No Angel (6 page)

“Sign and enter,” Gerry taunted from behind the door.

No matter how rushed she was, there was no way Sasha was signing a contract to enter Hell without reading every word. The Desert Eagle still in one hand, she began skimming. The definitions for Champions, Satan and the Dominions of Hell filled the first two pages, but on the third page…

The signer commits herself to the role of Champion of Virtue until dawn, Christmas morning
—blah, blah, blah—
at which time, if the Champion has not exited the Dominions of Hell, he/she will remain therein eternally.

“Whoa. An eternity in Hell?”

Gerry shrugged, examining his nails. “Sign and risk your eternal soul or refuse and seal the fate of another’s. Your choice, Christian.”

Sasha wasn’t a fan of ultimatums unless she was the one issuing them, but the contract reiterated what the angel had said about no replacement Champions. It was her or no one. Jay may have been about to break up with her, but even commitment-phobe assholes with green card issues didn’t deserve to spend the rest of their lives in Hell. It was a little too extreme a punishment.

And she might actually be in love with the idiot. The jury was still out on that one. Though if she saved his ass from Hell and he
still
wouldn’t come to Christmas dinner, they were going to have words. And those words may or may not involve her fist connecting with his pretty-boy nose.

“You got a pen?”

Gerry flashed his teeth—his smile looking less friendly by the second. “Not ink, Christian. Blood.”

His body evaporated in a puff of smoke, but his laughter continued to ricochet around the cavern.

Sasha holstered the gun and released a throwing knife from her wrist sheath. In the movies, the idiot actors always sliced open their palms or fingertips, but Sasha didn’t need fresh blood slicking her grip or an open sore distracting her right now. She shoved up her sleeve and pressed the tip of the blade to the back of her forearm until a drop of blood formed on the tip.

Lifting the knife, the single drop fell. When it splashed onto the contract, a blinding flash of light cracked through the cavern and the paper vanished. Lightning in a catacomb.

’Cuz
that
isn’t ominous at all.

Sasha cleaned and resheathed the knife, drew the Desert Eagle and walked toward the door.

This was insane. Absolutely insane. Going to face God-knew-what in the devil’s den to save a guy she’d been halfway to breaking up with this afternoon. Maybe she did really love the schmuck. Only love was this nuts.

Jay groaned and rolled onto his side—less than comforted by the rattling of chains that accompanied the move.

He felt like he’d been hit in the face with a baseball bat. Which wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility. The last thing he remembered was being yanked into Hell and the whip-crack of his mother’s voice.

Coming to in a dark cell, chained ankle and wrist, wasn’t exactly a shock.

Jay forced his eyes to focus, taking stock of his surroundings. There wasn’t much to see.

A dripping candelabra sat on the floor in front of him, the flickering light not managing to penetrate the shadows more than a few feet. What he could see of the cell was the kind of classic Tudor-era torture chamber his mother preferred, but the lady herself was nowhere in sight. He didn’t think she would actually torture him. He was too valuable. It doubtless simply hadn’t occurred to her to put him anywhere else.

His jeans were ragged and dirt-crusted at the knee, as if his legs had been dragged along the ground to the cell. No shirt, no shoes, and what felt like dried blood caked in his hair. He reached up a hand to his forehead and found at least he wasn’t actively bleeding.

A door creaked open in the darkness. “Awake already? Damn, you heal quickly.” Verin’s face swam out of the shadows. “You’ve been a bad boy, cousin.”

Jay groaned, propping his shoulders against the wall so he wasn’t lying prostrate at her feet. “And here I was trying so hard to be good.”

“Is that what you call it?” She crouched down in front of him, her sharp, angular features severe and unsmiling. “You should have come back when you were told, Jay. Lucifer doesn’t take it well when his summons are ignored.”

“The Prince never summoned me.”

“A summons from his bride is a summons from the Dark Prince.”

“Forgive me if I’m not interested in being a pawn in my mother’s political games,” he snapped, gathering the chains around him so he could sit up more.

“It’s not my forgiveness you should be begging for, buddy. Jezebeth is very angry with you.”

“That’s nothing new.”

Verin smiled. “But some things are new, Jay. The balance of power has shifted.”

Because of him. His mother had been Lucifer’s mistress for millennia and no one had taken her seriously. The Prince had known she was too ambitious for her own good and kept her in check, but Jezebeth had chafed against his restrictions. Demonic powers were most effective against humans, but Jezebeth had heard rumors that demon-human hybrids could use their abilities against other demons, even within the bounds of Hell itself. Thirty-five years ago, she’d gone to the mortal plane, found a human with natural immunity to demonic powers and seduced him.

Jay was the result.

She had created him as a weapon. And a lure. Jezebeth had known Lucifer would forgive her infidelity if Jay would fight for him. But no one had suspected she would actually get him to agree to a marriage contract. The balance of power had certainly changed, but it wasn’t clear yet how—or for how long it would stay this way.

