Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) Page 13

  “Well, something must have.” Riona tasted the brew — some sort of licorice tea. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be setting him up to be the moral of your story.”

  Ramiel’s eyebrow arched. “Sure Dee hasn’t told you this before?”

  Riona curled her legs up under her frame. “I grew up in the post-Disney era, Ramiel, I know the ‘beware the danger of’ tone pretty damn well.”

  “Hmm…” Long, graceful fingers pinched his chin. “Well, yes. As you know, a mortal sin, the kind that gets you sent to Hell, is all relative to the person’s own moral code. Unless they’ve declared a vow to a higher power, that is, like with Marc and the church. The Big Bad Hooha figured out that knowledge was Gaius’s pinnacle of morality, and exploited it. It’s a mini-victory every time a soul falls into darkness and becomes his property, but when that soul is a Pure Soul? Well, let’s just say the celebration Lucifer has would put a post-war tinker tape parade or the season finale of American Idol to shame. There’s nothing that makes him happier. So much so, that sometimes he gets a Pure Soul of particular interest or talent in his sight, and becomes obsessed with causing his or her fall.”

  Riona jumped to the climax. “And let me guess: Gaius fell?”

  “Like a senior citizen for the Nigerian lottery scam,” he confirmed. “It was a perfect set up. Turned out that the devil had saved that old apple Eve took a bite out of in the Garden of Eden. He does that, collects mementos. Lucifer took on his old angel form and rose to earth. In those days, we were still trying to keep it on the down-low that the ruler of Hell was a fallen archangel. Gaius thought he was a representative of the Big Boss. Lucifer told Gaius that the prize was his gift for all his hard work, that the apple would imbue him with ultimate knowledge. Gaius was so blinded by his pride and arrogance, he didn’t hesitate for a moment to believe it was no more than what was due him, and took of the fruit. He was under Satan’s command before he even finished swallowing.”

  Riona felt a chill of foreboding go up her spine. “He was condemned?”

  “Worse.” Ramiel set his tea on the table. “Any hell-bound soul can be reincarnated one time on earth as something sinister. But Pure Souls? Their abilities and powers as a demon are second only to fallen angels. If our kind become generals in Hell, your kind become its colonels. And Gaius, with all his knowledge gathered from all reaches of earth, remains one of the most sinfully successful demons of all time. The only reason he hasn’t caused more damage is because he leans toward fits of uprising. Once in a while, his better nature rears its holy head and he gives his master a little bit of a headache.”

  “I don’t get it,” Riona shrugged. “If that’s true, and that was so long ago, how is he still around? Why hasn’t another Pure Soul taken him out?”

  “Oh, they have,” Ramiel assured with a smile that tried, unsuccessfully, to belie lack of a deeper meaning. “His earthly days have come and gone, even as a demon. But no matter what tricks and trades old Lucifer picks up, only the Big Boss can actually destroy a soul. Between you and me, I think He still holds out hope that one of Gaius’s insurgencies could pay off. He might find a way to break his bonds of demonhood and come back to our side. Gaius was… is a smart prick. He sees an opportunity, some loophole he can exploit, he’ll fucking take it. Might even overthrow the devil someday, if the circumstances are right. It’s happened before, after all. Lucifer’s only had the job for about four thousand years. Before that, he was just a minion like any other. No doubt, Gaius has the knowhow, he just needs the moment and the right circumstances to materialize. It’s probably the reason the Big Boss hasn’t blown his traitor-ass soul to bacon bits.”

  Her eyes went lazy as she mulled over Ramiel’s story. “So, if either Marc or I betray our moral code, we’re doomed. Therefore, if Marc and I…. If we were to ever…”

  Ramiel’s eyes narrowed like they were knives he meant to throw at her. “You fuck Marc, you fuck us all.”

