Hotter Than Hell Read online

  Hotter Than Hell

  Edited by Kim Harrison and Martin H. Greenberg

  Contents

  Introduction

  Kim Harrison

  Music Hath Charms

  Tanya Huff

  Minotaur in Stone

  Marjorie M. Liu

  Demon Lover

  Cheyenne McCray

  Equinox

  L. A. Banks

  Ride a Dark Horse

  Susan Krinard

  To Die For

  Keri Arthur

  Curse of the Dragon’s Tears

  Heidi Betts

  Brother’s Keeper

  Lilith Saintcrow

  (Like a) Virgin of the Spring

  Susan Sizemore and Denise Little

  Life is the Teacher

  Carrie Vaughn

  Moonlight Becomes You

  Linda Winstead Jones

  Dirty Magic

  Kim Harrison

  The Undead Pool: An Excerpt

  Chapter 2

  List of Contributors

  About the Author

  Books by Kim Harrison

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  INTRODUCTION

  Short stories were where I fell in love with the power behind the printed word, a small little nugget of truth or observation, a “what if” of thought pared down to its simplest thought to make the complex easy. Those masters of the science fiction and fantasy field had created for me a gourmet meal, with its small portions elaborately presented to leave the participant impressed, knowing that they had taken in something out of the ordinary, even if it did leave them hungry for a burger on the way home.

  So it was with great pleasure that I accepted Marty Greenberg’s challenge to put together a short story collection of urban fantasy and paranormal romance: tastefully erotic tales of romance, love, and downright inescapable lust running the stylistic temperature from sweet to spicy to tantalizingly dangerous. With urban fantasy’s goal of finding the reason behind the attraction and paranormal romance’s open and honest explorations of love and lust, I found a refreshingly wide span of storytelling styles, but the common thread of an intelligent, strong-willed female protagonist in a little over her head rang true in every story.

  I finished deciding that I hadn’t helped prepare a gourmet meal in this case, but instead somehow created a cool, summer fruit salad: a bursting of sweet strawberries for romantic love, the twang of sour grapes for revenge and loss, chunks of apples and peaches—the stories from established worlds we have become familiar with, and the exotic flavor of kiwi and passion fruit—the tantalizing glimpses of something new we’d like to see more of, all mixed up with the sweet dressing of incomparable, good storytelling from some of the best authors in the paranormal romance and urban fantasy field today.

  So please pull up a chair in the shade, prop up your feet on the cooler full of the icy beverage of your choice, set the phone on mute, and dig in. Enjoy! And if you’re wondering what kind of fruit I think my work is? That would be the nuts.;-)

  Kim Harrison

  July 2008

  MUSIC HATH CHARMS

  Tanya Huff

  AS GLEN MANEUVERED HIS CAR OVER THE RUTTED field the sign insisted was the parking lot, Ali frowned out the tinted window at a line of teenagers dressed in white and leading enormous brown cows and wondered if her partner had lost his mind. Bands that played the county fair circuit might be a step above garage bands, but it was usually a small step. Bedford Entertainment needed to sign a group that could pull in some numbers, and she didn’t think they’d find that here.

  “What’s up with the kids and the cows?” she wondered as they bounced to a stop next to an impressively rusted pickup.

  Glancing past her as he shifted into park, Glen shrugged. “Different leash laws in the country, I guess. Come on, they’re on in twenty minutes.”

  He’d brought her here to see a band named NoMan. Five-man, country-rock, fronted by two brothers, Brandon and Travis Noman. One sang lead, one played—well, in country-rock she supposed it was a fiddle, wasn’t it? She wasn’t sure about the name but names were easy enough to change. They were backed by guitar, bass, and drums but she had no information on the musicians.

  When asked, Glen laughed. “Backup doesn’t matter, Ali, it’s the brothers you’re here to see. You could back those two with…with boy-band leftovers and they’d still kick ass.”

  “A ringing endorsement.”

