Firestorm (Smoke & Ashes Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  It didn’t matter now, anyway, so I didn’t say anything. I just went for the bar. The handle of the door felt ice cold against my palm. I pulled it open, and another wave of raw cold gave me the chills. It was dark in there, and once we walked in and the door closed, it was impossible to tell what time it was. Which was probably the reason why twelve people were still in there, drinking. Maybe they didn’t own watches or phones, but the more interesting thing was that most of them were maggots, and I hadn’t felt them at all from the outside. Which meant spells were being used to keep this place protected.

  Once I was in there, I could feel them all, starting with the two succubi who looked like sex wrapped up in soft, glowing skin, sitting closest to the door. One of them had hair so white it looked like it was covered in snow, and her skin was almost transparent. The other had dark curls that fell down to her ass and her coffee-colored skin glowed golden under the dim lights of the bar. It was really difficult to look away from them, especially when their eyes were on me, their expression a mixture of fear and disgust—right until they saw Lexar behind me.

  The fear and disgust were gone, and in their place was now pure lust. Ugh. They could have him for all I cared.

  One of the guys in there felt very similar to the one I’d killed two days ago—the memory leech—and he wasn’t alone. Across from him sat an actual goblin. I’d only ever seen his kind a few times before, and each time, I’d been as shocked as I was now. He looked more like a kid than adult, if kids had dark green skin with really short green fur covering it. He had skinny legs and arms, a large nose that made you wonder how he even kept his head straight, and for all the fur on his body, the top of his head was completely bald. His green eyes were the same shade as the rest of his body, and the clothes he had on only made him look stranger. Like he wasn’t real at all—just a figment of people’s imagination.

  Goblins were nasty creatures. They were full of malice and really greedy for anything shiny they could see. It was best to watch my knives while I was here. He didn’t even turn his head to look at us, but he knew we were there. That’s why his eyes were stuck staring at the beer in front of him.

  There were four shifters in there, too. The bar wasn’t as poorly decorated as the one Chelsea and I liked to go to in our part of the city. It was actually pretty nice there, all blue lights and shiny surfaces. The music was slow and really low, setting the mood for the drunks who could barely keep their eyes open. I was really curious to know if they’d drank all night or if they’d just started this morning.

  Maybe I could ask the bartender. I had more than a few questions for him. Like, why was there a spell around this place? Why were all the people in here paranormals, including himself, and why the hell had I never heard of this place before, even though I’d been right next to it just last year?

  I turned to Lexar to ask him if he had any tips and found him ogling the succubi, who were now smiling like they were already close to orgasming.

  “Feel free to go party with those chicks while I talk to the bartender. Make it quick because they’re going to die before they leave here,” I reminded Lexar and headed for the bar.

  The bartender was possibly in his forties, his hair more grey than brown, his dark blue eyes wide as he tried to force himself not to show any weakness—like fear. I couldn’t tell what he was yet, but he didn’t look like a shifter, and he definitely didn’t pull me in like maggots did.

  Behind me, Lexar chuckled. “Jealousy becomes you,” he whispered behind me, so low I barely heard him.

  I wanted to flip him off, but we were right in front of the bar now, and there was a chance that the bartender would pass out soon, so I needed to make use of the time he still had.

  “Hi, there. We’re looking for the owner of this place,” I said, putting my hands over the counter to show him that I had no weapons. He didn’t know that I could blow a hole in his chest with a wave of my hand, and he didn’t need to.

  “The manager isn’t here, sorry,” the bartender said, his voice thick, like he’d just taken a nap.

  “Not the manager. The owner. Give me a name.”

  “I don’t know who the owner is.” He took a quick look at the people sitting behind us. I could feel all their eyes on me, but I wasn’t alarmed yet. I didn’t expect them to attack me until I attacked them. “Nobody does. Joey handles everything around here.”

  “And Joey’s the manager?” Lexar asked.

  The man nodded. “The new one, yeah.”

