Hex Appeal (37 page)

Danger, Will Robinson.
No real person—no
human
person—looked like that.

He leaned back, ankles crossed, elbows on the white neonglass bar. He smiled at me, angelic, and sparks danced in his hair.
Come closer,
he mouthed, and my message screen typed the words along with him. He wasn’t even holding a phone.

Yeah, this is my guy, all right.

I swallowed and walked over.

He pushed a drink along the glowing bar with one finger. “Vodka tonic, ice, no lemon. Right?” His voice was soft yet somehow carried over the nightclub noise. I didn’t hear him so much as
feel
him, a warm and creepy caress, and against my throat the hex pendant pulsed in warning.

“Very good. Who are you?” I didn’t take the drink. Spiking is one of my tricks. I don’t trust anyone.

He leaned closer, and my mouth parched. A bitter, chalky taste. Ash. Suddenly, I felt dizzy, and I inhaled on the stink of ozone.

Thunder. Ash storms. Not vampire. Demon.

But everyone knew Kane, the local demon lord. This wasn’t he.

The demon grinned, dentist-perfect. “I think we’ve established who I’m not. You’re still standing here. Does that mean you’ll take the job?”

I studied him and decided the resemblance wasn’t accidental. Kane was blond and baby-faced, where this guy was all darkness and sharp angles, but the eyes were the same. Black, shiny, empty. Dip Kane in soot and starve him for a few millennia …

So what was going down here? Kane was jealous and territorial, and he and his vampire mobsters remorselessly crushed anyone who crossed the line. Unlikely that he’d ask big brother here over for a playdate.

I leaned on the bar and buffed my purple fingernails, casual. Demon turf wars were dangerous, but they could be good for business. “Maybe. What’s the target?”

The demon drummed his fingertips on the bar, and tiny flames licked the glass. “You’ll fetch something for me. An amulet. From a strongbox.”

My ears pricked. Magic trinkets ahoy. “Yeah? What kind of amulet?”

“The powerful kind. It has … something inside it that belongs to me. I’d recommend you don’t break it.”

“What’s the security?”

He shrugged, heavy like granite. “I’m afraid I haven’t visited in a long time.”

“I can arrange a preliminary survey.”

“Not possible.”

“Always possible. For an extra fee, of course. How much did you say you were offering?”

Another smile, but this time his teeth sprang long and sharp, and ash drifted from his hair. “That depends on the condition it’s in when you return. If you return at all.”

I licked my lips, bitter. “Okay. Forgive me if I’m cautious. Where did you say this strongbox was?”

“Somewhere unpleasant.”

I sighed. “Enough with the evasive answers. I guess this is a bad idea—”

“One favor, Lena Falco.” The demon caught my hand, swift like a snake, and his touch rooted me to the spot. “Whatever you desire, large or small. No catch. No lies. Do you want the job or not?”

He stroked my knuckles, sparks dancing, and temptation licked my blood hot. Money. Magic. Whatever I wanted.

I closed my eyes on spell-sweet dizziness. He was playing with me. My fairy spells were useless. I wanted to sigh, press his palm to my cheek, lean in, and kiss him until I died. But my hex pendant buzzed angrily, the heat shocking me awake, and I blinked drunkenly and yanked my hand away.

The job sounded difficult. But I needed the break if I wanted to keep my blood in my body and not in a mobster’s liquid lunch. Either that, or I’d still be running the lipstick con into my mid-thirties. Cherry-cola cougar. Pathetic much?

Innate warning squirmed in my belly, the prehistoric kind that’s supposed to stop you getting eaten.
Demon! Bad! Run!
it shrieked, but I stamped on it. Sure, dealing with demons was dangerous. But I wasn’t promising this dude anything in advance. If I did the work, I’d get the prize—and if I didn’t like the outcome, I could simply cut my losses and walk away. Right?

I sucked in an ash-tainted breath. “Okay. Deal.”

He held out his hand again, silent.

I took it. Shook. His palm was warm, dry, smooth like glass. For a moment, sharp claws stung my knuckles. And then they were gone.

He smiled, all charm again. “Thank you, Lena. Sure you won’t take that drink?”

“No, thanks. Where’s this amulet, and what’s it look like?”

“You’ll know it when you see it. It’s in a private residence. In the strongbox.” He leaned toward me, sniffing. “You’ve got cash. That’s good. You’ll need it to get where you’re going.”

Shit. Should have included expenses.
“Why? Isn’t it a local job?”

