One Handsome Devil (14 page)

"I think we need to get Jack back. Get him to turn off Derrick and let you get on with your life."

Katra started to object but stopped before the words reached her mouth. Obviously she'd reached the end of her rope and was willing to try anything, even bringing a demon from Hell back to Dallas.

Sara told herself she was doing this for her friend, not because of the desire she still held for Jack. She wasn't convinced.

Katra nodded. “At least it worked for my car. Well, get your book out and let's do some magic.

Two hours later, they'd fortified themselves with most of the wine, had ran through the same evocation ceremony several times without luck, and were getting desperate.

Sara pulled herself out of the Lotus position she'd adopted, grabbed the silver knife and stepped into the middle of the pentagram.

Katra's blood chilled. “What are you doing? That's supposed to keep the demons away from you."

"Jack won't hurt me."

"He's hurt you already.” Although, to be fair, Jack hadn't been different from a lot of guys in that respect.

"Well, I've got to do this.” Sara held the knife to her wrist.

"Well hang on a second.” Katra went to the bathroom and grabbed an handful of Band-Aids. “Remember when we got our First Aid Girl Scout badges?"

"I'm not planning on bleeding that much."

Katra held out the antibiotic ointment. “Just be careful. I don't trust that book."

"It's my mother's book in her own handwriting."

"No offence, but your mother didn't come to a very good end."

"It wasn't because of demons."

"Are you sure?” Katra had begun to wonder whether some of Maura's obsession for religion might have its origin in Sara's mother. Could a supposed car wreck really disguise an even more tragic ending?

"You're supposed to be helping me, not making this more difficult."

At least Sara looked nervous. She'd better be taking this seriously. “I'm trying to help,” Katra said. “I wonder if getting Jack back will make things better or worse."

"He wants to do good, I know it. We have to give him the chance."

"Are you sure this is your brain speaking and not your hormones?” Nobody knew better than Katra what sort of trouble you can get into if you let your desire drive you.

"I'm sure."

Katra nodded. She wasn't convinced but, as Sara had pointed out, their options weren't especially good. She needed help with Derrick and the police hadn't even offered to come by and take a statement. “All right, I guess. But you really don't have to get gross about this. We could buy some cow's blood at the butcher."

"I've got to do it like the book says."

Sara pressed the cold metal of the silver knife against her wrist. The blade pushed down the skin but that was all. No tell-tale signs of blood.

"This is hard.” Sara's face had gone white.

"My mother has needles for her diabetes. Maybe I could get one for you."

"I don't think the magic works that way. The book says a silver knife."

It didn't say the knife should be as dull as a rolling pin either. This one wasn't much better. “Maybe—"

Sweat balled on Sara's forehead as she pressed down harder. “I'll saw at it.” She matched the action to her words.

The blood didn't stream from Sara's arm, instead it seemed to form scraping bubbles, almost like a rash. “God that hurt."

"Uh, yeah. Remind me to catch men the easy way from now on."

"You think you'll forget this if I don't remind you?"

Katra shook her head. “I'll
never
forget jumping out of the sun roof on a moving car. It'll make the top action moment in the next
Stupid Katra Tricks
home video."

"Get ready to light the last candle.” Sara held her wrist over the flat wafer of bread she'd put on an unfired clay plate. “Now."

The candle flared to life as a single drop of blood fell, defying gravity with its slow descent to the waiting wafer. “Now."

Katra screamed.

Thousands of fast-moving gray shapes swarmed over Sara's entire body.

Little, bat-like tongues darted at her wound.

Little bat-like teeth gnawed at her arms, her neck, her legs.

Katra wavered in fear for only a moment, then stepped toward the bat swarm that covered her friend.

She bounced off the ward.

"Jack!” Sara's scream was muffled, obscured by the colony of bat-like creatures clambering for entry into her body.

Jack felt the tug as Sara tried to call him back. He wanted to respond, hadn't wanted to leave. Except when Sara had said the word, she had been answered. He had fled the approach of the angel. Fled, but he'd already waited too long and the angel had hounded him back to the pit.

