A Hinky Universe Bundle

Three series, three complete novels, three ways to have fun!

The Hinky Brass Bed (Hinky Chicago)
It’s Raining Men (Slacker Demons)
Coed Demon Sluts: Beth (Coed Demon Sluts)

Dip into three different paranormal series set in a city with magic on its mind.

How will Chicago survive the worldwide infestation of magic?

Can fraud-cop Jewel save the city from phonies and sexy crooks with the aid of a magical bed?

Will the slacker demons heal the city’s women with magical nooky?

Or should the team of trainee coed demon sluts take over the slackers’ man-lair and pump the city full of estrogen and riot-grrl power?

You need a laugh in your day!

THE HINKY BRASS BED
Hinky Chicago #1
Too much of a good thing … is just enough.

Lord Randy was bad in bed in 1811, so his magician-mistress turned him into a sex demon with a curse: “You don’t get out of this bed until you satisfy 100 women!” Lucky for Randy, two hundred years later, con-artist Clay finds the bed.

Clay’s scam works until that foxy fraud investigator arrives. Lucky for Clay, fraud-cop Jewel has a weakness for hunky con men.

Jewel is the hundredth woman, and she frees Randy… now he’s her sex slave, and her case against the con artist dissolves in a hail of hormones. Lucky for Jewel, she’s got a lusty libido.

The first adventure in the Hinky Chicago series!

IT’S RAINING MEN
Slacker Demons #1
“Just for you, it’s gonna start raining men”

Archie is a sex demon who’s so lazy, he’s this close to being kicked out of hell. Chloe is a brand ambassador for a liquor distributor, dating bums and secretly crushing on her favorite bartender, Archie.

Archie only wants to comfort Chloe after her latest dumping. He doesn’t plan to show her the sex demons’ sweat-socky man lair, or confess to collecting thirty pieces of silver a month for seducing women. He doesn’t even intend to kiss her.

It all starts with one well-meant lie…

“Just for you, it’s gonna start raining men.”

The first Slacker Demons story!

COED DEMON SLUTS: BETH
Coed Demon Sluts #1

Aren’t you tired of doing everything right?
Wouldn’t you like a second chance to go back and do it wrong?

Beth is fifty, dumped by her husband for the babysitter, jobless, skill-less, homeless, cashless. She’s about to jump in front of a bus when she meets Delilah, recruiter for the “Regional Office” and gets an offer she can’t refuse: become a succubus for the Second Circle of Hell.

Heartbroken, Beth decides to use the powers of her new sex demon body and the remains of her thrown-away life to track down her ex-husband and find out why he dumped her.

But Beth can’t get any information without help from her team. And she can’t accept their help until she learns something about what she has become—a coed demon slut—and who she’s always really been, and who she wants to be from now on.

The first adventure in the Coed Demon Sluts series!

What readers are saying about The Hinky Brass Bed

“More fun than pillow fighting naked!” –Vicki Lewis Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of Talk Nerdy To Me and Overhexed

“Once you get into The Hinky Brass Bed, you won’t ever want to get out.” –Phil and Kaya Foglio, creators of Girl Genius

“Hot sex and hysterical humor. It doesn’t get any better than this.” –Kate Douglas, author of the Wolf Tales series

What readers are saying about It’s Raining Men

A great romp thru religion, mythology, and love…I literally could not stop reading until I finished. A sexy take on what’s important to all of us, without our reality getting in the way of our hearts. -John H. Billbe

What readers are saying about Coed Demon Sluts: Beth

My heart goes out to recent divorcee Beth as she learns the shallow depths of past friends and family while trying to cope with her newly divorced status. The book manages to somehow provide deep reflection on seriously deep trust and financial issues, at the same time that it makes you laugh. If you’d like a really different way to think about friends and family, and you don’t mind adult or tongue in cheek reflection with paranormal overtones, this is a great book to gather up and discuss with your gal pals, dish the ice cream and / or adult beverages, and dish on the dudes or whoever done you wrong. -Molly G. Hamblin  

THE HINKY BRASS BED

On a sizzling Monday afternoon in July, Jewel Heiss was serving a ticket on a convenience store owner on Walton Street near Michigan Avenue, watching the smog over Lake Shore Drive turn pink, and trying to stake out The Drake Hotel across the street at the same time. Her boss had sent her to watch his wife, who also happened to be her best friend.

On the sidewalk, the Swiftymart owner whined, “Every time you come here, you ticket me. This is persecution. I’m gonna call the city.”

Jewel smiled sunnily. “Every time, your scale still isn’t fixed. Fix it and keep it fixed.”

Sweltering in her polyester pantsuit, she hoped the pink stuff would abate before she had to get on the Drive. The pink was one problem da mayor’s admirable anti-magic Hinky Policy hadn’t been able to wish away.

