Better the Devil You Know Book Four

  BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW BOOK FOUR

  ODETTE C. BELL

  All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  Better the Devil You Know

  Book Four

  Copyright © 2021 Odette C Bell

  Cover art stock photos licensed from Depositphotos.

  www.odettecbell.com

  CONTENTS

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  Better the Devil You Know Book Four

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Ashes to Ashes - Sample

  What Should You Do Next?

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  BETTER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW BOOK FOUR

  So, they say the end always comes, right? You sure they’re talking about Armageddon – the complete destruction of everything and everyone? Because that’s what’s coming to Pax City, and unless Maggie and Luc can do something about it, there’ll be no hope.

  * * *

  But Maggie has her own problems. Her prophesied destruction is here. Soon Ometa will flood into her mind and use her to wipe away the universe. Luc could stop him, but it would mean drawing together the forces of both Heaven and Hell. And how exactly could a good devil-boy ever rely on those winged angel fools?

  * * *

  By the final chapter of this divine fight, the Seventh Son of Satan will be asked to do the extraordinary, and Maggie will do more. For fantastic destinies don’t come for free.

  1

  Maggie Brown

  So… it turns out… they’d kissed.

  Maggie and Luc… had she ever seen this coming?

  She could answer facetiously and say the whole world had seen this coming, but she was kind of distracted right now.

  Luc landed down in a cloud of power, far away from the tumultuous scene. He didn’t need to monitor General Hax. Presumably the Devil had already found out. The general’s future would not be a bright one.

  Maggie’s, on the other hand?

  Luc finally pulled away from her. She said finally, but she wasn’t entirely sure why she used that word.

  This had been a long time coming. Two weeks might not seem like an eternity, but—

  As soon as he pulled away, Maggie saw the cheeky smile crumpling his lips.

  Her stomach kicked slightly.

  She’d assumed this would be a turning point for them. But she’d forgotten the Seventh Son of Hell’s proclivities.

  “I thought you’d like it,” he muttered, finger still brushing down the side of her face.

  Her nose crumpled. She did that deliberately. She was aware of how much he liked the move. Up this close, she could feel his body shivering with anticipation at it.

  But if he thought she was going to throw herself into another kiss, that could come later. “And what exactly does that mean?”

  “You shouldn’t have denied yourself the joys of a devil for so long,” he purred.

  “So long? It’s been two weeks. Plus, don’t you rather think there’s something important to do right now?” She unavoidably got a little closer to him, hand brushing down his chest. It made what was not meant to be a suggestive move rather suggestive indeed.

  You should’ve seen the thrill of anticipation that chased through his eyes. It could’ve burnt through everything. Including any chastity belt.

  But again, Luc had another thing coming.

  He went to collapse around her again, but that would be when he groaned.

  She pressed her lips against his, but only to mutter, “You are terribly injured, Luc. And—” she didn’t need to finish the next bit. She was going to casually mention the fact that she was quite injured, too. Her fingers had been broken, and her ankle… God, her ankle—

  She didn’t need to mention anything. She was putting a little more weight on her feet now. With a crunch, that all ended.

  She fell against Luc just as he fell against her. Their considerable injuries caught up with the both of them.

  “It appears you need medical attention before your dirty mind can get ahead of you, my dear.”

  She let him play his game. It was his mind getting ahead of him. Though… okay, to be fair, her mind was getting ahead of her, too.

  Two weeks ago, she’d lived such a terrible life. She’d never seen any light at the end of the tunnel. Now, to be accurate, there wasn’t light. There was a demon. But she’d come far enough to recognize that was better.

  The light would just be hiding the Church, ready to sacrifice her for some ancient pact.

  The dark? She knew exactly what it wanted, and it would be rather easy to give in.

  She wasn’t that surprised when Luc managed to click his fingers and call on magic, regardless of his state.

  It was an act of princely arrogance, see. Even if he was trampled half to death, his hand would still pull out from his pocket, click with superiority, and call on even the smallest tuft of power just to prove that he had it in spades and she did not.

  She thought she heard his car revving through the forest to reach them, but that’s not what she heard at all. It was a motor, but it was different. Lower. Slightly more high-powered.

  The general had done a good job of pushing back the night, but it was unnatural. Now she didn’t need to be protected from the darkness, it was encroaching once again. But a strong headlight suddenly cut through it. They made her blink something atrocious.

  Then she saw… an ambulance?

  It did not have a cross on the side, indicating it was here for your medical benefit. Nope. It had a gaping black void. It indicated it came straight from Hell.

