Flirting with Sin Ch. 04

XI: Deals with the Devil

Far above me I could hear the distant tapping of rain on the fiberglass dome that covered this section of the city. The overcast sunlight was hued dark grey by the transparent reinforced plastic. It felt like God was looking in on an aquarium for sinners.

According to the Church the dome was built so that the rainwater could be funneled to the treatment plant and stored for times of drought--something this area was no stranger to, but the holographic advertisements flowing off the highrises around me told a different story. Rain would interfere with the image and the giant pink lady in her underwear above me singing the praises of Simulacron AI's new virtual nighttime companion would be distorted.

I'd convinced Voh to stay in the apartment while I searched for Alison. It was the safest place for her; if she was caught wandering Church streets with her chicken legs bare for all to see, she'd be chopped up by another Hunter or Paladin and served as a basket of nuggets with a side of honey barbecue sauce in a matter of hours. Never mind what they'd do to me--excommunication, confiscation of my now demonic weaponry, at worst, beheading--I was more concerned about her.

What was I going to do with her? She can't live in my apartment. If I survive this, I'll go back there and find out she's ripped up all my furniture to make a nest.

Call me fickle, as all I wanted was to get rid of the birdbrain before, but I don't think I had it in me to send her back to the pit. Not through a salt ritual and not through a bullet to the brain. She had been through too much already. If any member of the Church found out I was harboring Shuu'Vohsa, one of those two would happen to her in short order.

Leaving the apartment had been a challenge. Voh was adamant on coming with me. She claimed to be worried for my safety, but I got the sense she simply didn't like being cooped up and wanted to spread her wings again. I bribed her with promises of sweets when I came back, so long as she stayed put--she was intrigued by the concept of chocolate eggs.

The landlord reminded me that pets aren't allowed as I left. The neighbors had complained about a loud, squawking bird waking them up last night. I told him I didn't know what he was talking about.

I stared up at the plastic skyline and reached into my pocket for a cigarette. They had Alice's brand in a corner shop, but it wasn't quite the same without the smell of brimstone lingering in her second-hand smoke. I stuffed the butt between my lips, but before I could light up a hooded figure approached me from the street.

"Excuse me. You're Trevor Rensor, right? The Demon Hunter?"

A young woman's voice, oddly familiar. Her face was obscured by the hood, but I could make out her green eyes gleaming in the dark.

"You caught me," I said, lighting the cigarette and taking a puff. "If you're looking for sanctuary, the cathedral is about a mile back that way."

I took off walking down the street. I had merely been postponing the inevitable anyhow. Looked into the chapel the old paladin told me about before I left the apartment. Tiny place on the edge of the city. No story on a cat-demon ripping through its clergy and painting the pews red, at least not yet. Alison was biding her time, but why? I needed to find out even if it meant fumbling into a demon's bloodthirsty maw.

"Wait! Wait, please!" the hooded lady ran after me. "You're hunting someone, right? A woman who transformed into a demon?"

"Who told you that?" I kept walking. "You should mind your own damned business, you'd be safer that way."

"I--I know her! I can help you! Just hear me out."

I stopped and turned on my heel to look her over. Save for the darkened view of her face, her body was entirely covered by the hooded robe she was wearing. Whoever she was, she clearly didn't want me knowing and I'd be a slack jawed altar boy to place any sort of trust in her.

The soul-infused holy sword at my belt, Lightsbane, was quiet--save for an ever-present whisper of hunger--yet I could feel something coming from her. Not the corrupting aura of a demon, something primal, something that causes the hairs on your neck to stand on end. The presence of a deadly predator.

"Alright. Shoot. What is it you think you can tell me?"

The woman lowered her hood to reveal a head of autumn colored hair, deep brown with a faint touch of auburn. She had a tiny button nose and plush, full lips, a subtle frown permanently pulling at them. And those eyes, big and green and staring straight into me.

"She wasn't always a demon, misterrr Hunter," she said, offering a shy smile. Her whiskers lifted with the curl of her lips, her fangs sat on the rosy flesh. The cat-shaped ears atop her head twitched.

My hand flew to the revolver. My heart threw itself against my ribcage. Her eyes, gleaming emeralds with black slits cut down their middles, widened at my surprise. She raised a hand--long, slender, fur-covered fingers with sharp claws--to stop me before covering her head with the hood again.

