Bittersweet Magic

“Well, chances are you’ll discover that for yourself.”

Damn! He was one irritating demon. And he knew it. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to calm down. “You could always tell me. It would be nice to know what I was confronting…this time.”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough. Piers was never one for personal restraint.”

She sighed loudly. He wouldn’t tell her, however much she asked, and she wouldn’t waste her time playing that game, so she satisfied herself with glaring at him. Unfortunately, looks couldn’t kill. At least not this particular demon—or he’d have been dead long ago.

Asmodai got to his feet and put his glass on the bedside table. He pulled something small out of his pocket and placed it next to the glass. “I doubt he’ll tell you anything. So that’s a bug. Hide it somewhere in Lamont’s office. I’ll get Shera to drop off the software. Find out what he knows and where my Key is.”

“No problem,” she muttered. “I’ll just stroll right in there and ask him. Maybe he’ll let me give you a call before he kills me.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “You’ll find a way. I’ve never met anyone quite so resourceful.” He turned to go but paused at the door. “One thing. He’ll believe he can mesmerize you with his eyes. Don’t disabuse him of that fact.”

Mesmerize?

“I have to look mesmerized? Just how do I do that?”

He shrugged. “Blink a lot, appear dazed, and agree to anything he tells you to do.”

Roz didn’t like the sound of that. Her eyes narrowed on the demon. “And is he likely to tell me to do something I might not actually want to do?”

Amusement flashed across his face. “I doubt it. But if I remember rightly, Piers had quite a thing for nuns at one point.”

“What sort of person has a thing for nuns? And what sort of ‘thing’?”

“I suspect you’re about to find out.”

“Have I told you recently how much I dislike your inability to answer questions?” He merely grinned. Something occurred to her. “Hey, how do you know he won’t be able to really mesmerize me? I don’t want to be mesmerized.”

“I don’t know for sure. But I suspect. Anyway, we’ll no doubt soon find out.”

“Great, just great,” she muttered. “And how—” She broke off the question. It was pointless anyway. The faint stench of sulfur lingered in the air. He was gone.

Afterward, she sat in her bed, gazing at the space where he’d vanished.

All her long life, she’d lived on the outside, trying to act human and to fit in. Sometimes, she’d succeed for a while, but always something changed, forcing her to move on. Start again.

And she was tired of it. And lonely. The truth was, she’d been lonely since her mother died. Five hundred years.

Would that change when she got free of Asmodai? Unlikely. She would probably lose the one person who really understood her. He might not have always been kind. Hell, he had never been kind, but at least she didn’t have to pretend with him.

Maybe it was time to face up to what she was. Or at least find out what she was and try and face up to it. Or run away from it. Or die from it. So she would go back to the Order of the Shadow Accords. Yeah, maybe they would try and kill her. But others had tried and failed. Her death wasn’t a foregone conclusion.

As she accepted that she would return, excitement flashed through her. She relaxed back against the wall and sipped her scotch as a vision of the ravishing Piers Lamont rose up in her mind.

If she was going to die, well, there were probably worse ways to go.

Chapter Four

Roz hesitated outside the glass double doors of SA International.

The truth was she really didn’t want to go inside. The main part of her brain was telling her that this was a super-sized mistake and one she would regret forever. But deep inside, a little voice told her she had no choice.

First, there was Asmodai. For some strange reason known only to himself, he’d been acting “nicely” recently. She wasn’t expecting that to last. The sigil on her arm itched as she thought of the demon. She had no option but to obey him until the terms of her servitude had played out.

But the other factor was Jessica Thomas. Roz couldn’t live with herself if she had a chance of helping the girl and she did nothing.

Still, facing up to her own particular scary monster was hard.

The Order of the Shadow Accords.

The organization set up thousands of years ago to police the supernatural world, including ridding that world of undesirables. Like her.

It had occurred to her over the years that she was relying on Asmodai for all her information. And he could be telling her whatever he considered would be most useful for her to hear. Useful to him, that was. She had no clue why he had saved her all those years ago. Maybe just a whim. She’d done twelve tasks for him since, but nothing of any significance until the Key. She had a feeling that was important. Which made it all the weirder that he had taken her failure so well.

She’d called Ryan that morning, told him she believed Jessica Thomas was still alive—for now—and described every single detail she could come up with as to her whereabouts, and then warned him she was coming in. She wanted to give him a description of “Jack,” though she somehow doubted he would be on any police files. Well, not ordinary police files anyway.

But she was betting Piers Lamont would know exactly who “Jack” was and could maybe tell her something that would help her save Jessica. All she had to do was maintain her cover, and she would come out unscathed. Probably.

Asmodai’s words came back to her. Piers would try to mesmerize her? Why? To do what? Well, there was only one way to find out.

Catching sight of her reflection in the glass, she winced. She was back in the habit, actually sown into the thing, as she’d ripped off most of the buttons in her rush to get out of it last night. She took a moment to adjust the ugly headdress—rescued from the bin—and smooth down the black robes. Her fingers checked for the bug in her pocket. If Piers didn’t cooperate, she’d plant it in his office, providing she got as far as his office.

There was a woman at the reception desk this morning. She glanced up and smiled, the smile fixing on her face as she caught sight of Roz, hovering just inside the doorway.

Roz forced herself forward, settling her face into a nun-like expression. “I’m here to see Piers Lamont.”

Something flickered in the woman’s eyes. Surprise maybe. “I’m afraid Mr. Lamont is unavailable this morning. Could I take your name and get back to you with an appointment?”

No. If Roz left now, she wasn’t sure she could make herself come back a third time.

“Please,” she murmured. “I’m doing God’s work. It’s important I see Mr. Lamont immediately. I was here last night—Mr. Lamont told me to return if I remembered anything, and I have…”

The woman bit her lip, but nodded. “I’ll try, but he might not be very… happy to be disturbed.”

Hard luck, Roz wanted to snap, but she kept her expression tranquil. He took ages to answer, and when he finally did, the receptionist winced.

“Mr. Lamont, there’s a… a nun here to see you.” She listened for a moment. “I’ll send her right down.”

As she replaced the phone on the desk, Roz noticed her fingers were trembling, but she managed to paste a bright smile on her face.

“You’re to go down. I’ll get someone to escort you, if you’ll wait just one moment.”

Roz waited, narrowly resisting the urge to tap her feet. Instead, she gripped her wrists and held them in front of her in a nun-like fashion. She kept her eyes downcast, only raising them as the elevator door across the