Paul's hand left my arm as he started forward, murder in his eyes.
My heart pounding, I pulled him back. There were only a few times that a demon could attack a mortal, and self-defense was at the top of the list. Daun could rip out Paul's soul before Paul landed a single punch. "Come on, love," I said, my voice a high-pitched squeak, "let's just go."
"Later, babes," Daun said to me, doffing an imaginary cap before he launched himself into the thick of the dancers.
Paul took a step after him.
"Paul," I said, trying to keep my desperation in check, "come on. You were right, this was a bad idea."
He whirled to face me. "A bad idea? Holy shit, Jesse—some girl cuts in on us, so that gives you the green light to kiss some asshole?"
"I'm sorry," I said, knowing it wasn't close to good enough, but what else could I say?
"What is he, one of your regulars at Spice? Or back at Belles? You kiss him a lot there too?"
This was so not the time for Paul to go all boyfriendish on me. "Love, please, I've never seen him before." Not in that form, anyway.
"Yeah, I could tell."
"Please," I said again, hating how easy it was for me to beg, "we can talk about this more, all night if you want. But please, let's just leave now."
Frustration and anger warred in his eyes, but he nodded curtly before leading me off the dance floor. Before we escaped, another guy reached out, grabbed my arm. I bit back a scream, then let out a ragged breath. Holy fuck in Heaven, my nerves were completely shot.
"It is you!" The kid was pimply faced and eager; if he really was twenty-one, I'd eat my boots. "I remember you from Belles! Jezebel, right?"
"Yeah," I said, casting a helpless look at Paul, whose face started to purple.
"Man, I loved you," the kid said, oblivious to the raging bull holding onto my hand. "I heard that place closed down. Where you dancing now?"
"She's not," Paul spat. "She just retired."
Chapter 5
New York City (II)
Two blocks away from Paul's apartment, I finally broke the strained silence. "So I'm not dancing anymore, huh?"
Next to me, Paul said nothing, but his frown spoke volumes.
"Funny," I said. "And all along I thought that was my decision, not yours."
"It is your decision. Just like kissing strangers is your decision."
I blew out a frustrated sigh. "Look, that was a mistake, okay? I got lost in the moment."
"Uh huh."
"Hey, it's not like you were the walking wounded. Last I saw, you were all too happy to have the peroxide queen throwing herself all over you."
At least he had the decency to blush. That did little to offset the storms building in his eyes. "That was harmless, and you know it."
"Oh, so it's okay for some stranger to dry hump you on the dance floor, but an innocent kiss is off limits?"
That got him to halt in his tracks. "From where I was standing, there wasn't anything innocent about it. His tongue was halfway down your throat."
"Yeah, and her hands were on your ass. Why was that okay?"
"It wasn't. And that's why I pushed her away. Just in time to watch you kiss that guy."
"For the record," I said, "he kissed me. But that doesn't change the fact that you left me stranded while the blonde gobbled you with her hands."
"Jesus, this isn't about me!" His glare should have left me bleeding. "How'm I supposed to feel, knowing that my girlfriend is okay with kissing any schmuck off the street?"
"Bless me, it wasn't like that!"
"Oh, that's right. You know him from Spice, don't you?"
My anger froze. "No."
"Come off it, Jesse. He said he saw you with your clothes off. What was he, your Friday night special? Or maybe you knew him from your stint at Belles."
His words choked my breath. My hand fluttered to my throat, pulled at my collar as if that would give me the air I needed. "I couldn't help it."
"Right," Paul said. "You were totally helpless. He forced you to dance with him, to kiss him so deeply you were playing tonsil hockey."
"You don't understand! He wasn't just some asshole! He was—"
I clamped my mouth shut and turned away. I'd said too much, and nowhere near enough. Worrying my lip with my teeth, I started marching in the direction of Paul's building. Just a block away. Maybe we could just go upstairs, have angry sex, and forget all about what happened tonight with Daun.
