The Devil's Playthings (9 page)

She made it through class without any further embarrassment, and her next class was music. She’d never played an instrument, or sang, and she didn’t know quite why she was in the class. Apparently it was required, and she was placed with the sopranos as the class learned “What child is this” for the Christmas concert. She hoped she wouldn’t have to participate. She struggled through, trying her hardest to listen to the other girls and repeat what she heard. She wasn’t sure if she had it right, but she at least tried.

Next period was lunch, and she found her way to the cafeteria and ordered a creamy chicken and pea concoction, and a small salad. She used her trusty little card to pay. Apparently lunch wasn’t included in tuition. She found a table to sit away from everyone else, and listened.

One girl complained her boyfriend wasn’t paying attention to her, and another girl’s advice was she should have sex with him. Emma wanted to hit the other girl and tell her to mind her own business, but didn’
t. Instead s
he ate silently, reading Shakespeare.

Her next class was
Religious Theory, again with Father Peter. He scanned the students, saw her in the last row, and decided not to call attention to her.

“We are all children of God,” he began. “We accept this as an absolute. But we don’t have proof.
Who here believes in God?” Everyone raised their hands, so Emma raised hers as well.

“Who believes in the devil?” He continued. The kids around her tentatively lowered their hands, until most of them were down. “Why don’t we believe in the devil?”
He searched the room until he saw a cute blonde boy with his hand down. “Robert, why don’t you believe in the devil.”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t believe that there is an evil being wondering around hell torturing people.” The blonde kid shrugged, and crossed his arms in front of him.

“And you, Joanna, why don’t you believe in the devil?”

“I think the devil is just a boogey man that priests make up to scare little kids. If you don’t do what God says, you’re going to go to hell. I think it’s all made up.”

“In almost every culture, there is good and evil, positive and negative energy, ying and yang. It’s almost fundamental to humanity,” Father Peter said.

On any other day, at any other time in her life, she would have said she did not believe the devil existed. It was crazy to blame the worlds’ evils on one being. And she had seen evil in the things her gra
ndfather did to her. She’d experienced
vile actions by the men who had paid her for sex. But to blame the devil? No, it was just human nature.

But now, she knew differently.
T
he man she slept with the night before claimed to be the devil, and she believed him. Why? Because he had paintings on his walls? Because he could change his shape?

What if he was just some sort of psychic who could make her believe he’d changed his shape, and hadn’t really. What if he really wasn’t the devil. How did she know for sure? Luc certainly wasn’t evil. He wiped her tears, held her while she screamed. He seduced her and didn’t have sex with her.

But then, why go after this priest specifically? Why would the priest just happen to be teaching about the devil that very day? Was it coincidence?
It was religious theory after all.

“What if he isn’t roaming around hell? What if he looks just like you and me. What if he walks and talks like us, and changes our hearts subtly
?
What if he in
fluences us to do one bad thing?
Does he then have power? Yes, he does.” She was starting to see why this guy would piss Luc off. Perhaps he was too close to the truth. Perhaps Luc w
ant
ed
to shut him up so he can carry
on in obscurity.

“I don’t know what the devil is. Maybe he is a big red monster with horns that wanders around hell with a pitchfork, stirring pools of molten lava. But what I do know is he exists. We’re going to read Dante’s Inferno. If you don’t already have a copy, stop and get one in the campus shop.” The bell rang, and Emma gathered her things. She walked past Father Peter with her eyes on the floor.

Her next class was history, and they were studying the Salem witch trials. She couldn’t get away from the devil today, she thought to herself. As she rea
d through the
text
book she saw a pretty dark skinned girl that looked familiar. She was one of the
girls who hung on Luc’s wall, a beautiful
painting
of another of Luc’s playthings.

She read the caption under the girl’s picture, and saw she was a slave who admitted to witchcraft and making a pact with the devil, but for some reason she was never hanged like the rest of the witches. Emma
supposed she
knew why.

Emma’s mind went to thoughts of hell. Would she go to hell? If she could be with Luc, why not? She smirked at the idea. After
history
she had PE. She had to dress with the other girls, and
she felt a little more embarrassed than usual.

But she shouldn’t have, none of the other girls paid any attention to her. She might as well have been invisible, and she really didn’t mind. When they were dressed, their task for the day was to walk or run around the gym until the class was over. Why did she have to get dressed for this? She grumbled mentally, but ran with the rest of the girls.

After gym was science. At least she didn’t have to worry about the
subject of the
devil coming up in this class. She did, however, have to worry about dissecting a frog. It was almost as unpleasant as gym.

Then she had to sit through French class, and although it was a beginner’s class they were far beyond anything she knew about the language, which was nothing. She feared she would have to study hard for this one.
After that class she was done for the day, and stopped by the Academy shop to purchase her copy of Dante’s Inferno.