  “That’s putting it bluntly.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” With another louder-than-necessary sip, the angel stood and set his cup on the side table. “Look, I’m not telling you how to lead your life or trying to say there’s anything wrong with Marc. Big Boss takes that whole ‘free will’ thing pretty darn seriously. But just keep that tidbit in mind when you’re back in your room and imagining his sacraments in your altar. Every moment you indulge in that fantasy, you’re creating a tailor-made plan for Lucifer to move in and exploit.”

  She swallowed. Hard. “I’ll keep everything on the up and up.”

  “Good.” With a swipe of his hand through the air, Ramiel conjured a manila envelope sealed with cardinal wax and about the size of a magazine. He tossed it unceremoniously into her lap. “These are the details of your next assignment. Get yourself together — or hell, go toss yourself off once more if you think that helps — and then get Dee and Marc and head out. Marc needed a few days to recover from that deal with Hermosa. I’ve kept this on the backburner as long as I could, but y’all can’t keep sitting on the side lines. Time to get back into the game.”

  Chapter 16

  “The last time I saw this many crucifixes, I was shopping in my seminary school’s gift store.”

  Dee gave a hearty laugh to Marc’s quip. There was no denying that, if not for the prominence of fishnet stockings, leather collars, piercings in any body part that could play host, and more flashing flesh than in the most liberal of nudist colonies, the less informed might think the crowd hoping to make it past the bouncers at Persephone’s Grotto were here for some sort of old-fashioned, midnight church revival.

  “Why is it that the further off the mark you Christians go, the more you cling to your crosses?”

  Marc turned him an amused expression. “You want the church’s answer, or one of my personal, smart-ass variety?”

  “Whichever one you think is true, Father.”

  Marc pointed to a his-and-her set of matching Goths. A quick look from side-to-side, a smack of their hands and their transaction was signed, sealed, and intravenously delivered. “After they’ve committed themselves to a dark path, only traces of their former faith lies behind them. They cling to the last relic of that faith like a tether. It gives them an anchor in time, in which they were someone better than they are today, and maybe they can be again.”

  Dee rolled his eyes. “And your smart-ass answer?”

  Marc looked affronted. “That was my smart-ass answer. What, did I not come off as sarcastic enough for you?”

  Maybe not in his first comment, but his follow up retort was classic bastard Marc.

  It was amazing how the priest had rebounded from his Brew-and-Jerry’s routine in such a short time. Dee was awoken by a text from Riona in the morning, saying they had their marching orders and to meet her at The Grotto at ten that night. Apparently, intelligence had been alerted to a demon presence at the university area’s hang spot du jour. College campuses were always a fertile recruiting and feeding ground for all sorts of dark world maggots, and no one knew that better than Marc. Dee half-expected that the priest would still be too drunk or hung over to be up for the mission, but to his surprise, Marc’s text asking for a “9 pm pick up” had immediately followed Riona’s.

  “You know what your biggest problem is, Marc?” Dee’s comment hooked Marc’s eyebrow, which rose suspiciously. “You really don’t want anyone to like you for you, and you cover it up with sarcasm. I think you need to man up and just admit, both to yourself and the world, that you’re a pretty decent person.”

  Marc’s head turned from side-to-side, his eyes casting a wide gaze over their surroundings. “Is this an intervention of some sort? Following up on the other night’s fabulously delivered pep talk with a little ‘get over yourself already’ chaser? Where are the cameras?”

  “Just seems like you’re being a hypocrite, is all. Telling everyone that God for
gives all sins, but apparently yours are too designer to be tossed out with the holy water. So instead of admitting you can fuck up, learn from it, and move on, you keep building this wall of pins and needles around you so no one ever suspects you might actually be human.”

  Marc rolled his eyes and started his way across the street to join the queue. “Whatever, Dr. Phil. Let’s just focus on the task at hand and find our Keystone, eh?”