Yes, forget about Daun and his promises, Alecto and her threats. And Meg, of course—forget about whatever torture she was undergoing, even now as I swore to myself that I didn't care.
That's the difference between humans and demons, I heard Meg laugh in my mind. Demons don't lie to themselves.
Paul matched my pace. "You know him." Something soft broke through his rage, blunting the edge from his voice. "Not from Spice. Not from Belles. From before."
"There was no 'before' Belles. I never danced before then."
"Before I met you. When you ran away."
I tried to imagine the conversation turning around—Paul would understand that what I did hadn't been my fault, and he would hug me and take me upstairs and love me. He wouldn't ask for explanations. He would leave my past where it belonged.
"You still haven't told me the truth about who you were," he said, "about why you ran."
Oh, no. Please no. I'm not ready for this.
"Jess. Talk to me."
"What's to tell?" I walked faster, pulling ahead of him. I couldn't bear to see his face, to watch his eyes judge me. "I used to fuck a lot of guys, I decided I needed a change, so I became an exotic dancer. The end."
I thought that would hurt him, get him to stop pressing me, but Paul was in full White Knight mode. He snaked his arm through mine, brought my desperate pace to a halt. "When you first started at Belles, you told me you were running from your family. You never told me who your pimp was, what he made you do with your Johns. Because it wasn't just about fucking them, Jess. You did tell me that much."
I said nothing as I wished I could either disappear or drop dead on the spot.
"Was he your pimp?"
"No."
"But he's connected somehow. He part of your family?"
"I'm not going there, Paul. Drop it."
"No."
"Drop it!"
"Jess, I love you. And you say you love me."
His words hit me like blows. "I do love you."
"And I want to believe you. But we won't be anything more than lovers until you can be honest with me about who you were."
"I don't want to talk about this! Why can't you just leave it alone?"
"Because unless you trust me, we don't have a future together."
I bit my lip, frantic, not knowing what to say. Too many emotions to count tore through me, and I turned away.
"Jess, don't you trust me?"
"Yes," I whispered. "But it's not that simple."
"Yes it is, hon." He took my hand, held it tight. "It's complicated only if you make it that way."
"You'll never believe me."
"Try me."
So I lifted my face up to meet his gaze, and before I could stop myself, I said, "I wasn't just a whore. I was a demon."
After a minute of strained silence, Paul said, "You must have had to do some bad things in your time."
"You have no idea."
"No matter how bad it was, that didn't make you a bad person."
"I wasn't bad, Paul. I was Evil."
"Stop that. You're not evil."
"Not anymore." I took a deep breath. "For more than four thousand years, I'd been a succubus."
"A…" He closed his mouth, looked at me. I couldn't read the expression on his face; it was like he'd flipped a switch.
"A succubus. A demon of Lust." Shivering, I hugged my elbows. "I didn't sleep with men to take their money. I took their souls, claimed them for Hell."
Paul said nothing. Very, very loudly.
I kept talking, partially to fill the silence—and partially because it felt like I could finally breathe again. "And I'd liked it. I mean, okay, it's not like I was exactly trained to do anything else. But I loved having sex. And every time, it was something different. A new lover to seduce, a new costume for me to dress in, a new challenge. But then He made the Announcement, and everything changed."
Paul watched me as if he thought I might leap in front of a Mack truck.
Even in the throes of my catharsis, I couldn't tell him what King Lucifer had said… and how that had set everything in motion. So I slapped ahead. "Suddenly, I wasn't a succubus any longer. Now I was a Nightmare. After loving men for thousands of years, now I had to terrify them." I cast him a long glance. "I know about the dream you had before I met you. I know you saw Tracy come to you and love you. I know you saw her die."
Color drained out of his face, but whether that was from me mentioning his dead fiancée or from admitting that I'd been the cause of that nightmare, I couldn't tell.
