Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
Beck
Sometimes I wondered why I paid for office space.
Long before the call, chain of emails, and dreadful visit from Ewing Livingston, my business had been in a downward spiral.
I wasn’t the only demon who could do what I did.
Not in the United States, and certainly not in Las Vegas.
I was the most established, which had become more of a hindrance than a help.
Young people liked to deal with other young people.
They shared similarly lofty ideas and risk tolerance.
My methods were proven over centuries, but according to some, they were also antiquated.
Slowly but surely, I was being outmoded.
I’d considered retirement. I had the money and means to hole up somewhere for the next century, perhaps trading the Nevada desert for the Florida coast. Or I could roam the world for a while.
Colette fancied the idea of a sabbatical and had amassed a collection of cruise brochures she used to litter my desk, highlighting destinations like the Virgin Islands and Mexico.
She’d left one out today, in fact, advertising a Hot as Hell Singles Sailing that claimed it would help cruisers “Get Forked on the High Seas.” It was not subtle, and it was also not happening.
Wadding up the pamphlet, I tossed it into my under-desk trashcan, then swiveled toward the window to consider the view outside my third-floor office.
A couple argued near the crosswalk, their voices muffled by the grimy glass, and a man lingered outside the pawnshop next door, counting bills with the jittery paranoia of someone who had more debts than time.
In the distance, the Strip gleamed like a mirage—bright, towering, and utterly indifferent.
I’d always thought Vegas looked best after dark.
Night veiled the harsh realities that daylight laid bare.
Chief among them was the truth that had kept me anchored here for a hundred years: this was a city where people came to lose.
I reclined in the creaky wooden chair and inhaled the perpetual stink of old paper and dry rot. Behind me, Colette scratched a pen against a crossword, filling in answers that were probably wrong.
“What’s a nine-letter word for having leaves year-round?”
The interruption made me realize how long we’d languished in silence; I wasn’t sure either of us had spoken a word since lunch. Sitting up straight, I turned toward her.
The hellhound sprawled on a faded green couch.
The dilapidated piece of furniture should have found the dumpster years ago, but Colette pled a case for it, claiming nothing else would be as comfortable.
That was probably true considering the sagging cushions and busted springs were permanently molded to the shape of her ass.
She spent most days stretched out there with her shoes off and a ballpoint pen in hand, butchering the Games & Puzzles section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal like she had something to prove.
I considered her question before replying, “Evergreen.”
Her pen tap, tap, tapped across the paper, counting the boxes. “I think it’s perennial,” she said.
“That’s when they come back annually,” I explained.
“They still lose their leaves. It’s definitely evergreen.
” Craning my neck toward the window again, I peeked through the dust-caked blinds to check the status of the sidewalk couple.
The woman ripped what must have been a ring off her hand and flung it to the ground, sending the man scrambling. I winced on his behalf.
“It fits.” Colette gave her pen a click.
“What does?”
“Perennial,” she said. “Nine letters.”
I ticked them off in my head. Sure enough. But no. Still wrong.
“That doesn’t mean…” When I looked back, she was already writing it in, so I shrugged. “Sure, go with it.”
We lapsed into quiet again.
It had been three days since my visit to the Devil’s Dollhouse, and I hated to admit the hot-bodied incubus had been living rent-free in my head ever since.
Not that I’d actually admitted it. To anyone. Hell, I barely admitted it to myself. For one, I didn’t know where to start. And two, it felt ridiculous to realize that the so-called “adequate” sex had since been the subject of all my dreams—and more than a few daytime fantasies.
Matters were not helped when the Strip-adjacent billboard advertising the club got an unexpected facelift.
The old image featured the club’s logo beside a group pose of the five headliners, but it had been updated to include the newest addition: the redheaded devil who seemed determined to haunt me.
It was a flattering picture. Maybe retouched.
I thought back to the dark club and the gloomy bedroom, trying to recall Cherry’s face.
Had his hair been quite that richly red?
Did his eyes really sparkle like faceted amethysts?
Had he smiled the way he did for the camera, showing a hint of his sharp teeth?
He had a cute fucking smile, even if the sight of it made my finger throb.
“What are you grinning about?” Colette asked, bringing self-awareness that punched the air out of me.
“Nothing,” I said quickly. Too quickly.
Colette leaped up, newspaper forgotten, and went to the window. Parting the blinds, she scanned the horizon while I braced for her inevitable deduction.
“New kid.” She turned, wearing a smile that was far too perceptive for my liking. “He is pretty, Beck.”
“I know.” I gave my computer mouse a nudge, stirring the thing to life.
Colette continued staring through the glass, making appreciative sounds that grated on me. “Look at those lips,” she murmured. “Cheekbones… Magnifique.”
“I know.”
The computer screen populated a FreeCell game I’d started yesterday then apparently forgotten.