"You wouldn't shoot a lady in the middle of a crrrowded street, would you? There would be a nasty panic, you know? Just calm down, little Hunter," she said with a smug purr.

"What the hell is this?!" I snapped.

People minding their own business on the sidewalk passed us nonchalantly, eyes vacant behind their computerized smart glasses or visiphones and paid the Demon Hunter and the mewling cat next to him little mind. She was right, but I didn't let go of the gun.

"I just want to talk to you, Trevorrr. Maybe we could come to understand one anotherrr," she offered, taking a step closer.

I recoiled. "There's nothing to understand. You killed a man. The law says you owe a debt for his life, and I'm the collector."

"So black and white. You just do what you'rrre told like a good boy, hmm? That's okay. I like that about you, Trevorrr. So obedient," she teased, and closed the distance between us in a flash. "Just like when I told you to lie down and stay still."

She ran her thorny tongue over her lips. Anger mixed with sinful thoughts in my head. If looks could kill, she'd be lying broken on the sidewalk. The cat-thing snickered at me.

"Follow me, Trevor. You want me? Come and get me, if you can," she teased, moving past me through the bystanders on the street.

Alison slipped through the crowd with graceful strides. I could see her long, muscular legs outlined in the robe. If I didn't hurry after her, she would disappear around the corner and I would lose her again. The cat-demon didn't make it easy to tail her--winding through passersby who didn't seem to even notice her, bending around people and sliding through gaps between bodies, her form twisting around them with the poise of an exotic dancer.

"Wait, goddamnit! Alison!" I shouted after her.

Alison turned and raised her hood to wink at me, then slunk away into an alley. I swam upstream through the river of bodies, running headlong into someone and knocking them over more than once.

"Hey, watch it, asshole!"

"Watch where you're goin', prick!"

"There go my fucking glasses. You're gonna pay for those!"

Turning the corner and sinking into the alleyway, the blade began to hum. I pulled it free from my belt and stared into the soulgem lodged into the crossguard, an endless black. I felt it--its hunger. A powerful thirst for her corrupted blood, a desire to swim in her viscera, felt like they were my own. I shook my head and reached for the magnum, steeling myself.

This armpit between highrises was lit with violet gloom cast by the holograms floating above. The sounds of passersby and the bellowing calls to drink Max Coffee Ultra Energy were softened by the walls of concrete and became murmurs.

There was nothing back here. Concrete and trash. Rats scurrying away as I approached. An abandoned homeless camp where someone had been living in a box. Before I could puzzle out why she had led me down here, I felt a presence drop silently from above and land directly behind me.

Whirling around with the magnum ready, the barrel lined up with the creature's head. A mane of brown hair with twitching cat ears. Smirking, she just reached out her claws and calmly pushed the gun aside.

"Relax. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already. I led you back here for some prrrivacy," she said, rolling her eyes at me.

"Why wait so long to attack the chapel? The paladin must have told you where it was. Getting cold feet?" I reluctantly lowered the gun.

"No..." she turned to look at the brick building beside us. "I was there already. I saw him--the bastard who raped and killed my mother. All decorated in gold robes like some goddamn saint. Makes me sick. I wanted to rip him to pieces, Trevor, play with his guts!" She faced me, fangs bare, claws extended. Her words were all hisses and meows. "Tear out his heart and eat it! I wanted nothing better than that! I would have gouged out his eyes, tore out his throat, eaten him alive!"

Alison's face had gone red; she was sucking in air through her teeth. The muscles of her neck and shoulders were tense and she glared at me with all the hatred and fury of a freshly born hellspawn who existed only to bring suffering and pain. She was shaking with fury, which might have been cause for alarm if she didn't look so sad.

"Why didn't you?"

The cat demon winced. "I--I wanted to! I wanted him dead! But..." she softened, her ears drooping low. "I couldn't. I couldn't do it. He is... You don't know what I've seen, Trevor."

"What makes him different to the man you killed in the alley? You had no problem turning him inside out."

A growl rumbled in her throat. "He tried to rape me. I used to work with him, I knew him. Someone told him about my mother, and he did something to me that... that made my true self wake up. He thought that he could have his way with me, and someone like you would come in and shut me up. He was a big fat filthy rat, Trevor, and I caught him between my claws," she mewled, balling one of her paws into a fist.

