The Sinner by Emma Scott

Fourteen

We arrived at the 5 Bar on West 32nd. The karaoke lounge was busy for a Tuesday night, but most of the patrons were Ocean Alliance staff. Abby, looking stunning in green, waved frantically as she nudged Jana by the arm, nearly spilling her drink.

“You’re here and you look wow!” Abby crowed. “Doesn’t she?”

“You do,” Jana said. “But you always did.”

“Now she’s extra,” Abby said. She pushed between Casziel and me. “I think I can guess your favorite color,” she said to him. “Not that I’m complaining. Black is so you.”

I’d had the same thought but never said it out loud. Hearing it from Abby felt like she was claiming a little piece of him.

“Come on. Let’s all get a drink.” Abby linked arms with both of us, then leaned in to me. “Guy is already here, and he didn’t bring a date for a change. Coincidence? I think not.”

At the bar, Kimberly and her fiancée, Nylah, were talking close and laughing. They both stopped when they saw us approach, and my boss’s eyes widened. “Lucy? Is that you?”

I tilted my neck to let my hair fall in my face, but it was piled up on my head. I felt exposed, nowhere to hide. “Abby did it. For fun.”

“Well, you look great,” Kimberly said. “Cas, was it? This is my fiancée, Nylah.”

“A pleasure,” Casziel said, taking the woman’s hand. “And congratulations to you both.”

“Thank you,” Nylah said. Like everyone else, she stared at him a little longer than necessary, like she couldn’t believe he was real.

“I just can’t get over your accent,” Abby crowed at Casziel. “You really have to tell us all about yourself. Start with Iraq and finish with meeting our little Lucy.”

“I’m sure Cas doesn’t want to give us his life story in a karaoke bar,” Kimberly said, shooting me a soft smile. “We’re here to sing. Badly. Are you up for some karaoke, Cas?”

“Sure,” he muttered, his eyes hardening at something over my shoulder. “I do a mean ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’”

I followed his dark gaze. Guy Baker was approaching, looking wholesome and handsome in jeans and a button down rolled up at the sleeves, beer in hand.

“Good evening, ladies,” he said with his usual grin. He nodded at the demon. “Cas.”

Casziel’s smile was barbed enough to break skin. “Guy.”

I nudged him with my elbow, but Guy wasn’t paying him any attention. He was staring at me as if he’d never seen a woman up close before.

“Lucy…” He gave a low whistle. “Wow, you look…”

“I know, right?” Abby cried, ruining the moment.

Not that there was a moment to ruin. I’d been yearning for Guy to see me as more than an office fixture for two years. Now that he was, all I could feel was the heat of Casziel’s wrath radiating like a furnace…and the answering heat in my body. A burning desire that was exciting and new and yet had been smoldering for ages, ready to catch fire. One touch, one heated glance…

You’re nuts. The dress is so tight, it’s cutting off oxygen to your brain.

“I take some credit for the dress, but this is allll Lucy,” Abby said. “Isn’t she gorgeous?”

“She is,” Guy said. “You are, Luce.”

“Oh, uh…thank you,” I managed, not daring to look at Cas. But I didn’t have to. He was telegraphing his emotions with breathtaking clarity. Protectiveness. Possessiveness. Jealousy…

He’s just playing the part. Like we planned.

Finally, Guy blinked as if coming out of a trance—one that I’d cast on him—and turned to the group, beaming.

“Shots! We need to celebrate the impending nuptials of our fearless leader.”

“None for me, thanks,” Jana said. “My kid doesn’t need Cuervo-flavored breast milk.”

Kimberly laughed, then fixed Guy with a mock stern look. “Just one for me. And I’m holding you to your promise that everyone will show up at the office tomorrow.”

“Oh, we will.” Guy grinned as the bartender lined up six little glasses and filled them with tequila. “I just can’t promise we’ll get any work done.”

“Are you bringing Cas to the wedding, Lucy?” Kimberly asked. She turned to him. “You’re more than welcome.”

