Where the Devil Don't Go, page 6
Sariel gave him an odd look. “You realize there should be no reason to heal somebody after sex, right? Like, what are you doing to the boy?”
Sam felt his shoulders stiffen. “Nothing he doesn’t want me to do.”
“He wants you to hurt him?” Sariel asked, sounding more fascinated than judgmental. “Is he crazy?”
“Lots of humans seek pain for their pleasure. Abby says as long as I care for him afterwards, there’s nothing wrong with…testing his limits.”
Sariel’s eyes went wide, and he tilted his head in a way that told Sam he was further gone than he thought. “You asked Abaddon—creator of the furies, sower of discord—for advice on mating with a human? She’s a bigger monster than you are,” he said before adding, “No offense.”
Sam gave a sigh, tugging at his tie. “I’m not sure when my sex life became fodder for public consumption, but what I do with Christopher is not up for debate.”
Sariel stopped so abruptly Sam had to turn to look at him. “You want to keep him around.”
Why was everybody so shocked by this? Wasn’t he entitled to a few months of comfort before an eternity in darkness? Christopher was warm and willing and smelled like all the best things. Pain. Fear. Strife. And, afterwards, when Sam pulled him into his arms, he smelled like contentment. Sam had made him feel those things. Samyaza, God’s sword, made a human boy feel…happy? No, maybe not that. They were both far too fucked up for that. But maybe small moments of peace were all two creatures could ask for.
Either way, it wasn’t for anybody else to judge. He’d steered the ship for the Grigori for far too long. He’d earned the right to be a little bit selfish. He didn’t want to leave Christopher worse than when he found him—was determined he’d find a way to make him okay before he left—but he was too selfish to let him go. Christopher needed to serve, and Sam would be damned if he would serve anybody else but him. Nobody else could be trusted to know just how much he could take. Vincent had proven that.
“Until I complete my list, yes. I don’t see what’s so wrong with that.”
Sariel lifted a hand, tipping it this way and that. “I wouldn’t say it’s wrong. Well, hurting him might be, but if he likes it, then I suppose it’s a wash, but what happens to him after your list is completed? The others will kill him. He knows too much.”
Sam looked him dead in the eye. “Then I will entrust you to ensure they do not. One of your witchlings can hide him or keep him safe. Or perhaps he can just stay at the church. You can put him to work. Maybe he and Lily will become fast friends and he’ll become just another presence for the others to tolerate.”
“Lily isn’t human. She’s a demon-fae hybrid. And the others only tolerate her because she’s my child.”
“Well, I’ve tasked her with being Christopher’s companion while he’s with us. He needs a friend. And he doesn’t like being out in the world.”
They began to walk once more, Sam inhaling deeply, catching the Leviathan’s scent. They smelled like all the worst parts of the sea, fish rotting amongst the kelp and seaweed. Sam found the stench repulsive. He couldn’t imagine how it was sustaining itself down there, toiling in the sewers. What was it eating? Sam quite honestly didn’t want to know.
“You want Lily…my Lily…to be your boy’s human companion? She annoys the shit out of you. You said she’s loud and jarring and that she doesn’t ‘know her place.’”
All of those things were true. Lily leaned hard into human culture, not to blend in but because she adored humanity. She loved their clothes, their music, their culture. She saw beauty in everything no matter how ugly, and she could talk—for hours—about literally anything. She was a golden retriever in a human suit and Sam hated dogs.
But she was also a sword wielding badass, a fierce advocate, and had a toxically chipper attitude. While Sam wouldn’t appreciate it, Christopher could. He would. He needed someone happy in his life. Someone who might coax him into the sunlight. Sam dwelled in darkness. He couldn’t be that for Christopher. But Lily could. Her fae blood made her overwhelmingly attractive to humans, and her knowledge of their culture could be just what Christopher needed.
“I find, in this very specific instance, Lily is uniquely qualified for this task. While I might find her…over exuberant, others like Christopher are attracted to her light. He needs that light.”
