Emissary of the Devil: Testimony of the Damned Read online

  Emissary of the Devil

  Testimony of the Damned

  K.G. Reuss

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Look for more of K.G.’s work!

  Keep Updated!

  Emissary of the Devil: Testimony of the Damned

  © 2017 by K.G. Reuss. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in the critical articles or reviews and pages where permission is specifically granted by the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s overactive imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Signed Books may be purchased by contacting the author at:

  www.Facebook.com/kgreuss

  Cover Design: TheBookCoverMachine

  Publisher: Amazon Direct, Books From Beyond

  Editor: Jefferson, FirstEditing

  E-book Formatting: Two Broke Authors http://bit.ly/2lIrI7d

  First Edition

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.”

  William Shakespeare

  To the wrecked, broken, and otherwise forgotten.

  This is for you

  Prologue

  I am not a good man.

  In fact, I am no man at all if we’re being honest. I haven’t been for a very long time. My last human memory is of me sliding my blade into the heart of another before plunging the dagger deep into myself. I can still remember the taste of the bitter, crimson mortality as it tainted my tongue, the way I choked on it as I struggled to rake in my last frothy breath, the terrible realization of what I’d done hitting me like a well-aimed punch to the stomach.

  My evil deeds did not leave with my last breath. They were not erased, freeing me from the monster in my head, the monster I had birthed from my own jealousy and rage. Oh, no. They followed me right on into the afterlife, and I found myself quivering on my knees at the blackened gates of Hell, begging to do anything, anything, to avoid the fire that would burn my soul for eternity.

  I never knew the Devil to be a compassionate being. I knew better than that. I’d seen the world I’d lived in, filled with liars, cheaters, abusers, killers, and rapists. I’d seen more hate than love in my twenty-one years on the plane of the living. I’d looked death in the eye more than once, and its inevitability was the only thing that kept me going as I waited in the dark shadows to have my revenge on the only thing I’d ever loved. The one thing I had trusted. The one thing that would be my undoing, my death, my final bow out of that miserable world I’d hated so much.

  As I kneeled before Him, I found that we were a lot alike, the Devil and I. We were both creatures with a plan, a purpose, and we used those we wanted in order to further ourselves. We were both great deceivers, both able to stare our enemy in the eyes as we plunge our daggers deep, and we have no problem taking what we deem ours. Perhaps that is why, when I stared at the charred grounds the Devil stood upon, his shiny black shoes in my line of sight, that I accepted his offer. Not out of fear, but because I saw to further myself, to right the wrongs of my mortal life in the hopes of rest. Of peace. Of release. I had known the moment my soul had descended into Hell that I’d made a mistake. After a lifetime of regret, it seemed only fitting to end it with one final screw up. And there I was, on my knees, a servant to darkness, bowing before a creature who cared nothing for me, but needed me like I somehow needed him. I was where I belonged, finally, and yet, my heart yearned for something else. Freedom, perhaps. Freedom from consequence, from responsibility, from even myself and my decisions. I’d do far better doing the Devil’s bidding than my own. At least, that’s what I thought at that time.

  I agreed to be his servant, his emissary. To corrupt mortal souls and bring them to his gates so that he could build a vast army, an army worthy of the crown he wore. He promised me a legion, an army of my own, to be a Crowned Prince of Hell, if I collected enough souls.

  I tainted the minds of the weak, of the broken, of the scared—all shadows of my former self. I knew who to choose because I simply sought out those who reminded me of who I once was—the man who’d had it all but thrown it away when heartbreak had come knocking, the man who’d avoided life until it was too late, the man who’d been too weak to see things for what they were. I broke all of them down, every soul, prying apart the tender cracks already lining their delicate psyche. I was their disease, a demon hell-bent on gluttony, of having what I thought I deserved, what I needed, what I wanted. Righting my wrongs from my mortal life only brought forth more demons, more monsters, to plague me, to eventually plague the earth should the Devil stand before them with the same offer he had given to me. I brought souls kicking and screaming into Hell, the Lower Kingdom, a wicked smile painted on my lips. Not even the innocent were safe from me because, deep down inside, I knew no one was innocent and we all had our sins.

  I did not feel guilt, remorse, or regret as I collected thousands of souls for my king. I convinced them to sin, to kill, to maim, to rape, to be what He wanted them to be. It wasn’t until nearly four hundred years into my servitude that I met my match, my other half. The one thing that could make me or break me, that could cause me to fall from the precarious lip of Hell that I had been balancing so long on.

  I am not a good man. It’s important that I repeat that.

  I am no man at all. I am the demon Abraxas Shepherd, and I have a story to tell.