“I’m not going to stay here and fight for Lucifer, no matter what my mother wants.”

Verin laughed. “You say that as if you have a choice.” She leaned forward, her eyes alight.

She was enjoying taunting him. Cackling delight filled her thoughts, bouncing around in his brain. He’d forgotten how damn loud that could be, with Hell acting as an amplifier to his abilities.

Verin cocked her head. “Perhaps you have a choice after all. You’ve certainly made some interesting friends in your time on earth, Jevroth.”

“I am charming.”

“Did you know the angels sent a girl into Hell after you? And she isn’t just a girl, is she, cousin?”

Sasha.
His heart began to pound. Hell was dangerous even for those who knew it well. He didn’t want her anywhere near this place, but still his stupid heart rose at the thought of her coming for him.

Verin scowled. “You should have told me what Sasha really is. Secrets are bad for the soul.”

Jay locked his jaw. He’d learned his lesson about secrets the hard way. He’d lost his chance to tell Sasha the truth himself. Now he had no way of knowing what the angels had told her. Lies, truth, they could be equally damning if she believed them.

By now, they would certainly have told her he was a demon. No more breaking it gently. His mind raced, supplying a thousand possible reactions she might have had.

“Do you know what her quest is?” Verin asked conversationally. “We’ve been taking bets on it all evening. Does she come to redeem you? Or to kill you for her angelic masters?”

He couldn’t believe Sasha would kill him. Leave him to Hell, yes. Seek him out to exterminate him? He didn’t think he’d gotten her quite that angry.

“No bets? You aren’t being a very good sport about this, Jay. Where’s your sense of humor?”

“It must be chained up in a different cell.”

Verin laughed. “Don’t worry about the chains. I know you want to see your precious Sasha and we’re going to make sure she finds you. We have to know if she’s going to save us the trouble of killing you.”

“My mother won’t allow me to be killed.” He was too useful.

“No, you’re probably right. But Sasha on the other hand… well, she probably won’t be killed right away either. She’s valuable to you, isn’t she? What would you do to spare her life, do you suppose?”

Something feral rose up in him. “Don’t you threaten her,” he snarled.

“What did you think would happen, cousin? You ride off into the sunset together and spawn adorable little demon cherubs? I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Light and dark can’t coexist together. You know the rules.” Verin smiled. “And she’ll make such a pretty whipping girl.”

Jay lunged up, snapping the chains taut, so quickly Verin barely had time to jerk out of his reach. Her back slammed against the far wall of the cell and she stayed there, only her eyes visible in the darkness, her breath coming fast. “Damn, you’re quick.” She crept back into the light and he heard the echo of her thoughts growing more arrogant with each step. “Harming me won’t do you any good, cousin. I’m not the one holding an ax over Sasha’s pretty head.”

No. That was his mother. Jay sagged back against the wall, letting the chains fall lax.

“It shouldn’t be long now,” Verin commented as she faded back into the shadows again. He heard a creaking groan, a heavy wooden door being opened. “Patience,” she said, the word sounding like a curse—and from Verin, Demon of Impatience, it could be.

The door rattled on its hinges when it slammed shut, leaving Jay alone with his thoughts. Chained in a holding cell, with only his doubts for company, awaiting Lucifer’s judgment on his truancy these last few months. Awaiting the arrival of the girlfriend his very existence had put in danger.

Just another sterling Christmas Eve.

***

Hell wasn’t at all what Sasha had expected. No fire. No brimstone. Just a series of empty beige halls permeated by the indefinable odor of the DMV, not quite masked by the scents of ammonia and lemon Pledge.

She’d imagined Hell as a crowded place, noisy with the screams of those burning in its fires, but the only sound was the constant hum of the air conditioners. She had yet to see a single demon, but an itching between her shoulder blades, the unmistakable sensation of being watched, had plagued her ever since she stepped through Geryon’s door.

She’d never felt so uncomfortable in someplace quite so innocuous. The dull corporate hallways had to be an illusion, a veil over the real Hell. What could be more deceptively innocent than unflattering fluorescent lighting?

Sasha navigated the maze of abandoned Hell halls, guided by nothing more than instinct, a gut feeling she was headed toward Jay. She’d always been hyperaware of him, from the first time they met.

She’d been feeding her fiction addiction at the Malibu public library when she felt a tingling wakefulness shiver through her thoughts, like a tuning fork ringing inside her mind. She’d looked up and he’d been standing right in front of her, a question in the bottomless black of his eyes.

Physically he was a god, but the mild-mannered library dweller had never been her type. He looked like Clark Kent, apologetic and shy, but she’d let herself be talked into grabbing an espresso at the Starbucks down the street, hoping Superman would make an appearance.

