Been a bit of a busy week, so I apologize for no update. Thank you so, so, so much for all the reviews. I know this story won't be getting a lot because of how out there it is, but if it's all the same, I appreciate them wholeheartedly. Enjoy this next installation!


Chapter 4 - Interview Part #3 : Kidnapping Makes the Heart Grow Fonder...Lie, It Actually Scares the Hell Out of People

"So, you've been out there. Our guinea pig, so to speak. What's the reaction so far?"

"The demons want to kill Nicole," Andre stated bluntly, glancing worriedly at the stage. "Well, most of them, anyway. A lot of them are the Lucifer loyalists still left over. I've been all over since syndication of the interview and last place I was in - a demon bar in Texas - was when Nicole revealed that Lucifer didn't kill her because she meant something to him. They are livid. Some want their master back. Others want to kill them both. It's a circus."

"God," Alex muttered grimly. "I don't want this to get her killed. I never wanted that."

"They wouldn't dare try killing her," Kolab assured. "Trust me, it's all talk. Which happens during viewings. Secrets get revealed that have the audience jabbering."

"Are you sure?" Alex insisted, eyeing the demon worriedly. "I'm not going to continue the interview just to get ratings if I know Nikki has a chance of being killed the moment she steps out the door."

Kolab opened his mouth, but it was Vera who answered.

"It'd be a suicide mission, and then some, attempting to kill her. She's not only protected, but bound to five angels - three of which are nearly gods. Demons can talk all the shit they want, but everyone - even the stupidest, most useless of our kind - know how stupid of an idea it'd be to harm her. Should they succeed, they'll wish they didn't. And, if anything, this interview put a huge 'do not touch' sign on her."

This eased Alex considerably.

"That's a relief," Vincent inserted smoothly. "I quite like her. She's charming, in her own way."

"She talks too much," Vera remarked.

"It's an interview. She's not going to be doing sign language," Audrey defended. "How about elsewhere, Andre?"

"Other than the demons, everyone is adoring the interview," he revealed optimistically. "No one knew exactly what happened to suddenly stop the two wackos from going at each other. There was always debate about it. I thought maybe God intervened finally and threw them into a corner for a timeout. It's nice that everyone's finally getting the whole story."

"And the reception to Nicole? Despite her being human," Alex continued.

Andre laughed at this, crossing his arms. "Let's just say that when we get to the portion of the show where viewers are allowed to call in, she's going to hear everything from how lucky she is to offers of helping her escape her "abusive" relationship to questions about whether she wants to meet up for drinks and a screw. Our kind are taking to her extraordinarily well."

"She's decent, for a human," Kolab offered.

"Had I the chance to get away with it, I'd kill her," Vera followed up, unimpressed by all the attention Nikki was getting. "She doesn't deserve Lucifer."

"Jealous?"

"Shut up," she growled, ignoring Kolab's smirk.

"Let's see what else Nikki has to reveal. I imagine the story has much more to it," Alex guessed.

With the exception of Vera, everyone nodded.

"And we're back with our guest Nikki Rathje," Mia announced into the camera, "who before break, found out the identity of yet another angel whose grace was entwined with her soul. Not only just an angel, but an archangel. That's three, so far. Tell us, was it daunting, standing in your house, knowing you were connected to these celestial beings?"

"Initially, no. Which sounds stupid, I know, but you have to understand that I didn't know what the sigil actually meant. I knew I was important enough for them not to want to kill me, but anything more than that, and it never really crossed my mind. I just wanted them out of my house."

"I'm guessing you're one of the five angels connected to me?" Nikki speculated, watching out of the corner of her eye as Gabriel's thumb leisurely brushed over the sigil.

"You can see my wings?" was his distracted reply.

"And Michael's. And Lucifer's," she added warily.

It was at this point that it clicked in her head. Though, it probably should have sooner when she'd gone to see Michael.

Inside the house in Montana, she'd only been able to pick up on his wings, but none of the other angels with him. Then, there were Lucifer's and Gabriel's. It wasn't too much of a stretch to assume that if she saw wings, the angel was probably connected to her.

Without warning, Gabriel pulled her into his body, engulfing her in a tight hug.

Nikki inhaled carefully, unsure what to do with her dangling arms as Gabriel continued cuddling her like she was his own special, human-sized teddy bear.

"Dad REALLY made you guys difficult to find," he chuckled happily.

