Stranger at the Hell Gate Page 2

Acheron.

  Acheron wasn't an ordinary Captain of Hell, not by a longshot. Trouble was, Acheron—like Jagger—was human-born. That chunk of mortality gave him a permanent anchor in this plane. Gave his master a permanent advantage.

  The captain had a real knack for opening hell gates. Portals to hell. Allowed demons to come and go as they please.

  That's where Jagger came in. Just as Acheron was dedicated to bringing his asshole buddies through the hell gate, Jagger was equally determined to send them back.

  Or destroy them. Either way was fine. Every time a demon got loose, a call from a terrified citizen came in and off Jagger would go, sword in hand. Demons, especially lower-ringed ones, could be more than an annoyance—some of them caused serious physical damage. The worst jobs, though, came when Acheron decided to get off his proud ass to join the fray.

  Acheron matched Jagger, swing for swing, blow for blow. Sometimes, it was just to distract Jagger from the other demons. Other times, it was like he just felt like sparring with someone who could actually fight. Jagger guessed Acheron got bored, too.

  Every once in a while, though, it seemed like Acheron wanted to do more than spar. He wanted Jagger dead. Times like that, Jagger could see the frustration leaking through Acheron's cold, cocky veneer.

  What a dick.

  Acheron and Jagger were at constant odds. As fast as Jagger would shut down one portal, Acheron would open another, and it would start all over again. As long as there were humans around, willing to pay for exorcisms and demon exterminations, Jagger would continue making money.

  So, yeah. Business was real good for a hunter of his skill. What a pain in the ass that was.

  The woman stirred on the couch, rolling over and making a soft noise deep in her throat. He paused the game, holding his breath, until he was sure she settled again. She made a delicate curve under the blue blanket, her blonde hair glimmering in the unsteady light of the television screen. It would be a long night.

  Jagger bit back a curse when the words GAME OVER flashed upon the screen. Everything about his life seemed to be a game, a constant contest between him and Acheron. It would only end when one of them was dead.

  Jagger had definite plans for that. All he needed was a split second of advantage. It was hard to get the jump on someone who moved like your mirror reflection.

  He nearly dropped the video controller in disgust. Killing virtual demons was definitely more aggravating, especially when you couldn't yell at the game for cheating.

  Sometimes, a sword was so much easier.

  ANGELS

  "So. Three days." Sonya leaned over the railing. She found heights thrilling and boundless and was grateful to Jagger for showing her the roof top. "I walked, mostly. Rode when I could. Didn't sleep. Stopped long enough to eat."

  "Couldn't tell that. You polished off that pie fast enough."

  "What can I say? I like anchovies." She grinned over her shoulder at him where he reclined on a battered chaise.

  He shaded his eyes with the bend of his arm. Such white skin. He didn't get out in the sun much, did he?

  Sonya reached out a hand, feeling a high breeze brush through her fingers, remembering "Sometimes I'd be on a street and I wouldn't know how I got there. Like I just came out of a daze. I have so few memories of the last couple of years; what little I had kept looping over and over."

  "I thought your kind spent eternity living in a happy cloud somewhere."

  She cast a playfully stern look at him.

  "Truthfully, my home was kind of like that when I was young. I had honestly planned on following in my mother's footsteps as a healer. I even had my choice of temples narrowed down to my top three." She turned and propped her elbows on the rail, leaning on them. "Then, something happened. I was…recruited, I guess, although I never knew exactly what for."

  Sonya shrugged. "I'm Seraphim. We're obedient to His Will, no questions. No need to question. I just went, and—well, next thing I know, those monks were there, telling me to trust my instincts. And those dreams—I suppose I was sleepwalking. This stone guided me. Whenever I wondered if I was on track, it would spark, and somehow I knew."

  "Is anything chasing you?"

  "If there is, I don't know it."

  Jagger curled to sit upright and hunched, elbows on his knees, for a moment before getting up and dragging the lounge to the shady side near the door. She didn't blame him. Leather clothing trapped heat and, so far, that was all she'd ever seen him wear. He must be baking.

