Her Demonic Angel

It was the Devil who took her.

Erin was sure of it.

It was the Devil who had come in the dead of night, entering the bedroom of her loft apartment like black mist to take her as she slept.

And he wasn’t red all over or had hooves and horns like in movies or fables.

He was immense, with skin as black as coal, eyes that shone red like car brake lights and the wings of a dragon curling from his back.

He had brought her here to a fiery, broken and inhospitable land where perpetual tormented screams chased every shred of calm and peace from her soul and the air was so thick with the stomach-turning stench of sulphur that she couldn’t breathe.

It was Hell.

At first, Erin had thought the whole event was a vivid and disturbing nightmare, worse than any she had experienced before, but she had hurt herself on one of the shards of black rock that formed the floor and the three walls of her cell and she hadn’t woken.

And then they had hurt her too.

The Devil had come alone at first, entering her cell to glare at her in silence and ignore her pleas to tell him what he wanted with her. Not a word had left his wide black lips. The only time she had gained a response from him was the one instance she had felt brave enough to stand up to him and had tried to force him to speak. Then, he had bared sharp crimson teeth at her and hissed. She had fallen on her backside trying to escape him, afraid that he would attack her, and had cut her palms and scraped the soles of her bare feet as she had crab-crawled away from him.

Now, he no longer came alone.

Now, she no longer feared him.

She couldn’t muster that emotion whenever he visited her. Fear had given way to anger, leaving her brave enough to face death in order to get some answers.

Two other smaller but similar creatures accompanied him. None of them spoke. They didn’t even flinch when she hit them in an attempt to make them talk and tell her what they wanted with her, bashing her fists against their thick limbs and the granite band of stomach exposed between their red-edged black chest armour and the strips that protected their hips. She wanted to punch them in the face but they towered over her, at least three feet taller than she was. Several times, she had struck them hard in the groin but each had only gained her pain rather than satisfaction. They were quick to retaliate, slamming meaty arms into her stomach and sending her crashing into the rough black walls of her prison.

Each visit lasted only fifteen minutes or was it longer? She had lost track of time in this hellish place. Minutes seemed like hours.

Erin was too tired to hit them now. Hunger had set in she didn’t know how many days or weeks ago and now she was so weak that her head swam and she spent most of her waking hours hallucinating about food. Petrified pained screams rang in her ears as she sat near the open wall of her black cell, staring wearily into the hazy fiery distance. The black jaw-length jags of her hair hung across one side of her face, stinking of boiled eggs. The smell had invaded everything. Her small black sleep shorts and tank top, every inch of exposed dirty skin, and her mind too. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the jagged wall behind her, too tired and hungry to sleep, using all of her strength to keep breathing.

They would come soon.

She hadn’t seen them in what might have been a day.

There was no sky in the view from her cell. Just an endless black vault above her, and fields of lava and brimstone as far as the eye could see several hundred feet below.

Erin inhaled slowly and smelled steak.

She frowned. Steak. She swore she could smell it.

Someone had invented a new form of torture. The scent of juicy frying meat wafted through the huge open wall and before she could consider what she was doing, she was standing at the edge of the floor and staring down into the glowing abyss. Hot air battered her as it rose from the inferno below. Her vision swam from the heat and her hunger, causing the sheer cliff face to wobble and distort.

Her mouth watered.

Her stomach growled.

The door at her back opened and she turned sharply. Her foot slipped on the loose stones at the edge.

Before her gasp could escape her lips, a man was holding her with one arm snaked around her back, bending over her. She stared down, wild eyes watching the rocks bouncing off the endless black cragged cliff and disappearing into the fiery river below. Her heart hammered erratically against her chest and she instinctively grabbed the man’s arms, desperate to save herself from following the rocks and afraid that he might drop her over the edge.

“Careful,” the man whispered close to her ear, his voice deep and exotic, sending a strange hot shiver through her. He righted her, kept one hand on her arm and led her away from the edge.

Erin stared at her handsome saviour, mind racing to catch up with everything that had happened in the past few seconds. He still held her arm, his smile perfect though lacking emotion and golden eyes bright and alluring. She couldn’t take her eyes away from them and the longer she stared into them, the more relaxed she felt.

His sensual smile widened and he released her arm, preened the longer tendrils of his black hair back from his face, and then frowned at his hand. Touching her had dirtied it. His expression curled into one of disgust and he turned his back on her.

The heavy compliant feeling that had been building inside her disappeared in an instant and the delicious scent of food assaulted her.

Her gaze snapped to the door and the source of the tempting smell.

The Devil.

He stood there flanked by the two smaller creatures like him, his glowing red eyes fixed straight at her over the head of the elegant man now strolling towards him. The two of them couldn’t have looked more different to each other. The Devil was a beast, black-skinned and huge, his massive dragon-like wings furled against his back, and his body barely covered by crimson-edged obsidian armour. The man was all dark beauty and refinement, dressed sharply in a black suit that highlighted his pale, flawless skin and glossy black hair.

