First, he had mooned over her in the café like a moron wishing that every smile she had given her date had been directed at him. Now he was a creepy kidnapper acting like a teenager with a crush. He was a dozen different kinds of idiot!
I must be losing my mind, he thought. He never felt anything for the souls he retrieved. He didn’t feel much of anything for anyone, with the exception of his buddies. He certainly hadn’t felt anything for a woman in centuries beyond lust, and had never cared what they thought of him or about how he made them feel beyond the basics.
This was clearly a conflict of interest, but no matter how hard he tried, Luc found himself caring what Katia would think of him when she woke up. Would she be afraid? Was she comfortable? Should he have given her another pillow? Cursing himself for a fool, Luc stood abruptly. Of course she would be afraid — he’d kidnapped her from a goddamned café! She would hate him. What was all this nonsense going through his head anyhow? He had a job to do and he was bloody well going to get it done. As soon as she woke up, he would find a way to get her to Halja and hand her over. Rubbing his hand over the sigil that had started burning, Luc grabbed his phone off the dresser and messaged Amir. Maybe he would be willing to make another trip on short notice.
Hearing the clink of metal on metal, Luc turned back to the bed and looked directly into Katia’s astonishing mismatched eyes. They were the most captivating eyes he had ever seen. They stared at each other in silence for a moment, then Katia let out a blood-curdling scream. Luc took a couple of steps toward the bed, arms out in front of himself, palms up. Katia scrambled backwards to the corner of the bed as far as her cuffed wrist would allow. “Who the fuck are you? Don’t come any closer!” she yelled as she yanked on the cuff tethering her to the bed.
“Calm down and stop jerking your arm like that; you’ll hurt yourself.”
“Hurt myself? Hurt myself?!? Fuck you! Like you give a shit!”
“Oddly enough, despite appearances, I do. So, stop it okay?” Luc added quietly as he continued forward until he was able to perch on the edge of the bed again. He reached forward slowly toward Katia’s wrist in order to get a closer look at any damage she may have done in her struggles. Without warning, Katia kicked out and caught Luc in the ribs, knocking him onto the floor.
“Okay, now that was completely unnecessary.” Luc stood, rubbing the sore spot on his ribs. This woman was small but mighty, definitely stronger than she looked. “I just wanted to see if you’d cut yourself on the cuffs.”
Katia narrowed her eyes at him accusingly. “You drugged me!”
“Yes.” Luc said matter-of-factly.
“With what?”
“Horse tranquilizer.”
Katia’s jaw dropped as she took this one in. “A horse tranquilizer! Are you crazy?”
“Don’t worry; it’s not harmful to humans. There shouldn’t be any lasting effects.”
Rubbing her face with her free hand, Katia yanked on her cuffed wrist again. Shaking his head, Luc took a tentative step closer to the bed again. “You should really let me look at that to make sure you haven’t cut yourself.”
“I’m fine. Now tell me where the hell I am.”
“Interesting choice of words. That’s exactly where you are, hell…in a manner of speaking anyhow.”
“Great,” Katia murmured, “I’ve been kidnapped by a lunatic.”
“Not a lunatic, just a guy doing his job. There’s someone you should be familiar with that wants to collect what you owe. You must have known that someone would come for you sooner or later.”
“Could you possibly be any more cryptic? That’s like saying “the thing with the stuff in the place that’s not here.” I mean, seriously, where am I? And who the fuck are you?”
“Outer-Sheol, my apartment to be specific. And my name is Luc — not that it has any bearing on your situation.”
She was looking at him like he’d just escaped from the mental ward. Not the reaction Luc had expected. Satan’s souls typically fought him when he came to collect, but they weren’t confused about the specifics of what was happening; they’d never doubted who he was or where he said they were. The deal was always clear — they got what they wanted in the human world because of demonic magic. In return, Satan owned their soul, to be collected at a time of his choosing. They were all made aware of Sheol and certainly knew that demons existed because they’d have had to call on one in order to make the deal in the first place. If this woman wanted to take the confused, innocent route, Luc had no time to play that game.
“Look, you can pretend not to understand what’s going on if you want, but it won’t change the outcome.”
“Then could you possibly shed a bit of light on what the outcome of my situation is?”
Sighing and rolling his eyes, Luc decided to nip this crap in the bud. “As per your agreement when you sold your soul, Satan has decided to collect. I’ll be dropping you off in his custody as soon as I can find a demon to give us a ride.”
Katia continued to stare at him like he had two heads, a look of confusion mixed with fear. “Let me get this straight. You think that I sold my soul to the devil, and you also think demons exist?”
“I guess that’s the short and dirty version.”
Luc watched as a dizzying array of emotions flitted across Katia’s face, finally settling in a mixture of hope and determination.
“You know,” Katia began kindly, “I’m friends with a doctor down at Grace Hospital. He was there for me when my parents passed away…maybe we can go talk to him…he might be able to make the demons
