Bittersweet Seraphim (15 page)

The poodles stepped closer.

“Care for a swim, Tiffany? I can give you exactly what I gave you four hundred years ago. Interested?” He spoke the words against her lips.

The poodles were completely fixated on the couple and furious with the man who had their owner in an embrace. Kate had a clean line to the pond. She had no idea what it might do to her, but she ran as fast as possible. As she whizzed by the nearest poodle, it turned and snapped its jaws at her. Jason was shouting, and his words soon combined with Jack’s. None of them wanted her to get in the water. A bit wary herself, she’d only planned to wade in, but with the poodle and everyone else now hot on her trail, Kate dove straight into a pitch black pond in the center of Hell.

Chapter 16

Everett tried to settle himself in Jack’s lair.
My lair
, he amended. He hated how much he didn’t fit this place. It was like putting on someone else’s well-worn shoes. No matter how they looked, they just didn’t adapt to the foot properly. They were always uncomfortable. Just like her.
Emma.
She was his worst obsession. He’d followed her from Earth to Heaven and now, to Hell. She was right. He had other things he should be doing, must be doing, but it all paled compared to getting to her. He kicked a stray bottle, and it landed far away, smashing into shards. He was the second-most powerful force in existence now, after God. Or at least he thought so. While he taunted Emma about the lack of her perfect Lord, Everett was starting to think she was protected after all.

It’d been too easy. He’d never tell her that, but his rise to Devil was a farce, a joke. All these minions should’ve fought him for the position, but instead they set their weapons down and kneeled. At first it fed right into his monster ego. Then it became obvious he was a joke to them. Only a few would follow his orders implicitly. Most took quite a bit of harassing and nagging. There was a backlog of damned people floating just beyond his chamber door. Supposedly Jack had dealt with and sorted them, but Everett just didn’t have time. The only thing that made any sense at all was that his tenure here in Hell wasn’t supposed to be very long.

There was a knock on his door. He deepened his voice and admitted the visitor with a grumble.

“Sir? There’s been a breach. Somehow things from the surface are entering Hell.”

She was a gorgeous woman—legs, tight ass, all the things Everett liked. Her eyes were like foggy crystal balls. In his first few hours as Devil he’d tried to force himself on her, and she’d smiled instead of protesting. He’d found out why when he dropped his pants. His ball sack had frozen solid, and it had stayed that way long after he’d dismissed her, having had no sex at all. His piss had come out like liquid nitrogen for what felt like a million years. When he finally had sensation back and his pee was a normal consistency—except for the occasional ice cube he had to painfully pass—he vowed never to touch her again. Her name was Snow, which might’ve given him a heads up if he’d bothered to learn it before exposing himself to her.

He touched his man parts now in her presence because he couldn’t help himself. “So? Why do I give a shit?”

She looked annoyed. “Simple job requirement, sir. You need to keep Hell and Earth separate.”

“Screw that. I’ll run my Hell the way I want to. If things get in? Eat them, flame them, I don’t care. Leave me to my thoughts.” He waved a hand at her.

“Very well.” Snow turned to leave. Her “very well” was easily interpreted as “Wrong choice, ass-packing dipshit.”

“What?
What?
Can you just tell me what’s going on?” Everett begged. “I hate trying to pay attention to the nuances.” He sat in one of Jack’s lounge chairs.

She faced him and looked at his nuts through his pants. They prickled painfully. “Okay. You let things into Hell, things get out of Hell. Earth becomes overwhelmed and decimated. That ends the trial period. Heaven wins. You better man up and quick.”

Everett rolled his eyes. “None of what you said has moved me to do anything other than fart.” He accompanied his words with his ass’s soundtrack.

“You are sharp as a spoon, sir.” She walked to the center of the room and snapped her fingers. “Smoke! Here, smoke. Come on, be a good pet.”

Everett waited for a dog or something, but the pet she wanted was atmospheric. Actual smoke came to her call and surrounded her like a blanket. He could hear her whispering to it. Things just kept getting worse. He’d long wondered about the blob of smoke that had occasionally appeared out of nowhere to nip angrily at his heels. Now it was helping Snow.

Soon there was a screen, and Snow sat down in an adjacent chair. “Watch this.”

The screen flickered to life, showing photographs of a time long ago. God and a shady-looking character walked together on what seemed to be Earth.

“Lucifer was an archangel. Eventually he moved against God and tried to have Heaven and the power it gives all to himself.” She gave him a snide look. “Sound familiar?” The screen changed to show Heavenly Court, with God in His proper chair and Lucifer standing in front of him, awaiting judgment. “They’d been good friends, so God really tried to get Lucifer to understand that all the power of Heaven was not a gift, but more of a curse. He explained that the burdens on his soul from his children’s cries were far more damning than any Hellfire could ever be.”

She was lost in the tale now, and Everett leaned forward as she recited God and Lucifer’s age-old conversation: “I created them. Don’t you understand? Sweet Lucifer, I’d love to pass the burden to someone else—even for a moment, even to you. But what you create, you must represent. I offer you a world with tremendous responsibility. Take care of the damned, take care of my children who attempted the tasks of life and failed. By squandering the gift of free will, they cheated themselves, and yet I still love them. If you choose Hell, you must keep my children fairly and punish them with a righteous hand.”

Snow held her hands together in what seemed like a prayer. “Lucifer said, ‘What else? If I don’t take this offer, what else is there?’” The picture shifted to show a being clearly defiant, but with a hint of sadness. Lucifer had seemed to love God as well.

“Two options, Lucifer. Go to Earth and start fresh, start as a babe. Or I can end you. I can put you out of your misery if you find that being yourself is too much to bear.”

