Dancing With the Devil (7 page)

In case you’ve ever wondered, free will is an illusion.

At least in my world. Once upon a time, I gave the Devil my
soul. I didn't sell it, mind you. I gave it freely. A few months ago, I’d gotten
it back after tangoing with God, Gabriel and Cephiel. I was currently making
decisions about witchcraft and my love life without fate or any kind of
universal control.

And yet it seemed nothing had changed. I was hopelessly in
love with Lucifer and fighting for my right to live my life however I wanted
while the universe, God, His angels, and all kinds of demons connived to take
away my choices.

“Just a minute, Zayfeer.” I didn't know what he was after,
but there was no way I was going to allow him to steal souls. “What do you
think you’re doing?”

An eerie light burned in his eyes, turning the blue orbs
golden. His power clawed over my skin and made the hair on the back of my neck
stand at attention. “What does it look like, Broker?”

Like you’re a freak
. “Stealing human souls isn’t the
way to redeem yourself from purgatory.”

He slid closer, invading my personal space. His magic chafed
against mine. “Of course not. But getting you to sell them to Lucifer is.”

“Why would I do that?”

The golden eyes burned brighter. “If you don’t…” He brushed
his fingers across my throat; let his gaze roam over my face. His voice lowered
so only I could hear. “I’ll be forced to take Liddy’s soul. And Keisha’s. Maybe
your sisters’ souls as well. What would you do, Broker, to stop from losing
Mikayla and Emilia? The only family you have left.”

Mikayla wasn’t my sister, but that was a technicality.
Liddy, Keisha and Mikayla were all like sisters to me, and while Emilia and I
had our differences, she
was
my big sister and I loved her. After her
ordeal with Gabriel, we’d formed a new bond. She’d once again become a big
sister I could look up to.

And I didn’t take kindly to someone, human or not, threatening
those I loved. Ever.

Placing my face in front of Zayfeer’s, I gave him my best
badass witch look. “Let me make this clear, Z. You so much as look in any of
their directions and I’ll send you back to purgatory faster than you can say,
‘oh, hell.’”

He gave me that Cheshire grin. His face was so close to
mine, I could feel his hot breath on my cheek. “And break your vow of no magic?”

There was something hopeful in his eyes now. In the tone of
his voice, too. He was manipulating me, but I couldn’t fathom why. Or maybe I
could. “You cut a deal with someone on high to redeem yourself, didn’t you? And
it involves getting me to use magic again.”

“It involves getting Lucifer to do his damn job.” He ground
his teeth, making the muscles in his jaw contract. “You’ve turned the Devil
into a freaking pansy. His job is to temp mortals into sinning. Your job is to
broker deals for their souls. Neither of you is living up to your potential.”

Behind us, the group at the table grew restless. Over
Zayfeer’s shoulder, I saw Liddy frowning at me. “God should be happy about
that.”

Zayfeer snorted. “Don’t you get it? In the new millennium,
God is in, thanks to you and lover boy. The two of you working together caused
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, the downfall of governments and Oprah’s
retirement. The more evil there is, the more people turn to God. With you and
Lucifer on hiatus, there’s no need for God.”

“For the record, I had nothing to do with Oprah retiring
from daytime television. I was just as bummed as everyone else. And secondly, sin
didn’t disappear because Lucifer and I broke up. If God wants Luc and I working
together again, all He has to do is deep six the Mark on my forehead.”

Once more Zayfeer’s jaw tightened and his eyes glowed. His
nose nearly touched mine as he spoke. “The Mark is nonnegotiable. Take the
souls at the table to Lucifer or I’ll use my Friends and Family Plan to take Liddy
and the others to purgatory. Where they’ll spend eternity with
me
,” he
added.

The magic in my chest reared, ready to strike him down. The
beginnings of a spell sparked in my brain.

I clamped down on both.
No magic here.
Whatever
bizarre game he was playing, I wasn’t about to give Zayfeer the satisfaction of
goading me into using it here. “I used magic in my purgatory. Why didn’t that
do the trick to redeem you?”

The corner of his mouth made a disappointed noise. “You’re
not as quick as I thought.”

I wanted to smack that smugness off his face. “Just tell me
why.”

“You answered your own question. You were in
purgatory
,
not on Earth. Your magic affected no one but yourself.”

The rules of Heaven, Hell and purgatory were far too
convoluted for me. I needed an expert. One who wasn’t intent on making me screw
up.

