Petra shrugged and smacked her gum. “Don’t forget, Madison, that Genovela girl you’re going after is bonkers.” She made a twirling motion with her finger against her temple and popped a bubble. “Someone should protect you mortals from the psycho bitch.”
Madison zipped her bag and dragged in a choppy breath. “Your ilk drove her to it.”
“She’s weak-minded, or she wouldn’t be unbalanced.” Petra scratched a perfume swatch and sniffed it.
“A hundred demons possessed her. That’s extreme even for them. Jesus Christ”—Petra hissed at the word— “give the woman a break! I’d be nutty, too.” She hadn’t been possessed, and she skirted the fringe of sanity from all that’d occurred. “If she has valid information on Nix, that’s good enough for me.”
I gotta be a little crazy to go into Hell to save Nix. What a death wish to venture into the fiery realm.
Petra hooked her finger in the magazine. “Wonder what Daddy’s going to say when you show up in Hell with a human you own to save Phoenix.”
“I don’t care what Micah thinks.”
“Checkmate.” Zen’s word spoken to Amos summed up her sentiments exactly.
Petra’s eyes narrowed on Madison. FYI, it’s suicide to go into Hell to save Nix yourself. I thought that’s what your mortal sheep, Alessa, was for, leading her to the slaughter to save Nix for you.
Madison shook her head and responded telepathically, I wouldn’t expect a demon to understand.
Smacking her gum, her step-daughter peered at her. It’s doubtful you’ll come out of Hell alive, but you definitely won’t come out the same if you go in.
Madison shrugged and Petra’s lips parted in surprise.
I say we kill the demonic bitch, Petra, Pandora’s lucid thoughts surfaced. Kill her, dine on her blood and scatter her power across the world to wreak havoc on mankind.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped away from Micah’s daughter. Every day remained a struggle to contain the vile power of Pandora’s Box trapped beneath her skin. Sensing the dual emotions—Zen always did when they involved the ancient entity—he caught her hand and she met his gaze.
I’m fine, she spoke mentally. He nodded, released her hand, and returned his focus to the chess game.
This time she was fine. Next time she might not be able to control the vile thing inside her.
“You ready, Alessa?”
The horsewoman nodded as Madison anchored the knife Nix had given her into its sheath on her hip. The weapon made her feel closer to Nix. Four months had been too long to wait to save him. If she could burst into Hell tonight, she would, but just one misstep in their plan would spell disaster.
She couldn’t imagine the horrors Micah put Nix through and worried about the things he’d been forced to endure.
He’ll break. Crow said he would.
Instinct warned she needed to be there as soon as possible after Nix’s fall so his soul wouldn’t become completely blackened by the things he’d be compelled to do. She should worry about her own outcome in this mission, but that didn’t haunt her dreams. What gave her nightmares was wondering what Nix would be thinking when he agreed to give into the King’s whim.
Chapter Five
A soul came through the fire, a polite way of saying the person died, had been judged to have committed deeds so tarnished, they’d been found guilty and re-routed to the pit. Their transgressions could be many, or few. Nix’s belly swirled in anticipation of bringing about pain, but he managed to resist rubbing his hands together in glee. A new soul to train with his tender, unmerciful hands. Life in Hell was good. Better than he could have hoped or expected. None of his family would recognize him now…not that he could recall any of their names. They no longer mattered. Revenge against an immortal that murdered the woman he loved had become his sole focus.
Nix circled his new victim. Beth, a twenty-something dyed redhead, and a little on the chunky side, but cute. As a mortal, he’d have done her and bragged about the conquest.
Nothing’s stopping me from taking her here.
Yes, there is. Broken beyond any hope of future redemption? Probably. He’d embraced evil for revenge, and hadn’t regretted his decision. He’d killed many innocents to amp up his power and hadn’t regretted his actions. The innocent were particularly powerful. But that didn’t make him a rapist. Some morals remained untarnished.
But…why?
“Confess your sins and you can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.” Nix slapped his palm with a flogger.
