Wicked Souls (6 page)

Thinking evil thoughts, I turned to shut the
door and pulled up short.
Luc stood on the threshold, once again
tall, dark and completely competent.
He exuded calm and comfort and
I couldn’t help myself.
For half a second, I thought about laying
my forehead on his strong, hard chest and saying, “Save me.”

Chapter Six

Paving The Road Back To Hell

Just as quickly as I had the traitorous
thought, I reined it in.
Too late.
Luc’d already read my mind.

“That bad, huh?”
He chuckled deep in his
chest, even as his heat and magic engulfed me, tingling the top of
my head and calling to the magic in my blood to let fly, my air to
his fire.

I waved a hand in denial.
“I didn’t mean
that, and you need to stay the hell out of my head.”
In the
background, Father Leonard called, “Cuss jar, one dollar,” but I
ignored him.
I pointed to the room behind me where they all sat—my
friends, sister, and enemy—talking and laughing as if my current
soul crisis was nothing more than an episode of
7
^th
Heaven
.
“I was trying to figure out this
Gabriel thing, and then they all showed up out of the blue to help,
except they can’t help, and now the ice cream shop is closed down
because of Liddy’s cat, and…and…”

My mind went blank, and I noticed the pulse
at the base of Luc’s throat beating confidently.
He held up both
hands to stop me from continuing, but I couldn’t have said another
word anyway.
All I could do was stare at his throat, remembering
how it felt under my lips.
How it tasted.
“I know, Amy.
I’m the
reason they’re here.”

From behind me, Marcia screeched.
“Amy?
Who
is it?”

Reality jarred my wayward thoughts, defogged
my brain.
Without looking at the door, I grabbed the handle with
one hand, while I pushed Luc a step back with the other, shutting
the door behind us.
“What do you mean, you’re the reason they’re
here?”

“The people in this room are your
protection.
Leaving you by yourself was out of the question.”

Anger thrummed through me, spinning threads
of fury.
“Earlier you said anyone hanging around me was in danger
from Gabriel.
Now you send everyone I care about to ground zero?
How dare you endanger my friends?”

Even as I said the words, I wondered why I
hadn’t sent them away myself.
A vague memory of wanting to tell
Keisha about the danger flitted on the edge of my
consciousness.

“I would do anything to protect you, whether
it hurt them or not.
But you should know, your friends—Father
Leonard and Keisha—asked me what they could do to help.
I explained
to them, if only one of them was with you, Gabriel might still
attack.
But with all of them—a priest, a Vodun priestess and a
couple of Wiccans surrounding you—they stood a good chance of
keeping him at bay.”

Safety in numbers.
Powerful numbers.
It
wasn’t a bad idea, except for the nagging fact we were fighting an
archangel.

“A good chance isn’t good enough.
I won’t
endanger the people I love”—I thought about Marcia and made a
face—”or even the ones I don’t necessarily like.”

The hallway was lit by a single bulb.
Shadows hung over Lucifer’s face.
He stepped toward me, a fierce
light glowing in his eyes even in the shadowed space.
“Then you’re
stuck with me.”

He was too close again and I was too angry.
Pressure weighed on my brain, my magic zigging and zagging like one
of Liddy’s lightning bolts through the prison bars surrounding it
in my chest.
The stupid stuff reached for him and his magic caught
it, sucking more from my chest in a dizzying rush.
My lungs
expanded as if I were taking a giant breath in, my upper body now
physically straining with all its might toward him as well.
My
brain screamed,
no!
and I tried to back up, but hit the
door, bouncing off of it hard and ricocheting forward, right into
Luc’s arms.

All the fight went out of me, mentally and
physically.

The instant our bodies touched, the bars
holding my magic back broke into a thousand tiny grains of sand and
scattered everywhere.
His fire magic ignited my air magic and
burned through my body, an inferno of desperation, lust, and the
most powerful black enchantment to ever exist.
The two brain cells
still yelling
no
,
no, no
in my head fell silent as
fireworks detonated right under my skin.
A fire between my legs
exploded and ripped through the rest of my body, the sensation like
the most intense orgasm known to womankind.
Magnified a dozen times
over.

