by A. J. Aalto
“Kirked in pink, if you prefer, my ladybird, but you are missing my point entirely.”
“Which is? My buns are getting cold, and yours aren't getting any warmer.”
“He knew the truths from the lies before I told them.”
I frowned. “Declan has done a lot of research. If nothing else, he's diligent in his work.”
“I suspect he knew truths he could not have known but from my very mouth.”
“You think he's a Telepath?”
“No.” He pursed his lips with disapproval. “The collied corners of my mind do not fall open to the Telepath's key-fobs like a common car door.”
“What, then?”
“Your brother cannot read him.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Nor can I. I have never encountered a human being I could not read.”
“I knew it!” I slapped my thigh, dropping my voice to a hiss. “My assistant is a friggin’ leprechaun.”
Harry blinked once, slowly, to demonstrate his patience with my idiocy. I'd have given him a wedgie if he'd been wearing anything under the apron. I wondered if I could wrap it between his legs to try it anyways. The thought of what that might do to some very delicious bits of him stayed my hand. Also, I had a lap full of something that smelled delicious and I didn't want to dump it all over the floor. Probably I'd end up falling on my ass. Probably he'd stop me anyway.
“Leprechauns were hunted to extinction by the early fifteenth century, ducky, this you know.”
“Yeah,” I argued, “but maybe he's the last one? Declan Edgar, Highlander of the Leprechauns. There can be only one!”
The bedroom door was thrown open and Batten was in the middle of a sentence. “And don't pretend that giant spider didn't completely freak you—”
Batten took one hard, unblinking look at Harry's bare ass, turned on his heel and marched back out. The door slammed, making the perfume bottles on my nightstand clink together in a tinkling chorus. I gaped wordlessly at the Jean-Luc Picard poster on the back of my door; Captain Picard didn't look any more pleased than Agent Batten had.
“What the fuck is he doing here?” I gasped. “I thought he and Elian and Lucky Charms went back to their place.”
“That was unjustifiably rude,” Harry said. “Does he make a habit of waltzing into your private bedchamber without knocking? Oh, forgive me, what an asinine question. Of course he does.” Harry turned to set the tray aside on the top of the dresser, flashing me a glimpse of his pale bum framed by apron flaps. “That lad has all the manners of a mole catcher.”
“He looked pissed.”
“Agent Batten is perfectly welcome to be as loutish as he pleases, provided that he commits his gnashing of teeth elsewhere.”
I gave him a suspicious head-cock. “Why now?”
He offered me the questioning lift of his brow and a little inquisitive noise.
“Why the boots, Harry, and the dinner in bed, and the bare ass?” I asked. “Why tonight?”
“Why, darling, to cosset you with zealous devotion, of course.”
“Oh, yeah,” I drawled, rolling my eyes. “Just another Saturday night in the Dreppenstedt household.”
The grey eyes flashed chrome. “Dare you imply that I had ulterior motives?”
“I imply that you knew he was coming back over. That you planned this little interlude with the knowledge that we'd be interrupted.” Maybe you even invited him, I thought but did not say aloud. I folded my fingers together across my stomach and waited while the revenant fought what eventually erupted as a sheepish smile.
“I might have done.”
I shook my head. “I thought you liked Batten now, why would you do that to him?”
“I felt he was due a reminder.”
“Of what, that you're a massive dillhole?”
Harry drew himself up to full height, but it's very hard to look indignant when you're naked but for an apron, even in authentic jackboots. “The lad needed to be reminded of his place. I will not have a sordid pack of suitors traipsing in and out of my home.”
“You don't,” I assured him. “There are no suitors, Harry.”
“First, with your codding jugulator—”
“I don't know what that is, but it sounds like I should have one.”
Harry raised his voice. “Then this coppernob with his shower-taking and his pawing and panting—”
“Robin Hood does get winded after a work out,” I agreed with a solemn nod.
“And now the chuffy Irishman. Well, I cry your mercy, but I will endure no more,” he stated, setting his brow in a furrow. “You asked for intimacy, and by all that is holy, you shall have it.”