"I couldn't do it," I said. "I couldn't dedicate my existence to scaring mortals. There was no purpose to it. No fulfillment. No… nothing. So I ran away. And Hell came after me. In Salem, a witch turned me into a human, and I got to South Station. There I grabbed a train to New York City."
Still saying nothing, Paul regarded me, his eyes blank.
"And then I met you."
I stopped talking. Wind blew around us, took my words and scattered them while I awaited judgment.
Paul said, "So you're a succubus."
Why was his voice so flat? "Used to be."
"And your family. That would make them what, succubuses?"
The pause between us grew before I said, "Succubi. Some of them."
"Some," he repeated. "What about your sister? She a succubus too?"
I stared at him, wondering if I'd misheard. "My… what?"
"Your sister." He watched me, gauging my reaction. "I mean, if you're a demon, wouldn't that make her a demon too?"
Something lodged in my throat. Swallowing thickly, I said, "I don't have a sister. Not in the flesh and blood sense."
"No?" He took a deep breath, shook his head. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pressed you. You're not ready to talk about your past. Come on, let's go upstairs, get out of the cold."
"Hang on a second," I said, my voice rising. "I don't have a sister."
"Okay."
"I don't!"
His eyes narrowed. "Then who was the dead ringer for you at your bedside when you were in the hospital?"
My head spinning, I said, "Hospital… ?"
He looked at me, long and hard.
Okay, so this is what it felt like to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. "When was I in the hospital?"
Paul's eyes softened, stormy green muting to quiet seas. His voice so very tender, he said, "You don't remember?"
Afraid to speak, I shook my head.
"After everything that happened at Belles, you collapsed. I brought you to the hospital, and they ran tests. Exhaustion and malnutrition. You were there for a few days before they let you go."
"No," I said, memories winking on and off—now a gunshot echoing in my ears, now my blood splashing against Paul's face like spring rain—"that's wrong. I didn't collapse. I'd been shot. Here." I touched my heart.
"You weren't shot."
I felt my eyes widen, heard my words tumble out of my mouth: "I remember flying backward, hitting the ground—"
"Jess," Paul said, so very patiently, "if you'd been shot in the chest, you wouldn't be standing here now."
"But…"
Something sears through me, blindingly hot.
"If you'd been shot in the chest," he said again, "wouldn't you at least have a scar?"
"No," I whispered, "this isn't right."
Meg lowers her sword and approaches me. I stand my ground, although my legs feel like rubber. Wondering if oblivion hurts, I close my eyes and wait.
The softest brush of lips on my own. Then nothing.
"Jess…"
"This isn't right!" I screamed, my hands balled into fists. "I was a demon, I ran away, I became a mortal, I got shot, almost died! That happened!"
For a long moment, the whine of the November wind filled the gap between us. Then Paul spoke, and I felt my world begin to crumble. "Your sister said when you're under a lot of stress, sometimes your imagination runs a little wild." He smiled, but his eyed remained guarded. "I guess this qualifies. I'm sorry, hon. You weren't ready for this."
From the bottom of my soul, I shouted, "I don't have a sister!"
"I met her, Jess. You don't have to pretend anymore." He took my hand, kissed it. "Maybe you're twins, but you're still the pretty one."
Twins?
Understanding hit me like a freight train.
Caitlin.
"Bless me," I whispered, trying to remember my hospital stay and drawing only a blank, "what did Caitlin do?"
"Nothing," Paul said. "She told me a little about your life, about the tension between the two of you. About how you'd run away a long time ago."
I was losing my mind. "Paul…"
"Look, this is my fault. I shouldn't have mentioned her at all. But a demon, Jess? Come on, you have to admit, that's a little… out there."
"I knew you wouldn't believe me." A tremble danced along my arms, and the skin over my head felt too tight. "I have to go."
"Please don't."
Tearing my hand away, I shouted, "I just opened myself up to you, told you everything! And you think I'm crazy!" Then, lower: "And maybe I am. I don't have a sister. I don't. I never did. And I remember getting shot, I remember King Lucifer giving me a soul…"
"Jesse," Paul said, "Lucifer doesn't give out souls. He's the devil."