Despite his desire for the mortal, despite his straining efforts, he could not break the bounds that held him tied in Hell.

He tried to drag his gaze away from the two women but could not. The human plane did not lie at any particular angle from Hell—no matter which way he looked, Sara sat surrounded by candles and dark sea-salt lines. She chanted the spell, sending faint wisps of power that created weaknesses in the normally solid wall between the planes.

Yet the weakness did not help him. Jack could not move. Dark curse-bands held him in his place in the pit. It was always the same. Each time he returned to Hell, it took years, centuries, before he could uncover the keys to the mystic locks that held him to his torture. It might take centuries more before someone called his name across the chasm and invited him back into the mortal universe. Centuries, years, even minutes would be too late for Sara.

Around him, imps flitted. A few stopped to claw at him, glorying in finding a prince so newly and firmly bound that he was helpless to resist their slashing claws. A few, and then none. Like him, like all of Hell, they were drawn by the power lines that sought separation within the fabric of the walls between universes.

Jack endured the pain from the imps’ talons. Compared to the pain of Hell, these added little and he had endured greater agony for millennia.

Then Sara picked up the knife and used it on herself. This he could not endure. Across the dimensions he cried out for her to stop.

For just an instant, she seemed to hear him. Then she shook her head at Katra and continued.

The drop of blood, a precious liquid ruby, fell. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of imps waited, breathless.

The drop's leading edge touched the wafer—a bit of baked flour, but prepared for that most dangerous of rituals—and the spell's power multiplied. A tear opened between the worlds. The seam in the fabric was tiny, lasted only for an infinitesimal fraction of a moment, then closed again. During that time an uncountable host of imps swarmed through.

He strained at his bonds hoping that, by some miracle of mercy never before offered a demon, they might weaken against pure force.

Nothing.

The imps teemed over Sara like maggots on a corpse. He could do nothing.

She called out his name.

Pain.

Pain sleeted Sara's body like a summer tornado.

She screamed again, Jack's name the only thought on her mind.

A glaring white light shined through the mass of tiny swarming creatures that covered her eyes, her mouth, her nostrils, lapped at her wrist.

She felt herself falling—falling so slowly it seemed that she would fall forever. What had she done? How had this failed so badly?

She whispered Jack's name one more time as she collapsed in pain.

The creatures drove in harder, then drew back, their chittering now a mixture of greed, hunger, and fear.

"Angel, Angel, Angel."

"Return to the pit,” a voice commanded. The voice was more beautiful than a Bach organ recital, pealing each syllable like a musical note. “Begone, imps, this woman does not belong to you."

The angel shone with an inner light that nearly blinded Sara, his feathered wings beating against the air. He held a golden sword that seemed to burn in a white glare like magnesium flaring.

The imps buzzed like a swarm of termites rising from her body like an army. Would they do battle with the angel? Could they swarm him as they had swarmed her, burying him in the power of their numbers like a million Lilliputians swamping the giant Gulliver?

A dozen imps flew at the towering figure of the angel and burst into flames.

The mass moved toward him, away, then toward the angel again. They wanted to fight, to wreak some small revenge for the millennia they had been outcast—Sara could see that even in her pained and bedraggled state.

Then the angel gestured and a black gap opened in Sara's living room sucking in the demon imps as if they were stars being dragged into a galactic black hole.

The angel looked down on her, frowned, then passed his hands over her body. Behind the absence of his touch, blessed relief followed.

"What took you so long?” Katra's voice broke the sudden silence.

"Huh?” Sara felt as stupid as she sounded. “Did you pray for an angel?"

"It's Jack, dummy."

"Darling idiot,” he murmured, “what the devil did you think you were doing?"

"It worked,” she breathed. “You're back."

"You could have killed yourself and your friend."

"Katra was safe. She was on the outside of the barrier."