I stared at the revenant for a long minute then said, “Your cheeks are incarnadine.”
Harry's eyes lit with a flash of irritation. “You sass me, my philomel?”
“What can I say? Jealous tantrums make this philomel oh-so-sassy. How do you manage to flush like that before feeding, anyway?”
“Jealousy is the one passion I have left in my dwindled arsenal, love.”
“Fun!” I beamed sarcastically as I rummaged into my night table drawer for the bottle of little white pills that Harry had previously insisted were vitamins. “Tell me, why'd you do this in the first place?”
Harry's hand shot out and easily caught the bottle before it hit his nose. “For your health, of course.”
“They're not vitamins.”
“Not as such, though I stand by my claim that they are for your health.”
“Bremelanotide. For over a decade. For my health.”
“As you say. You should not have stopped taking them. They protect you in ways you cannot hope to comprehend.”
“I'm a pretty smart cookie. Explain it to me.”
“I will not. You will simply trust that I know what is best for my pet, and you will resume taking them. Now,” his face assumed an all-business aspect, “I am aroused and as of yet unfulfilled. What do you propose to do about this predicament?”
At first, I was speechless, and then a laugh barreled from deep in my belly, so forceful that it curled me up. Harry used the sugar spoon in his hand to whip his apron-covered thigh as if it were a brigadier's crop, a demand for silence that went unheeded; I laughed even harder as his mouth tightened into a thin line.
Finally, I said, “I'll pass, thanks.”
Harry's eyes widened only slightly, but the fight that had been building in him since Batten's intrusion left in a cool, prudent rush. “I beg your pardon?”
I did something I almost never do; I whined. “You know what kind of day I had. Gooey zombies are a major turn-off. So is guilt.”
For a moment, I felt Harry's mind lick through the Bond to explore this while the insult on his face was replaced by the dawning of sympathy. “You believe Roger Kelly's escape was your fault.”
“I distracted everyone with my kaboom,” I said, my lips shrugging into a sad half-smile. “If I hadn't done that, they would have seen Kelly's corpse leave the van and stumble into the woods.”
Harry frowned, but he did not disagree.
“I am so not in the mood, it's not even funny,” I marveled. “I mean, some sadist might think it's funny, but you're more of a bondage guy. I mean, I'm talking about you tying me up and even that's not helping.”
“My spent sparrow, I would never deign to pressure you into conjugal exertions you do not desire utterly. Ridiculous though I find the term, if you wish a rain check on my libidinous designs for the evening, I have no choice but to acquiesce. I am not that kind of monster.”
“I'm sorry, Harry. Last night… I don't even have words for how fucktacular it was.”
He waved away my objections with a wink and whisked the lid off of something that looked like chicken and smelled like heaven. “Do not forget the myriad pleasures I can deliver, my dulcet dove, but do let's save it for a better time. Eat, rest, collect yourself. When you are rested, I will thrill you to your curling toes.”
My answer was a slow smile. “G
ood night, my Harry.”
“I bid you adieu, sweet lady,” he replied, inclining his head once, “until the morrow.”
* * *
Ten minutes after he swept from my room, I heard Harry's new Ferrari growl down the driveway. I had to admit, it did sound like the world's most powerful sex toy, which made my mind turn to a hot bath and a nice, long “let's have a quick de-stressing” visit with Mr. Buzz. The bathwater rumbled and hissed in the old clawfoot tub while I undressed, shedding satin. I turned to fetch some of the fancy Blenheim Bouquet bubble bath that Harry had brought home from Penhaligon's and saw the Waterloo tooth sitting on the edge of the sink like a tiny ivory sentinel.
“Well, hello there, stalker-tooth. I don't think I need you right now.”
Busy with the task of lighting the pink glamour candle and chatting with the tooth shard, I didn't notice anything weird happening at first. Then the candlelight flickered hard and the glowing spots in the mirror caught my eye.