“Yes, are you?” Abby asked. “You have to. I insist.”

I coughed and caught Cas’s glance. “Um, sure. If he wants to go…”

Smooth as black silk, Cas put a hand to his heart. “I would be honored if you would have me. My thanks for the gracious invitation.”

“Holy chivalry Batman.” Nylah shook her head, her dark curls brushing her shoulders.

Kim nodded. “Someone’s mother raised him well.”

Everyone laughed and reached for their glasses.

“To Nylah and Kimberly,” Guy said, holding up his shot. He turned his gaze to me. “And to new beginnings.”

No one missed the smile he gave me. Especially Cas. His eyes shot molten daggers at Guy, and then the demon tossed back his tequila as if it were water. I held up my glass for the toast but didn’t dare taste it. There was no chance I was going to get drunk again, not after waking up on my kitchen floor in a puddle of broken glass.

I ordered a bottle of water from the bartender. When I turned back around, Abby had her arm linked in Cas’s again, and they were deep in conversation. His back was to me; I couldn’t read his face, but Abby looked rapt and naturally sexy in a way that I’d never look, no matter how many red dresses I wore or how many pounds of makeup I put on my face. I studied her, as if I could tell if they’d slept together just by reading her face.

Which would be perfectly okay and none of my business.

An hour slipped by, then another. Ocean Alliance staff took turns warbling songs on a small stage set at the back of the bar. I wound up at a table with Jana, Abby, and Cas. Guy sat at the next table over, but he’d moved his chair so that it was lined up next to mine. He seemed to have started the celebrations before we arrived and got progressively drunker as the night wore on. We chatted now and then about our coworkers’ singing abilities (or lack thereof). Every time I risked a glance at him, he was watching me.

And Casziel was watching us.

Even with Abby practically sitting in his lap, peppering him with questions, his gaze slid between Guy and me, and he didn’t like what he was seeing.

The night was dragging, and I was more than ready to leave when Dale stopped by to chat with Jana, and Abby excused herself to the restroom. Cas and I were left alone.

“You don’t have to go to the wedding,” I told him. “Abby has a way of putting people on the spot. But if you don’t want to go—”

“I’m only here for a few more days. The wedding will be the last opportunity to enact our plan. Which seems to be working.”

“Yeah, I guess it is. But you don’t seem happy about it.”

He sipped his wine. “I’m ecstatic.”

“What’s wrong? You agreed to this—”

“I know what I agreed to,” Cas seethed, his eyes hard. “I just…” He shook his head and looked away, his gaze finally landing on my empty water glass. “Would you like another?” he asked, gentler now.

“Just one more. I’m driving,” I said with a small smile.

The hard angles in his face softened, almost pained. He leaned in, his eyes full of that longing that touched something so deep in me… I couldn’t see it but felt it was there. Waiting.

“Lucy…”

I held my breath and then Abby bounced back to the table. Cas abruptly stood and she grabbed his hand. “Are you getting another round? Be a love and grab me another appletini? Thanks, baby.”

Baby…

Cas headed for the bar. Abby watched him go, her gaze sweeping over him. She leaned toward me and shouted to be heard above someone’s off-key rendition of “Love Shack.”

“That man is something else.”

“You can say that again,” I muttered.

“There’s something I can’t put my finger on. So sexy but like…” She waved her hand. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”

Beautiful.

Frustrating.

Familiar.

I coughed. “Polite.”

“Right,” Abby rolled her eyes. “He’s polite. Was that part of the contract?”

I made a fist under the table. “If you have something to say, Abby, just say it.”

She laughed. “No need to get snippy, babe! I just think it’s great, how you’re taking the initiative. First agreeing to present on Monday and now going for it with Guy. It’s like a whole new Lucy.”

I wanted to tell her it wasn’t a new me. It was the same me I’ve always been, but Casziel was drawing me out of myself. Being with him was like uncovering something that had been buried for a long time. Years, even.

“What I’m asking,” Abby said, her dark eyes sharp, “which escort service did you use?”

I sat back, feeling punched in the gut.

