The Darkest Joy (6 page)

* * * *

Caim
phased to the down world, which he abhorred. After being with Bliss, the smell of the sulfur felt like it was choking him. He was not in the mood to be there, he never was, but being pulled away from Bliss made it all the more unbearable. He passed
Qemuel
, who was pulling one of his newest torments toward his wall. The demon gave him a toothy grin showing the jagged teeth as he passed. The man he was dragging was begging for mercy.
Caim
shoved the black marble doors that lead to
Samael’s
lair, which caused them to make a harsh grating sound against the stone floor. Belial was at his desk, and his evil sneer grew twice the size when he saw
Caim
stride through the doors.

“Did I pull you away from something, dear boy?”

“Fuck you.”
Caim
scowled at his nemesis.

Belial pretended to be shocked. “Such harsh words coming from your lips, it has to be something good. Care to share the pussy that obviously has you in such a bad mood?”

Caim
moved across the room in a flash. When he slammed his hands down on the table, it shook. “Demon, one of these days, I am going to rip your tail off and beat you with it.”

“Be careful,
Caim
. Your horns are showing,” Belial said softly, but there was an evil light in his eyes.

Caim
reached up, and sure enough, two sharp tips were trying to break though the skin on his forehead.
No!
he
thought wildly. He closed his eyes and calmed his breathing, feeling the heat of his breath against his nostrils. It was demon fire trying to claim him. He couldn’t let that happen. He kept repeating the words in his head.
Anger is the enemy. If I give in, it will claim my soul.
His anger was the thing that got him banished from heaven, and now he was caught here in hell. If he gave in, he would become something dark, something that was worse than death in his mind, a demon. Then his love for Bliss would mean nothing. He would be nothing. He opened his eyes, stood, and stepped away from Belial’s desk.

“Do you have a pickup for me?”
Caim
asked slowly while he controlled his emotions.

“Hmm, such a pity.” Belial smiled, and for an instant, his true face could be seen before he put back on his human mask. “I was hoping to be the one who finally ruined the one small part of your soul you kept. Can’t you feel it,
Caim
? It’s eating away inside you, bit by bit, taking the one pure spot you hold on to like a cancer eating human tissue. Soon, you will be just like us.”

“I will never be like you, Belial. I do my job, and that is all he will never have of me,”
Caim
said vehemently. “Now where do I go?”

“The dark master asked for you to pick this one up personally. He wanted his best on the job.”

Belial’s smile told him one thing. He was going to hate having to do this contract. He snatched it from the demon’s claws and walked out the door without another word. As he phased out of the demon realm to go collect the Devil’s due, he opened the contract and sniffed the blood signature. It brought tears to his eyes. He couldn’t do this much longer. To
Caim
it was torture being a fallen angel who retained his soul.

* * * *

The man had sold his soul for his family. It was one of the worst. He knew Belial sent him out to take this soul on purpose. There was no one to complain to. It was hell, after all. If you didn’t do your job, your punishment was unlike anything imaginable. He stood outside the house, and he could feel the alternative protection they tried to put in place to keep him out. Spells and charms, even a salt ring around the entire house. But they didn’t understand these methods were to keep full demons and the Devil’s dogs out. He still retained the good inside him, so these charms did nothing to keep him out. He shook his head sadly and phased into the house where the man sat clutching his wife’s hand. Their eyes widened in terror when they saw him standing there in silence.

“You can’t have him!” His wife jumped up from next to her husband, clutching a Bible and then throwing it at him, hoping the sanctified words would hurt him and cause him to leave. “He has children! We need him!”

“I cannot do anything for your plea. He made his choice,”
Caim
said softly. He picked up the Bible off the floor, and even as it burned his hands, he handed it back to her. “You should let me take him. You do not want someone else to come in my place, someone who will hurt you or your children, or for the Devil to send his dogs.”

The man stood tiredly. “I am ready to go.”

“No!” his wife screamed. She fell to her knees and crawled to
Caim
. She grabbed his pants and looked up at him with tears streaming down her face and a plea in her eyes. Her words came out in between sobs that broke
Caim’s
heart. “Please, please don’t take him. I love him so much!”

“Darling, darling, there is nothing he can do. He is just a messenger.” He pulled his wife to her feet and held her in his arms, kissing away her tears. “I love you, and even in hell, I will continue to love you.” He turned to
Caim
and said softly, “I am ready to go.”

Caim
nodded silently and watched as the woman collapsed on the sofa in tears, her broken screams of despair muffled in the pillow. What could he say? He was the fallen angel that came to take her husband’s soul. The only thing that came to mind was, “I’m sorry.” With that, he took the soul from the man’s body and left his empty shell crumpled on the floor. He phased out from their home with sobs echoing in his head and took the new soul to its anguish.

Qemuel
met him with such glee that it made
Caim
want to snatch the soul away and run with it topside, to take the poor man back to his home, his wife and children, and safety. But it could not be done. The punishment for a person who sold their soul for love was ten times worse than anything that could be dispensed in certain parts of the underworld. It was hell. Here, evil deeds and sin in humans were rewarded. The psychopaths, the sadists, the world’s degenerates lived like kings while people who didn’t know better or tried to save their families were used as fodder, and their suffering was great.

