A Devil Named Desire (7 page)

“I don’t eat meat,” Cain quickly interjected. “But I do love bread and fruit.”

Sammy raised his brows at this new bit of information. “You don’t eat
meat
? Since when?”

“Since I realized it was once living flesh,” the boy told him boldly, looking him directly in the eye. “I’m not a cannibal.”

“Oh my,” Pandora murmured, “the cub is much like his sire, in a ‘don’t tell me what to do’ kind of way. How amusing.”

Not as amused as his guest, Sammy shot her a look.

“Don’t glower so,” she told him. “Of course the child has his hackles up . . . what kind of setting is this for a boy his age?” She lifted her hands to indicate the formality that surrounded them. “He’s full of energy, and needs to run and play, not be stifled by gilt and crystal.”

Cain nodded vigorously, looking worshipfully at his new Aunt Pandy. “I’m not even hungry,” he offered eagerly. “I told him that, but he didn’t listen.”

It was Sammy’s first experience at being double-teamed, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“I have a suggestion,” Pandora said, reaching out a soft, perfumed hand to lay atop Sammy’s. “Why don’t you let Cain run along, and we’ll have dinner together alone”—her thumb stroked the back of his—“the way we used to in the old days.”

Annoyed as he was by being crossed, as he looked across the table at his son’s hopeful face, Sammy could find no real reason to make him stay.

Pandora’s hand squeezed his again, giving him a real reason for the boy to go. “Perhaps”—she dimpled at him, arching a brow coyly—“if you’re very, very nice to me, I shall visit more often, and help you turn this young princeling into a prince.”

Since Sammy privately admitted that he had absolutely no idea what he was doing when it came to rebellious nine-year-old boys (never having been one), the idea was tempting. “Very well.”

Cain leapt to his feet, ready to bolt.

“But I will see you in your chamber at eight, and you will read me a full chapter from Leviticus.”

“Yes, Father,” the boy said. “I will.” He paused by Pandora’s chair. “Good-bye, Aunt Pandy,” he told her. “I hope I see you again.”

“You will,” she told him, pulling him in for another hug. “Go, and have fun.”

And then he was gone, racing from the room.

“Nyx,” said Sammy shortly, “make sure he stays away from the pit. It won’t hurt him to be separated from the imps for a while.”

“As you wish, Master,” said the demon, interpreting his instructions correctly as a dismissal. He faded out of the room, closing the door gently behind him.

“Really, darling . . . Leviticus?” Pandora dropped his hand and regarded him with lazy amusement. “Why would you give the child such dreary reading material?”

Sammy shrugged, reaching for his half-empty wineglass. “So that he knows his history, and knows his enemies.”

“He’s a charmer, that one.” She smiled and leaned back in her chair, deliberately displaying her ample bosom to advantage. “You must be ecstatic.”

“ ‘Ecstatic’ is not quite the word for it,” he murmured, taking a sip of his wine.

“The Great and Mighty Satan, now father to a nine-year-old boy,” Pandora mused. “How will it change you, I wonder?”

Sammy’s hand stilled on his glass. He didn’t want to change, he didn’t
need
to change, and damn Pandora’s curiosity for making the leap across that particular chasm. “What do you mean?” he asked abruptly.

“Oh, darling, of course you’ll be changed, all parents are.” Pandora shrugged, a graceful shrug that made her jewelry glitter in the candlelight. “I don’t have firsthand knowledge, of course, but it’s a well-known fact that offspring are both a challenge and a responsibility. The experience can’t help but change you.” She rose from her chair, trailing a beringed finger along the table as she moved toward him. “No need to worry about it, though. You’ll be fine.” She’d reached his chair, and came up behind him, running her plump hands over his shoulders, and up, though his hair. Her lips were against his ear, her breath fragrant on his cheek. “You are Ruler of the Abyss, Lucifer, Son of Morning. There is no challenge you cannot meet, no responsibility you cannot bear.”

Sammy relaxed a bit, leaning his head back against the seat. Pandora not only knew how to use her femininity to advantage, she knew the value of stroking a man’s ego along with his organ.

Her fingers were busy on his chest, undoing the buttons of his shirt to touch his bare skin, removing any obstacles in their path. “I’ve missed you, my darling,” she breathed in his ear. “It seems eons.”

“It has been eons,” he agreed, closing his eyes to the feel of her hand on the fastening of his trousers. “Several centuries at least.”

His cock, already thickening, was released into her plump, warm hand. Rewarding her with a growl of pleasure, Sammy stayed quiescent, allowing her to press heated kisses to his neck and ear as she squeezed and stroked, bringing his staff to full hardness. When he’d had enough of that, he stilled her hand, lifting it for a kiss as he rose from the chair.

