MICHELE HAUF.
THE DEVIL TO PAY.
Prologue.
I van Drake celebrated his twenty-first birthday by handing over his soul to the devil Himself. It wasn't a mutual agreement; the deal had been signed, sealed and delivered twenty-one years, eight months and five days earlier.
Ivan's parents had made the bargain only days after his conception.
From very early on, Ivan's parents had told him the truth. They had been young, in love and hadn't realized he had been conceived when they'd promised Himself their firstborn. Hell, Nikolaus Drake had despised Ravin Crosse at the time; as a vampire, the last thing he would have purposefully sought to do would be to father a child, let alone father one with the witch he'd once hated enough to wish dead.
A misdirected love spell had brought the two enemies together. They grew to genuinely love one another: Nikolaus, the phoenix vampire; and Ravin Crosse, a witch who once stalked vampires to their deaths. Their child had been born half witch and half vampire. The most powerful vampire/witch hybrid to walk this earth, they believed.
Ivan did possess unlimited power, yet with the added encumbrance of the devil riding his back.
Ivan had almost forgotten his fate as he'd entered his teen years. His parents had taught him to be moral and were ever trying to focus their son's attention on the future, and the goodness he could create in this world, instead of allowing him to wallow in his destiny.
Not being schooled in the public education system, Ivan had studied alongside his father until he was fifteen, then he'd gone on to Princeton at the ripe old age of sixteen. He had studied generals in college, not necessarily focused on any career but with a mind to understanding the world, its cultures and the people and politics that shaped it. He'd graduated with a bachelor's degree in sociology and history in his nineteenth year.
The most valuable lesson Ivan's parents had given him? Tolerance. He did not take sides in the ever-present war between vampires and witches, a war that currently threatened to destroy one side or even both.
Having toasted his birthday and opened a few gifts, Ivan now strode the dark alleyway in the city where his parents lived, Minneapolis. Ivan was a free spirit, and, due to a small trust fund and an excellent accountant, he owned houses all over the world. Nikolaus Drake's foresight had spread family residences about the world. Ivan put great merit in his father's business sense and wisdom.
Well into the small hours of morning, the night wasn't yet still. In the distance a car honked, and perhaps a taxi squealed to pick up the last of the bar crowd as booze-dizzied singles headed home in pairs to finish encounters begun with a wink and a dance.
The air, sticky humid, and the late August temperature, still in the nineties, melted Ivan's cotton T-shirt to his flesh like plastic wrap. He tugged it off and gave his back a stretch, flexing his arms and inhaling a cleansing breath.
He didn't immediately associate the strange smell with his fate. But he would soon regret not recognizing the sulfuric taint that had clung to him from the moment he'd stepped out from his parents' loft edging the Mississippi River.
Ivan stopped in the center of the alley. He sensed a presence behind him. Being a vampire made it easy to pick up the minutest of sounds, including spiders and mice scurrying through the cracked brick wall to his left.
But it was the scent that bothered him most. And though he'd not ever smelled it before, he could name it without question.
Brimstone whispered upon the atmosphere, snaking, prodding. It suffused his very being.
Ivan's heart fell in his chest.
He'd known this was coming. But though he'd thought about its arrival, he'd never really anticipated the moment.
Bolstered by innate confidence, his resolve held firm. He stood there, fists curling and shoulders rolled back to bulk up the muscle honed by years of world-crossing adventure and defensive training.
Be calm, he cautioned inwardly. Accept what you must.
He would never forget the sound of hooves upon asphalt. One, and then another. Stepping into his psyche. A glass-breaking crunch pounded a basso thump up through Ivan's ankles and reverberated along his spine.
Himself had arrived to claim his soul.
"Ivan Everhart Drake," a deep, sepulchral voice commanded. "Turn and face your master."
Ivan had faced all sorts of dark denizens, demons and just plain nasty vampires in his life-but for the first time, he felt sweat form in the creases of his palms and a reedy whine sought to escape the back of his throat. His limbs shook subtly.
Turning abruptly, Ivan cut off a choke of fear. His leg muscles loosened and felt as if they would snap out from under him, bringing him down-but by some miracle he maintained an upright stance.
Looming three or four heads taller than Ivan's six and a half feet, the creature before him occupied the very air with a dark eminence. Regal. Macabre. Heartrending. It owned the humid air, sick with a miasma of fetid refuse and chemicals. It commandeered the glittering eyes that crept in the shadows. It bled pain from the lost. It devoured mirth with a twist of limb, a slice of flesh.