Her face broke into an innocent, disbelieving smile. “Oh, honey, we talked about this! I think it’s a fab idea. Guy hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you all night. He likes a challenge.”

My stomach churned, and I wanted nothing more but to vanish and reappear in my apartment.

Turn into a raven and fly away…

The MC took the stage, consulting the karaoke sign-up sheet. “Up next, we have Guy Baker. Come on up, Guy!”

Our group cheered and hollered as Guy, swaying slightly, took the stage. Abby turned to watch, leaving me to stew in her insinuations.

She’s not wrong, is she? Deber sneered.

I tried to ignore her and watched as Guy took the mic in one hand, holding a beer in the other. The first strains of a soft song began to play. It took a second until I recognized it, “Lady in Red.” Heads turned my way as it became apparent to everyone in the room to whom Guy was singing.

Oh my God…

Jana swiveled to look at me, eyes wide. “Girl…”

“I have never seen that dress you’re wearing,” Guy crooned. “I have been blind…”

Abby burst out laughing and grabbed her phone to record the scene. “Oh my God, Guy is secretly a huge sap. Who knew?” She swiveled her camera to me. “Soak it up, Luce. The moment you’ve been waiting for.”

I shut my slack-jawed mouth and shied away from Abby’s phone, my face burning as red as my dress. I felt Casziel at the bar but couldn’t look at him. Every lyric of Guy’s warbling serenade felt like a betrayal. A broken promise to Cas, though I couldn’t fathom why.

Mercifully, the song ended, and Guy came off the stage, stumbling straight to me. He collapsed into his chair in a cloud of potent alcohol and breath mints.

“I’ll give you some privacy,” Abby said, giggling, and put her phone away. She hurried to join Cas at the bar.

“That was for you,” Guy said.

“Yeah, I guessed that,” I said, smiling weakly. “Thank you. It was very…nice.”

His smile was sheepish, his blue eyes glassy. “I don’t normally do stuff like that, but something compelled me. Or maybe it was just that you looked so beautiful.”

No one was paying attention to Jana and Dale’s rendition of “Islands in the Stream”—the entire company had their eyes on us, murmuring and nudging. Guy didn’t seem to notice or care. His gaze was glued to me, looking at me like I’d imagined him doing a hundred times in my pathetic fantasies.

“You came here with Cas, right?” He inclined his chin toward the bar. “I don’t think I got the whole story the other night. What’s up with you two?”

The four-thousand-year-old question…

I cleared my throat, remembering we had a plan to stick to. “We just met. I don’t know where it’s going, if anywhere.”

Guy chuckled. “You sure about that? He’s glaring at me like he wants to rip my throat out.”

“No, he would never…” I caught Casziel’s hard stare, boring into us. “Okay, he might.”

“He’s your date this Saturday, eh? Darn.” Guy snapped his fingers. “Missed my shot.”

I stared. Guy Baker had wanted to ask me to the wedding?

“I guess so, yes. But like I said, we’re not serious.”

“I’m happy to hear that, Lucy,” Guy said. “Will you save a dance for me? Maybe more than one?”

I risked another glance at the bar. Casziel’s eyes were almost black in the dimness, watching me with Guy while Abby leaned in and whispered something in his ear.

This isn’t fair.

I wasn’t supposed to be jealous at how close her lips were to his skin. I was supposed to be elated that Guy Baker was talking to me, flirting with me. That he’d just serenaded me in front of the entire company should’ve had me floating on air.

Get with the plan, I scolded myself. Casziel’s eternal soul is on the line.

I tilted my chin up to Guy, smiling in what I hoped was an alluring manner. “I’ll do that.”

“Great,” Guy said and shook his head, the booze strong on his breath. “I just can’t get over you tonight. The song was right. I’ve never seen you look like this.” He brushed his knuckles over my cheek. “Or maybe you always have, and I’m an idiot for not noticing before.”

My heart pounded. Was he going to kiss me in front of everyone? In front of Cas? Guy looked willing, and all I had to do was let it happen…

Suddenly, my stomach roiled and I felt sick.

