Love Charms (95 page)

She couldn’t help bitching. “This is unfair.
Why the hell am I being punished? Your lackeys are the ones who slacked on the
job. Punish them.”

Lips tight, his eyes glowed in a way that
sat her back in her chair, the heaviness of his power pressing on her. “Oh,
they are reaping the rewards of my displeasure, fear not. But, enough about
them. We need to fix this. If we’re to be free of each other in a week, then
you need to get moving.”

“Me?”

“Yes you. You just read the contract. The
same way you cursed those people and dragged their souls to me upon their
untimely deaths, now that they’re missing, it’s up to you to bring those souls
back.”

“Souls? Are you telling me you lost more
than one?”

The Lord of The Pit actually looked
sheepish. “What can I say? Good minions are hard to come by. Ever since the
problems of the past few years with Lilith and that revolt, well, the demon
army still hasn’t recovered its numbers yet. And the mortal realm doesn’t make
soldiers like they used to. Ah for the days when Vikings roamed the seas and
pillaged whole villages. I even miss those feisty Spartans. Now those were some
souls with substance and skills.”

Ysabel slapped a hand over her forehead.
“I don’t believe this. I’m the one scheduled to catch fire every day until I
fix your mistake and you’re giving me excuses and reminiscing? That’s fucking
priceless. And just how am I supposed to find and catch the escapees?”

“There are five of them and if you tag
them with this pin,” Lucifer slid a metallic box in her direction. “Then
they’ll be taken straight to processing.”

“Yay, so I’ve got an easy way to get them
back,” she drawled sarcastically. “You still haven’t mentioned exactly how I’m
supposed to find them.”

“Don’t you have some witchy method for
tracking people?” he asked. “I had the guards collect some of their skin. Of
course, I don’t know whose is whose given we wiped it off the lashes after they
disappeared, but DNA is still the best identifier.” He smiled.

She glared.

A big sigh left him. “What do you want
from me? This wasn’t done on purpose, I assure you. I’d like nothing more than
for you and I to be rid of each other. But even
I
can’t break the
contract.”

In that respect, he told the truth. If a
person swore an oath in Hell and then signed it with blood, it couldn’t be
broken until the terms of the contact were complete. No one knew why, not even
Lucifer. It seemed there were more powers out there than just those of Heaven
and Hell.

“And if I say screw you and the souls
stay free?”

“You will burn, every single day, at the
time of your death, one extra minute per day, the pain growing more and more
excruciating with each day that passes.”

“Is that all?” she queried sarcastically.

“No.” He bore a serious expression which
frightened her more than his words. Lucifer always spoke with a smile –
evil smile, naughty grin, provocative leer. She didn’t think she wanted to hear
what came next.

“If you don’t bring those souls back,
you’ll go mad. Lose your mind. Go completely off your rocker. It’s not pretty.
I’ve seen it before. It happened to Bambi’s mother. I had to throw her in the
abyss myself. You’ve met my eldest daughter, Bambi haven’t you? Won Biggest
Slut in the world five years running, you know?”

Yes, she knew. Everyone knew Bambi. The
males all wanted a turn with Hell’s most famous succubus, while the females did
their best to keep their men away. While the reminder of Bambi’s skills in the
boudoir made her shudder, his mention of the abyss gave her a chill.

What few people earth-side knew was Hell
didn’t mean the end of a person’s life, for damned souls at any rate. Once a
mortal sinned and died, changing their residential address to Hell, they could
technically live forever. Sounded like a great prize, right? Not really. Eking
out any kind of existence in the Underworld took a lot of work. Housing sucked.
Jobs rated even worse. And forget killing to free up some room or take
someone’s spot.

Mortal wounds, while painful to the
recipient, couldn’t kill the damned. Nor decapitation or any other torture
devised – a great trick that Lucifer used to punish the truly wicked.
Only one thing alone could put a spirit to rest. The abyss.

At the very center of Hell, nestled
within the spirals of the nine circles, the great gaping hole was where a soul
went when they were conquered their fear of the final death. When the tedium of
day to day living in the Pit finally got to them, or they’d atoned for their
sins, they could make the pilgrimage to the abyss, toss themselves in and,
eventually, end up reborn again.

Or so the rumors stated.

Witches bound to Lucifer before death,
didn’t quite own their souls – and no one knew where he hid them –
so uncertainty prevailed, along with numerous debates, on what would happen to
them if they jumped in. She’d rather not find out. But if the pain became too
much, would she still feel the same?

Something of her thought process must
have been reflected in her face because Lucifer gave her a paternal smile meant
to reassure. “I’m sure you’ll manage to capture them before you go nuts. And if
not, I know a place that sells straitjackets for cheap.”

