Chapter 20
There were too many people surrounding me for a memory wipe. I had only just managed to tuck my wings into the Ether before I had landed, and for that I was lucky.
I had no idea how much London had truly changed in the five years that I had been in the Ice Prison. Somehow, I was willing to bet that humans weren’t privy to the knowledge that London sat at one of the entrances to Purgatory.
Sirens blared and alerted me to the fact that emergency vehicles that were on their way. I looked down and saw that my rips had broken through the skin; the yellowish bones poked through the black fabric of my tank top. There was a circle of humans that had gathered around the crushed vehicle in the middle of the prevalent shopping district. It was November, so the Christmas lights had drawn even more of a crowd; the pavement was a sea of slow-moving sheep-like people.
“She fell from the sky.”
“I saw wings.”
“It was so lucky that the taxi was empty.”
If I Laced away, then it would dredge up questions like the murky bottom of the Jade Lake. I faked a wince, even though I had the pain under control; then, a howl as I clasped my ribs. I laid back on the dented roof of the black cab and stared at the sky. Fairy lights flashed in sequence above me, bathing Oxford Street in colour.
Red. Green. Yellow. Blue.
I used the time that it took for the paramedics to put me on a stretcher and load me into an ambulance to sort through my numerous spinning plates of dilemmas.
Ba’el had my daughter.
Ba’el was controlling the King of Envy.
Ba’el had Abaddon.
Lucifer did not know.
Worst of all. Ba’el had the sceptre, which meant that I couldn’t go back to Hell. I couldn’t warn Lucifer and there wasn’t a thing that I could do to bring my little girl home.
The vehicle jostled from side to side, as the paramedics asked mundane questions that I was not inclined to answer.
If I was a better person, I would have buried my head in my hands and sobbed at the cluster fuck of a situation. Instead, I crashed the ambulance.
I ripped his hands from the wheel, reaching inside of the pliable mash of the ambulance driver’s mind. I winced when the airbag dispatched, still half inside of the human’s mind.
The paramedics were thrown during the impact, but they were safe. I unlatched the straps that had held me onto the plastic yellow board. I pushed each of my ribs back into my body. The process was more painful than it should have been as my body had attempted to heal around them and each of the bones was covered with a thin layer of skin.
The difference between influencing humans and demons was vast like punching through paper VS steel. My magic flexed and purred like a well-fed cat as I wove myself inside the human's memories and removed myself from their minds.
When I pushed open the back doors of the ambulance, the harsh and low winter sunlight burned brightly and I raised an arm to shield my face. We hadn’t crashed, or so much as rolled to a stop down an abandoned one-way street on the way to the Princess Grace Hospital. My human form was hard to control as I pulled myself towards the front of a boarded-up shop window and propped myself against the graffiti on the rafters.
My chest heaved as I sucked the Sin from the air around me into my lungs and I allowed it to spread through my cells like a soothing balm. The residual wrath that I had sucked into my own body churned and dissolved into the air as golden steam that came from my lips like cigarette smoke. I Laced to my home once I had collected myself, pulling at my clothing frantically as I searched for some sense of normality.
Pencil dress, Louboutin’s…
Don’t think about the fact that the one artefact that gave you access to your lover has been snatched from your fingers.
Don’t think about what Ba’el could be doing to your child at this second.
I retched as my situation slammed even deeper into my frontal lobe.
“Dahlia?” Luiz called from inside of my apartment. His voice broke whatever dam I had erected around my emotions. My knees buckled and I fell to the floor, dragging a black Yves Saint Laurent dress down to the floor with me. My fingers bunched into the material as if it was a life raft. I began to sob huge, unattractive and tearless sobs that travelled through my whole body as I curled into the thick plush carpet.
Luiz was stood in the doorway; his shadow cast over me. I had to tell him. He loved Petra as much as I did. He had been her caregiver, her rock and for all intents and purposes, he had been her father. His face was white as he looked down at me. His eyes widened and he made a sound at the back of his throat that I could only describe as the audible noise of a heart, shattering in two.
His steps faltered as he opened his arms and wrapped them around me. We held each other.
