Chapter Four
DEVLIN
I decide not to smite the filthy intruder. On account of me being magnanimous and him being my best mate.
“Piss off, Finn,” I offer instead, but my tone is giving more exhaustion than ire, which Finn takes as an invitation. Pouring two glasses of bourbon from the bar, he scans me from head to toe and says, “I can’t recall a night when you’ve remained in your bathrobe so late into the festivities. Are you getting old and impotent?”
“I’m relaxing. At least, I was.”
“Relaxing. At an orgy. I see.” He sips his drink. Adds a bit more from the bottle. “Shall I fetch you a blanket as well? A glass of Metamucil and some cream for your arthritic cock, perhaps? A supple young lass to help you rub it in, sparing you the indignity of—”
“One more word about my cock, and I’ll sacrifice yours to Abraxas.” I smooth my palms down the velvet lapels. “It’s not a bathrobe, you imbecile. It’s a smoking jacket.”
“You don’t smoke.”
I flick my wrist in his direction. He ducks just in time to avoid a burst of flame. It hits the oil panting behind him, incinerating it on contact.
“So we’re in a mood, then. Excellent.” Ignoring the smoldering Picasso and the mood both, Finn hands me the other drink and drops into the adjacent armchair, eyeing me warily.
Dodging his ever-watchful scrutiny, I retrieve my phone and scroll—universal gesture for leave me the fuck alone—but Finn isn’t one for subtle cues.
“You know we left the confines of Hell so you could enjoy your existence, right?” he says. “Not brood like some emo Hollywood boy-band reject who didn’t make it onto the concert poster.”
“We left the confines of Hell because my father, in all his infinite wisdom, gave me no other choice, and you were daft enough to follow me. So what does that say about you?”
“I’m trying to look at the bright side.”
“One of your less endearing qualities.”
“We’re in Los Angeles, Dev. Regardless of the circumstances that brought us here… Well, to put it simply, we’re already seated at the restaurant. May as well enjoy the buffet.”
“I hate buffets.”
“It’s a metaphor, for fuck’s sake, and what in the burning lakes are you looking at?” He snatches the phone from my hand and inspects the screen. “Witchtok? You’re obsessing again, mate.”
“I’m preparing, and as someone who had front-row seats to the last near-apocalyptic catastrophe brought upon our heads by a witch, I assumed you might be more sympathetic.”
“It’s been three hundred years. If your witch wanted to track you down again and—”
“Ex-witch.”
“—attack, she’d have done so long before now.”
“You’re underestimating the ability of a scorned woman to hold a grudge.”
“Pretty sure you were the scorned one there, but who’s counting?”
“I was young and foolish.” I return my attention to the flames, old wounds slicing my heart anew. “Perhaps I hurt her in some deep, unfathomable way. Something I might have done differently if only I’d—”
“For fuck’s sake, Dev. You brought her home to meet Mum and Dad and show her ‘round your old stomping grounds, and instead of giving you a blowjob in your childhood bedroom like a decent girlfriend, she drugged you, freed the worst demons of the lot, and led them to war against the God of Death—a war that nearly wiped out all of humanity in the crossfire, and would have, had your control-freak tyrant of a father not stepped in. And now you’re here, scrolling the socials and indulging in a full-on pity party while a real party carries on just outside the door, which is a level of meta-fuckery I can’t even wrap my mind around, You need help, mate. Years upon years of it, if you ask me, and I’m not sure why you’re waiting, considering you can’t swing a dead hellhound in this town without hitting a therapist square in the face. Is it an insurance mix-up? Or just you being a complete and utter knob?” He hands back the phone, shaking his head. “My money’s on option B. Knob.”
“Piss off. Again.” Unoriginal, but it’s all I’ve got. The tank, as they say, is running on fumes.
“Witchtok.” He sighs as I renew my scrolling. “So this is what it’s come to?”
“Have you a better idea?”
“Better than watching humans argue over whose pantheon is the most powerful and who gets to call themselves a hereditary witch. And what is with the obsession with aesthetics? In our day, witches didn’t need pretty rocks and incense and T-shirts that say The Moon Made Me Do It. They just did it.”
“In our day, demons didn’t make a habit of provoking the Devil, either. Yet here you are.”
“Dress for the job you want, not the one you have.” He holds up his glass in cheers, then takes another hefty swig. “Anyway, yes, I do have a better idea than doom-scrolling. Lose the bathrobe and the Broody McBrooderson attitude, and—”
“I’m serious, Finn. I can’t afford to be caught unawares again.”
“Where is this coming from? Did something happen?”
I recall the feeling from earlier. The cold scrape down my spine, the rattling in my bones. “I just… I felt something. Bit of a tingle.”