She covered her face with a moaned, “Why
me?”

“Oh no. Cut the girly crap right now. You
know I hate it when women get sentimental. So let’s stick to business. You need
to catch those souls or you’re going to be a very unhappy witch, which in turns
means I’ll have to listen to you bitching and moaning because you’ll still be
working for me. If I can’t get rid of you, it will cut into my golf game. With
Mother Earth visiting her tree groves for her spring inspection, I only have a
limited amount of time to practice before she gets back and insists we work on
our relationship. Blech.” He made a face.

“This is impossible, you know,” she said.
“I don’t know how you expect me to find that many souls by myself. Are you sure
the burning thing will be that bad?” Actually, even the mention of it brought a
shudder. And it was supposed to get worse? She needed to find those souls
pronto.

“I’d love to help you, but I’m
understaffed.” His big, white toothed grin screamed, ‘I’m lying.’

“I’ve got a video of you doing the
Macarena.”

He scowled. “I hate you. You’re just like
another pesky daughter to me. Fine. Twist my arm. I’ll give you a tracker to
use. But it will cost you.”

She arched a brow.

“Or not. Now get out.”

“In a second. Hold on to your storm
trooper boots. This burning thing – how long will it last each day?”

“At precisely eight forty-seven p.m. each
day, you will catch on fire.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s two
forty seven p.m. or was when I walked in.”

“We’re on Eastern Standard time here. Not
Central European. Now, as I was saying, each day, at the time of your death,
you will catch fire, reliving the moment. The burning will last one minute the
first day, then increase each day by another minute. Anything you wear will
burn to a crisp. The good news, though, is that your hair and body will remain
untouched, you’ll just feel it. And once the flames extinguish, it might take a
few minutes for the pain to fade.”

“That sounds lovely,” she replied, her
face twisting in a grimace. “Anything else I should know?”

“Well, it goes without saying that if
during your quest to find the escapees you end up on the mortal plane, stay out
of sight. Human authorities might get a little weirded out if you catch fire
and walk away.”

“I guess I’m shopping for practical
clothes,” she muttered with a moue of distaste. She rose from the chair. “Send
your tracker to my place in about six hours. I want to get started on this
right away.”

“Good luck,” the devil said quietly, and
if she didn’t know better, she’d have said he sounded sincere.

Nah.
Probably more like morose that they might get stuck with
each other past the expiry date on her contract.

Not if she could help it.

But first she needed to go shopping for
flame retardant clothes that would go well with soul hunting. Lucky for her,
she’d swiped her boss’s credit card, so the sky was the limit. And she had a
whole spare bedroom that could handle the extra garments.

Chapter
Two

Whistling, Remy strolled to Lucifer’s
office. Getting called to see his boss could mean only one of two things.
Either he was in trouble – which considering he’d not slept with any of
his Lord’s daughters seemed unlikely – or he was getting a special
assignment. The latter would totally work right now given he’d just ended a few
relationships, mostly because they found out about each other.

Females – they could act so
irrational when it came to sharing him. Didn’t they know he had enough stamina
to please them all? Yeah, that was one line he’d have to strike from his
repartee list. Not one of them liked it, no matter how engaging his smile as he
said it. As his one lady friend – a hot blonde demon who could suck a
golf ball through a garden hose – dumped his clothing out of the window
onto a pile of refuse, he came to the realization that perhaps the time had
come for him to concentrate on one lady at a time. The thrill of a variety of
pussy, once all he could think about, had worn off.
Surprising, I know
.
He never thought that would happen. But truly, he’d come to realize, all
females were the same in the end; same to please, same to scream, same to drive
him nuts. So why continue with the headache that came with juggling several?

Why, he might even settle down with one
lucky female and pop out a demon spawn or two. He snorted at the thought.
Let’s
not get crazy here.
Deciding to bed one female at a time was one thing, at
one hundred and four years, he was still kind of young to be thinking of
starting a family, even if a lot of his buddies seemed to have jumped into that
particular hot pan. And happily, too.

Remy couldn’t imagine wanting to consign
himself to a life with one female, because while fooling around as a single man
with more than one lucky lady was accepted, once a demon decided to start a
family and bind himself into their version of matrimony, cheating was out of
the question – if he wanted to keep his balls intact. Demon wives took a
strict stance on cheating, and abetted by other wives, and even mothers, made
sure the males didn’t cross that line – or else. Knowing that, it was a wonder
to him any man every chose to mate with one female.

It’s probably some kind of insanity that
grips them when they get to a certain age. Or a spell.
Lucky for him, Remy had a resistance to
magical attacks on his person.

