Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dommiel
No idea how long I’d been out. Simian was devoted to his attentions. So much so that I couldn’t stand the pain enough to stay conscious. Right now, I couldn’t feel a fucking thing, my skin desensitized to the whip’s sting and the ripping of flesh. Even where the spikes had entered my body, there was only a dull throbbing numbness. If I were to be honest with myself, it was my heart that hurt the most. The pure, raw terror of Bellock finding Anya and dragging her back here was the only emotion I felt at all.
“What kind of bounty hunter are you? How long does it take to find one little bitch?”
Simian had stripped himself of his shirt, sweating like a damn pig, bloody whip in hand, while he screamed at Bellock, who didn’t appear to care for his tone.
“Oh, Simian,” crooned Rook, lounging on the sofa with a goblet in his hand. “Shut the fuck up.”
I couldn’t agree more.
Simian snapped the whip in the air, barely missing Bellock’s stonelike face. The angel hunter didn’t move a muscle. So like him. I wished he were dead. Fuck, I wished I were dead. If what he said was true, I’d be free of this “mortal coil” as ole Will would say. My spirit cavorting happily in the House of Souls in Elysium. Without intending to do so, I’d managed to redeem myself in the eyes of the heavens. And here I was, chained in hell and trapped for eternity. The irony. Even worse, I actually wanted to live now. Finally having something to live for. Someone.
Anya. My beautiful angel. I wished we’d had more time. The aching heartsickness burned in my chest for all the time I’d wasted. For not finding her sooner. Lonely. I was so fucking lonely for so fucking long. And then…her. A damn miracle with a knockout body and a heart of gold. The pain of watching her get dragged down here and put through the torture Simian promised—for I knew he was good on his promises—lit a new fire in my belly. If I was gone from here, he would have no reason to keep hunting her. And there was only one way out.
To die.
Determination settled in my gut. Time to piss off the asshat of all asshats. Easy enough, I should think.
I chuckled, blood clogging my throat and mouth. They’d removed the iron gag so I wouldn’t drown in my own blood.
“And what are you laughing at?” hissed Simian, snapping his attention away from Bellock.
“Ignore him,” warned Rook.
Simian should listen to his brother. But he didn’t. He stalked over and crammed his ugly self up into my space, grinning like the fiend he was.
“Don’t get too close.” Rook watched from his perch on the sofa, unmoving.
“Nothing to fear here. Just a waste of demon flesh. What are you laughing at, asshole?”
Lightning fast, I hauled back and head-butted him, catching him over his left eye. Black blood spurted.
“Lookin’ at a fucking idiot,” I rasped out hoarsely.
“Told you,” crooned Rook, still reclined and sipping from his goblet.
Simian backhanded me hard.
“You’re such a bitch,” I muttered. “That’s all you’ve got?”
He turned and snapped at one of the priests. “My throwing axes!”
“He’s goading you, you fool.” Rook shook his head. “He’s nearly bled out as it is.”
“A few well-thrown axes won’t kill him.” Simian held out his hand as the priest placed one of the sharpened hatchets into his hand. “You won’t need a dick anymore. Let’s do away with that.”
Sadistic motherfucker.
I couldn’t even watch, closing my eyes and gritting hard. Unfortunately, my demon senses were still in tune. The blade released, whirring end over end, grazing the flesh of my hip with a sharp sting, but nothing near as painful as the lashes.
“You need practice,” observed Rook, yawning.
“Perhaps you’re right. We should bring some of those English slaves down here and show them what real pain looks like.”
I sickened at his nonchalant reference to the humans they were enslaving on earth. Though I wasn’t long for this world, I still hoped Xander and Cooper found a way to stop the maddening torture of innocents. I laughed inwardly. I was a soft teddy bear now. All due to Anya’s influence, I suppose. She made me want to be better. She made me…hope.
I’d never see her again, unless it was because she was chained and in the control of these two assholes. No. Fucking. Way.
I glanced down at where the cleaver had grazed my hip, now trailing dark red blood down my leg. Then I laughed at Simian.
“You throw like a fucking girl.”
“Simian,” warned Rook.
But Simian was an explosive hothead—who happened to enjoy inflicting pain and torture. Perfect combination for a demon like me who wanted to die.
