chapter
TWENTY-SEVEN
“It is agreed then,” Marten intoned, and went over the points of their agreement. “To this I put my hand and seal.” And he wrote it all down with a quill on parchment (magicians are very fond of parchment) and signed with a flourish (but no blood). “You give your word that you will emerge into this space in peace, and sign this agreement, and be as a friend to all gathered here?”
“Yeah, like I said,” Raven sighed. “As long as it’s written down the way we said.”
Meph and I exchanged glances. I’m sure this is the way parents must feel when a child does a good job at a recital or in a soccer game.
“Of course,” Marten said graciously. And then he raised the sword and cut an opening in the triangle that held Raven prisoner—and held her safe from her kidnappers as well. Then, very slowly and deliberately, he cut an opening into his own circle of protection.
Raven stepped inside delicately. If she were bent on his destruction this was the moment when she would have struck. She was inside his defenses now and had not yet signed the pact. She was, technically, a free agent. This is the peak of danger for the magician, the fraction of time when the demon can renege and tear him limb from limb.
But not Raven. No, for all her tattoos and scowls, for all her ugly shoes and nasty attitude, she was a perfect lady in the circle. She waited quietly in the North, the appointed region of the demon, and took the parchment with the agreement with dignity. She read it over carefully and slowly. Her Hell Latin was probably not up to full speed and I could see her lips moving as she sounded out words to herself. But she made it through, nodded, and took the quill that Marten offered her.
She affixed her signature to her very first Magical Contract as the representative of Hell. Then she put out her hand and Marten shook it, something that I had never seen or heard of in a magical ceremony and contract between Hell and human. Marten instructed her to remain just north of the main altar, and he began the ritual of dissolving the circle, banishing the quarters and removing all the barriers.
Except ours. Meph, who had constructed this final protection, had to dismantle it, which he did with a sweep of his hand. And then we were all in the same space together, the two-level sitting room of the hotel suite.
Exhausted, Nathan, Meph and I sank into the sofa together. Raven flopped onto a wing chair, one leg thrown over the arm, giggling. “Awesome. I don’t even need a shower,” she said between bouts of laughter. “And you have no idea, really none, how much I wanted just to take a bath and eat something and, well, just to stop hurting. That’s what I wanted most of all; I just didn’t want to hurt anymore. And now I feel fantastic.”
“It was a very powerful gift, and an uncommonly generous one.” Meph decided to use the teaching moment. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a ceremony where the magician offered so much of himself. You should feel wonderful, and you should honor the magician who gifted you so generously.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Raven said, twirling her hand. “I’ll do what he says, and I’ll answer any of your questions that I can. But there’s this one problem.” She sat up and clasped her hands earnestly, like an eager schoolgirl. “I didn’t see anything useful. I don’t think. I didn’t hear anything that would identify them. They used really dorky fake names.”
“What fake names?” Nathan asked.
“Stupid things,” Raven said. “Lemme see. Percival and Lancelot. They were an old guy and a young guy. The young one was pretty hot, too, if you like the type.”
“What type was that?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Not mine, that’s for sure. Short dark hair, pushy, really cute ass though, and shoulders to there.” She spread her hands wider than any human’s shoulders could be.
“That’s not a description we can use,” Marten said wearily, one hand raking through his own hair. He looked tired, as if he were barely hanging in for the debriefing. “Please try to be more specific.”
Raven sat quiet, trying to think.
“How about if I show you some pictures?” Nathan asked gently. He moved near Raven’s side and opened his computer and began showing her pictures.
“No, not that one,” she said, shaking her head. “Not him, either,” to the next. The third was just a shake.
And then she became agitated. “Yeah, that one. He was there, I’m sure of it. And he wasn’t one of the ones who was being an asshole, either. I mean, he didn’t torture me or anything. The others were into it, you know? They were hurting me and they thought it was funny.”
“But he didn’t do that?” Nathan asked, his voice still low and warm.
