The Devil Dances Read Online Free

at the moment, rubbing her legs together like a cricket as she watched the two of us from under her dark, luscious eyelashes. Vivian was hugely into voyeurism.
    I, on the other hand, was hugely into curvy redheads. “Viv?”
    “I like her,” Vivian said, stretching and sitting up on the bed, which made her big breasts bounce in an interesting way. “But if you get to play with Madam Butterfly, I want a shot with David and Sean.” She grabbed Sean by his 80’s-inspired skinny tie and kissed him, sucking the cold, sweet, aromatic smoke of his joint into her mouth before turning to David and passing it to him like a smoky snowball.
    I mean, you have to admire a girl who can do something like that. “You have a deal.”

ivian was still sensing my tension as I drove her home the next day. She’d rented an apartment in an old, de-sanctified Evangelical church on the outskirts of Blackwater. Since the town had about a gazillion churches, I didn’t think anyone missed it.
    Seriously, Blackwater is like the Promised Land for the devout of whatever denomination. Alongside the usual menagerie of Christian churches, there were three synagogues, a Jehovah Witness Hall, and even one small Church of Scientology. And that’s not counting the various pagan covens scattered throughout the region that usually met up at different practitioners’ homes on a regular basis. It certainly made you wonder about the town—or it made
me
wonder, anyway. I didn’t think Castle Rock and Salem’s Lot, combined, had this many safeguards against evil.
    I wasn’t complaining, mind you. Soldier angels couldn’t commit bloodshed in a holy place—even a de-sanctified one—which made the town something of a safe haven for creatures like Vivian and myself. Notice someone following you? Duck into the first old building you come upon. Chances were good it was at some point a church or holy meeting hall of some kind. Presto, instant frustrated soldier angel.
    I’d found the apartment for Vivian after the Seraph Malach put her on his big fat hit list—and before he and I had buried the hatchet, sort of. I hadn’t seen Malach in months, at least, but I figured he was probably busy dealing with the truly fucked up politics of an empty Throne and the scrambled ranks of angels with no Godhead. That didn’t mean he wasn’t still watching us, only that he was too busy to do anything about it at present. I knew if we stepped out of line, he’d get seriously pissed. You don’t want to deal with a seriously pissed Malach. There weren’t many folks I’d cross a street to avoid running into, but he was certainly one of them.
    “Something’s bothering you again,” Vivian said from the bucket seat beside me as I pulled up the drive that wound around behind her apartment building.
    I parked in her spot and shut off the Dodge Monaco’s massive engine, then lit a cigarette as I tried to turn my thoughts into words that made sense. I ran a hand through my bed head before saying, “Morgana shared some insights with me yesterday. I’ve just been rolling her words around my head, is all.” I hadn’t told her about the dead kid. I figured that was my bloody bag to handle.
    Vivian leaned back and rolled her pretty, sea-green eyes. “You worry too much about what Morgana says. She’s just jealous.”
    “Of you?”
    “Of
you
, Nick. Don’t you get it?” She tossed her long, russet hair off her shoulders and gave me a narrow-eyed, cattish look. “No matter how much she develops her powers, she will never be as strong as a daemon. We’re like natural tuning forks when it comes to the Craft. What we do naturally from birth,
they
have to learn to do over a lifetime.”
    “They?”
    “Humans.”
    “You do know you’re half-human?”
    Vivian turned to stare over the rather unkempt grounds of the apartment complex. There was a blue dumpster overflowing with trash and some crows bouncing around the mess, picking through the debris. She rubbed her