Good Side of Sin (5 page)

I was being blamed for this? What? How could I have ruined him?

My mouth fell open in shock, but I shut it in anger as I rose to question her theory. It was extremely difficult to imagine that Isaiah had ever loved this—this creature! She was impossibly rude and arrogant, and I found that I disliked her even more now than I had when she had kidnapped me under the orders of Lucifer. “How could you possibly think any of this is my fault?” I said, taking a step toward her, but she stood her ground with a smile. I wanted to slap that silly smirk off her face, but I wasn’t here to fight with any of these nitwits. It wasn’t necessary and would only cost me valuable time that Malcolm probably didn’t have.

I sucked in a deep breath as I took a step back, forcing calm and rationalism through to my very soul. I was almost certain I had enough patience in me to deal with this—well, there really wasn’t a nice word to describe her, so I just chose the first one that came to mind: bitch!

Lameria laughed in my face and my jaw clenched tight as I struggled not to wrap my hands around her tiny neck and squeeze until her face turned blue.

“Give Isaiah my love.” Her face softened a bit when she stared into my eyes, as if she knew Isaiah would be looking through them at her and the very immature play she had just put on for him and the other people in the room. She glanced away, but not before I saw sadness fill her eyes. “I doubt I will be needed anymore today, now that
Heaven’s Finest
has arrived. Excuse me,” she said with a sneer, and then left the room quietly.

I shook my head as I stared at the door, and then turned back to look down at Thoros. He was looking at the floor, his body still, his frame rigid.

What had I missed?

“Ignore her,” the demon I’d thrown against the wall said as he turned his head to one side, and then the other, filling the silence of the room with the sound of bones falling back into alignment. He twisted his torso left and then right, doing the same for his back, before continuing on with his conversation. “She’s been a little grouchy lately.”

I had wasted enough time on the Princess of Greed, so his suggestion to ignore her was going to be taken quite literally.

I motioned with my hand toward Thoros, but continued to glare at the big guy. “Was that really necessary?”

“Don’t defend me,” Thoros spat.

I shot him a sour look, but he was still looking at the floor.

“He punched me first. The idiot knew what would happen. Completely his fault, but I admire your reaction,” the demon said, and then swiftly closed the distance between us and offered me his hand to shake. “The name’s Baddon.”

Troy stepped forward and grasped the hand before I could. “I’m Troy. Ha’e ye played much baseball? Ye ha’e one hell o’ an arm on ye.”

I rolled my eyes as Baddon smiled. I knew if Troy got to talking about baseball that we would never get this mission complete and get out of here. “Troy,” I said as I scolded him with my eyes and shook my head. “Not now.”

He nodded in agreement and fell back into place behind me.

I accepted the still outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake. “I’m Josselyn.”

Baddon grinned and gave me a subtle wink. “I thought you might be.”

I refused to let myself dwell on how he could have possibly come to that conclusion. It didn’t matter to me at all if Thoros had mentioned me to the others. Obviously, since he was being so nice and cooperative, it could have only been nice things they’d heard. I took my hand back and gave Baddon a curt smile.

One thing was for sure, I was ready to get to the bottom of all this so I could go home. I was done with distractions.

“Okay, fine, what do we know so far?”

“
You
don’t know anything,” Thoros snapped, and I turned to see those green eyes of his glaring up at me. “There is nothing you can do to help me!” His voice dropped to a menacing growl before adding on, “Go back to Heaven.”

I knew if I blew up on him and walked out that Isaiah would just make me come right back down here, and I also knew Isaiah was nodding his head right then, agreeing with my thoughts, so if Thoros wasn’t going to play fair, I would just ignore him like I was planning to ignore Princess Bitch.

The less demons and distractions I had to deal with, the better.

I looked back at Baddon and sighed. “Maybe it would be better if you and I talked about this someplace a bit more private—” I began, but Thoros cut my words off.

“May-be… it would be better if you turned your little ass around and fleeted the hell out of here, skirt.”

