by G A Chase
“I think we’re well beyond that, don’t you?”
She had a point. Her son had gone missing for a few hours due to Sere’s adversaries. The poor woman had been abducted by demons. And worst of all, she’d nearly been possessed during Sere’s exorcism of Thomas.
“I guess I have been using your soul’s energy without your permission,” Sere said.
“I’m not asking you to back off. I doubt you could even if you wanted to. But since we seem to be intimately connected in this journey, don’t you think I could be better informed?” Jennifer took a bite of the cookie then immediately added a sip of her coffee. Sere fondly remembered sharing the sensation of chocolate chips melting in the hot beverage while they had their psychic connection. In spite of all of Professor Yates’s warnings about the dangers of the two meeting, there wasn’t much that Jennifer hadn’t already experienced. Besides, the old man behind the computers that regulated hell didn’t know everything. The woman had rights—especially when it came to the dangers to her soul.
“What do you want from me?”
Jennifer sat back and paused to think, as if she hadn’t expected to make it that far in her negotiations. “Acknowledging that I’m there when you make contact would be a good start.”
“I suppose saying ‘hi’ before unleashing a demon wouldn’t be that hard.”
2
Sere’s snakes waited until Jennifer left the loft before nudging Riley’s stolen rifle off the rafter. The gun hit the floor just before the two serpents slithered down the large wooden support beam. They writhed across the barrel and trigger guard as if they were trying to fire it.
“What’s got you two so wound up?” Sere asked.
Bart took his knives and gun from the top of Sere’s dresser and stashed them in their various sheaths around his body. “You don’t think they’re reacting to Jennifer, do you?”
Sere bent down to grab the rifle, but the snake who was curled over the barrel hissed at her. “They didn’t seem to mind while she was here, but something has them spooked.”
He pulled on the buttonless dress shirt. His rippling abs made Sere wish all of his shirts were left open down the middle. “Do you think we should talk to the professor? He was the one who kept giving dire warnings about you and Jennifer ever meeting.”
Convincing Jennifer that Sere’s story wasn’t half as crazy as it sounded without going into complete details had taken half of the day. The woman had only left when she realized she had a lunch date with her husband.
“I don’t honestly think that old man knows what he’s talking about. He would just go into how reckless I’ve been and how the world is going to end because I had a cup of coffee with my real. Besides, I need him and Polly to stay focused on what we’re going to do about Devlin Laroque.”
“Kendell and Myles, then? They aren’t as useless as you make them out to be.”
Sere knew she’d been overly harsh on the couple. Like a teenager dealing with her parents, Sere couldn’t keep herself from being overly snarky at times. “They deserve a break. Joe’s death was hard on both of them.”
Bart wrapped her in his arms. “No more so than on you.”
Her emotions regarding her mentor’s violent end were like a forest fire she barely had contained. She could prod around the firebreak, but the heart of her anguish lay deep within the forbidden zone, consumed with the flames of her anger. She snuck her hands under Bart’s shirt and around his rock-hard torso. “For now, I’d like to keep Jennifer’s visit private. Since she didn’t go all evily just by meeting me, I think we can assume her soul is safe for now in spite of what the professor has said in the past. If we assume she’s not the one in danger, then the snakes are freaking out about something else. Not much worries them in life. They’ve been with me long enough to know where the real dangers lie. I would feel a lot better if we could get an eye on hell.”
Bart checked his navy wristwatch. “That usually means heading out to the swamp for a peek at the hell mouth. We’re already late for our sparring session with Dooly Buell. Do you want me to go downstairs and tell her we’ll conduct her training some other time?”
“No.” Sere ran her hands along Bart’s ripcord-strong back muscles. “The exercise will do me good—not that last night didn’t get my blood pumping.” She slapped him on his flexed ass. “If Doodlebug mentions anything happening in hell that’s out of the ordinary, then we’ll figure out who we need to talk to. If not, tomorrow I’ll take the snakes and ride out to the swamp to check on Lefty. You’re right—anything that goes haywire in life will start close to the hell mouth. You should probably check in on your customers up north anyway. We don’t need another slaughter because people weren’t smart enough to leave hell alone.”
