Honkytonk Hell: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 1)

by eden Hudson

  I got so caught up trying to reconcile the spokesperson for NP rights with the small-town mayor that I didn’t notice our tour guide and Mikal herding us out of the mansion until we were back on the bus.

  I sat down and scooted over so I could look out the window.

  Mikal was leading her familiar inside. Maybe she hadn’t recognized me. Maybe I had just psyched myself out.

  Mayor Dark stayed on the top step watching as our bus turned around and started down the lane, hands in the pockets of his suit pants and a bright smile on his face.

  Colt

  I love it when you blush, Colt. I think you should put on your little show for every tour group that comes through here.

  I couldn’t even tell Mikal to fuck off. That “little show” just about took everything out of me. It was stupid to fight her on the burning angel thing, such a waste of energy, but it had seemed so important at the time.

  I still felt ants digging in my veins, trying to chew their way out. They weren’t real, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that the last of them would disappear in a few more seconds.

  If I could get through a few more seconds.

  Then I heard a rifle bolt open and shut. There wasn’t any way to stop the memory. It was like the ants—the only thing to do was get through it.

  A man in my scope. Meth-head haggard, with deep eye sockets. I had heard him talk before. I’d been calling him Southern Guy because of his accent. I pulled the bolt, touched the shiny copper tip of the bullet, then shut the bolt. Safety off. Inhale. Exhale. But the timing was off, the exhale too close to the downbeat of my pulse. I had to do it again—safety on, bolt, touch, bolt, safety, inhale, exhale. Stop. Perfect. Squeeze the trigger. The shot echoed across the countryside, probably all the way to town. I put a round in Southern Guy’s deep, meth-head eye socket, then I let the rifle drop and grabbed the barbed wire fence while I threw up.

  You know, Colter, Mikal said, The only familiar whose flashbacks I’ve ever enjoyed as much as yours was this Israelite soldier’s back in Joshua’s day. Would you like to hear how it sounds when you kill a baby with a sword?

  Fuck you. But there wasn’t any conviction behind it. My body was an itching, bleeding ant farm. My brain felt like a hollow point had exploded inside my skull.

  Before Mikal, back when I was alone—even back when I was still living with Ryder and Tough—I used to be scared I was going crazy. To keep everything straight, I would make schedules in my head, plan out the next five seconds, the next minute, the next hour. But now, not being able to move or scream or scratch those damn ants out of my skin… Just thinking about a whole hour made me want to go to sleep and never wake up.

  How long had I already been with Mikal? If it had been less than a week, I was going to find a way to kill myself.

  Now there was a plan.

  No. I had to keep my shit together. There was already a plan. I needed to remember what it was, then stick to the fucking plan.

  Sniping Mikal’s familiars. I’d had to kill them to get her to come after me. I needed Mikal to come after me because…because of something to do with Tough…

  Thinking about Tough triggered a different memory. It was the middle of winter, about three months after Ryder died and Tough had run away the first time. We stood on the porch at the cabin, listening to Rian’s motorcycle drive away.

  Tough wouldn’t look at me. He just kept rubbing his wrists where the handcuffs had been.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I wanted to hug him and be glad he was alive, but I wanted to hit him worse.

  “Nashville?” I asked him.

  Tough shrugged.

  “How long you been back in town?” I asked.

  “Couple days,” he said.

  “Been staying with Mitzi and Jason?”

  “You know labels won’t sign underage singers?” Tough said. “Like, it’s a law. Got to have signatures from your legal parents. Uh, guardians. Whatever.”

  That’s when I realized he was slurring and leaning a little bit to one side.

  “You’re shitfaced,” I said.

  He laughed. “And you’re not? What, am I early?”

  “Did Mitzi give you something so she could get high off you?” I asked. “Pills or something?”

  “It doesn’t work like that, dumbass,” he said. “It was just some…some…”

  “Some what?”

  Tough straightened up and got this punk look on his face like he wasn’t going to answer.

