We pulled up outside of the club about fifteen minutes after I'd stepped into the car. It wasn't really that far away from the flat I had rented, hence my choice of accommodation, and I could easily have walked had I allowed myself a little more time but Rosa had offered to be my lift to work from the night I started as I was on her route. The club was tucked away down a tangle of dark and dank alleys in the so-called 'red light district' and it always took a lot longer than it should have to get there.

The roads were so often blocked by cars and men trolling for prostitutes; it was difficult not to mow several of them down as Rosa tried to navigate her little car through the blockade. She certainly has a way with words too, never afraid to stick her head out of the window and yell at them to move their arses. It's funny, they never seem to complain, nor have any kind of witty or abusive retort to throw back at her. The be-suited business men look so horrified having attention suddenly drawn to them that they hurry away in their sleek company cars, leaving tyre tread marks on the road behind them. The rejected prostitutes would glare daggers at us as we passed, angry at having lost out on a nice chunk of their nightly earnings, but we paid them no mind; we had our own jobs to get to.

 The neon light that advertised the clubs location hummed incessantly, like a swarm of wasps were lurking somewhere in the dark, as it flickered on and off. Occasionally it ignited the narrow street with an eerie red glow before plunging it back into pitch darkness – it was a wonder the place ever attracted any business, the broken sign was the only marker of its location, not a poster or even a roped queuing area in sight and the entrance was a single steel door set in a wide stretch of concrete wall. It didn't exactly scream 'strip club' at you.

 I stepped out into the dark street, the sign made a pathetic attempt at glowing then cut back out with an electric buzz; the humming stopped and I could only conclude that it was completely dead. The dark didn't really bother me, Hell is a pretty dark place as I'm sure you can imagine, not a whole lot in the way of natural daylight – so good night vision is one of the perks of these demon eyes of mine. I slammed the car door, perhaps a little too hard just to ensure it stayed closed, and stepped up onto the curb to stand beside the steel door and wait for Rosa.

She, it seemed, was having less luck with the lack of light. After killing the cars engine and swinging her legs out of the door she promptly tripped over the curb.

“Shit!” She cursed, stumbling up beside me and rubbing a hand over the shin she had scraped on the ground. A groan escaped her lips and she cursed again. “I've laddered my damn stockings. Wish they'd fork out some cash and just fix that fucking light already.”

 I just about held back a snort of laughter. Every night she did the same thing; you'd have thought, by now, she'd know where the curb was.

 “Yeah, well, from what I've heard about Angelo, since I've been here, he thinks it's a crime to pay his staff. Think he'd really pay out to have something in this shit-hole fixed?” I asked.

 Angelo was the owner of the club, I'd met him once during my 'interview' for the bar job. A brief, five minute affair where he'd enquired whether I knew how to pull a pint and informed me that I'd be working every inhospitable hour possible for minimum wage. The terms didn't bother me, I only needed the job as a cover so I could do my real job, but it wasn't surprising that there were no other candidates willing to take on the position, or why anybody was willing to work for that guy. Times hadn't become that hard, surely.

 “Sad, but true.” Rosa sighed. “If I didn't actually need paying so badly, I'd have called environmental Health about this place ages ago.”

 “Ha, he wouldn't stand a chance if you did.” I barked out, laughing at the thought. “I'm, honestly, still amazed that anyone is actually willing to drink here. Anybody caught botulism from this place yet?”

 “Well, they sure wouldn't broadcast it if anybody had.” Rosa shook her head. Giving up hope on rescuing yet another pair of ruined stockings, I heard her snap her black heel back onto the curb as a sigh escaped her lips. “Come on, we better get inside. We're late enough as it is and I really don't want Shane on my arse. That man gives me the creeps.”

 It bolstered my faith in Rosa a little to learn that she had a inkling about that man, he certainly gave off a bad vibe but not everyone seemed to notice it. Rosa was pretty clued up though, 'street smart' I think they called it, but she had no real idea just how badly she didn't want Shane on her case. He was a nasty piece of work and a part of me really didn't want anything bad to happen to Rosa. I'd been in her company for almost a full week and she'd started to become, what you'd probably call, a friend; and it felt strange.

I didn't have friends, I had acquaintances – mostly other half-breeds like myself, we'd go over cases together, discuss the happenings on Earth and in Hell – but we weren't really friends because, if it ever came down to it, it would be every demon for himself. We didn't tend to connect too much with humans either. They tended to raise too many confusing emotions, calling to the human blood in our veins if we spent too much time in their company; and it was a part of ourselves we worked hard to keep suppressed, a distant voice in the background, but it was always more than eager to answer a humans call; and it could fight back.

 Fortunately, the call was not strong enough to be too distracting, not yet. Besides, I knew that once Shane was gone Rosa would be that much safer, so the unusual feelings I was having towards her only made me more keen to get my job done. I'd just take the good feeling I'd have, knowing that she was that little bit safer, as a bonus of a job well done.

