The_Demons_Wife_ARC (15 page)

“In Chinese, I
assume.”

“Yeah.”

“And…?”

“And…It’s a
spell.”

“A spell.”

“The first
time I saw it,” Samael said, “it made me feel uncomfortable, so I asked the
host there what it meant, and he said it’s a protective spell against evil. The
calligraphy literally says, ’block evil spirit.”

 “So what are
you telling me, you’re afraid of it?”

“Not ‘afraid.’
It just makes me feel…uncomfortable, so rather than deal with that again, I
came back here to wait for you. Honestly, I thought you would have been back by
the time I got here. You must have waited a long time.”

“Half an
hour.”

“I figured if
I walked down to meet you, I might miss you on the street. I wasn’t sure which
way you’d come.”

Yeah, right,
Claire
thought, not caring if Samael could read her mind or not. Let him pry all he
wants, he’s got to know he’s not going to get to me.

Claire swung
her legs up onto the couch and draped her arm over the back of the couch. The
candle was guttering in melted wax, the flame growing dimmer.  She wanted to
look casual and unconcerned because there was no way he was going to get the
upper hand on her, no matter how reasonable his explanation.

“So,” she
said, “we have to get everything straight between us. I mean everything.”

Samael smiled
faintly and looked down at his hands folded in his lap. His feet were planted
firmly on the floor. Claire still couldn’t decide how genuine this sudden
humility or whatever he was doing was, but she told herself it didn’t matter.

Genuine or
faking it, she was determined to end it all here and now.

“Everything?”
He chuckled, but it was a humorless chuckle, and his expression was dour. “That
would take a very long time.” He raised his gaze and pierced her with an
intense look. His gold-flecked eyes glowed in the darkness. 

“For starters,
then,” Claire said, “how about you tell me if…no, not if…how you got that poor
man to kill himself.”

The expression
on Samael’s face instantly froze, and suddenly it looked like a grimace so
intense Claire thought for a moment that he might be in actual physical pain.

Is that even
possible?

Could he—or
any demon—suffer physical, much less emotional pain?

“Ahh, Ron LaPierre,
you mean.”

“No, I mean
the Pope.”

For some
reason, that joke didn’t fly, and Claire wondered if sometime during his
existence Samael had in fact corrupted a Pope.

“The honest
truth?” Samael cast his gaze downward again, and Claire wondered if he was
looking down to Hell—his home—for strength and comfort. “I didn’t do it.”

“As if,” she
said with a snort.

Claire sat
perfectly still, waiting for him to respond. Then she let her breath out
slowly, like she was exhaling a cigarette. Her insides were jumping when she
said, “Seriously, Samael. I don’t believe a word you say.”

The look that
passed over Samael’s face stunned her.

There was no
way he could be acting.

Is there?

 The hurt…the
abject misery…the depth of sadness that lined his face and dulled his eyes was
palpable. He looked like he was aging even as they spoke. Twisting his hands
together like he was wringing out a washcloth, he shuddered. His body appeared
to be shrinking…like he was growing smaller inside his clothes even as she
watched.

“You have to
believe me, Claire. I…You have no idea how difficult this is for me to say.”

“You mean the
truth?”

“Yes. The
truth.”

There was none
of the usual strength and resonance in his voice. His confidence appeared to be
gone…obliterated. He looked and sounded like a broken old man. With his
shoulders slumped forward, he stared blankly at the floor, shaking his head
slowly from side to side.

For her part,
Claire knew she shouldn’t, but she wanted to reach out and touch him…maybe take
his hand…to reassure him, but she still had colossal doubts that anything he
said or did was genuine…She still wondered if this might all be part of an
elaborate plan to get her to sell or sign away her soul to him.

Because that’s
what demons do.

She knew what
she had to say next, and the thought of it bothered her.

How could she
deal with any of this?

It was totally
uncharted territory for her and, she guessed, for most people.

Or maybe not.

Maybe people
dealt with literal demons all the time, and this was just her first exposure to
what was a common, everyday occurrence.

That idea sent
a tingling rush of fear dancing up her spine.

Maybe people
were tempted like this and gave in all the time. How else could you explain
politicians? Maybe this was why the world is the way it is. She had never
really considered that evil might be concrete and literal; but here it was,
sitting on her couch and looking like it wanted to jump out of its skin and
take its true demonic form.

She inhaled
deeply, ran her fingers through her hair, and braced herself before saying, “Do
I have to say it again, Samael?” He looked at her with a most forlorn look. “I
don’t believe a word you say.”

She could see
that her words crushed him. If he had appeared diminished before, he looked
positively devastated now. Blasted. The healthy flush on his face was gone. His
hands were chalky white in the dimming candlelight. Every bit of his confidence
and power was drained…or maybe they had never been there in the first place.
Maybe all of his arrogance had been a ruse…or an illusion.

Maybe he
couldn’t stand up to someone who resisted him like this.

“I…I
understand,” Samael said, his voice so soft and shattered she could barely hear
him.

They looked at
each other, and against her will, Claire could feel her heart going out to him.

Again…

How can you do
this to him?
She asked herself, but the immediate answer was,
I didn’t do it…He brought
it all on himself
.

“Do you…want
me to…to leave?” he asked.

Claire sat
there, stunned, her mind a roaring blank. She knew she should say: Yes…Get out
of here right now and never come back, but she couldn’t bring herself to say
the words. Looking at him, all she could do was remember what and who he used
to be, and see how much smaller he was now.