  She blinked quickly and looked right at him. “What is that?”

  “I’m afraid you’re rather injured, my dear. We need to fix you up before that dirty little mind of yours can get ahead of itself again. What do you say?”

  Nothing at all. She didn’t have the time. Now Luc’s mind had fixed on her injuries again, she felt his usual eagerness toward her.

  Had she felt it two weeks ago? Maybe just a spark when they’d met?

  She could kid herself and say she had, but she hadn’t.

  Hearts don’t work that way. Never believe someone who suggests that love at first sight is a real thing. Attraction surely is, though, and the attraction she’d been holding back for the past fortnight was finally getting the better of her. It leapt up her stomach, tingled in her torso, and wrapped its way around her back. It was reminiscent of a certain demon’s touch from only minutes before. Speaking of which… he was in his full demon f
orm. She had barely noticed.

  She could tell this was quite a thing for him. Somewhat like taking off one’s clothes – but even more revealing.

  Perhaps her eyes should be locked on his muscled chest, the horns on his forehead, the wings of his back. But all she cared about was his injuries.

  The back of the ambulance opened, and two harried-looking red-skinned creatures jumped out. They were in blue uniforms that looked somewhat like what paramedics actually wore. They had forked tails, however, and no-nonsense attitudes. When Maggie went to point at Luc and suggest he needed medical attention first, one of them wrapped their tail right around her chest and pulled her over to a waiting metal gurney. The metal gurney had been waiting itself, see. It had pulled itself out of the back, lurched around until its legs were straight, and even cleaned itself with a zing of magic. When she was thrust upon it, bands came out, locked her hand in place, and started sorting through boxes to the side for medicaments.

  She spluttered.

  “It’s fine, Maggie,” Luc said. “This is an ambulance from Hell. It would never hurt something that belongs to the Seventh Son.”

  Her lips twitched. This was where she ought to point out that she did not belong to him. A fact he well knew.

  But then he looked down at his ring.

  He swore.

  He’d been too distracted with her apparently to check on his Ring of Satan. He jerked over and stared at hers. She glanced down at it. It was then she noticed it was cracked.

  “What? I thought they’d only break if the pact was broken?”

  “This is not good,” he stammered. It was a cold day in Hell when the Seventh Son would stammer.

  That was proven by the rather fell wind that suddenly chased through the trees, picked up the edges of his injured wings, and furled them around him. They framed his straining neck muscles as he twisted and stared at the sky then his head jolted down and he stared down at Hell.

  She could tell, without touching him, how cold his skin became. She wanted to rush to her feet, wrap her arms around his neck, and warm him up. The gurney, of course, wouldn’t help her.

  Both of the attendant paramedics muttered to themselves under their breath. She only caught a few words. One of them was screwed. And so was the other.

  Maggie knew just how dangerous it was for the rings to be broken. She imagined them cracking was just a step on the ladder to them shattering for good. Then—

  “Luc—”

  “You stay right there, Maggie. You do not move away. And you do not commune with the Vessel in your head,” he growled. “I’ve got this. I simply have to make,” he closed his eyes and gathered his nerves, “a phone call.”

  His lips could barely move around those words. It sounded like he was going to choke on them.

  By phone call, did he mean that he was going to have to communicate with his heart? Would he have to rip it out of his chest first? Something had to account for the absolutely cold way he said that. He moved away from her. It was a lurching movement from his wings that suggested he wanted to take flight, but then an equally lurching movement from his knees suggested he didn’t have the strength. So he staggered away instead. He slipped a hand into his pocket – or what remained of it, which was preciously little – and tried to clutch out his phone. All he got was a sparking mess. He rolled his eyes.

  Before Maggie could suggest borrowing a radio from the paramedics, he started to draw something in the air with his fingers. It was a laborious move. She wasn’t sure if that was because it was a complicated spell, or if he simply didn’t have the strength to do it quickly. As it was, it was kind of nice to watch his fingers carving green sparks out of the air. It distracted her when one of the paramedics grabbed up a very nasty looking syringe that looked as if it belonged to an elephant and jammed it into her broken fingers. She didn’t feel pain – because she couldn’t when she was watching Luc like this. After he had busily drawn all the circuits of the phone, right down to a SIM card, the screen appeared, and with tired fingers, he typed in a number.

  It suddenly struck Maggie. “You’re calling your father, aren’t you? You… are you taking me down to see him finally?”

