Читать книгу Hotter Than Hell - Jackie Kessler - Страница 12

Los Angeles, April 1906

“This?” I glanced at the decrepit warehouse across the street, took in its slipshod paint and sagging wood, its air of decay and neglect. “This ramshackle building houses base delights?”

“Yep.”

“Interesting. From how you described it, I expected the harem of the Topkapi Palace.”

A low chuckle, throaty and distinctly feminine. “You, Daunuan? Judging by outward appearances?”

“Me? Never. But admittedly, it lacks a certain razzmatazz.”

At my side, Jezebel pursed her lips at me, inviting me to watch them sparkle with her saliva. I did so, hearing my heartbeat quicken as I yearned to taste those lips again, to feel her tongue duel with mine. And then she blew out a raspberry.

“Such a mouth on you,” I said with a grin. “I can think of other things you should be doing with it.”

I wrapped my arm around her waist, pulled her body closer to mine. Her ample curves mocked me, even as they flaunted the latest fashion: an embroidered blouse that fit snugly around her torso and emphasized her bosom (albeit a mono-bosom, as if individual breasts were something unseemly); a voluminous skirt with a tiny waistline that displayed her hourglass figure to full effect; a lace collar that swathed her long neck right up to the chin, drawing my gaze up past her face to the chestnut hair piled magically atop her head in a mountain of curls; kid gloves and boots wrapped around her impossibly small hands and feet. Dressed to the nines. It was a look that mortal women attempted to achieve through a painstaking process involving a multitude of boned bodices and corsets that were, in turn, lost in a sea of hooks and wires. They were also a blasted pain to remove, especially in the heat of passion. Luckily (for me), they were easy to tear. Or burn.

The humans responsible for such damnable mortal fashion would easily find a place amongst Hell’s elite—and they’d possess the best-dressed entourage in all the Abyss.

Jezebel smiled pertly at me, nothing like the aloof Gibson Girl she otherwise embodied. How I longed to shred the fabric from her human form, run my hands along every exposed feminine swell, explore deep within her most intimate crevices. No matter what guise she wore over the millennia, I was constantly confounded by her beauty, and by my own ceaseless hunger for her. She was the finest opium, the meanest drink; like all of her ilk, she oozed sex and scandal.

My sweet succubus, dolled up like a flesh puppet. As was I, at her insistence. Clad in a dark overcoat and pants, clutching a silver walking stick in one gloved hand, I stood with a bowler hat perched upon my head, a high collar and bow tie wrapped around my throat, and too-tight boots upon my feet. To say nothing of the pants. Obscured by my coat, my erection throbbed, pushed against its confinement. Just being near Jezebel did that to me. All I wanted to do was throw her in the bushes for a quick dog’s match. Or two.

She must have felt her effect on me, even buffered by the layers of all our clothing. Her lips parted in a wet smile—bemused, sardonic. “Patience, sweetie. First things first.”

“Ladies first,” I said, breathing in her exquisite smell of brimstone and sex. “I promise, ladies first. As always.”

“I’m no lady.”

“You’re still first.” I reached out, pressed, and she fluttered in my arms, a delighted gasp emanating from those wet, wet lips.

“Later, incubus,” she said, breathy. “Later.”

“Babes, what could be more important than the business? Our bodies spooning, our hips bucking…”

“That’s what I mean to show you,” she said, untangling herself from my arms. “It’s past time for us to get some religion.”

“Religion? Can’t we get perpendicular instead?”

“We will, we will.” She chuckled, a sound filled with delight and devilishness. “Come, let me show you.” She entwined her fingers around mine, led me like a dog. I spied block letters painted onto the side of the edifice, forming the words APOSTOLIC FAITH GOSPEL MISSION.

“Religion,” I moaned aloud. “She’s preaching the Word instead of the business. She’s forsaken her hooves.”

“Daunuan, would I ever do that to you?”

Damnation, how my name on her lips set fire to my blood! “That’s a halo your hair is hiding. You’re leading me to salvation instead of temptation.”

“I promise, sweetie, in this instance, the one leads to the other.”

“Truly?” Walking toward the two-story structure, I openly scoffed. “Perhaps you’re keen on bestiality. I still smell the livestock that once were housed here. Or maybe that’s the stench of humans packed too tightly.”

“It’s the smell of opportunity.”

“For what? Switching to the other side? That’s why we’re in the City of Angels, isn’t it?”

She chuckled but said nothing. The doorway loomed large as we approached.

Religion. Ridiculous. “We’re on a schedule, babes. San Francisco, in three days.”

“This is worth the detour.” She regarded me over her shoulder, her hair anchored in place by feats of magic I could never hope to accomplish. “Do you know why we’re supposed to go there? I was rather enjoying Naples.”

