Daring the Devil (Reigning Hell Book 1)

by Larry, Natasha

  She stared at me, her blue gaze distrustful. When she made no move to take the charger, I dropped it beside her on the bed.

  “Just don’t tell Miss Molly,” Zane said with a wink.

  As soon as he said it, the familiar scent of brimstone gusted into the room.

  I swung around toward the door while it slowly creaked open. The sunlight angling through the window blinds behind me reflected off a pair of mirrored sunglasses on the figure standing in the doorway.

  My pulse pummeled through my veins. A demon was here. Maybe even a horde of demons since the Gates of Hell were now unlocked.

  I squinted in the bright room, swallowing hard, and shifted in front of Aggie’s bed to see better. The door swung closed, and the figure removed the sunglasses to reveal inky black eyes.

  I gasped. “Miss Molly?”

  13

  With the door shut behind her, Miss Molly had effectively walled us in with the growing scent of brimstone. It was definitely Miss Molly, right down to her oversized gray sweatshirt and Mom jeans.

  Only it wasn’t. Her smile showed too much teeth. Her normally kind eyes were blacker than the Pits of Hell. I’d heard stories about this kind of thing from Mauve, though had never seen it firsthand.

  A shiver crawled down the back of my neck. The head of Miss Molly’s School for Troubled Teens was possessed by a demon.

  Zane shot up from his chair. “M-Miss Molly? What happened to y-you?”

  Agatha scrambled to hide her phone under the pillows, because apparently that was more important than the demon in her hospital room.

  “Hi, kids,” Miss Molly said, and her voice held a two-tonal quality that backed me up a few steps. “I see you have visitors, Agatha.”

  “Yeah.” Zane stumbled into the window blinds, the movement clicking them together while light and shadows swished across the room. “We, uh… We were just dropping off her cards. Miss Molly, are you all right?”

  “I’m great,” she said in both her demonic and normal voice. Her black eyes flashed like obsidian. “Why do you ask?”

  Behind me, Agatha whimpered

  Why was this demon here at the hospital? Because Miss Molly had been headed here? Whatever the reason, we needed out.

  “Zane,” I said, struggling to hear myself over the roar of my heartbeat. “When I say run—”

  “Oh, no.” Not Miss Molly flung her hand out, and without touching me, sent me flying into the air.

  I hit the flat screen TV hanging high in the corner, then crashed to the ground. My head bounced off linoleum. The room blurred. My head pounded, tunneling the sunshine into a pinprick of dull light. Screams ripped through the room.

  I blinked hard. No. No, I would not pass out. I had too much to do. Two people I’d wronged were trapped with a possessed femstache.

  I pushed myself to my hands and knees, my brain pulsing with a thousand hammer smashes, and tried to blink the darkness away to the edges of my vision.

  The room seemed to have erupted without me. Furniture crashed and glass shattered. People pounded and shouted on the other side of the door. Screams and pleas echoed through my skull.

  Every muscle in my body throbbed. I tried to get to my feet but collapsed. I pressed my fingers to my temples and blinked, trying to bring the world back into focus one detail at a time.

  Agatha. In bed. Beet red and screaming her face off. Zane by the door of the bathroom with both of Not Miss Molly’s hands around his throat.

  How totally unprofessional.

  I stumbled again as I tried to get to my feet. I had to help, but without magic, what was I supposed to do?

  Agatha yelled until her voice sounded raw, snot bubbling at her nose. That, along with the cackling demon and the racket from the other side of the closed door, set my teeth on edge.

  “Shut up!” I cried.

  Agatha slapped her hands over her mouth and went silent.

  I held on to the corner of Agatha’s bed for support and glared at Not Miss Molly. “Let him go,” I ordered.

  Not Miss Molly turned her black eyes on me. “I know why you’re here, princess.”

  “That makes one of us.” I glanced at Zane, his mouth hanging open as he sputtered for more air. “Let him go.”

  “Tell me where it is.” The demon’s voice, gravelly and raw, drowned out Miss Molly’s completely.