“No, that one just came by a few times. He didn’t talk to me at all, he only talked to the old guy, Lancelot. They called him ‘Guardian.’ ”
“That’s great,” I chirped encouragement. “That’s really useful.”
Nathan just shot me a look to shut up and hit another key. Two more nos, and then one that got more reaction than any of the others. “Him, him, him,” Raven said, turning away from the screen and wrapping her arms in front of her body. “That was the one with the cute butt like I was telling you. They called him Gawain. I told you the names were stupid.”
Nathan motioned me over and it took only a moment to recognize the face. The photo wasn’t very good and was grainy, but it was clearly Steve Balducci, who had picked up Desire and dumped her at the Brooklyn Museum when this all began. Who had known about Public and had managed to position himself so that one of us would find him appealing.
Gawain, huh? Raven was right, the Arthurian stuff really was a little moronic.
“Do you have any sketches of high demons?” Marten asked from across the room. Marten’s voice was thin and exhausted. He lay draped across the chair like a limp ribbon, utterly spent, with a blanket wrapped around him.
While Nathan tried to pull up a few of the better-known faces of Hell, I called room service for tea and coffee and plates of tostis. We could all use tostis, little sealed melted cheese sandwiches that were particularly Dutch and warming and comforting.
“I don’t think I saw any of those,” Raven was commenting as Meph and Nathan consulted on the faces.
“That’s fine, no surprise,” Mephistopheles told the girl. “I don’t think the higher demons would show themselves anyway. These idiots don’t even realize that they’re working for Hell. They think they’re working for Upstairs, as if that were a completely different Administration.” He shrugged elegantly. “Probably they forget that Satan was one of the greatest angels Upstairs before She took the job in Hell.”
Meph, being utterly elegant and understated, didn’t have to make the point to us that he had been an angel of high rank himself. And could probably look like one again if he wanted to.
“Let’s call it a night,” Meph said. “We’re all tired, it was a very hard evening and we could all use some sleep. And some food. We’ve got at least tomorrow before we have to return and we can continue with the debriefing then.”
Just on cue, room service rang the bell. Raven jumped but I got up and got the door. A young man in a starched uniform rolled in a cart with three large silver pots and two trays of small golden sandwiches, which he unloaded on the dining table. They must train the staff very well at the Royal Sonesta because the waiter’s face did not change at all as he set aside the altar furniture, spread a damask cloth on the table and set it up for our snack.
“These have tomato,” he said, gesturing to one tray, “and these others have ham. Have a pleasant meal.”
We ate. I put together a plate for Marten, two sandwiches with ham and one with tomato and a large mug of hot tea. He was too drained to leave his chair but he perked up just a bit when I brought over the food.
“You’re cold,” I said. “Have something to eat, it’ll ground you.”
He nodded and dug in. I knew that much about ritualists, after they expend energy in ritual they are more than mortally tired and they get horribly cold. It’s too easy for them to drift at that point and hurt themselves, too open and without reserves.
He didn’t say a word until he had cleaned the plate and drained the mug. Then he closed his eyes for a moment. “Thank you,” he said, looking me full in the face. His gaze was naked, undefended, which is dangerous around demons—but then he was used to us. And in that naked, vulnerable moment I saw something else in him, something beyond the magician and the expert lover. I saw just a touch of his soul in his eyes, tired and lonely and used hard, but still hanging on. A soul that was forfeit to Hell, that was destined to join us.
And there was a tenderness when he looked at me that was more than just desire, more than simple sex or even not so simple sex.
I’m a succubus and I can recognize the difference between lust and something more. This was definitely a something more, and it ambushed me.
He wrapped his fingers around my wrist. “I am so tired now, Lily, I am sorry. But you do not leave until after tomorrow, I think. Promise me some time tomorrow. Alone.”
And for all my skill at bargaining and for all I know that one does not make promises to a magician, I promised. “Tomorrow. Right now you need to get some sleep. We should get you home.”
