Once You Go Demon (Pure Souls) (25 page)

Azazel thought of Lucifer’s decked out bachelor pad, with its black satin sheets, modern chrome and glass features, and hot tub. He didn’t visit the other Grigori’s self-made abodes often, but he recalled those were manifested with similar taste.

He gave no heed to the minion’s comments. “I want the clay harvested from Canada, not that cheap shit my brother slaps on the half-ass efforts he has vulgarity to call demons. You have any of that?” Azazel blamed that second grade grub for the reason so many of their recently-crafted minions on Earth rarely lasted more than a few years.

“Yes, of course, sir. I’ll fetch a bit o’it immediately.”

Shortly, the mound of mud began to take shape under the influence of his pushes and pulls. Every inch, meticulously honed and smoothed, must be perfect. This demon was going to harbor a whole heap of fate on his shoulders, and the body must be appropriate to the task.

Never would Azazel have anticipated that his artistic natures would flourish in, of all places, damnation. When he’d been of the Light, Big Boss had called on him specifically to help spark inspiration for several creatures. Of course, he was quickly taken off duty when his designs didn’t exactly meet with the Creator’s vision. Was it his fault he couldn’t come up with something as bland as the ox or the muskrat as had his brothers? Seriously, the platypus and monk fish demonstrated how leaps and bounds above the others he was.

Still, the task before him curbed his imagination’s scope. Azazel knew he had to be pragmatic on this. He needed to create a task-driven demon, and the task he would be driven to wouldn’t allow for such vagrant peculiarities as a duckbill or ram horns.

Meaningless minutes ticked away in bulk. Hours later, Azazel looked down at his creation and grinned, pride and accomplishment making him one hell of a cocky bastard. He should have a photo prepared and diagramed for textbook documentation. Marc’s new body was a perfectly-rendered tool for inspiring sin. Azazel’s eye traced over the contours of his muscled biceps, the flat expanse of his clay abdomen, the exceptional girth and prominence of the part of this body that rendered it unquestioningly male.

Domuskin examined the
disanimus
with equal parts of confusion and awe. “Sir, are not demons still enabled the ability to glamour, or has that privilege been suspended?”

“You don’t care for my design?” Azazel’s voice held no contempt. Unlike some other of his pay grade, disagreement did not equal criticism in his book.

“Just different from them ones Lord Lucifer readies, is all. Not really what one thinks of when he thinks demon, now is it?”

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I know this doesn’t conform to my brother’s usual formata. Luc thinks the body should represent the spirit it holds; in the case of a demon, that means ugliness, deformity, rot. But I think the human form is already the epitome of evil incarnate. Big Boss did good work on him the first time. All I’ve done is enhance a few unfortunate consequences of human genetics and make his body a little more … efficient.”

Domuskin pointed to the high noon the clay man sported. “I don’t think that’s what all them bleedin’ Darwinist were talking about when they came up with the term homo erectus.”

“Necessary tool for the job before him is all, Domuskin.” Azazel had been certain to make sure Marc’s hammer was sufficient to hit one out of the park. Not that that should be a general issue, as demon flesh and demon magic were finely tuned to facilitate the physical, but would this body do the trick for the intended victim? That was the question.

“Let’s do it then.” With a grunt, the fallen angel rapped his hands over the edges of the cooled kettle. The dark blue liquid, slinking across the clay chest, trailed a line of moisture from the Adam’s apple, over the deltoids, into the crevice between the scrotum and the thigh, and lower over the hips. Slowly, the blue grayed out, until its color matched that of the clay. Then the glistening pools dulled as the clay absorbed the liquid, bonding the soul into the dust from whence its ancestor first was drawn.

Azazel extended his hand to push his fingertips into the demon’s chest. Closing his own eyes and reaching into that place in his soul that once funneled the goodness and light, Azazel tapped to the regretfully familiar dark expanse of hellfire and used it to fleck the spark. The energy charged his frame from tip to toe, sent his self-conjured hair pointing toward the sky, before obeying his command and bridging into the connection he held with Marc.

Beneath his fingers, the molded form of earth and water he had crafted shivered. The toes and fingers were the first things to move, then his newly sired demon’s head began a slow semi-circle as its eyes flickered open. The demon awakening sent waves through the newly animated body, and when Marc began to moan and then gasp as his senses became engorged with pleasure, Azazel felt in tangent the aura of bliss.

Over the next few minutes, the awakening began to ebb and the demon’s self-awareness came online. When the brown orbs finally found him, Azazel drew back his hands and planted his fists on his hips, a grin fueled by pride smacked across his face.

“He’s perfect,” the fallen angel declared.

Barely had his boastful laugh rumbled from his chest when his progeny leapt to its feet and circled hands, made powerful by Hell, around Azazel’s neck. With all the might the muscles could muster, Marc squeezed, the glare in his eyes rivaling the tension in his biceps.

