It seemed I had eternity to contemplate my fate. One more day wouldn’t make much of a difference.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Department of Soul Acquisitions. Jacqueline Lilith Rhoades. My name and title freshly etched on the glass portion of the door leading to my new office. I’d thought Apollyon was kidding when he said he’d see me at the office.
He wasn’t.
The corner office overlooked the river of the dead, a constant flow of souls to their destination within Hell. It was breathtaking, and not necessarily in a good way. A constant reminder of what my fate could have been. The Devil seemed to think it would improve my attitude, a constant reminder to be grateful for my position and current situation.
In a way I suppose I was.
A large wooden frame encasing a painting of the citadel so detailed I would have sworn it was a photograph hung on the wall across from my desk. Another reminder, this one of the position I’d given up.
Apollyon approached me soon after the medication wore off, while I was still cuffed to a bed in the Almighty’s hospital. I had two options. Behind door number one was the Casbah. While the fortress was beautiful, fully stocked, with sprawling rooms and just about anything my heart desired, it also came with an army of demons to supervise.
Without waiting to see what was behind door number two, I turned down life at the Citadel. I could barely take care of myself. Look where I’d ended up. Mostly dead in a holy hospital. Signed, sealed and delivered to Apollyon. All he needed was my discharge papers. Oh, and for Tobias to bring the key to my handcuffs.
The Devil seemed relieved when I declined his offer to claim my birthright. There was no denying I was Dumah’s daughter – he’d claimed me at the citadel – but I had no intention of following in my father’s footsteps.
The D.S.A. was what waited for me behind door number two. A pencil pusher.
The décor of my new office left much to be desired. Filled with every corporate stereotype, including the leather desk blotter my all-in-one PC rested on, I vowed to make this a more personal space. If I was doomed to sit behind this desk for the rest of my damnation, redecorating was top priority.
Dwarfed in the oversized executive chair, I held on to the edge of the desk and pulled until the castor wheels went into motion and took me close enough to the desk to reach the keyboard. Rummaging through the drawers turned up the usual. Pens, Post-its, legal pads. My chest tightened as fear of the mundane closed in on me. For a moment I regretted my decision. While I had no desire to babysit a legion of Apollyon’s minions, at least at the Casbah I’d be in the thick of it. Fighting demons, fighting for my survival, I’d gotten used to a certain level of action. Of danger. The only thing posing a remote threat in this position was a papercut.
After firing up the computer, I pinched the bridge of my nose and counted backward from a hundred while I waited for the PC to finishing booting up. I had to make this work.
I had to.
A few minutes later, one of the other damned working in the D.S.A. dropped off a stack of manila folders. My caseload. Watching the young man push his mail cart out of my office and down the hall, I was once again reminded that my position within the company could always be worse.
Although I envied his ability to wear jeans to work. I’d been given strict instructions, business attire only in the office. Apollyon had stocked the apartment I’d been assigned with pencil skirts, tight-fitting blouses and ridiculous heels. No doubt fulfilling some twisted nine-to-five fantasy of his.
I refused to wear the stockings.
Rifling through the cases that landed on my desk, it became clear that my job wasn’t as mundane as I’d feared. The Department of Soul Acquisitions involved field work. A lot of field work. Each of the folders contained a file, a person, up for negotiation. My job was to ensure they took the elevator going down. We had a quota to meet, and in light of recent events, our numbers were down. According to the Post-it on the top of the stack of folders, that was mostly my fault. Hence the current caseload I’d been assigned. I recognized the handwriting. Apollyon’s. Seemed he planned to take a personal interest in my work. I should have expected nothing less.
More than a little surprised I’d been given a position with such a long leash, I was dying to get started. After all, the caseload wasn’t going to clear itself, and I wanted to test the limits of my independence. With the stack of folders fanned out on my desk like a deck of cards, I randomly selected one from the middle.
