fabric like it was nothing. The knife dropped away and someone grabbed his smoking, stinking clothes and hauled him out of the car. He fell on the ground and his rescuer straddled him and slapped wildly at the fire still trying to consume what was left of his hair and his shirt. From somewhere Jack heard a siren and a dim part of his brain realized it was coming for him, to help him, and he sure hoped so because his mouth and throat were on fire and it hurt so damned much when he tried to inhale.
He closed his eyes and let the siren sing him to a cool and restful sleep.
S even
G uilt.
It was just so exquisite .
Jashire circled the chair slowly, then ran the tip of one finger across the sweating, overheated forehead of the man tied to it. She pushed against the skin below the wet hair hanging in his eyes and when he didn’t move, she dug in a little harder with the sharp end of her fingernail, testing to see how far she could go before he’d respond. Finally her prisoner shuddered and tried to pull away. A useless attempt; she had both his arms and legs tightly bound and he was too delirious to do more than roll his head from one side to the other. A deeper jab made him groan, and that was enough to make her smile with satisfaction.
Yes . . . exquisite was definitely the word of her day. It applied to so many things—her prisoner, her plans, but most of all, her luck in getting all this to come together so well. But was it luck? Perhaps not—she might be giving herself too little credit here. After all, she’d come to this playground with nothing more than a nebulous desire to do something dark and delightfully corrupt, a deed or two that would be fun but that would also catch the fire-saturated gaze of her master, Lucifer, and fill him with approval. Because with approval came rewards, and Lucifer could be very, very generous.
But Jashire would never have guessed how well this would all work out. She had Lahash to thank for that, although she would never admit that to him face-to-face. He was the one who had discovered the woman, and what she could do, although his only attempt to use that information in the latest of his quests to eliminate a nephilim had failed miserably. Alas Lahash was strictly a linear thinker and he really couldn’t work things out if something in his script strayed from whatever straight and narrow arrangement he had dreamed up. The idiot had been so flustered he hadn’t been able to figure out what to do next—he had that great list of nephilim names from the Korean guy, but now he was too freaked out to do anything with it. Jashire, on the other hand—she thrived on such unforeseen chances. The unexpected, the emergency shift at the last minute to make a scheme work out—those were excellent , the meat and the excitement of everything. She’d picked a name from the list and had taken off running.
And fear—oh, baby. The more the better, and if it was her own, that just seasoned the pot and made it tastier. If everything went right all the time, where was the fun? Where was the excitement, the rush ? As far as she was concerned, Lahash was a coward, no better than a flea-infested alley cat that hissed and showed its claws but still fled at the first opportunity. That was exactly what he’d done because of Astarte, and why? Because the word in Lucifer’s kingdom was that she had somehow managed to kill a Hunter. Jashire could have understood it if Astarte had bested Lahash himself, but this other was nothing but rumor . . . probably. And even if it were true, so what? There wasn’t that much skill involved. Hunters were big and often lethal, but they were also as dumb as the molten rock from which they were formed. Astarte was in a world full of humans who had fashioned weapons and means of eliminating almost anything organic. She was intelligent and devastatingly cunning, and Jashire wasn’t at all surprised she had found a way to use those inventions to her advantage.
So let
He closed his eyes and let the siren sing him to a cool and restful sleep.
S even
G uilt.
It was just so exquisite .
Jashire circled the chair slowly, then ran the tip of one finger across the sweating, overheated forehead of the man tied to it. She pushed against the skin below the wet hair hanging in his eyes and when he didn’t move, she dug in a little harder with the sharp end of her fingernail, testing to see how far she could go before he’d respond. Finally her prisoner shuddered and tried to pull away. A useless attempt; she had both his arms and legs tightly bound and he was too delirious to do more than roll his head from one side to the other. A deeper jab made him groan, and that was enough to make her smile with satisfaction.
Yes . . . exquisite was definitely the word of her day. It applied to so many things—her prisoner, her plans, but most of all, her luck in getting all this to come together so well. But was it luck? Perhaps not—she might be giving herself too little credit here. After all, she’d come to this playground with nothing more than a nebulous desire to do something dark and delightfully corrupt, a deed or two that would be fun but that would also catch the fire-saturated gaze of her master, Lucifer, and fill him with approval. Because with approval came rewards, and Lucifer could be very, very generous.
But Jashire would never have guessed how well this would all work out. She had Lahash to thank for that, although she would never admit that to him face-to-face. He was the one who had discovered the woman, and what she could do, although his only attempt to use that information in the latest of his quests to eliminate a nephilim had failed miserably. Alas Lahash was strictly a linear thinker and he really couldn’t work things out if something in his script strayed from whatever straight and narrow arrangement he had dreamed up. The idiot had been so flustered he hadn’t been able to figure out what to do next—he had that great list of nephilim names from the Korean guy, but now he was too freaked out to do anything with it. Jashire, on the other hand—she thrived on such unforeseen chances. The unexpected, the emergency shift at the last minute to make a scheme work out—those were excellent , the meat and the excitement of everything. She’d picked a name from the list and had taken off running.
And fear—oh, baby. The more the better, and if it was her own, that just seasoned the pot and made it tastier. If everything went right all the time, where was the fun? Where was the excitement, the rush ? As far as she was concerned, Lahash was a coward, no better than a flea-infested alley cat that hissed and showed its claws but still fled at the first opportunity. That was exactly what he’d done because of Astarte, and why? Because the word in Lucifer’s kingdom was that she had somehow managed to kill a Hunter. Jashire could have understood it if Astarte had bested Lahash himself, but this other was nothing but rumor . . . probably. And even if it were true, so what? There wasn’t that much skill involved. Hunters were big and often lethal, but they were also as dumb as the molten rock from which they were formed. Astarte was in a world full of humans who had fashioned weapons and means of eliminating almost anything organic. She was intelligent and devastatingly cunning, and Jashire wasn’t at all surprised she had found a way to use those inventions to her advantage.
So let
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