Blood on the Bar (Lucas the Atoner Book 1) Read online

  Julian fled, muttering under his breath and leaving Lucas alone with Vetta. If he had still possessed his powers, he could have healed her in an instant, but he was powerless, conflicted in ways he’d never before experienced.

  The pub’s front door swung open and a group of men stomped inside. One of them whistled and shouted. “Bacon sandwich and a pint, please, boss!”

  Lucas studied the group for a moment and realised he knew one of them. It was the piece-of-shit who had forced himself on Vetta last night—Jake—but his stomach quickly turned as he realised that he had violated Vetta far worse than this lad had intended to.

  Jake noticed Lucas nearby and scowled at him, but then he spotted Vetta—and the blood on her face—which made him recoil. Turning to his three companions, he sounded astonished. “That’s the sodding Mick what done me over last night. Wanker nearly broke my hand.” He held it up to them and showed the bandage. “What the hell is he doing back here?”

  The three other men were not the ones who had accompanied Jake last night, and they appeared confused rather than combative. They were perhaps his former workmates, as they each wore identical black overalls. Jake was in jeans and a jumper, as seemingly unemployed as he’d claimed to be.

  One of the men in overalls, a young lad with peachy-blonde hair and a wispy beard, reached into his front pouch-pocket and pulled out a phone. He held it out to Lucas. “You need to call an ambulance, mate? She don’t look good.”

  “She’s not,” said Lucas, surprised by the offer of help. “The landlord already went to call help though, thanks.”

  The lad broke away from his colleagues and came over. “What happened to her?”

  Lucas decided the truth wouldn’t help him, so he lied. “She had a fit and bit her tongue. That’s why there’s blood.”

  “My sister’s a nurse. She works at the old people’s home across the road. I’ll get her to run over until the ambulance comes. She deals with epilepsy all the time.” The lad dialled a number on his phone and Lucas thanked him. “No problem. I’m Max.”

  “Lucas. This is Vetta.”

  Max made the call and spoke familiarly with a person on the other end. The conversation lasted twenty seconds. “She’s on her way,” he said, ending the call. “Five minutes.”

  Lucas gave his thanks again. “The landlord should be back by now,” he said. “His name is Julian, right?”

  “Yeah. He’s owned this place for years.”

  Lucas relaxed a little, but then Jake approached, which immediately raised his hackles. “What the hell did you do to her?” the lad demanded loudly, actually having the audacity to appear disgusted. “Gave her a night she won’t forget, by the looks of it.”

  Lucas kept his eyes on Vetta, fearing she might slip away if he wasn’t watching, but his voice was solely directed at Jake as he spoke. “Step away from me, boy. I won’t warn you twice.”

  “Where’s the silly accent gone, Mick? Do you put it on for the ladies? Whatever snags the muff, I suppose.”

  Lucas leapt up, but Max got in his way. “Just ignore him, man. Your friend needs you.”

  “This animal attacked us last night!” Lucas glared at Jake over Max’s shoulder.

  “You attacked me!” said Jake innocently. “I was walking home, and you thought you’d play the tough guy to impress the Pole tart. God knows what you did to her after that.”

  Max turned his head and shouted at Jake while still struggling to control Lucas. “Get the hell away, man. You’re not helping.”

  “Fine, no need to tear a ball sack, Max. I’ll be at the bar when you’re done playing Good Samaritan.”

  “Just go and get me a pint in. I’ll be with you guys in a minute.”

  “I’ll choke the life out of him,” Lucas grunted as Jake walked away to join his companions at the bar.

  “Jake’s an arsehole,” said Max. “Don’t worry about him. Let’s just help your friend.”

  “She’s not my friend. I only met her last night.”

  Max raised a fuzzy eyebrow. “The way you’re trembling, a friend is the least of what she is to you.”

  Lucas realised that he was, indeed, shaking—and he felt sick. The fury Jake had evoked threatened to spill out of his guts and soak the floor. How could emotions make you nauseas? He placed both hands on Vetta’s arm and stroked her clammy flesh with his thumbs, remembering how she had stroked his back last night to help him sleep.

