Paid In Full

by Rachel Rawlings

  “Yes, usurper, it does.”

  Tobias raised his brows as I pointed to myself and silently mouthed the word, “Me?”

  “Did you know that Jacqueline means supplanter? There is power in a name, and I find it intriguing that the two of you faced off this evening.”

  “Faced off? She tried to kill us.” Dane unsnapped his holster, his hand resting on the butt of his gun. The clip was empty, but no one in the bar knew that.

  “Remember whose side you’re on, Sin Eater.”

  “I’m on her side, angel.” Dane jerked a thumb in my direction. “Remember that the next time you send some crazy-ass bitch after us.”

  “What’s the spear really for?”

  My question caught Tobias off guard. For the first time since I’d met him, the angel was unable to mask his true feelings. Fear, uncertainty and remorse. It was written all over his face.

  “Apollyon wants it.” He ran a hand over the front of his jacket, smoothing his lapel, a small tremor in his fingers. “We’ve been over this. Why do you ask?”

  “Nothing. Just something Maloney said.” Studying his body language, I waited for the slightest twitch to give him away.

  “The Romani? He’s a liar. You said it yourself.” Clearing his throat, Tobias manifested a glass of water with a snap of his fingers and half-drained it in one gulp.

  “For a second there I thought he was going to turn it into wine.” Dane gave me a little smirk before turning his attention back to the angel. “Nice parlor trick. Now answer the fucking question.”

  “I believe I just did.” Tobias cloaked his nerves with arrogance.

  “You’re lying.”

  The room fell silent. All heads turned in my direction.

  Heaven and Hell had a stake in our conversation. More than one angel and demon stopped their usual negotiations and focused their attention solely on us. Energy shifted in the room, dominance moving from one side to the other. For so long, the angels had held the majority of the power. It felt like that was about to change.

  “Tell her about the scrolls, brother.” Beelzebub stepped out of the back room, having used the same rear entrance Tobias had, the enormous demon captain at his side.

  “Ah, yes, the scrolls.” The angel winced as his fallen brother clasped his hands on his shoulders.

  Beelzebub kneaded Tobias’s shoulders, digging into the muscles with his fingertips, trying to force the truth from the angel with a torturous massage.

  “The scrolls.” The demon tightened his grip, squeezing Tobias’s trapezius muscles until the angel jerked away.

  “There have been some new developments with the spear. Our research department uncovered something amongst the Dead Sea Scroll relics. Something thought to have been lost not long after Pilate’s death.”

  “I thought research was your department.” Stomach souring, I pushed the shot glass away.

  “It was. I was promoted.” Tobias didn’t seem all that pleased with the change in position. “The first scrolls were misinterpreted. Things are often lost in translation. Greek to Latin, Latin to Hebrew...”

  “The spear isn’t just a weapon that can kill you. It’s meant to kill you. For them to kill you,” Beelzebub interrupted, cutting to the chase.

  The unnamed demon bodyguard at Beelzebub’s side tensed at the mention of the spear’s real purpose. His attention shifted from his boss to me. With the same intensity as at the cemetery, he seemed to take me in, studying me, gauging me. I was about to ask for an introduction when the angel spoke again.

  “I was getting to that.” Tobias gulped down the rest of his water and set the empty glass on the sole cork coaster on the table.

  “Your lectures always did bore me. Why waste time mincing words?” Pulling a toothpick from the inner pocket of his suit jacket, the demon casually picked at his teeth.

  “Shut up, both of you.” I needed to think, and the barbs the angel and demon were about to throw back and forth would only serve to distract me. “So Apollyon doesn’t want the spear to kill me? But the Principles do?”

  “In a manner of speaking…”

  “I wasn’t asking you.” Leveling my best death stare at Tobias, I turned my attention to the demon.