Nathan volunteered to take Marten home in a taxi. The whole thing seemed odd to me but it left the demons all cozy together. When the humans were gone, I got up and hugged Raven. “You were magnificent!” I said. “You were amazing. And Satan has already asked me to mentor you.”
“Thanks,” she said and she smiled.
We put her on one of the sofa beds in the living area. I was too tired to even take a bath. I just climbed into bed and slept like the dead thing I was until well into the morning.
The next morning we all woke up late. Nathan emerged from his room in the suite, so obviously he’d made it back. Meph had ordered room service for us, a big hearty Dutch breakfast of cheese and ham and fruit and bread and coffee. Disgusting. I took a cup of the coffee and tried to ignore the rest of the mess.
Neither Meph nor Raven was anywhere to be found. As I sat in the farthest chair from the food sipping my French Roast, Nathan came and pulled over another chair. “Lily,” he said.
I looked up expectantly but said nothing. I had no idea of what was coming, only a fluttering of hope. Hope that now that he had seen us, had worked with us together, he would be able to accept what I did. That he would be able to deal with me and with himself.
“Lily, I . . . spending time with you has been, has reminded me . . .” he began slowly. Nathan, scholar, almost a Ph.D., did not normally sound confused and confessing.
“Are you in love with Marten?” he asked abruptly.
“What?”
“I took him home last night,” Nathan reminded me. “He was exhausted, yeah, but he talked. At least a little bit. And I think he’s got a real thing for you. So I wanted to know, are you in love with him?”
Nathan is not used to the negotiations of Hell. He doesn’t know quite how close we stay to the letter of an agreement. And I knew what he really wanted to know and what I needed to tell him. I pulled myself up just a bit and rested my warm cup on my knees and looked straight into his eyes. I knew that my face, innocent of makeup, revealed only the most sincere and heartfelt truth. “I’m in love with you,” I said very softly. “I don’t want to be, and it’s really hard for me to work with you like this because I wish we were still together. But,” I shrugged, “I am in love with you. Even though you dumped me. I’m trying to get better and get on with my life, and that’s really hard when you’re around like this.”
He dropped his head so that the long dark hair fell forward, shielding him from view. “I wish I knew what to do, Lily,” he said softly. “I want to be with you but then I see you with Meph and I see you as a demon and I’m so torn. If you were a woman, human, I would have no hesitation. I’m crazy in love with you but then I remember the other part and all I want to do is run away.”
“What about right now?” I asked very softly. “Do you see a demon or a woman right now?”
Then his arms were around me and we were kissing, deeply and passionately and I wanted him with every cell in my body. With the whole entire soul I had signed to Satan three millennia ago. His mouth, the warm firmness of his body, the smell of his shampoo were all home.
He got up and took my hand and led me to his room. There were no words, nor any need for them. He slid his hands under my T-shirt and his palms were warm on my skin. Then he slipped it over my head and looked with appreciation at my body, my full breasts revealed in a baby blue bra.
He stood transfixed—but then how many men have seen a succubus unclothed and lived? His face strained with desire, and that wasn’t the only thing straining, either. I smiled, wickedly, and stepped away from him before I unfastened the waistband on my jeans and slid them slowly down over my thighs. I took my time, stepping out of them, showing off my Italian lingerie. Which showed off the body underneath. In a long, languorous tease I turned my back and shook my curls so they brushed my lace panties, drawing attention to my posterior curves.
I reveled in my power over him.
“Araamki,” he whispered in Akkadian. I knew I wasn’t supposed to understand.
It had been thousands of years since I had heard that phrase. “I love you,” with the intimate intonation that reminded me of my mother and the Priest who had initiated me. Something that swept deeper than the succubus, that talked to the woman I had once been. And still was.
He held out his arms, open and empty. The desire in his eyes owed nothing to Hell and even his lust was something more complex, focused on me alone.