It owned Ivan's very breath.
Horns black as jet curled out in top-heavy spirals from the skull. The beast's gaunt face was shellacked with the blackest flesh.
Ebony talons clacked at the ends of humanlike fingers growing from near-as-mortal arms. The body appeared human, though distorted in musculature and all of black greasy flesh, like fresh tar steaming on the freeway. Strangely disjointed legs ended with thick, cloven hooves.
"Don't stare, boy. Only into my eyes is where I wish to feel you."
And Ivan met that challenge. Red irises teemed with liquid-black electricity. Swallowed whole by those eyes, Ivan felt his confidence sink.
"You have been told of your debt to me?" Ivan nodded. And now his legs did give way. He couldn't prevent his reaction. Much as he wished to stand firm, he dropped to his knees.
So this is how it will be. The thought stirred bile in his gut.
"Good. You will show the appropriate respect to me from now on."
Himself leaned forward. A clacking talon shivered before Ivan's face. With a snap, the multijointed fingers stretched out in a hideous gesture of command.
Ivan's body jerked forward, his chest arching high and his ribs straining at the intense pull, as he was lifted from his knees. But his toes touched the ground. His arms whipped backward, stretching at the shoulder sockets sharply. Pain soughed through him.
Incredible searing fire worked every muscle of his being, collecting in his extremities and working toward his center.
He cried out, but no sound left his throat. He wanted to slap at his chest to numb the havoc, but his body was not his to command.
And a brilliant light exploded from his chest, drawn toward the directing orchestration of Himself's talon. The light sparkled, so vast, fathomless.
A tear rolled down Ivan's cheek.
Gone. His soul. Raped from his body.
Landing on the gritty asphalt on all fours, Ivan rolled forward, coughing as he attempted to draw in air.
Give it back. But the sounds would not leave his mouth.
Taken. Claimed. He must now begin his slavery-a promise made without his consent. He wanted to crawl away into the darkness. Was it not where he now belonged?
But no, something inside of him would not surrender. You are better than that. You will never succumb, not completely. So instead, he pushed up with his hands, and knelt proudly before Himself.
The dark prince swept Ivan's gorgeous soul into a ball and opened his maw and shoved it inside. A glint of pure light appeared in each of Himself's obsidian eyes, and he grinned with the smile of a satisfied diner.
"Well kept, Drake. It is rare the soul of a vampire and a witch is so pure. You've drunk your blood and cast your spells, but it's all been done with good intention."
"I have never done a soul harm if I could prevent it."
"What a sorry half-breed creature you are."
The sudden strike across his jaw sent Ivan sprawling to the left. Blood oozed from his split cheek; he could feel the cut flesh with his tongue, so deep it had gone.
Himself chuckled. The humorless sound burbled up brimstone, and the buzz of a million insects swarmed Ivan's brain.
"From this day forth you are my fixer, boy. Your soul is mine. I command your nights. You will be my eyes, my ears and my vengeance upon this mortal ground. You will track those who seek to betray me and punish them swiftly so they will know my wrath. Welcome to hell, Ivan Drake."
Cloven hooves pranced around him as Ivan again pushed himself to his knees. Disoriented and shivering with the pining need for his stolen soul, he cringed when something icy touched him at the back of his neck.Himself drew his long black tongue down from the base of Ivan's skull to the center of his bare back, relishing the slow, lascivious act. Like hoar frost on steel to wet flesh, and yet steam rose.
And in its wake, black tendrils dug into Ivan's flesh and spiked out, drawing themselves in darkness across his back. A shadow of Himself's reflection. It rooted down deep, wrapping barbed tips about Ivan's ribs and lungs and poking at the hard muscles of his heart.
"You are mine," declared the master of darkness.
Chapter 1.
Seven years later...
I van Drake slapped his palm across the offender's reedy neck and shoved hard. Simon Grimm hacked out a groan as his spine and shoulders collided with a brick wall.
It was midnight. Ivan had tracked the mark from his legal office in downtown Berlin to this ritzy underground parking garage boasting rubber flooring and a heated car wash.
"You've been stealing souls, psychopomp," Ivan hissed.