  "Is there any kind of threat if you failed?" Jagger asked.

  "You mean, such as the world falling to Hell's dominion? That's what it feels like. But, there is something in my head driving me. Telling me to find you before it's too late." She turned back to the breathless expanse of city behind her for a few quiet moments. "I thought I found you yesterday. The stone got really bright and hot. It wasn't dawn yet, and I was so tired. At first, I was relieved."

  His expression, easier to see now he wasn't hiding his face under his arm, gave nothing away. She didn't expect it to. "But then, I got a very bad feeling. Whatever was out there wasn't supposed to find me. So, I hid. Some old church, I think, from the way it felt. When the sun rose, the stone quieted, and I ran."

  "Where were you?"

  "The first person I saw after that spoke Jontu."

  Jagger chewed his bottom lip. "You said the stone responds to the blood of Tallon."

  She nodded. "Mmm."

  "Anything else?"

  "No, if they told me the truth. That was the first time it lit."

  "The closest town that still uses Jontu is eight days away. You sure—"

  "The street signs were in Jontu."

  "Well, that pretty much settles that. No other towns are daft enough to use that language if they have a choice." He crossed his arms and tilted his head back, watching her with narrowed eyes. "Eight days away. And that was yesterday? How did you—"

  She shook her head. At this point, she didn't care how she travelled. Magic or curse, she'd endured those types of things all her life. "More importantly: who?"

  He didn't reply. Instead he rubbed his mouth and stared past her, unblinking.

  It made her wonder if there was something behind her and she fought the urge to duck. After a moment, she realized he was looking more to his insides than to the outsides behind her. "Hello?"

  "Hmm?" Jagger blinked.

  "I thought you zoned out on me."

  "I'm fine. Just thinking."

  She leaned back against the rail and crossed her arms, hugging her ribs. "What were you doing yesterday?"

  Jagger shook his head and scowled. "Wasn't me, if that's what you're thinking."

  "Then who?"

  Jagger sighed and rapped his head against the frame of the chair, hard enough to make her wince. "My brother."

  Her mouth gaped a moment before she reclaimed her voice. "You have a brother?"

  "He's a dick. I don't trust him, and I don't keep track of him."

  Definitely not good news, she thought. They hadn't warned me about another son. Smoothing her expression, she nodded. "That would explain the compass lighting."

  "Explains a lot of shit." He curled to his feet and wiped his damp bangs from his forehead. "Let's go in. This heat feels too much like the rim of Hell to me."

  DEMONS

  Usually he passed this part of the day sleeping for lack of anything better to do. Although his body didn't need sleep—and despite never resting easily—sleeping beat having a regular day job. "You said I could 'ease your pain.' What kind of pain?"

  She opened the steel door with a smooth pull that surprised him. He never doubted seraphimic strength. It was just weird to see it at work in a skinny girl.

  Without turning around she started down the steps. "Have you ever been haunted?"

  "Can't say that I have."

  "Well, the closest I can come to describing the pain would be to say it's the same feeling a ghost would feel when it's ripped out of it
s body. Something is missing and there is a hollow place and there's a strong chance the next thing to come along to fill it up will be very, very bad."

  "And you feel like that a lot?"

  She paused on the steps but didn't look at him. "All the time."

  "I don't know how someone like me could fix that. I'm not a good person."

  Turning, she looked up at him. The light pouring in through the doorway made her clear skin glow. "Why do you say that?"

  "I kill. I don't think twice, I don't feel bad, and I sleep just fine. Well, maybe not sleep. But you know what I mean."

  "Who, exactly, do you kill?"

  He shrugged. "Bad guys."

  She smiled, that dazzling flash that blinded him a little. "Then you're a good guy by default."

  "You keep telling yourself that."

  "I'm not the one who needs convincing."

  Her weighty gaze made him uncomfortable. It wasn't the kind of look he was used to getting. The softness of it rubbed the raw edges of his personal space. Jagger motioned for her to continue down the stairs, just so she'd stop looking at him. He definitely wasn't used to this sort of scrutiny.