A slow push of oval shapes moved against the clear face of the mirror; the sight rocked me back so fast that my naked legs hit the tub and I nearly went over ass-first. I caught myself against the cold edge, taking in face-shapes made of heaving fire and black ash with dry-mouthed fascination.
One face became dominant, pressing forward out of the roiling gloom that filled my mirror; the creature was red and full of mischief, distinct creases of laugh lines carved in the molten rock of his cheeks. When his neck came into view, it was forked, attached to two other heads: one a ram, one a bull. The ram seemed to drowse against one red shoulder. The bull snorted and glared out at my bathroom contemptuously, as if it thought my décor too shabby.
The creature in my mirror did not speak. It seemed to wait.
I waited, too. What do you say to a three-headed demon? I didn't think small talk about the weather or baseball was really appropriate. What I wanted to say was Get out, get out, dearGodgetout, but I didn't dare.
Instead, I covered my boobs with one arm and smiled. “So. Thoughts on this?”
“Nice legs, toots,” the demon said.
“Thanks. I built them myself.”
“Shame about the tits.”
Ex-fucking-scuse me? I looked down at my chest. “Humble genetics, got short-changed.” Who knew that people skills translated into demon skills?
“Did you ever,” he seconded. “So, you rang?”
I understood in a terrible rush. “Asmodeus.”
“You were expecting more than one King of Demons?” He squinted, and his forward motion bowed the glass of the mirror toward me. I scurried backward, stepping into the sloshing tub to get further away from him. The water had gone ice cold, as though the demon was sucking all the ambient heat from the room. My deeply offended nipples had hardened in the chilling air.
“Hell no,” I assured him. “In fact, I was just thinking that when your mirrors grow faces, it might be time to move. I called you nine months ago, what took you so frigging long?”
The mirror erupted in a chorus of shrieking wails, belching heat and wind, an explosion of demon rage; the shockwave blew my hair straight back from my face and made my eyelashes bat wildly. It stopped as abruptly as it began. The demon horde behind Him receded into the smoke. The silence that followed was a hammer in my eardrums.
“Enough with the heavy breathing,” I said. “You'll blow out my candle. And without my glamour going on, you're gonna mock more than my tits.”
“Honey, I get a kick out of you,” Asmodeus said, and smiled. I immediately wished he hadn't; the set of yellow teeth like broken piano keys offered no merriment.
“I've always been awesome. How come you're only noticing me now?”
“You ain't getting enough humpity-humpity.” He managed a lewd wink.
“And you know this how?”
“Cuz when you do, I do, toots.”
The vitamins. This was what Harry had meant. He'd wanted to keep the bulk of his power away from me, but the only way to do that and keep Asmodeus from knowing we weren't having much sex to reinforce our Bond was to keep my libido high with the bremelanotide. Now that I'd stopped taking the pills and my libido had dropped (I didn't say it had vanished, but I was fractionally less of a spastic hornball), Asmodeus wasn't getting fed as much lust through Harry… which meant that the previous night's sexplosion must have shone like a supernova in a fog bank. Oh Dark Lady, this thing knew when I was getting my hot buttered groove on. I wondered if he'd needed a cigarette after last night.
“Gross,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” He said. “Infernal ménage à trois, every time. Hot, right?”
If by “hot” you mean “steaming pile of ick”. “There must be other DaySitters not supplying you with enough, uh, humpity-humpity. And do you really think reminding us that you're riding shotgun in the bang-wagon is gonna help anyone but some seriously kinky folks get in the mood?”
“Look at me,” Asmodeus commanded, and despite wanting to do anything else, I obeyed. The ram and goat heads stretched and faded, becoming breathtaking crimson wings, framing a face that shifted from horror show caricature to something so beautiful my breathing stopped. The parts of my body that didn't care what my brain had to say could have melted the cast-iron tub if I'd managed to fall in, flashing the water to steam.
“Well, hello, sailor,” I said approvingly.
“I get that a lot, toots. You don't mind me joining your humpity-humpity now, I bet.” He let out an infernal chuckle that sounded like it was made of charred bones despite his gorgeous looks, and paused to consider something for a moment. “You ever want to bang an angel?”
