Playing With Fire (9 page)

He used the drifting clouds of smoke as extra cover. L.A.’s streets flickered beneath him through the haze as powerful wings drove him forward. The scent of smoke grew stronger as he flew over Hollywood and crossed the 101 Freeway. Sirens screamed in his ears, and the flashing lights of emergency vehicles glowed like embers through the gray-brown haze, a haze which increased tenfold as he crossed Los Feliz and the pricey neighborhoods that backed up against the open hillsides surrounding the Observatory. Two or three of those multi-million-dollar homes were already ablaze.

Somehow he felt her, felt the same magnetic draw he would toward a doomed soul. Well, not quite the same. He knew if she perished in the fire, her soul would not be his to claim. But somehow he still knew where to find her, knew where she was hidden in the firestorm below.

He couldn’t go to her in his human shape. He could tell she was still alive, but only a rescue by air was feasible at this point. The flames licked up through the dry brush on all sides; even the natural firebreaks afforded by the hiking trails weren’t enough to keep the hungry fires at bay.

So be it. Whatever punishment he might face for going to her as he was now, in his demon form seemed mild compared to the thought of her dying in the conflagration below. He had seen such deaths before. They were never easy.

He took a breath, and began his descent.

• • •

Really brilliant idea, Felicia. I’m guessing it ranks right up there with the guy who thought the
Titanic
had enough lifeboats.

The sarcastic tone of her interior voice couldn’t mask the terror she felt rising in her. Somehow, she knew she was going to die here.
 

The fire had pushed her back up the road, having already consumed the little promontory where she’d been painting. Her easel and canvas were long gone, but she guessed their loss was the least of her problems.

How could it have come up so suddenly? The flames hadn’t seemed like something inanimate, but rather a malevolent, purposeful monster that had raced up the hillside so fast she could only drop everything and run. At least she’d had enough common sense to wear sturdy flat boots instead of sandals, despite the day’s warmth.
 

She’d struck out for one of the wide hiking trails and service roads that wound through the semi-wilderness beneath the Observatory, thinking if she followed it upward she could outpace the fire and gain the relative safety of the building. The place was steel-girdered and made of concrete almost a foot thick. Surely it would have offered some protection from the flames.

But the fire had outrun her, sparks blowing past her to jump the road and spread across the hills in every direction. The final blow had come when one of the California live oaks that dotted the grounds crashed across the dirt road, effectively blocking any further progress. She couldn’t go back; the paths she had already climbed were now obscured by a swirling cloud of smoke and flame fed by vegetation that hadn’t seen rain in months.

 
Now she stood in a bend of the road, every instinct screaming at her to run, even though she knew she had no place to go. She tore a strip off the bottom of her shirt and tied it over her nose and mouth.

Just delaying the inevitable
, she thought.
Anyway, wouldn’t you rather die of smoke inhalation than be burned alive?

Not the sort of question she’d ever thought she’d have to answer. Instead, she turned and eyed the hillside above her. She had no idea whether she’d even be able to scale the almost vertical incline, but maybe she could help herself along by grabbing some of the scrubby vegetation that grew there. It hadn’t caught fire yet — well, mostly. A few spots had begun to smolder, but anything was better than standing here and waiting for the fire to claim her.

She began to reach for a manzanita bush, then stopped as a dark shadow passed overhead. Turning, she gazed upward and shielded her eyes as best she could from the thickening smoke and falling ash. Had someone spotted her and sent a helicopter rescue?

But she heard no whir of swirling rotors. The shadow took on more solid form, resolving into something that should have been the stuff of nightmares.

The shape seemed at home in the conflagration, the blowing clouds of haze and soot its natural habitat. Leathery wings beat against the super-heated air as he settled on the dirt road only a few feet away from her. But it was Sam’s dark eyes that looked down at her out of that alien face, and it was his voice that came to her now.

“Care for a lift?”

Surely the flood of relief that hit her was pure insanity, as was the bubble of laughter she felt rising in her throat. No sane person could actually be happy to see a demon striding toward her, arms outstretched.

