No Angel (9 page)

“Jezebeth,”
Lucifer roared and the room quaked. This was one lovers’ spat Sasha
really
didn’t want to be in the middle of.

“Come on,” Jay whispered against her ear. “It’s an illusion.” He began to guide her toward the flaming door, but Sasha balked as the heat from the flames made her skin feel baked.

“I can feel them,” she protested.

“My mother can’t conjure fireballs, but she’s Queen of Lies. Trust me, it’s an illusion.”

Trust him.
Always those damn words.

As the room shuddered again, Sasha put her hand into his. “Don’t make me regret this.”

Closing her eyes, she let him pull her straight into the fire.

As soon as they touched the flames, the sensation of heat vanished. Running through the doorway, they stumbled into a hallway that matched the blandness of her first foray into Hell, but this time Sasha knew the beige paint was hiding secrets. She’d found nothing but secrets here so far.

Jay began to pull her down the hall and Sasha slipped her hand from his grasp. “I’m not going one more step with you until…”
Until what?
She couldn’t even issue a good ultimatum. Her brain was still playing catch-up from the satanic duel she’d just started.

Jay backtracked to her side. “I know you have questions, but we don’t have time right now for an interrogation. We have to get you back to the mortal plane.”

“We have hours before dawn.” And even though he knew the way, she couldn’t be dependent on him to get her out right now. They’d gone beyond questions and mistrust. She needed to get away from him. Just a few minutes out of his presence to think, to sort everything through.

“We don’t have hours,” Jay said, patience in every word. “Time works differently here. We have an hour, max, and the exits aren’t always where you leave them. Hell’s like a casino—everything is designed to bring you in and keep you here. Getting out is always a challenge, even if you know the way, so we need to
run.
Unless you want to be stuck in Hell with me forever?”

“Running is good.”

They jogged in air-conditioner-humming silence through a maze of corridors which occasionally rumbled with earthquake tremors—reminders that Lucifer and Jezebeth were still going at it.

“Are they going to kill each other?” she asked, grateful for her morning cardio routine so she was only panting a little.

“They haven’t yet,” Jay replied, not even a tiny bit out of breath—this from the man whose exercise regimen consisted of sitting on the couch with a remote control. Demonic physiology was just unfair.

“What did you threaten him with?”

“I can read his mind,” Jay admitted. “I can see he loves her. I implied that if I stayed in Hell I would tell her.”

Telling Satan’s wife he loved her was their get-out-of-Hell-free card. She couldn’t make sense of this world.

Sasha’s thoughts raced, replaying the last hour as her emotions swung back and forth like a pendulum. Jay had told the ruler of the Underworld that he loved her, but his mother was the Queen of Lies and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He’d protected her from the demonic minions, probably saving her life a dozen times in the last hour, but he’d also lied to her more times than she could count over the last six months. Even his behavior had been a lie. The mild-mannered Clark Kent. Sure, she’d hated the
niceness
of him, but this was swinging a bit too far in the opposite extreme. From too-nice-for-me to demon—her heart couldn’t keep up.

“Does he really love her?” she heard herself asking, because it was easier than the question she needed answered—
Can demons love?

“In a way. In the only way he can.”

That really wasn’t comforting. “What way is that?”

Jay frowned. “Angels and demons… It’s complicated. Love means something different when you look at your life in millennia rather than decades.”

Millennia.
She frowned, distracted by the thought. “Just how old are you, Jay?”

“Thirty-four. I told you.”

“You also told me you were human and that hasn’t turned out so well.” Though she was unspeakably relieved she hadn’t been screwing someone who’d been around for the dawn of humanity. The age difference would have been way too creepy, even if all the demons she’d seen so far were ageless and youthful. Even Gerry had a timelessness about him.

“You
assumed
I was human. And I left some stuff out I probably shouldn’t have, but all the words I’ve spoken to you are technically true.”

“Silly me not to ask you if you were a demon from Hell who could
read my mind.
That goes right to the top of the list for my next first date.”

“I can’t,” Jay replied sharply. “Read your mind. I never could. Jezebeth created me to be a weapon against demons, not man. The demons around me might as well be screaming their innermost thoughts in my ear, but humans are just a muddy background noise. Even when I concentrate I can’t always make it out. And I could never hear you. Not even a little. Your natural shields kept me out entirely.”

