“You two are magical. Thank you both!” I hugged them tightly.
After twenty years, Lindsay and I knew each other well enough to know when to pick our battles with one another. She knew not to push too much when it came to extravagant clothes or makeup, and I knew not to fight her on letting her do my hair. Siena, however, was the wild card neither of us expected, and she didn’t take no for an answer. After another hour, she’d talked my best friend into wearing something even more revealing than she’d originally planned, and had insisted on cranking up the volume on everything about my appearance. Within half an hour, I was caked in a full face of makeup with a dramatic smokey eye and lipstick to match, and I couldn’t recall ever feeling grosser.
“Hey,” Lindsay said as Siena excused herself to the bathroom. I’d taken up residence on the edge of Linds’ bed while she did her makeup in her vanity, and I had apparently been zoning out too obviously. “Is everything okay? You just seem a little distracted. I know it’s more makeup than you’re used to-”
“No,” I sighed, shaking my head. “It’s not that. I’ve just been… I’m just worried about a few things.”
“Like what?” she tilted her head. She set her makeup brush down and sat next to me on the bed, reaching up to play with a strand of my newly vibrant hair.
“The whole… the whole world, I guess. Minerva’s gone, and that’s good, but things aren’t going to fix themselves. I need to find a way to help.” Honestly, this had been haunting me for the past four days. I couldn’t just declare myself Queen of the world and start enforcing rules and laws the way Syrion and Daath could in the Underworld. Whatever I did had to be tactful, it had to be subtle, but I had no clue where to begin. And I had no idea how the fae realm fit into any of it.
“You’re really going to try to fix the whole world yourself?” the succubus smiled in amusement.
“I don’t have much choice…”
“What are you worried about?” she frowned.
I bit my lip. The last thing I wanted to do was tell her about what I’d seen. Luckily, at that moment, Siena emerged from the bathroom, singing a very haunting melody. “What did I miss?”
I smiled. “I’m just telling Lindsay that I have no idea how to be Queen of the world.”
The horned demon laughed. “Yes, I don’t exactly envy your position in all of this.”
“I just don’t know how to fix things without drawing attention to myself or other supernatural beings.”
“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Siena smiled. I cocked an eyebrow, and she looked to Lindsay for backup.
“She’s right,” my best friend shrugged. “That’s what the glamours do. They hide the things we don’t want people to see. I’ve been a succubus my whole life, but you never had any idea until you could see for yourself.”
“We all have things we can do that seem obvious, but humans are blind to a lot of it!”
I tilted my head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
The sex demons exchanged a glance with one another and smiled slyly.
“Just… watch us tonight.”
Soon, we were in a cab on our way to a club downtown. I would have preferred a bar. Well, I would have preferred staying home and watching a movie, but if we were going to go out, a bar was infinitely preferable. Siena insisted on a specific club, however. Besides, I did still owe Lindsay for our girls' night the wraith had ruined a few months ago.
From the end of the block, I could see that the club was loud and bright. I felt the music pulse, and while it was faint, the fact that I could hear it from at least a hundred feet away was telling. The glass on the windows was tinted so you couldn’t see anything except the bright laser spotlights as they danced in and out of view, not to mention the neon sign above the door that read “Club Thunderstorm” in a font so distorted I wouldn’t have been able to read it if I hadn’t already known the name. We could tell it was full before we even got to the door from the dissonant chorus of voices that mixed with the music. I started to pull out my wallet for the cover charge, but Lindsay grabbed my hand, smirking. Siena stepped up to the man at the door and lowered her voice below what I could hear, leaning in to whisper in his ear. I looked at Lindsay, who just gestured for me to watch. The bouncer’s eyes faded in and out of focus as the sex demon cooed to him. When she was done, she kissed his cheek, and he smiled like she was his childhood girlfriend and opened the door for us to go inside.
“What the hell was that?” I chuckled as we walked in. Siena started to answer me, but she was quickly drowned out by the music. That explained how Lindsay was always able to get us into places we weren’t necessarily supposed to be or couldn’t afford.
I followed the succubi to the bar… well, one of them at least. Just inside the door, there was a lounge area with a bar on two different walls. I couldn’t tell from where I stood, but I thought I saw another one across the dancefloor. The whole club was scattered with elevated tables on four-foot-tall platforms, cocktail tables, and luxurious looking alcoves with leather booths. Most of the lights were neon primary and secondary colors and rotated around the building. It looked
