Bittersweet Seraphim (8 page)

Emma unfolded herself as carefully as she could, desperately wanting to avoid a bout with the traps so close on either side of her. She stretched her back, wishing she still had her angel wings. She imagined she could shield herself and her mind by tucking them tightly around her like a feather-covered shroud. But the only remnants of her heavenly decorations were two silver lightning bolt tattoos—or at least that’s what she guessed. There was no mirror. And anyway Emma was glad not to see her reflection. She judged herself harshly enough as it was. No need to see her gray eyes staring their agony and loss back at her. Plus, if a reflective surface were available, she was sure Everett would make her watch next time.
Next time.

Just the thought of Everett—on top of everything else—made Emma’s heart pound. She needed more gumption to try to escape. She looked at the gaping exit, which seemed so close at the end of the hallway, though she knew there was nothing but pain between there and here. And, really, why? When an angel is sentenced to one thousand years in Hell, she has a certain desire to see her sentence to the end, follow the rules—even if the rules hurt every second.

Emma buried her hands in the short, flouncy skirt of her French maid’s costume, trying to keep her elbows tucked close. The power in the air on either side of her was nearly tangible. What had stopped Everett that day? Did she have someone or something on her side here in Hell? She tried again. “Our Father, which art in…” The words scrambled from her grasp. “Damn it.”

“Who arts in something? I always thought that was the most bullshitty of prayers they fed us.” Everett’s form followed his voice through the doorway, dripping with cocky arrogance. “Are you trying to remember the words? Still a believer after all you’ve been through, Emma?”

She hated that she shook when she saw him. She was scared of him, which was not only embarrassing, but she felt shamed by it.

Everett bit his bottom lip, trying for a moment to hold back a huge grin at her obvious fear. He was unsuccessful. “Not talking? That’s okay. I don’t need you to talk. As long as you can grab your ankles, we’ll be fine.” He began to unbutton his silk pajama shirt.

Emma wanted to look away, to deny him at least her attention if she could deny him nothing else, but she watched him the way she would a poisonous spider. His chest was sculpted with muscle, and he stepped forward with every button he unfastened.

Emma squirmed and closed one eye. This man was the Devil. He had everything, anything at his disposal in this damned place. Her flimsy panties would not shield her much longer.

Everett untied his pajama bottoms and inched the fabric down. The muscles below his hips were defined into a promise of horrible things. “You can’t wait to see my goods, I know. Fantastic things will come in those who can’t get away.” Everett took another step closer. He was just inches from the Hell hallway entrance. With his next step, the first trap in the hallway assaulted him, and instantly he backed up. “What the fuck was that?” Everett pointed at the space in front of him.

Emma almost smiled. “That? That first one’s hunger. It’s the easiest because hunger moves you forward in search of prey. The second? That’s depression. That one’s a bitch.”

He sputtered with anger. “But, but I’m the Devil. I can go anywhere!”

“Try again, ass clown. It’ll give me something to watch.” Emma shrugged.

Rejection with a tinge of fear created a pattern of dismay on his face. He proceeded to try numerous things to get to Emma. He threw a rock, which bounced off the air in front of him like a wall and hit him in the head. Everett tried running with a large pole he’d dug up from somewhere. It cracked in half, and the pointy end stabbed him in the balls.

He paced back and forth like a caged tiger, snarling at Emma whenever they made eye contact. Finally, as if they’d been having a conversation instead of her observing his failures, he demanded, “Well, just come over here then.”

Emma shook her head.

Everett tried pointing and snapping. He tried closing his eyes and concentrating.

Emma gave him the finger.

“I
will
get in there. You probably know better than anyone the crap I have access to in here. If I have to tear this place apart, I’ll get to you.” Everett pointed again.

