City of Demons

  The words came out as a moan, and I felt only a little embarrassed at my loss of control. Wasn’t I supposed to be the sex professional here? Fuck it, I decided. There was so much life energy in me now that I doubted any more could even make a difference. I was drowning in it, high on it. And I could tell by his motions that he was going to come soon. A demon exploding inside of you is like fire too, and while it hurts horribly, it’s also insanely pleasurable at the same time—so much so that it almost always triggers an orgasm in return.

  I was going to come, and it was going to be good. My body was practically ready on its own, but I wanted to wait for him to finish it.

  “You’re forgetting something,” he said softly. His strokes were long and controlled. Very purposeful. He was close, and I had no clue what he was talking about anymore. Fire and ice. That was all I knew.

  “Forgetting . . . what . . . ?”

  He leaned over me, putting his face right next to mine, and I cried out as the shift in position allowed him to take me at a different, deeper angle. Fire and ice.

  “The reason demons can have this much life . . .”

  I was almost there. So close, so close. His voice was low. It was velvet on my skin.

  “. . . is because . . .”

  I was on the edge, ready to fall over. Fire and ice.

  “. . . we used to be angels too.”

  Fire and—

  He pulled out and sat back on his heels. Suddenly, all that pleasure, all that bliss . . . it was gone. Bam! I was empty and aching. It was like being thrown into cold water. All ice now, and not even the good kind. No more fire. I jerked upright.

  “What the fuck are you—”

  I blinked and looked around. No silk-covered bed. No Clyde, even. I stood alone in the hotel room, still in front of my mirror. The dress was white again.

  “Remember this,” a voice whispered through the air. “We can finish it . . .”

  Chapter Five

  I went to the party, a bit dizzy on the idea that I’d just had virtual sex with a suspected murderer. Naturally, I had had sex with actual murderers in the past . . . but, well, this wasn’t something I wanted to make a habit of.

  Luis found me right away and handed me a drink. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. And I know that can’t be true since they stay away from these kinds of soirees.”

  I shook my head and took down the drink. Appletini. A bit froofy for my tastes, but hey, it had alcohol in it. I wasn’t about to knock that after what I’d seen today.

  “Long story,” I said evasively.

  “Okay.” He sipped his own drink. “So, how’d you like your first day in court?”

  “It’s . . . depressing. Nobody cares. Someone was asleep on the jury.”

  “Only one?”

  “Luis, I’m serious.”

  “I know,” he said unhappily. “And so am I. That’s how these things work.”

  I stared off across the room, absentmindedly watching a couple of demons who seemed to be . . . very close friends. One appeared to have an astonishingly long tongue. Like, Gene Simmons long. I looked away with a shudder.

  “I realize we’re evil and all that.” I recalled Clyde’s comment about me and my nature. “And yeah, I’m here because I gave in to temptation. So is everyone, even you guys. But, well, I don’t know. I’d like to think there’s some nobility in all this.”

  “There is, here and there. Some have given up and completely given in to their dark sides. Some are like you, still in possession of an annoying yet adorable sense of right and wrong. Semi-good people who only made one mistake, a mistake they regret, so they still try to live with some semblance of their old selves.”

  I frowned. “Are you like that? Regretting your one mistake?”

  He laughed, finished the drink, and set it on a nearby table. “Oh, it’s different for us. Mortals are faced with daily temptation—as well as the uncertainty of what’s really out there in the world. Is there a God or gods? Is human life all there is before oblivion? Are you alone in the universe? I’m not saying that justifies falling, but it’s certainly easy to do. If you believe there’s no real higher calling in life, why not give in to temptation? Why not take the easy way out and seize your deepest desires? Maybe damnation won’t be that bad . . . then, you realize it is. Some embrace it. Some, like you, hope that maybe holding on to that one spark of goodness will redeem you. Get you salvation.”

  “I don’t think that,” I said obstinately.

