Howler's Night (8 page)

I was so filthy, so dirty. I wanted a shower. I wanted out of this cage, but I didn’t trust myself yet. I could finally understand why Ash had put me in here. I was dangerous, not stable. I was so wrong in the head, and tears burned my eyes because this time the little doll wore a pink dress, and it had black curls, and she was chubby just like that little girl in my vision.

I rocked back and forth.

“Pick her up, Pandora. Save her like you did once before.”

I whipped my head around and stared at him. He knew what I was thinking. The moment I thought it I realized why, because he’d been there too.

“I want to love her,” I admitted shyly.

“Then pick her up, little demon.” He knelt down until his face was inches from mine. My fingers twitched with the urge to swipe out at him, but now I knew it was wrong. I wasn’t well.

I ignored the impulse and looked back down at the doll.

“Come on, love. Pick her up.”

Closing my eyes, I gently picked her up and shuddered as tears spilled down my cheeks. The rush of dark fire tingled through my fingertips. I bit down on my lip so hard it split beneath my teeth a second before I crushed the porcelain skull.

Trembling, I dropped the doll as if I’d been burned and buried my face into my knees. A hand patted my back, and I froze, warring with my inner desires.

“Ash.” I gritted my teeth. “You’ve got to release me. I can’t fight this.” I sank my claws into my thighs, wincing as the blood spilled down my hands. I didn’t want to hurt him. I really, really didn’t. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever be strong enough to fight the war inside me.

“Little demon, I’ll never let you go. Not ever.”

But he pulled his hand away, and I was sobbing so hard because I was relieved and tortured by my need of him.

He was walking out the door, and I didn’t want him to go. I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “You were there? That night with Breanna, you were there, weren’t you?”

Clapping his hand against the doorframe, he nodded. “I was there. And her name was Brianna, and you saved her, Pandora. And I didn’t think it was possible to love you more than I did that night.”

Then he was gone, and I was alone again.

Asher

“I need a living, breathing child.” I looked at Dean as he wiped down the metal counter after a busy midnight rush of shifters.

Snorting, Dean riffled his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, lemme just get right on that there. Cause it’s not like she hasn’t killed about ten dolls already.”

He rolled his eyes, and I pounded a dent into the table nearest me. I hadn’t slept in months, but Pandora was making progress. And while I could see it, it was so slow going that I was beginning to lose hope I’d ever be able to get her through this.

“Do you think this is funny?” I snapped.

“Just a little.” Death walked over and locked the door, leaning against it with a calculating look in his eyes. “Look, it’s not like I care one way or another what happens with the little filthy bastards, but I’m not stealing some kid just to help wake her up.”

“Then ask someone!” I paced the length of the bar floor, wishing like hell that I could come up with a better idea than the one I had. But time was running out. Pandora and I couldn’t hide away in Death’s bar too much longer.

There was a war brewing just outside those guarded doors. Dean had explained to me that as long as we remained ensconced within his bar nothing could get to us, which was turning out to be absolutely accurate. Death had many tricks up his Gucci sleeves, and while I was grateful, I was growing increasingly anxious.

The Triad had already had months gearing up for their next attack on her, and remaining in seclusion so long would make us weaker, not stronger. But I couldn’t rush this either. It’d taken her a year to get to where she’d been. I couldn’t expect things to go much faster than they were.

“I don’t do something for nuthin’.”

I poured myself a drink and sat down. “You’ve kept us here.”

“Ah, yeah.” His eyes glowed. “But that’s all part of the game. What you’re asking me goes beyond that. So tell me, Priest, what are you willing to give me in return?”

I tossed back my drink and shook my head. “I’m no priest anymore. I cut ties.”

“Yeah, but you’re still bound, and until you get your soul back, you are a Priest, whether you like it or not.”

“She doesn’t know I’m still alive.”

He chuckled. “A testament to your craftiness, no doubt. That, and the fact that your precious little demon didn’t rat you out in that prison. Allora tried damned hard to find you out.”

Kicking out my leg, I shook my head slowly, feeling as if I were a fly that’d just landed in a spider’s web. I didn’t want Pandora to learn the truth about me. Ever.