Emma rubbed her forehead. It had been days, maybe weeks since she’d had a drink of water, a bite to eat. She’d have been dead if she were a human on Earth, but a human in Hell wasn’t granted the freedom of death. She tried to pull her long, blond hair out of her face but gave up when her elbows came close to the traps. She let it tumble around her shoulders. “I hope your blue balls poison you.” Emma looked at her feet, fairly confident she was out of his grasp, for now.

Everett crouched down to deliver his next promises. “When I can finally lick your face, do you know what I’m going to do next?”

The sounds of Hell seeped in around his words. She looked over her shoulder, and he wiggled his tongue at her.

“Um, stick your Smurf nuts in some panties just like these and put heels on?” Emma tried to hold his gaze as she pointed to her underwear. His face crumbled into a very convincing mask of evil.

“You think you’re sassy, but you’ll pay for every word with screams. Every insult with blood. I’m going to chain you by the neck to my ankle for at least a hundred years. You’ll lick my feet clean. I’ve so much time to play with. This hallway is just a speed bump. You should fear every moment.”

He stood, and as instructed, her new best friend, fear, crowded into her heart again. Emma shut her eyes tightly, waiting for him to leave, and panic trickled down her back when Everett didn’t walk away like he should have. His threats had provided him opportunity for the dramatic exit he preferred, and yet he remained standing there, just looking at her.

“Why do you hate me?” Emma finally gathered herself enough to say. Such a simple question. Why not ask?

He shook his head and turned his back on her. Emma tried to wet her mouth with her dry tongue.

Then Everett suddenly turned around. “You really want to know? Shit, how about I tell you? How about a little story time, whore?”

Emma was a captive audience, so she didn’t respond as he disappeared toward Jack’s old chambers just down the passage and returned with a chair.

He sat in it and crossed his legs. “Maybe you need to hear this, understand a bit about me. When we met all those years ago, I thought you were an angel on Earth. Funny, right? Isn’t that ironic?” He waited for her to respond. She didn’t.

“All that blond hair and those big ol’ eyes. I thought you’d be the one who would love me forever. I did all the right things—look at me! I look perfect, right?” He motioned to his body again. “I can even say all the right things. Listen: ‘Emma, you have satin hair and the most beautiful smile. Touch me. Feel me.’ Isn’t that wonderful? But those things didn’t make you quake. Tell me, why I wasn’t enough, Emma? Why were you such a frigid whore?”

The chair squeaked with his agitation and the pressure of this impromptu heart-to-heart. Emma threaded her fingers together and looked at her dirty nails. She knew what he was talking about: when she’d been just sixteen and expected to marry Everett. He’d already been a man.

“Can a whore really be frigid? That’s kind of a contradiction.” Emma looked at the ceiling. It had crappy-looking drop tiles.

“I try to talk to you. I try to let you in, and you toss my words in my face,” he shot back. “I shouldn’t have expected any of your stupid angel talents to really exist. You’ve always been a fake, even a fake fiancée. No one sees you for what you are but me—well, and maybe God, ’cause He did let me leave Heaven with you.” Everett stood and put his slipper-clad foot on the chair like an explorer claiming new land.

He had a knack. She had to give him that. He could cut right to the bone like a butcher. She’d doubted herself, her choices, but her one certainty had been God’s love. Now, sitting in the cold hallway under the assault of Everett’s words, it was hard to remember what had kept her so sure. She was having trouble remembering His prayer. What if soon enough she forgot Him?

“You’re right, Everett. Maybe I belong here because I can’t bring myself to forgive you. I can’t find any bit in you that’s worth heralding. You want to know why
I
hate
you?
Because the only true pleasure I’ve ever seen on your face is when you’re delivering pain: hurting things, people, and animals. It brings you joy. How can I be asked to accept that?”

She looked at Everett, but really she was now focused on her challenge: this fear, this hallway. She wondered if God was letting her stay in Hell until she could forgive Everett for the pain he’d caused. She didn’t think she could do it and mean it.

