Demon Seduction by Penny Alley

Kaelythus the Corruptor stood in the middle of the alley between 32nd and Shiloh Avenue, a bag of groceries balanced in the crook of his arm, thoroughly annoyed. Once upon a time, in the follies of his youth (and he was not so old and stagnant that he could not remember it), the sight of switchblade knives and back alley muggings had held the power to brighten his mood. Up until tonight, however, he'd never found himself staring down the length of said knife-the sharpened steel catching the light of a passing car at the alley's entrance-nor had he ever been mugged before. Try as he might, he just could not summon up that old familiar sense of wonder and joy. All he felt was the cold spot on his chest where his Hot Pockets were pressed up against him. Thawing. 

The young man beckoned, both with the knife and his empty hand. "Wallet. Right now." 

Frowning, Kael did his best not to grind his teeth in aggravation. He wanted to go home. He wanted his supper. He wanted a drink, maybe two, and he wanted to go to bed. 

"Boy," he growled. "You know not what you do." 

"Buddy." The young man moved closer, gripping and re-gripping his knife. "I will cut you. Don't fucking push me." 

Oh, for those bygone days when such menacingly offered sentiments could put a bounce in his step and a smile on his face. Kael's frown deepened. He was not only unimpressed, he was about as far from smiling as a demon from the ninth echelon could get. Maybe Feturu was right. Maybe he was becoming...fry-able. 

"Wallet," the boy said again, clearly running out of patience. 

Well, so was Kael. 

Shifting his groceries to his other arm, he reached into his coat pocket as if in retrieval of his money, not that he withdrew any. In a puff of sulfurous foulness, he showed himself instead. Not the staid human disguise that he'd been forced to adopt all those centuries ago when first the choice had been made to send him here. No, the form he revealed now was his true and massive self-his muscle, his horns, the bony spurs that lined his shoulders, chest and back. He showed the fire and the midnight black of his eyes, and by the time he got around to showing the fine points of his teeth, there wasn't any further need. His would-be mugger had already high-tailed it halfway down the alley and showed no signs of stopping any time soon. Screaming like a small female child, he might add. And not only had he dropped his knife but, by the smell of it, he'd also wet himself. 

Deplorable. What was the criminal element in this city coming to? 

Kael listened to the echoes of those high-pitched screams growing fainter by the second before turning his attention back to more important matters. In specific, his Hot Pockets. They were growing warm in the crook of his arm. 

"Home again, home again," he mused, the demonic undertones of his deep and graveled voice shifting back into the damn-near melodic tones of a human male once more. Was it jiggity jig, or jiggity jog that followed the second verse of that rhyme? He could never remember. Not that it mattered. He wasn't having the ham and cheese tonight anyway. Mm, pepperoni and monosodium glutamate. He could hardly wait. 

"Honey, my ass," he rumbled as he started walking again. MSG was, in his opinion, the one true nectar of the go- 

He stopped, staring down at the light shining around his shadowed feet. Why was there a yellow glow on the concrete? 

Oh shit. 

Snapping his head back, Kael looked up between the turn-of-the-century apartment buildings that flanked him and into the open second-story window directly above. He knew that window. Even worse, he knew the woman standing in the full and golden glow, wearing it like it were a halo. She was his across-the-alley neighbor-not the tall, lankish brunette (who spent more time seducing her way through a four-year business degree than studying), but the quiet little blonde, whose bedroom window opened onto his. What was her name?