“What’s ‘not exactly’ supposed to mean?”
She tossed her veils to the floor and climbed into the driver’s seat. “It means that I’ve never had a dead person in my RV, so I’ve never had to cast a spell in here.”
The engine groaned to life and my eyebrows climbed toward my hairline. Vehicles weren’t meant to work within Helltown, not with all the infernal energy. Mechanics got all gummed up. “Then how’d you get the RV working?”
“I have talented witchy friends,” Isobel said, turning on the headlights. I stood behind her, hands braced on the back of her chair, as she wrenched the wheel to the right and got onto the bumpy road. “They know things.”
If she knew the kind of witches powerful enough to shield her RV against infernal energy, then I wanted to know those witches, too. Heck, the entire OPA would want to know those witches. If we could bring our SUVs and BearCat assault vehicles into the neighborhood, it would change the game in a big way.
Later. After I wasn’t a fugitive anymore.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
Isobel shot a smile over her shoulder at me. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
The shadows were growing long, stretching in spindly fingers over the pavement. The darkness didn’t have that blue cast to it that sunset often gets. It was black. Blacker than black. The shadows weren’t just shadows, and they were creeping toward the RV.
The engine grumbled, floor bucking under my feet as Isobel drove toward the nearest exit.
A group of men appeared in the street. They were all narrow-shouldered and wearing studded leather jackets. They didn’t walk. They sauntered, slouched, almost slithered, until they stood in the middle of the road in front of us.
Just a glance at the three of them filled my head with dirty mental images of lips and tongue and fingers. I wasn’t gay or anything; everyone with a pulse would get desperately horny around these guys, and I wasn’t any exception. Most humans were useless against a demon’s thrall.
They were incubi. The whole reason I avoided the north side of Helltown.
Monique must have told them that she’d run into me.
“Run them over,” I said.
“What?”
“You heard me!”
Isobel slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop on the gravel. Her bumper stopped inches from their legs. The trio of incubi didn’t even twitch.
“Are you crazy, Izzy? Don’t fucking stop!”
She twisted the wheel, tried to move forward. One of the incubi stepped in front of the RV. Pressed his pale hand against the windshield.
His thrall rolled through me.
Incubi are demons that look like humans in all the ways that count. They’ve got faces like ours. Two arms, two legs, all the normal parts. But they don’t come from Earth. They come from somewhere much hotter and darker. And they don’t survive by eating food like normal people do.
They feed on sex. And they can make anyone desire them using their powers of thrall.
That probably sounds like a useless power, as far as demon talents go, but have you ever tried killing someone that you desperately want to fuck? Let me tell you—it’s a hell of a defense.
And these guys didn’t just want sex.
They wanted me dead.
Even knowing that they were out to kill us, dirty thoughts flashed through my mind. It built quickly as the incubus shoved all his demon energies at us. Naked bodies, big, long dicks, dripping pussies.
It wasn’t the first time I’d faced an incubus. I knew how to break free.
We needed distance.
“Isobel, go!” I said.
But her eyes were glazed over, breath quickening. Her hands dropped from the steering wheel into her lap.
One of the other incubi was approaching our door.
I wanted to rip off my clothes and let him enter. Who cared if he wanted to kill us? It would be sweet, orgasmic death. I wanted to let him have me. I wanted to let him have Isobel. I wanted…
Distance.
He opened the door. I slammed it shut and locked it. Through the window, I got a great look at his jacket. I wasn’t surprised to notice that it was being held shut by silver needles. That was a mark of the local incubus mafia—the gang that ruled Los Angeles and, not coincidentally, loathed my guts.
“You can’t fucking have us,” I said. It was hard to speak. I wasn’t actually sure that the words made it out of my mouth. The thrall was turning me stupid.
Lord, I wanted him. He wasn’t even attractive. Way too square. Way too male. But his black eyes smoldered and it took all my strength to turn away. If I kept staring, I was going to open the door for him—and I didn’t want him and his silver needles to be able to reach me.
Isobel still wasn’t moving. She was rubbing between her thighs, groaning softly.