765. Chapter 765

After Hell to Pay

Episode 8.21

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Hell no, I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

It was hot. It was very hot. Castle reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his forehead. It did no good. As soon as he was done, his forehead was dripping with sweat again.

He looked around him and saw that the other people waiting in the office were also sweating. He tried to remember why he had come here. Nothing came to his mind. He carefully looked at the people around him. They seemed to be an ordinary cross section of humanity. Something about them seemed odd though, but he couldn't place what it was.

The only person who didn't seem to be too hot was a woman seated behind a desk by a large doorway. He noticed that he had red hair. Very red hair. Redder than Alexis' hair. Redder than anyone he'd ever met. Suddenly the redhead looked up. "Now serving number seven billion, one hundred and eighteen million, four hundred and six thousand, two hundred and ninety seven."

The man next to him nudged him. "That's you, pal."

Castle looked down and saw he had a paper slip with that number written on it. "Um, thanks. I wouldn't have wanted to keep everyone waiting."

The man shrugged. "No problem, pal. It's not like we don't have plenty of time."

The other people in the room laughed loudly, seeming to find that hilarious.

"Mr. Castle?" The redhead said brightly. "Right through the door, please. He'll see you now."

Castle nodded and walked through the door, wondering who he was here to see.

The office was no different than hundreds he'd been in with Beckett, large and spacious with a neutral beige carpet, a large desk with little on it, a beige couch and two beige chairs. The man rising and coming around the desk looked like dozens of executives he'd seen before. Fiftyish, a bit over weight, his hair thinning on top, but with a very expensive suit.

"Mr. Castle. So good to see you again." He grabbed Rick's hand and gave it a hearty shake.

"I'm sorry, have we met before?" He hesitated a second. "Mr….?"

"Lucifer. Call me Lucifer. Everyone around here does."

Castle looked confused. "Lucifer as in…"

"The Devil." The man said with a smile. "Satan. Beelzebub. Shaitan, if you're a Moslem. Mephistopheles." He laughed. "Some of you Americans call me Old Scratch."

Castle let his surprise show. "You're not…"

"What you expected?" Satan said with a grin.

"Not at all."

Suddenly, the traditional Devil was in front of him. All red skin, cloven hooves, horns and a pointed tail. "I can do the traditional Devil, of course. But sometimes I like…." The traditional Devil disappeared and in his place was Kate Beckett. "Something different?" The Devil said in Kate's voice. Then Beckett became as tall as Rick, but it was all in her exceptionally long legs which were visible because of her very short skirt. Then her boobs began to grow from Beckett's B cups to Double D cups. Her neckline plunged, revealing an enormous cleavage. Her nipples poked through the material of her blouse.

"Enough!" Rick cried. "Don't look like Beckett."

"Sorry." The Devil said, reverting to his original look. "Should we get down to business?"

"We've met before?" Rick said shakily.

The Devil nodded. "Yes. When you sold me your soul."

Rick shook his head. "There is no way I'd ever sell you my soul. No way."

Rick suddenly found himself in the back of an ambulance. The ambulance carrying a dying Kate Beckett to the emergency room. He heard Lanie scream. "She's flatlining. She needs blood, plasma, blood expanders, something."

Suddenly the Devil was sitting next to Rick. Now he was dressed in a loud Aloha shirt, tan shorts, an Arizona State University baseball cap and was holding some kind of a drink in a hollowed out pineapple. "She's dying, Rick."

"Please, God, do something. I'll do anything to keep her alive. That's all I want. For her to live. Even if she marries Josh and kicks me to the curb. All I want is for her to live."

"Well, God isn't doing miracles so much these days, but I can help."

"How can you help?" Rick yelled.

The Devil waved his hand.

"Her heart is beating again." Lanie yelled. "How soon until we get to the hospital?"

"Just like that." The Devil smiled. "And, just like this…" He waved his hand again and Castle heard Lanie scream. "It's stopped again. Dammit!"

"What do you want?" He asked.

"The usual. Your soul."

"So, I'll die in her place?"

The Devil shook his head. "Of course not. How unfair would that be? I'll give you seven years with your soul and then I'll collect. Even when I have your soul, you'll still be alive and no different really than you are now. But when you die, you're mine."

He could hear Lanie cursing as she worked on Beckett. "Where do I sign?"

"Oh, really. A handshake is all that's needed between gentlemen." The Devil's cell phone rang. He answered it and then looked at Rick. "Sorry. That was the legal department. They insist on a contract. Do you mind?"

He handed Rick a thick contract which he signed without reading. As soon as he finished his signature, Kate's heart started beating again.

Rick found himself back in the Devil's office.

