The Tempting

by V J J Dunn

  After arriving at the quiet village, he’d dumped her in what could only be described as a hut. It had a dirt floor and no furniture that she could see, other than what appeared to be a pallet on the floor in the corner. She knew that wasn’t likely going to be her bed. Bebarr had a tendency of just leaving her wherever he’d dropped her. He usually gave her a hard kick after dropping her too.

  Again, she was sort of glad to be paralyzed in the circumstance; otherwise, she’d be a sore, achy mess from all the abuse and from lying on the cold, hard ground so much.

  But then again, if she weren’t frozen in place, she’d be the one kicking Bebarr’s butt.

  Allie couldn’t understand why she was still frozen, though. Even though he was a lesser, she wondered if Bebarr was a stronger demon than Sherone. Or if the demons in general were getting stronger.

  It was kind of looking that way, and that didn’t bode well for the Remnants.

  Unlike the movies of the Old Age where the bad guy would spill his guts about his evil plan, Bebarr had said very little around her. She only knew his name because another demon had called to him as they passed by another village.

  While she’d been thankful to discover the demon lugging her around wasn’t the demon rapist, she had no clue what Bebarr had in mind for her. She could only guess.

  Even though she was getting used to the foggy world around her, having her regular vision back would be nice, obviously. But Allie wondered if not being able to see clearly might actually be a blessing too, considering Bebarr wasn’t modest in the least. He had no problem parading around naked. Of course, he was under the assumption that she was completely blinded, but Allie doubted that would matter to him.

  She laid there on the hard ground and pondered her circumstances for the thousandth time in the past three days. If she were being honest with herself, she’d admit that she was mostly just feeling sorry for herself more than anything else.

  It was obvious that the others couldn’t find her, or else they would have already. She wondered why Abba hadn’t told her where she was, but then she wondered if He could. As shocking as it always was to think about, she knew that He was turning a blind eye to the earth now that Lucifer was released.

  But then again, He really wasn’t. After all, He’d known about the riot in Chengdu and the fact that Alejandro had been taken. So, it stood to reason that He knew about her kidnapping. He hadn’t come for her, and neither had the others, so that meant one thing: He had a plan in all of this.

  That made Allie feel better. She knew that Abba wouldn’t throw her to the wolves, not unless there was a very good reason. As always, whenever “bad things happened to good people,” she knew that there was either a lesson to learn or a job to do.

  Allie figured in her case it was probably both.

  In the meantime, she’d pay attention without looking like she was paying attention. She’d be a fly on the wall, listening and observing. And when the opportunity arose, and hopefully it did, she’d strike.

  On the fifth day of captivity, after being left alone for two full days, Bebarr returned… with others.

  By that time, Allie had been starting to lose her mind, maybe literally. Even though demons did not make good company, she thought being completely alone and helpless was worse than bunking with one of Lucifer’s minions.

  Alone was terrifying. Helpless was horrifying.

  Not being able to move a single muscle while still being completely aware of her surroundings was probably the worst thing that could have happened to someone like her, someone who was used to action, to being able to fight.

  And her mind had started to crack.

  She’d had several dozen panic attacks over the course of her kidnapping so far. Heart racing, fear overriding reason, dread consuming her. She had always hated being held down, and now, not being able to even wiggle a finger… well, it was just too much.

  The terror was worse at night, when it was so dark in the hut that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face… if she’d been able to put her hand up. Unfortunately, her “sense vision” wasn’t as good in the dark as her normal vision was. So, every whisper of wings, scratching of claws along the dry earth, the sighs and groans of the night, all served to drive her closer to the edge of insanity.

  And that morning brought the bugs. Why there were still insects in the new age, Allie would never know. If she ever got out of this situation, she was going to ask Abba. She’d really never noticed the creepy crawlers before, because The City and the Gardens didn’t have the pesky creatures, so “seeing” them up close and personal was a bit of a shock.

  They seemed to really like paralyzed Remnants, because Allie could see bug after bug crawling across the dirt floor toward her and she knew they were climbing up her body like Lilliputians atop the shipwrecked and unconscious Gulliver.

  Except the bugs didn’t need to tie her down.

  At least the things stayed away from her head and face. Allie was sure she would just will her heart to stop beating if she had to deal with the creatures running about in her hair and up her nostrils.

  Thankfully, they stayed down south where she couldn’t see them.

  The thought of things crawling all over her naked body while she couldn’t so much as bat them away completely freaked her out, even though she knew they wouldn’t hurt her. Just like all the animals in the new age, the insects would be harmless.

  Still…

  The thought of new age animals made her think of Charo. She wondered if the cat missed her, or if she’d even noticed that she was gone. The day she’d been captured, Allie had told her that since she kept showing up at all their battles, she might as well just transfer with the Remnants.

  Charo had blinked her big yellow eyes at her and then licked her lower region for ten solid minutes.

  Yeah, she probably hadn’t even noticed she was gone.

