Paid In Full

by Rachel Rawlings

  My lungs felt like they were going to burst; my eyes ready to pop. The pressure building as we moved through the gateway was unlike anything I’d experienced before.

  “Breathe.”

  Sucking in deep gulps of air, I followed the demon’s instructions. I’d once accidentally slipped through a portal to Purgatory on the outskirts of the safe zone by Mt. Royal, but it had felt nothing like this. Even the experience of being on an earthly plane one second, on an astral plane the next paled in comparison to this one. Everything hurt – my skin, my bones. Everything.

  “It is because this portal was closed before.” Dumah turned to face me, gesturing to my crumpled posture and grimacing expression. “The discomfort you’re feeling, it’s because you closed this portal. Reopening it allows for transport, but once the energy has been disrupted it’s never the same.”

  “Discomfort? That’s putting it mildly. Why the hell did you shove me through?” If I’d had the strength and hadn’t been crippled with excruciating pain, I might have punched him.

  “Perhaps I misread your intentions. Were you not already planning on passing through to Purgatory?” He obviously didn’t have trouble interpreting my death stare. “The Sin Eater moved – he was reaching for you.”

  “Shit.” Patting myself down, I realized Dane had managed to rip the messenger bag free from me when Daddy Dearest shoved me through the portal. The map was gone. “Good job.”

  From the way he practically preened under what he mistook for praise, it was clear my brand of sarcasm was lost on him.

  “He wasn’t making a grab for me. Well, I mean not directly. That would have been a bonus. He wanted the map. Which he got, and now I am stumbling blind through Purgatory.” Pinching the bridge of my nose, I let out a sigh and tried to rein in my temper.

  “You don’t need the map. The Sin Eater knows this. I have traversed this plane more times than mortals can count. He was trying to prevent you from crossing.” Dumah moved with purpose through the charred landscape, expecting me to follow.

  The last time I’d been in Purgatory, the underside of the city had seemed so different. Rusted, blackened surfaces and decrepit buildings had made it feel abandoned, desolate despite its hellspawn populace. Given the state of things topside, it felt oddly the same. As if I hadn’t slipped through a portal at all.

  “Keep up. It’s not safe for you here.” The fallen angel, now demon, pressed forward, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder to be sure I was following his lead.

  “Even with you?”

  As if in answer to my question, small rocks slid down from the derelict buildings on my right as something scurried along what remained of the rooftop. More than one something, actually. Lesser demons perched on every building like gargoyles, watching us. Waiting for an opportunity to pounce, to feed.

  “This mindless rabble doesn’t know the difference between you and any other mortal. They have only one purpose, know only one thing. Feeding. Hunger is the only thing that drives them.” A few of the demons cowered when Dumah waved a hand toward the rooftops. “Parasites.”

  “I thought this was like stasis, people waiting for a decision to be made. You know, whether they’d go all the way up or all the way down.” The longer I stayed, the more I realized this wasn’t the spiritual holding tank I’d imagined as a kid.

  “I would have expected a person in your position to have studied the texts more thoroughly.” Dumah pressed forward, picking up his pace.

  “I studied what I needed to to stay alive.”

  “This place is an intermediate state, where the dead are either purified for their journey to Heaven or,” he struggled to find the right words, “given a taste of what awaits them in Hell. Either way, the parasites feed on the sins carried in by the deceased.”

  Shuddering, I quickened my pace and matched his stride. The lesser demons seemed to lose interest when they realized I was with Dumah. Left with little choice and no map, I followed my father further into Purgatory. We walked for what seemed like miles until the mock city fell away and a barren wasteland stretched before us.

  The wind picked up, hot and dry, battering my skin with what felt like microscopic bits of glass. Sandstorm. With no shelter in sight and no sign from Dumah that we’d be stopping, I pressed closer to the demon and used his massive body as a shield. Torn between the need to strip down in the oppressive heat or keep my clothes on as a barrier against the dust storm, I opted for the latter and pulled my hood up over my head to keep as much of the sand out of my hair as I could.