Arriving at the vestibule for Lucifer’s
secretary, he gave his name to the shriveled crone manning the desk. Ugly, old,
misshapen, and possessed of an odd smell, rumor said Gaia herself chose the
woman for the position after Lucifer’s last secretary came to work one too many
times in sheer blouses, braless of course. Last he heard, the blonde bimbo,
who’d given more than one demon in the ranks a wild ride, was on latrine duty
for the women’s prison. It didn’t pay to piss off his Lord’s on again, off
again, girlfriend.

Hey, I wonder if I can get any clues on
whether he’s going to pop the question to his old lady.
A great amount of betting currently
existed in all the nine circles based on when their Lord would finally get the
guts to ask Gaia to marry him. Remy had several paychecks riding on his date of
August thirteenth, two thousand thirteen, a date that fast approached and with
nary a jeweler claiming credit for an engagement ring design at this point.

While he waited to be admitted to his
Lord’s inner sanctum, he looked around, noting the closed door with the gold
embossed title, ‘Satan’s Assistant,’ and etched underneath, ‘Go Away.’ With
that kind of welcoming attitude, he counted himself lucky he’d never come face
to face with his boss’s damned soul relations manager. He’d heard the terms
harridan, witch, bitch, along with a whole list of other not-very-nice
adjectives used to describe the zealous female in charge of keeping Hell’s
contracts in order. But, the woman who scared the crap out of even the hardest
criminals in the pit dealt with damned souls only, not demons, so he thankfully
never had to meet with the obviously ugly shrew with the not-so-shining
personality everyone spoke of.

Striding into his Lord’s office, he
snapped to attention. “First class demon, Remy Crafir, reporting as ordered,
sir.”

“At ease, soldier.”

As if
, Remy almost said aloud. Only demons with a death wish let
themselves relax in the big man’s presence. His boss, dressed in his usual
business attire, drummed his fingers on his massive desk.

“You’ve been working for me how long now,
soldier?”

Odd question since Lucifer already knew.
“Since the eighteenth year of my birth, sir.”

“And you are now…”

“One hundred and four, sir.”
And in my
prime,
he thought puffing out his chest lest his boss think he was getting
old.

“You’ve seen a lot of danger I would
imagine during your tenure.”

“Sir?”

“Just talking to myself. I know what
you’ve accomplished, some of it at my direct behest. Your commanding officers
have only positive things to say about your service. Blood-thirsty. Single minded.
Thorough. And a panty-dropper among the ladies.”

Who could resist a grin at having the
Lord of the Pit shoot a conspiratorial smile at the last bit?

“Ever think of settling down, soldier?”
Lucifer leaned forward and steepled his fingers on his desktop.

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Settle down with a female. Make some
babies. Your mother was about your age when she had you.”

“Sir, with all due respect, she is a
little crazy. And her decision to have a human as my father wasn’t exactly a
sound one.”

“Got a problem with only being a half
demon, soldier? My son is a half demon.”

Oh shit, he’d insulted his Lord. “I am
quite glad to be a half demon?” He said it questioningly, and when his boss
didn’t decapitate him, but kept staring, waiting for more, he thought quickly.
“There’re a lot of advantages to my half demon status. I, um, can use my magic
on the mortal plane.” At Lucifer’s encouraging nod, he kept going. “I am long
lived like a full demon.” But thinner skinned, so more prone to injury, which
sucked. “I heal quickly. I’m strong. I’m impervious to fire.” A trait he got
from his mother, an almost pure blooded fire demon.

“And you aren’t ugly like most of my pure
bred demons. It’s all right, soldier, you can say it. Demons mixing with demons
doesn’t always produce the prettiest babies.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“I do and if the reports I’ve read about
you are true, I’d say the ladies agree.” Lucifer winked, and Remy grinned.
“But, now on to the real reason I called you here. I have a special assignment
for you, soldier.”

“Whatever my lord wishes.”

“Of course. But, still, I feel I should
warn you, it’s going to be a rough one. Worse than all the other missions I’ve
sent you on. You need to fetch five souls back from the mortal realm.”

Piece of cake. He could do that with one
arm tied behind his back. “Consider it done, sir.”

“Hold on, it’s not going to be that easy.
Unfortunately, the souls in question are bound by a curse, so while you can
help hunt them, someone else needs to send them back to Hell. You are to aid
her.”

“Her? I am to partner with a female?” The
ranks of Lucifer’s armies had a few female demons, although no one would dare
call them girly to their face. Someone like that wouldn’t need his help though.
So who did Lucifer think to pair him with?

“Yes a woman. An annoying shrew who will
possibly drive you insane.”

“She can try.” After all, if his nut job
of a mother didn’t succeed, he doubted anyone could.