  "Right, right." Enzo glanced over at Jagger and scribbled a few notes. "I'll call you back."

  Jagger didn't even look away from the television screen. "Let Ionis take it."

  Enzo slapped his notepad on the desk. "They asked for you."

  "And I'm booked."

  "You call this booked?" The agent stomped over to the screen and pointed at it. "Another night of video games?"

  "I can't help it that Lydia chick keeps screwing with my quests. That dope walks right into my line of fire every single time."

  "You haven't taken a job since she showed up."

  "I needed some R and R."

  Enzo sighed. "I don't trust her."

  "She's a divinity, Enzo. What's not to trust?" Jagger tried very hard to keep a serious expression but he couldn't keep from grinning. Sick sense of humor but, hey. A laugh is a laugh.

  Enzo wasn't laughing. "Other than a natural loathing for demons, not mentioning any names?"

  "See? I, too, have a natural loathing for demons. We're like peas in a pod."

  "Mmm." Enzo tapped his mouth with a slender finger. "And she's still here…why?"

  Jagger shrugged. "She's got some kind of mission."

  "Not your problem."

  "Maybe it is. She said she had orders to find me. That I'm part of whatever she has to do."

  "Big deal, Jag. She's on their side. She's got lots of people that can help her out. In case you forget, you are on a really small team."

  "So? I don't play well with others."

  "They don't need to play with you. All they need to do is send a legion or two to help with these hell gates."

  "Let's not start this again. If they wanted to help, they would. I want to help her, so I am."

  "You know, that's the part I don't get. You work for coin, not charity."

  "Yeah. That's the real bite in the ass, innit." Jagger paused the game and dropped the controller on his lap, reaching to rub his face with both palms. "I kinda owe 'em this one."

  "You know her? I thought you said—"

  "Not her. Never saw her before. But she said a name. And that guy…well, him, I knew."

  "And you owed him a favor?" Enzo's voice was heavy with doubt.

  Jagger couldn’t blame him.

  "I owe him my life." Jagger picked up the controller. "He raised me."

  "Oh. That's the guy? But she said monks. You grew up in a cult."

  Jagger smirked. "Isn't every monastery a little like a cult?"

  "Just once, Jag." Enzo sounded out of patience. Again. "I'd like to get the plain truth from you. Just once."

  Enzo sighed and leaned to pull a leather-bound book out of his satchel. He flipped through the pages before finding the one he wanted. "Did you get a chance to look at that crystal?"

  "Nah." Jagger suddenly pounded on the game controller. "Come-on-come-on-come-on-no! Geez! What do you call that? I hit him eight times, and he didn't budge! What crap!"

  "The crystal, Jag?"

  "Yeah, what about it? She wears it inside her shirt. It's creepy how it lights up when I come into the room."

  "Wonder if we can duplicate it? Would come in handy on those jobs where you disappear for days at a time."

  "Only if I'm knocked out. Or bound. Or transported. But other than that, how can you complain? I always call if I'm gonna be late." Jagger stood to stretch, dropping the controller onto the chair. "Anyways, she might be useful."

  "Useful, how?"

  "I'm not the only one with Tallon's blood."

  "Well, I'm not surprised. Archdemons really sow their unholy oats around." Enzo's voice was colored with disgust.

  He's only human, Jagger reminded himself. Sometimes he forgot that Jagger wasn't. Then again, Jagger had worked very hard to keep his demon blood in check, preferring to maintain his human impression. "True, that. But I'm thinking about one oat in particular."

  "Acheron?"

  Jagger nodded, remembering the troubled expression Sonya wore when he said he had a brother. "She said she got a blip near Jontu about three days ago."

  Enzo rocked back, eyes unfocused and falling silent. "Think you can talk her into scouting?"

  "Too much of a liability. But maybe we can borrow that crystal of hers."

  "Not you. What would be the point?"

  "Duh. Ionis, maybe. He's the only one who's ever seen Acheron."

  "Uh, he's your twin, Jagger."