Thankfully, the geas kept my mouth shut, for now. But I knew that after she got better the first thing I’d have to do would be helping her search out the key to unlocking the cyphered text.

“I’ll give you as much cash as you want.”

“Pft.” He rolled his eyes. “As if I could be swayed by something so conventional.”

“Then if you don’t want cash, what do you want?”

Dropping down into the chair in front of me, he slipped his hands together and leaned forward. “Your soul.”

I stared at him, ready for him to laugh it off like he so often did, ready to hear him say he’d been teasing. But the words never came.

I tapped my finger on the table. “To kill me or own me?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged and flicked his wrist. “Maybe both. Really just depends on how useful you are to me.”

I couldn’t believe I was seriously considering this. My gut told me that if I could get a real child into that cage with Pandora, her true instincts would kick in and she would progress much faster than she currently was. But I had no way of getting to a child—I knew no one with kids, no one I could ask to let me borrow one just for a night. And even if I had, who would have trusted me with their child?

Not to mention I wouldn’t leave Pandora alone with Death. I didn’t trust Dean not to vanish with her. Helpful he might be, but the creature clearly had his own agenda in this game.

“No. New deal.”

“No deal.” He shook his head. “You ain’t got anything else I want. It’s that or nuthin, partner.”

“You told me I was the King. I need to be here for her, to finish this game.”

“That’s right.” He grinned, and I wanted to wipe the smug smirk off his face with my fist.

“You take my soul and I belong to you.”

“You got it now, Priest.” He banged his fist on the table. “And I won’t be nowhere near as careless as that idiot Allora.”

Meaning I would never be able to sneak away from Death. Death was everywhere; it would be impossible for me to ever slip loose the way I had with Allora. Pandora and I would be separated eternally; the thought was like a shot of ice straight into my veins.

“I need a kid.” There’d be no pleading for mercy with Dean, I knew it, but handing over my soul into Death’s keeping wasn’t a deal I was ready to make.

“Look, buddy, you know the terms.” Dean stood. “It’s not personal, it’s just business. You keep doing what you’re doing, maybe it’ll work, and maybe it won’t. You want quicker results, you know where to find me.”

I reached out my hand, latching onto his wrist firmly. “And if I do it, if I take the deal, how do you plan to take my soul when Allora still owns me?”

He snapped his fingers. “I’ve got my ways, Priest, ways that don’t require killing the bitch either. Though, I certainly wouldn’t object to a little knife play.” He licked his lips. “Just know this, in the interest of fairness, I wouldn’t call your debt due until after the game’s end. You’d still have time with your girl.”

With a wink, he disappeared into a back room, and I sat staring at a wall covered in dart tips wondering just how much I was willing to risk to get her back.

~*~

Pandora

Day 80

My cage was littered with doll’s heads.

Asher didn’t say anything as he walked out the door. I felt like I was disappointing him, and the thought of it made me want to cry.

At night I ached for his body to touch mine. I felt Lust inside of me. I felt other things too. More than one. More than three. There were so many. But Lust was the only one I wanted to focus on, because she was familiar.

But she was so different now too.

She was quieter. She didn’t speak to me, but she lit up like a spark when the Priest came into the room.

I did too.

I remembered his touch. I remembered how I’d come in his arms when he’d barely touched me. My throat burned from crying so hard.

I was so exhausted. I just wanted this to be over.

I closed my eyes and wondered if I could just will myself to die.

~*~

Asher

“I’ll do it.” I didn’t look at Dean as I said it. “I’ll take the deal.”

Death gave me a look that made my palms sweat.

“It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Priest. An absolute pleasure.”

Day 123

“Little demon, wake up.”

His gentle voice roused me. I opened my eyes, blinking until my vision adjusted to the darkness of the room. When it finally did, I let out a startled yip and scrabbled backward until my butt hit the cage behind me.

“Take her away, Ash. Don’t bring her near me.”

There was a small girl in front of him. Maybe two years old. Her skin was dusky hued and her eyes slitted like a cat’s, but there was an innocence to her chubby cheeks that instantly drew me in.

