Bewitch The Dark - The Devil To Pay Part 21

"Ah, you appease me with your suggestions to deliciously macabre mischief. True, I could. And I believe I will take apart a few spells, as it suits me. There is one in particular to entice me to no end. It's that Protection spell you're worried about, yes?"

It wasn't as though his master never knew everything about him. Ivan nodded. "Go ahead. Reverse it."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He wasn't so sure anymore. There were complications, either way.

"I'll tell you why I wanted the Grande Grimoire now, of all times."

Doing a strange soft-shoe dance across the floor, Himself spun dramatically and landed in a crouch upon the sofa.

"It is because I don't wish that spell reversed. You see, I want to sit back and watch the witches and the vampires tear each other to b.l.o.o.d.y shreds. To bring the mortal world to their knees as they discover what dark denizens walk amongst them. It'll be such splendid chaos!"

Huh. That was a new one. To steal a book so he could then not do a thing with it. And he was right. Without intervention, the two nations would destroy one another. And the mortal world would unknowingly step in to make it happen.

The chaos the Gray Council feared would come to pa.s.s. No one would be safe. Not the vampires, because mortals would begin to hunt them, or the witches the witch hunters would burn as if torches standing in line. And mortals would die, for the vampires and witches would not be taken without fear or fight.

A supernatural apocalypse would ensue.

"What can I do to get it back?" Ivan pleaded. "I will do anything in the realm of my power. Just name it."

That got Himself's attention.

The towering devil stalked over to where Ivan knelt. The sickening stench of brimstone coiled up his nostrils and tightened Ivan's throat, but he remained staunch.

One hoof landed on the marble five inches from Ivan's knee. Pale dust from the crushed stone rose. One touch of that hoof would burn into Ivan's flesh. Not like he couldn't take the heat, though, was it?

Why not become what you aspire to be?

Dez had it wrong. Ivan was evil to the bone. Else he'd not have a literal devil riding his back.

"Why do you insist on being so obstinate, boy? You are mine, and yet you've fought me from day one."

"Wasn't my choice. Don't the people who sell you their souls generally do so of their choosing?"

Now he fixed his gaze to Himself's. Drawing in courage, Ivan spoke, "You manufactured me. And now I serve you because I must. But because of the parents you chose for me, and their morals, I will never completely be yours."

Black talons swung through the air, but stopped millimeters from Ivan's skull. Himself clutched his appendages into a clacking fist.

"Just so."

No, he had not won so easily. Ivan could never win. Himself may allow him that belief, but Ivan would never fool himself about the balance of power in this relations.h.i.+p.

"I want to tell you a story."

Inwardly, Ivan rolled his eyeb.a.l.l.s. What the h.e.l.l?

Himself peered over his shoulder at Ivan. "It's a love story."

Yikes.

"Always in the mood for a good romance," Ivan forced himself to respond.

"Excellent." The beast of dark temptations and master of souls seated himself on Ivan's sofa and crossed his disjointed legs. Hoof swaying as he rocked one leg, Himself stretched an arm across the back of the sofa and sighed. "Where shall I begin?"

Determined to get through this fiasco, Ivan waited patiently for the devil to begin his tale.

"She was snow and fairy tales," Himself recited. "I saw her first during winter. Pure white fox fur surrounded her face and wrapped the m.u.f.f about her hands. She breathed and the air iced before her. Yet in her eyes lived warmth."

This was a love story starring Himself? "You don't know love," Ivan blurted out. "You cannot!"

"What is love?" Himself spat, twisting forward and sneering hideously. "It is everything and nothing. No man can discount another man's love when it is so vast and varied."

"You are no man," Ivan hissed. But he was finished. It wouldn't do to argue. And he'd best not, if he wished to gain any means to the grimoire. "Continue. I want to hear the devil's version of love."

"It was far more grand than any love you have had, boy. What love can bring down literal walls and see me-me-pleading for absolution from the pain of it all?"

Himself had been reduced to such? Perhaps he had loved.

But Himself was a liar and the great tempter. He could spin a tale at will, one to serve his needs, to change outcomes and effect disasters. Why it was necessary to create a love story at this moment baffled Ivan.

"I began to woo her. Visiting her daily. Bringing flowers. Sitting in her parlor and chatting about the world. I knew she was a witch. She saw me, well, you can imagine."

Yes, she must have seen her greatest desire when looking upon Himself. Poor woman. She hadn't a chance, surely.

"She was amused by my familiar, at the time. A sweet blonde urchin abandoned by her parents. She followed me everywhere.

Most thought her my child. I let them have their fantasies.

"I eventually won over this woman's heart, I believe. Yes, I know there was a moment when she was completely, irreverently in love. She would have died for me. But no matter how I begged, no matter how she succ.u.mbed, she would not give me her soul."

"Did she know what it was she had fallen in love with?"

"In the end, yes. And that is when she spurned me. By that time, she was completely under my thrall, but there was a tiny spiral of hope within her that fought. Much like yourself. Idiot fixer."

Ivan liked the woman already.

"I asked for her hand. She refused. I threatened her friends, her family. She refused. I took away all things in the world she cared for, coveted, desired. She refused!"

Himself stood abruptly and paced his floor-crackling steps before the sofa.

"She refused! And yet, I loved her deeply. My desiderata. I was crushed. My kingdom fell around me, and I did not care. I could not have the one thing I most desired."

"So you let her live? Even after her refusal?"

