Kim Harrison - Dates From Hell

“The doorman. He thought you were gone. Should I set this here?” He indicated the floor.

“Sure. Fine. Whatever.”

I wanted him gone. I cast a quick look over my shoulder, down the hall, heard the slight thud of the pot hitting the carpet and turned around.

The kid was right next to me.

“Freakishly fast,” I murmured.

In a not quite human way.

“You’re so pretty,” he whispered.

His eyes were hypnotic blue, his hair golden curls. Way too young for me, but I didn’t care. He was pretty, and he thought I was, too. What more could a girl ask for?

A soul?

I took one step back and his arm snaked around my waist. His full, soft lips brushed mine.

“Souls are overrated,” I whispered.

“You got that right.”

His mouth moved down my neck; his hands moved up my ribs. My knees wobbled. The desire pulsed in my blood with the beat of a thousand ancient drums. I couldn’t think straight.

“A virgin.” He lowered his hands to the small of my back and ground us together. “The best time there is.”

His words penetrated the haze. “How do you know I’m—?”

He pressed his nose to my neck and inhaled. “You smell all fresh and new. Never touched. You’ve been waiting for me.”

I hadn’t been waiting for him. I’d been waiting for true love. I knew that.

Of course I knew I wasn’t a slut and look how that was working out.

“Virgins taste the best.”

He licked my cheek and I didn’t mind. Since I was a little Howard Hughes about germs, another reason I was probably still a virgin, that should have disturbed me. I fought against the lustful lethargy and focused on what he was saying instead of what he was doing.

“Taste?”

“Sex is food for me, baby.”

Baby again. Wish I could find the will to care, or to kick him where it counted.

“Only virgins can keep me alive. So, you want it against the wall, on the bed, the table, the counter, the floor? I’m easy.”

Actually, I was.

He fumbled with the zipper of my jeans.

“I’ll consume you,” he whispered, “and no one will ever know.”

“I will.”

At the sound of Chavez’s voice, the lust I’d been unable to fight, fled. I managed to shove the flower boy away.

Chavez tossed a vial of burgundy liquid into the young man’s face. I flinched, half expecting him to shriek as his skin dissolved. I should have known better.

“Sacramental wine?” Laughing, he shook himself like a dog coming out of a lake. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Ave Maria,” Chavez intoned. “Gratia plena.”

“Latin.” The boy shook his head. “That language is as dead as I am.”

“Our Father, who art in heaven.”

“Way after my time, dude. Nothing will help you. I’m gonna have her. You can watch if you want.”

Chavez socked the kid in the mouth. Blood spurted. “Don’t touch her; don’t look at her; don’t come near her again.”

“She’s mine.” His steadily fattening lip muffled his voice. “There aren’t a lot like her left in this city.”

Chavez glanced my way, and the demon took the opportunity to escape. Poof.

“Why didn’t he disappear as soon as he saw you? Did he want a fat lip?”

“Teleporting is a tricky business. Sometimes they have to recharge before they can do it again.”

That made sense, in this weird, new, demony world I was living in.

“Why bother with flowers?” I indicated the pot with a flick of my finger.

“You let him in?”

“No. He was just here when I came out of the bedroom. I knew something was weird, but he said the doorman let him in.”

“Probably didn’t want you to scream and alert me before he could get into your head.”

“Where have you been?” My fear made me shout. “How long does it take to get Christian paraphernalia these days?”

“Not that long. I’ve been waiting for him to show himself.”

“You used me as bait?”

Chavez cast me a quick, wary glance. “I wouldn’t have let him hurt you, Kit. I was right outside.”

He didn’t deny he was using me. I’d known that, yet it still hurt.

“He was just here—like Malcolm. You couldn’t have seen him—”

“I did.”

Chavez strode to my bookcases and removed a tiny camera from between two books. No wonder he’d been so damn interested in them.

“He came out before dark,” he said, “which makes him a lot more powerful than I thought.”

Silence fell between us, but my mind was full of questions, thoughts, disappointments. When Chavez spoke again, I was glad for the distraction.

“He said there weren’t very many like you in the city. What did he mean?”

I didn’t want to tell him, but I had to.

“I’m a virgin.”

His eyes widened. “You didn’t think that was something you should tell me?”

“That’s not something I’ve ever told anyone.”

“Madre de dios, he’ll never stop chasing you.”

“Why?”

“Because these days, chica, there aren’t that many virgins to be had.”

“Spectacular,” I said. “Try to save myself formarriage and end up demon bait. The story of my life.”

Well, not exactly. My life had never been this exciting.

Or weird.

Or terrifying.

Lucky me.

“You were saving yourself for marriage?”

I glanced at Chavez to find him staring at me. I suppose I was an oddity—in this century as well as the last.

I shrugged. “Or at least true love.”

“You should have been born in another age,” he murmured, eerily echoing my thoughts.

“Today I wish I had been.”

“Get your coat,” he ordered.

I gaped at the sudden change in subject.

“Zip your pants.”

I blushed to realize the flower boy had started undressing me, and I had barely noticed. Not only was I scared of the demon; I was starting to be scared of myself.

I closed my pants with an annoyed snick.

“Where are we going?” I asked as we stepped onto the street once more.

“To someone who can help us.”

“They couldn’t help us before?”

“I only use this source when I have no other choice.”

“Since when don’t you have a choice?”

“This demon is more powerful than any I’ve ever faced. I don’t know what to do.”

That Chavez, whose life had been devoted to ridding the earth of demons, would admit he had no clue how to kill the one that wanted to kill me frightened me more than anything else ever had.

I stopped and was nearly run over by the usual suspects—tourists, street people, locals—the throng of Manhattan. Someone cursed and gave me a little shove. There’s no place like home.

Chavez grabbed my arm and tugged me along. “I’ll take care of you.”

“You keep saying that, yet I’m still not feeling all warm and cozy.” I ignored the dark, warning glance he slid my way. “Where are we going?”

“Near the World Trade Center.”

I slowed, though I knew better than to stop. “There is no World Trade Center anymore.”

“That’s why my friend is so dangerous.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She lost her son there. She’s never gotten over it.”

Stories like those were far too commonplace. So many people had lost so much.

“Has she tried a support group?” I asked.

“She’s got her own way of dealing.”

“Which is?”

“She talks to him.”

The night shot an icy trickle down my suddenly sweaty shoulders.

“Talks to him,” I repeated dumbly.

“Samantha is a psychic.”

“Okay,” I said.

Why not? I thought.