As Sara watched, the Angel's glamour faded. He went from being a fearsome and dangerous angel to the fearsome and dangerous male she couldn't keep her mind off of. Glowing white robes faded to black jeans and a black leather jacket. The halo transformed itself into Jack's cute horns. The wings folded in on themselves, almost as if they had turned inside out.

It truly was Jack. Yet a touch of the angel stayed with him. Something fierce, protective.

"I was worried you weren't going to make it,” Sara said.

"I was, uh, detained."

And he'd said he couldn't lie. “If you hadn't left in the first place, you wouldn't have been."

"Your words have power. That is why you were able to call me, why you were able to create that bridge over the chasm between our planes. When you spoke the holy name, you summoned a Seraph—I fled but I couldn't escape it."

Sara shuddered at the memory. “What were they? Why did they hate me so?"

He shrugged. “They didn't hate you, they loved you for setting them free. But you summoned them and were inside of the protective wards. Of course they would attack."

He made it sound so natural. Well, Sara's world had never been one where imps or demons or Seraphs wandered around doing each other in. “Would you have done that last night when I first summoned you?"

"Maybe. Destroy the spellcaster and destroy the wards. That's basic. No demon wants to be sent back to the pit. Any demon wants to be free."

"I thought you said they were imps."

"Imps, demons. It's the same."

A horrible notion occurred to her. “You mean they were once angels? They looked like you did just then?"

An air of infinite sorrow crossed Jack's face. “Every year we fade. Once we were all mighty and beautiful. How I appeared just now is merely a shadow, a memory of what the least of them would have been. Now only the most powerful of us can take on our original form. Even so, we can hold that form for short moments, as you saw."

A tear formed in Sara's eye and she swiped it off on her sleeve. “What happens to you next?"

"Eventually we'll all fade away. We don't create power, we survive on its reflection. The princes will last the longest, suffer the longest."

"Yeah,” Katra broke in. “Life sucks and all that. I've got a bone to pick with you and don't need any of your
poor pathetic me
act. Why did you set Derrick on me? You'd better have a plan to get rid of him or I'll start talking some of those words you are so afraid of."

Now that she'd regained him, Sara couldn't stand the notion of losing Jack so quickly. “Katra."

"Don't let your hormones rule your brain, Sara. The man is dangerous."

"Far from a man,” Jack corrected.

"Not that far.” Sara felt herself blush but she stuck to her guns. “You didn't have to come back but you did. You could have joined with the imps instead of risking your life and attacking them, but you didn't.” She put her hands on her hips. “I do think you owe Katra an explanation, though."

"All right.” Jack pondered his next words.

For just that moment, Sara wondered if he would lie. Surely he wouldn't. He'd said he never lied. She had to believe that about him.

"I picked Derrick because he was easy. He remembered you from high school so I didn't have to make any major changes. I just reminded him, closed a connection in his brain. You wished for a boyfriend and I made him remember his interest."

"But he's a stalker. He also has some strange ideas about relationships. Ideas that seem to involve pain and bondage."

Jack shrugged. “I picked the easiest path. If you'd wanted someone decent, you should have asked."

"That isn't very nice,” Sara told him before Katra could explode.

"I think I've mentioned that I'm not ever nice."

"What I think is that you owe it to me to solve the problem,” Katra said. She could rip Jack's balls off and feed them too him later if he didn't deliver. In the meantime she fought for enough control to talk rationally. Besides, infatuated as Sara was, she wasn't sure she had any allies here. And she needed allies. When Derrick had reached for her, she had been afraid as truly as she'd ever been in her life. More afraid of him than she had been even when the demon imps had attacked Sara.

"I don't see that I
owe
you anything. You were the one who demanded three wishes. You were the one who came up with wishes that turned out to be so destructive. Then you didn't even keep your side of the bargain. You didn't let me go."

"I let you go,” Sara interrupted. “And I didn't even get three wishes."

Sara had gotten a lot more than three wishes from what Katra had picked up. Still, Katra didn't want to go down that rat-hole. “You gave me squat and you knew it."

Jack shrugged. “So you didn't make very good wishes."