“Excuse me.” I pulled away. “Sorry, I…I’ll be right back.”

I hurried to the bar’s tiny bathroom. The walls were covered in stickers and graffiti, but the two stalls were empty. I braced myself over the sink, taking deep breaths. I didn’t recognize the girl in the reflection, and it had nothing to do with all that makeup.

“What the hell is wrong with me?”

A tittering laugh sounded from the stall behind me. “Poor, sweet, silly little Lucy.”

I froze, the words crawling up my spine like insects. The stall had been empty but now two women—or what my brain registered as two creatures wearing woman skin suits—shuffled out. One looked like a relic from CBGB in torn fishnets and a tight black leather jacket over a cropped top that showed a pale midriff. Her hair was a dyed black rat’s nest with lifeless gray roots. Yellow eyes under heavy, messy black eyeliner met mine in the mirror.

A second woman-thing shuffled out, keeping her face pressed in the arm of the first. She wore a shapeless dress, and her disheveled, snarled gray hair fell over her cheek. One yellow eye peeked out at me.

Deber and Keeb.

My blood turned to ice in my veins, and I stood frozen, watching them approach through their reflection in the mirror.

“You seem confused.” Deber cocked a head and I watched, horrified, as a fly crawled across her yellowed eye. “Lost. Silly Lucy has lost her way.”

“Lost, lost, lost,” Keeb tittered.

More flies were now crawling across the mirror. Something nipped at my memory. Flies at my window…

“You should ask Casziel. Our dark prince will tell you everything, won’t he, sister?”

Keeb giggled into Deber’s shoulder. “Ask, ask, ask who you are…”

“W-who I am?”

“Silly Lucy,” Deber sneered, a walking manifestation of the voice I’d been hearing in my head for years. “She doesn’t know. All this time. So many years, alone.”

“Alone, alone, alone…”

She trailed a finger up my arm, and flies crawled over my flesh. “Ask Casziel, silly Lucy. Ask him to tell you the truth.”

“Truth,” Keeb hissed, and flies writhed over her rotted teeth.

“Stop,” I breathed, backing away. “Leave me alone.”

I hurried out, tripping over my heels, obscene cackles chasing after me.

Cas and Abby had returned to the table with Jana. Abby had her manicured fingers wrapped around Cas’s left arm. Even with my pulse still jack-rabbiting, I wanted to snap at her to be careful, that he had cuts there. Four of them now.

And tonight, he’ll have five. Put there by another demon. God…

“I’d like to go home now,” I managed.

“Already?” Abby frowned and gripped Cas’s arm tighter as if I’d come to steal him from her. “It’s so early. But if you must go, I’m sure Guy will get a cab with you.”

She nodded to where Guy was talking with Kimberly and Nylah. He looked over and raised his beer bottle to me with a wobbly smile.

Jana frowned. “You okay, Luce?”

“No. I…I’m not feeling well. I want to go.” I could hardly look at Cas. “Stay…if you want.”

“I will take you home,” he said, rising to his feet.

Abby looked distraught. “Are you sure? She’s fine…”

I didn’t wait to hear anything else. I hurried out of the bar and onto the street, gulping fresh, cool air. I was halfway down the block when I heard footsteps behind me.

“Lucy, wait…”

Cas caught up to me, taking my arm in his strong grip and turning me to face him. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong?” I cried incredulously. “Aside from being accosted by demons in the women’s room?”

He stepped back. “What?”

“Deb and K.”

“You saw them? In the flesh?”

I nodded. “They said that I should ask you who I am.”

Cas spat a curse in his native tongue. “They shouldn’t be here. Not on This Side.”

“But what did they mean? Who am I?”

He shook his head and took my arm, walking me away from the bar. “Nothing. They’re sowing discord, that’s all. Trying to upset you.”

“Well, it worked,” I cried. “Am I in danger?”