  I grabbed a fistful of his jacket. “What’d she give you?”

  He knocked my hand off.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said.

  “Why not? Mitzi and Jason own all the rights to you now?” I shoved him. “A man-whore?” Another shove. “Are you serious?”

  “I said don’t you fucking touch me!”

  “You going to stop me?” I said. He tried to get ahold of me, but I dodged at the last second and smacked him upside the head. “Or are your protectors?”

  “Do you fucking know how long it would’ve took Ryder to die?” Tough yelled.

  “You’re going to tell me?” I yelled back. “I picked up the pieces while your coward ass was halfway to Nashville!”

  “I’m not ready to go in the fucking ground yet. Why is that so hard to understand?”

  “You are a genius, Tough,” I said. “Why didn’t I ever think of that? Just bend over and grab my ankles. That ought to work!”

  “Suck my cock. Then suck it again, you OCD jizzwad.”

  “All right, but only if it gets me protection.”

  I wasn’t fast enough to dodge him that time. His shoulder hit me in the gut and we tripped off the porch. Falling flat on my back on the frozen ground knocked the wind out of me. Tough landed a few sloppy punches. I took an awkward swing, but it didn’t even faze him.

  “You want to die, Colt?” Tough was screaming now. “You want to die before you’re twenty? ‘Cause I don’t. You’re fucking crazy if you think—”

  It was like a bomb went off. First Tough was sitting on my stomach trying to punch like he wasn’t high off his ass, then when I could see again, I was standing over him, choking on the cold air and coughing out these big white breaths. Tough’s cheek under his eye was swelling and his nose was broken and bleeding.

  “Come on, bitch,” he yelled. “Hit me like you mean it. Do Ryder proud!”

  I backed up until I was leaning against the side of the cabin. I didn’t do that to Tough. I wouldn’t have done that.

  Tough got up on one knee. “Feel better?”

  “Get the hell out of here,” I said.

  When he snorted, a spray of blood and snot dotted his jacket. He winced and put his hand over his nose.

  “You jealous fucking asshole,” he said, stumbling a little as he stood up. “I should’ve seen it sooner. I got friends, I’m banging a smoking hot nympho—”

  “Don’t dress it up,” I said. “You’re screwing an undead pedophile so that dumbass Jason’ll keep Kathan off your back.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. I ain’t got to watch my six anymore, either.” Tough pointed over his shoulder. “That’s your two plus two plus two, in case you couldn’t translate it from not-crazy.”

  I shook my head. “I hope to God Sissy can’t see this.”

  All Tough’s teenager bullshit dropped. He stood there staring at me like I’d whipped out a gun and shot him.

  “What?” I said. “You going to cry now? You made your choice. Sissy would be disgusted.”

  “Fuck you.” Tough started backing toward the tree line. He tripped, then screamed so hard his voice cracked, “Fuck you!”

  “Go see if Mitzi and Jason’ll let you sleep between them.”

  I hate that memory. If I knew where it was stored in my brain, I’d take a knife and gouge it out so I wouldn’t have to think about how stupid I was, how bad I messed up.

  Mikal’s laugh jangled around inside my head like chain links.
>
  Fuck you, I told her. But the last of the ants were gone. I’d made it.

  Desty

  I couldn’t find the diner Mayor Dark had been pushing, but there was a bakery on the square with a sign in the window that said it had NP-protected wireless internet, so I went inside. It was more sophisticated than I was expecting for a place as rural as Halo—more coffee shop chic than farm-town eatery—but being the NP mecca of the US probably had something to do with that.

  There were three people in line in front of me, so I had time to count the money I had left after my idiotic recon of the Dark Mansion. Just under two bucks in coins. Halo was an expensive place to look for somebody.

  “What can I get you, hon?” the woman behind the counter asked. Tiffani, according to her apron. She was middle-aged, with hair that dark shade of reddish-maroon that no one actually has, and her irises were a weird, brassy color, but the real attention-getter was her fangs. She caught me staring at them. “Yeah, I’m a vampire. Now, what can I get you?”

