With one last kiss on the tip of his shaft, I crawled up the length of his body and mounted him. He thrust himself inside of me, speared me, pierced my core. Limbs entwined, we pumped, me riding him and him bucking up to meet me, our bodies slapping time. Heat pulsed in my groin, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, my thighs; I moved faster, took him deeper, felt liquid fire coursing through my blood as my body tightened, tightened- Paul cried out, his body arching up and up- -and I screamed in pure pleasure as the o.r.g.a.s.m crashed through me- -and he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed inside of me, our juices mixing like a s.e.x c.o.c.ktail.

Tangled together, we murmured thank yous and whispered words known only by lovers sharing a climax. Basking in the afterglow of s.e.x, I ran my hands through Paul's hair, enjoying the feel of the curling strands around my fingers. He stretched out beside me, luxuriating in my touch and making contented sounds as I played. Eyes closed, he smiled at me.

I loved his sounds. I loved making him feel good.

I loved him.

Soon his head nodded to the side. The long day of death and afterlife had finally caught up with him. Good. He needed rest. I watched him until I was sure he was truly asleep. Then I slowly unclasped the golden bracelet from my wrist.

A sad smile on my face, I gently lifted Paul's arm and wrapped the jewelry around his wrist. His eyelids fluttered open just as I lined up the clasp.

I kissed his lips, then whispered, "Goodbye, love. I'll see you soon."

His mouth opened, probably to protest. I snapped the clasp closed before he could speak.

The Rope of Hecate glowed-and Paul vanished, his voice calling my name. It echoed in the empty pa.s.sage of the Endless Caverns until it, like Paul, disappeared.

Chapter 19.

h.e.l.l One down.

I stood, shaking off the post-lovemaking soporific dregs. As much as I wanted to curl up and sleep, I didn't have the luxury. Despite what I'd told Paul, there was a Big Bad Evil out there, waiting for me. Every second I delayed was another that Lillith would use to plot something particularly spiteful and nasty. My own fault; I should have listened to Daun and killed her.

You're not a killer, Jesse. Even when you were a demon, you weren't all about death, doom, and d.a.m.nation.

Well, maybe the d.a.m.nation part. And, you know, the death thing.

I felt Peaches shrug. Semantics. You've always cared for others, even here in h.e.l.l. That's why you actually have friends, here in the place where friendship is scorned.

I also seem to have a growing list of enemies.

One that will keep getting longer if you don't start culling the list, one way or another.

What, so you're encouraging me to be all about the vengeance?

If not you, then someone. Otherwise, you may have a very short ride on the mortal coil.

Dandy. My conscience wanted me to hire my very own demon killers.

Hey, Peaches said, at least one of its should be thinking about your continued survival.

So, what, should I place a personal ad? Wanted: Demon Hunter? Maybe take a stroll into Van Helsings 'R Us?

Peaches muttered a slew of curses that nearly set my hair on fire.

Running my hands over my body, I worked my magic to clothe myself in the outfit from my fantasy, enjoying the feeling of the silk wrapping itself around me, girding me, hiding yet flaunting my body. My human body. Whatever I once had been, now I was a mortal. And it was as a mortal that I would help free Meg.

You're insane.

I sighed. Et tu, Peaches?

Meg's a Fury. You really think she could be forced into doing anything she doesn't want to do?

She has a warped sense of duty. If she thinks she deserves punishment, she'll allow herself to be punished.

So maybe you should leave it alone. If it's what she wants, who are you to tell her otherwise?

I'm her friend.

She left you to die.

I know. But I love her still.

Humans, Peaches snorted, disgusted. You guys are really f.u.c.ked up in the head.

I knew that too. Sighing, I pinched the bridge of my nose, wondering if the knocking in my brain was Peaches throwing a temper tantrum or if I was on the verge of a migraine. I lowered my hand and lifted my chin. Enough of the mental d.a.m.ned If You Do thing. Time to get moving, before I lost my nerve.

What I'd said to Paul before was true: in h.e.l.l, we take our names seriously. If someone speaks the name of an ent.i.ty residing in h.e.l.l, that ent.i.ty will hear the speaker, even if it's just a background voice nearly lost in the flotsam of nefarious whisperings. Whether that ent.i.ty would choose to address (or torture) the speaker was another story. Three times, I decided: speaking her name three times would be enough to get her attention.

"Alecto Erinyes," I called out. "You asked me to go to h.e.l.l to save your sister. Alecto Erinyes, I'm here, in h.e.l.l. Alecto Erinyes, she who was Jezebel is waiting for you."

