Prologue
Twenty-seven years ago
The knock on the door sounded innocent enough. Pleasant, even. Light and friendly.
It wasn’t.
The man sitting at the battered old desk seemed to know that. His balding head jerked up from the lines he was snorting with a rolled-up dollar bill, and he blanched whiter than the powder scattered across the scarred desktop. Whiter than the wife-beater he wore…which, come to that, wasn’t all that white, but torn and yellowed with sweat stains.
Apparently he at least suspected that death was standing outside his door. What he didn’t realize was that a far more dangerous foe sat watching the scene from the tattered living room couch, cloaked in invisibility.
Ashemnon narrowed his eyes as the man leapt from his chair and stared at the front door with the whites of his eyes showing all around blue irises—though his pupils were so dilated the blue was nearly eclipsed by discs of black.
Blue, like her eyes will be.
Ash fidgeted as impatience gnawed at him. He wanted to get this show on the road, but not quite yet. Better to let the man’s fear build to a fever pitch, to a point of desperation that would impel him to do anything, pay any price, for his life to be spared. He was in bad trouble with worse people…people who would knock on your door and shoot you in the face. Without any sort of intervention, he was going to die here, now, riddled with bullets and left to rot until someone complained about the smell and sent management to investigate. This was the sort of seedy establishment that housed hollow-eyed tenants who normally didn’t see you as long as you pretended not to see them.
It didn’t matter one way or another to Ash what happened to the waste of life currently rummaging through a desk drawer as silently as he could. But the man—whose name was Gatlin—possessed something he wanted, something he needed, and a moment like this was when he would be most likely to part with it for the promise of deliverance.
The knock sounded again, more insistent this time. The human jerked a pistol out of the drawer and plastered his back to the cracked drywall. Inch by inch, he crept along toward the door, staying out of the line of sight of anyone who might begin shooting from the opposite side.
As dust floated lazily in the single dingy shaft of sunlight slanting through a grime-encrusted window, Gatlin’s breathing threatened to go out of control and Ash imagined he could hear the mortal’s heart pounding. Given the several hundred milligrams of coc**ne bubbling through the man’s bloodstream, it was amazing a heart attack wouldn’t fell him before the bullets could.
The idiot was opening his mouth to call out to the person at the door.
Now. Ash dropped the shields that kept him invisible to human eyes and threw up one that would protect them both from being heard, wrapping himself and his target in a protective cocoon separate from the time and space of the human’s realm.
The clock on the wall stopped ticking. The rush of traffic outside the thin walls ceased. Absolute silence descended.
Blinking, Gatlin looked around, his brow furrowing…until his gaze fell on Ash lounging on his couch. Then his eyes flew even wider, and he swung the weapon up and pointed it directly at Ash’s chest.
Ash only grinned. “You’re going to die.”
“Fuck you,” Gatlin rasped and opened fire.
One…two…three…four…
Ash made a show of yawning as the man succeeded only in putting six neat bullet holes in the back of the couch. It hadn’t been a quality item in the first place, brown and stained and leaking more stuffing than it contained. Ash sighed and crossed his ankle over his knee as Gatlin continued frantically pulling the trigger until it merely clicked.
“Are you quite done?”
“How the…who the hell…?” Gatlin’s nostrils flared with every loud, desperate breath. The gun fell from his seemingly nerveless fingers and clunked on the floor.
“I’m not who you think I am, obviously. Or else I would be bleeding out on your floor, would I not?” Ash allowed his upper lip to curl. This was the fun part. “I’d hate to know that hideous vomit-colored carpet was about to become the last thing I beheld. But here’s the thing, Gatlin…you’re about to get up close and personal with it. You’re two minutes away from watching it go red with your blood as the life pumps out of your body. The man standing on the other side of that door will blow so many new holes through you, my friend, I’ll be able to look through you and see daylight on the other side.” For dramatic effect, he stood and began pacing slowly toward the blubbering man, never blinking, never letting him escape his gaze. Gatlin slid down the wall, muttering nonsense, his fists clenching and unclenching spasmodically as his chin fell to his chest.
Ash fought down a surge of renewed revulsion. He was almost tempted to end negotiations before they began. End them, and let this scourge on humanity eat lead. His was a soul Ash could reap on the spot, no questions asked. No angels would be coming to wing him to his rest.
But it wasn’t his soul he wanted right now. Gatlin…he was too easy. Drugs, assault, burglary, rape. Hell would be welcoming him with open arms eventually, and right now Ash’s superiors were content to let Gatlin carry on doing his dirty work upon the earth. Ash didn’t plan on making any provisions regarding the man’s afterlife. This was all about saving his ass now.
The soul Ash was really here to collect was one he ordinarily couldn’t touch.
Gatlin looked as if he was about to pass out. With the toe of one black boot, Ash tilted his chin up. The man’s eyes rolled upward, his bleary gaze finally focusing.