"I sold you my soul to keep Kate alive?"

The Devil nodded. "And a very good deal it was. You're happy. She's happier than she's ever been. You have children to look forward to and a long life. With the woman you love. It could be worse."

Castle glared at the Devil. "Yeah? How?"

Castle found himself at the cemetery. He stood between Ryan and Esposito as Detective Kate Beckett's coffin was lowered into the ground. A three volley salute was fired, a bugler played taps and a piper from the NYPD Emerald Society played The Flowers of the Forest. Tears streamed down Castle's face.

For two years after Kate's death, he spent every minute and millions of dollars trying to find her killer. Finally, he had to admit that he had run out of leads and was going down the same rabbit hole Kate had gone down many years before. Endlessly going over the same evidence and finding nothing.

He tried to revert to his old ways, dating young, beautiful women. The very ease with which he bedded these women told him they would never be Kate Beckett.

He tried dating tough, dedicated women: A Navy fighter pilot; an archeologist working in Arabia; He even spent a year working with a woman who ran a clinic in the dangerous eastern Congo. None of them were Kate Beckett.

He went back to writing and finished a dozen Nikki Heat books before Black Pawn told him that the market for those books had disappeared. He found another publisher who published cheap paperback editions of Nikki Heat and continued writing about his lost love's alter ego.

And every year, on the anniversary of her death, he went to her grave and sobbed.

Finally, Rick Castle joined Kate in death. He had a plot next to her and her father and mother. There was one well-dressed mourner who stood apart from everyone else and smiled. When it was over, he took Rick's soul with him.

Castle was crying. "Okay, you're right. Nothing could be worse than losing Kate. Nothing."

The Devil smiled. "I'm glad you see things my way."

There was a knock on the door and the redhead stuck her head in. "Excuse me, sir…"

"What is it, Miss Jones?" The Devil snapped.

"There's someone who insists on…" Miss Jones never finished the sentence as a woman in a long white robe, complete with wings and a halo entered the Devil's office.

"Who are you?" Satan demanded.

"I'm Richard Castle's lawyer. Really, Lucifer. Seeing my client without his lawyer present?"

"You're Johanna Beckett!" Castle said.

"Of course I am, Rick. And thank you so much for what you've done for Katie. For the longest time I never thought she'd find someone to love and have a family with."

"Excuse me." The Devil said. "We have business with Mr. Castle. The matter of his soul." He smiled. "And we have lawyers here, too." A phalanx of predatory men in expensive suits appeared behind him, muttering in Latin and English.

"It's an iron clad contract." Said one.

"Caveat emptor." Muttered a lawyer.

"The law is the law." Said another.

"Fiat justitia ruat caelum." Quoted another.

"The contract is perfectly clear. To a lawyer, that is." Opined another.

Johanna smiled back. "But we have all of the good lawyers."

"Makes no difference." The Devil said. "He owes me his soul."

"I think not." Johanna put a slip of paper down on the Devils' desk. "If you read this, you'll see that my daughter was deeply in love with Mr. Castle and he was deeply in love with him."

"Irrelevant." The Devil's lawyers said in unison.

"Ah, but it is relevant. You see, well before this contract was signed, my daughter had taken possession of Castle's heart, mind and soul. Since his soul belonged to Kate Beckett, Mr. Castle could not have transferred title to his soul to anyone. It was no longer his to give."

The Devil's contract burst into flames and burned away to nothing.

"What's this world coming to when the Devil can't even buy a man's soul?" The Devil asked rhetorically.

"Yes, indeed." Johanna said with a smile. "What is the world coming to?" She turned to Rick. "Ready to go, Castle?"

Rick stood in shock, looking at the Devil.

"Castle, are you coming?"

Castle shook his head to clear it.

"Castle are you coming or what?" Kate asked.

Rick looked around him. He was seated on a chair in seedy apartment across the street from their suspect's apartment. "What?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "This stakeout is a bust. Uniforms caught him on Staten Island at his cousin's bar."

As they walked out, Kate inhaled deeply. "What is that? Sulfur?"

"Brimstone." Castle replied. "Have I told you how much I love you?"

Kate laughed. "Yes you have, repeatedly. I know how much you love me, Castle."

He took her hand as they walked to her car. "Perhaps I love you more than you know."

Author's note: Soon, I hope, I'll be posting a fairly short story called The Doctor is Out, in which our least favorite cardiac surgeon is the main suspect in a murder investigation. And, hopefully soon, will be Interrogation of a Vampire, in which Kate Beckett meets the vampire Simone Renoir from the Librarian: The Curse of the Judas Chalice. Stana Katic played Simone, of course.