He grabbed her hand to pull her around a tight corner. She let him keep it—but only for steering purposes. It had nothing to do with the fact that she liked him a lot better after she found out he hadn’t been rooting around in her brain.

Provided he wasn’t lying.

“How am I supposed to believe you?”

Jay grimaced. “I don’t know. I can promise to be honest with you until the day I die, I can tell you why I felt I had to deceive you, but I can’t make you trust me.”

The thing was she
did
trust him. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t seem to shake the foundation they’d built. That had to be unhealthy. Dysfunctional relationships warning sign number one.

“Why lie?” she asked, avoiding the question she really wanted answered. “Was it just because you thought I’d react badly if you said you were a demon?” She probably wouldn’t have believed him. Angels and demons existed, sure, but the idea that there was one hitting on you in a library stretched credibility too far.

“Part of it was habit,” he admitted. “You learn early, growing up in Hell, that anything you say can be used against you. So you learn to shut up. Especially if your mother is a deception demoness who can sense whenever someone is lying in her presence.”

“Is that why you were so quiet?”

“And why Lucifer was careful never to say he wanted to do you harm. He likes you, you know.”

“I’m delighted. You might have mentioned your mother is a walking lie detector before I started bullshitting her.”

“I told you not to say anything. That’s always safest—because if she can tell a lie, she can also sense the truth and sometimes that can be just as damning. It’s why Lucifer can’t say he loves her, even if he does. She would know the truth or lie in it and use it against him either way. He can’t give her that power over him. The best demonic diplomacy is silence.”

He pulled up suddenly, pressing her flush against the wall with an arm across her torso. “Minions ahead,” he said quietly. “Jezebeth must have them guarding the exit.” He swore softly.

“Is there another way out?”

“Not that we can be sure will still be open when we get there, even if we had time to go to the next one, which we don’t.”

“So we fight our way out.” Sasha drew the reloaded Desert Eagle. “Any tips on demon killing I should know this time?”

“Aim for the body. These are lesser demons so taking out the brain doesn’t slow them down much.”

“I don’t suppose you have another clip of angel ammo lying around?” Though she had no idea where he’d hidden the first one. Tight bloodstained jeans showcased his ass to beautiful effect but didn’t leave many places to hide ammunitions.

Jay frowned, then blinked at her. “I keep forgetting you don’t know all you should.”

“You don’t have to be a dick about it.”

“No. It’s just…odd. Having to explain things I’ve always known. The human lack of knowledge about angels and demons is stunning. And for you to be kept in the dark…”

“It’s not like you guys are doing a lot to educate us,” Sasha snapped. “Angels just love to perpetuate the rumors about them. They can smell sin from a mile away. They can hear impure thoughts and every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings. It’s all bullshit, but we don’t even know bullshit about demons. So why don’t you enlighten me, oh wise one?”

“Those guns—” he gestured to the Desert Eagles, “—they aren’t really guns. That’s an angel’s sword. I’ve heard of them turning into bows, staffs, whatever the user is most comfortable handling. Apparently your favorite weapon is a .44 Magnum—which isn’t much of a surprise.” His mouth quirked in a grin. “An angel’s sword can never run out of ammunition, but they are strongly affected by the desires of the wielder. I think the only reason you were able to come up empty earlier is because you were so certain there could only be so many bullets. The sword was handicapped by your belief. So I told you there were more, and when you believed it, there were.”

Sasha frowned, remembering something else he’d said about the guns when they were pinned down by demonic minions. “Why couldn’t you fire it? Because you’re a demon?”

“Sort of.”

Sasha glowered. “No. No more half truths.
Why?
”

“Because I don’t have angelic blood.”

For a moment, Sasha said nothing, trying to make sense of that. “But I’m not…”

Jay looked away down the hall, evading her eyes. “I wasn’t sure, at first. I thought I sensed angel light in you, but you didn’t act like them. You treated me like there might be something worth redeeming in me—which an angel would never do. Angels and their offspring are forbidden from loving demons. It would be chaos if good loved evil.”

“You aren’t evil,” she said, addressing the only part of what he’d said that her brain could process.
I’m the farthest thing in the world from angelic.

