Did you enjoy the stroll into Grace's dark side in that last chapter? That won't be the last you see of it (there's a little bit of it in this chapter, too, manifesting in a very different way) ...
This chapter includes the 2 sentences--a grand total of 6 words--that changed the trajectory of this story and the nature of this duo's relationship. Can you spot the 6 words that changed everything?
Recommended Listening
Grace curled up in her covers. She’d been on the verge of tears since the outskirts of Cannibal Town but they just hadn’t squeezed out yet.
Being in Hell is making me crazy if I’m catching feelings for that fiend.
What is there to even see in him?
If demons were disasters, he’d be the Tunguska event. The Hindenburg. Hurricane Katrina. The Titanic. Chernobyl. Three Mile Island. The Library of Alexandria.
Ugh, too soon, Grace!
He’d be the Exxon Valdez. Pompeii. Krakatoa.
He’d be my attempt at karaoke that one night when I was drunk enough to do it but too drunk to do it well.
I bet he’d have a field day if he knew I thought of him this way.
Look how sad you are now, Grace … All you used to have to do was glance a man’s direction and he’d be yours to do with as you pleased. Now your ultimate sexual fantasy is that you annoy this demon so much that he has no choice but to eventually fall in love with you?
Wait. Excuse me! Grace bolted upright in bed, still wrapped up in her covers. What the fuck does Rosie know?
That’s only her perception of him. Until he tells me so, himself, I still have a chance!
“Grace?” Charlie called from the other side of her bedroom door. She knocked a couple times. “Can I come in?”
Well, if she wasn’t going to cry, at least she could have some company. Knowing her luck, she’d start crying in front of Charlie because that would be humiliating. At least then maybe she’d start feeling a bit of relief from the burning tear ducts.
Grace sighed, her voice wobbling as she replied weakly, “Yeah.”
“You okay?” Charlie said as she opened the door and peered inside Grace’s room. “You ran by so fast but … looked real upset.”
“I’m in Hell,” Grace replied simply. “It would be my eternal punishment to crush on someone who has no interest in sex—if he isn't straight up sex-repulsed—and wouldn’t know what romance was if it came up and ripped the stupid horns off his stupid fucking head!” She took a deep, shaky breath, trying to quell her burst of anger.
Charlie frowned, sitting beside Grace on the bed. “May I ask who? Is it someone I know?”
Grace considered lying. She considered not answering at all. What was the point? Seemed everyone here knew what was in her heart long before she even did. “It’s …” She buried her face in her hands. “It’s fucking Alastor.”
“What?” Charlie gasped. “Oh, no! Anyone but him! Why him?”
“If you can’t see what’s remarkable about him for yourself,” Grace sighed, “no amount of my explaining it to you will make you understand what I see in him.”
That seemed to thoroughly fluster Charlie. Finally, she said, “Let me put it like this: there are two types of people in this world: the people who would do anything to keep others from feeling the pain they’ve experienced, and the people who think everyone should suffer because they’ve suffered. You’re the former and he’s the latter.”
“Don’t you think I know how messed up this is? Fuck me. Fuck this. Fuck my whole afterlife! Fuck everything!” Grace flopped back down on the bed, pulling the covers up over her head. Hoping that maybe she could suffocate herself.
“Well … while I can’t understand your preferences there—”
That was a tactful way of saying she thought Grace had no taste and/or had gone batshit crazy—probably both of which were true—
“I can at least tell you that you're in the right place. I'm here to help people like you get out of Hell.”
The sheer audacity of the tears that never came.
Grace emerged from her blanket chrysalis and left her room with the intent of claiming that bottle of alcohol she’d left out on the bar.
She stopped, however, on the balcony overlooking the first floor common area. Alastor had gotten back to the hotel at some point after Grace had and was currently sitting by himself, open book in one hand and sipping from his OH DEER mug with the other.
He looked so at peace, like everything that had led up to this moment hadn’t happened. Or at least like it hadn’t effected him as it had, her.
She leaned on the railing and studied him.
If not meant for sex, then why so sexy?
Floofy hair. Almost certainly crazy-soft ears.
Big hands, big dick? He’s definitely got a big dick personality.
