Damned If You Do

  “It’s over,” Zed said quietly.

  Seth pushed to his feet, pulling his scarf from his pocket. His friend Jeremy laid his guitar aside and came forward to take Seth’s arm. He ducked his head close, conferring with Seth as the latter wrapped his scarf carefully around his neck. Then Jeremy took Seth’s arm and began leading him toward the exit at the back of the tent.

  Now that Abaddon had quit struggling and the “phenomenon” had ended, the revivalists released him. Zed caught the direction of Abaddon’s gaze and sighed.

  “I’ll give you a minute with him, but you are not to enter his living space, Brother Abaddon. I still do not trust you, and I urge you not to overstay your welcome.”

  Abaddon was almost as stunned by Zed’s sudden acquiescence as he had been by the snakes. “I won’t. Thank you.”

  Abaddon ducked through the crowd and hurried for the exit. Seth and Jeremy were halfway across the clearing to Seth’s trailer when Abaddon caught up with them. Seth was paler than usual, his eyes drawn and tired. After what he’d seen, it was all Abaddon could do to not grab him and pull him into his arms, but with Jeremy there, it seemed like a bad idea. He settled for taking Seth’s hand, feeling that surge of power that always came with skin-to-skin contact. “Are you all right?”

  Seth only smiled, although it never reached his eyes. It was Jeremy who spoke.

  “Peace and love to you, brother. You must be Abaddon. We haven’t actually met, but I’ve been hearing a lot about you.”

  Abaddon had to let go of Seth to shake Jeremy’s hand. His was another bright, pure soul—one that might have tempted Abaddon greatly not so very long ago—but he paled next Seth.

  Every star in the universe paled next to Seth.

  “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Seth’s soft smile seemed a little more genuine this time. “Of course.”

  But Jeremy shook his head. “It’d be better to let him rest. The snakes always tire him—”

  “I’ll be fine, Jeremy. Abaddon will see me the rest of the way home.”

  Abaddon had to wonder what Zed had told Jeremy, because the boy seemed reluctant to leave them alone, but he grudgingly deferred to Seth’s wishes, and Abaddon finally had Seth to himself.

  “They all treat me like a recalcitrant child. As if my blindness is somehow my way of rebelling against them.”

  “I think they’re only concerned for your welfare.”

  Seth laughed. “Funny how you’re the one who gives them the benefit of the doubt.” He gestured behind him, toward his trailer. “Do you want to come in, or—”

  “No. I promised Zed I wouldn’t.” He might have thumbed his nose at Zed’s rules in the past, but he felt compelled to follow them now. “Can we just walk?”

  “Certainly.”

  Abaddon led him past the trailers, into the trees, into the deep darkness of the trees. There was no moon. Very little light reached them, but between Seth’s blindness and Abaddon’s unnatural vision, neither of them needed it, and it would help hide them from the eyes of curious revivalists. Seth followed easily, whether based on the sound of Abaddon’s steps or something else entirely, Abaddon didn’t know.

  Abaddon clenched and unclenched his fists. His shoulders were so tight his head was beginning to ache. He wasn’t sure what he felt—anger, or grief, or just confusion. The urge to take Seth and run as far away as possible was almost tangible. The revival no longer felt safe.

  “You’re troubled,” Seth said at last.

  Troubled. It seemed like such a tiny, silly word compared to the chaos he’d felt as he’d watched the serpents climb up Seth’s pale, slender arms.

  “What were you thinking?” Abaddon asked, turning to face him. “You could have been bitten.”

  Seth shrugged, as if it were inconsequential. “I could have, yes. But I wasn’t.”

  “You could have died!”

  A darkness passed over Seth’s face. He touched the scarf around his neck. “Probably not.”

  Suspicion bloomed in Abaddon’s heart. He’d never once seen Seth without something wrapped around his neck. Years earlier, he’d met a man with a similar tendency, but that man had made a hobby of hanging himself from the towel bar in his bathroom while he masturbated. He wore turtlenecks and scarves to hide the rope burn.