I opened my mouth to scream at Luc to let go
of me, but what came out was a scream of pleasure.
A very loud,
very long cry that tapered off into a low, guttural, and very
satisfied moan.
As the cry died out, echo tapering to a whisper, I
went limp in his arms.

Waves of pleasure continued to wash over me
and I shook from head to toe, eyes closed and brain down for the
count.
The heat of his body enveloped every inch of mine, his arms
holding me tight and keeping me from slipping boneless to the
floor.
A whimper escaped my lips as an aftershock skittered along
my nerve endings and I arched into him.

As it subsided, I collapsed against him once
more.
Bliss, peace, and satisfaction filling me up from the inside
out.

That wasn’t right, though.
Behind the
pleasure, something sparked in my brain.
Before it could take form,
my magic snuffed it out, smiling catlike at the comfort and
contentment saturating my every cell.

And then my brain rebelled, Buffy-like,
fighting through the pleasure and yanking the cat’s tail.
My magic
bawled and my brain yelled,
You blew it
,
Amy!
You
blew it big
.

My heart skipped a beat.
My eyes flew open,
realization hammering its way into my senses, but not getting far.
Before I could comprehend what it was talking about, my apartment
door opened.
“Amy?”

My sister, my best friends, my priest and my
enemy all stood, mouths gaped open, staring at me, wrapped in the
arms of the Devil.

“This is…not…” I stuttered, trying to raise
my head from Luc’s chest.
“I didn’t mean for…”

The sounds of heavy boots chugging up the
stairs made everyone turn.
I knew that sound.
Knew whose boots made
it.
Mentally, I struggled to command my body, but the pressure/pain
thing happened again in my head, and for the life of me, I couldn’t
tear myself away from Luc’s embrace.

Adam stopped when he saw us and a look I
never want to see again came over his face.
“Well, looks like the
gang’s all here.
Somebody want to tell me what the hell’s going
on?”

Father Leonard was a wise man.
He didn’t
mention the cuss jar.

Chapter Seven

Angels Wobble But They Don’t Fall Down

“Amy is sick.”
Luc deftly lifted me into his
arms and carried me across the threshold of my apartment, parting
the crowd like an evil Moses parting the Good People Sea.

My heart stuttered in my chest, just like my
brain did in my head, reaching for both Adam and Luc at the same
time.
Why was it doing that?
I looked up into Luc’s black eyes and
whimpered, “Adam?”

“Shhh.”
He deposited me on my bed, tucking
the covers up under my chin.
“Get some sleep.
I’ll handle
everything.”

I started to argue, but my mind and body
were exhausted.
The pain and pressure in my head eased and my heart
softened.
I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

When I woke, the bedroom was pitch black and
there were three warm bodies curled up next to mine.
Two were small
and fuzzy.
The other one was large, male and very warm.
He smelled
like burning wood.

Alarm ran through me.
My stomach clenched.
Satan’s balls, I was sleeping with the Devil again.

What had Lucifer done?
He’d said he’d handle
everything.
Looked like he’d handled it all right.

I jerked away from the male body next to
mine, disturbing Abel who was sleeping at my feet, but in the next
instant I realized there was no energy crackling along my nerve
endings.
No fire magic calling to my air magic.
The burning wood
smell was faint, as if he’d tried to wash it away but it still
lingered in his hair and on his skin.

Adam.

My stomach unclenched and I let go of a deep
sigh.
I wasn’t sleeping with the Devil after all, although the
orgasmic experience I’d had in the hall earlier with Luc might
still qualify.

I shoved that thought away.
Better to deal
with that in the light of day.
I scooted back over to Adam and
closed my eyes.
Better to deal with everything in the light of
day.

While my body was ready for more sleep, my
brain refused to let it.
It ran circles around the day’s events,
skidding and tumbling over everything, posing questions I couldn’t
answer and loading me down with guilt.
Every once in a while, when
I thought about my ridiculous reactions to Luc and negligent
reactions to Adam, that irritating pressure would increase in my
head and slap my brain, and I’d find myself distracted by thoughts
of new ice cream concoctions and purple stilettos.

