Then began the singing.
“Let’s get down to business...” she sang, deepening her voice to match the singer.
I pressed a hand over my mouth to keep an audible laugh from escaping. If the music wasn’t so loud and she’d been paying attention, she would have already heard me. I was damn glad she hadn’t. This was priceless. I wished I had my mobile phone, and that I knew how to use the video recorder function.
* * *
10:00
An alarm went off, it was a soft, melodic sound that steadily grew in volume. Nevaeh slapped me in the face. Then, she must have realised her phone was positioned on her other side because she stopped patting my face and rolled over to reach for it. I growled softly in annoyance.
The alarm stopped and there was blessed silence.
Nevaeh pinched my nose. “Hey, you want a quicky before I go to my lecture?”
“If I fuck you, Nevaeh, you wont make it to your lecture,” I said, voice rough with sleep. The comment came out sounding much sexier than I’d meant it to.
“You’re right, I never have the heart to leave when it’s over and you start with the tears and the sobbing,” she declared as she went about getting dressed.
I chuckled. If I were a less secure man, I’m sure I would have found my wife’s sense of humour frustrating but we demons weren’t easily offended and you had to admire her quick wit. No one could throw a scathing retort quite like my Neva.
“Besides, I was only offering because you have morning wood,” she told me.
“No, I…” I glanced beneath the covers. “Oh fuck.” I glanced up but Nevaeh was already out the door, cackling like some sort of evil sea witch. “Uh.” I rolled over, pressing the side of my face into my pillow as I tried to go back to sleep. And tried to make a certain part of my anatomy also go back to sleep.
* * *
10:45
After failing on both accounts, and a cold shower, I gave up on trying to get back to sleep.
I ported to the house of David Henderson. Henderson had good taste in men’s clothing and he was my size. And he rarely noticed when his suits went missing. His closet was so big that I doubt he’d notice if half of it vanished.
I dressed, wondering what Nevaeh would think of the outfit. Not that she cared about such things. She probably wouldn’t notice if I showed up in a ratty tank top and beat up old jeans, or one of the ‘I may be straight, but I don’t hate’ t-shirts that kept appearing in her wardrobe. Well, she wouldn’t notice until she wanted me to take them off. I was just a slab of meat to that girl. Granted, a very fine slab of meat.
I pulled on the tie, glanced in the mirror, then decided against it. Ties just seem like an invitation for someone to try and strangle you. Or so Nevaeh insisted. She was kinky like that.
* * *
11:30
“Just the usual please, Louise,” I said as I strode into the hairdressers that was six doors down from our house.
“No Nevaeh today?” she asked with a warm smile.
“I don’t have to do everything with my wife, Louise,” I told her as I shrugged out of my jacket and hung it on a peg on the wall.
“She trying to grow it longer?” she asked.
“Yes,” I admitted reluctantly as I took a seat in the chair. Even before Nevaeh wanted to grow out her hair, I’d have to get mine cut twice as often. I hated when it got shaggy.
“How is your wife?” she asked as she ran her fingers through my hair.
“Annoying. All her essay due dates are coming up so she’s a little more tightly strung than usual.”
“She takes English, right?”
I nodded. “And creative writing. She made me read two of her short stories the other day, one was about a horny space pirate and the other was about a girl at the bottom of the sea in a… I think she called it a hydro station. Anyway, the story was about the girl slowly going insane.”
“Wow, she’s more creative than I could ever be. Okay, I’m probably going to cut out the rest of this colour so I’ll get the foils. Were the stories any good?”
“I think so. Well, the creepy one was. I wasn’t sure I followed the space pirate one. I think he was in love with a star, or maybe she was the embodiment of wonder. There was too much damn subtext. Also, he was fucking half his crew. That was not in the sub text, it was in the regular text.”
She laughed softly as she drew over a trolley and began to mix my usual colour.
“My wife likes it freaky.”
