Ilona Andrews - Hex Appeal

Hell is like another dimension, lurking just beneath this one. Drink, and your body disappears in the real world. You spend the night in hell, wandering around until the helljuice wears off. Then you wake up, in the real-world equivalent of wherever you ended up.

Sadists and adrenaline junkies used helljuice for a sick high, because in hell, anything goes. You can kill, maim, rape, torture, play real-life death-match games with monsters and angry damned souls. Whatever you like. Just don’t die, or you’ll stay there forever.

But the stuff stank like what it looked like, and bile cooked hot chili in my throat. My demon pal’s favor better be worth it.

I folded six fifties and held them out. Toffee dropped the vial into my hand, took the notes with a gleeful giggle, and promptly rolled them up and stuck them into his ears, hooting with laughter.

I shook my head. Fairies. The rest of us need alcohol to act like that. Must make for a cheap night out.

“Ta, sweetie. I’ll put in a good word with Vinny for ya.” The hell I would. The mobsters I paid not to kill me were Vinny D’s enemies, and besides, Vinny was a fever-mad psychopath who ate anything that moved. But no harm in a little creative truth-telling.

I tucked the unpleasantly warm vial into my cleavage—summer’s sexy new fragrance, anyone?—and walked away.

“I got mine for two-fifty. You should have bargained harder.”

New voice. Not fae. Familiar. I leapt backwards, hand flashing to knife. With a rich chuckle, the shadows coalesced, and from the dark oozed Ethan Benford.

All six-foot-two, blond-and-blue of him. Lean and hard-bodied, tanned, not a scrap of fat. Long ponytail slung nonchalantly over one shoulder, Japanese sword with a leather-wrapped grip over the other. He wore ripped jeans and a black, silver-buttoned shirt with the sleeves slashed off, and, as usual, he looked disgustingly good.

I tightened my grip on the knife. “What are you doing here?”

Ethan pulled a vial similar to mine halfway out of his shirt pocket to show me. “Same as you. Demon amulet, strongbox, trip to hell? Sound familiar?”

Shit. No way is he cutting in on my job this time. I scowled, my heart rate only gradually calming. “How did you find out about that?”

“Doesn’t matter. You sure you know what you’re doing?” He stepped farther into the light, and moonshine glinted on his bare arms, where faint dark lines of power traced the bronzed curves of his muscles like fine tattoos.

My hex pendant hummed sweetly in harmony, and sweat dripped from my hair down my neck. Fairy spells, like I make? Ethan doesn’t need them. He subscribed to the study-hard-and-you’ll-get-your-own school of magic—oh boy, had I heard about it—and infuriatingly, the smug bastard practiced what he preached. In all that spare time he had, between meditating, and training with that counterweighted sword, and getting his umpteenth-dan black belt in some obscure martial art, and climbing fucking Everest on the weekend.

He tried to mentor me once, years ago. But I liked pizza, late nights on the town, and sleeping till midday. He was insufferably healthy, a ridiculously early riser, and a militant pain in the ass about little things like hangovers and caffeine consumption. I lasted a week. Just one more reason I didn’t like him.

Sometimes, mostly when I’d run out of spells and cash, I regretted my impatience. The rest of the time? Just glad I didn’t have to put up with his shit.

I jammed my knife away. “This is my job, Ethan. Butt out.”

“What did he promise you?”

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I stalked back up the alley without waiting for him.

He fell into step beside me anyway, and as I glanced at him, so cool and fluid and in control, for the first time that night I wished that my hot pants weren’t quite so … well, hot.

Not that I didn’t look smoking in fishnets. I knew I did. And I was good at my job, damn it. Nothing to be ashamed of.

But if one thing on this earth never failed to make me feel like a cheap gutter con artist, it was Ethan butter-won’t-melt Benford.

He caught my eye, his gaze ice blue but somehow warm. “C’mon, what was it? Money? Magic? You always took the easy way out, Lena.”

Well, screw you, Ethan. “That’s fine for you to say. You’ve got time.”

Did I mention Ethan’s immortal? As good as, anyway. He’s human, far as I know, but he hasn’t aged a day in the ten years I’ve known him. He says it’s because he meditates on the meaning of life. Like I said: one more reason.

He smiled, and I wanted my sunglasses. “You’ve got time, too, if you want it,” he said. “You just waste it—”

“—on boozing and blokes, yeah, yeah. I got it.” Still, I wondered if he was sore that those blokes of mine never included him. He didn’t have a girlfriend, and for a guy who claimed he didn’t like me, he sure showed up a lot. And okay, I suppose he wasn’t a total eyesore. His smile would blow a fuse. Totally crushable hair, if he ever wore it loose, which he didn’t. And all those gymnastic workouts sure paid off …

I caught myself checking out his butt and dragged my gaze away. Me, dating Mr. Zen-and-the-art-of-holier-than-thou? A one-way street to inadequate. No way.

We emerged onto the main street, where at 1:30 A.M., the traffic had thinned to a trickle. Streetlights buzzed and glared, fighting the moon. A gleaming silver tram rattled down the hill toward the station. A motorbike zipped by, a trio of whooping fairies hanging on like long-legged barnacles.

I jammed my hand on my hip, tapping my foot. “I’m busy, okay? Any more pearls?”

“Yeah, now that you mention it.” Ethan didn’t fold his hands or fidget. He just adopted that easy stance, relaxed, alert, ready for anything. “You ever helltripped before?”

“Nope.” True, actually. A night in hell wasn’t my idea of a good time. “Have you?”

“I’ve been. It’s not pretty.”

“I can handle it, thanks.” His tone gave me the creeps, but I shrugged it off. How hard could it be? In my experience, monsters were like the Predator: If they bled, I could kill ’em.

“The demon is Phoebus, Kane’s kin. Kane won’t appreciate him meddling. You really want to get caught in a demon pissing contest?”

Phoebus? Heh. With a name like that, I’d be pissed, too. “Obviously, you do.”

“I’ve got my reasons.”

“Yeah? What possible reason could you have for stealing a hell-trapped demon amulet, Ethan? And don’t give me shit about knowledge being its own reward. There’s gotta be something in it for you.”

He shrugged, blank.

I grinned. “You are so busted, my friend. C’mon, fess up. Phoebus make you an offer you couldn’t refuse? Or do you want this famous amulet for yourself, is that it?” A thought struck me, and abruptly I shut my mouth. What if Ethan’s working for Kane? What if it’s his job to stop me?

Ethan’s mouth tightened. “You coming or not?”

“With you? You’re kidding, right?” I tried to push past him on the narrow sidewalk. I didn’t need his help. I didn’t trust him not to double-cross me once we had the loot. And to be perfectly honest, the last thing I needed while I fought my way through hell was the distracting sight of his sexy ass in those jeans.

He stopped me with his hand on my shoulder. Not hard. Just a light touch, but as heavy with threat as a punch in the face. “I’m going after the amulet,” he said softly. “Either you’re with me, or you’re in my way. Your choice.”

I sighed and shook his hand off. When he put it like that, I had no choice at all, really.

He ushered me off the tram at the Domain Road junction, where leafy plane trees sprawled over the wide median strip, and traffic lights buzzed amid the nest of electric-tram wires. Across the road, tall buildings loomed in moonlit shadow.