “It is not an angel’s place. He won’t interfere one way or the other. He was simply guiding you away from one path. You ultimately chose the other. Now we will have to wait and see how it turns out. Based on your history, I’d say poorly.” Maloney busied himself examining my thumb.

  “What do you have against Dane? There’s something else. Something not written in the lines of my palm.” When he didn’t answer, I jerked hard, pulling him in to me. His shoulder bumped mine as his left arm came around to catch himself on the arm of the couch, essentially pinning me in.

  “He upsets the balance. His very existence is an abomination. His allegiance is questionable at best, and your entanglement with him has already cost one holy soul. It’s not natural for man to carry his sins, never mind the sins of others. They are to be confessed, given up and cleansed from our being, but he consumes them. He is holding the worst of us inside him, darkness concealed in human flesh.” Maloney pushed himself away, settling back onto the other side of the couch.

  “You don’t know him like I do.” Defiant to the end, I stood, then sat in the seat he’d vacated before he began my reading.

  “You’re right. I know him better. But you must learn this on your own.” Glancing at his watch, Maloney hurried on as if I were suddenly keeping him from an appointment. “Perhaps we should get down to business.”

  “Finally.” I let out a sigh, ready to move on to a topic other than Dane or my poor decision-making.

  “My mother wasn’t a demon. She wasn’t that different from you, in fact.”

  “Go on.” Leaning forward, unable to feign disinterest, I pressed him to continue. We were finally getting somewhere.

  “Our tribe was entrusted with a most holy item. For centuries we traveled the country, the world, safeguarding the relic. The demon came looking for it and cut her head from her body when she wouldn’t give it to him. Did you know that consciousness continues for close to thirty seconds after your body is relieved of your head?” It was Maloney’s turn to stand. He walked toward the fireplace, careful to avoid the stains on the floor. “Count that off – thirty seconds. Imagine what you could see, what you could still process.”

  Half a minute seemed like a blink in time, but when I counted to ten I couldn’t imagine being aware of my head and body being separated for three times as long.

  “With no trauma to the brain, it might even have been possible for her to speak, but the only person to hear her last words would have been the demon. There would have been no use for your Sin Eater then.”

  Before I could question the likelihood of her ability to speak once she’d been decapitated, or the level of physical trauma given that it hadn’t been done by guillotine, Maloney spun around to face me. He’d had longer to ponder the physical and metaphysical state of his mother than I had, and the years of torment had definitely taken a toll. Some of the confidence and mysterious air about him had gone, exposing the ghost of a man that remained. He was an excellent showman, but the curtain had been pulled back once we’d begun to talk about his mother. For all his talk about the balance and my questionable decision-making skills, Maloney was just as fucked up a
s I was.

  I wanted to ask if the reason Dane was waiting out on the porch was because he’d been rendered useless given the demon’s means of dispatching Lala Rose, but decided against it, focusing instead on the relic. See, not all my decisions are bad ones.

  “You said your mother was safeguarding something. What was it?” I had a sneaking suspicion, given the fact that Tobias had sent me here, but I needed to hear him say it.

  “I think you know what it is. I can see the knowledge, just there in your eyes.” Maloney pointed, not to my actual eyes but to the center of my forehead. “The third eye, the center of knowledge. You already know much of what Tobias sent you here to learn. Yes, the spear. My mother, like generations of our line before her, kept it safe. What better way to keep its location hidden than amongst a band of traveling gypsies? Eh?”

  “So you have it?” Without thinking, I reached for him, clasping his hands in mine. Relief flooded my body. The one thing that would unquestionably end my existence could be handed over to the Principles for safekeeping. It wasn’t the same as being saved, not in the sense of my soul, but it meant I’d avoid damnation permanently. Unless of course they figured out another way to kill me.

  And given the Devil’s plans for me upon my death, the prospect wasn’t that unlikely.

  “No, of course not. What, you think we just keep something like that lying around the house?” The Romani prince was back, laughing at the idea of the most sought-after relic next to the Arc of the Covenant sitting amongst the books and keepsakes stored away inside the hovel he called a home.

  “Where is it?” I surged to my feet. Entrusted by the Almighty or not, they couldn’t keep it from the Principles any longer. It needed to be as far from the reach of man or demon as possible. “Tobias sent me here to get it.”

  “No, Tobias sent you here to learn something.” Maloney was on his feet as well, standing toe to toe with me. “Sit down, Miss Rhoades. We still have things to discuss.”

  With a gentle nudge from Maloney, I dropped back onto the settee. There might be things he wanted to discuss, but all I wanted to talk about was the spear.

  “What do you know about the spear? Do you know why it’s so important that you hand it over to me?”

  “Some stories were handed down. Stories of the Fallen being locked away, and only when all the Nephilim and Elioud aligned themselves with Apollyon would they be freed. But I liked the stories my mother told the best. She told one variation or another of a girl torn in two, born of the light and the dark alike, who had the power to save or damn us all.” Maloney remained standing, looming over me as he regaled me with his mother’s bedtime stories. “She spoke of you. Not by name. She never could see your name, but you are the girl in her stories nonetheless.”

  Before I realized what he was doing, Maloney was behind me. He struck like lightning, one hand pressing down against my neck hard enough to fold my chest against my knees, while he yanked down on the collar of my shirt.

  “Fitting.” One finger brushed the tip of the demon wing I’d had tattooed on the right side of my back. “The angel’s wing is on your left, the same side as your heart, the same side of your brain that controls logic. I wonder if you were aware of that when you chose this? I think not, but I find it telling all the same. More so than the one the angels required you to have on your arm.”

  Sensing no threat from him, I stopped fighting and let him inspect what little of my tattoo he could without removing my clothes.