“Not exactly.” He smiled again at my expression. “Oh, it’s quite close. It won’t take long.”

“Enough with the doublespeak, hellboy. You hired me. Where’s the damned amulet?”

“Not damned, technically.” The demon licked pale lips, flames dancing in his hair. “Just hell-trapped. It’s at my brother’s place. In hell.”

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later, I stalked down a grimy alley, spray-painted walls looming. Trash littered the concrete, the stink crinkling my nose, and rats skittered and chewed. A fat yellow moon glared, warped through a dry heat haze that sucked the sweat from my skin, and my throat was parched, my eyes gritty.

I’d retrieved the knives I’d checked at the nightclub counter, and the twin sheaths were strapped crisscross to the back of my corset under my leather jacket. Serrated blades, well weighted for throwing, but mostly slicing and stabbing weapons. The handles lay within easy reach, and I’d cinched the metal bracelets that tricked the blades into returning to me around my wrists. More fairy magic. I’d made them myself, from a pair of coiled-wire bangles and a metalfairy’s sly magnetic kiss.

I had a pistol, too, but I’d left it at home, which was just as well. Ordinary bullets would do no good where I was going.

But I still had to get there, and my new demon employer wouldn’t help me. Apparently, he wanted plausible deniability with his pals in the demon court if I got busted. Typical politician, covering his ass.

At the alley’s end, beside a rusted iron fence, a bunch of skinny fairies crouched around a fire set in a broken oil drum, their faces dripping rainbow sweat. Firelight reflected on their damp, glittery wings. Against the fence, more fairies lay, drooling and twitching and fondling each other, asleep or insensible.

I strode up, clearing my throat. “Which one of you guys is Toffee?”

A golden-skinned one stretched long double-jointed arms and blinked at me, shirtless. Ragged orange hair stuck in knots on his shoulders, and his pointy nose twitched as he tested the air for my scent. “Toffee’s here. Who’s the pretty cherry girl?”

I didn’t move closer. He looked harmless enough. But I don’t trust anyone, remember? “Vinny D told me you’re holding,” I said, dropping the name of a gangvamp asshole who I knew had it over these guys. “Helljuice, I mean.”

Toffee flittered to his feet. His butterfly wings puffed caramel dust, and he scratched his pointed ear and gave me a sharp-toothed grin. “Mmm, Toffee’s holding, to be sure. What’s the pretty got?”

“Cash. Two-fifty. That’s it. No funny stuff.”

He sniffed at my hex pendant and licked my collarbone. His tongue felt rough, like a kitten’s, and he smelled of burnt sugar. “Toffee likes the funny stuff, tee-hee. Cherry-cola?”

“Forget it.” I pushed his face away. “Cash. Three hundred. Final offer.”

He giggled and licked my palm, wrinkling his nose. “Yick-yick, demon squick. The pretty wants to go to hell? Toffee’s got the juicy.” And he dug in his tight jeans pocket and came up with a long glass vial, filled with what looked like runny shit. Dirty brown gunk crusted the cork, and the contents bubbled, thick and lumpy.

My stomach churned.
Great. Can’t wait.
But short of damnation or a demon’s flashspell, drinking this stuff was the only way to get to hell.

Hell is like another dimension, lurking just beneath this one. Drink, and your body disappears in the real world. You spend the night in hell, wandering around until the helljuice wears off. Then you wake up, in the real-world equivalent of wherever you ended up.

Sadists and adrenaline junkies used helljuice for a sick high, because in hell, anything goes. You can kill, maim, rape, torture, play real-life death-match games with monsters and angry damned souls. Whatever you like. Just don’t die, or you’ll stay there forever.

But the stuff stank like what it looked like, and bile cooked hot chili in my throat. My demon pal’s favor better be worth it.

I folded six fifties and held them out. Toffee dropped the vial into my hand, took the notes with a gleeful giggle, and promptly rolled them up and stuck them into his ears, hooting with laughter.

I shook my head. Fairies. The rest of us need alcohol to act like that. Must make for a cheap night out.

“Ta, sweetie. I’ll put in a good word with Vinny for ya.” The hell I would. The mobsters I paid not to kill me were Vinny D’s enemies, and besides, Vinny was a fever-mad psychopath who ate anything that moved. But no harm in a little creative truth-telling.

I tucked the unpleasantly warm vial into my cleavage—summer’s sexy new fragrance, anyone?—and walked away.

“I got mine for two-fifty. You should have bargained harder.”

New voice. Not fae. Familiar. I leapt backwards, hand flashing to knife. With a rich chuckle, the shadows coalesced, and from the dark oozed Ethan Benford.

