Statistics demonstrate that most mortals sell their souls for five reasons: sex, wealth, power, vengeance, and love. In that arrangement.

I suppose I should have been comforted, then, that I was out here supporting with numero uno, but the entire circumstance only made me feel…well, sleazy. And arriving from me, that was something.

Perhaps I simply can't sympathize anymore, I thought. It's been too long. When I was a virgin, people yet reckoned swans could impregnate girls.

Handy, Brad waited patiently for me to conquer my reluctance. He stuffed his hands into well-pressed khakis, crouching his huge rack against his Lexus. "I don't discern what the massive treaty is. You do this all the time."

That wasn't precisely true, but we both understood what he implied. Disregarding him, I rather gave rise to a tremendous display of surveying my surroundings, not that that enhanced my personality.

The suburbs constantly pulled me down. Similar buildings. Ideal playgrounds. Distant too numerous SUVs. Someplace in the dusk, a dog declined to quit barking.

"I don't do this," I let out ultimately. "Even I possess standards." Brad grunted, conveying his impression of my standards.

"Okay, if it makes you feel good, don't speculate of this in terms of damnation. Reckon of it as a benevolence case."

"A benevolence case?"

"Sure."

He drew his Pocket PC, peeking briskly businesslike, despite the bizarre background. Not that I should have been amazed. Brad was a skilled imp, a wizard at earning

mortals to sell their souls, a professional in deals and lawful loopholes that would have rendered any attorney wince in covetousness.

He was moreover my pal. It kind of offered new connotation to the With pals like these… proverb.

"Listen to these stats," he began again. " Frank Morgan. Masculine, of course. Caucasian. Nonpracticing Lutheran. Labors over at a game store in the mall. Lives in the basement here—his parents' house."

"Jesus."

"Told you."

"Charity or no, it however looks like so…extreme. How aged is he again?"

"Thirty-four."

"Ew."

"Exactly. If you were that aged and hadn't earned any, you might pursue desperate criteria too." He glimpsed down at his watch. "So are you going to do this or not?"

No qualm I was restraining Brad from a date with some hot woman half his age—by which I signified, of course, the age Brad peeked. In fact, he was pushing a century.

I lay my pouch on the floor and gave him a notification glimpse. "You owe me."

"I do," he admitted. This wasn't my normal gig, thank goodness. The imp typically "outsourced" this sort of stuff but had flee into some sort of planning trouble tonight. I couldn't comprehend who he commonly learned to do this.

I commenced toward the cottage, but he halted me. "Katharina?"

"Yeah?"

"There's…one other thing…"

I swiveled back around, not wanting the expression in his vocalist. "Yes?"

"He, um, kind of had a special request." I lifted an eyebrow and paused.

"You see, uh, he's certainly into the whole, like, terrible thing.

You know, figures if he sold his soul to the devil—so to talk

—then he should relinquish his purity to a, I don't know, demoness or something."

I vow, even the dog ceased barking at that. "You're joking."

Brad didn't react.

"I'm not a—no. No way am I getting on to—"

"Come on, Katharina. It's nothing. An ornament. Fume and reflectors. Please? Simply do this for me?" He whirled reflective, cajoling. Difficult to restrain. Like I explained, he was good at his career. "I'm certainly in a rigid spot…if you could help me out here…it would mean so much…"

I grunted, unfit to reject the pitiful look on his wide countenance. "If anyone learns about this—"

"My lips are sealed." He even had the effrontery to make a sealing gesture.

Squatting down, relinquished, I unbuttoned the clasps on my shoes.

"What are you doing?" he inquired.

"These are my special Bruno Maglis. I don't need them assimilated when I change."

"Yeah, but…you can simply shape-shift them back." "They won't be the same."

"They will. You can make them anything you wish. This is exactly silly."

"Look," I mandated, "do you like to stand out here contending shoes, or do you prefer me to go make a man of your virgin?"

Brad clenched his maw shut and motioned toward the house.

I padded away in the pasture, the edges caressing my bare feet. The back veranda leading to the basement was free, just as Brad had vowed.

