Demonized (6 page)

You had no problems with Emma
. The day of my possession the Voice had broken Emma’s spell on it to take over my body.

“
She was a half-breed,”
the Voice scoffed. “
This creature is a scion of the Netherworld. If he decides to kill you, you will die.”

Awesome
.

“You are possessed,” Moss announced, sounding surprised. “I can see the cacodaemon moving behind your eyes.”

“Is that a problem for you?” I asked, holding my aching ribs.

“No, but it may be for you.” Moss sat down in Anna’s chair, smoothing down the slate-blue sleeves of his suit jacket. “Cacodaemons don’t relinquish their hosts easily, and their appetites are dangerous.”

“I’m aware of that,” I snapped.

Moss nodded. “Well. You present me with a dilemma, Mr. Banning. The cacodaemon prevents me from seducing you and I can’t kill you without upsetting your pretty police friend.”

“So why don’t you just answer my questions and we’ll call it quits?” I suggested.

“I didn’t kill Rhian.” A genuine flicker of sadness crossed his face, surprising me. “That’s what you wanted to ask, isn’t it?”

“One of the things, yeah.” I felt myself start to relax, reluctantly. I believed him. It would have been nice if I didn’t, since a hooker-killing incubus made a lot of sense, but my gut told me he told the truth. “I gotta admit, the thing I want to ask most is why an incubus is running a strip club.” My understanding of demon politics was vague at best, but Stoker and Emma had given me the impression that demons had limited access to the human world.

He beamed. “Where better to feed my needs? This place provides enough lust, sex, and desire to keep me sated without needing to kill any humans, thus avoiding attracting attention. It’s perfect.”

“Yeah, I get that, and I commend your no-kill policy. Really. But I didn’t think you guys were allowed up here all the time like this.”

“Normally that’s true,” Moss agreed. “The incubi and succubi guard the portals to the human realm against other demons in exchange for regular access to feed. The Lich Lords would rather have the odd sex demon up here than a whole hoard of malebranches.”

“So what’s your deal?” I persisted, curious.

“This town has no Lich Lord. It’s too small. No portals, very few ghosts or other Pale World creatures. So there’s nobody to send me home again.” Moss sounded very pleased with himself. “I can feed as often as I want without killing, drawing no attention to myself from other demons or undead creatures. It’s the perfect set-up.”

“Or it was, until your girls started showing up dead,” I finished for him.

“One girl,” he corrected.

“You know much about Rhian? Talk to her at all?”

He ran his hands over the arms of the chair, staring into space. I realized he was about to lie to me. “No.”

“No, you didn’t know her?”

“Exactly.”

“Did you fuck her?”

He started at that, looking guilty. That surprised me. He was an incubus, for fuck’s sake. Of course he slept with his girls. “Did you fuck her while she was still with her fiancé?” I pushed. “Lure her away from him with a few sweet words and sexy smiles?”

“She came to me willingly. I am not a rapist, Banning,” he said stiffly.

“I never said you were. You don’t need to be, do you?” I pointed out. “What girl is going to say no to you, if you set your sights on her?”

He stood and moved back to his own seat, putting the desk between us like a defensive barrier.
Why was he so uncomfortable all of a sudden? He’d just pretty much given me his life story. Why clam up now
?

“Why don’t you tell me how you met Rhian?” I asked. I had a theory about Moss and his girls, and why a good girl like Rhian would give up everything to come wrap herself around his pole. No pun intended. “Tell me why a classy woman like that decided to come be a stripper.”

“We met through mutual friends, actually. Her obnoxious fiancé’s bank was holding their Christmas party at a restaurant I frequent.” Moss drummed his fingers on the desk, eyes gleaming as he reminisced. “She was a pretty little thing. She wore this white dress…” He made a few gestures to convey how well the dress had fitted her. “Innocent, but dying to be corrupted. Her fiancé kept her on a short leash.”

I could imagine that. “So you took it upon yourself to corrupt her?”

He shrugged. “Not immediately. But our paths crossed again, and it became clear that Rhian was unhappy with her current situation.”

“She tell you that?” I tried to imagine her confiding in Moss over coffee and cake and failed to make the picture work.

He nodded. “Familiarity breeds contempt. She’d been with Baxter too long, but didn’t know how to escape.”

“And you said, what? Come and strip for me? Try being a hooker and get your kicks that way?”

