by Lexi Blake
I knew something was wrong when my every sense went crazy.
It started all right. Sarah placed Christine and Dev in their proper spaces around the circle. They formed a triangle protecting the circle within. She started burning the herbs and incense. Neil complained about the stench, but one threat about hexing his man parts and he decided to win the quiet game. Daniel managed to look disapproving while attempting to not spare me a glance. Everything seemed normal, or rather as normal as it could be when calling a lord of Hell. The ceremony began. After what seemed like an eternity of invocation, I began to wonder if it was going to fail. One minute Sarah and Christine were chanting in some language no one had spoken in a thousand years and the next…
Brimstone assailed me. It was so thick in the air, I gagged on it. It smelled like all the bad things in the world had gotten together and sunbathed on an August day in Texas. After the smell came the awful crack that threatened to burst my eardrums, and worse, the feeling of a thousand bugs crawling under my skin trying to find their way to the softer parts of me. I would have scratched through several layers of skin if I hadn’t been blinded by the lightning that found its way into my father’s living room.
“Son of a bitch,” a low voice growled.
“Don’t move, Dev.” I could hear the tension in Sarah’s voice. “I think we should stay in position. Consider it an added protection. Right now we have a magical connection, and that might help strengthen the circle.”
I steadied myself and managed to open my eyes. Dev held his place as Sarah asked, but he looked ashen, as though being a magical battery had taken its toll. Sarah trembled, her normal grace seeming to desert her. Only Christine looked satisfied. There was a slight smile on her face that made me uneasy. It was easy to see her ambitions went way beyond learning a couple of spells under my dad’s tutelage.
All thoughts fled because we were no longer alone. The demon, Brixalnax, alias Lucas Halfer, was in the circle. He was in full demon form, a massive display of bright red skin and muscle and he was…dear god…he was really not hiding anything.
“Whoa, dude, where are your clothes?” Neil asked the question. The rest of us just stared.
“I was on a date,” Halfer said through clenched fangs. “With twins, I might add. I didn’t expect a bunch of morons to interrupt me.”
“Really sorry about that.” I needed to keep him as calm as possible. I needed his help, and I needed him to not try to kill me the minute he got out of the circle. “I have to ask you a few questions. Oh, please, put some clothes on.”
He stared at me with red eyes and settled his hands on his well-muscled hips which led inevitably to that part that his dates should have been really glad to be free of. What did a demon consider a date? Somewhere out there was there a set of twins still screaming in the night, trying to get away from an attacker they didn’t realize was gone? I looked down and noticed his cloven feet.
They tapped against the hardwood. “I’m sorry I didn’t dress properly before I was torn through time and space and imprisoned in a shitty circle. Listen, little bitch, if you want the bull, you better get used to the horns.”
“It’s not the horns I’m worried about.” That was a lie. The horns totally freaked me out, too. They were red like the rest of him and wound around his head like a goat. It looked like someone had carved shapes into them, but I didn’t want to get close enough to be sure.
“Hey, don’t you talk to her like that,” Daniel threatened.
“Or you’ll do what, night crawler?” The demon sneered, midnight black eyes narrowing. “You’ll have to come in here if you wish to defend your bitch’s honor. I’m afraid I find myself trapped.”
“Stop.” I forced a breath into my body. “I didn’t call you here to fight.”
“You didn’t call me here at all, you puny human. Your witches called me, and trust me, I’m going to get well acquainted with them. Most witches on this pitiful plane know better than to call me.” He looked at each as though memorizing their faces.
“Why did you try to have me killed?” I went straight to the point. I got the feeling that we had surprised him, and if he hadn’t been distracted, we would never have caught him. We didn’t have a lot of time.
He stopped, his eyes swinging toward me. “What are you talking about?”
Daniel stepped too close to the circle for my liking. “Last night you sent three men to track her down and take her. Neil and I made sure that didn’t happen.”
“I was there, too,” Dev said.
