Exalted (7 page)

     
Her eyelids trembled as her knees
weakened; boneless, brainless, she sank down to the dirt, and he moved with
her.

     
Cayne
.

     
What about Cayne?

Methuselah’s
hot fingers felt like they were sinking into her skull, and she slammed shut
the door to her mind. She raised her clammy hands and grabbed his wrists. With
all her effort she pushed his hands away.

“You
refuse?” Methuselah asked quietly. When she said nothing, he slapped her hard
across the cheek. “Your only significance in this world is the role I bred you
to serve,” he seethed. “You will submit!”

Julia raised her hands to her stinging cheek. It burned
above her skin, and below, where Methuselah’s power raged, poisoning her. He
was talking, but she pushed his voice away. Shut her eyes. Rose over the pain.

She thought of the night she’d gone to help the twins with
their math homework. How she’d come around the little copse of pine trees in
her backyard and before her mind had even comprehended the blinding flames,
she’d seen two auras blip. Two little flares, then nothing.

Suzanne and Harry were gone, and Julia was devastated.

As people started running into the yard, she’d heard one of
the neighbors say something horrible.

“There’ll be nothing left of them.”

Nothing left.

It had horrified her then and it haunted her now. Nothing.
Wasn’t that what she’d always been afraid of? Being nothing. And that’s what
Methuselah wanted to make her.

Not if I don’t let him.

Methuselah's voice rose, like Nathan's when he gave a
command, and Julia lifted her head from the floor.

Through bleary eyes she saw Edan staggering through the
doorway, a ghastly sight wrapped in a bloody cloth.

Julia looked away from his awful, glowing eyes, noticing as
she did that Edan now clutched Methuselah's whip. She rose into a crouching
position, holding her arms out, pushing past the shock she felt at seeing
Edan—beautiful, carefree, wicked Edan—in such a battered state.

Then it hit her: If Edan was here, was Cayne here too?

“Do you now see your Demon friend for what he is?”
Methuselah asked.

Julia turned to find Edan standing right beside her,
staring out with no expression.

“Demon?” she said, gaping.

“
The
Demon
assigned to watch The Adversary’s son. Although he did a terrible job. He
didn't deliver his charge to Hell for many years.” Methuselah smiled. “That’s
why he belongs to me now. The Adversary respects my talent for punishment.”

The Adversary’s son?
Cayne was The Adversary's freakin' SON?

Methuselah was grinning ear to ear as he stared at her.

“You’re lying.” Methuselah and Edan backed her into a
corner, but all she could think about was Cayne. “He’s a Nephilim!”

Methuselah laughed. “Nephilim indeed. Tell her, Edan. Tell
her about her
boyfriend
.”

“He’s the Adversary’s son,” Edan said, flat as a machine.
“The Adversary will pour his power into him. When he kills you—”

“That’s enough!” Methuselah snapped, and Edan fell silent.

Julia shook her head. “I don’t believe you,” she cried.

Methuselah considered for a second, then instructed Edan to
turn around, so his back was to her. “Show her your wings.”

They appeared, like Cayne’s, but they weren’t wings. They
were sawed-off nubs, bloody and horrifying.

“His punishment,” Methuselah explained. Then he smiled.
“Just part of it.”

The whip cracked almost faster than she could see, and Edan
cried out in pain. A second lash, and he stumbled.

“Stop it!” Julia cried.

Methuselah paused mid-whip. “You actually feel compassion
for this being?”

She pressed her mouth closed and looked away.

“Have you wondered what happened to
Cayne?
” He sneered Cayne’s name, but Julia’s heart still stopped.
“He’s in Hell. This Demon—well, former Demon—delivered him there.”

Julia looked at Edan, hoping he’d deny it. But he stood
silently.

“I’m sure he’s not having a fun time either,” Methuselah
mused. “Preparing vessels isn’t an easy business.”

Julia's mind screamed: No! No, no, no!

Methuselah whipped Edan once, twice, three times; each time
Edan cried in pain, stood again, then fell back to his knees. Methuselah would
order him up, then whip him again. Julia couldn't stand to see his bloody,
torn-up body, or that awful dead look in his eyes.

“Stop it!”