File in hand, I went back to my apartment to change into something more suitable for tracking down sinners on the run.
* * * * *
Apollyon and I needed to have a conversation about his taste in clothes. Were a pair of low-rise jeans and a t-shirt too much to ask for? My options were limited to naughty secretary or death-dealer from those vampire movies. Since I could barely walk, let alone run in a pair of heels, I opted for the leather pants, fitted tank top, boots and knee-length leather jacket. A gimlet knife rested on the nightstand, my initials engraved into the handle. If it came down to shivving someone, it was safe to say negotiations had taken a turn for the worse. As far as self-defense went, I would have preferred a gun. But the Devil is nothing if not sentimental, and there was something of a history between us involving the gimlet.
The label on the file was what intrigued me about that particular case.
The other mother. My aunt.
It was no coincidence that this case had landed on my desk on my first day. Apollyon’s fingerprints were all over this one. Something to entice me. Something to lure me in, give me a taste for the job and ensure that I liked it.
The wallet-size photo of the woman who’d raised me, paper-clipped to the to the laundry list of sins documented in the file, stared back at me before I closed the folder and stuffed it into my pocket. Terminal cancer. Less than a month to live according to the prison physicians. But the disease had progressed faster than they’d anticipated. A request had been made for a priest to perform the last rites. Except according to the report, the man requested wasn’t a priest.
He was a Sin Eater.
Seemed Mommy Dearest had a wealthy benefactor. Someone she’d tricked into believing she was worth saving, someone willing to foot the bill. I refused to believe she’d found God in that six-by-eight-foot cell she’d called home for the last decade. But she was a hell of a liar and only ever cared about herself. If she met some sucker coming to spread the Good Word at Sunday services in the prison who’d help her save her immortal soul and spare her from facing the Devil and owning up to what she’d done…well, I had no doubt she’d do it.
The burn of betrayal sat in my chest as I left my apartment and followed the directions to the portal that led to Mt. Royal’s back entrance. The one Beelzebub and Dumah had used when they’d come to meet me. The one reserved for demons. And apparently the damned. My hand rested on the door, just below the employees-only sign, as I reined in my temper. Dane was out there, and if I wanted to collect on the soul of my fake mother, I had to face him.
Revenge? Maybe, but I wanted that soul. I wanted her.
Steeling my spine, I pushed open the door and made my way out to the main area of the bar. To our regular table where Dane was waiting. The Sin Eater had been on my mind since I’d woken in that hospital bed, haunting my dreams and far too often my waking thoughts. When I wasn’t being indoctrinated into my new position, my mind drifted to Dane.
What happened to him after I mostly died in that tunnel? Why wasn’t he at the hospital? Was he all right; where did he go? All questions I never got the answer to. Until her case file hit my desk and brought us face to face.
The gimlet knife tucked into the waistband of my leather pants dug into my hip. An uncomfortable reminder of my desire to stab the Sin Eater for what appeared to be yet another in a long list of betrayals throughout my life. And afterlife.
The Sin Eater stood as soon as he saw me from across the bar. Something close to relief softened his fa
cial features. An emotion I wouldn’t have expected to see on the face of the man who planned to consume the sins of the woman who’d put me on a collision course with the Devil.
“Jax.”
It felt like an eternity since I’d heard my nickname or the sound of his voice. Since Tartarus I’d mostly been called by my given name. Memories of our time together stirred. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t feel something for Dane. I’d loved him, as best I could, as best I knew how and despite our circumstance. Or maybe because of it. The soft, glutton-for-punishment parts of me wanted to run to him, fall into his arms and pretend that none of this had ever happened. That we were just two normal people meeting for drinks.
But we weren’t.
Dane was at Mt. Royal to negotiate a deal for a woman who’d betrayed her own blood. Her sister. Me. There was a line, and he was about to cross it.
“A Sin Eater and a Soul Collector walk into a bar…” Ignoring the seat he’d pulled out for me next to his, I took the chair opposite him at the table.