Bart pulled her so tightly to his chest that her small boobs flattened against him. “I’m not going to push you about Joe, but when you’re ready to talk about his death, I’m right here.”
She arched her back to press her body fully against his. “If this is your way of getting me emotional before our sparring session with Dooly, it won’t do you any good. I’m going to kick your butt today.”
In the outdoor courtyard behind the Scratchy Dog, Sere stripped down to just her bra and panties. Being clothed during an actual knife fight was preferable, but for training sessions, the less interference, the better. Going fully naked, however, involved too many dangling bits for both contestants.
“I want you to pay close attention to how Bart swings his blade,” she said. “Men are larger and stronger, which gives them obvious advantages, but that brute force can be used against them.”
Dooly stood with her hands on the woven belt of her baggy, faded-green army pants. “When do I get to fight?”
Sere jabbed at the teenager with her blade. The girl crossed her arms over her stomach to protect herself from the incoming blow. Instead of cutting the gutter-punk girl, Sere grabbed her crossed wrists with her free hand, ducked low, and spun under her grasp.
Dooly rolled over Sere’s back and landed hard on the brick-covered ground, screaming. “You didn’t need to pull my arms out of their sockets.”
Sere stood over the girl. “You’re not hurt. I’ll let you fight when you know how to take a fall without acting like a little baby. Today, I want you to watch and learn. And put that headband on. I need Doodlebug to absorb the information.”
Dooly curled on the ground and held her shoulders. “Yes, ma’am.”
Fuck you, Sere thought, but the girl was probably attempting to be respectful in the only way she knew how. Sere turned away from Dooly to face Bart, who was standing in the middle of the brick-walled courtyard. In just his jockstrap, knife in hand, he looked like a Roman gladiator.
“Trying to distract me with that outfit?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Jennifer seemed to be taken with my ass. I thought the feeling might be reciprocated in her double.”
“Now you’re just trying to piss me off.” Sere lunged low at the big man’s legs.
Bart jumped off the ground like he was clearing a hurdle, giving Sere a clear path to the far wall. Before hitting the ground, she wrapped her arms around her knees then took one rolling bounce toward the brick barrier. When her feet made contact with the wall, she sprang her legs out straight, shooting her body directly back at the former Navy SEAL like a human missile. She grabbed him around the neck and let her momentum drop him to the ground. Once down, she pushed her legs tightly against his throat and held her knife to his jugular.
“That’s one kill for me,” Sere said.
“I can’t do that!” Dooly yelled. “I’m not some superhero bouncy ball that can be thrown at a wall to shoot back even faster.”
Bart pushed Sere’s hand away from his neck and got off the ground. “Sere likes to fight dirty. That’s the lesson. Later on, I’ll teach you to fight in a way more befitting our human limitations.”
“I fight to survive.” Sere wiped the brick dust from her body. “Joe never bothere
d with the niceties of fair play when it came to combat.” She pointed her knife at Dooly. “As a girl living on the streets, you should understand that.”
Dooly nodded. “Just show me some moves I can use.”
Sere resumed her attack stance. Fighting as a normal human would severely limit her moves, but the gutter punk was right—this wasn’t about winning. It was about teaching the girl how to survive on the streets. “This is going to be like fighting with one arm tied behind my back.”
Bart flexed the kinks out of his arms. “Just don’t expect me to go easy on you.”
She loved seeing his body in action. In the absence of sex, combat at least provided intense bodily contact. She stood at the ready, allowing him to make the initial attack this time.
Though she tried to behave, as he rushed at her, she hopped up and rolled over his back. She landed on her feet, facing away from him. The rush of his knife as it flew between her legs and stuck into the brick mortar made her stand completely still. Shocked, she twisted around and saw him lying flat on the ground, facing her. He was gripping a brick with the fingertips of one hand as if scaling a horizontal climbing wall. His throwing hand was still aimed at her.
