“Am I going up or down?”
Cain snapped his gaze to the man’s face, where a pair of old but vibrant blue eyes stared at him. Directly at him. Cain had forgotten what it felt like to have someone look at him this way. The only ones who could see him were demons, their spawns — like the one on the rooftop — the angels that still gave a damn, and the lunatics. And of course, the dying. But they were rarely happy to see him.
“Up.”
A look of relief passed over the weathered face. He nodded imperceptibly, except to Cain — because he knew what to look for and already waited for the sign.
“You? You from above or below?”
“Above,” Cain lied. He approached the bed, placed a hand on the man’s wrist. A weak, arrhythmic pulse throbbed against his cold fingers. Not long now. The machine agreed with him and began to bleep.
The man closed his eyes for the last time, Cain knew. He went to work quickly, efficiently. He’d done this thousands of times throughout the centuries. He pulled a gold pillbox from his coat pocket, clicked it open and placed it near the man’s mouth. The last breath created fog on the metal surface. Cain narrowed his eyes when the soul emerged, a manifestation that resembled a thin tendril of silver smoke coiling upward. Within the thin mist glittered tiny white flakes like snow. Cain could never get over how many secrets people kept. This man had dozens. Big ones, little ones, some darker and heavier and others that floated like tiny feathers.
Before the soul could rise further — the lucky man indeed was going “up” — Cain passed the pillbox through the soul several times. He shivered every time his skin came in contact with the gossamer stuff. He tucked his hand against his chest and clipped the box shut. Several of the dead man’s secrets were now stored safely inside. Berith, Great Duke of Hell and almighty asshole, would be happy. And when Master Berith was happy, it meant one more day on the mortal plane, harvesting secrets from the dying, instead of roasting back home down on the seventh level of hell. The special place of those who’d done violence against others. Or themselves. Plus, the more he collected secrets, the more souls Berith could buy, and someday, if he brought enough, Cain would be set free. That was the deal.
Cain was out of the clinic by the time the staff came rushing into the dead man’s room. His car waited on the corner, looking forlorn and broody with its black body and tinted windows. Sunlight didn’t agree with Cain — neither did water and a whole slew of things that never bothered him back when he was. .
When he was a human. So long ago.
He gunned the engine and tore up the street. His breath rose in front of him. Without bothering to warm up the car, he just drove it to his temporary home at the foot of the Jacques-Cartier bridge. Graffiti and detritus covered the brick walls and uneven streets. Montreal was like a bipolar city — elegance and beauty on one side, pestilence and corruption on the other. He parked the car near an abandoned foundry, slipped between the chain link fence doors and then cursed when he splashed cold mud into his shoes. The many locks and chains barring his door meant he had to stand outside as it began to snow. It seeped into his hair, down his collar. Cain was shivering when he pushed the door closed behind him, and repeated the process in reverse order. But at least, he was indoors.
Neon light flickered to life when the motion sensors caught him. Part armory, part gym, part derelict industrial kitchen — the only place in the building that still had running hot water — his home shared nothing with the one he’d left behind all those years ago.
“Forget it. That life is over.”
“Life? Barely,” came a voice behind him. “Existence would be the correct term.”
Cain twitched. “I hate it when you sneak up on me.”
“Life entails a soul,” the voice went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “So ‘existence’ is definitely a better word for you, Damaged One. One can still be damned and exist.”
His demon master had chosen the body of a young woman to possess that night, all slender limbs in the pale grey suit, and shiny black hair. Maybe Berith had developed good taste after all. “You almost look good tonight, Berith.”
The woman’s smile accentuated. “If you were not my favourite secret keeper, I would personally escort you to the eighth level.”
“Maybe I’d be better off with liars and thieves.”
Berith approached him, leisurely caressed the lapel of his suit. Cain curled his upper lip and stared hard.
“Did you do good work tonight?”
“That’s what you call it?” Cain snarled.
The demon rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so damn melodramatic. You work for hell. Get over it.”
“And some day I’m going to take your damn job and shove it.”
A dangerous glint shone in Berith’s eyes. “But in the meantime, you belong to me.” She stuck her hand out, palm up.
“Fuck you.” Cain fished the pillbox out of his pocket and slammed it into the small hand so incongruous to the demon’s true form.
“You should not toy with me so, Brother Cain.”
“Don’t call me that.” No one had called him that since. .
“Ashamed of your past? You should not be. It was what drew me to your soul. So grey, so close to turning. But it was his fault, he took credit for something you did. As always.”
The hurt and confusion in his brother’s eyes. Cain would never forget it.
He gritted his teeth hard enough to hurt his jaw. “You didn’t hear me the first time, demon? Fuck. You.”
Maybe if he pushed the creature far enough, he’d kill Cain once and for all. Oblivion. He could taste it.
Berith whispered a word that caused Cain to drop to his knees in searing agony. His chest constricted, his head throbbed so intensely he feared the skull wouldn’t take the pressure, every nerve ending felt on fire, bile rose up his throat and, in the blink of an eye, he was no longer in his temporary home in the slums of Montreal.
He was back in hell.
Ashes and glowing embers flew in twisters around him as the voices of the damned rose in complaints and cries. Everything was dead or dying. People, animals, things. Falling apart, collapsing, burning up in black smoke that choked the crimson sky and created heat vortices darker than night. Black holes in the blood-red sky. Spawns like the one he’d killed earlier that night swooped down on him, lashed his naked back with their talons, cawed in parody of his roars of pain.
In all his squalid grandeur, Berith towered before him, wisps of hair flying in the burning wind, shreds of skin falling off the massive skeleton. But the eyes were intact, always remained intact no matter the body’s decay. They stared at Cain, right into his core. Rage and terror and pain closed in on him.
“What was it about my ‘job’?” Berith asked, leaned over. He smiled as he delicately pressed a rotten finger through Cain’s shoulder.
His world vacillated. And Cain screamed.
They said if a man hurt enough, his body would shut down. In hell, that theory didn’t apply.
Cain flopped to the concrete floor back in Montreal when Berith summarily dismissed him in the middle of a quartering. Lucky someone had interrupted the demon because the last time Cain had pissed Berith off, he’d paid for it dearly. Even by hell standards.