by Mia Bishop
He thrust his hands in the air and whispered something she couldn’t quite make out. A sword hilt instantly hovered in the air in front of his right hand. Lucas wrapped his hand around the ornate hilt and pulled a gleaming sword into existence.
The beast launched itself at Lucas who easily sidestepped its clumsy attack. The creature spun around just as the Virtue’s sword sliced through its neck. The severed head hit the floor with a thud. Chloe hopped up and yelled out another foreign word and the shimmering mirror solidified.
“It’s a baby, right?” she asked Lucas, who gave a curt nod. “Then that should buy us some time to get out of here before the mom comes looking for it.”
“I think you both have had enough fun tonight.” Lucas pointed to the stairs and barked. “Time to head back.”
There were no arguments from Abby, just one question. “A baby what?”
“Hellhound.” Lucas answered as he herded them upstairs. She peaked over her shoulder and blinked. He was back to his normal self again, no sign of armor or sword.
As soon as they were back in the main part of the house Lucas inspected them from head to toe. When he seemed convinced they were okay he pulled them both into a tight hug before letting go of Abby and insisting they leave immediately. As the car pulled away Abby was certain she’d heard a sad whine from another creature inside the house.
She stayed quiet the entire ride back to Hex. Lucas and Chloe talked in low whispers and it was obvious they both were worried they had made a mistake taking Abby to her old house. She didn't feel like it was a mistake. It was better to know the truth, but even so, it was difficult for her to reconcile the family pictures on the walls with the hidden room below the house. She couldn't muster up the words to reassure her friends they'd done the right thing.
Before they’d reached the door of the club the thumping beats of the song she’d heard on the radio filled the air. Under her breath Abby muttered. “Must be popular.”
Chloe perked up. “Oh you have no idea. This chick just came out of nowhere, now she’s blowing up the charts. Her names Cressida, everyone says she’s the next big thing.”
“Well, her song is catchy, I’ll give her that much.” Given everything they’d uncovered it was nice to have a normal conversation about normal stuff, instead of talking about the fact that her parents were Satan worshippers.
They hadn't made it ten feet before Alexander and Neffie were waving them over to the bar. Lucas greeted Bastian and Caleb with a nod and placed his closed fist over his heart, both men did the same in return. Abby and Chloe climbed up on the barstools and Lucas took a seat between them. Alexander slid over three glasses. "Y'all look like you need a drink."
Chloe and Lucas gladly lifted their glasses to their mouths while Abby pushed hers aside. "Sorry, can't drink."
He pushed it back towards her. "You must be new to this life, you can drink this. You can even eat food if you really have a desire to."
She froze. "You know what I am?"
"Of course. I can smell it on you. You're a vampire, but not undead. It's quite a neat trick, but if the physics are all the same you can still drink, you just have to make sure your liquor is in a carrier of blood and lucky for you I keep a fully stocked bar."
She lifted the glass to her lips and moaned. Blood and something stronger. Nothing sounded better. She downed the contents in one gulp as it burned going down her throat. She touched her lips and smiled. One drink and her stomach was filled more than it had been in a month. "That hit the spot."
He laughed. "You look hungry. How much are you eating, little lady?"
"A few tablespoons a week."
The older vampire swayed on his feet for a moment. "You've got to be kidding me. That damn priest is starving you."
Chloe interjected. "Do you think you could maybe keep her in a steady supply? I'm sure she's going to need her strength when the shit hits the fan."
He flicked his tongue over one of his fangs. "I'll send a delivery out for you once a week, we can't have you fainting on the battlefield. I'll pack a cooler to tide you over for a few days."
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Alex laced his fingers behind his head and grinned. "No need to thank me. As Chloe said, the shit is hitting the fan. Like it or not you and the priest are all that seems to stand between the world as we know it and literally Hell on Earth. That's worth a couple coolers full of blood pouches to keep your energy up."
"Do you think we can win?"
He refilled her glass and nodded. "As long as that crazy drunk doesn't kill you, I think we stand a chance."
She took a slower sip this time and cracked a smile. "Here's to hoping."
