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from side to side before giving up with a gasp and letting itself be sucked into the night.
    I fought to control the helpless terror that gripped me as the Viper shot off in the opposite direction from where I’d been heading. What was especially disconcerting was the fact that my protective screens had come up without my telling them to, completely blocking my view.
    So to take stock of my situation... I was blinded, flying somewhere at about light speed, under the control of something I couldn’t see and had every reason to fear. To make things worse, my armpits were beginning to sweat onto my nice, black dress.
    Definitely one for the shitty day book.
    The Viper whizzed north, for about twenty minutes. At the current speed, which was about four hundred mph, I estimated that I should be well into Wisconsin, unless we were going the opposite direction, in which case I didn’t know where the Hades I was.
    I prayed for the Viper to stop and then when it did, I suddenly wished it would keep going. As I felt my vehicle slow and begin its descent, I checked all of my weapons and cursed myself for not bringing my ultraviolet light laser with me. Then, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I tried to prepare my mind for whatever battle lay ahead.
    The Viper settled silently into hover and I clutched the cross, which was secure on a chain around my neck to help me hold onto it in case the sucking thing was out there when I disembarked.
    My pulse pounding against my temples, I said, “Exiting.” The driver’s side door swung open and I forced myself to step out of the Viper. Looking around, I realized I was inside what looked like a large, empty warehouse. I flared my nostrils and closed my eyes, putting all of my energies into sensing the space for auras, but there appeared to be nothing, or no one, else in that room with me.
    “Well that’s just great! What the Hades am I doing here?” My voice echoed off the bare, concrete walls and came back to me as a rumble of deep laughter. I narrowed my eyes and plunged my hand into my coat pocket, where I’d stashed the holy water during my lovely, relaxing flight to my current destination.
    I really didn’t think my voice was that deep. “Who’s there?”
    The laughter stopped and something shimmered just on the periphery of my vision. I turned to meet it head on and my eyes landed on the most devastatingly gorgeous hunk of he-devil I’d ever seen.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Advocating Evil
    When evil has a pretty face, it’s often hard to fight,
    When evil has a crashin’ bod, you’re Hades-bound tonight.
    He moved toward me on long, straight legs that were encased in equally long, seductively tight pants of some kind of black, shimmery material. The pants climbed his legs lovingly, reaching toward an impossibly beautiful torso with tender fingers of cloth, and melted over his narrow hips before tucking themselves away a few inches below his trim waistline. His shoulders were broad and strained against the sheer white shirt he was wearing. Like a pulsating billboard hanging over Times Square, the shirt pronounced him a sexual predator. It was tucked into the shimmering pants but was left basically unbuttoned, showcasing a lean but well-sculpted chest of the most beautiful golden color I’d ever seen.
    As he walked, his pecs rippled and his biceps bulged against the tissue thin fabric of the shirt. My eyes finally made it to his face as he got within five feet of me and I almost forgot to raise the cross to stop him.
    His deep laughter rumbled through the room as he came to a casual stop and cocked his gorgeous head at me. “You have no reason to fear me...” the barest hesitation and then, “at the moment.” It was the deep, sexy voice from the televisual.
    I blinked. “You’re the advocate?”
    “I never said that.”
    I blinked again. “You didn’t?” I felt as if my mind had turned to water and was flowing out of my ears. My body felt languid and warm. Very warm if