She was a little sad that she had to ride back to the apartment with only the driver as company, and he had the dark black glass partition up. He listened to loud heavy metal music; she assumed he thought she couldn’t hear it through the glass. Oh well, at least she got a small amount of pop culture, she shrugged.

She rode up the elevator alone, pressing the button marked P, for penthouse she
assumed
. She was rewarded to find him impatiently waiting for her return.
He practically jumped on her, lifting her up and carrying her to her room.

“How was your day, my beautiful girl,” he asked her with his
honeyed
voice. “
How did it go with Father Peter? H
ave you seduced him yet?”

Her face turned light pink at the idea that she could seduce him, then dark red at the thought that she could do it in one day. She shook her head, and he shook his in return,
his soft hair flowing
around his face.

“No, you haven’t seduced him yet? That’s okay, I’ll give you til tomorrow.” When her face turned yet another shade of red he laughed aloud. He opened her door and carried her in, dropping her down on her soft bed, then bouncing in beside her.

When she shrugged her shoulder
with a pouty expression
, his heart melted. He closed his eyes and did what he wanted to do all day. He kissed her softly and slowly on her lips. She didn’t have time to protest, for this was not a passionate kiss. This was a kiss that made her toes curl and her heart ache and her breath catch. This was a kiss of one who loves, not one who lusts. And Lucifer was almost as shocked as Emma.

Irresistible was the kiss, and her hands moved unwilled by her mind to his hair. She had adored the
waves
, but had yet
not
touched them. Now, she moved her
fingers through the soft silk
as slowly as he kissed her. And it was his turn to let out a contented sigh, but from him it sounded more like the purr of
a tiger.

One hand stayed in his hair
, the other moved to his neck, testing his response.
And when she did, his skin was so hot it nearly burned her. She jumped back, eyes wide. And when he opened his to wonder what was wrong, his were deep red. Her eyes grew wider, and her mouth went open with a loud gasp.

He knew she saw something different in his appearance. Something was not human. He closed his eyes and quickly turned away. He made an inhuman sound, a catlike cry, and in a moment he was gone from the room. So fast she could barely see that it happened. Yet his red eyes stuck in her mind. If she doubted this beautiful creature that tempted her physically every day was really the devil, she doubted no longer. She shivered violently at one thought
. S
he wanted him to return and to keep kissing her.

She waited patiently for nearly half an hour, allowing her body to return to normal. After that time she decided to shower. She still had no clock in her room, and other than the idea that her movements were mainly dictated by Rosa, she could think of no reason not to have one.

When she finished her shower Rosa waited for her in her room to inform her that Master would not be joining her for dinner, and she could have dinner in her room or in the dining room.
“Can I have dinner by the pool?” She wondered aloud.

“I don’t see why not,” Rosa nodded and smiled, and Emma dressed and carried her copy of Dante’s Inferno downstairs. She sat by the pool, eating a hearty beef stew with cornbread, a perfect winter weather meal.

Soft music played over the speakers, and her mind was on her book, so she had no explanation as to why she looked up at that moment. Other than the fact that he stood there staring at her, and he looked like another man. And the other man scared her more than the red eyes did earlier.

He was nearly as good l
ooking as Luc, with shorter
jet black ha
ir and light b
lue eyes. His skin was pale white, which made the black hair and blue eyes stand out even more. He was flawless in a way human beings shouldn’t be. Then she realized, he wasn’t human, the face was just another mask used by Luc to seduce humans.

I
t was a face she had seen on the news many times. It was the face of one of the most prominent political lobbyists in the world, Joshua Price.

He
pushed
every anti-religious cause from gay marriage to abortion to
evolution in schools. And he pushed his ideals on any news channel that would have him. He pressured the government with lawsuits against everything from religious schools to crosses being worn by government workers.

She guessed if the devil needed a voice, 24
hour
news networks and courtrooms were the best place for it. She just didn’t realize how much she hated the man until she saw him right in front of her.

And she remembered why. One of his pet causes was child pornography and how it should be protected under freedom of speech. She remembered one time in particular her grandfather watching him on
TV
, then turning to her and giving her a lecherous look.

She couldn’t react
to him
.
She didn’t want her shock to hurt his feelings. She knew she did not want to do anything to effect his reactions toward her.
The last thing in the world she wanted was to be back on the streets, alone.

He turned to walk toward the elevator. Before he got on the elevator, though, he made a call on his cell phone. At first the call was quiet, then became animated. Finally, he hung up. And
then he turned to look at her again through the glass wall
.

She returned his gaze, but there was no twinkle in her eyes, no blush on her cheeks.
Her mouth was a tiny open O of shock.
There was no shy glance down at her plate. There was only an empty hollow stare.

His heart pounded wildly in his chest. He placed the cell phone in the pocket of his perfectly tailored tuxedo, and walked through the glass doors into the pool room.