Awkwardly, Nikki lifted a hand and patted him on the back.

"Well, you found me. Nice to meet you. Now, if you could kindly take your brothers and leave-."

"Leave?" Gabriel questioned, pulling back to look at her. "Um, hells no. Sorry, Nikki-pie, you're on our radar. From now on, there's nowhere you can go without us."

"No," she denied slowly, "I'm an adult, I can go wherever I want by myself. Can you tell your brothers to stop fighting before they destroy my kitchen?"

"Oh, they're not that bad."

A loud crash forced both of them to whip their heads around.

"He just threw my TV at Lucifer," Nikki observed.

"They really do love each other," Gabriel defended. "Might not always show it in the best way."

Lucifer reciprocated by sending shards of broken glass from a destroyed table, into Michael's skin, forcing the bleeding archangel to the floor.

"Yeah, maybe I should step in."

"There was a lot of yelling," Nikki recalled, smiling crookedly. "Gabriel is someone who does what he does without anyone's permission. But, that doesn't mean he likes being ignored either. By two groups in particular. The first is me. One time, he switched all my business clothes into lingerie and I stopped talking to him for an entire week. That was a particularly brutal seven days for the both of us. The second group is his siblings. Case and point, when Michael and Lucifer continued beating the living hell outta each other and annihilating my kitchen and living room despite Gabriel's protests, he transported each of them to opposite parts of the Earth. I think Michael ended up somewhere in Taiwan and Lucifer in Antarctica."

"Gabriel sounds like quite the character."

"You have no idea."

"I love them, but Dad help me if they can't be a bunch of stubborn pricks."

"Thank you," Nikki mumbled, staring numbly at her ruined kitchen and living room.

"Cheer up, kiddo. Your new home will have all of this and more."

"New home?" Mia interrupted with interest. "What did that mean?"

"It meant the end of independence as I knew it. Though, I was stupid enough to assume it wasn't going to happen."

"I'm not leaving," Nikki denied half-heartedly, lifting up a singed frying pan. "Maybe I can tell my parents there was a tornado. Or a gang war."

"Don't worry about it, Nikki. I have it all under control."

"A bunch of gorillas got loose? A heavy weight competition gone wrong?" she continued, ignoring the archangel's eyes on her as she wandered through the rubble.

With a sigh, Gabriel snapped his fingers.

Nikki blinked, amazed to see everything that'd been destroyed and pulverized, back to its neat and non-ruined form.

"Did you-?"

"Neat trick, isn't it? But, you gotta know you can't stay here anymore, right?"

It took her a moment to comprehend the seriousness in his voice.

"Like hell," she protested. "Being connected to you guys does not mean we have to keep seeing each other."

Gabriel released an unnervingly loud laugh at that, slapping his knee.

"Ooh, that was a good one. You really are perfect, aren't you?"

"None of them thought there was anything wrong with me," Nikki explained, fidgeting slightly in her seat. "Which is weird, right? As humans, all we do is stupid stuff. We've got a shit ton of weaknesses. We've got imperfections that we rid through agonizing procedures. If someone was to call us perfect, we'd thank them, maybe, but it'd be impossible to believe because we know we aren't."

Mia nodded accordingly. "By none of them, I'm to assume you mean the angels you're bound to?"

"Yes. It doesn't mean that some of them wouldn't get a bit frustrated by my human nature. Michael in particular. He would get so testy when I argued with him about what I was allowed to do and where I was allowed to go. But, really, how the hell else did he think I'd react? I'd always wanted to be a lawyer, so arguing what I didn't believe in, came naturally. However, other than those few times, they really thought I was the greatest human alive. And even to this day, I can't fully believe that. Great humans? Try Gandhi and Mother Teresa. I'm mediocre, at best. And yet, that never deterred them from thinking I was perfect."

"Sweetheart, you're bound to five angels. That news isn't going to stay hidden forever. Even if we wanted to leave you alone, which, we DON'T, your life is gonna get pretty damn complicated when people who don't like us, show up and try to hurt you. Definitely not letting them do that. We'll give you tonight to pack your bags. Say your goodbyes to mom and pops. Feed the cats. Sell the house. Cancel your appointments. But, tomorrow, we're whisking you away."

He sounded so nonchalant about the whole thing that the only response Nikki came up with was, "I don't have any cats."

"You sure about that? There's cat hair on your couch."