By sunrise they were back in Dusk. The bar was just starting to empty out as Chloe pulled Meri's car down the narrow dirt street. Lobo seemed to be purposely ignoring them, probably in an attempt to keep himself out of trouble. If Nico found out he'd seen them and not given him a heads up Abby was sure Nico would have the Wolfman's head. She smiled, it was nice of Lobo to try to keep their secret, even if it was more to save his own skin than theirs.
Something stood out in the darkness. A man leaned against the statue in front of the church as they drove by. Chloe caught a glimpse of him at the same time Abby did. "Did you see that?"
"That guy? Yeah. Is he a local?"
"No..." Chloe's hand shook as she gripped the wheel. "He's not a local. I don't know—" Her words trailed off. "Never mind. It's nothing."
Abby whipped her head around to get one more look at the mystery man. He seemed normal enough. If normal was drop dead gorgeous and standing around in the darkness. Sadly, that was sort of what her normal had become in these last few weeks. Gorgeous men with secrets and deadly women with magick.
Chloe stopped the car in front of Nico's house and smiled. It was a fake smile, but Abby didn't let on that she could tell something was bothering her friend. Whatever it was, clearly Chloe didn't feel ready to talk about it. They made their way inside and within minutes Abby was curled up on Nico's bed with Chloe right next to her. Abby rested her head on her friend’s shoulder and sighed. "Where do you think they are?"
"The nun-bitch and Nico? She's probably trying to—" Chloe stopped and scrubbed a hand over her face. "I'm sure they're on their way back. But hey," grabbing her bag she pulled out some photo albums. "I brought these from your house, I thought we could go through them and try to jog your memory."
"How did you fit those in there?" The bag was large but not large enough to house three full photo albums, let alone all the other stuff Chloe carried around with her.
Chloe grinned. "Think of it as my own version of a bag of holding."
"What in the hell is a bag of holding?"
"D&D, you know, a bag of holding? A bag enchanted to hold a pocket dimension inside of it for easily transporting everything from makeup to a boat?"
"That is amazing."
"Really?" Chloe blinked. "Of all the magick you've seen, a bag with infinite space is the one thing that surprises you?"
"What can I say, I'm a practical vampire."
"Okay, Ms. Practical Vampire, let's dig into this trip down memory lane."
Abby sat up and started thumbing through the books. Occasionally she'd find a picture that stood out. She'd run her finger over the image hoping for some sort of breakthrough but still nothing happened. Yawn after yawn was met with their eyelids closing. Last thing Abby remembered was the clock striking eight o'clock. Nico still wasn't home but she couldn't bring herself to stay awake any longer. Chloe was already fast asleep. Abby sunk down in the bed and snuggled up next to her friend as a deep sleep dragged her under.
CHAPTER NINE
The door squeaked open at an ungodly hour of the day, waking Abby. She grumbled and rolled over pulling the blankets over her head. Her ears perked up despite her body wanting to go back to sleep, she could distinctly hear two hearts beating. Without a doubt she knew one was Nico’s which gave her a sneaking suspicion of who th
e other belonged to.
Nico whispered to the other person. "Hurry up before the sun touches Abby."
A surge of anger coursed through her body at the sound of Rosalie's voice. "If you just let her burn then all your problems would be over."
"Abby isn't one of my problems."
"That's not what it looks like from where I'm standing."
"Rosalie, don't start." There was something in Nico's voice. Maybe it was frustration or tiredness. "We've been through this."
Rosalie pressed, “If you’d just hear me out, Nico—”
“No, last night was a complete bust. It was nothing more than a wild goose chase and I have a feeling you knew we wouldn’t find what you’d promised.”
“Maybe I was just hoping you’d see the light during our time away. If you got away from that creature for long enough you might see things clearly.”
“Stop it. I’m not leaving Abby. Didn’t you get the hint last night? She is who I want.” Abby sucked in a breath. What had happened last night? An even better question was; did she even want to know? Nico was moving about the room, but she didn’t dare peek her head out of the covers. Whatever was going on was between them and the fact that Nico had defended her made her unbeating heart soar. She had faith that he’d be able to handle anything Rosalie threw at him and from the sounds of their conversation he already had.