Sariel raised a brow. “What is it about this boy that has you so twisted in knots? Are you sure he’s human and not a witch? Because you certainly seem to be under his spell. Is the copulation really that good?”
It wasn’t about copulation. Well, Sam had to admit that was exquisite. He’d only been with others like him, demons who mated like venomous snakes or like they wanted to tear each other apart. Christopher had never experienced a demon before, and Sam found that using his body to make Christopher squirm was almost a bigger turn on than burying himself in Christopher’s body. Almost. Even now, all Sam wanted was to forsake all of his duties and go bury himself in his boy.
Sam shrugged. “The sex is exceptional, yes. He calls me Daddy, which is one of those things I never quite understood about human culture, calling somebody by an honorific deemed worthy of only parents. But I find I quite like it. He expects me to care for him. Me. A man who has peeled the flesh of another like I was shelling a shrimp. He trusts me.”
Sariel chuckled. “This is what happens when you spend your whole life living amongst humans but not as a human. For years, I’ve begged you to at least dip a toe in the water, to go out and live beside them, see that your initial thoughts when we fell were incorrect, that corrupting them wasn’t worth all the strife to follow. You adamantly refused. Now, you’ve dove headfirst off a cliff into deep waters over one boy. You do nothing in half-measures, Samyaza. I’ll give you that.”
They rounded a corner and Sam stopped short as the corridor sloped and disappeared under dark water. He wrinkled his nose at the stench, the fluorescent lights overhead flickering like in a horror movie. “There has to be another way to get to it.”
Sariel’s forehead furrowed. “Like what, precisely? Fly? This corridor isn’t big enough for wings.”
He was right. Sam began to unbutton his shirt, slipping off his Scritto leather loafers. When he reached for his belt, he noticed Sariel watching him. “What? Those are three thousand dollar loafers and this suit is Tom Ford. I’m not ruining my favorite suit in…that. My demon form is far more adept at traversing the mire we’re about to find.”
“For somebody who hates humans, you sure do love their fashion.”
“I don’t…hate humans.” Sam said, shifting into his true form and trudging into the sewer water. “I just think they squandered the gifts we gave them. They use weapons not to defend themselves but to subjugate others. We taught women magic and men used it as an excuse to abuse and enslave them. We taught them to read the stars and they treat it as a joke. We gave them gifts such as clairvoyance, clairsentience, and clairaudience, and half of them don’t bother to use their talents and those who do are treated as village idiots unless their gifts are needed. I just don’t understand humanity.”
Sariel didn’t shift into his demon form; he didn’t seem as concerned about his jeans and faded t-shirt as Sam was about his suit. “You can’t blame humans today for their behaviors. They’ve been brainwashed for centuries to turn away from their gifts all because of that book.”
“Yes, but that is my point,” Sam said, water waist deep. “Whose idea was it to have humans interpret the divine teachings? They twisted it, perverted it for their own agenda. It’s no wonder Father keeps wiping them off the map.”
Something brushed against Sam’s leg, slick as a fish. He plunged his hand into the water, ripping the serpent free by the razor sharp gills along its back. It instantly locked its jaws onto Sam’s forearm. “God, I fucking hate Leviathan,” he grunted, prying its curved teeth free and slamming it against the tiled walls.
Sariel tossed him his sword before throwing his body against the squirming creature. It took two healthy swings to behead it. Both were breathing hard by the time its corpse slid back into the water. Sam’s arm stung where its curved teeth had sunk into his skin. Black ink-like ooze bled from the wounds. He’d have to get Kash to heal him. While Sam could easily heal humans, the bite of a Leviathan took more strength and understanding of medicine than he possessed.
“You want to go get a drink?” Sariel asked.
Sam and Sariel began trudging back towards Sam’s neatly folded clothes. He didn’t want a drink. He wanted to go back to the church, have Kash heal him, and then drag Christopher back into bed. But that would have to wait. “Just one. I would rather not have this spread.”
“Yeah, I hear if you wait too long, you start to grow scales like a fish or a mermaid,” Sariel said, tone conversational. “Though, it might be an improvement from your current Hell Boy aesthetic.”