  Abaddon couldn’t picture Seth asphyxiating himself, but he was suddenly sure that scarf was hiding something.

  He moved closer, dread pooling in his gut. Seth jumped when Abaddon’s fingers touched his neck. But then Seth closed his eyes and held very, very still as Abaddon unwrapped the length of twisted silk. What he saw made his heart clench. Tiny, round scars, all in sets of two. There were a few in front, and Abaddon was sure if he looked, he’d find more in the back, but they were thickest on the sides, the glistening scar tissue trailing from just above Seth’s collarbone to just beneath his ears.

  “Holy hell, Seth. How many times have you been bitten?”

  Seth shrugged again, taking the scarf from Abaddon’s hand. “I don’t know. A lot.”

  Abaddon touched one of the scars, electricity and power tingling through his fingers. For the first time, Seth seemed to feel it too. His breath hissed through his teeth and he jerked his head away.

  “Always on your neck?”

  A slow blush began to creep up Seth’s cheeks. “No. All over. My neck and my chest and my stomach and…my thighs.” His cheeks were now bright red, his words barely a whisper. “All over my thighs, but especially, you know. Up high.”

  “It doesn’t hurt?”

  Seth kept his eyes averted but didn’t answer.

  “Why aren’t you dead?”

  Seth shook his head. Abaddon waited, and eventually, Seth cleared his throat and spoke. “‘And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened on his hand. And the barbarians said among themselves, no doubt this man is a murderer who vengeance suffereth not to live. But Paul shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm. And they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds.’”

  He hadn’t finished the verse though, so Abaddon finished it for him. “‘And they said that he was a god.’”

  Seth didn’t reply.

  “Are you telling me you’re a god?”

  Seth jumped as if he’d been slapped. “No! No, that’s not it at all. I just know that sometimes they come. And sometimes they bite me. And when they do, I can—” He stopped short.

  “You can what?”

  Seth took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders. “I can heal people.”

  “What?” He’d thought Seth’s sect was different from the bible-thumping, faith-healing groups, but now… “Are you shitting me?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but the snakes—”

  “They could kill you!”

  “No! In Mark it says—”

  “I know what it says in Mark, and in Luke.” They were the verses Thaddeus had quoted after the “phenomenon”, the same verses the serpent-handlers always pointed to, justifying their belief that handling venomous snakes proved their righteousness. They were utter bullshit as far as Abaddon was concerned.

  “Seth…”

  But he had no idea what to say. He couldn’t describe what he felt as he imagined those fangs sinking into Seth’s flesh. He touched the scars again, and this time, Seth didn’t pull away. He closed his eyes and stood, unmoving, as Abaddon’s fingers traced the marks. He wanted to touch each one. To heal them, even though it was against the rules. Seth’s pulse pounded beneath his fingers. His breathing became shallow, and Abaddon’s supernatural senses detected the sudden longing that blossomed in Seth’s heart. The twinge of arousal in his loins. The undeniable joy at being as clo
se as they were. The knowledge made Abaddon ache in the most wonderful, horrible way, and he pulled away, taking a step backward before he did something foolish.

  “You’re Abaddon,” Seth said, his voice a shaky whisper. “But are you the Abaddon? The Destroyer?”

  Abaddon was glad to have something to take his mind off his desire, and off the fact that Seth apparently felt the same way. “Angel of the Abyss, you mean? King of the Army of Locusts?”

  Seth finally turned his blind eyes toward Abandon’s face. “Are you?”

  “No. I’m not him. When we cross over, they make us choose a name, but there aren’t that many to choose from. Mammon, Azazal, Beelzebub, Mestama. Maybe a dozen more. They added Damien in the seventies, thanks to Hollywood.” He laughed, although it came out wrong. “We have it better than the women though. They only have three: Lilith, Lamashtu, and Lamia. They petition to add Delilah every few decades, but it never passes.”

  “But does the real Abaddon exist?”

  Abaddon blinked, surprised by the question. “I don’t know. Probably, I guess.”

  “And Satan? Have you met him? Or God?”

  “I’ve never seen either one of them in person.”

