Succubus Takes Manhattan Read Online Free PDF Page B

walked in. One look at my face and she got up and hugged me before we sat back down and I ordered for us.
    We were on our third order of sake before I told her about Nathan’s call, and about being followed in Venice. And about Azoked showing up in my apartment and telling me that Nathan was going to be at Hatuman’s.
    “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “Wear the tan de la Renta dress. You’ll be the most smashing demon in the place. And we’ll have fun at the party, really. Besides, I don’t think Nathan is really going to be there. I think Azoked is a nasty little pussy.”
    We were both drunk enough to find that funny. Spending time with Desi was just what I needed.

 
    chapter
FIVE
    The cleaners screwed up. My dress wasn’t ready even though they’d had plenty of time. Time to change cleaners, but that wouldn’t help me for the party.
    Hatuman’s parties were always spectacular. He might be a demon stuck somewhere in the Stone Age, but it had been a Stone Age where throwing a good party was admired. Which was why all the important members of the Hierarchy would show. He wasn’t trendy, didn’t have a clue about the newest elegant boutique hotels or the hottest chefs in New York. So he booked the Waldorf-Astoria and put on a six-course dinner with a string quartet playing waltzes in the ballroom and a gambling setup worthy of Harrah’s.
    After much angst and six costume changes, I had finally settled on a short green Dior dress with bronze Christian Louboutin’s. Because I was vulnerable and an aggrieved party, my friends showed up at my place to coordinate before we arrived en masse. Eros added a few strokes of eye shadow in glitter moss and insisted that I use her dark vixen lipstick. Sybil fluffed my hair, which I had left loose in my natural long, heavy, dark auburn waves. Even Vincent made admiring noises and insisted that I turn and model at least twice.
    And then no one could find any more excuses to wait, so we went down and took two cabs over to the Waldorf.
    Most demons look reasonably mortal, and even those who don’t can fake it for an evening. Tonight’s crowd glittered with more genuine bling than any six guys with blankets down on St. Mark’s. But while they wore a fortune in jewels and the clothes were made of beautiful fabrics, the whole appeared oddly mismatched. Demons who had little reason to deal with modern Earth wore whatever their last idea of party clothes had been, and the result approached a Renaissance fair on crack. Demons wore frock coats with kilts, sixteenth-century kimonos, and ball gowns that would have been appropriate in Versailles.
    No one, I was certain, would look at me once, let alone twice, wearing a perfectly modern dress that had been featured in at least two photo spreads. Hard to feel uninteresting in Dior, but then I wouldn’t have been caught dead in the Worth number from 1902 that drifted by. As I recall, I rather disliked that dress in 1902 and it hadn’t improved with age. Neither had the demon in it.
    “Tahidra,” I greeted her, smiling stiffly. Really, with that grayish complexion she should not wear plum and silvery green. But then Tahidra had never had much of an eye for what looked good on her.
    She paused, studied me for a moment, clearly confused. “Lily,” I reminded her. “Last time you saw me was at Ludivico’s Saturnalia, I think.”
    “Oh, yes, excuse me. Always a pleasure,” she murmured before moving on. Okay, so she didn’t remember me. At first I felt hurt and then I remembered that she had been down in the bowels of Hell doing paperwork while I’d been working as Satan’s Chosen. I could afford a moment of pity.
    We swept through the party and even though we looked great (as opposed to outlandish) we didn’t see any sign of Nathan. Or Azoked either, come to think of it.
    The Akashic Record is never wrong and it never lies. But that doesn’t mean that the reporting Librarian might not take a few liberties, I thought. I