  Allie knew Nick was probably losing his mind. She wondered if the other Remnants were missing her too, or if they were glad she was gone. Allie knew that she could be kind of a pain when it came to practice, pushing them hard, demanding near-perfection, but she only wanted the team to be ready for anything that came their way, to be able to neutralize any threat.

  Too bad she hadn’t thought about the threat of invisible, paralyzing, abusive kidnapper demons.

  Voices outside the hut pulled her from her musings. They were low, but with her superior hearing she could easily make them out. Two demons were discussing her, something about where to meet for “the exchange.” They were arguing, one thinking it should be in the Inner Circle; the other wanted it to be in The Pit.

  If she could have frowned, she would have. She had no idea what “exchange” they were talking about. She knew Lucifer wanted her. He’d threatened to make her cry when she’d taunted him as he hung from his chains in The Pit and had reminded her of that threat when he’d been released. She knew he was aching for vengeance, to make an example of her, the reason he’d put a bounty on her head.

  The bounty was for the position of commander of his army, the army that would attack The City at the end of Lucifer’s last reign on earth. There wasn’t anything to exchange. It was a puzzle.

  Allie noticed movement then and she focused her vision on that. She could see the misty outline of a handful of bugs scurrying away from her body. Before she could ponder what the bugs were about, the door opened and she saw feet approaching her, where she lay crumpled in the middle of the hut.

  One of the demons huffed out a derisive-sounding snort. “This is who He chose to lead His warriors?” He kicked her then, hard enough to push her back. She heard bones crack.

  “Not so tough now, are you Mistress? Can’t fight us when you can’t move, eh?” he taunted as the others laughed when he kicked her several more times.

  Bebarr spoke then, the only voice she recognized, although there were at least six pairs of feet she could sense and not everyone had spoken yet.

  “She can’t see either.
They were practicing when I took her and several of them were blinded.” He shuffled, moving to the side. “It must have been Zadkiel who used the blindness ability.”

  Another snort. “What makes you think it was him?”

  Bebarr shuffled again and Allie could swear he sounded nervous. “He was there, helping train Remnants. Metatron too.”

  There was some grumbling at that. They apparently didn’t like knowing the angels were helping the Remnants.

  Allie didn’t pay them any further attention. Instead, she stared past their feet, to the view through the open door. She hadn’t seen daylight in so long that she almost forgot what it looked like. Of course, it looked a whole lot different without her normal sight.

  If she could have sighed wistfully at that moment, she would have. She would have given her useless right arm to be able to feel the sun on her face again.

  But that was looking more hopeless by the moment, since the demons caught her attention when they started discussing hauling her out at night and taking her to The Pit, the place so deep in the earth that the sun couldn’t find it with a map and a tour guide.

  No matter what they decided to do with her, she was helpless to stop them. She’d just have to hope that someone — anyone — would help her. Or that she’d finally be rescued. Until then, she’d try to figure out why this was happening, what it was she was supposed to figure out.

  And at the moment, she watched the strange bugs scurry out the door, then pile into a pyramid like cheerleaders from the Old Age. A bird swooped down then and scooped the top bug off the pile and flew off.

  Since the animals no longer ate each other, Allie couldn’t figure out what in the world was going on. Maybe since Lucifer had been released, the animal kingdom was reverting back to its old ways. Which meant the bugs could have been chewing on her.

  If she could have shuddered, she would have.

  There was more shuffling around, blocking her vision of the outside and Allie almost groaned. One pair of feet was very close to her and she knew that she was going to get kicked in the face. But then she realized something… she recognized the footwear.

  It was the boots the angels wore.

  Chapter 12

  A LLIE WAS NOT happy to see Serariel with the demons, but she was relieved. While he was probably one of her least favorite angels — only because he was rather insulting — he was one of Abba’s “undercover” angels, working as a double-agent of sorts.

  He didn’t speak to her, though. As far as she knew, he never even looked her way. Even when the demons all walked outside and Serariel remained to guard her — never mind the fact that she’d been left alone for the past two days — he didn’t say a word to her. Not a peep of reassurance.

  Of course, he wasn’t supposed to care what happened to her and she had to remind herself repeatedly that she had no idea who was listening, or nearby. It could be a test of Serariel’s loyalty.

  Or, he could have double-crossed Abba and was truly siding with Lucifer.

  There was no way of knowing which side of the fence the angel was on. All Allie could do was hope that he was going to help her, or at least get word to the others about where she was, or where they were going.

  She really, really didn’t want to be in the complete darkness of The Pit, not without her regular sight anyway. Not that she wanted to be there regardless if she could see or not. It did not sound like a fun time.

  Serariel stayed with her in that little hut until it grew dark. Then he grabbed her by the arm, hauled her up over his shoulder, ducked so he could fit his huge body through the door, and carried her off into the night.

  They were alone and Allie was seriously starting to worry about the angel’s alliance. If he were on Abba’s side, on her side, then why wasn’t he talking to her, reassuring her? Or better yet, running in the other direction, back toward the Inner Circle where her friends and family were?