“Yeah, you were there, getting your ass handed to you by a piddling snake. Zoey saved you,” Daniel pointed out before turning back to Halfer. “But more to the point, why the hell did you think we would let that go?”
I’d placed a chair in the center of the circle, and Halfer now sank into it. He crossed his legs, and I breathed a small sigh of relief. He seemed to think about what Daniel had said for a moment. As he thought, he took a deep breath and the skin on his body flowed around bone and sinew, changing shape and color right before my eyes. One moment he was a dark red that didn’t seem to be a color one could find in nature, and then he was the same Lucas Halfer we’d met at the restaurant. He was still naked, but he seemed so much more in proportion now. Only his eyes betrayed him. They were black without a hint of white showing. There was nothing vaguely human about those eyes.
It was like someone turned the volume down and I could think again. “We’re a bit confused. Do you want us to do the job or not? If there’s something we should know, I’d like to know now.”
Halfer sat back with a long sigh. “I’m not some chaos demon. Those idiots will lay out a plan and then fuck it up on their own because they just can’t help themselves. They have to push everything to the limit. They have to break everything around them. I’m an entirely different beast. I like an elegant plan. I prefer to get what I want with minimum effort, and I can keep my mouth shut. The question then becomes which one of you idiots blabbed and who did you talk to?”
“Blabbed about what? The job?” I asked, confused.
Halfer’s lips thinned to a dismissive line. "Yes, the job. I know my people didn’t open their mouths. I made sure I worked on this outside of the Hell plane. I had a powerful witch and her coven checking the signs and reading the cards for the last fifty years to discover when the box was being moved. I told no one and made sure the witches kept their mouths shut.”
“How can you be absolutely sure?” Neil asked. “Just because they’re afraid of you doesn’t mean they didn’t mention it to the wrong person.”
“It’s difficult to talk when your throat has been slit.” Halfer sounded as though he were talking about the weather. Christine’s sharp intake of breath was the first clue that she had a sense of self-preservation. “I killed all thirteen to ensure that something like this didn’t happen. I don’t want any competition. Now tell me exactly what happened in minute detail.”
So I told him what happened. Every now and then Daniel or Neil would throw in some detail I forgot. Halfer sat listening to everything we said. He didn’t move his gaze from me even when the others were talking, and I found myself trembling under the weight of his alien eyes. Even as I spoke, voices in my head told me this was all going to go wrong and it would be my fault. I just wasn’t good enough to even try this. I should just stop and give up. I would be Halfer’s soon, so why bother to try? It would be so much easier to give in.
I didn’t realize I was crying. I was standing there reciting yesterday’s events like a good little automaton when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Stop it.” There was a command in Neil’s voice I heard rarely.
“What’s wrong, little dog?” Halfer smiled an evil little half grin.
“You know what you’re doing.” Neil faced the demon.
I shook my head as though to free myself from a fog and looked around. Everyone seemed to have retreated inside themselves. Christine mumbled something I didn’t understand. Sarah wept op
enly, asking someone for forgiveness. Dev’s body trembled, and Daniel just looked pissed. We all had retreated into our own little worlds, ones Halfer had sent us to.
Only Neil seemed unaffected by whatever was happening.
“Yes, I know what I’m doing, but I’m really surprised you do.” Halfer focused all that darkness on Neil now, and I actually felt a weight lift from my soul. “I’m also surprised you would try to stop me. What are you afraid of, puppy? I know, of course. How common. You know you’ll never find that man who wants a lover who turns into a dog once a month.”
“Oh, you would be surprised what a guy will put up with to get at all this.” Neil gestured up and down his well-formed body.
“But he won’t love you.”
“His loss,” Neil said quietly but firmly.
“You’re going to let her down, you know,” Halfer said in a silky voice, and I realized it had been his voice I heard in my head all along. It had sounded like mine, but the smoothness was all Halfer. As he continued to focus his talents on Neil, the rest of us were coming out of our stupors.