“Where am I?” Her voice quivered with terror as her wild-eyed gaze darted about the room.
“Don’t play dumb. You know where you are. Spill your transgressions, little girl, or….” He didn’t finish the sentence. He never did because the victim could fill in the blank so much worse than he could.
“I—I…um…stole a bra from Victoria’s Secret once.” She peered around the room and trembled.
Nix tsked his disappointment and stepped in front of her. He laced his hands behind his back. “You’ve got more.”
“No.” She shook her head hard, her too-bright red hair flying around her face. Black eyeliner and mascara streaked her cheeks.
He caught her chin with his hand and jerked her head back by her hair with his other hand. Their gazes clicked together, and he felt her shudder. In fear? Shit, he hoped so. He hoped to be lucky enough to terrify her into pissing and shitting her jeans.
Beth’s brown eyes flashed around the room. The floors were comprised of stitched-together flesh, the walls a combination of souls gyrating in random acts of lasciviousness and homicide, but her focus lingered where Micah stood in the shadows.
“I see your soul, Beth.” Lie. He could sense the stain of her sins, but not much else. “I know you’ve got more transgressions. If you don’t repent, you can’t join your grandma in the afterlife.” He didn’t even know if she had a grandma in the afterlife, but those words usually procured confessions.
“I kicked my dog.” Tears trickled down her cheeks and dried in salty lines, outlined by makeup.
Nix clucked his tongue. Kicking a dog wasn’t a damning offense.
“Undress.” Voice whiplash-hard, Micah stepped out of the shadows, and he strolled forward. “Secrets are not tolerated. Yours will be revealed, or I’ll take them from your flesh.”
“Where am I?” Her voice wavered.
“Phoenix already told you.”
No, he hadn’t, but the girl nodded her agreement anyway.
Micah crossed his arms over his chest. “Strip now, or I’ll send your soul straight to Hell for failure to obey on command.”
“I’m at judgment?” Her fingers trembled as she slowly began to remove her clothing.
Neither of them replied. Micah quirked his head to the side and watched her disrobe. Not the first time, a twinge of guilt socked Nix in the gut for what they did, what he’d been taught to do to the condemned. Their actions couldn’t be fair. Lying to those that came through the fire was sick and twisted. Cruel to give them hope of entering Heaven when only fire and brimstone awaited their eternity.
Micah forced them all to strip—male and female alike—and fed them all the same spiel about redemption. Confess all and they were promised the Kingdom of Heaven. If they came through the fire, then they’d already been judged and deemed unworthy to enter the Pearly Gates. Micah already knew their sins so having them come clean served no purpose other than as entertainment. Damning them after he’d promised paradise served as icing on the cake.
Micah was a sick motherfucker. And what’d that make him for going along with it? Sick-and-twisted motherfucker number two?
With a pained glance the girl stripped off her panties and stood before them cowering. Micah moved behind her and curled his hands around to the front, cupping a breast in one hand and wrapping his fingers around her throat with the other, pulling her flush against his chest.
A brief flash of memory surfaced from his former life. Madison’s panic when she’d scu
rried from the stock room after Micah choked her.
The same terror blazed from Beth now, her bottom lip trembling.
Micah rubbed his chin against the side of the girl’s head. “This is my final request for you to confess your sins.”
Intimidation always worked.
The girl began to sob, gasping and choking, and shuddering beneath her cries. “I smothered my ailing mother for her twenty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.”
“What’d you do with the money?” Nix asked.
“Bought meth.”
Keeping a hand wrapped around her throat, Micah dragged his other hand down her stomach until it rested below her bellybutton.
“Continue.” His voice grew thick with what Nix recognized as desire.
“I gave birth to a baby five weeks early and—”
“Were you taking meth while you were pregnant?” Nix watched as Micah dragged his hellish fangs against her shoulder and shifted into his blue angel skin.
“Yes.” Beth quivered in the King’s arms. “I left her in a dumpster.” Tears hit her cheeks and dried. “It was sleeting. I saw on the news the next morning that she froze to death.”