  “What happened to the old one?”

  But he shrugged. “I’m new, too. Just started two months ago.”

  Lexar put his elbows over the counter, and lightning began to dance on him, demanding attention. The bartender gave all of his to them. His lips parted as he slowly took a step back.

  “Just tell us what we want to know. It’s not that hard,” Lexar said.

  This time, the man whispered. “I swear, I don’t know anything. All I know is that the managers are always changing, that’s what I was told. I don’t know who the owner is.” Even his whisper broke.

  Call it instinct or just common sense—he was too afraid to lie to us right now—but I felt like he was telling the truth. He really didn’t know who the owner was, and Joey the new manager wasn’t even here.

  But that didn’t mean that the people here didn’t know. I mean, they were there at two p.m., drinking like it was midnight. If that didn’t mean they were regulars, I’d cut off my own arm.

  “What about the spells? Who made the spells you’re using for this place?” The same spells that hadn’t let me feel the tug of the maggots inside.

  Once more, he shook his head. “No idea.” Just what I expected.

  I looked at Lexar. “Let’s raise some hell here, shall we?”

  For once, he agreed with me. With a grin, he turned around and looked at our audience. I did the same, slowly unzipping my hoodie from Hell to reach my knives. The rest of my clothes were fresh, and they smelled nice. I smelled good after the shower and felt a lot better, too. Very ready to get dirty again by spilling some blood and bashing some heads in.

  “All right, fellas.” I looked at the two succubi. “And ladies. Who here wants to tell us who the owner of this place is?”

  Nobody even moved. The music stopped playing, too. You could hear a pin drop.

  “No volunteers?” Lexar asked, the amusement in his voice evident. Lightning danced around his arms, barely visible.

  I could see their eyes moving slowly from us to the door and back again. It was only a matter of time now…

  They all moved at the same time, and they all made for the door.

  About half of them fell down on their faces. They were so drunk, no way could they make it out of there by themselves. But we had to stop the other half by force. Lexar was already by the door, the two succubi in front of him, no longer looking at him with lust, but hissing at him. I ran after the shifters and grabbed one of them by the hair. His brown hair was a bit on the long side, perfect for grabbing and holding onto, until I pulled him back and slammed him against one of the tables. The other three were already in front of Lexar. His fist slammed onto the face of the first guy so hard, he sent him back a few steps just in time for me to kick the hell out of his back. He flew forward and practically fell over the blonde succubi, while the brunette was trying to pull Lexar’s eyes out with her claw-like fingernails. He had his hands busy with her and the two shifters, but I got to join the party soon. Fighting was my favorite thing in the world to do, and I never held back.

  What was the point? If I couldn’t cause at least twice as much damage as was caused to me, there was no point in even trying. I took that very seriously. That’s why my new hoodie was full of splatters of blood, and the blades of my two knives were coated in it barely five minutes in.

  I wasn’t aiming to kill, so I avoided the face and the heart while I fought the two shifters and the succubi. All the other people—and the goblin—stayed behind, watching, terr
ified or too drunk to understand what the hell was even happening. It was just Lexar and me against those six, and it was a hell of a lot more fun than when I fought by myself.

  When the heel of my boot slammed onto the shifter’s chin, he spun around twice before he hit the wall with his face, and the next thing I knew, the white-haired succubi was lunging for me. Now, her I would gladly kill, no matter if she had information about the bar owner or not. She was a maggot, and you already know how I feel about those.

  But she was stronger than I thought she would be, and I found out when she slapped the shit out of me one second, then kicked me in the stomach the next. I’ll admit, my lights went out for a bit there, but at least I didn’t fall. That would have been embarrassing. Instead, I pretended to be out of it when she came at me the third time, until she was close enough. She tried to grab me by the throat, teeth bared as she hissed at me like an animal.

