Otis owned an antique shop. And in this part of the city, he must have been making some good money to be able to afford a storefront property.
The afternoon streets were bustling, but when I walked into the store, I was greeted with silence and the scent of old wood and cured leather. Filled to the ceiling, Otis must have been quite the collector. Rows upon rows of china and crystal and knickknacks lined the inner aisles, while the perimeter of the store held the larger treasures like clocks and tables and armoires. In the corner, a glass case displayed swords from times past and showcased daggers that resembled the one in my pocket right now. Upon further inspection, I realized the knives were not as magical as my own and breathed a sigh of relief. If Otis had a protector watching over him, I didn’t need a demon killing dagger to be sitting on these shelves somewhere.
“Hello?” a hoarse voice called out. “I’m in the back if you need any help.”
Following the sounds of my mark, I brushed my hand along an old piano as I turned the corner. A layer of dust covered my finger tip and I smiled at the poor soul who had to clean this place. A dim light illuminated the area where Mr. Redmond was fixated on an old clock. Wearing several types of glasses, the man hunched over his treasure and worked at removing the back. As I stepped closer, he ignored me until he finally spoke.
Without making eye contact, he said, “Go away.”
“Excuse me?”
Still not looking, he continued. “I’m not ready yet. I have to finish fixing this clock.”
Crossing my arms, I let out a huff. “It doesn’t work that way, Otis. You’ve been stalling.”
A hint of a smile crossed the old man’s dark skin as he peered up at me over top of the thick reading glasses. “It’s not my time yet.”
I dug into my pocket and slammed Mammon’s orders on top of his desk. He flinched but continued working. “According to your contract it is.” I stood straight and took in the bookshelves on both sides. Old tomes with real leather bindings caught my attention and I pulled a few of them out while Otis did his best to ignore my presence. “Dante’s Inferno,” I said. “He almost had it right.”
Otis huffed a laugh and picked up another tool. “Well, I’m not going to find out yet.” He sounded so sure of himself—so confident and arrogant that it had me wondering why I’d been sent to collect his soul.
“What did you do, Otis? What did you promise your soul for?”
He set down the clock and lifted the glasses to the top of his head. “I made a mistake.”
“No take backs on soul selling, Otis,” I said in a sing-song voice. “But you knew that.”
“I did,” he admitted. “But I’ve changed since then.”
“No one changes.”
“Oh, but they do,” he breathed, a small smile gracing his face.
I didn’t like his tone…as though he knew some grand secret I wasn’t a part of. “Otis, you don’t have to make this hard.” I walked closer to his counter and set both of my hands on each side of the clock. Leaning forward, I used my sweetest voice. “I can give you a painless death.”
“I told you,” he grumbled. “It’s not my time yet.”
“Says who?”
Otis looked over my shoulder and smiled. “Says him.”
Whipping around, I stood tall as I narrowed my eyes on the man waiting behind us. Easily a foot taller than me, his dark brown hair hung freely to his chin and his bright green eyes looked directly through me. Built and muscular, I was surprised to see him wearing jeans and a jacket that covered up his skin. It had been my experience that members of his breed didn’t like modesty.
“Angel,” I breathed.
“Demon,” he nodded with a smirk. The deep timbre of his voice echoed in the small space.
“Told you,” Otis laughed.
Looking back over my shoulder at the old man, I shook my head. “He can’t protect you forever,” I jeered.
With a defiant shrug, Otis continued working on his clock like there wasn’t an angel and a demon facing off in front of him.
“You should leave,” the angel said.
“Fuck off.”
He chuckled and stepped closer to me. “I’d heard you were feisty.” His tone, and the way his eyes traveled up and down my body, made me temporarily forget that we were sworn enemies.
“Otis belongs to us. He signed a contract sixty years ago.”
The angel leaned to the side and spoke to the old man directly. “What did you do?”
Otis finally put down his tools and addressed the angel as though I wasn’t standing between them. “I shot a cop,” he sighed. “I was young and stupid and my lawyer told me that I could avoid a life sentence if…” his voice trailed off and shook with memory.
“If you gave your soul to Hell?” the angel suggested.
Otis nodded.
I looked at the man and crossed my arms. “This is how it works. You know the drill…what’s your name?”
With a smirk, the angel said, “Jericho.”
“Well, Jericho, it’s a story as old as time. A human fucks up. They make a deal with the Devil. And then I come collecting when their time has run out. It’s as simple as that.”
Jericho pressed his lips together. “Except I can’t let you take this one.”
I pulled the contract off the desk and held out my hand toward Jericho. At the same time, I let my other hand drift toward my back pocket where I’d stashed the dagger. “I have his contract.”
“I don’t care.”
Tired of the arrogant aura surrounding the stupid, sexy angel, I stalked toward him. Pressing a hand against his very hard chest, I looked up and licked my lips. “He’s mine,” I breathed, digging my feet into the ground in preparation. “So, I suggest you stay out of my way.”