He frowned, shaking his head. “I never encourage any of my girls to prostitute themselves.”

No, but I bet most of them did
. I bet most of them, after their one night with Moss, would try anything and go anywhere, to try and recreate the thrill of sleeping with a sex demon. If my theory was right, I figured I had nothing to lose by asking him. “So here’s how I think it went. Poor, little Rhian’s bored with Baxter, so she sleeps with you. You being an incubus, the sex is pretty special, so then she gets obsessed, right? Baxter’s not good enough anymore, so she comes to you begging for one more night. You say, sure, if she’s willing to work in the club. Then you don’t sleep with her again, so she turns to hooking out of desperation. Am I wrong?”

He sighed, steepling his fingers and peering at me over the tips. “Close enough. We did sleep together and she did become obsessed.” He shrugged. “And yes, I offered her a job here when she came begging. Obsession is as good as lust, especially when it’s mixed up with lust. Rhian kept me fed for some time.” He licked his lips. “But I didn’t know she was hooking, and I didn’t kill her.”

“Are all the girls here sex addicts, just out of interest?” I asked.

“You’d have to ask them that,” he replied. “Are we finished? You should probably go check on your delicious police friend.”

I scowled. “You keep your slimy hands off her,” I warned. “Anna’s out of bounds, got it?”

He laughed. “Why, Mr. Banning, how sweet. You love her!”

“No, I want to fuck her,” I corrected. “I can’t do that if you get in there first.”

That made him roar with laughter, tipping his head back so his dark hair shone in the lamplight. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Banning, you’re priceless. Women like her don’t sleep with men like you.”

“Yeah, well, I gotta have a dream, right?” I rose, wincing as my ribs creaked. “Mind if I go speak to your girls, ask about Rhian?”

“I think they’ve already told you everything they know.”

“Well maybe I have some new questions now,” I countered. I paused at the door, glancing back at Moss. He looked collected and calm again, every inch the ladies’ man. “Oh, one more thing, Mr. Moss.”

“Go on.” He nodded.

“Who was the mutual friend?”

“Ah.” He smiled, almost dreamily. “A future conquest, I think. Tamsin Searle. Such an engaging creature.”

It all kept coming back to Tamsin Searle, didn’t it
? I hoped Baxter got hold of her number for me soon. I had a lot of questions for her now.

Chapter Six

I left Moss drooling over the mysterious Tamsin Searle and went to check on Anna. While the incubus and I had been male-bonding, Hush had opened, and guys waiting for the show to start already filled the club. The hip-hop music had been replaced by pulsing trance tracks that made me grind my teeth. A few waitresses sashayed around in hot pink short-shorts and bikini tops, carrying trays of drinks. I scanned the crowd, but didn’t see Anna.

I grabbed a passing waitress’s arm. She spun around to give me a faceful of orange cleavage. “Can I help?” she asked, fluttering false eyelashes at me.

“Yeah, I’m looking for my friend. Tall, long blonde hair, pretty obviously a cop.”

“She went into the dressing room.” The waitress nodded toward the catwalk. “You’re the PI, right? She said you’d come looking for her.”

I thanked her and slipped into the dressing room to be greeted by a chorus of squeals from the girls inside. An Indian girl dressed as an angel flung her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek. “Ethan, baby! You promised you’d come see me dance. What took so long?” she pouted at me.

I slid my hand down her back to give her butt a squeeze.
Hell, I’m only human. Or not
. “Hey, Leena, love the wings.” I glanced around for Anna. She sat in a corner talking to a redhead dressed as a cop, if cops wore short-shorts and stockings, anyway.
I could go for that, come to think of it
.

I slid away from Leena, promising I’d watch her dance one night soon and joined Anna.

“You’re sure Rhian wasn’t meeting her clients here?” Anna asked the stripper-cop.

The redhead nodded. “Mr. Moss doesn’t allow it. If any of the dancers get into prostitution and he finds out, he fires them.”

Made sense
. Moss wouldn’t want the girls taking the edge off of their lusts elsewhere; he might not be able to feed from it. So Rhian picked up her clients somewhere else. I wondered if she took them back to Tamsin Searle’s place.

Anna tapped her nails on her knee. She looked like herself again, eyes narrowed in thought. I heaved a silent sigh of relief and resolved to keep her away from Moss in the future. “You ever heard of a girl called Kimberley Skinner? Did she ever work here?” she asked.

