Soul Corrupted (17 page)

Keira

If I stay by Lucifer’s side,
he can’t accuse me of working against him, so that’s where I am. I may have
done things Lucifer would end me for, but I’m going to do my best to prevent him
finding out.

Besides, watching the Boss torture Irma Alvarez is an
event I’d rather not miss.

“So, you were wrong,” Lucifer says with a dangerous
grin. He’s just supplied the woman with an iced tea. She’s sweating all over
his sofa. “We have the Antichrist and it isn’t Lucy.”

“Not true,” she squeaks, taking the glass. “It was
that loathsome boy who interfered,” Alvarez continues groveling. “He slowed the
process down. You promised me I’d be alone with her.” She shakes a finger in
Lucifer’s face.

Apparently, that’s the last straw for the Boss. I clap
with glee as he takes her stubby, little finger and twists until she’s on the
ground, iced tea spilled all around as she screams through her wheezes.

“You did have time alone with her, Irma. I didn’t say
I’d give you years. While you took your time, our sweet, little Keira here
managed to sway the perfect Antichrist. Come here, Keira.”

I don’t like being brought into this. I’d rather let the
Boss do his thing than participate, which is a new feeling for me. It’s
unsettling to feel so at odds with something I used to enjoy. But I obey.

Alvarez glares at me with red-hot eyes, but I could
care less. “You undermined me,” she says, trying to breath through the pain as
Lucifer’s grip remains on her finger.

I shrug. “I’m a Demon. I did my job.”

“‘Atta girl,” Lucifer says with a wink. “Now, what to
do with Irma here?” he
tsk
s.

 “Do with me?” Irma simpers.

Lucifer leers and the shadow of an enormous, black,
horned monster flashes over his face, dwarfing the pathetic woman on her knees.

Predictably, Irma cries like a baby. “No. Please. I’m
supposed to return to Heaven at your side. I can still be invaluable during the
End Times.”

I scoff at Irma as she continues on. I hate her. If
she’d done her job I could still be with Noah.

My rage builds to a crescendo and I focus it all on
her. “End her,” I say.

Irma shakes her head, making her curls bounce. “No! What
about Gracelyn and Joshua?”

 Lucifer releases her and she claws at the sofa
until she’s seated again, lying back and breathing so heavily her nostrils
flare.

“What about them?” I ask. “You’re grasping at straws.
Give it up.”

Lucifer grins at me and conjures a machete, which he
clutches in one hand as he stalks toward the cowering woman.

“Grace—she’ll be desperate to save her brother,”
Irma says, standing and scrabbling at my hand, trying to put me between herself
and the blade.

I shove her away from me with my Demon strength and
she ends up on her knees again before Lucifer.

Then her words sink in, and I see it. I see why Josh
made the deal with Lucifer in the first place. Grace would do anything to save
Noah—even give herself up to Lucifer. But then she’ll be in Hell, under
the Boss’s control…and she
really
won’t be able to do anything. I can’t
let this happen.

“She’s full of nonsense,” I say, daring to butt in.
“End her, Lucifer. I’d like to watch.”

Lucifer slices downward and Irma’s head rolls to my
feet, lips still moving in silent babble. Ugh. Before I can complain, her
entire body disappears.

“Where’d she go?” I ask.

“The Pit.” Lucifer wipes the machete on a monogrammed
hanky and tosses it in the air where it disappears as well. “An eternity of
torture.”

I sit on the sofa, relieved.

Lucifer slips into his throne. “The thing is, she was
correct on one count.”

“What’s that?” I ask, sitting straighter.

“I do like things tidy—and leaving Grace and
Josh to enjoy Heaven? That’s not my style.”

“Still,” I stall, trying to come up with a counter
argument. “How do we reach them in Heaven?”

“That’s your job, Keira.” Lucifer conjures a glass of
whisky, swirling the liquid as the ice cubes clink. “I have a feeling you can
find a way to reach them. I’ll expect either Grace or Josh for coffee. You have
one hour.” He raises the glass to his mouth. “Cheers.”

Josh

“Grace?” I’m worried she’s
lost it. She’s been standing in the middle of the room for ten minutes straight,
staring at the blank screen.

