Personal Demons (21 page)

Clearly, Gabe’s not in a sharing mood. “No one that matters,” he says, but his blue eyes are a shade darker than usual, and his brow furrows as he leans against the counter.

“What’s wrong?”

He smiles this completely bogus smile, like that’s supposed
to convince me. “Nothing for you to worry about. Everything’s cool.”

I can’t stand it. I have to know. “I know that was Luc. What did he want?” I blurt.

He looks up at me with wary eyes. “You, apparently.”

I watch my hand fan the pages of Gabe’s book. My legs are jittering under the table, dying to spring out of the chair and run after Luc. I work to keep my voice even. “Why?”

“You’d need to ask him,” he says with a note of frustration. He blows out a sigh and slides into the seat next to me, drawing my attention. He looks me in the eye. “So . . . about yesterday . . .” he says very softly, bringing up the elephant in the room.

I groan and drop my gaze back to my hands. I have no clue what to say—what I’m feeling.

He’s quiet for an awkward minute then says, “I’m really sorry about . . . you know.”

Of course he is. Why would he want to be with me?

Do I want to be with him?

“But I need to know if what I felt . . .” He hesitates and I can’t breathe. “Was it really me you wanted?”

I feel dazed, like a rabbit in the headlights. There’s nothing I can say to make this right. I lift my head and look at him. He just stares at me for another minute, then his gaze drops to the floor.

“So . . . when you kissed me . . .” He lifts his eyes and I divert mine. I push back my chair, needing space, and walk into the family room, where I drop onto the couch.

Gabe steps into the door. “Well, I guess that answers that,” he says through a strained smile.

“It doesn’t answer anything.” I bury my face in my hands. “I’m so confused. I can’t stop thinking about Luc. But I can’t trust him. And you . . .” I don’t even know how to finish that thought.

“You’re right. You can’t trust him.” He slides in next to me on the couch and wraps an arm around my shoulders. And from my body’s reaction—the way all my insides flip-flop—it’s clear I can’t be trusted either.

When I look up at Gabe, my breath catches. I can see everything I want in his deep blue eyes.

But I also see him struggling with himself. I reach up and touch his cheek, and he pulls me into his lap. When he kisses me, it’s less desperate than last time. Gentle and soft and so tender that it makes me ache all over. I press deeper into him, wanting him closer, and I’m blanketed in his peace and love.

Oh God, do I love him?

I pull him tighter as the tears slip from my eyes, and he doesn’t push me off this time. He pulls me closer. Despite the heat pulsing through me, I shiver.

After forever, when I pull back and look at him, I wonder how I could have ever wanted anything else. And I could almost believe in love. ’Cause it’s right there, in his face.

He wipes the tears from my cheek with his thumb.

“Sorry,” I say, not quite sure what I’m apologizing for this time. Everything, I guess.

He places a finger on my lips. “No. Don’t.” He pulls me closer and rests his face in my hair. And I realize he’s shaking too.

I pull my face out of his shoulder and look at him. “Are we okay?”

He nods and smiles, but his smile is strained and his eyes are full of doubt.

I feel all my insides contract into a hard ball, ’cause I’m being seriously unfair. I’m such a shit. My chin drops to my chest. “I’m so screwed up.”

“You can’t help the way you feel, Frannie.”

“Yes I can.” At least I always could.

“No, you can’t, but you have to be careful about what you
want.
”

Despite his summer snow, my simmering frustration boils over. It’s clear in my voice. “You keep saying that. What does that mean?”

“It means you have much more control over your world than you know.” His eyes are intense and he’s starting to scare me.

I push away from him and haul myself off the couch. “I think you’ve lost it, Gabe. I’ve got control over exactly nothing.”

“You’ll see it—eventually.”

“See what?”

“Everything,” he says. I feel a shiver race through me.

He stands and folds me into his arms. “Everything’s going to be good, Frannie,” he finally says.

But he doesn’t sound sure of that. Far from it.

Arrgghhhh!