  “My, my, my, how the tables have turned.” Chuckling, Beelzebub patted Tobias stiffly on the back and snapped his fingers at the nearest lesser demon. A small, scraggly creature shuffled over, dragging a chair behind him. Dismissing the lesser demon with a wave, Beelzebub spun the chair around and took a place at our table. “My Lord doesn’t need or want you dead. Quite the opposite, in fact. He wants you, Jax. It’s always been you. That beautiful, dark creature curled up inside you is the key. You only need let her out.”

  “And unleash Hell on Earth?” Tobias leaned forward, pleading with his eyes for me to listen to him.

  “Look around you, brother – some would say it already is.” Leaning back in his chair, the demon opened his arms wide. The gesture meant more than just the inside of the bar. “What’s it going to be, Jacqui-girl? Continue to put your faith in the people trying to kill you? Or accept what you are and come with me?”

  “How long have you known? How long have you had me searching for the spear, knowing it wasn’t to keep me safe but to ensure my execution? How long?” My cool demeanor belied the fire of betrayal burning inside me.

  “Too fucking long.” Grabbing my hand, Dane pushed his chair back from the table, forcing me to get up with him.

  Neither angel nor demon made a move to stop us. I gripped the handle of the dagger forged from the Spear of Destiny. Dane and I backed away from the table, keeping Beelzebub and Tobias in our sights long enough to be sure they weren’t going to follow. We didn’t have a plan beyond getting out of the bar and putting some distance between us and them. I don’t know why I was surprised to see Ariel blocking the doorway.

  “Nice to see you back on your feet. And so soon after having a knife buried in your lungs. Pity it missed your heart.” Sliding my hand from the hilt of the dagger to the butt of the gun at my back, I unclicked the safety and prepared for the repercussions of breaking the most sacred of rules at Mt. Royal. No fighting in the bar.

  “I would say better luck next time, but there won’t be one.” Ariel pulled one of the small blades lining her belt and aimed it in my direction.

  And she’d had more than one lifetime to practice. The knife sailed through the air with deadly precision, hitting its mark and burying itself in my left shoulder. Pain arced through my arm, forcing my fingers to uncurl from the hilt of the dagger still tucked in my belt. Without waiting for her to loose the next blade and incapacitate my right shoulder and ability to defend myself, I pulled my gun and fired until the clip was empty. She dropped, half in and half out of the doorway. With a nod to Earl behind the bar and a middle finger over my shoulder for Tobias and Beelzebub, I stepped over the crumpled body of the Lion of God and walked out of the bar with Dane at my side.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Son of a bitch, that hurts.” Yanking the knife free from my shoulder, I pressed my hand on the wound to slow the bleeding.

  “You need stitches.” After scanning the street, Dane unlocked the car with the remote. “Come on. We can’t stay here.”

  “It’ll knit back together just fine on its own. We just need to find a place to hole up while it heals.” Shaking my head at his stubborn glare, I followed him to the car. “I’m not going back to your friend – what’s her name, the vet?”

  “Are you serious?” Chuckling, he opened my door and walked around to the driver’s side.

  I didn’t get in the car.

  “You’re serious.” Laughing harder, Dane got behind the wheel and started the car. “You’ll probably have a nasty scar, but I think I can manage. Get in the damn car before the holy roller assassin wakes up.”

  “I really hate that bitch. I can’t believe Tobias just watched her stab me. Lion of God, my ass.” Wincing, I flopped down on the passenger seat and shut the door. />
  “Buckle up.” Dane gave me a little wink and peeled away from the curb.

  “Where are we going?” Scanning the side mirror, I checked for a tail. Not a single car on the road behind us. “No one’s following us.” That struck me as odd. Why send Ariel to kill me, only to let me go? Opening my window, I peered out to check the sky for any winged beings tracking us from above. Nothing. “I don’t like it.”

  “Promotion or not, Tobias can’t make a move on his own. He’ll have to check in with the Principles first. They’re all about following the rules.” Dane pointed up, toward Heaven. “It’ll buy us a few minutes’ head start.”

  “And Beelzebub?”

  “Wants you as far away from the angels as possible,” Dane said, confirming what I already knew. He whipped around another corner.