“A ‘damn, these are really good drugs’ tingle, or a ‘time to see the doc and get a shot before my dick falls off’ tingle?”
“Be serious, Finn.”
“Personally, I can think of nothing more serious than losing one’s favorite appendage, but since you’re clearly—”
“Not in the mood. So if you can’t reign in it, then kindly fuck yourself right back out from whence you came. I’m sure there are plenty of vacuous heads in the mansion this evening for you to fill with your special brand of fun.”
“Heads, holes. Either way.” He turns toward the fire, a blissful moment of silence descending.
The flames crackle and pop, seducing me with their erotic dance. It’s at once familiar and strange, like the cover of a song I used to love, the new rendition not quite hitting the mark.
“It’s the strangest thing,” I admit. “But I just can’t shake the feeling that there’s… some other place I’m supposed to be.”
He glances over at me, his brow furrowing, and for a moment I think he might offer some sage piece of advice.
But then he laughs and says, “Balls deep in one of the three starlets currently handcuffed to your bed? They had to ditch their publicist in a dangerous high-speed chase through the hills just to make it here tonight, and they’re getting impatient waiting for you to notice.”
“Like I give a fuck about their publicist.”
“Well, that’s the whole issue, innit? Apparently, you did fuck her, multiple times, in multiple orifices, then ghosted her, despite numerous attempts on her part to arrange for… ahem… a re-servicing of the aforementioned orifices. So now she’s forbidding her clients from associating with you in any manner, public or private. Not that I blame her, what with all the dalliances and disappearing acts you’ve pulled this month. It reminds me of the summer of 1743—now that was a banner year, wasn’t it? 1810 is a close second, though…”
Finn rambles on about my indiscretions, a best-of-the-best highlights reel of debauchery that spans the centuries. Normally, I’d sit back and take it all in, pride swelling in my chest, laughing right along with him. Ah, the good ol’ days…
But that dark, chilly whisper hasn’t left me.
“In any case, you shouldn’t worry so much.” Finn finally pauses for another swig of bourbon. “We’re nearly there.”
“Nearly where?”
“A few hundred more souls, give or take, and we’re back in your father’s good graces. Assuming he upholds his end of the bargain, we’ll be back in time for the family Christmas party.”
I turn to him, my jaw dropping. We’ve been at the soul-corrupting game for so many centuries, I stopped counting.
After that business with the witch ex-girlfriend, the war, etcetera, my father revoked my title and banished me from Hell, never to return until and unless I completed the task he set forth: Sign over one million souls to eternal demonic servitude, delivering them to Hell upon their deaths.
Well. One million may as well have been a trillion, for all I knew—a cruel, impossible punishment devised by a cruel, impossible father eager to make an example out of his errant son.
But now… Is it actually possible we’re that close?
“You’re certain?” I ask.
“By my last accounting, we only had about five hundred left. And tonight’s turnout is stellar.”
“One seventy, I believe.”
“Precisely.” Finn downs the last of his bourbon and shrugs. “At this rate, we could wrap it all up with just a few more parties..”
“You really believe that?”
“Put your back into it, mate. Los Angeles, remember? It’s precisely why we chose the place. Not exactly a challenge.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. “Please don’t make the fish in a barrel analogy again, Finn. For the love of all that’s unholy, don’t—”
“Highly immoral fish in a rotten barrel of filth that’s long overdue for a good scouring. Before you start feeling guilty about it.”
“How do you sleep at night?”
“Preferably between two buxom beauty influencers, three on a good night.” He grabs one of the couch pillows and mimics some sort of lewd… well, to be perfectly honest, I can’t quite tell if he’s spanking it or dancing with it or possibly experiencing a medical emergency, but his antics pry a laugh out of me nevertheless.
Ah, Finn. There’s no one like my best mate to lift my spirits during the dark times.
Grateful for the levity, I head to the bar to fix us fresh drinks, thinking I might hunt down those starlets after all.
But then, just as I’m plucking an ice cube from the bucket and imagining my bedsheets stained with burgundy lipstick, I feel it again.
That dark whisper of magic kissing its way down my neck, settling right between my shoulder blades.
And this time, it doesn’t relent.
“Finn?” I whisper, but he’s far too enamored of his own performance to notice the subtle shift in the air. The taste of it.
Witchcraft.
I suck in a painful breath. The icy feeling intensifies, gripping my heart in its cruel fist.
“Finn?” I try again, barely getting the word out as the magic fully takes hold. The glass slips from my hand, shatters. The pain twists me in half. “We’ve… got a serious… problem…”
The fire surges brightly, flames dancing before my eyes.
It’s the very last thing I see before my world goes black.