She tried to contain an embarrassed blush at this, tearing her eyes away from him. This wasn't exactly the proper time to admit that she let in a few strays from time to time because she had the tendency to get lonely.

"Not happening."

"So happening. Look at the bright side, you're going to have the eternal protection and company of angels who really, really like you. We'll have to find the other two, but that's a relief, isn't it?"

Nikki mindlessly sank down on the couch, slipping both hands beneath her thighs. Within a few seconds, she was working on deep breathing.

"Hey," Gabriel eased, taking the empty spot next to her, "we're not doing this to hurt or scare you. Dad didn't just give you to us. He gave us to you. Is that really so bad?"

"If you really like me," she sounded out, "you'd let me live my life without interfering. I'm happy to keep the peace. Peace is good. But I can't be involved with any of you in anyway. I've got an interview coming up and I went to college to get my associates, damn it. Those hours of studying are not going to be for nothing."

"At the time, Gabriel was probably the most sympathetic to what I'd be walking away from," Nikki admitted. "For a while, he just kind of held me as I tried processing the fact that everything I'd ever worked for wasn't going to matter."

"That is tough," Mia acknowledged cordially. "And it'd be frustrating to let these strangers take control of your life."

"Exactly! Michael didn't understand that. He thought he was doing me a favor. Lucifer thought he was saving me from a life of despair and disappointment. In his head, he separated me from the rest of humanity. Which meant that I couldn't continue being mixed in with them. He was difficult to understand for a long time."

"So, you let them take you in the morning?" Mia assumed.

Nikki chuckled at this. "Not if I had anything to do with it. After Gabriel left to go find his brothers, I spent that entire night doing research on angels. I didn't exactly know where to start. The whole supernatural world opening up to me was new and I was just a little bit frantic. It started to sink in that they had claim to me. Ownership. All because of a mark on my skin. I would have done anything to get rid of it."

"What ended up being your solution?"

Releasing a mix of a groan and sigh, Nikki shook her head, slipping a hand over her eyes. "You've got to understand that I was desperate. And I didn't understand everything at the time, including how the supernatural world worked. All I knew was that I couldn't let them take me. When you're a human, you take freedom for granted. Even being able to pick out the kind of deodorant you want at Wal-Mart is a freedom. It's not until that freedom is at risk of being taken away that you really begin to understand how important it is. Michael had mentioned earlier in the evening that I was in their possession. Not the smartest word to use toward someone who values their independence. That night, I'd been willing to look into any opportunity in order to avoid my fate."

"And you found a way," Mia determined.

"Yes. Looking back on it, I can't decide if it would have been better to swallow my pride and accept my fate. A part of me was pleased that I could spite them. Let them know the whole ownership thing wasn't going to work out. On the other hand, I was incredibly stupid and naive and that almost led me to suffer a fate worse than death."

"Aw, that's kinda harsh," Mia soothed. "What could you have done that was so regrettable?"

Grinning nervously, Nikki looked anywhere but the camera.

"I sorta um...kind of...err...well, because of my paralegal background, I thought I knew what I was doing...so...I may have...soldmysoultoacrossroadsdemon."

Mia gasped and even Brock lifted his head from above the camera to gape at her.

"You sold your soul to a crossroads demon?"

"Please don't judge me," she begged, meeting her gaze. "It was four in the morning and my brain was wired and I was scared and I'd let in a favorite stray of mine - Mr. Miyagi - who I suddenly realized I'd probably never see again and none of my research on angels was getting anywhere. When I stumbled across the loophole, I was excited and entirely too willing to do whatever I could to ensure my freedom."

"Oh, Nikki."

"It wasn't the smartest decision in the world," she agreed hastily. "But, the demon did make it happen."

It was the intersection of a dirt road nearly overrun with grass. Nikki hadn't lived in the town long enough to know the story behind its desertion and infrequent use, but she'd heard when the town was first being built, it'd been a main road.

Her watch read six forty-five and the sky was already painted with pale pinks, fiery oranges, and a receding, heavy blue. The sun was just dying to burst through the clouds. She'd spent an hour assembling the ingredients for the box she was to bury and five minutes of anxious pacing with the box in hand, wondering if this was the smartest idea in the world.

Making a pact with a demon? Surely there would be some sorta repercussions.