At the moment, however, Felicia was pretty sure she didn’t give a rat’s ass about sanity. “I’d love one.”

He moved so quickly she couldn’t tell exactly what had happened. All she knew was that she’d been gathered into those muscled arms and clutched tightly against his bare chest, and wings that looked as if they’d been borrowed from a dragon pushed them up and away from the fire. Then they were soaring through the smoke. The Observatory, ghostly white, passed by beneath her feet.
 

They headed north and west, leaving the fire behind them. It wasn’t until Sam came to ground in the shadow of the Hollywood sign that Felicia realized where they’d been heading.

Sam set her down, very gently, in the dry grass behind the “W.” Her legs felt as if they’d turned to rubber, and she fell to her knees. At once he was there, reaching out to her. He stopped, clawed hand a few inches away from her elbow.

She thought she understood his hesitation. While she might have welcomed his touch when it meant rescue from certain death, she guessed he might hesitate to help her now that they were safely away from the fire.

Part of her wanted to scream in denial, to tell her she must be hallucinating the nightmarish being who stood so diffidently a scant arm’s length away. But no matter who or what he was, he had just saved her life.
 

“Actually, I could use a hand,” she told him, and found it wasn’t a lie. Her legs didn’t want to cooperate.

At once he grasped her by the elbow and steadied her as she climbed to her feet. He let go immediately once she was upright. Then she reached up to untie the grimy piece of shirt that shielded her mouth and nose.

“Thank you,” she said. How pitifully inadequate. But she didn’t know what else to say.

“So now you know,” he replied.

His voice sounded the same, maybe a bit deeper. And those were definitely his black eyes looking down at her from the alien planes of his face. As she stared up at him, she saw something flicker in his expression. Dismay? Regret? Hard to say — his form was definitely humanoid, but his features couldn’t have been called human by any stretch of the imagination.

She forced a smile. “Since when do demons play angel?”

He remained impassive. “I couldn’t leave you where you were. Who else was there to help?”

Who, indeed. She’d heard sirens off in this distance, but whether they could have reached her in time was debatable at best. Somehow she doubted simple expediency was his only motive, but demanding an explanation for his actions seemed a shabby reward. “Still, it was an amazing thing that you did.”

Once more she saw that hint of disquiet in his eyes. “More than you know. Mortals are not supposed to see our true forms.”

Her mind latched onto the most easily comprehensible part of his statement. “‘Our’?” she repeated. “So there are more of you?”

“Many more.” He paused, then added, “You would never have seen me at all, if I hadn’t decided to approach you in my human guise. You are not a woman who need fear a demon.”

At first she wasn’t sure what he meant. Realization came as she remembered that he’d referred to himself as a bounty hunter. “That’s why you’re here? To — to catch souls?”

He nodded.
 

Without even knowing exactly why she did so, she took a step toward him. He stood very still, the enormous bat-like wings folded close to his back.
   

She asked, her voice barely above a whisper, “Why?”

Something like a shudder moved through his body. He reached out and took her hands in his oversized, leathery ones. His flesh felt hot against hers, as if his core temperature was far, far warmer than a human’s. Then he turned her hands palm up. Deliberately, he lifted her right hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against the soot-covered palm, then did the same with her left.

“That’s why,” he said, and immediately dropped both her hands and turned away.

If she’d tried to move, her knees might have given way once more. Instead, she stood in place, her palms burning with the memory of those kisses.

Back still to her, he spoke. “I must leave you now. It’s bad enough that you’ve seen me; I cannot risk anyone else doing the same. I could take on my human form again, but as my clothing is at least three miles from here, I think a human shape would cause its own set of problems. It’s something of a hike, but if you follow Mount Lee downward until you reach Mulholland Drive, you’ll get to civilization in less than an hour.”

Somehow she found her voice. The words sounded pitiful even as she spoke them. “You’re leaving me here?”

He did not move. “I must face the consequences of my actions.”