“That’s one kill for me,” he said before getting up and turning to Dooly. “Always have a secondary attack ready if the first doesn’t work—especially when you’re dealing with someone who’s overconfident in her skills.”
Sere pulled the knife out from between the bricks and tossed it back to Bart. “I see I’m not the only one with catlike reflexes this afternoon. Good thing for you we didn’t get started first thing this morning.”
He gave her a knowing smile. With his heel, he pounded the loose brick back down into place in the cobbled ground. He faced Dooly. “It helps to know your surroundings. Sometimes the simplest things can give you an unexpected advantage.”
After two hours of training, Sere had endured enough falls on her ass for one day. Joe’s sessions had grown more intense, but then, the man was training her to be a young doppelgänger fighting demons in hell, not a normal girl protecting herself from drunks and creeps on the streets of New Orleans. Sere’s biggest frustration in fighting Bart was the need to hold back her more demonic abilities.
She held his pants by one finger and beckoned him closer. “I hope you saved some energy for tonight.”
He kissed her as payment for his clothing. “Don’t worry. Next time I throw you onto your back, I won’t be letting you up so easily.”
Dooly held out the second headband. “If you two are done playing kissy-face, Doodlebug wants to give you an update.”
Damn hell. Sere pulled the striped terry-cloth band over her forehead. The connection was similar to her psychic bonds with Jennifer but without the impending danger of infecting anyone with her soul. “Any luck finding Creed Laroque?”
Doodlebug held a severed head in front of her eyes so Sere could get a look. Knife wounds to the eyes, nose, and cheeks made the face nearly unrecognizable. “Glad you asked. What do you want me to do with this?”
Though it was Doodlebug and not Creed who’d killed Joe, Sere could easily transfer her rage to that member of the Laroque clan. “Stash it in the professor’s lab. I don’t want it destroyed. So long as his head still exists in hell, he won’t be able to regenerate. I want Marjory to know she’s not the only one with power over her family’s doppelgängers. Speaking of which, any word on Devlin?”
Doodlebug dropped her arm to her side, landing the head in the puddle at her feet. “I haven’t seen him.”
The real Devlin had been killed by his doppelgänger in the same type of interdimensional cabinet Sere had been created in, and she had no idea what to expect now that his doppelgänger body had been pulverized. But so long as the devil hadn’t escaped the interdimensional bridge of the damned, Sere could be reasonably sure Marjory would be still hard at work trying to reconstruct his body.
“Keep a watch out for him. If his doppelgänger doesn’t regenerate in life, Devlin may be a lost soul in hell—probably lurking around the professor’s lab.” Doodlebug held her sword at the ready and kept an eye on the rain-drenched street. “That’s not very comforting. Those offices must be the creepiest place in hell.”
“I know of one worse,” Sere said. Somewhere in that dimension, her beloved guardian angel, Sanguine, languished in the baron’s old vault.
“Yeah, well, you’re not a plank in Marjory’s bridge of the damned like I am. If Devlin’s soul is trapped in that link, I could end up possessed by the fucker. Then we’d all be screwed.”
“I’m betting on you being stronger than him.”
Dooly Buell started shivering like she was the one caught out in the hurricane instead of her double. “What would happen to me if he did overpower Doodlebug?”
“That’s why the professor has his fail-safes,” Sere said. “The real doesn’t experience the pains of the doppelgänger.”
“Any possibility that Devlin’s doppelgänger does return to hell and not just his spirit?” Doodlebug asked.
Sere never was any good with science. “I suppose it’s possible. I never saw what happened to the real man’s body. If Marjory is keeping it in the cabinet, who knows what she might try next? Should you run across him out on the streets, add his head to your collection. By the way, how are hell’s animals doing?”
Doodlebug stood a little straighter and shook her head. “How am I supposed to know? They’re animals. I’m a little busy hunting our enemies.”
