Soul Stripper (24 page)

“Then you’re going to make it very hard for me to keep saying no,” I said.

He laughed in a low, grumbling way. “That’s sort of the point.” His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, and I turned my head to kiss it. “Do I at least get a good-bye kiss?”

I opened my mouth to welcome his lips. To my right, a loud clicking crackled through the air like a thunderbolt. I froze, my lips millimeters from Drew’s. When I looked over at his desk, a Newton’s cradle I had never noticed there before was rocking back and forth furiously.

“H
ow long have you had that?” I whispered, gesturing to the Newton’s Cradle. My eyes darted wildly around the room looking for signs of another immortal.

Drew pulled back and scratched his head. “Huh. You know, I’m not sure. I don’t even remember buying one of those.” He leaned down to look closer.

A knock came from the other side of the door, and Julian barged through without waiting for either of us to let him in.
Someone was in here.
His eyes were wide and his chest puffed out protectively. “We, uh, need to get going, Monica.” He swallowed and shifted his gaze to Drew. “Sorry, we have an appointment.”

With Julian’s entrance, the Newton’s Cradle moved even more wildly, thrashing from side to side. I sent Julian a wide-eyed glare.
You’re more powerful than whatever was just in here,
I thought.

A knowing look washed across Jules’s face.

“Oh, okay,” Drew said, looking back and forth between Jules and me. “So, uh—I guess I’ll see you later?”

I forced a smile and nodded. “Yes.” I took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “I’ll see you later.”

 

Within a few minutes, we were back in my car, Jules behind the wheel. I ran my fingers along the length of my collarbone, which was still hidden by my turtleneck. My necklaces—the panic button and the one Wills had given me—were still underneath my shirt. I pulled the collar away from my body, and leaving the panic button inside my shirt, I lifted the blue stone out so that it could be seen.

Jules slid a glance over at me. “I noticed that necklace the other day—the day you almost drowned. Where did you get it?”

“The stone was a gift from a client—and Wills had it made into a necklace for me.”

Jules nodded. “I can tell it’s connected to demon magic.”

This made me pause. “Well,” I said, thinking, “Wills is a demon. His jeweler contact is probably a fellow demon friend.”

Julian shook his head. “No, not the necklace itself—the stone. The stone would be too hot for me to touch. Like fire.” He glanced my way quickly before bringing his eyes back to the road. “It probably feels warm to you a lot, yes? Like the temperature of body heat?” I nodded, and he shrugged a shoulder. “Yep. A previous owner was probably a demon. Not surprising around these parts.”

“But—but it was a human who gave it to me.”

“Not a demon?”

I shook my head, a gnawing fear starting to develop in my stomach. He patted my leg reassuringly, but two frown lines framed his perfect mouth. “I’m sure it’s fine. There are far more demons in the Vegas area than most places. But Lucien and I will check into it deeper, just to be sure.”

Running a fingernail along the stone, I couldn’t push down an uneasy feeling, the kind you get when you walk into an empty room late at night. “Should I take it off?”

Julian shrugged. “Only if you want to.”

I didn’t really have a response for that. “Wouldn’t it raise suspicion with the murderer if I stopped wearing it suddenly?”

His mouth tilted and he put a hand on my knee. “It could. For now, at least, you’re probably safe to keep it on if you want to.” His mouth twitched upward. “At least with me here, you are.”

Using the tip of my nail, I picked at my cuticles again, pushing them back away from the nail. “So where are we off to?”

“A movie set.”

“Oh! A movie!” Little butterflies fluttered around in my stomach at the mention of that. “I didn’t know they were filming a movie around here right now.” Part of me always wanted to be a movie star—as did a lot of other succubi of course. “You know, I was once up for the same part as Grace Kelly. Would’ve gotten it too if Hitchcock hadn’t been so damn obsessed with her.”

His lips pressed together in a smile. “Envious of Grace Kelly, are we?”

“Do
I
have my own castle? A princess title?” I was only half kidding.

“No, but you have immortality.”

“Not at the moment.” My voice dropped. We both remained silent for the rest of the drive.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of a midsize ranch-style home. There were a couple of cars in the driveway—but no trailers. No craft services. No reflectors or giant lights outside of the windows of the home. It looked like no movie set I had ever been on. I gestured palm up to the house. “
This
is where the movie’s being filmed?”

