“Ugh, fuck,” he whined. “I can’t believe you. You always turn me on before I have to go do other stuff. You better make this up to me later. I’m going to start keeping a tally.”
Shadrach bared his teeth again as he let Isaac go andtook a step back. “I’m going to make you bleed later,” he promised. “Gonna make you scream.”
“Promises, promises,” Isaac said breathlessly, backing away. Shadrach had his own gravitational pull, and Isaac couldn’t look away. Only when he rounded the edge of the alleyway did he finally regain his composure.
He took a deep breath, raising his gaze to the sky as he turned in the direction of the club and began to walk. The brisk summer air cooled the lingering heat under his skin, and focusing on what lay ahead chased the last remnants of desire away. He was going to walk into a nest of serpents and prove to them that he was no longer a mongoose. The only way to find Lilith was to make them think they could trust him.
An unfamiliar halfling stood outside the door of the club. He eyed Isaac up and down for a long moment. He had no weapons, no guild rings or crucifixes to identify his allegiance to their enemies, so after a beat, he reached for the door and pulled it open.
Stepping inside In Extremis was like walking through a fae circle. One moment he was in the world he knew, the world of dark streets and danger around every corner. Inside, dark lights and hazy air gave everything an ethereal feel. The scent of tobacco, liquor, blood and sex filled his lungs. As he descended the metal staircase into the abyss, he caught sight of bodies writhing together on the dance floor and in the booths, some dancing and some in the throes of passion. He passed a booth where two men were tangled around a woman, her head thrown back on one of the men’s shoulders in abandon as they all rocked together. A bite wound on her neck trickled blood between her bare breasts.
Sothiswas why his superiors never wanted the paladins to come here.
He made his way to the bar, which was the only part of the room lit with decent light, and took a seat on one of the stools. The bartender, a woman with a long ponytail and blood-red lips, approached and jerked her head at him, silently asking what he wanted.
“Who’s a guy talk to about turning in a bounty?” he asked.
Her red eyes narrowed, skimming down his body and back up. “No way you took out a leviathan.”
“I killed a black-eyed asshole for attacking me at the guild, yeah. I hear his head is worth some money.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Guild?”
It was all part of the story he’d crafted. He laid his left hand on the bar and tapped the tan line on his ring finger. “I used to be with the Paladin Guild. They’ve gone off the deep end, and I’m looking to get out. I’d rather make a cleaner exit than some of my predecessors. That bounty would make things a lot easier. So?”
Her suspicious gaze didn’t waver for a moment, and then she turned away without a word. A moment later, she plunked a crystal tumbler on the bar in front of him and poured a dark liquid into it.
“Drink this. Prove you’re not like your paladin buddies.”
“Getting drunk will prove that?”
“Most of them don’t drink. They definitely wouldn’t trust a drink poured by a demon.”
Yeah, Isaac thought, that was true. As far as he knew, this place acted as a legitimate club. They didn’t have poisons on hand, and they didn’t want to be caught killing their customers. Whatever was in this drink might make him sickbut wouldn’t kill him, and he had to hope Shadrach’s blood would keep him healthy enough to get the job done.
He lifted the glass to his lips, mindful of the weight of many stares on his back. They were all waiting to see what he did. Announcing he worked for the guild in a room full of demons was a big risk.
Bracing himself, he drank quickly. The liquid was strangely sweet and burned going down, but it was surprisingly pleasant.
He set the glass down on the polished black bar and tapped it. “Another.”
The woman laughed, filling it again. “Damn, holy man. All right. I’m Magda. I’ll see what I can do about contacting the bounty’s benefactor.”
Someone sat down beside him, a gangly man with dark hair and red eyes. “Did you really do it? Did you really kill Talon?”
Isaac smirked. “He went after the wrong paladin.”
“How’d it happen?”
The bartender was texting someone, the pale glow of the screen highlighting the smooth angles of her face. He wondered if she was contacting Lilith.
“Well, you heard about the attack on the guild, right?”
“The kalmach demon, yeah. No lie, we’d hoped the guild would fall that day,” the man said, and a handful of others around him voiced their agreement. It seemed he’d attracted a crowd.
Isaac shrugged. “It’ll take more than that. Anyway, the wards on HQ were down. It gave Talon the opportunity to slip inside and grab someone to interrogate about the guild’s inner workings.”
“And he grabbed you,” Magda guessed.
