The Devil's Daughter Complete Box Set, page 83
part #1 of The Devil's Daughter Series
“Not the devil—at least not mine—though he kept his humanity in play like a huckster running a shell game. The cups were constantly in motion, and I never knew under which one he’d hidden the ball, but I was certain his heart was there somewhere. Kendell and the others were less sure.”
“He fooled everyone,” Sere said.
Sanguine hunched her wings. “No, he did have a soul, but it wasn’t revealed until you showed up.”
“Are you saying I was the ball?”
Sanguine’s smile had a way of lightening the darkest corners. “More so than you might expect. I had hoped by loving him I could help him find his way to redemption, but I wasn’t his love. You were. In the end, he offered up his soul in exchange for yours.”
Sere had heard the story enough times to know that Baron Malveaux had not gone quietly into the deep waters. “Kendell and Myles drug him in chains, kicking and screaming, through Guinee to his ultimate demise. I’d hardly call that a willing sacrifice.”
Sanguine shrugged her shoulders as if highlighting her humanity over her angelic nature. “Even the devil needs an advocate. I guess I’ve been his.”
The cold from the walls was sucked deep into Sere’s heart. “And what if the others had listened to you and spared him? Would you have left me to be raised by the devil and devoted your life to protecting Jenna instead of me?”
Sanguine’s sigh ended in a frown. “After all of the years you and I spent out in the swamp, you have to know me better than that. I bonded to you the moment I met you. All of the good that I thought I saw in your father—and that he tried to hide—was on clear display in you. I sacrificed my life among the living to raise you. I’d do it all over again.”
Half-truths made Sere’s skin crawl. “Kendell said they tried to rescue you once, and you chose hell even before I came on the scene. She said you missed those wings and magical eyes too much.”
Sanguine ran her hands over the ivory-white feathers. “I had a mission in hell, but I was also irresistibly drawn to your father. Looking back, I think I always had a sense that you would show up. The conviction was like a woman who knows she’s about to get pregnant even before having sex.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question about Jenna.”
Sanguine got off the floor. She had to lower her wings to keep them from hitting the ceiling. As she leaned back against the side of the vault, the wings covered the entire wall. “While you were in hell, you were my primary responsibility. With you safely among the living, where you could find love of your own and learn of your humanity, I had planned to turn my attention to Jenna. Instead of embracing what I had to offer, however, she tricked me into this vault so she could pursue you. What she didn’t anticipate was that my love for you both made me a conduit for your shared energy. That’s why you end up here and not in her hands when you travel down the power cord.”
Sere felt bad for doubting Sanguine, though the pseudo-sibling rivalry persisted. “What happens when we do finally free you?”
“I’ll do what I was always meant to do—keep the demons in hell so you can have a life.”
“There’s a strong possibility that Jenna is teaming up with my enemy to create a new devil. One of the baron’s descendants is trying to make immortals out of her family. If anyone other than a sixteen-year-old girl opens the door, they won’t be from me.”
“I’ll be ready.”
The tug at Sere’s gut made her want to vomit, but instead of spoiled food, it was her soul trying to come up. Halfway back to the people she knew and loved, however, she was dragged under hell’s surface. Like a fish caught in tangled lines, she felt pulled in confusingly different directions. Where am I?
The scorching fires of hell made her reach for her shotgun, but along with her body, the trusted weapon was also missing.
“Damn it to hell, what now?” From the flames, Sere was able to make out Doodlebug’s voice if not the girl herself. “Aloysius, I swear if you’ve pulled me back into this bridge of the damned, I’ll snuff out your fire.”
“What’s happening?” Sere was less scared than annoyed at not being able to fight.
“I don’t know,” Doodlebug said. “When Marjory’s bridge gets fired up, my spirit gets called to duty, but no one ever bothers telling me why.”
“Because you don’t need to know.” The voice of Aloysius Laroque vibrated the flames like a breath against a lit candle.
