“Where are you hurt?” He leaned over so he could take a look.
“I’m good,” she replied through her teeth. “Nothing to it.”
Bright red blood seeped through her fingers as she pressed a hand to her hip. Cain knelt by her side. “You’re not good, a spawn got you.”
“Not for the first time.” She grinned, grimaced. “We should start our own biz, you and me. It’d be fun.”
“Fun like tonight? No, thanks.”
Cain peeled her fingers off the messy wound. An injury from a spawn’s demonic touch wouldn’t heal unless cleansed with holy water. Fever would set in, infection, hallucinations. For this woman, a long and agonizing death that could take years before another trip downstairs. At least she had a run of secrets to show for it. Asmodeus might leave her alone and send her back up right away. If she were very lucky.
“You know how it goes, Bethany. You know how it always ends for those like us.”
“I know. I just. .” She cleared her throat. “I wanted it to be different.”
As soon as they reached the top, Cain slipped his arms under Bethany and carried her just outside the door. She winced when he deposited her back on to the carpeted floor. He then dragged a metal garbage can from the landing, dropped it in the funicular doorway so none of the keepers or Berith’s unfortunate host could call it down to them. The doors closed with a ping, hit the garbage can and slid back out again. And again. The funicular would stay at the top. Plus, if all went well — and his luck suddenly turned for the better — they’d need a ride down.
The sky was turning orange and mauve, with bands of brown and amber across the horizons. Daylight was minutes away. Not fast enough.
“Hold still.” Cain pulled out of his coat pocket a handful of the little bags of holy water. They looked like fast food packets of ketchup. He tore one open, dribbled some between her fingers, then more right into the wound while she held the torn vinyl wide. Blood and holy water turned her white outfit pink.
The spawn’s talon must have dug deeper than he’d thought. There was so much blood. Too much. He used all his holy water to make sure the wound was clean. Working on the gash also meant he didn’t have to meet her gaze, which she kept on his face the entire time. Neither stated the obvious futility of cleaning a mortal wound.
“Would you stay?” Bethany asked.
He knew what she meant.
“Yeah.” He sat by her side, knees drawn up. She’d pulled herself to a sitting position along the wall. A more dignified way to go.
Fresh blood continued seeping through her fingers. “It’s too bad.”
“What is?”
“Timing,” she grunted. “I–I would’ve. . asked you out. . like on a real date. Been meaning to for years.” She smiled despite what must have been terrible pain. “You won’t. . b— believe this, but I’m kind of shy.”
Cain laughed. Couldn’t help it. “Yeah, shy. We can always plan for next time.” He didn’t know if either of them would be sent back to the mortal plane after such a huge fuck-up. He knew for a fact Berith would want some time to play with him before he shot him back up to earth. If he did.
“I just wish. . I–I just wish things were different.”
He patted her knee. Heat seeped into his cold hand and he found taking it off her was much harder than it should have been. So he left it on her leg. She pressed her own hand over his. Blood coated their skin. A bond made of pain.
“Take them, okay.”
Cain shook his head. “It’s your only bargaining chip, without them, Asmodeus—”
“He would anyway. And I d — don’t give a shit.” She grimaced as she reached into her belt. “Take them.”
Earlier that night, he would’ve done anything to get his hand on the little black box Bethany presently proffered. But as he looked at it now, he didn’t have the heart to take it from a dying woman’s hands. Especially Bethany’s hands. “It won’t make a difference for me. I pissed him off too many times.”
Bethany rested her head on his shoulder. “Lied to the cops. Wrapped my car. . around a telephone pole.” She pulled her hand away from the wound, rubbed her crimson fingers together. “Killed t-two others. . was drunk.”
Cain understood then why she’d been sent directly to the eighth level. He’d always wondered about that, because if the woman was a major pain in the butt, she didn’t look like a hardened criminal. But liars, cheaters and usurpers populated the eighth. And drunk drivers who pretended to be sober.
“You?”
Cain swallowed hard. “I killed two people, too. My brother Abel, then later, myself.”
“I knew. . y-you were the Cain.”
What was there to say? He acquiesced with a nod.
She pressed the little box in his hand. “D-don’t be a hero.” Her voice grew weak, her eyes closed. “I hope. . see you. .” Her head lolled on her chest.
He knew she still lived because her body hadn’t yet burst out in ashes and glowing embers. But he checked for a pulse at her neck, wanting it to be steady and strong. Weak, shallow. Barely there. She wouldn’t be waking again.
Cain took the little black box, slippery with Bethany’s blood, and turned it around in his hand. He’d watched Berith gorge on secrets, all at once like a glutton, or savour them one at a time, placing the fragile gold paillettes on his tongue. He’d seen demons sell them for more damned souls like Bethany and him. Like cards on a poker table.
He was done being played.
Around him, the Montreal skyline turned brighter. Almost dawn.
Four
Don’t be a hero.
He hated them right now, demons and spawns, angels, too, even the good kind. They couldn’t stop meddling with people’s lives, trying to pull the blanket on to their side. Jealous freaks, the lot of them. They didn’t have souls, and it burned them to think monkey-men had them, when clearly, they were inferior. Like animals.
Cain couldn’t have been less hero material. But that didn’t mean he intended to make it easy for hell to get its claws back into him. They wanted the secrets, they could come pry them out of his dead fingers. Fuck them. Fuck Berith.
“Wait here, okay,” he murmured, even though he knew Bethany couldn’t hear him any longer. “After it’s all done, I’ll come find you.”
He gently laid her down on her side and stood. After he gathered what ammo Bethany still had strapped to her, he straightened and caught movement in the reflective glass to his left. Cain only had time to whirl around. A split second later, something resembling a giant bat crashed against one of the glass walls. A spawn. Shudders traversed the floor. Ominous cracking sounds reverberated along the ceiling and down the concrete half walls. Dust floated around him like tiny snowflakes.
Through the windows, more spawns circled the leaning tower. The sky filled with them. Another hit the glass walls, then another. Like birds hitting a windshield. Wails and shrieks made Cain’s ears hiss.
He had to put as much distance as he could between Bethany and him, if only to spare her the sordid violations those keepers had in mind for her. He wouldn’t let them get their hands on her, even dead.
He couldn’t.
Time slowed. Noise came to him dimmed and dulled like standing across the street from a pounding discotheque. The smell of sulphur choked the air. There were two ways down from here. He couldn’t go back the way he’d come for fear of the other keepers getting their hands on Bethany. His sacrifice wouldn’t make that much of a difference in where she’d wake up, but at least they wouldn’t go after the defenceless woman. It’d at least buy her a serene death.