Neon Blue by E Frost (best book reader .TXT) 📗

kaleidoscope that swirls around us, a man and a woman stand absolutely still, staring at us.

“Sire, how come you to be unbound—?” asks the woman, all dark hair and dark eyes in a face so pale she could be a ghost except that I can see energy flowing off her in icy spikes and ghosts never kick off that much juice.

The demon growls at her.

The man beside her, slate to her chalk, and strangely not quite there despite the solidity of his skin and very ordinary clothes, falls to the floor and prostrates himself, forehead pressed to the scuffed gray carpeting. “Forgive us, sire. Forgive us. Do not punish us, sire.”

I feel heat wash off the demon like I’ve opened a furnace. My hair fans in the hot breeze. I don’t need to look at him to know that he’s gone psycho-demon, horns recurving above his head, the black scythe gripped in his hand. I draw away from him with a shiver.

“You don’t deserve the glove you’re wearin’ if you’re stupid enough to ‘front me in the middle of all this meat,” the demon says. His voice is a burning lash. I can feel it flick across my skin, and I draw away from him further.

Something wraps around my wrist. Something hot and feeling almost – but frighteningly not – like his fingers. I glance down, and give a little scream when I see that it’s a long, prehensile tail. I cringe away from him.

Stay still, sweet meat, the demon thinks, without looking at me. Don’t fuck up the stitch. His tail tightens around my wrist like a lasso and the flanged tip strokes my inner wrist. The sensation races through me, leaving me shuddering uncontrollably.

The man, or whatever he is, grovels. “Please don’t take this flesh away from me, sire, I beg you.”

“Whaddo you think, Tsara?” the demon asks and I jump. I can’t remember him using my name before; I can feel the power of the simple naming race over my skin. “Should I punish this piece of shit Smoker?”

For what? I think shakily.

They broke the rules. Never out another demon in front of the meat.

Meat meaning humans. Me. I flex my hand against the constriction at my wrist, trying to calm down enough to stop twitching. Okay, they broke the rules, but it didn’t do any harm, did it? I already know what you are.

He glances at me, a dark, amused flick of his eyes. Do you? Thought you hadn’t figured me out.

I’ve figured out you’re some kind of incubus. Embarrassment outweighs my fear and I flush. How stupid do you think I am?

His laughter roars through my head. Lust demon, sweet meat. Incubus is so last century. Say it out loud. I want them to hear.

Say what?

That you wouldn’t punish them.

“Yes, I mean, no, you shouldn’t punish them. There’s no harm done.”

“So you’d just let ‘em walk, huh?”

I glance at the two in front of us. The man still prostrate on the floor, fear making his illusory skin shift and swirl in a way that no human skin should move. The woman standing small and pale beside him. Her aura has shifted from icy spikes to a shivering nimbus of terror.

What are you threatening them with? What does punishment mean that they’re so afraid?

Stripping them of their gloves an’ sendin’ ‘em home. The Halya’s a front-liner. She probably won’t last long enough to make it topside again.

I don’t follow him, but their fear is answer enough. It echoes my own. I desperately want this to be over, to be away from these creatures and this terrifying aspect of the creature I had sex with last night. “Yes, I’d just let them walk.”

“That’s where you an’ I are different.”

The demon moves, fast as a snake striking. The scythe licks out, but it’s not a scythe, it’s a flaming sword, a burning whip, a blur of killing fire, and I realize it’s all and none of these. It’s his will shaped into a weapon, and the shape doesn’t matter. What it touches it will destroy, if he’s strong enough, powerful enough.

He is. The fiery weapon slashes through the smoke demon, leaving only a pile of clothes that slump to the floor. A few cinders roll from the empty shirt collar, like ash from a stubbed-out cigarette. Watching, I can’t control a scream.

The demon’s standing still beside me again. Like he never moved. The tip of his tail moves in a slow caress over the skin of my inner wrist. Holding me still.

“You can stay,” he says to the ice demon. “For now. Don’t fuck up again.”

She bows very low. “Yes, sire. Thank you, sire. Your mercy is very great.”

“You bound?”

“Yes, sire. Summoned and circled.” She nods at a blur of color behind her.

The demon chuckles and puts his arm around me, drawing me close, his tail a gentle tug on my wrist. I shiver in his embrace. “Find yourself a nice witch an’ make her an offer she can’t refuse.”

Puzzlement swirls green and black through the ice demon’s aura, but she doesn’t ask. “Yes, sire. Thank you for your wisdom, sire.”

The demon nods. Look away, he thinks to me. Look at the Pillar.

He turns me so I’m looking out the windows again. The whole length of the Hancock Tower has turned brilliant crimson, so bright it hurts my eyes.

A woman and two children come up next to us and lean on the observatory railing. The woman begins to scold one of the kids when he tries to duck under the rail, to get closer to the glass, and I realize that whatever strange time-warp we were in is over.

The first gasp rises behind us. I glance back over the demon’s shoulder to see a crowd gathering around the figure of a man, collapsed on the floor. A man with dusky, unhealthy-looking skin, wearing very ordinary clothes.

You killed him.

Naw, just sent him back. Smokers are a liability anyway. All they’re good for is feedin’ off meat that’s already sick.