“What would your lover think, if he knew you still had
compassion for the thing that delivered him to his torture?”

The thought of Cayne in Hell was so horrible, Julia
groaned, and Methuselah fixed his cold eyes on her. He handed the whip to Edan
as Julia started to cry.

“Lash her,” Methuselah told him, and Julia shrank back into
the corner.

She watched Edan’s face flicker, like he was there behind
whatever spell Methuselah had placed on him, and maybe, just maybe, he didn’t
want to hurt her.

Then his arm slashed down, and the whip curled around her
forearm. Its rough-edged leather cut her skin, and as Edan jerked it back
toward him, the ends of it lashed her cheek, making Julia see stars.

Methuselah was on her, grasping her shoulders. He thrust
her forward, and Edan lashed again. “
I am
The One! I alone am exalted! I am infinitely wise and awesomely powerful! You
will bow before me. You will accept me as your god. You will willingly give
your life in the service of mine.”

The whip caught her in the chest, bringing Julia to her
knees. Again and again and again, it ripped her skin. Until thoughts were gone
and pain was everything.

“You are dismissed,” Methuselah said from somewhere far
away.

As Julia’s eyes rolled back, she thought she saw Edan’s
widen almost imperceptibly before he scurried from the room.

Chapter Ten

Edan touched his head. He had a terrible headache, his back
was torn like Jesus H., and he was caked in blood: some dried, some drying; but
at least the chains that had been around his wrists and ankles were gone now.

In addition to his body being shredded to shit, he ached
with a pain he recognized, one that came with being pulled into something
without your will intact. Memories of the last twenty-four hours came rolling
back, filling his little mud room, making him even less happy.

Despite his reputation, Edan wasn’t sadistic. He didn’t
enjoy hurting people. He didn’t mind hurting them, either—he didn't have a true
“conscience” to prevent him from seeing the utility of violence. What he did
mind, very, very much, was when some twisted fuck like Methuselah made him do,
well, anything.

A week ago Methuselah’s control wouldn’t have been
possible. But Edan's hourglass had run out of sand, and he'd had to bring The
Adversary's son to him. Edan had spent nearly two-hundred years spreading his
own wings, and The Adversary hadn’t seemed to mind—time was nothing to
him
, after all.
 

Then something had changed, and The Adversary had demanded
his son, becoming increasingly insistent. When Edan had finally delivered, the
Big A. had been pissed. He'd clipped Edan's wings, demoting him to pathetic
Shade status, and he'd sent Edan back to Methuselah in chains. Meaning
Methuselah could make Edan do anything—as long as the old fart continued
breathing.

Edan stepped through the wall, one of the few things a
Shade could do, and watched Methuselah heal Julia, inserting more of his power
into her as he did. Edan figured it would be painful for her when she woke up.
He wondered what Cayne would do if he was here now.

But he wasn't. Because Edan had taken him to Hell.
 

He told himself he’d given Cayne plenty long to live the
life he chose on Earth. He told himself he didn’t care what happened to Julia.
He was a Demon, wings or not. Yeah, he'd had a stupid fondness for Carlin, but
it was probably her ass that had done him in.

When, a few seconds later, The Adversary summoned him, he
was glad to leave the realm where so many pointless questions plagued him.

Edan met The Adversary in the room where he'd had his wings
sawed off. It was a stone-walled, stone-floored room that looked like it could
have been Spanish. As a rule, when he was in Hell, he didn't allow himself to
think of anything he considered revealing from Earth, so that meant no thoughts
of Carlin. But he hadn't exactly been on his guard when the Adversary was
severing his demonhood, so obviously something had slipped through.

Ivy climbed one wall, and The Adversary stood on the packed
dirt floor beside a small iron table and a lit candle resting on it. Edan
refused to think about the whys of that; The Adversary probably wasn't even
seeing the same thing he was. Hell was like that: uniquely personalized. Unless
you were in a group. Then the rules got even weirder.

The Adversary, clad in dark jeans, a Grumpy Bear Care Bear
t-shirt, and a leather bomber jacket, and sporting the same physical form he
did when he was on Earth, pulled out a chair, and Edan sat, struggling not to
grimace as a breeze played over the stubs where his wings had been.