But Luc wasn’t here and Gabriel had his own scheme going. The
souls of people I cared about were on the line. I couldn’t afford to be
reckless or stupid. There was only one person on hand who could help me sort
out this mess.

“All right, I’ll do the deed, but I need five minutes to
prepare.”

Z’s brows shot up and he made a rough noise in the back of
his throat. “Prepare yourself? You’ve done this hundreds of times. What do you
have to prepare for?”

“In case you’ve forgotten, I’ve been out of the soul
harvesting biz for over a year. It’s
not
like riding a bike. There are
preparations I have to make or I could screw up everything. You don’t want
that, do you? Your one chance at redemption?”

His eyes narrowed as he searched my face for subterfuge.
Then he sighed. “Fine. Five minutes. Not a second more, or I’ll…”

I cut him off. “I got it. You’re big, you’re bad, you’ll do
whatever it takes to get back to Heaven. But if you want me to do my
job
”
—I made air quotes around the word— “back off for a measly five minutes and let
me focus.”

He took the bait, stepped out of my personal space and
grinned. “Knew I could count on you, Amo. If there’s one thing you can’t
resist, it’s being the hero.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the hex forming on my
tongue from spilling out. “Why in Satan’s name do you angels keep calling me
Amo? It’s Am
y
.”

“Ask Lucifer. Ask him about your mom, too. There’s a lot
he’s not telling you.”

A queasy knot formed in my stomach. I ignored it and went to
find my guardian angel.

I didn’t get far. Just outside the dining room, in fact,
where Adam and Eve lay in wait to ambush me.

“We need to talk,” Adam said.

His long, chestnut-colored hair brushed his shoulders. Haunted
brown eyes met mine with urgency. The soft cotton of his T-shirt outlined every
one of his fireman muscles.

Gorgeous. Plain and simple, he was one gorgeous human male specimen.
The father of all mankind. Yes, I loved Lucifer and now understood I’d never
love anyone the way I did him, but the female inside me still responded to
Adam. We had shared an uncommon, but righteously intense bond.

Until Eve came along. His beautiful counterpart in the whole
In The Beginning thing.

They belonged together, much like Lucifer and I did. Any
fool could see that. It still stung, though, to see them together and so…happy
with each other.

“Not now.” I brushed past him, gave Eve my usual stink eye
glare. “I have to find Cephiel.”

Eve, in all her mother-of-humankind splendor stepped in my
path. “This is important.”

“Not as important as what I’m dealing with.”

Keisha walked out of the dining room, a frown on her face
and a question in her eyes. She gave me the
what now
lift of her hands. I
shook my head. There was no time to explain. The music was louder out here, the
bass keeping rhythm with the pounding in my head. I scanned the crowd for
Cephiel.

“He’s gone,” Eve said. “Left a few minutes ago with that
witch friend of yours.”

Marcia was no friend and I was definitely ripping up her
Evie’s Buy-10-Get-1-Free ice cream card. It just figured she had whisked
Cephiel off to the land of sin right when I finally needed his angelic advice. “Did
they say where they were going?”

“Amy.” Adam grabbed my wrist. “You need to come with us.”

His touch was warm and familiar, but a cold tendril of magic
stung my skin where his fingers encircled my wrist. A cold magic that skimmed
my system, slamming up against my own magic and rattling down my spine.

I knew that type of cold. Angelic.

I jerked my arm from his grasp and backed up. “What kind of
game are you playing with Gabriel?”

Eve stepped forward, backing me up against the wall. “Like
Adam said, you need to come with us.”

She and Adam reached for my wrists at the same time. My
magic hissed. I flailed my arms and tried to push them aside. Where their hands
touched my bare skin, magic sizzled and sunk into me with sharp teeth.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Keisha, seeing my distress,
rushed forward. “Let go of her.”

But it was too late. The magic Gabriel had infused Adam and
Eve with bit down hard, sinking its cold fury into my bones. The room spun and
my head grew too heavy to hold up.

The
thumpthumpthump
of the bass blocked out Keisha’s
voice, the noises in the room blurring into one loud buzz. Adam’s face morphed
into Gabriel’s and Eve’s mutated as well, transforming into a cat’s face. Her
eyes slanted at an angle, and as she smiled, her teeth pointed.

I closed my eyes, sucked in a breath and mentally reached
for the Mark. In the back of my mind, I noted I had become entirely too
dependent on the damn thing.

