by Clare Kauter
Hell’s Belles
Clare Kauter
Hell’s Belles
Copyright © 2016 Clare Kauter
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
‘Losing Your Head’ Preview
Also by Clare Kauter
About Clare Kauter
This book isn’t dedicated. At all. Seriously, this is the laziest book you’ll ever come across.
Chapter One
It was always night time in Hell. An endless black eternity stretching on forever, unbroken by stars since Satan didn’t believe in light in the darkness. She preferred pure ink black skies, illuminated only by the moon, full and blood red every night of the year. The streets themselves weren’t dark, exactly. They were a little shadowy, and there were plenty of demons hiding just out of sight, but the buildings combined with the moonlight emitted enough of a glow that you could see your surroundings. Well, mostly. This glow wasn’t yellow, like you’d expect from the lights back on earth, but red. All of Hell was a red light district.
Even though the sun never rose here, Hell was crowded and bustling at all hours. It really was the city that never slept. That was thanks in part to the devil’s recent very successful travel campaign. She’d put a lot of time and effort into building the tourism industry in Hell, and it was beginning to pay off. These days, Hell was a lot like Las Vegas. There were street dancers and hustlers on every corner, and it was filled with casinos and nightclubs – all the classic hallmarks of debauchery. One good thing about travelling to Hell is that thanks to the whole eternal night time thing, you don’t get jetlagged.
In the front section of Hell, everything looked rather sinister, but the real danger was minimal. This was the section where the tourists were allowed to go, so Satan had clamped down firmly on crime in the region, and the local demons and damned souls knew better than to defy Satan. The tourists liked to think they were taking a walk on the wild side, but without being in any real danger. The tourist quarter was where everyone bought their souvenirs and had beach parties by the light of the hellfire, but it was no more dangerous than any other major city. (I happened to know that there was a significantly more interesting part of Hell out the back, but unfortunately, I was not permitted to visit that area unless chaperoned by the devil herself.)
I’d been in Hell for almost a month now, interning in the media and communications department of Hell’s local council. Some might find that idea unusual, others even terrifying, but I had known the devil for a long time, and besides, the alternative to my being in Hell was far more dangerous. I’d recently been singled out by The Department, the bureaucrats of the magical world, for practising magic without having a licence (no, I didn’t know that was a crime either), and they’d pretty much decided to take over my life.
Generally what would happen in this situation is that The Department would send me on some sort of quest where my supervisor would assess my magic skills and declare me qualified to do magic alone. Trouble was, I’d already been sent on two failed quests. (To clarify, I don’t mean that I failed them – circumstances transpired around me that interfered with my quests, and therefore I hadn’t yet received my qualification, despite having proven my abilities time and again.) This time Satan had managed to pull some strings so that rather than go on a traditional quest, I could obtain my licence while working for her.
This sounded good in theory, however the new official who had been sent to supervise me had taken a strong dislike to me the second we’d met. You see, my last supervisor had been fired for… Well, let’s not beat around the bush. My last supervisor had kissed me. And I’d kissed him back. (At least until he transformed into a gorilla, at which point things got very weird very quickly.) Apparently that was ‘inappropriate behaviour’ and even though I’d completed the quest fair and square, when the Grim Reaper dobbed us in, Henry had lost his job and I’d been told my quest didn’t count. Now I had a new examiner – Dick – following me around while I completed my internship. (He’d introduced himself as Richard, but he was a Dick through and through.)
When I’d first met Henry – a shifter and the only other Department supervisor I knew – he’d jokingly introduced himself as my familiar. So when I met Dick, nervous and wanting to break the ice, I asked if he was my new familiar. I was hoping to get a laugh, but the joke did not fly well with Dick, who I realised about two seconds too late was a centaur. (He was behind a desk at the time so all I’d been able to see was his torso – until he flicked his tail in annoyance at my joke.) Centaurs are understandably a little touchy about people calling them animals – and I’d just made a joke about him being my new pet. I’d tried to explain, but…
“Oh, sorry, it’s just that Henry said when we met that he was my familiar and –”
“Henry, your last supervisor?”
“Yes, he –”
“Got a little too familiar with you, from what I’ve heard. I can assure you, there’s no risk of that happening with me.”
And thus, we became instant enemies. Now I had a pissed off centaur who held my future in his hands and was looking for any excuse to trample all over it with his hooves.
Dick was now sitting across the office from me, clipboard in hand, watching me work. It was creepy and annoying, but it had been going on for weeks now so I was almost used to it. I was currently in Satan’s media office reading over her latest blog post. Although I was technically here in order to obtain my magic licence, in reality I spend most of the time implementing her marketing strategy while working for free. I love Satan, don’t get me wrong, but that didn’t mean I trusted her. She was still the devil, after all, and although we were friends, I was pretty sure the real reason she’d hired me for this internship was for a bit of free labour, not just to help me out with my quest.