Cas whirled on me. “No. I’ll let nothing happen to you. I swear it.” He scanned the deserted streets. “But they shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, they are, and you’re acting like you want to sabotage our plan.”

“What are you talking about? Sabotage—?”

“You were hanging all over Abby tonight,” I said, hearing the jealousy in my words. “I mean, that’s…fine. Whatever. You can do whatever you want, but then you act like you want to murder Guy. Like you hate him.”

Casziel ran a hand through his dark hair, a distinctly human gesture. “I don’t…hate him. I’m playing the part. The jealous rival vying for your hand.”

“It doesn’t feel that way. In fact, nothing feels the way it’s supposed to. It’s all messed up.”

“Nothing is messed up,” he shot back. “It’s all going according to plan. Did you not hear Guy’s serenade?” His voice was dripping with contempt. “Did you not see how he gazed into your eyes, Lucy Dennings?”

“He’s drunk…”

“He’s noticing you. He’s going to fall for you,” he said, his voice faltering. “Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what will make you happy?”

What would make me happy, I realized with an aching heart, had nothing to do with Guy. But if we didn’t at least try to make this plan work, Casziel would be relegated to an eternity of the same pain he’d been drowning in for centuries.

“Yes,” I said. “That would make me happy. Guy and me. Happily ever after. That’s exactly what I want.”

“Then there’s no problem,” Cas gritted out and started to walk past me.

“That,” I said, tugging his arm to make him stop. “That is what I don’t understand. Why you look sad now instead of glad. I feel like there’s a whole other story happening that you’re not telling me. One that I feel like I should remember but can’t. Like a dream that slips away when you wake up.”

“Your imagination, nothing more.”

“Is it? Because the dream I had just the other night—”

“Was just a dream.”

“But—”

A group of people noisily exited a restaurant and headed our way.

“Come on,” Cas said.

We crossed the street and headed up 6th, a thousand unspoken words hanging between us. The dark felt alive, like it had the night we stumbled home from the pub. Only this time I was stone cold sober. We passed a trash-strewn alley, buzzing with flies. A hissing voice crawled up my spine, breaking the silence of the.

“Casziel…”

Deber and Keeb shuffled out, just as they had in the bathroom. Flies buzzed. Instantly, Cas put himself between me and the demons. Deber wore a malicious smirk while Keeb tittered into her shoulder with a stomach-churning giggle.

“Isn’t that sweet,” Deber mused, sauntering closer, bringing Keeb with her. “Lord Casziel, the Nightbringer, the Prince of Demons, playing the part of the heroic—”

“Silence,” Casziel hissed, and the cloud of flies grew agitated, then settled over the twins again, tangling in their hair, crawling over their faces across their yellow eyes.

Deber turned to me. “Did you ask your questions? Did he answer with lies?” She clucked her tongue. “Sweet, innocent little Lucy has no idea with whom she consorts.”

Keeb giggled—a sickening sound—and peered at us from between strands of stringy gray hair.

“Who summoned you?” Casziel demanded.

“You can’t guess?”

“Ashtaroth,” he muttered, his eyes hard.

The demons moved closer, hesitantly, wary of Casziel. Only a few feet away. I felt the tension humming in him, the muscles under my hand tightening. The flies thickened, their buzzing like the static of an old TV, showing me a fuzzy image of me on the floor of my kitchen, broken glass around me…

“You’re a fool, Casziel,” Deber was saying. “He will never let you go. And she…” She smiled at me, showing rotting teeth. “She will know the truth and despise you for it.”

With an angry snarl, Casziel thrust me back. In the next instant, he was in his demonic form—bloodless skin and eyes like black holes, sucking in all light. Somehow, his wings unfurled through the black leather of his jacket without tearing it. An immense sword appeared, strapped between those wings that stretched out, long and powerful and beautifully awful.

The demons shrieked and fell back as he unsheathed the sword and leveled the tip at Deber’s throat, his voice dangerous and deadly.

“Leave her alone or I will hunt you on This Side and the Other until your very existence becomes a burden and you beg for Oblivion.”