Sere couldn’t believe she’d been so foolish. Fisher had told her to watch for the electrical outlet. She should have realized Marjory’s cord was plugged into the same spot. Flames erupted around her like swords clashing.
“I can’t get you out,” Doodlebug said. “All I can do is protect you from the other demons that make up the bridge.”
Sere focused on the intense flames that threatened to engulf her. “Fuck that. We can turn this setback to our advantage. Take me into the core of the power cable. It’s time you and I freed the spirits Marjory’s demons stole. Now that I’m here, we’re going to burn this bridge to the ground.”
The energy that represented Doodlebug wavered. “I’ve seen the ghosts in hell. Simply cutting the cord isn’t such a good idea. You wouldn’t be doing these lost souls any favors if they don’t have somewhere to go.”
Damn it. Kendell and Myles had made it clear that to give the trapped souls in the alien dimension peace, the voodoo loas of the dead would need to be called in. Only with their guidance could the dead find their way to Guinee, and from there to the everlasting rest of the deep waters. “I need to get a message out of this maelstrom to the professor’s computer.”
“Even if I could, it would be seen by Marjory Laroque. Of course, she’s probably listening to everything we say right now anyway.” Doodlebug surrounded Sere with her flaming essence, warding off the rest of the conflagration, though Sere couldn’t tell if she was the one being protected or guarded against.
If she couldn’t get a message through directly, Sere saw only one option. “I can’t stay out here with the demons. My soul is mostly human. You need to take me to the core of this connection then break contact with the bridge. I’m not originally a part of the cord, but I can hold your place while you’re gone. You need to tell Dooly Buell to talk to Kendell. Tell her we need Baron Samedi’s help.” Calling in the loa of the dead, who wanted to return the spirit of Serephine Malveaux to Guinee, could mean the end of Sere. The loas took a dim view of suicide, and she wasn’t in any hurry to return to face their judgment. Baron Samedi, however, had met with her before and agreed to the continuation of her mission. Turning over the lost souls has to buy me a little favor with those assloas. The flames turned white-hot around Sere.
Doodlebug’s energy grew faint. “I can only take you to the border between demon and human. You’ll be unprotected.”
Though she had the soul of Serephine Malveaux, Sere also existed on the energy of Jennifer’s doppelgänger. “I understand. Make sure Dooly doesn’t waste any time.”
The isolation of being caught between the counter-rotating tubes of the demons and the damned tore at Sere’s soul. Each demon whose energy held the human souls captive had either been put down by Sere personally or through one of her trusted accomplices. As for the people who were trapped under the demons’ fire, she bore responsibility for every one of their deaths.
As the first person to succumb to a demon, Larry was the first to greet Sere. “How’s that motorcycle? No new blown head gaskets, I hope.”
She desperately wished she had a body so she could hug the mechanic. “Purrs like a kitten.” The feeling of tears filling her eyes transcended the lack of a body. “I never meant…”
“Don’t even say it.” Kelly, who’d protected Sere and introduced her to the magic of coffee and apple pie, was so intertwined with Larry’s energy that Sere had trouble differentiating the two. “Helping is only honest if the consequences are accepted as part of the deal. I thought I was protecting you from a physically abusive relationship. I would have gone toe-to-toe with the brute of a biker I imagined was pursuing you. This hell might be worse than either Larry or I bargained for, but we wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
Sere wasn’t sure if dead souls could lie, though the two overly caring individuals had never impressed her as the type to hesitate if someone was in need. “I’m going to get you out of here.”
“We know you will.” The sentiment came so firmly from the two that Sere wasn’t sure which had said it. The feeling echoed along the passageway made of souls.
A man’s voice resounded up from hell. “You’ll have to fight me first.”
“No, she won’t.” Larry had the same determined tone he’d had when facing a frozen engine bolt. The cylinder of human souls formed an impenetrable barrier between the souls of Aloysius and Sere.
