“Should I be concerned about how well you know her habits?”
I gave a shrug that I hoped seemed casual, glancing away. If anyone knew how I felt about the little hellhound, I’d be in trouble. Weakness was not tolerated among our kind. “What exactly is it you came here to tell me?”
“Yesterday’s storm was orchestrated.”
I gave him a look. “I know; by witches. Nevaeh stopped it.” I knew because her heroic actions were followed by a three hour rant about how the witch was the reason she didn’t have a charizard in her pokedex. She’d even taken the time to explain that a charizard was a virtual dragon thing on her phone game.
“It was started by witches. Or so the witches believe.”
That got my attention. “What does that have to do with me, or Nevaeh.”
“Because, one of ours is playing a very dangerous game.”
I hesitated in giving a response. Did he mean dangerous as in we should put a stop to it, or dangerous as in ‘yippie, let’s tear shit up’? With a demon it was usually the latter. “Dangerous to who?” That seemed like a safe question, acceptably self serving.
“The humans.”
I relaxed a little.
“And our hound.”
I glared at him.
He just grinned back. “Relax, son. It should be fun to see how she responds,” he said, a darkly wicked gleam in his eyes. It was a gleam I didn’t trust.
“She belongs to me, Consequence. You know that.”
“Mmm, does that mean you’ll be fighting her battles for her?” he asked, his tone mocking.
I bared my teeth at him. “It means, if anyone’s going to break her, it’s going to be me.”
He smirked but I saw approval in his eyes. “Will you tell her?”
“And have her ask where my information came from? Are you ready for that?” I dared.
A muscle in his cheek twitched and he shot me a lethal glare. “Not now, but soon. She’s going to learn exactly who I am, and she’ll be seeing a great deal more of me, when the time is right.”
The End of Book One
Other Books by Eleanor Rousseau
If you enjoyed this book, you might enjoy Eleanor Rousseau’s other books, including the Grimmer Legacy series:
Demons and Hellholes #1
Amazon UK | Amazon US
Warlocks and Warfare #2
Amazon UK | Amazon US
Magic and Memory Loss #3
Amazon UK | Amazon US
Fangs and Forgiveness #4
Amazon UK | Amazon US
Badlands and Banshee #5
Amazon UK | Amazon US
Dungeons and Druids #6
Amazon UK | Amazon US
Mayhem and Misfits (Coming soon)
A Grimmer Legacy Box Set (Books 1-3)
Amazon UK | Amazon US
Continue reading for a small preview of Book One in the Grimmer Legacy series…
Demons and Hellholes
Chapter One
I was pinned down by a werewolf, a hairy abomination caught in the crossroads between man and beast. They weren’t all like this but Mr. Jenkins was a few bones short of a graveyard and his instability as a human had followed him into Lycanthropy, creating exciting and lethal new problems. Most stable shifters had two forms, animal and human, but this guy was stuck somewhere between the two.
Hot, putrid breath fanned my cheek as drool dropped down onto the shoulder of my jacket. My muscles ached and various open wounds burned. I had to pull something out of my hat and I had to do it soon or I’d be doggy chow.
I was about to perform some brilliant feat in order to save myself when the werewolf’s brains were suddenly splattered all over the wall. My breath caught in my throat as its full weight landed on me and I fought back my immediate instinct to panic. I breathed in the coppery scent of blood and almost gagged in revulsion.
“Oh great,” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster before shoving the heavy carcass off my body.
“Quit fooling around, Kia,” said an annoyingly familiar voice.
“What do you want, Jay?” I asked, staying down in order to give my exhausted muscles time to recover.
“Besides to save your ass? You have a real assignment,” he told me as if taking on a fully grown werewolf wasn’t a real assignment. For him, I suppose such a thing was only a trivial matter. He stepped closer and raised an eyebrow down at me.
“Just tell me what it is.”
He held out pictures of two individuals.
“Handsome,” I murmured as I sat up to take them from him. The first was more obviously good looking with blond hair, deep blue eyes and a jawline that could cut glass. However, it was the second who caught my attention.
The photo of the first man looked like an ID photo for a license but the second one was a photo taken by a security camera so the quality wasn’t great. Both his hair and eyes were a brown so dark they could have been black, his jaw was square and I could just make out a faint scar across his cheek. Looking at him everything in my subconscious screamed ‘danger’. His eyes were hard and cold with an aura of darkness practically clung to him.
“Don’t be fooled, they’re the bad guys and they’re after something we want. The Axitross.”
My eyes widened, the Axitross was a legendary artefact with untold power. In my line of work, it paid to know about any such magical objects but reports on the Axitross had always been frustratingly vague. All we knew was that it was very powerful and a lot of people wanted it.
“Why me?” I asked because, despite my efforts, I was one of the weaker members of our little team. In fact I was arguably the weakest.
“Because blondie’s a Fey,” he said.