“Why should I bow to monsters like you?” Micah’s grimace reflected his bitterness. “Why would Father ask it of us when your species is so undeserving?”
Nix beheld the King, who hated God for requiring them to serve mankind.
“Your sins are not forgiven,” Beliel rasped against her ear.
“Please—”
Demon claws sprang forth and punctured her abdomen. Beth gasped as her blood oozed over the fallen angel’s fingers and down between her thighs, hitting the skin-stitched floor. Each droplet of the liquid wrenched screams from the ground. Micah pulled his arm up, slowly gutting her like a deer. Beth screamed and the demon laughed as blood and intestines spilled forth. Micah shoved his hand into her chest and ripped her heart out. The organ still beat after being removed.
The King stepped away and her body thunked against the flooring. Only the soul remained standing, quivering in shock. The demon nudged her carcass with his foot, and she began to scream.
Micah lifted the heart. “Huklejtax jioq vkulh oj mifak.” Tarnished soul grant us power, he said, and took a bite of it. As he chewed, he held the remainder toward Nix. “Finish it.”
Aghast, Nix couldn’t tear his focus off the organ. All the horrors he’d committed, yet the idea of ingesting a human heart disgusted him.
“It’ll give you strength, Phoenix, to kill Zennyo Ryuo.”
He ripped his focus off the object in Micah’s hand. Their stares bolted on each another. Nix couldn’t have looked away if he tried. “What if Mads lives? What’s the point in revenge?”
“He still wields the power to kill her. He knows he cannot kill me, which means it’s unlikely he’ll hesitate to take her life next time we meet. We must protect our woman. The heart gives more power than any other organ. You’ll need to augment yours if you wish to help me defeat the immortal.”
Our woman? Had she ever been his? He didn’t think so, but she had responded to him eagerly, which meant she could be his someday.
Nix took the organ and it jerked in his hand, squirting blood from the ripped valves. He choked on bile and cringed at the squishiness of it.
“Consume it before its last beat.”
Anything for Mads.
“For Mads.” He toasted her husband with the heart and consumed it, gagging only once. He was proud he didn’t succumb to his mortal ew factor.
Chapter Six
Madison parked the car and surveyed the juke joint on the outskirts of Delta, Utah, not that Main Street could be considered a bustling metropolis. She’d seen less rundown establishments, but she schmoozed with the cesspool of creation, so who was she to complain about a little upkeep?
“You think they furnish handguns as you walk into this place?” Alessa scrunched her nose as she peered out the vehicle’s front window.
“No human is as frightening as a demon.”
Alessa snorted. “Spoken from the woman who issues one-word commands and demons bow to her whims. Seriously, Madison, you handle demons easier than cockroaches.”
Madison turned off the car and extracted the keys. “You’ve only seen me do that once and you know how big a fit Zen had.”
“If that was a fit, I have never seen the man have anything but one.”
She chuckled at Alessa’s sarcasm. “Believe me, he was extremely angry. It was all in his eyes.” And in her head, because he’d laid into her telepathically. “You ready to do this?”
“Yeah, why not. I figure Hell’s going to be worse than any backwoods honky-tonk can be.”
Alessa could say that again.
They stepped out of the Land Rover and Madison secured her pistol in the waistband of her jeans at the base of her spine. Blades secured to her ankles, she strapped shurikens to the outside of her thigh. She didn’t want anyone thinking they were two pretty chicks easily intimidated.
“You expecting trouble?” Alessa’s lopsided grin showcased her amusement.
“Aren’t I always?” She straightened, pocketed her keys, leaving the car unlocked in case they needed to make a hasty getaway.
“You have trust issues.” Alessa walked beside her. “Genovela is legit.”
“Maybe, but her call came from nowhere and right after Zen was baited. Coincidence?” Madison shrugged. “I hope. Being Nix’s friend doesn’t make her mine.”
They entered the bar. The outside presented disrepair, but the inside smelled like Pine-Sol. No cigarette smoke blanketed the air and the sense of ‘business’ rather than ‘good times’ permeated the establishment.
