Chapter 2
Jasmine
There’s nothing pure about a blank canvas; even less about a white leather sofa that cost more than a Kentucky mortgage and looked better decorated in blood.
This was furniture that didn’t ask, it ordered, and I stretched out across it like the world’s most expensive centerpiece, striking a pose worth at least some minor sin.
One heel dangled from my toe, the slow arc and swing of it suggesting either laziness or calculation, maybe both.
My eyes went violet for the afterglow, but let someone knock on the door without warning, and the color would go blood-deep, a warning flare straight out of nature’s playbook.
The penthouse spread out around me, edges sharp and clean, light catching on glass and steel, but the shadows in the corners huddled together like little conspirators.
The windows were cut from floor to sky, city on display, carnival lights blinking, but I didn’t care about the spectacle outside.
My attention was on the giant mirror across from the couch, custom glass, ten feet wide, beveled like a blade.
You could fall into that reflection and never crawl out.
I checked myself in it and grinned, pleased.
Let’s do a little self-inventory. Hair black, long, and tangling itself into knots that could keep a lover busy all weekend; skin flawless, not technically my own, but who’s counting, and perfect enough to scare an Instagram influencer; the dress, silk, color of wine right out of the vein, barely covered enough to count.
The look was dangerous and deliberate, a warning label in the language of temptation.
I flexed, stretching one bare leg along the cold white leather, the kind of shiver that makes you appreciate being alive (or something close).
The room was more like a stage than a home.
Candles were everywhere, a dozen at least, flames sharp and steady, not an inch of wax lost; a fireplace that flickered just for show, never fed but always hungry; the grandfather clock outside with a tick-tock so steady it could pace out the end of the world.
Across the room, the mirror trembled. Most people wouldn’t notice, but I did, and I liked it that way. My little glitch in the fabric, a signal that in this apartment, reality was more guideline than rule. Sometimes visitors noticed and went pale. Sometimes they noticed and started to beg.
I reached for the cut-crystal decanter and filled a glass with two fingers of bourbon. The glass cost most of somebody’s paycheck, and the ice cubes were hand-cut, imported. I drank, let the whiskey burn off the leftovers from the last soul I’d eaten.
Three delivered clean to Hell, not a single one lost to Heaven’s customer-service department. That was my streak, and I planned to run it up.
I set the glass down, careful not to leave lipstick, and let myself wander back through the highlights.
Grayson was beautiful, dumb, and as easy to steer as a sports car on a wet road.
Vargas, who actually tried to win but didn’t know where the finish line was.
Walters, whose secret kinks I’d mapped out before he’d finished his confession.
Picked them all at peak ripeness, made sure they matched the order slip from the Third Circle.
Lilith would be impressed, but with demons, approval always felt like something between a compliment and a loaded gun. Promotion was already on the table, which meant whoever I picked next was either a formality or the world’s nastiest job interview.
I ran my fingers through my hair, catching a snarl that hadn’t been there a moment ago.
I tugged it free, sharp and sweet and a little bit nostalgic.
Maintenance, even for something this perfect, took work.
For a second, I thought about my own first time, the taste of fear and sex and power, salt in chocolate.
I wondered if my marks knew, when I leaned over them in the end, that their hunger was a mirror for mine.
The clock hit the hour. I watched for a new ripple in the mirror. Nothing. The apartment was quiet as a tomb at sea. My phone sat black and patient, already waiting for Lilith to check in.
I hiked my dress, let a hand trace up my thigh, and admired the skin, flawless enough to break the internet if I wanted it. Some nights I missed what it was to chase and seduce. But tonight, with the line in sight, I felt almost calm. Dangerous kind of calm.
My hand found the brand at my hip, the mark only demons see, and invisible to mortals, but always burning when I remembered my place. Tonight, I was the one who hunted. Tonight, I was the fucking prize.
The bourbon was gone. The ice was an afterthought, melted to one neat little droplet. I tipped the glass, played with the light, and thought about the last soul I’d need to finish the set. Man? Woman? Maybe a real challenge next time. Hunt a hunter, someone who might even get close?
The idea made me laugh, short and cold and sharp.
I parted my legs, thinking about the possibilities, and let my fingers slip between my wet cunt.
My nails, lacquered a lascivious violet, flashed in the low light as I drew a lazy line through the slick heat.
I pictured the faces, every one of them.
Grayson’s dopey drunken smile, the giddy awe on Vargas, the terror trailing Walters’s last hard gasp.
How easily they opened to me, how neatly their secrets spilled out, sticky and sweet.
I moaned, just a little, just enough to fog the glass of the coffee table.
If there were angels in earshot, I wanted them to hear.
This was my ritual, the closest I had to prayer.
If I’d believed in gods, I would have called it an offering.
Instead, I treated it like a business meeting.
My thighs tensed; my hips curled up, presenting an invitation to every voiceless ache hanging in the penthouse.
I found my rhythm, slow, then mean, then slow again.
I let myself imagine the next candidate, the one I’d save for last and savor like the last smoke before an execution.
I could try for a bishop, but the clergy was oversold, supply chain issues in Hell, apparently.
A socialite sounded dull; they were just flesh-wrapped black holes, nothing left to tempt or twist. Maybe a rival demon’s pet project?
Why stop there? I thought about the lesser celebrities of my own acquaintance, mortal and immortal.
The geek from the carnival who’d tried to mansplain tarot to me over a burnt corn dog; the hedge fund manager who spent weekends at the local dungeon and thought his secrets were safe.
I could take them both, devour their pride and deli-cold shame, and make it last for days.
The thought made me shudder, and I pressed harder, knuckles whitening against my own thigh.
My reflection in the mirror was hungry and close to deranged, hair spilling like oil over my shoulders, jaw slack with the promise of satisfaction.
