Page 57 of Vanish Into Light

“I think they do, yeah,” she said, meeting his gaze again, searching for his reaction.

He sighed through his nostrils, resigned, she thought.

“Does that bother you?”

He reached to scrub at the back of his neck; he had a hickey at the base of it. “I mean…I’m not…regretting anything, if that’s what you’re asking.” He cast another fretful glance Gavin’s way, though, lips pressing together.

“Lance, Gavin’s a certified man-whore. His opinion on anyone’s sex life means next to nothing.”

Lance snorted, and turned back to her, grinning. “You have a point.” His next sigh seemed to lift the invisible weight from his shoulders. “What are you reading?”

She opened the book again. “What Beck said at breakfast got me wondering if we’re going to have to actually deal with Lucifer.”

“You think Lucifer’s real?”

“You made out with a guy with horns and a tail yesterday, so, yeah, I think it’s safe to say the devil is, in fact, real.”

~*~

Beck had spent five years in the pit adapting to his wings and tail. Hell was vast in a way that most mortals couldn’t comprehend. Hellspawn didn’t have wings, and neither did most demons. He had no idea why he’d been chosen – why he’d been gifted them – but he’d never been one to waste an advantage.

Flying was the joy closest to killing, second only to sex. But, unlike sex – or killing – it wasn’t one he felt the need to suppress; not an impulse that needed to be carefully strapped-down until he was free to turn it loose with abandon. Flying was easy; it was like breathing, and he found himself grinning as rain stung his face, as he leaned into the wind and worked his strong wings, the city passing in miniature beneath him.

He blinked, and focused, as he began his search. The fine muscles in his eyes, another hell acquisition, moved as all of him did, without thought, without effort, and his vision sharpened and shifted, the colors fading, and auras and heat signatures brightening.

Hellspawn didn’t burn as bright as angels, but they ran hotter than humans. Beck spotted two signatures on the roof of the Highwater Club, and hummed to himself.

“Oh, Damien,” he murmured, as he banked, and spiraled down. “You just don’t listen, do you?”

He tucked his wings and plummeted headlong the last distance, for the pleasure of watching Damien and his companion go staggering back with shouts of alarm. At the last moment, he spread his wings, righted himself, and landed lightly on the soles of his boots. He held his pose a moment, while he marked them: Damien’s familiar, thin shape, and a woman – one of the hellspawn who’d nearly killed Gavin, her hair styled flat so that her stubby little horns showed, tail lashing unhappily down by one spike-heeled boot.

Beck snapped his wings closed with a spray of rain droplets, and reached to smooth his hair back along his crown, between his own – much more impressive, thank you – horns. “Day,” he said, “I told you to meet me alone.”

Damien – a hood pulled up over his hair, elevated comically by his spiraled goat horns – twisted the rings on his fingers and said, “Carla wanted to say something. She wanted to apologize.”

“Apologize?” Beck allowed his brows to lift in a show of mild interest as he turned to her. “For what?”

The woman, Carla, tensed visibly beneath his regard. He thought she might have been the one he gripped with his tail and threw – but couldn’t be sure. He didn’t take notice of ordinary people, and hellspawn, despite certain parts of their anatomy, were so hopelessly ordinary. When they came topside, they always turned into bouncers, or pimps, or hookers; low-level thugs or street dealers. They had a taste for vice, and no cleverness to speak of. Casually evil in a totally uninspiring way.

Damien was reaching for the stars as manager of this place.

“I’m – I’m sorry,” she began, haltingly. “For – for what I did. I didn’t know that guy was one of yours.”

“You couldn’t smell me on him?”

“Oh. I…”

“Or you didn’t think I would mind?”

“I…” Sweat misted her upper lip and cleavage. Her throat clicked as she swallowed. “We didn’t know–”

“Man, Beck,” Damien said with a sigh. “Come on. It was an innocent mistake.”

“Hm. Mistake maybe, but innocent? No.”

Carla whimpered.

Beck flicked his fingers at her. “Go.”

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