The_Demons_Wife_ARC (13 page)

Yes, Samael
was that good, and he knew it. How else had he been promoted through the
demonic ranks so fast?

“Mr. LaPierre,”
he said. “I’ll only take a few minutes of your time. I promise.”

They made
sudden and intense eye contact, and at that moment, Samael realized one slight
miscalculation he had made when he manipulated LaPierre last Friday night.
There was no way he could have even wanted to attack—much less rape—Claire,
because LaPierre was gay.

No wonder
today in the lineup room he had been screaming and carrying on so.

     “I didn’t
do it!…There’s no way I did it!”

Sure, he might
feel inclined from time to time to get a little rough when he was with
someone…and maybe, especially when he’d been drinking…he might force himself on
a less than willing partner, but that partner most definitely would have been a
man. His type was a middle-aged, tall, dark, and chiseled man…

Much like the
one standing outside his front door at this very moment.

Tonight,
though, LaPierre was so distraught with his pending legal problems that he
didn’t delude himself. There was no way a man this good-looking would be
willing to offer LaPierre anything he really wanted…

Then again,
wouldn’t it be nice to allow him into his home and play out the fantasy, if
only in his mind?

Why the Hell
not?

“Sure,” LaPierre
said. “Sure…Come on in.”

Ah, good
, Samael
thought.

LaPierre let
his shoulder slouch and his head drop as though he’d already suffered defeat
and rejection as he swung the door wide open so Samael could enter. As Samael
walked past him, LaPierre caught a faint whiff of his scent. It was a curious
blend that, unfortunately, reminded him of Alex, his most serious lover of
several years ago.

“I’m sorry,”
LaPierre said, pausing for a moment, “but I didn’t get your name.”

“Samael,” was
the reply, and LaPierre was left hanging, wondering if that was his first or
last name.

Regardless,
“Mr. Samael” followed LaPierre down a short hallway into a compact living room.
A small fire blazed away in the fireplace, lighting the walls with a friendly
orange glow.

“Cold nights,”
LaPierre said, as if he needed to explain. “Drives the chill away.”

“Reminds me of
home,” Samael said pleasantly. He was positive LaPierre missed the irony.

The room was
tastefully decorated with old—not antique, but old—furniture that looked like
it belonged more to an old grandmother than a middle-aged gay man. How embarrassing.
Samael could see that LaPierre appreciated the finer things in life but, frugal
Yankee that he was, he hadn’t seen the need to get rid of his mother’s
perfectly functional and very ugly furniture after she died. One wall of the
living room had a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with all the right books,
mostly history, fiction, and—surprisingly—numerous books about dogs.

That struck
Samael as odd.

Why so many
books about dogs but not own a dog?

Just as well
, he decided.
He didn’t like dogs any more than he liked cats, and dogs certainly didn’t like
him, since they all, indeed, went to heaven.

Also on the
walls were several paintings and drawings of amateur but quite good quality.
They were tastefully arranged and appeared to have all been done by the same
artist. 

“Please,” LaPierre
said, motioning toward a comfortable chair that was angled toward the
fireplace. “Have a seat.”

As Samael sat,
LaPierre took the chair’s twin, which was also angled toward the fireplace, and
sat down.

Samael noticed
that LaPierre’s hands were trembling slightly. For several seconds, they both
sat staring silently into the flickering blaze. It really did remind Samael of
home...

“So…would you
care for a drink? Scotch, perhaps…or rum? A cup of coffee or tea?”

“I’m fine,”
Samael said, waving his hand, but even as he spoke, he experienced something—

An emotion!

—he hadn’t
experienced for…for millennia…

If ever.

As he looked
at LaPierre and tried to assess how best to broach the topic of getting him to
consign his soul to Samael, Samael experienced…

Pity.

“What in the
name of home?” he muttered softly as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

“What was
that?” LaPierre asked.

Samael could
all but smell the desperate loneliness of the man. With the threat of jail
hanging over him if he was convicted, he would be much too easy to manipulate.
This almost wasn’t fun. It certainly had lost its zest. Samael was already
running through his mind several tactics he could try.

Should he go
the sexual route?

That was the
most obvious ploy.

Samael could
easily sense LaPierre’s interest in him. He didn’t need to be able to read
minds to know that. From the moment he opened his door and saw Samael standing
outside, he’d had…nasty thoughts. Even if the man didn’t end up in Hell
tonight, he could give him something he would never forget before he was carted
off to ten or twenty years in state prison.

Naw
…Samael
decided.
Too easy…No fun there.

Okay,
then…What?

Maybe he
should work on the poor sod’s guilt. Make it clear to him that, if his dead,
departed mother was still alive, how utterly disappointed she would be in him.
That tactic—guilt—often worked quite well with guys like LaPierre, gay or
straight.

But, once
again, it struck Samael as much too easy.

Where was the
fun…the thrill of seducing a despicable human soul to its destruction?

Am I losing my
edge?
Samael wondered.
Am I so jaded after all these centuries that the game has
lost its thrill?

He cautioned
himself to stay focused. If the sexual and the guilt ploys were out, then so
were loneliness and desperation. They also would be too easy, too…and much too
predictable.

Samael needed
some spark to the proceedings. He was quiet for a moment as he mentally ran through
his options. He noticed LaPierre’s increasing discomfort at Samael’s silence.
He should begin…say something…get this party started. It should be—as
usual—delectable, but something was putting Samael off his game.

