Hex Appeal (P.N. Elrod) (Kitty Norville 4.60)
Page 64
I glanced over my shoulder. Lilith’s deep contralto croon was hynotizing the agitated groupies. Their eerily green irises seemed to reflect emotions of lust and envy. What a rock star wannabe she was.
“I know when you pissed me off,” I told Snow. “When did you piss off the mother of all demons?”
“Millennia ago. I didn’t suspect you’d have the smarts, guts, or power to call out a major demon. Her distraction won’t last long. She’ll want to expand her presence now that you’ve called her here. Leave me to deal with her. Escape while you can.”
Well, thank you. Nothing like an employer who’d tricked you into ending an involuntary bondage scene between a sex idol and his adorees … and then considered your outing a major monster a screwup on your part. Trouble is, I can’t abandon any living being in trouble, human or paranormal, even Snow. Tell me life is hard and not fair. Tell me death is a tango dancer, and I’m naïve and old-fashioned, but do not tell me I can’t do what I need to.
Even against Grizelle.
Even against my sister Lilith.
Even against the Lilith who was kicked out of Eden for being the world’s first and best bad girl. But why did she have it in for Snow?
“I know what Lilith has done to you lately. What did you do to Lilith?” I demanded.
Snow’s face turned away again, my angry image fading in the sunglasses with the gesture. “Not what I did. What I didn’t do. It’s what she wanted to do with me.”
Ah. Hell hath no fury like a female demon scorned. So she’d cursed him. How?
“We all want to undo you, Snow,” I told him dryly. “Now, listen up. This is not just any Lilith, right? This is not my mirror-me. This is really Lilith, Adam’s first wife, who was driven from Eden for wanting to be on top?”
The sunglasses tilted down toward my face. “Yes, but it’s me she’s cursed, not Adam.”
“And the curse is…?”
His second of hesitation felt like an eon knowing Lilith’s sick interlude with the groupies was likely to end at any moment.
“Spill it.”
“I can only give pleasure, not receive it.”
Wow. I processed that. It sort of explained the Brimstone Kiss. It didn’t explain why he’d stopped giving them after he’d forced me to accept one. He’d said I’d failed the test, but maybe it wasn’t his test, maybe it was Lilith’s.
“No wonder,” I told him, “she’s mad as hell and won’t take it anymore, like the groupies. You cheated on her.”
With me.
As much as I hated to admit it, I’d just seen I could get a rise out of Snow. If that wasn’t a symptom of pleasure, I don’t know what was with a man.
He smiled. “So you can’t spare any more empathy time for me, Delilah?”
“Hell, no. I tend to side with the girls.”
I turned as a snarling Grizelle took a guardian post at Snow’s feet and advanced on Lilith. She’d settled into mere life-size form and was awaiting me like a headmistress with a wayward pupil.
“You confront as well as conjure me?” She stepped away from the demon-drugged, smiling groupies pulling their hair out a single filament at a time. “Do you know who I am now, feeble interloper? How powerful I am?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Do you know who or what he is?”
“Snow, International Supernatural of Mystery? Nope, but I intend to find out in my way on my own time.”
“I know what you are, Delilah. You must be pleased to see your enemy bound at the mercy of such trifling fools as these enamored human females.”
“No, Lilith, I am not. I don’t care to use intermediaries.”
Her lurid eyes glittered hotter, the green haloed with scarlet. “Are you daring to refer to me?”