Simian snatched another cleaver, aimed a split second, and let fly. Focusing all my senses on the blade, I shifted my leg and body to the right at the perfect moment. The hatchet embedded mid-thigh. The blade was as razor-sharp as I’d expected, slicing through flesh to the femoral artery.
Blood, viscous and hot, sprayed and poured from my leg.
Yes.
“Now look what you’ve done,” said Rook. “You’ve broken your toy.”
Simian stared as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. There was no saving me now.
Chuckling darkly, I shook my head. “Too easy.”
“No!” screamed Simian. Like a petulant child. “You can’t die! I’m not done with you yet!”
“Fucking prick,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and glorying in the sweet bliss of my life force ebbing away.
Finally. I would have peace. I wanted Anya more, but if I couldn’t have her, I’d settle for the House of Souls. Anything to get out of here and possibly keep her safe from these two.
“No!”
While Simian cried out his obvious displeasure at being tricked, I let my mind wander to her. My true heaven. Such a sensitive soul, she wrapped me around her finger with nothing but kindness and her belief in a better world. I was so jaded, I couldn’t accept that such a place existed. But then, she lit my world from the inside out, spread her flame into the darkness of my heart, and chased away the shadows.
“Anya,” I murmured, the cold sweeping over me. The prince’s cries drifted farther away as my body felt light. I focused on pulling away and leaving my shell, trying to sever that last thread of my life force.
“Anya,” I whispered again, wanting her name to be the last word that left my lips as I crossed over into paradise, hoping I’d one day see her again. Yes. Hoping. It’s true what they say, I suppose. No soul is too damned to be saved. And no heart too black to beat again. For mine pounded like a drum with the vision of her floating before me.
Like a mirage, white light glowed from the cavern entrance. I must be hallucinating, like they say you do on the verge of death, because the vision I saw next was impossible. The throaty caw of Puck echoed in the chamber. The memory of my poor bird had come to say goodbye. How good of him. Damned bird.
Anya, daggers in both hands and fully armored, stalked with long strides up the corridor, her blue wings half open. Flanking either side of her was Xander and George—mirror images of avenging golden-haired hunters. The source of the ethereal light was Uriel himself, glowing with power like a phosphorescent butterfly. A butterfly who looked really pissed off and wanted to fuck shit up. Striding next to him—all of this in seemingly slow motion, whirring in my head to the tune of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song”—was Axel, wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt and wielding a Glock, alongside Woflrick and Gustav, both of whom carried the barbaric battle axes of their Visigoth days. Finally, bringing up the rear was the demon hunter Jude next to my brother, Maximus. Now I knew I was hallucinating. Neither of them would ever come to save my ass. This was the most surreal but most satisfying mirage to send me off to the afterlife I could possibly imagine.
Bodies started flying, moving with extraordinary speed, which only seemed to make things move slower in my vision. No. Not my vision. I was sluggish, barely comprehending the fact that this wasn’t some dreamed-up mirage of my dying, fevered brain. This was real.
Red priests launched in all directions, attacking three at a time. Xander fought Simian, holding his own as he sliced with the Bowie knife I’d traded him once for a carton of brimstone. He used the jagged edge to slice at his neck. Simian screeched like a girl. Such a wuss.
Axel, Wolfrick, and Gustav fought in a circle. Axel yelled a nonstop stream of vulgar curses in German while blasting the heads off the priests. His partners whirled at his side, slicing limbs off anything that got close enough. Wolfrick laughed maniacally as black blood sprayed in multiple arcs with each hack of his battle-ax. It was beautiful.
Anya battled two priests at once, fending them off and cutting them to ribbons with preternatural speed. She impaled one in the chest, whispering an incantation, for I could see her lips moving from here. The priest cried out, exploding into cinders mid-scream. Damn, I was so in love with her. I wanted to marry her in a little white chapel with flowers and a white dress and find a fucking house with a little picket fence. God. What she did to me.
Then there was Jude, hacking at the fallen Bellock with the biggest goddamn sword I’d ever seen. Must’ve stolen it from Conan the Barbarian, for I’d not seen the like since I’d engaged in battle against a Highland clan in the middle ages, the clan kings swinging claymores and crushing their enemy’s skulls with one blow. Jude was doing the same to Bellock, not casting him out and ridding this place of his soul, but crushing his bones with blow after blow of the behemoth blade.
