“It’s one of his.”
“Well, you can go back, because this one is mine.”
Bethany smiled, batted her eyelids dramatically. “Maybe we can share?”
“And have Berith after my ass like the last time I ‘shared’ something with you? I don’t think so.”
“Aw, come on, it wasn’t all bad.”
It hadn’t been all bad. In fact, he’d enjoyed working with the cheeky woman. Even damned as she was, she still had a verve for life that he found very intriguing. And appealing. Plus, no one ever talked to him, not with his reputation and “charming” personality. Evangeline and Bethany were basically his entire social circle.
“It was bad. You’re a pain in the ass.” The smudged mascara, crazy hair and attitude didn’t deter him at all. He suspected he found her attractive because of it and not in spite of it.
“But oh-so-irresistible and brilliant. Come on, Cain, we got another kick at the can, we should make the most of it.” She gave him a pronounced once-over, actually winked in a very suggestive way. Simply unflappable.
“I wouldn’t turn my back on you for a second, never mind taking my guns off.” A smile escaped him. “Plus, you’re not my type.”
Liar.
Bethany grinned. “I bet you’ve always been a heartbreaker, even before. .”
“Before I was damned?”
She shrugged. “Call it what you want. I call it a second shot at life.”
“It’s not life, Bethany. Not even close. We’re on borrowed time, with our own personal demons yanking on the leash.”
She lost her smile. “Party-pooper.”
“Look,” he began, regretting the words as they came out. She was his weak spot. Dammit. “Some day, maybe. .”
A sparkle made her dark eyes look like coffee beans. Smile lines appeared at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She arched her hips off the wall and pressed herself against him. Her heat seeped into his clothes. “Maybe what, hm? You’d like to see more of me?”
“Yeah, I’d like to see ‘more’ of you.”
Bethany’s eyes sparkled.
Damn, he couldn’t think when she pulled that shit. “Look. .”
He must have relaxed his hold on her arm and saw his slip too late. The top of her head struck him on the chin. Pain exploded in his brain. His grip failed as he bent over.
And she was gone again, her boots thumping madly.
Cain stumbled into the house through the back door she’d left open. Careless, loud, obnoxious. He could’ve followed her progress from outside the house. Good old Bethany. Two by two, he took the stairs, followed her by the smell he’d come to associate with her — vinyl and body lotion. Up to the third floor, down a carpeted hallway lined with thick frames of dead people. Someone walked by — oblivious to the two gun-toting bounty hunters racing down the hall — as if moved by unseen hands into the place Cain had just occupied a split-second before. He’d always wondered what would happen if a mortal occupied the same space he did? Would they feel him?
There, at the end of the hallway. Light filtered out from underneath a door. Cain gripped his shotgun tighter as he silently pushed against the panel. There she was, his “saviour”, bending over the dying politician, a wizened Asian woman. In the golden glow of a baroque lamp on the dresser, his competitor resembled an elf. But armed to the teeth. Bethany was too busy fishing around in a tiny leather purse strapped to her belt to pay much attention to him.
Cain sneaked up just close enough to press the barrel against her nape. “Don’t make me send you back.”
She froze.
“Start running, Bethany. I’ll give you ten seconds head start.”
“I need this,” she whispered, turned her head slightly so she could look up at him. Tears welled in her eyes. Her chin trembled. He’d never seen her that way, so vulnerable, so afraid. He’d never seen her afraid despite some pretty serious fighting and crappy odds. He could only imagine what a woman went through at the hands of a demon. “Okay? I need this, Cain. Please, I’m not yanking your chain.”
Staring into those pleading eyes wasn’t as easy as he would’ve thought.
“Asmodeus. .” She stopped, swallowed. “He’s going to send me down another level if I don’t bring him this one. You know what that means. .”
Cain twitched in spite of himself. If Berith’s reputation for viciousness was well known in all levels of hell, another demon beat him by miles and bounds. Asmodeus, king of demons, with untold legions at his command. Cain wouldn’t want to be anywhere near the Tormenter if he’d failed to do his bidding. And being sent down another level was dying all over again. She’d have to start over. He could only imagine the horror. No wonder Bethany looked desperate.
But it wasn’t any of his business. Or his problem.
The woman straightened, slowly, turned to face him with her hands at shoulder level on either side of her. “What level are you on, Cain?”
“Seventh.”
She nodded. “So you have a temper, huh?”
“You have no idea.”
“Look, I’ll help you with something else. Anytime, anywhere. But please, let me have this one here.” She turned toward the older woman on the bed who lay with her eyes closed and a rosary tucked in her joined hands. Except for the ones his ammunitions contact made for him, he hadn’t seen a real rosary in over thirty years. Traditions were dying at an alarming rate.
Cain shook his head. “And you think Berith will be happy to see me when I go back empty-handed?”
“I have connections, you know I do. I’ll help you. I swear, okay? Name it.” She grinned wide. “Anything for you my cutie patootie.”
“Don’t push it.” Cain cursed under his breath. “Anything?”
Her gaze hardened. She lifted her chin defiantly. “Yeah, anything, even that.”
He wasn’t thinking about that, but preferred to keep the dangerous woman on her toes. “You owe me.”
Since when did he give breaks to people? Was he losing his edge? Would Berith keep him in hell instead of sending him back to the mortal plane for another job? Damn that woman!
Bethany blew him a kiss, turned to the dying woman and pulled out a tiny black lacquered box when she noticed the telltale sign of the woman’s passing. She collected the secrets — a whole cluster of them, he was so in shit over this — slipped the box back into its home at her belt and backed to the door.
“Would you have helped if it hadn’t been me?” she asked.
“Why do you care?”
“Is that a no?”
“Just get the hell out. You owe me, Bethany. Big time.”
She agreed with a nod. “In all the years we’ve known each other, you never once asked what level I’m on.”
Cain sighed long and hard. This was turning out to be a very bad day. He hated bad days. They invariably ended with his butt in hell, being tortured and taunted then tossed back up. “I don’t give a shit.”
“Yes you do. You’re just too proud to admit you care.” She winked. “I’m on the eighth.”
Before Cain could process the implications, she was gone.
The eighth level of hell was reserved for usurpers and swindlers. And liars.
The one time he gave someone a break and this was what happened. That woman would be the end of him.
“Bethany, you trouble-making little shit.”