The Sexorcist
Everything that can go wrong, will…especially when a demon
helps
things along.
Karmic Consultants, Book 3
When a mischief demon threatens a wedding, who’s a Karmic Consultant gonna call? Brittany Hylton-VanDeere. Brittany’s never planned a wedding before, but how hard could averting demon-induced matrimonial disasters be? Her particular brand of cockeyed optimism has always carried her through—but this time there’s a complication. A tattooed, badass exorcist who’s tempting her to break the no-office-dating rule.
Luis Rodriguez isn’t sure what to make of bright-eyed, somewhat illogical Brittany, but he’ll take any job that gives him a break from exorcising demons for pampered, lusting housewives. Helping pull off a wedding is not exactly his idea of a break, but who knew that Brittany’s infectious enthusiasm would be so, so seductive?
As the demon keeps finding ways to throw Brittany and Rodriguez together, they find themselves sliding deeper into a forbidden romance. But distractions are something they can’t afford. The demon’s aggression is rising, and it plans to stop the wedding. Even if it means stopping Brittany…permanently.
Warning: This book contains a hero guaranteed to heat things up, a heroine bound to tug your heartstrings, and enough demonic mischief to keep you smiling all the way to the chapel.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520
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The Sexorcist
Copyright © 2010 by Vivi Andrews
ISBN: 978-1-60504-992-2
Edited by Laurie M. Rauch
Cover by Natalie Winters
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: April 2010
The Sexorcist
Vivi Andrews
Dedication
More than anyone else, my editor Laurie M. Rauch is the reason this book exists. I cannot thank her enough for her willingness to take a chance on an untried author and for her continued faith in me and this series. Thank you, Grammar Geek, rockstar among editors.
Chapter One—The Desperate Housewives of the Seventh Circle of Hell
The front door of the McMansion swung open to reveal the lady of the house—though calling her a
lady
was a stretch.
She draped herself against the doorjamb, wearing a frothy green negligee-type thing that could almost pass for clothing. The sheer satin and lace concoction showcased her long, toned legs and the silicon symmetry of her breasts. She flipped her bleached and flat-ironed hair, licked lips already glistening with a heavy layer of reflective gloss and gave him a slow, sultry smile.
Luis Rodriguez cringed.
Madre de Dios, not again
.
“Mr. Rodriguez,” she purred throatily, batting lashes heavy with mascara. “How good of you to
come
.”
He nearly groaned aloud, but stopped himself when he realized the vamp on the doorstep might take that as encouragement. “You must be Mrs. Sullivan.”
And here’s betting poor Mr. Sullivan doesn’t have a clue what you’re up to
. “I understand you have a demon problem.”
Mrs. Sullivan shivered delicately and gave a contrived, breathy gasp. “It sounds so sexy when you say it.
Demon
problem. I can’t wait to see you
exorcise
it.”
He wasn’t sure how she managed to make exorcise sound dirty—triple-X porn dirty—but she did. She licked her too-shiny lips again, clearly hoping it would get him thinking of blow-jobs, but all he could think was how that neon gloss probably contained some toxic chemical that was rotting away her common sense and he didn’t want that shit anywhere near his junk.
She shimmied her shoulders and one strap of her barely there lingerie slipped off her shoulder.
Rodriguez kept his eyes on hers and his face controlled and expressionless. Professional. “Uh-huh. So where’s this demon of yours?”
If she said it was in her bedroom, he was walking. Karma could take it out of his ass later. He was not getting trapped with another desperate housewife in her boudoir.
“Are you always in such a hurry to get down to business?” Her voice was synthetically husky, the infomercial version of sexy.
It slices, it dices, it tears off your clothes! It’s the Seduct-o-matic!
She stroked a hand across her hip, causing the slinky fabric of her negligee to ride up and reveal too much upper thigh.
Since it didn’t look like she was going to let him do his job until he acknowledged what she was oh-so-subtly offering, Rodriguez hooked a thumb into his belt loop and shifted his weight back into what his little sister called his
cholo
pose. He took a minute to survey Mrs. Sullivan’s landscape, running his eyes from her pointy-toed heels to the bleached-into-submission roots of her hair.