  “I did this to her,” he said. “She has to be okay.”

  Max cleared his throat. “Did you mean for it to happen?”

  Lucas shook his head. “Of course not.”

  “Then be guilty about it later. You can apologise after she wakes up.”

  “If she wakes up.”

  Jake shouted from the bar. “Oi! Julian! Come on, where are ya? The lads have only got thirty minutes for their break.”

  Lucas tensed, but Max distracted him by talking. “Soon as my sister arrives, I’ll go see what’s happening with the ambulance, okay, man?”

  “You’re a good lad, Max.”

  The lad seemed touched by this, and his eyes flickered with a mixture of emotions. “If we don’t help each other, where would we be?”

  They sat in silence for the minutes to follow, and it wasn’t until the pub’s front door swung open once more that either of them moved. Max stood and smiled at the newcomers, while Lucas remained by Vetta’s side. Two women hurried over, and one of them had the same peach-coloured hair as Max. The other was older with plain-brown hair and a paunch below her sagging breasts. The wedding ring on her finger and the sensible handbag over her shoulder suggested she lived a life where choice of takeaway was her biggest concern. A woman at ease with herself. Happy.

  “This is Annie,” said Max, pointing to his sister who gave Lucas a polite smile before focusing on Vetta with concern.

  “And I’m Shirley,” said the older woman. “I work with Annie.”

  Annie’s lips were thin as she examined Vetta. “What happened to her?”

  “A seizure,” said Lucas.

  “What sort of seizure?”

  “Like she was hit by a bus on the inside. Please just help her.”

  Annie glanced at her brother and exchanged a frustrated grimace. When she turned back to Lucas again, she was chewing the inside of her cheek. “If she has internal injuries, there’s nothing to do until the ambulance arrives. The best thing is to keep her still like this. Shirley, can you put a blanket over her, please? She’s a little cold.”

  The older woman pulled a rolled-up blanket out of her cavernous handbag and draped it over Vetta. “Should I try to give her water?”

  Annie shook her head. “No, we don’t know what’s going on inside. Lucas? Think about what you can tell the paramedics when they arrive—the more they know the better—but don’t tell them she was hit by a bus on the inside, okay? They need to know where she’s hurt and why.”

  If Lucas shared the real reason Vetta was hurt, no one would believe him. Angel possession wasn’t something most doctors would take very seriously.

  All the while, she was dying before his eyes.

  Lucas stood up, startling everybody.

  Max frowned. “Where you going? She needs you.”

  “I’m going outside to get some air and look for the ambulance.” The truth was he intended to summon Gladri again. He would have no hold over the angel without trapping him inside a mortal body, but it was better than doing nothing. Hopefully, Gladri would hear his prayers and take pity on Vetta.

  Pity? How he hated the word. But he couldn’t rely on doctors helping Vetta. They might not be able to.

  Jake was still hollering after Julian when Lucas walked by, and the urge to ram the lad’s head through the bar was hard to resist. Max was right though—it would be unhelpful—so he kept his calm and asked the lad for help instead.

  “The ambulance should be here by now, Jake. Can you find Julian and see what’s keeping it?”

  “I don’t ta
ke orders from you, Mick.”

  Lucas had to force his fists not to clench. “Think about what you would have done last night if I hadn’t stopped you. Do you have any conscience at all?”

  Jake glanced at his colleagues and blushed. When he turned back to Lucas, his expression was hungry, and a little desperate. The guy wanted a fix, and it was making him twitchy. “Fine, I’ll go see what’s keeping Julian,” he said, “but only because it’s the decent thing to do. And I want a goddamn bacon sandwich.”

  Lucas said no more. He continued to the pub’s rear exit and reached for the door handle. But there was no handle. He gave the door a shove, but it wouldn’t budge, solid as a cliff face. Gritting his teeth, he barged his shoulder against the wood, but succeeded only in hurting himself. Finally, he tried to grip the edge of the frame and peel it open, but no gap existed, not even to thread a hair. With no other resort, he reared back and booted the door with everything he had.

  Jake’s workmates shouted from the bar. “Hey! What you bloody playing at, mate?”