Grace’s gaze shifted toward the hand holding the book.
Long pointy nails—eh, maybe I'll come back to those.
Sharp chiseled jaw.
Dignified monocle.
Broad chest.
Trim waist.
Claws? Yeah still got nothing good for those.
Silly, dorkily charming overbite.
Sweet smile when it's not, like, ominous.
No, you know what? Maybe even when it's all like ominous.
Bedroom eyes. If not for sex, why does he have bedroom eyes?! I swear to fuck, how is that even fair?!
Alastor turned a page in his book, sipping from his mug again. His smile changed.
The flash of anger Grace had felt about his eyes ebbed.
Darling little teefies pokin’ out!
She swallowed a small sigh.
Talons. Nope, nothing yet for those.
Cutest fucking little crescent-shaped horns.
Dumb adorable little stupid pointy dumb cute little fucking stupidly adorable dumb dumb stupid nose! God how much I abhor his stupid darling little upturned nose! I just wanna—augh!
Those nails? Kinky sexy-time back scratches!
The mere thought of him drawing his claws down her back made her pulse race and goosebumps skitter across her arms and legs.
At that, Grace whimpered and slinked back until she bumped against the wall. She slid down it, pulling her legs up toward her chest and pressing her face against her knees.
What I wouldn’t give to take his cock in my hand, massage it until he comes in palm.
Finally, the stubborn tears came.
Late that night, Grace sat down at the bar even though both Husk and Angel Dust were already there. She said nothing, didn’t request a drink. As it was, she was already numb again.
Nonetheless, Husk set a drink down in front of her with a soft remark: “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Grace.”
She glanced at him wordlessly.
“He doesn’t love you,” Husk continued. “He's not capable of feeling feelings even remotely akin to love.”
“And why, exactly, do you think that matters to me?” Grace said on a barely tolerant sigh.
“I see how you look at him.”
In other words, Angel Dust shared her secret; there was no point in trying to argue it anymore.
“I know that, Husker. Rosie told me all about him.”
“You met Rosie?” Angel and Husk replied in unison, equally surprised.
She didn’t ask them to explain their reactions. Instead, she hissed, “Don't you think if I had any control over my feelings, I'd change them? It doesn't matter to me in the least how he feels. How he feels doesn’t impact how I feel. Have you never experienced anything unrequited?”
Husk shook his head but Grace caught Angel’s gaze dropping to the bar top. At least maybe then one of them might understand her current predicament.
“Have you ever craved a particular food?” Grace asked Husk.
He frowned but replied, “Who hasn’t?”
“And did that food crave you back?”
Husk laughed. Hard.
“Hey!” snapped Grace. “It's a serious question!”
“Of course not,” he finally answered as his laughter petered out.
“But I don’t suppose the fact that it didn't reciprocate your craving didn't stop you from craving it?”
Angel Dust folded his upper set of arms on the bar, studying Grace with a tilted head. “Are we really equating your lust for Alastor to craving food?”
“Actually … I think that’s probably a pretty apt analogy,” Husk muttered.
“Listen: You all telling me any of this is like … like telling a diabetic to just produce insulin or a depressed person to just smile or a quadriplegic to just get up and walk or an amputee to regrow a limb or a—”
“We get it, we get it!” Angel interrupted.
Grace picked up the glass, swirling its liquid around. “If it was at all within my power to not feel this way, believe me, I wouldn’t!”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Husk asked.
“We could tell you about all the awful things he’s done,” offered Angel.
“You’d think that would be a deterrent,” Grace said with a shake of her head, “but I’ve already seen those things firsthand.” Let them infer from that what they will.
Their inferences will probably be accurate … or not nearly as disturbing as reality. Reality being—
It came back to her then, the thing Grace had been trying to remember, that that bitch Mimzy had interrupted.
She jumped from her seat, a sinner on a mission. “Excuse me.”
They called after her but she didn’t so much as break stride.
“I was bait!” Grace bellowed, banging on the locked door to the radio tower. Whether or not he answered, she knew he was in there—she could feel that electricity on her skin. “Open up, you coward!”
The door whipped open, Alastor scowling down at her. Before she could say anything, he turned his back to her.