  Her fingers were inches away from my throat when I stabbed her in the wrist. Her scream filled my head, but that didn’t stop me. I stepped to the side and pulled the handle of my knife, still in her wrist. Her other hand was in my face, but I already knew where her face was, so I didn’t really need my eyes to stab her under the chin. Her scream cut off abruptly and her broken nails dug into my cheek as she tried to hold on. It hurt like hell, but I held back the scream until I pushed her off me, taking my knife out of her wrist. The succubi, now looking like a ghost who’d bathed in a tub full of blood, fell to her knees. I dropped my free knife to the floor and grabbed her by the hair, before I pulled my other knife from under her chin and stabbed her in the eye.

  What a sight to see. She fell to the side, not completely lifeless yet, but I left my knife in her until I had time to smash her skull. Right now, her friend was coming for me, looking a lot more like the monster she really was now that she wasn’t using any magic to mask herself and lure in prey. Killing her was a bit easier because she’d succumbed to her animal side, and she didn’t use any technique. She just lunged for me, trying to devour me whole, arms spread wide to her side, her entire body open. All I had to do was duck for a bit while I reached for a new knife in my holster, then stab her in the heart when her arms wrapped around my shoulders.

  Her scream was different than her friend’s, but it cut off just as abruptly. I pushed her back, leaving my knife in her, too, to make sure she wouldn’t heal while we took care of the shifters.

  Two of them were on the ground, but the other two were still fighting Lexar. It was easy to see that he was trying hard not to kill them, and that sometimes complicated things. Not by a lot, though. Reaching for my fourth knife, I went behind one of the shifters—a giant, at least six foot five, and I stabbed him right between his shoulder blades. The stab wouldn’t kill him, but it would slow him down just enough for me to kick his feet from under him. Once he was on the floor, I kicked the side of his head with maybe half my strength. He stopped moving instantly.

  K.O., motherfucker.

  The fourth shifter was on his way to unconsciousness, too, with Lexar’s arm squeezing his neck. He tried to get away, but it was useless. His only hope would be to shift into whatever he shifted into, but he knew that doing that would result in his death. There was no point in trying to contain and question animals, so Lexar and I would have no choice but to kill them dead.

  “These four should do,” Lexar said when the body of the unconscious shifter hit the floor.

  I turned to the bar. “Y’all are free to go. And try not to start drinking in the morning. Five o’clock at the earliest.” See? I told you I was a people person. “You don’t happen to have any rope around here, do you?” I asked the bartender, who couldn’t seem to blink his eyes at all as he watched us.

  I took in a deep breath to calm my racing heart. It felt mighty good to have gone through all that.

  As it turned out, the bartender did have some rope to lend us. It took him a bit to go get it from the back, and it took the other drunks in the bar almost a full minute to get the hell out of there because they couldn’t stop looking at us, expecting us to attack them, too. But the fact that they hadn’t been as determined to get out of there, like the shifters and the succubi had been, said that they had no information to share with us. Letting them go was the reasonable and easier thing to do.

  Five minutes later, the bartender and the shifters were the only ones in the bar with us. I’d already smashed the heads of the succubi and taken back my knives. Their rotten brains decorated the floor, but somebody would clean it up when we left. Probably.

  For now, I focused on the four shifters we’d tied to chairs in the middle of the room. Not that they couldn’t get out of the ropes if they tried, but it would take them a second, and a second was more than long enough to finish them off if they were stupid.

  “You got a cold beer for me?” I asked the bartender. Yes, I know I said that five o’clock was the time to start drinking, but this day didn’t count. I was going through a tough time here, what with the nocturnal bitch and Chelsea turning into a fucking cheetah just the night before. I deserved a break.

  “Make that two,” Lexar said and came to stand next to me by the bar, his eyes on the shifters. All their heads were down, eyes closed, breathing even. They hadn’t woken up yet.

  “You’ve got blood on your clothes,” he said, taking a swig of his beer.

  “So do y—” I stopped speaking when I turned to look at him and couldn’t see a fucking splatter on him. Goddamn it. “How the hell did you manage that?”