Sere suspected the question wasn’t going to have a simple answer. “I’m just asking if you’ve noticed any change in Agnes’s version of nature.”
The demon girl shrugged. “I guess there’s fewer of them, but don’t ask me to back that up with numbers.”
“Fair enough. Speaking of your extracurriculars, are you still having fun with the harvesters?” Sere asked. Until she found a way to permanently stop Marjory’s attempts at raising a devil, she needed Doodlebug to remain in hell, and that meant giving the girl something worth doing while she was there.
“I killed two more last night.” She held up her arm to show a dark-red scar above the elbow. “Asshole nearly took half my arm. The connection to Dooly healed me right up, though.”
“Tell me about it,” Dooly said. “I thought I was going to pass out in my beer. I don’t need people thinking I’m some lightweight. A girl’s got to maintain her reputation in this city. Looking like I passed out drunk in a bar filled with strangers isn’t the best way to keep me alive.”
“If you’d wear the headband during the day, I wouldn’t have to bother you in your nightly social activities.” Doodlebug’s frustration was so intense that the sweatband on Sere’s head contracted, giving her a headache.
Dooly was no less incensed. “I’m not fucking wearing this thing when I’m playing my fiddle for tips. At least at night, people think it’s funny. During the day, I look like I’m a special-needs busker.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Sere felt like a babysitter dealing with twins. “Doodlebug is under constant danger, so Dooly, you’ll have to wear the headband until she’s safe. That was part of our agreement. We’ll find you a hat to go over the sweatband.”
The girl standing next to Sere squeezed her lips together and put her fists on the hips of her dingy camo pants.
“But Dooly has a point too. Doodlebug, you need to give her a break. I’ll leave it to the two of you to figure out a hunting schedule. Just don’t make me put this thing on again to arbitrate your arguments. I’ve got enough on my plate already.”
3
Bart tucked the T-shirt into his black jeans as he walked beside Sere through the short hallway from the courtyard to the Scratchy Dog. “Good thing Myles stashes some clothing in the storeroom.” The shirt was way too tight across his muscles. Sere had to fight back her urge to rip it from his body.
She ran her hand over the strained fabric. “You’d be surprised how many people in New Orleans lose an item of clothin
g after drinking too much.”
“Yeah, good thing that’s not much of a problem with my motorcycle-riding customers up north. I’d have to stock extra-extra-large, and they’d probably consider the packaged T-shirts to be a wardrobe upgrade.”
At four in the afternoon, Sere expected to find Myles and Kendell busy setting up for the night. As she stepped in next to the stage, a small hound as black as night tore out from behind the bar, snarling and baring his teeth. The creature’s eyes were bloodred. It rushed straight for Bart as if intent on tearing his leg off.
“Down, Doughnut Hole!” Myles yelled.
The animal stopped his advance but continued his growl of defiance. Cheesecake, Kendell’s beloved Lhaso apso, scurried from the last sunny spot on the floor and circled in front of the black beast. With her ears back and her mane raised, she gave the hellhound one good snarl, putting the pup back in his place. He lowered his chin to the floor in submission, though his eyes continued to glow red.
Myles walked out from behind the bar and snatched the black dog into his arms. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him. He’s been acting like this all day. Cheesecake is the only one able to control him.”
Kendell petted her old dog on the head. “I even considered staying home to keep an eye on both of them, but with so much to do after Joe’s wake, we decided to bring them with us—at least until the place is back in bar shape. Based on how Doughnut Hole just reacted, I think I’d better take them both home before any customers show up.”
While he was attacking, Sere had trouble seeing beyond the animal’s demonic eyes and razor-sharp teeth, but now that he was in Myles’s arms, she again saw the small lapdog she remembered. “You said he’s only been going all hellhound since this morning? Has this ever happened before?”
“Never,” Kendell said. “When he returned from hell with us—jeez, that must have been before your father deposited you in hell—we kept a sharp watch to make sure he wasn’t still connected to that dimension.”