Grace grabbed him by the shoulder. He glanced at her hand where it touched him but didn’t act upon it.
So she pulled him back around to face her. “You took me through the worst part of Hell to use me as bait!” She shoved him in the chest as hard as she could to punctuate her rage.
He flinched and retreated.
He flinched and retreated!
Wait.
He flinched? And retreated?
What? Why?!
He flinched just the same way he had when she touched his chest while they danced. The same way he had when she’d grabbed his arm after Husk scratched him.
In an instant, her fury fizzled. “You’re injured,” she whispered, covering her mouth. “Aren’t you.”
He denied it, because of course he would.
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing. I’m fine,” Alastor blatantly lied.
“I can fix it. You know I can. You’ve seen what I’m capable of.”
“But you can’t, not this one.” He dropped her gaze and then sat in the chair at the radio control panel, swiveling it so that his back was, again, to her. “It’s an old wound. Already healed.”
“Clearly it’s not healed if it still hurts. And if it’s an old wound that still hurts because it hasn’t healed—” Grace exhaled. “It’s from Angelic Steel.” She wasn’t even going to give him the chance to deny it, because that’s exactly what he would do. She circled him in his chair, lowering herself to her knees at his feet. “Let me see it.”
“No.”
“If I can’t make it better, then … then I guess we’d know that, at least. But what if I can? Don’t you want to feel better? You’re sadistic, not a masochist.”
At that, he met her gaze and she gave him a crooked smile.
She was either right or he’d find that humorous.
When he didn’t laugh, she assumed it was the former. In his silence, Grace remarked, “I’m the masochist, here.”
“Obviously,” Alastor said wryly, the voice filter gone for the first half of that word.
“Excuse me?”
He didn’t elaborate.
“C’mon! Let me try. Best case scenario, it’s fixed.”
“And the worst case?”
“There is none?” Grace lied, hoping he wouldn’t realize. It would only be ‘worst’ for him and she kind of wanted to be selfish just a little bit, here, for once in her afterlife. “Please? Just let me help you.”
Alastor challenged her, “What’s in it for you?”
“The intrinsic joy I get from healing someone of something that brings them perpetual agony?” When he stared at her blankly, Grace asked, “You know what intrinsic means, don't you?”
His eyes narrowed on her.
“You’ve never had anyone actually do anything to help you before, have you?” She glanced away with a scowl. “God, don’t make me beg, you asshole!” Make me grovel. Step on me, pull my hair—oh, what the unholy fuck?!
His smile twisted. “Beg, then. Beg to help me.”
“I want to heal you more than I’ve wanted to do—almost—anything in my entire existence,” she beseeched, bowing before him until her forehead pressed against the top of his shoes. “Please, for the love of whatever you might actually hold sacred, let me at least try!”
“‘Almost anything?’” he echoed. “What do you want more than this?”
Grace gritted her teeth as she straightened. “You wouldn’t understand.” She was sure of it.
He looked physically pained to concede. “What will you need to do?”
“I’ll need to see it …”
Alastor arched an eyebrow but didn’t object. Yet.
“And be able to … to touch … it.”
He growled.
He growled, but he didn’t say no.
Grace steeled her nerves and tried pressing her luck. “You’ll need to take off your shirt. Or … I can do it for you.”
That induced him to act, because that option was, of course, the one she wanted the lesser of the two.
Much to her disbelief, he removed his jacket, and then with marked hesitation, the dress shirt beneath it.
This was far from the scenario she’d daydreamed about regarding seeing Alastor in a state of undress. To start, his was a nightmarishly large wound that, judging by the scarring, had been stitched together haphazardly at best. But it got even worse than that. Grace gasped in despair, “Alastor! That—that’s infected!”
He snapped through a clenched-tooth smile, “No, it’s not.”
“Don’t gaslamp me! I was a nurse. I know infection when I see it.” And the more she looked at it, the worse it appeared, like it was deteriorating visibly before her eyes. “How are you even still here?”
“Out of sheer spite for everyone and everything,” he spat.
“I believe it!” Grace considered her options to treat him. The approach she figured would be most effective would also serve to benefit her touched-starved, horny, and terribly-in-love-with-someone-she-knew-couldn’t-reciprocate self.