  I checked the price board.

  “Um, a plain bread knot,” I said.

  Tiffani sized me up and I wondered if I was starting to look like someone who lived out of a backpack or if she was just offended that I didn’t want one of the more intricate-looking pastries.

  “Something to drink with that?” she asked.

  “Tap water?”

  She got me a cup of water and the cheapest, plainest pastry out of her glass-front case.

  “Dollar-forty,” she said.

  My stomach growled.

  “If I got some of the strawberry butter with that, how much would it be?” I asked.

  “One-eighty.”

  “Can I, please?”

  Tiffani dropped a little tub of it onto the plate with my bread knot. I handed her my coins, then went and sat down by the big front window.

  At first all I could do was focus on eating. Maybe I was just really hungry, but that bread was incredible and the strawberry butter almost made me cry. It was like a sweet-buttery-tangy orgasm on a warm, fluffy bed. I ate half of it before I even took a breath. After that, I had to force myself to slow down and enjoy the little piece of heaven the way it deserved to be enjoyed. If Tempie could’ve tasted that… Strawberries were her favorite.

  Still trying to put off eating the last couple bites, I got out my computer and hooked up to the wireless. The bakery probably had some kind of spell that kept the otherworldly NP-energies from messing with the signal. I wondered if cell phones worked here, too, but no one in the bakery had theirs out and I couldn’t check mine because I’d sold it back in Tucson. Having one had never done me any good once I started chasing after Tempie anyway, considering I spent most of my time in NP towns like Halo.

  I had one email from Aunt Arie, sent a week ago.

  Everything’s fine here, sweetheart, just getting a little worried. Haven’t heard out of you in a while now. If you could, drop me a line sometime so I can tell your Mom everything’s okay with you. She misses her girls.

  For a while, I stared at the screen and tried to think of something to tell Aunt Arie. “I know Mom doesn’t actually care where I am or what I’m doing because she just wants to be left alone to die” didn’t seem appropriate. Not when Arie was trying so hard to act like everything was normal. And I couldn’t say I’d be there soon because who knew how long it would be before I even found Tempie, let alone got her back home?

  All I could do was send the standard “Everything’s fine with me, too!” It was lame, but I hoped it would be one less thing for Aunt Arie to worry about.

  I ate what was left of my bread knot, glanced around to make sure no one was looking, then licked the last of the strawberry butter out of the little plastic tub.

  Then I opened Tempie’s blog. Nothing new. The last entry was fifteen days old. The title was “FINALLY!!!”

  My search is over. I’ve been all over this country and even to Mexico looking for a way off of this mortal coil of one reincarnated hell after another. I’ve finally found the one who can take me out of this eternal rat race, and my angel was even closer to home than I thought, right smack in the middle of northern Missouri. So, I guess there’s no point to this blog anymore, except letting you know that you can get out, too.

  The first time I’d read this entry was two weeks ago, the day after Tempie posted it. Since then, fifteen days’ worth of congratulatory comments from the people who followed her blog had piled up. No responses from Tempie, though.

  Fifteen days. I rubbed my eyes hard, thinking through the figures again.

  Everything I’d read said foot soldiers couldn’t make familiars because they didn’t have the power to inflict their essence on humans. Enforcers like Mikal wanted total domination over their familiar’s will, but once they had it, they moved on to someone new fairly quickly—their average turnover was eighteen days. Alphas like Mayor Dark wanted obedience, devotion, and affection. Some alphas kept really well-trained familiars until their brain corroded from the constant presence of the fallen angel’s essence. Average brain-corrosion-time? One hundred and seventy-nine days with a wide range of normal, according to the articles.

  I could hope and pray that Tempie had met a foot soldier who was just stringing her along with promises of making her his familiar, but Tempie knew too much about fallen angels to be tricked like that. She had a whole page on her blog dedicated to telling a smooth-talking foot soldier from an enforcer or an alpha.