  Agatha threw herself onto the floor on the far side of the bed, ripping out her IV in the process and leaving drops of blood on her sheets, her hands still clasped over her mouth.

  It, the demon had said. As in the key to the Gates of Hell?

  “I’ll tell you where it is,” I said, stepping closer. “But only if you release him first.”

  With a lifted eyebrow, she probed me with her black stare, then released him. He bent over and coughed, rubbing the spot on his neck where she’d squeezed.

  “Where is it?” Not Miss Molly demanded.

  “Why do you want it?” I asked.

  A plastic doll smile curved her lips. “How stupid do you think I am, princess?”

  “Only very.”

  “I want to destroy it. For good,” she growled.

  That wouldn’t do at all. Grandpa had forged one key for Mom to keep anyone from escaping. From the little I knew about him, I doubted he would make another, especially for Mom since their relationship was a tad strained.

  Yet this demon wanted answers, and I had none to give. Without magic, I’d have to rely on…something else since my charm never seemed to cut it. Like my training with Mauve… I could still fight.

  I rushed forward. Not Miss Molly’s black eyes leered, then widened, likely wondering what the Hell I was doing. Great question. I tried to skid to a stop before I slammed into her. Then I ducked so my forward momentum would knock into her knees like a princess-sized bowling ball.

  She stumbled backward. I swept up to deliver my palm into her throat. I swiftly follow that with an undercut to her chin. She went crashing to the floor.

  I reached for Zane, who was still bent over gasping for breath. “We need to get the Hell out of here.”

  He stared at my hand with the look of someone who…well, just discovered demons were real. His eyes were dazed, his glasses were crooked, and he appeared rooted to the floor.

  I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “Hello?”

  “Yeah,” he breathed. “Okay.”

  I flew toward Agatha, huddled and moaning by the far wall behind the chair next to her bed, and knelt next to her.

  “Quiet,” I hissed, “or you’ll wake that thing up.”

  She went ghost pale and nodded with a whimper. We stood and I led her around the bed, crossed the room toward the door, and I kicked the toe of Miss Molly’s sensible shoes. Her body was limp. We had a few minutes. Hopefully.

  I rushed Agatha to the door. “This is weird, I know, but we have to go. We have to—”

  The pounding and shouting outside the door had stopped. The smell of brimstone powered through the room once again, so strong I felt like I was back home. Black smoke laced with red Hellfire seeped through the cracks of the door, swirling into the open space of the room like it was testing for something. Tasting for something. A human host to possess.

  “No, no,” I muttered to myself, balling my hands into fists.

  More demons. Had I drawn them here? I shivered and gazed down at myself. Ah, shit, what if I had drawn them here since I was dressed like a Hell princess instead of wearing cats and rhinestones? Was that some kind of shield to protect my identity from anyone who wished me harm? But what made them think I knew where the key was?

  The smoke rippled over my toes. I backed away from it, racking my thoughts for a way to get Agatha and Zane out of this. Agatha’s room was too far up to leap out the window superhero-style.

  “Kasey,” Zane said in a low, trembling voice. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing good.” I gazed at him, my lips pushed together, then stepped in front of him to block him from the risin
g smoke. “Take me.”

  “What?” Zane asked, his voice edged in fear, his breath against my neck.

  The smoke funneled closer. Maybe I could fight the demons off internally. Maybe royal blood would be too much for them. But maybe not.

  The smoke licked out at me, as if sampling a soup. I braced myself. It hovered just over my mouth. I drew in a deep breath, inviting it in, and it danced across my lips.

  Zane gasped. A sudden pressure on my arm gave a mighty shove. Before I knew what was happing, I was eating floor tiles again. I turned my head in time to see the smoke swirling angrily around Zane. Had he pushed me out of the way?

  “No!” I cried as the smoke bounced across his skin. “You idiot!”

  I rushed at him, but it was too late.

  The smoke slid down his throat. He went rigid and lifted into the air, hovering three feet over the floor. His skin rippled and pressed so close to his bones that I might have been able to see his organs if he hadn’t been clothed.