  “But you know they’re real?”

  Abaddon wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. “I guess.”

  “And if devils are real, then angels must be too, right?”

  “Oh, sure.” He was glad they’d moved away from God. “Angels are real.”

  “Have you seen them?”

  “Well, devils only see angels if the angel wants to be seen. They can hide from us, although we can’t hide from them. They always know us on sight, although I’m not sure how. But I’ve met a couple over the years. I ran into Hadraniel at Sturgis once, and I sat next to Ambriel at a Doobie Brothers concert.”

  “Who are the Doobie Brothers, and what’s a sturgis?”

  Abaddon laughed. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

  Seth nodded, but Abaddon could tell his thoughts were elsewhere. “I think it must be your eyes that give you away.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Earlier, when you let me see you…”

  “Yes?”

  “Your eyes were wrong. They were…empty. And I don’t mean that in some poetic way. I mean, they were utterly black. I could see the abyss in them.”

  “Oh.” Abaddon touched each eyelid with a fingertip. They felt normal enough to him. Then again, he didn’t really remember what they’d felt like before he’d crossed over. “I didn’t know.”

  “That must not be how the others see you though. The girls keep teasing me, telling me how it’s unfair to waste somebody as good-looking as you on a man who can’t even see him. But they never mention your eyes being wrong.”

  There were too many pieces of that confession that intrigued Abaddon. His fathomless eyes, and Seth being teased as if they were a couple, and…

  “What exactly do you tell them about me? How did you explain me finding you all the way in Alabama?”

  “I told them the truth, but I let them think it’s a joke. They all guess, and when they come up with something that sounds reasonable, I give a vague answer, like, ‘Yeah, that’s about right.’”

  Abaddon found himself smiling. “So you don’t have to lie?”

  “Not outright, at any rate. The general consensus is that you lost your job and your house and maybe your wife, and now you’re living out of your car. They all think you’re following me around because you’ve fallen in love with me. It’s easier to let them believe that than to tell them you just like the flavor of my soul.”

  There was a question buried in the statement—one that made Abaddon squirm a bit, his insides feeling somehow too light for his body. “I wonder why you could see me the way they can’t.”

  Seth frowned. “Probably because it was you who gave me my sight. Like I was seeing you through your eyes.”

  Now it was Abaddon’s turn to frown. That didn’t make sense to him, but Seth spoke again before he could think on it further.

  “You told me that you were once a man.”

  Abaddon’s heart clenched. He didn’t want to talk about this either. “Yes.”

  “When?”

  Abaddon rubbed his hand over his forehead. Overhead, the stars blazed, but here, they were lost in the shadow of the trees. Abaddon suddenly longed for wide-open spaces and brilliant skies as far as the eye could see. He halfway debated whisking Seth off to the Grand Canyon, simply because he could.

  “I don’t know. I might have died in World War I.” He based his guesses on his oldest memories as a devil, but they were vague and surreal. The only solid thing that ever came to him was the horrifying feeling of icy cold water filling his throat and lungs. “I think maybe I drowned.”

  “I bet you were a good man.”

  Abaddon closed his eyes, burying his face in his hands. “Seth—”

  “There was a boy once.” Seth still held his scarf, and he twisted it nervously between his hands. “We were in Alabama, near Mobile. He came to every revival, and every time he’d stay after and talk to me.”

  He kept his head lowered as he spoke, and Abaddon waited for him to go on.

  “I was eighteen. I could still see, back then. And I’d stand in the greeting line at the beginning of the revival. I’d count where he was in line, and I’d make sure I was the one to greet him.”

  “The Kiss of Peace? Is that the greeting you’re talking about?”

  Seth raised his head at last, and in that dim place among the trees, Abaddon could have sworn Seth could see him.

  “Whenever he kissed me, I was filled with the most glorious light. It was like nothing I’d ever felt, like I could sprout wings and fly. And one night, I dreamed that I lay beneath him. I dreamed of his lips and of his touch, and when I woke, the snakes had come. My bed was full of them. They were wrapped around me, around my arms and my legs and around…” Abaddon waited, practically holding his breath. “Around all of me. It was as if time had slowed, and their bites were caresses. I could feel their fangs sinking into my flesh, into my neck and the insides of my thighs, and I could feel their venom pumping into my veins. And holy cow, Abaddon, it was the most exquisite thing I’ve ever felt.”