The man waved his hand and the Devil held something out to him.

A tray with a very elegant domed silver plate cover on it.

Erin realised her mistake.

Not the Devil, but a servant.

Erin stared at the man as he took the tray from the beast she had thought was the Devil, removed the cover with a flourish, revealing the most amazing and mouth-watering food she had ever seen, and turned to hold it out to her.

Tempting her.

He was the Devil.

Erin backed away on instinct, aware that before her stood a man who had made her feel compliant by only looking into her eyes and behind her was a sheer drop to a very painful death. She swallowed, heart hammering, and clenched her fists, determined to stand her ground. She had feared the three demonic creatures that had regularly visited her cell but she hadn’t let them get the better of her, and she hadn’t let her captivity break her. She wasn’t going to let this man sweep in and do in seconds what they had failed to do in days.

She straightened and glared at him, lifting her chin in defiance. She was strong. Brave. Her limbs trembled but she refused to let her fear show. The Devil surely thrived on the fear of his victims and making them suffer. He would get no satisfaction from her.

“I apologise for the way you have been treated, Erin,” he said, his deep voice sending another burst of heat over her skin. The sickening feel of it distracted her from what he had said but the moment it had passed, she frowned.

He knew her name.

Erin supposed that shouldn’t surprise her. He was the Prince of Darkness after all. It answered one of the questions that had plagued her during her captivity. He had come specifically for her.

“What do you want with me?” She stood her ground as he moved a step closer, still holding the tray out to her.

“Why don’t you have a seat and enjoy this meal, and we will discuss why I desired your company.”

Erin frowned. “There is nothing to sit on besides the floor.”

He smiled and a large dark carved wooden table appeared behind him, followed by two matching tall-backed chairs with black padded seats. He bowed his head and swept an arm towards them.

“Is this better?” he said and set the tray of food down on the table. “Whatever comforts you desire are yours to have.”

For a price, no doubt. Erin didn’t move. She didn’t trust this man. If she sat on the chair, it would probably wrap itself around her to trap her or something bizarre like it. Her head reasoned that if he wanted to hurt her, he could probably do so without tying her up first. He was the Devil, and he had already shown her that all he had to do was stare into her eyes and she started thinking about doing whatever he asked of her.

“Come, Erin.” He held his hand out to her, the sleeve of his crisp black jacket pulling back to reveal the cuff of his equally dark shirt and glittering jet-black cufflinks. “I have apologised for your treatment, have I not? Can we not talk like civilised people?”

“No, thank you. Your goons took me in the middle of the night and you’ve been holding me in this cell for God knows how long.”

The Devil hissed, his straight white teeth sharpening to points and his eyes burning red.

Erin backed away another step.

He smoothed his hand over his black hair and cleared his throat. The crimson drained from his golden eyes. “I apologise. That word does not sit well with me.”

“What word... oh... God?”

He snarled and was before her in an instant, his fingers closed around her throat and choking her, sharp black claws digging into her skin. He released her as quickly as he had grabbed her and distanced himself.

Erin couldn’t move. She had gone rigid, frozen to her core, the moment he had launched himself at her. Her heart felt as though it wasn’t beating.

Note to self. Never speak about God in the presence of the Devil.

“Self-righteous bastard,” the Devil spat and snarled again, pacing away from her, his body shifting with the sensual and lethal grace of a predator. He turned red eyes on her and frowned. “You would do well not to believe in such a malevolent conceited creature. Now, sit!”

Erin didn’t get a choice. One moment she stood near the edge of her black cell, the heat buffeting her as it rose from the abyss, and the next she sat at the dark wooden table with the tray of food in front of her.

“Eat.” That word was little more than a growl.

She didn’t trust the delicious-looking steak, potatoes and vegetables in front of her but she wasn’t about to tell the Devil where to stick them when she had already managed to royally piss him off. She took the fork in one hand and the steak knife in the other, and paused to stare at it.

“Do not even think about it.” The Devil casually slid into the chair opposite her. He crossed his legs at the knee and leaned back into his chair, his eyes amber again and a false sense of calm about him. She glanced at the three huge black-skinned demons protecting the door.

Erin cut into her steak. Eating the food was probably the wisest move she could make. Not only would it give the Devil a chance to get what looked to be a temper that surpassed everything she had heard about it under control but it would give her much-needed strength. If she was going to survive whatever ordeal lay ahead of her and get the heck out of Hell and this mess, she was going to need her strength.

She devoured the food, uncaring of the way she looked to the three creatures and man, if you could call the Devil a man, watching her.

It was delicious and strangely revitalising. Every mouthful she swallowed filled her stomach and sent heat flowing through her veins, urging her into taking another bite. Was there something in it?

