The Deal (Devil's Brother Book 1) Read online

  “That is what happens when you spend too long down there. What is it that doesn’t let you give up after so many failures? Is it pride? Stupidity?”

  The smile froze on my face, but I didn’t let him see it. It had always been like that with me and Netzach, ever since my brother Lucifer got banned from Heaven, and I was named Demon Hunter. Netzach wanted to be me so badly, he couldn’t keep from insulting me every time he saw me, even if he tried.

  “Certainty,” I said. “Belief.” And Pride. And Stupidity.

  “Are you sure it’s not just your foolish obsession with humans?” He squinted his eyes at me as if he were really curious.

  I laughed. “Obsession? Are you really that naïve, Zach?”

  “It is you who is naïve,” he said. “You are an Angel, for God’s sake! You don’t need help from humans!”

  “You’re right, I don’t. But I want it. It’s much more efficient. Humans are much more powerful when it comes to separating souls from possession.”

  “Listen to yourself!” he hissed, like I’d just insulted him personally. “They’re only human.”

  “Michael Perkins was only human. Wane Jefferson was only human. May Harwood was only human, just to name a few.” All of them mine. My human helpers. I’d had more than a hundred of them. Heroes, whose names the world would never know, but who had done more for humanity than all the Angels combined.

  “All of what they did was you!” Zach said.

  I shook my head, smiling sadly. “If it were me, why would I still be looking for the next, a century after Wane died?” Wane had been my last human helper.

  “That is what I’m trying to understand.” And he never would. No matter how many times I explained it to Netzach, he would never understand it.

  My brother, the Devil of the underworld, took what he could, whenever he could. He masked his offers as help. As salvation. As opportunities, right up until humans signed their souls over to him with one word out of their mouths.

  I felt it, every single time it happened, no matter where. And most of the time, all I could do was watch.

  When a human gave his soul to the Devil, they did so willingly. Not even Angels could break free will. Our biggest weakness.

  I could release some of them from their deals, but that could only happen in two situations: if the person was tricked into the deal, which happened very rarely because the Devil was a master of this art, and if the person somehow managed to break all—or part—of their deal.

  Which in other words could be called a fucking miracle.

  If one of those two things happened, I could release the souls from their deals. The rest…I could do nothing for. At all.

  A few centuries ago, I released Aru from his deal. A man in his forties who sold his soul to save his daughter from death. It didn’t take him long to break part of the deal he made.

  I released him, and he came after me, begged me to let him help me when I showed him that his daughter was not really her, but merely a ghost of what she used to be. I remembered that day with clarity.

  He walked a few steps behind me, but always kept up. It was amusing to watch him follow me, so I let him. Until I came across a woman who’d sold her soul to the Devil for food on the table for her family. She’d tied her husband to a tree and had an axe in her hands. She was going to kill him. The Devil had ordered her to, and now she had to do it.

  It wasn’t like me to step in at times like that, but her face…I remembered how hard she was crying. How badly her hands were shaking. So I went close to her. Spoke to her. Told her that she could stop this if she chose.

  She didn’t hear me. Couldn’t. She raised the axe and aimed it at her husband’s chest, but Aru stopped her. He took the damned thing from her hand and hugged her.

  He hugged her and told her that it wasn’t too late. That she could regret. That she could still be free.

  I’m not sure what made me put my hand on his forehead, but when I did, his eyes lit up. Two balls of blue light. He looked at the woman. Just looked at her.

  And she was free.

  It was the most beautiful thing I’d seen all my life.

  After that, I kept Aru with me. And when he died, I found May. The strongest woman I’d ever met. When I touched her skin, she began to sing. Her voice was made in Heaven. It was the most powerful thing my ears had heard, and it lured the Devil out of humans in mere seconds. Set them free, just like that. And when she passed, too, I found Michael. Michael and his small dagger that turned bright blue when I touched him. All he had to do was cut a star on the people’s skins with it. Anywhere at all. It did the trick.

  Many others came after, until Wane. He passed away, too, more than a century ago. And I hadn’t had a helper since.

  There was a time in the past when I had more power. I could do more. But it seemed, the more human helpers I had, the more my strength learned to depend on them. I had no complaints for a long time. It was getting a bit too long now.

  Netzach and the other Angels never understood. I never understood, either, but I had a feeling that humans connected to other humans on a much deeper level than we ever could. Their souls were made of the same fabric. That was why they could free trapped souls so easily.

  And even if it wasn’t, I didn’t care. As long as it worked, I couldn’t care less about the why.

  “I’ve explained it to you before, Zach. I won’t do it again.”

  “You have,” Zach said. “And I heard you, loud and clear, every single time. But you never heard me when I explained to you that you have all the power. You are the Angel. Giving a part of yourself to a human is the most dangerous thing any of us can think to do.”

  “It’s not dangerous,” I said, and Netzach smiled like the world was his.

  I shouldn’t have said that. I should have steered the conversation away.

  “Have you forgotten about the Reaper?”