  This is my testimony of the damned.

  Chapter 1

  The gun shook in his outstretched hand, the black glint of the metal shining in the moonlight that streamed in through his open bedroom window. It was a harvest moon, my favorite because of the brill
iant red hue. It reminded me of blood. Of life. Of death. Blood could mean so much, the smallest prick on a finger creating a tiny river—a lifeline. A small wicked smile curved on my lips as the sweat beaded on the man’s dark brows, his finger twitching on the trigger.

  “What are you waiting for?” I murmured into his ear as his body raked with his nervous, shaking breath.

  “I-I can’t,” he breathed out, a tear streaming down his cheek.

  “It will never get better. We talked about this. Remember?” I cooed, circling around him like the predator I was. For better or for worse, I was the demonic voice in the head of this depressed paranoid schizophrenic. Every time he spoke to his therapist of the man in black he saw, of the voice in his head whispering to him, persuading him to do terrible things, he was talking about me. Always me.

  “Just pull the trigger,” I coaxed, stopping in front of him as he teetered on the edge of his unmade bed, his white shirt unbuttoned and stained from the vomit he had incurred from drinking far too much earlier in the night. He smelled of despair, failure, sweat, tears, depression, desperation—all my favorite things. They called out to me like a siren, a drug that left me elated and high. I breathed in deeply, the blue of my eyes turning black, exposing my true face—the face of the damned.

  “Will-will it hurt?” he questioned, his wild eyes shining with bright unshed tears.

  “Tell me. Does falling asleep hurt?”

  “No,” he breathed out, licking his cracked lips.

  “Then you have nothing to fear. Imagine how meaningless this life is for you. This isn’t where you belong! You know this. You’ve always known this!”

  “But God—the Bible—I do not want to be a sinner.”

  The Bible!” I scoffed, the ridiculous notion making me laugh like the maniac I was. “You were born a sinner! You cannot escape that. Nothing that you do here tonight will negate that fact. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Thou shall not bear false witness. I could quote scripture to you all night long, my friend. You cannot claim to be without sin without being a liar.”

  “I’m already a sinner?” he asked weakly, the very notion something he obviously hadn’t considered.

  “Of course you are!” I got in front of his face quickly, causing him to lean back in alarm, his chest heaving up and down in an effort to pull in air. “You are nothing here. God isn’t with you. Think about it. Where is your God? Why isn’t he here for you? Why has he never been here when you needed him? Why is it that I, a demon, am here for you—have always been with you?”

  “I-I don’t know,” he whispered painfully, a fat tear leaking out of the corner of his sad green eyes.

  “Remember when you were a child and you’d go to your grandparent’s farm? You’d go to the creek and you’d lay on your back on the bank and watch the clouds pass by. Do you remember how calm and peaceful it was?” I asked, kneeling in front of him. “You can be that eager little boy again. No more worries. No more fear. Just close your eyes and think of it, and you’ll be there. All you need to do is pull the trigger, and you can go back. There won’t be any more pain. You will erase the sins you fear. You will be returned to nothing, just the same as before you were born. Be kind and end it. Not just for you, but for those around you. They don’t love you. They don’t need you. They don’t care. Why live in a cold, uncaring world? Go home, Sam. You owe it to yourself.”

  “You promise?” he whimpered, raising the gun once more to his balding head as I stepped away, my heavy black boots thudding against the cold wooden floor of the sparsely decorated apartment. “Do you swear that God will not judge me?

  “Of course I do,” I promised, a whisper, a lie.

  The truth was, God wouldn’t have anything to do with him once he pulled that trigger. I had him. I’d known the moment he’d closed his frightened eyes in resignation and the sigh had escaped his trembling lips. One more soul to add to the roster. I didn’t need to stick around and wait for the inevitable, so I walked out of the room and down the hall as the loud crack from the gun sounded in my ears. I heard his body thud to the floor. A rush of energy filled me, and I smiled as I pushed open the front door and walked out to the darkened street, ready to corrupt and collect the next soul.

  Chapter 2

  I wandered down the street and let my head fall back as the moonlight shone upon my face. There’s something to be said about the high we demons get after laying claim to a soul. His soul would be stamped with my seal: the blistering charred “AS” etched over his heart, forever labeling him as part of my collection.

  The souls of the damned, whether suicide or long-living, would always provide us with a much-needed boost in our energies. Judgment was never needed for a suicide or for someone who led a life filled with terrible sin, a life we encouraged. Murderers, pedophiles, and rapists were our bread and butter and were so easy to lay claim to because the darkness already lived within their souls. The ideas, the urges, were always within them. They just needed a little push.