 Rosa had worked at the club for close to two years – she'd informed me of this on my first night when she offered me a lift home – and I was sure she'd only survived it for so long because she was a polar opposite to Shane usual 'type' of girl; but tastes could always change if the pickings were slim. Rosa was of Hispanic descent, it showed in her raven hair and bronzed skin, she was also all voluptuous curves and vast bosom.

From what I had learned about him, Shane preferred his girls pale and waif-like, easy to break – he'd even made a pass at me once, on my first night behind the bar, but something about my retort had turned him off. I had even thought, perhaps, I'd been a little too harsh with my rebuttal because, since that night, Shane had kept his distance and yet always seemed to have a cautious eye aimed in my direction. Had I actually been a hindrance to my own job, made him suspicious and reluctant to take that final life that would hand me his soul? An annoyance if I had, but it still wouldn't have changed my response. No way in Hell I'd ever let that man lay a finger on me.

 She reached the door ahead of me, forced the stiff, rusted handle down and shoved the thick, reinforced steel open; holding it ajar so that I could follow. I took a deep breath and hurried inside after her. The door snapped shut, a little too quickly, and we were left drowning in UV lights and thick, thudding music.

 The throbbing, repetitive beat thudded inside my skull, over and over like a blacksmith pounding metal at an anvil. It was not at all dissimilar to the noise my neighbour insisted on pumping through the walls of my little flat. It was little wonder, that after a solid week with no escape from the noise it had started to wear me down. The lights made everything appear distorted and unreal. Anything white glowed ghostly and bright. Supposedly it made the customers feel more at ease, but if it was that embarrassing why go to a strip club in the first place? Sometimes I just couldn't understand human logic.

 “You're late.” A harsh, gruff voice suddenly spoke from the shadows beside the door; Shane, of course.

He stepped forward until one of the UV's illuminated his face, stern and almost snarling in a display of anger. Shane liked to think that he ran the place, at least on the nights that Angelo wasn't in the building – he may have been an oaf, but he wasn't fool enough to get too big for his boots while the boss was around. Ordering the girls around was one of the perks of his job that Shane particularly enjoyed and intimidation was one of his most favourite weapons. Unfortunately for him, it wasn't one that worked on either Rosa or myself and our blank expressions at his first words told him just that.

 “Rosa, you were due on stage ten minutes ago. You can go on with the next act, get a fucking move on!” He demanded, jabbing his thumb violently in the direction of one of the raised platforms with his thumb.

 “Yeah, yeah, I'm going.” Rosa hissed, dismissively, as she headed off towards the dressing rooms. “Don't get your knickers in a twist.”

 “And you,” he said, turning back and moving around in front of me, blocking the gangway into the main room of the club with his broad, muscled form.

 I knew, without needing to hear it, what he would say to me – late again, blah blah, docked pay, blah blah, get to work – but he wasn't moving. I'd have tried to slip past him, but his frame was so huge that it meant I would have had to touch him on the way and the thought made my flesh crawl; I knew where that man had been. I was dwarfed under his stern gaze, my 5”7 frame felt minuscule as I stood in his 6”5 shadow, able to do nothing but wait for him to berate me for being late.

 He knew that I wasn't afraid of him, at least not in the same way that most people were, and it unnerved him. Women, to Shane, were things to be commanded and dominated, resistance to this seemed to be an alien concept to him and I could tell he didn't like it. So I did my best to stare him down, one eyebrow arched, and resisted the urge to look away.

 “Get to work,” he said, finally. “Alex needs some help behind the bar.” He turned and lurched away, back to his shadowy corner beside the door, the UV lights shining off of his clean shaven head as he moved, like a bobbing montage of the moon.

 I shook my head at his back and headed for the bar. It really would be so very satisfying to see his soul handed over to the demons in Hell. I just had to make sure that it happened.

 “He giving you a hard time?” Alex grinned at me as I flipped open the hatch, stepped behind the bar and let it fall closed with a heavy thud.

 “Shane?” When does he not give people a hard time?” I shook my head, “To be honest, I'm just pleased that he's not interested in trying to get me into bed any more.”

 I shrugged off my long leather jacket and shivered slightly at the sudden change in temperature. I liked the heat and the clubs clapped out old heating system could barely maintain itself above room temperature. Demons are cold blooded creatures – the popular images of Hell as a huge, fiery abyss certainly do hold some truth – and my breed inherited a little of their need for warmth.

I would have preferred to keep the jacket on, given the lack of heating and the skimpiness of my uniform, but I'd only be told to take it off. 'The patrons like to see some skin, even from the bar staff,' Angelo had said when he'd handed over my uniform and seen the disturbed expression on my face. I'd wanted to ask why Alex got to cover up in a long sleeved, black T-shirt every night, but I guessed it was only the female staff members whose flesh needed to be on display.

 Alex let out bark of laughter at my words, but I also saw him shudder at the thought.

 “Yeah, makes me glad that I'm not female. Given the 'type' that he usually goes for, I'd probably be top of his list if I were missing a certain, uh, appendage.” He smirked at me and dumped a pile of sodden beermats into the overflowing bin before laying out fresh ones across the bar.