Sam extended his middle finger. “Fuck you.”
“Oh, those days are long gone, my friend. Besides, you have your human pet to play with.”
Sam couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. Yes. Yes, he did.
Christopher was lying on the bed reading from the stack of books Sam had left him when there was a knock on the door. Before he could rise to answer, it flew open and a girl entered. “Hi, I’m Lily. I’m apparently your designated hybrid companion.”
Christopher did his best to take her all in. She was…colorful, like an exotic animal. She was tiny and plump, with bubblegum pink hair, white freckles painted on her golden skin, and eyes that were an unnatural shade of jade green. She had a cute button nose, full pink lips, and a piercing through each nostril. She wore fishnet stockings beneath short shorts, combat boots, and a black crop top with a kitten wearing devil horns that read, ‘Cute but Psycho.’
Christopher could only blink at her, finally finding his voice enough to say, “Hi?”
She plopped down on the freshly made bed, falling back to look up at the ceiling. “I thought for sure there would be mirrors up there. It’s the buttoned up ones who are always the biggest freaks, you know?” She didn’t sound like she expected an answer. When he continued to just stare, she asked, “Did his majesty not tell you I was coming?”
“His majesty?”
“Yeah, your sugar daddy. Master. Trick. Whatever you’re calling him. He hates me, so you must really need a friend if I was brought in to do the job.” She winked. “Spoiler alert: I’m a lot.”
Christopher found himself smiling, though he didn’t know why. “You’re very…sparkly.”
She pushed herself up onto her forearms. “It’s because you’re human. You guys love my kind. The fae half, not the demon half. Though, I guess you could be attracted to that side, too, since you’re currently taking it from our fearless leader.”
“You’re a faerie?” Christopher heard himself saying. As if his life couldn’t get any weirder.
“Half. Half fae, half demon.”
“Oh.”
“So, Sam says you don’t like to go outside. Is that true?”
Christopher’s heart sank, his stomach souring. “It’s not safe out there.”
He didn’t want to have to explain to yet another person why he didn’t want to venture into the outside world. Luckily, it seemed he wouldn’t have to.
“Yeah, I get that. Humans are the worst. I mean, I love your music and clothes and even the cute things you do to decorate your bodies and homes. But when it comes to how you treat each other, you kind of suck. And that’s coming from a demon.”
“So, you don’t like to go outside either?”
“Who me? I love it out there. There’s so much to see and do. So many places to go. But if I spend too much time out there, humans start to act a little weird.”
“Weird?”
She nodded. “Yeah, being around somebody like me can make some humans a little…off. They start to follow me around, try to touch me. One guy sniffed me on a subway once, another almost got hit by a bus trying to stalk me. Two girls started fighting over me one time in a bookstore.”
“That’s…”
“Crazy, I know. I’m telling you, it’s my fae blood. It makes people crazy.”
“Am I going to go crazy around you?”
“Hah. Maybe. Maybe not. You smell pretty well claimed. It’s usually single people whose wires get crossed around me.”
“Claimed?”
“Yeah, I can smell him all over you. Everybody can. You’re causing all kinds of problems out there.” She pointed her thumb towards the door.
Christopher assumed she didn’t mean the outside world but whatever chamber laid beneath the church he’d seen when Sam had first brought him home. Home? It was such a foreign word. Christopher had never really had a home.
“What’s out there?” he finally asked.
“We call it the catacombs. Wanna see it?”
He swallowed hard. Did he? She just said nobody liked him out there. He was somewhat used to that, he supposed, but usually the people who treated him poorly were just plain old humans, not demons with razor sharp teeth and a penchant for blood and pain. “I-I don’t think I’m supposed to.”
Lily scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, you are. You can’t live your whole life in one room. That would be crazy.”
Christopher felt like he’d lived a thousand lifetimes in one room. Life with Vincent had been like a waking nightmare, but one he was too drugged to leave, drugged on magic and too brainwashed to even understand the things happening to his body. Not like with Sam. With Sam, the pain itself was the drug, the idea that Sam wanted him bent but not broken, begging but not bleeding. Well, not much bleeding anyway.