Although I’d been excited to work here at first, things had not turned out the way I’d planned. I’d spent most of my time locked in an office when what I really wanted to do was sneak out and head down to the bad parts of Hell. I needed to get into the secret, off-limits dungeons across town, where I suspected Satan was keeping a certain soul who might be able to give me some answers to the questions I had circling around in my brain. Specifically what the hell I was and why everyone was so interested in my abilities.
Unfortunately, the devil had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly what I was doing at any given moment, and the one time I’d tried to sneak off to the dungeons, she was not at all impressed. If it had been anyone else disobeying her, she said, they’d have been flayed, skinned and slow roasted
over hellfire. While still alive.
I knew for a fact she wasn’t joking.
So instead, I was being a good little slave, beavering away in the office while quietly trying to come up with some sort of plan to get me into the dungeons so I could question Krampus. Only problem was, I was coming up blank.
My eyes could barely focus on the screen in front of me anymore. I pushed back from the computer, tilted my head side to side, stretching my neck, and sighed. I was going stir crazy in this little office. I hadn’t done any magic in weeks. Well, that’s not strictly true – I had done a tiny bit of magic, but not nearly the amount I was accustomed to. Under Satan’s advisement, I’d been keeping the magic to a minimum. She didn’t trust The Department and nor did I. Dick was constantly watching, and I couldn’t afford to let him know what I was capable of.
Dick eyed me from across the room, raising his eyebrows. This was unbearable. He followed me around everywhere, scrutinising my every move. The only time I’d managed to escape him was when I tried to break into the dungeons – what a waste of a free afternoon that had been. When would he decide that I was worthy of having a magical licence and finally leave me alone? I’d been jumping through The Department’s hoops for more than a month now, and frankly I was sick of it. It wasn’t like it had all been a walk in the park.
I missed Henry. Although he, too, had been a bit of a stickler for the rules, he was much more fun to hang out with than Dick. I felt a pang of guilt as I thought of Henry. It was my fault he’d lost his job with The Department. Well, partly my fault. Mostly Death’s fault, to be honest. The guilt I felt about Henry was quickly replaced with anger and teeth grinding when I thought of the Reaper.
And to think I used to consider Death my friend. Without his interference, I likely would have had my licence weeks ago, and I never would’ve had to meet Dick.
I stood from the desk and stretched my arms.
“Where are you going?” Dick demanded, jumping to his feet the second I rose.
“Nowhere,” I said through gritted teeth. “Just stretching.”
I glared at Dick and found myself imagining flaying, skinning and roasting him on a hellfire spit. That’d be a fun show for the tourists. Dick stepped out from behind his desk and I averted my gaze, cringing in disgust at the sight I’d become all too familiar with. His personality wasn’t the only reason I called him Dick. He had a strict no pants policy, which I thought was odd since he wore a button up shirt and tie. Maybe they didn’t make pants for centaurs. Whatever the reason, Dick took business-casual to a whole new level with his top half corporate suit and bottom half birthday suit, leaving his tiny wang swinging in the breeze. (Apparently ‘hung like a horse’ doesn’t apply to centaurs. Or maybe Dick was part Shetland pony.)
The sound of footsteps in the hall and then the doorhandle turning interrupted my thoughts. The door swung open and in strode Satan. She was wearing a red designer dress and matching heels, which really made her scarlet irises pop. Her dark skin glowed with her inner demonic energy and not for the first time I found myself getting slightly jealous of her toned calf muscles. Of course, I could always exercise or something and tone up my own, but being envious and complaining was far more my style than actually doing something about it. While Satan didn't go to the gym, I suspected she’d put plenty of hard work into staying fit – I think she kept in shape by beating up the damned souls trapped in the dungeon out the back.
“How are we going, darling?” asked Satan as she strode over to my desk. “I need all my blog posts and social media scheduled for the week by the end of the day.”
I nodded. “All done with today's torture, master.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Oh come on,” she said. “This is nothing compared to your other quests.”
“No, you're right,” I said. “Just my own personal hell. Drowning in a pile of admin while a creepy examiner watches on.”
“You know I can hear you, right?” said Dick.
“Yes, Dick. You're still close enough that I can smell your breath.”
“You're being very rude to the man who holds your future in his hands.”
“Sorry, I didn't mean to tread on your hooves,” I said, heavy on the attitude. I turned back to Satan. “This is ridiculous. Why am I even here? I've done no magic whatsoever in the past three weeks.”
“Given your history, that's probably a good thing,” said Dick.