“Ba’el has her, Luiz. You must warn Lucifer, right now. Wrath has imprisoned the Leviathan King and he has my fucking baby!” I howled and buried my hands in my hand.
Luiz Ramirez pushed himself away and disappeared in a blink without argument.
The Connaught Bar in Mayfair had moonshine, also known as ‘The Temporary Solution to a Fucked-Up Situation.’
The upscale hotel and drinking establishment had been one of my favourites for years, but as I found myself surrounded by the opulence and corruption of London's richest, all I felt was empty instead of well-fed.
My phone vibrated in my pocket.
This message is a test. Sincerely, Uriah.
I snorted and placed the iPhone on the sleek mahogany of the bar. I raised my fingers to order another shot of moonshine. The heady buzz wore off quickly due to my demonic metabolism, so I had to ensure that the drinks came with consistent timing.
Sounds kinky. I replied.
Did you find Petra?
Don’t want to fucking talk about it. I slammed my shot glass onto the bar and wiped the corner of my mouth with my napkin. If you wanted to help, then you'd kill Ba'el for me.
The reply took longer than usual but I could almost hear his haughty derision in the glowing words on my smartphone.
I never said I wanted to help you.
“Well 'fuck you too’,” I raised my glass and swallowed the burning liquid. Smacking my lips together, I spun on my barstool and eyed the male offerings in the immediate vicinity. I did not wish to fuck, but the darkness inside wanted to bleed someone. I wanted to pull out someone's secrets like teeth and dangle them in front of their eyes as their life left their eyes. Lucifer and I had never spoken about bedding others, although we had welcomed many others into our bedroom, together, over the years.
I fucked without emotion during the two hundred years we had spent apart previously. I had never asked if Lucifer had bedded anyone else because I did not want to know.
“Your mouth is positively filthy for someone that lives in high society.” Uriah said. I felt his hand on my shoulder, with scar tissue on the knuckles in familiar whorls of Enochian.
I tipped my head in a nod. “Uriah—Oh wait. I don’t know your surname, do I?”
Uriah took a barstool by my side and ordered an espresso martini. “Indignant today, aren’t we?”
“Who’s this 'we'?” I snorted, as I downed another shot to ensure that my buzz was continuous. “I have every right to be pissed. Both literally and figuratively.”
“Burying your head in the sand?” He said with a nod.
I placed my head on the bar, using my long honey coloured hair as a shield. “I feel so fucking useless.”
“Because you couldn’t protect Petra?”
“Petra deserves better than dysfunctional parents and enemies that would see her dead.” I gripped his hand on the bar and felt his bones crunch under the strain. My expression was hollow as I stared at the Angel. “He could be doing anything to my child right now.” My voice was hoarse. “And I am not strong enough to do a fucking thing about it.”
“Then get stronger.” Uriah replied without sympathy.
I stood up so quickly that my barstool screeched against the floor. “Fuck you.” I snarled. Cursing was so uncouth and I could have made the threat with such flowery language that he would have walked away and figured out the insult a day later but my situation was too raw.
“Did you want sympathy?” Uriah quirked his brow. “Do you want to return to the arms of your Devil? Tell me, Dahlia. What is that you want?”
I stepped back; my lips curled and hatred rolled off me in waves. “Why are you here, Uriah?”
“The Lord of the Summerland has summoned you once more.”
“I am not good company right now.” I hissed.
Uriah traced the rim of his martini glass with his pinkie finger. “Would you prefer to drink yourself into delirium?”
“It goes without saying,” I replied tightly. I turned on my heel and walked towards the door. I palmed my phone and dialled for my driver to alert him that I would be out momentarily. That would give me enough time to buy a large bottle of vodka from the off-license on the corner.
The booze served a dual purpose. Maybe I could tolerate helium boobs aka God, if I was blasted. The more I drank the more my problems seemed easier to deal with.
It would have been cheaper if I had severed my connection to Hell, whilst drinking, but I had no desire to ever do that again.
Bleeding out of a burning hole in your chest, and not healing, had removed my desire to be human ever again.
