Reaping Havoc: Kiara Blake Book 1

by Kinsley Burke

  “Well, they should,” Lacey said. “It’s all about the service. If I wanted bad service, I’d grab a hamburger from some kid who barely knows how to flip a patty. I'm paying good money for proper service here, and they better make things right.”

  “What's happened to the customer is always right motto?”

  "Exactly, good help who understands proper service is no longer hired.” Lacey gestured to her empty wine glass. “Instead we get… this.”

  I tuned their poor service related complaints out and re-envisioned my napkin into strips of linen. Strips that could be shoved into my ears. Thankfully, thoughts could not be heard. Otherwise, I'd be arrested for premeditated murder. I'd like to consider it justified homicide.

  The sight of our server as she neared the table distracted me. A tray full of another table’s food was held high above her head. Yellow flames licked her legs as she walked. Hellhound dashed around in mad circles. His growls and barks were directed at some sort of hellhound-induced stimulant that only he could see.

  Hindsight has always been my ass-kicker. I’m often left gaping at the shreds of what became so blatantly obvious three minutes too late. But time suddenly slowed. Voices dimmed. The lights flickered. Foresight made her rare appearance. She was working with Karma, and I watched Karma rear back her leg and give a solid kick to Motion.

  Our server neared our table. Hellhound leaped for the tray. The woman lost her balance. Gravity came into play and the tray crashed down. Sounds of broken dishes echoed throughout the room. Restaurant patrons’ voices hushed. And one stunned Lacey Briggs sat covered in linguini and marinara sauce.

  Karma had kicked the witch's ass. I smiled.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Walking up a flight of stairs with a hellhound was a big problem. And I didn't mean that figuratively. Beasts their size took up all the space. The inferno thing Hellhound had going on didn't help, either. It made me sweat. And this beast, in particular, smelled like fish. To say I wasn’t fond of his new fragrance was an understatement.

  “Calamari? Really?” I leaned back as Hellhound’s tail wagged. “You tore up the restaurant over a plate of squid?”

  Actually, when all was said and done, it had been three plates. But I refused to count. My stomach rolled at the serious ick factor to even say the word. Suspicions were strong Hellhound was smiling, but the beast wisely kept his face turned away from me.

  Smart beast.

  “Well, I’m not buying you squid. You can keep starving on my front doormat.”

  Hellhound’s massive bulk came to a screeching halt. My still aching muscles from the prior day’s butt-kicking had already prepped for a mental happy dance at conquering the last three of sixty steps in my five flights of stairs, when the sudden jolt of stops caused my legs to vibrate in protested anger. Standing blocked inside a stairwell by a massive beast of flames was not at all being at home and lying on the couch with aching muscles propped up on cushiony pillows. And that’s where Legs wanted to be. But third-degree burn avoidance outranked aching muscles. Legs needed to get over themselves. And the building’s Super needed to install an elevator. Like now. Time for another talk where I yelled, he tuned out, my nose got friendly with the wood panel of his front door, and still no elevator. Our scream fest occurred once a month. Usually on the fourth. He always won. But someday...

  “Kiara Blake, this is a smoke-free building.”

  A dozen not so nice words flitted through my thoughts. The familiar voice should not have been awake. Didn’t old people have bedtimes? The early kind?

  Hellhound gave up his protest over the lack of slimy ocean creatures and moved forward. His torch-lit body cleared the narrow doorframe by centimeters, leaving scorched wood only I could see. No doubt my impending lecture from the stern voice yelling down the hallway was much more amusing to the beast than leaving me trapped inside a barren stairwell without the nourishment of Doritos and chili cheese fries. If he thought all was forgiven, he was dead wrong. There would be no squid.

  Stupid beast.

  I stepped into the corridor of my floor and spotted one petite Mrs. Tidwell standing with legs planted wide and arms askew on bony hips. Her ability to spy me through a solid wall was an unexplained marvel.

  “Do you have X-Ray vision, Mrs. Tidwell?”

  Her frown deepened. “This is a smoke free building. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  It wasn’t. Smoke-free, that was, but I didn’t want to ask. Mrs. Tidwell had finally passed crazy and moved onto insane. I forced a smile. “I’m not smoking, Mrs. Tidwell.”

  “Don’t lie to me, young lady. I ought to have a chat with your mother.”

  “Wait, how do you know my mom?”

  “I have her number somewhere. Where did I put it?”

  “Wait. Stop! How do you know my mother?”

