“Mine?”
“You took it from me. You stole it from right under my nose.”
“But I didn’t,” I said, trying to be the voice of reason with a lunatic who wanted to slice me open with a penknife. And before seven in the morning, no less. “I was ahead of you on line.”
“It was mine! I’ve been dreaming about it. I’ve waited all week for this, saved up for it. And you ruined everything.”
Her fist tightened in my hair, and my roots whimpered. I clenched my teeth, biting back a curse. All I’d wanted was to surprise Paul with a treat, and this was my thanks? Getting accosted in the store by someone who’d missed their morning dose of sanity? Bless me, I was never, ever doing anything out of the goodness of my heart, ever again. Served me right; altruism wasn’t exactly my strong suit.
Squeezed against her ample body, her knife at my throat, I said, “Lady, it’s just a doughnut…”
“A marble-frosted doughnut,” a voice oozed. “With sprinkles. Mmmm.”
Oh, crap.
My bravado melted like chocolate in the sun, and my heart careened in my chest. I didn’t need to smell brimstone to recognize a demon of Gluttony—none of the other nefarious ones sound like flies having an orgy in a honey pot. But now that my mind was blaring “Demon! Demon! Demon!” at DEFCON 1, my senses couldn’t help but hone in on the creature of Hunger: around the cloying sweetness of powdered sugar and the rich scent of coffee from the doughnut shop, I smelled hints of rotten eggs. Despite the fear turning my mouth sour and coating my tongue, I began to salivate. My stomach knotted, and all at once I wanted to stuff my face and run like fuck.
Maybe worst of all, I couldn’t even let myself react to the Glutton’s presence, because technically I shouldn’t have been able to sense it—not even the woman it was trying to influence knew it was there. Just me, thanks to my connection to Hell.
Sometimes, being a former demon truly sucked.
“A marble-frosted doughnut!” the woman screamed in my ear. I flinched, then grunted when the knife bit into my neck. “With sprinkles!”
“And she took it from you.” I heard the demon sigh mournfully. “You’ll never feel its sweetness on your tongue, never feel its buttery deliciousness slide down your throat. All that pleasure, gone. All because of her.”
Shit. With one of the evil goading her on, the woman might really slice me over a breakfast food she probably didn’t even spell properly.
“You took it from me.” She pressed the knife up until it hit the bottom of my jaw. Fuuuuuck, that’s sharp. If I swallowed, I’d have a second mouth. Right, this is me, not swallowing. The woman whispered in my ear, “Gone. All because of you.”
Behind the counter, the clerk had her hands up in a placating “Don’t Do Anything Bloody” gesture. “Ma’am, I’d be really happy to get you another doughnut.”
“Hey, take mine,” I said. “It’s only a little dirty from getting dropped on the floor.”
The woman snarled, “You’d have me eat germs?”
Great, gluttons were fussy eaters. Who knew? “I’m sure the five-second rule gets extended under extenuating circumstances…” The jab to my throat shut me up. Gleep.
“Why don’t you let the lady go,” the clerk said, “and show me which one you want? On the house?”
“I want the marble frosted. With sprinkles.”
“Ma’am, the shipment we got this morning was light on that particular kind. But I’ve got chocolate frosted, chocolate glazed, chocolate cream—”
The woman bellowed, “Did I say I wanted chocolate? No. I want my marble-frosted doughnut, with sprinkles! I’ve saved up my points, and I’ve waited all week, and I’m not going to miss it because this skinny slut got here first!”
My eyes bugged. Skinny? That bitch!
“You should kill the slut,” the demon suggested. “Show the doughnut vendor how serious you are.”
Hooboy.
Crazy Lady was sweating, and I was unpleasantly close to her armpit. Maybe if we weren’t having a heat wave in December, she’d be wearing a coat over her shirt and the odor wouldn’t be so eye-watering. Then again, if we were having a proper New York City winter, I never would have burrowed out from under the covers to go on a doughnut run and wouldn’t be in this situation. “I should kill you,” she said to me, and I felt her spittle hit my ear like froth. “Show you just how serious I am.”
“I have no doubt that you are dead serious.” Okay, Jesse. Think. How do you get the knife away from her?
Crap, I had no idea. Four thousand years as a succubus had sort of made me dependent on magic for self-defense. Not so helpful now that I was a human with no magic other than a flaky ability to sometimes see auras. A human who would die very easily if Crazy Lady slit my throat. Mental note: learn karate.
“Ma’am,” said the clerk, “please, put the knife down…”
“Not until I get my doughnut!”
“What’s all the noise…oh. Oh, shit!” That from a pimply faced kid who came trouncing out of a back room, who now froze as he saw Crazy Lady and the knife. I felt the woman shift behind me, probably turning her head to see who’d arrived. And her hand gripping my hair loosened its hold, just a little.
Opportunity, meet door.
I grabbed her knife hand across the wrist and yanked her arm away from my neck. Or tried to; tough to untangle yourself from a large attacker when you’re just five-foot-four. At least I’d gotten the blade off of my skin, but her thick arm was still wrapped around me, now at mouth-level.
The Glutton roared: “Kill the bitch!”
Crazy Lady tried to force the knife back to my throat, but I did what any good bitch would do: I chomped down on her forearm. Hard.
She let out a whopper of a shriek and released my hair. Bracing against her arm, I stomped on her foot: one-hundred-ten pounds of pissed off (and slightly terrified) female compressed into a three-inch heel. Scrunch!
The shriek tapered into a high-pitched wail, and she dropped the knife.
I spat her arm out of my mouth, then pivoted away from her and grabbed the weapon from the floor. I held it up in front of me, and never mind how badly my hands were shaking—I had the knife, and Crazy Lady was blubbering in a heap, moaning about her arm and getting a rabies shot. All was good, except for the salty, vaguely chickenish taste in my mouth. Maybe I was misremembering, but people had tasted better when I’d been a creature of the Pit.
Off to the left, the demon hissed.
Shit. Amendment: all was good, except for the evil entity squatting near the woman. Biting my lip, I kept my gaze on Crazy Lady and forced myself to ignore the quivering mass of demon that I wasn’t supposed to see. See no evil, fear no evil…
Oh, screw that. I’d been evil long enough to know there was plenty to fear.
“Wow. That was so cool!”
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the female clerk punching numbers on her cell phone—the police, I assumed—and the pimply faced kid staring at me like he was in love. Aw, that was sweet. His eyes widened, and with a huge grin he said, “Hey—you’re Jezebel!” He turned to the other clerk. “This is Jezebel, the stripper!”
Ah, the lovestruck young thing was an adoring fan. I flashed him a smile, but it didn’t sit right on my face; my muscles didn’t want to work properly. And my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Being afraid as a human wasn’t nearly as much fun as it had