by Nicole Thorn
By the time I stepped in, steam had filled the small space, leaving me nearly blind. I closed my eyes and let the hot water rain down on me. I washed my hair, and rinsed it before I opened my eyes again.
The steam took over all of my senses. I couldn’t even see the water anymore.
My breathing quickened as I patted the walls, looking for the way out. I was lost, blinded.
I accidentally hit the water faucet as I sank to the floor. The scalding water hit the tile, splashing against it and burning my skin.
“Anna?” I heard Ezra at the door. “Are you okay? I heard something.”
I opened my mouth, but words didn’t come out. It sounded more like a sob. I was trapped in this tiny glass prison and I couldn’t get out. The taste of dirt filled my mouth as I tried to keep breathing. It scratched my throat and I screamed.
I was in the coffin again. Buried deep into the earth. No way out. I felt like I was dying again.
Ezra pulled me from the coffin and put me on cold tile. It soothed some of the burns on my legs.
“Anna? What happened?”
I looked around and I wasn’t in a coffin anymore. I sat on the bathroom floor. The steam had thinned out, and I could see Ezra in front of me. A hint of worry lit his green eyes.
I covered myself with my arms as best as I could. Ezra grabbed a towel and wrapped it around me before he picked me up and brought me to our bed.
He laid me down and asked what happened again.
I closed my eyes and said, “I couldn’t see, and it was small. I thought I was,” I stopped. I clutched the tiny towel to me, trying to ignore the fact that he’d already seen everything. I didn’t care when it had been my friends, but I cared so much with him.
I opened my eyes again. “When I was in my coffin and I broke it open, dirt buried me again. I couldn’t breathe or see. I still taste it. All the time.”
Ezra didn’t say anything. He just sat on the bed next to me. It didn’t matter that he was quiet. He couldn’t have said anything that could have made this better. And even if he could, he didn’t owe me anything. I was just his assignment, as he kept having to remind me.
I stood up. “I’m going to, um, get dressed,” I said before I scurried away.
I put on jeans and a tank top before walking back out. I couldn’t think anything but, ‘oh my God, he saw me naked’. I worried about how he would tease me. I wished for my numbness to return.
When I got to the room, everything had been packed up. It wasn’t much, but still. He didn’t need to do it alone.
“Ready?” Ezra asked me.
No teasing.
“Sure.” I grabbed Donald, and went to get my bag too. Ezra took it for me.
We started driving again, and I had absolutely no clue where we headed.
“The last place he was seen, was a motel in a place called Orange,” Ezra told me.
“Orange?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I agree, but at least it’s not to far away. We can get something to eat, and start looking for him. This job is very dangerous, and I need you to be a good girl and stay with me. Can I trust you?”
I laughed. “Worried I might get myself killed and rob you of the joy of doing it yourself?”
He glanced at me, looking annoyed. “No. I will not get joy from killing you. Unless you keep it up with that mouth on you. You didn’t answer my question.”
“I will do anything you tell me to, master,” I said flatly.
“Anything?” He grinned.
“No!”
“Tease.”
“Desperate.”
“Prude.”
“I am not a prude!”
“Prove it.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but he still looked at the road ahead. “So the only thing that can prove that I’m not a prude is sleeping with you?”
“There would be no sleeping involved. Not until we were done. Then you’d sleep for a long time after. Would you like me to prove it?”
“No.” I crossed my arms. “And let me tell you, your arrogance is a turn off.”
“No. it’s not.”
No… it’s not. I hate myself.
We stopped at a diner for breakfast, and Ezra pored over the file again.
“Why do you think he’ll still be at that motel?” I asked.
“Because he’s stupid.”
“How do you know he’s stupid?”
He looked up at me from the file. “Because he thought he could steal from the Devil. Anyone who thinks that they can do that is a moron.”
I thought for a few seconds. “I’m stolen. Aren’t I?” My friends stole me from Hell. I had been Heaven bound, but I was still ripped out of the Devil’s domain.
He looked back at the file. “I suppose you are. Anyway, this demon should be close. The difficulty still remains. I’ve got to find a moving needle in an endless haystack.” He smiled. It wasn’t hard to tell that he loved what he did. The chase and the kill. It put light in his eyes.
“How do we start looking?”
“We go where he was last seen, and look for clues and hints.”
“Like a detective?”
“I guess one can look at it that way.”
After we ate, we went looking for that motel. When we found it, I cringed.
“Are we staying here?” I asked through a gag.
It looked somewhat large. At the very least, it had fifty rooms. Fifty disgusting rooms. The walls of the motel looked like they used to be white, but had turned light brown. The mint green paint on the doors had been chipped, and cigarette butts littered the parking lot. I stayed practically glued to Ezra as we walked in.
The hotel had been named Tierra De Las Naranjas. Ezra chuckled at it. but I didn’t get the joke.
“We have to,” he whispered to me. “If he’s here we have to be close.”
We approached the woman behind the counter. She looked like she was in her late sixties, and she had a scarf on to cover her tracheotomy scar.