I stormed to the edge of the street, and into the orange glow of a street lamp. I did not need to turn around to know that Uriah had followed me.
“I have no way to get back to Hell.” I squinted at the sky as it began to rain. “Hell Magic courses through my veins and yet I can’t even travel to my home. My daughter has Lucifer, who will do everything in his power to ensure that she is returned safely. What use am I?”
Uriah said nothing, but watched my tirade without emotion.
“Lucifer sacrificed his divinity to create me, but why?”
“Do you think he loves you?” Uriah cleared his throat, the words seemed to catch on their way out.
“Yes.” In his own way.
“I admire you. Sometimes.” The Angel admitted begrudgingly. “But the woman that I admire is not one to sit in a bar and drown her sorrows instead of taking action.”
I flung my arms into the air, exasperated. “Why can I do?”
“I’ll show you a more constructive outlet for your darkness.” Uriah nodded to himself. “And then we send you back to Hell.”
A beautiful black woman in white lingerie and a pair of platinum shoes stood in the hallway to Beavers Bar smoking a cigarette, and fluffing her long ebony curls with her free hand. Her red lips pouted and she blew us both a kiss as we walked into the strip club.
The dry air of Seventh Circle magic lingered in the darkness, broken up by large round tables with poles in the centre. The stage in the corner was empty, and the curtains were drawn. The music rolled like creeping fingers and smoke hung even though cigarettes were banned inside of the bar.
It was early evening, so there were only two women undulating on the poles instead of the full capacity of five. I walked up to the bar, which was sticky, and tapped against the scratched wood until someone came to take my order.
Out of the two strippers, one was a Succubus, drinking in the lust of her patrons. Sucking it from the air around her. I saw her eyes glow pale ice blue when a hand brushed the waistband of her thong, sticking a five-pound note into her undergarments.
Uriah picked up the cocktail menu and perused it with a critical eye.
“Alabama Slammer or Sex on the Beach?” He asked with a wry smile. “I don’t understand how you can drink alcohol on its own, the way you do.”
“Try a Mojito.” I suggested. “Mint and Vodka. You can’t go wrong.”
We stood by the bar and soaked in the atmosphere. More patrons came. An incubus sat in the corner, but kept to himself. The podiums soon filled with the seductive female forms of the exotic dancers.
“I wouldn’t have guessed that this as your scene.” I sipped my own Mojito as Uriah's golden eyes surveyed our surroundings.
“Shame and Sadness linger here.”
I shrugged. “I’m enjoying the Treachery myself.” I popped my little finger into my cocktail and then sucked the moisture from it. I pointed out several of the men in the bar. “Cheater. Cheater. About to get married, paid for a private show and a blowjob. All the adultery. Yum.”
Uriah's lip curled and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You can embrace your Angelic magic or you can ignore it. Negative emotions can be extracted and changed into something worthwhile.” His eyes flickered to the blonde on the nearest podium wearing a sea green sheer bra.
“That one has money worries. She can’t go back to her husband because he’ll probably kill her. I would say that’s a fair assumption looking at her memories.”
“And?”
“She feels shame for earning her money. She’s feeding, clothing and protecting her child and yet she feels shame in her job.” Uriah shook his head, disgusted. He held out his fingers and I noticed that the tips sparked with static electricity. “I will take her shame and turn it into pride in herself.”
“But not enough to earn a place in my circle?” I joked.
“Does helping people make you uncomfortable?” Uriah's eyes bore into me and I had the feeling he could see directly into my battered and dirty soul. I double-checked my mental shields just in case.
“Allowing people to feel comfortable and happy is why I exist.” Uriah said. “Why wallow in the filth when you can raise people out of it?”
I tucked my hair behind my ear, unable to hold eye contact with the Angel. “I’m a Demon. You may hold all humans to a high standard, but taking the anger from a wife beater won’t change the fact that he made a choice to act on that anger. I am here to punish those that deserve it.”
“And you don’t gain pleasure or power from their darkness?”