  Suicides could prove tricky because if their souls held light, they could fight us off. We just needed to find what hurt them the most and use it against them. In my travels, I had found that discovering a soul and corrupting it from youth often helped with the claiming, especially in the case of suicides. I liked to come and go out of the lives of those I’d chosen. It was like an all-you-can-eat buffet of violence and hatred, something that filled my belly whenever I visited them. Some tried to find God after I’d left. The fools. He wasn’t listening to them. I was. I was their savior.

  The soul I had claimed tonight had been from a broken home and had spent his life suffering from depression. I had taken his mental issues and twisted them into schizophrenia. He had been easy to prey upon and sink my claws into. This last night with a demon had been his destiny, a destiny I had seen fit to hand him.

  Demon.

  That would be me. Abraxas Shepherd, full-time emissary of the Devil, part-time mental disorder to the weak. It was my job to corrupt and collect for the king of the Lower Kingdom, or Hell, as most mortals referred to it. The living had many names for my king: Lucifer, the Devil, Hades, Satan. I’d heard many over the years. Names whispered fearfully, names used as a weapon to keep people in line. The Devil’s name was a form of punishment, a way to control the masses. The fear instilled in the living made my job that much more fun. I took great joy in watching them crumble as I whispered in their ears, their love and desire for God disintegrating around them when they realized God wasn’t there, but I was. Always.

  The sound of laughter pulled me from my thoughts, and I turned to see a group of teenagers walking out of the movie theater, their heads together as they discussed in great detail the movie they’d just watched.

  “Are you kidding me? It was awesome!” a tall brunette male exclaimed, his dark eyes shining brightly.

  A pretty blonde girl spoke up. “Whatever, Zach! That’s the last time I let you choose the movie!” She shook her head, a playful smile on her pink lips.

  “Hey, we need to hurry. We’re supposed to be meeting Maggie over at Rue’s,” another male said, his russet hair perfectly spiked. He was just as tall as Zach, only more muscular. He was a good kid. They all were. My senses went crazy, and I felt my blackened heart clench at the prospect of claiming them. In my line of work, the purer the better, and these were perfect for a being such as I. I was on an incredible high and wanted to keep it up. One might even go as far as saying I was a glutton for punishment.

  I fell in step behind them and followed them to Rue’s, a popular hangout for the younger crowd. It was a teenager’s dream restaurant, the menu laden with all things ooey-gooey and artery clogging. It did manage to serve some of the best food I’d ever eaten, though. Just because I was a demon and had been dead for centuries didn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy or was unable to partake in the finer things that the Middle Kingdom had to offer—things that included food, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll to name a fe
w. It was a difficult job, but someone had to do it.

  I watched from the counter as they chose a booth and sank down into the cushiony seats. I was fortunate enough to have incredible hearing, so I chose a stool at the counter and tuned into their conversation.

  “It’s already after nine. Maggie won’t come,” the girl said dismissively, waving her hand, her whore-red nail polish gleaming beneath the dim lights.

  The kid named Zach piped up. “You never know. She’s been known to surprise us. Remember that time she said she wasn’t going to come to Lance’s party and she showed up anyway?”

  “I hope she comes,” the other guy murmured, his voice thick, obviously, from some teenage dream of having her writhing beneath him lurking in his mind. I smiled knowingly. This guy had it bad for whoever Maggie was—hormones were such a bitch. I could use that if I decided to pursue these souls.

  “I bet you do,” the girl teased half-heartedly, her tone carrying what I knew lay beneath—she wanted the guy, and it upset her that he was showing interest in this Maggie.

  “Should we call her?” Zach asked, and the shuffling of plastic tickled my ears as he pulled his menu closer.

  “Sure! Lance, call her,” the girl huffed out.

  “Shut up, Jess,” he groaned, the desire to dial her number clearly eating at him.

  I decided I was done being the observer and wanted to be a part of their conversation. Rule number one in claiming: Appear friendly. And I was the friendliest son of a bitch they’d ever meet—until I wasn’t.

  It was time to make some friends.

  “Hey, how are you guys tonight?” I asked lazily as I stood over their table and smiled down at them. They looked up to me, startled. Jess’s eyes opened in surprise as she drank me in. I often had that effect on females. My true form had never really meant much to me. I was tall and muscular, with black shaggy hair and coal-black eyes. In order to not frighten the mortals, I changed my eye color to blue and kept my inky black wings hidden—something easy to accomplish since we could control what mortals saw. I typically didn’t bother to disguise myself past that unless I was doing some heavy work. I usually just walked around as I was, a young guy who could easily pass for an older teenager.