“I know that, but they don’t. It isn’t black and white, good or evil, but angels don’t see grey.”

“It’s not true. The angel thing. I would know.”

“Your mother might not even know,” Jay offered.

Sasha felt the foundations of her world start to slide. “My mother?”
The Angel of Hollywood.

“The angelic line must come through her. Didn’t her father disappear shortly after she was born? Your grandmother, Maeve Christian, she was a starlet in the forties, wasn’t she? Beautiful enough to tempt an angel. She might never have known what he really was.”

“The wings would have been a pretty big hint.”

“They can assume a human disguise, just like demonic glamour. You would never see the difference.”

“Glamour.” Great. Another thing to worry about. Sasha fixated on that, so she wouldn’t have to think about the earth-shattering angel thing. “Is this even what you look like?” she asked, waving to the six-pack abs and bitable ass. He probably had horns and tentacles beneath it all.

“I’ve never used glamour on you. It probably wouldn’t have worked on an angel’s granddaughter anyway.”

“Could you not say the angel’s granddaughter thing like you’re certain it’s true?”

“Sasha, you can wield an angel’s sword, your blood burns lesser demons like acid, and my mother and Lucifer both recognized the light in you. I
am
certain it’s true.”

Jezebeth hadn’t been calling her an
angels’ pawn
. She’d been screaming
angelspawn
. “You said you weren’t sure, at first. When did you suspect?”
And why didn’t you tell me?

“From the start,” he admitted. “Can we talk about this more after we get you topside?”

The evasion twigged something at the edge of her thoughts. Sasha was through not listening to her instincts. There was something Jay wasn’t telling her. She just needed to find the right question.

“Is that why you tried to pick me up? Because you thought I was angelic?”

Jay closed his eyes and huffed out a low groan.

Jackpot.

“I’m going to be completely honest, because I promised I wouldn’t lie to you anymore, but I would really appreciate it if you could try not to hate me for this. I don’t feel this way anymore.”

Sasha’s grip tightened on the angelic gun. “Go on.”

“During the Dark Ages, demons were allowed to wander the mortal plane freely, but our excesses and vices upset the balance of good and evil and when we meddled too much in the affairs of man, God decided to bring us into check. Christmas morning had been declared a time of rebirth—the anniversary of man’s redemption and God’s grace—and it was decided that no demon, or creature of demonic origin who was more evil than good, could inhabit the mortal plane on Christmas. Dawn of December twenty-fifth became known as The Cleanse—a moment when any evil being caught above would be smote by the wrath of God.”

“Killed?”

“Worse. Death is a transformation of the soul’s form. Smiting is banishment to the deepest level of Hell. No demon or demonspawn has ever returned from The Cleanse, and I knew I wouldn’t survive it, but I wanted to remain in man’s realm. When I saw you, I thought it was a sign. If I could somehow absorb angel light, I might be able to survive and stay. I never planned on falling in love with you.”

“Please stop throwing that word around.
Love
isn’t a cure-all pill, Jay. Saying it doesn’t magically fix everything.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say instead.”

Sasha didn’t know what she wanted to hear either. Somehow the idea that he had only approached her in the first place because he wanted to use her cut much deeper than finding out he was a lying demon. He could be a demon and a tough guy and still be her Clark Kent, but this changed him to her. After a lifetime of being used to gain access to her powerful family, Sasha had thought she’d finally found someone who was different, someone who only wanted
her,
but now it turned out he’d only been interested in her because of another branch of her family tree.

Was something wrong with her? Why could she never compete with the appeal of her pedigree?

“Why not spend Christmas dawn with my mother and me, then? Surrounded by the offspring of angels. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Her voice sounded foreign, hoarse.

“Things have changed,” he said, his voice equally rough. “It was always a gamble to stay above for Christmas, but I didn’t have anything to lose before you. Maybe I never would have gone through with it, but I couldn’t take the risk when there was a chance I could go back to Hell for Christmas and be back with you by New Year’s.”

“The angels…they want you out of Hell by dawn. Do they want you…cleansed? Smote?”

“That’s the most likely option. They don’t like it when we break the rules and get above ourselves.”

“But there’s another option?”