She grinned. “You should get that printed on a t-shirt.”
I snorted.
“How’s that buddy who was trying to edge in on your business?” she asked as she began putting in the foils.
“Oh, don’t even get me started. He has absolutely no experience but he’s got this whole ‘if you can do it, so can I’ mentality. And he’s not interested in hearing any advice. Bullheaded fool. He even said he bet he could also get a wife who’s a… college student,” I finished, narrowly avoiding outing my wife as a hellhound.
Louise was just so easy to talk to, it was easy to forget that she was human.
“Well, that’s just sleazy,” she muttered.
“Right? It’s not a damn competition. And you know he was just blowing hot air. If the guy so much as heard the word commitment, he’d run the other way like his hair was on fire.”
“If I were you, I’d keep him away from Nevaeh. Guys like that don’t always respect boundaries,” she said, tilting my head to the side.
“He’d respect hers,” I said wryly. “Or she’d educated him using her favourite medium; violence.”
Louise laughed. “Good for her. Speaking of violence… did you hear what happened with the Wests next door?”
“No. Tell me,” I said eagerly.
She gave me a loaded look. “All I’ll say is that someone threw a Laptop through a window and someone left to go and stay at her mother’s house for the foreseeable future.”
I grinned. “You think the old man was receiving pictures from his piece on the side?”
“More than pictures,” she whispered with a sly smile.
I laughed. “The old dog. Can’t say I blame him. That woman had the shrillest voice I’ve ever heard. Total turn off.”
“It is horrible, isn’t it? You should have heard her in here the one time Mabel used the wrong shade on her. Not the wrong colour; it was only two shades out from her usual. Still, she screamed like a banshee for ten straight minutes once it was done. And she gave us a scathing Yelp review. Still comes in though,” she said tartly.
“Bitch,” I muttered.
She grinned. “I think I’m just about done here. You want a cuppa while we let it set?” she asked.
“Sure. Black, no sugar.”
While she stepped in the back, I pulled out my phone and texted Nevaeh.
Tim: What are you wearing? Nevaeh: The same thing I left the house in. Nevaeh: Dumbass. Tim: You are horrible at sexting. Nevaeh: You want nudes?
This felt like a trap but I was a man.
Tim: Yes.
And I was instantly bombarded with a stream of pictures of a naked black man. I tilted my head, studying the pictures.
Tim: Nice. Nevaeh: There's more where that came from. Tim: His boobs are nicer than yours. Nevaeh: Heathen! Nevaeh: No one's boobs are nicer than mine.
I snorted.
“Messaging your wife?” Louise asked as she stepped back in the room with two mugs.
“No, one of my mistresses.”
Her smirk said she knew I was full of shit.
“A red headed bartender with legs a mile long,” I added.
She nodded, clearly willing to humour me. I huffed. She knew me too well. Juggling multiple lovers was too much work. Heck, handling Nevaeh was hard enough.
* * *
13:27
The Old Haunt might not be what one would expect from a portal to hell but it did the job in a pinch. The old pub was minutes away from Lands End, therefore the closest h
ell gate to where we lived. It was pretty much everything you could expect from an old Cornish pub. Exposed brick walls, nautical themed wall decorations, a dark interior, and an old man in the corner nursing a beer even though it was barely past noon.
Day drinking, a great English tradition. I walked straight to the back and no one so much as glanced my way. I didn’t know if that was a result of the portal’s magic, or of the complete apathy of all those present. Either way, it suited my needs.
Down a back hallway, I came to a door with a gritty disabled sign that was hanging upside down. I pulled a dagger from my jacket’s inner pocket and slit my palm. A sacrifice was required to enter the realm of the dead, or at least an offering. I pressed my bleeding hand to the sign and watched as the blood trailed down over the cracked, off-white paint on the door. It came slowly at first but it soon sped up. Then blood began to fall from the top edge of the door, dripping down in rivulets until not an inch of the ruddy white beneath was visible.