The smugness of the nascent devil filled the tube. “Good luck freeing your precious little people. Just know that once they’re gone, you’ll be stuck between me and my minions.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Sere said. Like an unidentifiable wisp of cold air on a hot day, the flames trapping Sere in place wavered. “Doodlebug?”
“I’m back with Dooly. Baron Samedi needed a human soul to latch on to in order to access the professor’s computers. But even with her, he can’t descend into hell—only the outer casing of this power cord. As a human-doppelgänger hybrid, you’re the only one who can transcend the layers. With Dooly and Baron Samedi outside, I can hold the outer casing of demons open. If you can guide the souls through the gap, Samedi will be ready to welcome them home.”
Sere turned to the energy of Larry and Kelly. “We’ve got a plan. I’m going to open a seam between human and demon, then you need to follow me through. Bring the others along with you.” She imagined reaching her hand through the thin veil that separated her from those she cared about. Larry’s oil-stained grip was as firm in death as it had been in life.
Like water erupting from the split in a weak section of garden hose, Sere shot out of the power cord, followed by all of the souls the demons had incarcerated.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Marjory’s scream of desperation filled the tube, but even with her force of will, with no structure to the pipeline, the demon flames wafted through the air like a torch that had lost its oxygen supply.
“I can’t close the breach,” Doodlebug yelled.
“You don’t have to,” Baron Samedi said. Like having someone stepping on the garden hose to stop the flow of water, the power cord made of demon spirits collapsed on itself, leaving the smoky ghosts to drift away.
Sere looked up into the loa of the dead’s dark eyes. Towering over her and the other disembodied spirits, he sat in a tall-backed wooden throne covered in African carvings. Cigar smoke drifted over his top hat and up to the embossed tin-plate ceiling. Though lit candles of varying usage coated the tables in wax, Sere couldn’t make out the framed images that hung above them on the blackened walls. She struggled to her feet. “Thank you for meeting me.” Behind her stood the nineteen lost souls like mannequins in a clothing store’s back room.
From the overwhelming smell of rum, it wasn’t difficult to guess what Baron Samedi was drinking. “You have a present for me.”
She resisted being ushered to Guinee herself, even though the people killed by demons moving through the voodoo version of purgatory would be a step out of hell and toward everlasting peace. “These souls were stolen from life. They deserve their rest.”
He blew a cloud of blue smoke that encircled the people behind Sere. “My precious lost souls, you’ve endured more than Guinee ever would have demanded. I welcome you into the beyond and will personally escort you to the deep waters.”
The relief that followed the dissipation of the spirits warmed the room. He nodded over Sere’s head to Doodlebug and Dooly, who remained standing together along the back wall. “One of you is alive, and the other a mirror. I leave you in peace until your time is finished.”
They too dissipated from the room.
“I’m not going anywhere.” The defiant tone of Aloysius Laroque made Sere reach for the knife in her boot. Even without her physical form, the blade had become such a constant companion that she could feel the handle.
Samedi shook his head. “You are in my realm now. As you are neither alive nor dead, you are none of my concern.” He flicked his cigar ash at the man. “I cast you back from whence you came.”
“We have unfinished business, Sere Mal-Laurette,” Aloysius yelled as he wafted into the ether. “I promise you, we will meet again.”
I don’t doubt it. She turned back to the dark man on his throne of judgment. “It’s down to just the two of us, old man. Do I get a say in what happens to me, or are you just going to summarily hand out justice as always?”
“What would you have me do with you?” Smoke from his cigar stub drifted up under his hat and around his face.
“Hell needs a guardian. You’ve claimed it’s not your domain or responsibility. Fair enough, but if the demons it spawns work their way into life, your cut-and-dried responses to the living and the dead won’t work. As is evident from the nineteen souls you just returned to the reservoir of humanity, you need me.”
He crushed out the thick stump of stinky tobacco. “Immortality is a condition we cannot abide, but as you’ve crossed that bridge, we can’t force you back to human form.”
