Good Side of Sin (16 page)

Gritting his teeth and growling in frustration when the needles on his flesh threatened to overpower him, Thoros stopped his fleeting journey and dropped to his feet on a sidewalk outside an apartment complex. Night had fallen, and the dryness of the air offended his senses.

A shiver ran up his spine, and, knowing exactly what the cause was, he turned to confront his enemy head on.

Oh shit!
he thought, but didn’t let his guard down.

Standing under the yellow illumination of a street light was a red-haired beauty with ivory skin in a short, tight-fitting, emerald green dress. The five inch stilettos on her slender feet complemented her already lengthy legs.

His manhood gave a curt jerk behind his zipper, but his jaw flexed in irritation. He knew it wasn’t because he really wanted the woman. She was toying with him. Bad news for her; he didn’t enjoy playing games anymore.

Thoros knew she was bad news, but he couldn’t fight off her dark magic. He knew the guy he was tracking was close by, but he didn’t want to investigate that now, with this demon chick so near. She might kill him before he knew the reason he was even drawn to the guy. Maybe he was the key to stop all this.

Who is this woman?
he wondered, and then huffed.
Well, there is only one way to find out, since it doesn’t look like she’s leaving until she gets some attention.

Under her narrowed gaze, he stood upright and forced his muscles to relax, so maybe he could get through this night unscathed. Not likely, but he was damn well going to try. The demon looked harmless—in a tie-me-up-and-do-bad-things-to-me sort of way—but Thoros knew it was all a front, the whole devil-in-disguise type thing.

He sauntered over and stopped when he was within ten feet of her. “You come here often?”

She gave him a sly grin, advancing on him slowly, like a cheetah stalking its prey. She never once took her eyes from his. And he didn’t dare move. He had a feeling she was more dangerous than he had given her credit for.
Damn!

“You’re stronger than I thought,” she said as she placed her hand to the center of Thoros’ chest. Her eyes immediately flicked up to his and something flashed across her face: fear maybe? “Where are they?”

The souls? Ahh, yes, she was the one making him eat the souls of the innocent in Vegas… This woman was definitely trouble. He stopped himself just before summoning Baddon. She would sense it, and he didn’t know if her power exceeded his own. Surely Lucifer wouldn’t send someone weaker than him to take on a task this important. No,
he concluded
, he wouldn’t. This little vixen was probably Hell on heels.
“Who are you?”

Her emerald green eyes flooded black and she gripped Thoros’ neck with her hand, digging her sharp, claw-like nails into his flesh, and then quickly jerked the toes of his boots from the concrete. “I want the souls,” she said in a distorted voice, as if she were using more than one set of vocal chords, feminine and masculine. “You had them. Where are they?”

A loud shot sounded through the air and he felt her grip slip as she nearly lost her balance when the ground shook beneath her feet.

“Hey!” a voice shouted, and Thoros and the demon both cut their eyes over to see Josselyn with a small army of angels and half-demons behind her. Oh, yeah… the seer chick was there, too. “You wanna pick on someone your own size, fiend?” he heard her say, and thanked his lucky stars she was on his side.

“Josh-el-lyn… go—way—” Thoros tried to warn her, but the long fingers around his throat constricted, cutting off his words as well as his air. It was the second time in less than twelve hours he’d been in this position, and he didn’t like it anymore now than he had the first time.

The demon chuckled, her laugh full of evil and menace.

“Set him down, demon,” a guy with long sandy colored hair demanded, stepping up to fill the void beside Josselyn, and Thoros could have sworn he recognized him, though he couldn’t pin-point exactly where they’d met. It didn’t matter, because the demon ignored the request and squeezed tighter, sending his eyes rolling into darkness.

I didn’t let the fear that was pulling at my insides take over me. Thoros would be all right. Eventually. I knew that. He was immortal, after all, but we had to get him away from the demon. She may not be able to kill him, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t kidnap his immortal shell and drag him to Hell. Isaiah’s sweet little soulmate had done the same to me, so I knew it was possible, even if it was against the rules.