The most confusing day of my existence is now officially the most Hellish day of my existence. And that’s saying something.

I cruise around the neighborhood trying to settle my nerves
and get my head straightened out. I have one priority: my job. The same one I’ve been doing for the last five thousand years. It’s not rocket science or brain surgery—either of which I could handle better than I did Frannie. It’s just tagging one little soul for Hell. Child’s play. So why can’t I do it?

Rhetorical question. It doesn’t matter why I can’t do it. It just matters that I can’t—which is painfully obvious.

Frannie is with Gabriel. She’s safe, from Belias and from me.

I crank the stereo and I drive by Gabriel’s again, once, twice, three times. I slow down each time, desperate to catch a glimpse of Frannie through the window. I loop around the neighborhood, past Frannie’s and Taylor’s, over and over, trying to figure out what’s happened to me—reliving the last three weeks of my existence.

I’m burning hotter than the Fiery Pit, but, at the same time, drowning in a torrent of emotions that demons don’t feel.

How do I make them stop?

I can’t breathe. Then I remind myself that I don’t have to. But the hole in my chest still hurts.

Focus.
What now?

By the tenth loop of the neighborhood I know what’s got to happen. As much as it rips me apart to think about it, I need to leave and let Belias handle this. I let myself get too close.

I drive once more past Gabriel’s and feel the ache deep in my chest as I turn west, back toward my apartment. When I get there, I phase back to Hell and out of Frannie’s life.

I intend to phase inside the high Walls of Hell, bypassing the Gates (a perk of being a First Level demon) because I’m really in no mood to deal with the Gatekeeper. But as my feet contact the ground, I find I’m undeniably
outside
the stone walls and the Gates. Not a good sign. Privileges have been revoked. As I approach the Gates, the Gatekeeper, Minos, scrutinizes me with a single squinty bloodred eye in the middle of his long, narrow serpent’s face. He bends his tall, sleek, scale-covered frame to get a closer look.

“Fallen out of favor, have we?” he says with a flash of his fangs and a self-satisfied sneer. His high-pitched voice stings my eardrums, intensifying the building ache in my head.

Too dejected to argue, I lean on the blistered iron Gates for support. “It would appear so.”

Maybe he’ll refuse admittance. Fine by me. But dark foreboding mingles with anticipation on his face as he steps aside to let me pass. “We’ve been waiting for you. I’ll be by the Pit later to see you off.”

“We’ll make it a party. You bring the balloons,” I say over my shoulder, passing through the Gates without a backward glance.

Once inside, the first thing I notice is that Hell feels hotter than I remember. Which doesn’t make sense, because it’s only been three weeks since I was here. And, besides, anything hovering a few hundred degrees at either side of Hell’s two-thousand-degree mark is going to feel pretty much the same: hot. Maybe there’s something to all that global warming hoopla after all, even here at the core.

The second thing I notice is that I seem to have maintained my human form . . . which is now sweating. No matter. This
body can be dismembered and thrown into the Fiery Pit as easily as my other.

The third thing I notice is the
real
security. Minos is just for show. Other than the occasional interloper, keeping people out of Hell isn’t generally an issue. And, really, what could be more fun than an interloper? No, the real security is Rhenorian and his crew, who keep the minions inside. He props his stocky seven-foot frame against the wall, eyeing me intently from just inside the Gates. His red eyes flare out of a golden-brown face, flat and leathery. When I look his way, a menacing grin splits his face, as if daring me to try to run. He glides his forked tongue along an impressive set of fanged teeth and spins a three-pronged ranseur in his hands. That’s Hell’s version of a machine gun. It’s capable of focusing enormous amounts of Hellfire into a single burst—over and over. It can’t kill a creature of Hell, because almost nothing can, but it can make you wish it had.

