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ninasnon-sense · 7 years

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Crossroads, Part 2

Nine years and ten months later.

Penny woke with her face in a pillow and a pounding in her head. With a groan, she tried to wriggle deeper into the bed, but found someone in the way. She frowned into the pillow before turning her head just enough to peer one eyed at the body beside her.

Fully clothed. That was good. That meant they had probably just drunkenly passed out together. She squinted, unimpressed with the meagre light that filtered through the curtains. A man. They definitely just passed out together. She tried to move her feet and found that they were pinned. Another shift and wiggle that was more effort that she truly felt she had to spend on such things and she saw why. One of the roadies (Molly was it?) was sprawled across her legs in a position that could not be comfortable. Now she remembered. The last night of her tour. Traditional beer and pizza night with the people that made sure she had a good show. The session band. The roadies. However many of them were up for it and would fit into her frankly obscene hotel room. Not all of them stayed the night, but enough of them did that it was always fun trying to pick her way through the passed out bodies when she was inevitably the first one to wake.

She would have liked to stay on the bed in the heart of the tangle, but her hangover was loud and demanding. Carefully, not wanting to wake anyone, she extracted herself and grabbed her handbag before stumbling her way to the bathroom as quietly as possible, stepping over two more people on her way and clicking the bathroom door shut behind her.

Weary and faintly nauseous, she dropped her handbag on the fancy marble counter that the basin was set into. A look into the mirror had her wincing. Yesterday’s stage makeup was smeared across her face, giving her panda eyes and mouth like a clown. That needed to be fixed. Going out in yesterdays eyeliner was one thing, but the makeup she wore for her concerts was made of stronger stuff and layered on bright and thick so people way back in the mosh pit could at least get the idea of what her face looked like. Fuck it. Baby wipes would get the worst of it off and she already had a packet of them stashed in here.

Three wipes later and she looked almost human. A hungover and possibly terminally ill human, but it was still an improvement. She shuddered to think of what her face had done to that poor pillow, but a place like this almost definitely had spares and if they didn’t they could afford a new one. There were still dark smudges around her bright green eyes, her dyed electric blue hair was still cloyed with smoke and hairspray, but now it sort of looked like it had been done on purpose. If the paparazzi caught her, her fans would just assume it had been another long night of partying. Well. They would if she put pants on when she left. Looking down to her bare legs, the memory or shucking off her leather trousers before ordering an ungodly amount of pizza was fuzzy at the edges, but undeniably there. Along with the memory of taking her bra off from under her red vest and throwing it at Joe just because she could.

The disaster of her face mostly taken care of, she rummaged through her bag for the aspirin she knew was in there, emerging in a feeble victory only to have to fight to get two of the pills out of the foil. Still groggy , she popped them into her mouth and turned the tap on to scoop up a hand full of water to swallow them down with. Her hand went into the stream, the flow of the cold water waking her up the tiniest bit.

Then it slowed down as her hand pulled out. The water stopping its flow mid air in a trail to her palm. At first she froze as well, not comprehending what she was seeing. Slowly, she tipped her hand, expecting the water to trickle out of her palm even as the aspirin began to dissolve in her mouth. Except it didn’t. It slid from her skin like a silk scarf and hung in the air above the basin.

No. No! She still had two months left! Staggering away from the sink, she nearly tripped over her own feet as she rushed for the door.

There. Lying on the bed where Penny had been, propped up on one elbow and running a finger down her sound guys back. The room was still and silent, time having stopped its flow, leaving only Penny and that creature free to act.

Not that she could do anything more than stare in horror at it. A smile touched the demons face, exposing those awful needle teeth she’d been having nightmares about for nearly ten years. Fuck, she still looked like one of her mums friends. That stupid fucking middle class couture shit. She’d had an agent that looked like that and had panic attacks every time she had to see them face to face.

“I have to say my dear,” the demon cooed. “I approve of your stage name. Penny Dreadful. How delightfully historic.”

“You’re early,” she ground out in response.

“Oh, I’m not collecting yet,” the demon assured her with a sickly sweet smile as she carefully climbed out from the mess of passed out techies and roadies. “I just wanted to make sure you remembered. A surprising amount of you people flat out forget their deal. Or try and weasel their way out of it.”

“You mean like you weaselled your way into it,” Penny found herself snapping. It was a bad idea. It was an awful idea.

She didn’t give a shit. Even as the demon’s expression darkened, Penny found herself grabbing onto the righteous fury that had fuelled her since she had made that stupid fucking deal.

“And exactly what do you mean by that?” the demon said, their voice deceptively cordial even as she bared those horrifying teeth and glared right at her.

“That you’re a fucking con artist that took advantage of a kid!”

“Are you accusing me of striking an invalid bargain?”

“Damn fucking right I am!”

A hand like a vice clamped onto Penny’s arm and yanked her close to the snarling needle toothed face of the demon. A motherly face turned monstrous. A flash of flame and the stink and sting of smoke bit at her nostrils, choking her as the floor fell away from beneath her feet only to slam back and weaken her knees. The smoke cleared from her eyes and Penny coughed to clear her throat before looking around their new surroundings.

It was an office, or perhaps a library. One wall was covered with thick green curtains from the ceiling that had to be nearly fifty foot high. Dark walnut shelves lined the other three walls, every shelf crammed with books and files arranged in perfect order. Orbs of light hung above them like fire flies, gently illuminating the space. In each corned stood a statue, each facing the centre of the large room. Two opposite depicted classical angels in white marble, their wings tucked in tight and their faces beatifically turned upwards. The other two were skeletons in tarnished brass, their bony wings spread wide and their skull turned downwards in a gaping grimace with pointing spears to the rich green carpet.