I think I was in love with him, too. Surely, I was slipping into madness. Some feverish dream. This couldn’t be happening.
Jude stood over his gory mess, his sword embedded in the angel hunter’s chest, and whispered an incantation. The air and sound seemed to suck out of the room, slowing everyone’s movements as a creature emerged from the cavern wall. This was the Black Keep. No one could move through walls except one creature. A Soul Collector. One of the five of the underworld, who roamed and feasted on souls. They enjoyed the taste of the damned more than any other.
Draped in a Grim Reaper–style cloak, which lifted in an invisible wind, the Collector called Acheron tilted his giant skeletal head of black bone that was too long and too angular to mimic anything from heaven or hell or earth. It was other. And that was all. His liquid-red eyes set deep in his skull swept the room, everyone frozen at his entrance, then he found Jude.
“Acherontis pabulum.” Jude gestured to the mess of meat on the floor, pulling his blade loose with a slick zing.
Food for Acheron. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard that Jude had summoned a Collector to feed him a demonic creature. Whispers of it had actually kept me from venturing too far outside the lines when I ruled New Orleans. No one wanted to spend eternity in the bowels of a soul eater.
With black-boned skeletal fingers, the creature swept to the floor and began inhaling his meal—flesh, bones, blood, and all. Jude lifted and pointed his claymore at Simian.
“You’re next.”
Rook hissed and grabbed his brother, flashing in super speed up the cavern entrance. The red priests that were left followed in their wake in streaks of black.
Anya ran to me, and smiled. Falteringly. Something light and beautiful was pulling on my chest. It didn’t hurt at all. Actually, it felt rather nice. Kind of like a child must feel when his mother lifts him into her arms. But it wasn’t my body being lifted. It was my soul, trying to tug right outside of me.
“No.”
She was crying again. I didn’t want to see her cry anymore. She trembled, tried to pry my arms and body loose from the spikes I’d been impaled upon. My brother was there, helping her. But the tug on my spirit was greater than them pulling my body free. A soothing balm whispered such serenity to me that nothing mattered anymore. Not blood or death or sin or regret or all the wrongs I’d committed in my too-long life. Only peace. Unending peace.
“Don’t you dare leave me, Dommiel.” My angel’s voice pierced through me, jerking me back. “Not now. Please, Dommiel.”
I snapped my eyes open, finding myself on the floor, my head in her lap. I didn’t remember that happening. I tried to lift my right arm, but the muscles and tendons wouldn’t obey, so I satisfied myself by just looking at her.
“I love it when you say please,” I managed to mumble.
She burst into sobs again. I frowned.
“I hate it when you cry, baby.”
The pain was sweeping me under again, but then my brother—my own brother whose rejection hurt the hardest—knelt beside me and put his hand on my chest.
“No, brother.” His fierce expression broke with a sad sort of smile, one that looked almost apologetic. “Today isn’t your day.”
Then he began to whisper the old words to recapture someone’s spirit trying to break free. Another ten seconds, and it would’ve been too late. There was a fleeting blink of time where I yearned to keep moving ahead, but then my gaze shifted to Anya.
“Beautiful Anya.”
She lifted my hand—bloody and soiled—and pressed it to her cheek.
“Yes, Dommiel. I’m here. I won’t ever leave you.” She planted a kiss on my palm. “And you won’t ever leave me, either.”
My mouth ticked up, the best I could do for a smile as Maximus’s spell was making it hard to breathe, much less speak. But there was something I’d needed to tell her. In all the time I’d been here, I regretted having never confessed that day I left her in Estonia.
“I love you,” was all I could manage.
More tears. That wasn’t supposed to make her cry. Fuck, I was doing this all wrong.
She leaned her head closer. “You told me love doesn’t exist.”
I blinked heavy lids. “I’m a liar, you know.”
Then she laughed. “I love you, my demon. With all my heavenly heart.”
And it was beautiful and miraculous and the most glorious feeling I’d ever known. That all-consuming peace was gone, but in its place was something brighter, more powerful, so crushing in its euphoria that I gasped as I stared up into the violet-blue eyes of my heaven.
Redemption was wonderful. But love? Well, hell. That was everything.