Excerpt

Chapter One

It's not every day you see a she-devil in a bar on Earth. And not just any she-devil, but Naamah, Queen of Seductresses. And Lucifer's right hand.

Reclining in my chair, my face tilted toward the sunlight, that rare spectacle would have eluded me had I not picked that moment to glance up.

I squinted against the sun. I had moved the umbrella and rearranged most of the patio bar to get myself that delicious piece of sun-drenched sky. Normally, I avoided sun. I came from an environment of diffuse light and perpetually drifting clouds. I burned easily. But then I'd discovered sunscreen and decided to acquire the one thing I'd never had in my life—a tan.

As a fallen angel, I didn't have much to do these days. So as long as the weather held, a tan was a definite possibility.

Alex had taken pity on me when Heaven cast me out. We now lived together in his lakefront condo. To say this new lifestyle was a bit of an adjustment for me was the understatement of an eon.

Banished. I could barely think the word without cringing. Unemployed sounded marginally better. But then, angels are never truly unemployed. Just banished. Surely by now I'd stopped making headlines on Utopia Network's nightly news.

Or not. I was afraid to ask.

So there I was, a thin layer of sunscreen standing between me and red, itchy skin, sitting on the patio of a Harbourfront bar. I was watching the sun sparkle on the water and waiting for Alex to get home from work, when a shadow drifted between me and the sun.

I glanced up, annoyed. I hadn't staked out this prime spot to have someone cast me in shade. That's when I noticed that this particular silhouette moved with a sashay that seemed horribly familiar. Only one type of wildlife could turn an ordinary walk into a sensuous dance. A she-devil.

I sat up slowly, trying not to draw attention to myself. The shadow passed in front of me wearing a straw hat with a large brim. Large enough to hide a pair of red horns beneath. But then, lots of people wore hats. That meant nothing. Pretending to drop my swizzle stick, I leaned over for a closer look.

As she rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of a beaded tail beneath her scandalously short leather skirt.

"Damnation!" I whispered. And hoped The Big Guy hadn't heard me. I had to be careful now. I was mortal. I had to behave.

I watched the back of her red leather skirt swing off around the corner. I straightened, pulled the umbrella back in place to block my face and peered around the edge.

A she-devil in a Harbourfront bar. I shot another furtive glance in her direction just to be sure of my initial impression. My heart sank. Naamah, the head she-devil. I'd recognize that arrogant swagger anywhere.

Which begged the question. What was Naamah doing on Earth? I pondered for a moment. She couldn't be looking for me. Decommissioned, I was no threat to her. Then again, perhaps Naamah hadn't heard I'd been sentenced to mortality.

A more disturbing notion occurred to me. Naamah and I had once battled over Alex's soul. Could she be hunting Alex once again?

If Naamah roamed the pier, I reasoned, it meant trouble for the entire Earthly plane. I had to find out what she was up to.

Deciding to give chase, I bolted from my chair. Metal collided with concrete, but I didn't glance back. A couple of patrons looked up from their drinks. I nearly ran down an elderly lady with a stained white poodle coming around the corner. The poodle barked. His owner glared at me with rheumy eyes.

"So sorry," I called back over my shoulder, and nearly fell into the solid form of a bouncer. Looking up into beady dark eyes, I couldn't help marveling how taproom wildlife was shockingly similar no matter which plane of existence you were on. I grinned, slapped a ten-dollar bill into his hand as payment and rushed from the patio.

A streetcar pulled up in front of the building. Workers on summer flex hours got off. Parents and children heading for the boardwalk and the ferry docks streamed out behind them, followed by tourists with street maps. The crowd slowed my progress. And by the time it cleared, Naamah had vanished from sight.

I scanned the sidewalk, but none of the pedestrians looked like she-devils. Turning away from the traffic rushing by on Queen's Quay, I headed back toward the harbor.

A craft fair had been set up on the grass next to the pier. Canvas tents fluttered in the sluggish breeze. Any of those stalls could be harboring a she-devil.

A trio of portly matrons bottlenecked the path through the booths. I tried to squeeze by them, but no amount of impatient sighing could distract them from their perusal of potholders bearing cutesy cats. Then, disappearing between a display of silver jewelry and a table of baked goods, I caught a glimpse of red.

