Chapter 8 Torch #2
If Jasmine was really baiting me, I was halfway to taking it. Hell’s rules didn’t matter anymore. The only thing that counted was the hunt, and maybe the hope that in the end, I’d get to look her in the eye and see which one of us was the real monster.
The candles flickered. My scars burned. Somewhere in the city, another man was already dead, heart wrung dry by the only woman I’d ever met who could scare me sober.
I loaded the gun, checked the wards, and went back to drawing. The more I finished the sketch, the closer I got to seeing her for real. That’s how obsession works. It eats you from the inside, one line at a time.
If you want to know the truth, it’s not the demons you see coming that ruin you. It’s the ones who know where you live.
After Vin left, the apartment shrank to a single point, every candle wick down to the last black twist. I stalked the perimeter, checking every ward, every lock, every pinch of salt.
There was nothing left to fix, but I did it anyway.
If you’d asked me, I’d have said it was about discipline, about not letting my guard slip for even a second.
But the truth is, the real monsters are the ones that make you second-guess your own shadow.
Even someone spat out from Hell needed rest, so I headed to the bedroom and lay on the bed, placing the 1911 on the nightstand, before killing the light. I closed my eyes, and when I fell into sleep, she visited my dreams.
She found me in the only bar in Hell that pretends to serve you twice.
I’d been here before—call it purgatory for the thirsty—with a countertop so scorched that the wood curled in on itself, and a mirror behind the bottles that only matched your face if you were in the mood to lie.
The place was practically a waiting room for missed chances.
And that was where I saw her, arms splayed across the sticky lacquer, eyes fixed on the glass in front of her as if it might pour the next move straight into her hand.She wore the same dress as the night at the carnival, only now it looked less like a performance and more like a last stand.
The straps slid off her shoulders, the fabric clung where it should've let go, and the hem rode up her thigh like it was trying to run for its life. Her hair, a tangle of black desperation, trailed down her back and dripped over one half-open eye. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was waiting for me, but succubi didn’t wait for anything they could have right now.
I considered turning around, but my feet didn't get the memo. I took the stool beside her, letting the air collapse between us. She didn’t look over, just pushed her glass toward the bartender, a lump of a man whose left hand was made of something that looked, and probably was, bone.
“Two,” she said, voice flat. “Make it the house special.”
The bartender grunted and poured something thick and black from a bottle with a label I couldn’t read. I watched it curl into the shot glass, absorbing the light around it.
“You're persistent,” she said, finally glancing at me, her eyes catching the bar’s red neon and spitting it back out like a warning flare. “Not a compliment, by the way.”
“Not looking for one.”
She smiled, but not like it was funny.
The bartender set down the shots. I downed mine. It tasted exactly how I expected: asphalt, old regret, the rubber band snap of pain just before your vision whites out. She drank hers slow, rolling it on her tongue.
I leaned in, elbows on the bar, and pushed the glass back. “Should I be flattered, or just pissed you’re haunting me now?”Jasmine’s laugh was a low hum, all vibration and no joy. “You weren’t supposed to make it this far.”
“Either of us?”
“I’ve made it plenty far,” she said, twisting the glass in her hand. “You, on the other hand, were supposed to go home. Or, if you couldn’t manage that, fuck off long enough for me to finish what I’m here for.”
It was almost domestic, the way we sat there.
Two tired souls at last call, working through a script neither of us believed in.
Around us, the rest of the bar was a blur, glass-walled and out of focus, every patron locked in their own loop of nothingness.
It was just us at the center, every other body retreating to the edges like we were a nuclear event about to go critical.
“So tell me,” I said. “What is it you’re here for?” I made it sound like I was honestly curious, but the truth was, I already knew the answer. She was here for me.
“Does it matter?” She reached over and plucked the shot glass from my hand, rolling the rim along the inside of my palm. “If I told you, would you believe it?”
“Try me.”
Jasmine leaned in, her voice a whisper that fluttered like moths inside my skull.
“I’ve had a thousand jobs, Torch. But you—” her eyes locked onto mine, and the rest of the bar fell away “—you’re the only thing on my report card.
That’s what’s funny about Hell. Even if you do everything right, there’s always one last test.”
I could see the pain behind her bravado, the fatigue of centuries ground down into ash.
I wanted to say something clever, something that would paint me as the predator, but I couldn’t.
I was just another ghost waiting for a chance to move on.She let go of the glass and slid her hand up my arm.
Her nails were painted black, chipped at the tips, and the touch was both a promise and a threat.
“Do you want to know how it ends?” she asked, her breath hot against my ear.I nodded, words failing me.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then Jasmine’s hand left my arm and dropped into my lap. She squeezed, her grip more possessive than seductive, and I realized I had no more control over this than she did. Here in the dead bar, she was the only real thing left.