  He winked. “Don’t you, though? Somewhere, buried deep inside, is a hope that maybe things can change. Because again, mortals—or mortals turned immortals—just don’t know for sure. Now us . . . higher immortals . . .” The brief amusement faded. Darkness clouded his features. “We know. We know the truth, what’s out there, what’s beyond life and the universe. We’ve seen divinity, seen the rapture . . . and we still turned away from it. It’s lost to us. It’s a fleeting dream, the kind you wake up from in the middle of the night, one that leaves you gasping and mortified because it’s only a phantom . . . a fading memory that’s forever denied, blocked by a wall through which there is no passage.”

  A chill ran down my spine. I was used to lighthearted Luis and all-business Luis. This Luis—troubled, philosophical Luis—was frightening. I could see the longing in his eyes, the remembrance of that which he still longed for and could never have again. It was a haunted look, a look filled with things too big and too powerful for a succubus to understand.

  He blinked, and some of that otherworldliness faded.

  “And that, Georgina,” he informed me, bitterness in his voice, “is why so many demons have completely given themselves over. When you lose what we’ve lost, when your hope is gone . . . well, for most of us, there’s no point in trying to reconcile our old selves with our new selves. It’s too late.”

  “But not you. Not entirely.”

  “Hmm . . . I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s anything good in me anymore.”

  “But you want to see this trial conducted fairly,” I pointed out.

  His smile returned. “Wanting to know the truth isn’t necessarily being good. Maybe it’s just curiosity.”

  I didn’t believe that. I liked to think there was some glimmer of that angelic nature left in Luis. We used to be angels too. Clyde had proven that they still burned with the power of life. But maybe I was just being naive.

  “And some of us,” Luis continued, “seek the truth simply for vengeance.”

  He inclined his head over to a table set with food. There, Noelle and Margo conferred about something. From the grim look on the demoness’ face, I could only presume it was about the murder.

  “Don’t be fooled by her alleged concern for a fair trial,” Luis murmured in my ear. “And don’t be fooled by her pretty face. She’s dying to punish someone, dying to rip someone’s head off with her own hands. Destroying one of her demons is an insult—and whatever other fancies you want to believe about us, never doubt for a moment that we’re controlled by pride. Hers has been slighted, and she wants someone to pay.”

  “But does she want the right person to pay?”

  “She’d certainly like that, less because of fairness and more because she hates the thought that whoever did this to her might walk away unpunished. But if we can’t figure out who did it . . . well, she probably wouldn’t be too picky so long as she got to watch someone suffer.” He paused. “Plus, I think she . . . ‘liked’ Anthony. If you catch what I’m saying.”

  “Ah.” Noelle’s anger suddenly took on a whole new meaning for me.

  He nodded. “That’s also why she didn’t ask to simply look inside them, I think.”

  He was referring to the same “soul reading” that Seth had asked about. If Noelle, who had brought this case to court, really pushed, she could have maybe convinced the authorities to force readings on the suspects. It might be taboo, but sometimes Hell resorted to it.

  “She claimed something about how
they didn’t need to go those extremes and how the jury would decide in an efficient way,” he added. “It sounded quite noble. But I think that’s bullshit.”

  I thought about it. “Because if it turned out none of the suspects had done it and there were no other leads, she wouldn’t get to take her revenge out on someone.”

  “Exactly.”

  Wow. He wasn’t kidding. She really was out for blood.

  I spent the rest of the party socializing with Luis and others, smiling and flirting in a way that came second nature to me. I had become something of a novelty—the only lesser immortal on a demonic jury—and a lot of people wanted to talk to me.

  I also received a fair number of solicitations, but that was pretty common for a succubus. We were viewed as the call girls of the immortal world. Fortunately, none of tonight’s offers involved peanut butter.

  * * *

  After the party, I found Seth in a diner a few blocks away, a place I never would have suspected of having wi-fi. He sat in a corner, focused entirely on the laptop in his usual way. His devotion to his work was infuriating at times, but it was adorable too. Watching him, I felt a sudden desire to run my fingers through his hair and make it messier still.