Pandora was a soft armful of woman, and he thoroughly enjoyed the feel of her bottom through her blue spangled dress. He enjoyed even more lifting that dress until his fingers could slip beneath it to touch the silk of her skin. Standing, his hardness pressed to the softness of her belly, he did some squeezing and stroking of his own, sliding his fingers down and between the crease of her ass, seeking the damp heat between her legs, until Pandora was gasping against his throat. Her delicate little hands clutched his shoulders, kneading and pulling, her lush breasts against his chest.

Soon, the delightfulness of her bottom was no longer enough, and with the sweep of an arm, he cleared room on the table.

Pandora shrieked with delight, laughing up at him as he caught her about the waist and lifted her onto the table. She threw back her head as he tugged down the midnight blue straps of her dress, revealing her full, round breasts, capped with caramel-colored nipples, pointed and erect.

Burying his face between those ripe mounds, Sammy pressed the softest of kisses to each before laving them both with his tongue.

Pandora gasped in pleasure, clasping the back of his head with beringed fingers. Her legs came up, the fabric of her dress like spangled midnight spilled across her thighs and belly, sliding upward beneath his hands as he ran them over her warm flesh. Her arms, freed from her gown, came around him, stroking his back before tugging his shirt free from his trousers. A moment later, and it was gone, Pandora’s clever little hands warm on his bare skin.

Cupping her full breasts within his palms, Sammy continued to play with them, sucking, licking and kneading. She keened her pleasure as he took one of her nipples in his teeth, biting it gently while tickling it with his tongue. Her throat arched, and she lay back on the table in surrender, giving him full access to her lush body.

Her belly rose against his chest, her legs twining around his hips like snakes as she writhed beneath him, her jewelry reflecting the candlelight, her hair a dark pool of ink, studded with diamonds.

She
was the banquet, she the dessert, and Sammy found himself suddenly starving. His cock, hard as iron, sought the soft heat between her thighs, and with a thrust that made them both gasp, found it.

Engulfed by her honeyed warmth, Sammy closed his eyes, imagining—just for an instant—that the woman he held in his arms had eyes the color of chocolate and dark hair, streaked with pink. Would Nicki Styx have felt like all the others, he wondered, or would she have been unique unto herself?

Knowing the answer in his heart, and scarce able to bear it, he wiped all thought from his mind by the simple expedient of moving his hips, driving himself deeper into Pandora’s welcoming warmth, and giving himself up to her cries of pleasure, her grasping hands, and her beautiful, luxurious womanhood.

After all, he’d thrown away any hope of Heaven for a taste of this kind of pleasure, so there was no need to deny himself now.

Chapter Six

T
hroughout what was left of the morning, and into the early afternoon, Hope slept on while Gabe kept watch. When his shirt was dry he donned it, enjoying the brush of clean cotton against his skin. He lingered in her kitchen, noting all the small personal touches that proclaimed it hers: various magnets and photos on the refrigerator, a red and white checked dish towel hanging on a hook, African violets blooming on the windowsill. A flash of movement caught his eye, but it was merely a hummingbird, come to sip delicately from a bright red feeder just outside the window. He smiled at a small wooden plaque above the counter that read, “Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused,” but his smile faded as he thought about how Hope had apparently failed to take that particular piece of advice.

In the other room, the music still played, and for a brief moment in time it seemed as though all the world was calm and safe and quiet. Gabe drank in the feeling, knowing it was an illusion, but grateful for it anyway.

Then he stepped back into the living room, and just as quickly, the illusion was over.

Through the window, in the garden opposite Hope’s apartment, the shadows were once again on the move.

From beneath the awning they came, moving toward the sliding glass doors that led inside the neighbor’s apartment, swarming like sharks to a feed. Gabriel glanced at Hope, still sleeping, and had but moments to make his decision: stay, or go?

Then he thought of the dessert, cooling on the counter, and the care she’d taken with it despite whatever was troubling her, and the decision was made. She cared about the old man who’d planted that garden, and he would do what he could before it was too late.

In seconds, he’d left her apartment and entered the one across the hall. The door was unlocked, and he found himself in a small living room, messier than Hope’s and not nearly as cheerful. The air was stale, the curtains drawn, leaving the interior dim.

A small groan came from a room at the end of the hallway, and Gabe wasted no time finding its source. An old man, eyes closed, was lying on a bed. He was fully dressed, the bed neatly made, shades drawn. At Gabe’s approach, the shadows, already gathered in a far corner of the room, drew back, but didn’t flee entirely, as he’d hoped.

Another glance told him why: the old man was pale as parchment, death clearly stamped on his features. He was portly, his belly high and round, wispy stands of white on his nearly bald head.

There was nothing Gabriel could do, save what he was best at, so without a word, he went to sit at the old man’s side, and took his hand.