She stood, dragging me up with her, and the rest of the world flickered and collapsed. There was only the back hallway, a door with no sign, and a flight of stairs that wound down into black.
I followed, resisting the urge to count the steps. The walls pulsed with a red light that wasn’t coming from anywhere I could see, and the shadows curled around my feet, slowing me down, daring me to run.
At the bottom, the hallway opened into a room that looked like it was meant to be a sex dungeon, but had been abandoned after the first murder. There was a bed with metal posts, a table covered in rusted shackles, and a rack of whips, canes, and implements designed to make you beg for forgiveness.
She pushed me onto the bed. The springs groaned, ancient and exhausted, but the mattress was soft, almost inviting.Jasmine climbed onto my lap, straddling my thighs, her knees pinning me in place. She cupped my chin in her hand, forcing me to look up at her.
“You could kill me,” I said, and meant it. “Or fuck me. I’m not picky.”
Her smile went sharp, lips curling back to show the edge of her demon. “Why not both?”
She bit my lower lip, hard enough to draw blood, then sucked at the wound, tongue flicking over the split skin. The pain was electric, rerouting every nerve in my body. She reached between us, her hand slipping into my jeans, fingers finding cock as if she’d known it her whole life.
I hissed, knees shaking, but she wouldn’t let me move. She stroked me once, twice, slow and deliberate, then unbuttoned me with her free hand, working the zipper down in one smooth motion. She pulled me out, already hard enough to ache, and let me throb against the cold air.
“You smell like guilt,” she said, palming my cock between her hands, working the length like a prayer bead.
“It’s my favorite flavor.”I reached for her, but she pinned my wrists above my head with a single hand, nails digging crescents into my skin.
Someone else might have called it violence; I called it foreplay.
Jasmine grinded down, her heat soaking through the thin strip of silk that pretended to be underwear.
She peeled the dress up and over her hips, exposing the lines of her body, the impossible symmetry of her curves.
The mark at her hip glared at me, an ugly signature from below, and for a second I thought about tearing it off with my teeth.
She raised up, used her other hand to guide me in. The first contact was like being branded—hot, wet, and so tight I almost lost it before we started. She slid down, slow, milking every inch, her eyes never leaving mine.
I tried to buck my hips, but she squeezed tighter, holding me in place.
“You like pain?” she asked, voice a velvet knife.
I grinned, teeth stained with my own blood. “Why do you think I’m here?”
She started to ride me, slow and controlled, her body rolling like smoke, every movement calculated to either torture or redeem. She let go of my wrists, raked her nails down my chest, and dug in at the waist, leaving claw marks that burned with every thrust.
She fucked like a calculus problem, all precision and inevitability, each solution more devastating than the last. The pleasure crested and broke, and I lost track of time, lost track of space—there was just the bed, and the blood, and the slick heat of her cunt bringing me right to the brink and holding me there.
When I tried to come, she bit my ear, hard, and whispered, “Not yet.”
She rode me harder, ass slapping down, tits bouncing in my face, sweat and perfume and the taste of sulfur chasing each other through the air. She leaned in, moaning against my neck, grinding down until she was shaking, her own pleasure mixing with the pain she poured into me.
Finally, right as I was about to spill, she slammed herself all the way down, held me there, and came around me, a spasm so violent I thought she’d tear me apart.
I exploded, every muscle locked, shooting into her so hard I almost blacked out.When the wave broke, she collapsed onto my chest, her breath a hurricane.
I held her, hands shaking, neither of us saying anything.
After a while, Jasmine rolled off, propped herself against the bedframe, and lit a cigarette. She offered me one, and I took it, letting the smoke fill my lungs and burn out the guilt.
“You still want to kill me?” she asked, her eyes half-lidded.
“Not tonight,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow.”
She smiled, and for a second, I thought I saw the girl behind the monster. Maybe I’d never get her out of my head. Maybe I didn’t want to.
We passed the cigarette back and forth, and when she finally stubbed it out, she slid up next to me, curled her body against mine, and let me hold her until the lights faded out.
I thought about what Vin had said. That I needed to get ahead of it. But maybe, sometimes, the only way out was through.When I woke, she was already up, dress smoothed, hair perfect, not a trace of the night before except for the marks she’d left beneath my skin.
She leaned over the bed, brushed my cheek with the back of her hand. “You know the difference between Heaven and Hell?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“In Hell, you never get what you want. In Heaven, you find out it was never worth it.”
I laughed, a broken sound. “If that’s true, where does that leave us?”
She kissed me, soft this time. “On the edge,” she said, “where the fun is.”
She left, the door closing behind her, and I lay there, every muscle molten, watching the ceiling of the sex dungeon pulse and ripple with the afterglow.
And then, with a single blink, I was lying in my bed, my cock covered in come and juices that weren’t mine.
A wet dream? No. I glanced at the open window and the wet footprints on the floor.
She was literally fucking with me.