So be it. Adam and Eve were up to no good and had a powerful
archangel backing them. Since this involved me, it could only be bad. Plus,
Zayfeer was waiting for me, Luc was a no-show and Cephiel was gone.

Think, Amy.
What would Oprah do?

Somehow I didn’t think the O would know what to do in this
situation either. This was all on me.

My magic was ready and willing,
cha-cha
ing inside my
chest. But no. I wasn’t going to use it. I could think my way out of this. All
I had to do was…

Repel.

Whoops.

A rush of hot magic whooshed up from the soles of my feet.
It throttled through me like a freight train, causing my back to arch. A yell issued
from my mouth as I threw back my head.

A giant circle of energy rolled out of my body, then
another. They came in waves, keeping time with the music.
Bam…bam…bam
,
the power circles punched out of me, a magical tsunami knocking Adam, Eve,
Keisha and the rest of the partygoers out of the way. Those nearest me flew
through the air like dolls smacking into those behind them. Chairs flew,
knickknacks were crushed. Bodies tumbled and fell.

Yeah, definitely not my best Oprah imitation.

My body threw out one last circle before it spasmed and I
slid down the wall. Disoriented and sick to my stomach, I shut my eyes tight
and clamped my jaws together. One second. I just needed a second to regroup
and…

Hands, cold as ice and throwing off angelic mojo, grabbed
me. The magic was in sharp contrast to mine and my body spasmed again as if an
electrical current had zapped me.

Blinking hard, I tried to focus on who was gripping my arms,
but my head was woozy and my eyes wouldn’t focus. I didn’t need to see. The
angel magic biting into my flesh and bones once more told me all I needed to
know.

“You can’t stop what’s coming,” Gabriel said. He started to
lift me off the floor. “You’re coming with us.”

Eve’s low voice, radiating superiority and the same smugness
Zayfeer’s usually did, echoed inside my head. She was out of breath, but seemed
almost high on my power. “It’s time.”

Another set of hands clamped onto me, lifting my legs. Adam’s.

I choked back the fear and hate tangling together in my
throat.
Luc,
my mind called.
Where the hell are you?

My magic reached out searching for him, and the Mark of
Cain, annoyingly quiet until that moment, seared to life on my forehead.

Adam’s eyes widened as realization dawned. At the same
moment, Gabriel dropped me, taking wing.

Too late. As I hit the floor, the Mark of Cain flashed its
white light, searing my vision. My magic detonated a second time, the force so
violent, it lifted me from the ground.

I hovered, limbs rigid. My brain blanked out like a
television signal lost. Still online, but nothing coming through.

Around me, all noise ceased and my senses went on lockdown.
I opened my mouth to call out to Keisha or Emilia or anyone who could hear me,
but my vocal chords were frozen.

Icy air skittered over my skin. Then I was falling…a
straight shot to the ground. I landed hard a second time, gasping at a sharp
pain in my ribs as I bounced with the aplomb of a basketball and tumbled once,
twice, three times.

Something that tasted like dirt got in my mouth. I coughed
and spit it out as I finally came to a stop. For a couple of long seconds, I
didn’t move, just laid on my stomach, catching my breath. All was quiet, except
for the slight ringing in my ears.

The quiet was peaceful, but wrong. I leveraged my body into
a sitting position and braced myself with my hands. My vision swam and I had to
close my eyes, keep them closed for a minute, and then try again.

There. I could focus. Sort of. Was that green stuff grass?

The white light was gone. So was the party and Keisha’s
house. My shirt and pants hung in shreds and my brain swam in a pool of murky
thoughts. Even my magic struggled to come online after such a hard reboot.

Lifting my gaze from the ground, I found an intimidating
forest stretched out in front of me. Bulbous thunderheads darkened the sky
above.

“Noooo,” I moaned. I was back in purgatory. How had that
happened? “No, no, no!”

I struggled to my feet, legs shaking, and raised a fist to
the heavens. “Not fair,” I shouted. “I didn’t even get to have sex this time!”

In response, lightning danced over the tops of the trees. Almost
playful like.

One tree in the center towered over the others, its trunk thick
and solid as a castle turret. The trunk was gray with age and the bark twisted
and braided its way to the top. The branches reached skyward, strong and mostly
devoid of leaves. Their skeletal limbs rustled and poked out irreverently, skewing
the heavens.

Wind whooshed around the tree in a spiral, making several of
the remaining leaves break off and ride the wind’s helix down to the underlying
canopy.

