15. Chapter 15 #2
“You are the worst demon alive.” She’s wiping her eyes now, shoulders shaking. “You handed me your weakness because I asked nicely.”
She laughs harder, warm and completely unguarded, and I immediately want to hear it again. Preferably often enough that I can remember the sound when I’m back in Hell getting lectured about my inadequacies.
“Okay.” She shifts in her seat, her knee angling toward me. “If you can’t lie, tell me how Hell works?”
“You sure?”
“I want to understand what I’m dealing with.”
“It’s a corporate structure: departments, quotas, reporting chains; soul acquisition, punishment operations, bargain enforcement, legal review. My department negotiates bargains with mortals. You close the deal, file the contract, move on.”
“And if you don’t close it?”
“Disciplinary action or reassignment.” My jaw tightens, the memory of my last review still fresh. “The Soul Furnace, if you fail badly enough.”
“Do I want to know what that is?”
“Torture facility for damned souls. Failed demons get reassigned there as punishment. But some volunteer to be sent there because they enjoy it.”
Evie shudders. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s Hell.”
“How many souls have you taken?”
“None.”
“None?” Her voice rises in disbelief.
“I’ve been present at negotiations and observed the whole process. But closing one myself?” I stare at the road because this is easier to admit when I’m not looking at her. “Zero.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Cross my heart and hope to—well, I’m already damned, so that phrase doesn’t really work.” I risk a glance. “Every time I get close to securing a contract, everything goes wrong. I warn the mortal about consequences, or I can’t exploit their vulnerability or go through with it.”
“That doesn’t make you a failure.”
“In Hell it does. That’s literally the job description: corrupt mortals, secure souls, report results. I can’t do any of it without feeling like I’m . . .” I search for the word. “Destroying something that deserves to exist.”
“Can’t you do anything else?”
“It’s a family thing.” I keep my attention on the road. “My father is one of Hell’s most successful soul collectors. You don’t walk away from centuries of tradition because you’re not built for it.”
“But if you hate it . . .”
“Doesn’t matter.” The sharpness in my voice catches us both off guard. “It’s what I’m supposed to do. Failing at it means failing at the only thing I’m meant to be.”
“So you’re basically a virgin.”
The car swerves, the sudden movement jolting me out of my thoughts.
“What?”
“Soul collection virgin.” She’s looking at me dead-on, eyes dancing with mischief.
“I—yes. That’s technically—”
“Making me your first.”
“Could you maybe not phrase it like that?”
“So all this pressure you’re under is because you’ve never managed to seal the deal.”
“When you put it like that, it sounds even more pathetic than it already is.” But I’m grinning now. “Virgin demon trying to convince his first potential contract to trust him. Really selling it, aren’t I?”
“This is the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had.”
“Welcome to my existence.”
“What happens to a soul after it’s collected?” she asks quietly.
I tense. “You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Evie—”
“What would happen to mine?”
I want to deflect, soften it into something less horrifying. But I meant what I said about not wanting her hurt, which includes not protecting her from information she’s asked for.
“It becomes Hell’s property. No afterlife options. Eternal damnation and torture.”
Blood leaves her face. I’d give anything not to have said it.
“But you’d get something in exchange,” I add quickly, desperate to soften the blow. “A skill, protection, financial security for the inn—”
“How could anything be worth that?”
“It usually isn’t,” I admit.
“You’re absolutely winning me over.”
“I’m trying very hard to be honest. Which turns out to be the worst possible sales strategy, but it’s the only one I’ve got.”
Evie says nothing. Her finger traces a line along the window.
“Turn right up here,” she finally says.
The Foxglove Inn appears through the trees, sage green with cream trim and flower boxes beneath the windows overflowing with petunias and trailing ivy.
I pull into the gravel driveway and let the engine go quiet while I wait for her to say something.
“I have a lot of work to catch up on.” She unbuckles her seatbelt with a decisive click.
“What about what I said?”
Her eyes meet mine without flinching.
“I’m not giving my soul to you or anyone.” Her voice is matter-of-fact. “The answer’s no.”
Panic wipes out every careful response I might’ve made. “Evie—”
“Thank you for the ride.” She doesn’t look at me. “And the honesty.”
“I can’t leave. The summoning binds me to you until a deal is made or the deadline runs out.”
She turns back, one hand still on the door.
“So, what—you’re just going to sit in my driveway?”
“If that’s where you are, then yes.”
“You can’t hover around me, Milo.”
“At least let me help you inside.” I nod toward her ankle.
“I can walk fine.”
She shoves the car door open and swings her legs out. The second her right foot hits the gravel, she sucks in a breath and jerks the weight straight back off it.
“You can barely put weight on it.”
“I’m not making a deal with you.”
“I’m only asking to carry you to your door.”
“I don’t need to be carried.”
“Just let me help.”
“I don’t need—”
She doesn’t make it to the second step before I’m out of the car and blocking her path.
“Get out of my way.” Her chin lifts.
“No.”
“Milo, I swear to—”
I scoop her up.
She yelps. “Put me down right now!”
“No.”
“I’m a grown adult and I can walk to my own—”
“You can’t walk. That’s the whole issue.” I shift her weight and start up the path. “The doctor told you to rest, and I promised to make sure you did.”
Do I actually give a damn about what Damien Devereaux thinks? No.
He’s a vampire in a white coat with a smile designed to make people tilt their heads and expose their necks. I knew it the second he walked into that room. But right now, Doctor Dracula’s medical advice happens to align with my interests, so I’m using it.
“Let me go.” She elbows me in the ribs, and I grunt. She has a vicious elbow for someone her size.
“After we get inside.”
She growls in frustration and twists in my arms. I hold firm, adjusting my grip to keep her secure. Her fist connects with my shoulder. Then again. Then a third time for good measure.
“Are you done?”
“No.”
Fourth hit.
“Now?”
“I’m going to be hitting you for the foreseeable future.”
“That’s fine. I can take it.”
“I hate this,” she announces to the sky.
“Understood.”
I carry her through the door and don’t put her down.