Storm Born (36 page)

The puzzle distracted me so much that seven rolled around without me knowing it. Groaning, I headed off for my friend Peter’s place, speeding the whole way. Great. I was going to be late. Even if this meeting didn’t concern me and my impending “unemployment,” I might end up getting a taste of Jerome’s wrath after all.

About six feet from the apartment door, I felt the hum of immortal signatures. A lot of them. The greater Puget Sound area had a host of hellish employees I rarely interacted with, and they’d apparently all turned out.

I started to knock, decided an all-staff meeting deserved more than jeans and a T-shirt, and shape-shifted my outfit into a brown dress with a low-cut, surplice top. My hair settled into a neat bun. I raised my hand to the door.

An annoyed vampire I barely remembered let me in. She inclined her chin to me by way of greeting and then continued her conversation with an imp I’d only ever met once. I think they worked out of Tacoma, which as far as I was concerned might as well be annexed to hell itself.

Others walked around—vampires, lesser demons, etc.—and I nodded politely as I made my way through the guests. It could have been an ordinary cocktail party, almost a celebration. I hoped that meant no smiting tonight, since that would really put a damper on the atmosphere. No one had noticed my arrival except for Jerome.

“Ten minutes late,” he growled.

“Hey, it’s fashionably—”

My words were cut off as a tall, Amazonian blonde nearly barreled into me.

“Oh! You must be Georgina! I’ve been dying to meet you.”

I raised my eyes past spandex-clad double-D breasts and up into big blue eyes with impossibly long lashes. A huge set of beauty pageant teeth smiled down at me.

My moments of speechlessness were few, but they did sometimes occur. This walking Barbie doll was a succubus. A really new one. So shiny and new, in fact, it was a wonder she didn’t squeak. I recognized her age both from her signature and her appearance. No succubus with any sense would have shape-shifted into that. She was trying too hard, haphazardly piling together an assortment of male-fantasy body parts. It left her with a Frankensteinian creation that was both jaw-dropping and probably anatomically impossible.

Unaware of my astonishment and disdain, she took my hand and nearly broke it with a mammoth handshake.

“I can’t wait to work with you,” she continued. “I am
so
ready to make men everywhere suffer.”

I finally found my voice. “Who…who are you?”

“She’s your new best friend,” a voice nearby said. “My, my look at you. Tawny’s going to have a tough standard to keep up with.”

A man elbowed his way toward us, and whatever curiosity I’d felt in the other succubus’s presence disappeared like ashes in the wind. I forgot she was even there. My stomach twisted into knots as I ID’d the mystery signature. Cold sweat broke out along the back of my neck and seeped into the delicate fabric of my dress.

The guy approaching was about as tall as me—which wasn’t tall—and had a dark, olive-toned complexion. There was more pomade on his head than black hair. His suit was nice, expensive and tailored. A thin-lipped smile spread over his face at my dumbstruck discomfiture.

“Little Letha, all grown up and out to play with the adults, eh?” He spoke low, voice pitched for my ears alone.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, immortals had little to fear in this world. There were, however, three people I feared intently. One of them was Lilith the Succubus Queen, a being of such formidable power and beauty that I would have sold my soul—again—for one kiss. Someone else who scared me was a nephilim named Roman. He was Jerome’s half-human son and had good reason to want to hunt me down and destroy me some day. The third person who filled me with fear was this man standing before me.

His name was Niphon, and he was an imp, just like my friend Hugh. And, like all imps, Niphon really only had two jobs. One was to run administrative errands for demons. The other, his primary one, was to make contracts with mortals, brokering and buying souls for hell.

And he was the imp who had bought mine.

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Copyright © 2008 by Richelle Mead

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