The redhead thought it over, and then shrugged. “I’ve only been here a couple of months.”

“What about Tamsin Searle?” I asked, leaning over Anna’s shoulder to ask the redhead. She shrugged again. Anna craned her neck around to look at me.

“Tamsin Searle?” she echoed.

I ignored her, waiting for the redhead’s response. She crinkled her nose at me, clearly deep in thought. “The name rings a bell…”

“She was friends with Rhian, and Moss knows her too,” I said, trying to jolt her memory.

“Oh, maybe he mentioned her then,” she said, plucking at her stocking strap. “Mr. Moss knows lots of women though.”

“I bet.” I straightened up, looking around for Leena again. We made friends when I came here looking for Rhian; I felt most comfortable asking her about Moss. She sat in front of a mirror, running some girly gunk through her blue-black hair. She smiled up at me when I sauntered over.

“Hey baby. Could you hold this for me?” She dropped a tub of gunk in my hand.

“Leena, how long have you been here?” I asked, studying the tub of anti-moisture hair enricher.
Stripping was a crazy world
.

“About a year now,” she replied, running a comb through her hair and frowning at her reflection.

“How d’you get started? You always want to be a stripper?”

She laughed prettily at me. “I’m going to be a lawyer. Stripping pays better than waitressing.”

Right. Pays better than PI work too. Shame I don’t have Leena’s assets
. “So, how did you get started?”

She shrugged. “I met Mr. Moss at a restaurant. We had a one-night-stand and after that…”

I wet my lips, wondering if I could ask what the sex was like without sounding like a pervert. I couldn’t, so I didn’t bother. There was no need–Moss had admitted what he did here, and as far as I could see, Rhian was the only girl who’d ended up dead because of it. Looking at Leena and the other girls, none of them seemed unhappy or mistreated. If they were sex addicts because of Moss, it didn’t show.

It was a problem for another time, I decided. I gave Leena her gunk back and went to retrieve Anna. “We’re not going to find anything out here,” I told her. “Let’s go.”

We headed out of the club, Anna looked pissed off and miserable. “What’s the story on Tamsin Searle?”

“Isn’t that the question?” I mused as we strolled past the line for Hush, now longer than ever. “If I could find her, I could answer a lot of questions.”

“You’re supposed to be sharing information with me, Banning.” She ran her hands through her hair and tugged at her shirt collar. “When did it get so fucking hot?”

I glanced up at the cloudless night sky, like the answer might be up there. “It’s the middle of August, Anna. It’s been hot all day.”

“Not that kind of heat,” she muttered, stopping suddenly to press her hand to her forehead like she was dizzy. “I’m so thirsty…”

“Anna?” I stopped to get a proper look at her. She dripped sweat but her face was pallid. She closed her eyes, wavering on her feet. “Shit, Anna?”

“I’m so
hot
, Ethan,” she moaned and fell into my arms.

I caught her with a grunt, surprised when she wound her arms around my neck and pulled my head down to hers. Her lips felt dry, almost scratchy against mine. “Oh… Anna…” I pulled back.
This wasn’t okay
.

“Ethan.” She pushed her face into my neck, nuzzling and kissing me. She slid her hands under my shirt, pressing her palms to my chest and scraping her fingernails down hard. She shifted her legs, trying to entwine them with mine without sending us both crashing to the pavement. “Oh God, Ethan.”

Under other circumstances, I’d be encouraging her wholeheartedly, but no… this definitely wasn’t okay. For one thing, she was burning hot against me, and that wasn’t sexy. For another, I was pretty sure it wasn’t actually me she wanted. It was Moss. This had to be some kind of reaction to being around the incubus. I would have some strong words for Moss next time I saw him.

“Anna, stop,” I said firmly, catching her hands and forcing her back a few steps. She moaned in protest and tried to push back against me. A few guys in the Hush line watched us with interest now as I fought to keep Anna at arm’s length. “Dammit woman, show some dignity,” I muttered, trying to ignore the whoops and catcalls.

She smiled at me with her blue eyes sparkling. “Don’t you want me, Ethan?” she breathed.

“
Take her,”
the Voice encouraged eagerly. “
Up against the wall, in front of them all. Imagine how it’ll destroy her.”