“I can’t let this happen. I think I know what I need
to do.” She finally looks at me, acknowledging my presence.

“Good. What can we do? I’m all in.”

“Not you. I don’t need your help.” She moves to push
past me, but I grab her arm.

“Grace, wait, please. Don’t leave me like this. Talk
to me. I thought we’d be okay now that you know I didn’t really want to break
up. I could never cheat on you. I don’t want anyone else. Ever.”

Grace turns to me with a sad sigh, cupping my face in
her hands. God that feels good. Tiny bits of electricity travel through my
nerve endings, sending my body into overdrive. I want to throw her down on the
couch and make mad love to her right now. But I’ll wait until I know she’s
okay.

“Josh, I love you.” She kisses me tenderly on the
lips, pulling back slowly, leaving me in an even bigger state of desire. “But I
can’t be with someone who keeps lying to me. Shh.” She presses the pads of her
thumbs against my lips to silence me. “I know you did it all for me. To protect
me. But I didn’t want protection. I wanted you beside me because, with you, I
could’ve survived anything.” Her eyes water, but she fights the tears back.

“You still can. We can do this together, Grace. We can
do anything together.” I grip her waist and pull her closer.

She shakes her head. “No, Josh. It’s too late. Even if
you swear you’ll change and never shield me again, I have to help Noah and it—”
She stops mid-sentence, sucking in her bottom lip.

“It what?” I press, holding her tighter. I’m not
letting go until I know what she’s thinking.

“It means I can’t think about our relationship right
now. We’re going to have to wait until I’ve dealt with this. I don’t come
first, Josh. Neither do you. We have a job, whether Mr. Griffith likes how we
do it or not. We’re talking about the end of the world.” She pulls my face to
hers.

My brain is stopped short by her kiss and all else
goes out the window while we stand there in each other’s arms. It’s the first
time in a long time that everything’s felt right.

But she pulls away again. “Thank you, Josh. For loving
me in your own way. You’ve given me the courage to do what I have to do.”

She backs up a few steps and the glow of
transportation surrounds her but quickly fizzles out. She seems frustrated, and
the glow appears again, but it dissipates even faster the second time. “Grace,
wait. We need to talk more first. What are you doing? Where are you trying to
go? I want to help.” I realize how hypocritical that sounds. She’s turned the
tables and isn’t telling me the plan. And it does suck.

She takes a deep breath and turns toward me. “Good.
Because I need you to do something for me. If you love me you’ll do it without
hesitation.”

I nod, throat dry. I have a feeling I’m not going to
like this.

“I need you to send me down to Earth. I’m blocked from
doing it on my own.”

“But—”

She narrows her eyes at me. I have to show her I do
love her. That I’m not giving up on us or on Noah. So I do it. I send her to
Earth.

I’m about to set out to find Mr. Griffith again when I
realize I can’t. I can’t let him see that I let her go. If he finds out, Grace
will be banished from Heaven for breaking a second rule, and it’ll be all my
fault.

But if he doesn’t know, he can’t throw her out, right?
There’s one thing I can do right now to help Grace. I can distract him. I can pull
his attention away from whatever she’s planning.

Lucy. Her situation’s been eating at me from the
sidelines. I left her with Ms. Alavarez. Maybe I can distract Griffith
and
save Lucy.

I focus on the ball of light and will myself back to
Earth, to Lucy’s house.

“Josh!” She tackles me with a hug when I enter her
room.

“I take it you’ve cleaned up downstairs,” I say,
searching over her shoulder for evidence of whatever horrible things she’s
done. “Where’s the body?”

“I thought you got rid of it,” she says, examining me
with that awful eye. “She was gone when I got upstairs. Then you were gone,
too. What the Hell’s going on?”

“It’s magic,” I say, all the lightbulbs going on in my
head at once.

Her face goes blank like a sheet of ice. “What are you
talking about?”

“I’m an Angel and I was sent here to try and help you
so you don’t become evil.” I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to tell her the
truth. Take that distraction, Mr. G.

“An Angel? An Angel who helped me kill someone?” She narrows
her normal eye at me.