  I grabbed onto him and pulled him down, but it was like trying to hold on to a cyclone. “No!” I shouted again as my fingers slipped off of him. “Take me instead!”

  His eyes stared down at me, not their usual purplish hue but possessed black. A smile that wasn’t his played at his lips. “Give me the key.”

  His two-toned voice ripped out a desperate moan from me. My eyes stung as I yanked at his arm to pull him to the ground. My heart pumped panic into my blood.

  The door swung open, and I whipped around. My eyes about popped out of my head.

  There stood Blade in his open vest, emo-eyeliner, and green faux-hawk. His fiery red gaze swept the room before landing on me. “Well, looks like a party.”

  14

  “Help him,” I said, my desperation bypassing my surprise at seeing Blade.

  He rushed forward, his huge machete hanging from his side, and pulled out a flask decorated with a naked lady. He threw the clear contents into Zane’s face, and Zane dropped to the ground. His mouth screwed up in agonized fury. He cursed and spat black sludge into Blade’s eyes, splattering my dress in the process. Then he began to convulse, his limbs bending at odd angles.

  I sank to my knees and tried to hold him down. “Holy water?”

  “Yeah.” Blade wiped the sludge off his face and smiled down at the thing inside Zane. “I bloody hate demons sometimes.”

  He doused Zane with another splash of holy water. It seemed like a paradox, for a demon to carry such a thing, but if it worked, it worked. With the expert of a well-versed Catholic priest, Blade spouted Latin over a convulsing Zane while I tried my best to keep him from hurting himself.

  The overhead lights flickered. Zane’s body twisted out of my grip and lifted into the air. His leg bent forward and snapped. Zane, the real Zane, howled in pain. My stomach convulsed at all these terrible sounds as I tried to snatch at his shirt to bring him back down.

  A scream behind me pierced the room. I whirled. Not Miss Molly used the end of the hospital bed to stand while Agatha looked on in wide-eyed horror from her huddled position in the far corner beside her bed. In all the chaos, I had almost forgotten about both of them.

  A triumphant smile cut through Not Miss Molly’s face. “You hid it, didn’t you? But I’ll find it.”

  She turned and fled the hospital room, leaving me feeling more helpless than I’d ever felt in my entire life.

  She was still possessed, now running loose in Jonesborough. And there was nothing I could do about it. I locked eyes with Blade.

  He stopped gushing Latin long enough to somehow read my mind. “I need you here. Find me a Devil’s trap.” Then he picked up his exorcism right where he left off.

  I released Zane, still squirming in the air, and rounded on Agatha. “Something with a lid.”

  She pointed, the force of her full-bodied shudder bouncing her arm up and down. “The…the bathroom.”

  I hurried toward the bathroom door, hoping she wasn’t talking about the damned toilet. Instead I found two halves of a plastic soap dish with what I assumed was a bar of soap inside, though it looked like a lumpy block of cheese. I dumped it in the sink and grabbed both parts of the soap dish.

  Agatha held her hands up as I came back out. “I have sensitive hands,” she said.

  As if that mattered.

  I handed the soap dish to Zane.

  Blade’s green faux-hawk sagged with the sweat dribbling down his face. His muttered Latin came to a brief stop. “Be ready to catch the demon.”

  Zane’s body twitched and heaved through the air. A two-tonal howl bellowed from his mouth, and the overhead lights shattered. Glass rained down on top of us. I shielded my head. Agatha screamed.

  I held the plastic soap dish, one half in each palm, my nerves unraveling inch by slow inch.

  Blade closed his eyes, the rest of the Latin exorcism dying on his lips. “Now, Kiera!”

  A stream of black smoke lit with Hellfire bulleted out of Zane’s mouth. I dived toward it and clapped the plastic halves together around it, trapping it. Zane flopped to the floor.

  Heaving a relieved breath, I patted my dress for someplace to put the soap dish. That was why people wore cargo pants! To keep trapped demons in all the pockets. With no better place to put it, I shoved it down into the top of my dress.

  Blade saw what I was doing and looked away, pointing down to Zane. “Let’s get him to the bed.”