All six-foot-two, blond-and-blue of him. Lean and hard-bodied, tanned, not a scrap of fat. Long ponytail slung nonchalantly over one shoulder, Japanese sword with a leather-wrapped grip over the other. He wore ripped jeans and a black, silver-buttoned shirt with the sleeves slashed off, and, as usual, he looked disgustingly good.

I tightened my grip on the knife. “What are you doing here?”

Ethan pulled a vial similar to mine halfway out of his shirt pocket to show me. “Same as you. Demon amulet, strongbox, trip to hell? Sound familiar?”

Shit. No way is he cutting in on my job this time.
I scowled, my heart rate only gradually calming. “How did you find out about that?”

“Doesn’t matter. You sure you know what you’re doing?” He stepped farther into the light, and moonshine glinted on his bare arms, where faint dark lines of power traced the bronzed curves of his muscles like fine tattoos.

My hex pendant hummed sweetly in harmony, and sweat dripped from my hair down my neck. Fairy spells, like I make?
Ethan doesn’t need them. He subscribed to the
study-hard-and-you’ll-get-your-own
school of magic—oh boy, had I heard about it—and infuriatingly, the smug bastard practiced what he preached. In all that spare time he had, between meditating, and training with that counterweighted sword, and getting his umpteenth-dan black belt in some obscure martial art, and climbing fucking Everest on the weekend.

He tried to mentor me once, years ago. But I liked pizza, late nights on the town, and sleeping till midday. He was insufferably healthy, a ridiculously early riser, and a militant pain in the ass about little things like hangovers and caffeine consumption. I lasted a week. Just one more reason I didn’t like him.

Sometimes, mostly when I’d run out of spells and cash, I regretted my impatience. The rest of the time? Just glad I didn’t have to put up with his shit.

I jammed my knife away. “This is
my
job, Ethan. Butt out.”

“What did he promise you?”

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I stalked back up the alley without waiting for him.

He fell into step beside me anyway, and as I glanced at him, so cool and fluid and in control, for the first time that night I wished that my hot pants weren’t quite so … well, hot.

Not that I didn’t look smoking in fishnets. I knew I did. And I was good at my job, damn it. Nothing to be ashamed of.

But if one thing on this earth never failed to make me feel like a cheap gutter con artist, it was Ethan butter-won’t-melt Benford.

He caught my eye, his gaze ice blue but somehow warm. “C’mon, what was it? Money? Magic? You always took the easy way out, Lena.”

Well, screw you, Ethan.
“That’s fine for you to say. You’ve got time.”

Did I mention Ethan’s immortal? As good as, anyway. He’s human, far as I know, but he hasn’t aged a day in the ten years I’ve known him. He says it’s because he meditates on the meaning of life. Like I said: one more reason.

He smiled, and I wanted my sunglasses. “You’ve got time, too, if you want it,” he said. “You just waste it—”

“—on boozing and blokes, yeah, yeah. I got it.” Still, I wondered if he was sore that those blokes of mine never included him. He didn’t have a girlfriend, and for a guy who claimed he didn’t like me, he sure showed up a lot. And okay, I suppose he wasn’t a total eyesore. His smile would blow a fuse. Totally crushable hair, if he ever wore it loose, which he didn’t. And all those gymnastic workouts sure paid off …

I caught myself checking out his butt and dragged my gaze away. Me, dating Mr. Zen-and-the-art-of-holier-than-thou? A one-way street to inadequate. No way.

We emerged onto the main street, where at 1:30
A.M.
, the traffic had thinned to a trickle. Streetlights buzzed and glared, fighting the moon. A gleaming silver tram rattled down the hill toward the station. A motorbike zipped by, a trio of whooping fairies hanging on like long-legged barnacles.

I jammed my hand on my hip, tapping my foot. “I’m busy, okay? Any more pearls?”

“Yeah, now that you mention it.” Ethan didn’t fold his hands or fidget. He just adopted that easy stance, relaxed, alert, ready for anything. “You ever helltripped before?”

“Nope.” True, actually. A night in hell wasn’t my idea of a good time. “Have you?”

“I’ve been. It’s not pretty.”

“I can handle it, thanks.” His tone gave me the creeps, but I shrugged it off. How hard could it be? In my experience, monsters were like the Predator: If they bled, I could kill ’em.

“The demon is Phoebus, Kane’s kin. Kane won’t appreciate him meddling. You really want to get caught in a demon pissing contest?”