Page 99 of Interior Design for Demons
“Thank you for that, precious.” Apollyon breezes past her, stooping to kiss her cheek. “What would we do without you?”
“You’d be dead,” she says bluntly. “Eradicated from existence, while Grace endured some terrible torture or other. You owe me a debt of eternal gratitude. I’ll take your first child as payment. Such sweet flesh—”
“No!” I snap. “But—thank you. We’ll find some other way to pay you back.”
“Enough chatting,” Rath interjects. “We have a schedule to keep. One does not keep an arch-angel and an Abominator demon waiting.”
I’m not exactly sure where the meeting place is, because I sort of black out on the way there due to the speed and the G-forces. Apollyon tells me it’s “halfway between Heaven and Hell,” while Rath says that isn’t exactly true, because there is no measuring of the distance between planes so there is technically no “halfway” point—and then Apollyon makes some quip about Rath’sangelichair, and they begin growling at each other like a pair of rabid dogs.
Thankfully the doors of the meeting room open at that moment, and they both snap back into their professional demonic demeanor. We leave the tiny carpeted lobby we’ve been waiting in, and we pass between the big doors into the audience room.
I expected an enormous, echoing chamber, with Dagon and the archangel Michael seated on gigantic thrones, their booming voices filling the space. But instead we enter a simple board room with beige carpeting, beige walls, and a sleek table. Dagon sits at one end, in human form, while a man with a stark white buzzcut and golden eyes sits at the opposite end. Rath ushers me and Apollyon to a pair of chairs along one side of the table, and takes a seat on the opposite side from us, beside the angel Karaziel.
To my surprise, the demon Melek is in the room too. He stands in a corner, tapping quietly on a tablet. Maybe he’s the secretary for this meeting.
“Grace Labelle,” says the archangel Michael, turning the full glory of his gaze on me. I canfeelhis presence, his power, like a furnace held in check within his trim, attractive body. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Good things and bad—and despite the bad, I must say I’m rather impressed. You’ve won the heart and soul of a demon and kept your own intact. Not an easy thing to do.”
“Thank you,” I say, as steadily as I can. “An honor to meet you.” Then I turn to Dagon. “And it’s good to see you again, my lord.”
Dagon grunts, but the corner of his mouth twitches like he’s pleased.
The angels and demons rehash everything that has happened since the beginning of the contest, so it's a long meeting—as long as two college class periods back-to-back. My one consolation is that I peed in the Bone Forest before I fell asleep, before Rath came to fetch us, so my bladder’s not screaming at me during the meeting. But the rest of my body is on high alert. My nerves thrum with tension, and I can feel an ache starting in the pit of my skull.
This could be it for me and Apollyon. The angel’s mercy is our last chance. Without Michael’s help, Apollyon and I will be tossed back into Hell to face whatever consequences the demons choose to mete out. Which will likely be death and torture for me, and something they’re calling “annihilation” for Apollyon. It sounds like he’ll be tortured for as long as he amuses the demons, and then he’ll be erased from existence.
When I think of facing horrific tortures for ages on end without ever seeing Apollyon’s face again, my mind goes white with panic.
We should never have left the safety of our hiding spot in the Bone Forest. We could have lived there happily enough, forever, just having sex and talking theology.
But no—no, we couldn’t. That wouldn’t be enough for either of us. Apollyon and I are both driven. We’re both hard workers determined to strive and succeed in our respective fields.
If he turned into a dragon right here, right now, maybe we could still escape—but I doubt we could circumvent an archangel and a high-level demon like Dagon. Besides, that would leave Rath in the lurch, and he’d be punished for our escape. Sure, he abandoned me to my fate when I was eliminated, but hehasworked on our behalf since then. If we did manage to get away and leave Rath behind, he’d probably be tortured until he revealed the location of the Bone Forest.
An elegant hand slides over my fist, uncurling it and weaving slim fingers between mine. I glance at Apollyon, and he smiles, mouthing, “Breathe.”
Deeply I inhale and exhale.
I want to tell him I love him. I still haven’t said that to him, and even though he knows it, I feel like I need to use those three words. If this meeting goes south, maybe we’ll get our Han-and-Leia moment yet.
“I believe it’s time to hear from the pair involved in this scandal,” says the archangel Michael, turning his eyes on Apollyon and me. “Grace Labelle, please tell us why you deserve Heaven instead of Hell, and explain why you should be exempt from the rules of this Hellish contest. Why should you be allowed to live when so many of your fellow competitors died?”
Okay, so—maybethisis the Han-and-Leia moment.
I squeeze Apollyon’s hand so hard it probably hurts him.
“I don’t know that anyone reallydeservesHeaven,” I say. “It’s a gift, right? To believers, and the pure of heart. It’s all about grace.” I swallow against the rising quiver in my voice. “I am Apollyon’s Grace. His chance to be someone different, and better. Maybe he doesn’t deserve it any more than I do, but I’ve seen who he is. He’s got a soul that’s really beautiful, and to condemn it to annihilation would be the real sin here.”
“Miss Labelle,” says Michael gently. “You are supposed to be pleading for your own case, not his.”
“But I can’t plead my own case without him.” I rise, still gripping Apollyon’s hand. “His existence is all that matters to me. It’s everything I want for myself. I love him.” I turn fiercely and glare into his beautiful blue eyes. “I love you, you impossible dragon.”
“I love you back, my savage darling,” he says quietly.
I was shaking, sweating a little, overwrought with the enormity of what’s happening—but when he says “I love you”—when Apollyon, Orchestrator demon of lust, dragon lord of Hell, says that helovesme—a sweet calm floods my body, and I sink back into my chair, strangely at peace.
“I don’t deserve to be spared or saved,” I say. “But he does. He deserves a chance. And this kind of connection—what we have—it’s epic on a scale you’ve not seen in centuries. I was a last-minute addition to the contest—an afterthought. And yet, here I am—I nearly made it into the top three. It’s as if Apollyon and I were meant to meet. And I don’t know if God has given us a thought lately, but maybe we’re part of whatever He’s planning.”
Dagon shifts in his chair, growling, and I change tactics quickly, catching his eye. “Even the demons are invested in our relationship. Have you seen the younger demons this excited before? You wanted something to shake up the status quo in Hell. You wanted a competition with drama and high stakes—and that’s exactly what you got. Why end it now? Why not keep it going? Why not—” My breath catches at what I’m about to say, but I push on. “Why not put me in your next set of demon trials? Televise it, let Hell watch their favorite human go on to become one of them.”