At his touch, the man’s eyes opened, struggling to focus.

Gabe smiled at him reassuringly, letting the man see—for an instant—his true form, making sure he saw his own precious grace reflected in Gabe’s eyes.

“ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,’ ” he murmured softly, feeling a faint twitch as the old man tried to squeeze his hand.

“I—” A blink, then another, from the man on the bed. Shock, recognition, and then, inevitably, a sort of grateful acceptance. “I’ve sinned,” he whispered to Gabe hoarsely.

“No man is without sin,” Gabriel told him softly. “By grace are you saved; a gift of the One, freely offered.”

The shadows began to recede, swarming angrily into a small knot, like bees returning to the hive.

A gasp of pain came from the man, a hitch in his breath. Gabe held his hand tighter, keeping his voice low as he repeated the Twenty-third Psalm, having done it so many times he’d lost count. Dying was an inevitable part of life, but the transition was often frightening; the visual imagery of the psalm soothed as much as the words themselves.

“I was wrong,” rasped the man. “So wrong. Unfaithful. My wife, she didn’t deserve it; when she found out, she left, took the kids with her.” A tear slipped from his eye, running down his temple toward the pillow. “Never forgave me, until the day she died. I ruined everything.”

Gabe bowed his head, hearing the old man’s pain and regret in his words, letting him speak them while he had the chance.

“Always loved her,” the man whispered. “So sorry.”

There were photos on the dresser, old and faded: a smiling young woman in a gingham dress, dark hair carefully styled, candid shots of her holding a birthday cake, a swaddled baby, two small children posed before a Christmas tree.

“You’ll see her again,” Gabe told him quietly, “and she won’t be angry anymore.” There was no room for anger where the old man was going—if he’d died alone, his guilt and fear might’ve made him susceptible to a soul eater, but no longer, for Gabriel flooded his dying soul with Light, letting him see what awaited him on the other side.

“Muriel?” the old man whispered, his eyes no longer seeing Gabe, or the darkened room in which he lay. “Muriel, is that you?” A look of joy and wonder spread over his tired, wrinkled face, and in the next instant, he was gone, hand going limp in Gabriel’s grasp.

The shadows were gone, the corner empty, but Gabe sat there for a while anyway, letting the Light that flowed from his face and hands continue to bathe the old man’s body. Then he let the Light dim, resuming human form, and rose from the bed. He went to the dresser and picked up Muriel’s photo, studying it.

The old man had loved her, yet hurt her anyway, then carried the guilt of doing so for the rest of his life. He looked at the children’s faces, so bright with happiness as they posed on Christmas morning, and wondered how, once having known such trust, such joyous responsibility, a man could throw it all away for a night or two of pleasure. Tracing the outline of Muriel’s cheek with his finger, he imagined how she must’ve looked on her wedding day when the world was full of hope, her smile when she lay in the arms of the man she loved, her expression when she’d held her first child. Somehow, though the face in the portrait was a stranger’s, the face he saw in his mind’s eye was Hope’s, who lay sleeping across the hall. An ache formed in the region of his heart, for he would never see such things firsthand, and a part of him—for the first time—regretted it.

Love was beautiful and terrible and strange, but he—not being human—would never experience it.

He could do nothing but marvel at its power, and wonder.

H
ope woke up to find herself alone, save for Sherlock, curled in a gray and white ball on the couch beside her. A glance at the sun outside the living room window told her it was early afternoon. She sat up cautiously, a bit stiff, and looked around for Gabriel.

“Hello?” Her old afghan had been draped over her legs. She shoved it aside and sat up, alarmed to think she’d actually fallen asleep in front of a stranger, leaving him free to snoop through—or steal—everything she owned. A quick check of the kitchen proved it empty, as were the bathroom and her bedroom. “Gabriel?”

Her front door was unlocked, when she was always careful to lock it. “Some guardian you are,” she muttered, oddly disappointed to find him gone. Not wanting to think about why that could possibly be so, she locked it again, then went into the bathroom to freshen up. Her reflection in the mirror made her wince; she looked like death warmed over, dark circles beneath her eyes, not a stitch of makeup. Cursing her own vanity, she took a couple of extra minutes to apply some concealer, a little color on her lids, and a quick dab of lip gloss.

Coming back into the hallway, she looked toward her bedroom, where the book still waited, sitting squarely on her desk. Knowing she couldn’t put off the inevitable much longer, she put it off as long as she could by going into the kitchen and pulling out the aluminum foil, putting a large piece of it over the top of the banana pudding, now completely cooled.