I’ve destroyed
him,
she thought, and then, surprised to hear the word issue from her mouth: “No.”

Her breath
caught like a fishhook in her throat, and her armpits were suddenly damp.
Little streams of sweat trickled down her sides. 

“No?”

He looked at
her. A thin trace of hope lighting his eyes.

“At least not
before we get a few more things straight between us.”

Samael nodded
very slowly.

“And you
promise that you’ll be perfectly honest with me?”

Again, he
nodded.

“You’ll tell
me the absolute truth?”

“Yes…if I
can,” he replied.

Claire wanted
to ask him what he meant by that. Was he already qualifying things? She had a
pretty good idea he was incapable of telling the truth about anything because
he would do and say anything in order to possess her soul. That was her biggest
fear.

“How about we
go for a walk?” she said, easing herself off the couch. She was determined not
to jump into bed with him, but she could feel her resolve wavering, and she
knew if they went outside…in public…she’d be less tempted to yield to
temptation if he managed to break down her defenses.

She didn’t
admit to herself—much less him—that he already had.

~ * ~

The night air
was cold, as sharp as teeth. Even with several layers of clothes and a scarf
and hat, Claire was shivering as they made their way up Congress Street toward
Longfellow Square. Samael was wearing a coat, but it looked too thin for such
weather. But the cold seemed not to bother him. Claire laughed to herself,
thinking that he had his own source of internal heat.

“’S cold as
Hell,” she said to herself.

Without
looking at her and scowling as he looked down at the snow-crusted sidewalk,
Samael muttered, “Hardly.”

The streets
were mostly deserted, even this early. No one was heading out into the cold
without a purpose. Cars and taxis and a city bus or two roared by. A few
people—some young and walking quickly; others, shabbily dressed and obviously homeless—went
by with shuffling gaits. Claire couldn’t explain it, but she felt as though she
and Samael moved in their own little protective bubble.

Is that
something he can do
?
She wondered…
Create some invisible thingie to separate us from the rest of the
world?

She wasn’t
going to worry about something like that when there were so many other pressing
issues.

“So you really
didn’t do it? Make that man kill himself?”

Her breath
came out as white puffs that were quickly whipped away by the wind. She looked
to see if the same thing happened to Samael’s breath, but she couldn’t be sure.

“I told
you…honestly…I’ll admit I wanted to. I went to his condo with every intention
of tripping him up so I could…You know…”

“Whoa. Wait a
second. What do you mean by ‘tripping him up’?”

She stopped
short and held him by grabbing him by the crook of his elbow. His body heat was
throbbing beneath his coat and shirt.

“Claire…it’s
what I do,” he said. “It’s my job—I guess you could call it my job. I never
thought of it like that before, but it wasn’t until recently. When I—”

His voice
faltered, and he had to look away, blinking his eyes. After a long, awkward
silence, Claire started walking again, and he quickly caught up and kept pace
with her.

“I never
considered it a job until recently. Before I met you, it was…” He let out a
faint gasp and shook his head as though contemplating something he simply
couldn’t believe. “It was all I cared about. I gladly, willfully, and willingly
collected souls for my master…my boss.”

“Your boss…Who
is—?” 

Samael cast a
sidelong glance at her and said, “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not say his
name out loud.”

Claire nodded,
thinking,
“Speak of the Devil, and he’ll always appear.”

“So you
swear—you promise me you had nothing to do with LaPierre killing himself.”

“I can’t say I
had nothing to do with it, but when I left him, I didn’t want him to do it. I—”
He gulped and swallowed hard. “I pitied him. Do you have any idea what that did
to me?”

Then he told
her, in great detail, what had happened that night at LaPierre’s condo, and
against her better judgment, Claire believed—or began to believe—him.

“I’ll have to
take your word for it, then,” she said.  Yet even as she said the words, she
knew there was still too much distance between them. She wondered if they could
ever bridge the gap between human and demon.

They walked
for a while in perfect silence, past restaurants and closed stores and the
occasional person. Claire wondered if they might also have passed the
occasional demon. Two men were having an argument in front of Joe’s Smoke Shop,
so Claire crossed the street with Samael at her side. It wasn’t much better
there because a man wearing a dark coat was huddled in the darkened doorway of
the porn shop. Claire was confident she was safe with Samael, but she didn’t
want to interact with anyone else if she didn’t have to.

When they
rounded the corner of High Street, heading down toward Commercial Street and
the docks, the wind whipped at them so hard it took Claire’s breath away. She
pulled her hat low and snuggled down deep into her scarf, wishing she trusted
her impulses enough so they could be back in her apartment. If they were warm
and comfortable, though, she was afraid she’d lose her resolve to end it
tonight with Samael.

Get out now,
while you still have your soul.

“But do I?”
she said out loud.

Without
missing a beat, Samael asked, “Do you what?”

Claire was
taken aback. She didn’t realize she had spoken out loud. When she saw Samael
looking directly at her, his gold-flecked eyes glowing in the darkness, she
never felt more vulnerable and alone in her life.

He was
smiling, and she was suddenly convinced that she had been right all along—that
this had all been an act so he could seduce her and claim her eternal soul.

“My soul,” she
said, painfully aware of the tremor in her voice.

“What about
it?”

“Do I still
have it?”