  Her head bounced continuously against his back as he ran. It had to be uncomfortable for the angel. Allie wondered why he didn’t just fly, but then she was glad he didn’t. She was in no rush to get to where they were going.

  Another panic attack hit her as she was jostled and bounced around and she could feel her heart rate spike to dangerous levels. Even though she had an improved body that didn’t have the Old Age problems like heart attacks, she wasn’t totally impervious to stress.

  And she was feeling more stress in that moment than she ever had in her long life.

  After a long while, Serariel tugged her off his shoulder and pulled her to his chest, where he cradled her in his arms, like a baby. Allie knew it wasn’t due to kindness on his part, but probably just a need to use different muscles for a while.

  Regardless of the why, Allie was enjoying the new position much better, even though it was highly embarrassing to be naked in an angel’s arms. But at least she could finally look at the sky for a change. Bebarr had also tossed her over his shoulder for the trip to the Zone and she was darned sick of staring at the ground.

  The stars were very bright, twinkling. Even though she was looking at them through hazy vision, she could tell that it was a clear night. The moon was half full, too, giving plenty of light to see the surrounding area. Allie wished she could turn her head to watch the landscape as they passed by.

  But then again, there wasn’t much to see in the Zone. Dry, scorched earth, dead or dying plant life, endless landscapes of sand dunes. It was not a pretty place.

  Still, it would have been nice to have some idea of where they were.

  Serariel ran tirelessly for what Allie thought had to be hours. It was clear that he wasn’t on the good side as Abba had thought. If he had been, he would have said something by now.

  Despair hit Allie hard then.

  While she was terrified of the possibility of being left helpless, immobile, in the utter darkness of The Pit — and, apparently, in the frozen state she was in, it could be indefinitely since she could neither starve nor thirst to death — she was more worried about what was going to happen to the others. If they thought Serariel was on their side and trusted him, only to be stabbed in the back, things could go wrong. Very, very wrong.

  She reminded herself that no matter what happened to her, and no matter what happened to the others, with the betrayals and conniving of Lucifer, Abba won in the end. And even if Allie was stuck in The Pit until Judgement Day, she would eventually be changed into her forever form and never think of this time again.

  She decided she was going to hold on to that thought.

  After what felt like an earthly eternity, Serariel slowed to a walk. He ducked down then and they entered a place Allie unfortunately recognized. The Pit.

  Not technically The Pit, but the long passageway leading to the cavernous expanse at the earth’s core. Allie knew they still had a very long way to go.

  She closed her eyes as the passageway grew darker. She must have dozed off, because it seemed like all too short a time when Serariel straightened as he entered the higher portion of the passageway, where the passageway also widened.

  They were near The Pit.

  It was completely silent, unlike the last time Allie had been there, when she and her team had dragged a demon who had escaped prematurely back to where he belonged. Then, there had been murmurings, cries, wailings. And yeah, gnashing of teeth.

  In just moments, Serariel entered the cavern. For some reason, her sense vision was no longer working. She wondered if it had somehow turned off while she slept. She tried to bring it back, to open her senses again, but she was just too stressed to concentrate.

  While she couldn’t see a stinking thing, Allie knew they’d arrived because the air suddenly changed. One would think entering a vast cave after being in a dank passageway would be a relief, but The Pit’s air was actually denser, more oppressive.

  It was like breathing death.

  The angel continued walking and Allie could tell they were descending. She knew then what he was doing, what he was
going to do.

  Chain her where Lucifer had been.

  Allie would never forget the day she’d brought that demon back to The Pit, the day she’d seen the prince of darkness — once known as the prince of light — chained in the center of The Pit. His head had hung low, as if he didn’t have the strength to lift it, his arms outstretched, much like the Lord’s had been on the dark day of His great sacrifice.

  It was there she’d taunted Lucifer.

  It was there he’d threatened her.

  It was there she’d suffer the consequences.

  She was brought out of her memories when Serariel finally laid her down, placing her on a flat surface. While she still couldn’t feel or see anything, she had the impression that he’d been gentle as he put her down.

  It was just a brief moment when she felt her body being pulled up and her arm being tugged out to the side. She heard the sound of a chain and then the clink of the cuff as it was locked into place, most likely around her wrist.

  The sound was so… final.

  And there was no way the others would look for her there. After The Releasing, they probably forgot all about the place. Allie knew she had; since it was emptied of Lucifer and his demons, she’d all but forgotten about the vast cavern in the center of the planet.

  They’d leave her there to rot. Literally.

  Serariel leaned forward to encase the other wrist. She sensed that his face was against her cheek and she wanted to shiver; it was repugnant to be that close to a traitor. She’d give anything to be able to move, because she would have loved to headbutt the jerk in that moment.

  But then he murmured so low that only she could hear it. “I would release the paralysis, but you are far too injured and the pain would be too great. However, I will release the blinding. Help will be here soon.”