Sam did like to bite, but those sharp, needle-like teeth were so precise, the pain was like the prick of a needle, and the weird euphoria that followed was like heroin to Christopher. Yeah, Sam and Vincent were not the same. This chamber beneath the city was nothing like the high-rise prison he’d endured looking down on that same city.
Christopher startled as a hand grazed his wrist, but Lily just smiled and threaded their fingers together. A wave of peace washed over him. He frowned at her. “Did you do that?”
“I told you, your kind love my kind,” she said with a wink. “Let me show you around. Please? I think it would make Sam happy.”
Those words tugged at him. He wanted to make Sam happy. Did demons experience happiness? Christopher didn’t know, but when she tugged on his arm, he didn’t fight her. Just outside his door was a long stone corridor with arched wooden doors dotted along each side. It didn’t seem like such a place could exist under the city. Maybe it was an illusion of some kind?
She took him right, walking along the concrete floor lit by gothic sconces and overhead lights that popped and hissed and zapped above him. The corridor led into an enormous round chamber, covered floor to ceiling with bookcases, the volumes piled within spilling over into stacks on the floor. In the center of the room was a sunken area with overstuffed leather sofas. “Is this a library?”
Lily shrugged. “Of sorts. But you won’t find Harry Potter or Alice in Wonderland.”
“What will you find?”
“The secrets of the universe,” she whispered.
At first, Christopher thought she might be joking, but one look at her round cherubic face and he knew she was serious. “What kinds of secrets does the universe hold?” he asked, floating forward.
“That’s one of the benefits of living in the catacombs, you can find out anytime you want. You just can’t take the books aboveground. It’s forbidden.” She gave him a sad look. “But I guess that’s not a problem for you, huh?”
Christopher’s heart squeezed in his chest. “No, definitely not.”
“Come on, let me show you the other benefits of living down here.”
He let Lily drag him to a set of double doors, which opened to yet another corridor. He gave one last look over his shoulder at the massive library before turning eyes forward so he didn’t fall on his face. They only traveled a short distance when the smell of food hit him, fresh baked bread and something savory with lots of spices. Lily grinned as Christopher’s stomach growled before pushing open the doors to what must be the kitchens.
It looked like somebody had fused a medieval castle and a commercial kitchen. Gleaming stainless steel appliances, double ovens, large range, and a huge industrial size refrigerator all recessed into wheat-colored stone walls with butcher block countertops, lights that gave off a warm amber hue, and a deep farmhouse sink where a woman with bright red hair stood with her arms submerged up to her elbows.
She glanced up when they entered, and Christopher couldn’t help but notice her eyes were the same unearthly shade of green as Lily’s. “Is that your mom?”
“What? No. This is Keziah. She lives down here and keeps all of us fed. She’s another of my father’s children. We all have his eyes. The real him, not the human version of him. Luckily, people just assume they’re contacts. Keziah is a kitchen witch.”
The woman in question was eerily beautiful. She, like Lily, had a somewhat rounder face, though she was pale where Lily was slightly more golden. She had a purple scarf woven through tresses that fell over her shoulders almost to her waist.
She wore a long strapless green dress that showed off her many tattoos. Some were herbs, some phases of the moon, a few appeared to be sigils or magical symbols of some sort. She pulled her hands from the sink, wiping them on her apron. “Is this him?” she asked, her voice breathless and almost conspiratorial.
Lily’s eyes lit up. “Yes. Keziah, this is Christopher.”
She rushed towards him, cupping his face. She was eye to eye with him. “He’s quite beautiful, isn’t he?” she said to Lily, as if he wasn’t there.
“Yes, very pretty. Like a statue or a painting.”
Keziah ran her fingers through his curls. “Your hair is so soft,” she marveled.
Christopher didn’t know what to say, so he simply said nothing, allowing the woman to run her hands over his face.