And should he end up literally ripping her apart afterward, at least the last moment of her afterlife would have been exhilarating.
She started the process, however, by resting her palm against his chest. She’d ease him into what she really wanted to do.
He tensed beneath her touch but judging by his exhalation, this was at least alleviating his pain. “Do you trust me?” Grace said with a smirk playing at her lips. “Haven't I proven myself to you?”
He muttered something she couldn’t make out amid heavier-than-usual radio static in his voice.
Step one, done. Pain gone. Step two: the actual application of the ‘medication.’ The perilous part of this transaction.
Grace took a deep breath before leaning forward between his legs and dragging her tongue along the wound that ran from beneath his ribcage on the right side of his body to his left shoulder.
Liiiiiiiiiiiickkkkkkkk!
She glanced up to gauge just how quickly and violently he would retaliate.
His eyes were as wide as she’d ever seen them, pupils damn near eclipsing his irises.
He swept his shirt and jacket into his arms and shoved Grace back with such force that she landed on her ass on the floor.
By the time she got back up to her feet, Alastor was nowhere to be found.
Feeling terribly uncomfortable to be in Alastor’s space without him present, Grace retreated to her room.
The radio was buzzing loudly as if it was set between stations even though just that morning, 96.9 had been broadcasting Pentagram City’s news, loud and clear. She checked the dial; it had not been moved. Weird.
She sat on her bed with a heavy sigh and picked up her phone to find an unread text.
She should have known better than to engage with the message. Despite the sinking feeling in her gut, Grace replied,
Grace dropped the phone on her bed, staring at it while trembling with excitement.
No.
There is no way Al uses a cell phone.
Nonetheless, now she couldn’t help herself—even if it took her five minutes to steady her hands enough to pick up her phone again.
Grace clenched her phone.
There was no immediate reply. Looks like this will be a mystery for Tomorrow Grace to solve.
She set the phone down, selected a nightgown from her bureau and changed for the night.
Still no response when she got back to bed so she turned off the still staticky radio, switched off the bedside lamp, and climbed under the covers. Wishing, just fleetingly, for her sleep paralysis demon to pay her a visit, maybe sit on her chest and suffocate her for a few minutes.
Better yet, the demon who reminded Grace of her sleep paralysis demon could come in and do something similar to her. She glanced toward the corner of her bedroom, hoping she might see tendrils of night snaking up from the floor.
She sighed. I really fucked up Alastor tonight, didn’t I? Dammit!
He’d flinched from her touch.
He’d literally run away from her.
Grace suspected he was just a broken little boy deep down inside. If only there were some way to get him to open up to her, or to at least find out anything about his past that could clue her into what went on inside his head.
Maybe she could help him heal. He’d never not be a sadistic serial killer slash cannibal, but maybe—
Maybe what, exactly?
A flash of light split the darkness; a message buzzed through on Grace’s phone.
She had no intention of looking at it, but didn’t want to be disturbed again by the sudden illumination of its screen or the vibrating against the bedside tabletop.
The unknown number had texted again.
And then a photo loaded.
Grace threw the phone, as if the selfie could come to life and enter her room through her phone screen—knowing Vox, that sort of thing may well have been possible.
At least Vox hadn’t punctuated his first texts to Grace with a dick picture, which could regrettably not be said of his pimp partner.
And that was pretty much the only thing Vox had over Valentino at this point.
The phone buzzed again.
She got out of bed and approached it with marked caution.
Its screen was cracked. Dammit. It would be more trouble than it was worth to get that fixed or replaced.
Grace’s heart stopped. That means … Al didn’t use me as bait? I just accused him of something bad that he didn’t actually do?
He
legitimately
…
he actually legitimately saved me?
Why?
No.
No! He feasted. He did a sadism. He took advantage of the situation and my being saved was nothing more than a coincidental perquisite. Don’t give that demon credit for a kindness he isn’t capable of.
Unless
saving me was part of his goal?
After all, he could have just as easily devoured her along with the rest of the demon hoard.
Grace couldn’t fall asleep even after she completely turned off her phone and set it on the end table, face-down for good measure.
Stay sane, deer friends!
That selfie of Vox is still legit terrifying. He looks so unhinged.