Jenna Black - The Devil's Due

“What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment,” I responded, then instantly regretted it as Shae’s eyes gleamed.

“You’ve come to the right place, sugar. Perhaps you’d like to venture down into Hell tonight as a participant, rather than an observer?”

I managed to suppress my shudder, but I’m sure the revulsion showed in my eyes. Shae laughed, and I wondered what would happen if I gave in to my temptation to introduce her face to my fist. I didn’t wonder very long, though. She was a demon, and my own demon was helpless against her unless I let him take over. I had no particular desire to get my ass kicked tonight, so I reluctantly kept my temper in check.

“Are you going to let me in or not?” I asked, not in the mood for a game of cat and mouse.

“I already said I would, didn’t I?” She reached into what must have been an inner pocket in the duster, then handed me a voucher. “I’ll even throw in a free drink.”

I took the voucher from her even as I wondered what the hell her game was. I don’t suppose she had any particular reason to dislike me—after all, she’d earned lots of money on me when one faction of demons paid her to help capture me and Adam paid her to help me escape. But I didn’t imagine she was welcoming me into her club with open arms because of any great affection she bore me, either.

“What’s your angle?” I asked her suspiciously.

“I have no angle,” she said, though her claim was patently false. “I regret some of the. . difficulties you experienced the last time you were here. Since you were kind enough to stop by again, I figured it was the least I could do to show you the true face of The Seven Deadlies.”

I knew full well I’d seen the true face already, and it was uglier than even I could have imagined. Common sense told me that if Shae wanted me to come into her club, then the intelligent thing to do was to run the other way as fast as I could. But I wanted to talk to Tommy Brewster, and here of all places he would be most likely to be willing to talk to me. After all, who would ever suspect a patron of a demon sex club of being an exorcist?

“Your generosity is overwhelming,” I told Shae, and her eyes crinkled with amusement.

“Suspicious little thing, aren’t you?” she asked, then continued before I could slip in a cutting retort. “As a sign of good faith, I won’t even make you check your Taser at the door.”

That had been the part of this adventure I’d been dreading most. I’d been sure my Taser would be confiscated before I would be allowed into the heart of the club. The idea of walking unarmed into a club full of demons hadn’t exactly thrilled me, but I hadn’t thought there was an alternative.

I was caught between two aphorisms that seemed particularly relevant to the situation: “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” and “If it sounds too good to be true, it is.” Shouting down my more sensible side, I told myself that as long as I had my Taser, I couldn’t get into too much trouble.

Shae nodded approvingly as she saw the decision on my face, then led me past the line at the entrance and into the club itself.

The music was so loud it almost knocked me over, and I couldn’t hear whatever Shae said to me in parting. Probably just as well. She smiled at me, her eyes glinting, then melted away into the crowd.

I stood in the entrance for a while, trying to adjust to the sensory assault. The last time I’d been in here, the music had been a heavy, tuneless techno with a beat that made my teeth rattle. This time it was earsplitting hip-hop, but it still made my teeth rattle. I figured it was just as well I couldn’t understand the lyrics.

The dance floor was packed with gyrating bodies, some dancing in couples, some in groups, and some just doing their own thing. Here and there, I spotted people wearing angel halos or devil horns, picked up from the table just beside the entrance. They were cheesy as hell, but somehow seemed sinister now that I knew what they meant. People wearing the halos were in the market for some “vanilla sex,” and if they found a compatible partner, they would go up the stairs under the sign that said Heaven and rent a room for a little old-fashioned roll in the hay. Those wearing horns wanted to go down into the basement aptly named Hell, where the sex was anything but vanilla.

It was in Hell that the demons had held Brian, hiding him in plain sight in a place where screams weren’t necessarily sounds of distress. If Tommy was down there, you could bet your ass I wasn’t going in after him.

Of course, considering how packed the club was, I wasn’t sure my chances of finding him were all that great no matter where he was. Not knowing what else to do, I weaved and elbowed my way through the crowd until I reached the bar. I used the voucher Shae had given me to buy my favorite drink, a piña colada, then snagged a stool at the far end of the bar, where I had a decent view of most of the club.

It was a nightclub of course, so it was mostly dark as a pit. I stared out into that darkness, examining faces in whatever scraps of light I could find, hoping to spot Tommy. No luck, but then the night was young. I sipped my drink and wondered what the hell I was doing here. It wasn’t like Tommy was going to spill his guts the moment I started talking to him, or like I could do anything about it even if he admitted to being an illegal.

I sat there for maybe an hour, alternately scanning the crowd for a glimpse of a familiar face, and trying to talk myself into giving up. I’d already been hit on three times, twice by guys who were probably demons, once by a guy who definitely was not. The Spirit Society has strict standards as to what makes an acceptable host for their damned Higher Powers, and a five-foot-four man with a beer belly and no neck definitely did not qualify. The fact that he was wearing the devil horns did not improve the impression he made.

When he came back for another try, I decided I’d had enough. Without even speaking to the little twerp, I started making my way toward the door.

By what had become habit, I continued to scan the crowd. I stumbled to a halt when I finally caught sight of a familiar face. Only it wasn’t the familiar face I’d been expecting.

There across the room from me, looking loose-limbed and relaxed as he closed the door to Hell behind him, was Adam. And the man exiting Hell at his side was most definitely not Dominic.

I stood rooted to the floor, staring across the room, hardly believing what I was seeing. For all of Adam’s faults, I never for a moment would have suspected him of cheating on Dom. I felt a stab of pain in my heart for Dom’s sake.

I don’t know what made Adam look up and meet my eyes, whether it was just chance or some kind of gut instinct. But when he saw me, his eyes widened in shock and he froze in his tracks. His shoulders slumped, and then his gaze flickered upward and landed somewhere above my left shoulder.

I couldn’t not look, even though I knew he might be trying to fake me out so he could escape the club without having to face me.

He wasn’t faking me out. Standing on the balcony above the dance floor, smiling smugly, was Shae. And now I understood exactly why she’d let me in.

Shae cooperated with Adam because if she didn’t, she’d either be exorcized or executed, but she’d made it abundantly clear how much she resented it. She would happily take advantage of any chance to hurt him, even if it meant hurting Dominic in the process. Maybe even especially if it meant hurting Dom—she had certainly seemed to enjoy it before.

I dragged my eyes away from Shae and found that, far from fleeing, Adam was making his way through the crowd toward me. I was torn between wanting to avoid him and wanting to rip him a new one. I hadn’t reached a decision yet when he came to a stop directly in front of me.