I shrugged. If the King of Lust had bothered explaining to any of his entourage why we were to be in that particular city in a few days’ time—we, and the bulk of the nefarious, from what I’d gathered—then none of the elite had seen fit to share that information with a mere third-level Seducer. “Heard things. Rumors. Maybe it will be something on the scale of Vesuvius.”

Jezebel dimpled a smile, and I saw wicked thoughts sparkling in her eyes. “That was delicious. All of that lava. All of those souls.”

“I love eating Italian.”

“A saucy people. Wish we could have stayed longer.”

“Vesuvius,” I said again, rolling the mountain’s name. “Temperamental. Nothing like what it did to Pompeii, but still quite the spectacle.” Even with a demon’s love for destruction, all my talents couldn’t come close to one sweep of God’s hand. The Almighty breathed; the volcano erupted. More than a hundred died, and quite gruesomely, for reasons only He would know.

At times, I wondered whether the Almighty had shaped the nefarious to mirror the worst in Him. But those thoughts I kept quite silent. A demon didn’t think about God. And if he did, the demon certainly did not admit such a thing. It wasn’t healthy.

“All of that lava,” Jezebel repeated, her voice a low purr. She always did have a weakness for heat. “But I prefer our chosen method of collection. What’s the sport in taking spirits from already deceased shells of wicked people?”

I squeezed her hand. “Ours not to reason why.”

“Ah, Lord Tennyson. There was a man who understood the importance of lust. ‘Better to have love and lust than never to have lust at all.’”

“You’re mangling his words even more than I do.”

“Poetry is best when left open for interpretation. Here we are.”

From the other side of the door, muffled sounds spilled out into the street: a man’s booming voice, heralded and followed by the bleating of the masses, insisting on praising their Savior and amening themselves and everyone within the city limits to death.

Demons, about to saunter into a holy place.

I sighed, resigned. The things I do for her.

Opening the door, I motioned for her to enter. Ladies first, after all. Inside, cold air clogged my nose; I frowned, then snorted out the frigid chill of good. Pfaugh! But even more palpable than the cold was the sense of building energy, soft and low, yet growing all the same. It was an orchestra’s hum, a thing of oboes and violas, of bass drums, rumbling, gaining in volume, in intensity. In power.

“There’s a magus here,” I said, my voice pitched too low for human ears to catch.

“They call him pastor. His name is Seymour.”

“I’d think it would be Simon.”

Her lips stretched into a knowing smile, glistening. “Watch. The people are getting saved.”

We hovered in the back of the small room, for all intents invisible to the mortals. Minor precaution. One never knew if a magus could determine our true natures; dimming ourselves to human perception nearly guaranteed we would be unnoticed. Boring, really, but Jezzie didn’t seem to want to cause a scene. I’d never understand her. I folded my arms across my chest, prepared myself for much eye rolling.

The better part of two hundred people gathered in the round, sitting and standing in prayer. Dressed in rags and riches, in working clothes and their Sunday best, the congregation was caught in a spell of salvation as they clapped gloved hands and stomped booted feet. In the center of the room, a lone man stood at a pulpit, delivering his message to eager listeners. He seemed to quiver as he preached, his voice filled with a passion deeper than mere words. Surrounded by his followers, he alternately trembled like the meek and thundered like the mighty. He was speaking of allowing the Holy Spirit to fill them, to surrender themselves completely to God.

Satan spare me.

“Look at them, Daun,” Jezebel murmured. “What do you see?”

“Lunch.”

She pinched my arm. “I mean it. Look. Look at their colors.”

“Humans all look the same to me.”

“Their skins are dark and light and all shades in between. There’s no segregation here. They’ve come together, here in their house of God. The color line, washed away by holy water.”

“So?”

“It’s not like them to overlook their differences. White and black, mixed in religious frenzy. And more than that. Seymour has white men under his authority.” She grinned, her teeth small and perfect. “Some would call that miraculous.”

“The only miracle is that we’re here in this holy place and not vomiting all over our shoes. Look, they’re jerking.” I watched a great number of the humans shake and tremble as if they’d been stricken with palsy. “I think they’re breaking.”

“They’re overcome.”

“By what? A plague?”

Her grin stretched wide, and for a moment I glimpsed the fangs beneath her false human teeth. “The Word, Daunuan. The Word.”

“The Word causes fits and spasms?”

“They believe so.”

The preacher’s voice burst forth, suddenly volcanic in its intensity. “‘And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.’” He paused, seemed to measure the adoring looks of his followers. “‘They denounce us for our holy baptism, my brothers and sisters. They say we spew a weird babble. They call us fanatics. But they are wrong. It is our mission to displace such wild fanaticism with a living, breathing Christianity.’”