He turned off the car. “Yup.”

And that’s when the realization dawned on me. “No,” I said. “No, no, no,
no!
This better not be Lyla’s porn company.” When Julian didn’t say anything, I kicked my feet around the floor of the car. “I don’t want to go in there,” I whined.

“And you think I do?” he countered.

That made me take pause. If Julian is willing to step on the set of a porno film in the making, there had to be a really good reason for doing so.

“You think this is important?” I asked.

He turned to face me in the bucket seat of the car. “Would I be here if it wasn’t? This isn’t an issue of modesty. This is about saving your life.”

With a deep breath, I opened the door and got out of the car. “Then what are we waiting for?”

Together, we walked toward the front door. “How are we handling this? Are we pretending to be detectives?”

“You know I can’t lie.”

“So let me do the lying.”

His shoulders slumped with a small sigh. “If you say you’re a detective, they’ll want to see identification. You’re better off going in there looking for some sort of”—he paused, shooting me a sideways glance and grimaced as he said it—“
job
prospect.”

“And then who are you supposed to be? My pimp?”

“Porn stars don’t have pimps.”

I snorted at that. “Oh? How would
you
know?”

We were standing outside the front door by now and talking in hushed tones. He raised a fist and knocked twice on the door. “Wait!” I whispered. “We didn’t even come up with a plan—”

But my words were cut off by the door swinging open. A scrawny guy with a patchy goatee and a backward baseball cap stood in front of us. “Well, it’s about time!” His eyes widened and he looked back and forth between us. “Well, come in, come in. We need to get started. You’re fucking forty minutes late.”

I held up a finger. “Um, I think you have the wrong idea.”

He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me inside. “Come on, we need to get you into the makeup chair right away.”

“M-makeup chair?” My words were stuttered, and there were suddenly several people circling around Julian and me. One guy had his hand on my ribs, and another woman had her hands brushing through my hair. “We’re not the talent!” I tried to yell over them, only no one heard amidst the hum of chatter in the air.

“Get your hands off of her!” Julian’s voice boomed through the air. Everyone in the room froze, including me. Jules rarely raised his voice. He was much more the quiet and brooding “let’s talk it out” type of guy.

The man touching my ribs pulled back immediately, hands in the air as if surrendering. “Whoa, whoa, sorry, dude. We’re just preparing her for the scene.”

Julian’s voice was back to being quiet but still as dangerous as before. The low growl of a jungle cat. “She’s not your talent for today.” He looked at me, and I still stood there shocked, frozen.
Monica,
he thought,
finish the lie for me!

I shook my head, snapping out of the trance. “No—I-I’m not.” I cleared my throat, nerves shooting up and down my body like electricity. “I just wanted to talk to you about, um, about the process of applying for a job. To be, you know”—I paused—“a
star.
” I tried not to sound sarcastic. Julian shot me a look making it pretty clear I did not succeed.

Aren’t you supposed to be good at this lying thing?
he thought.

I scowled at him before continuing. “So, who would I talk to about the, uh, interview process?”

“Interview?” The scruffy guy in the hat scoffed at that. “Sweetheart, we don’t do ‘interviews.’ We do auditions.” I stood there a moment, my eyes wide, mouth agape. “And your pretty boy here? He want to audition, too?”

“Him? No, no, definitely not. He’s, um, he’s my—”
See,
I thought, pausing midsentence,
this is why we needed to figure our story out before coming in!

“I’m her bodyguard,” Julian said.

“Great,” Scruffy said. “Well, let’s start the audition, shall we?”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’m ready right now. . . .”

“Look.” Scruffy took off his hat and ran a hand through his greasy hair. “We’re running late. Our leading lady isn’t here. We could really use someone right about now. You’re hot”—he looked my body up and down—“if not a little prudish, but hey, lots of guys love that sort of thing.”

I looked at Jules, who was staring at me thoughtfully, his head tipped to the side.
You could get your next fix here. None of these guys are going to Heaven, I guarantee it. The makeup artist is the only good aura in the room.