  He hadn’t noticed me entering, and when I had almost reached him, one of the waitresses stepped up to the table. She was young, lower twenties, with her blond hair pulled up into a high ponytail. Underneath the blah uniform, I could see a perfect hourglass figure. She had the good looks of a struggling actress, but I half-suspected she wasn’t anorexic enough to meet today’s starlet standards.

  “You want more?” she asked, holding up a pot of coffee. The orange rim signaled decaf. Typical of Seth.

  I waited for him to ignore her, but to my surprise, he looked up right away. He smiled at her. It was the cute half-smile that always made me melt.

  “Sure.”

  She filled the cup, leaning over to do so. And then—I swear it—Seth’s eyes hovered briefly on her cleavage before looking away. Impossible. Seth almost never checked women out. I stiffened.

  “What chapter are you on now?” she asked.

  “Thirteen.”

  “Thirteen? Are you taking speed with that decaf? You were on eleven last time I checked.”

  His smile twitched. “The muse is in a good mood tonight.”

  “Well, send her to my place. I’ve got a ten-page paper due tomorrow.”

  “Is that the history one?”

  What kind of question was that? Had he learned her life story after only a few hours?

  She shook her head, ponytail swaying. “English. Gotta analyze Dracula.”

  “Ah, yeah.” Seth considered. “Vampire stories. Slavic dualistic concept of life and death, light and darkness. Harkening back to pre-Christian myths of solar deities.”

  Both the waitress and I stared. Seth looked embarrassed.

  “Well. Not that Stoker used much of that.”

  “I wish you could write this for me,” she said. “You could do it in five minutes. I can’t believe you wrote all that. Where do you get all those ideas?” She grimaced. “That’s probably a stupid question, huh?”

  “Nah. Someone I know thinks that, but honestly, it’s a good question. I just don’t have a good answer, I’m afraid.”

  That “someone” he referred to was me, and I didn’t really appreciate being delegated to a non-specific pronoun. The appropriate designation would have been, “My stunningly brilliant and beautiful girlfriend whom I adore beyond all reason . . .”

  She laughed. “Well, if you figure out the answer, let me know. And let me know if you need anything else.”

  I swear, there was a subtle inflection in her voice when she said that, like she was offering more than just coffee. And Seth, amazingly, was still smiling at her, even regarding her admiringly. He’d also been almost comfortable in chatting with her. Usually his shyness took over with new people, and you could barely get two words out of him—and even those came with a heavy dose of stuttering.

  I swallowed back my jealousy. Seth and I had our arrangement. He was perfectly entitled to go after cheap waitresses if he wanted. Besides, I was above such petty insecurities.

  The waitress passed me on her way back to the kitchen. Beth, her nametag read. Alliterative with bitch.

  Okay. Maybe I had a little pettiness.

  I strolled over and sat down across from Seth.

  “Hey, Thetis,” he said. He smiled at me, but it was a leftover smile from Beth.

  “Hey,” I returned. “Think you can drag yourself away?”

  “Let me finish this page, and I can. Cady’s about to figure out who the culprit is.”

  “Too bad she can’t help me with this trial.”

  He looked up from the screen. “No insights at your party?”

  “Someone tried to bribe me.” No need to get into specifics. “And Luis concurs that the whole thing is corrupt.” I smiled. “You going to come back tomorrow to see more antics?”

  He typed a few words. “No . . . if it’s all right. That whole thing freaked me out. And I’m kind of on a roll here. This place has a good vibe.”

  “Yeah,” I said carefully. “That waitress seems pretty nice.”

  “She is,” he agreed, eyes still on the screen. “She reminds me of you.”

  I kept smiling, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I should feel complimented or not.

  Chapter Six

  Whatever resentment I held toward Seth and the waitress faded pretty quickly when we got back to our room. He held me as securely as ever, kisses light on my skin and affection radiating around him like an immortal signature.