“I don't have a history!” I said. Which was true. I didn’t. At least not an official one. “Anyway, my point is that I haven't done any magic. How is Dick meant to give me my licence and get the hell out of my life of he never gets to assess my magical skills?”
Satan smiled. “My dear, I have quite the treat for you.”
My heart sped up in excitement. Please, please let this be an interesting job. I was so sick of working in an office that I was starting to even miss my past quests. They'd been annoying and a little dangerous, but at least if I'd died then it would have been a good story. The only thing that was going to kill me in this office was boredom.
“Yes?” I said, voice filled with hope.
“I hope this is a Department approved treat,” Dick chimed in.
The fires crackling at the edges of the room flared as Satan whipped her head towards Dick. “You dare try to threaten me, you pathetic little horse man?” she hissed. Dick shrunk back at that. As much as The Department liked to pretend they were in control of the magical world and the afterlife, in reality they had no control over Satan whatsoever. Dick was only here because Satan allowed it, and she would not tolerate him trying to throw his weight around in her domain.
Satisfied that Dick had learned his lesson, Satan turned back to me. “Gerald tried to eat another tourist's soul, I'm afraid. I'm going to need you to bind a different demon to the club. It's just not good for business to have my employees attacking patrons.”
Gerald was a demon that Satan had tethered to a local nightclub to act as a bouncer. To be honest, I’d never liked the guy, and it came as no surprise to me that he'd tried to eat another soul (even after he'd had two warnings about doing so previously). Anyone named Gerald just seemed instantly untrustworthy to me, especially if they insisted upon being called by their full name. I wondered briefly if Gerald had tried to eat another soul so he could be released back into the torture chambers in the back of Hell instead of having to put up with all the travellers in the tourist district. If I thought eating a soul could get me out of this office, I’d munch on the first one to come my way. Looking across at Dick, who was standing a couple of metres from me, I wondered what his soul would taste like. Probably very bitter.
The trouble with Dick was that he wasn’t just annoying – he was also dangerous. Everything he said or did I was sure was meant to trip me up so he could refuse me my licence or arrest me or have me hung or something. The sooner I got the licence and got these officials off my back the better. Not only did I need to get back to earning money from my work as a medium – helping non-magicals contact their dead relatives – but also I needed to stop being put in situations where I might kill someone. Been there, done that, got the buckets of guilt to show for it.
“I would love to bind a demon,” I said. I caught Dick watching me and added, “Of course, I don’t know if I’m capable. I’ve only read about it in books, never having had any cause to do it previously, despite certain allegations that have been levelled against me.”
You could never be too careful where The Department was concerned.
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine. Here’s your kit,” said Satan, handing me a small case she’d taken from her bag. “Now go forth and conjure!”
“Conjure?” I repeated. That was about the biggest insult you could make to a serious practitioner of the magical arts. Conjuring was what street magicians did, not people with actual abilities.
“Well, you did just say you were a beginner,” Dick pointed out. “Satan’s just calling a spade a spade.”
�
�Exactly,” Satan said. She and I both knew that Dick was just trying to crawl back into her good graces, but Satan had always liked a bit of arse kissing. “Now off you go. Homer can’t handle that club by himself all night.”
“Is Gerald still there?” I asked, packing away my things.
“No,” said Satan, giving me a meaningful look. “He’s… on holiday.”
I nodded, understanding what she meant. Ordinarily if the devil said something like that about a person, it meant that she was in the middle of torturing them over in the dodgy part of Hell. Recently, though (while Dick had been in the bathroom and we’d had a rare moment alone together), Satan had disclosed that she’d had a bit of a problem with demons going missing. They hadn’t left Hell, she told me. She would have been able to sense them leaving. No, this was different. It was like they’d just vanished. Blipped off her radar.
She had told me not to tell anyone. Apparently she wanted to keep it quiet while she rounded them up. Although she insisted there was nothing to worry about, I could see that she was stressed. Satan didn’t like it when things happened behind her back. I didn’t like it when things happened behind her back, either, because that meant she got mad, and a cranky devil wasn’t good news for anyone.
“Alright,” I said. “Come on, Dick. Let’s head down to the club and rustle us up a demon.”
Chapter Two
After slipping the kit Satan had given me into my backpack, I headed down to the nightclub. Dick walked uncomfortably close behind me while Little Dick swung in the breeze. Why was it illegal for me to do magic without a licence but not illegal for him to walk around without pants on? That seemed like a real oversight in the law to me.
When we arrived at the club, I squatted down and placed my backpack on the pavement, taking out the box. I opened the kit, squinting to see the contents in the dim red light. The club was open (naturally – it was always night, so the clubs never shut), and they had a temporary bouncer filling in. Homer, I was guessing. Although he looked pretty much like a normal human, judging by his scars and hairier than average chest I was guessing he was a werewolf.