That cryptic statement delivered, he spread his wings outward and took to the air. Warm winds swirled around him, and then he was gone. Felicia barely had time to notice how he immediately took refuge in the smoke cloud that had risen above the Hollywood Hills before he disappeared from sight altogether.

For a few minutes she remained standing in the shadow of the sign, face still lifted to the sky. An ache started somewhere in the pit of her stomach, and she swallowed. Her throat and her eyes were too dry for tears.
 

Hands clenched into fists to somehow contain the heat of the demon’s kisses, she began walking east, heading for the road that would lead her downward, back to the real world.

• • •

Nothing like a hot shower to clear your head. Samael wrapped a towel around himself and stepped out of the stall, then breathed deeply of the steam he’d just released into the bathroom. It was a welcome change from the dry, smoke-filled air he’d been breathing in the hills above Hollywood. The only thing that could have made the shower better would have been to have Felicia in it next to him.

He gave himself a peremptory rubdown with the towel and then dropped it on the bathroom floor. After pausing in his bedroom to pull on some boxer briefs and sweat pants, he headed out to the kitchen.

For a condemned demon, he was feeling pretty damn good.

Felicia was safe. As an added bonus, she hadn’t fainted or screamed or tried to run away the second he set her down on solid ground. True, she hadn’t thrown herself into his arms in gratitude, but neither had she flinched when he took her hands and kissed them. A demon had to take what he could get.

Leaving her in the shadow of the Hollywood sign had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done, but he knew she’d manage. The fire was still a good mile away from there, and he’d spotted emergency personnel fanning out to make sure the flames didn’t spread in that direction. He wished he could have taken her straight home, but while he could conceal himself, he did not have the ability to shield her from curious eyes. Leaving her to walk down from the sign had seemed the safest compromise.

Now, he could only wait. He didn’t know for sure who Lucifer would send. Beelzebub, maybe — he’d always been a prudish little petty dictator. Samael had the feeling Beelzebub would definitely get his rocks off at being able to send his subordinate back down to the Pit. Do not pass Go, and all that.

Well, it had been a good run. He wouldn’t complain. He’d had a night with Felicia, and he’d hold that memory close even when toiling in the darkest recesses of Hell.

But he might as well have a beer while waiting for the inevitable.

He’d just turned away from the refrigerator when golden light filled the living room. He frowned; the greater devils didn’t usually announce their appearance in that fashion.

Uriel stared down at the empty pizza box on the coffee table with an expression of mild disapproval. “You demons are all the same — always fouling your own nests.”

“I — what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to congratulate you.”

Nonplussed, Samael decided the best thing to do would be to take a large swallow of beer. Thus fortified, he replied, “Congratulate me?”

“On doing the right thing.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“No, you don’t. But in this case, that’s a good thing.”

Privately, Samael thought angels were all the same, too — they just loved to talk in circles. “There’s more beer in the fridge. We can have one together while I wait for Beelzebub to show up and give me a spanking.”

“No need for that, actually,” Uriel said. He cast a stern glance at the bottle of Oktoberfest Samael held. “You truly don’t understand, do you?”

Demons didn’t get headaches, but somehow Samael thought he was experiencing the beginnings of one. “What am I supposed to understand? I broke the cardinal rule. I’m going to get my pee-pee spanked. End of story.”

“No, it’s just the start.” Angels didn’t sigh, but Uriel looked as if he wanted to. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

Samael shrugged, then pushed aside a discarded newspaper and took a seat on the couch. The archangel had been right about one thing — he’d really let the place go lately. Maybe he should think about getting a cleaning lady. On the other hand, there was a good chance he wouldn’t be topside long enough to require one.

“Have you wondered why you had such a reaction to Felicia, when you’ve only known her for several days?”

If Samael had had time to stop and think about it, maybe he would have wondered. Now that Uriel had asked the question, though, Samael realized he’d found himself drawn to her far more strongly than he had been to any of the other women he’d pursued over the centuries. He’d tried to downplay the attraction, both to Abigor and to himself, but he saw no point in denying it now.