“Well, uh,” I stammered. “Too hot. Can't think.”
“I get that a lot, too. Hence, the demon drag.” He morphed back to his usual, hideous aspect. I couldn't believe I'd asked him to. Point: Asmodeus the fallen fucking angel.
“Thanks, I think.” I fanned myself with my free hand. “But why come see me?”
“Barely concealed behind that thin veneer of humor is a delightful dose of lust and hostility, the likes of which I rarely see in a DaySitter anymore.” Great, I was getting judged by the second-most-evil being in creation. How was that fair?
“Well, DaySitters work for the law, now,” I informed him, in case he didn't know, “and we try to be nice.”
“You don't.”
“Do so!”
“You don't rally for the right, kid,” he pointed out. “Your heroics are of the self-interested variety. I dig that.”
“Are you calling me a fakey-fake faker?”
“You do what's best only if there's something in it for you.”
I winced.
Asmodeus disappeared into the swirling ash to relinquish the mirror to a slide show of my life's lowlights; I blinked stupidly as it showed me every selfish act I'd ever committed, one after another, like quick, tight slaps to my face. It hurt my skull, and did absolutely nothing for my self-esteem, either.
Now, I know I'm a living, breathing bad example of how to do anything right, but seeing that summarized in a rolling parade of delinquency across my mirror made the skin pucker between my eyebrows. “Okay, okay.” I scowled. “What do you want from me?”
He returned, swimming up out of the red gloom. If angels had nightmares, this was the face that made them shudder awake in their infinite thread-count sheets. The demon closed one bulging eye on his human head, and with the open one, peered at me intently from the other side of the glass.
“You will need my assistance to kill John Spicer,” he said, “and when the time comes, you must call upon my help.”
Malas’ tooth rattled on the counter. (“Mark the sound of my reply. I will come for you.”)
“I'm not going to kill anyone,” I said firmly.
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I'm not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I'm—would you stop that? What are you, twelve?”
Smoke billowed behind Asmodeus and the angry chor
us started up again.
I threw my palms out against the belching hell-breeze and shouted, “Knock that shit off! I'm out of air freshener, you asshole.”
Asmodeus chuckled, and his bull head snorted. The demon horde — presumably, if I remembered my bible lessons, the seventy-two legions He claimed — drifted away into shadow. “You must not allow your police officers to arrest John Spicer. This is the perfect opportunity to make a sacrifice to your Overlord, DaySitter.”
Oh, goody. “Say, do you know if Viktor Domitrovich is the abomination that Spicer is tracking? Do you know who is making zombies? Are they connected somehow?”
“I know lots of neat stuff.” The demon wiggled his fleshy, hairless brow ridge. “Wanna play tit for tat? Oh, wait.” He shook his head sadly at my naked chest. “Never mind.”
I flipped him off before remembering I had demon-people skills. “Is Malas angry about Gregori Nazaire?” I asked. “Is Gregori still with us?”
“Ha! Gregorius.” Asmodeus displayed for me again the horror of his teeth and pressed forward a good foot and a half from the mirror. “You dusted that sumbitch good, toots.”
I grimaced. “About that. You mad, bro?”
“Nah,” he replied. “Shit happens. You'll make it up to me.”
“I will?” I swallowed hard. “How will I do that, exactly?”
He fluttered his lash-less eyelids coyly; the effect was disturbing, like someone had painted Danny Devito red and gave him two animal heads and a seduction scene in the worst X-rated movie ever. “You will rise in defense of the Eversea and champion those who are under attack, of course.”
I blinked. “Wow. That sounds awfully official and kind of important.” I shook my head. “I'm really booked. Can we renegotiate this deal in, say, November or so?”
“Do what you do best, toots. Self-interest. It comes natural to you.” He faded into the smoke with a chuckle, the tail-end of His voice pulling like a fingernail down my spine. “Do not disappoint me.”
Don't disappoint Him? Why should He be any different?
CHAPTER 36
“EVERY DAMN DAY,” I MOANED, trying to judge Rob Hood's mood.