Abby pulled the blankets tighter around herself in her half-awake state. She was too exhausted to deal with much of anything. After everything she'd learned last night all she wanted to do was sleep. She'd deal with Rosalie once the sun went down. For now, she buried herself under the covers with Chloe and blocked out the world. She’d expected him to wake her up to let her know he was home, or maybe he assumed she could hear them. Either way Abby slowly drifted back to sleep.
The cold and a familiar restless itching woke Abby. Her internal alarm clock went off at the same moment every day. As soon as the sun started to set in the desert and the temperature started to drop she was awake and ready to face the day. She yawned and stretched, slightly nudging Chloe who moaned and rolled back over. The bright light from the kitchen and smell of freshly brewed coffee greeted her senses as soon as she shook the last remnants of sleep off.
"Good evening, ladies."
Abby smiled at the sound of Nico's voice. Hearing Nico’s voice was better than any alarm clock.
Chloe tugged the blanket over her head and grumbled. "Five more minutes, Dad."
Abby laughed as she slid her legs out of the blankets and shivered as her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor. "Morning." A pile of blankets on the couch grabbed her attention. "Um, where did you sleep?"
Nico nodded towards the couch. "Not the most comfortable night I’ve had but definitely not the worst.”
"Sorry, you could have woken us."
"Nah, you two looked like you needed the sleep." He met her eyes over the rim of his coffee cup. "What did you two get up to last night?"
She groaned and made her way into the kitchen. "Don't get mad, but—"
"Abby, the surest way to get me mad is to start a sentence with that. Now, what did you do? Go demon slaying on your own, you know you aren't—"
"We went to the city." She blurted it out.
Nico stared at her, unblinking, unmoving. Seconds ticked by before he cleared his throat. "Excuse me? You what?"
She was already holding up her hands. "We were careful, no one got hurt."
"What the fuck, Abby?"
His body shook, his jaw clenched. She knew he’d be mad, but he didn’t know what it was like to not remember anything. This was one argument she was determined to win. "Nico, you can't keep me locked up here. I need to have a life."
"I can keep you locked up, clearly I haven't done a good enough job."
Chloe managed to lift her head up long enough to interject her thought on the subject. "We had to find out her past, Nico. She deserved to know."
He craned his neck from Chloe back to Abby. "Oh my Lord. You two went to find out about your old life? Do you have any idea how dangerous that could have been? What if someone had recognized you? You could have been taken into custody and held in a police station, a hospital, and what would have happened if the sun had come up? Huh? You two don't think things through."
He was right, they hadn't thought all of it through, her only defense was a sheepish response. "But nothing happened. We were safe."
He took a couple of deep breaths and rubbed his temples. "Carry on, little Miss Junior Detective. Tell me everything now so I can deal with the multiple strokes I'm going to have all at once."
"We went to Hex—"
"You've got to be shitting me. Chloe, what the hell? You take her to a goth bar to keep a low profile?"
Chloe murmured from under the blankets. "Well she's got the fangs, she kind of fits in there."
"Oh ha ha." His eyes settled back on Abby. "Go on."
"Well, I met people."
"I'm sure."
"And then Lucas came."
"And?"
Abby's words rushed out as fast as she could move her mouth hoping to get his reaction over and done with as quickly as possible. "Chloe found out where I used to live and we broke into the house."
All the color drained from Nico's face. "You're joking right now. Right?"
"Um, no..."
Nico stood up, walked stiffly to the counter, and grabbed the coffee pot. Holding his mug with a shaky hand, he poured another cup without bothering to look over at her. "Anything else you need to tell me?"
"Yeah." Abby signed. "We found out my name is Jane, my middle name is Abigail. My parents are apparently loaded and my father is a pastor of a church not far from their house."
"He's a pastor? Did you find any clues as to if you being cursed was maybe in retaliation of his religion?"
She shook her head. "I don't think so, because, well... We found something else."
"Something else?"
She nodded and fidgeted unsure of how to explain what happened next.