Yawn.

He rolled on, preaching his message amid a hundred hallelujahs, saying that the only true sign of a second Grace was when God Himself entered your body and allowed you to speak in a tongue that the Almighty Himself understands. Et cetera. He called for testimony, and soon the humans were standing, decrying their sins, begging forgiveness and for the power of the Almighty to wash them clean. More clapping, more shouting from the congregation.

Yawn, again.

“Aren’t they fascinating?”

I arched a brow at Jezebel, whose face was entranced as she watched the humans make fools of themselves. “They’re idiots, being led by a half-blind religious faker.”

“You’re so certain he’s a charlatan?”

“He’s a magus,” I said, shrugging. No more needed to be said. Magicians were shifty, and they tasted like mildew. “His power over these mortals has nothing to do with religion. It’s all hypnosis. Suggestion.”

“It’s amusing. Listen—that one’s speaking in tongues.”

I listened. A dowdy woman spewed utter gibberish, shaking as if she were falling apart. “That’s chatter and clicks. That’s no language at all.”

Next to me, Jezebel sighed, petulant. “You’re ruining my fun.”

“Babes,” I said, stroking the swell of her ass, “you know what I consider fun.”

She turned to regard me, and I saw something delicious and altogether evil dance in her eyes. Her lips pulled into a smile filled with promise. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

Oh-ho. I cocked my head, waited to see what she’d do next.

She turned her attention to the crowd, and I watched her blow out a breath, a puff of power, watched that bit of magic float over the room and slowly settle on a handful of people. They shuddered, then as one they let out peals of laughter. One elder fell to the floor, his ancient body riddled with spasms as the laughter tore through him.

“Not usually the sound I aim for,” I said.

Jezebel smiled, all innocence. “A little tickle before the slap. Your turn. Try to be subtle.”

Subtle? Where was the fun in that?

More of the humans slowly fell sway under Jezebel’s power, their giggles and chortles and guffaws riding the air along with the praises to the Lord and the declarations of their sin being washed away.

Their leader banged his fist on the pulpit, pronounced their delight a sign of “holy laughter” and commanded his congregation not to resist the power. “It will go through you like a wave of electricity. And when you feel it, give way! Surrender yourselves to the power! Let His power fill you, thrill you!”

Well, who was I to pass up such an invitation? I spread my arms wide and pushed.

As my power touched them, the mortals shivered, ahhed. Some it passed over completely; those people were the truly good, the humans slated for Heaven—ones even the promise of lust could not tempt. Alas. Those frigid mortals watched their brethren succumb to fleshly excitement, and they covered their mouths and widened their eyes as they beheld the physical joy denied them. Poor fools. One could only hope that one day their innate passion would melt the ice around their heart. And then they would dance in the Bonfire of the Heartlands. For now, they watched, they whispered. And the seeds of temptation were planted.

As for the ones who held some evil in their souls, they felt my touches, my caresses, and they threw their heads back and cried out in glee, their huzzahs and shouts like music; they swayed and staggered and hiccupped with giggles, inebriated with the power of lust; they dropped to the floor and bucked and kicked, fornicating with lovers only they could see and feel; they leapt up and danced in wanton abandon. With every moan of ecstasy, every delighted gasp that relished the pleasure I bestowed upon them, I tasted them—just a lick, a little nibble of their souls.

Mmm. They were delicious. Amazing. Orgasmic.

“Just like a man,” Jezebel said. “Getting them tanked up before going for what’s in their pants.”

“Who, me? Would I do that?”

“I’d suggested subtle. Look at them. They’re loaded.”

“Drunk in the Holy Spirit.”

“You.”

We turned to see the magus standing before us, his one good eye fierce with righteous ire and holy thunder. He pointed a finger at us and bellowed, “What are you, you who stand here in this place of God?”

Fuck. I hate the magi.

Jezebel stepped forward, first one delicate foot and then the other, running her gloved hands over the abundant curves of her torso, the swells of her hips. “I? I’m but a painted Jezebel, come to witness the saving of souls. Are you saving them, Preacher?”

I bit back a laugh. Damnation, how I adored her…

“You have no place here, demon spawn!” The magus barely stammered. If I cared at all, I would have respected that. He shouted, “Get you gone!”

“Oh, but Preacher,” I said, “your congregation needs you. Look at them, lost little lambs, waiting for their shepherd to lead them home. So many things could happen to lost lambs, Preacher. So many things to tempt them off the path.” I grinned, big big big, allowed my fangs to flash in a moment of clarity.

