Payable On Death: A Jax Rhodes Novel, Book One (The Jax Rhodes Series 1) (20 page)

"Release her. Neither of us is in our own realm. This may not be neutral ground but we are still equals here." Thomas extended his hand, waiting for me to reach out and take it. "Give her to me."

Five minutes? I'd only been gone from the safe zone for five minutes? It felt like hours since I managed to let myself get taken. The amount of pain he inflicted in three-hundred seconds terrified me. I wished I could go back in time to tell seventeen-year-old me not to deal with the Devil. That none of the bastards the woman who masqueraded as your mother shacked up with would ever hurt you the way he could. Nothing they said would be worse than the hours of mental torture inflicted by his demons. No bruise or belt mark could compare to the pain he inflicted with one touch.

I tried to close the distance between us so I could grab Thomas's hand and be pulled to safety but the Devil stepped on my hair, jerking my head back and halting my escape.

"I always felt Purgatory was closer to my domain. Fire is more my thing, don't you think?" Taking his foot off my hair, he looked at the blistered and beaten demon Thomas pulled forward. "You're offering a trade?" The Devil steepled his hands in front of his face, taking less than a minute to consider the deal. "Fine. Release Lazarus from his bonds and we shall make the exchange."

Thomas and Tobias quickly set about removing the rosaries binding the demon and pulled several smaller strands used as a gag from inside his mouth. Dane started to come for me but I was already on my feet walking as quickly as I could. The span of the road from one curb to the next seemed to expand, increasing the distance between me and safety.

My least favorite demon made the same journey in the opposite direction, giving me a wink as our paths crossed yet again. To which I gave him the finger, muttering promises to mark his skin with angelic script the next time I saw him. I wasn't sure if it worked the same way on demons as it did on the portal but I'd try anything once. After the demon was a few steps behind me, I refocused my attention on the man waiting for me.

Dane's intense gaze locked on mine and I knew once he'd made sure I would survive my injuries and held me in his arms again, he wasn't ever letting go. He rushed from the curb to meet me, arm extended to grab me and pull me to him the second I was close enough. Something changed in his expression, in the urgency with which he rushed to reach me. He screamed for me to move, to watch out, but my battered body was too slow. Whatever was happening behind me, it was too late to stop it. I glanced over my shoulder and my heart nearly stopped.

Lazarus had cut open his thigh with his scalpel-like claws, pulled a spear head free of the muscle and sinew, and was poised to drive it into my back. The Spear of Destiny. I knew it as certainly as I knew my own name. When had it come into his possession? Were the hours I'd spent getting the shit kicked out of me in purgatory an entertaining way to pass the time until the witnesses for my execution arrived? It certainly seemed like something the Devil would do.

Dane roared my name, barreling forward in a last ditch effort to save my life. He grabbed and spun me in one fluid movement so his back was exposed to Lazarus as the Spear hurtled toward us. I felt the metal tip protrude through his blood-soaked shirt. Slack jawed and wide eyed, he fell to his knees taking me with him as I struggled to support his weight.

"Dane, please. Don't leave me. You can't leave me. Please." His head sagged against my shoulder and I knew he didn't have much time. Afraid the carefully built dam inside me that I'd walled my emotions behind would burst, releasing the unbearable pain losing Dane brought, my plea came out as a whisper. "Help him." My eyes flicked between the two angels. "You have to help him."

Tobias knelt beside me, resting a heavy hand on my shoulder, saying everything I didn't want to hear with one touch. Tears flowed down my cheeks, streaking through the red dust that coated my skin.

"At least make him comfortable. Take the Spear out so I can lay him down." I choked back the gut wrenching sob trying to break free, unwilling to give the Devil the satisfaction of hearing my pain. Knowing he felt and relished it was enough.

"I always collect my dues." With that last parting shot and warning, the Devil and his minion disappeared.

"It's not the relic." Thomas pulled the spearhead free, tossing it on the ground, and pressed the jacket Tobias handed him over the wound before laying Dane on his back.

"You're certain?" Tobias picked it up to examine it for himself before throwing it down in disgust with enough force to pierce the pavement. "A cheap reproduction."

