Angel's Curse (25 page)

She nodded her head. “Uh-huh, uh-huh.”
Screech.

She put her hand over the mouthpiece and whispered — even her whisper was a screech — “He wants to know your name.”

“Helena.”

“That’s it?” she screeched in disbelief.

“Well, yeah. What sort of name did you think I’d have, Naamah?”

“At least everyone would know what you were then.”
Screech, screech.
“Oh, sorry, Mr S. Says her name is
Hel-en-a
. Uh-huh, okay.”
Screech.

She pointed to a couch at the other end of the room. “Take a seat,”
screech.
“He’s just finishing up with some clients that
had
an appointment and will be with you shortly.”
Screech, screech.

I walked over to the couch and looked through the pile of glossy magazines on the coffee table. Lots of porn —
Demonic Delights, Rent Boys
and
Freaks of Nature
— and a variety of magazines catering to the violent types —
Torture Today, Guts and Gore,
and
Off The Rack
. If I’d only had the name of the magazine to go by, I would’ve thought the last one was a fashion magazine. From the picture on the front it obviously related to techniques of torture, trying to coax some of the demons that were set in their ways to try new methods.
Got to keep up with the times!

I looked around the reception area. There were a few prints on the walls, only one of which I recognised —
The Scream.
All of them had captions underneath. Two years ago I would’ve needed to be much closer to read them, but now the small print posed no problem.
The Triumph of Death,
Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Mask Still Life III,
Emil Nolde.
The Nightmare,
Henry Fuseli.

The only one I found interesting was
The Nightmare
. The way the little creature sat on the woman, its butt on her abdomen and feet on her stomach. The frown on its face, as if it were disappointed she wasn’t awake and screaming in terror. How the woman was wearing white and her head had lolled backwards off the edge of the day bed —
was it a day bed?
— exposing her throat. How the fingers on her left hand were gently touching the floor. Lastly, the horse’s head that peeked through the curtains — at least I thought it was a head — with a smile on its face.

“Excuse me,”
screech!
“I said you can go in now.”
Screech, screech.

“Sorry,” I said. “The Nightmare is fascinating. I’ve never seen it before.”

The receptionist shrugged her shoulders and went back to filing her nails. I hadn’t noticed the previous party leave. I must’ve been really engrossed in the painting.

Here you go, Helena, don’t make a fool of yourself.

I was nervous. How often was it you got to meet someone you thought didn’t really exist? Someone who was so totally corrupt and evil he could probably burn me to a cinder with a stare.

I pulled open the double doors — they were bright red, with curled golden horns for handles — and stepped inside. There was a glass desk at the far end of the room — a red glass modesty panel at the font —
why does he need a modesty panel? What the hell is he hiding under there?
— and black glass sides, so I couldn’t see what was under the desk — and behind it was a large black leather chair, its back facing me.

On the floor in front of me were five bodies — vaguely humanoid in form — still smoking. Their faces were contorted into masks of fear, and that was forever how they’d look. They smelled like piles of cow shit, fresh and steaming on a cold winter’s day.

I tried to walk around them, but accidentally stood on a hand. It crunched underfoot and the smell was even worse, just like dog shit smells worse when you stand on it.

“Ah, shit,” I mumbled.

Someone laughed, a deep booming sound, and the chair swung around. Resting his elbows on the arms of the chair, his hands clasped in front on him and his legs crossed, was Satan.

“You know how to make an entrance, Helena. I needed a laugh. Those
things
on the floor sorely tried my patience, to
their
detriment it seems. It’s not like the good old days when my minions begged, grovelled and kissed my feet. Now they think they’re
my
equal.”

I figured he was close to two metres tall, solidly built and muscular, with no visible body fat. He was very tanned, probably the result of having been in a fiery pit for an aeon or two. His long, jet-black hair was pulled back into a ponytail and I could see that his ears were slightly pointed at the tips, though not enough that he would stand out in the mortal world, if he could ever set foot in it. His eyes changed colour as he calmed down, from the fiery red of opals to a light brown. His teeth were perfect, in size, shape and colour. His face was flawless and I could see from Danny’s memories that Satan
had
been the most beautiful of angels, but this was not the angel from Danny’s memories. He was different. He had lost
something
— I couldn’t identify what — but not significantly so. I would’ve recognised him anywhere.

He wore a black tailored suit with a black shirt, open at the neck, and black shoes. The jacket was not buttoned up. A black belt, with a matt silver buckle at the front, was threaded through the belt loops of the black trousers that sat nicely on his hips. Obviously Satan wanted to present a certain image, and he pulled it off well. He made me think
bad boy
— the type of bad boy most mortal woman yearned for. He
was
the original bad boy!

I didn’t know how I was supposed to address him, so I did what I normally did in these situations and made it up as I went along. I threw the leather roll onto his desk. He didn’t even glance at it. He seemed to be looking at a point above my head, slightly to the right.

I pointed to the roll. “I think that belongs to you.”

“Your reputation precedes you, Helena. It’s an honour to meet you at last. You’re as feisty as I’ve heard.” He laughed again and the sound echoed around the room. “Some say you fight for the angels, some say you fight against them. I smell,” he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, “I smell demon, angel, mortal, and vampire. The demon is the strongest for the moment, but the vampire fights to break free. The angel is sad and wishes to be gone, as does the mortal.”

