As he entered the parlor, he chose a chair in a far corner, picking up the day’s paper left folded there. Since Raina said Sunday was their day off, this room was probably a communal gathering space when not used for their primary purpose, but the primary purpose had left the strongest imprint. Clients had sat in this chair often, usually with a succubus on their laps. Mikhael had the fleeting mental image of a male sliding a sleeve off a pretty female shoulder, exposing a plump breast. The human had gotten hard against the succubus’s soft ass, oblivious as she breathed in the first, appetizing fumes of his sexual energy, her tiny fangs unsheathing to prick the inside of her lip.
It was probably another reason the bordello was so successful. Not only were all the visuals geared to stimulate the appetite, but the energy of what transpired here laid over it as an irresistible ambiance.
Dispelling those images to give him some clear head space, he opened up the local news section. There. Properly unobtrusive. To all appearances, he was reading the newspaper, his ankle balanced on his opposite knee. Though in truth, Reginald seemed more freaked-out by him doing that than when he’d been breathing fire down his neck in the swamp.
“Focus on me,” Raina said to the creature. She’d guided him to the couch and now sat across from him, reclined on one hip, her elbow propped on the back, her legs folded up beneath her. Her skirt wound snugly around her, emphasizing the lushness of her figure.
The expression she flicked toward Mikhael was cranky, a clear statement. I told you he’d be like this with you here.
Tough. He wasn’t leaving. He ignored the attitude, kept reading. Unexpected amusement flickered through him when he heard her suppress an irritated sigh. “Your name. The real one.”
“I told you. Reginald.” The incubus slid closer to her, his fingers overlapping hers on the couch. Like all their kind, he had a handsome form. A surfer’s physique, lean and muscled, blond hair to his shoulders, sea green eyes, a sensual mouth. When he leaned forward, Mikhael detected the subtle power arc, the seduction magic, the mortal snare of the sex demon. If affected, the target would lose all memory of anything but pleasure…until they were drained dry. He was about to surge out of the chair, zap the bastard hard enough his brain lit up like a circuit board, but before he could, Reginald let out a sharp, petulant cry. In a blink, he was back on the far end of the couch, eyeing Raina and nursing his hand, which had smoke spiraling off it. The incubi emitted a frightened hiss.
Raina didn’t even blink. “Half human doesn’t mean vulnerable to our magic,” she said. “Your name. Right now.”
“Isaac,” the incubus spat sullenly. “You could have burned off my fingers.”
“It could have been your testicles, so count your blessings. Once you can use your fingers to count again. Isaac,” she mused, lacing her fingers and laying her head along the couch back. “It means he laughs in Hebrew. Not doing much laughing right now, are you, Isaac?”
“You’re just like all of them.”
Frost flickered across her gaze, though she didn’t move out of that relaxed pose. “No, I’m not. What do you think would have happened if you’d succeeded in your little mind game there?” She tilted her head toward Mikhael without looking at him. “He isn’t susceptible to our ways. Plus he has utterly no interest in males. Easy as breathing, he’d empty your brain for what he wants, dispose of your body and then stop at McDonald’s for a late-night dollar coffee. He wouldn’t waste another thought on you. I’m the only friend you’ve got. Don’t pull that crap again.”
Isaac’s lip curled, showing fangs, but like the hiss, it was fear, not aggression. There was uncertainty in the sea green gaze. He wasn’t sure how to deal with her, Mikhael realized. The creature was used to victims or predators, and everything in his arsenal was geared toward the two castes.
Raina noted the shift as well. In a move Mikhael didn’t expect, she unlaced her fingers and reached out, closing her hand over Isaac’s. There was true compassion in her gaze, though it didn’t dilute the no-nonsense firmness of her chin.
“I know you’re not used to trusting anyone,” she said. “So I’m not going to tell you to trust me. I know you’re not blameless, because your guilt is vibrating off you. But telling your side of the story may improve your situation.”
He swallowed, looked toward Mikhael, but she touched his cheek, this time gently. “Just to me,” she reminded.