  He laughed again. “You’ll see.”

  The stage had been set up at one end of the midway. It had a back and a roof of sorts and the ubiquitous three guys in black t-shirts screwing around with the sound system, but there was no disguising it was actually a hay wagon or that hay bales had been arranged in rows for the audience.

  This explained Glen’s instruction to wear jeans.

  “How rustic,” she murmured as they settled on a bale at the end of the fourth row.

  “Trust me.”

  She closed her hand around his arm. “Please tell me you didn’t sleep with them and you’ve dragged me out to the middle of nowhere to hear a thanks-for-the-fuck audition.”

  He laid his hand over hers, large and warm and calming. “I didn’t and it isn’t. Although I would have. Couldn’t get close.”

  Leaning around him, Ali realized the bales were filling fast with an interesting cross section of humanity. She hadn’t known baseball caps came in such a wide variety of colors. A closer look at the packed first three rows—the rows between her and the stage—and she realized no one sitting there could be considered either old or young and they all exuded a certain visceral anticipation as they waited for the show to start.

  Evidently, NoMan had groupies. A decent enough showing for a Saturday afternoon gig at a county fair but not the kind of numbers that would have kept Glen away from the prize. Nor, more importantly, the kind of numbers that would make them the saviors Bedford Entertainment needed.

  On the other hand, if they were as good as Glen said they were, she could build their numbers to the point where they’d become what she needed. And if they weren’t…at least she’d got out of the city for the afternoon. There had to be some truth in what everyone said about fresh air.

  “If you’d got to them, would they?” she wondered, determined to distract herself.

  Mouth by her ear, he murmured, “I pegged them as enthusiastically nondiscriminating.”

  Well, she was all for enthusiasm. Settling her weight against Glen’s shoulder, she found a certain amusement in noting the envious looks being sent her way. Six foot meant a lot of leg in tight jeans, the heavy white shirt emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, and the rolled-up sleeves exposed muscular forearms. It might have been gym muscle, not work muscle, but he didn’t look out of place amid the surrounding country boys. The light dusting of freckles across his nose just added to the wholesome appeal.

  “What are you smiling about?”

  “The bottle redhead in the front row keeps turning to give you the eye.”

  He drew his tongue over a full lower lip, watched her squirm and said, “Her boyfriend’s not bad.”

  “And that’s why I was smiling.”

  “Bitch.”

  “And that’s why you love me.” Ali had a feeling she was attracting some attention herself, felt that prickling between her shoulder blades that said someone was staring. The feeling grew and, although she’d had every intention of ignoring it, she finally turned. No mistaking the familiar figure standing just behind the last row of hay bales.

  He winked. He pushed back the curl of thick, dark hair that fell over his forehead and he unmistakably winked one brilliant blue eye when he caught her staring.

  Bastard.

&nbs
p; She tightened her grip on Glen’s arm. “Tom Hartmore’s here.”

  Muscle tensed but Glen didn’t turn. “If Tom’s here then Mike’s interested.”

  “You think?” she snapped. There was nothing Michael Richter’s Vital Music Group liked better than finding a band just on the verge of breaking out and thrusting them out onto the world stage. Vital made stars out of guts and raw talent—Ali had to give them that—and they were so good at it most of the musicians took years to realize they’d signed an iron-clad contract giving away rights to everything up to and including posthumous work. Michael Richter didn’t believe in death cutting into his bottom line.

  “Tom could be doing some preliminary scouting. Working on rumor. If he had actual word on the band…”

  “Then Mike would be here himself, he wouldn’t send Tom.” The knot loosened in Ali’s stomach. They were still one step ahead.

