The Devil's Wife (23 page)

      The reflective material Clarissa was examining was a smashed porcelain Angel's head. I looked around, surveying the ground, while Clarissa leaned over what looked like Jayce's purse, examining the contents.

      "Do you really think that she would have taken the back streets?" I asked. "She was smart. She would have known that no one would see her back here, and would have stuck to the sidewalk."

      Clarissa shook her head, holding up the purse. Jayce's photo stared back at us from the driver's license.

      "Oh no…"

      Clarissa picked up one of the Angel's wings, then

found a Demon's wing half a foot away, a little chipped. She stepped back to look at the pattern the shards had made, and I stepped back from them to give her some room.

      "It was thrown," Clarissa murmured, frowning. I could see her calculating the angle of the porcelain shards, working out where it came from. She took three steps back and stiffened, looking at her foot.

      She lifted her boot and looked at the ground. An Angel figurine was lying on the ground and she picked it up, bringing it over to me.

      "We have to find her," she said in a dangerous voice, cleaning road dust and alley dirt off the scratched and chipped figurine. "We have to find Jayce, Lucifer."

      "We're going to," I growled. "But we can't do it alone. I have to go to Hell and interrogate the other half of Jason's gang, and you have to stay here and wait for her. But I don't want to leave you here without protection."

      And I suppose I am just a useless ball of fur?

      "What are you doing here, Aspen?" Clarissa demanded. "Wait, how did you even get here?"

      I'm here to help, as usual. The ginger tabby sat down and looked at me. I can watch over her while you're in Hell, Lucifer. I've done it before, and I daresay I shall end up doing it again.

      "And if something happens?" I demanded. "What're you going to do? Scratch and hiss at them? No, I'm not leaving her with you, Aspen. You're just a cat now, regardless of your memories. You can't fight."

      Aspen stood up, yowling and hissing at me. I am not! I can zip between here and Limbo, and send someone to you if anything were to happen to her, I can get you as quick as a flash and you can save her. For a cat, his expression was almost a sneer. Like you always do, hero.

      I frowned. I had promised myself I wouldn't put Clarissa in any more danger than necessary. This wasn't necessary danger.

      Aspen huffed. Lucifer, lighten up. When we find Jayce, we'll leave a couple of the men for you.

      Again, I hesitated. Aspen huffed again, and I finally gave up. "If she gets in trouble, you're going to have to be nicer to me, Aspen. You know that, don't you?"

      Yes, but nothing will happen. Aspen puffed up his chest. So I'm safe hating you for the rest of eternity.

      I sighed, pulling Clarissa in for a hug. "Don't let anything happen to you, do you understand me?"

      "Yes, Lucifer." She reached up to touch my cheek, and I kissed her, holding her tightly. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I wrapped mine around her waist, holding her to me. She pulled back, kissing me on the jaw. "But I've got Aspen. What could possibly go wrong?"

Clarissa Avario

      Aspen and I watched as Lucifer flew away from us, keeping out of sight of the humans wandering the busy street at the end of the alley. Aspen leaped into my arms and I set off down the alley, looking for clues to where the Hellraisers were. Aspen jumped from my arms on 19
^th
Street, sniffing around the road surface for something. I followed him into an alley, and I felt someone appear behind me.

      I turned to look at him, and Aspen yowled. It only took me a second to realize that the man was wearing black, a blue strip of cloth around his upper arm, before he grabbed me around the throat. Aspen squealed, and I heard someone grab him, cursing as Aspen scratched and bit him. I backed up, trying to break the man's hold, but he stepped with me, forcing me further back into the alley.

      "What do you know, boys," a familiar face called as I gasped and clawed at the man's hands around my throat. "A second bitch for fun. What a happy day, Clarissa. Well, for us, anyway. Definitely not for you."

      The men grunted in mirth, and I saw one of them shove Aspen into a potato sack. I sank my fingernails between the bones in the man's arms, but it was too late. As he let me go, I crumpled to the ground and the world turned black.

~ * ~

I was cold. There was something under my head,

slightly softer than the stone I was lying on. At least, it felt like stone. I couldn't see very well in the single slice of light in the room.

      "Clarissa?" a shaky voice echoed out of the darkness. It sounded like it had been crying. "Are you awake?"

      "Jayce?" I asked, rolling over. My neck was sore, and I figured that it was heavily bruised. "Where are we?"

      "I...I don't know." She sniffed, and I heard her swallow.

      "What happened?" I pulled myself up, shivering. The air was freezing cold, colder than the stone. "Where's Aspen?"

      "Aspen was with you?" Jayce said, and I heard her crawl over to me.

      She passed through the light and I saw the newlyformed bruises, far, far darker than her coffee-colored skin, covering her from her collarbones to her knees. She was naked, and I realized that I was as well. Well, shit. No wonder I'm freezing my tits off here.

      "He was," I said as she sat beside me, sharing the warmth of my body. She was colder than I was. She must have been in here longer than I had. "They caught him, put him in a sack."

      "Then they would have killed him," Jayce whispered, shivering beside me.

      "No, he must have gotten a message to Lucifer, escaped somehow." I hugged her. "We'll get out of here, Jayce."

      "No, we won't," she said, shivering worse than before. "They're worse, Clarissa. Far worse."

      I knew what she meant without her explaining. When he was alive, Jason had had only the slightest control on his gang of sadistic 'friends'. With him gone, they would be free to do what they wished, to whom they wished, under the delusion that they were doing the work of God.

      "What have they done, Jayce?"

      "Pain, so much pain," she whispered, curling into my side. "And blood. Fire."

      I frowned. Jason's friends were the ones that Lucifer had not been able to find: the burner, the beater, and a couple of cutters. All of them rapists.