Everett put down his leg and sat again. He tilted his head inquisitively. “Wait a fucking minute. What game are you playing? Emma, I swear you’d better never say that to me again. How did you find out about that?”

He wasn’t making any sense, or else her brain wasn’t computing anymore. “You wanted answers,” she said. “That’s all I have.”

“How did you know what my mother said to me? Were you there? Were you eavesdropping? I wouldn’t put it past you.” Everett stood and hurled the chair at her.

She flinched, but it exploded into wood splinters against the air, not touching her at all.

“That’s almost exactly what my mother said when she left me!” He curled his fists and lip at the same time.

And then there was a blip in Emma’s heart, just a smoke of a chance of sympathy for this evil bastard. “I’m sorry your mother left you.” And she was. No child should be rejected.

“No, you’re not. Fuck that, fuck her, and fuck you. She said I was broken. Because I liked to kill animals, because I hit her when I wanted something, that’s why she was leaving.” Everett spat his words.

Emma felt the ghost of sympathy give way to revulsion. “Did you do those things?”

Everett turned his back on her and shook out his long hair in an absolute rage. “I did. I killed the animals because they couldn’t stop me. They followed the same patterns every time. Just one drop of kindness, and they were at my mercy. But she didn’t get it. Every time I killed something, I
didn’t
kill her…She didn’t wait around to find out if I’d ever get brave enough for the real deal,” he added softly.

Emma covered her mouth and nausea rolled in her stomach. He was the worst damn thing.

“So when I found you, I did the same thing. I followed the rules, followed society’s pattern. You said yes. You said you would marry me.” He turned toward her again and stood close to the hunger trap, eyes wild. “But then you didn’t!”

A horrible question forced its way from her lips. “What happened to your mother?”

“Don’t ask about her! Don’t you even open your lying mouth.” Everett grew powerful in his rage. The whole room behind him glowed red, and heat came radiating out. He glanced over his shoulder and laughed. “Yes! Yes, this is what I needed. I needed to remember who I was to get to you. So simple.”

Everett stepped into hunger, but his eyes never wavered. He didn’t twitch with the need to eat like he’d done before. He took sure, confident steps toward her, and Emma’s heart sank. Without the internal plagues, nothing would protect her now. She knew she should run…try…move…but she didn’t have the coordination to rise anymore, so she just watched.

Three footsteps in, the floor around Everett began to vibrate. Both she and he looked around in surprise as a distinctly metal-on-metal noise clanked to life. Everett was yanked back as if on puppet strings, and a gate slammed down, sealing Emma in, away from the Devil.

The cement finally stilled, and Emma’s mouth dropped open as Everett pulled himself to standing. Now, not only was Emma in the center of a Hellacious hallway, there was a jail-like door solidly separating her from an escape. Even if she were able to wade back through the perils, the gate would keep her inside.

“Did you do this?” Everett glared at her and grabbed the bars.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I have a garage door opener stuffed in my armpit. So glad I was able to keep that from you.”

Then she saw a small square of cement begin to glow. When she squinted, she could tell it was a keyboard. Everett followed her line of vision and scrunched down a bit so he could get a glimpse of what she was seeing on her side.

“That’s some sort of control panel,” he announced. “Get over there and try it.” He nodded like this was a brilliant plan, the obvious choice.

“Hey, dimwit. I’m not touching that keyboard—ever. Even if I knew what the Hell it did, I’d never do you a favor, especially one that’d make it easier for you to get to me.” She slowly leaned back, hugging her body to make it more compact.

As she rested, she spared the fool a glance here and there to see if he was making progress. He wasn’t. He tried a mirror on a stick to get a better look at the device, but the hallway prevented him from putting anything between the bars. Minion after minion—scary, hideous, and beautiful, in that order—was brought to stand in the hallway and offer advice, none of which worked. Emma got the distinct impression each minion was only interested in the Hallway as a spectacle, a story to tell the others. None appeared too fond of Everett and his ranting ways or showed the least bit of desire to help.