of decay and neglect. “This ramshackle building houses base delights?”
“Yep.”
“Interesting. From how you described it, I expected the harem of the Topkapi Palace.”
A low chuckle, throaty and distinctly feminine. “You, Daunuan? Judging by outward appearances?”
“Me? Never. But admittedly, it lacks a certain razzmatazz.”
At my side, Jezebel pursed her lips at me, inviting me to watch them sparkle with her saliva. I did so, hearing my heartbeat quicken as I yearned to taste those lips again, to feel her tongue duel with mine. And then she blew out a raspberry.
“Such a mouth on you,” I said with a grin. “I can think of other things you should be doing with it.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist, pulled her body closer to mine. Her ample curves mocked me, even as they flaunted the latest fashion: an embroidered blouse that fit snugly around her torso and emphasized her bosom (albeit a mono-bosom, as if individual breasts were something unseemly); a voluminous skirt with a tiny waistline that displayed her hourglass figure to full effect; a lace collar that swathed her long neck right up to the chin, drawing my gaze up past her face to the chestnut hair piled magically atop her head in a mountain of curls; kid gloves and boots wrapped around her impossibly small hands and feet. Dressed to the nines. It was a look that mortal women attempted to achieve through a painstaking process involving a multitude of boned bodices and corsets that were, in turn, lost in a sea of hooks and wires. They were also a blasted pain to remove, especially in the heat of passion. Luckily (for me), they were easy to tear. Or burn.
The humans responsible for such damnable mortal fashion would easily find a place amongst Hell’s elite—and they’d possess the best-dressed entourage in all the Abyss.
Jezebel smiled pertly at me, nothing like the aloof Gibson Girl she otherwise embodied. How I longed to shred the fabric from her human form, run my hands along every exposed feminine swell, explore deep within her most intimate crevices. No matter what guise she wore over the millennia, I was constantly confounded by her beauty, and by my own ceaseless hunger for her. She was the finest opium, the meanest drink; like all of her ilk, she oozed sex and scandal.
My sweet succubus, dolled up like a flesh puppet. As was I, at her insistence. Clad in a dark overcoat and pants, clutching a silver walking stick in one gloved hand, I stood with a bowler hat perched upon my head, a high collar and bow tie wrapped around my throat, and too-tight boots upon my feet. To say nothing of the pants. Obscured by my coat, my erection throbbed, pushed against its confinement. Just being near Jezebel did that to me. All I wanted to do was throw her in the bushes for a quick dog’s match. Or two.
She must have felt her effect on me, even buffered by the layers of all our clothing. Her lips parted in a wet smile—bemused, sardonic. “Patience, sweetie. First things first.”
“Ladies first,” I said, breathing in her exquisite smell of brimstone and sex. “I promise, ladies first. As always.”
“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