Turned out, I wasn't the intended target after all. It was worse and just as I feared. The Devil knew how much Dane meant to me. And that made him an easy target.

Dane grunted as I mopped the sweat from his brow with a piece of fabric torn from Thomas's shirt, the only sign he'd given of the pain we all knew he felt since being impaled. Careful not to jostle him and cause him anymore pain, I nuzzled in beside him. I needed to touch him, as much of him as I could. To memorize the way his body felt next to mine and how perfectly we fit together. He came into my life unexpectedly and just as unexpectedly, despite our flaws and the circumstances we'd found ourselves in, still managed to nurture that first spark of attraction into something more.

With my head so close to his chest, I heard every beat of his heart, counted the growing seconds between each beat and knew it wouldn't be long before he left this world, taking a huge part of my heart with him.

Dane's labored breathing
slowed to match the pace of his heart. Tears flowed freely as the realization of his mortal resting place dawned on me. He carried the weight of all the sinners he'd helped over his long existence. The black smut of their spiritual crimes marked his soul and barred his admittance into Heaven. Destined for damnation, he'd spend eternity in hellfire.

Unless I did something to change that.

I'd seen him perform the ritual on Joan, my real mother, and knew enough Latin to understand the words he spoke over her before she gasped her last breath. Offering him the same salvation he'd offered so many people less deserving than him was the least I could do. He may not have consumed my sins but he'd saved me in other ways and if this was the only way I could repay such an enormous debt, then it was the least I could do.

On my knees, I gingerly patted him down until I found the small velvet bag containing the necessary items to complete the ritual. Carefully removing the items from their case, I set them down beside him and prepared myself for the metaphysical smack down I was about to receive. Shifting the balance didn't seem painful when I'd witnessed Dane's performance, except he'd had centuries to get used to the sensation and Joan's burden of sin was small compared to some. The amount I planned to take on far exceeded anything he'd consumed in one service, but I refused to allow him to burn for all eternity.

"Jax, no! You'll seal the fate of all mankind. If you do this, you will become one of the fallen. Do you understand? You'll be one of them. You'll unlock Tartarus." Thomas realized what I planned to do after I'd anointed Dane's body with oil and began reciting the words I'd heard when my mother was saved by a Sin Eater.

Ignoring the angel's cries for me to stop, I placed the wafer on Dane's lips, continuing with my recitation. There was no room in my mind to process Thomas's warning or the dire consequences. There was only room for one thought. Save Dane's soul. There was no room in my broken heart to care about the rest of the world. Each shard held a piece of my love and pain for the man dying in front of me.

One by one, each sin soaked into the wafer, turning the linen colored cracker a moldy black until it couldn't absorb any more. So much time, so much sin. One wafer and one ritual wouldn't be enough to absolve him of all that he carried. With the last word, I reached for the blackened wafer and braced myself for the pain. Thomas snatched it from my hands, swallowing it before I even fully understood what had just happened. He collapsed, gripped in convulsions as the sin consumed him instead of the other way around. Born into sin, a mortal is better equipped to carry the weight of someone else's burdens than a creature born from divine light.

A physical transformation began the same instant as digestion. Thomas's eyes morphed into bottomless black orbs. Sin seeped into his pores, giving his previously perfect complexion a grey pallor. The beautiful blond hair adorning his head turned black from root to end. Massive wings once covered in opalescent feathers burst from his back in a pewter ombre. Even as he became the sin he consumed, he instructed me to place another wafer on Dane's mouth and begin again.

I refused.

Watching Thomas destroy himself to prevent me from doing the same was more than I could bear. He sacrificed everything he was to keep the doors of Tartarus locked and the evil housed within from getting out when I would have watched the world burn to spare Dane all the pain that awaited him in Hell. Crushing the remaining wafers in one hand and pouring the small vials of wine and oil out with the other, I put an end to the ritual and my chance to save Dane. The cost of one soul, however important it was to me, was too great. Dane didn't spend his life offering people a way into Heaven when the church would not just for me to condemn them all in order to save him.