Then the deep red began to flicker and the fall of blood took on the appearance of flames. I always felt slightly apprehensive stepping through this door. Unlike my beloved, I wasn’t immune to fire.
Holding my breath, I plunged through the doorway. Cringing at the disconcerting sensation of stepping into a different realm, I landed on the other side in what appeared to be the mirror image of the hall I’d just been in.
Patting at my sleeve, which appeared to be smoking, I made my way back out of the hall.
Unlike the bar on earth, this one was brimming with demons and I didn’t escape their notice. Jeers and greetings filled the air, along with more than one comment calling me a pansy and domesticated human bitch.
That might have bothered me, if a single one of them had dared to stand up to throw their taunts. But they didn’t. Pussies.
“Anyone leave me any messages, boys?”
“You have no business with real demons,” one of them declared.
I made a point of glancing around. “Well good, because it appears there are no real demons here,” I sneered, striding through the bar.
I was almost to the door when another voice spoke up. “Is it true you stole Wrath’s pet?”
I slowly turned on my heel. “Is that what he’s telling people?” I grinned. “Sorry to disappoint you, lads, but I didn’t steal anything. And I can’t be held accountable if he fails to keep his beasts leashed.”
“But she’s yours now?” the same voice pressed.
“Yes. And, unlike Wrath, I know how to keep what is mine,” I said, a low snarl in my voice.
All eyes turned from me, no one willing to challenge me. Satisfied, I huffed before turning and walking away. I had one more stop to make before heading home.
* * *
13:51
The Valley of Bones was a pretty apt name for this place. The floor rattled and clicked beneath my feet with each step. I didn’t know if there was actual ground deep beneath the mounds of bones or if there were simply more bones. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the latter.
There was another rattle and I paused. The sound continued a beat after I’d stopped moving, which could mean only one thing. A damn bone snake was near. They didn’t like the taste of demon flesh but they couldn’t always tell the difference between a human and a demon, until they had their fangs in you that is. I picked up the pace, towards one of the larger mounds of bones.
I carefully climbed the mound, careful to avoid any bones that looked particularly pointy. I wasn’t exactly up to date on my tetanus shots. Some of the bones shifted beneath my feet but I managed to keep from face planting, barely.
When I came close to the top of the mound, I rooted through the bones until I found some large ones, almost two foot long each.
They looked kind of like wing bones, particularly as they were still being held together by thin strips of flesh. Surprising, considering a bone snake could strip a body of flesh in seconds. I yanked the two bones apart and whatever cartilage was left tore like tissue paper.
After some contemplation, I tossed one of the bones as far from me as possible. I watched intently as it fell, seeing the impact at it hit and, a heartbeat later, seeing it dragged under the bones already
The rattling of bones rose to a truly chilling volume and I wasted no time sprinting to the doorway. The rattling took on an almost frantic sound and I knew that, if I fell, I’d have a pack of snakes on me immediately, tearing at my flesh. What’s a group of snakes called?
Nevaeh would know.
The toe of my boot got caught in a pelvis and I had a millisecond of blind panic before I was thrown forward. I landed half through the doorway and, luckily, my momentum was enough to push me the rest of the way through. I came tumbling to a stop, my heart racing.
I laughed breathlessly, the bone still clutched in my hand.
Compared to my foray into the Valley of Bones, the walk back to the portal pub was uneventful. Up until I arrived, that was. The moment I stepped inside, every demon rose to their feet and turned to face me.
“You can’t stop me, I’m bound to someone on the other side,” I declared. The handfast with Nevaeh had the added benefit of affording me a free pass out of hell, so long as she was on the other side.
The only response was silence. I began walking towards the portal and no one made a move to stop me. That didn’t mean I was letting my guard down, though. I tightened my grip on the bone, prepared to use it as a club if anyone glanced at me the wrong way.
