Her face was mutilated.

Cheeks split to her temples, eyelids removed, teeth pulled from the roots.

The eyeless corpse of a nobody now.

A harvest of organs for feeding humans with demon appetites, and for the demons who shouldn’t exist.

And Ethan brushed bloody strands of black hair away from a once-beautiful face, his fingertips finding the dragonfly clip hanging loosely from her bangs. Through his glasses, he stared at the glints of light, reflecting off precious stones worth nothing but possible memories, and removed it.

The small room was filled with music—violins at the peak of an orchestra, their strings screaming before descending into a sob of cellos and bells—and the faint smell of bleach lingered among clean surgical utensils laying in a perfect row on a tray to dry. Glass jars, all arranged by size and shape, sat upon polished shelves lining white walls, each one filled with a gel preservative the color of fresh aloe water.

Pocketing the hairclip, Ethan walked over to the wall, pulling off white gloves dripping with red-tinted bleach, and choose a jar small enough for two brown eyes.

He dropped each one into the thick substance, then closed it tight enough to guarantee the quality. And when he finished, he carefully placed the jar in a sectioned box with the rest of them—each one holding a different organ or body part—and closed it.

On a nearby table, he glanced at the young woman’s things—a bag and all its contents spilled across the surface, including her student ID and a gold necklace carrying her name as a pendant.

Sorry, Kayla.

The music stopped, the song ending on a high note, and Ethan sealed the package with a postmark.

He lifted the closed box and stored it in a large cooler on the other side of the room. As for the body, well, he’d have to see if there were any requests for skin and bones, for fingers and toes, or anything other than internal gold before he disposed of it.

Leaving the room, a space hidden within the walls of his basement, he caught the scent of death in the air, nothing like the clean toxicity of his workplace. Pools of blood and little pieces of the young woman—fingernails, clumps of hair, and bits of flesh—littered the floor as Leslie had yet to tidy up.

The mess was maddening, but he kept his composure and glanced over to where she sat staring at a computer.

He came up behind her, kissing up her neck and burying his face in the aromatic scent of her soft black hair. Using the dragonfly clip, he pinned back Leslie’s too-long bangs and looked to the screen she watched. “Any luck?”

“Not yet,” Leslie said in a deep, tired voice.

She turned and looked up at him, sitting with one leg propped up on an old wood chair.

Leslie was only lovely because life made her that way, a toy broken by too-many system errors and unfortunate choices that turned into lifelong punishments. Her narrowed eyes were forever surrounded by the shadows of past drugs and anxiety, unable to be covered with make-up or removed with the right amount of sleep. She was small, thin, but not all bones, just slender enough to be tucked into his arms and under his chin like a child seeking protection. 

Of all the women and men who had followed him home, she was the one who survived. The only one who caught his interest by seeking his love and affection so badly that it drove her to share his adoration for death and blood—and that alone made her pathetically beautiful.

Yet, tonight, she seemed distant. And something was on her mind.

Gently, he touched her cold face, tracing her jaw with his fingertips and meeting with those exhausted green eyes. “So? What’s wrong? You’re acting odd tonight.”

She jerked away from his touch and looked back to the screen, a gesture the vexed him.

“Leslie.” He said, allowing that annoyance to slip out just a little. “Christ, if it’s about the guy from the other morning, I already told you, he didn’t suspect anything.” And Ethan chuckled, an alluringly wicked sound rolling off his tongue as was the first laugh to escape Lucifer after the fall. “In fact, with how smitten he was with me, I could’ve brought him home too.”

She scoffed. “God, you are way too arrogant, Ethan,” And looked up at him again. “I’m not worried about some asshole you bumped into on the streets; I’m worried about the Angelus.”

Ethan stood apathetically, and he gave her a look.

“Organ trafficking is one thing, Ethan—but making deals with demons, especially demons associated with Nathanial Sorrow, is something….fuck, it’s asking death most cruelly.” Her look sank into a softened hysteria, of panic simmering within her.

Ideally, Ethan avoided that subject as much as possible, knowing what it triggered in his companion—a repeated cycle that was starting to irritate him.

“Demons shouldn’t exist, not like this, but like us, like the people we sell to, but never like this.” She whispered.

