Page 40

Chapter 39

A Leaf Out of Her Book

SJ

“B oss!” Beezle yipped in evident relief, launching himself at me as I stepped through, my human skin slipping away. Bub was on his heels. For once in his infernal life, he had nothing to add, his mouth clamped shut.

“What is happening?” I demanded. My bedchamber looked like a tornado had wreaked havoc within. Clothing and knick-knacks and all my things were tossed violently to the floor. But amidst all that chaos, I could not spy the pair of breeches I had worn the previous night. The ones I had discarded in a rush before making love to Jemma.

They were not on the floor. Not against the wall. I did a full circuit of the space. Twice. “Where in the Home are they?”

“Hellen took ‘em.”

My eyes darted to Beezle, shock stuttering the thud in my chest. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

The Token was in those breeches.

“Mmmph!” Bub whined, nudging my bare leg with his snout. I glanced down to meet his intense, inky eyes.

“You traitorous little shit!”

My head snapped up, finding Hellen looming in the doorway, her face purple, her eyes wild. I staggered at the sudden blast of wind through the window behind me that pushed me closer to her.

“What do you want, Hellen?” I asked warily. If she already had the Token. If she did something stupid with it …

“Did you think I wouldn’t recognise the mystery ‘demoness’ who suddenly caught your previously unenthused attention? Father may be a complete idiot, but I am not!”

“I don’t know what?—”

“Cease your lying, Junior!” She stepped closer, her wind whipping, now propelling me back towards the bed, the pressure of it shoving me down. Hellen stood over me, leaning close enough that I could see the vein bulging in her temple.

“You haven’t only been fraternising with that human filth! You’ve developed feelings for her! Ones that made you stupid enough to invite her to Hell so the pair of you could defile our hallways with your disgusting … emotions!”

My chest constricted so suddenly it temporarily stopped my breath. No. How could she have … she didn’t know what Jemma looked like; I’d never described her …

Alessio. In all his reporting, he had most likely given a full account of Jemma’s beauty. Father had been too drunk to notice last night. But Hellen had been sober. And no doubt very interested in me carrying off a new, strange, tailless demoness in a lust-fuelled fugue.

“Where is it?” Hellen shrieked.

“Where is what?”

Her fury doubled, her tempest holding me fast, the weight of her air like a boulder on my back. I gritted my teeth. She’d lose her focus soon. She always did, just for a second, but that was all I needed to be able to break free from it.

“The fucking Soul Token, Junior! Where the Home have you hidden it?”

I held my breath, so I wouldn’t gust out a sigh of relief. Wherever my pants were, she hadn’t managed to locate the Token. But if it wasn’t in my pants …

“I don’t fucking know where it is!” I snapped back. And for the first time in this conversation, I was telling the utter truth as anxiety bloomed in my gut, spreading outwards alarmingly fast.

Where was Jemma’s Soul Token?

“Liar!” she shrieked. Her wind swirled, which relieved the pressure on me long enough for me to surge to my feet.

“I do not lie. I have no clue where it is.” I pushed past her, out of reach of the worst of her power and scanned the room. Perhaps the Token had rolled out of my breeches when I tossed them aside? Could it have wedged into a crack in the rock somewhere?

“You had better come up with that Token in the next sixty seconds, Junior, or I will?—”

“You’ll what, Hellen?” I snapped, surreptitiously lifting the corner of my askew sheets with a toe. No tell-tale glow to indicate it was under my bed.

“I will tell Father that you’re sabotaging your own project, deliberately, because you’ve fallen in lo?—”

“Shut your ever-hating mouth!” I snarled, rounding on her. I was looming over her in an instant, my hand wrapped around her throat. My horns extended, ready to gore her. Her eyes bulged. I felt nothing but satisfaction at that.

“You will not speak about her to anyone , you understand?”

Hellen swallowed against my palm just as her eyes turned cruel. Her winds, stronger than I’d ever felt them before, buffeted me, forcing me backwards until I lost my grip on her. I staggered across the room, my own strength no match for the element she controlled.

“Oof!” The air was knocked from my lungs as her power pinned me to the wall. “How … how are you doing this?” I panted, muscles straining in vain.

Hellen giggled, the sound like claws down a lava rock. “It’s always smart, to never show your full hand against an opponent until you are confident they will forever underestimate you.”

“I am not your opponent!” I argued, struggling, straining my muscles against the power of her gale. And failing to break free. “I’m your damned brother, Hellen!”

“Half-brother,” she corrected mildly. “ Unwanted half-brother. It’s such a delight, watching your eyes get all … fearful … Tell me, do you enjoy it when the air is choked from your lungs?”

I snarled, but the sound was snatched from me. My chest spasmed fiercely as if my lungs were shrivelling inside my ribcage.

“I can manipulate the air inside your body just as easily as the air outside it,” she told me pleasantly, as my chest burned and I made frantic, choking sounds, desperate to suck in a breath that I just couldn’t find. My extremities began to tingle.