“All right, I stole it.” A frustrated expression crossed his face. “I knew how to get in. One of the Underworld gatekeepers, Tara; she likes our kind, and it’s okay to be with her. Could feed off her and it didn’t hurt her; that was nice. Gets old, killing folks.”
Isaac twitched a shoulder, stared at the pattern of the couch, his chin tightening. “They found out about me seeing her, said I had to get past her, get in and take it. Said I could wear her out, make her sleep, so I did. Said if I didn’t, they’d come after me. So I took it, gave it to them.”
“Who is they?”
His eyelids snapped up like popped shades. “Can’t tell you that. If I even speak their names, they’ll know. They’ll put a curse on me. Or vanquish me, and I’ll die.” Saliva gathered at the corners of his exposed fangs, reflecting undiluted fear.
While Mikhael considered the sex demons a Fae-demon hybrid, no one really knew which species held sway. They had elements of both, demonstrated by Isaac’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde antics. The Fae considered them a distasteful lower caste, if they accepted them as part of their kind at all, whereas the demon world saw them as weaker beings to use and manipulate, when they could get their hands on them. Their ultimate strength was their ability to kill with seduction, coupled with their elusiveness, their ability to escape any situation with that disorienting magic of theirs. Very few creatures were immune to it, even Fae and demonkind. It made them excellent assassins…and thieves.
They had indeterminate life spans and, like the Fae or demonkind, it was hard to pinpoint their exact age except as a measure of their power and experience in using it. However, for all his come-hither routine, it was now clear Isaac was barely out of his teens.
Raina laid a hand on his shoulder then, rubbing. Mikhael felt that same power arc from her, only more measured, controlled. She was using it to soothe him. A very experienced succubus could tone her power down, use seduction as a calming effect. It worked on almost any species, including her own. As a result, Isaac’s hand turned, his fingers wrapping around her forearm. He moved closer to rub his cheek against her shoulder. Not really sexual, however. It reminded Mikhael of a mother lion and a cub, because he didn’t sense that Raina was getting any carnal pleasure from it, or that Isaac was trying to push such an agenda now.
It still bugged him. The male had taken something from the Underworld. He was bad news, tainted and corrupted. Raina walked a lot of fine edges, but he saw neither of those things in her makeup. He therefore wasn’t thrilled to see it rubbing up against her. But he held himself back, because he’d given his word to let her take the lead. For now.
“All right,” she said, stroking Isaac’s hair. She flicked a piece of swamp mud off his shoulder, evaporated it with a quick flutter of fingers before it could hit her floor. “Sit back now. We’re going to play twenty questions, narrow things down by the process of elimination. No names. You’re using they to describe one being, to avoid giving me the gender. Male or female?”
He looked startled that she’d figured that out, but he gave her a grudging nod, a bare whisper. “The scarier one.”
“Female, then.” She waited for the jerk of his head, confirming it. “Does she have what you stole?”
“I think so. I left it somewhere for her, and when I went back to get it, it was gone. That’s where he picked up my trail.” He angled his chin at Mikhael. “She was supposed to pay me, and she didn’t.”
“What was she paying you?”
“Concentrated soul energy. A year’s supply of it. She had a way of bottling it.”
“And those she took it from?”
He didn’t answer, but she stared him down until he looked away. “Humans get their meat in pretty packages in the store. Don’t know why we can’t, either, if there’s a way to let someone else do the hunting and killing.”
She closed her eyes. Mikhael wasn’t sure why she had that white look around her mouth, but he was sure it wasn’t a good thing. “So when will they come looking for you?” she asked at last, opening her eyes.
“I’ll be looking for them. They owe me.”
That hard note entered her voice again. “Don’t bullshit me, Isaac. You’ll keep running, because you know you’re a loose end. Give us the name.”
He shook his head. “I’m not going to be vanquished where I sit.”
“They can follow your trail to my property, but they can’t penetrate my wards to do a remote kill.”
“You don’t know that.” The scavenger came out in his voice, rough-edged and raw, his eyes getting that white, rolling look again, a calf going up the chute for slaughter. “I ain’t never going to get away from her. Not never.”