Behind my eyes, Hell’s tide pushed up, insistent. Flavors of brine and iron and scorched sugar. The mark at my hip pulsed in time with my heartbeat, a rhythm I knew from centuries of pursuit, never quite sated, always greedy for one more. It was the only thing about me that was honest.
Someone inside me, maybe the girl who used to believe in something, was quietly aghast at my excesses, but I’d long ago learned to mute her.
If she ever clawed her way up, she’d be the first to get eaten.
I finished myself off too fast, too rough, a little undignified, and when the wave crashed back down, I lay there panting, body arched, one arm thrown over my face, the other hand sticky and trembling.
If there was an audience, they’d have thrown roses or called the paramedics.
For a minute, maybe two, I let myself dissolve.
No thoughts, no agenda, just the afterburn of sensation rippling through my bones.
Even the clock paused, unwilling to tick too loudly in the charged air.
This was the rarest of victories, a moment of pure want, untouched by Hell’s bureaucracy or Lilith’s diamond-hard expectations.
Of course, it couldn’t last. Satisfaction is just a stage of hunger, and when the emptiness came back, it found me grinning into the mirror, already plotting new sins.
I stood, let the dress settle where it wanted.
Candles leaned in as I passed, flames licking at the air.
My reflection in the mirror looked divine and bored—a queen waiting for the next war.
I considered making the next move, lining up the kill, but no.
I wanted to enjoy this part. Last finish line. Only one shot at it.
The phone on the desk shivered, then started to drift. I stopped it, checked the screen, and watched as the glass face glowed orange for a second, hellfire crawling just underneath. The message was waiting for me:
Time is running out. Results expected immediately.
Lilith never wasted words. I stared at the message, throat pounding. My face in the phone’s dark reflection was warped, like someone was trying to pull me through. A real flinch, deep in memory, a human tic I thought I’d misplaced.
I set the phone down slow. My hand trembled. Once, I caught it and hated it.
“Bitch,” I muttered, but there was no heat in it. Lilith was right, she always was. Time was currency, and she spotted shortfalls faster than anyone.
I closed my eyes, breathed in, and let the confidence settle. The nerves dropped away, leaving behind something even sharper. I opened my eyes, let the color go red. The room flexed around me, electric.
Tonight, I’d get the last soul, and Lilith would have to admit I was the best.
***
The closet was my favorite space. It ran the length of a city block, or felt like it, all slick wood and black velvet, lights tucked to flatter every scrap of fabric.
If there’s a wardrobe in heaven, it would covet this.
I walked in, trailing fingers over silk and leather, letting myself drift, looking for the right look to close out the hunt.
I stopped at a little black dress. Low enough to qualify as an arrest warrant, a scandal in fabric, the kind of thing that would get you tossed out of the Derby but immortalized downtown.
I held it up, studied the line, and laughed.
For a moment, my own image was less predator and more high-end escort at a banker’s gala.
But that was the point; no one notices the dangerous animal until it starts to feed.
I draped the dress and went for the shoes. Custom, of course. Black patent, red sole, heels dangerously sharp. I slipped them on and watched my legs in the mirror. These legs were created from sin, and every step reminded me what they were really designed to do.
I stripped fast, silk pooling on the carpet, my body catching the light in a flicker of angles and curves.
For a second, I didn’t see myself so much as the ghost of who’d been here before—the girl with brown eyes and a talent for survival.
I didn’t remember her name, and doubted I’d have liked her, either.
I pulled on the black dress, shimmied it down, and checked the fit. Plunge in the front, nothing in the back. Straps adjusted, I scooped up my old self from the floor, hung the silk up again. I liked my rituals clean, even now.
I moved my hair over one shoulder, and ran fingers through for the shine, then started with the lipstick, an arterial red, the same color as the night I took Grayson’s soul. I popped the cap, leaned close to the glass.
For a flicker, the reflection changed. My face, but scaled, sharpened, the demon version looking back. “You sure you want this?” the eyes seemed to ask. I held the gaze, didn’t look away.
“What am I doing?” I asked, soft, almost lost in the velvet dark. Doubt, real and sour, just for a second. I set the lipstick down, gripped the vanity until my hands ached.
Then it was over. I straightened, shook out my hair, and put the smile back on. “You’re going to win,” I told the mirror, and this time I believed it.
The demon faded behind the flesh and the cosmetics. I painted my lips, blotted, and checked for perfection. One last look, then it was time.
I paused at the threshold and then practiced the walk, the smirk, the way a fingertip glides over a jawline.
I bit my lip, not enough to bleed, just enough to remember how.
The sway of my hips, each click of heel, was appetite given form.
Men. The weakest of all species in the Above World.
Dress up a pussy, add a pinch of seduction, and fuck the rest.
Clutch in hand, black and slim, just big enough for the essentials. A final spin in the mirror, the dress fitting like sin and success. In another life, I’d have died for this body. In this one, bodies died for me.
I paraded through the apartment, heels loud on marble, candles bowing as I passed. The phone buzzed, but I ignored it. I didn’t need more instructions.
The elevator was waiting, doors open, the hush-purr of expensive machinery. I stepped in, pressed the Lobby button, and watched my image multiply in the chrome, all with the same hungry smile.
“Tonight,” I said to the empty box. I pictured Foster, my target, those near-black eyes, the soul ready to be snapped up.
The doors closed like a secret. The apartment would be waiting, but I wouldn’t be the same when I walked back in.
As the elevator dropped, floor by floor, the focus locked in. Every nerve pulled tight to the night ahead.
I walked into the city, alive to the rain and neon and the promise that tonight, I’d win. The penthouse sealed behind me, the sound almost gentle.
It almost made me feel human.