  “The door,” said Lucas, rubbing his hurt shoulder and groaning. “It won’t open.”

  The two men approached warily. “You need to calm down, mate,” said the larger of the two.

  “Just help me get the door open, would you?”

  “Stand aside.” The smaller man came forward. Thin-bodied, with scruffy black hair greying at the temples. He had a swarthy appearance, as well as tattoos all down each arm. The larger man was a few years younger and sported a bushy brown beard beneath a bald head. He had no visible tattoos, but wide muscular shoulders that had taken obvious work. Both men had name patches sewn onto their chests. The tattooed ruffian was Shaun and the bearded hulk was Simon. Both seemed irritated by the commotion.

  Shaun stepped up to the door, but like Lucas, he came away with a sore shoulder moments later. Simon grunted and moved his smaller colleague out of the way. “Can’t open a bloody door,” he muttered through his thick beard. “I’m surrounded by imbeciles.” His comments came back to haunt him when he called it quits thirty-seconds later with sweat on his forehead. “It’s welded shut!” he protested.

  Lucas shook his head. “You can’t weld a wooden door.”

  “What then? Nails?”

  Lucas glanced towards the bar. No sign of Jake’s return yet, nor any sign of Julian or an ambulance. What was going on? Where had the landlord got to? What wasn’t adding up here? The entire place seemed to be on lock-down.

  “I don’t know how the door is sealed,” Lucas admitted, “but there’s somebody I would like to ask about it. Let’s find the guv’na.”

  He marched towards the bar.

  Lucas pressed his palms against the bar and tried to think, but his throbbing head made it difficult. Somehow, he thought he knew Julian—those mole-like features, dusky skin, long nose. They had met before, he was sure of it.

  With only one way to get answers, Lucas slipped behind the bar in search of the man. Passing through a narrow staff door, he found himself in a cramped backroom with an office off to one side and a storeroom on the other. Both the storeroom and the office were empty, but ahead lay a closed door that seemed important somehow. It was to that closed door that Lucas quickly headed, reaching for the wooden knob as soon as he got there.

  He flinched as something bit into his hand, and he blinked in confusion. He didn’t know if it was the light bulb above his head that was flickering or if it was his own vision. Glancing at his palm, he saw blood, something he had not possessed until becoming human. It was strangely intoxicating, like looking at his own mortality. A small slither coated the doorknob and, as he inspected it further, he saw a tiny iron spike jutting out of it. Why would someone affix an iron spike to a doorknob? Was Julian trying to safeguard this room against demons or angels? Iron was anathema to both, which was why it was so often used in spells and wards.

  Carefully, he grasped the knob again, this time around the edges, and pushed open the door. A stale stench permeated the air, and he discovered a long straight corridor ahead. At the end was a pulsing light somewhere between the colour of rust and blood. Nothing about the corridor felt natural. More like standing inside the intestines of a beast.

  His flesh tightened around his bones, and he wondered if it was fear he was experiencing. Something was urging him to turn the other way and leave, but he ignored the sensation and forced himself to step forwards. Human or not, he was the ex-king of Hell. Lucifer the Almighty. A being so old he had a thousand names—none of which contained the word scaredy-cat.

  Silent as a wraith, he strode down the corridor, deficient human eyesight adjusting slowly to the gloom. There was movement all around him, and he spotted fat spiders the size of hand prints scuttling up and down the walls while ropy snakes slithered around his ankles. There was no place Jake could have gone but down this corridor, yet it made no sense that he wouldn’t have turned away in terror at what Lucas was seeing now. The presence of so many venomous creatures suggested something wicked lay at the end of this corridor.

  Lucas called out.

  He got a reply immediately. “Oh God, help me! Help me!”

  Lucas hurried. He wasn’t God, but he was the best Jake would get. The light pulsing at the end of the corridor blinded him as he got closer, but once he passed beyond it, his vision corrected, and he found himself standing inside a shrine room. Iron pillars held up the corners of the small room and a bone alter stood off to one side. It was a shrine dedicated to The Devil.

  To him.

  Christ on a bike!

