by Leigh Kelsey
“I know,” Russ murmured, drawing her closer, enough so that she could see the smattering of faint freckles over the bridge of his nose and read the small print on his T-shirt, which began a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. “It’s okay. I was the same the first time I came above. And now look at me; I just figured out how to get Netflix in Hell.”
Lili blinked, not entirely sure what he was talking about. His smile turned lopsided as he realised she was lost, the sunlight setting his dirty blonde hair gleaming.
“Keep up,” Bernard grunted, slowing a few paces ahead to glare over his shoulder. “You fall behind and I’m leaving you.”
Cerny shook his head, his long hair swaying as he silently disagreed, but he held out his hand to Lili. She flushed but didn’t hesitate to put her left hand in his, her right securely squeezed in Russ’s. Lili jumped as another car zoomed past, this one with music thumping loudly out of the windows, and she tightened her fingers around theirs unconsciously.
“You’re okay, Lili,” Russ assured her, catching her eyes and holding them, something about his open, unassuming face calming her speeding heart.
“I’m not normally so jumpy,” she breathed. “I went with Lucifer to Aarvul and I wasn’t even this edgy. It’s just … the noise.”
“I know,” Russ murmured, edging closer so he could brush her shoulder with his.
“You’re perfectly safe,” Cerny promised, his blue eyes holding hers with a serious vow, everything about him solemn and kind. “We wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
Lili nodded, telling herself to calm down. It was just a car.
“Are you done?” Bernard barked, his arms crossed over his chest and his mouth pressed into a thin line as he faced them. “I don’t know why you’re so scared, Angel. We’re the most dangerous creatures here; if anything, you should be scared of us.”
His low voice rumbled through her chest as he leaned over and spoke in her ear, “And if you don’t hurry the fuck up, I might just give you something to be scared of.”
Lili swallowed, her breathing short. Not because she was scared, although Bernard was intimidating. His nearness and that low, threatening voice made her body heat, a demanding pulse between her thighs.
“I’ll keep up,” she whispered.
A twinkle in Bernard’s eyes told her he knew exactly how her body had responded. “You fall behind and you get hurt,” he said, sobering. “And Lucifer would kill me if I let anything happen to his precious Liliana.”
The way he said precious, it wasn’t sneering or sarcastic. He said it like he meant it.
“I’ll keep up,” Lili promised, holding his narrowed gaze even as another car drove past and she jumped instinctively. “I’d just really like to get away from this road.”
“Don’t worry,” Russ said, his thumb running over the back of her hand. “It’s quieter where we’re heading.”
Bernard just grunted, an unreadable expression on his face as he put his back to them and led the way around the next corner, guiding them onto a quieter back street.
Lili exhaled in relief.
“This isn’t the route we planned,” Cerny noted, a furrow between his brows. “I thought we were taking the next main road?”
“Shut it,” Bernard growled, not deigning to look back at them.
Beside her, Russ laughed quietly, turning conspiratorially to Lili and whispering, “I think my brother’s taking care of you and too embarrassed to admit it.”
Lili shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
Russ gave her a wry smile, his eyes crinkling behind his glasses. “You asked to move away from the road and Bernard takes the next available exit?” Russ lifted an eyebrow, nudging Lili with his shoulder. “He likes you.”
“Stop causing trouble,” Cerny muttered at his brother, his eyes roving around the street, lingering on anyone they passed, scanning the rooftops.
“Is this where you found me?” Lili asked, paying renewed attention to the street—little houses in a row, all of them thin and elongated, three stories high with pretty windows and colourful doors, with iron gates around their tiny yards.
“No.” Cerny brought her left hand to his mouth, brushing a hand over her knuckles and making Lili’s stomach flutter to life. “That was miles from here. And if I have my way, you’ll never see that place ever again.”
Lili’s eyes widened but she didn’t know why she was so surprised by the protectiveness in his voice; he’d been that way from the beginning, hadn’t he?
