The demon Devina was as close to all-powerful as you could get without being the one who had created the Earth and the heavens: She could assume all manner of visages and bodies, becoming anyone at any time in any place. She could imprison souls for an eternity. She commanded an army of the undead.
And if you crossed her, she could make life a living hell for you. Literally.
But she had one little problem.
"I'm sorry I'm late," she said as she rushed into the cozy red office. "I had a meeting that ran longer than I'd thought."
Her therapist smiled from her arm chair. "Not to worry. Would you like a minute to collect yourself?"
Devina was indeed frazzled, and as she sat down, she put her Prada bag to the side. Taking a deep breath, she patted the corporeal illusion of brunette hair that the human woman saw, and pushed at the lizard-print leather pants that actually existed.
"Work has been hell," she said, glancing down to double-check that her bag was zipped up. There were bloodstains on the sweatshirt inside, and the last thing she needed was to have to explain them. "Absolute hell."
"I was glad you called for the extra night session. After last week, I've been thinking about you and what happened. How are you doing?"
Devina downshifted out of the chaos she'd just come from and focused on herself. Which was not a happy thing. Instantly, tears sprang to her eyes. "I'm . . ."
Not okay.
She forced herself to say something. "The movers got everything into my new place, and most of it is still in boxes. I spent the afternoon trying to unpack, but there's so much, and I have to make sure it's ordered correctly. I need to check that my--"
"Devina, stop talking about the things." The therapist made a little note in her black book. "We can get to planning toward the end of the session. I want to know how you are. Talk to me about how you feel."
Devina looked across the needlepoint rug and wondered, not for the first time, what the woman would think if she knew she was treating a demon. Ever since Devina had been in Caldwell, she'd been coming to see the psychologist--so it was over a year now. She kept her true identity hidden under her favorite skin of a sexy, chic, brunette female, but the underneath . . . especially after her first loss to Jim Heron . . . was a fucking mess.
And this human was actually helping her.
Devina snapped a tissue out of the box on the table beside her. "I just . . . I hate moving. I feel totally out of control. And lost. And . . . scared."
"I know you do." Warmth positively wafted out of the woman's pores. "Changing homes is the hardest thing for someone like you to do. I'm very proud of you."
"I had no time. No time to do it right." More tears. Which she hated. But, God, she'd had to rip her collections out of their rightful places in a matter of hours, scrambling, throwing things into boxes. "I still haven't been able to sort through everything and make sure nothing was broken or lost."
Oh, God . . . lost.
Panic fanned into her chest and made the heart she had co-opted beat triple-time.
"Devina, look at me."
She had to force her eyes to focus through the panic attack. "I'm sorry," she choked out.
"Devina, the anxiety is not about the things. It's about your place in this world. It's the space you declare as yours emotionally and spiritually. You must remember that you don't need objects to justify your existence or make yourself feel safe and secure."
Okay, that all sounded well and good, but her things on the earth were what tied her to the souls she owned down below, the only link she had to her "children." Over the centuries, she had amassed personal possessions from every soul she'd taken: buttons, cuff links, rings, earrings, thimbles, knitting needles, glasses, keys, pens, watches . . . the list went on and on. She preferred things made of precious metal, but any kind of metal would do: Similar to the way the substance reflected light, it also gave off the reverberations of the one who'd owned it, worn it, used it.
The radiated imprint of those humans was the only thing that calmed her when she couldn't get down to her sanctuary for a personal visit.
God, she hated having to work on earth.
On a shudder, she blotted her tears. "I just can't stand being so far away from them."
"You need your job, though. You've told me yourself. And your ex-husband is better equipped to handle the day-to-day care of your children."
"He is." She'd had to shoehorn her backstory into some semblance of a human's situation. There was no ex-husband, needless to say, but the parallel worked: Her souls were safe where she left them. It just killed her to be away. There was no place she'd rather be than at the bottom of her well, watching the writhing, screaming throng trapped forever in her walls.
Playing with them was fun, too.
"So where did you end up?" the therapist asked. "After your boyfriend and you decided to end your relationship, where did you go here in town?"
Now her anxiety switched to anger. She couldn't believe she'd lost the first battle with Jim Heron . . . or that that fucking bastard had infiltrated her private space. Thanks to him and those other two angels, she'd had to take everything she had and vacate that loft at a dead run.
"I have a friend who has a building that's vacant." Not a friend actually. Just some guy she'd fucked until he signed all the papers. Then she'd killed him, stuffed his body into a hazardous-waste drum, and sealed the thing up good. He was in his own basement now, decomposing comfortably.
"And the move is completed?"
"Yes, everything's there. But as I said, I just haven't arranged it properly." She had, however, found another virgin, which she'd promptly sacrificed and put to good use protecting the mirror that got her to back to Hell. "I've put in a security system, though."
If anyone breached the blood seal into the room where her most prized possession was, she'd find out in a heartbeat. It was how she had known the instant when Jim and his angel buddies had violated her space. How she'd saved her things.
Virgins were a pain the ass to find these days, though. With everyone having sex so much, what had once been a piece of cake to get was now becoming rarer and rarer. She never killed children; that was just wrong--it would be like someone taking one of her souls away from her. But try finding someone over eighteen who hadn't been in the sack. You could be at it for days.