Was this how I intended to spend the rest of eternity?
Rotting in this chair? Fading into this room?
Stealing glances out the window at a larger-than-life glamor shot of the man who had taken the stage in my brain?
Unacceptable.
The cruise brochure rested near the lip of the wire waste bin. Maybe not a singles sailing, but I was overdue for a holiday. Something to dig myself out of this rut.
Colette glanced over her shoulder, looking terribly smug. “When are you going back?”
To the Dollhouse?
“I’m not.”
“Oh.” She tutted softly. “Pity.”
Rocking forward, I braced my elbows on the chair’s armrests and scowled. “You should be glad I’m staying away. I nearly got my finger removed by an incutwink with an oral fetish.” Her snicker didn’t stop me from tagging on. “It’s not a good look, Coll. Did I mention how young he is?”
She stepped away from the window to stand with her arms folded. “Mmm,” she hummed. “Perhaps.”
I grabbed the mouse and selected a card at random, dragging it across the screen and muttering, “Too young for me, that’s for damn sure.”
“Did you decide that before or after you fucked him?” The hellhound’s expression had an edge of scorn I didn’t appreciate, and I let her know as much with a grumbling growl.
She gave her blonde hair a toss. “Oh, please. When immortality is involved, age makes little difference.”
“What about the fact that he’s a prostitute?
” I retorted. “And an incubus? They make people love them, Coll. They get off on that shit. I don’t.
” The words lashed out of me, weapons against an anticipated hurt.
Creatures like Cherry drew admirers like flies to honey, and I would not be caught in that trap.
My cell phone buzzed from its face-down position on the desktop, drawing Colette’s notice as well as my own. When I didn’t reach for it, Colette rolled her shoulder forward.
“Are you going to answer that?” she asked.
I scooped the cell up and checked the caller ID, then groaned.
“It’s Maslow.”
As much as I didn’t want to talk to the wraith, it would be a reprieve from Colette’s pestering. Answering the phone on speaker, I held it in my upturned hand.
“Hey, Maz.”
“Beckett!” Maslow’s voice crackled across the line. “How are you? How are things?”
Colette skirted my chair and returned to her post on the couch. She scooped up the discarded newspaper and gave it a flap before dropping onto the cushions. The springs creaked as she sank against them.
“Same as usual,” I told Maslow. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’m hustling. Moving and shaking.” He chuckled. “I heard you were in the other night. You should’ve said hello.”
I wondered who’d told him about my visit. Surely not Cherry after the way he’d asked me to keep my trap shut. But Luxe might have mentioned it. Or the cocktail waitress. Or one of the bouncers…
“I just stopped by for a minute,” I said. “Had a client.”
Papers shuffled on the other end of the line, preceding Maslow’s question. “How’d that go?”
“Well enough,” I lied.
Quiet ate up the pause. He was hedging, making small talk, and I didn’t trust it. We weren’t friends. I wasn’t sure how he’d got my number, or why I had his. Maybe I’d meant to block it and then forgot.
“Did you need something?” I asked.
Maslow made a pleased sound, like he’d been waiting for an opening. “Just you, Beckett. I’ve got a hell of a deal to cut, and I need an expert on my side.”
Across the room, Colette peeked over the top edge of the newspaper. When she caught me noticing her, she didn’t bother trying to hide her interest.
“What kind of deal?” I asked.
The wraith chuckled. “Swing by the club, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
Refusal teetered on the tip of my tongue while Colette nodded openly, lowering the paper to showcase her lipsticked grin.
Rather than blurt an outright “no,” I cut my gaze toward the cell’s screen and frowned. “I don’t know, Maz. I’m awfully busy…”
The jingle of keys drew my attention to Colette again. You would think I was the dog with the way she stood and headed for the door, swinging her key fob in a way that was clearly meant to tantalize.
Wanna go for a ride, boy?
When I stood, I knew Colette would have wagged her tail if she had one.
“I’m on my way,” I muttered, then pressed the “end call” icon before I changed my mind.
I wasn’t sure why I said it. Maybe I was spurred on by the fear of withering away in this musty room.
Maybe some part of me believed Maslow’s “hell of a deal” would be the thing to drag my sorry ass out of this sucking quagmire.
Or maybe, just maybe, I wanted to get another look at Cherry and decide for myself if he was as stunning in the flesh as he was on that billboard.
My bandaged finger twinged in complaint as I stepped into the hall then tugged the door shut.
Was I noodling again? Reaching back into that muddy, shitty hole expecting a better outcome?
I’d made that mistake once and had literal scars to show for it. I wouldn’t become an incubus’s desperate thrall or some lovesick fanboy thinking sex workers sold anything but sordid fantasies.
No matter how good Cherry looked, or how good he felt, I knew better now.
This time, I would keep my hands to myself.