  He’d fought just as much as I had. Why wasn’t there any blood on him?

  “I keep telling you to lose the knives. They’re too messy,” he said.

  Maybe he was right because his dark jeans looked perfectly clean, and his grey shirt that hugged his frame perfectly and showed just a tiny bit of the shape of his abs was the same. In fact, it looked damn good on him, too. Guess he didn’t get the memo that grey doesn’t look good on anyone.

  “You can stop checking me out now.”

  Ugh. I had been checking him out. All that ripped muscle under that shirt was a fucking waste on this guy, I swear.

  “In your dreams, Nevermore.”

  “In yours, actually.”

  I smiled wide. “Do you see the fuck you in my smile?”

  He laughed. “I see the blood on your lips. Want me to get that for you?” And he actually reached out his hand toward my face. Like hell was I going to let him touch my lips. “It’s just a little bit.”

  I slapped his hand away. “Keep your hands to yourself, dove.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, but there was no blood. Either I didn’t get it, or the asshole was lying through his teeth.

  No time to double check because one of the shifters, the really big one, was coming to. I left the beer on the bar and walked over to him. He lazily opened his eyes and tried to focus. I leaned down until our noses were inches apart.

  Mistake. He reacted quickly. His head pulled back and he slammed his forehead onto my nose with all his strength. If you’ve never had your nose broken before, consider yourself lucky because it hurts like a bitch. A cry left my lips as I stood back up, blood exploding from both my nostrils. My eyes were completely blinded by the tears, and my entire head felt like it was split open. The worst part was that he’d broken my bone, and I had to put it back in place with my own hands before it started to heal. Now that hurts even more. I’d had my nose broken before by a vampire, so I knew the pain I was in for. I gritted my teeth, but it did nothing to ease it.

  The good news was that it was over quickly. My bone was in place, and the throbbing pain was going to get weaker and weaker and disappear by the end of the day.

  But this guy was not going to see the end of the day at all.

  Every curse word I probably knew left my lips as I slapped the shit out of him, much like that succubi had slapped me earlier. Lexar didn’t move from his place by the bar, but the smile on his face said he was enjoying the show. I was, too, now that
I was the one delivering the hits, and the shifter growled low in his throat—a warning that his animal was almost on the loose.

  “Make my day,” I told him after the seventh or eighth slap. I pulled one of my knives from the holster and showed it to him. “Shift so I can cut you to fucking pieces already.”

  Instead, the guy spit blood right next to my feet. Disgusting.

  I slammed the butt of my knife handle to his temple for good measure, and his head wobbled to the sides a couple times before it stopped. Then, I grabbed him by his short hair and made him look at me.

  “Tell me who owns this place,” I asked, and this time I stayed far away from his forehead. He didn’t try to head-butt me again, but he didn’t tell me what I wanted to know, either.

  Soon, his friends woke up, too, and Lexar joined the interrogation. He asked each one of them the same question, but none of them wanted to tell us.

  “We don’t know,” the one on the far left said. He seemed to be the youngest of the four, possibly not even twenty, with chubby cheeks and small brown eyes that looked like they’d seen all the horror of the world when he looked at us. “Nobody knows, I swear.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, kid. Just tell us what we wanna hear and you’ll be free to go.”

  “Nobody knows because nobody’s seen him,” one of the others said. He seemed more mature than his friends, and more alert, too. He wasn’t as afraid. Instead, he analyzed us inch by inch as if he was measuring us before an attack. I wondered if they really would shift now, in broad daylight, and try to take us out. Not if they were smart, but you never knew with situations like this.

  “So, it’s a him. That’s progress,” Lexar said. “We don’t need a description, just a name.”

  The shifter clamped his mouth shut and looked down at his lap.

  I sighed. I looked at the bartender, too, because there was still a chance that he knew. He worked here, for fuck’s sake. And I really didn’t want to have to track down the manager and go through all of this with him, too. Wasted time.