  “Let us make a deal, you and I. I have something you want, and in return for that information, you can do something for me.” Maloney eased the pressure on my neck, sliding his hand around to cup my face and turn it toward him in a gesture that was all too familiar given our limited acquaintance.

  “Information?” Jerking my head back, I scooted back on the settee, out of his reach. “I don’t need information about the spear, I need the spear itself.”

  “We may never know what my mother’s last words were, but I am willing to bet they were not the location of the spear. Of course, the only one who can confirm that for certain is …”

  “The demon who killed her.” I cut him off, already following his train of thought.

  “Precisely. So do we have a deal? What information I have about the location of the spear, and any information you can gain from the demon, in exchange for killing it? I want justice for my mother, Jacqueline, and the man currently rotting in prison for that crime was simply a host for the true killer. Can you understand that?” Maloney implored me to take the deal with haunted eyes.

  Actually, I could. I wanted the same thing for Joan, my mother. I just didn’t know how to give it to her. She’d taken her own life in the end, and Dane had consumed her sins so that she could enter the kingdom of Heaven. But that hadn’t undone the lifetime of torment she’d endured at the hands of her sister and the demons and devil she’d served. What I’d struggled with since uncovering the truth about my heritage and my mother’s demise was who was truly to blame? The Nephilim who’d loved my mother and made her fall in love with him, who’d hammered the final nail into our coffins by impregnating her with me? The Devil for devising the plan? The demons for acting it out? Or the Omnipotent for not acting soon enough?

  All the questions swirling in my mind ensured only one answer to Maloney’s offer.

  “We have a deal, Mr. King.” I extended my hand to seal my word with a handshake.

  Maloney produced a small blade, no bigger than a letter opener, and sliced his palm before handing the knife to me. Following his lead, I sliced the length of my left palm. He took the knife, sliding it into his waistband, and clasped our hands together. The deal was struck.

  Surprised by the pain and lack of healing, I examined the seeping wound on my palm. It should have at least begun to knit back together by now. My healing wasn’t quite supernatural, but it had definitely sped up since becoming a holy warrior – a necessary advantage when your enemies were demons.

  “The wound will seep until we have each fulfilled our end of the bargain. A reminder of the debt owed to each other.” Maloney wound a blue handkerchief around his hand, tying it off with a knot.

  “You might want to stock up on iron and Vitamin B. It might take me a while to find the demon who killed your mother.”

  “It won’t be as difficult as you think. You are, in fact, quite familiar with the responsible party.”

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

  “The demon’s name is Lazarus.” Maloney fidgeted with the knot on his makeshift bandage.

  Damn it to hell. He said it.

  “Of course it is. Nope, that won’t be difficult at all.” All I had to do was break into the one place I’d been trying to avoid since I was seventeen.

  Hell.

  Chapter Three

  “Ironic, isn’t it?”

  I’d been explaining what had transpired with the heir to the Romani throne since I’d stepped out onto the front porch. Dane had pressed me for information before I’d even shut the door behind me. Maloney watched from the parlor window, clearly amused by my boyfriend’s distress at my having been alone in his company for so long.

  “Moronic is more like it.” Back in the car, Dane hastily wove in and out of traffic.

  “I think you nicked that old lady on the crosswalk back there.”

  “I wasn’t even close to her. Stop trying to change the subject.” Dane signaled to turn onto Cathedral.

  Our latest intel was to check out Baltimore Basilica. This was the first active church we’d been assigned to investigate; all the others had been shut down. The church and surrounding grounds were consecrated. It should have been impossible for a portal to open in the sanctity of the church, but we never argued with the intel. Good or bad. We checked it all out.

  “I’m not trying to change the subject. Just stop a potential vehicular manslaughter.” I grabbed the “oh-shit bar” above the window and held on as we drifted into a parking space within walking distance
of the Basilica.

  “So what’s your plan? When do we leave?” Throwing the car into park, Dane turned to look at me, finally able to take his eyes off the road now that we’d reached our destination.

  “To get into Hell? Honestly, I hadn’t gotten that far. It’s a little hard to concentrate on devising a plan to break into the one place I have absolutely no desire to go. Not to mention, you’re driving in the city like we’re in a rally car about to cross the finish line.” I pulled the half-empty water bottle from the console, wincing when the lukewarm water hit my tongue. “We should have stopped for coffee.”

  “I’m happy to caffeinate you once we’ve searched the church. And then we’re going to have a serious conversation about your bargain with the Romani.” Dane was out of the car and halfway around to my side when I opened the car door.

  “Plans involving certain death cost extra. Coffee and a cinnamon bun.” Grabbing my bag off the floor, I nudged the door closed with my hip and fell into step behind Dane. “What’s the deal between you and Maloney anyway?”

  “We had a difference of opinion.” Clearly not up for conversation, Dane plunged ahead, leading me through the vestibule but away from the nave of the church.

  “Oh no you don’t.” Grabbing his arm, I jerked him to a halt in the hallway off the vestibule. “Explain, or it’ll be a table for one at Blue Moon Café.” There was no way he was getting off that easily. Not when he expected me to lay my life bare before him on the daily.

  “It goes back a lot further than Maloney. Further than his mother or even his grandfather. Not all of his tribe have been entrusted with the secrets of the divine as I’m sure he led you to believe. Some of them worked for the other side, peddling sins.”

  “Last time I checked, sin was your business.” Arms crossed over my chest, I gave him my best “we’re not going anywhere until you tell me everything” stare. I’d been perfecting the technique.

  “I’m in the business of absolving sins for those deserving of salvation, who were nonbelievers until it was too late, or sinned because they had no choice. I am not, nor have I ever been, in the business of using someone’s weakness against them, enticing them with their darkest desires until they are beyond even my help.”