  By the time we hefted him to the mattress, the light outside the window had dimmed, draping the room in long rectangles of soft oranges. But it appeared that the exorcism had gone down clean. The Devil was in the details.

  Blade left to find a nurse made extra helpful by his demonic persuasion. With a wink, his gleaming chest, and a little magic, humans could be coaxed into doing pretty much anything he suggested. Must’ve been nice.

  Agatha still sat huddled in the corner, her eyelids batting in time to the bathroom sink’s drip.

  Zane shivered, his face slimed in sweat. His dark hair had matted against his forehead, and his chest rose and fell in harsh, quick huffs. I clasped his hand with likely the same force as he squeezed his eyes shut. I hated that he was in so much pain with what was sure a broken leg.

  Blade came back with a gurney piled with supplies.

  “You think you can fix him?” I asked

  “The human way or our way? Because if it’s our way, I’ll have to take a little something from him in return.”

  My eyes turned to slits. “Can you fix him?”

  He returned my hostility with a grin. “Human way it is. Good thing you happened to be in a hospital.”

  I swayed between one leg and the other while he went through the supplies on the gurney. He raised a clear vial up to the dimming sunlight and plunged a needle into it.

  “Just a little longer, Zane.” I rubbed my thumb over his knuckles, wishing I could do something more for him than stand around with a demon-filled soap container between my boobs.

  His jaw clenched, stifling his heavy breaths, and his color had turned an unhealthy gray.

  “This is going to hurt, flesh suit.” Blade injected him with a pain killer. “I’m going to have to set that leg.”

  Zane’s pants began to slow. His fingers relaxed from around mine, and some of the tension faded from his face.

  Relief sagged me back into the chair next to the bed, behind which Agatha still cowered.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

  Blade glanced up from Zane’s arm. “Do you?”

  “Of course I don’t,” I snapped. “But why are you helping him? He’s human.”

  “I’m helping because you got the raw end of the deal.” Blade set the needle on the gurney.

  “What deal?”

  “The demons think you stole the key to the Gates of Hell as payback to your mom for banishing you.”

  “But…I would never do that.” I loved Mom and I loved home, so much so that I would do just about anything to go back. Anything except
making Mom look bad. “I’m not some spoiled rotten girl who’s bent on Hell’s destruction just because I got kicked out.”

  Blade’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you think I know that?”

  “So who did steal it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Zane groaned, bringing my thoughts to other matters.

  “Help him. Please.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Blade removed his belt and folded it double. “Make him bite down on this.”

  I took the belt from him and leaned in toward Zane. His eyes were closed, his lips parted. Peaceful, more so than I’d ever seen anyone up close. But his glasses were crooked, and I imagined that hurt his nose, though probably less than his broken leg. Still, it had to be annoying. Oh so gently, I straightened them then rested the belt between his lips. My fingertips brushed over them in a completely not by accident kind of way, and their softness zipped an electric thrill over my skin. I jerked my hands back, my cheeks warming, and glanced up to see if anyone had noticed my slip.

  Blade stared at me as something I couldn’t name flashed across his face. Anger? Hurt? Looking away, he cleared his throat. Behind me, however, Agatha snickered.

  Despite the embarrassed flush swamping my body, I squared my shoulders and turned my attention back to Zane.

  “All right, flesh suit,” Blade said. “You’re going to want to bite down on three.”

  I blew out a steadying breath and gripped Zane’s hand in mine as much for my benefit as his.

  “One.” Blade chewed his lip, flexing his fingers. “Two.”

  I didn’t think I could watch this without hurling. “Can’t you knock him out or something? Give him more meds for the pain?”

  Blade flicked his gaze at me, an impatient glint in his eyes, and then he jerked Zane’s leg backward and into place with a loud snap. “Three.”

  Zane jerked up, let out a low grunt, and sank back onto the bed, his head rolling to the side.

  “There.” Blade grinned. “He’s knocked out.”

  I sank my eyes closed while the sound of that setting bone echoed through my head. “Not what I meant, asshole.”

  “I know.”