The missus was a hot little number. Overblown and ten years his senior, but a certifiable MILF. If her full-court-press seduction weren’t as contrived as her plastic-surgery-perfect body, he might have even been flattered—even though she couldn’t have been less his type if she tried.
Rich, materialistic, and fake. The trifecta. No, thank you.
Lately, Rodriguez had been seeing a lot of the rapacious trophy-wife set. Apparently the demon community had scented their desperation and called open season on aging arm candy.
And every, single, freaking time he showed up to rid them of their demonic infestations, the wives were waiting for him with open arms. And legs.
At first, the attention had been flattering. There was no way he was ever going to screw someone else’s wife, but initially their attraction to him had at least seemed genuine. They’d waited until they met him before deciding they wanted to fuck him.
Now his new clients were lubed up and ready to go before they even called Karma to schedule an appointment. It was getting downright insulting.
Evidently, banging the Mexican gardener was passé. The hot new accessory in cabana boys this season was Mexican exorcists. Lucky him.
“You got a demon or what?” It was too blunt, borderline rude—Karma’d kick his ass if she heard him talking to clients that way—but Mrs. Robinson here didn’t seem too keen on subtlety.
She pouted, thrusting out her collagen-puffed lower lip. Rodriguez squinted against the reflection off the gloss.
She must have realized she wasn’t going to get to play hide the enchilada with her very own Latin lover, because she gave a genuine sigh and stepped back to let him into the house.
“It’s upstairs,” she said in a normal, non-Seduct-o-matic voice. “In my daughter Amber’s room.”
Rodriguez shouldered his pack of exorcizing accessories. “Lead the way.”
She twitched her buns-of-steel in his face all the way up the stairs and down a wide hall until she reached a door with an enormous poison warning sticker taped to it. He wondered for a moment if that was how she was marking the demon-infestation site, but then she shoved open the door and he realized the poison sticker was just typical teen rebellion.
The entire house looked prepped for an unannounced photo shoot from
Better Homes and Gardens
, except this room. Blackout curtains covered the windows and heavy black cloth lined the walls where they weren’t covered with posters for death metal bands and drawings of figures with blood dripping from their fangs.
A girl of about fourteen sat in a wooden dining-room chair in the center of the room, strapped to it with a collection of expensive leather belts. She was thin and pale, with mousy brown hair artfully snarled around her face. She glared at them as they entered.
Mrs. Sullivan moved to stand near her daughter. She patted the back of the chair, careful not to actually make physical contact with the fruit of her loins. “Amber thinks she’s a vampire,” she said, with a moue of distaste.
Amber slouched in the chair with a sulk of such classic adolescent disdain that Rodriguez would have been positive there was absolutely nothing supernatural at work here—if not for the fact that Amber’s body gave off an angry red pulsation of energy.
“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Rodriguez said, crouching down in front of the subject. “But she’s definitely possessed.”
He straightened and Mrs. Sullivan shifted back into seduction mode. She wrapped her hands around his biceps and pressed his arm against her breasts—right in front of her daughter. Or rather, her daughter’s possessed form.
Charming
.
“Can you help her?” she asked breathily, batting her eyelashes hard enough to give herself whiplash.
“Yeah.” Rodriguez tugged his arm out of her clutches. “Why don’t you watch…from over there.” He pointed to the bed on the opposite end of the room. “So you’re out of the, you know, the uh, danger zone.”
Total bullshit. He could have exorcised a little bitty demon like this one while she held sweet Amber’s hand, but he wanted her as far away from him as possible.
Unfortunately, he hadn’t anticipated what Mrs. Sullivan would think when he pointed her toward the bed. She gave a little giggle and trotted over to the bed. She then splayed herself across the dark purple coverlet—thankfully out of the line of sight of her possessed daughter—and began running her hands over her own body. And moaning.
Rodriguez squinted at her for a second, just to make sure the daughter was the only one who was possessed. But no halo of vicious red energy surrounded Mrs. Sullivan. She was just like that.
Poor Amber.