Long live the abstinence movement, was all she could say.
"Wait, building?" the therapist said. "You're not staying in some building, are you?"
"Oh, no. I'm at a hotel for the time being. Work is taking me out of town. Up to Boston, actually." Because it was time for the second battle with her nemesis.
And goddamn it, she was going to win this one.
"Devina, this is such good work." The therapist clapped her hand on her knee and smiled. "You're living apart from your things. You've made a breakthrough."
Not really, considering that she could be anywhere in the blink of an eye.
"Now tell me, how's work? I know last week was rough."
Devina's hand found her bag and she stroked the soft leather. "It's going to get better. I'm going to make it better."
"Your new coworker. How are things going with him? I know there'd been some initial friction." Friction? Yeah, you could say that.
She thought of her and Jim Heron in the parking lot of the Iron Mask, him buried deep inside of her, her riding him hard. In spite of the fact that she hated him with a passion, she wouldn't mind a little more private time with him.
Devina straightened her spine. "He's not going get the vice presidency. I don't care what I have to do, but I've worked too long and hard to have some guy barge in and take what's mine."
Seven souls. Seven chances for good or evil to win. And the first one had gone to the other side. Three more went in favor of Jim Heron and she was not only out of a "job," but the angels took over the Earth and each and every one of her souls were redeemed.
All her work for nothing: Her collections gone. Her army gone. Herself . . . gone.
She stared at her therapist. "I will not let him win."
The woman nodded. "Do you have a plan?"
Devina patted her bag. "I do. I absolutely do."
After the session, Devina took herself north and east, casting herself into the air as a dark shadow and winging her way through the night. She coalesced on Boylston Street, across from the Boston Public Garden, where the weeping willows over the pond were just greening up.
The demure brick box of the Four Seasons Hotel took up nearly the entire block, between its entrance, porte cochere, and windowed restaurants. Although the exterior was quite plain, the interior was all warm wood and elegant brocade, and there were always fresh flowers.
She could have just flashed up to her room, but what a waste of an outfit: her Escada lizard-print pants and Chanel blouse were stunners, to say nothing of her Stella McCartney trench.
And what do you know, only her second night here and already the doormen and front-desk staff called out greetings as she swept into the lobby, her Louboutins clipping on the marble.
Which served to remind her of what she already knew: Of all the suits of illusioned flesh she had ever worn, this one--of a brunette woman with legs that didn't quit and a set of breasts that made human men trip over their own tongues--was the one that fit her best. Even though technically she was a sexless "it," experience had proven that her arsenal of weapons was best wielded by a manicured hand.
Plus she liked the clothes for women better.
The fucking, too.
Her suite on the top floor had a magnificent view of the garden and the Boston Common, and a lot of grand rooms--as well as excellent room service. The bouquet of roses was a nice touch and supplied gratis.
Which was what you got when you paid thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars for digs.
She walked through the sitting room and the master bedroom to the marble bath. On the counter between the two sinks, she put down her bag and took out the sweatshirt she'd taken from that MMA octagon. The hoodie was the color of fog and a size double-XL. Found at any Wal-Mart or Target, it was one of those anonymous garments that could have been worn by any man, something that was easy to find, easy to afford. Nothing special.
Except this one was unique. Especially given the bloodstains.
Thank God those cops had shown up when they had. Otherwise, she would have missed the appointment with her therapist altogether.
Quickly shedding her clothes, she tried to leave them in a wrinkly mess . . . and lasted about a minute and a half. The disorder made her head hum and she had to gather them up, stride for the closet, and hang everything where it needed to be. She'd worn a bra, so that got put in the bureau. No panties to worry about.
She was decidedly calmer as she went back to work at the bathroom counter.
Taking out a pair of golden shears from her makeup case, she cut a circle into the sweatshirt over where the heart of the man who wore it would have been. Then she diced up the fabric, the cotton fibers giving way easily and falling to the smooth marble in a little pile.
She used one side of the scissors to slice into her palm, and her blood ran dirty gray as it dropped onto the nest she'd made.
For a moment, she was transfixed with disappointment. She wished her blood ran red--so much more attractive.
Truth be told, Devina hated the way she really looked. Far better this body. And the others.
Picking up the sweatshirt's clippings and grinding them into the tainted blood on her palm, she pictured the man who had had the fabric against his flesh, seeing his hard face and the brush cut that was growing out and the tattoos on his body.
Still milling her hand and keeping an image of Isaac Rothe in her head, Devina walked naked into the bedroom and sat on the duvet. On the side table, she opened a squat ebony box and took out a hand-carved chess piece, the depiction of the queen not nearly as beautiful as her suit of flesh. She hadn't seen Jim Heron whittle the grand lady, but he had and she pictured him doing so in her mind, imagining him curled around a sharp knife, his sure hands wielding a steel edge to reveal the object within the wood. Pressing what he had made into her bleeding palm, along with the fibers from the sweatshirt, she melded them, integrated them. Then she leaned over and picked up a candle, which lit at her will. Lying down, she blew across the flame, the mingling essences of all three of them flowing over the flame.
The purple glow that emanated on the far side covered her, enveloping her in phosphorescence . . . calling the owners of the things together . . . calling them to her.
Jim Heron wasn't going to know what hit him this time. He might have won the first round, but that wasn't happening again.