“I’m glad you found me,” Lili confessed as they turned a corner, paying close attention as they crossed the road this time, doing exactly as Bernard did three paces ahead of them. “I’m glad I met you. All of you—even Bernard, but don’t tell him that.”
“I can hear you,” Bernard said gruffly, not looking back.
Lili stuck her tongue out at his back. “It’s rude to listen in to other people’s conversations.”
He only snorted and Lili scowled at him. Gods he was huge, twice as wide as Russ and a good head taller than Cerny. She hadn’t realised quite how big he was until she saw him here on Earth. Would he even fit through one of these doorways? Lili doubted it.
“How far away is the house anyway?” she asked, not directing the question at any brother in particular. They were on their way to find Crystal, Melissa’s sister, to fulfil the bargain Lili had made. The plan was for Lili and Russ to take Crystal to safety while Cerny and Bernard went ahead to the site of the breach and shut it down.
Lili’s heart rate spiked at the thought of leaving them in so much danger, but they were demons, and they made up two thirds of Cerberus. They’d be okay.
“Not far,” Cerny answered, his back straight and his fingers brushing the inside of his jacket, touching a concealed dagger, as they turned another corner. “You stay between me and Russ when we go inside, okay Lili?”
Lili’s mind supplied the unhelpful image of her between Russ and Cerny’s naked bodies, and she flushed to the roots of her hair, ducking her face. “Okay,” she breathed, and up ahead Bernard barked out a laugh.
This time he turned, a knowing smirk on his face. “Mind in the gutter, Angel?”
Lili lifted her head, glaring hard. “Shut up.”
He gave a little grin, a sharp tooth poking free. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll—I’ll shove you in the gutter.”
“Oooh.” Bernard looked delighted, his emerald eyes sparkling and his rugged face lighting up at the challenge. It was the most animated she’d seen him since he’d returned from planting explosives. “Promises, promises, Angel.”
“Can we focus?” Cerny was as tense as a bowstring, his hand now clearly wrapped around the blade in his pocket. “The house is down this road and we need to take this seriously.”
The smile wiped off Bernard’s face, tension returning to his big shoulders and his hand flexing as if he’d reach for a weapon or demon magic. But—no, Bernard’s gift was teleportation, Lili remembered, not an offensive power. For such a large, aggressive man, she’d expect explosions or incineration to be his power.
“Crystal isn’t going to be dangerous, right?” Lili asked as they slowly progressed down the road, each of her hands held tight by Cerny and Russ. “She’s human, and Melissa said she was innocent.”
“There’s no way to know,” Russ replied. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Here.” Bernard stopped in front of a three-storey house that had been converted into apartments. A glossy black door stood before them, with little flower boxes on the window sills on either side of it. The house looked nice, not the home of someone who’d try to become immortal by escaping into Hell through an illegal breach. She’d pictured Melissa’s house as being run down, in a poor neighbourhood.
Cerny gestured his brother at the door, watchful as Bernard knelt, removing a set of metal sticks from his pocket. Lili watched in awe as he used them to somehow unlock the door from the outside, quietly opening it and leading t
he way inside.
“How did you do that?” Lili breathed, following with Cerny and Russ framing her to keep her protected at all times.
“What? Never seen anyone pick a lock before?” Bernard kept his eyes forward but she could imagine the smirk on his face. “Quiet now, Angel.” He exchanged a look with his brothers and Cerny—who Lili had figured out was in charge—jerked his chin at the narrow staircase leading upstairs, the cream walls bare of any clues to the house’s occupants. Several doors branched off of every landing, each with a brass number. Bernard ignored the first and second floor, heading for the very top and stopping outside 3A.
“How do you know this is the right one?” Lili asked, her voice pitched low. She was glad for Cerny and Russ gathering around her; the silence of this unknowable building was making her nervous.
“I spoke to Melissa before we left,” Cerny replied, any warmth in his voice stripped bare by gravity and protectiveness. It was easy to imagine Cerny as a serious, deadly warrior. Or a knight. “She gave me the address.”
Bernard unlocked the flat the same way he’d broken into the front door and Lili eyed him, impressed, as he put his shoulder to the wood and eased the door open.