  Luc was standing a fair distance away, but he still slid his gaze over to her. It told her something far worse was going to happen.

  She shivered. He wasn’t going to call Ometa, was he?

  Perhaps she shouldn’t have thought that word. As soon as she did, she felt a stabbing sensation right in the center of her brow.

  Maybe Luc was so attuned to her that he knew what every single one of her nervous tics meant, because before he could open his mouth to converse with whoever was on the line, he paused the call. Letting his illuminated phone hang in the air, he jolted over.

  “Maggie Brown,” he said in the most serious voice she’d ever heard, “don’t you dare think its name.”

  She clutched her brow with her free hand. She let her fingers slide down. They dropped past her lips, framing them as they jerked slightly. “You mean—”

  Long before she could even sound out the letter o, he shot close and clamped his hand on her lips. He looked into her eyes with the power to part back any storm – including one stupid enough to form inside the Vessel. “From now until the day you die – by my side,” he emphasized with a trill growl, “you will not utter that name. You won’t even think about it.”

  She went to move her lips around his hand. It shouldn’t be hard. She could just pull them back if she really wanted to speak, but instead she found them jutting out as she let them slide purposefully along his warm palm.

  Attraction aside, there was a message she didn’t need to tell him. “I don’t really think simply saying his name is going to bring him to me.”

  “Maggie,” he said through clenched teeth, “how many times have I told you that you don’t need to think? This is my domain. And I will do the thinking – and fighting – for the both of us. Speaking of which, if you are stupid enough to utter his name and he inhabits you, that is all I will ever do until the day I die – which will presumably be in several minutes if you have your stupid way. So please,” he added. He lost his officiousness – it melted away. The look in his eyes was one of the most pleading things she’d ever seen.

  It took her aback for a moment, meant she didn’t emphasize her point. Though she thought she rather had a good one.

  She did not believe that saying Ometa’s name would do anything. Sure, thinking about it did make her head itch strangely, the Vessel feeling like it was trying to wrestle itself out of the center of her brows. But she honestly didn’t think the ancient force’s name alone would be enough to inhabit her. Something… had changed. Back there when John had completed the naming ceremony, when the spell had consumed him… it had… altered things.

  That impression was so strong, she managed to think Ometa’s name multiple times without it affecting her once.

  Luc seemed satisfied enough to drop his hand. He rubbed his brow then slowly turned. His hackles were up. It looked as if spikes were protruding through his skin. The hackles on a true demon were quite different. He whipped his tail to the left once, swore under his breath, rubbed his face again as if he were avoiding some terrifying task, then finally slouched over to his illuminated phone. He plucked it up in a slightly shaking hand, winced as if someone had struck him on the back of the skull with a metal bat, then finally continued the call. There was a single ringing sound. Then she heard someone picking up. That was all she heard. He quickly pressed the phone against his ear and uttered some spell to ensure the conversation was silent. But he couldn’t obscure that hiss, and… by God did it do something nasty to her stomach.

  It twisted, recoiled, thrust forward, then jumped back. It was like some nervous child at the sight of a horror show.

  The thing about going to a haunted house is that if you leave, you leave all of the scary things behind you. But she had the impression that, based on Luc’s excessive wincing, they couldn’t leave
anything behind here. Whoever was on the phone would be someone they’d be visiting presently.

  It was her own turn to close her eyes.

  She skewered her bottom lip with her teeth and waited.

  Luc had his muttered conversation then came back to her.

  When the paramedics insisted that his injuries be looked at, he told them officiously she was the priority. At that point, Maggie winked one eye open and looked right at him. Not enough that a path opened between them – not enough that she started to draw him into the Vessel – but enough that she appreciated one thing.

  She was only alive because she’d met Luc.

  He had literally changed her destiny. Without him, the most terrifying things in existence would have befallen her. Maybe they still would. But beside him, she had a chance.

  He was standing a little further back from the paramedics, giving them the room they needed. It still meant Maggie could scoot slightly over on the metal gurney, as much as she dared.

  It seemed pathetic to get closer to him. Pathetic, that was, until she realized he shuffled ever so slightly toward her. Once more, they made eye contact. It made the past harrowing several hours disappear. From the remnant cold grip on her ankle to her now thankfully fixed knuckles, Maggie let all of the horror shift into the background. And instead she focused all of her heart and soul on the apparent demon in front of her. She said apparent. If there was one thing she’d learned, it was that the light and dark meant nothing. You could be an exorcist with a heart of pure coal, but a demon with a heart of pure light.