Daniel looked my way. I wondered what the voice in his head had said.
“You’ll let Zoey down and Sarah down and even that big, dumb vampire will be disappointed in you,” Halfer was saying to Neil.
“Probably at some point,” Neil conceded.
“You’re the reason they are going to die.”
Neil shook for the first time. His hand was still on my shoulder, and I felt the fine tremble in it. I let mine drift up to cover his and he took it, entwining our fingers. I felt him sigh against me as though our connection was a source of strength.
“If that’s true then I’ll go with them. I’ll share whatever fate they meet.”
Halfer laughed, an unpleasant sound. “I like you, little wolf. You’re a challenge.”
Neil let out a long breath. “I grew up with someone a lot like you. You’re not the first to try this shit on me. Hell, you’re certainly not the best.”
Halfer smiled, and I could have sworn his fangs were back. “Oh, but I haven’t even tried yet, wolf. Please forgive my lackadaisical fumblings. I was really only half trying. I can do better.”
I felt the start of Halfer’s second assault. The weight was back on my chest, and I felt an almost suffocating sense of sorrow.
“Bastard!” Dev reared his fist as he started toward the circle.
Daniel moved with preternatural speed. He caught Dev before the circle could be broken. In a blur of speed and strength, Daniel crossed the room and threw Dev back, slamming him against the wall. I heard the drywall crack as Dev slid to the floor. He slumped there against the wainscoting, unconscious. Through my stifling sorrow, I hoped Daniel hadn’t killed him. I’d gotten Dev involved. I would be the reason he died. I should have been happy when his chest moved up and down, but the black cloud Halfer sent through us all held me in its grip. He was stronger than we could have imagined. Our crappy circle could hold his body, but his mind wasn’t caged in the least. Halfer’s wicked power surged.
Halfer stood again, and it was obvious the violence really did something for him. “You liked that didn’t you, night crawler? You enjoyed hurting the Fae creature.”
“Yes,” Daniel said. I knew in an instant he was still feeling the effects of Halfer because that yes came out with several extra esses as he struggled to speak around his fangs. Daniel was careful about those fangs, but now he seemed to not even notice they were there.
“He’s gonna fuck her, you know,” Halfer said with glee. “He’s gonna ram his cock in her, and she’s gonna love it.”
“Daniel!” I yelled and tried to get between him and the circle.
Neil was at Daniel’s back, and I was at his front. Neil was definitely more effective than I was as I seemed to just be getting closer and closer to that damn circle, and Halfer just kept running his mouth.
He clapped his hands with glee, like the ring leader of a sadistic circus. “She’s going to howl when he does her. She won’t even remember you once he’s fucked her right and tight.”
I forced myself to think. While I tried to push back the determined vampire, I shouted over my shoulder at the demon. “Do you want me to do this job or do you just want a blood bath? If you kill Daniel, I won’t be doing anything for you. I’ll find whoever else wants that stupid box and I’ll make sure they get it. If you think I’m bluffing then you didn’t do your job right. If you know my deepest fears then you know I mean what I say. I won’t have anything left but the deepest desire to screw you over.”
And just like that the oppressive air in the room was gone, and we could all breathe again. Daniel stopped pushing me closer to our doom and let Neil drag him back. Sarah and Christine stopped crying, and I felt so much clearer without the demon’s influence.
Halfer huffed and shook his head. “You’re right, of course. I apologize for the discourtesy. Apparently I’m more like my chaotic brothers than I thought. It’s really your own fault. You’re all so full of delicious doubts. I really could make a meal of you but business before pleasure. So, the money is gone. That really is too bad. I guess that would have come in handy.”
A nasty suspicion took hold. “Considering I was going to give it back, yes, it is unfortunate.”
He chuckled at the thought. “I wondered if you would try that. Well, even if you could raise the money again, I think you would find I have a special attachment to those particular bills. I wouldn’t be able to accept anything but the same money I gave you.”