I meander past the Inferno, inside the Gates. Shrieks of agony and pleas for mercy issue from barely discernable shapes writhing within the eternal flames: the souls of the damned. Tending demons cackle with mirth as they poke at the occasional limb or head protruding from the white-hot flames. Just watching makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. I smile to myself as I take in the pungent smell of seared flesh mingled with decay, earth, and brimstone and revel in the sights, sounds, and scents of home. For a moment, I can imagine that I never left. That the last three weeks never happened.

For a moment.

But as I continue to meander south, skirting the Fiery Pit at a distance, my mood turns. The screeches echoing from these
high walls are of a different sort altogether. Demons who have stepped out of line or come up short in the eyes of management scream from their depths. And as I pass the Pit on my way to the Lake of Fire, I notice every demon, especially the tenders of the Pit, leer at me. Nothing makes a demon’s day like impending death and destruction.

Then I see Marchosias moving stealthily toward me from the Pit, mottled crimson skin shimmering in the flickering vermillion and indigo light. His glowing red eyes burn as he strokes his tail, and his satyr’s hooves crunch over the lava rock as he makes his way toward me.

My first instinct is to run—not sure why—but I stand my ground. Marchosias
is
a tender of the Pit, but he can’t take me until I’m summoned and sentence is pronounced. Besides, if demons have friends, which is debatable, then Marchosias would be mine. He’s currently on canine patrol, apparently, because he’s got an immense black Hellhound in tow.

“Thought you could just slide right by without stopping?” he says with a sneer on his flat, pinched face. I take an involuntary step back as he approaches. Few, other than King Lucifer Himself, radiate evil as thoroughly as Marchosias.

“Hoping.”

The Hellhound sits at Marchosias’s side, nearly as tall as me, and the smell of rotting meat permeates the strong scent of brimstone. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long.”

“How did you end up on my list?”

“No clue.”

“Hmm . . .” He glances across the Lake of Fire toward Flame
Island and the distant black mass of Pandemonium, its high castle walls and jagged spires towering over all of Hell. “The only reason you’ve lasted this long is because Beherit is preoccupied trying to save his own skin.”

I feel myself shudder, but it would be a mistake to show weakness. “What’s up?”

“Just avoid Pandemonium. King Lucifer is meeting with the council, and it’s a bloodbath up there.” Marchosias’s eyes shine with malice, white fangs glimmering through his sinister grin. “Word is, your boss is on the chopping block. Something big’s brewing topside, and Beherit’s not getting the job done.” His grin pulls into a leer. “You wouldn’t know anything about that . . . ?”

“No,” I lie, because that’s what we demons do, but also because I feel sudden and overwhelming despair that this is my existence. This is all there is in my world. Our only source of joy, if demons are even capable of that emotion, is the pain, suffering, death, and destruction of others. “Tell me what you’ve heard.”

“There’s a mortal the king wants, and Beherit’s crew,” he leers at me, “is falling down on the job.”

“What’s so important about the mortal?”

“Word is this person is exceptionally gifted.”

Is Frannie exceptionally gifted? I’m sure there are others that we’re after. “Gifted how?”

The pure evil in his grin makes me hope we
are
talking about someone other than Frannie. “Sway,” he hisses.

The force of that one word is like a wrecking ball, knocking me senseless.
It can’t be Frannie.
Frannie has Sight. I don’t even
want to think about what would happen to a mortal with the ability to sway others’ thoughts and emotions here in the Underworld. There have only been two others, and things didn’t end well for the one that belonged to Hell. In a daze, I turn to continue walking, but Marchosias grabs my arm, his claws nearly piercing my human flesh.

“So, I’ll be seeing you later.” His eyes flare red heat and a mirthless smile quirks his mouth as he flashes his fangs.

“I’m sure. Try not to enjoy yourself too much,” I say, walking away.

Finally, my head starts to clear, and I reach my sanctuary: the sliver of Hell from my wall mural. I walk along the cragged banks of the Lake of Fire until I reach the southernmost tip, where the lake meets the Walls of Hell, and the river Styx flows in from the south. Here, the distant shrieks of the damned and the mirthful laughter of the infernal blend and echo off the high walls like a dissonant choir. This is my cathedral.