  If I found Tempie and she was already a familiar, there wasn’t anything I could do until her fallen angel let her go. The internet was full of stories about people who tried to steal their enthralled loved ones back. Sometimes the familiar killed the person trying to save them. Sometimes the person trying to save the familiar—their sister or child or husband—ended up killing them instead. “Death is the only release outside of the fallen angel’s will,” one article had said.

  My teeth hurt. I forced myself to unclench my jaw, then I got up to refill my water and walk some tension off. I didn’t know that Tempie was already a familiar. Maybe she wasn’t yet. Or maybe she’d changed her mind.

  I slid back into my booth and scrolled through the previous entries on her blog, trying not to think what the chances were that Tempie had changed her mind about something for the first time in her life.

  There was a picture of her new angel wings tattoo and a post about what she’d done for the artist to get him to ink her for free. She had a week’s worth of Tip-a-Days on how to get a fallen angel to notice you in a crowd of angel-groupies, her reviews of the NP communities in Santa Barbara, Tucson, Fort Worth, and New Orleans, and pictures of fallen angels she’d met along the way. Every so often, she had a rant about the worthlessness of human men.

  After a while, I gave up on Tempie’s blog and went to the message boards for people whose family members had been enthralled. No new studies or helpful articles, just the usual suicide-watch posts about dealing with cast-off familiars.

  One guy had written, U gotta think creatively. NEthing can b a weapon n there hands.

  Twelve hundred and forty-one commenters backed that up with detailed examples. Some of them made me sick, but I couldn’t stop reading. What if I didn’t read this one about drain-cleaning liquid and it turned out Tempie was already a familiar and then, when I finally got her home, she tried that?

  I checked my eyes in the front window of the bakery. I didn’t look too much like I was about to cry, but I did wonder how long I’d been there. Sometime while I was reading, evening had crept up on me.

  “Closing time.”

  I gasped and jumped like some kind of cartoon. I hadn’t heard Tiffani come up beside me and she didn’t show up in the window. She was staring at the screen of my computer. I snapped it shut.

  “You don’t have to go home,” she said. “But get the hell out.”

  “Okay. Sorry, I lost track of time.” I slid my computer into my backpack and zipped the compartment.

  “How l
ong have you been in town?” Tiffani asked.

  My heart started pounding.

  “Why, have you seen me before? I mean, a girl who looks like me?” I pulled the graduation photo of Tempie out of my back pocket and shoved it at the vamp. “Did she come in here? She really loves strawberries, so she probably ordered one of those strawberry tarts or something with that strawberry butter. How long ago did you see her?”

  Tiffani’s black, perfectly shaped eyebrows almost touched. “I just asked how long you’d been in town.”

  “Just since this—”

  Her nostrils flared. Here she was sniffing me and I was telling her I hadn’t been in town long and wouldn’t be missed.

  All of a sudden, the bakery’s tall tables and slick, black-seated booths looked very, very empty. I bet she had furnished the place with all that vinyl so blood would wipe right off. And I bet nobody would hear me scream through those brick walls.

  “There’s someone waiting for me,” I said.

  Tiffani shook her head.

  “You don’t lie to a vamp, hon. We can hear your heart beating.” She tapped her nose. “And I got the super-smell. You haven’t been in regular contact with anyone for a very long time. Do your folks even know where you are?”

  I swallowed hard. Clutched my backpack and stared at the door. Running wouldn’t work. Even a slow vamp was faster than a human.

  What was it Coach C had always said in P.E./Self-Defense? The way to protect yourself from undead NPs was to remember the three Bs.

  Except I couldn’t think of any Bs.

  “B-back off,” I stuttered. There’s a B for you. “Or I’ll, uh, stake you.”

  Tiffani rolled her brassy eyes.

  “Get out,” she said.

  I started to. Then it occurred to me that no matter where I went, they were going to require cash. I looked over my shoulder.