  I made his fucking day when I allowed myself to fall into that trap. He had probably waited for decades to bring it up again. But he was right. My biggest failure. Half of the reason why I was never going to leave Earth. Why I owed myself to every person who had ever lived in the world.

  The Grim Reaper.

  “It happened once. Centuries ago. Once,” I hissed. I was too proud to say how guilty I felt about it. To them, at least.

  “Once?” Zach laughed. “Oh, dear God!” he turned to the others, who joined him in his laughter. “He says it has only happened once, and that makes it alright! Yes, it does, doesn’t it? It’s all all right, because it only happened once!”

  His voice echoed and chased the clouds away. His eyes almost turned red.

  I was tired. Meetings had a way of getting to me. Especially when Grim was brought up.

  It had been a stupid mistake. I was young. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I’d paid for it. I was still paying for it. I always would.

  “I am the Demon Hunter,” I said, my voice as high as his. “It is my duty to protect the humans from my brother.”

  “You’re going to fail. Again,” Zach hissed.

  “I need time.” That was why I was there in the first place. I never would’ve called the stupid meeting if I wasn’t stuck.

  Zach didn’t look happy, and that said more to me than his words could.

  “You have one year.” He spoke the words through clenched teeth.

  I smiled. My call had been answered. I had a little more time to find a helper.

  “One year, Eae. And I’m coming down for you myself. It’s a promise.”

  A year.

  Suddenly, as they all disappeared from the Council, a year sounded so little. So little time to find my helper.

  I didn’t want to leave Earth. So many souls trapped. So many people desperate enough to make deals they would regret for the rest of their lives, without even knowing what they were doing.

  What Netzach and the other Angels said wasn’t the point. No matter what they thought, if there was one Angel fit for this jo
b, it was me. I refused to believe them when they said I was a failure.

  I hadn’t saved a single soul in one hundred years, yes. That was true. But I was not ready to give up yet. Whoever wanted to take my place on Earth had to wait.

  I had another year to find my helper.

  Adrian Ward, one year later

  The dream never left me. The sick feeling in my gut never eased. My father never spoke a single word, but he was up first and down last, every single day.

  He renovated almost everything in the house all by himself. He wouldn’t even let us help him. He’d wave us away each time we tried. He cooked. He cleaned. He never sat down. He was stronger than he’d ever been before.

  And the strangest thing, Dad’s doctor and his nurse, they disappeared, too. They never called. They never came by the house. Not the next Monday at nine in the morning, like they had for the last seven months. Not the one after that. They were simply…forgotten.

  The inability to say no never left me, either. The tattoo on my back never disappeared. The people that somehow wound up at our doorstep, without a clue of how they even got there, never stopped coming.

  At first, it was simple things.

  Beat the boys that won’t leave my daughter alone.

  My colleague saw me having sex with my secretary at the office. She’s a good friend of my wife. She needs to keep her mouth shut.

  My best friend is after the girl I like. I need him to not dare to even go close to her.

  My uncle tried to rape me twice. Nobody believes me, and he’s not going to stop. Can you take care of it?

  My mother’s boyfriend is a thief. I caught him stealing her money, but she won’t listen to me. She’s not going to leave him, so make him leave her.

  My husband left me for another woman. Put him in the hospital for at least a day. I want him to feel what it’s like to be broken.

  I want to break up with my girlfriend, but I don’t know how. How much would I need to pay for you guys to make her cheat on me?

  Sick. All of it.

  But we could never say no.

  My brothers were happy. People paid good money for these kinds of things. We never asked. We never put a price on anything. They simply came to our door, handed us the money, usually around five thousand dollars, and they left. We never heard back from them.

  We bought two new cars. A brand new mower for Dad. A full set of brand new tools he selected himself. We got him everything he wanted, no exception. We got ourselves everything we wanted, too.

  On some days, I was happy, too. Dad was fine. The money was good. The girls better, and for some reason, we never got into trouble, no matter who we left broken and bloody in the middle of the street. I was sure that a policeman had seen us one time while we beat a guy. He’d seen us, and he’d simply looked the other way.

  Nobody talked to us, except for bartenders and girls. Most girls, anyway. Nobody got close to us. They avoided eye contact. They made way for us when we passed. They never sat close to us at bars.

  I was ashamed and proud, all at the same time.

  My head hurt every single day. The guys insisted I’d developed a migraine. It didn’t matter what it was, but no amount of medicine or alcohol could shut it down. I’d learned to live with it. It was a part of me now.

  We were out playing baseball that day—exactly a year after we’d had the dream and made that deal. Dad decided to join us, too. Our yard was huge, and the house was wide enough that it blocked anyone from seeing us from the main street. Across from the house was the woodland. Thick, tall trees occupied a small area, but it was big enough to separate us from the other side. And it was ours.

  Mom had inherited it from her aunt the day she’d married Dad, who’d come all the way from the Big City for work, right after his first family had died in a car accident. Both his first wife and his daughter—my half-sister—dead on the spot.

  He used to say—back when he could speak—that the first time he laid eyes on her, he knew Mom was going to save him. And she had known, too. So they’d married and fulfilled the last wish Mom’s aunt had left in her will, and she got the house. And we’d inherited it after she passed. Around it, there was more than enough space to play around.