I went to him and he folded me into his embrace. I lifted my face and kissed him, hard. Right then it was the only thing I wanted in the world. His mouth tasted of coffee and chocolate. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the textures of his tongue, his fingers on my shoulders and then my back and then tracing the curves of my hips.
Pressed against him I could feel his unmistakable desire, and for a moment the power rushed through me again. I owned his lust; I commanded his need.
His mouth moved down from my mouth to my throat. He licked the hollow in my clavicle before teasing out my ear from my hair and exploring it thoroughly with his tongue. He held me hard against him as he returned to my neck and my breasts. One thumb traced my nipples through the blue lace until I gasped. But he didn’t remove the bra, merely increased the pressure just a bit, letting the uneven texture of the fabric stimulate me.
I must have whimpered because he said, “Shhhh,” and lifted me up and carried me to the bed. His arms were like rock, like steel, like his hard cock wanting me without reserve. The only strain was his holding back, and I responded to the strength that I hadn’t known he possessed.
I wanted him. I wanted his skin, I wanted him naked, I wanted to touch and taste and take from him. My nails scrabbled at his buttons, and then he grasped my wrists and held them at my sides as he knelt between my thighs, and I was pinioned on the mattress.
Completely at his mercy, I couldn’t move. I gasped and realized that the immobility was exciting. “Please, please,” I moaned.
His only reply was a throaty chuckle. He held me, his hands like steel cuffs, his breath hot between my legs. I tried to wriggle, to position myself better, to get—more. Something more. The heat ran through me and only need and desire existed. Nothing else, not even thought interfered. I wanted him, I wanted his body, I wanted his soul. I wanted him forever and I wanted him Right Now.
“Be still,” he commanded me.
Lust warred with pride through me. I was not to be commanded and yet—there he was, holding me down with one hand as the other carefully traced the pattern of lace over my mons. I tried to lift my hips and he stopped. “None of that,” he crooned.
Oh whywhywhy wouldn’t he touch me yet? Why wouldn’t he remove those scraps of lace that I had thought so lovely when I bought them, and suddenly found so very annoying.
I lay still and he used one finger, far too lightly, over my panties. He’d turned his mouth to my nipples, first the left and then the right, sucking and breathing heat over my bra, and then he lifted my left breast out of the restraining garment.
I wanted to arch my back, to push my breast up to his mouth, to tear off his clothing and the last shreds of mine. I wanted sex. Right. Now.
Instead I lay without moving, waiting for him to torment me with pleasure as he flickered the tip of his tongue over my now bare left nipple. He barely brushed me with his lips, but arousal had made me even more sensitive than usual. I trembled with need as he waited, touching me far too gently. Finally he took the nipple into his mouth and played just a little with his teeth, just enough to make me pitch and moan.
“Still,” he said, laying one hand on my stomach. The heat radiated out of his palm across my skin, somehow touching the center of desire in me although he was still too far away, teasing. And I was still in that dratted underwear.
Desperate, I lay back and commanded my muscles to remain soft and still, to sink into the mattress. He made a humming sound in the back of his throat and inserted one finger between the elastic and my quivering flesh. Without removing my lingerie, he pulled the panel aside against my leg and touched me as I had wanted him to for what felt like hours.
And when he touched me again I succumbed, pleasure knifing through me, cutting all control, all thought. Everything was gone and only need and desire and something else beyond both remained. I couldn’t remain still any longer, no matter what the provocation.
Nor could Nathan. He ripped off his trousers as I grabbed at his shirt. We were both more than ready, overripe, and when he entered me the orgasm canceled out any conscious thought.
Gasping, desperate, he still waited. I could not be here alone. I needed him to be with me, to have his pleasure be as deep as what he had given me, our immortal union to be sealed in our mutual ecstasy.
“Will I live?” he asked. His rhythm did not change, his body pulsed with need and power held in check. But now I perceived the anger inside his lust. “Or do you deliver me as soon as I come?”
And I slapped him.