I allow myself into the sleeping cottage, wishing they didn't have a dog, blearily marveling how I'd attained this low juncture in my reality. Adapting to the dark, my eyes quickly inferred the elements of a comfortable, middle-class household : couch, TV,

bookshelves. A stairwell rose to the left, and a corridor veered to the right.

I declined the hall, allowing my manifestation shape-shift as I strolled. The emotion was so common, so second essence to me, that I didn't actually require to discern my outside to realize what was occurring.

My petite frame heightened, the thin form yet remaining thin but adopting a leaner, harder horizon. My membrane faded to demise white, vacating no recollection of its soft tan.

The fur, already to my midback, remained the similar size but dimmed to spurt black, the fine waviness swerving upright and coarse. My breasts—impressive by most standards—became huger nonetheless, matching those of the funny story heroines this dude had clearly grown up with.

As for my outfit…well, off went the cute Banana Republic leeways and blouse. Thigh-high ebony leather boots emerged on my legs, paired with a matching halter top and a skirt I never could have bent over in. Spiky arms, horns, and a lash finalized the parcel.

"Oh Lord," I mumbled, accidentally bringing in the entire effect in a tiny ornamental mirror. I wished none of the local demonesses ever found about this. They were certainly very fashionable.

Whirling from the taunting reflector, I glanced down the auditorium at my destination: a sealed entrance with a yellow MEN AT WORK indication affixed to it. I guessed I could learn the swoon creaks of a video game bleeping from beyond, though such disturbances calmed down instantly when I whacked.

A moment later, the door unlocked, and I stood confronting a five-foot-eight gentleman with shoulder-length, dirty yellow fur promptly subsiding on top, hairy belly peeped out from underneath his Homer Simpson T-shirt, and he held a satchel of potato flakes in one hand.

The pack fell to the ground when he saw me.

" Frank Morgan?"

"Y-yes," he gasped out.

I banged the lash. "You willing to play with me?"

Just six minutes later, I vacated the Morgan dwelling. Seemingly thirty-four years doesn't perform greatly for one's courage.

"Whoa, that was quick," Brad pointed out, seeing me walk across the front yard. He was squatting against the vehicle again, smoking a cigarette.

"No shit. Got another one of those?"

He smirked and passed his own cigarette, providing me a once-over. "Would you be offended if I confessed the attachments sort of get me hot?"

I grabbed the cigarette, dwindling my eyes at him as I sniffed. A rapid inspection verified no one else was around, and I shape-shifted back to my normal structure.

"You owe me big," I reminded him, plopping the shoes back on.

"I remember. Of course, some might contend you owe me. You got a fine spot from it. Adequately than you're employed to."

I couldn't withhold that, but I didn't have to feel nice about it either. Poor Frank. Dork or no, inflicting his soul to unending damnation was a helluva price to reimburse for six minutes.

"You wanna procure a drink?" Brad offered.

"No, it's too late. I'm going home. Procured a book to read." "Ah, of course. When's the great day?" "Tomorrow," I declared.

The imp giggled at my champion worship. "He only composes mainstream tale you know. He's barely Nietzsche or Thoreau."

"Hey, one doesn't have to be surreal or metaphysical to be a tremendous novelist. I should realize; I've discovered a few over the years."

Brad groaned at my willful mood, offering me a mock salute. "Far be it from me to dispute with a woman about her age."

I gave him an abrupt kiss on the cheek, then strolled two blocks to where I had parked. I was opening the car door when I felt it: the warm, throbbing feeling indicative of another

immortal close. Vampire, I expressed, just a millisecond before he emerged beside me. Awfully, they moved rapidly.

"Katharina, my belle, my precious succubus, my goddess of pleasure," he intoned, positioning his hands over his heart dramatically.

Incredible. Simply what I wanted. Guane was relatively perhaps the most horrible immortal I'd ever encountered. He maintained his blond hair minced to a finish hum, and as usual, he illustrated nasty elegance in both fashion and deodorant.

"Go away, Guane. I have nothing to tell you."

"Oh come on," he crooned, his hand snaking out to clasp the door as I strived to unlock it. "Even you can't flirt awkward this moment. Look at you. You're positively gleaming. Nice hunting, eh?"

I glared at the citation to Frank's life vitality, understanding it must be wreathing me. Obstinately, I attempted to poke my door open against Guane's grip. No chance.