Chapter 18
I woke half off the bed, bare skin prickling from the cold and heart thundering in my chest. The duvet had lost the fight against my restless sleep and slumped in a heap on the floor, leaving me with nothing but Joe’s clothes and clean scent.
The bed was empty beside me. I’d half expected to wake and find Lucifer standing beside me.
Lucifer.
My dreams came flooding back, the memories bringing every unwanted emotion with them. His lips pressed lovingly against my eyelids, his breath on my forehead, the way he lifted my hands and kissed the belt marks until the red and purple color melted away.
Relief hit when I saw smooth skin where the belt should’ve left its signature. It curdled just as fast. The literal Devil had kissed bruises away; the man in my bed had put them there. That contrast rang like a fire alarm I couldn’t shut off.
And then…
You have forty-eight hours to deliver the last soul, seeing as you’re incapable of delivering the vengeance you begged for in death. Then we can be done with one another.
Forty-eight hours.
Done with one another.
The first part sat heavy; the second slipped like my favorite knife between my ribs. I didn’t have a name for that feeling, only that it made the room feel smaller.
“I know,” came a hushed voice through the cracked bedroom door.
Joe.
Another murmur answered, too soft to catch. The bells that started when I looked at my wrists intensified.
“No, the timing isn’t right. We still have product in holding and I’ve only just sealed the deal on the next.”
The next? What the fuck?
I scrambled out of bed, heart in my throat as I searched for my shit. My clothes were nowhere in sight, so I grabbed the T-shirt Joe lended me the night before and threw it on hastily, followed by the sweats.
“Shit,” I hissed under my breath. “How in the seven hells am I supposed to get out of here?” The master bedroom was right off the kitchen, and I’d bet the next coming of Jesus that he was right between me and the garage door.
I was feeling more than a little panicked as I looked around for an escape and—
“Bingo.” I whisper shouted when I realized the whole side wall was a giant set of French doors.
A low murmur floated through the cracked door again and stopped me in my tracks.
“Moving now would set me ten steps back,” Joe chastised the person on the other end of the line.
His voice made my hair stand on end. It sounded nothing like the upbeat man I’d spent the night with.
It was flat and detached, and each word sounded as if it were coated in ice.
“I’d like to not make a scene with this contract. ”
I slipped out the door. I didn’t need to hear any more to know I needed to get the fuck home.
It was no easy feat to sneak through suburbia unseen, but I made it work. Rather than walk, I begrudgingly called an Uber and worked extra hard to shut down my mind on the way home.
I didn’t even stop for food on the way. That could be considered Jesus’ thirty-eighth miracle.
The lobby of my apartment building was a ghost town. Odd. Where was the ever-present sound of murder? Though sunlight didn’t hurt the undead, against popular opinion, it didn’t mean we fucking liked it. It was miserably hot, attracted bugs, made me sweat, and caused way too much joy.
Fuck. The. Sun.
When I got to the top of the steps, dread froze my feet. It had been a while since I left Jesus for so long on his own. You’d think that he preferred it that way, but nope. The little dickhead required king treatment and kings needed to be tended to.
“Okay,” I sighed under my breath. “Time to face the music.” The old brass door knob creaked as I twisted it. If cringes were audible, mine would creaked louder. “Jesus?”
I was met with total darkness in the entryway and cringed again because I never turned the lights off.
Ever.
Which meant that Jesus…
“Our Father,” I called out. “Who art in Hell. Hallowed be thy feline name.” Maybe praying to the demon cat would appease his highness?
The floor groaned beneath my feet and I wanted to die. It was like a fucking beacon to my location.
“Thy kingdom come, thy murderous will be done.”
Only a foreboding silence answered.
“We can talk about this, Jesus. God was New Testament when he made you, remember? All forgiving?”
The door front clicked shut, sealing me inside with Lucifer’s most deadly creature.
A few quick steps later and I was flicking on the living room lamp. There, glaring from my thrifted arm chair, was Jesus. The yellow lamp light shown down on his fur in an eerie display, casting shadows onto the floor that made him look bigger than he already was.
The only warning I got was a small flick of his tail before the monster pounced.
“Ahh!” I threw my arms up, shielding my face in a pathetic attempt to save it from the incoming assault. Eighteen razor sharp claws latched onto my front, drawing a shriek from my throat as nearly forty pounds of hell hung from my skin. “Jesus Lucifer Fucking Christ, let go of me!”
The cat answered with his own evil growls and hisses, releasing one set of claws to smack me in quick succession on the head.
I fumbled backward, unable to control the lower half of my body as the top fought for its fucking life. Ultimately, that was the cause of my epic downfall.
Literally.
The back of my knees hit the coffee table and down I went, crashing into the refurbished wood with full force. It had the audacity to break on just one side and sent my body rolling off to the side in an explosion of splinters.
Jesus yowled, sentencing me to one last violent round of skibbity-paps before scattering off toward the bedroom.
“Ughhh, you fucker,” I groaned, half considering staying on the floor until Lucifer came knocking to drag me back to hell.
As soon as his name crossed my mind, I shut it down.
“Nope. Not today, Jehovah.” Wood stabbed my palms as I pushed up to stand. “Note to self: burn the fucking sage later. Satan be gone!” My arms flailed around like I could actually banish him with my voodoo dance. Hopefully no one saw it through the windows.
No matter how hard I tried to banish him from my mind, though, his words still floated through my thoughts like bacteria infested waters.
“…seeing as you’re incapable of delivering the vengeance you begged for in death…”
My lip curled because–
He was right.
I’d killed men for sport, convinced myself it was practice and then took pleasure in perfecting my methods to draw out their pain. I’d lived under the lie that I was waiting to be the perfect machine with a perfect plan, but it was all an illusion, and under it, I was stalling.
Not because I couldn’t find him, or because I wasn’t strong enough to pull the trigger. It was because the moment I ended Callen, the unknown started. My debt would be paid, and Lucifer….
“We can finally be done with one another.”
Lucifer would be gone, and the girl I used to be would have to walk through that door alone.
And that’s what I was truly afraid of. Not of Lucifer or what eternal punishment he would dole out, but fear of the after–of being alone with whatever’s left.
But, I’d rather open that door than keep pacing in front of it for eternity.
I told the quiet, and meant it: I choose me. I wasn’t waiting to be perfect anymore. I was done rehearsing.
I went to work dragging forty years of stalking out of the coat closet—photos, newspaper clippings, receipts, literal trash—seven evidence boxes, all but one full. I laid them across the living room from oldest to newest and stood with my hands on my hips.
Shame mixed with the burning hatred as I read the dates on the sides.
1990.
1993.
1998.
2001.
2004.
2007.
20–
“Fifteen years.” I whispered. “It’s been fifteen years since I last saw you, you piece of shit.”
I liked to believe I’d grown an unhinged killer’s skin since my rebirth, that fear died with me. Looking at the dust on those boxes, I understood that I’d been lying to myself all along.
I was afraid to face the memories living there. I was scared to confront the man who haunted them. But most of all, I was terrified to face what happened after, for fear of what I may lose.
Fine. If ‘after’ was the price, I’d pay in full.