A tingling inside my chest brought my mind
back to center stage.
I hadn’t used any magic to cast a spell or
create a potion.
I had, however, been a party in a magical
experience.
Did that mean I had blown my six month magic-free
goal?

Did it matter if Gabriel was going to kill
me?

Answers eluded me.
My logic was blocked.
In
the middle of stewing, I noticed behind my closed eyelids, the room
was growing lighter.
Not just a little, like from the sun rising
outside, but glowing bright enough the sun could be rising
in
my bedroom.

Cain and Abel both hissed and jumped off the
bed.
Oh, fudge.
That kind of light was only generated by one
thing.

My pulse shuddered and jumped.
I peered
under one eyelid, hoping against hope I was wrong.

I wasn’t.

Gabriel stood at the end of my bed, glaring
at me from under heavy blond eyebrows.
Even though he was lighting
up the room, his jaw line was shadowed with several days’ growth of
beard, his blond curls hung limp, and his wings looked dirty and
tattered.

“What happened to you?”
I sat up, drawing
the sheet with me.

“You,” he snarled.

Great, we were back to that.
I’d hoped he’d
figured out I had nothing to do with the spell on him.
Obviously,
he hadn’t, which meant we were about to go a couple of rounds
again.

I glanced over at Adam, who continued to
sleep deeply, his naked chest rising and falling rhythmically and
causing my mind to lose track again.
With Gabriel’s glow
surrounding him, Adam looked much like an angel himself, and my
heart skipped a beat with love.
Again I asked myself how I could
possibly have thought of Luc right before I was about to die, when
Adam held my heart.

The steel door I’d been fighting all
afternoon tried to slam shut on that thought.
This time I fought
it, mentally wedging my foot between the door and the door
frame.

Protect Adam
.

Coming up on my knees, I released the sheet
and threw out an arm, blocking Adam from Gabriel.
“I told you, I
had nothing to do with any spell.
I’ve been magic-free for almost
six months and I intend to stay that way.
You can check with
Witches Anonymous or even Father Leonard.
They’ll all tell you the
same thing.”

Gabriel cocked his head to the side, his
wings fluttering, and all of a sudden, my head hurt as if he were
pinching it in a vice grip.
“You’re not free of magic.”
He sniffed
the air.
“I can smell it on you.
I can see the traces of it on your
skin.
You and my brother have exchanged enchantments, shared dark
delights.
Recently, I might add.”

Dammit.
Could he really smell supernatural
sex on me?
Surreptitiously, I sniffed the air over my shoulders.
I
couldn’t smell a thing.
Magic always leaves a trace, though.
Everyone knew that.
Even angels.

I’m a horrible liar, so I just don’t lie.
Even with so much riding on my ability to make Gabriel see the
truth, I couldn’t lie about what happened earlier.

Checking to make sure Adam was still
sleeping, I ignored the pain and pressure building in my brain and
confessed.
“It was an accident, and it happened, like, a few hours
ago.
Before that, I was truly magic free.
And what happened between
me and Luc has nothing to do with the spell that’s been cast on
you.”
I scanned his disheveled appearance.
“What kind of spell is
on you?
Are you sure it’s from a witch?”

“You know I am earthbound and you know how
to release me.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes at me.
“I own half your
soul.
You
will
do as I say.
Lift the spell.”

The hollow place inside my chest contracted
as if he’d reached in and squeezed it.
The pain in my head soared
as if my brain had turned into a space shuttle heading for Mars.
“Half?”
I gasped.
“I thought it was just a piece.
A small,
insignificant piece.”

He chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
Only self indulgence.
“Lucifer merely took half your soul when you
gave it to him.
He was a fool to leave you with that amount of
freewill.
Now the other half belongs to me…as I’ve already
demonstrated.”

One side of his mouth quirked up in a
mischievous and equally hateful grin.

The pain in my head evaporated as if on cue.
Massaging my temples, I sighed at the relief before crawling off
the bed to face him.
“What are you talking about?”

His eyes were the color of a crystal blue
sky, almost white.
They flashed as he studied my face, seeming to
calculate his next words.
“Perhaps what happened earlier today
between you and my brother was no accident, hmm?”