      "They said they're going to do the same thing to you," she whispered, shuddering. "That they're going to make you scream for them to stop until your voice gives out."

      "They won't," I said fiercely. "They'll get no such satisfaction from me."

      "No, Clarissa," she whispered. "Just do what they want. It hurts less when you do what they want."

      I shook my head. Jayce had been the strongest woman I knew until Jason got his claws into her. Now she was begging me to just go along with the Hellraisers' sadistic whims?

      "I can't do that, Jayce. I cannot knowingly give them pleasure from my pain." Jayce opened her mouth to beg me. I put a hand over her mouth. "No, listen to me, Jayce. You have to be strong. You have to say no to these men, or they're just going to keep doing it."

      Jayce shook her head, shrinking away from me. "I can't do that, Clarissa."

      "Jayce—"

      "No, I can't!" she yelled, standing up. "I'm not strong enough, Clarissa! Not anymore."

      "You are," I said quietly, in case the men were nearby. "You are, you always have been. You just need to focus, to fight your fear. Don't let it conquer you, Jayce."

      "No, Clarissa," Jayce sobbed, kneeling on the stone. "I don't have the power to do it. I can't."

      I frowned, crouching down and pulling her to her feet. "Jayce, you have to listen to me. You have the strength. You just have to find it."

      Before she could reject the claim again, the door opened. A man stood in the doorway watching us. I could barely make out the shapes of the men behind him as he squeezed into the room, a grin on his face.

      A grin that boded ill for us.

      "Ah, so you're finally awake, Clarissa?" Levine said with a half-laugh. He was the Burner—I knew his style. His laugh was half-insane. His eyes drifted over my body, taking in my breasts and my legs. "You'll be the perfect toy for my masterpiece. Maybe you'll be an artwork good enough to drag that murdering coward out of hiding so we can kill him properly. May God prevail and the Devil die."

      I was standing in front of Jayce, who was panting in fear. I spat at the man's feet and he frowned.

      "Oh, yes. You will be a challenge to break," he said with relish. Levine snapped his fingers and the two other men stepped forward to grab me.

      "No!" Jayce yelled, darting out from behind me and kneeling in front of Levine. "Please, no, spare her! Use me, take me instead!"

      Levine laughed, and the two men joined him. I could see who they were in the light from the open door: Andy and Marvin, both Cutters who preferred hooks to knives.

      "I don't know about instead," Levine laughed, licking his lips and pulling her up by the hair. "But we will definitely take you."

      Levine dragged her to the door. The two other men grabbed at my shoulders, and I threw one away from me, reaching out for Jayce. Levine grabbed my hand and broke my finger, the pain distracting me enough to allow one of the Cutters to put a knife to my throat.

      "I should have known you would cheat," I growled. "Do you think my boyfriend would show you restraint if you do me any injuries? Not even God will help you. He didn't help Jason."

      "He was unworthy," Andy spat. "Unworthy of God, unworthy to lead. He was sacrilegious. If he had lived much longer, we would have turned our methods on him, as our forefathers, the Inquisitors, did to witches. But now, now we're not just hunting the Devil's spawn. Now we're hunting the Devil himself. He's to be removed from the Universe. God told us so."

      I pressed forward against the knife, feeling my skin give way. I knew I was playing with Death, playing a game of Chicken that could, really, only end with my corpse lying on the floor, but I was going to play it to the end, Goddammit. I was going to die on my terms, and no one else's. Not God's and definitely not the Hellraisers'.

      Marvin, holding the knife to my neck, moved with me, preventing me from slicing my own throat. Jayce was screaming, and I felt the blood dribbling down my skin as I stepped forward. The pain in my hand masked the pain in my neck, to a point, and I couldn't feel the blood falling until it hit my collarbone, pooling in the hollow at the base of my throat before dripping between my breasts.

      Levine laughed, continuing to drag Jayce out of the room by her hair. "Your little toy boy can jump up and down and scream at us as much as he wants," he said, laughing as the Cutters dragged me from the room as well. "It won't do either of you any good."

      I fought the Cutters holding me still while Levine pulled what looked like a burning log from the fire, still laughing.

      "What do you intend to do with that?" I demanded as two more men grabbed Jayce and held her still.

      Levine smiled at me, the charcoal-tipped log in his hand worryingly close to Jayce's skin. "You do not speak unless spoken to, or your friend gets hurt. Do you understand?"

      I glared at Levine, daring him to do it. He set his jaw and pressed the end of the log square between Jayce's shoulder blades. She screamed, and I lashed out, kicking the wood from his hand.

      The Burner backhanded me. "Ah, so you're going to play it rough?" He grinned, showing off all his teeth.

      I snarled at him as he picked up the wood and thrust it into the fire again. He picked up a piece of metal, thrusting the end of that into the fire as well.

      "Excellent. Rough is my favorite game."

      I spat at him, kicking out again. One of the Cutters kicked my left leg out from underneath me and I ended up on the floor, my kick going wide. Levine looked me over, flicking a cigarette lighter and holding a thin piece of twisted wire in the flame.

      "I wonder," he said, crouching down beside me and seizing my chin, holding the red-hot wire. "Does your devilish boyfriend love you for your money, or your face?"

      I lifted my right leg and swung it around, kicking Levine in the back of the head. He dropped the wire in a small puddle of water beside my head. The heat of the wire evaporated the water as Andy broke my jaw. I heard Jayce shriek in pain out of my sight. I tried to block it out. I would do what I could to see us both get out of here, whether that meant a broken jaw or a few missing fingers. I was sure Lucifer would be able to patch us up afterwards, anyway, as long as they didn't kill us.