"Of course. I could not remove from this world the one thing that gives me pleasure yet to this day to consider. She exists yet.

And that is what I want from you."

Himself stalked to Ivan and lifted him up by the chin. The talon dug deep, piercing through to the underside of Ivan's tongue.

Blood spurt across Himself's arm.

Leaning in, nose to nose with Ivan, he muttered in the sepulchral tone that made Ivan sweat icy chills, "Bring her to me. Willing.

Ready to become my bride. And I will hand over the Grande Grimoire. And..." He released Ivan from his taloned hook and stood tall, towering above Ivan's faltering gaze. "...if you are successful, I will give you back your soul."

Chapter 17.

"W ho is she?" Ivan asked.

His soul returned? He would do anything.

"I'm not telling." Himself strode over to a floor-to-ceiling living room window that overlooked the city. He put a hand through the gla.s.s, moving it like liquid, to tap the air outside. The gla.s.s fogged. "That is for me to know and you to struggle to discover.

Wouldn't be sporting of me if I gave you a clue."

"Not even an address?"

"Not even."

"But...she was a witch?"

"All you're getting. I won't put a time limit on this task. But know, every day you do not bring my bride to me, I will rip out a handful of pages from the Grande Grimoire and reverse the spells. Delicious chaos. Ciao!"

Himself stepped through the gla.s.s and disappeared.

Ivan pressed his hand to the gla.s.s and flinched away. It was molten, and it moved when he touched it. Blisters bubbled on his fingertips. He could probably follow in Himself's wake, but he had no earthly desire to journey to wherever it was Himself resided.

"My soul?"

With but one task his soul would be returned to him.

Could he take his soul into his body without it being destroyed by the evils he had committed as the fixer?

Ivan had decided years ago it was a better thing he did not have a soul while serving Himself's needs, for the damage to it would be irreparable. He'd seen sin eaters and soul thieves poisoned by the heinous crimes of the souls they tapped. It wasn't pretty.

"My soul," he whispered in awe.

He clasped a hand over his heart. The heavy thuds pulsing against his palm billowed to elation. And all he had to do was find a bride for Himself.

Without a name. Or a location. Or a description of her appearance.

"h.e.l.l."

Indeed.

Himself paced up to the wooden podium where the Grande Grimoire had been placed since he ripped it from the witch's protection. She hadn't known what had hit her when he'd dropped into her world.

The fear in her eyes had been delicious.And regrettable. Regret always proved more splendid than pleasure.

Slas.h.i.+ng a hand before the book opened it to the center. Pages rippled and with but a thought, Himself commanded it to the guardian's spell. Rather, it was a blood debt agreed upon when the witch had taken on the task of protecting the book.

Glistening blood purled down the center of the ancient parchment. It coiled along the graceful curving lines of her signature, filigreeing about that name as if it were an intended design.

Himself leaned over the page and drew in the scent of blood. Centuries old, and brewed like a valued whiskey to a smoothness that defied description.

A dash of his tongue touched the glimmer of crimson. Just a taste. The blood skittered across his tongue and scurried over his palate.

Casting back his head, Himself bellowed out in triumph.

His parents' loft in the Mill District looked out over the Mississippi River. Construction on a nearby restaurant filled the air with the sounds of jackhammers and trucks hauling in lumber. Ivan knew as he entered, without knocking, that his father was not around. It was midnight. He was most likely out prowling. Not for blood, but to keep the streets as safe as he possibly could.

Nikolaus Drake had taken it upon himself to form a crew of vigilante vampires. They didn't go after witches. Instead, they sought the vampires who went after innocent witches. When caught, they didn't kill the vamps, but instead gave them good reason to reconsider their ways. Those reasons being forced baptism (if the vampire were not baptized) which would give the vamp a healthy fear of the holy, or a torture session that would leave even the staunchest vamp with a bad taste for witch.

Ivan wished he had more time to join his father on his nightly missions, but his nights were not his own. And so long as he focused on finding the nameless bride for Himself, the coercion did not rear its head.

"Oh, Ivan." Ravin popped out from a bedroom door to his right. "You surprised me."

He lifted the half-made patchwork quilt she held draped over one arm. "I guess I did. Quilting? Mom, don't tell me-?"

"Not my handiwork; belongs to your father. It was with your grandma's things from their lake cabin. I've spent the past few weekends going through her belongings because Nikolaus couldn't bear it."

Nana Irene, Ivan's mortal grandmother on his father's side, had pa.s.sed away two months earlier. She had not been aware her son had been changed to a vampire in the nineteen seventies and had been forced to abandon his chosen profession of brain surgery because of it. Nor could Grandma and Grandpa Drake have guessed the woman their son had chosen to marry was a witch.

Or that their first and only grandchild had been born with a ransomed soul and was attached to the devil Himself.

"I miss her." Ivan threaded an arm around his mother's shoulders and led her into the living room.

Lights from the bridge that crossed the river twinkled in a swag design. Soft tunes whispered from the computer speakers. Ravin liked heavy metal, so the bluesy tune surprised him.

"I'm glad Grandma never learned the truth about us."

"Irene was a good woman. Strong. Outlived her husband by twenty years. Nikolaus really misses her, but he's strong. It's hard to be immortal."

She tugged him down to sit beside her on the couch. Ivan put up his boots on the gla.s.s coffee table and snuggled into the plush cus.h.i.+ons.

His mother had been alive since the sixteenth century. He used to love hearing her tell about the real history the books never mentioned. "When did you stop caring?" he asked.