For a moment, it looked like the tree was waving to me, even
as it shed tears made of leaves. Was God having a good laugh at my expense?

Go ahead and laugh
, I challenged him.
But one of
these days…

The thought went nowhere.
One of these days, what, Amy?
You and God going to go mano-a-mano?

Ridiculous, of course, but I’d gotten out of this purgatory nightmare
before. I’d do it again.

Summoning my magic, I glared at the heavens and dared them
to stop me. I thought about my apartment, my friends, my determination to stop
Zayfeer.

Back.

I waited for the sucking sensation indicating I was headed
for the land of the living. No rush of magic. No movement of any kind.

Return!

Nada. Maybe this new one-word incantation wasn’t as
effective as I thought.

The wind continued rushing through the trees in bursts that
sounded like faint laughter. Flickers of lightning cavorted in the clouds. I sat
on the piney-smelling ground and hugged my knees. Why did I keep ending up in
purgatory? Was my magic backfiring or was it that stupid Mark of Cain?

Maybe this time it had been Gabriel’s magic.

Or God really
was
laughing at my expense.

God sends you challenges to teach you a lesson
,
Cephiel’s voice rang in my head. How many times had he used that as an excuse
to try and change me?

The surrounding area grew darker as I pondered my
predicament. Maybe I’d simply had a psychotic break. Sounded reasonable.

The forest seemed to breathe as it waited for me to do
something. Goose bumps rose on my skin and my stomach tensed. The eerie weight
of eyeballs watching me made me shiver. Call it instinct or whatever you like,
but something told me to run. The forest was alive and it wanted me.

Do NOT go into the scary forest, Amy.

I stood. There was no church in sight. No downtown Eden with
empty buildings. Just me, the forest and the fog from earlier, curling around
behind me, thick as mud.

Turning my back on the forest, I walked into the fog just to
see what would happen. Not that I wanted to get lost in a swampy fog where
Freddie or Jason might be lurking, but I’d take Hollywood movie monsters over
whatever waited for me in that forest.

The fog closed around me, a cold, heavy blanket, and two
feet in, I hit an invisible wall.

I cursed, kicked the wall a few times and finally laid my
forehead against it, my determination hitting a matching figurative wall. Was
this really it? The forest or nothing?

Returning to the edge of the woods, I shut down the mental
histrionics. Time to face the music. Or whatever it was waiting for me in that
forest.

Wait.
Maybe my magic no longer worked to get me out
of purgatory, but could it work to bring someone in?

Closing my eyes, I pulled up my favorite mental image of
Luc. We were in Paris, holed up in a flat with a view of the Seine, decadent
food and wine in abundance, a claw foot tub and a bed that took up the entire
living area. Every night, we fed each other chocolate-covered strawberries, and
like a modern day
Scheherazade,
I made up wild stories
about couture-dressed witches seducing fallen angels.

Every tale was a tale of seduction, magic and love, with a side
of humor that made Luc laugh. I loved to make him laugh. Loved the expression
on his face when he did so.

That’s the image I called up now.

Lucifer.

I kept my eyes closed and my mind focused, ignoring the
creepy sensations emanating from the trees and the sense of hopelessness taking
root inside my chest.

Work, dammit.

A scuffling noise came from the forest. Cracking open one
eye, I peered into the dark recesses. “Luc?”

A flash of white teeth appeared, then a growl. Uh, oh. I
knew that growl...

Hell hound.

I froze…a rabbit, hoping to go unnoticed by the big, bad
wolf.

A bulky Rottweiler stepped from the shadow of the trees. Her
teeth were bared, fangs ready to rip me to shreds. But when she saw me, her dark
eyes softened. “Dude. I’ve been looking all over for you. What the hell are you
doing here?”

Yep, the Hell hound was talking to me. “Nikita?”

She trotted over, cocked her giant boxy head. “Purgatory,
huh?” She swung that head to look over the landscape, panted a couple of times.
“You don’t have much of an imagination, do you?”

“You’re criticizing my version of limbo?”

“You gotta admit, it ain’t much.”

Nikita had been one of Lilith’s assassins, bent on taking me
to Hell. The hound had wormed her way into my life as a loyal pet, then stabbed
me in the back—or bit me in the leg, as the case was—and killed me.

Is it any wonder why I’m a cat person?

When I turned the tables on Lilith and Gabriel raised me
from Hell, the queen of demons was so mad, she kicked Nikita out of Hell and
cursed the assassin to forever stay in dog form.