How had I failed so completely? Thomas continued to evolve into a dark angel and Dane was dying. The two most influential forces in my life were leaving me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Tobias embraced his brother, each saying the other’s name before separating with a firm pat on the back. Words, spoken too softly for me to hear and in the old angelic language, were exchanged before they bowed their heads in prayer. They were saying goodbye. Tobias, still able to ascend, would leave purgatory and Thomas would not. I didn't need to understand what they said to know what was happening. The angel who had watched me since I was a child, who brought me into the world of a hunter, had condemned himself to a similar fate as the one he'd offered me a way out of.

Tobias picked Dane up off the ground, cradling him as easily as a baby despite his size. He nodded when I asked for a moment with Thomas and carried my Sin Eater closer to the edge of the boundary where I'd crossed over. Neither of us wanted Dane's last breath to be on this side of the line. His soul might return here before descending even further, at least his body would rest in the mortal realm.

Thomas didn't take one step, making me close the distance between us. His arms wrapped firmly around his midsection weren't the deterrent he hoped they'd be. It was painfully obvious he didn't want me to see him this way, for my memories of him to be tainted with darkness, except the sin that darkened his features only made him more beautiful to me. I threw my arms around him, his rigid body softening under my touch. Neither of us said anything, especially not goodbye. That felt too permanent and I knew our paths would cross again.

"Jax, we need to go. I can't hold the doorway open for long." Tobias stepped over the invisible line, the air rippling as he displaced time and energy to travel between the parallel planes.

The dry, hot winds picked up again, coating everything in a fresh layer of rust and dirt. Thomas opened his wings, shielding me from the gritty blast of air burning my eyes and throat as he ushered me closer to the rift in reality Tobias created. Without looking back, because I knew he wouldn't want me to, I left the shelter of Thomas's wings and stepped through to the other side.

A few demons loitering on the sidewalk outside of the bar scurried back inside when they caught sight of me. They knew where and with whom I'd been. The fact that I'd not only survived but made it back terrified them. I hadn't done it alone. In fact, I'd pretty much made a fucking mess, yet I was still alive. And that meant things hadn't gone according to their master’s plan.

Tobias and Dane were nowhere in sight. Panic gripped my heart. Every instinct told me to tear the street apart, beat every demon within reach until they told me where I could find them. Only a couple minutes had passed between our crossings. How could they have disappeared? Where did they go? Dane had so little time left, moments that I didn't want to miss. If he had to leave me, I wanted every second, until the last breath left his body.

My heart more than broke. It had been ripped from my chest and run over a cheese grater until nothing remained except a pile of shredded emotions heaped on a plate with a side of pain and suffering. Pressing my fist into my chest were my heart used to live, I tried to rub away the ache.

A large hand gripped my shoulder from behind. Instincts kicked into high gear, overriding everything else and giving my mind a welcome reprieve from the sensation of bitter loneliness I was drowning in. My hand clasped over his and I shifted my weight using an aikido move to flip my attacker and gain the advantage. Joseph hit the ground with a thud.

"I take it you're still upset with me about the seventh level demon during your training." The angel picked himself up, dusting off his shirt and pants.

His resemblance to Thomas was as uncomfortable as it was reassuring. He couldn't possibly know what happened. He wouldn't be speaking to me if he did. He needed to hear it. And I should have been the one to do it, but I couldn't bring myself to say the words. A doppelganger of the friend I'd lost—ruined, in fact—stood before me. It was selfish and wrong. I didn't care. The need for something familiar, something safe and good, overrode everything else. Especially the burden of telling Joseph I was the downfall of his brother.

His arms were the harbor I needed and I stepped into them, wrapping them around me as the cadence of his heart calmed my nerves. Joseph had never been the touchy-feely type. His talents as an angel didn't lie in compassion but in combat, which made the cocoon of his wings around me that much more meaningful, delaying me from telling the truth about Thomas even further.

"He's asking for you."

"What? Thomas?" It hadn't occurred to me before, to stay with him in the barren wasteland between Heaven and Hell. Living in the void suddenly didn't sound so bad.