“Oh, she will, soldier. I thought I’d
give you fair warning, not my usual thing. I prefer to watch the sparks fly,
but this is one time, I’d like one of my bound servants to succeed. And
quickly, too.”

“When do I start?”

“Eager to meet your doom? I like that in
a man.”

“No time like the present, sir.”

“Excellent. You start now. Here’s her
address. Oh and one last piece of advice. Wear a cup and keep your hands to
yourself.”

“Why? Is she a hottie?” He should be so
lucky, a mission and new pussy, all in one day.

“She’s a five hundred year old witch who
has a hate on for men.”

Great, stuck with a hag. Ah well, he’d
still have fun since it seemed more than likely he’d get to roam the mortal
plane. Most escaped souls tended to make their way to the surface as soon as
possible. No reason he couldn’t mix in a bit of pleasure while he worked.

“Consider it done.”

“Good luck,” Lucifer said soberly.
“You’ll need it.”

Dismissed, Remy snapped a salute before
turning on a heel and exiting his boss’s office. Whistling the refrain to a
dirty melody, he strode through his Lord’s castle wondering who this servant
was that needed his aid and managed to finagle a coveted spot in the boss man’s
house. Usually, Remy would assume the witch slept with Lucifer, but given his
boss’s description and warning, it sounded more like she was a pain in the ass,
which was fine. Remy had plenty of experience with ass, taking that was, not
being.

Knocking on a massive carved door minutes
later, the sigils on it shouting to those literate enough to ‘Stay away or
else!’ he received a nice surprise when the door swung open.
Well, hello
there.

Reaching only his shoulder, with a wild
mop of black hair, bright brown eyes and a rounded body made for worship
– by his tongue – Remy wondered if he could convince the servant
girl to come around the corner with him for a quickie before he met with this
Ysabel person. Then she opened her luscious mouth.

“If you’re done gawking, you might want
to step back before I smash your nose with the door when I shut it.”

Someone got up without sex today. He
could fix that. “Hello beautiful, I actually have business with the occupant of
this suite. I’m here to meet with Ysabel, the witch.”

“Really.” Her tone said what she thought
of his claim and her brown gaze looked him up and down, then dismissed him. “I
don’t think so.”

The door slammed shut in his face.

What. The. Fuck.

Remy pounded on the door. It immediately
opened. The ebony haired vixen, her arms crossed under her bountiful tits,
smirked. “Back already. What’s wrong? Did I hurt your feelings?”

“Listen woman, I don’t know what crawled
up your ass and turned you into an uptight bitch, but I’m here to see Ysabel,
so get the fuck out of my way before I put you over my knee and –”

“And what? Spank me?” Her eyes actually
sparked with challenge, the minx. “I’d like to see you try. But, before you do,
just so you know, my name is Ysabel. The witch.”

Aaaaah, shit. Never one to admit defeat,
he let a slow simmering smile spread across his face. It worked on demonesses,
damned souls, human women, and even gay men, but apparently, it had no effect
on scowling witches. Too bad. “It’s your lucky day. Lucifer has informed me
that you’re my next assignment.”

“Not by choice. And what are you supposed
to do exactly? I need a tracker, not a gigolo. What happened? Did your gig as a
pole dancer not work out? Equipment too small?” She dropped her gaze to his
groin and sneered.

A sudden, irrational urge possessed him
to drop his pants, flip her over and show her there was nothing wrong with the
size of his cock. He abstained, but couldn’t prevent himself from taunting her,
eyeing her up and down in the same dismissive manner. “Anytime you want to
measure my dick, you let me know. Naked.”

“Pig.”

“No, demon. Really, get your terminology
straight, would you? After Lucifer’s warning, I expected someone older and
badder.”

To his credit he didn’t drop to the
ground, but the pain in his balls did require he bend over to cup them gently
which in turn meant he got the door in the face. Again. And that was the last
straw.

* * *

Ysabel stomped away from her door,
cussing Lucifer and his perpetual jokes. Sending a half dressed, muscle bound,
half demon with the face of an Adonis to help her indeed. She needed brains not
–

Bang!

Her door, her spelled door she might add,
splintered into shards as he stalked into her place, eyes glowing red, muscles
bunched, lips taut with anger. Women would have swooned at his virile
appearance. She held her ground – but couldn’t help a tingle. He truly
was good looking, and even though she knew good looking men were the scum of
the earth – er, Hell, that was – even she could admit that if she
were to choose a male to scratch a sexual itch, she’d want his number.

It pissed her off. She didn’t get
involved with men. Demons. Or anything at all for that matter. Tucking away her
body’s unexpected interest, she pursed her lips at the object of her
irritation.

Since he didn’t like
no
for an
answer, she switched tactics. There was more than one way to make a male run,
and when the bitchy method didn’t work…