On the other hand, was it really worse than being the property of three angels? Worse than not being able to get a job, buy a car, settle down somewhere, live her life? Plus, not all demons had to be bad, right? There was the one who found her and directed her toward Michael and Lucifer. Granted, that's what led to this predicament in the first place, but he'd helped her avoid the apocalypse. That had to be some sort of positive sign.

Or maybe she was looking for justification where there wasn't any.

Regardless of her indecision, two minutes later, Nikki was wiping the dirt off her fingers, calmly standing up.

"Why aren't you just a diamond in the rough?"

Nikki backed away when she saw a woman in a black dress, standing directly above where she'd buried the box.

"Is that a compliment?" she managed to ask.

"I can't afford to be rude, now can I? I'm a better businesswoman than that. Nicole, is it?"

Startled by the demon knowing her name, she slowly nodded, eyeing the woman cautiously.

"And you are?"

"Does that really matter?"

"If you know my name, then you'll know my interest of study. I'd like to know who I'm doing business with."

"Lawyers. You really are the most unnecessarily suspicious customers. But, if you think it'll help," she caved, velvet red lips twisting into a smirk. "Lynn."

"Lynn?" Nikki repeated, tilting her head. "That's it?"

"A reminder of my human life," she shrugged. "It's an amusement."

"Lynn?" Vera mumbled curiously. "I always wondered what happened to her."

"I think you can take a guess," Kolab answered quietly.

"Well, Lynn, I have this sigil on my skin. And according to it, I'm somehow involved with angels who think I'm their property."

Lynn chuckled, pacing casually around her.

"So dismissive of it. You really don't understand it's meaning, do you?"

"I don't care what it means. I want a way out of it. Can you do that?"

"It'll require me to go above and beyond of my duties. God himself put that mark on you. I'm good, but I'm not that good. Besides your soul, what are you willing to offer me?"

Nikki paused, taking the time to absorb the demon. If there was a time all of her legal training and learning's would come in handy, this would be it.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"My soul is the only thing we're bargaining, nothing else. Take it or leave it."

"You don't get to make demands, sweetheart. Don't forget who you're dealing with."

"Neither should you. I still have angels on my side. You kill me, they'll hunt you down."

Lynn's lips thinned into a straight line.

"What is your desire specifically?"

"I want the bond broken between myself and the five angels whose graces are bound to my soul. I want them to have absolutely no claim on me."

"The stupidity of your race never ceases to astound me."

"Was that a no?"

"Don't push it."

"I don't want to, but my hours are numbered. And I'm sure there's another crossroads demon that would love to have the honor of swiping a soul away from five angels and God himself."

Nikki already came to the conclusion before the meeting, that this was a tempting offer. In fact, her whole bargaining chip rested on this. And from the way Lynn's shoulders sagged down a centimeter, she knew the offer was too good to pass up.

"I get your soul in ten years," Lynn reminded.

"Seventy."

"What?" the demon growled.

"You give me seventy years. I'll be in my nineties when you come to collect."

"What makes you think I'd ever agree to that?"

"The apocalypse didn't happen. Things are getting back to normal. Humans are finding the will to live again. Not exactly a booming industry right now for the soul trade."

Nikki wasn't exactly sure if what she was talking about was actually true, but she recited it with enough conviction that she could tell Lynn believed that she believed it.

"Again, there's also the whole honor of screwing over five angels and God himself. Think of the recognition and admiration you'll get. Might even get Lucifer's approval."

Since the demon never mentioned it, Nikki was under the impression she didn't know Lucifer was one of the five angels bound to her. She doubted a lot of the demons actually remembered that Lucifer was an angel originally. For the moment, keeping this to herself might be beneficial. Otherwise, Lucifer might lose credibility and the idea of having his approval would mean nothing.

"Fifty-five."

"Sixty-five."

"Sixty."

The determined glint in Lynn's eye made Nikki nod in agreement.

"Understand that I will get only the greatest of pleasure collecting your soul," the woman added.

"I'd be insulted if you didn't."

Approaching her, Lynn studied her with a renewed sense of triumph.

"You really would trade your own soul just to have the illusion of freedom?"

"And you'd accept my offer to have the illusion of honor. We're not that different."

"Touche," she agreed. "A kiss will finalize the agreement-."

"-if it'd be possible, could you give me a signed copy of the entire pact?"

The demon rolled her eyes.

"There's too much resting on this deal for me to screw you over."

"Humans do it daily. Consider this extreme cautiousness on my part."