The other feature of the room was an enormous and elegantly carved desk, walnut to match the shelves and embellishment on the legs. Two antique chairs sat before it and behind it there was a severe looking woman who might have been in her thirties. Vibrant orange hair was pulled back into a tight bun, her white lacy shirt was tied at the collar with a thin green chiffon scarf and a black jacket was draped over the back of her impressive chair. A pair of not quite flamboyant glasses sat on the bridge of her nose and she rested her head against on delicate hand as she read through a thick document fiddling with a pen in her left hand.

“I’ll be with you shortly,” she said, her voice as severe as her expression. “Take a seat.” Penny wasn’t given a chance to argue, or to do anything else. She was roughly shoved towards the desk and stumbled her way into one of the chairs. As her bare skin hit the leather she because uncomfortable aware of the fact that she was sat there in nothing but a red vest and a pair of boring black knickers white the other women in attendance were all booted and suited. And uncomfortable squirm had her thigh pealing from the leather with a loud cringe inducing creek.

After a few minutes of awkward silence and heated exchanges of varying levels of glares between Penny and the bitch that had conned her, the third woman put down her pen and leaned back in her chair to look at them. The effect of the crossroads demon was immediate. She sat up straighter, more prim, wiped the pissy expression off of her face and even waited to be addressed. For her part, the other woman didn’t really seem to care as she swept her near grey eyes across the pair of them, equally ambivalent towards them both.

“I’m assuming you’re here to settle a dispute in the terms of your deal,” she said eventually, her voice dancing over Penny’s skin like ice.

“She’s accusing me of stealing her soul,” her demon near growled out, only just managing to keep her composure.

“On what grounds?”

“I was a minor when she made the deal with me,” Penny cut in, not wanting the demon to twist what she had said. The glare she got in return made it even more worthwhile.

“Show me the contract,” the other woman drawled with a bored sigh. The demon to Penny’s side clicked her fingers and another file appeared on the desk in front of them.

“We have a contract?” Penny added, more than a little bemused. She sure as shit hadn’t signed anything, in blood or otherwise.

“A contract is generated containing the terms and conditions of each deal as it struck,” the woman behind the desk explained as she skimmed over the document. “It also contains everything that the demon did in order to live up to their end.” A pause and the light drumming of fingernails.

“It says here that you sold your soul for success, not talent,” she added with a slight frown.

“I already had the talent,” Penny replied, trying not to be too defensive. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but she was almost sure that this woman was some sort of cosmic arbitrator.

“Really? Then you won’t mind singing a couple of bars for me while I go through this.”

“Seriously?”

“Do I seem like someone with a sense of humour to you?” the woman behind the desk said, her tone flat as her eyes ticked up to Penny for the briefest of moments. Penny blinked in surprised but ended up letting out a sigh.

“Fine, whatever. But I’ve only been awake for about half an hour and I’m hungover as fuck, so don’t expect me to sound like a nightingale.” The demon that had stolen her soul gave a disgusted grunt and the woman behind the desk gave her a nonchalant shrug without even looking up. What to sing? It would have be something she could practically sleep through, an old fall back for when she really truly couldn’t muscle up the pipes or the fucks.

“Please allow me to introduce myself

I’m a man of wealth and taste”

The demon flinched away, baring needle teeth, but the woman behind the desk smiled. A small thing. Barely more than a twitch. But it was there and it made the smoke of the words taste as smooth as a good whisky.

“I’ve been around for a long, long year

Stole many man’s soul to waste”

“You weren’t lying,” she said, interrupting the song before Penny had even really gotten going, making her nearly choke on the lyrics. “It says here that you were seventeen when you made this deal.”

“Yeah, a minor, like I said.”

“In human law, that would matter. Unfortunately for you my dear, celestial law assumes competence at seven. Your complaint is invalid.”

“What the fuck! Seven?”

“I didn’t make the law, I just know it,” replied the woman behind the desk, her voice cold and detached before she turned back to the demon with no small amount of distain. “I couldn’t help but notice the additional clause about making her an icon. The twenty seven club? Really?”

“It was a good faith freebee, I wasn’t exactly going to put any effort into it,” the demon snapped, shifting in her seat.

“And you didn’t exactly put much effort into the rest of this endeavour either. The most impressive thing you did was let down some agents’ tires so they would walk past where she was busking.”

“Her soul being an easy grab doesn’t invalidate the contra-”

“Of course it doesn’t,” the woman said with a sigh and a role of her eyes. “I’m just pointing out that you haven’t exactly invested a great deal into this arrangement of yours.” She leaned back in her chair, eying the demon critically as Penny tried to stealthily peal one of her thighs from the chair.

“I’d like to propose a trade for her.”

“What?”

“Don’t I get a say in that?”

“A cow doesn’t get to decide which butcher get’s its carcass, why would a soul get to decide who reaps it?” the woman behind the desk replied as she carelessly tossed the file onto her desk.

“What are you offering for her?” the demon asked as Penny watched on in horror.

“A favour.”

“A favour,” the demon replied dumbly. “An entire human soul for a favour?” The woman’s face darkened and the shadows deepened as she curled her lip in a sneer of pure distaste.

“Watch your tongue Crossroads Demon. A favour from one of Lucifer’s choir is worth far more than what you have to barter for it. Or do you believe I’ll cheat you?”

So that was what a demon looked like when it was about shit itself.

“No! No, of course not. You are generous beyond measure. Have her! She’s yours. Don’t need her anyway and at this point I’m pretty sure she’d taste like stale beer and really bad kebab.”

“Good. Now get out.” A foul puff of smoke and the lights brightened once more, leaving Penny alone with her new owner.

< Part 1 Part 3>

#wlw #love story #paranormal romance #slow burn #rock star sold her soul for rock and roll

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