The Road To Hell. Jackie Kessler

have never heard of pleasuring yourself with chicken soup,” I said. “But I’m willing to give it a shot.” I made a gimme gesture. “Fork it over.”

      With a sigh, she plopped the bottle into my hand, then the loose pills.

      Behind her, Mister Gorgeous said nothing, radiated pure rage. Gleep.

      “Come on, sweetie,” I said, doing my best not to eye the invisible demon. “Let’s cut out early. First round’s on me.”

      Circe stood, looking vulnerable and beautiful, like a sculpture of flowers. “You sure?”

      “Absolutely. Let’s tell Jerry to move us off the stage lineup, then we’ll tip out.” The DJ was a real prick about dancers missing their rotation; I’d have to slip him an extra twenty to mollify him.

      “Okay.” She smiled at me. “Thanks, Jesse. I…Jesus, I don’t know what I was thinking. Suicide’s a sin.”

      “I keep forgetting you’re so damn religious.”

      “I’ll find Joey, tell him we’re cutting out. Meet you back here to change?”

      No freaking way was I staying in a bathroom with an angry demon. I started to get up when I felt a crushing weight press down on my shoulder, my neck. The demon squeezed, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

      I wanted to shriek at the top of my lungs. What I said in a hoarse whisper was, “You bet.”

      Circe took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and sauntered out of the women’s room.

      As soon as the door closed, something tangled in my hair and yanked my head back. I dropped the bottle and the pills spilled from my hand, bounced on the tile floor. Over the nauseating odor of sulfur, the ripe stink of my fear clung to my nostrils. Blood roared in my ears, pounded in my head, and my heart jackhammered like it wanted to break free from my chest. My arms were leaden, dead things; my feet were rooted on the floor. I couldn’t run, even if the demon released me.

      But as I stared up into his face, I had a sinking suspicion that the last thing Mister Gorgeous wanted to do was let me go.

      “I know you,” he said, his face twisting into a leer. “You’re the slut from the Courtyard.”

      Even through my overwhelming fear, I heard the capital C in Courtyard…and I placed him.

      Tell us, is it true that all Seducers are pox-infested carriers of disease?

      Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Mister Gorgeous was a demon of Pride—and he had a personal grudge against me. Granted, most creatures of Arrogance had a chip on their shoulders when it came to one of my kind…former kind. Pride and Lust rarely work well together, unless there’s seriously strong drink involved. But he had a reason to despise me: I’d embarrassed him in front of his buddies. To one of the Arrogant, there’s no worse crime.

      Licking my lips, I tried for the Dumb Blonde approach, ignoring the fact that my hair was a curly black. “Never saw you before.” I even spoke with the right balance of Pants-Pissing Terror and Indignant New Yorker. Maybe he’d think I was just one of those rare mortals who were able to see the supernatural. “Let me go.”

      “You’re lying. You smell of sex, slut.”

      “Last customer got too happy, got his splooge on me.”

      “That’s not a lie.” His grip on my scalp tightened, and I felt clumps of hair tearing at the roots. Between the shriek of agony atop my head and the flare of pain from biting my lip to keep from screaming, I was one raw nerve. “But you do know me,” he said. “Oh yes, slut. And I know you.”

      Fuck.

      He grinned, and my breath strangled in my throat. Icy fingers tripped up my spine, reached out to grip my heart. The demon bent down until his mouth was inches away from mine. “Once a fifth-level succubus, now a flesh puppet with a soul. How appropriate. The only thing lower than your type of trash is humans.”

      “My soul,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s clean.”

      “You entice humans with thoughts of lust. Your work is in the name of Sin.”

      Yeah, well, old habits die hard. After four thousand years as a Seducer, what was I going to do, be a telemarketer? “Not Sin. Entertainment.”

      “A fine line.”

      “Maybe. Still a line. You can’t claim me.”

      He growled, deep and low in his chest. “You talk tough for a mortal slut. You don’t have your Fury friend with you to keep you safe this time.”

      My throat constricted as I remembered the softest brush of lips on my own. Just thinking of Meg brought angry tears to my eyes. “Don’t need her protection.”

      “You think not?”

      “You can’t claim me for Hell. My soul’s clean.” Benefit of being only thirty days old in mortal years: that’s not a lot of time to wreak havoc.

      His eyes narrowed, and for a moment I glimpsed his true form swimming beneath his false human shell—charred black flesh, white holes for eyes, a maw crammed with razor-blade teeth. Then he pulled my head up until I was sitting up straight in the chair. He spun me around to face him, his hand still tangled in my hair.

      “Old rules are bending, breaking.”

      “I got that,” I said, far calmer than I had any right to be. “Seems the nefarious are encouraging mortals to kill themselves. What, business is too slow?”

      “Business is booming.” His dark gaze held me, explored me. “You mortals make excuses for your sins, think you can talk your way out of damnation. As if understanding why you commit certain actions allows you to forgive the action itself.”

      A demonic therapy session. Spare me. “The end doesn’t exactly justify the means. I know that.”

      “The mortal coil is steeped in evil. Murder because of disrespect. Genocide because of disgust.” He leered. “Lust because of entertainment.”

      My heart, already careening at marathon speed, started rocketing at a pace just short of cardiac arrest. Bless me, I hated being afraid. I really preferred causing fear—which is hard to do when you’re short, cute, and human. Maybe I should start carrying a big gun. “You know what they say. The world’s going to Hell in a handbasket.”

      “The trip is taking too long. No more sitting back, waiting for humans to die before collecting their souls for the Pit. We’re encouraging them along.”

      I pushed aside my fear to sniff my disdain. Even an ex-demon has sin standards. “You assholes are cheating.”

      “Times are changing, slut.” For a moment, his eyes closed in on themselves, faded to something old, worn. He released my hair. “We can’t let the world be more evil than the Abyss.”

      I heard the implication behind his words, and I shivered. People think that the Devil is the King of Hell. They’re wrong. The Devil—the nameless antithesis of the Almighty—has been around way, way longer than the celestials or the nefarious. The only thing keeping It from destroying all of humanity, and the world itself, is Hell. Torturing souls amuses the fuck out of the Devil.

      At least, it used to.

      Wrapping my arms around myself, I said, “So your King is changing the rules. Keeping things lively.”

      “You have no idea just how much has changed.” He shook himself like a dog, regained his malefic ire as he smiled a shark’s grin, all teeth and appetite. “And that means, slut, we can influence your actions more so than ever before. To put it in language even you could understand, we can seduce you.”

      Arrogant prick. “You really have to work on your pick-up lines.”

      “What’s that pithy saying the mortals like to throw around? Oh, yes. ‘The devil made me do