My lips pinched as I thought of a way to describe the connection to Hell. “I can only feed on Sin that has been woven into the fabric of Hell. I pull my magic from Hell and from the leaks all over the world, where the barrier between Hell and Here is thinnest.” I took a sip of my drink. “And in turn, the dimension itself feeds from the Sin of the Human Realities. Parasitic. Embryotic.”
We reached a conversational stalemate and I was suddenly conscious that we were stood incredibly close to one another. To an outsider, one would have thought that we were a couple.
Uriah pointed to the blonde woman. “She will go home tonight with enough money to pay her rent and she won’t cry herself to sleep.”
“You wear pride well.” My voice was delicate as I reached out for his hand. I rubbed my thumb against his downturned palm. The all-consuming burn of his skin raged like a forest fire through my body. I was mush. I ripped my hand from his and turned away.
My mouth popped open as he gripped my hand again and pulled it to his chest and laid it upon his heart. His touch sent a bolt of shock through my body, pulling at every synapse.
“Close your eyes.” He commanded. “Feel the swell of the emotion. Pinpoint the Sadness. Shame. Or Confusion. Pull it towards you.”
I did not allow disappointment to colour my facial expression. I had misread his touch. I disgusted him, as Uriah had said before.
I did as I was told and closed my eyes. Greeted by the red glow of the inside of my eyelids, and focused on the sounds around us. The deep thump of the base and then the spark of conflicting emotions.
The man in the corner caught my attention, even with my eyes closed, I could taste him. He was an uneasy sea of perfectly balanced sadness and rage. Reaching out with the tendrils of my magic, I skimmed the edge of his thoughts and allowed the flashes of his inner monologue to swallow me whole.
His wife was cheating on him; he had come to the first place that he could think of. His name was James Collins and he worked in IT. He was torn between picking up a woman and fucking her so that he could get even with his wife. Rage consumed him but it was self-directed.
How did I miss this?
My brother?
What a fucking cliché, Sandra.
Despite his anger, which boiled below the surface as the placid and seemingly meek man took a sip of his Strongbow, he was burdened by sadness. He had loved her with a ferocity that surprised me. I had not realised that humans were capable of such depth. My eyes fluttered open and Uriah’s golden orbs greeted me.
“You could take his anger away. Rid him of his self-flagellating thoughts?” Uriah suggested. “Or perhaps take the sting from her adultery and allow him to forgive her?”
“Why should I do anything?” I turned my nose to the air.
“You wish for him to be in pain when you could soothe him?”
“I think that I have realised where Angels and Demons differ. Choice.” My voice was small. “He should choose to forgive her if he wants to.”
“Then we can take his self-pity.” Uriah straightened to his full height and put his hands on my shoulders.
“I suppose I could.” I agreed and closed my eyes. I focused on the same pulling sensation that I had experienced with Ba'el. I was a bobbin and the man's emotions were a ball of yarn that needed to be separated and pulled apart. It was instinctual, much in the way that Demon magic was.
When I surveyed the man in the corner, not much had changed, but the rage in his eyes had changed from an inward sorrow with clenched fists. His thoughts were no longer a monologue of ‘stupid stupid stupid' with the repetitive cadence of a hypothesis CD. Instead, James Collins had a set to his shoulders that said that he wanted to act. He deserved more than a cheating spouse.
I nodded to myself and committed his wife's face to memory. No doubt I would see her in the First Circle being punished if I ever made it home.
A stab of sadness stole the smile that had begun to bloom on my lips. Home.
I turned to Uriah. “Done.”
“Like a professional.” His brow was furrowed, as if he could not decide if that was a good thing or not.
I turned my attention back to the dancers just as the succubus spun on the pole and swung her legs above her shoulders, suspended in the air. Her movements were graceful as she fed on her admirers.
“There is a lot of flesh on display.” I stated slowly. Awkwardly. “Haven’t you ever been tempted?”
“You belong to Lucifer; have you ever been tempted to stray?” Uriah threw my words back at me and crossed his arms over his chest.
“I can fuck whom I like.” I said. “If there is no emotion.”
“How can allowing someone inside of your body be without emotion?”