The Fey, sometimes also called Fae, or even Fairies, were a race of supernaturals that had immigrated to earth from another realm. I always viewed them as the opposite of Demons, although they were by no means angels. The Fey were typically incredibly beautiful and most of them fed on the emotional energy of others. This could be anything from the sexual energy produced by humans, to the fear energy when they’re afraid.
“Oh.” That made sense. I didn’t have any flashy magic but I was gifted with an immunity to Fey magic. Most of the others were less susceptible to Fey magic than humans but I was the only one truly unaffected.
“What about tall, dark and deadly?” I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet.
“He’s a Demon Blood.”
I blinked, huh? “And they’re working together?” I asked doubtfully.
“Surprised the hell outta me too. You’ve got this.”
Well, that sure was encouraging. “You think I can take on both a Fey and a Demon Blood?” Clearly, he was insane. Demon Bloods, otherwise known as Daemons, were half demon, half human and most were very powerful.
He shook his head. “I think you can fool a Fey and a Demon Blood. You go up against them, blondie uses his glamour on you, you resist for just long enough to make it seem believable before you ‘succumb’. Chances are they’ll know about us and after they have you under their spell they’ll try and use you to get the Axitross. You go along with it until they have it and then you switch it with a fake and get the hell out of dodge.”
I bit my lip. “Fey resistance wasn’t the only reason you chose me,” I observed.
“I know you’re a fan of undercover, and the others can’t act to save their life.”
“Well, I think I’m up for the job.” Excitement was already building in my chest. I enjoyed fighting as much as the next sociopath but I preferred a quieter approach, like poisoning them in their sleep. “But how will they know I’m one of us, I’m not exactly the most recognizable Grimmer.”
“You can wear this.” He held up a green length of cloth with the Grimmer’s crest on.
“Subtle,” I said, taking it from him.
“Get home, clean yourself up. I’ll text you the details.”
On a whim, I hugged him briefly. “Thanks.”
He sm
iled a little. “Anytime lil sis. Now go, clean up, you’re a mess.”
He was such a jerk but instead of saying anything I just hurried to my ride, trusting him to call up the cleanup crew for the corpse.
*****
After cleaning and wrapping my wounds I dressed for war. I wore tight black jeans which flared at the ends, just enough to disguise ankle holsters, a plain black shirt and a loose gray hoodie with the strip of fabric tied around my upper arm. I had a sword on one hip and a gun on the other.
I paused in the process of adjusting my thigh holster when I noticed the book on my nightstand. I moved towards it. I hadn’t put it there and I was ninety percent sure that it hadn’t been there when I’d stepped into the room.
A familiar crest marked the spine, the only sign of what it might contain. Some might tell you that to ignore a visit from the Grimmer Grimoire was unwise but in my experience all the damn book did was muddy the waters.
It could tell you about a monster you’ll soon battle against, or it could tell you about one you’ll brush up against in a supermarket. I didn’t open it but leaving it out in the open felt risky somehow. I tucked it away in my old satchel and put the bag away under the bed, though I doubted it would stay put.
I headed out and as I reached the kitchen, Maya, my roommate, briefly glanced my way. “Wow, you’re decked out.”
“I’m on a mission. Might take some time, don’t wait up.” I went to the phone and dialed. “Jay, I had a thought. If this takes longer than two days you’re going to have to come and try to rescue me. They’ll get suspicious if they think you just let one of your own slip through your fingers.”
“I’ll send Cas, it wouldn’t seem unreasonable that you could take him in a fight and he can fake a dive convincingly. I’ve got a location on the boys, I want you to go there and act like you’re just there for the demon blood. He killed a higher up in the vampire council a while back so you can pretend you were hired by them.
“Remember, as far as you know the Fey won’t be there. You’re young enough that he may think you’re going after him because you’re cocky or you have something to prove. Go and try to look…” He hesitated.
“To look what?”
He hesitated again. “…Unattractive.”
“Huh?” What did my appearance have to do with anything?
“One of them is a Fey, Kia, you know how the Fey are.”
“Fey may be shallow and bad but, in case you’ve forgotten, I can manipulate anything with even a hint of a conscience. I can handle it.” Of that, I was fairly confident.
“Just- wear ill-fitting clothes or something.”
I smirked a little at his uncomfortable tone. “Relax, I’ve actually heard that Fey are really good between the sheets. Ta-ta now,” I hung up on the stunned silence and laughed to myself.
Maya lifted an eyebrow. “You’re sleeping with a Fey?”
I shrugged. “I’m just being open-minded. If Jay comes storming in here tell him it’s far too late to stop me.” I chuckled as I grabbed my keys.
“Have fun,” she said.
“You too, with whatever you’re doing.” I checked my phone to see he had already texted me the location. They were in a bar on the other side of the city. I made a point of knowing the names and locations of most dive bars in the city, whenever dealing with the more shady aspects of the supernatural community it paid to know the layout of those places.
Heroes and a Hellhound: Book One Page 19