Nico narrowed his eyes at her. "Spit it out."
"We found a hidden room inside the house. Lucas said there was evil down there and if he went down there it would attack, but I had to see what they were hiding. I couldn’t just leave after coming so far."
"I'm going to kill that fucking Virtue next time I see him."
Chloe chimed in. "Can't kill a Virtue unless you crush their heart. Immortality has its perks."
Abby pinched the bridge of her nose. Chloe egging Nico into a fit wasn’t helping her cause. "Anyways, it was fine.”
Nico took a breath and placed his coffee cup down with a thud as black liquid sloshed over the rim. “What do you mean it was fine? Lucas could sense something. What happened?”
“We went down there and found a bunch of chemistry stuff, and spell ingredients, but then there were these tables with straps... And blood."
"Wait, what?" Nico's brow drew together in a tight line. "Tables with straps and blood? And chemistry stuff, spells. What the hell are your parents into?"
Abby swallowed past the lump in her throat. She didn't want to say the next part, every inch of her wanted it to not be true, but the moment she went down the stairs she'd known it deep down inside. "They are Satan worshipers."
"Abby, Satan worshipers are teenagers going through a goth phase in high school, they sacrifice the neighbor’s cat and eventually grow out of it."
She shook her head. "No, they really are. They have a shrine or altar thing, the minute I was near it I felt sick. It's evil, They’re evil."
"They had a shrine?" He grabbed a scrap of paper and pencil and started to scribble something. When he was finished he handed it to her. "Did it look like this?"
Abby's eyes widened. "That's it!" A wave of nausea hit her just from staring at the picture. "How did you know?"
"Your parents are part of a cult known as the Cult of the Little Horn. It's one of the other names for Lucifer. If they had all the things
you described I'd wager a bet they are high up in the cult, maybe even its leaders. This isn't good.” He paused and tacked on, “You’re leaving something out, I can tell."
“There was a Hellhound guarding the basement. Like I said, it was fine. Lucas took one swipe at it with some sword he pulled out of nowhere and the thing died. It was a baby, no big deal.”
Nico’s mouth hung open. “No big deal? You were in the presence of a baby hellhound, which the Virtue killed, and it’s no big deal? It’s a very big fucking deal, Abby.”
“Why? We’re fine, the creature’s dead. No harm, no foul.”
“Hellhounds live in packs. Once you kill one you’re marked with their scent. Virtue-boy doesn’t have to worry about it because his heavenly nature masks the scent, but you two are, for all intents and purposes, mostly human. Even being a vampire doesn’t cover the scent of a dead hellhound. They’re going to track the two of you here.”
Abby lifted her arm to her nose and sniffed. “I don’t smell anything.”
“You can’t smell it because you aren’t a hellhound.”
“I don’t know,” she said unconvinced. “Are you sure this isn’t another one of those rumors demons spread to scare humans? Like the thing about newly turned vampires?”
“It’s real.” Nico picked up his cup of coffee and took another drink. “But I’m glad you can take this all so lightly. What’s given you this boost of confidence this morning?”
“Maybe I just found my inner strength.”
He made a noise, like the vocal equivalent of an eye roll. She was feeling stronger, more confident. Her eyes skittered to the fridge as her stomach tightened from hunger. Abby hopped off the counter and made her way to the fridge. She ignored the curious stare she could feel Nico giving her as she opened the cooler from Alexander and pulled out a bag of blood.
When she turned around with the bag of liquid in her hand Nico slammed his cup on the table. "Oh no. Absolutely not, Abby. We aren't doing this. I told you I would feed you. Where the hell did you get that anyways?"
She defiantly sunk her teeth into the plastic and took a long pull before answering, "You can't feed me enough Nico, it would kill you. Alexander gave me this and he said he’ll ship out a cooler every week to keep me well fed. That way, you don't drain yourself, I don't starve, and you don't have to worry about anyone getting hurt. I haven't felt this good since I woke up a month ago. I feel strong and healthy and, well, I feel good. So I'm drinking it, you’re keeping your blood inside your veins, and everybody comes away a winner."