  “Where are we going?” I was familiar with just about every inch of the city, but Dane had somehow managed to find an area I didn’t know.

  “My place.”

  “Your place? You have a place?”

  “I spent a lot of time following you around before I approached you at the gym. Hotels get expensive.”

  “That’s not creepy or anything. Stalker.” Laying my head back against the head rest, I closed my eyes and stopped trying to fight the spins that were setting in. Alcohol, stress over the recent revelation that the Holy Host wanted me dead and a knife wound was a bit much.

  “You’re hilarious when you’re bleeding to death.”

  “I can’t bleed to death. At least not from a regular knife.” With my eyes still closed, I couldn’t see Dane reach across the console to poke me in the ribs. I jerked when his finger hit its mark. “Ouch.” Pain flared up in the hole in my shoulder. “How come you’ve never taken me to your place before?”

  “There hasn’t been time, or a need.” Dane put the car in park, killed the lights and the ignition. “We’re here.”

  “You really know how to woo a girl.” With the car tucked in behind a large dumpster, I barely had enough room to open the door and squeeze out between the car and the eight-foot wooden privacy fence closing off the alleyway.

  “I think we passed that stage a while ago.” Dane hit the button on the inside of the driver’s side door to lock the car, avoiding the beep of the horn when using the remote.

  With a nod, he signaled toward a rickety old fire escape winding down the side of the building on the left of the alley. With a hard tug, he lowered the metal staircase. The loud clanking and squeaking of old, rusted metal sliding against itself never came, erasing some of my reservations about the fire escape’s stability. Light from a lamppost across the street was the only thing illuminating the alley, forcing me to take my time stepping on each rung as I followed Dane up the ladder.

  Leaning back against the railing of the landing outside the third floor while I waited for Dane to finagle the window open, I thought better of it when I noticed only one bolt securing the fire escape on either side of the rail. No use testing the limits of my immortality with a fall to the concrete below. Before I had the chance to question whether the landing had been built to hold the weight of two people, Dane managed to open the window and slip inside.

  Hoping Dane had another escape route should the Principles and their lethal lackey find us, I climbed in through the window. A small, battery-operated camping lantern flickered to life on the counter.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  A one-room efficiency, the apartment was barren apart from the mattress tucked into the far corner and the dorm room fridge and plastic tote beside it. The small lantern cast an eerie glow on the wall. The whole place, all three hundred and fifty square feet of it, felt cramped despite having no furniture or decorations to speak of.

  “I pack light.” Dane gave the mattress a little pat. “Sit down – let me have a look at that stab wound.”

  “It’s fine. It’s healing already. See?” I pulled my layers of clothing aside so he could in fact see the wound closing up on its own. Except it wasn’t. “What the hell?”

  “I don’t think Hell had anything to do with this one. Sit down.” Digging through his bag, Dane pulled out one of those miniature sewing kits.

  “You’re just a regular Mary Poppins with that thing, aren’t you?” With a little tug on the strap of his bag, I lowered myself to the mattress and stripped the top half of my body down to my bra.

  “What can I say? I like to be prepared.” With a shrug, he went back to threading the needle, tying the black thread off with a perfect little knot at the end. “Ready?”

  Lying flat on my back, I tried not to tense up as he pushed the puncture wound closed with his thumb and index finger. It didn’t work. The moment the needle pricked my skin, I let out a hiss at the sensation and my body went rigid.

  “Try to relax. Didn’t you ever pierce your ears?”

  “With a piercing gun my friend Amanda pinched from her job at the Piercing Pagoda in the mall. What are you doing with that lighter?” I strained to see, able to lift only my head with his hand pressed down on my sternum.

  “I forgot to sanitize the needle. One sec.” Dane opened the little fridge, the light from inside brightening the room long enough for me to notice the wooden trim and crown moldings. Had it been better maintained, and with the right furnishings, his place wouldn’t have been half bad.

  “Oh, thank God.” My body relaxed when I caught sight of the airplane bottle of some sort of rye alcohol in his hand. When I realized the whiskey wasn’t for me to drink but to sanitize the wound, my body stiffened up again. “You’re wasting perfectly good alcohol. Holy shit balls, that burns!”