Nikita, in turn, became pissed at me and tried to take up
residence at my apartment. I’d managed to shove her off on Cephiel and now
enjoyed the irony of a Hell hound becoming Immaculate Conception’s mascot while
driving my guardian angel batty.

Who says there’s no justice in the world?

“Why are you here?” I asked, keeping an eye on the woods
behind her.

“Lucifer sent me. He’d come himself, but he’s lost his
magic.”

Lost his…“Say again?”

Nikita licked her lips, panted. “He didn’t realize it was
gone until he tried to shimmer to Keisha’s party. He thinks it happened after
you two did the horizontal hula, and he’s never had his powers go belly-up
before, so he’s at a loss as to how to get them back.”

“You’re kidding me.”

She gave me a look that said
I don’t kid
. “He can’t
help you get out of here.”

I rubbed my eyes and blew out a tired sigh. Was it my fault Luc
had lost his powers? It was one thing to have magic and choose not to use it,
another to have it taken from you. “So he sent
you
to help me?”

“Don’t sound so dubious.” She grinned, showing her teeth. “I
don’t bite.”

“You tricked me, killed me and took me to Hell a few months
ago at Lilith’s request.
By biting me
. Trusting you is like playing with
a stick of dynamite.”

In the forest, a shadow moved. A big shadow. Not archangel
big, but definitely scary-monster big. Vicious footsteps crashed through the
undergrowth and we heard what sounded like a heavy weight being dragged across
the forest floor.

Nikita shifted her beefy paws. “Doesn’t look like you have a
lot of options.”

Whatever was being dragged on the ground scraped against a
tree. Metal clanged. There was a splitting noise, and deep inside the forest, a
tree shuddered. The tall tree. A couple more of its leaves broke away and fell in
a death spiral to the ground.

Inside my chest, my heart tried to break free. A burst of white
hot pain shot through my upper body.

“Unless,” Nikita added, “you’re into that whole
Axeman/Resident Evil thing.”

Oh, no. Keisha had made me watch those movies over and over.
Every time, I freaked out more about the Axeman than the zombies.

“And me without my gun loaded with coins.”

Nikita grinned. “Who needs coins? You’ve got me.”

I rubbed my chest where the burning sensation hovered around
my magic. “Right. I feel so much better.” Not.

Another scrap, another clang, another strike against the
tall tree. A collective moan went up from the trees and pain burst again inside
my chest. Nikita and I stepped backwards into the fog, hit the invisible wall.

I wiped a bead of sweat off my forehead. “Why is it chopping
down the tree?”

“My guess? The trees represent the souls you sold to the
Devil. Axeman is a reaper. He’s sending that soul to Hell.”

Through the fog, I studied the tree, my heart beating a
painful rhythm. Was the tree reaching toward me? It looked so…sad.

I was definitely losing it. “How do we stop him?”

“The Axeman? Hell if I know.”

“I’m so glad Luc sent you of all people—er,
creatures
.
You’re
such
a big help.”

“Kidding, kidding. As you well know, I happen to be an
expert on taking souls to Hell. You can’t stop a reaper from collecting a soul.
What you can do is make a trade.”

“Trade one soul for another?”

“Exactly.”

“But I don’t have a soul to trade.”

“You have yours.”

Silence…from the forest and from my magic.

The pain continued burning in my chest but a hollowness set
up shop next to it. “So this is all a trick to get me to give my soul to
Lucifer again.”

“It’s not a trick. I’m telling you, if you want to save that
soul from Hell, you have to give the reaper a soul in exchange. It’s just how
things work.”

Axeman struck the tree another blow and one of the remaining
leaves fell. A cry went up; the wind screaming through the trees and bending
their branches.

Or maybe the trees themselves were screaming.

I slapped my hands over my ears. My knees went out and I
slid down the invisible wall of fog to land hard on my butt.

At one time, my soul had been split in two. Lucifer owned
half and Gabriel the other half. It hadn’t been easy to rejoin them, but I’d
struck a deal with God and both halves were mine now. My fate was my own. I
controlled my destiny.

At least in theory.

Images of the people I’d brokered deals for were cataloged deep
in my brain behind a door I never opened.

But that tree wasn’t just any soul. My brain knew it, my magic
and my heart did as well. The idea of going to Hell in place of that soul made
my stomach heave, but for reasons I didn’t understand, I had to save that tree.
Had to save that soul.

“Fine,” I whispered, my breath hitching but my resolve
strong. “I give my soul as trade.”