  A squawk from the sound system drew her attention back to the stage. The guitar player was fiddling with his amp, the bass player looked stoned—although that was hardly unusual for bass players—and the drummer looked like he’d been borrowed from a thrash metal band. No sign of the brothers…

  Almost before she finished the thought, they were on the stage. The matching black cowboy hats seemed to be the only affectation—given the blazing afternoon sun, she’d allow Travis’s sunglasses as a necessity—otherwise they were both in jeans and worn boots. Brandon had on a black t-shirt with the band’s name in red and Travis wore a black shirt tucked in over the biggest belt buckle Ali’d ever seen. The sun glinting off it kept drawing her gaze back to his crotch as he tuned up, not necessarily a bad thing, but she was after the larger picture. Brandon’s dark blond hair just covered the back of his neck. Travis’s was longer, lighter, and tied back.

  As Brandon moved to the center microphone, the redhead bounced and squealed.

  The redhead’s boyfriend seemed close to doing the same. Another vote cast for enthusiastically nondiscriminating then.

  While they wouldn’t stop traffic, the brothers weren’t unattractive. It was hard to get a handle on their height—given the stage and the hats—but she doubted either of them had hit six foot, although Travis looked a little taller. As far as she could tell, they were in good shape and both presented the overt masculinity that often came as a package deal with country singers. The way they moved made her think theirs came to them naturally. She was obviously missing something though, given Glen’s reaction.

  Well, Glen, the redhead, her boyfriend, a pair of busty blondes who waved wildly until Brandon acknowledged them with a smile, and pretty damned near everyone sitting in the first three rows.

  “Glen…”

  “Wait for it.”

  Then Travis drew his bow across the strings and Ali felt the note dance through blood and bone. It was the eeriest damned sound she’d ever heard.

  The drummer counted them in as Brandon wrapped both hands around the microphone.

  The first song was called Sweet Southern Rain, the second, Wild Nights, and by the third, Ali had lost track of the titles. She had to move, up on her feet like everyone else, the crowd growing with every song as men and women abandoned the midway and the show rings. She was unable to take her eyes off the way Brandon’s mouth moved mere inches from a big, old-fashioned condenser mic—whiskey voice caressing, or screaming, or growling the words. All she could think of were those hands, cupping her face the way he held the microphone, fingers rough against her skin. When he started to sweat, she breathed deep, trying to catch his scent over the hay and the cotton candy wafting in from the midway. When he moved, she moved with him and imagined his skin slick and hot against hers.

  Travis kept playing between songs, bow drawing out soft sighs and desperate moans, each sound the perfect counterpoint to Brandon’s patter as he introduced songs and the band and flirted with the audience, the band, and occasionally, his brother.

  They took two encores and finally left the stage, Travis playing one last note that hung over the fairground. As it faded, Ali took a deep breath and sagged against Glen’s side, feeling like there wasn’t enough oxygen left in the world.

  “My God, I’m…”

  “Wet?”

  She was drenched, sweat molding her t-shirt to her sides, her hair damp and sticking to the back of her neck but as she smacked him on the arm, she knew that wasn’t what he meant. “Enthralled.” Her voice sounded raw. Wanting. Everything seemed…more. The sky seemed bluer. The grass seemed greener. The breeze didn’t just blow past her bare arms, it caressed sun-warmed skin.

  No need to look to understand why Glen had worn his shirt untucked. Although, given how tight his jeans were, that kind of pressure couldn’t be fun.

  The redhead sat straddling her boyfriend’s lap, his face against her neck, one big hand buried in her hair, the other splayed over the patch of creamy skin between her jeans and the edge of her t-shirt. She rocked her hips slowly, the gentle rhythm suggesting the main event was already over and they were just riding out the aftershocks.

  Unable to help herself, Ali rocked forward to the same rhythm, seeking the minimal friction her jeans could offer.

  There were a few couples still in the first three rows but most of the bales were empty.

  “NoMan has a very hopeful fanbase,” Glen told her, shifting uncomfortably. “And backstage is probably one of the only private areas on the fairground. Even if you can’t nail the band you’ll still be able to take the edge off.”

