The Sinner

“You weren’t thinking about Guy, were you?”

I shook my head, no.

“It was Cas. Right?”

I nodded a yes.

Cole’s smile was gentle. “So, my question is, Luce, if Cas makes you look like this, why would you need to think about Guy ever again?”

Ten

I kneel in front of Ashtaroth in the back room of Idle Hands. The lone black candle’s flame is pale white and doesn’t move. Under the settee, the huge serpent—also pale white—watches me warily. Lesser servitors creep underfoot, hoping for a drop of blood or lick of fear. But even in my weak human form, they scuttle back into the shadows at my snarl.

“Are Deber and Keeb on This Side?”

“Am I the twins’ keeper?” Ashtaroth muses, drawing his sword. “They are the girl’s demons.” He slices his sword across my arm, carving a new line into my skin, p

arallel to the first. “Perhaps they have come to play with her too.”

I search for a sign that Ashtaroth knows more than he is saying, but he turns his blade flat, and I shut my eyes with a grunt. The scent of my seared flesh almost overpowers the stench of his breath.

Almost.

“Go, Casziel,” he says when it’s done. “Hopeless infatuation and concern for that girl is writ all over you. It’s making me ill. If the twins plague her, they have my blessing. Begone.”

My hand itches for my own sword to slice the callous words out of his throat, but the game I’m playing is a long one and I can’t give up too early. I bow and head for the door.

“Oh, and Casziel,” Ashtaroth calls, idly stroking the head of his serpent.

“My lord?”

“Hmm, I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.” He wears a smile I don’t like, his black eyes glittering in the black candlelight. “No matter. I’m sure it will come to me.”

I go out and draw on the armor that is my demonic form. The tavern is full; every demon minding their own business. Behind the bar, Eistibus’s gaze is averted. Good. He should fear me. They all should.

Especially any who dare hurt Lucy.

I close my eyes at the memory of her terror, the flies swarming her—a nightmare come to life. The helpless anguish of watching her suffer brought back our last night in the ziggurat—her eyes full of tears and love, mutely begging me for help I could not give. The flash of a blade and then the hot wash of her blood… I succumbed to Ashtaroth’s servitude all those years ago because I never wanted to feel like this again—chest torn open, heart laid bare and at the mercy of that relentless agony called love.

Eistibus senses my mood and approaches slowly. “Wine, my lord?”

I nod and he sets a glass in front of me. I drain it, then hurl it at the shelf of bottles behind the djinn where it shatters.

“Ambri, to me!”

My call reverberates through Idle Hands, into the ether of This Side, across the Veil, and to the Other Side. Within moments, the tavern door opens, and my second-in-command saunters in wearing a lazy smile, black eyes set in a devilishly handsome face. His blood red jacket is as immaculate as always, his gold hair perfectly coiffed. He shows no weariness from Crossing Over; his wings—black feathered like mine—are high and arched as he stands at attention and gives me as sharp bow.

“Lord Casziel. How may I serve?”

“You’re on This Side,” I observe.

“Well…yes.” Ambri tugs at the cuff of his velvet jacket. “I was tending to my affairs here in the city, making sure my flat and finances are all in order—”

“You were fucking humans.”

He grins. “Maybe just one. Or two. Or…five.”

“It’s not an auction.” I gesture at the stool beside mine. “Sit.”