  If there’s one thing of which Marc was certain, it was that a collared-priest in a bed of sin and swank like The Grotto would stand out like a professional wrestler in a preschool Christmas pageant. Wisely, the father had left his vestments in his top drawer next to his socks, and opted for black jeans and a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt that must have shrunk since college. Luckily, his membership and recent activities at Dee’s gym had tightened up that rib cage a bit, and a bit of his washboard was firming up beneath the cotton sheath. Still, he felt like a flounder amongst fleas for all the good his version of street clothes did him. The materials of choice in the crowd around him came in three varieties: leather, lace, and plastic. Metal studding was optional, but popular. Most of these clothes looked like they should carry a “Made in China” label. It wasn’t as though Dee, with his Levis and plain white tee, fitted in any better, but at least his collection of pure physical mass gave him a presence few would dare to question without fear of a fisted reprisal.

  “Riona’s going to so stick out. She’s going to give us away,” Marc worried. “You know her with her smart little three-piece suits or grey yoga pants. There’s no way she’s going to blend into the …”

  “There you guys are!”

  Her voice — and her appearance — killed his words faster than a cobra strike on a flute-wielding swami.

  H-O-T. Riona defined it. Forget her customary business casual ensemble. Tonight, she was dressed with sin in mind and temptation on the menu. What few scraps of clothes she did wear were tight and taut and turning Marc on like the Las Vegas Strip at dusk. Her red hair, which she normally wore tied back in an afterthought of a pony tail, was shiny and straight and hung half way down her back. He had a feeling it was the perfect length for grabbing from behind while being thrust into. Her face had been hijacked by a department store cosmetics counter, and held for ransom by Estee Lauder. Those batting eye lashes would show up on Logan Airport’s radar. Then there were those lips… Painted over in a shade so close to red flames and heating him from the inside out, Smokey the Bear should put them in the background of a PSA where woodland creatures sprinted for cover.

  “Riona?”

  Looked like he wasn’t the only one taken off guard, either. Marc tore his impure thoughts away from Riona long enough to take in Dee’s gaping mouth and wide eyes. The demigod beheld their Keystone with a mixture of awe, disbelief and lust. Which shouldn’t have surprised Marc in the least, given that Dee was one of the most imminent lotharios of the northeast corridor. But the spike of jealousy that pierced through him was something unexpected and new, something he had never felt in his life. At least, not over something so impossible. And that spike spread when he saw Dee slip his arm playfully around Riona’s back side and spin her around in his arms like she was Ginger-fucking-Rogers to his Fred Astaire.

  “Boy, do you ever know how to let your hair down,” he laughed as his eyes did another scan of her from tip to toe, lingering momentarily on the break line of her cleavage. “Holy hari krishnas, Riona. I’d say you look like a prostitute, but that would be insulting to prostitutes.”

  Even through the layers of makeup, her blush burned. “I figured we’d get further if we blended in. And that’s if the demon happens to be male in his orientation; we’d have a better chance of exposing him if there was a lack of blood going to his head.”

  “And if the demon happens to be female?” Marc ground out through gritted teeth. He couldn’t explain the anger threatening to consume him, nor the urge to rip one of the leather coats from one of the nearby college asshats staring at Riona’s backside like it was an all-you-can-eat buffet and wrap it around her defensively.

  “Well, Marc,” she spat his name out like a curse word, with a glare that all but smacked him across the face. “If you recall correctly, I can entice those types too. But in case they don’t swing that way, between you and Dee—” Her eyes narrowed as she gave him a closer inspection, before turning towards the line of people outside the club. “Well, at least Dee is here for that.”

  The bouncer looked like he was picked out of a Goons-R-Us catalog from the “particularly fear-inspiring and highly-tattooed” section. The bald-headed behemoth stocked more ink on his arms than an industrial-sized printing press, and towered even over Dee’s six-foot-four frame. At least fifty pounds of muscle had been squeezed under each mesh shirt sleeve. He wore silver chains around his wrists and the biggest dog collar Riona had ever seen on a human.

  “Back of the line, sweetheart,” he spat when she moseyed up to him, Dee and Marc in tow. “Getting into this club is a democratic process.”