  We heard the car before we saw it, and Dad—like always—left the bat on the porch and went inside. He probably knew what we did, though we had never mentioned it. But he always left when one of our “customers” showed up.

  We waited for the car to stop, and a tall man with grey hair stepped out. He wore a ridiculous shirt with too many colors in it, and the top of his head glistened under the sun.

  “Hello.” His voice was shaking. “My name is George.”

  “Hello, George.” Alan grinned and took a step forward, his bat on his shoulder. “What can we do you for?”

  “I was hoping you could help me with something.” George wiped the side of his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

  “You’re going to have to tell us what it is first,” Doc said.

  They enjoyed this part the most. I always stood back unless it was absolutely necessary to participate in the conversation.

  “I-I-I…this is going to sound weird, but I swear to you I’m not a bad person.”

  “We’re sure you’re not,” Alan said. “Wanna tell us what you need?”

  “I-I got married a year ago to a wonderful woman,” George said. For some reason, he sounded like he was crying, though there were no tears in his eyes. Just sweat that covered his face. “And she-she…has a daughter.”

  “Oh,” Alan said, as if he already had it figured out. “Go on.”

  “She’s a great girl, but…but her mother, my wife, doesn’t let her breathe. When her husband died, she made her daughter come back from college. She was supposed to go back after the first year, but my wife doesn’t want to hear it. She’s living with us, and it’s driving me crazy. My wife won’t have children with me, because she doesn’t want to make her daughter feel bad. She won’t move to New York with me because of her. It’s like she’s her husband!”

  George laughed awkwardly.

  “She’s her daughter,” I said. I never liked to speak without being asked, but this was ridiculous. How could he not understand?

  “Yeah, and she’s going to drive me nuts,” George said. “I-I-I love my wife. More than anything in the world. But she can’t be really mine with her daughter still there.”

  “What exactly do you want us to do?” Doc asked. He wasn’t smiling anymore, and neither was Alan.

  “I want you to get rid of her. Kidnap her or something. Just get rid of her. Make sure she never comes back.”

  My face grew numb.

  “We’re not murderers,” I hissed and took a step forward, my bat ready.

  “I’ll give you fifteen thousand dollars. It’s all I have.”

  He pulled an envelope from his back pocket.

  “We don’t want your fucking money!” I shouted.

  “In here is all of it. The money, the information, everything you need to know.”

  George looked at the three of us, then decided to approach Doc, and leave the envelope in his hand. And Doc took it.

  “I’m not a bad person. I’m really not.” Real fucking funny. “But I need my life to be mine with my wife. Please,” he whispered.

  I could see Alan through the corner of my eye. His mouth was open, but he wasn’t saying anything. Because he couldn’t.

  No, I thought, but just as expected, the words didn’t come. Noise went on in my head, and it sliced my brain in two.

  “We’re not murderers,” I repeated and took another step towards him. “We’re not fucking murderers!”

  “Please,” George said. “I’ll give you more money. Just name your price. Anything.”

  No! No, no, no!

  But the words wouldn’t come. My throat was dry. My chest and head were pounding. Everything else became a blur, but the man’s face. I should’ve killed him right then and there for asking us t
o do that. For making us do that. Kill someone.

  But how could he know that we couldn’t refuse?

  “Go home, George. And don’t ever come back here again,” Alan said.

  “Will you d-d-do it?”

  Alan sighed. “Yes.”

  George ran to his car and disappeared before I could begin to even think clearly.

  “Are we murderers now? Killers? Hit men? What the hell?”

  My headache was terrible, and I was seeing double, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the pain or the anger. Could have been both.

  “We can’t say no, Adrian,” Doc said, and it sounded like a warning.

  “I’m not going to do this,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve beaten people up for a year, and I’ll continue to do that for another six, but I’m not killing anyone.”

  “Do you think we have a fucking choice?” Alan shouted.

  “I don’t care!”

  “Stop being a pussy,” Doc said. “We have to do what we have to do.”

  “I’m a pussy for not wanting to kill someone? We’re talking about taking a life here, you asshole!”

  “We know what we’re talking about, you moron. Stop being a little kid! You made the deal, too! Don’t you dare blame it on us, you fucking prick!” Alan said, and he kept throwing small stones at me.

  “I thought it was a fucking dream!”

  I’d have never made a deal with the fucking Devil if I’d known it was real. They wouldn’t have, either.

  “Well, it wasn’t. And we made the damn deal. Dad’s fine, and he’s doing his part. We just have to do ours,” Alan said.

  “Are you seriously this calm about it? You’re okay with having to kill an innocent girl?”

  It wasn’t their fault. I knew that, and I didn’t want to be a prick. But I couldn’t help it. I just didn’t understand why they weren’t freaking out.

  “What the hell are we supposed to do?” Alan grabbed my shoulders and shook me. That’s when I saw the tears in his eyes, tears he’d never let spill. “Give me an alternative. One. Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”