Lucifer had stopped playing by the rules a long time ago. Now that Heaven was falling apart, I was afraid Lucifer was playing by a whole new set of rules, but those rules only the occupants of Heaven and Earth would be forced to tolerate.

“He doesn’t have what you’re looking for,” I said, and felt the protection of the others surround me. They were ready and waiting for me to give them the okay to send the hell hound back to where she came from. “I have the souls he took.”

The demon’s black eyes widened in surprise and she snarled as she threw Thoros’ limp body to the ground behind her. I flinched but kept my eyes on her as she took a step toward me, and then another. Crap! Surely she wasn’t stupid enough to think she could fight us all… and win.

“Give them to me, girl!”

“Tell me why you want them and I might consider it.”

She cackled at my response, but didn’t say anything else, nor did she stop stalking toward me. There were only about fifty feet between us now and we needed a plan and answers. And we needed them both fast. The way she just kept coming at us, like we were nothing but mere mortals had me thinking she had more tricks up her sleeve than we had imagined.

“If you won’t tell me why you want them, then maybe you will tell us who you are.”

She recoiled and hissed when Isaiah took a rosary from beneath his shirt, pulling it over his neck for all to see. The female demon in front of us was the only one affected by it. Baddon, Damien and the rest of the half-souled immortals didn’t seem to be bothered by it at all. Isaiah held it out at arm’s length and she squatted into a ball, hiding her face from the holy object and squealing out as if she had been doused with acid.

I stared at her in stunned silence. I knew demons couldn’t touch holy objects, but I’d never witnessed the effect before. Isaiah’s hand reached out to grab my arm when I took a slow step toward her.

He shook his head as I turned back to question him, but never took his eyes off her crippled form on the sidewalk. “No, Josselyn. Never approach a demon in distress without protection.”

I raised my own cross from around my neck and cocked an eyebrow. Isaiah glanced to me, then back at the wailing demon, but didn’t appear to be assured all would still go well, even with the other angels behind us holding their crosses out.

“What is your name, demon?” Isaiah demanded in a loud, clear voice. All he received in return was more of the terrible screaming. He took my hand with his free hand and nodded. We took a few steps, holding out our crucifixes, and Isaiah repeated himself, his voice booming over her screeching. “In the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, I command you! Tell me your name, demon!”

She still didn’t respond. I found that terribly odd, since I had learned in the LOD Academy that demons became pretty much hypnotized when faced with a holy object. A cross to a demon is like kryptonite to Superman. They become weak, unable to control their bodies, powers or even their minds and, from the looks of this one, it was extremely painful.

The screaming subsided, but low growls of warning came from the huddled figure as we carefully approached. I came to an abrupt halt and cut my eyes over to Isaiah, who had stopped in his tracks, too. There was more than one demon in that body, from the different ranges of growls and whining, and now laughing. There were several.
Holy crap! Was that even possible?

“What the hell are we up against?”
I spoke to Isaiah with my mind.

“I do not know,”
he replied, and even his mental voice sounded shaky.

“Well, it can’t kill us, right?”

“It cannot, but death is never the worst thing that can happen.”

I knew that. That’s exactly what I was afraid of.

My eyes shot to Thoros as he moaned and tried to lift the top part of his body by his arms from the patch of grass he’d landed on. Our eyes met and he reached out to me.

“Stay down, Thoros! The demon can’t know your soulmate is here or she will use it against you.”
Isaiah unknowingly said through my mind, and when Thoros fell immediately back to the ground my head did a whip-a-round to look at my guardian angel.

“What tha’—”

I watched as he squeezed his eyes shut, as if he’d said or did something he hadn’t meant to.
“Not now, Josselyn. I will attempt to explain it to you if we make it out of here in one piece. Just, please, help me get us out of here and don’t ask questions now.”

I swallowed hard, my heart suddenly beating a reggae rhythm against my ribcage.

“No—No, Isaiah—”

“NOT… NOW, Josselyn! Please, can you just focus on the demon? Help me get us the hell out of here without it hurting anyone!”