  Marc watched in titillating horror as Riona, unfettered, raised her hand to the bouncer’s cheek — she almost had to curl up on tiptoe to achieve the feat — and ran a finger past his lips, over his chin, and all the way down his chest.

  “Is that because everyone gets a turn at the polls?” she teased. Her right arm rose over her head as her hips swung from side-to-side and her other hand went over her chest. She pivoted and put her backside to his, slowly sliding down his front seductively. “Don’t you want to give me a chance at the pole? I think you’d find I could be quite a swing vote.”

  But to Riona’s dismay, he grabbed her at the hips and pushed her away. “You think every piece of sweet ass that wiggles itself in front of me gets through these doors?”

  Marc’s fist was loading more magic by the minute. If this hire-a-thug didn’t start showing some respect, he’d be coughing up gophers in a moment. Riona was a freaking witch, Marc inwardly cursed. Why the hell wasn’t she just charming this guy with magic instead of debasing herself like this?

  Looked like Dee wasn’t going to let Riona go undefended either. He stepped warily in front of their witch and growled. “I’d watch where you put your hands there, Daddy Whorebucks.”

  The bouncer’s head lashed sharply right, sending off a series of pops like a string of cheap fireworks. “You want to dance out here, sweetheart? My pleasure. One condition, though: I always lead.”

  Marc pulled Riona behind him as both muscle men got ready to present arms. Baldy Bouncer’s fist was loaded and cocked when a shout from behind them froze everyone.

  “Chipper, stop! They can come in!”

  The drop-dead gorgeous blonde who stood at the doors of the club was clearly more than human. Either that, or she had the best plastic surgeon this side of the Hollywood Hills. The tall, leggy bombshell had curves in all the right places to make men think all the wrong things, as though she’d been sculpted by Hugh Hefner’s imagination. She wasn’t as provocatively dressed as the patrons of her establishment, but even a potato sack would have looked seductive on her. She broadcast sexy on all channels, and everyone in her vicinity picked up the signal.

  Both Riona and Marc were a little dumbfounded when Dee rounded the clock tower of hulking body with the affectionate name of Chipper and took up the bodacious blonde in his arms, swinging her clear off her feet.

  “Steph?” he asked in an unbelieving tone when he put her down, cupping her face in his hands as though he was on verge of kissing her.

  Steph smiled in high-fidelity Technicolor. “Well, well, well… If it isn’t my little brother.”

  “Brother?” both Riona and Marc exclaimed as they too rushed passed Chipper, unchipped.

  “Are these your other two stooges, Dionysus?” the blonde asked, but in a tone that clearly marked the comment as a joke.

  “Hell ya,
and best team I’ve ever worked with!” Dee exclaimed, maneuvering the woman under his arm. “Marcello Angeletti, Riona Dade, this is my sister, Persephone.”

  “Well, half-sister, actually.” Persephone presented a hand bearing five highly polished fingernails to the other Pure Souls in turn. “But you know what Dad always says, ‘If you have to have a sister—’”

  “ —‘might as well be a half-sister,’” Dee finished off with a chuckle.

  Riona’s mice apparently were running the wheel in fine fashion. “Wait, a minute,” she said, examining the blonde with newfound curiosity. “Dee’s half-sister, Persephone? Are you the Persephone? Like,” Riona leaned in closely, Marc following suit, “Persephone, Queen of the Underworld?”

  “Oh, yeah, only…” Persephone pointed back over her shoulders at the pulsating club behind them. “I’m retired from the whole royalty thing now. Our holdings were bought out in an aggressive merger-and-acquisition a few thousand years ago, as you might have heard.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know you were in town?” Dee continued.

  “I didn’t know you were here. Last I heard, you were living in the bottom of a bottle outside of Rio. But that must have been, what, twenty years ago?” Persephone’s eyes tracked to Riona. “But I see you’ve recovered finally.”

  “Oh, no, it’s not like that.” Dee actually blushed. “Riona’s not with me.”

  “Really?” Persephone’s gaze grew hungry as she sized up the witch for consumption. “So she’s open game, then.”