  Lips dry and cracked; I licked away the blood, ignoring the painful sting. My breathing became labored from the stifling heat, precious fluids soaking through my clothes in the form of sweat, hastening my dehydration. If I’d had a Fitbit, it would have quit, the miles too numerous to calculate. Dumah’s figure wavered, like heat coming off hot pavement. The distance between us grew as he continued to walk, unfazed by the conditions. I passed out between two sand dunes just as his figure winked out of my sight.

  Chapter Seventeen

  For once, nightmares didn’t plague me. In fact, my dreams were almost pleasant. A gentle breeze, comfortable bed. Water. The cool liquid slid down my throat, a small droplet escaping from the corner of my mouth to run along my cheek and down my jawline. Exhaling on a relaxed sigh, I tried to sit up. It was right about then I realized I wasn’t dreaming. Dumah’s voice could have had something to do with it. If I had been dreaming, the demon certainly wouldn’t have been in it.

  “Lie back.” Coming to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to listen, the demon reluctantly rearranged the pillows behind me so I could sit up. “Here, drink.”

  Snatching the glass from his hands, I greedily gulped down the water. Cold trailed my insides as it made its way to my stomach, which rumbled angrily.

  “You’ll make yourself sick if you don’t slow down.” Dumah reached for the plate of watermelon and sliced cucumbers on the nightstand and set it on the comforter beside me.

  “Where are we?” Shoving a chunk of the fleshy pink fruit in my mouth, I managed to grumble a thanks. “Is this still Purgatory? It feels like I walked into a mirage.”

  “You didn’t walk anywhere. I carried you. You’re heavier than you look.” Dumah took the plate away before I gorged myself and ended up vomiting, smacking the cucumber slice I’d swiped out of my hand.

  “Gee, Dad, you say the sweetest things. Is that how you got Mom to go out with you?” Obviously rusty on the things you do and do not say to women, the demon had the good sense to look embarrassed at my chiding. “Where are we?”

  “The Casbah.”

  Like that explained everything.

  “Like that song by The Clash?” Good, he looked as confused as I felt.

  “The citadel.”

  “The what?” And just like that we were back to me being the only one confused.

  “Perhaps I haven’t been clear on my position within the organization. You really should have studied more.” Pinching the bridge of his nose, my demon father struggled to find the patience to deal with me.

  “Well , maybe you should take that up with the woman who raised me. She did a damn fine job of making sure I missed Bible school.” I struggled for the patience to deal with my self-appointed tour guide. While I appreciated the rescue out in the desert of despair, I had a plan and he was derailing it. Well, I sort of had a plan. Not dying at the hands of the person replacing me as a demon hunter was a plan.

  “This fortress is my home, and could in turn one day become your home. The tens of thousands of angels of destruction within its walls report to me—”

  “And one day they’ll answer to me?” I asked, cutting him off. “No thanks. I have enough trouble looking after myself.” If this was his attempt to lure me to the dark side with a legion of dark angels, he was sorely mistaken about me.

  “That may very well be the understatement of the year.” With a heavy sigh and heavy steps, Dumah walked out of the room.

&n
bsp; The door closed. Keys rattled against the iron doorknob as he locked the door from the hall. So much for hospitality. With one turn of the key, the guest quarters had been converted into a holding cell. My father didn’t trust me. Not that I blamed him. I’d been working on a way to ditch Dumah since he’d pushed me through the portal and attached himself to my side.

  Not wanting to disappoint the old man, I crossed to the window and pushed the wooden shutters open in a brazen attempt to escape. Gripping the side of the sill, I peered out of the window to gauge the distance to the ground. Two hulking beasts sneered up from the courtyard below. Unlike my previous parental unit, the demon had thought of everything. Two guards waiting for me to try my hand at rappelling down the wall with bedsheets, and from the sound of it another pair outside in the hall.

  Frustrated, I tried the other two doors in the room on the off-chance they led somewhere other than a closet or a bathroom. Neither led to a secret passage out of the citadel. At the mercy of my host, for the time being anyway, I made use of the shower, washing away the dirt and grime from our journey through the desert.