  “Charming.” She had control of her voice again and could only pray that her own need to take the edge off wasn’t showing on her face. She turned, scanning the fairground. Tom Hartmore was nowhere to be seen. If they were lucky, he was on his way back to the city to report to the boss and they still had time. If they were really lucky, he was getting laid by some buxom farm girl and they’d picked up a little more time. If their luck truly sucked, he was already backstage. “Come on. We need to talk to the Noman brothers and we can’t do that out here.”

  “So you want them?”

  After the way she’d bitched and complained during the drive out from the city she supposed he had grounds but she still gave his smug, smarmy tone the response it deserved. “Bite me.”

  “Yeah, I told you that you’d be…”

  When his voice trailed off she turned, saw where he was looking, and smiled. Big guy, heavily built, mud on his boots and his jeans, straw cowboy hat, checked shirt, and eyes that tilted catlike up at the outer edges narrowed in a come-hither glare—as much challenge as invitation—directed right at Glen. Who made a noise low in his throat, kind of cross between a growl and a moan.

  She couldn’t say she blamed him. “Go ahead. Take the edge off.” Her hand resting in the warm curve of the small of his back, she pushed him forward. “Save a horse.”

  “Ali…”

  “Don’t worry. I can convince a couple of rock-and-roll cowboys to come into the office and talk without you by my side.”

  “Not what I was worried about.”

  “Oh please.” Her lip curled. “If Tom’s back there, I can handle him. And if not, well, I like to think I can handle myself in a honky-tonk orgy. You go handle tall, dark, and country over there. Play safe,” she added as Glen started across the trampled grass. “I’ll meet you back at the car in half an hour.”

  “Forty-five minutes.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to talk to him too?”

  He turned just far enough to flip her off.

  She laughed and headed backstage. Competent musicians were a dime a dozen; to make it big a band needed to connect with its audience on a visceral level and NoMan could certainly do that. The brothers were exactly what she’d been looking for. Glen was right, she wanted them.

  Backstage was a white canvas tent about twenty-five-feet long and maybe ten wide. It was a shelter for the sound board if the weather got bad, a place for the performers to pull it together before the show, and this far out in the country it co
uld do double duty as a sheep pen for all Ali knew. It had the kind of sidewalls that could be tied up or staked down, depending. At the moment, these were staked down.

  No big surprise if what Glen said about NoMan and how close they got to their fans was true.

  She paused, one hand on the tent flap. The honky-tonk orgy crack had been a joke but if even half the NoMan fans who’d headed back here had been as turned on by the music as she’d been—as she still was—well, orgy might not be too strong a word for it. Not something she wanted to walk in on, mostly because the way she was feeling she wasn’t entirely certain she could walk out again.

  Still, the band wasn’t signed and if she didn’t want Michael Richter to grab them first…

  And grabbing them sounded like a damned good idea.

  Telling herself to focus, she slipped in under the tent flap…

  …where things were almost anti-climactically low key.

  Like the redhead and her boyfriend, the fans present seemed almost postcoital. They milled about in the front half of the tent looking dazed and a little like they were starting to come down off a very pleasant high. Eyes were half closed, smiles contented as hands lazily stroked bare arms, and cupped the backs of necks, and ran up under the edges of shirts and down under the edges of jeans but no one seemed to be taking things farther than they might late at a party with close friends.

  At least not in the front of the tent. In the back, behind the sound board and a card table holding a box of NoMan CDs, a scrawled sign indicating they cost ten dollars, and an open cashbox, the drummer had his hand shoved in through the front of the bass player’s open jeans and was slowly jacking him off. Without breaking his rhythm, he took a swallow from the bottle of beer in his other hand; leaned forward and pressed his lips to the other man’s mouth. Ali watched mesmerized as a line of liquid escaped the kiss running along the bass player’s jaw and down his throat. She wanted to move forward and catch it on her tongue, capturing the taste of the beer and sweat, licking her way back up past his tats until…