Snow stood and gently touched the screen. The smoke rippled a bit before solidifying again. “He couldn’t do it. Lucifer didn’t have the guts to try life again. Nor did he want to be ended. So Hell became his playground—or so he thought. The Dark Prince soon found that doing his job, taking care of God’s damned children, was a burden. Every decision he made or didn’t make had far-reaching consequences.”

Everett was getting bored, and his balls were getting scared. They’d crawled into him like frightened woodland creatures. “So? So what. Lucifer isn’t here. I’m the Devil. He must have blown his big, longsuffering motherload.”

“He transferred most of powers to whomever was appointed Devil or fought their way to the top of the heap, like you,” she said, looking him in the eyes.

“So where is he?” Everett stood and walked to the door, silently willing Snow to leave.

“He’s at the bottom of a pond, protected by an evil shrew. He doesn’t want to be bothered.” Snow strolled to the door, and the smoke dissipated behind her.

Everett held out an arm to stop her. “So what do you think he’d have done? I mean, how does Heaven win? I don’t get it.”

“Lucifer? He would have had a few minions patrolling the perimeters. Jack would’ve as well. If we can’t keep up our end of Lucifer’s bargain, God’s done giving Lucifer a chance to prove himself.” Snow touched his arm, and he quickly moved it.

“So we’re done too then? No more Hell? Just…gone?” Everett weighed the options. Being gone didn’t seem frightening.

“No, that’d be too simple. You see, Lucifer was a bargaining man. He liked to bet God for souls, and eventually we wound up with a winner take all: If Hell fails, we become nothing, but we’ll always be aware, awake—never gone, just never here. I’m pretty sure we’d be located at the ass end of snails, our awareness and existence spread with their slime. That could be just a rumor, though. You know, people talk and stuff.” She waltzed past him mumbling about how Jack would’ve been shutting this place down as she turned a corner and was out of his sight.

Everett leaned against the doorjamb and wondered. If he was just a substitute Devil, and the real Lucifer was an ice cube in a pond somewhere, perhaps he could convince him to give him more power so he could get to Emma. Everett left Jack’s lair in search of a knowledgeable minion that might be willing to take him to Lucifer’s resting place.

Emma was still rubbing her hand as the pretty minion passed by, coming from the direction of Jack’s lair. The woman had cloudy white eyes, but they didn’t seem to be sightless.

“You look cleaner.” She paused and tilted her head.

“Uh. Thanks?” Emma stopped nursing her hand.

“It’s a waste, though. We’re all about to lose. Everett’s running this place into the ground, and things are getting in. I’m glad
I’m
not in a cage.” She shrugged and continued walking, her heels clacking on the stone.

Soon after, Emma heard the lair door slam and Everett reappeared, looking even more manic than usual. “Well, bitch, enjoy this reprieve. As soon as I get back, I’ll have all the power I need to tear you apart. And then I’ll put you back together and do it all over again. Can’t wait.” He ran backward down the passageway until he was out of sight, smiling the whole time.

Emma was scared, because her hope had jumped to an impossible conclusion: maybe in the chaos she could get free.

Chapter 17

Kate was a fairly strong swimmer, but the “pond” was a viscous, thick mucus that instantly slowed her down. She treaded water—or whatever this stuff was—and turned to see Tiffany laughing so hard she wasn’t making any noise. Jason kept trying to walk into the water, but he was repelled by some sort of invisible wall. Naked Jack just shook his head slowly and scanned the water around her.

Kate waited for something to happen. Jack had seemed Hell-bent on getting in this pond, and Tiffany and her pooches had been here forever protecting it. She’d assumed swimming in the water would give her some sort of power. She was wrong.

“Um, Jack? What’s going to happen next?” Treading was getting harder. Her pajamas were heavier and heavier as they saturated with whatever this pond was made of.

Jason was now cornered by two of the three giant poodles. He shot frantic glances in her direction. “Kate, get out!”

“Can’t believe she jumped in,” Tiffany said. “Wow. This is going to be quite a show. Bet it sucks her skin off first.”

Jack was the closest to the edge, and she could see his jaw clenched. “Kate, it’s one minion at a time in there,” he told her. “You’ve got to get out. He’s gonna get you.”

Kate was not wild about the idea of her skin being removed, nor the concept that “he” was coming for her. “Why did you want in this, Jack?”

Her mouth was barely above water now. Her ears had filled with the liquid, making it impossible to hear his response. Judging from his lips, he was mostly cursing anyway. This had been a dumb idea. She’d hoped for a boost of the powers her half-breed body seemed to be missing—just something to give her an edge when saving Nero.

She was just starting to swim for land when a hand grabbed her ankle and yanked her underwater. There wasn’t even time to suck in a breath of air. She was under and flailing. This was it. Whatever had her was crazy strong and super fast. She tried to open her eyes to see what the Hell it was, but the mucous pond was as black as her eyelids.

All at once she was pulled out of the liquid and into a cave. There was air, so she took care of her need for that first. As she choked and sputtered, the liquid seemed to come out of every hole she had. She rubbed her eyes again and again until she could finally see. The cave was well lit, and she sat on an oriental rug. TVs flickered in the distance, and classical music seasoned the air with a false sense of serenity. Over her shoulder she noticed one of the walls of the cave was not a wall at all, just a sheer, floor-to-ceiling rippling edge. It was the pond, being kept from filling the space in a way not apparent to Kate. And a man worked at hanging a portrait on the wiggling wall. How he was getting it to stick, Kate wasn’t sure. Finally he stepped away.