Keeb let out a little shriek. The fear in Deber’s eyes was alive and electric, but she smiled in triumph. She backed away, taking Keeb with her into the cloud of flies.

“Beautiful threats, Casziel. But empty.” She leveled a wasted finger at me. “She’s ours now. Not yours anymore. Never again.”

The demons’ bodies disintegrated into more flies that dispersed into the night, leaving the alley quiet and dark. Casziel turned to me, his black-on-black eyes like endless pits of darkness in his pale face. I recoiled and he reverted to his human form.

My throat was dry, my head reeling. “I don’t…I can’t…”

Casziel approached me slowly, hand outstretched as if he were afraid I’d run. But where would I go? Demons lurked in every shadow.

“What just happened?” I asked through trembling lips. “What did she mean that I’d despise you?”

“Nothing. All lies. A demon’s word isn’t worth anything, remember?” His lip curled, and then he raised his eyes to mine, heavy with regret. “Come. Let’s get you home.”

Feeling lost, underwater, and drowning in a hundred different emotions, I let him guide me to the subway station. The car wasn’t even half full—a few friends ending their night out, a few solitary people scrolling their phones. The glaring light was like a slap to the face, and I calmed my harsh breathing, though my heart didn’t stop pounding, even back in my apartment.

Casziel held his palm up. “Zisurrû.”

Green light outlined my door, then faded, and I was overcome with a sense of déjà vu.

“What you just did to the door…I’ve seen it before. The night of the pub.”

“A protective ward,” he said. “I’ll do the same to the window after I leave tonight.”

“And the flies. I’ve seen them too. I remember, I was in the kitchen…” I shook my head, my thoughts wading through a dreamy murk. “You were there… Did you use another word? To make me forget?”

He took another step toward me. “Lucy…”

I took a step back. “No. Tell me the truth. What is going on?”

“I never meant for any of this to happen to you. Please. Sit down. I’ll explain everything.”

“You will?”

“I will. But the truth is not going to be easy for you to hear.”

I backed up all the way to my bed and sat down hard. “Okay,” I said warily. “Tell me.”

The demon kneeled at my feet, and the longing in his eyes drew me in until I wanted to sink to the floor with him, wrap my arms around him, hold him and be held by him.

“Gods, Lucy…”

“What is happening?” I asked, suddenly on the verge of tears. “Why do I feel this way? Everything about this is so strange and scary, and yet…”

He reached up, both hands cupping my face, softly. Reverently. Holding me as if I were precious to him. “And yet?”

“I know you…don’t I?”

His head bowed, his eyes fell shut. When he opened them again, they were filled with pain. Grief. It called out and something inside me answered. I gasped, my heart pounding so hard, I thought it would break. For what I never had.

No. For what I had and then lost…

“Tell me,” I whispered. “Who am I? Who are we to each other?”

Casziel’s lips parted, and he pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. “Forgive me, Lucy. Somewhere in those dreams of yours, I hope you can forgive me.”

“What? Wait—”

He touched his thumb to my skin where I could still feel the warmth of his lips.

“Ñeštug u-lu.”

The TV’s volume was on low, its light flickering in my darkened apartment. My clock radio said it was after three in the morning. I was still wearing that ridiculous dress, but the bedcovers were tucked around me. Makeup smeared my pillow. I sat up slowly. My head felt heavy, as if I’d gotten drunk after all.

“Cas?”

No answer. I climbed out of bed. The couch was empty and the window that Casziel always kept open was shut. Something nipped at the corner of my mind, but I couldn’t grasp it. I couldn’t recall leaving the bar or how I got home. The last thing I remembered was Guy singing to me and telling me I was beautiful…

“The plan is working.”

The words sounded hollow. Empty. But Cas needed the plan to work. To save his soul.

What about mine?

I washed all the makeup off my face, brushed my teeth, and changed into my sleep T-shirt and sweatpants. I wanted Casziel to come back. I wanted Casziel to come back more than I wanted Guy to think I was beautiful. That was the only truth I had.

I opened the window.