I turned on him. Holding my anger in would only cause me to make mistakes. I knew what rule number three was, but Isaiah had sent the wrong girl if he thought that I could solve this case by being calm and collected like him. If that’s what it took, then he could just do it himself. Using intense emotions was going to be the only way to get through to Thoros. I just needed to stay in control of them.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Regardless of what you think I can or cannot do, I’m here to fix this because I was ordered to do so! So, you giving me orders to leave or go back to Heaven will not be followed unless you’ve suddenly been granted a pass into Heaven and dubbed an archangel!”

“We all know that’s never going to happen. I’m not good enough—”

“And thinking like that proves why you never will be!” I turned away from him to pace off some of my anger, and then stopped when I realized we were the only two people in the room. The others had probably left the moment I lost my temper with him.

“
Be in control of your emotions, Josselyn,”
I heard Isaiah say in my mind, and it startled me.

“You sent me down here to do this mission because you felt I was the best person to do it. So leave me alone and let me do it my way. Otherwise I will be doing it your way. What did you rank when you went through the academy, Isaiah?”

There was a short pause, and then,
“I’ve never gone through the Line of Defense Academy.”

“My point exactly, so hush and let me do my job—please.”

“Very well.”

I stayed quiet for a moment, trying to figure out what I wanted to say.
“Isaiah?”

“Yes?”

“About Lameria—”

“Your mission is Thoros. Lameria is going to need more help than you will be able to offer her, I’m afraid. Stick to your task.”

“I feel better knowing you’re here with me. I doubt Rhyan would have been able to complete his mission without you and Malcolm in his head to give moral support and guidance.”

“I’m here if you need me.”

“Thanks. Now,”
I mentally rubbed my hands together,
“the impossible.”

I looked down and spotted a chair, and then inhaled and exhaled three full times before dragging it back over to place it in front of Thoros.

Childishly, he turned his head, refusing to look at me. That was fine. He could just listen for a while. Something, I was sure, he was not used to doing.

“I didn’t know anything like this was going on with you, but I can’t honestly say that I would have cared after what you did to me. I have orders to find out what’s going on and get it fixed before any more humans die. They don’t care what you want, and they sure as hell don’t care what I want. They only care about the souls that aren’t coming to Heaven after you have murdered the host. They sent
me
to find out why because, for the last three months, I have gone through extensive training in Heaven’s Line of Defense Academy. It turns out that I’m an elite, one of the best that has ever completed the course. It doesn’t matter what either of us want; I’m stuck here until we get this thing resolved. We will do this with or without your help.”

I sat there waiting, but it seemed like he had played the silent treatment game before, and was damn good at it. “Thoros, please look at me.”

He did, and there was fire in his bloodshot eyes. He grabbed my wrists and jerked me roughly to him. I could feel his hot breath on my face and was instantly torn with mixed emotions.

My lower lip trembled. I was scared, but not for me; I was scared for him. Something was definitely wrong.

“What do you want from me?” he roared, and the whole house shook on its foundation. I was surprised the windows didn’t shatter.

Something in his mood shifted and his hold on my wrists loosened a fraction. He was looking at my lips, and then his tongue slipped out to wet his own as if he was thirsty and my lips were the only way to quench his thirst.

I almost caved.

I felt a pressure on the outside of my mind and knew exactly what he was trying to do, but I had mastered the skill of
blocking
in the academy, and now he couldn’t get inside my head to mind-molest me.

He glanced back up at my eyes in alarm, knowing he’d been caught trying to use his power on me.

All of a sudden I was thrown back into my chair and the momentum of the thrust caused the chair to topple over backward. I rolled another eight feet across the rug then quickly got to my hands and knees and looked up just in time to see him stand from his seat.

He gave me a wicked smile and chuckled as he stalked toward me slowly. “I see you’ve learned a few tricks since you’ve been away. I won’t say I’m proud of you.”

“I learned everything I possibly could so I could help search for Malcolm. After graduation my superior had a different plan for me. As you can imagine, I’m a little more than anxious to find my lost friend, so if we could do this the easy way, and get it done quickly, I would appreciate it.”

