Hellfire Drop (Brimstone Cycle Book 2)(2)

Fuming, I glance around the inside of the diner. My eyes are burning with the effort of holding back angry tears, but I’m still able to see the place clear enough. The walls are painted in a bland, orange-ish shade, and only half of the available tables and booths are occupied. Most of them have only one or two of their chairs filled, save for one table at the back, packed with tan uniforms.

The sight of those uniforms, sheriff’s deputies by the look of them, makes me less than comfortable. I’m in the business of arms smuggling, and that kind of trade is rarely looked kindly on by the kind of men at that table.

Fortunately, the deputies are not paying attention to me. Their loud voices, thick with Creole variations, are all aimed at an older man with an ill-fitting paper hat that says “Retired” on his head.

Any of that could change in an instant, though, so I clench my jaw tight and lean back into my seat. The devil wearing Tom gestures towards me once I do.

“You didn’t kill him.” says the devil. “You didn’t kill him or any of his men. Don’t feel bad. I assure you, their survival was not from your lack of trying.”

His voice is casual, and despite his warning to me, apparently unworried with the possibility of being overheard.

That’s also an understatement. Now that my memories have returned to me, the feeling of Tom’s neck in my grip stands out clear as day. Before Ole Beeze took over my body, I’d grabbed Tom and dragged him on a shortcut through Hell.

Well, not through Hell. I’d actually left him behind in the flames, knowing that they were far from the worst he had to face there. There are things in the deep places that burn alongside creation. Things like Ole Beeze and the one sitting across from me now. I have scars, just like Tom’s, from the few I’d had the misfortune of encountering downstairs while making drops. Most were encounters I’d barely survived, which is why Hell seemed like a good place to leave Tom after what he’d done to me. He had it coming, and then some. He killed my sister Mary.

Him and Ole Beeze.

I’m about to say something back, words I haven’t thought over or planned, when a new voice, this one at my back, interrupts me.

“Can I get you anything, sugar?”

I turn to find a waitress, her hip cocked, behind me. She looks wholesome, warm, and a little like Mary. The sight of her takes a little of the fire from me. Not much, but enough for me to swallow hard and remember all the people, cops included, sitting around us.

“Yes, please.” I say. “Another coffee, if it’s not too much trouble.”

The waitress rolls her eyes at me, but there’s an exaggerated playfulness to the gesture.

“Oh you don’t worry about me.” she says. “I’ll have a pot heated up and here for you in a flash.”

The waitress leaves for the kitchen area at the back of the diner, and I turn back to the table once she’s out of ear’s reach.

“I like your spunk.” says the devil wearing the man I’d apparently failed to kill.

“And don’t feel too bad about failing.” he says. “I assure you, the man I’m enjoying did not get off lightly.”

I snort, and turn my head to the side. The sun is setting, and the red, bloody glare of it on the window seems fitting for my mood. I turn back to the devil.

“He’s alive.” I say. “And if he’s being worn, then that means he made a deal. I don’t see how getting to live, and come back with more power one day, counts as anything other than getting off light.”

The devil leans back in his chair, his shoes jutting forward to counterbalance his weight.

“Oh, he won’t be coming back anytime soon.” he says.

I pause and scrunch my nose again, confused.

“If he didn’t make a deal in exchange for power, what did he bargain for instead?” I ask.

The devil smiles again, then leans in close, his back hunched and eyebrow quirked in a “just us girls” kind of way.

“I bought this ride” says the devil, “for the low cost of ‘free.’”

His smile widens and he leans back away from me. “All I had to do was stop torturing him.”

“Wait, what?” I say.

“Oh it took a while.” continues the devil. “He was stubborn. But I had time. So now tell me, little imp. Do you still think he got off lightly?”

I stare at him, stunned into silence as I realize what he means. Devils can only take bodies from those who make deals of their own, free, uncoerced will. That’s a law built right into the fabric of creation. And yet, Tom hadn’t been in creation when he’d made his deal. He’d been stranded in Hell, alongside his men, because of me.

Two separate feelings start to compete in my gut. The anger is still there, but also something newer. Disgust. Disgust in the things I’d done to Tom and his men. Disgust in having made this thing sitting before me, this fate worse than death, possible.

The anger wins out though. Fuck the mercenary, and anyone else who helped him. He chose to be in this. No one could say the same for Mary.

“He didn’t get off lightly.” I say, and notice, to my surprise, that I’m relaxing. “If it’s as bad as you tell me, the son of a bitch got off just right.”

The devil smiles at me. This time, I don’t shiver.

“I knew I’d like you.” he says. “That’s why I came here, made sure I was around when you came back to yourself.”