Some subjects of possessions described their memories of the time while their bodies were inhabited by demons as seeing the world through a red haze, while others reported their memories completely wiped away. For Amber’s sake, he hoped she fell into the latter group. Nothing like having your mother’s trampiness rubbed in your face to mold a young girl just coming into her own sexuality.
Rodriguez crouched again, setting his pack on the floor and digging out the necessary tools. Holy water, crucifix…performing an exorcism was more about focus than faith, but the two often went hand in hand and Rodriguez found the icons of his Catholic upbringing made the exorcisms go more smoothly.
He did his best to ignore the cooing and moaning emanating from the bed and focused instead of the sullen glower of the teen in front of him. He slowly began chanting. The familiar rhythm of the Latin words was almost a physical presence in the room, a vise tightening around the demon. The thin body in the chair arched and convulsed.
“Damn you, Exorcist!” the demon snarled. “I was promised at least a week on this plane and I’ve only been here a few hours. I’ve been tied up the whole time and not even in the fun way.” Little Amber cursed him in a grotesquely low voice as the demon struggled against his entrapment. The resistance was token at best. The demon wasn’t powerful enough to put up too much of a fight.
From the bed came a gasp of awe—or orgasm, it was hard to tell—and Rodriguez felt a stab of pity for Amber that had nothing to do with the demon possessing her body. He’d be done in less than an hour and out of this house for good. Amber Sullivan was stuck with her mother for life.
As the chanting focused his power and enabled him to wrap it around the demonic being inhabiting Amber, Rodriguez saw the demon more clearly. Its name appeared, emblazoned like a fiery red tattoo across Amber’s forehead, visible only to him.
Ordoch
.
The demon’s curses switched languages—at least he thought the gibberish pouring out of Amber’s mouth was the demonic language—and grew louder, the girl’s vocal chords ripping and snarling over sounds no human throat was meant to make. The demon was of the mischievous rather than malevolent variety, but that didn’t make the words coming out of her mouth sound any less evil.
The demonic tongue sounded like it had been forged in the fires of hell by the prince of darkness himself. But then so did German. Ordoch was just bitching about its vacation being cut short, but to the layperson, it was a dramatic show. Mrs. Sullivan was certainly impressed, if the orgasmic moaning from the bed was any indication.
Rodriguez wished they would both shut up. His other exorcisms had been much quieter.
He frowned, the truth of that statement ricocheting in his mind. None of the previous mischief demons he’d exorcised for the housewives had been verbal. Which meant they couldn’t answer questions.
This
one, however…
He smiled. Finally, he had a chance to ask
why
the desperate housewife demographic was suddenly being targeted.
“
Ordoch
,” Rodriguez said, making the name a command, a call of power.
The demon hissed at the sound of its name and fell silent, crouched down in the chair as much as the restraining belts would allow.
“Who summoned you here?”
“What?” The sudden yelping sound that came from the bed was a far cry from Mrs. Sullivan’s previously pre-orgasmic moans. “No! You don’t need to know that! Just get rid of it!”
Suspicion congealed in Rodriguez’s gut. “Who,
Ordoch
?”
“Katrina Sullivan,” the demon hissed.
“I did not!” Mrs. Sullivan bounded off the bed, her eyes wide and guilty. “You can’t prove it!”
Rodriguez arched a brow. “Demons can’t lie, Mrs. Sullivan. Something you might want to consider before you call another one to possess your daughter.”
“I would never!” she protested again, clearly having missed the part about demons being helplessly truthful.
“Sit down,” he ordered. “You can try to think up a good excuse while I exorcise this demon from your daughter. Hopefully before she sustains permanent damage.”
“Damage?” Mrs. Sullivan bleated. “They didn’t say it would hurt her. I would never hurt Amber.”
“Yeah, you’re mother of the year. Sit down, Mrs. Sullivan. You can tell me all about
them
and what
they
told you about possession just as soon as I’m done here.”
She plopped down onto the bed, no longer looking like an eager nymph. She looked more like she was about to lose her lunch all over her designer heels.
Rodriguez was feeling pretty queasy himself. What kind of person called up a demon to possess her own child? And what kind of people told her how to do it?
He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer to either question.