“Something wrong, fallen one?”
Qemuel
sneered. “Is the job too much for you? Belial said you were having a hard time of it. Maybe a few thousand years chained to my walls would help harden you up.”

“I’m fine. Take your new charge, demon, and stay out of my way.”
Caim’s
tone was neutral as ever. He could never let them see how this place affected him.

Qemuel’s
big hands gripped the head of his new soul. His talons dug into the tender flesh of his scalp, which caused the man to scream in pain and blood to drip from the wounds as he was dragged across the floor.
Caim
watched this new soul be taken for processing and then an eternity of damnation. He knew eventually the man would become as sick and dark as the place he dwelled. The filth and the degrading acts of the Devil’s home would seep into him. Whatever love he claimed he would hold on to for his wife would be lost.
Caim
had watched it all happen before, and it never got easier. It was happening to him as well. He fought a never-ending internal battle to retain the spark of good left in him and to not let it be corroded by the vileness of hell. He left the underworld, the smell of sulfur, rot, and death, and went back
topside
to gulp in the fresh, clean air. While he was gone, the rain had begun to fall in Merry. He sank to the wet earth, and his fingers dug through the grass, into the soil.

He looked up to the heavens with tears streaming down his face. “Why! Please, why can’t you see that I am sorry? I ask for your forgiveness!”

 
But he knew that there would be no answer. In a thousand years, there never was.
Caim
slapped his hands down into the soft earth over and over while sobbing for all the souls he had taken to hell, sobbing for the tears he had seen people shed. In the darkness, he heard a voice say one thing that helped him regain part of his composure.
The tears you shed help you keep your soul alive. Find your joy in the darkness,
Caim
. It is your only hope.
His joy in the darkness, his Bliss.
Caim
got up from the sodden earth and began to walk to the one place that could bring him comfort in the turmoil. He didn’t need directions. She was like a homing beacon, a light that always drew him to her. He knocked on her door a minute later. She opened the door with the chain still attached.

“
Caim
!” Her eyes widened when she saw him standing there in the rain.

“I need . . . I need you, Bliss.” His voice was broken with emotion. “Please.”

She closed the door, and he heard the chain slide from the latch. The door opened quickly, and she pulled him inside and into her arms even though he was dripping wet from the rain.

“Oh,
Caim
, you’re shivering, baby. Come on.” She pulled him along into her bedroom, and
Caim
looked down to see that he was leaving a wet trail on her hardwood floor. She said nothing as she undressed him, and he let her. She dried his skin and seated him down on her bed before she climbed behind him to dry his hair. His nakedness was not a concern at that point. He could feel her wanting to soothe what hurt inside him.

“I’m so tired, my love, so very tired,”
Caim
said softly under her ministrations. Bliss murmured words of comfort as she let her fingers and the towel do the work.
Caim
felt his shoulders relax, and Bliss gently pushed him back onto the bed. He didn’t protest. She pulled the blankets out from under him and covered him up to his neck before she climbed in beside him and brought him into the cradle of her arms once more.

He let his hands wrap around the curves of her body, her warmth seeping into him, taking away the cold of the rain and in his heart. “I can’t do it anymore, Bliss. I need to escape the darkness. Please help me. I can’t do it without you.”

“
Shh
, darling, just sleep now. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.” Bliss kissed his cheek gently.

“Say I have you, Bliss. Say you’ll be mine. I can’t leave the dark without you lighting my path,” he groaned. For the first time in years,
Caim
felt the calm of sleep begin to overtake him and cloud his mind. No matter how tired he was, he could never find rest, until now in the arms of his love.

“You have me,
Caim
. Now sleep, sweetheart,” Her tone soothed him. She kept whispering and talking to him, speaking of nothing important, just letting her voice take him away. He fell asleep listening to her heartbeat, and even though it rained and thundered outside, he found peace in the middle of the storm.

Chapter Five

Caim
woke to her caress. He felt the
featherlight
touches of her fingers run across the muscles of his arms and down his shoulders. Her touch trailed down the expanse of his chest and down to the muscles of his abdomen. Under her gentle caress, he felt his desire began to simmer.
Caim
kept his eyes closed and enjoyed the feel of her fingers running across his body. His breath caught, and his cock hardened when her hands traveled lower than they should. He stifled the urge to moan and beg her to stroke the place that ached.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” He could hear the laugh in her throaty voice.

“Yes, I am.”
Caim
still had his eyes closed, but he felt a smile tug at the corner of his lips.

“Do you want me to stop?” Bliss’s tongue flicked at his earlobe.

“That is not even a question. Of course I don’t want you to stop.” The events of last night plagued him. “Bliss, about last night, I need to talk to you about it.”

She stopped his words with a kiss. “Not right now,
Caim
. Let’s keep the world outside just a little bit longer.”

Caim
draped his hands around the smooth skin of her neck and pulled her into his kiss. Their lips met in fierce intensity that wiped everything but her from his thoughts. He pulled her across his body so that he could feel her entire body on top of him. He stroked and caressed her curves. He murmured against her lips. “Are you sure about this? You can still change your mind.”