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“I see that.” Hana scraped her claw over a bloodstain on my shirt. “Nice costumes. Really authentic.”
“Very.” I smiled.
“We’ll be back,” Zane said, squeezing my upper arm. “We still gotta check in with Azzi.”
Hana rolled her eyes. “Have fun. We’ll be upstairs on the couches. Come join us.” She gave me a wink as she and Sadie turned away, disappearing into the crowd.
“Friend of yours?” I said. Zane tapped a finger near the piercing through his eyebrow.
“That’s hers,” he said. “It’s been a long time. She got me into hunting souls.”
“Damn, you really like assholes, don’t you?” I said. Seeing her, and having met Leon, and taking an honest look at myself, I was beginning to see a pattern. Zane laughed out loud.
“Figuratively and literally, love.”
We made our way through the crowd, toward the other side of the factory floor where a massive platform had been erected out of machinery and bent steel beams. Even over the music, I could hear moans of pleasure and sharp cries of pain.
“This is what Hell’s like?” A particularly tall demon brushed past me, their golden eyes flickering down to me, their white hair long enough to brush their thighs. “Were they carrying a whip made of barbed wire?”
“You’ll see every variety of pleasure and pain here,” Zane said. “Whether your desires are sweet or wicked, dangerous, unusual, disgusting — you can get here, just as you could in Hell. But listen up.” His voice took on a serious note. “Azriel is this Clan’s host. He watches over everything here; he makes sure it all goes smoothly. No one gets to stay without his approval, so watch yourself around him.”
We’d reached the foot of the metal platform. Speakers were clustered around the base, the music thumping hard through my body as we stood in front of them. Above us, a being sat in a swinging chair constructed of thick chains, his long dreads hanging over his shoulders as he peered down at us. His deep brown skin was adorned with ink, the lines of his absurdly defined muscles clear beneath the tight, thin fabric of the black shirt he wore.
“Lucifer Almighty, if it isn’t Zane!” He smiled down at us, the chains around him jingling at his movement. “And Zane has brought a little mortal soul, eh?” One moment he was seated in the chains — the next, he was off the platform, beside us, walking between us as he looked us up and down. “Been a long time, Z. Where’s Leon? Still bound up with that awful magician?”
“Nah, he’s got other problems to deal with,” Zane said. “Juniper and I were looking for some place to have a good time, if you’ll welcome us.”
“You know I’d always welcome you,” he said, but his eyes were on me. “Ooh, you’re an interesting one, aren’t you? That soul of yours has bled.” His gaze moved over my shirt, his smile widening at the bloodstains. But then his eyes lingered on my chest, and goosebumps prickled across my skin as he stared at my scars. “Oh yes. You’ve bled. Body and soul. You smell a little nervous, human. Are you scared?”
I was rigid, my back so tense it hurt. But Zane gave me a little nudge, and I forced myself to exhale. “Sorry. I’m...I’m nervous, yeah. It’s weird to not be the scariest person in the room.” I paused. “It’s weird to be one of the only...people...in the room.”
He nodded in understanding, circling me, his eyes stroking over every inch of me. “We predators enjoy the hunt, but we’d never hunt what belongs to another. Zane has claimed you, and there isn’t a single being here who won’t respect that. We’re here for one thing, and one thing only.” He spread his arms. “To have the most fucking depraved night we possibly can.” He leaped away, back atop his platform, and reclaimed his seat amongst his chains. Another demon crawled eagerly to his feet, pressing their head up against his leg as if begging for attention. Azriel waved his hand at us, using the other to grip the demon at his feet by their hair. “Enjoy yourselves. If anyone bothers you, mortal, come to me. I’ll take care of it.”
40
Nothing on Earth compared to demonic liquor, and it was being served here by the gallon. It was pungently sharp on the breath of every demon we passed, and I was eager for a drink. Human liquor did nothing for me — but Hell’s alcohol certainly would.
“So, what do you think?” I spoke right in Juniper’s ear as we wound through the crowd, making our way toward the large round bar that had been set up in the middle of the factory floor. A massive, shining pyramid of glass bottles was the bar’s centerpiece, towering precariously above us. The bartenders, some of them blindfolded, handled multiple bottles at once, tossing them between each other as they poured libations into silver shakers.
Before I’d begun hunting souls, I’d wanted only to spend my time in places like this, concocting drinks in Clans around the world. It was exactly the kind of environment I liked: crowded and chaotic, wicked and filthy. The challenge of serving so many demons, while maintaining perfect form and pulling off the absurd drinks these bartenders managed, was one I’d been eager to perfect.
“It’s wild,” Juniper said. “It feels...it feelsgoodhere. There’s so much happening!” She laughed, shaking her head as if she couldn’t really believe what she was seeing. We stepped around a couple fucking roughly on the floor, both of them bleeding and panting, the crowd around them cheering for more. I didn’t miss the redness that tinted Juniper’s face, the rise in her body temperature, the scent of her arousal.
She liked to watch. Perhaps she liked to perform too.
We got up to the bar, and I held up two fingers to the bartender.
“What are we getting?” Juniper yelled over the music. She didn’t need to: I could hear her fine. “Do they have whisky here?”
“The bartender gives you whatever you need,” I said. “You don’t choose; they do.” It was a difficult art, even for demons: determining what would suit someone best from a mere glance, everything concocted on an individual basis. Two glasses slid across the bar toward us, and I caught them, handing the lighter one to Juniper. She reached for it eagerly, and I snatched it back out of her reach at the last moment.
“This isHell’sliquor, Juniper,” I said. “Becareful. It hits hard.”
She twisted up her mouth skeptically. “I can hold my liquor, Zane.”
“You’ve never had liquor like this.”
I handed it over, and she took a large sip. The bartender was watching eagerly, and so were a few others clustered around the bar. Juniper’s eyes widened and immediately began to water, and she coughed as she stared at the drink in shock.