None of them spoke as they tiptoed into the apartment. Lili’s heart began to crash against her ribcage, warmth churning in her gut as her magic rose in response to the fight or flight instincts pounding into her. But she was fine; she had Cerny and Russ and Bernard. And Crystal was human.
Bernard waved them forward, and Lili held her breath as they moved down a short hallway covered in family photographs. Lili easily recognised Melissa in most of them, along with an older woman who had to be her mother and a teenage girl with messy dark hair and caramel skin, looking gloomy and unwilling in each photo, always dressed in heavy black clothes with a stud twinkling in her nose. That had to be Crystal.
Cerny darted into the room on the left—a bathroom—while Russ disappeared into the doorway on the right—a living room—leaving Lili in the hall with Bernard.
Bernard held his hand up, flicking two fingers in a come hither motion, and Lili ignored the photos and hurried after him, her breaths coming short. He gave her a long assessing look as she neared, reading all the signs of her anxiety, and he sighed, stroking a long touch from her forehead, down her cheek, to her chin. Lili’s face tingled where his fingertips met her skin but she calmed at the steadying look. It wasn’t sweet or gentle; it was a look that said she was an idiot for feeling scared because there was no way she could be hurt while he and his brothers were around.
Lili nodded, glancing past him as she willed her heart to slow, wanting to speak but not daring. She jumped as Bernard’s hand moved over the back of her head and down her hair, giving her ponytail a tug. He met her scowl with a smug, amused smirk and leaned close to say, “I’ve got you, Lili.”
“I’ve got myself,” she hissed back, ignoring the way his words settled into her bones like relief. She nodded to the three doors before them, all shut, and Bernard flicked his eyes at the one on the left. Tensed and ready for a fight, Lili pushed it open to reveal an empty kitchen.
Bernard, meanwhile, opened the far right door on a purple bedroom, again empty. Which meant Crystal was either out, or in the room directly in front of them. Lili met Bernard’s eyes, reading the warning in them, and let him lead the way, relieved when Russ and Cerny came up behind her, Russ’s hand settling on her lower back.
The silence was driving Lili mad, making her even more uneasy, and it grew to a fever pitch as Bernard depressed the door handle and pushed it open. The hinges creaked, fraying Lili’s nerves even more.
A second bedroom lay beyond, decorated in varying shades of grey and black with a small window across the room and worn furniture pushed against the walls. In the middle of the bare wooden boards a white circle had been drawn with a star in the middle, candles flickering around the circle’s edges and varying stones, crystals, and dried plants scattered across the symbol. Sat in the very middle of the star was a petite woman with dark hair pulled into two buns, wearing tight black leggings, a loose vest, and a glinting nose stud. Crystal.
And she was … in the middle of a meditation?
The girl shrieked as Bernard pushed into her room, her eyes flying wide and filling with fear. Lili knew what she saw: a big, mean-looking man strong enough to break down a door, with rugged features, a shaved head, and furious green eyes. Bernard stalked forward until he reached the chalk circle but instead of going straight for Crystal, he scuffed his boots over the symbol drawn on the floorboards and growled, “What the hell kind of magic are you playing with, Crystal Wallace?”
“Magic?” Lili breathed, looking at the slip of a girl as she shot to her feet, retreating backwards until she slammed into the wall.
“Who the fuck are you?” Crystal snarled, but there was something vulnerable about the question. She was scared—it was obvious in her wide eyes, her too-fast breathing. “If Eddie sent you, I told him I’d get the portal open by next week. I still have four days left!”
Lili went still. Around her, the men tensed.
“You’re the one who’s opening the breaches?” Russ asked, his voice casual as always but different, a lethal softness. “You’re the one allowing depraved, violent demons to break into Earth? To kill and savage and rape humanity?”
Crystal shook her head quickly, her hair wobbling in its buns. “No, no it’s not like that. They’re not evil.”
“Oh, yes they are,” Bernard laughed humourlessly, edging closer. “If you’re going to use black magic to unleash evil, at least be honest with yourself about it.”