The Swiftymart owner sweated and lit a cigarette, the dumb-ass. She backed away. Sure enough, a pigeon swooped down out of nowhere and snatched the lighted cig. He screamed, “I hate birds!”

“Look, they really do smoke!” A gaggle of tourists aimed cell phones and cameras at the pigeon. “That’s so cool!”

Mindful of Policy, Jewel said, “They don’t really smoke, you know. They just eat the tobacco.”

They all watched the pigeon carry the cigarette to the gutter.

Stakeout was not Jewel’s bag. Stakeout was for cops. An investigator for the Chicago Department of Consumer Services, she rated a badge but no gun. The scariest things in her arsenal were a clipboard and thick book of tickets.

She tore off a ticket now and handed it to the Swiftymart owner.

“Oh, look, it’s trying to pick up the filter end!”

Jewel turned to the least fun part of her job, administering The Policy. “It is not smoking. It wants the filter for nesting materials.”

“Omigod, it just stole that guy’s cigarette,” said another tourist who was slow to catch up.

Jewel spotted a streak of iridescence over the pink smog on the Drive. Groovy. Something new she wasn’t allowed to talk about.

“Pigeons don’t smoke,” she said, quoting lame Policy guidelines. “They’re attracted to additives in the cigarette paper.”

“No, it’s trying to smoke.”

The iridescence formed a teardrop shape and then suddenly shrank, as if something were sucking it down into the pink smog over the expressway.

“That pigeon is smoking! Wow! Get a picture of that!”

Jewel was about to deny again, but even she could see that the pigeon had the filter end in its beak and seemed to be puffing away merrily. Another pigeon waddled over to it and stuck its pointed head into the cloud of second-hand smoke. She sighed.

Just then her quarry emerged from The Drake and wobbled languidly toward a cab. Nina looked fucked and happy. Jewel’s heart sank.

Her best friend was guilty as hell. Ed would blow a blood vessel.

She plunged across traffic. “Nina, wait up!” …

IT’S RAINING MEN
Chapter One

Archie

Saturday night Chloe came into the bar about nine thirty, looking desperate. I poured her the usual.

“Hey, Archie.” She looked pouty and far too young for all the make-up and the sophisticated black bangs over her eyes.

I poured myself some good Scotch. “Speak, angel face.”

She didn’t even look up. “I’ve been dumped. Again.” She tossed off her Bombay and Pernod and shoved the glass at me. “Reynolds texted me today.”

I put the next one in front of her. “So you’re getting trashed?”

“That’s life in the dumpster. Cheers.” Weepy eyes. Oh, heaven.

“He’s not worthy,” I said. “Detailed whining, please.”

“You’re always so sympathetic.” She twisted her pout into a smile. “All right. He’s a louse. Of course he’s a louse. They all are.” I heard a sob come up in her throat. “Swear to God, Archie, it’s a conspiracy. Somebody decided to keep all the decent men away from me.”

She looked so miserable, I couldn’t think of anything amusing to distract her.

She started to sniffle.

A bad weight settled in my chest. My ears burned and my fingers twitched. I felt suddenly sweaty. Was it a heart attack? That’d be a joke after all these centuries.

Nope. The old ticker was still pounding away.

I watched her mouth droop, and the bad feeling tightened. What the—

It was…wait, wait…I was getting it.

I felt guilty.

Whoa.

How could I blame myself for Chloe’s bad taste in men?

How could I fix it?

Well, there was one surefire way.

So then I made a mistake. After two years, I made my move on Chloe. As usual when I make a move, I let my imagination and my sense of humor take over.

“Funny you should say that.”

She sniffled. I felt awful. Bless it, she was crying now. A big tear fell into her second Bombay and Pernod. My throat tightened.

“What?” she croaked.

I felt like ten kinds of a rat. I felt like a creep. I felt guilty.

Fuck that. I hadn’t spent 1200 years working for the Regional Office to suffer guilt.

So instead of exploiting her properly, as I’d put off doing these past two years, I got clever.

“You’re right. It is a conspiracy.”

She stared at me, her pretty mouth dropping open.

I said, “A conspiracy to keep all the decent men away from you. And every other woman in Ravenswood Manor. Twenty-square-block area. No nice men live here any more. No nice men work here. No nice men walk their dogs or drive through or take the El through or come to the gym or the restaurants or the vet. Certainly they don’t come to the bars.”

She gave a hacking laugh. “Not funny.”

“Not meant to be,” I said. It was really hard to meet her eyes. But for once in, sheesh, a long time, I felt hideously, painfully guilty.