He’d talked about digging through old family records, looking for traces of aunts, uncles and cousins he’d never known. He was interesting, occasionally quite funny, but so tentative with her, like he expected her to reject him at any moment. Sasha didn’t understand how someone so pretty could be so insecure one second and then brash and confident the next.

He wasn’t the type of guy who usually flipped her switches, but she really
liked
him. It was hard not to. So when he asked if he could see her again, she said yes. And then outside the movie theater on their first date, she let him brush a hesitant kiss across her mouth and agreed to go out again.

Jay was a puzzle—capable but guarded—and she was intrigued. So she kept saying yes, because there was never a good reason to say no. She kept hoping the tingles, the humming awareness of him, would translate into wild passion, but even though she couldn’t complain in the bedroom department, she’d always been waiting for the fireworks that never came. There were hints of Superman lurking inside, but he never made an appearance, and she’d discovered she rather liked dating Clark Kent.

Until he started wigging out about meeting her parents.

At first she thought he was intimidated by her celebrity family, but he’d never seemed to care about the fame game before. The more he had evaded, the more she had begun to wonder about the secrets he kept, the distance that was always between them. Dating the alter ego was only fun when she was in on his secret identity.

Jay could play the role of devoted boyfriend beautifully, but when real commitment was involved the character fell away. What she’d thought was their relationship developing was just him playing house. This was why she didn’t date actors. They only wanted to perform their connections, not live them.

But Jay was different. Or she’d thought he was. Now she didn’t know what to think.

He was just a guy trapped in Hell. A mission to complete.

He couldn’t be more to her. Not right now. She couldn’t worry about him. She needed to focus.

Sasha stopped beside a beige wall, flooded by the sense Jay was behind it, but there were no doors in either direction for a hundred feet. Holding the Desert Eagle against her thigh, she put her free hand flat against the plaster, then jerked it back when the wall began to move beneath her fingers, rippling across her palm. “Jesus.”

A low laugh reverberated at the end of the hallway, accompanied by skittering sounds. Sasha spun toward the noise, taking aim, but only caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her vision. The hall stretched away from her, empty as far as she could see.

“Note to self—Hell is creepy and you’re being watched by invisible hyenas.”
Suck it up, Sasha.
She turned back to the wall hiding Jay. “Things aren’t always as they seem,” she muttered to herself, drawing comfort from the familiarity of her own voice.

She lifted one hand to the wall again, shuddering when it came alive under her fingers. It felt like wet stone—and as soon as she thought the word
stone,
the plaster and drywall flickered like a mirage and vanished, leaving the section of the wall directly in front of her a damp stone-and-mortar construction. This was her access point to Jay.

The stone didn’t look very stable, so Sasha gave an experimental shove. Rumbling like an avalanche, the rocks tumbled away—but rather than down, they fell sideways, rippling away from her touch until a portal opened, wide enough for her to step through.

“Jay?” She wrapped both hands around the Desert Eagle.

There was nothing but shadows on the other side of the wall.

And the sound of rattling chains. “Sasha?”

Her breathing snagged at the sound of his voice.
“Jay.”
Sasha forgot about being watched, forgot about the quest, the creepy moving walls and Gerry’s ominous warnings. She rushed toward the sound of Jay’s voice, not realizing until she heard him speak, heard that he was still
able
to speak, how frightened she had been for him. Relieved tears pricked in her eyes, but she ignored them.
There’s no crying in Hell.

The avalanche reversed, sealing her in darkness, but Sasha didn’t look back. She groped forward through the pitch, toward where she thought she’d heard Jay. “Are you all right?”

“Over here,” Jay called and Sasha whipped around.

How could she have gotten so disoriented?
She thought that was where the entrance was, but now her dark-adjusted eyes made out a flicker of candlelight on metal and flesh.
What had they done to him?

Sasha hurried toward him, knocking her shin hard on something solid, but not even looking down to see what it was. She couldn’t take her eyes away from Jay—filthy, bare-chested, nothing-had-ever-looked-better-to-her-in-her-entire-life Jay.

“Oh God, is that blood?”

She fell to her knees at his side, wanting to throw herself into his arms, just to feel his skin against hers and know he was all right, but not wanting to hurt him if there were injuries beneath the dirt and dried blood.

“It’s nothing.” He cupped her face, searching her eyes for something, then bared his teeth in an unfamiliar, fierce smile, holding up his shackled wrists. “Take the light. See if you can find something to open these.”

A bud of unease sprouted in her chest—her Jay was never so commanding. He wasn’t the take-charge type. He didn’t have that edge. Could Hell have changed him in a matter of hours?

Ignoring the sense of disquiet, she holstered her gun, grabbed a candle and began searching for keys, tools, anything that could be used on his bindings.

Seeing the room for the first time, Sasha shuddered.
Is that an iron maiden?
“What is this place?”

“Whatever its owner needs it to be. Hell isn’t static like earth.”