“Do you respect me now, Junior?” she asked coldly. I couldn’t move, couldn’t answer. I was going to die here, robbed of breath by my own sister. Spots appeared in my vision, and the room swam.

I wouldn’t see Jemma again. I’d promised her I’d be back as soon as possible. I hated that my bitch of a sister would make a liar out of me.

I never got to tell her just how deep my feelings for her ran.

Hellen rolled her eyes, and suddenly, my lungs inflated again. I sucked in lungful after lungful of burning, life-affirming air.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “now that I have seen her, Junior. I could find her in the Human Realm, if I wanted to.”

“You leave her—” My air was cut off just long enough to steal the rest of my words from me.

Hellen smirked at my watering eyes, my bunching muscles, no match for her gale buffeting my body. “You are in no place to issue ultimatums right now, little half-brother. Perhaps I’ll pay your silly human piece a visit.”

“You wouldn’t!” I rasped. “You never leave Hell!”

“I find myself wildly curious about the insignificant human who not only had Father contemplating tupping a female, however drunkenly, but who has my little brother so tied up in knots he’s completely forgotten where his loyalties lie.”

“What do you want?” I grated, wishing I could wipe my eyes, but she wasn’t letting up. I was held fast to the wall by her winds. They roared in my ears, but somehow her words cut through the cacophony.

“You hand over her Soul Token to me. Now. I do not care how incomplete your little trial run is—it’s clear to me it’s been well and truly compromised now. So, you give it to me, or I will take myself up to your little Jemma Bliss and reap her soul myself … the old-fashioned way.”

“I don’t have it to hand over,” I snapped, relief and terror at the truth of those words warring in the pit of my stomach. Where had it gone?

“That sounds like a you problem, brother.”

Think, SJ, think fast!

“How about we make a … a bargain,” I stammered.

Hellen cocked her head to the side. “What could you possibly have to bargain with right now? I have you backed against a wall here … literally and figuratively.”

If she so much as touches a hair on Jemma’s head …

I swallowed. “We … we roll out the scheme on a grand scale. Immediately. I know that we can harvest live human misery. I’ll start mass production of Soul Tokens tonight. Working out the logistics of distribution to the Pit … well, in a matter of a week or so, we’ll have many Tokens, brimming with misery to test.” I tried to crick the tension from my neck, but I was still locked fast to the wall.

For the first time ever, I felt more than just hatred of my sister. I felt true fear.

She can’t be trusted not to hurt Jemma.

Hellen polished her claws against her shirt. “I want full control of them once they’ve been … loaded with pieces of soul.”

“Done,” I snarled.

“And what do you expect in return?”

“You stay the Home away from Jemma.”

Hellen chuckled. “Oh, Junior, it’s a little late to get all protective, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve already chipped a piece off her soul … and apparently you’ve gone and lost it!” Hellen pouted malevolently. “Now she’s never going to be whole again.”

Self-loathing welled up inside me. Even if I could find the missing Token, what if I never figured out a way to return that piece of her soul to her body?

I don’t deserve her affection.

But I had to find a way to protect her, even if I couldn’t put her back together. I steeled myself. “Those are my terms. Jemma remains untouched by you. And I give you what you really want. Immediate access to as many Soul Tokens as I can manufacture.”

“And you, working overtime up in the Human Realm to fill them up. To ensnare souls.”

I gritted my teeth. The thought of rolling out FiendPay on a grand scale no longer felt like an achievement to me. It felt like … like a betrayal.

I hadn’t even been able to stomach reaping the soul of a human as despicable as Chad Ratty-Man. How was I going to fast-track tricking sweet and good humans … ones like Jemma … into eternal servitude to Hell?

But if the choice was between doing that or sacrificing Jemma to Hellen …

“Deal,” I muttered, chest constricting. I frantically sucked in air in case Hellen was trying her new party trick on me again.

But no … this wasn’t elemental magic. This was pure panic for the human I … I loved.

“Will you let me go now?” I demanded, my muscles quivering, on the point of giving out under the force of her gale.

Hellen chortled. “Just one last thing, Junior.”

I waited, locking my jaw shut, refusing to give her the satisfaction of my words.

She sniffed, unimpressed. “You end things with that human cunt.”

“I …” No. NO! Not that.

Hellen held up a hand, silencing me. “I will leave her be, on your vow that you will cease contact with her. Her little trial-run contract can remain incomplete, just like her silly little soul. If I get even the slightest inkling that you’re trying to see her, to send her a message … anything … not only will I reap her, but I will also take her pretty little head off her body and send her straight to the Pit. Are we clear?”

My teeth clacked together, my throat thick and lumpy.

Never see her again … or put her into your psychopath sibling’s crosshairs . I imagined that new power of Hellen’s … well, the power she had hidden from me all along … robbing Jemma of air. Watching her sputter and gag, watching the light leave her eyes.

“I vow that today was the last time I will see Jemma Bliss,” I muttered, my chest tight and heavy and … miserable.