"What a crock of shit," I spat.

"Still sourrr about before?" she purred, sauntering up to me. "Don't act so high and mighty, Trevorrr. You hardly tried to fight it. I saw the look on your face. I could taste how good it was for you, how much you wanted it. You can't stop thinking about me, can you?" Alison circled around me in slow steps, her voice slipping from one ear to the other. "So dutiful. So obedient. A good little boy like you deserves to be rewarrrded."

One of her claws pressed gently into the small of my back and trailed upward, following my spine, until she reached my neck. Gently, she drew it over the skin until she was pressing it playfully into my cheek, then my chin, and finally my lower lip. I shuddered; at any moment she could lurch forward and rip out my throat.

"What is it you want, Alison?" I demanded, grabbing her hand. My patience had run out and I began to think I'd prefer if we were trying to kill one another.

"I want you to kill him for me," she mewled. "To do what you do best: be a good boy and do what you're told."

"Kill your father? You're asking a Demon Hunter to murder a member of the priesthood on behalf of a demon?"

"I am," she said, smiling wide. "His church is a wicked place, Trevorrr. Didn't the paladin tell you? I saw it with my own eyes. Satyrs in robes. Blood sacrifices, rites performed under the pretense of holy worship. My mother was killed in this place, Trevor. Her murderers were the demons, not her."

I grunted. Demons are all two-faced liars. This could merely be a trick to get me to lower my guard, but in that case, she would have no reason to lead me to an out-of-sight alleyway and feed me this farce. Alison's failure to gut her father was likely due to some sort of hellish force he had enshrouded himself in rather than her humanity getting the better of her. Even now, looking into those emerald gemstones in her face, I could see that I was little more to her than a squirming mouse.

"The paladin told me about your mother. Most people with that kind of heritage are demons from birth. The Church deems them an aberration and puts them to death. If I had to guess, something was suppressing your demonic traits so you could lead a normal life."

"A normal life?" she hissed. "I was weak, frail, and afraid before! My 'normal' was fetching coffee for old rich perverts, slaving away on sales reports and hoping nobody would follow me home that night! Look at me, Trevor!"

The demoness stripped off her robe. Her pale, slender form was lit violet by the holograms overhead and her muscular limbs and toned abdominals were accented by patches of fur flowing over her body in sinfully alluring patterns. I gasped as the blood rushed away from my head.

"Look! I am strong, and beautiful, and free! My mother gave me a gift! I will never go back to my life before. Never!" she shouted, stretching out her arms and standing tall to display her flawless body in all its glory, the rolling lights of shifting advertisements cast on her white canvas.

"You're a danger to yourself and everyone around you. You won't stop at your father. You'll find an excuse to eat another person, and then another. I can't let you run free." I rose the barrel of the magnum to her breast. "No more games, Alison. I have to put you down."

"Maybe I didn't have to kill that man, maybe," she said, running her prickly tongue over her lips. Her eyes locked with mine and her ears stood straight up. "But I couldn't control myself. You don't know what it's like, Trevorrrr. When there's a big, juicy morsel right in front of you, squirming in fear."

Alison took a step toward me, hunger in her eyes.

"And when they smell as good as you do..."

The demoness was in the air. A silver bullet left the magnum's chamber. I wasn't sure which happened first. I leapt backward as the crushing weight of her muscles, her poise and her claws slammed into the ground next to me, snarls and fangs just behind them. Painted across her features was an expression somewhere between a wicked grin and the glare of a wild animal seeking its prey.

Alison swiped at me, her claws meeting the sword with an ear-shattering clang. Again her deadly nails sought my flesh and struck only steel, the alley filling with the sounds of metal clashing with claw. There on all fours in front of me, her back muscles taut and her fangs dripping with saliva, she stared up at me like I was a Christmas present waiting to be ripped open.

"Must I beg? Please kill him for me, Trevorrr. I'll do something special for you. I know what you waaaant," she purred, her tail rolling rhythmically back and forth. "The way you're looking at me is so prrrecious. Do I scare you? Are you afraid?"

