Wicked Souls (2 page)

Chapter Two:

Dead Witch Walking

Gabe’s wings were half-cocked, spread just
enough to look imposing.
His long blond hair lay in perfect waves
and would have made a Hollywood starlet jealous.
His skin glowed as
if a million fireflies danced underneath it, the concentrated light
so intense, I shaded my eyes.

He towered over me, eyes snapping with
anger, blocking the only way out of the showers.
“Undo what you
have done,” he said between gritted teeth.
“Now.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

His massive hand came up, halting my words.
“Do not lie to me.”
His voice rose, echoing off the tile.
“Whatever
spell you have cast, break it, or I will smite thee.”

“Smite me?
You need to hook yourself up with
a new version of the English language, Gabe.
Nobody uses the term
‘smite’ anymore.”

Taking a step forward, he spread his wings
another foot.
“Do not mock me, witch.
Break the spell.”

Out of nowhere came the soft meow of a cat.
It almost sounded like a laugh.
But Adam and his buddies didn’t
have a cat.
They didn’t even have the stereotypical Dalmatian.

Half ducking in case Gabriel took a swing at
me, I glanced around his wings in hopes the cat had an owner.
The
angel lightshow, however, blinded me to anything past the shower
stall.
Guess I could say I’d officially been blinded by the light.
With Gabriel glaring down at me, however, it wasn’t the time to
worry about a stray or crack a joke about saving energy.

“Spell?”
I straightened and tried to mimic
Gabe’s imposing stature.
“I haven’t used magic since last
year.”

He invaded my space with another step,
turned his open hand into a fist and shook it in my face.
“You are
the only one who could have done this.
Reverse.
The.
Spell.”

The shower stall suddenly seemed cramped and
cold.
I shivered under the towel.
Still, I’d gone a few rounds with
Gabriel before.
While the Amy in me was into self-preservation, the
Buffy in me refused to back up.
Or shut up.
“Done what exactly?
Clipped your wings?”

Unfortunately I should have listened to Amy.
Gabriel’s sense of humor was lacking.

His fist hit my chest and slammed me against
the wall hard enough, the fillings in my teeth loosened and tiles
cracked over my head.
Stunned, my body seized up.
He kept me pinned
there, the pain in the center of my chest searing straight through
me.
I saw stars and couldn’t breathe.
Had he broken my diaphragm?
Could you break your diaphragm?

“I will not be manipulated by a common
witch,” he muttered.
His breath was ice cold on my cheeks.
“My
incarceration on Earth will only bring devastation to you and those
you love.”

Incarceration?
Like I would want him hanging
around.

I took offense at the term
common
witch
, then shook it off.
I’m not a
witch, I thought,
even though I couldn’t draw the breath to spit the words in his
self-righteous face.
And what spell could a “common” witch devise
that would incarcerate Gabriel?
Even a natural-born witch like me
would need a healthy dose of supernatural help to even touch an
archangel….

Emilia.
When my sister had cast a spell to
protect me from Lucifer the previous year, Gabriel had used it and
her to manipulate the Devil.
Was it possible Luc was now returning
the favor?

The pain in my chest spread up my neck and
into my lower back, hot and vicious.
How was I supposed to reverse
a spell if I couldn’t even talk?
Angels.
They might shine with
heavenly light, but they weren’t all that bright.

He’s going to kill me.

I opened my mouth and screamed on reflex.
Only nothing came out of course.
But even if I could have screamed
loud enough to tighten the curls on Gabe’s head, there was no one
in the station to hear me.
Adam and his coworkers would come back
and find me dead on the floor.
Although stars continued to dance in
the perimeter of my vision, I refused to go down without a
fight.

My arms and legs didn’t want to obey the
command, probably because my spine was being crushed, but I poured
all my energy into swinging and kicking.
Feeble attempts at first
and then my supernatural strength decided to wake up.
When my right
fist unexpectedly connected with Gabe’s chin, a rush of
satisfaction fueled my adrenaline.
The punch barely moved his head
and my knuckles screamed in pain, but a small grunt escaped Gabe’s
lips and I knew he’d felt it.

Small satisfaction while he was killing
me.

I continued to struggle, my oxygen deprived
brain grasping at straws.
The magic inside my chest, held in check
for far too long, roared like a caged lion, claws swinging wildly.
No
, I told myself.
I
won’t
use magic
.

As I chanted the mantra in my head,
blackness descended.
The towel fell off as Gabriel lifted me by the
chest until my feet swung free of the floor.

Not for the first time in my reformed life,
I prayed.
Dear God, remember me?
Could use a little help here.
Your left-hand man’s gone off the rez.

Nothing.
No bolt of lightning.
No voice from
on high.
No intervention of any kind.

And Father Leonard wondered why I was having
such a hard time with the third step of Witches Anonymous.
What
good did it do to offer up my soul and turn my will over to a
higher power when that power didn’t give a damn about me?

They say your life flashes before your eyes
when you’re about to die.
I should have seen Emilia, my best
friends, Keisha and Liddy.
I should have seen my cats, Cain and
Abel.
For God’s sake, I should have seen Adam.

But the only thing that flashed before my
eyes was Lucifer, tall and dark and menacing.