  I let him sleep in the next morning as I blearily dressed and headed downstairs for day two of the trial. To my surprise, there were a lot less spectators than the previous day.

  “They saw what they wanted to see and went home,” Luis explained to me. We stood near the entrance to the room, drinking coffee. “A lot of this is just sensationalism. The thrill is gone, though some might come back for the sentencing.”

  I glanced over at the jury’s table. “At least none of them left. I kind of expected it.”

  “Nah. They know better. There’d be serious consequences if they took off from something like this.”

  Apparently, though, none of the demonic jurors felt they had to do more than just be present. They proved just as negligent as yesterday. The suspect today was a demon named Kurtis.

  “Kurt,” he corrected Margo.

  “Kurtis,” she said, “can you tell us about your relationship with Anthony?”

  “Relationship? We barely had one date. I’d hardly call it that.”

  A few people laughed at his joke. He’d chosen a lanky form and pale skin, with hair that kept falling into his face. If he was concerned about being accused of murder, he didn’t show it. His chronic smile indicated how silly he thought all of this was, Margo most of all.

  She glared at his impertinence. “What I mean, Kurtis, is how did you know Anthony?”

  He opened his mouth, and I would have bet anything he was about to crack another joke. Just then, he happened to make eye contact with Luis, and the accused demon’s face sobered a little bit.

  As the story unfolded, we learned that Kurtis had once been Anthony’s archdemon. This perked the jurors up a little bit. Archdemons, as the leaders and power players in our world, tended to be better at self-constraint. Luis, Noelle, and even Jerome were good examples of that. If archdemons did take on others, it was their peers—not underlings. If Kurtis had indeed destroyed Anthony, it would be a juicy scandal. An archdemon undergoing a five-hundred year flaying would be equally compelling.

  “Nothing’ll happen to him,” murmured the demon sitting beside me, as though reading my mind. He was the one who was into peanut butter. “He’s here because they wanted to make it look like they had a full group of suspects. You know, like they’d really researched all the possibilities. There isn’t enough evidence against him.”

>   I was surprised to hear something so astute from one of my colleagues. “That must be why he’s so laissez-faire about all this.”

  “Yup.” The demon’s eyes studied Kurtis, then gave me a curious look. “What about Nutella? You into that maybe?”

  When Anthony had worked for Kurtis, the two had apparently had a fair amount of tension between them. It wasn’t entirely clear if Anthony had done something to warrant the antagonism or if it was just a personality conflict. Regardless, Kurtis had taken retaliatory measures against his unruly employee.

  Margo was pretending to read her clipboard again. “So, let me get this straight. You burned him alive?”

  Kurtis shrugged. “If you can call it that. I mean, it didn’t do any permanent damage. And really, are we alive? Don’t we just exist? Or, in his case now, not exist?”

  “And you locked him in a box at the bottom of the ocean for a month.”

  “It was a roomy box.”

  “And you decapitated him.”

  “No.”

  Margo looked up from her clipboard, eyebrow raised. “I have several witnesses who say otherwise.”

  “I only partially decapitated him,” Kurtis countered. “His head was still attached . . . technically.”

  Margo continued to go through a laundry list of assorted tortures Kurtis had inflicted on Anthony. Horrible or not, I had to admit the archdemon was pretty creative. Anthony had finally filed a complaint with higher authorities and gotten a transfer. He’d also gotten in very good with a high-ranking demoness. She’d made arrangements to ensure Kurtis was punished for his transgressions. No torture, though—well, at least not in the physical sense.

  He’d been transferred to Belgium.

  The mention of this dimmed Kurtis’s humor a bit. The transfer was still a bitter point with him. It had happened four centuries ago, and he was no happier about his current locale than he’d been then. He’d apparently spent these last four hundred years being quite liberal in his slander and criticism of Anthony.

  “And you’re up for a possible transfer now, aren’t you?” asked Margo.