I scratched my belly with my free hand. “Thanks, man. You want to join my friends for the orgy?”
His eyes widened as his lips thinned, trying to hold in laughter. “No, thank you, sir. I have to get back to the front desk.”
I shrugged and reached down to my pants to get Tony's wallet, only to remember that my cock and balls were on display. “Let me just get my wallet.” I turned around and bent over, showing the hotel clerk my butt, as I grabbed the designer leather wallet from Tony's discarded pants.
Even though Tony's body wasn’t the greatest. Too much whiskey and not enough exercise over the years, I didn't feel self-conscious at all. Perhaps that was why the clerk was trying hard not to laugh.
I'd literally exposed Tony's winking brown star to the poor guy, and I gave zero fucks. Why would I? I'd leave Tony's body behind in thirty hours, and I’d be back on Bleecker Street wearing a new set before you could say, 'Nightmare Demon.'
I tipped the guy a couple of hundred bucks. Enough to pay for a therapy appointment to talk about how much Tony's flabby ass had scarred him for life anyway.
I’d included a picture on Craig's List, so at least those guys knew what was up.
I rubbed my hands together, excited.
Grabbing the remote from the side, I smothered the remains of my rare steak in hot sauce and searched the pay-per-view for some hard-core gay porn.
I made sure to turn the volume up loud enough to annoy anyone staying in the rooms surrounding mine. Heh, heh, heh.
The men started to arrive a few minutes later. Black. White. Asian. They came one by one and shook my hand. I didn’t bother to put pants on.
Someone asked if I had lube. I did.
Did losing your virginity count if you're using someone else's body to do it? I had no idea. I just knew that I had two days to enjoy myself before my little Demon self was carted back to Dermot Dirk, my asshole boss.
Everyone was shedding their clothes when someone hammered on the door. The sound was aggressive and impatient. Unlike the tentative knocks of my orgy friends.
With a bright shining smile, I pulled open the door. Tony's watermelon pregnant hairy belly sagged over his erect cock.
The flushed face of the Underboss of the Gambino crime family stared back at me. His jaw was hard, and his fists were clenched. He was alone; he looked ready to kill Tony (and by extension, me).
I flicked through Tony's memories and saw his naked back as Tony's cock plunged inside, and love-filled eyes. Mario Russo-Tailor.
His chocolate brown eyes flicked over my shoulder.
“You're cheating on me, Caro?” His voice was whisper quiet.
My eyes widened. I couldn’t exactly explain that the man he loved had died several hours before at the hands of his unknowing wife—and that I was piloting his body.
“Umm—” I gripped the door to slam it closed. I needed more time to get acquainted with Tony's glitches and quirks. Usually, when I had a mission, I had more time to research. I'd been stuffed into Tony as a matter of convenience.
Mario Russo-Tailor pulled a gun. He pressed it between Tony's hairy moobs.
“Hey, man!” One of the more giant bears behind me held his hands out in surrender. “What the hell's going on?!”
Then Tony's secret gay lover shot me in the chest.
Chapter 1
The Four Seasons in Manhattan was a half-hour walk to Bleecker—or it would have been if I had legs.
I'd had to evacuate Tony in a hurry. The bears and twinks in the suite would have noticed their party organizer didn’t die when someone shot a hole through their heart.
I didn’t often play by the rules, but even I kept to the big Numero Uno.
Do not reveal the existence of Demons.
Because I was sans body, I couldn’t move in the daylight. I'd had to hang about in the shadows, waiting for the night to fall. I could move at the speed of smoke, mainly because that's kind of what I was, but I couldn’t just drift about on the sidewalk. That kind of thing was noticeable. Going invisible took too much energy.
Instead, I waited in the cleaning closet. Slipping inside when the cops turned up to investigate the gunshots.
When the streetlights started to flicker, and Central Park became a maze of lights in the darkness, I drifted outside. Using a garbage shoot to aid my journey.
Time doesn’t mean much to Demons. I had existed longer than humans had. Living in Hell at the bottom of the rung.
I was a Drude. A nightmare Demon. We were not well respected, which sucked monkey balls. We dealt in subconscious conflicts and fear. Though I liked to add a little bit of debauchery and mischief into the mix, just to spice things up a little.
I kept to the alleyways, sliding from building to building as I made my way back to Dirk’s on Bleecker.
Dermot Fucking Dirk.
I metaphorically dragged my heels as I made my way through the city. Waiting behind a dumpster for a crowd of people to pass, I contemplated hijacking a body to get me across town.
I could inhabit the newly dead. That was easy. Slipping into a live person was a bit more complicated. For one thing, they were already 'occupied.’ It’s hard to steer a car that already has a driver.
“Give me your fucking purse, bitch!” A gruff voice snarled. Scuffing shoes on the concrete and a female whimper.
I inhaled the scent of fear. Allowing the emotion to fill me and give me strength.
“Please! Don't hurt me! Here's my purse, just—”
A meaty thump as a hand met skin. Another sob.
As much as I liked fear, I didn’t like people hurting innocents. The mugger stank of pollutants. Rife with Greed and Sloth.
I drifted forward, my smoky form eating up the distance between the massive brute and his cowering victim. I tasted the edge of his mind. Cloudy and malleable. I wasn't some avenger of beaten women. I was an opportunist.
I decided to hitch a ride.
I just had to remember how to push myself into a body that was awake. It couldn’t be that hard.
The mugger drew his foot back to kick the diminutive woman. Her purse was clutched in her trembling fingers as she brandished it forward like both a weapon and an offering.
Here goes nothing.
I sank into his skin and wrapped myself around his mind. Ew. Yuck. Methamphetamine. It tasted like soap on the back of my throat. Chemicals. I ran my tongue along my new host's teeth, finding them rotting in his skull. Sharp where they had broken off in places, rough where they were blackened with decay.
I pulled the hulking body of the meth addict backward. His feet stumbled as I tried to balance with the rolling cocktail of drugs in his system. It took a second for me to push his presence to the back of his skull. I raised my arms up to stretch. Feeling my limps as I filled his body and made it my own.
The woman flinched when I moved.
Shit.
“Go!” I said, but the brute's voice turned it into a snarled command. The woman did not hesitate as she scrambled away and disappeared into a crowd of people on the brightly lit street. Almost another world away from the shadows.
I wiggled my new fingers and then my toes.
The meth addict had slumped down inside his own mental prison and fallen asleep. Docile.
I reached into my pockets and perused the contents. A condom wrapper and a Metro card. Score. Though it could be empty—knowing my luck.