If I had a Soul Token, it would be shuddering with energy right now. Except that would require me to have a soul to put into it, to begin with.

Hellen nodded, her smirk so satisfied I wanted to tear it off her face. “Excellent. Now I expect a dozen Soul Tokens by morning.” She strode off, oblivious to, or uncaring of, my self-loathing.

When the entrance boulder finally rumbled back into place with a sickening finality, I collapsed onto the bed, my head dropping into my hands.

No Jemma.

Twelve Soul Tokens by morning. Even one in a day had been an incredible feat.

No Jemma.

I’d lost the piece of her soul … not that I even knew how to restore it to her.

No Jemma.

My entire existence reduced to creating misery for unsuspecting humans.

No Jemma.

“Boss?” Beezle yipped forlornly. I cracked an eye, peering blearily at him. The concern in his expression was almost my undoing. I blinked furiously against the prickling in the backs of my eyes.

Bub popped up beside him, ears flopping. As I watched he coughed, ropes of drool hurtling out of his mouth like lassoes, splattering across my lap. And something else tumbled out, too.

Something glowing. And pink.

Unable to breathe, I picked it out from the slimy mess. It was warm, and throbbing faintly. Was she anxious? Awaiting my return from my Hellish emergency?

The prickling behind my eyes became heat, searing my eyeballs until I could not hold it in any longer. Moisture spilled from my eyes. I swiped at it, but all I managed to do was smear Bub slobber all over my cheeks.

“Aww, Boss,” Beezle mumbled, placing a paw on my knee. “We’re sorry.”

“As soon as we heard Hellen coming, we found it in the pocket of your pants,” Bub added, his voice rough.

“There wasn’t time to escape with it, so Bub just … scooped it up in his mouth, and then she was in here, throwing your stuff all over the place.”

A fresh surge of heat swelled in me, this time in my stomach. I loathed her. I had never felt hatred so violently towards another as I did towards my half-sister.

“Just count yourself lucky, Boss,” Bub panted, “that I didn’t accidentally swallow it, or you wouldn’t be coated in drool, you’d be sifting through shi?—”

“I am eternally grateful to you both,” I interrupted, closing my fingers around this last little remnant of Jemma Bliss. A dangerous remnant, if Hellen ever discovered I still had it. “You are true and loyal Hounds.” I wound my arms around their necks, pulling them into a hug.

“What are you gonna do with it, Boss?” Beezle asked as I released them, scooping up a pair of breeches and a shirt from the mess on the floor and donning them.

“I have no idea,” I muttered thickly. “I cannot keep it here in Hell. The risk of Hellen discovering it is too great.” Oh, how I selfishly longed to keep it. A piece of Jemma Bliss when I could have nothing more.

“Give it to her.”

I blinked, turning to give Beezle my attention. “Give it to Hellen? Are you mad?”

Beezle shook his snout. “No, Boss! Give it back to Jemma!”

I inhaled deeply. “If I could restore it to her, I would. But I never intended them to be able to return the soul piece to the original owner, because the plan was that they would never complete their tasks to win it back. I do not know how to … if I just had time to think ! But I must manufacture a dozen Soul Tokens before tomorrow. There is no time.”

Bub snapped at my leg. “Just give it back to her, Boss!”

“Did you not just hear me?” I snarled. “I cannot restore it to her!”

“For badness’ sake, Boss, are you stupid?” Beezle whined. “Give Jemma the Token . That way, even if it’s outside her body, at least she’s in possession of her whole soul.”

“Oh.” I was stupid.

“But I vowed not to go to her. I must keep her safe from Hellen.” How I wanted to go to her. To ignore the threat from Hellen. To forego everything I’d known and live as a human male. With her.

To put her in danger? You selfish prick!

“Yeah, we can work around your vow. For today at least,” Bub crowed.

“We can?” I raised an eyebrow, but my heart thundered. “How?”

Beezle leered. “Ah, Boss. You gave yourself a little wiggle room. ‘I vow that today was the last time I will see Jemma Bliss.’”

I frowned. “But it was the last time …”

“ Today isn’t over yet.”

It was almost as if Hellen had reappeared, sucking all the air from my lungs. I coughed, pounding my fist against my thundering chest. “I …” I cleared my throat, trying to calm myself. “How do I do this?”

Bub’s tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth. “Do what?”

I really could not get enough air. “Tell her we cannot … that we …”

Beezle cocked his head to the side. “That your sister is an evil bitch with powers you never knew about, and you can’t see her again because if you do, you face bringing Yellin’ Hellen’s vengeful wrath down upon her and cursing her to Hell, even though you’d planned to curse her to Hell originally, but now you can’t possibly go through with it because you’re in lo?—”

“All of that, yes!” I massaged my temple. A nasty headache was forming. “But … I do not wish to make her anxious … for me, or for herself. How do I explain that I cannot … be with her … without frightening her?”

The pair of them yipped in unison, the closest thing to a canine cackle.

“You take a leaf out of her book, Boss!”