That thought made her pause and she looked up from her plate to the Devil, meeting his gaze. “What sort of steak is this?”

He smiled. “I believe it was the last unicorn.”

Erin retched and covered her mouth, barely managing to keep the food down. “You’re kidding. Right? There’s no such thing as unicorns.”

“Not anymore, there isn’t.” His smile held and she could see the truth in his eyes. God. She was eating a horse. Not just a horse, but a mythical creature. Didn’t unicorns have amazing powers of healing or some rubbish like that? No wonder she felt so revitalised.

And sick.

Erin pushed her plate away.

“You are not finished.” The Devil frowned at the remains on her plate, leaned across the dark wooden table and pushed it back towards her.

Erin shoved it back at him and then smiled politely. “I really couldn’t eat another bite.”

His look darkened. “Sentimentality will be your failing. I find it disappointing to discover such feelings in you.”

She didn’t care if it turned out he was right or what he thought about her. She didn’t want to eat horse, let alone the last unicorn. The sick feeling in her stomach worsened, the food she had consumed sitting like lead in it now.

“Please tell me you didn’t kill it just for this meal?”

The Devil smiled. He had. She felt lousy. She was personally responsible for the extinction of a creature.

“I had to find a way to restore your strength. See, these idiots were not supposed to take you from your home until yesterday and it was supposed to be done during the day... and they were supposed to have brought you directly to me.”

That sounded like three strikes to Erin. The Devil’s golden gaze remained on her but her attention leapt to the three creatures standing in front of the cell door. The one who had taken her shifted foot to foot, a nervous edge about him now.

He looked down at his feet. The ground there burned bright orange and began to bubble. The creature took a leaping step forwards, straight into the path of the Devil. She hadn’t seen him move. He grabbed the large demon by the throat, swung himself up onto his back and took hold of his wings. The creature shrieked and snarled, and frantically tried to shake the Devil off his back. The two other creatures remained at the door, eyes forward, not watching the horror as it played out in front of them.

Erin didn’t want to watch either but she couldn’t take her eyes off the fight. The huge demon struggled but it was no use. The Devil planted his shiny leather shoes between the creature’s shoulder blades, held his leathery dark wings at their base where they attached to his immense body, and leaned back. The demon arched forwards and roared in pain as his wings tore from his back. Blood splattered onto the black floor of her cell, drenching and then soaking into the basalt.

The Devil landed on his feet and casually discarded the pair of wings.

The demon stumbled forwards, face contorted in pain, and tried to get away. It was no use. There was nowhere for him to run. The Devil stalked towards the creature, his expression a mask of darkness and his eyes glowing bright crimson, and grabbed him by one thick arm. He spun on the heel of his polished shoes, swung the demon towards the open wall of her cell and released him.

He screamed the whole way down. Erin covered her ears, closed her eyes, and curled up in her chair.

She had presumed the Devil would be a sadistic and vicious bastard, but he exceeded her expectations. The table knocked against her elbows and she peered up, afraid of what she might see. The Devil sat opposite her, blood splattered across his handsome face and coating his hands. He huffed, produced a deep red handkerchief from his breast pocket, and set about cleaning the blood off his face.

“Now, where were we?” he said and discarded the bloodied handkerchief.

He had missed a spot, a single red streak that cut across his sculpted left cheek, but she didn’t have the courage to mention it. All of her bravery had drained from her and she trembled in her seat, afraid that she would be the next one he pitched over the edge and into the abyss.

“You have lost your fire.” He frowned, black eyebrows pinching tightly, and then sighed and relaxed into his chair. “I apologise. I should have meted out his punishment in private. It was not my intention to startle you.”

Startle? She wasn’t startled. She was petrified.

Erin shook her head, unable to do anything else or speak.

The Devil smiled at her. “Now, I believe you asked why you are here?”

She nodded, heart pounding, fearing what he would say.

“The answer is very simple. It regards a game and your role in it.”

“A game?” She swallowed. What sort of sinister game was he talking about? He nodded and she found her courage. “What’s my role?”

His smile widened, turning cruel and evil.

“You are bait.”

She frowned. “Bait for who?”

Who did she know that the Devil was interested in luring down to Hell?

He waved a hand and a shimmering image appeared behind him. A tropical island. The image zoomed in to the white shore and a woman there.

A shiver cascaded over Erin’s skin and icy fingers squeezed her heart.

Her silver hair reflected the bright sunlight and that part of her didn’t make sense to Erin, but she knew her without a doubt. She would recognise this woman anywhere, had spent the past few months worried about her because she hadn’t been in touch since then, and her calls had been infrequent since a year before that.

Her sister.

Erin’s throat closed and her eyes filled with tears of relief that her sister was safe even while the claws seizing her heart tightened their grip.

“Amelia.”