Help me
, my brain screamed in the
throes of pure panic.
He’d been eavesdropping on my mental world
ever since I gave up magic and couldn’t shield my thoughts from
him.
I prayed he was listening now.

Luc, he’s killing me!

The darkness closed off the last of
Gabriel’s light and I thought that was it.
I was done for.
I closed
my eyes, my limbs giving up the fight and my mind floating free of
my body.

Would I go to Heaven or Hell?
Stupid
question
, my last few brain cells chided.
I’d given my soul to
the Devil years ago, and I’d only been on the straight and narrow
for five months, twenty-nine days and roughly sixteen hours.
If I
died good, did that mean God would forget the previous twenty-seven
years of badness?
Probably not.
Plus the soul thing weighed heavy
in Lucifer’s favor.

On the other hand, did I really want to go
to Heaven if it meant hanging out with the likes of Gabriel?

A loud crack interrupted my last logical
conundrum and my body fell to the concrete floor, shaking like a
bowl of Jell-O.
Flashes of light played across my closed lids.
I
heard fists connecting with flesh and loud grunts.
Angel or demon?
I couldn’t tell and didn’t care.

My lungs filled with air even as they
protested the movement, radiating more pain through my chest.
The
concrete was wet and cold under my cheek and I kept my eyes closed,
hoping if I didn’t move the pain would ease.

The next thing I knew, Lucifer’s voice was
waking me.
I’d lost consciousness somewhere along the line.
“Amy?
Can you hear me?”

Gabriel was gone.
Luc’s hands felt like hot
brands on my chilled skin as he grasped my shoulders and gave a
gentle shake.
“Open your eyes, witch.
Look at me.”

“Don’t,” I gasped, as the shaking made my
ribs rub against each other.
“Hurts.”

He stopped shaking me, and as he leaned
over, the heat of his body warmed me to a crisp.
I cracked one eye
open and looked into his face.
His brows were knit together in a
deep scowl but his eyes were filled with concern.
“What the hell
did you do to Gabriel?”

What had I done to Gabriel?
What the hell
had he done to me?
Taking a hesitant breath, I grimaced at the fire
in my chest cavity.
My voice came out breathy and rough.
“Noth…ing.”

“Gabriel doesn’t kill humans over
nothing.”

My brain continued floating in fog.
I caught
myself mesmerized by Luc’s jet black hair, hard jaw line and full
lips.
He was so handsome, and not just to me, to everyone.
To me,
he was more than unabashed good looks, though.
I’d loved him for
seven years.
Given him my soul.
We’d shared a history no one on
Earth would ever understand.
Or experience.

I laid a hand on his arm.
“You fought him
for me.”

Luc’s eyes narrowed, watching me closely.
His head tilted as he sized me up, surmised I was loony, and shook
his head.
He glanced up at the cracked tile overhead.
“How hard did
you hit your head?”

The first time Gabriel and I mixed it up,
I’d also whacked my head and woken up in Eden—the original Eden,
complete with beautiful gardens, animals, and a sin-free policy.
Fun place to visit.
Wouldn’t want to live there.

Glancing around, I made sure I was still in
the station’s locker room.
Fluorescent lights, cracked tile, leaky
shower head.
Everything seemed normal.
“My head is fine.
The rest
of me, not so much.”

Lucifer’s gaze went to the spot between my
breasts where Gabe’s fist had been planted.
He swallowed hard, but
his eyes didn’t stray, which I appreciated, and glanced back up at
me as if to ask permission.
I nodded, hating myself for being
willing to let the Devil lay his hands on me in order to get rid of
the pain, but there it was.
I’d do anything to get Luc’s hands on
me.

Wait, that wasn’t right.
My brain
backpedaled.
To feel better
, I corrected myself.

The pain eased the instant his hot hand
touched my chest where it caved in, and whatever damage Gabe had
done began to heal.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke, my
head, still not functioning at full capacity, filling with memories
of Luc’s hands on other parts of my body.
A flush pervaded my skin,
heating it, and more memories flashed across my mental landscape.
Happy times.
Satisfying times.
Lust and sex and love all wound up
and permeated with the magic only Luc could spin.

I wasn’t the only one feeling the heat.
Luc’s eyes sparked with a familiar, devious glint, his body
relaxing into his normal confident self.
“Better?”

The cavity in my chest disappeared, the pain
with it.
My breathing returned to normal, if a little fast and
shallow, thanks to the familiar, but inappropriate sensations
coursing through my body.

Although all appeared to be healed, however,
my chest cavity felt lighter, emptier than it had a few minutes
prior.
“Yeah, I think so.”

Luc helped me sit up and handed me the towel
rather reluctantly.
“Was Gabriel really trying to kill you?”

After securing the towel, I rubbed the
vacant-feeling spot, hoping the weird empty sensation would stop.
All it did was trigger a ripple of goose bumps over my bare skin
and a renewed sense that something was out of place.
As in
literally gone.
“He accused me of casting a spell on him.
Wanted me
to reverse it.
When I told him I didn’t know what he was talking
about, he got pissed.”

Luc lifted one eyebrow in question.
“And?”

“And what?”

Luc inspected the cracked tiles again and
then the back of my head as if unconvinced I was tracking right
yet.
“Did you?”