I stared at him though narrowed eyes, my thoughts all over the place, but all of them leading back to only one conclusion, a conclusion I refused to accept: Thoros was my soulmate. Of course—how could I have missed it? I was completely livid that Isaiah had obviously known this—
How long had he known? Since the beginning?
—and not told me. I was shaking so violently it was all I could do to stand beside him and not scream. I was tired of everyone keeping secrets from me and lying to me because
they
didn’t think I could handle it!
“Fine!”
I snapped, and then turned my glare back to the demon, but continued to speak to my guardian angel.
“You want her gone? I can do gone.”

Gripping the shiny silver cross in my palm tighter, I thrust my hand out, breaking the link at the back of my neck, and walked forward without hesitation.

“Josselyn…”
Isaiah said through my mind, but I didn’t respond. “Josselyn, stop!”

I didn’t. “Unclean spirit, I command you! Tell me your name!”

The wicked chuckling that escaped its throat sent chills up my arms, but I still didn’t stop. I felt the support and holy protection from the others and knew they hadn’t let much space come between us before they’d followed in my footsteps. I would have advanced on the creature regardless of their decisions to join me or stay behind and watch.

The metal in my fingers began to warm the closer I got to the demon. Not knowing if that was normal or not, I ignored the uncomfortable sensation and focused on the fiend.

I took another step toward her and shouted into the night, “Soulless fiend, Lucifer’s minion, unclean spirit from Hell, in my Lord’s name I demand you tell me your name!”

Her head jerked up quicker than I could follow and all I could see were fiery red waves of hair tangling together through the air, and then black eyes, wide and evil, as they locked on mine. I stopped walking. If the cross was affecting her in any way, she wasn’t showing any signs now.

“Your Lord,” the voices that emerged from her throat shrieked, “is putty in Lucifer’s hands!”

I swallowed hard, but didn’t dare let the beast know how scared I was. The cross flamed hot. I could feel it searing my skin, but I squeezed tighter and tried my best to ignore this thing I wasn’t used to feeling: pain.

The demon cackled and let its head fall back, reaching for the sky with two arms stretched Heavenward. “He is coming!” it shouted in delight.

“Lucifer can’t come to Earth. He is bound!” I said, and then took another measured step forward.

She looked back at me, the hollow depths of a soulless creature staring back at me through the black, bottom-less windows of her eyes. “He won’t be much longer.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Really? What makes you so sure?”

“He grows more powerful as Heaven grows weaker. I will be the one to free him and he will reward me handsomely.”

I laughed. “He will squash you like a bug under his shoe.”

She snarled. “Fuck you!”

“You’re not really my type, but I bet Lucifer will do more than that to you once we send you back to Hell, where you belong. Who are you? Tell me your name.”

A sly smile spread wide across her face, revealing a perfect set of white teeth. “Would you like to know that?” She nodded, and so did I, as if her power was influencing me to do so. I shook my head and concentrated on blocking her out of my mind. “Will you give me the souls you’ve stolen from me if I answer your questions, angel?”

As much as I needed the answers she had, bartering the pure souls was not an option. “I didn’t steal them from you. You possessed Thoros and made him steal them from the innocent for you. Why? Why use him? Why couldn’t you just take them yourself?”

The demon lost her smile and jerked her head to the side, her black eyes making a back-and-forth motion as if she were listening to a conversation—or several—in her head. Thanks to Isaiah, I knew all about that.

With her eyes cast away from me, I took a guarded step, then another. I didn’t know what I would do when I reached her, but my instinct was screaming at me to get my hands on her.

I picked up my pace and began to speed-walk the remaining forty feet of distance between us. I could hear shouting from behind me and Isaiah’s warning in my head, but I didn’t have time to listen, so I blocked them all out; the shouts became a mute whisper in my mind as I focused all of my attention on the demon. She sneered when she realized I was advancing on her so rapidly.

Obviously, she thought she would win this round.

I grinned.

Right then, a voice broke through my concentration, catching me off guard. My name was being shouted from the other side of her and I watched in horror as Thoros scrambled to his feet, tripping and stumbling, but obviously going to reach the demon before me.

NO!

I tripped in my panicked state, but my palm brushed the sidewalk and I bounced back up into a full out run, only losing one precious second of my time. I knew in my heart if he got to her first that she would take him. I couldn’t let that happen.