My mother’s case folder was thicker than all the others I’d been assigned, mostly because it contained additional information about me. It landed on the table with a resounding thud and rattled the beer bottles in front of Dane.
“You actually want to negotiate this one?” Rather than wait for someone to take my order, I helped myself to one of the unopened hard ciders. I smacked the top against the edge of the table to remove the cap, and took a swig and set the bottle down in front of me. “Who’s the sucker footing the bill to retain your services?”
“Me.” Dane reached across the table and took the cider back, chugging it down until only a small amount of bubbles remained in the bottom.
Blinking back my surprise, I instinctively reached for the knife at my side. I was tired of the constant betrayal; spilling the Sin Eater’s blood was sounding pretty good. I was already damned – what else could they do to me?
“Wait.” Dane sprung from his seat, his hand clamping down on my wrist to stop me from unsheathing the blade. “Hear me out.”
My eyes tracked to where his hand encircled my wrist. The sting of skin rubbed raw from cuffs I’d only been released from days before was still fresh in my mind. Apollyon and I were having a conversation about standard-issue equipment when I got back. I needed a gun.
“You’re going to want to remove that hand.” When all else failed, bluff. Dane didn’t know I wasn’t packing, and I wasn’t about to tell him otherwise.
Back when we were a team, working for On High, Dane and I had always carried. Toward the end of our partnership my judgment had been slipping; I’d shot the Romani’s toe off. In reality it hadn’t been that long ago, and it seemed Dane remembered that demons weren’t the only thing I’d set my sights on. Releasing my wrist, he eased back into his seat, hands raised in a placating gesture.
“The answer is no.” I motioned to the new guy working behind the bar, pointing at the shot glass and empty bottles to signal another round. “You can’t have her.”
The bartender set two ciders and a shot of Fireball down on the table, backing away from the tension at our table as fast as he could. The air in the room changed, crackling with an almost palpable energy from my anger.
“I don’t want her.” Dane reached for the shot glass, but I’d already slammed it back.
I should have asked for the bottle.
“Then why are we here, Sin Eater?” Confused by the one-eighty in our conversation, I quelled the hope that there were ulterior motives involving me behind this negotiation.
“It was the only way I could see you. I needed to see you.” Dane reached across the table, this time to take my hand in his.
“Did you try calling?” I didn’t try to pull away, just let his hand rest on mine.
“Like Apollyon would have just patched me through?” Dane chuckled. “Because that would happen. When Tobias said no…well,” he shrugged his shoulders, “I had to resort to more drastic measures.”
The familiarity of his touch – my hand wrapped in his, combined with the sound of his laugh – took me back to the day I’d lost to him on a bet for a date. He’d made me breakfast. With a reluctant sigh, I pushed the memory away. That might as well have been a millennium ago. I wanted him, and it was obvious he still wanted me or he wouldn’t have gone to such ridiculous lengths to talk to me, but it would never work. Slipping out of his grip, I pulled my hand away, tucking it safely out of reach with the other on my lap.
“What’s the matter? Devil got your tongue?” Anger marred his beautiful face and dropped his voice an octave. “I tell you that I bought your mother’s soul just to see you, to talk to you again, and you don’t say anything. You recoil from my touch?”
“I didn’t recoil.” Shoulders squared, I prepared myself for the onslaught of hurtful words he’d sling my way when I told him it was over. “Look around you, Dane.” I waved a hand, encompassing the bar. “This is what our relationship would consist of. Stolen moments in the broom closet at a bar? You deserve more than that.”
“Don’t. Don’t try to tell me what I deserve. That you’re not good enough. I know different.” His gaze shifted away for a second; his jaw twitched as he tried to pull himself together. “I’ve had you, all of you, and I know damn well what I’d be missing out on.”