  “Say ahh.” Dane cracked the twist-top off another bottle and poured cheap vodka down my throat.

  Swallowing hard and fast before the rubbing alcohol aftertaste had a chance to set in, I wished he’d reversed the order and given me the whiskey. Before I had a chance to complain, Dane jabbed the needle into one side of the hole in my chest. The thread followed, sliding through the tiny puncture easily enough as he poked through the other side of my flesh. The motion repeated, in one side and out the other, until I felt like I was going to puke. I’d gotten used to not requiring so much medical attention and feeling less pain than the average person. My sudden loss of that particular power made every cut and bruise hurt more.

  “Are you almost done?” I’d stopped trying to watch after he snapped at me for the fourth time about putting too much strain on the stitches and pulling them out. One final tug and the soft snipping sound of the scissors was my answer.

  “I had no idea you were such a baby.” Taping on the last of the Steri-Strips, Dane started cleaning up the bloody gauze and stray threads.

  “Yeah? Well your bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired.”

  “Does it now?” Dane’s lips found mine, stopping any sarcastic retorts with a toe-curling kiss. “Better?”

  “It’s certainly an improvement. I’ll be sure to note that in my satisfaction survey.” I leaned in for another kiss, short and sweet as the reason I needed stitches in the first place set in. “So am I, like, disavowed or what?”

  “I have no idea.” Frustrated, Dane ran his fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp. “It’s not like we can just call up Tobias and ask him.”

  “If I’m not healing, then any knife or gun could kill me.” Pulling the blade from my belt, I turned it over in my hands. “Why all the fuss over this thing? Why give me the ability to heal at all?”

  “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away?” Dane shrugged. “Sorry, not funny. I think the more likely scenario is that they found a way to slow you down. If they can hurt you, they can take the spear and kill you.”

  “We could ask Magdalena.” Rubbing the holy warrior crest tattoo she’d given me on my forearm, I half expected it to disappear.

  “And if she doesn’t know? Is it worth the risk of her talking to Tobias or one of the Principles?” He opened the plastic tub beside the mattress and pulled out a
couple of protein bars before grabbing some bottled water from the mini fridge. “Let’s just recharge while we can.”

  In other words, before they found us. He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to. We both knew we were running on borrowed time. The Principles didn’t know about Dane’s apartment – or at least we hoped they didn’t – but it wouldn’t take long for them to figure it out.

  “We need a plan.”

  Dane took my hand in his, stopping me from getting up and pacing the tiny efficiency like a caged animal.

  “We need to get some rest. We’ve been running nonstop since this morning. Any plan we come up with now will just be shit anyway. Eat and sleep first, then we plan.”

  “Fine.”

  There was no use in arguing. When he set his mind to something, there was no talking him out of it. Peeling the wrapper off the protein bar pack, I took a bite of the supposedly chocolate-covered peanut butter. Almost gagging on the gritty, paste-like consistency, I chugged water in between bites. Setting the empty water bottle on the floor, I resecured the holy relic at my waist and flopped back on the mattress. Dane curled up beside me, arm draped over my middle. Exhausted from digging up the dead and outrunning our former employers, he was out like a light.

  Sleep eluded me once again, and it had nothing to do with his snoring.

  Staring up at the ceiling, I counted the water spots caused by a leaky roof in place of counting sheep. It didn’t help. Thoughts of the Principles and what they would do to me if they caught me swirled around in my brain. Each new scenario I came up with was worse than the one before. Still, the end result was the same. My death. Somewhere around the ninth or tenth vision of my decapitation, I finally fell asleep.

  If you could call it that.

  The stabbing had hurt more than my body. It had hurt the Elioud; the monster inside me. She’d gone quiet after Ariel’s attack, but like me, with rest and Dane’s handiwork with a needle and thread, she’d regained her strength. And she had a lot to say about the situation we’d found ourselves in. Most of which consisted of I told you so.