A sacrifice wasn’t necessary on this side of the portal. If you made it through the horde of demons, you either had the right to or were so powerful that it didn’t matter. And that was before reaching the door itself.
The doorknob began to glow as I approached and I felt a tingling on my arm where the handfast rune was. I knew that it would be glowing beneath the jacket, same as the knob. I knew Nevaeh didn’t understand the full power of the runes, she thought of them like marriage rings. Symbolic.
They were a little more than that.
The knob twisted easily in my hand, though it did give me a small shock. A small reminder that I was about to go to a place where I didn’t belong. But I did belong with my wife and a door wasn’t going to stop me from getting home. I yanked the door open and didn’t hesitate this time before stepping through the flaming, blood-red portal.
After walking through the portal, I only waited long enough to make it outside of the pub to teleport home.
As I solidified in the living room there was an excited bark as Pete bounded to meet me. He sniffed enthusiastically at me, his tail wagging madly. I dropped the bone on the floor in front of him and he paused to give my hand a few grateful licks before bending to gnaw on the bone, his expression one of pure bliss.
The mutt was pretty useless, always wanting to befriend strangers, completely ignorant of impending danger. He was not a worthy companion to a hellhound. Which is why I’d been letting him chew on the bones of greater predators, magical predators. I was hoping he would somehow gain their instincts, or at least a taste for something that didn’t come out of a tin.
So far, it hadn’t worked. But maybe I just hadn’t found the right bone yet. I gave him a quick scratch behind the ears before straightening.
Nevaeh never asked where the bones came from, maybe she thought I bought them at a pet shop.
* * *
15:32
“I’m on my way. I’ll be over in fifteen minutes.”
I heard the front door open. “Nevaeh just got home but I’ll knock her out. That way she won’t know you’re coming,” I murmured before quickly hanging up. I hurried down the stairs. Nevaeh dropped her bag in the armchair and unzipped her jacket before tossing it on the chair too with a huff.
“Fucking pathos,” she growled.
I had no idea what that meant so I just offered her the fluffy blanket. She glanced down at it and toyed with the ends of her hair as she stepped closer. She might like to act as if she were too badass to appreciate a
fluffy blanket but I knew better. She owned three of the damn things.
She accepted it, hugging it to her chest and rubbing her cheek against it. “Thank you,” she said reluctantly before dropping onto the sofa and unfolding the blanket.
With a smile, I headed into the kitchen. I flipped the kettle on and poured a blood pack from the fridge into a glass. Then I put the glass into the microwave.
By the time I made it back into the living room, Neva was already curled up on the sofa beneath the blanket. I offered her the glass. “Thank you,” she said, her voice practically a purr. Evidently, she’d gotten over her frustration with pathos.
It was true what they said, a way to a girl’s heart was a pint of O negative.
I walked upstairs, snagged the hot water bottle from her nightstand and went down to refill it. In the living room, Nevaeh set her empty glass on the coffee table and licked her lips. Sexy fucking hound. I lifted her blanket enough to place the hot water bottle against her stomach before covering her up again.
“Did you kill someone I like?” she asked, although her eyelids were already drooping.
Pete climbed up beside her, looking like he was trying to be discreet which was humorous for a dog his size.
“No. But the day’s still young.” That comment had her falling asleep with a smile on her face, and the mutt curled against her side snoring softly. I stood watching for a couple more minutes to make sure she was truly out before heading out to the back alley.
He was already waiting, melding into the shadows so well I might not have seen him if not for the glowing tip of his cigar. “You spike her blood?” the demon in the alley asked as my eyes adjusted just enough for me to make out his expression.
“No. This is Nevaeh we’re talking about; I just got her settled for a nap.”
He quirked a brow.
“A full stomach and warm blanket cocoon knock that girl out faster than any drug could. Don’t ask me why. But, since I left the curtains open, she’ll probably be up again in an hour.”
Heroes and a Hellhound: Book One Page 18