"No, Jax. Not all is lost with Thomas. He'll remain in Purgatory for eternity, that part is true, but he hasn't fallen. Not completely, anyway. Nothing will take away the darkness he absorbed from the Sin Eater, nevertheless, he sacrificed himself and that act was enough to prevent damnation. He'll fulfill a new and necessary role of gate keeper, ushering souls that do not belong there to their proper destination and ensuring the balance is kept. So things that shouldn't happen, don't."

Of course he meant me, as if my being there was somehow my fault. He couldn't help ruining the fortress of solitude I'd found inside his wings with one of his hidden barbs. The next words out of his mouth stopped me from saying anything about it.

"Dane is asking for you."

"Dane?" He was awake and wondering where I was, why I wasn't by his side. He needed me and I wasn't there. "Take me to him."

"Hold on tight. You may experience some discomfort."

By that, I assumed he meant air sickness– that we'd be flying to wherever Dane was. You know what they say about assuming.

The floor rushed up to meet me and I welcomed the cool sensation of tile against my flushed skin. Pushing up on hands and knees, fighting the dry heaves was a losing battle. My empty stomach felt like it'd been through the ringer and was trying to turn itself inside out right there on the hospital floor.

"It'll pass. Happens to everyone their first time." Joseph helped me up, pointing to a room at the end of the hall on the left.

More than one nurse did a double take as I passed by looking like I'd been mining for rust. A trail of fine dust in my wake completed the look. Tobias sat guard outside his room, his arms folded across his chest, head leaning against the wall. He looked every bit the badass and nothing like the fashionably dressed librarian I'd met a few months ago. A smile broke out across his face when he caught sight of me walking down the hall. He stood, yanking me into a hug, sending little puffs of dust into the air.

"You can't go in there like that." The woman's voice was as unfamiliar as it was authoritative.

Tobias released me and I turned to see just who exactly had materialized behind me. The nurse wore a pink scrub shirt with black Wonder Woman symbols on it and a pair of matching black pants. Small in stature, she made up for every inch she lacked in height with attitude. Her wiry salt and pepper hair was pulled back in a tight bun and I got the distinct impression she'd choke me out with her stethoscope if I as much as stepped foot in Dane's room.

"Jax, this is Kimmie, Dane's nurse. Kimmie, this is Jax. The Jax, the one he's been muttering about in his sleep." Tobias introduced us. His emphasis on my name wasn't lost on me.

"I thought that was just nonsense from the fever." The look in her eyes spoke volumes. She knew who I was. Dane had said more than just my name. "I don't care if she's God almighty. Mister McDonough is suffering from an injury to his lung and fighting off an infection. If he breathes in that," she paused to figure out what exactly covered my hair and clothes, "Whatever you've got all over you, it could cause reactive respiratory disease which requires hours of nebulizer treatments. He's made excellent progress in his recovery and I won't have you going in there looking and smelling like a pig pen and causing a setback."

"You got any extra scrubs lying around I could borrow?" The nurse ignored me, rolling her vitals cart into Dane's room and closing the door behind her. I couldn't make out exactly what she said to him, but the cadence of her voice and her temperament in general seemed to improve when she was alone with the Sin Eater. He'd been busy gaining admirers since he came back from Purgatory. "How many days since you crossed over?"

"Four." Tobias winced when he spoke, almost hesitating to tell me because he knew how upset I'd be. "There's no way to stop it or predict it. Time moves differently there. I wish I could tell you something more, but I honestly don't know why." He shoved me into an unoccupied room across from Dane's and turned on the light, rummaging through the drawers where the hospital stored supplies and extra bedding. "Get in the shower."

"You better have something for me to wear when I get out. And it better cover my ass. And keep watch, don't let anyone catch us."

"Just hurry up. I'm an angel, not a magician."

"You work miracles, don't you? That's sort of like magic." The spray of water drowned out whatever witty comeback Tobias fired my way. Being just across the hall from Dane and knowing he was going to be alright boosted my spirits.

Showered, shampooed and wrapped in a towel in record time, Tobias waited for me on the foot of the hospital bed holding one of those horrible hospital gowns.

"It was all I could find."