  Cleanliness is next to godliness. Given my present location, that said a lot. I’d never understood that saying until each grain of sand had been rinsed from my hair and other places. Dumah claimed to have carried me, but from the amount of sand swirling down the drain it was more likely he’d dragged me behind him. Reaching around the curtain, I felt for the towel hanging on the bar on the wall. Mostly dry, I wrapped the terrycloth around me and stepped out of the shower.

  “Jesus!” Startled, I gripped the towel, steadying myself so I didn’t slip on the wet tiles. The last thing I needed was to fall mostly naked in front of Apollyon.

  “Hardly.” The Devil looked down, taking in the chipped black polish on my toes before searing a trail along my exposed skin with his gaze.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” All too aware of the effect my lack of clothing had on him, I grabbed my clothes off the counter, clutching them to my chest for added coverage until I could get dressed.

  “I’ve tried that approach with you before, Jacqueline. You never answer.” Stepping closer, Apollyon forced me to back up or risk being touched by him.

  A touch I feared I wouldn’t be able to resist. It’d taken everything I had to deny him the last time he’d tempted me, and that had been in a dream. Weak knees and racing heart confirmed that the same experience in person would be worse.

  “There was this one time.” I did my best to hold out my palm, showing him the mark he’d given me without dropping the clothes. “Do you mind?” Tilting my head, I gestured to the pile of clothes pressed against my chest, hoping he’d take the hint.

  “Not at all. Go right ahead.” Apollyon stared at the towel like a teenage boy at his first peep show, willing it to fall to the floor.

  With a frustrated growl, I stepped back into the clawfoot tub, yanking the shower curtain closed. Hidden behind the curtain, I dropped the towel. The sharp intake of breath from the other side of the plastic sheet hanging between us let me know it wasn’t as opaque as I’d hoped. After haphazardly putting my clothes on in a slippery tub in record time to save what remained of my dignity and keep as little of my flesh exposed as possible, I pulled back the curtain and stepped out of the tub. Grabbing my boots off the floor, I sidestepped to the toilet, avoiding any contact, sat on the lid and laced up my Docs.

  “What do you want?” The shoelace snapped under the strain of my frustration as I pulled too hard to tighten it. “Shit.” Backing the lace down two holes, I tied off a knot. “I mean apart from the obvious, Tartarus.”

  The spacious master bath felt cramped, the walls suddenly too close, the air thinner as he moved across the room. His power filled the space, seeped into my pores, leaving me heady with desire and a need to touch him so potent it left me powerless to deny him. My head fell back, exposing my neck, mouth open on a sigh as I imagined him kissing a fiery trail to my collarbone.

  “You know what I want.” His voice was husky, heavy with need as he stalked over to me, a predator zeroing in on his prey. “The question is, what do you want, Jax?”

  For once he didn’t call me by my given name but the name I’d given myself, turning the one-syllable word into the dirtiest pillow talk. He hovered just out of reach, every cell of my body screaming for him to touch me, only to be denied.

  “You don’t want salvation. You want acceptance. I can give you that. You don’t have to try to be someone else to please me, to earn my praise. I want you – broken, flawed, beautiful.” He bent down, lips hovering just inches from mine.

  If I tilted my head up, our mouths would be pressed together. The craving to taste him was overwhelming. Too weak to deny him any longer, I angled my head. My lips brushed against his. With a little nip of his teeth as a promise of things to come, he pulled back. Taking my hand, he pulled me up and led me out into the bedroom.

  Finally. The Elioud purred, and something inside me snapped. Or rather clicked into place. I’d succumbed. And I couldn’t have cared less.

  “You want this. Say it. I want to hear you say the words, Jax.” He led me to the bed, his hand pressed in the center of my chest, thumb brushing the edge of my breast as he guided me back on the mattress. “You don’t want someone holding you back, keeping you from becoming what you are, forcing you to hide from your true nature. He can’t give you that.” His hand slid lower, brushing the top of my jeans. “You want this.”

  I did. God help me, I did.

  “You talk too much.” As I raised myself off the bed, my lips met his again.