I crawled under the table. The proprietor squealed as I brushed past her bare legs. I clawed my way over the uneven ground, getting grass stains on my knees, and emerged on the other side. The owner looked angrily in my direction, but a question from one of the cat ladies diverted her attention. Free enterprise, I thought with a smirk and tore off down the aisle.

Up ahead a crowd had gathered beside a stall selling fresh ice cream. I could have sworn I saw the swishing tip of Naamah's tail disappear between the backsides of two men who really shouldn't have been indulging in dessert. The gap in the crowd closed, leaving me squished between two sweating ten-year-olds. It was hard to compete with ice cream on a hot day. No one seemed inclined to let me pass.

The sudden shrill sound of a saxophone made me jump. I craned my neck to see through a gap in the tent. A group of swing dancers had set up a demonstration. The music blared from the overloaded speakers of a lone boom box. But the dancers in black skirts with fuchsia crinolines didn't seem to notice the distortion or the heat as they spun like colored tops. In their midst I noticed a lithe figure in red and a straw hat. One of the male dancers caught her in a swingout and spun her off. Gaping at the swish of her tail beneath her leather skirt, he lost his step and stumbled. His partner planted her hands on her hips and glowered at him.

I ducked under a flap of the tent and raced off along the grass. But by the time I reached the troupe, the dance had faltered in disarray and Naamah had disappeared. From behind me loud voices complained about the slow service at the ice-cream counter. Patrons argued over the prices in the bazaar. The ground seemed to hug the heat closer. Tempers frayed and snapped. It might be because of the heat wave, I thought, trying to rationalize it all. But I knew better. A she-devil had come to town. I had to find her.

Down on the boardwalk, I heard the sound of metal impacting wood. I turned in time to see a rickshaw spilling its passengers onto the ground. Several people ran to help. I followed them.

The braying of a donkey brought me skidding to a stop. Beside the craft fair, a maze of wooden pens held a petting zoo. And in the menagerie, chaos reigned. Horses stampeded their stalls, a litter of piglets had gotten loose and were running for freedom across the boardwalk, followed by red-faced handlers trying to round them up. Children cried. Parents proclaimed their outrage.

Across the pens, I saw a flash of red. As Naamah passed, the donkey bolted from its cubicle, scattering splinters of wood, trainers and children. Chickens squawked in outrage and pecked at each other, trying to get away from the she-devil. I scrambled out of the way of a goat hell-bent on getting to the grass, and nearly missed being trampled by a spitting llama. When I looked back, Naamah was gone.

Then, like a fresh breeze, the atmosphere changed. The line at the ice-cream stand cleared and the dance resumed. The driver loaded his passengers back in the rickshaw. A couple of confused goats gnawed at the grass.

Business on the boardwalk went on as usual. But I'd seen too much to chalk it up to a series of weird coincidences.

I searched the pier for signs of the she-devil. But no one in a leather mini or sun hat strolled there. Perhaps she'd embarked on one of the boats lined up along the pier beside the mall. I wandered by a couple of harbor cruise boats, but the few passengers were tourists in white shorts. Heat crinkled the air above the pier, broken only by a light breeze off the lake. With all my rushing around I'd started to attract nervous looks.

I made myself walk leisurely across the boardwalk until I reached the glass doors to the waterfront mall. Wrenching the door open, I hurried inside and narrowly missed colliding with a sweating businessman in a wool suit.

The cool air was a shock after the heat outside. The smell of pizza from the food court permeated the mall.

I flitted from one glass-fronted store to another, trying not to alarm the patrons. But no she-devils perused the gift shops. That feeling of uneasiness ramped up to alarm. If Naamah wasn't in the mall, she had to have headed for the condos on the upper floors…and that was where our apartment was.

Darting through the crowd, I endured several angry stares. "Pardon me" and "excuse me" didn't seem to help. Finally, I reached the corridor that led to the condo elevators.

As I got there the doors were sliding closed. I looked around. The corridor was empty, the she-devil nowhere in sight.