“Sherlock bar.” Madison noted at least twenty hunters present. Too many in one place irritated her skin. How many of them were aware of her identity, or just knew her name and sketchy background?
“How can you tell?” Alessa whispered.
“They have a distinct signature to their aura.”
Silence descended on one person at a time throughout. A scuffed-up bar situated to her left seated a dozen gawking Sherlocks.
“Alessa, you should know, there’s not a lot of love lost between me and them.”
She felt the other woman’s attention, but Madison kept her focus on the establishment’s clientele, who one by one turned in their seats to gape at them.
“Madison, they’re really hard to piss off. What’d you do?”
Madison snorted at Alessa’s naïveté. “I was born.” She glanced at Nix’s lover and sent her a teasing grin. “And I may have enthralled one…or two.”
“I always did prefer being the underdog,” Alessa quipped in a singsong voice.
Madison rolled her eyes and strode toward the bar. The bartender, a giant of a man, at least six-six with broad, lumberjack shoulders, scruffy cheeks and brown hair, watched them approach, as did everyone else. With a matching set of dark brown eyes, he surveyed them, hunter-like, a trait common among Sherlocks. Little would get past him.
“Two shots of your best tequila.”
Lumberjack glanced at the hundred-dollar bill she tossed on the bar. Cautious, he watched them as he reached for a bottle of José Cuervo Gold off the shelf. Far from the best as far as tequilas went, but she wasn’t surprised by the selection. A Sherlock bar wasn’t known for its pricey liquor.
“You’re not from these parts.”
Not a question, but a statement. Madison answered anyway. “Nope.”
Alessa grinned. “What was your first clue, sweet cheeks? Her accent or our pretty faces?”
“We have a sassy one tonight, gentlemen.” The barkeep joked to the men strung up at the counter like hecklers at a strip joint. Chuckling, he smacked two shot glasses down in front of them and poured tequila to the rim. “Keep your money. The first drink’s on the house.”
He winked at Alessa, but Madison left the cash on the bar.
“Thanks.” Madison turned sideways on the barstool facin
g Alessa so she could keep a watch on everyone, including the bartender, in her periphery. Putting the two Sherlocks on her other side, behind her, her senses twitched in protest at turning her back to danger. Something about most Sherlocks rubbed her the wrong way and these were no different. Her best guess, the demon inside her recognized them as enemies.
Beside her, Alessa leaned over the counter, giving the barman all her attention. “My name’s Alessandra.”
“Odd name.” Not a man of many words obviously.
“It’s Italian.” She sent him a saucy grin as she tipped the tequila to her lips.
Uncertain where Alessa was going with the conversation, Madison bit back a smile. She shook her black hair over her shoulders, and ran her fingers through the long tresses. Caught up in Alessa’s antics, Madison forgot to keep a watch on the Sherlocks.
Once Alessa had the barkeep’s undivided attention, she licked her lips and ogled the man up and down like she might a prime piece of steak. “You’re kind of cute, sweet cheeks.”
Madison’s eyebrows flashed upward. She’d never seen the other woman flirt with men, but in the four months she’d known her, Alessa had never needed to. Oh, yeah, she and Nix had more in common than Madison originally thought. Only Alessa could pull off calling a Sherlock sweet cheeks.
“Yeah?” The worker didn’t look as if he believed her, like maybe he waited on the bad punchline. He’d probably heard it all.
“Oh, yeah,” Alessa said in a throaty tone. “You know what they say about Italians?”
He poured her another shot. “What’s that, doll?”
“We are astounding lovers.”
Madison choked on laughter. ‘Sweet cheeks’ blushed. Imagine that, a lumberjack of a Sherlock going pink over such a comment. She decided to save him by getting straight to the point. “We’re here to see Genovela Maxwell.”
The bartender flicked her a ‘go away’ glare, as a lone male off in the right corner caught her attention. Nothing out of the ordinary, except he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Did he recognize her? Likely.
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