In my mind, a presence stirred, a serpent uncoiling. Jesse Harris. Jezebel. You've come to do as I've asked?

Yes.

You've come freely, and of your own will?

Yes.

You've come to free Megaera?

Yes.

Then Come to me.

The Endless Caverns winked out, and in a blink I was somewhere else. I immediately shielded my face, but not before the brightest of lights dazzled my eyes, momentarily blinding me. Hazard of being summoned by one of the seven most powerful ent.i.ties in the Universe: sometimes that power shone through, dwarfing everything else.

c.r.a.p. I hated dealing with uber-powerful ent.i.ties without my sungla.s.ses.

"You who were the demon Jezebel," Alecto said, her voice deceptively light, almost girlish, "open your eyes."

Licking my lips, I lowered my arm from my face and opened my eyes to stare at a wall of small television screens, stacked like bricks, one atop another-all on, the volume just north of inaudible, and all set to different channels. My vision blurred as I took in the thousands of programs: newscasts and talk shows and political commentary and stand-up routines. I distinctly felt my mind lurch. During the best of times, with Paul lying next to me on the lumpy sofa in his living room, I had trouble trying to follow the text crawler at the bottom of the 24-hour news network while paying attention to the pretty anchors. Trying to focus on even one of Alecto's television screens now was like trying to read every word in the dictionary at once while singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in five languages simultaneously, in harmony with myself.

Gah.

My head throbbing, I turned away from the television wall to see a collage of thumbnail photographs-hundreds of thousands of them, colorful stills of people in mug shots and glamour poses, in candids and in formals, tacked to the adjacent wall. Each photo had a series of words printed beneath it. Names, I realized: for every photo, a name. Next to that came the bookshelves, teeming with books and tomes and magazines, words crammed into pages, those pages squished into covers, those covers squeezed onto thousands of shelves.

And then there were the maps. Hundreds of them, spread over every spare portion of wall not claimed by a picture or a television screen or a bookshelf: here a section detailing the villas in France; there, topographical drawings of the Australian Outback. From Darfur to Detroit, from Hong Kong to Helsinki, maps and plans and sketches of the corners of the world. If there was a color to the walls, it was long buried beneath televisual and static information. Data as wallpaper.

A ringing sounded in my ears, and my stomach threatened to revolt. Rather than explaining to my body that I couldn't vomit-I was dead, a soul without the need for food-I turned away from the televisions and pictures, to focus on the one piece of furniture in the room.

In the center of the floor sprawled a desk easily the size of a pregnant whale. Maybe it was a dining room table and not a desk-it was impossible to tell by its surface, which was completely littered with computers, books, and stacks of paper. Suspended behind the table, floating on nothing, was an enormous whiteboard. On it, in red, was a list. The first three items had check marks to the left of their entries.

Kingdom v. Kingdom Nation v. Nation Doctrines of Devils Tribulation Famine Abomination Earthquakes Eternal d.a.m.nation = Salvation I had a sinking suspicion these weren't new lyrics to INXS's "Mediate."

Amid the laptops and piles of books, the desk spoke. "I didn't think you were coming."

Standing on my toes, I tried to peer over the mountains of electronics and hardcovers. "Alecto? Erinyes, are you here?"

Mounds of papers were shoved aside, and a stack of books crashed to the hardwood floor, revealing a woman in her mid-thirties, her black hair coiled around her head in elaborate braids. Her exposed skin gleamed like olive oil beneath her rumpled white peasant blouse. A black scarf wrapped around her neck, its pattern mimicking snakeskin. Her lips pursed pencil thin, she stared at me, her large blue eyes so bloodshot that they nearly glowed. Exhaustion clouded her like perfume. I couldn't blame her; I was exhausted just looking around the office.

"Bless me," I said before I could stop myself, "you look horrible."

She smiled tightly. "I think I preferred you completely terrified and polite."

Whoops. I thought about falling to my knees and begging forgiveness, but I couldn't summon the fear to drive me. "I've come too far to be properly frightened, Erinyes."

That earned me a quiet laugh. "Death will do that, I suppose."

"It's a temporary condition."

"Perhaps." She shrugged, her bony shoulders jutting beneath the large shirt. "You're right. I look like s.h.i.t. You try keeping tabs on all of h.e.l.l and most of Earth, see if you get any rest."

"What are you," I asked, "His secretary?"

She opened a desk drawer and tapped in a code, and all the television screens muted. "Majordomo, actually."