Being in this realm without his wings was torturous, but he
mustered a smile for The Adversary. A real wicked grin.

“Edan, my favorite Shade." The devil too the seat
across from him. "I hope you gave my
warmest
regards to
Methuselah.” His starkly handsome face broke into an amused smile, and flames
sprang up behind him, climbing the stone wall.

Not that again.

“You tire of my hellfire?”

“Fucking tedious,” he growled.

“No more tedious than a Shade,” The Adversary said. “Can't
decide whose side you're on, can you? Typical Shade trait. I wonder what
prevents you from truly aligning yourself with Hell. Do you think yourself
better than the other Demons?”

A pretty blonde girl with wide brown eyes and a sad mouth
appeared with a tray of donuts and two cups of steaming coffee, and The
Adversary waved at her as she arranged the food on the table. “She traded her
Alpha-inspired ideals for the ability to haunt the human who molested her. He
ended his own life. It was a convenient deal. Wasn't it, Sari?”

Her eyes widened as she nodded her head, then poofed away.

“You settled most of your unfinished business, and you did
it in a fashion I admire, so I granted you wings. You were so familiar with the
human world, I thought you were a suitable guide for my own son—and what did
you do? You betrayed me." The Adversary splayed his hand on the table,
fingers twitching like they itched to be around Edan's neck.

“You allowed him to wander among the so-called half-demons,
and all the while you mooched off Methuselah, brewing your coffee, eating your
scones and your steak and gravy dinners.” The Adversary grabbed a coffee cup
and downed the whole thing. Edan longed for the other mug, and The Adversary
downed it, too, chuckling at his petty meanness.

“You know,” he mused, leaning back in his chair, “one might
think you'd be rewarded for your rebelliousness. Keeping my son from me—quite
wicked of you.” He held Edan's eyes with his hard, timeless gaze. “But that
would be presuming that Hell conforms to any logic. You were punished for doing
wrong, which makes not a lick of sense in a realm where wrong is wrong. And so
it goes...” He shrugged.

“I called you here because I have a job for you. If you do
it well, you can get your wings back. They will be pale lilac, and they will
sparkle, but you will be a Demon once again. What say you, Shade?”

Without warning, the Big A. grabbed Edan's hand, his
Celestial fingers burning Edan's skin in just the way Methuselah's grip did.
Edan felt a tugging in his mind, and The Adversary threw his head back, laughing
uproariously.

“He made you whip her, did he? Oh my, but you are a true
Shade. Your memories betray your...
sympathy
.” The Adversary's mouth
pinched, like he'd never said the word before. Then he chuckled again. “Edan,
my little Demon, sympathetic. So funny.”

Edan rolled his eyes and folded his arms as The Adversary
laughed at him. His extreme amorality made him more frightening than Methuselah
the zealot, but at least he had a sense of humor. Edan had been too long in
Methuselah's presence.

His thoughts were too loud; The Adversary grinned
knowingly. He leaned forward, over steepled fingers, explaining his task in
soft, conspiratorial tones.

“Why me?” Edan asked. In truth, he knew exactly why, but he
wanted to hear The Adversary explain it.

“Because they trust you. You are, after all, so
charming." The Adversary reached out and pinched Edan's cheek; his skin
hissed as the Big A put a little fire into it.

Edan gritted his teeth, refusing to flinch as his cheek
burned. “There's no way they trust me now, if they ever did.”

 
“They will trust you
enough,” The Adversary said. He held out his hand, and Edan took it. "Play
the hero, Edan. You will be rewarded.”

Edan nodded, startled by the restless feeling in his chest.
Being a Shade was too hard. Too many feelings. He couldn't endure them, not
after the net came down. It would be too much misery. As a Demon, he could
enjoy others' misery. Continue to live without fear of consequences, causing
chaos and raining on parades whenever the opportunity arose.

He shut his eyes and pictured a nice, round ass. Bouncing
tits. A buttery southern-style biscuit. A face twisted with rage over some
unexpectedly wicked deed Edan had done. The other petty things that his Demon
self enjoyed. And he nodded. “I'll do it.”
 

Chapter Eleven