“I’m no lady.”
“You’re still first.” I reached out, pressed, and she fluttered in my arms, a delighted gasp emanating from those wet, wet lips.
“Later, incubus,” she said, breathy. “Later.”
“Babes, what could be more important than the business? Our bodies spooning, our hips bucking…”
“That’s what I mean to show you,” she said, untangling herself from my arms. “It’s past time for us to get some religion.”
“Religion? Can’t we get perpendicular instead?”
“We will, we will.” She chuckled, a sound filled with delight and devilishness. “Come, let me show you.” She entwined her fingers around mine, led me like a dog. I spied block letters painted onto the side of the edifice, forming the words APOSTOLIC FAITH GOSPEL MISSION.
“Religion,” I moaned aloud. “She’s preaching the Word instead of the business. She’s forsaken her hooves.”
“Daunuan, would I ever do that to you?”
Damnation, how my name on her lips set fire to my blood! “That’s a halo your hair is hiding. You’re leading me to salvation instead of temptation.”
“I promise, sweetie, in this instance, the one leads to the other.”
“Truly?” Walking toward the two-story structure, I openly scoffed. “Perhaps you’re keen on bestiality. I still smell the livestock that once were housed here. Or maybe that’s the stench of humans packed too tightly.”
“It’s the smell of opportunity.”
“For what? Switching to the other side? That’s why we’re in the City of Angels, isn’t it?”
She chuckled but said nothing. The doorway loomed large as we approached.
Religion. Ridiculous. “We’re on a schedule, babes. San Francisco, in three days.”
“This is worth the detour.” She regarded me over her shoulder, her hair anchored in place by feats of magic I could never hope to accomplish. “Do you know why we’re supposed to go there? I was rather enjoying Naples.”
I shrugged. If the King of Lust had bothered explaining to any of his entourage why we were to be in that particular city in a few days’ time—we, and the bulk of the nefarious, from what I’d gathered—then none of the elite had seen fit to share that information with a mere third-level Seducer. “Heard things. Rumors. Maybe it will be something on the scale of Vesuvius.”
Jezebel dimpled a smile, and I saw wicked thoughts sparkling in her eyes. “That was delicious. All of that lava. All of those souls.”
“I love eating Italian.”
“A saucy people. Wish we could have stayed longer.”
“Vesuvius,” I said again, rolling the mountain’s name. “Temperamental. Nothing like what it did to Pompeii, but still quite the spectacle.” Even with a demon’s love for destruction, all my talents couldn’t come close to one sweep of God’s hand. The Almighty breathed; the volcano erupted. More than a hundred died, and quite gruesomely, for reasons only He would know.
At times, I wondered whether the Almighty had shaped the nefarious to mirror the worst in Him. But those thoughts I kept quite silent. A demon didn’t think about God. And if he did, the demon certainly did not admit such a thing. It wasn’t healthy.
“All of that lava,” Jezebel repeated, her voice a low purr. She always did have a weakness for heat. “But I prefer our chosen method of collection. What’s the sport in taking spirits from already deceased shells of wicked people?”
I squeezed her hand. “Ours not to reason why.”
“Ah, Lord Tennyson. There was a man who understood the importance of lust. ‘Better to have love and lust than never to have lust at all.’”
“You’re mangling his words even more than I do.”
“Poetry is best when left open for interpretation. Here we are.”
From the other side of the door, muffled sounds spilled out into the street: a man’s booming voice, heralded and followed by the bleating of the masses, insisting on praising their Savior and amening themselves and everyone within the city limits to death.
Demons, about to saunter into a holy place.
I sighed, resigned. The things I do for her.
Opening the door, I motioned for her to enter. Ladies first, after all. Inside, cold air clogged my nose; I frowned, then snorted out the frigid chill of good. Pfaugh! But even more palpable than the cold was the sense of building energy, soft and low, yet growing all the same. It was an orchestra’s hum, a thing of oboes and violas, of bass drums, rumbling, gaining in volume, in intensity. In power.
“There’s a magus here,” I said, my voice pitched too low for human ears to catch.
“They call him pastor. His name is Seymour.”
“I’d think it would be Simon.”
Her lips stretched into a knowing smile, glistening. “Watch. The people are getting saved.”
We hovered in the back of the small room, for all intents invisible to the mortals. Minor precaution. One never knew if a magus could determine our true natures; dimming ourselves to human perception nearly guaranteed we would be unnoticed. Boring, really, but Jezzie didn’t seem to want to cause a scene. I’d never understand her. I folded my arms across my chest, prepared myself for much eye rolling.
The better part of two hundred people gathered in the round, sitting and standing in prayer. Dressed in rags and riches, in working clothes and their Sunday best, the congregation was caught in a spell of salvation as they clapped gloved hands and stomped booted feet. In the center of the room, a lone man stood at a pulpit, delivering his message to eager listeners. He seemed to quiver as he preached, his voice filled with a passion deeper than mere words. Surrounded by his followers, he alternately trembled like the meek and thundered like the mighty. He was speaking of allowing the Holy Spirit to fill them, to surrender themselves completely to God.
Satan spare me.
“Look at them, Daun,” Jezebel murmured. “What do you see?”
“Lunch.”
She pinched my arm. “I mean it. Look. Look at their colors.”
“Humans all look the same to me.”
“Their skins are dark and light and all shades in between. There’s no segregation here. They’ve come together, here in their house of God. The color line, washed away by holy water.”
“So?”
“It’s not like them to overlook their differences. White and black, mixed in religious frenzy. And more than that. Seymour has white men under his authority.” She grinned, her teeth small and perfect. “Some would call that miraculous.”
“The only miracle is that we’re here in this holy place and not vomiting all over our shoes. Look, they’re jerking.” I watched a great number of the humans shake and tremble as if they’d been stricken with palsy. “I think they’re breaking.”
“They’re overcome.”
“By what? A plague?”
Her grin stretched wide, and for a moment I glimpsed the fangs beneath her false human teeth. “The Word, Daunuan. The Word.”
“The Word causes fits and spasms?”
“They believe so.”
The preacher’s voice burst forth, suddenly volcanic in its intensity. “‘And they were all