I flinched. Yasmine glared at him. "Can't you see she's upset? Show some compassion."

"Denizens of evil deserve none," he muttered.

Across the room, Whitney stood by the door. She'd spoken little, so her voice startled me. "All creatures deserve compassion." I looked up and met her eyes. They were dark and bottomless, filled with power and emotion. I had the sensation of falling into that blackness, much like I experienced with Carter sometimes. I decided I didn't like hanging out with angels. They did a lot of soul searching—and usually it involved mine.

More awkward silence fell. "Okay, okay," I said. "We don't all have to spill our feelings and hold hands here. Tell me what you need me to do."

"You're going to be bait, Georgina," said Carter.

"I'm always bait," I grumbled. "Why is that? Why do these things keep happening to me?" Not too long ago, I'd had to play bait for a date-raping demigod. I hadn't been any happier then than I was now.

I expected a joke, but Carter's response was serious. "Because you're one of those unique individuals whom powers in the universe tend to gather around."

That was worse than being a conduit. I didn't want any of those things. I didn't want to be a target. I wanted my quiet life back where I worked in a bookstore and had a blissful, perfect relationship with my boyfriend. Okay, I'd never had such a relationship yet, but a girl can dream.

Dream.

Bad choice of words.

"Unfortunately," said Yasmine delicately, "Joel is right to a certain extent. We do need you to, um, replenish your energy in order to lure Nyx out." Joel grimaced.

I sighed. "I know this is important…I don't want her to hurt anyone else, but well, does it have to be tonight? Can we do it tomorrow? I just…I just don't feel up to it." Not after Seth. Not after any of this. I was so, so mentally exhausted. Sex sounded nauseating, energy or no.

Joel clenched his fists. "Don't feel up to it? This is no time for whims! Lives are at stake—"

"Joel," said Carter. It was one word, but it was hard and powerful. I'd never heard lax, sarcastic Carter speak in that sort of tone. He and Joel locked gazes. I couldn't assess higher immortals' power, but I knew Carter was pretty damned strong. Stronger than Jerome, even. "Leave her alone. Nyx only attacks when she steals more energy anyway. We should be okay for one night."

If I didn't know better, I'd say Joel was afraid of Carter. Joel looked very much like he wanted to say a lot more, but he backed down.

"Fine," he said through gritted teeth.

I shot Carter a relieved glance. With the way I felt tonight, I probably would have had about as much luck trying to seduce someone as Tawny. Thinking of the other succubus, I wondered if I should mention my suspicions about Tawny being drained by Nyx too. In the end, I decided against it. That whole situation was still circumstantial. I let it go.

Yasmine stood up and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Rest up. You look terrible. You need to be ready for tomorrow."

"Yikes. I can look like anything I want. When someone tells me I look terrible, it's pretty serious."

She smiled. "It's more than physical."

She vanished. Whitney and Joel did the same a few moments later. Only Carter remained with Vincent and me.

"It's going to be okay," Carter told me.

"I don't know. There's a crazy chaos-eating monster flitting in and out of me," I said. "You're going to try to frisk her out. Seems like there's a high likelihood things might end up pretty not okay."

"Ye of little faith." He too disappeared.

Vincent and I stood there for several moments. Finally, I sighed once more.

"Fucking angels."

He touched my shoulder. "Let's go back home."

We ventured back into the cold and walked to my apartment, saying little. Vincent look tired and thoughtful, no doubt from all the Nyx stuff. As we approached my apartment, however, his expression began to change. At first, he simply looked puzzled. Then he grew surprised, then startled, then horrified, and finally, disgusted. We stopped on the building's steps.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He pointed upward. "There's something…evil in there."

"Like…my apartment? Because, you know, I'm technically evil…"

Vincent shook his head. "No, no. It's a different kind of evil. You're evil by nature—no offense. This is something different. A created evil. It's black and wrong. Unnatural. You know of anyone else who lives in the building that plays for your side?"

"No. Just me."

He grimaced. "Well, let's go in then and see where it's coming from. Ugh. To my senses, it's like…rotting garbage."

We went inside, and it didn't take him long to figure out where this different evil was coming from. My own apartment.

"Told you I was the only evil thing in here," I joked. But I was a little uneasy at his reaction.

Vincent didn't respond and simply pushed past me, searching in a way that brought the earlier hound reference to mind. He disappeared into my bedroom and reemerged with Dante's arts and crafts project.

"This," declared Vincent, holding it at arm's length.

"That?" I asked, astonished. "That's…nothing."

"Where did you get it?"

"This guy I know made it. The one who was helping me. He's, I don't know…a pseudo psychic. Maybe a real psychic. Interprets dreams and claims to be a magician." I stared at the wicker ball. "Are you saying he really is a magician?"

"Oh, he's something all right. This thing is so filthy, I can't believe you can't feel it. Well, I can believe it…I mean, it's a different sort of magic than you're attuned to, but Jesus. It makes me feel like I just…I don't know, went swimming in a sewer."

"Well…I know he's supposed to be, like, bad…he and another friend have said as much. But…I don't know. I thought it was just hype."

"There's bad and there's bad," Vincent said. "And this is bad. This thing's a repellent, right? Did he give it to you to keep Nyx away?"

"Yeah…but he wasn't sure if it'd work…"

"Oh, it'd work. It'd keep about anything away. To make something like this…man, Georgina. It's incredible—the kind of power required. Very few humans are born with this kind of power. He certainly wasn't. This is stolen power."

"Everyone steals power," I noted dryly. "Me, Nyx…"

Vincent's eyes were hard. "You and she suck it from people. This was ripped out of someone. The way you'd rip someone's heart out of their chest."

"So, what…" I stared. "Are you saying Dante killed someone to make this?"

"To make this specifically? Perhaps. But someone would need to already possess great power—independent of what he might put in this—to even attempt making it. And to be someone with that kind of power in the first place, he had to have done something, at some point in his life, that was bad."

"Like…killing someone."

"More than that. A special killing—something sacrificial. You know the kind of power those can yield."

I did. I didn't have a choice in the succubus soul-stealing thing, but I tried to keep my hands clean of other atrocities. Still, you couldn't work for Hell and not know about the full range of evils out there and how to achieve them.

"And," continued Vincent, "you know that the greater the impact—the greater the meaning—of a sacrificial killing…"

"Right. The greater the power." Goosebumps rose on my neck as I started to see where Vincent was going with all this.

"Whatever he did to get this kind of power wasn't just some random, clean killing. It had meaning for him. And it was horrible. He would have had to turn on himself—give up part of his humanity—to get this kind of power."

I stared at the wicker ball. I couldn't sense what Vincent could, but now I too was feeling disgusted and uneasy by its presence. And suddenly, Kayla's repulsion suddenly didn't seem so strange after all. I'd had the charm in my purse when I saw her. She'd said I was ‘bad' because I was probably covered in the charm's power. What had Dante done? What act could sarcastic, laconic Dante have done to achieve the kind of power both Vincent and Hugh had said would be needed to make this kind of charm? Whatever it was, it was the reason Erik hated him.