His words sunk in, and my stomach dropped.
He’d been controlling me.
Controlling my magic.
Making me break my
oath.
“Why you sneaky son-of-a-bitch.
You overloaded my emotions
and set my magic free.
You’ve been messing with my mind all day
long.”

His look turned smug.
“Your mind is of
little interest to me, but I must say, it’s relatively easy to mess
with, as you describe it, in your current state.”

My current state boiled with fine-tuned
fury, a fishing line taut and razor sharp.
When this was all over I
was going to need anger management classes.
If I survived.

Getting rid of the angel riding my shoulder,
however, was my first priority.
I took a step toward Gabriel, my
hands balling into fists.
Reading my mind or my intent, Gabriel
pointed a finger at Adam, lying innocently in my bed, completely
oblivious and said, “Try anything, and I’ll send him back to
Heaven.”

Over Gabriel’s shoulder, in the shadowy
recesses of my closet, Lucifer’s glowing eyes appeared.
He was
watching, waiting, listening to Gabriel’s admission, his eyes
turning red with the same anger juicing my emotions.

The rest of his body shimmered into being as
he emerged from the closet, but I shook my head at him.
This was my
fight.
“You can’t even get yourself back to Heaven at the moment,”
I said evenly to Gabriel.
“I doubt very much that you can send Adam
back there.”

Infuriated, he spread his wings open to
their full extent, brushing the walls and ceiling of my room,
leaning over me in the process.
My heart kicked with fear.
Even the
Buffy inside me coward slightly.
“You dare mock me, witch?”

“Ex-witch.”
I took another step toward him,
refusing to back down and trying to figure out his weakest spot.
“An ex-witch, by the way, who
can
help you, if you stop
being such an ass.
Together we can figure out the real source
behind the spell and break it.
But only if you stop threatening me
and mine.”

This time his chuckle was menacing.
His
wings rippled with perilous intent and the cavity in my chest
burned like fire.
“I should kill you for your impertinence
alone.”

At least he’d banished “smite” from his
vocabulary.
“But you won’t, because A, if I
am
the witch who
cast the spell, killing me won’t free you, and B, if I’m not?
Well,
I may still be the only one who can free you, because I can track
down the person or thing doing this and get them to reverse
it.”

One of his massive hands shot out to slap
me, but I was too fast.
I ducked and threw all my strength into a
right uppercut aimed at his diaphragm.

Pain burst in my knuckles and crawled
through my hand, up my arm.
His chest was made of concrete.
I
yelped and fell back, landing on my butt, but my punch also knocked
Gabriel back a step, grunting, his chest caving inward.
He wobbled
for half a second before gaining his balance again, a look of
complete surprise on his face.

Ha, ha,
I mentally taunted him, and
then thought,
oh shit
as his surprise morphed into enraged
exasperation.
This time both hands reached for me and I cringed,
but before he could grab me or smite me or whatever he was going to
do, Adam came up out of the bed, a glass bowl of Emilia’s potpourri
in his hand, yelling, “Leave her alone!”

He hurled the bowl at Gabriel’s chest.
Gabriel threw up an arm to block it, and it glanced off his arm,
thudding with a solid
whack
against his temple.
The bowl
broke into a thousand shards, showering him with glass and
potpourri.
At the same time, Luc sent an energy bolt flying, his
power fusing with Adam’s and Emilia’s.

A sharp blue light rippled over him and
Gabriel arched backwards, his head snapping up toward the ceiling.
He looked as if he were being electrocuted.
A second later, he
vanished from sight, the blue light leaving with him and throwing
the bedroom into darkness once again.

Adam switched on the bedside lamp and
scanned me from head to toe.
A deep line etched his forehead.
“Are
you all right?”

I nodded and heaved myself up off the floor,
even though the hollow place in my chest burned and my brain was in
a super sized panic over the fact Gabriel could control my actions
and emotions.
A single white feather lay at my feet.
I picked it up
and looked at Luc, standing a few feet away, his eyes still glowing
red.
“What do we do now?”

His eyes changed back to black.
“We get the
other half of your soul back.”