She knew the dangers of comparing her situation to the loas of the dead. They hated any whiff of competition. “My enemies are trying to find a way around death.”
He leaned back with his tumbler of rum. “I won’t engage in the enemy of my enemy argument with you. From the first Mardi Gras when your father stole my cane and put himself on the path of becoming the devil, I knew your family would be trouble.”
“I am not my father.” She never could stand being compared to the devil.
“We shall see. For now, you have earned my favor. We part as allies. I return you to your life and loves, Sere Mal-Laurette.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t what you had in mind.” Sanguine said from the side of the vault.
Sere pounded her fists against the iron wall and stamped her feet. “Can’t that fool of the dead do anything right?”
“Don’t blame him.”
She turned in horror toward Jennifer’s spirit. “Don’t tell me he trapped you too?”
“It wasn’t Samedi,” the homemaker said. “When Fisher took the pellet out of you and you didn’t come to, Bart zoomed out on his Ducati to get me. We all agreed the only way to save you was to establish our connection.”
Sanguine sat with her arms around her knees. “As you can see, that didn’t go so well. With you stuck under some dimensional rock, Jennifer ended up pulled into the vault. Fortunately, I was able to stop her before she followed you into whatever nightmare you landed in.”
“I wasn’t gone that long!”
Sanguine raised her palms to the ceiling. “In this in-between dimension, how would one keep track of time? You’re in limbo. You should understand that better than anyone. After all, you started your doppelgänger existence by zapping from being a dead child in pre-Civil War New Orleans through Guinee to modern-day hell all in the blink of an eye.”
Though Sere did understand, she didn’t see how that was any help. It certainly didn’t ease her frustration. “And what about you? Are those magic future-seeing eyes of yours on the blink? You couldn’t have warned me that this was going to happen?”
“Limbo,” Sanguine said as if a one-word answer should suffice. “I can’t see the future if there is no such thing as time. Besides, you know full well that I see multiple possible futures, and the only way for me to explore them is to fly while focusing on the specific time line.”
“Whatever.” Even after a lifetime together, Sere never really got what use the angel’s crystal eyes were for avoiding problems. She turned back to Jennifer. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“We were thinking you were in trouble. Which you were.”
“You two need to stop arguing,” Sanguine said. “Trust me, allowing your emotions to get the better of you drains this vault’s ability to keep you alive.”
Sere slunk to the floor in front of Sanguine. “So I just made the hurricane worse with my little temper tantrum?”
“Something like that. With the three of us in this power chamber, anything we do will be magnified out there.”
Jennifer tapped her fingers against the wall. “But now we can work together to figure a way out. Couldn’t we just slide down the shoot to hell and escape like we did the last time?”
Sere tried hard not to snap out her response. “It doesn’t work that way. Jenna didn’t yank us into her dimension this time. We’re stuck in this box, and it’s not in either hell or life. The bottom line is that even if we could open the door, we can’t walk straight from this vault into either dimension.”
Jennifer’s tapping was getting on Sere’s nerves. “But you said because we met over coffee the last time that Jenna was able to haul us into hell.”
Sere doubted that the woman knew the first thing about hell even after having been hauled through it like a balloon animal on a string, but she did her best not to resort to her earlier perspective of Jennifer being nothing but an airheaded homemaker. “What’s your point?”
“That if Jenna could drag us into hell before, even if we’re in this vault, maybe she can again. You said she zeroed in on our combined souls. With her as the third point in our messed-up triangular existence, she must sense something even with us in this isolation box.”
Sere felt the cold chill of the vault’s walls creep up her spine. “Though having her drag us under might solve one problem, it could turn loose another. Marjory is after this vault and would very much like to have me out of the way of her demon invasions. If Jenna pulls us and the vault into hell, there will only be that door’s lock protecting us from turning into ghosts in the wrong dimension.”
