“I didn’t want you to be mad at him. And that was like, our thing, you know? So long as I kept his secret, I had power over him.”
Secrets are power, Andronicus.Lena’s words, ingrained in me as a youth, drifted back to me now. She’d likely imparted the same lesson on you.
“He made you keep it a secret because he knew it was wrong,” I said.
You shrugged. “I kind of wished he’d beaten me after what happened with Carter.”
I grabbed your hand. “You don’t need his forgiveness.”
“I kind of do though.”
“I forgive you, Vincent.”
You shook your head unhappily. “You’d forgive me no matter what.”
“You’re right, but your father isn’t the authority on what’s right or wrong. I know it’s hard to understand with the way you’ve been raised, but we’re gods. We have needs, and even though we try to be careful, mistakes sometimes happen. You don’t need to be physically hurt to be forgiven.”
“Okay.” You took up the belt again and ran your hand almost lovingly along its biting edge. “But if I really needed it, would you do it for me?”
You stared at me intently. Something inside of you hinged on my response, so much that you were holding your breath. How does one even answer such a question?
“Yes, Vincent. If you really needed it, I would do it.”
18
HENRI
We spent the next few days visiting my other informants, but they offered nothing useful in tracking down Seneser, nor were they able to supply any clues as to the identity of your mysterious stalker. My Las Vegas safehouse hadn’t spotted the Belial demon since their initial reports, and a careful combing of the Ruby Slippers’ surveillance footage proved fruitless. Demons tended to be confounded by modern technology, so there wasn’t even an online footprint to trace.
The trail was going cold.
Our only promising lead was on the identification of Seneser’s human host. His name was Maxwell Weir, a resident of San Diego who worked as a server in a high-end restaurant. He’d been missing for approximately two weeks when we arrived in Las Vegas and had not been seen or heard from in that time. It meant one of two things: Seneser was still inhabiting Maxwell’s body, or he’d moved onto another vessel. My contact at the coroner’s office maintained that no one fitting Maxwell’s description had been admitted, but demons could be quite inventive when it came to disposing of bodies.
After just a few days living together in close quarters, our routine became familiar—rise with your body couched in mine, transfer your cat from my person to yours, take a cold shower while relieving myself of spiritual angst, treat you to a large breakfast at a nearby restaurant, then to work. Upon our return, I made calls to my associates while you lounged at the pool and chatted up the other residents with your neurotic cat stalking its prey nearby.
After, you’d invite one of the hotel’s patrons to our quarters for a feed. “Room service” you cheekily called it, and it grew increasingly erotic, including last night’s bloodmeal when I was feeding from a man’s trapezius muscle and you from his upper thigh with your feverish eyes locked on mine.
During your relaxations at the pool, you practiced your seductions on the inhabitants of the Bambi Hotel, then relayed their trials and tribulations during our nightly stakeouts. Your tales had all the drama of a Greek play, and I found them endlessly entertaining.
You’d also managed to darken your skin to a tawny bronze. Sometimes I’d come out to the balcony just to observe you sprawled out on a lawn chair or floating leisurely on an inflatable raft. It made me long to see your naked skin against the beautiful blues of the Mediterranean. I’d promised myself I’d not make any advances, but my willpower was waning.
One afternoon, I called you up from the pool to ready yourself for dinner. You smiled up at me, brilliant as the sun, then collected your towel and basket of accoutrement. I watched your slow ascent to the second floor and admired the way your bathing suit clung to your ass like a wet tissue. Your fingertip grazed my chest as you passed by me, and that delicious cocktail of sweat, skin, and your clove-scented cologne wafted in my direction, so piquant I was salivating.
I took a deep breath, then followed you into the room to find you’d already undressed.
“Vincent, you’re—”
“Doing laundry,” you said mildly and tossed the suit aside. You assessed me head to foot and paused—not so subtly—to where blood rushed to my genitals, my arousal made plain by my tightening pants.
“Ah,” I said. “Are all of your clothes dirty?”
Your head tilted and you shot me a sly look. “Not just mine, Henri. Yours too. Everything is so… moist.”
After our first night trying to squeeze into a twin-sized bed, you’d rearranged the room, so the mattresses were now sandwiched together and fitted with a king-sized sheet. Since then we hadn’t slept apart, and on a few occasions, I’d stumbled into your dreams.
“Hardly my fault. Your imagination gets more vivid each night,” I said.
“Is there a particular one you liked?”