Azazel bore the assault without injury. Instead, he threw back his head, easily breaking Marc’s grasp, and crowed, further bolstered in his own self-assurance. Pushing the rampaging demon in submission on the floor, he laughed in his delight. “Fucking, bloody perfect.”

Chapter 26

“No, you can’t make me! I won’t betray her. I won’t –
ow
!”

The basement floor, cold and clammy, slapped Jerry’s backside into consciousness. Writhing amidst sweat-drenched sheets, his legs flailed, his arms anchored to the ground, trying to stabilize his perspective. He could see his own breath materialize in the sliver of moonlight that sneaked in through the ventilation window. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness and his surroundings reacquainted themselves, Jerry settled himself, realizing it had been a dream.

Or more appropriately, a nightmare.
Another
nightmare.

It wasn’t like Jerry hadn’t suffered through bad dreams before. It just had been a while. Like, thousands of years. Back when he’d been the Keystone, nightmares were par for the course. Being tapped with magic made your mind prone to pick up certain heretofore invisible signals. The yin to the yang of awesome power was a life spent as an insomniac.

But even remembering those horrible visions from his first go-round as a human, this one had seemed different. It wasn’t the usual seeing something hideous through someone else’s eyes. It was reliving Hell in the flesh, feeling the heat of the fires tickle the hair on his arms, feeling encompassing, disabling rage and the desire to kill, feeling both empowered, and completely powerless. Feeling … demonic.

Jerry rose to his feet and made his way to the bathroom.
Just a flashback,
he told himself as he flicked on the light.
It’s just the way human minds work. What did that yahoo on NPR call it? Oh, yeah! ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder.’ Don’t mean a thing but that I’m human again.

Which reminded him of something else: how much human bodies sucked. Seriously, the upkeep of this damned mortal corpus made him doubt the concept of “intelligent design”. If his stomach wasn’t growling, his nose was running. If he wasn’t dying to sleep, then he was restless from knocking back one too many. If he wasn’t thinking about sex, he was …

Well, he didn’t know. The occasion had yet to occur.

A demon’s earthly body was barely a step above a zombie’s in terms of the required TLC. Though, thank the goblins, demons could partake of some mortal joys that were pretty damned sweet without the fear of finding limbs and other appendages falling off mid-coitus. Sex, after all, was a demon’s pocket knife in the making-humans-damn-themselves toolbox.

The splash of water on his face started his body into a downward shift, letting the tight and corded muscles in his neck and shoulders unwind. His back felt like it had been an extra in a Lizzie Borden reenactment. The anxiety of
la vie humane
he’d experienced the last few days had him wound up tighter than a Mormon’s alcohol budget. Had his own original human body been so prone to this torment, or was Marc’s recycled mass just that out of shape? It had been so long since he himself had been mortal, he couldn’t recall anymore.

Jerry stripped his clothes off and let them fall to the floor. Steam billowed out from under the shower curtain. He was just about to step into the sweet liquid relief when he heard a knock at the door.

“Gods dammit, Ramiel, leave me alone already!”

Who the hell else would be bothering him? Besides the fact that the angel was so not worth getting dressed for, Jerry had no plans to be kept from the shower any longer than it took him to say “Go fuck yourself and goodnight, Sir.” He rounded out the bathroom and opened the door, in what the French call
la buff
.

Riona took one look at his full and frontal and went all agape. For a moment, Jerry hesitated. Then decided, to hell with it, she had seen him naked before—even if it had been in a different body—and he would stand his ground. Meaning, stand in his doorway.

“Help you with something, witch?”

He expected her to either: A. slap him in the face, then tell him to get some clothes on; B. kick him in the balls, then tell him to get some clothes on; C. make some snide remark while either slapping him in the face and/or kicking him in the balls, then tell him to get some clothes on; or D. … Well, D was an open ticket, but he was pretty sure it would end with him writhing on the floor in pain and her telling him to get some clothes on.

So, he should probably skip to the end and get at it. Only, to his surprise, Riona didn’t seem concerned at all with causing him any form of pain. She just stood, unemotionally observing his body as though studying it based on its scientific merit.

Which, oddly enough, made Jerry feel suddenly exposed and improper.

“Come down here for a peep show, Riona?” He opened the door all the way, inviting her in. “Got something on your chest? Want it to be me?”

“No, I, um …”

“So, what then?”

As though she’d just realized Jerry was capable of speech, her eyes flashed up from where they had lingered—if pressed, he would have said just south of his Mason-Dixon line—and looked him in the face, her cheeks blushing. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” His hand swept across the air.

“And can you put some clothes on?”

Ah, there it was. “I could ...” Dashing into his bathroom, he grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hips. He left the shower running, but pulled the lever under the faucet. Immediately, hot steamy water began to fill the tub.  “You’ll have to settle for the guy wrap thing. I didn’t exactly inherit a massive wardrobe with this body. I ain’t about to make extra laundry on your account.”

“No, that’s fine.”