  Abaddon had a hard time making his voice work. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because that’s how I feel when I’m with you.”

  It was as if Seth had cast his line into the water, and now reeled it in. Abaddon hadn’t felt the hook tear into his flesh, but he didn’t mind being caught. He felt the same wondrous exhilaration Seth was describing, and hearing Seth put it into words was more than he could stand. Abaddon pulled him close, one arm around his waist, one hand on his slender neck.

  Seth’s breath caught in his throat. He clutched the front of Abaddon’s shirt. “Are you going to kiss me?”

  “You’re damned right, I am.”

  The first touch of his lips against Seth’s nearly blinded him. The power of Seth’s soul washed over him, sinking through his flesh, drowning his senses, and for the first time, Abaddon didn’t pull away from that power. He sank deeper into it, holding Seth tighter, running his tongue gently over Seth’s lips until the boy parted them and let him inside. Their tongues met, just barely. A soft moan rose from Seth’s throat, a quiet, breathless sound of wonder that went straight to Abaddon’s groin, and then Seth wrapped his arms round Abaddon’s neck and gave himself up entirely to Abaddon’s kiss.

  He tasted exactly as Abaddon had known he would—like cotton candy and warm honey—and Abaddon savored that sweetness, sinking deeper into this new blissful torture he’d found. The earth might shatter. The sky might rip in two. Demons could pour forth from the earth and fire rain down from the heavens, and Abaddon wouldn’t have seen it. He was lost in Seth’s brilliance, high on his purity, e
nraptured by his taste. He hadn’t felt anything like it in all the years since passing over, and if he’d felt it before losing his soul, he didn’t remember and didn’t care. He felt sure that anything from his past must pale next to this.

  Satan may own his soul, but the rest of him was putty in Seth’s sweet, devout hands.

  But Abbadon was still a devil. Maybe the hunger to consume Seth’s soul had abated, but only because it had been replaced by desires that were far more base and equally unholy. Another minute of this bliss and he’d start tearing off Seth’s clothes, so he broke their kiss, but not their embrace, breathing hard. Seth’s lips were damp, parted in eagerness, and Abaddon moaned at the sight.

  “Oh, Abaddon,” Seth breathed. “Is this what sin feels like? Because up until now, I never understood why it was so hard to resist.”

  “This is only the beginning. The things I could teach you about sin…” And he wanted to. Man, did he want to. But it would be the most horrific thing he’d ever done. “I shouldn’t be doing this. You’re the most innocent person I’ve ever met—”

  “I don’t care about ‘innocent’. I wanted you to kiss me. I still want you to kiss me.”

  “Seth.” He spoke clearly, emphasizing each word, hoping to drive his point home. “I am the devil.”

  “You’re a devil, not the devil, right? That’s what you told me.”

  “But I am temptation. Don’t you see? I am the serpent in your garden, made flesh.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You should care. You should be running from me as fast as you can. You should be terrified.”

  “‘There is no fear in love—’”

  “No, don’t start with the bible quotes!”

  “‘—but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.’ Don’t you see? It applies to us both.”

  “No, Seth, it doesn’t. I wish it did but—”

  Seth kissed him again. There was no hesitancy at all. No fear or uncertainty, despite his inexperience. There was only joy at finally being given the thing he wanted most, and the natural urge to do more. To touch more. To share more. The flavor of his soul fluxed and changed, his arousal adding a hint of cinnamon and smoke to his cotton-candy and honey sweetness, and it was still so fucking perfect and deliciously tempting that Abaddon whimpered, wavering, torn between doing what was right and doing what they both wanted. He couldn’t say yes, but he sure as hell couldn’t say no. Not when he could feel Seth’s hands in his hair. Not when he could taste the urgency that pounded in Seth’s heart and burned in his groin.