The epitome of never-ending fury, trapped behind a desk. I shook my head, marveling at this display of chutzpah on the King's part. Then again, I had to admit, however grudgingly, that it was a particularly smart move. If I were in charge, I couldn't think of a better creature to be my go-to person. The Erinyes all had an affinity for seeing the truth of things and for predicting the most likely future. Add to that their nearly unlimited power and how almost every creature in existence was completely terrified of them, and you had at your disposal the most important players in all of Creation, save the Devil and the Almighty. And that last was a toss-up; it was rumored that even G.o.d Himself gave the Furies a wide berth.

I said, "Your Queen must be thrilled." Lyssa, the bird-woman G.o.ddess of madness, wasn't exactly known for her generous spirit; she guarded her role as Queen of the Furies with a mad conceit that made the Arrogant look positively humble.

Alecto grimaced. "Her name isn't spoken here."

Ooh, dirt. "Problems?"

"That isn't your concern." She sighed, closed the cover of the laptop closest to her. "Blessed thing's giving me eyestrain."

"Why don't you change forms, switch into something with stronger eyesight?" Maybe the rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Her mouth twisted into a sneer. "Dress code. The King insists on human attire when in the office."

"Ah." Workplace rules could be such a b.i.t.c.h. "So, majordomo of the Underworld. Not too shabby. It would look nice on a business card."

She leaned back in her chair, watching me. "I can't decide if your glibness is refreshing or annoying."

"I have that effect on people." One thing about being pushed beyond the limits of my endurance: I got very stupid. Next thing you know, I'd be chasing after the Minotaur, waving a red hat and singing "Raspberry Beret."

But it wasn't just me pushing my luck with the Fury. If I stopped to think about what I was doing, what I intended to do, it would paralyze me. How was I supposed to free Meg from a punishment she believed to be just? So I stalled, hoping that I'd get struck by a brilliant idea. I asked Alecto, "Do the thirteen Kings answer to you?"

"Eleven Kings. And no."

I blinked. "Eleven? But there are thirteen Kings of Sin and Land..."

"There've been some changes here in the past month." She leaned forward, closed another computer. "Some larger than others."

Thinking of the ruined Wall and the softening borders between Sins, I shivered. "So I've heard."

"Different rulers have different styles, of course," she said, her elbow resting on the desk and her fist cupping her chin. "He is not the Light Bringer. And some here appreciate that. Boiling down the Ten Great Rules into One, well, some would say that's genius."

"Some would say that's the sign of a megalomaniac."

"Careful," she said.

It was too late for caution. " 'Obey your King, or be destroyed.' King Lucifer never had to spell out such threats."

"As I said, times are changing." She glanced at the silent wall of televisions. "Times have to change. The dance for the Devil has gotten more complicated."

"I've heard about some of your changes," I said, remembering the words of the Arrogant after he failed to entice Circe to suicide. "Demons actively encouraging people to sin, instead of waiting until they actually sin before claiming them for h.e.l.l. It's wrong."

She shrugged. "Right and wrong, Good and Evil. Black and white. It doesn't work like that. What it all comes down to is survival. The Almighty wants the world and its peoples to survive. And that means keeping the Devil distracted, no matter what the method."

"I've noticed." I motioned to the televisions. "The news is full of goodies about genocide, homicide, patricide. A billion ides. Your doing?"

"To a degree. Humans have always excelled at Evil. Now we influence that Evil, help it along. Get them here that much quicker."

The irrationality behind the statement was enough to make my head spin. "Didn't it occur to you guys that the worse the mortals are on Earth, the more that will incite the Nameless One to watch Earth, to forget about the tortures of h.e.l.l?"

She stared at her hands. "All I can do is advise. I do not make the rules."

"The Rule," I said.

"Right." She paused, drumming her fingers on a stack of books. "He's still new to His role. With time, I think He would do an excellent job. There's a bloodl.u.s.t to Him that even He hasn't acknowledged."

You are too soft.

Even now, that judgment cut me to the quick.

"But there isn't time." Alecto sighed, leaned back in her chair. "For all of His changes, for all His decrees, it isn't enough. The Nameless One grows bored. You've seen it in the headlines Above. Our influence is nothing compared to that of the Devil."

"So stop f.u.c.king around," I said. "Stop enticing people to sin. Save the creativity for h.e.l.l itself. Make this place a beacon for Evil, not a shadow of the mortal coil."

Something pa.s.sed over her face, a string of emotions too quick to follow. Grimacing, she said, "My hands are tied."