What the
Hell’s the matter with me?
He wondered, amazed at the unfamiliar sensations
filling him.

Pity?…Uncertainty?…Me?…Impossible!

Fear?…No
way…I’m never afraid!…I make people afraid!… That’s what I do!

Samael was
getting desperate to begin.

I never get
desperate, either!

He tried to
believe he’d come up with a fun and effective tactic once things got rolling,
but he couldn’t stop staring at the fire, his mind a roaring blank. The blaze
reminded him so much of home he felt nostalgic even as he hoped the flames
would inspire him to get this man’s soul wrapped up and get out of here.

For his part,
LaPierre kept shifting uncomfortably in his chair, too, wondering why he had
allowed this handsome strange man into his home.

Where is he
from?

What does he
want?

Why did I even
let him in?

Who does he
represent…the prosecution or the defense…?

Is he a friend
of the woman I’m accused of attacking and trying to rape?

Is he from the
mental hospital, sent here to do another evaluation, this time in my home
setting where I’ll be more comfortable…more myself?

Such questions
were endless, and the longer Mr. Samael sat there, saying absolutely nothing
while staring into the flames, the worse LaPierre’s agitation became.

He wanted a
drink himself, but he stayed where he was, staring at the man—his handsome face
lit to a warm copper color by the fire in the fireplace—and trying not to think
anything...especially that he desperately wished he could seduce this man.

He simply
didn’t have the courage or confidence or the Evil to start.

Finally,
Samael shifted in his chair and said, “We need to discuss what happened to
you.”

That got a
vacant look from LaPierre.

“Have you ever
thought about the only possible way out of your situation?”

LaPierre let
out an audible gasp.

“What do you
mean?” he asked, unable to believe this man—a total stranger—would come to his
home and even hint at such a thing.

Of course he
had considered suicide, if that’s what this man was implying. Almost every
waking moment, the single most thought in his head was that he should end it
all as soon as possible. He would be infinitely better off dead.

And why not?

His mother was
dead. Alex, the only lover who had ever really meant anything to him, had
deserted him. He had no other family or friends he was close to. Every day, his
pointless job sorting mail sucked out any remaining shreds of his soul. And now
he stood accused of a heinous crime he did not commit. He wouldn’t have wanted
to commit…unless something inside him had snapped.

His memories
of last Friday night were fragmentary, at best, but one thing he was absolutely
convinced of was that he had not, and could not have attacked that woman. That
was the only thing that prevented him from ending it all. He was determined to
establish his innocence, but not at the risk of outing himself.

“I…I didn’t do
anything…to her,” LaPierre said in a voice so low and fragile it actually
touched Samael’s heart—with pity?—even as he thought
, I can’t feel pity…I
don’t have a heart.

“I know you
didn’t do it,” Samael said. “That’s why I’m here. To console you.”

The words were
out before he could consider or weigh them. He raised his clenched fist to his
mouth and bit down hard on the forefinger knuckle as though wishing he could
somehow bring the words back or unsay them.

“You
do?…But…how?”

This was the
moment, Samael knew, and for the first time ever in his existence, he was…

Conflicted…Yes…Conflicted…That
was the current pop-psych term for what he was feeling
….

This wasn’t
going at all the way Samael had expected it would. He’d come over here with the
sole intent of manipulating this loser, Ron LaPierre, and driving him—one way
or another—into damning himself.

It should have
been easy.

Samael had
lost count centuries ago of the souls he had collected. LaPierre’s soul was
nothing more than a solitary drop of rain in all the vast oceans of the world.

Don’t tell me
at long last I’m losing my touch
, Samael thought.

It was beyond
human conception how long ago it had been, but at some point in time since the
creation of the Universe, Samael had been an angel. In the mythic battle
between Heaven and Hell, when Lucifer—the Lord of Light—had been cast down in
the fiery depths, Samael—along with a host of other angels—had denied their
angelic nature as well and been cast down with Lucifer or, as many people
called him now, Satan.

Is that what’s
happening now?
He wondered.

I’m being cast
down…again?

No!…It can’t
be
!

The truth was,
Samael did not want to get Ron LaPierre to sell or bargain his soul away. He
didn’t even want him to step on a bug to kill it. He felt sorry for the poor
man.

“My word,”
Samael muttered, wondering what was happening to him as he covered his mouth
with both hands.

LaPierre stared
at him, wide-eyed and pale.

“You know
something?” he said, his voice twisting up an octave or two.

Samael looked
directly at him and saw his frail, frightened humanity, and for the first time
since…forever…he felt nothing but pity and…

Compassion?

No!…Impossible!

Pity, maybe.

But never
compassion!

He didn’t plan
to do it, and afterwards, he deeply regretted doing it, but he told himself he
had to do something dramatic to show that he still had some level of control
over the situation. So Samael stood up and, raising his arms above his head, he
disappeared in a flash of light and a puff of sulfurous smoke.

Humiliated by
his weakness, he was determined not to see or talk with Claire the next day;
and throughout the day, he avoided her calls, e-mails, and texts because he
needed time to collect his wits and figure out exactly what had happened that
night at LaPierre’s condo and why he had let the man’s soul slip away from his
grasp.

If he didn’t
claim it soon, he’d have some more ‘splainin’ to do.