The basement bedroom was tiny. Only a twin bed and night stand filled the space. Given the lack of options, she took a seat on the mattress.

“So …?”

Her blood-shot eyes darted everywhere, like suddenly he was painful to look at. “I think I saw your dream. We …
You
were in Hell, and you were with Azazel?”

“Yeah, so?” He guessed he shouldn’t be surprised. Nor should he feel like she’d invaded his privacy—it wasn’t Riona’s fault she was an all-band receiver anymore—but he still did.

“You know him,” Riona continued. “Jerry, I need to know what you know. I need to know my enemy. Please, tell me?”

He exhaled, pushing every corner of his lungs before refilling and starting the tale. “Azazel, Commander of the Grigori alliance, General of the Fallen. Next to Lucifer himself, probably the most dangerous foe you could ever face. More dangerous, maybe, because unlike his more famous brother, he still holds a grudge over getting booted out of paradise. Oh, he was also my mentor.”

“My, my, the company you keep.” Riona played with a thread poking out from the quilt on his bed. “What else? What’s his weak point? What’s his tendency in battles? What’s his drive? If he was your mentor, you must be pretty clued in to his game.”

“You might not believe this, Ree, but it’s not really something I’m proud of anymore, and I really don’t want to go there right now.”

“Seriously?” Crossing her arms, she scooted to the edge of the bed. “What, you’ve become some emotional, little, weak wallflower who’s going to crumple under the weight of a few unpleasant memories?”

His voice failed to conceal his rising ire. “Your dad used to pal around with him in the day. Why not ask him?”

“I have my reasons, but chief being that you were ‘palling’ around with hellbeasts a little more recently than Pop.”

“Don’t trust him, do you?”

He could tell by the way her face went limp that he’d hit the nail right on the head. “I don’t know him well enough to ask him to pass me the salt at the table. He’s an archangel, I’m sure I’m just being confused by my daddy issues, but I don’t trust that tendency of theirs to hold back key information. And Azazel… He offered to help teach me.”

Jerry’s backbone went rigid. “He
what?
”

She had the balls to mock innocence. “I don’t know what else to do! Time’s running out, and I need the truth, no matter how ugly it is. If there’s hope for Marc, I have to know. Ramiel wrote him off the moment he died. Dee isn’t much better. If there’s something I can do…”

In a single swift move, he turned and lunged, pinning her down to the bed. The movement loosened the towel’s tension around his waist. It fell over her like a blanket. In the mirror on the dresser, he caught sight of them: Marc’s borrowed body, naked and ready, with Jerry’s soul within, pressing into Riona, who had finally decided to look surprised.

She tried to struggle, to push him off. Jerry braced her wrists and held her arms over her head, all while pinning her hips to the mattress with his weight.

“No way, you said you wanted to hear this, so listen. I promise, I won’t hurt you, or do anything you don’t want me to.”

The sincerity in his tone and in his eyes must have won out. Her muscles began to relax, though she didn’t let down her guard completely.

“In one form or another, I have walked this Earth since the time of the Roman Republic. I have stared down evil in all forms. I have
been
evil in several more. And while I’ve served Hell and cursed Heaven, I have never feared for the safety of another. I’ve never cared enough. Lucifer may have gotten the head job after the overthrow, but that’s only because he’s a charismatic bastard. Azazel don’t give a shit what anyone thinks of him, or who stands against him. He’d be a one man army and cause some serious chaos, if it came down to the need. You can negotiate with Lucifer. Azazel is a stone wall.”

His head lowered, so that he could feel her rushing breaths dancing over his cheek bone.

“A few weeks ago, when I saw you with him, knowing how he could reach out and snap your neck before you could even blink … Oh, God, Riona, you don’t know how afraid I was. You’re one bad ass brave fucker, you know that, but even you have limits. Please, please, don’t do something so foolish again. Promise me. Azazel doesn’t take prisoners, he takes lives.”

She struggled against his hold half-heartedly, as though not trying to get away, just trying to get control. “I was in control the whole time.”

“Like hell you were.”

“He said I was off limits.”

“Like he’d give a fuck. Azazel doesn’t like Hell. He’s wanted revenge on Lucifer for the fall for eons, is always looking for any opportunity to take it. Killing you, when Lucifer has ordered you off limits sounds like a perfect plan to me. Fuck, Riona, do you have any idea what I would do if I lost you?”

“I ‘m … not … yours … to lose!” Riona swallowed enough air to float a balloon. “Fine, I get it. Azazel bad. Let me up!”

He knew he should. He knew he would … eventually. But at the moment he commanded himself to move, he felt the witch shift beneath him. His erection pushed itself against Riona’s core, making both of them still. In the struggle, without realizing it, the male part of his body had decided to ramp up for action.

His gaze went up from inspecting his member, to meeting the witch’s gaze. No longer filled with hate, he found instead Riona sucking in her bottom lip, her eyes heavy, pleading.