Page 61 of Filthy Fae

“He always sat on one side of the club, but his eyes were on Zeezee. If she ever came over, he pretended like he was enraptured by another dancer. I brushed it aside until my shit went missing. Only one person could’ve broken through my blood spell.” She shook her head. “The dumbass.”

Though the words were harsh, I got the sense that she was both sad and hurt by her brother’s actions. “According to lore, demons are very fond of possessing werewolves. I wasn’t sure if your sister was my bro’s secret crush or his target for this demon summoning, so I gave her the ring and earrings, knowing that she couldn’t be possessed with iron horseshoes on.”

Jane peeked up from her paper. “You didn’t warn her?”

Nancy squeezed her eyelids shut as she continued to stretch out her arms. Opening her eyes, she sighed. “No, I didn’t. Zeezee seemed unhinged, and I didn’t want her going after Morte if I was reading the situation all wrong. I fucked up. I hoped that if my theory was correct, and he was going after Zeezee, Morte would have to find a new target, giving me time to stalk him and get my shit back.”

She slumped back onto the bench. “Problem is, I get where he’s coming from. Being a necromancer blows most of the time. After I got a sense of Morte’s personality, I knew it was a matter of time before he started taking higher paying jobs. Enforcing the city’s protections and killing demons that slip through from hell pays absolutely nothing. Honestly, sometimes it costs more money than it pays. When you’re eating spam out of a can with no heat and a leaky roof, it’s hard to unknow the fact that there are always those who would pay truckloads for you to raise a demon or reanimate the dead.”

“Good people died at that party,” Mack said in a hoarse whisper, his voice full of an underlying emotion. His tone made me strongly suspect that when he’d told me that he didn’t know anyone at that party, he was hiding the truth for my benefit. He’d been through so much in the past few days. Too much for a lifetime.

Scooting into Mack’s side, I reached down and threaded my fingers through his. He squeezed my hand in his warm and familiar grip. Leaning in close to his ear, I whispered, “I love you.”

His hand squeezed tighter, and he nodded.

I was barely aware of Nancy, who was saying something about how she didn’t know that this was going to be a full demon crossing until she arrived at the party after the carnage. She’d thought it would be a demon possession, which was easily containable. Leaning over, Nancy snatched my nearly full beer, lifted it to her lips and chugged the liquid down like a runner chugs water after a hundred-yard dash.

We all just watched her throat bob, and someone in the food truck muttered a stream of curse words.

Slamming down the beer, Nancy shook her head. “You know I have to get out of here if I’m going to track this fucker down. We lost him yesterday, and he’s been swapping skins daily.” At our dumbfounded expression, she clarified. “He takes on the appearance of people, right down to their eye color and voice. He only reverts to his infernal form when he’s found his next target.”

“That’s the pale, tonguey form?” I asked.

She made a gun with her hands and clicked her tongue. “You’ve seen it. Sexy, isn’t he?”

“Mouthwatering.” Speaking the words made me gag a little. “So, there’s only one?”

“Let’s hope so.” Nancy shook her head. “Sorry, the answer to that is yes. There’s only one.”

“Why would a full demon-crossing be more dangerous than a possession?” Jane asked, half standing as her pen still moved.

“Oh. People hire necromancers to summon sex demons to cause scandals with politicians and world leaders, that type of shit. The intention is for some human mafioso to get a senator in their pocket. Once in a while, the incubus will be summoned to assassinate someone while posing as the world leader. If that’s all that happens, I just track these stories in the news after the demon is banished. Problem is that once in a while, it doesn’t end in a sex or murder scandal. A full demon’s only goal is to break loose of their summoner, and they often do. After an incubus breaks free, he’ll go on a killing spree. First, he’ll hunt down his summoner. Then we’ll start to see deaths caused by violent sex of the sort that happened at that party. The incubus’ energy makes it feel good to be ripped apart.” She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of something as large scale as this party, and I’ve heard countless cases.”

“With werewolves from my pack at the center of this, we’ve been theorizing that whoever arranged this wanted to make it look like claws tore through those people,” I said.

“I’ve never heard of someone ordering an incubus to use violent sex as a weapon, but there’s a first time for every horror in this business. Welp.” Nancy pulled a plastic wrapped cigar from her pocket and set it to hanging from her bow-shaped lips. “I know you want to rip your sister a new asshole, but I’m going to need her to catch this demon tonight. Think you could leave it at yelling at her, and let her stay with me?”

“Hold up.” I closed the distance to the demon hunter. “You and my sister are trapping the demon tonight? Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

Nancy laughed. “Trust me, pretty Alpha Lady, this isn’t something you want to be involved in. And we don’t need your help. This is between your sister and me.”

“Not if you want to use one of my pack members in your plan, it’s not,” I said. “That is the definition of needing my help. How do you even know where the incubus will be?”

“I hope I can trust you to keep this between yourselves. The demon hasn’t resurfaced in two days. He’ll need to feed. Zeezee was going to be my in at the strip club.” Nancy nodded her head toward the van where my sister still sat eating her tacos. “She was going to put on a show at the Full Moon with one of the patrons to draw in the demon while I trap him.”

“A show?” My stomach sank as I realized what she was saying. “You’re not just talking about stripping, are you?”

“We need to get the demon locked in a feeding trance enough to trap him. She’ll lock him in by stirring up a shit ton of sexual energy, and I’ll trap him.”

Aaron stepped up beside me. “How do you know he’ll go there?”

“He will,” Nancy said with complete confidence. “There’s nothing an incubus loves more than a live sex show, and Zeezee spread it far and wide that she’s planning to pick one of her patrons and screw them on stage tonight. It’s basically like an all you can eat buffet for a sex demon.”

“Nope. No.” I waved my hands through the air. “My sister isn’t going to do a live sex show.”

The door to the van swung open behind me. “Yes, I am! For Zane!”

“Zane is in San Francisco,” I yelled back. “He’s safe.”