“Get up.”
The stuttering began to form words. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is—”
Ash gave him a mouthful of boot leather, knocking his head hard against the wall. “I’m sure she has more deserving sinners to pray for. I said get up.” Without waiting for him to try, Ash leaned over and hauled him up by the front of his shirt, half-tearing it in the process—the man was damn near dead weight. Ash deposited him in a nearby chair that was in worse shape than the couch, then sat across from him on the scarred coffee table. Gatlin watched in slack-jawed fear as Ash rested his elbows on his knees, steepled his fingers at his lips and simply stared.
“Wh-what do you want from me?” Gatlin stammered. A trickle of blood ran from his busted lower lip.
“It’s quite simple, really. I want to save you.”
Gatlin swiped at the blood on his face, then stared at the stark crimson on his fingers. The blow had apparently knocked some sense into him. Or at the very least, sobered him up a bit. “You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it, pal.”
Ash grinned at that. “Indeed. I won’t sugarcoat things. You’re in a dire situation, Maxwell Gatlin, and for a price, I’ll get you out of it. This time.”
“What?”
“I don’t like repeating myself, and I won’t tolerate stupid questions. Use what little brain you haven’t fried. I appeared out of thin air. Every bullet you fired should have pierced my chest, but you murdered your couch instead.” He grinned again, letting heat gather behind his eyes so they would burn red. Gatlin clumsily tried to scramble back in his chair. “Yet here I sit, offering you a chance to escape certain death. And make no mistake, death is certain today unless you accept my help.”
“All right, man, I get it. If you can get me out, f**king do it already.”
“Ah, but I haven’t even named my price.”
“Name it.” Gatlin glanced back at the door as if he expected it to burst open at any moment in a rain of gunfire.
All amusement left Ash’s demeanor. He felt it drain at the thought of her, felt the muscles of his throat constrict. The words tore loose in a strangled growl. “Your daughter.”
Gatlin’s incredulous gaze swung back around to him. “You got the wrong guy. I ain’t got no daughter.”
“That you know of.” He watched the man’s face slacken. “Her name is Madeleine. She’s six months old.” Ash leaned over until they were almost nose to nose, only a few inches separating them. “And I want her.”
He could see the calculations going on behind Gatlin’s eyes, trying to figure out who he’d knocked up well over a year ago. Now wasn’t the time for him to have an attack of conscience.
“What does it matter to you?” Ash asked. “Her mother was a prostitute whose fee you stiffed and then forced anyway. Not an uncommon occurrence for you, if I understand correctly. So, congratulations. But why would you possibly give a damn? It’s not as if the kid would have anything to do with you, even if her mother let her. Just another person in your life to someday tell you what a slimy piece of shit you are. Do you really need one more?”
Gatlin just stared dumbly. Ash leaned back and feigned nonchalance. “Of course, you can always protect her and fulfill your fate, which is to drown in your own blood after getting punched full of bullet holes. I can’t promise a quick end. I think you’ll feel every hit, and then you’ll have the agony of—”
“Stop! I’ll do it. You can have the girl. I won’t ever know her anyways.”
At the proclamation, Ash felt the weight of centuries of longing lift off him and he felt almost…free. Happy, even. He wanted to hang his head in exhausted relief, but he kept it high, kept his gaze steady on the man before him who’d just handed him everything he’d been chasing for a long, long time.
Standing, he reached into the inside pocket of his black coat and pulled out the contract he’d drafted stating the terms of the bargain. He unfurled it on the coffee table, holding it flat so Gatlin could read. It was quite a simple one. The girl’s soul, taken at a time of Ash’s choosing, but not before her twenty-fifth birthday—Hell had no interest in younger souls; they weren’t tainted enough. In exchange, Ash would immediately remove him from one and only one situation that would end in his death. He watched Gatlin’s gaze move intently across the parchment as he read. When he was done, he looked up, his jaw tense.
“How do I sign?”
Ash produced a quill from his pocket and gestured for Gatlin to give him his hand. He gasped when Ash drew a fingernail across the back, slicing it open and releasing a thin ribbon of blood. Without further explanation, he held out the quill.
Blowing out a breath, Gatlin took it, drew it through his own blood. And signed over his unknown daughter’s soul to a demon.
Ash grinned as he snatched the parchment away and pressed his thumb to the bottom, leaving an intricately scripted A sizzling and smoking once he lifted it away. The hands on the clock whirred forward, the sunlight in the room quickly melted to darkness except for a faint red neon glow from well outside the window. Any armed assailants were long gone.
“Now,” he said, quickly rolling up the scroll, “I suggest you get out of here before someone comes back.”
Gatlin nodded vigorously, looking as if he wanted to go down on his knees in front of him. His words were as breathless as if he’d just run ten miles. “Thank you. Fuck. Thank you so much.”