“Can I help you?” she rasped.
“Yes,” Ezra said. “Can I get a room for me and my wife?”
I bit back a smile over how he still played my stupid game.
“Smoking or non-smoking?”
“Non, please,” he said.
“How long? It’s hourly rates.”
Mmm. Gross.
“Forty-eight—never mind.” He glanced around. “Twenty-four.”
“Great.” The lady sounded almost offended. “Cash only.”
Of course. He paid her, and she handed us a key attached to a red piece of plastic with a room number on it. Then we got our bags and went to check out our room.
It looked nothing like the perfection of the Disneyland one. Clean and nice. This… this was a garbage can with beds.
“Jesus,” I said when Ezra closed the door. “I can just tell by looking at this room that every surface can get me pregnant. Well, if I still could…” I trailed off.
Since I was dead and alive, I didn’t know what still functioned. I didn’t have a heartbeat, so I felt cold to the touch. I still needed food and water. My nerve endings worked. I almost felt alive. But my emotions seemed to all be turned down. It took so much to make me feel something.
“You can’t?” Ezra said.
“I don’t think so. If my heart isn’t beating, I don’t think I can carry a baby. Not that it would matter anymore even if I could.” My hand went to my stomach as I took a couple seconds to mourn the loss of the family I’d never have.
“I’m sorry,” Ezra said as he put our bags on top of the dresser.
“Me too.”
The room had two beds. I picked one, and peeled the comforter back so I could sit on the sheets.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
He looked at the twenty-year-old digital clock on top of the analog TV. “We wait until tonight, when Travis will be back. Then we hunt.” His smile came back.
“Wh
at do we do till then?”
He shrugged. “You can watch TV. I typically read during my down time.”
“Or write?”
He eyed me. “Say again.”
“I saw you this morning. You were writing in a journal,” I left out how I’d rummaged through his things and read that journal.
“Ah, well yes. I keep a diary. I’m an old man. I forget things. And I like having a record of this endless life.”
“Is that the only reason you do it? To remember?”
I didn’t believe that. I thought he did it because he was all alone. If he wrote down what he felt—if he just got it out of him in some way—it wouldn’t haunt him.
“Yes.”
We sat on our separate beds, and I wondered about when we slept tonight, if he’d have us share one.
He flipped through the ten channels we had until he found something in English. It was a musical with children as mobsters. They threw pies at each other instead of firing guns.
It only took ten minutes for me to decide I liked it.
This thing with Ezra and I getting along, it started worrying me as we sat there. I knew it wasn’t real, and eventually, he would kill me. Every kind word or deed started feeling like a trick. ‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly’. And the second she did, she paid for it. Ever temping that stupid fly until she gave in. That’s all I was; a caught fly waiting for him to devour me. I’m ashamed to admit that a part of me wanted it. To be done again. But I needed to fight for those people who died. I won’t let them mean nothing.
We were here to trap a fly. I’d get to see Ezra in action, but be on the other side of it this time. See him plotting. See him make the kill. See him winning. And see my future.
My end.
“Now what could have you looking like that during this delightful film?” Ezra asked, taking me from my thoughts.
“Um.” I didn’t know what to say, “Doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me. Do you need something?”
For you to not kill me.
“No,” I shook my head and looked back at the TV.
Ezra stood up and grabbed his handcuffs from his bag.
“What are you doing?” I asked as I scooted back on the bed.
“I need to get us dinner. You’re staying here.”
“You’re leaving me alone here? What if—”
“Anna.” He stood beside my bed. “I will be gone ten minutes. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
“A lot can happen in ten minutes.”
“Not today.” He cuffed me to the wooden post and ditched me. Further proof of how little I mattered to him. No amount of occasional kindness could ever make me think otherwise.
I looked over at the phone on the nightstand. If I could reach it, I could call my friends.
I hadn’t talked to them in so long. I couldn’t imagine what they thought happened to me.
I reached out, and had no hope of grabbing that phone. Ezra put me in the short cuffs. I shifted myself around, and tried reaching with my foot. If I could pull it over then I could try and call them. I could at least tell them where I’d been. Maybe they could find a way to get me.
I knocked over the remote and managed to push the phone even farther away.
“Dammit,” I grumbled out loud. I sat back on the bed and huffed to myself. I wished I knew how to use my witchy powers. Elisa said I had a ton of power, but that didn’t matter if I couldn’t figure out how to use it.
I was stupid to think that I’d survive this. Ezra had spent three hundred years killing people far smarter than me. I was infinitely more stupid for what I almost did the day before. I got carried away for half a second, and I almost ended up making out with Ezra.
The door opened, and Ezra came in carrying two fast food bags. He handed me one and un-cuffed me.
I didn’t thank him.
We ate without talking to each other. I had to stop myself a few times. I was terrified of forgetting what this relationship was. Again.
By the time we finished, night had fallen.
“All right.” Ezra stood up, opened his suitcase, pulled his dagger out, and attached it to his hip. “It’s time.” He gestured for me to follow him and I did.
