The Road To Hell. Jackie Kessler

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ grabbed her arm, but she wrenched it away. Shit, she was strong. Massaging my sore hand, I darted a glance over her shoulder. Yup, the demon still had his hands clamped onto her shoulders. Not quite possession, but definitely influencing her actions.

      The cheating bastard.

      “Show him you still have your pride,” Mister Gorgeous said. “Swallow the pills. All of them.”

      “I still have my pride,” she said, her voice a monotone. She opened the bottle.

      I touched her elbow. “Circe, listen to me. Unrequited love is a bitch, but it’s not worth dying over. Come on, girl, this is stupid.”

      She spilled some blue pills into her palm.

      Fuck. Okay, let’s try some shock therapy. I slapped her, hard. The crack echoed in the room.

      Blinking, she turned away from the mirror to look at me. My handprint stained her cheek an angry red. “Jesse…?”

      “Forget about the skinny blond asshole,” I said. “He’s not worth it.”

      “She doesn’t understand how he hurt you,” Mister Gorgeous said.

      Circe echoed, “He hurt me…”

      “Sweetie, he has no idea what he’s missing out on. You’re a sexy, funny, wonderful girl. And if he doesn’t want a part of that, he’s an imbecile.”

      She looked down at the bottle, at the pills in her hand. “You think so?”

      “Probably impotent too.”

      That brought a faint smile to her lips. “Yeah?”

      I said, “I read it somewhere, in one of those business magazines, that it’s been proven that the higher the level of imbecileness, the higher the likelihood of impotence.”

      “‘Imbecileness’?”

      “What, it’s a word.”

      Her smile slipped. “I really love him. Why doesn’t he want me?”

      “Because he’s an imbecile. I thought we covered this. It’s not even his fault. Imbecileness runs rampant in the male sex. Comes with all the testosterone.”

      “Think so?”

      “Yup.” I held out my hand. “Care if I hold your pharmaceuticals for you?”

      In her ear, the demon roared: “Swallow the pills!”

      Circe frowned, turned her head. “You hear something?”

      “Just the hum of the fluorescents. Know what you need?”

      She shook her head.

      “A glass of wine and a good vibrator.”

      Circe barked out a surprised laugh. “Jesse!”

      “I’m telling you, it’s a surefire cure-all for everything that ails you, from a broken heart to the common cold.”

      “I thought that was chicken soup.”

      “I have never heard of pleasuring yourself with chicken soup,” I said. “But I’m willing to give it a shot.” I made a gimme gesture. “Fork it over.”

      With a sigh, she plopped the bottle into my hand, then the loose pills.

      Behind her, Mister Gorgeous said nothing, radiated pure rage. Gleep.

      “Come on, sweetie,” I said, doing my best not to eye the invisible demon. “Let’s cut out early. First round’s on me.”

      Circe stood, looking vulnerable and beautiful, like a sculpture of flowers. “You sure?”

      “Absolutely. Let’s tell Jerry to move us off the stage lineup, then we’ll tip out.” The DJ was a real prick about dancers missing their rotation; I’d have to slip him an extra twenty to mollify him.

      “Okay.” She smiled at me. “Thanks, Jesse. I…Jesus, I don’t know what I was thinking. Suicide’s a sin.”

      “I keep forgetting you’re so damn religious.”

      “I’ll find Joey, tell him we’re cutting out. Meet you back here to change?”

      No freaking way was I staying in a bathroom with an angry demon. I started to get up when I felt a crushing weight press down on my shoulder, my neck. The demon squeezed, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

      I wanted to shriek at the top of my lungs. What I said in a hoarse whisper was, “You bet.”

      Circe took a deep breath, straightened her spine, and sauntered out of the women’s room.

      As soon as the door closed, something tangled in my hair and yanked my head back. I dropped the bottle and the pills spilled from my hand, bounced on the tile floor. Over the nauseating odor of sulfur, the ripe stink of my fear clung to my nostrils. Blood roared in my ears, pounded in my head, and my heart jackhammered like it wanted to break free from my chest. My arms were leaden, dead things; my feet were rooted on the floor. I couldn’t run, even if the demon released me.

      But as I stared up into his face, I had a sinking suspicion that the last thing Mister Gorgeous wanted to do was let me go.

      “I know you,” he said, his face twisting into a leer. “You’re the slut from the Courtyard.”

      Even through my overwhelming fear, I heard the capital C in Courtyard…and I placed him.

      Tell us, is it true that all Seducers are pox-infested carriers of disease?

      Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Mister Gorgeous was a demon of Pride—and he had a personal grudge against me. Granted, most creatures of Arrogance had a chip on their shoulders when it came to one of my kind…former kind. Pride and Lust rarely work well together, unless there’s seriously strong drink involved. But he had a reason to despise me: I’d embarrassed him in front of his buddies. To one of the Arrogant, there’s no worse crime.

      Licking my lips, I tried for the Dumb Blonde approach, ignoring the fact that my hair was a curly black. “Never saw you before.” I even spoke with the right balance of Pants-Pissing Terror and Indignant New Yorker. Maybe he’d think I was just one of those rare mortals who were able to see the supernatural. “Let me go.”

      “You’re lying. You smell of sex, slut.”

      “Last customer got too happy, got his splooge on me.”

      “That’s not a lie.” His grip on my scalp tightened, and I felt clumps of hair tearing at the roots. Between the shriek of agony atop my head and the flare of pain from biting my lip to keep from screaming, I was one raw nerve. “But you do know me,” he said. “Oh yes, slut. And I know you.”

      Fuck.

      He grinned, and my breath strangled in my throat. Icy fingers tripped СКАЧАТЬ