I felt the blade pulsing in my hand like it was sharing my heartbeat. Waves of anger pushed into my head; it was trying to assert its will on me. In-between breaths I could all but hear its whispers, forced into my head and invading my thoughts. Kill her. Paint me with her blood. Scatter her guts.

She slunk towards me, crawling so close to the ground her breasts were touching the concrete. I glanced quickly behind--brick wall. Alison grinned wide; her limbs tensed. She was getting ready to pounce.

"You don't have to be afraid of meeee, Trevor. Just hold still..."

With a shout, I brought the blade and all the might I had to bear down upon her. Alison roared, meeting the blade with both sets of claws. My legs quaked beneath the force of the blow; the blade shattered into a hundred pieces and scattered all over the alleyway.

"Goddamnit," I muttered, gripping the hilt in white-knuckled frustration.

Alison snickered and stood up straight. She strut toward me, swinging her hips, tossing her hair. The cat-demon's tongue rolled in a great circle around her open mouth, finishing with a wink. I held the gun steady and fired, once--gunsmoke filled my vision, my hand shook, but she merely moved her head and it missed her. Twice--she pirouetted gracefully to the side, smiling at me all the while.

"Trevorrr. I won't hurt you if you stay still and do what I say, like a good boy," she mewled teasingly.

Just as she was about to descend on me, a small chunk of steel came flying from down the alley and struck her in the back of the head.

"Myaa!" she yowled in pain. "Who is there?!"

Then came another chunk, a shard of shattered sharpened steel, flying toward her sternum. She swat it away with her claw, but then there was another and another. An armada of floating shards were poised overhead--Alison's mouth fell open as they all came raining down at her at once.

Diving, dodging and darting around the alley, Alison narrowly avoided the shards. Bits of concrete broke away from the alley as they struck the ground like bullets. The demon bounced off the brick walls, kicking and leaping her away up, spinning and swatting away the shards as she climbed. She fell before me and backflipped away from a hail of shards hurtling toward her head.

Countless shattered bits of the sword dislodged themselves from the walls and the ground and floated eerily toward me, moving past Alison. We stood there in confused silence as they fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle in front of me, each piece perfectly lining up with the others until they reformed the shape of the blade. The hilt pulled itself upward, yanking my arm with it, and lined up with the steel to reattach itself. It shined terribly in the dark; there was not a single imperfection or dent in the metal like it had been newly forged.

Alison bared her fangs and hissed furiously.

"That little knife won't protect you from me, Trevor!" she growled, slamming her paws into the concrete.

With a roar and a great leap she came at me, her claws splayed, poised to shred me into a million pieces. The blade crashed against them and again broke into shards which threw themselves at her body. Alison dove deftly out of the way and rolled through a pile of trash; the shards each chunked into the ground before flying back to the blade to rejoin.

Clang! The blade split into pieces as she tore at me again, but she did not relent. In a flurry of slashes, she cut through my robe and sunk her claws into my side. Teeth clenched, I grunted in agony and tried to leap away, but her claws clung to my robe; she yanked me toward her and dove to the ground, her limbs clutching me tight like a trap sprung.

Alison's big green eyes stared into me with hunger and fury. Her maw opened wide, those razor-sharp fangs set to rip out my throat. Before she could come down on me, there was a series of sickening thumps, metal meeting flesh--the broken shards sunk into her back one after another. She went limp, weakly meowing on top of me.

As I tried to push the demoness off of me and reclaim freedom, her eyes snapped open. She mewled weakly.

"Trevor..." she cried, moving her face close to mine.

Her prickly tongue snaked from her mouth and ran up my neck, my jawline, my cheek. She pressed her plush lips against mine, she forced my mouth open and stroked my tongue with her stabbing spines. It was painful, yet she was too weak to try and hurt me with it. Up and down she kissed me, mewling and whining, her claws sunk into my clothes to ensure I couldn't move.

"Please help me. I can't... I can't do it myself. Please," she begged in-between kisses and rough, jagged strokes of her tongue.

I grabbed the back of her head, eliciting a confused trill, and I pulled her into a deep kiss. Sinful and indulgent, I pushed my tongue down her throat, tasted her wild breath. I ran my hands down the tight muscles of her back and grabbed a handful of her behind. She gasped, mewling pathetically as pleasure mixed with pain.