Paranoia was thick in the hot basement air.

Leslie was starting to sweat and rock in her seat, slowly becoming the product of several sleepless nights covered up by caffeine and laced with the poisons of anxiety, eating her better judgment to the marrow. The young woman was brilliant, but she was a bird with clipped wings teetering too close to the edge of the nest.

“They’re looking for us, I know it,” She was staring at the bright screen, biting her thumbnail to the plate. “Sorrow knows what we did, and he knows we found out…that we talk or act against him.”

Someday, Ethan knew this pretty doll would fall from his hands and crack, forcing him to do away with her before her shattered pieces cut him open.

“No one is looking for us,” Ethan sighed, running his fingers through her hair and then through his own in chagrin. He turned away from her and walked over to a small table where a crystal decanter sat surrounded by several matching glasses. Sweet smoke with hints of rick malt and sherry lifted from the dark liquid filling the glass he chose. “If the Angelus knew anything, they would’ve killed us by now.”

He sipped at his drink.

“And we haven’t even spoken a word about what happened outside of this house, so long as you keep your fucking mouth shut and quit with all the conspiracy theory bullshit,” A river of amber filled the glass yet again. "We'll be fine."

Leslie turned, sitting up from her chair so fast it nearly fell over.

Her eyes seared with the remains of past anger, now coming to life with new flames. “Don’t tell me to be fucking keep my mouth shut when you’re the one walking the streets with a god complex like you can do whatever the fuck you want. Like it wasn’t your idea, your deceit, your greed, that made us come this far!”

Ethan bared his teeth against the rim of his crystal glass.

Leslie was quiet for a moment, then her darkened stare slowly began to soften, and she sighed. Her hands moved, lifting and pressing the air in a sign of defeat. “Look…I just want a break. I need a break, Ethan. No more blood or death or suffering in the dark.”

He gave her a look, and for several too-long moments, they stared at each other. 

Finally, Ethan took a deep breath, leaning back into the table with a sigh and setting his glass down. “Okay. Fine, but only after tomorrow night.”

Leslie’s lips pressed into a line.

“Leslie, love, we’ve already come this far. Whatever this thing is—man, demon—he’s offering us a lot of money for a private showing. For, as he said, mortal entertainment befitting the refined tastes of infernal aristocrats." Whatever in the hell that meant. "And we can’t let this opportunity to escape,” Ethan walked toward her, arms opened and smiling softly as the girl stepped into his embrace like a moth to a flame. “If Sorrow is trying so hard to keep his secrets from the city, then we know it to be the real thing.”

The girl was reluctant, hesitating to agree since the paranoia had spread to her gullible senses and overcome them with thoughts of the inevitable.

And he closed the small distance between them and kissed her.

She didn’t resist—she never did. Instead, she tilted her head so he could kiss her more, kiss her deeper.

And he did. His tongue licked the points of Leslie’s teeth, dominating her willing mouth to draw out her hummingbird moans. Her arms wrapped around Ethan’s neck, and he found the small of her back, then the exposed flesh of her ass.

When their lips apart in a separation of breaths and saliva, Leslie licked the scar on his lips.

She nodded.

Tenderly, Ethan stroked her face, smiling down at her. “Find our last victim, and we'll love them together, we’ll kill them together, and then we’ll leave everything behind like a bad dream.”

The girl’s eyes softened, wetting with a threat of tears and a happy ending, and Ethan was satisfied by her naiveté.

Then, a beep—a message appearing inside the window of a website.

Leslie left his arms, walking over to the computer and sitting back down. Carefully, she glanced over the pop-ups triggered by her roaming arrow, the profile of whoever was contacting her.

“Well?” Ethan watched her type away.

She looked back at him, smiling like an exhausted child ready for the fun to begin. “A guy downtown. Says he’s into all kinds of kinky shit.”

The glint in their eyes matched, two swords clashing together, and Ethan smiled back slightly.

“Invite him to dinner tomorrow night, then drinks and a little fun at our place.” He said, heading for his hidden room once again. "And contact the Auction Master, tell him tomorrow night is still a given."

Leslie nodded and faced the screen.

Ethan stopped at the door. “What’s his name?”

And she checked.

“Peter.”