“I didn’t—they’re not evil. They’re just like us.”
“Us?” Bernard’s smile was warped, nothing but cold cruelty in his expression. “What makes you think we are human?”
All the colour drained from Crystal’s face. “Eddie didn’t send you, did he?”
“No.” Cerny replied, striding forward and carefully avoiding the candles on the floor. The candlelight caught his jacket, his long hair, his rugged face, casting him in an otherworldly glow. He looked less like a demon than an angel; he was just missing the wings. “We came as a favour to your sister, who believes you’re in danger. What she neglected to mention was you are the reason she is in danger. She’s currently locked in a dungeon beneath Lucifer’s palace. I assume you’re responsible for her visit to Hell.”
Crystal’s mouth opened and closed, the reality of the situation hitting her. “She made it? To Hell?” She expelled a breath. “Thank God. Or—thank the devil.”
“The devil doesn’t want your thanks,” Cerny said coolly. Lili had never heard him sound so … in charge, so confident and unyielding. “He wants whoever is opening the breaches to stop.”
“And it’s up to us how we get them to stop,” Bernard added menacingly.
Crystal squeaked and Lili sighed, removing Russ’s hand from where it rested on her arm and marching across the bedroom to stop a few feet in front of Crystal. She’d been a healthy golden colour when they’d burst into her room; now she was ashen, but if she was the person opening the breaches, Lili couldn’t let pity affect her. “Why did you do it? Russ is right—all you’ve done is let evil demons into Earth.”
“They’re not—”
“Shut up,” Lili snapped, flushing when all three brothers’ gazes snapped to her. That righteous anger she’d felt while interrogating Melissa rose, her voice going soft and unfamiliar. Crystal had put everyone on Earth in danger, and risked all of Heaven and Hell going to war. For what? “I know there are good demons. Trust me, I’ve met them. But the ones you let loose into your world … those aren’t the good ones, Crystal. They’re the worst.”
“The dregs,” Bernard agreed.
“But—they’re my friends.”
Lili frowned. “I think you should start at the beginning. How did you get to this, Crystal?” Lili waved a hand at the sigil and candles on the floor.
Crystal shook her hea
d. “But … if Melissa sent you here, you know. She recruited me.”
“Recruited you,” Lili repeated, blinking.
“Yeah.” Crystal nodded. “To join the Devil’s Angels.”
Lili glanced at Russ, who was closest, not sure what to make of this. Not entirely sure what to make of the small-boned sixteen year old with piercings, dark lipstick, and black clothes either. Lili wasn’t one to judge based on appearance, but she was definitely one to judge based on dark magic, rituals, and unleashing evil onto Earth.
“A motorcycle club?” Russ asked, his head tilted to one side. Compared to the rest of them, he was the only one who looked normal. Human. Even dressed in normal American clothes, Cerny and Bernard radiated otherness. Lili didn’t have the full strength of her Grace, but she felt otherworldly too. That could have been the anger and disbelief raging through her, though, calling magic in its wake.
“No.” Crystal smiled. It was a scarily dreamy smile. “No, we’re a family. We find demons who need help and look after them here on Earth.”
“Perfect,” Bernard spat, scowling hard. “A family who takes care of demons. The word you’re looking for, girl, is cult.”
Crystal shrugged, defensiveness taking over her posture. “So what if it is?”
Lili groaned, piecing together her thoughts until they formed a bigger picture. “So there’s a cult of … of demon worshippers? Who opened the breaches with dark magic and let loose the worst kind of demons? And you think this is a good thing?”
Crystal glared with eyeliner-rimmed eyes. “Yeah.”
“What did they offer you?” Russ asked.
Crystal shrugged, pushing off the dresser she leant against to drop onto her bed, sitting with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked … very young, Lili thought. Like a petulant child. How did she get mixed up in all this dark magic? And … if Melissa ‘recruited’ her, why hadn’t she said that when Lili questioned her? She could have been lying, and likely had been, but … something felt off.