I put my elbows on the bar. “All right, here’s the deal. Me and one of my roommates—did I mention I’m a sex demon in the second circle of hell?” I said, rushing my fence. “I’m a sex demon in the second circle of hell. We had this brilliant idea. Chase all the good men out of an entire neighborhood. Then clean up.” At her confused expression, I explained, “Lots more women for us. We would look good compared to the available dickheads.”

She closed her mouth long enough to swallow. “Go on.”

“It took six months to set up, and we ran it for a year. You should know how well it worked,” I added gruffly. I took a swallow of Scotch courage.

“And then?” She seemed a lot more cheerful.

I shrugged. “And then the Regional Office and the Home Office had their big five-year accounts reconciliation, and some programs got cut and some assets got moved, and long story short, we got caught in the machinery.”

Chloe squinted at me. She wasn’t swallowing a word of this.

Thanking hell, I spun the bullshit faster. “And now I’m on work release.”

She laughed delightedly. “Go on. This is fascinating.”

“I’m glad you’re amused,” I said grumpily. “I should have known, of course, that you were liable to get snared in our net, but I guess I’d hoped you would wise up, or at least take a breather from your lifestyle of dating sons of bitches.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She flapped a hand. “Moving right along.”

I shrugged. “So, yes, there’s a conspiracy, and it worked pretty well, but now it’s officially over.”

Her mouth twisted. “Tell that to Reynolds. The putz.”

“Reynolds is in the past.”

She was smiling. I felt a little better now. More like the idiot I really am than the total bastard I pretend to be.

So I spun some more. “The good news is, you’ve been selected for victims’ compensation.” Yeah, that sounded about right. The sort of thing those bureaucratic morons above and below would do. “As compensation for your suffering this past year, and in recognition of the damage to your peace of mind, for a limited time only.” I smiled my snakiest smile. “For you, it’s gonna start raining men.”  …

COED DEMON SLUTS: BETH

“I have called your brother,” Beth said, trying to keep impatience and desperation out of her voice. “He won’t listen to me. Please listen, Darleen.” Her now-ringless fingers clutched her cell phone. “Your father’s settlement check bounced. I have no money.” She’d sold the last ring three weeks ago.

“But you still have the house,” her daughter said.

“You know he took the house, Darleen,” Beth said, trying not to sound whiny.

“Mom, can’t you stay there another month or so? We have the Chinese exchange student in the spare room.”

Panic rose in Beth’s chest and stuck in her throat. Something moved on the edge of her view. She turned her head swiftly. A cockroach crawled down the wall of her motel room. She squeaked and shrank away in revulsion. A bed thumped rhythmically against the other side of the wall.

Over the phone, Darleen sighed. “I suppose we could let the au pair go. You could have her room. You still don’t have a job?” Her tone implied, You’re not trying, are you, Mom? With audible reluctance she said, “You like babies. It’ll be something for you to do. Only for a month or so, though. We were so hoping they would learn French early. You know you don’t speak French.”

That was a new offer. Beth sensed it was the limit of Darleen’s generosity. Somehow in twenty-eight years of endless care and worry and the thoughtless outpouring of her love, she had failed. She hadn’t learned how to get through to her kids. Her heart twisted in her chest. But I love you! she wailed inside, unable to say it aloud for fear of what Darleen would say back. I would do anything for you!

“If we let the au pair go, we can put the money we save into their college funds,” Darleen added, as if talking herself into it.

Beth couldn’t listen to another word. Carefully she thumbed the phone off. She pulled in a shuddering sigh, and pain tore her in half. Then she breathed in again, and pain tore her in quarters. If she kept doing that, she’d soon be in tiny, tiny shreds.

She’d tried to kill herself two months ago and failed, too angry to die. Then she’d taken as much cash as she could find, packed one suitcase, and moved to this roach-infested motel in the city.

Tonight, she found herself looking at the suicide option again.

Her anger had burnt itself out. Now she was just afraid, paralyzed, and every breath brought back the voices of her children rejecting her when she needed them the most. That betrayal was tearing the heart out of her body. She would die rather than feel it.

Her Coach clutch lay next to her phone, the sensible strap grubby from being carried every day while its companions went one by one to the pawn shop. Beth opened it and found her last two twenty dollar bills. Could she afford to get drunk enough to kill herself?

If she spent it at a liquor store, definitely, yes. But Beth couldn’t be alone one more minute. The idea of spending her last night in this room, drinking herself to death, was too sordid. No. A few cheap margaritas and then she’d step in front of a train.

She went to the bar around the corner.

That was where the evening went strange.

o0o

Now Beth sat at a rickety cocktail table in a grim neighborhood bar, drinking margaritas and staring in disbelief at the woman who had just offered her a contract with hell.  …