Daun I thought I could handle. Sort of. Okay, so now he was getting all evil and possessive (in more ways than one), but hey—he was an incubus. What did I really expect? Of course he was going to attempt to tempt me. And I could handle temptation, as long as I was on my guard. If it came down to it, Daun would never hurt me (unless we were in the middle of a particularly active bondage and discipline scenario). So I just had to practice saying no and meaning it. No problem.
Lillith, on the other hand, would cheerfully rip my spinal cord out through my throat and wear it as a belt. She’d had it in for me ever since I could remember. To this day, I didn’t know why she hated me so much. Some things weren’t worth questioning, and this was one of them. To me, it was enough knowing that the former Queen of the Succubi despised me. Maybe Daun had been lying about her coming after me. He was a demon, so there was a good chance he’d been less than truthful. The thought cheered me somewhat.
And then there was Alecto, with her taunt about her sister. No matter how I tried to convince myself that I didn’t care what was happening to Meg, I knew deep down that was Grade A bullshit. Worst of all, I kept wondering why Alecto wanted to take me back to the Pit in the first place. Had the King of Hell put out another contract on me? No—if that were the case, Alecto simply would have scooped me up with her serpents and bamfed us to the Abyss.
Never let it be said that I forced you to make this choice.
She wanted to take me back…but she also wanted the decision to be mine.
Bless me, what in Hell was going on?
“See that?” Paul’s voice jolted me out of my thoughts. “You’re still in a funk.”
I squeezed his hand. “I promise I’ll get out of my funk if we dance. Come on, we look too fine for a pool hall.”
“You, maybe. Me, I look like a goober in this shirt.”
“I think you look yummy.” And he did. At my urging, Paul was garbed in a silver, long-sleeved woven mesh shirt that I’d bought him a few days ago. It was perfect for clubbing: it hugged his form, showing off his lean torso and broad shoulders to maximum advantage. Of course, it was also currently hidden beneath his leather jacket. He’d been only too happy to do the black jeans and black boots thing, but I’d had to coax him into the shirt.
“Terrific. I look like a yummy goober.”
“I promise to slurp you up later,” I said, already thinking about how my body would move to the music. Maybe dancing wasn’t actually sex, but it was a close second. Feeling a beat throbbing through your body, moving in time to a melody that builds and builds…All that sweat, all that passion. “Come on, love. I want to dance.”
Paul groaned. “You dance four days a week.”
Lifting my arms, I did a shimmy-bop as I imagined a heavy bass thrumming around me, in me. “I take off my clothes four days a week,” I said, “for guys I don’t care about. Tonight, I want to dance with you.”
He reached over and pulled me close. I gazed up at him, loving what I saw shining in his eyes as he looked at me. He said, “I’m not much of a dancer.”
“Just follow my lead. It’ll be fun, you’ll see.”
“Can’t we just go to a bar, stand beneath the speakers?”
“Come on, sweetie,” I said, pulling him along. “The night’s young.”
We trekked to East 23rd Street. It was brisk for early November, with winds that insisted on ruining my hairstyle. I clutched my black trench coat closed with one hand and the other twined in Paul’s.
“How about an overpriced cup of bad coffee?”
“Paul…”
“Or maybe go to a dentist, get a root canal without Novocain. That’s a lot more fun than dancing.”
I opened my mouth to say something appropriately witty, but I closed it as we approached a newsstand at the corner of the street. My footsteps slowed, stopped. I felt something dark pass over my face, twisting my mouth into a scowl and narrowing my vision until all I saw were headlines screaming in their self-important bold all-capped letters.
THIRTEENTH VICTIM FOUND announced one; ARSON SUSPECTED IN BROOKLYN INFERNO insisted another. In a national daily, a headline swore that the murder rate in America was at AN ALL-TIME HIGH. Sandwiched between these tidbits were articles dedicated to the latest war, the latest man-made biological disaster, the latest fear gripping the world. Oh look, here’s a story about how a five-year-old shot his grandmother because she wouldn’t let him watch a television show.
We can’t let the world be more evil than the Abyss.
Maybe it was too late for that. Maybe the humans would dance for the Devil and destroy themselves, no matter what Hell did.
You could go back, a voice whispered in my mind. Leave the mortal coil behind and go with Daun. Hide in the halls of Pandemonium and screw your brains out in the Red Light District. The King of Hell would never know.
No. I love Paul. I got a soul so I could be with him. Whatever’s happening to the world, I’ll stay by his side.
What about Meg?
My lips tingled, feeling the barest whisper of flesh as Meg kissed me and left me to die.
Stop that. Meg would be okay. She was an Erinyes.
“Jess?” Paul squeezed my hand. “You look sick. You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, sighing. “Just…sad.”
He glanced at the papers, then pulled me away. “Come on. We’re going dancing.”
“Really?”
“If me making an idiot of myself on the dance floor will help cheer you up, then I’m all for it.”
I loved my man.
I’m sorry, Meg. But I’m not saying goodbye to him. Not for Daun, and not for you.
I smiled grimly. Tomorrow I’d tell Alecto that I wasn’t going back to the Underworld. Decision made. Time to celebrate.
We tromped along, heading toward the train station. Nine o’clock on a Thursday night, and New York City was getting ready to party. Groups of people strutted with us, around us, away from us, laughing and talking, contained in their own bubbles of energy. The streets hummed with cars and the distant thunder of the subways hidden below. Garbage peppered the scenery, poked between buildings and stores, littered the curb—here, overflowing cans and swollen trash bags; there, stray wads of used napkins and crushed cigarettes. The refuse, like the people in the streets, made the city more real, more awake. New York chortled with anticipation; New York reeked with life.
A Hell of a town, indeed.
Various peddler stands splattered the sidewalks, dotting the streets with leather purses and hot watches, with watercolor paintings of New York City, with bootleg CDs and DVDs. Ooh, lookee at all the jewelry!
“Uh oh,” Paul said. “Jesse wants something.”
“Jesse wants you,” I said, staring at the most fabulous gold bracelet.
“Jesse’s got me.” He squeezed my hand. “Jesse’s also speaking in third person.”
“That happens when Jesse’s depressed. Jewelry’s a cure for depression.”
“I thought that was chocolate.”
“Jewelry