Right. “Well, that wasn’t a someone. You know how you
were so sure she was evil? She was. She was a Demon and she’s not dead. You
can’t kill a Demon. At least not that easily.”

Lucy does the unexpected—she nods and smiles. “I’ve
suspected you were something, Josh. I thought Ms. Alvarez might be a Demon with
her shadows and all. My book describes them. But that didn’t quite fit for you.”

“You mean you knew?” I can’t believe this.

Lucy pokes my chest, forcing me backward. “I notice
things, Josh. Like auras and people who aren’t really there, remember? I’m not
some naïve kid, you know.”

“Yeah. You kind of are, Lucy.”

She laughs as she turns toward her desk and opens the
top drawer to rummage around, but it’s a cold sound, not her usual giggle. I
wish she’d look at me. But then I change my mind, because when she does turn
around, she’s holding something horribly familiar and yet totally new and the
temperature in the room seems to drop ten degrees.

I back up a couple of steps, eyes locked on the ten-inch
dagger she’s holding. A dagger with a hilt made of an old, weathered cross of
wood secured to the blade with twine. That can’t be what I think it is. Where
the Hell would she get a cursed blade capable of killing both Angels and Demons?
The only one like it disappeared when I died for Grace. And it was different, more
ornate.

Lucy stalks toward me, responding as though she heard
my questioning thoughts. “I made it. I admit I didn’t think the Angel-killing
part wouldn’t be useful yet. I didn’t want to have to kill you, Josh. I like
you. But I’ll get over it.”

I force the glowing ball around my body again and
disappear, reappearing downstairs. What do I do? I have to take care of this. I
can’t just run away again—there’s no one left to run to, anyway. As I’m
considering my next move, a chaotic
thump
ing sound from the other room makes
me jump and I rush to the kitchen.

Big, black birds are throwing themselves against the
glass like they’re trying to break into the house. Behind the mass of black
feathers looms a menacing sky, the color of a fresh bruise.

These are the signs Mr. Griffith told me about in the
pool hall that indicate the Antichrist’s arrival. One quick glance outside
proves they’re crashing into the other houses as well. The sky’s full of them.
I back away from the view. Grace said it happened, that Noah is the Antichrist.
But hearing it and seeing it are two different things.

“Josh?” Lucy’s voice startles me and I look up to find
her at the mouth of the kitchen, both eyes focused on me. “I didn’t mean to
scare you.”

“You didn’t?” I squeak. Usually threatening to kill
someone is meant to be scary.

“You’re here to take my power away. I can’t let you do
that. It’s amazing what you can find on the internet.” She
tsk
s softly and
slowly moves toward me. A bird crashes into the window behind me. “My book had
the instructions.” She holds up the book and waves it. “All I needed was a
blade used to kill a virgin and a holy cross. They were easy to get on the
internet. This cross is supposedly blessed by Saint Francis—at least,
that’s what the ad said. Though I guess that part doesn’t matter if you’re an
Angel.”

“I’m here to save you, Lucy. I don’t want to take away
your power, just help you use it right.”

She hesitates.

“Lucy, put down the dagger. You don’t want to hurt me.
We’re friends.”

Lucy lets the dagger fall to her side, but doesn’t let
go. Still, it’s a move in the right direction.

“Oh, Josh. I have no room for friends in my new life.
Friends betray you. That’s what my book says.”

“Books don’t always tell the truth.” Though it seems
to have gotten the dagger recipe pretty head-on. “What else does it say?”

“It says all kinds of stuff about using the blood of
the Antichrist or whatever.” She slices her palm suddenly and I wince. She
doesn’t seem to feel the dripping wound as she continues. “But my magic blood
should help me kill just about anything.”

“No, Lucy. Please, let me help you. I wouldn’t lie to
you.” I can’t believe how badly this is going.

“Oh, Josh. I wish I could trust you, but it’s so
obvious you’re wrong. I’ll tell you what, though. I’ll let you help me anyway.”

“You will?” I ask, shuddering as yet another bird
crashes into the window.

“I’m still going to test out my knife on you,” she
says, “but first I need a little more practice with my spells before Mom comes
home.”