Page 53 of The Wickedness of Man

“From the beginning, huh?” she replied, chewing idly at her lip. “I suppose we ought to know each other a little better, considering…” She blushed. “I’m Magda Church.”

“Magda,” I said, tempted to bring the back of her hand to my lips, but managed to restrain myself. “Is that short for anything?” I’d already spied the name on her ID, but I felt guilty about it.

She shrunk a bit in on herself. “Magdalene. My parents are quite religious, and well… Ihatemy name, so just Magda, please. Katie calls met ‘Mags’ but I don’t care for it too much.”

“I’m Caleb Knight,” I began. “I was…” I stopped short. How the hell was I supposed to tell her that I was paid to track down and kill demons—like her? Likeme?! Or that sleeping with her had gotten me put on the same hit list? “I work… well,workedfor an organization that monitors beings like Dr. Lowe.”

“Beings?” asked Magda. “Succubus… es? Succubi?” She frowned as she said the words, like she’d never really thought about how to pronounce them before.

“Demons,” I corrected, though not unkindly. “It’s a… the place I worked for, it’s a religious order. Highly zealous.”

“Oh my god,” Magda said, she reached for my jacket and I put my hands on hers. “Wait, didn’t you have?—”

“Whoa, whoa, I need to keep at least a couple pieces of clothes intact.”

Her mouth opened in shock. “Oh, no, I mean—your holster. There’s a logo on it.”

I unbuttoned my suit jacket and took it off, then pulled the empty holster off as well. I stared down at the stitched-on cross. I’d hardly ever paid attention to it, honestly; the stitching hadbeen meant to offer some kind of protection—a ward, similar to the one on my necklace. I yanked the necklace off—stared at the cross in my hand, then threw it at the opposing wall.

“You recognize this?”

“Acolyte Seminary,” she said with a scowl. “My parents used to work there. I saw it all the time growing up.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“I am fresh out of jokes right now,” she answered, touching the stitching, staring at it like it was going to burn her. “I hated this logo. Father used to come home and put his bag on the table, and it was my job to take his things out and put them away in his study. This was on everything. Do you work there? With agun?”

“It’s a long story, but short answer is yes. I work for a part of the university that people don’t know about. Like I said, I monitor… and hunt… demons.”

“Were you hunting me?” Her words were so hurt, so breathless, I had to stop myself from grabbing hold of her again.

“No—I was watching Dr. Lowe. I didn’t know what she was up to. It was just recon. We were looking for evidence, and then I saw her with you, and I had to get you out safely?—”

“Then it had to have been something Dr. Lowe did to me!” Magda exclaimed.

“Not quite,” I said, wincing.

“But I wasn’t like this before… I was just a stupid girl who—” She stopped talking, her face going red again.

“What?”

“Please don’t laugh,” she said, casting a dubious look up at me. “I was there to talk with her about, well… that I’m—I mean, I guess Iwas… a virgin. I hadn’t been able to…” She buried her face in her free hand.

“Oh man.” I swallowed, hard. “That was yourfirsttime?”

Her cheeks flushed again, and she looked up at me pleadingly, her eyes doelike. My heartbeat rapidly responded… as did other parts of me.

“Yes,” she admitted, wrapping the arm that wasn’t grabbing my hand around her knees like she was cold. “It was strange… it was like, I knew what I needed to do without even trying. But I feel so stupid now. How could I just… do that… with a man I never even met before? It’s humiliating. I was probably so awful?—”

“Awful? What? No!” I interrupted, then added, “That was really your first time?”

“Don’t tease me.” She looked wounded, afraid that I was being kind to spare her feelings. “I’ve had some… problems with sex in the past, so I know it probably wasn’t… great. Ifeltlike I knew what I was doing, but…”

“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” I said. “If you told me that begging on my hands and knees would let me have one more moment like that with you, I would do it.”

Magda’s eyes widened. “…What do you mean?”

“I mean I would do anything. Name it. Anything you want at all.” I felt like I was talking too fast, saying too much, but my need for her was so overwhelming I couldn’t stop myself.

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