  Rigid, in more places than the one that mattered, Apollyon held himself back from returning my kiss. I trailed kisses from the corner of his mouth to the edge of his jaw down to his collarbone, whispering his name against his skin. My hands fumbled with the buckle at his waist as I pleaded for him to touch me.

  “Say it.” Two words, forced through gritted teeth as he struggled to rein himself in. “I need to hear you say it, Jax.”

  “I want this.” Heady with arousal, I barely recognized the husky voice that answered him as my own.

  With my permission, I became the sole object of his attention. Each article of clothing removed from my body painstakingly slowly; the faintest brush of his fingertips as he stripped me down in some erotic form of torture. I’d given in, stopped running from him. I didn’t want to wait any more. Making good on every promise he’d ever made, Apollyon took me to the precipice, driving me to the edge of climax only to slow things down and start all over again. Perspiration beaded my body, cooling my heat-flushed skin. He took me again: this time the pleasure was laced with pain after being denied so many times.

  “Apollyon, please.” Begging for release, I said his name over and over as the Morning Star ravaged my body.

  With a final thrust, he gave my body permission. Stars exploded behind my eyes; every particle of my body burst with pleasure I’d never known before. A scream tore from my throat before Apollyon’s mouth crashed into mine, swallowing my howls of satisfaction.

  Small tremors racked my body as he disentangled himself from me. I missed his touch immediately. A hollowness opened up within me, a vast chasm that could only be filled by him. Or quite possibly self-loathing. Reaching for him, for one last touch as he finished dressing, I despised myself for wanting him, needing him so much. Standing at the edge of the mattress, just out of reach, he looked at me, into me; into the sweeping darkness inside me. He knew first-hand how far I’d fallen, what it had cost me to be with him, to succumb. A confident smirk slid into place, accentuating the handsome features I’d struggled to resist over the years. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to hate and want someone so much at the same time.

  But that wasn’t entirely the truth. I wanted Apollyon. I hated myself. A single tear slipped past my defenses. Apollyon was there before I could wipe it away, lapping up my sorrows with his tongue. Shuddering as he took a deep breath, pulling my scent into him, I ached for him all o
ver again.

  “Broken, beautiful. Just how I want you.” His warm breath against my neck raised goosebumps over my body. With a final kiss behind my ear, he pulled back, leaving me alone in the massive bed with nothing but my thoughts to torment me. “You look a bit peckish. You need to feed, pet. I wouldn’t want to tire you out too much for next time.”

  And I knew there would be a next time. Unable to deny him any longer, there would be an infinity of next times. A lifetime on the streets and I’d avoided the trap of drugs; one night with Apollyon and I was hooked, no different from the junkies lurking in corners looking for their next fix. He was my dealer, my drug, and I was at his mercy.

  This was my Hell. I’d planned to hide out in Purgatory, a brief respite from the angels and their hired hand until I could figure out what to do, but instead I’d run right into the arms of the one angel I’d feared above all others. The first and furthest to fall.

  He’d finally taken me with him.

  “I’ll send someone up for you to eat.” The door clicked shut behind him.

  Wait, someone to eat?

  Chapter Eighteen

  A soft knock sounded, before the door to my room creaked open. I hadn’t bothered to get dressed, or out of bed for that matter, after Apollyon left me. Tucking the sheets tighter around me, I almost whimpered when his scent wafted up from the Egyptian cotton. Forcing my eyes shut and my mind clear, I instructed whoever was on the other side of the door to enter.

  My father stepped through the doorway, a mix of pride and embarrassment on his face as he took my state of undress.

  “Stop staring at me.” Folding my arms across my chest, I willed him to look away.

  “You remind me of her – your mother.” Something stirred out in the hall behind Dumah. The demon swung an elbow back.

  A muffled umph followed. Whatever was out there had snapped my father out of his trip down memory lane. A desire to learn more about her, about the half-crazed woman I’d met briefly in the shelter, was part of the reason I’d followed him – the only one who could tell me who she was. She was more than the shattered shell of a woman Dane had saved from sin seconds before her death.