“You stole the money.” And thereby put me in a neat little corner with no way out.
“I admit nothing of the sort,” he returned with a self-satisfied smile. “I will, of course, be happy to provide you with another payment. We can’t expect you to work your magic on a limited budget. I’ll have my assistant equip you with anything you need first thing in the morning.”
“Zoey, he’s getting you in deeper, can’t you see that? He stole the money so that you couldn’t give it back to him.” I turned to see Dev holding his head as he tried to stand.
“Whether he stole it or not doesn’t matter. We don’t have it now. If she doesn’t do the job, she fails to fulfill her part of the contract. What the hell else are we supposed to do?” Daniel asked.
“We’ll figure something out,” Dev said with a naïveté I was surprised he had.
I simply turned back to the demon. I wasn’t going to have this discussion with Dev right now. Daniel was right. I was in a corner with only one way out. Halfer had made sure of it. “Fine. I’ll have a list ready for him by morning.”
Halfer nodded. “I’ll try to find out who our competitors are. Although I suspect they don’t have the information they need. You said they tried to take you. If they knew when and where the box was being delivered, they would have just killed you and taken it themselves.”
“Lucky me.” There was one last thing I wanted to be clear on. “I want you to know that I forced the witches to call you. I wasn’t sure you hadn’t tried to kill me. I needed to know.”
“Perfectly reasonable,” Halfer replied in his business-like manner. “I would probably have done the same if I were a pathetic human in your predicament.”
“So any repercussions should be on me.” I heard the boys behind me start to argue.
“Agreed,” Halfer said, and I was finally able to take a full breath. “We’ll consider it one of the dangers of doing business. Get me the box, Zoey Wharton, and we’ll be even. If not, I fully plan to devour that soul of yours. I’m going to eat it up and make sure you serve me well on the Hell plane.”
I stopped breathing again since I figured without any real magical ability, my “service” would probably be hard physical labor of the grossest kind. “You’ll get your box. Sarah, do whatever you need to do to get Mr. Halfer back where he came from.”
The demon stopped me. “There is, of course, the matter of my payment.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Silly girl, you don’t call a demon without giving him a gift, unless, of course, you want to offend the demon greatly.”
I looked at Sarah.
Sarah nodded, her whole body still trembling a bit. “He’s right. I took a bottle of scotch from your dad’s vault. It’s really old and expensive. If your lordship would just look behind the chair, I think you’ll find it to your liking.”
“Normally I would, but I find I have different appetites tonight.” He looked directly at me. “I’m afraid nothing will satisfy me but you, my dear.”
I was revolted at the suggestion and couldn’t hide my distaste. He laughed at the thought.
“Nothing like that, dearie.” He walked dangerously close to the edge of the circle. “I have something different in mind.”
He held his hand out, and I found myself in Hell.
Chapter Fourteen
In an instant, I was younger and older, the story of my life playing out in flashes of time. Hell, I discovered, wasn’t fire and brimstone. Hell was a personal journey.
I run in the door to our house in Corpus Christi. I am six years old and so excited. I just made a new friend. Her name is Holly, and her dad runs a marina. He has a boat and everything. I run into the house giddy with excitement, bursting to tell my mother about what happened at school. She is my everything and nothing is really real until Momma knows about it. I love my dad, too, but it is in a vague, ill-defined way. I love my father because I’m supposed to. He’s gone a lot, and I’m not allowed in his office where he spends the bulk of his time when he’s home. So I want to see Momma. I run in and stop because Daddy is home, and he’s yelling.
“For chrissake, woman, what do ya mean? What the hell are ya trying to say?”
I stop at the sound. My father rarely raises his voice. I listen closely, and Momma sounds so hard and cold.
“My plane leaves at 6:00, so I’ll make this short and sweet. I’m leaving. I hate this life. I hate these creatures you deal with. I hate having to worry about what happens to you. I’ve been having an affair with our accountant, and we’re leaving tonight.”
