Rachel faded through the front doors without opening them, swaggering into the foyer. “What up, gangsta!” she waved to those she passed. Coming to the doors to the chapel, Rachel felt no reason to be shy or subtle. She grabbed the handles and threw them both open wide.
As she expected, conversation stopped. Angels in her path parted like the Red Sea. Toward the altar, she saw Hannah, Lawrence, Vincent, Caleb and others. She threw her arms and wings wide, calling out, “How ya like me now, bitches!?”
Eyes popped. Jaws dropped. Hands flew over mouths.
“Y’all felt that sudden, unprecedented shift in the battle of good and evil? That motherfucker’s all mine. That’s my boy, that’s his chica, and that is all my good judgment! What?” She looked directly at Vincent, who seemed like he was about to speak. “What? What you got to say about that?”
“Rachel, you-”
“WHAT?” Rachel bellowed over him tauntingly. A wide grin dominated her face.
“I was going to-”
“WHAT?”
“Please stop-”
“WHAT?”
Vincent gave up trying to speak with a scowl. The taller, grander angel beyond him, facing away from the conversation at first, now turned to look upon Rachel.
She stopped taunting. “Oh,” she said, straightening up. She made an awkward wave with an even more awkward, self-conscious smile. “Hello, um, Mister Archangel Michael. Um. Sir.”
* * *
Lydia despised having to wait for nightfall, but that was simply the nature of the beast. She was used to getting what she wanted, when she wanted it, or at least seeing others immediately hop to satisfying her whims. Sometimes, though, the realities of life meant that things had to run on their own schedule.
Hours ago, the sketch artist Carlos found for her had arrived at their luxurious Capitol Hill home. He fit the bill precisely as she’d hoped: young, hungry, talented, and sinful enough that no guardian angel looked after him. Lydia put him straight to work.
Before long, she had solid, effective likenesses of Lorelei and her brat-not that any sketch could truly capture the beauty of a succubus. Lydia also had the young artist completely, utterly enraptured. She allowed him to kneel before her as she sat in a chair in the study, slavishly licking between her spread legs while she pondered her options.
The artist wasn’t as talented as Carlos. Nor was he as good as Paco, or Chuy, or several of the other bodyguards here in Seattle, or Carlos’s father, or a couple of Carlos’s rivals within the family business. Still, he offered up at least a casual degree of pleasure. Lydia sat wearing her short, green silk bathrobe with only its bottom spread open for her new servant’s access. She gave him no outward indication of excitement, letting him wonder if he pleased her.
She had already forgotten his name. He looked up at her longing for some sort of approval or appreciation, or even just a glance of acknowledgement, but he was out of luck. She genuinely wasn’t thinking about him at all.
Instead she considered changes in her plans. After her wedding to Carlos in Ciudad Juarez a month ago, Lydia grew eager to wrap things up with him. She had made more than enough inroads on his allies in the cartel to use them at her whim in the future. Carlos was overdue in Hell. Only Lydia’s curiosity about his cartel’s expansion into the Pacific Northwest kept him alive this long.
She was about ready to claim her final satisfaction from him. Manipulating him and cuckolding him at every turn had grown a touch dull. She’d turned him into a fine lover, of course, but that would happen for her next prey, too. She meant to tell him at dinner last night about her rampant infidelities, eager for the inevitable bloodshed that would follow. All the adorable violence and anguish and discord that erupted whenever one of her lovers found her in bed with another simply never got old…
…but then she found Lorelei. No horns, no wings, and absolutely no shame about it. The hostility was no surprise, but for one of Belial’s whores-even one so infamous-to take such an arrogant and dismissive tone to the most favored of Baal was intolerable. Lydia’s unanswered questions were intolerable, too.
Carlos and his stooges, while very useful in a number of roles, were perhaps not up to the task of stalking an accomplished succubus. Even a demon could risk only so much bleedover between mortal and supernatural matters. Thus, she needed intermediaries…as distasteful as those available here in Seattle might be.
Perhaps an hour after sunset, she heard a knock at the door. Lydia put a hand on her new pet’s head to keep him going. “Who is there?” she asked.
“It’s Paco.”
“Enter,” Lydia beckoned.
Though Paco did his best to keep a straight face, the sight another man on his hands and knees servicing her put him through emotional chaos. He felt both arousal and furious jealousy-bad enough that he had to put up with her husband-and humiliation. Paco had to fight off the urge to shoot the boy right then and there, and Lydia knew it.
Lydia smiled at Paco sweetly. She kept the artist going about his deed. He had her nowhere near satisfaction, but this small rush of cruelty made up for that. “What is it, Paco?” she asked.
Paco gritted his teeth. He’d swallow his pride, she knew, and that cultivated machismo of his, because she was that damned amazing. Her lovers never focused their ire on her, but rather their rivals. The sketch artist might not make it home alive, but his work was done.
“You’ve got people here to see you,” Paco said in Spanish.
“Excellent,” she said. “Have you heard from Carlos yet?” She utterly ignored the artist.
“He called. He said to tell you he’d be home late tonight.”
“Very good. Can you describe our guests?”
“Three people. Two men, one woman. They’re all dressed in black…frilly clothes,” Paco said, trying to find words. He stared daggers at the head between Lydia’s legs. “Really pale. They seem stuck up and annoying.”
“Yes. That’s just what I expected,” Lydia sighed. She shifted in her chair. The artist leaned back, looking up like a lost puppy as she rose. “Have you made them comfortable?”
“I asked them to wait in the living room, yes.”
“Good. I’ll throw something on before I go down there.” She gathered the sketches before she glanced down at the kneeling young man. “What was your name again? Albert? Adam?”
“Webster.”
“Ah. Right. Paco, could you show Webster out? Best if you use the back entrance.”
Paco waited until Lydia left before he pulled Webster to his feet by the ear.
Minutes later, Lydia descended the ornate staircase in a form-fitting, full-length crimson dress. She had considered jeans and tall boots; this wouldn’t be far off from stepping in something distasteful. Still, what had to be done, had to be done.
Waiting in the living room were her three guests. One of the men stood in jeans, a button-down shirt and a leather sport coat-all of it black, of course-with his hands folded at his belt buckle and his eyes hidden behind black sunglasses. His black spiky hair and fashionable sideburns framed a pale, thuggish face.
The other two rose as Lydia arrived. They came dressed with something beyond formality in mind. The man seemed like a grave, all-black peacock, clad in shining black leather pants and a frilly black poet’s shirt. He tossed his head to clear his long black hair from his vision. His companion, a slender woman in a black formal gown and diamond jewelry, would have been deemed to be of exquisite, delicate beauty to most anyone…but Lydia knew she was only a gaudy, well-preserved corpse.
“Welcome to my home,” Lydia said with all the cordiality and warmth she could muster. Under the circumstances, it wasn’t much.
“Good evening,” the peacock replied in a deep voice. His accent was English, and overly so. “I am Lord Damien Blackthorne,” he began, either missing or ignoring Lydia’s immediate sneer, “Steward of the Dark Emerald City in service to my liege, Her Grace, Lady-”