Kneeling, Asher rubbed his palm up and down the little girl’s bicep. She’d dressed so beautifully, wearing a flowing gown of purest white that fell to her ankles. A plethora of colorful silken ribbons threaded through the tight locks of her hair. I couldn’t fail but note the powerful looking were-panther standing behind her.

Half his face was tattooed with African tribal markers, and he was glaring at me with one golden eye, his other eye covered by a patch. His lips were curled back, and his massive arms crossed, but I could still see the echo of the girl’s cherubic features. He was surely her father.

“You can do this, Pandora,” Asher whispered after a second.

I felt Death’s presence in the corner of the room. He gazed on us impassively, as if he couldn’t care less that my track record with anything resembling the girl was fairly disturbing at this point.

My mouth was dry when I shook my head.

“I can’t. I can’t do this.” I banged my skull into the cage because this wasn’t a doll. This wasn’t something without a heart and feelings that didn’t care if I crushed it. This girl lived and breathed, and she looked as terrified as I felt.

My heart broke at the sight of her shaking, clenched fists. What was wrong with this girl? Why wasn’t she running away? How could she be so brave in front of me? Couldn’t she tell what I was, the monster I’d become?

Asher reached for the lock on the cage, and I cried out, holding out my hand. “Please. Don’t do this. I don’t want to hurt her.”

His brown eyes were intense as they gazed at me, then he clenched them shut and sighed. “If you’re not ready, we don’t have to—”

I screamed at the same time the little girl did. Death had traced over to her and run a claw down the length of her smooth bicep, splitting it open. The tattooed giant’s nostrils flared, but he said nothing.

Wild with fury, I rushed to the cage door, ready to kill him, to kill them all. “Leave her alone!”

But now it was Asher trying to wrestle the little girl away from Death, telling him that I wasn’t ready.

“No. It’s now or never. A deal’s a deal, and I’ll keep my end of the bargain,” Death growled, and then with a firm yank, he snapped the lock off of the door and tossed the girl at me.

The baby was shaking and wild with fear—I smelled the stench of it leaking off her. But she was so stoic in the face of it that she turned neither left nor right, just continued to gaze at me with eyes wide open and her rosebud lips trembling.

The metallic waft of her blood tickled my nostrils. A haze descended over my vision. Images of violent deaths, of bodies bloated with disease. Pestilence had come alive inside me, and someone else too. Someone even more blood thirsty, even more malevolent. My mouth watered as the blood continued to tease me. My heart pumped harder.

I wondered what her blood would taste like, what it would feel like sliding down my…

Screaming, I jerked back to the present, to the reality that a little child was now crying, now sensing where my dark thoughts had taken me. I covered my eyes and turned my head, wanting to retch because I’d realized a horrible, insidious truth.

I’d been infected by Gluttony. How did Bubba fight this? How could he resist it? My throat burned, and I wrapped my arms around myself. For so long I’d despised Bubba for what he was, for who he was. I’d been disgusted with his appetites, never realizing how hard he fought every day to control his baser instincts.

Ice ran through my veins, and I felt the girl and I were no longer alone inside the cage. Then I heard a whimper and a roar as the cage slammed shut.

Asher screamed.

My eyes snapped open to stare at Death. His face was no longer so beautiful as I saw the truth behind the mask. His bones lifted into a macabre smile as he yanked the little girl against his body.

“Hold the girl, or I kill her.”

My gaze darted to the father. His hands clenched, and the agony burning in his eyes reflected back at me. But again, he did and said nothing.

I shook my head, covering my mouth with a fist. “Let her go,” I murmured through my fingers.

“In three…”

His arm tightened around the girl’s neck. Now she was sobbing, clutching at Death’s arm banded around her.

“Oh, baby,” I crooned. “Don’t cry. Don’t…shh. Shh.” I took a step closer.

“…two…”

“No. No. Nonononono.” I shook my head, fearing that either way this poor, beautiful child would never leave here alive, but knowing I couldn’t let it be by the cruel and merciless hands of Death.

I snatched her from his arms just as he whispered, “One.”