The magus trembled, but his feet remained rooted to the floor. Either foolhardy, or too terrified to move. Either was fine with me. “Get thee behind me, Satan!”

“We’re not that one,” I said. “And from where I’m standing, you don’t seem to have anyone on your side, Preacher. It’s just you, and us two.”

I spoke truly (which I did not make a custom of); none of the humans had come to his side to stand with him as he faced off the minions of Hell. No, those godly people were too busy feeling the throes of ecstasy (or standing agog as they watched the fully clothed orgy around them) to notice our holy showdown. As far as we were concerned, it was just Seymour and we two Seducers.

If he wasn’t a magus, I’d have eaten him for brunch. But I preferred sweeter tastes on my tongue.

“You’re strong enough to resist temptation,” Jezebel purred, her hand reaching out, now touching the mortal’s thigh. “Aren’t you? You’re strong enough to lead them to the Light.”

His voice strangled, the magus intoned, “I shall fear no evil.”

“As you say, sweetie.” Jezebel leaned forward to whisper in his ear, words that I heard clearly, even over the din of copulation and salvation: “Why don’t you scuttle back to your altar, Preacher, and determine how to turn this to your advantage? Unless you want it known that your entire flock fell under a power quite different than your so-called baptism.”

He paled, and sweat beaded on his brow.

“Go on now,” Jezebel said, planting a kiss on his gray cheek. “You’ve got work to do.”

She released him, and he staggered backward, his good eye glassy and fearful, his mouth agape. Then he turned and ran to his pulpit, which he clutched as if it could shield him. Taking in the scene around him, he blew out a breath, then a second, and finally drew himself high.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he asked, addressing his followers. “Waves of power, overwhelming you. That’s a foretaste of Heaven!”

Heh. Really? Jezebel and I exchanged a bemused look.

He declared: “You’ve given yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit! Don’t resist the power of the Lord! Let it fill you! Let your bodies sway and faint, let your hearts leap in joyful response! Ring the air with loud laughter! Be drunk in the Holy Spirit!”

“Hey,” I said, affronted. “That’s my line.”

Jezebel’s hand snaked around my waist, pulled me close. “Perhaps you should consider switching to the other side.”

I laughed, wrapping my arms around my little succubus. “I do seem to enjoy getting religion. But you know what would make this even more fun?”

“What?”

“A holy fuck.”

“Why, Daunuan,” Jezebel declared, batting her eyelashes, “you sure know how to sweet-talk a girl.”

“One of my many talents.” Then I sealed our lips in a burning kiss, and we fell to the floor in our own religious ecstasy.

Hours later, we made a Pit stop. Jezebel had insisted: she wanted to start the paperwork on the group of mortals we’d encouraged to reach new heights of passion. Looked like she was angling for a promotion. I didn’t have it in me to tell her not to bother; her bitch Queen would never see fit to advance my little succubus to the place she deserved. Jezebel had said on many occasions that Lillith despised her, and I had to agree. What I couldn’t fathom was why. Not that it mattered; it wasn’t my concern.

After a lingering, groping kiss—and a quick clutching of breasts and balls—Jezebel turned away from me to saunter into Pandemonium, promising to be just a few hours. “All I need is to hand in the names,” she said, her voice almost lost amid the cacophony of wails and screeches of the damned. “I’ll be done in plenty of time for us to get to San Francisco.”

“You have two days,” I said. “Then I’m leaving without you.”

“Duly noted. I’ll call you when I’m free.”

With that, she walked toward the mountain complex that housed the demons and offices of Hell. Standing at the boundary of the Heartlands and Pandemonium, I watched her move, fascinated by her every step. As always. I didn’t understand what it was about Jezebel that affected me so; other succubi were just as sexy, just as talented between the sheets. But none compared to her. And—bless me for even thinking it—it wasn’t just about the sex.

It was something that was uniquely her. Something I couldn’t put my finger on (or in), yet it was there all the same, in everything she did, everything she said, every motion of her body. It was infuriating and intoxicating. And I couldn’t put a name to it.

Not true. It had a name.

Jezebel.

A pop of burning sulfur, almost undetectable here in the Abyss. Then, in my ear, Pan’s voice: “You know, you get this look in your eyes after you get bacchanalian with her. And I swear, your horns are three inches bigger.”

“There’s something about her,” I said, watching where she’d been just a moment before. “She’s different from the others.”

“Fuck that,” Pan said. “One hole’s as good as the next.”

“Right,” I agreed, knowing that was sheer bunk.

Whatever else she was, Jezebel was one of a kind. And I meant to find out why.

Until then, I meant to screw her senseless every chance we had.