You have
got
to be kidding me.
I held Jules’s eye contact, my lips pressed into a line. This day was turning out to be a naked nightmare.

You need powers to survive. You’re going to have to do it with somebody.
I was sure to the group standing around us, we looked like a couple of weirdos just staring at each other like this.

I’ve grown accustomed to it.
I thought I saw his shoulders slump a little.

“Well?” Scruffy tapped a foot impatiently.

I nodded. “Okay. But I have a couple conditions.” Scruffy raised his eyebrows, waiting. “I want a wig with black hair. And since this is only an audition, I don’t want to have sex with anyone.”

“What?” Scruffy threw his hands in the air. “What do you expect me to do with a video of no sex?”

I stood a little taller and put my hands on my hips. “I don’t know how often you require your ‘talent’ ”—I could barely say the word without rolling my eyes—“to get tested for STDs. And until I know these things, I’m protecting myself.” I slid a look at Julian, who was wearing a soft smile. It must have been a small comfort to him.

“Okay.” Scruffy was starting to sound really annoyed with me. “So what
will
you do?”

“I’ll . . .” I thought for a moment, thinking back to past porn I had seen. “I’ll masturbate. For your male star. And he can masturbate while watching me. He can come on my tits and stomach.”

Scruffy mulled that over for a moment. “Done. Get her into makeup and find the girl a dark wig.”

 

The makeup chair was nothing fancy—just a worn-out kitchen chair set up in front of a mirror in the bathroom. Julian stood in the doorway while Mary, the makeup artist, worked her magic on my face. I closed my eyes and relaxed, enjoying the little bit of time I had to rest. Mary was curvy and wore wide-leg jeans and a cardigan sweater over a silk top. She had big, curly brown hair and eyeliner that swept across her eyelids dramatically.

I cleared my throat. “So, where is your usual star? Why didn’t she show up today?”

She held up a brush and a palate with various eyeshadow colors lined up in a row. “Close your eyes,” she said. “The girl today was just a fill-in. Our previous star”—the words caught in her throat—“is no longer with us.”

I stole a quick glance at Julian, who just barely nodded, urging me to continue. I closed my eyes as she asked and leaned my head back in the chair. “She get a better paying gig?”

There was a moment of silence before Mary spoke. The brush swept over my eyelids ever so gently. It was almost a seductive gesture. “No. She—she passed away.”

“Oh.” I put on my best sympathetic voice. “I’m so sorry. How terrible. Was it unexpected?”

She sniffled, and I wished I could see her expression. “Yes, very unexpected.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said again. With closed eyes, I didn’t have a lot of room to show my sincerity. I just had to make do, I guess.
What else to ask, what else to ask . . . ugh, this is hard!
“Um, you two sounded close. Were you good friends?”

I stole a peek with one eye and saw her shaking her head. “Not especially. It just—I don’t know, it was so sudden. I think it made everyone here consider their own mortality.” I wanted to tell her that the rest of the people out there had the depth of a petri dish. I doubt they consider what they eat for breakfast, let alone their own mortality. When she didn’t tell me to close my eyes again, I went ahead and opened both to look at her.

“So what happened?”

“The cops were crawling all over this place. She had filmed a scene the morning before she died, and they were suspicious of all of us. It was terrible.” She wiped her sleeve across her nose, and I resisted the impulse to lean away, disgusted.

“Well, why would the cops care? Did they suspect some sort of foul play?”

She nodded. “She was murdered. And since those of us in the sex industry are all
vagrants,
we were the immediate suspects.” She smiled softly at me, her brown eyes crinkling around the corners. “But I guess I don’t have to tell you that. I’m sure you know better than any of us, being in the spotlight.”

I sort of liked this girl despite her odd sense of style and frumpy mannerisms. There was something very genuine and even—I don’t know—sweet about her. I shrugged. “I haven’t been doing this for long, but as a stripper I definitely get my share of those looks, too.”

She nodded and applied heavy smears of blush to my cheeks. “It was just the first time I’d ever been called out like that. Looked at like less of person by those cops.”

I glanced over at Julian, who was still leaning against the doorframe, pretending to be captivated by
People
magazine. He glanced up, meeting my eyes, and his eyebrows arched in encouragement.