 I couldn't deny Alex's words, he would probably have flagged up on Shane's radar pretty quickly had he been a woman. He was thin and gangly, a feature only accentuated by the baggy clothes he always insisted on wearing. A messy mop of flat black hair sat atop his head and his skin was almost as pale as mine. But, despite being somewhat effeminate, Alex was most definitely male and ergo safe from Shane's leering advances.

 In the short week I'd been working with him behind the bar I had managed to learn an awful lot more about him than I ever had another human being before (at least one that wasn't a target); that man really did like to talk. Apparently he'd been working behind the bar for about a year, wanting a night shift job while he attended university during the day. I'd asked him when he managed to sleep and he'd just laughed. I felt a burnout on the horizon, I might be able to avoid one of my own if I could get my job done soon, but Alex felt like a train wreck waiting to happen; and it made me feel bad that there was nothing I could do to prevent it. Those damn human emotions again.

 “Though, I tell ya, I'm not looking forward to next week.” Alex's voice cut through my thoughts and snapped me back to reality.

 “Why's that?” I asked as I started to unload the pot washer, setting the relatively clean glasses back on the shelves in preparation for the rush on the bar between acts. The bar was always quiet while the girls were on stage and then, in the few minutes break where one set of girls finished and another group took up their positions, the customers would all hurry to refill their drinks.

 “Angelo popped in earlier, apparently he's going to Italy to visit some family and, of course, Shane is being left in charge.” He muttered as quietly as he could and still have me hear him above the pounding music.

 I choked back a chuckle that threatened to spill over my lips; I had a funny feeling that Angelo was going to have to postpone his holiday plans.

 “Oh? Yeah, that sounds like it might be pretty hellish. But try not to worry about it too much Alex, I'm sure you'll be fine.”

 “You mean, we'll be fine. Us bar staff need to stick together in this land full of strippers.”

 “Right, sure.” I shrugged as my non-committal response. I wasn't going to be there, but Alex didn't need to know that. A part of me felt almost sad to be leaving him behind – I'd got the impression he was rather lonely and had been enjoying having some company at work. Perhaps I should ask Rosa to keep an eye on him. The thought crept through my mind before I even had a chance to register exactly what I'd been thinking; and just why was I thinking something like that? The people I met during my jobs were supposed to be irrelevant, I didn't care about them and their fates, it wasn't important...I shouldn't care. Must get out of this place.

 A sudden silence fell over the club as the music track changed and my ears breathed a momentary sigh of relief until the monotonous beat started back up again; a new set of lyrics blaring over the top of the same recycled tune. Whoever created this stuff really wasn't very big on the imagination front. Alex had moved away from me to serve a customer, the beginning slow trickle that would lead to the rush on our services, so I took a quick moment to cast my eyes around the dark club and survey the scene, wondering just how that night was going to play out.

 My eyes were drawn to the long black stage that stretched along the back wall, a thin black curtain hung behind it cutting off the view to the 'backstage' area. Back there lay the staff break room, numerous dressing rooms along with a whole lot of storage space that I hadn't had the chance to explore yet. Though I had noticed that Shane seemed to spend more time than was normal back there, lurking around the dusty crates full of beer bottles and boxes stuffed with crisp packets, several months out of date. I had a feeling that was the place where everything was going to happen, but at that moment Shane was still in his spot by the door, watching the stage with anticipation.

 Noise at the bar drew my gaze back. It had grown busy with all of the customers flocking for their refills before the next set of girls took up their positions along one of the three platforms that stretched out from the long, narrow stage. Forgetting about Shane for a moment I tackled my share of the work and served numerous drinks to a crowd of men who all looked the same to me in the black light.

 The crowd gradually thinned and Alex and I stood back to relax in the quiet moments. My attention was turned back to the stage as I watched the three girls climb out from behind the curtain. Rosa came out first – clad in a black leather number – and took up her place on the far left platform. She was followed by a flaming red-head, draped in spring green that complemented her colouring nicely.

Finally came a petite blonde, a small, bird-like creature, so pale that her skin glowed luminescent under the lights, so bright that it was difficult to see the delicate white outfit she was dressed in; her hair was almost as white and it fell just past her shoulders. She might have been short and slim but the way she stood, the way she moved as they began to dance, held a strength and energy that her small stature belied.

 I turned my head to look at Shane and found his eyes fixed, intently, on the small blonde. He was so engrossed in watching her that the crowd of four men who burst, rowdily, through the club door hardly drew his attention. A bestial smile twisted at his lips with a hunger I could recognise, she was just his type and he wanted her. A whole week I'd been waiting for him to make that final move, and I was finally seeing the raw desire in his eyes; the restraint he had been showing had taken its toll.

 She would be the one. All I had to do was wait.

A/N: Adding music videos to my chapters because I've been missing my music. Pour Some Sugar on Me features on this chapter simply for being the ultimate stripper song! And I'm a crazy Def Leppard fan.