“Be right back, Sherlock,” she told the cat, just to have someone to say it to, then went across the hall to knock on Mr. Qualey’s door, which she found open a few inches. It didn’t surprise her, for he often left it cracked, in part—she was sure—so he could hear her comings and goings. He was lonely and enjoyed a chat; it was common for him to pop his head out to say hello when she climbed up or down the stairs.

“Mr. Q?” She stuck her head in, speaking softly in case she caught him napping. There was no answer, but she came farther in anyway, knowing he was a bit hard of hearing. A light at the end of the hallway went out, drawing her attention. “Mr. Qualey?”

A man stepped into the hallway, holding something in his hand, and it took Hope no more than an instant to realize that it wasn’t her neighbor.

She began to shake, for it was Gabriel, in a place he didn’t belong, holding something that wasn’t his.

“You’re awake,” he said quietly, stating the obvious.

“Where’s Mr. Qualey?” The pudding suddenly felt as though it weighed fifty pounds. “What are you doing here?”

He took a few steps toward her, light glinting on what he held in his hand: a picture frame, some kind of family portrait.

“Your neighbor is gone,” Gabriel said.

“Gone?” she repeated, stupidly.

“Passed away.”

“No.” Hope shook her head, denying the dark thoughts that were taking shape inside her brain. “No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” She backed up, not even conscious of doing so. The edge of the front door hit her in the back, stopping her short.

The whole scenario, the whole day, suddenly made some kind of weird, twisted sense—Satan wanted to up the pressure on her, and up it he had. “You killed him.”

Gabriel’s face went blank.

“You killed him, didn’t you?” The rational part of her brain, the part that could still think, wanted to shriek, to scream, to throw something, but instead she merely gripped the bowl of pudding tighter. The weight of it was familiar, like a millstone around her neck. Everyone she loved met the same fate: her parents, Mr. Qualey, even Charity, who—even though she wasn’t dead—might as well be.

And every single time, it was her fault.

She’d left the candle burning when she was twelve, even though she wasn’t supposed play with her dad’s lighter. She’d been too hard on Charity when—seven years later—she’d finally gotten them both out of foster care, playing hard-ass mom instead of sister. And she’d been the one who insisted on making banana pudding instead of doing what she was supposed to do, which was translate the damn book and put it on the Internet.

Mr. Qualey was dead because of her.

“It was his heart,” Gabriel said, but she didn’t believe him.

“You’re a liar,” she told him softly, “just like your boss.” Tears threatened, but she blinked them back, because tears got her nowhere.

“Hope, I didn’t—”

“Shut up,” she snarled. “Just shut up.” Even knowing him for a murderer, she found herself unafraid, cocooned in numbness. If he’d wanted to, he could’ve killed her anytime he chose—particularly as she’d lain sleeping on the couch—but death was apparently too good for her these days. The Devil wanted her alive, so she could transcribe his book, dance to his tune, torment her with worry, and tantalize her with glimpses of a life she’d never have. Pushing past Gabriel, she went to the open door of the bedroom and stood there, needing to see for herself what he’d done to her friend.

Mr. Qualey’s body lay on the bed, fully dressed. He looked peaceful, but Hope could tell at a glance that the old man himself wasn’t there; the body on the bed was just a shell, slack-jawed and pale.

A hard knot of grief and guilt rose in her throat, threatening to choke her. “Go back and tell him he won, would you? Go back and tell him that I’ve learned my lesson, just like he wanted.”

Gabriel said something, but she didn’t listen as she turned away, numbly heading for her apartment, where she would call the police and tell them that she’d found her neighbor—her sweet, kind neighbor—dead in his own home.

And then she’d do what Sammy Divine wanted, and transcribe the Key of Solomon before someone else paid the price for her hesitation.

G
abriel watched her go, stunned.

She thought him a murderer.
He’d shown her nothing but kindness, yet she thought him capable of cold-blooded murder. The ache in his heart—the one caused by the photo in his hand, and the imaginings it sparked—grew sharper, more painful.

He could go after her, try once more to explain, but perversely, he no longer wanted to. Let her think the worst, since she was so eager to think it.

Mouth grim, he turned and walked back to the bedroom, placing the photo of Muriel Qualey and her children back on the bureau where it belonged. Then he left the apartment, ignoring Hope’s closed door, and made his way down the stairs.

There were plenty of humans in the world who needed his help, and no reason to stay where he wasn’t wanted. The scent of lavender permeated the lobby, a scent he would now forever associate with disappointment. Drawing his new sunglasses from his back pocket, he opened the front door and went out into the sunshine.

“Well, hey there, Calvin.” Coming up the walkway to the apartment building, heading directly for him, was a familiar figure. Wearing a short plaid skirt, plain white tee, and hip ankle boots, Nicki Styx gave him a cheerful grin. “I knew those Drifters would look good on you, and when I’m right, I’m right.”