He opened his eyes and the fiery red returned.

“You’ve been a naughty girl, Helena.”

I couldn’t help staring at his eyes. The red flickered and flared, like living flame.

“Don’t be frightened, Helena.”

“I’m not,” I murmured, forgetting who I was talking to.

“Ah, it’s the eyes then,” he laughed. “They used to be a lovely shade of brown — all the time — but being cast out changes a man, especially the eyes. They change colour on a whim. I cannot control it.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d thought he was angry and that his eyes reflected that. He was certainly angry with his previous audience.

He uncrossed his legs and lowered his arms, leaning forward in the process. “I admit I’m curious. Which is true? Are you
for
the angels or against?”

There was nowhere for me to sit.
How rude not to have seating for guests.
I was at least ten metres away from the desk. I felt like a schoolgirl standing in front of the principal’s desk, waiting for justice for some schoolyard infraction to be meted out. Satan was in the power position and I needed to change that, or at least be on the same level, at the same height, as him.

I figured I’d do a few front walkovers, then on the last one push off to leap onto the desk in a crouch position, quickly swinging my legs forwards to sit cross legged.

“Don’t keep me waiting, Helena,” he said.

I performed the moves quicker than a mortal could and was sitting directly in front of Satan before he could even ask what I was doing. He gave three short claps and leaned back, resting his hands on the arms of the chair.

“Both actually,” I replied with a smile. “And I’m not one of your minions you know, to be ordered about,” I said curtly.

He nodded his head slightly and gave me a look I knew well. The sort of look men who thought they could dominate me gave me — somewhat condescending — like they were humouring me. In his case it was probably quite accurate. I was sure he could corrupt me, or kill me, in a heartbeat, and not think twice about it. It would be easy for him.

I probably shouldn’t get on his bad side until after I’ve got what I came for. More flies with honey, Helena, more flies with honey.

“When the angels took something from me, something that was important to me, well …” my voice took on a hard edge and my eyes glazed over, as I remembered Danny, bloodied and broken on the cross. “I’ve never had much in my life I could call my own, and
they took it away.
That was the
wrong
thing to do.”

Satan stood up and leaned forward against the desk, once again towering over me. He held my chin in his hand, and his touch burned my skin, yet I refused to cry out in pain. I gritted my teeth and looked him in the eyes. There was an unexpected profoundness to his eyes and it felt like they were trying to pull me under, where I would drown in their depths. My eyes blinked and the spell was broken. He let go of my chin and the charred skin began to heal.

“I can take your pain away.” He waved his hand over my heart. The burden and the ache were gone. “And I can replace it with different pain.”

He rested his hand on my chest until it burned a hole through my clothes, the searing pain touching the skin of my breast. I could feel its tendrils carving a path to my heart. Still I would not cry out. If this was some sort of test my resilience might be the only thing to save me.

“I can also give you what you want.”

The blood, did he know about the blood? He removed his hand and turned away from me. He shimmered — it was the only word I could think of to describe what was occurring — and then the shape of his body changed. When he turned around he wore someone else’s face. I instinctively reached out to touch it and he grabbed my wrist. I reached out with my other hand and he grabbed that as well, holding them both until I was burned through to the bone. It didn’t matter to me — I didn’t feel the pain. I only saw the face — Danny.

He let go of my wrists and sat down in his chair, changing back to his usual self as he did so.

“I’m
very
impressed, Helena,” he said. “There are so few who can push past the pain. I’m sorry about your clothes.”

I looked at my top, saw my healed breast exposed and muttered, “Fix it.”

“Pardon me?” Satan said, glaring at me angrily. “Were you asking me to
fix it?
”

“No, no,” I was quick to say, holding my top and watching it repair itself. “I sometimes find it’s easier to say what I want to happen out loud. I guess I’m still learning.”

He laughed again and tapped a finger against his lips, clearly thinking about something. After a few moments he reached out his hand and the leather roll slid across the desk to land in his palm.

“This,” he pointed to the roll, “I do not know, but what’s inside I know well.”

He untied the roll and his hands hovered over the daggers without touching them. “They’ve been used, and recently,” he said. “How did you come by them?”

“A vampire gave them to me, a gift with which to kill archangels.”

“I often wondered what happened to the daggers after Amy’s demise. Presumably the vampire who gifted them to you was Drake.”

I nodded. This Amy sure did get around. She must have been more of a ho than me.

“I have one here you know,” Satan said, and it took me a while to realise he wasn’t reading my mind about slutty women, he was referring to archangels.

“A fallen one, yes, but I wasn’t hunting the fallen.”

“Then the rumours of a great battle above ground between the immortals was correct?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Ah, it seems I have wronged my friends on the floor over there. An archangel has
never
been killed before. Why should I have believed them?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself, and my mouth spoke before I could think. “Sounds like you’ve got trust issues.”

Satan narrowed his eyes, picked up one of the daggers and pointed it at me. “When demons and other immortals try to stab you in the back every other day — always hungry for power, but who can blame them — would you be trusting?”

I shrugged my shoulders. Someone always seemed to be trying to kill me, but not because I craved power, purely because I breathed.

“I guess not, but on the bright side I’m not here to dethrone you.”

Satan leaned to the side and pressed something — presumably a button — I couldn’t see. Was it a panic button? When I heard the screechy voice I knew it was just an intercom.