I was unable to stop the words from tumbling out of my mouth. Maybe it was the twitch of his lips as he held back a bright and beautiful expression, or the way he held himself. Or the manner in which Uriah had touched my hands. All of it sent conflicting messages to my private parts.
I licked my bottom lip. “I could show you?”
I did not wait for his answer as I leant forward, tilting my head up to meet his thick pillow-like lips. His breath tasted like peppermint. I grabbed the back of his head. Desperate in a way that scared me.
By rights, I shouldn’t have been seducing an Angel. I shouldn’t have wanted to. Part of me wanted to test my attraction to the stone wall of a man, the other wanted to fuck him out of my system.
Lucifer's face flitted through my mind and I broke our connection with a gasp.
Uriah turned my barstool to face him before I could open my mouth to speak. His hands were on my thighs, as he tugged at the black material of my dress. The sound became muffled as he shielded us, one hand on the back of my neck and the other trailing to the edge of my underwear.
It was explicit. His fingers were hesitant and inexperienced. I felt the tremble of his nervousness. Our tongues brushed against each other, tentative. Every move was made with heavy precision.
Sleeping with Uriah would not be without emotion. I had lied to him and to myself.
The Angel represented a new chapter in my life. A brightness that I both detested and held closely, even though it burned.
I found myself coaxed from my chair like a snake from a basket, except the snake charmers flute was Uriah's lips.
He stepped closer to me; I felt the brush of his hardness through the material of his trousers on the inside of my thigh. A tingle of pride spread through my chest. He wanted me. It wasn’t as one-sided as I had been led to believe.
His callused fingers dipped into the lace of my knickers and his thumb brushed against my clitoris. By mistake or with precision? I had no clue. Our moans joined with our lips.
“I can only imagine how you would feel on my cock.” Uriah hissed in my ear. “So wet. Hot. Tight.”
A jolt of pleasure caused my eyes to roll back in my head. Uriah liked dirty talk? Oh. Fuck. Yes.
“So take my body.” I trailed my nose against the seam of his jaw. “Make it yours.”
His hands gripped my shoulders. The absence of his fingers from my pussy made me whimper as he pulled me away and held me at arm’s length. “Was it your plan to tempt me?” His eyes were hooded with lust. “Do you thrive on pushing and pushing until you succeed in getting a reaction?”
“Yessssssss,” I hissed.
We folded into the Ether and my knees buckled as they hit the back of a bed. I recognised the silk sheets as my own. Uriah used his grip on my shoulders to throw me onto the bed. I bounced once before I tugged my dress over my shoulders like an Olympic athlete going for gold.
The Angel pulled his shirt over his head, popping the buttons when they strained in his haste. His arousal was on display, tented and tempting. I pushed myself onto my knees and crawled towards him. His bronze muscular chest was a work of art, whorls of scar tissue in Enochian told his life story whether he wanted it to or not. Servitude. Fealty. Loyalty. I did not see the one for love out of runes that were featured. The same rune that was spread over my sternum.
My arousal drained like water in a bathtub.
“I can’t.” I pushed the words from numb and kiss-swollen lips.
Uriah pushed his hand through his hair and took a step back. His facial expression betrayed nothing.
“I agree.” He grunted and picked up his shirt from the floor. Instead of putting it on straight away, he held it in his hands and stared down at the fabric as if it contained the answers to the universe.
“It’s because of him. Isn’t it?” he asked.
I closed my eyes and exhaled a breath. The Angel was still there when I opened them.
“Yes.” My voice was tiny.
“I am glad that we did not do something that we could not have taken back.”
I cleared my throat and spoke the words though resistant lips. I lied. “As am I.”
Uriah did not turn to acknowledge me as I spoke. His shoulders were rigid. He walked to the door and placed his hand on the handle. “I take it that you can find your own way to the Summerland.”
“Tired of being my escort?” I joked to mask my hurt.
“Something like that.” Uriah’s steps faltered and when his golden eyes met mine. I was felled by the emotion that fluttered over his expression. “There is a way that you can go back to Hell.” He informed me delicately.
“How?”
“You need to Fall. It shouldn’t be too hard for you.” He left the room and did not look back.