“I’m not going to—”
Just as Jericho prepared to argue with me, I grabbed the dagger from my back pocket with the intention of stabbing him in gut. It wouldn’t have killed him…just warned him to stay away. But Jericho sensed my actions before the knife hit him and a blinding pulse of light exploded from his body. The force of the attack sent me flying backward, and as I covered my eyes from the blast, I landed on my ass and slid into the counter. My dagger fell to the ground, the metal scraping on the old wood floors like laughter. I spotted the weapon a few feet away. But when I reached forward for it, Jericho held out his hand and the knife flew up into his palm.
“What the hell?” I groaned, pushing to my feet to stare the angel in the face.
A set of monstrous, white wings now protruded from his back, shielding me from the light that seemed to emit from every part of his body. Jericho flipped the knife around in his hand and cocked his head. “I told you to leave,” he growled a second before he threw the dagger at me.
Without thinking, I blinked out of existence and reappeared behind the angel just as the knife slammed into the counter. With both hands, I grabbed a hold of Jericho’s wings near where they protruded from his back, and pushed my feet into the ground. With a banshee cry, I swung the angel around and tossed him into the closest wall. Glass shattered, Otis cried out, and several shelves fell to the ground on top of Jericho. Another burst of bright light allowed the angel to push the debris away from him as he stood and glared at me.
“That was unnecessary,” he grumbled, still brushing dust and glass off his clothes. Shaking his wings, a few feathers drifted to the ground while he continued to glare.
“You threw a knife at me,” I said. Bending forward slightly, I prepared for another attack.
“You tried to stab me first.”
I shrugged. “You’re interfering with the legal collection of a soul.”
Jericho smirked again. “This is out of your hands, Soul Snatcher.”
Across the room, I watched Otis watching us. For a man so close to death, he seemed rather content. His focus was mostly on Jericho…and his wings. I rolled my eyes. “Are you ready, Otis?” I asked without turning my gaze away from the angel.
“No.”
“I told you, you can’t have him,” Jericho said again.
“Really?” I blinked myself behind Otis and grabbed the old man’s throat. “Come on, Otis. Let’s go.”
As the life started to leave my mark, I felt his soul coming to the surface. It struggled against his skin, knowing that I was waiting on the other side. With a smile on my face, I continued to squeeze. It was almost in my hands.
“Stop!” Jericho shouted, throwing his arms out in front of him and sending another attack my way.
Using Otis as a shield, I swung myself behind my mark to avoid being hit by the light beams streaming from Jericho’s hands. The old man’s body started to shake and convulse, yet his soul suddenly felt unreachable. Jericho chanted the same few words over and over as the light shot across the room toward us.
My hands burned. My skin stretched against the heat. And I screamed up into the air as I tried to fight against him. Otis’ soul slipped somewhere deep inside, just out of my reach unless I went in there myself. “What are you doing?” I yelled at the angel.
He continued his incantation, eyes closed and lips moving faster and faster.
The inside of my chest exploded in a fog of pain. I dropped Otis and fell against the counter for support. I’d never faced off with an angel before, but I knew Jericho was doing something that could cause me serious harm. I tried to blink out of his reach, but it was futile. I tried to scream, yet my lips were stuck in a howl of agony where no noise could escape. I felt my body disappearing from the inside out and there was nothing I could do about it.
I thought about my sister and Mammon and how disappointed they would be when they heard how I’d met my end—a fucking angel. Ashby would laugh. Mammon would bring me back from the dead just to kill me all over again. And I’d forever be known as the spawn of an archdemon who couldn’t hold her own.
“No!” I shouted, trying to stand. Jericho spoke louder as Otis slumped to the floor. “You son of a—”
And then it stopped.
In an instant, I found myself on the ground outside the antique shop with no more pain blasting through my body. On my knees, I looked up at the passing crowd who didn’t even seem to notice that I’d just appeared. Turning my head to see inside, a dull, white light glowed from the back of the shop. Was Jericho healing Otis?
“I don’t think so,” I grumbled to myself. Pushing up on my feet, I stumbled to the front door and grabbed the handle…only to have it burn my skin as I tried to get inside. “What the…?” Yanking my hand away, I looked down to see the mark of the cross singed on my palm.
That sonofabitch magically cock-blocked me.
“Jericho!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. The angel didn’t answer, of course. And a few seconds later, the light disappeared from the inside. I tried the handle with my other hand, only to get burned again. I tried to blink inside, but I couldn’t pass through the barrier Jericho had created.
There was no way for me to collect this soul.
“You’re fucking mine,” I growled, looking up into the sky. A man and a woman walked past me, eyeing up my strange behavior. But when I glared back, they quickly ran away. I knew my eyes were glowing red because I was furious and in pain.
Had Mammon known? Had this been a set up?
“No,” I said to myself. “No, she wouldn’t do that.”
But something was going on and I was too pissed right now to confront my sire. So, I thought about where I could go to cool off for a while. Only one place came to mind, and the second I visualized the interior of the apartment, I disappeared from the street.