With a wave of her hand, Lynn conjured a piece of manila parchment. Nikki accepted the document, eyes skimming over the black, cursive ink.

A minute later and she finally nodded.

"Will kissing a woman make you think twice?" Lynn mocked.

Nikki fought back a grin, taking a step closer to the demon.

"I experimented in college."

"Did you really?" Mia followed up.

"Well, yes. But that's a story for a different day."

"Of course. So, the kiss took place and the deal went through?"

"In a nutshell, yeah. Lynn told me to keep watching my sigil within the next hour. She had to get in contact with someone and after that, there should be a black ring around it rather than the normal pale."

"And did it happen?"

"Yep. Thirty-six minutes later. I was at home by this point. My head was in between craving caffeine and wanting to pass out. But, I needed to make sure that it'd work, you know?"

Mia nodded.

"And just like Lynn said, the next time I looked at the sigil, the white outlining the mark, was gone, only to be replaced by black. She told me the color signified a break of a bond or spell."

"Well, it may not have been the smartest decision, but I have to give you kudos, Nikki. It sounded like you knew what you were doing when you made the pact."

"That's probably the only positive to come out of the whole situation. I went to sleep a few minutes later, my heart considerably less heavy. To me, it was a win. Sixty years of undisturbed life and having the power to make my own decisions as opposed to having them made for me. You'd consider that good, wouldn't you?"

"Definitely. Then again, I wasn't in your situation."

"That's a good point," Nikki conceded. "Any chance I can skip what happened next?"

"If it makes you uncomfortable, by all means, go ahead. But, I am pretty intrigued to find out what happened next, as is the audience, I imagine."

Clearing her throat, Nikki straightened up in her chair, crossing her legs, then uncrossing them, only to cross them again. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to see how nervous she was.

"In the little over two years that I've known Michael, Lucifer, and Gabriel, I believe that selling my soul to a demon and breaking the sigil is probably the angriest I've ever made them. Go figure. Over the night and into the morning, they were actually able to set aside their differences, at least temporarily, and begin creating the house I'd come to live in for the following years. I mean...there's angry-angry, and then there's archangel-angry. It never got to the point where I ever felt threatened for my life. I think a lot of that was my own anger combating the fear. But, it definitely made me wary about getting on their bad side for awhile."

"Did they know the deal went through the moment you made it?"

"No. Lucifer was actually the one who got wind of it. He'd been in tune with the demon community to make sure none of them would try coming for me, though at that point, very, very few knew of my importance. He wanted to keep it that way."

"That's awfully thoughtful of him."

"You woulda loved being engaged to the five of them," Nikki teased. "The whole relationship would have been a lot easier."

"Yes, but they got adventure with you. And you held your own. I can't say that I'd have done the same."

"With someone as arrogant as Michael and possessive as Lucifer, trust me, you'd find the courage to wanna stay true to yourself," she promised. "So, when I woke up-."

"-we'll hear the details after the break," Mia interjected, nodding dutifully at the camera.

Once Brock flicked the device off, Nikki relaxed into her chair.

"If you really don't want to talk about it-."

"-no, it's fine," she brushed off. "I should. It was a pretty important argument. Plus, I think a part of me doesn't want to admit that I'm prone to making stupid decisions, even though I know it's part of being human."

"Nikki, stop sweating it so much," Mia comforted. "You've got me on your side as well as any woman who fears the loss of her freedom. When put in that kind of situation, we don't always think the most clearly. Just like you told me, you were a human with no options left and a very small amount of time to fix everything. You were told that your whole life would be changed all because of a mark on your skin. You're allowed to make mistakes. You know we wouldn't be human without them."

"She's right," Brock chimed in. "You know how many crazy women I've tangoed with? Worse than that, I knew they were crazy and I still did it. I'm worse than you because I knew the consequences of my mistakes. Though, I can't say I regret 'em all. There was this one gal, a three hundred year old witch, that-."

"We get it," Mia expressed swiftly, though not unkindly.

Brock nodded cheerfully. "'Kay. But you ain't the first human to do something stupid for the sake of their freedom. And you ain't gonna be the last."


So, Nikki may not have made the smartest decision. But she's human. Prone to mistakes. Even if it doesn't seem like one at the time. Oh, but how will her three angels react? And can they do anything to get her out of the pact? So many questions left unanswered. Let me know your thoughts in a review!