  Jake hung upside down from an inverted cross, a crown of thorns encircling his scalp. Blood flowed from wounds on his hands and feet that were pierced by thick iron bolts. Despite his agony, Jake was alert and crying out for help. His terrified eyes locked onto Lucas, and he babbled hysterically. Lucas shushed him and promised to help, but before he could do anything, Julian emerged from the shadows and startled him. The man’s dark eyes loomed behind his spectacles.

  “Why would a serpent help the mice it feeds on?”

  Lucas glared. “Who are you, Julian? Why are you doing this?”

  The question drew a grimace from the man. “You don’t remember? The world altered course the day we met. I was a pawn, and you the chess master. For centuries, I have been trying to bring you before me, but Hell has apparently been vacant its king—which is why your arrival was such a surprise. I recognised you last night, but I couldn’t quite accept it, not until you drew me into that girl right before you. It has been a long time, Satan, but finally you fall into my lap. This Devil’s Trap was meant for you, but there’s no rush now that I have you.”

  Lucas recoiled. “It was you I summoned into Vetta? But you’re human! How could I have drawn you?” He pictured the scorch marks in the alleyway outside. Sulphur and iron. Was this the man who had yanked him out of Hell? Lucas, as The Devil, could only be summoned from Heaven or Hell, but he had not stepped foot in either place for an age.

  Until recently.

  Why did I go back?

  Julian snorted. “You seem at a loss, Satan?”

  “I am at a loss,” he admitted. Totally lost. He felt like a pebble skipped across a great lake, hurtling towards the unknown.

  Julian clasped his hands together like a priest about to give Mass. He seemed calm and relaxed—smugly satisfied. “What has become of you, Satan? The last time we met, you were a dagger in humanity’s intestines, drawing out the filth and bile, a nightmare made flesh. A—”

  “Times change!” Lucas cut him off. “I abdicated Hell’s throne long ago to seek another path. What do you want with me?”

  Julian frowned, giving away a key fact. As much as he knew of Lucas—including his true identity—this was apparently news to him. Lucas had still been The Devil as far as Julian had known, and he flapped his gums for several seconds while he digested the information, apparently not knowing what to say. “Y-You abdicated the most powerful position in existence, second only to God himself?
Why? Why would you do that?”

  Lucas shrugged. “Too much overtime. Tell me who you are and let us be done with this nonsense.”

  Jake squirmed on the cross, blood still streaming down his body. “Get me down from here! Please!”

  “In a minute,” Lucas snapped. “The grown-ups are talking. Julian is about to tell me who he is, and what he’s playing at.”

  Julian wagged a pudgy finger back-and-forth like a pendulum. “No, no, no. I shall reveal nothing. That you have forgotten me is insult enough, but you and I have unfinished business, Satan. Your deliverance shall buy my entry into paradise.”

  With a weak grin, Lucas gained some satisfaction by telling the man he was too late. “I’m human now, Julian. And believe me when I tell you, you can’t bargain your way into Heaven.”

  “Ha! I want no part of Heaven. And your serpent lies will not save you.”

  “Didn’t anybody ever warn you about summoning The Devil? It never ends well.” Lucas launched himself at Julian, but his movements were sluggish and inaccurate—human—and the man stepped aside easily. He tried to strike again but missed every time.

  Julian cackled. “Come now, creature. Do battle earnestly. I’ve waited a long time for this.”

  Lucas swung both arms, one after another, but again, every time, he missed. His breath escaped in strangled puffs. “W-Who are you? What do you want? Tell me!”

  “Help me!” Jake cried, blood pouring from him.

  Julian stepped in front of the inverted crucifix but kept his eyes on Lucas. “It is true then? You are no longer what you were? You are just a man?”

  Lucas doubled over, panting and clutching his knees, but he forced himself to stand tall. “I haven’t been The Devil for two thousand years, you fool. Now tell me who you are. What do you want with me?”

  Julian wasn’t a large man by any measure, but he seemed to get smaller now, shoulders slumping. “All my plans are ruined,” he muttered to himself. “Without a celestial soul, you are nothing to me.”

  “Yeah, thanks! Tell me who you are, and we’ll sort things out like gentlemen.”