He stopped about five feet from me, his brow furrowing in thought. “Malcolm?” His expression brightened. “Ah…the angel that has the ridiculous crush on you that can lead absolutely nowhere. Well, obviously that’s true. It’s quite difficult to screw someone that is not here. You angels can do nothing right. It simply amazes me that Heaven hasn’t crumpled at Lucifer’s feet already.” He stood there staring at me for a moment, and then that mind-boggling mouth of his turned up at the corners. “What if…What if I could tell you exactly where your boyfriend is? Would you go away and leave us alone then?”

I swallowed hard. There was no possible way he could know where Malcolm had gone. He was only trying to fool me again to get his way. “No.”

“Don’t believe him, Josselyn,”
Isaiah said though my mind.
“He will tell you anything to get his way.”

“No, what? No—you won’t go away and leave me alone? Or, no—you don’t believe I’m telling you the truth about being able to locate him?” I watched in interest as he brought his hands up, palms facing the ceiling, and conjured up a dark gray cloud in the air between us.

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. “That’s uh…that’s cute, Thoros.”

He smiled at me, then looked back up to the cloud. It had begun to turn a deeper gray and was swirled into itself. There was a black hole forming in the center of it, and I took a step closer to better see the image that was shaping in to the physical form of a well-built man.

The man was walking away slowly, almost dragging his feet. My hand flew up to cover my mouth as he turned to look over his shoulder. It was Malcolm!

“Oh, God! Malcolm! Where are you?” I sobbed, but it was obvious he couldn’t see or hear me. His image started to fade. “Wait! Wait—don’t go, please!”

Thoros clapped his hands loudly and the cloud with Malcolm in it disappeared.

“Josselyn? You’re stronger than this. I promise you will get to go look for Malcolm after you complete this mission. Don’t listen to him.”

“We demons can do quite a lot, you know. Malcolm doesn’t have a soul. He’s undetectable to Heaven, but not to us.”

“You’re lying,” I accused.

He shook his head. “What if I’m not?”

“Isaiah? Tell me he’s lying. I know you can lie to me now, but I also know that you won’t.”
There was a long pause, and then I shouted in my head,
“Was that really Malcolm, Isaiah? God help me! If you don’t give me an answer you can find someone else to save the damned humans on Earth from the wrath of Lucifer, and then you will have to send out a search party for me, too.”

“Josselyn, don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t drop your soul—”

“You have until the count of three before you find out what I will or will not do with my soul.”

“Josselyn—”

“One.”

“Josselyn, stop this! As your superior, I demand you stop this nonsense—”

“Or what, Isaiah? You’ll kick me out of Heaven? I’m about to do that for you. Two!”

“Okay, wait. Please. Heaven needs you, child. Don’t do this. I’m begging you.”

“Was that really Malcolm?”

“I don’t know for sure. I—I believe it was. Thoros is right. It’s Lucifer’s way. The soulless are undetectable to us, but not to them. He could have been taken anywhere.”

The corner of Thoros’ mouth turned up in a half smile, as if he was party to the inner monologue argument that was going on in my head between me and my guardian angel.

“Take… them… where?”

“Don’t make me say it, Jossel—.”

My brow rose.
“You’re telling me that Malcolm is in Hell?”

“No. Well, I don’t think he is. If Thoros’ mirage was true, it appears that he could be in Limbo. It didn’t look like Hell, Heaven or Earth.”

“That’s what Limbo looks like? Gray nothingness?”

“I don’t know. God didn’t create Limbo.”

“Well, who the hell did?”

After a brief moment of silence, he finally responded,
“It doesn’t matter, Josselyn. I will accompany you and Troy in the search for Malcolm after you complete your mission there with Thoros.”

“You can’t go on missions. You haven’t gone through the academy. Isn’t that what you told the Council to keep me from searching for him three months ago? In order to go on missions, an angel has to complete and pass the LOD academy.”

“Fine. I realize the error of my ways, and I apologize for making you wait so long to look for Malcolm, but I truly believe you are the only one who can help Thoros. It’s only going to escalate from here, I fear. Will you have no remorse when he is killing ten… twenty a day? And if you are soulless, Lucifer will be able to find you, child. You can’t save Malcolm if you’re in Hell. And I dare say Lucifer won’t be making any bets again anytime soon with souls as the prize to be won. Do not do this! I beg you not to.”