A Demon's Bargain

Andy’s sudden, firm embrace was unexpected.Though he was definitely impulsive, he wasn’t much of a bear hugger. For a moment, I reveled in the feel of his strong arms holding me so snug against his chest. Atypical or not, it made me feel safe, secure. But then I felt him leaving the Mortal Realm to enter the netherspace that runs between all material things, and he was pulling me with him!

A bolt of the most intense, raw panic I had ever felt twisted jaggedly through my heart. What was he doing?!T his would end the contract! We’d be separated again! No! NO!

It was already too late to try and pull him back, we had already entered a dimensional rift. All I could think, all I could feel, was a penetrating fear that as soon as we materialized wherever Andy was taking us, we would be torn apart from one another forever.

Terrified and unable to think clearly in the face of the ultimate loss, I wrapped my arms and legs tightly around him, flexing my wings to enclose the both of us as securely as I could. As we whipped through the endless nothingness, passing one fissure back to the corporeal after another, I closed my eyes to the void, pressing my face against Andy’s neck. I clung fiercely to him, braced myself against the inevitable attempt to separate us, and readied for a fight that neither of us was likely to survive. If Olodumare thought to tear us apart once again, he was more of a fool than I had ever imagined. We would face him down together; love was far stronger than-

“Shit!” We burst through a smaller opening roughly, the impact with the ground thankfully cushioned by something soft. I must have thrown Andy off, as I had been too rusty to help stabilize our trajectory. Massively disoriented and centuries out of practice, I had no idea where we were, only that the air smelled eerily familiar. Struggling with profound vertigo, I realized that the jolt against my legs, arms, and wings had loosened my hold on Andy, still below me.

Though my wings were painfully twisted underneath him, I refused to let go. I didn’t dare relax my hold any further to summon the full power of the Holy Light, but I wasn’t going to play the part of a meek, docile member of the angelic flock. I had never truly been that way, and I certainly wasn’t now. I would never yield. Raising my head, I shrieked a celestial challenge to any entity that might try to come between us.

Sidetracked by the unexpected sight of tasseled pillows and a plush, burgundy blanket, I failed to notice Andy choosing exactly then to try and sit up. “Wh-“ With a dull thud, his forehead connected solidly with my chin, and he went out like a light. I was left dazed, panicky, sore, bleeding from the inside of my cheek, and solely responsible for coping with whatever adversity awaited us, wherever Andy had brought us.

Blinking rapidly to clear my vision, I scanned our surroundings quickly. I wanted to be sure, to see if it was safe to check on Andy, make sure he was alright. But what I saw was beyond unexpected; my mouth fell open. It was a place I had revisited countless times. But for many long centuries, it had only been in my imagination.

We were in Andy’s master bedroom, a place enshrined in my memory. The blankets and pillows we had been thrown against were the tangled, soft bedding atop the cushy mattress of Andy’s ridiculously ostentatious bed. A deluge of emotions flooded through me, stealing my breath. The more I looked around us, the more things I saw that brought potent memories to the surface.

Time lost all meaning and I forgot the nebulous threat of separation as I looked around us. There, on one of the bookshelves, the handle of a hairbrush Andy had used to brush my hair. On a small display stand, I could easily see that the bristles were mostly gone. Though tarnished, I would have recognized the ornate design anywhere. The silver swirls and black accents were so unusual, so unforgettable. The drapery, though carefully mended and covered with a fine coat of dust, was the same that Andy had set on fire so long ago when Lemmy the imp had landed on the balcony. And there, at the back of his desk, sat that same grinning sandstone cat sculpture.

Forcing myself from my foolish reverie, I undertook a more thorough scan of our environment. All the while, the questions piled up. Why were we here? Why had Andy taken me with him? Or had something else forced us here? Why had no one come for us? But just as I peeked around a mantled bedpost, I finally put two and two together.

We had left my apartment. We had left together, and we were still together, here in Andy’s mansion! We were in the Underworld and still united! Nothing had happened; no one had come to try and tear us away from each other… Though it took a moment to fully process, it all led to the same conclusion. The bargain with YHWH must have been fulfilled; both our contracts must have been dissolved! My demon was free! We were both free!

I was filled with joy and relief that we were safe and undivided. God had followed through. After a quick wince at using slang I had picked up from my human life, I turned around to look down at Andy. I was excited and fairly confident that we were free from immediate danger. His face was still more angular and gaunt than it should have been, and a faint bruise was forming on his forehead, but his breathing was smooth and even.

My smile disappeared when I noticed the narrow trickle of blood coming from his right ear. My heart began to race as I found its twin on his left. I didn’t understand what could have happened, why Andy was bleeding. Why his ears... The abrupt realization of my responsibility was a crushing blow that filled me with shame.

I had used the divine howl while Andy was nearby once before. It had been centuries ago, in the Royal Gardens. But that had been after I had Fallen, before I was restored. Back then, I had only momentarily deafened him. Now I was whole again, as strong as I had been when Andy and I had first met. With my return to greater power, I had ruptured his eardrums.

Why hadn’t I thought of that? How many demons had I incapacitated (or even killed outright) while a Power, in just such a manner during the unending, pointless skirmishes between Heaven and Hell? Andy was his father’s son, a demon Lord- no, a Prince. How else should I have expected my wailing to affect him? Thank Heavens I hadn’t fulminated him with the Holy Light!

I looked down on Andy’s fair face, the blood running now from his ears into his soft, dark hair. Just as my eyes began to sting and tears threatened, the solution came to me, starkly obvious.

Andy needed to heal. Surely, that meant he had to eat. But how? He was still out cold.

Would it feed him to feel my joy, my happiness? I took his limp hand, pressed it to my face, and focused on happy thoughts. Andy started purring softly, a faint smile tugging at his lips, but he didn’t regain consciousness. His face remained too angular, and the bruise did not heal.

My anxiety grew as he failed to respond any further to kisses on his hand or to my running my hands through his hair. Though he looked to be happily dreaming, he wasn’t rejuvenated physically. A moment more and he stopped purring. Assuming my returned distress wasn’t helping, that that method just wasn’t going to work, I took a moment to pause and think things through again. I must have missed something.

Andy had already been thin as a rail before I had wounded him with my cry. Whether or not Andy was freed of his hunger to survive, he was clearly still subject to wasting away when his own strong desires went unfulfilled. Just now, he had almost died from having his desire to be with me eat him alive.

He wasn’t responding to my attempts to feed him while unconscious. I wasn’t able to calm down enough to have genuinely happy thoughts anyway. Andy needed to heal for multiple reasons. My emotions weren’t enough, at least not when he wasn’t conscious. It followed that, for Andy to heal and regain strength, he had to have his own greatest wishes fulfilled. I cursed inwardly. How was I supposed to do that?

Notes

At last, the next chapter. I'm sorry to be MIA for so wrong. The reasons are health related. I do have the entire rest of ADB outlined, however. None of my stories are abandoned. However, I will be posting more slowly than I general did previously (again for health reasons).

Thank you for your input once again, Unforgiven!

However, this site is getting so unreliable, I want to let everyone know that I also post my stuff on Wattpad. My username is the same.