sitting on. Behind it stood an otherworld doorway.
I punched his arm. “Why did you make me hike all the way up here when we could have used this door?”
He rubbed his shoulder. “Because the effort it takes to climb up here makes the view even more spectacular. You wouldn’t have appreciated it nearly as much if you’d cheated to get to the top.”
I had to admit he was right.
“Besides, it was the only way I could see how beautiful you look when you’re flushed and sweating.” He grinned, his incubus back in full force. “I love to see a woman glow after a really hard workout.” Before he left, he kissed me. “Keep that bedroom door open tomorrow night.”
Maybe I would. Not that I’d tell him.
Back when I was fully human, I hadn’t realized how closely the physical, earthly realm connected with the spiritual one. Now that I could see the supernatural doorways, however, I understood that the world I’d been familiar with – the one involving mortgage payments and homework and television reality shows – was completely entangled with the otherworld. There are doorways, both Heaven’s and Hell’s, everywhere. Sometimes, it was impossible not to stare at them, especially when I caught sight of a supernatural creature exiting or entering. While bargaining for vegetables at the busy, downtown farmers’ market a few days before, I’d dropped a carton of eggs because a small, horned demon had surprised me by crawling out from behind a display of watermelons.
No, I didn’t trust those doorways because they gave Helen ready access to me. Weeks before, when Helen had found that I’d tricked her by getting my daughter out of the contract, she’d been furious and sent that berserker demon after me. The beast had turned my nice, suburban home into a pile of rubble. Now, I was wary of living anyplace containing an otherworld doorway. Unfortunately, finding an apartment, let alone a house, without such a gateway was impossible. Every place I looked contained at least one supernatural entrance. Some had as many as five.
I compromised by renting the top floor of a subdivided mansion on the east side of the city. Although I counted six otherworldly doorways in the building, only two opened up inside my flat. The first stood in the middle of the living room wall, and I had barricaded it with the most immense flat-screen television I could buy. The TV wouldn’t stop a rampaging berserker, but it might stop other unwanted pests. The second doorway was in my bedroom. This one I vowed to use only for emergencies since I didn’t want anyone catching me appearing or disappearing into thin air.
After leaving William on the mountaintop, I avoided the convenient doorway in my bedroom. Instead, I used the one that opened up in the cramped, dreary basement next to the washing machine and dryer we shared with our downstairs neighbor.
The dryer finished tumbling the moment I stepped into the human world. I put the still-warm clothes into a basket and headed up the two flights of stairs to my apartment, which, once again, had become very crowded. Although my daughter was out of the country, Tommy, my niece Ariel, and my stepsister Jasmine now lived with me as well.
Tommy, propped up by several pillows, lay on the couch and stared listlessly at the TV. When I walked in, he eyed me warily. It was an unspoken agreement that we were never alone in the flat together. Because I had once seduced him in order to make Helen happy, Tommy had a reason to be cautious. And although I vowed never to do such a thing to him again, I couldn’t say the same for my succubus. To her, seduction was as natural as eating and breathing were to me.
To my relief, Jas walked into the room. When my dad had married Jasmine’s mother, they’d produced a perfectly gorgeous daughter. My stepsister had inherited the best parts from each of her parents: caramel-colored skin, hair like black silk, and exotic eyes from our father, and high cheekbones, long legs, and a perfect figure from her mother. All her life, Jas had acted like a spoiled beauty queen, but since Tommy’s accident, she’d become responsible. In fact, she took such good care of him that I didn’t need to do anything. Which was exactly how she wanted it.
“Time for your walk,” she told Tommy cheerfully.
“Not now,” he said. “I’m exhausted.”
“Dr. Cantor said you should get some exercise every day. It will help you heal.”
“I’m healing as quickly as I can, believe me.”
“I know you are, babe.” She leaned over the couch to kiss him on the lips, but he turned his head so that she got his cheek instead. Jas hid her disappointment by becoming brisk. “Let’s go. You need to get some sun. You look like a ghost. Doesn’t he, Lilith?”
Maybe a tall ghost with a football player’s build, a bald head, a dozen tattoos, and a line of metal studs in his forehead. But Jas was right; Tommy did look thin and pale. Not surprising considering that berserker demon Helen had sent after me had killed him instead. In fact, if I hadn’t rescued him, Tommy would still be in Hell’s waiting room.
“I’ll go for a walk later, Jas. I promise,” Tommy said. Even though he’d returned to the land of the living, his injuries had been severe. In the past three weeks, he’d undergone two surgeries to repair the damage. Most days, he lay on the couch, too sore to do anything but draw tattoo designs in his sketchpad.
“Well, let’s at least change your dressing,” she said.
Tommy sat up carefully, cringing at the pain. “I can do this myself, you know.”
“I don’t mind.”
She lifted his T-shirt, exposing his belly. When she tried to lift it higher, he clamped the material tightly against his chest. Since he’d last lived with us, Tommy had become very modest. Carefully, Jas removed the stained dressing, revealing a badly mangled tattoo and healing sutures. A little something to remember the berserker by.
I set down the laundry basket and began clearing Jasmine’s latest drugstore purchases from the cluttered coffee table. When I picked up a bag of cotton balls that had fallen to the floor, I noticed a strange bubble of energy beside the couch. Like the doorways leading into Hell, the energy had an otherworldly shine. Curious, I poked a finger into it, feeling the same, subtle shift that I did whenever I crossed Hell’s threshold. This thing was a micro-door. Something so small that only a mouse-sized demon could have crawled through. Wondering if I could plug it, I shoved several cotton balls inside, but they disappeared as if the little door was a mouth, eager for whatever I fed it.
“What are you doing?” Jas asked, interrupting my exploring.
“Nothing.” I got to my feet and dusted my knees. I’d keep my eye on that hole. Even a doorway that small worried me.
I went into the kitchen to throw away the trash, and Jas followed me to pour Tommy a glass of water. My eleven-year-old niece, Ariel, sat the table creating a triple-decker, peanut butter sandwich. She offered a smile that contrasted with her dyed black hair and ghoulish makeup. Now that it was summer, I’d tried to get her to wear something other than her black T-shirt and jeans, but she refused. She clung to her Gothic persona the way other kids clung to their teddy bears.
“I have a favor to ask you,” I said to Jasmine. “I’d like the apartment to myself tomorrow night.”
“Why?”
I had to broach this carefully. I didn’t want Jas jumping to conclusions.