“Apollyon has me on a leash, Dane. A very short leash. As of right now, my field trips out of the D.S.A. will be within the confines of these four walls. No romantic strolls through the city in the moonlight, no sleepovers at your apartment. And you sure as hell can’t come home to mine.” Letting him go like this hurt more than I’d expected. Blinking back tears, I paused for a moment until I could talk without giving away just how painful it was. “That’s not a life. The answer is no.”
Scooting my chair back, I got up from the table and started to walk away. My answer hung heavily between us. Dane knew the no was for more than my aunt. It was a no for everything he offered.
The Sin Eater grabbed me before I made it to the door marked employees only. Pushing us through, out of sight of anyone else in the bar, he backed me up against the wall. His mouth crashed into mine. The hard planes of his body pressed against me were in direct contrast to the soft supple lips kissing me. For a moment I forgot myself, my hands roaming his back, slipping beneath his shirt to caress his skin. My fingers made their way toward his stomach, gliding over rigid abs. One last touch, one last memory. Reaching his pecs, I pushed him back.
All good things must come to an end.
He was still too close. I risked losing my self-control letting him stay inches away, but I couldn’t bear to lose the warmth of his body. Not yet.
“I have to go.” Sounding husky and out of breath, I gave away myself and the power Dane still held over me.
“Off to do the Devil’s bidding?” Dane tried and failed to hide the jealousy in his words.
“He’s a little preoccupied with the whole restructuring thing going on. Lots of positions to fill with the deaths of Beelzebub and Dumah. So thank you for your concern, but I’m off his radar for the time being.”
“I’m not giving up.” His thumb traced my bottom lip just before he kissed me again. This one softer than before. A farewell kiss, but not goodbye. “Until next time, Jax.” One more kiss with a nip on the lip, and he was gone.
Sagging against the wall, I tried to get my breathing under control. Doubting I’d survive another negotiation with Dane while contemplating the actual size of the broom closet at Mt. Royal, I made my way back to my office at the Department of Soul Acquisitions; the dress code completely forgotten.
* * * * *
“Tough day?” Apollyon sat behind my desk, tsking over my attire. “There’s a change of clothes in the closet.” The blinds on the office windows dropped in unison. “Go ahead, I’ll wait.”
The Devil motioned to the small closet on the wall to the left of my desk. With no intention of leaving, it was more than clear that he was enjoying himself. He wanted a
show. Fine. I’d give him one. Stripping down to my underwear, I took my time slipping on the thigh-highs before getting into the pencil skirt and fitted black sweater. Eyes glazed over, Apollyon adjusted himself as I stepped into the black heels.
“Better?” Taking the seat on the opposite side of my desk, I crossed my legs and waited for the Devil to compose himself.
“Much.” Clearing his throat, Apollyon loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. “So, how did it go?”
“Exactly as you hoped.” Noting the effect I had on him, I ran a hand along my leg while answering his question. “As you can imagine, I’m really busy. I’ve only gotten through the one case file today. So I should probably get back to work.”
Apollyon blinked at the dismissal. Literally playing with fire, tempting the Devil may not have been a smart move, but I had no intention of being the only sexually frustrated person in the room. A self-imposed vow of chastity might drive me to insanity, but for the time being it seemed the only way I’d survive working for the Devil and with the Sin Eater.
Welcome to Purgatory.
Epilogue
The soft beep and whir of machines joined together in a symphony of the dying. Straightening the cannula in her nasal cavity, I leaned in to whisper in my aunt’s ear.
“Second-guessing means you lack faith. Lacking faith means…” Grappling for the right words, I opted for the hard truth over symbolism. “Well, it means suffering.”
My aunt’s eyes popped open, fear flashing in them as she processed what I’d said. I almost felt bad for her. Almost reconsidered my decision and called Dane.
Almost.
I’d like to say I was a bigger person. That I didn’t need her to suffer the way I had, all those years growing up under her care instead of my real mother’s. Her betrayal and work for the Morning Star.
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