  Jagger clenched his jaw and spoke through his teeth, the words a hiss. "How many times do I have to remind you? He looks nothing like me."

  "As long as you insist on that, I won't worry about you." The phone rang and Enzo turned back to the desk. "It's when you stop that means we're in trouble."

  ANGELS

  At the week's end, the agent finally got Jagger to take a job. Sonya suspected her offering to pay for dinner had something to do with his sudden change of heart. Although he was only gone three hours at best, she spent every minute in worry, waiting for his return.

  Realizing she wasn't afraid for herself only made the anxiety worse. If anything happened to Jagger, she'd never learn the reason she'd been sent to find him.

  To pass the time, she went upstairs and cleaned the apartment, wiping away cobwebs and scrubbing the thick layers of dust off every surface. The busy work occupied her hands and stilled her mind—she'd never been one to sit idly by when there was a task at hand.

  There wasn't a lot of furniture in the apartment; only a bed and a heavy wardrobe remained. Perhaps everything that could be carried off and sold had been.

  Or destroyed. There were a lot of wood shards up there.

  Inside the wardrobe, she'd found extra linens. Their dry dusty smell told her this was where her current bedding had come from. After pounding the mattress clean, she dressed the bed and cracked a window to let the room breathe.

  She surveyed her work. Surely he wouldn't mind her staying up here. He probably wanted his couch back.

  By the time she'd finished, she heard his boot step on the stoop outside. She nearly tripped on the stairs on her way down. Sonya paused in the doorway. "You're back."

  "You're still alive." He glanced at her. "That's good."

  She sat down on the couch and watched him draw his sword and lay it on the desk. With a roll of his shoulders, he shrugged off his coat, revealing the scraped leather harness he wore over his bare chest. When he turned to throw his jacket onto the desk, the light slid across his skin, picking out every scar and imperfection.

  She couldn't ignore those marks. Her mother had been a healer, and she was her mother's daughter.

  Jagger dropped onto the cushion next to her and leaned to loosen his boot straps. A long thin ridge arched over his shoulder blade. Without thinking, she traced it with a hesitant finger.

  He flinched beneath her touch but didn't move away.

  "
These scars are like a road map," she whispered. "How many terrible places have you been?"

  He straightened but didn't look at her. "All of them."

  The darkness in his voice was cold and drowning-deep. It called to her the way a child would cry for help. She wasn't accustomed to hearing him use such a tone.

  "And did you go alone?"

  "Every step of the way." Jagger pushed to his feet and strode to the desk where his weapons still lay. He pulled each gun free from its holster, flicked open the chamber, and shook out the ammo into a brass goblet. "My line of work doesn't run group rates."

  She remained on the couch and watched him through her Seraph eyes. His back was streaked with a myriad of silvered lines, each injury and scar glowing. The glow ranged from pale pink to sullen red depending on its degree of freshness. She'd never seen so much damage on a single living being. "But…you don't work all the time, do you?"

  "The day Hell takes a day off, so will I."

  "That's a hard way to live."

  "It's a hard life. So what? Everyone has their cross to bear. I just tend to do a lot of killing with mine."

  His causal blasphemy struck a discord within her but she didn't let it show. She knew he didn't mean to insult her. "Turn around, please?"

  He turned his head. "Why?"

  "I want to see you." She stood and braced herself, Seraph sight locked on. "Please."

  Jagger hung his head, looking very much out of patience. With an exasperated huff, he turned in place, his boots clomping. Cocky stance, head back and eyes daring her to say something. But these things she only partially registered because when he turned to face her, his entire upper body—chest, face, arms—glowed with the marks of past insult and injury. And that sickle shape burned into the skin over his heart—

  She whimpered, heart-sick to see him in this way. Her mother's blood cried out at the thought of what agony he must have endured to stand here now, so marred and wounded. Covering her eyes, she dispelled the Seraph sight and fought the tears.

  "Hey." He was in front of her within moments, pulling her hands down and leaning to peer at her downturned face. "Hey, what's wrong?"

  "You. You've been through so much. Just look at you."