"No, He's not," I whispered. "I have to go."
"Where?"
"I don't know. Somewhere. I have to think."
I broke away from him, started walking down the block, away from his apartment—away from him.
"Jesse, wait!" He ran up to me, put something in my hand.
Numbly, I looked down at the cell phone.
"Go do what you have to do. But please, call me, let me know when you're on the way back."
"Why do you care?" My voice was taut, ready to snap. "You think I'm crazy."
"I think you've got issues," he said, touching my cheek. "And I think you're majorly in denial about some important parts of your life. But I love you. And I worry about you. And I want to know when you're coming home to me."
He kissed me—far too tenderly to be passionate—and turned to walk back to his apartment.
I watched until he walked inside his building. Then I shoved away the hurt and pain Paul's words had caused me. Enough with the self-pity.
Time to lack a witch's ass.
I flipped open the cell phone and punched in a number I hadn't realized I'd known. Hitting "send," I bumped into a woman walking past me. I snarled at her, registering her red-rimmed eyes a second after I'd turned away.
Fear shot through me like lightning, and blood roared in my ears. Lillith had found me.
But no, it was just a mortal woman, her eyes bloodshot, her nose red—drunk. She glared at me, her brandy-breath strong enough to kill even the meanest of bacteria. Then she staggered away.
I let out a shaky breath. Satan spare me, I was getting paranoid.
Placing the phone to my ear, I heard the connection ring through. As I waited for someone to pick up, I started walking blindly, letting my feet take me to wherever. Other pedestrians avoided me as if I radiated poison. Good. The way I was feeling at the moment, I could have happily shoved them all in front of oncoming traffic.
In my ear, Caitlin Harris's voice: "Hello?"
"Heya, sister." I put as much scorn into my voice as humanly possible. It wasn't the murderous timbre the infernal had perfected over the millennia, but it came damn close.
A long pause, then: "Hi, Jesse." Maybe it was the connection, but for
I moment I thought she sounded… what, relieved? Happy?
No, all I heard was a mocking pity. "Care to tell me what you did to me?"
"What do you mean?"
"Don't play that with me, Caitlin. Tell me what you did."
She had the balls to actually laugh at me. "Or what? You'll strip forme?"
"Look, you little bitch, I may not be a demon anymore, but I've still got connections. You don't want to fuck with me."
"Oh, but Jesse, after the lovely fuckover you gave me, wouldn't it be tit for tat?"
"Funny. You're a regular laugh riot."
"To be honest, I should thank you. That… whatever you did to me, wow, I hadn't had that many orgasms in ages. It was almost worth you stealing my credit cards and my money. Oh, right, and my looks."
"I know," I growled around my pounding head, "I wasn't a fucking girl scout."
"Nice image."
"Bless me, I'd been in dire straits. I was desperate, all right?"
"Let's not forget about that shieldstone. You have any idea how rare those are? You still have that, at least?"
I muttered, "I got mugged."
"Terrific. You might have been a hotshot succubus, but let me tell you, you don't know much about being a human."
"I'm learning quickly," I said. "I'm learning you can't trust anyone, for starters."
In an immediate reversal, she asked, "What happened? Are you okay?"
I looked around for the street sign telling me I'd stepped into the Twilight Zone. Nope. Just Third Avenue and 24th Street. "Why? Why do you care?"
She paused. "It's my good nature. Are you all right?"
"What's going on, Caitlin? What did you do to me?"
Static on the line. Then: "I gave you a gift. When I heard what happened to you, I came to see you. You were so pale, so cold. You'd almost died, might have still died. So I helped you. Healing's always been my best area. A little magic, and poof, healthy flesh again."
Did I remember seeing my own face hovering over me? Or was that a trick of my mind, a false memory? "You healed me as a gift?"
The Road to Hell Page 6