We stepped into the freezing air and I crossed my arms to try and warm up. I still had Ezra’s jacket, but I left it inside.
“What now?” I asked.
“This.” He reached over and pulled a fire alarm on the wall. The light on it blinked for a couple seconds, and I flinched when I heard the alarm sound.
The parking lot filled with the kind of people you’d expect to see in a place like this. A few men in business suits with women clear, spiked heels. Lots of people in robes. I inched closer to Ezra.
His eyes scanned the crowd. When he finished, he cursed. “He’s not here.”
“Maybe he’ll come back later,” I offered.
He exhaled. “Maybe.”
The crowd murmured as they tried to figure out where the fire was. The owner limped over and examined the scene. Shortly after, a fire truck arrived and went through the rooms. Then police came… it became quiet an ordeal.
The police arrested a couple of the other people staying there. I overheard them saying they found drugs in a few of the rooms. Go figure.
When they all left, Ezra and I went back to our room.
I changed into my old pajamas. Drawstring pants and a t-shirt. I wanted as little of my skin touching the bed as possible. Ezra followed suit and decided to sleep in the clothes he wore. Probably for the best.
When it came time to actually sleep, I sat in my bed and wondered if he would ask me to get into his with him.
He didn’t. Something in me felt disappointed and I dismissed it. I should have been happy to have a bed all to myself. Even a gross one.
He cuffed me again, but to a lower part of the bed so that I could lie down. Would I ever get to sleep comfortably again? I missed it.
“Time for bed,” he said when the cuffs locked. “Big day tomorrow. We’re getting up early.”
“Do you have a plan?”
“I’m doing the alarm trick again, just in case. And if he’s not here, then I look around for places he might be. Ask some questions.”
“Sounds hard.”
“Sometimes.” Ezra sat on his bed. “But it needs to be done.” He shut the light out and got under his covers.
I laid in the dark—alone—and forced myself to sleep.
Chapter Twelve: Vixen
Ezra
I was absolutely not prepared for how it would feel to wake up without Anna beside me.
Wrong. She slept only ten feet away, but it didn’t feel close enough. My head swam with all of the things that could mean. The obvious and the not so obvious. But they all meant the same thing.
I’m growing fond of her.
Too late to undo it, or to deny it. All I could think of when I looked across the small gap, was how much I wished she laid next to me.
I’d been alone so long that the first ounce of consistent companionship drowned me in things I’d been fighting since I died. The worst part was how little time it took for it to happen. Like my brain, or my heart, something in me, just waited for someone to latch onto.
I enjoyed her company to some extent. She annoyed me to no end most of the time, but I liked it. It felt like I had a friend.
I didn’t want a friend. I didn’t want her. I wanted to be alone again, and I had a sick feeling in my stomach about how it would be to go back to being alone. Would it be a comfort? Or would I actually feel lonely for the first time?
Let’s hope not. I didn’t handle sadness or grief well. Anna kept poking at more information about that. Asking me how I died. The house, I didn’t care about. The why, on the other hand… Only three people knew that. Everyone else who knew died long ago. In the seconds after they found out. I worked quickly.
With any luck, that list of three remained Lucifer, Rupert, and I.
Anna
shifted around on her bed, but the cuff locked her in place. She made an annoyed sound in her sleep, and I tried to keep my laugh quiet.
I showered while she slept. When I got out, I saw that she’d kicked the covers off. I uncuffed her. Normally she stayed asleep for it, but she opened her eyes that day. Anna looked at me for a couple of seconds and smiled.
“Time to go,” I told her as I started walking away. If I was going to kick this pesky little fondness, I’d need to start as soon as I could. Starting with physical distance.
Anna got out of bed, and went to get ready. When she came back, she wore a dress again. Not the one that I bought her. This one was much longer than I would have ever wanted, going an inch past her knees. It was purple and offered far too much to the imagination. The damn thing even had sleeves that went nearly a third of the way to her elbows.
I left to pull the fire alarm trick again, but came up with nothing once more. I packed the car and took Travis’ picture into the main office. The woman from last night had gone, and a man that looked like he both sold and liked to take anabolic steroids had taken her place.
It took little more than a good bribing to get the man at the front counter to tell me what I wanted to know. Travis had been here, stayed in a room, and the man happened to know what room that had been. It cost me a couple hundred dollars, but I got the key and an hour to do what I pleased.
Anna and I went up to Travis’ room, and I flipped the lights on. It looked like a mess. The covers laid on the floor along with a ton of garbage.
“Are all Made demons complete jerks?” Anna asked as she stepped over the mess.
“No. I actually know of a very kind one. A few attractive flecks of darkness in her too.”
“Her?”
“Yes.”
“She a friend?” Anna tried hard not to sound like she cared one way or the other.
“Not really.”
“Oh.” Her expression faltered, for some reason.
“I tried to help her and her husband out. I couldn’t.” I tossed the bedding aside so I could look for any hint of Travis’ destination. I didn’t find a thing.