He clamped both hands to the man's bony shoulders and pressed his fingertips until he felt the silk business suit tear-and then flesh popped. Blood perfumed the air, meaty and more than a little inviting.
"Let go of me! Who the hell are you?"
Ivan dug in deeper. "I'm your worst nightmare."
"Ha! You don't know nightmares until you've vomited up the sins of murderers. You don't scare me."
How the idiot managed such lack of reason-so many of his marks acted equally as belligerent-never ceased to amaze Ivan.
This psychopomp had been moonlighting as a sin eater. Simon Grimm had been stealing souls for years, and Himself wanted it stopped.
Grimm kicked, his leather loafer landing on Ivan's thigh. Though the man was as tall as Ivan, he was slender and wasn't designed for defense. Or self-preservation.
Slapping the guy hard across the cheek sent him reeling to the ground. He landed ten feet from where Ivan stood, but inches from the license plate of a black BMW claiming SHESMINE.
Giving his head a discombobulating shake, Grimm then spat out blood. "Let me guess, Himself sent you. Are you the devil's fixer?
Shouldn't you be less GQ and more Demon's Quarterly?"
"You're stealing his souls," Ivan reiterated.
Stretching his left arm out pumped a bicep beneath the fitted Italian leather jacket. So he liked style. Just because he was a badass didn't mean he couldn't look good doing it.
Stalking toward the fallen cretin, he fisted his hands. Neck tense, he strained to unmake those fists.
Just once. Could I resist just once? Turn away and run. Leave this wretched psychopomp to a hell of his own making.
But his fists remained. Ivan was the psychopomp's designated hell for the evening. Every time Ivan tried to fight the coercion, it coiled tighter about his will. A boa constrictor wrapped about his very being. Anger over his life boiled in his gut, making escape from the invisible bonds impossible.
He was the devil Himself's fixer. And he hated every second of it.
"I'll never stop!" Grimm shouted as he shuffled along the wall, spider-long legs scrambling across the rubber-tiled floor, away from Ivan's relentless approach.
Grimm was a soul shepherd, a man who ferried souls after death, directing them, much like a traffic cop, either to heaven or hell.
The official term was psychopomp. Lately, he'd been directing far too many of Himself's plunder in the other direction-that is, after he'd eaten away their sins.
While Ivan cheered for those unofficially pardoned souls, he also understood the universe functioned thanks to a system of checks and balances. If a soul was intended for Himself, it shifted the universal balance to send it elsewhere.
"There's nothing you can do to me that'll hurt worse than my life already does," Grimm slammed out. "Go ahead. Beat me bloody. If I can rescue a soul from the flames, then I will."
Ivan leaned over the shivering psychopomp. "There are no flames," he said calmly.
"How do you know? Every man conceives his own hell. I say there's flames!"
Lifting the man until his feet dangled above the rubber matting, Ivan held him beneath both armpits. Grimm didn't struggle because he was exhausted. So it was easy for Ivan to tap into the coercion-Himself's power-and conjure a summoning.
The shadow on the back of his neck pulsated with what Ivan had come to know as a sort of wickedly macabre pleasure. It acted as an entity apart from Ivan, and yet its roots were planted deep in his being.
Focusing his every sense to the psychopomp's spirit, his very essence, Ivan mined deep for those tendrils of darkness never completely purged after an eating. The man had been eating sins and then sending the newly cleansed sinner on to heaven. Even Ivan disapproved of that. Sinners should know better; no amount of money could buy their way to heaven, even after their deaths.
Ivan felt the heavy darkness rise to the man's surface, like molecules of sludge bubbling up through the fragile veil of humanity.
Sour wickedness tapped at Ivan's palms, teasing, vying for entrance through the pores of his flesh, but he blocked it.
Instead, he released the summons, and it flowed from Grimm in a massive black cloud, which instantly surrounded the man, fixing to him like a hungry hive eager for blood. It buzzed over the twitching psychopomp as Ivan held him in the air. Legs kicking, and now shouting bloody murder, Grimm struggled against the vicious darkness he'd never known he'd harbored within.
Remnants of his client's stolen sins took their due.
When the inhuman shrieks grew hoarse and the man's body fell limp, Ivan deported the summons. It happened with a sigh from the psychopomp and a prick of icy pain to Ivan's shadow. He dropped Grimm on the ground and stepped away.
Fifty feet away, the exit to the garage opened to the night. Not a single city building blocked the view of the black summer sky.