  All four-foot-nine-inch of crazy disappeared behind the slam of an apartment door. And I still didn’t find out how she knew my mother. I looked at Hellhound. “She doesn’t know my mother. She can’t. She’s crazy. Certifiable. Do I have to be related to get her committed?”

  Hellhound stared, but I was certain if the beast could speak English, he’d agree. At least he’d better.

  An odor assaulted my nose halfway to my apartment door. It wasn’t smoke like Mrs. Tidwell had claimed. No, the stench was something much, much worse.

  “Shit.”

  Nope, not actual crap, either. Something even worse than that. Sulfur was not a smell easily mistaken. And sulfur meant only one thing.

  My chest burned, and I realized my lungs were in desperate need of air. Breathe, Kiara. But Lungs took no heed to the screaming voice inside my head as Eyes frantically searched my doormat. Nothing. No packet. No envelope. And if nothing lay out in the hallway letting off that foul odor… Oh, holy crap. The devil was inside my apartment.

  Hellhound sat frozen at my side. His flames turned to low, his eyes opened to Miss Prim wide. For the first time in days, no happy saliva-drenched tongue lolled from his monstrous mouth.

  Oh, shit, shit, shit. This was so not good.

  The soreness in my legs evaporated, and steps were taken—multiple steps—all very much in the direction of the stairwell I’d just vacated. Hellhound trotting along my side confirmed my decision: when a beast of Hell was running scared, you ran. Fast.

  Except we weren’t running. We weren’t even walking. At least not in the direction of our destination. Legs defied Brain and Feet were making a quick headway toward Apartment Door. Wrong direction. Mayday. Mayday. Abort.

  And… never aborted. Brain’s warning signals went unheeded since Legs weren’t under my control. Judging by Hellhound’s frantic looks at the stairwell behind him, I had to assume whatever powers had hold over me, had hold over him.

  Whatever had hold… ha! As if I hadn’t been aware that pure evil encompassed the entire corridor within the last thirty seconds? The hallway stank of it. I knew exactly what the whatever was, but Brain had switched into survival mode. Its attempts to compartmentalize evil and leave me in ignorant bliss were feeble. Not working. My hands were sweating, and my lungs were back to bribing Oxygen for a puff as I stood in front of my apartment door. Heat emanated through the cheap wood.

  A strong urge to open the door itched from inside of me, clawing at my nerves in a painful pressure and promising my brain relief if only I’d obey. I fought, but my resolve was weak. The doorknob turned under my sweaty hand, surprising since the unlocked door had very much been security tight when leaving that morning.

  “Come in, Ms. Blake. Welcome home.”

  The voice was low and smooth. It made me think of whiskey, and I never drank the stuff. Yet at that precise moment, I’d beg for a shot. I stepped inside, which didn’t feel a thing like home. Nor did I seem welcomed. Hellhound whimpered at my side. His flames made my already clammy skin sticky.

  The apartment was dark, and as my eyes adjusted, a match sparked. My sense of smell heightened while my eyes strained to see. I
should know the inside of my own apartment since it was a place I dropped dead from reality for an average of seven hours each night. But my senses were faulty, and they screamed foreign domain, not acknowledging the familiarity of my own sparse furnishings. Was this Robert Downey Jr.’s spacious living room inside his I-can’t-even-afford-it-in-my-dreams expensive home where I seemed to be standing? Meeting Robert Downey Jr, and seeing his Iron Man suit, would be totally awesome, let alone getting a personal tour of the house—unless the cops got called. Accusations of stalker could be thrown. That would suck. Or a pack of Dobermans unleashed. Did he own Dobermans? I had problems with teeth marks and skin because I liked my skin smooth and in its normal one shade darker than albino. But if attacked, perhaps sulfur would be a viable weapon against a pack of angry teeth? The overwhelming smell inside my cramped apartment was so nauseating that surely it was tangible enough to be bottled into a weapon?

  Another odor drifted throughout the room, clinging to the walls and taking on the sulfur in a battle of smell. Cigar? The devil smoked? Well, I figured the King of Hades smoked, but not smoked. I had envisioned it more like steam coming out of his nose and ears type of vapor.

  The lamp beside my couch flicked to life and the room brightened. My vision filled, and I stood stunned. No horns? No red face? Not even a single drop of steam? Wow. Disappointing. The man eating up half of the space on my sofa appeared perfectly normal. Well, if a 1960s gangster dragging on a fat cigar while plopped in the middle of a twenty-first century shoebox of an apartment seemed normal. The iPad on my wish list would so not accessorize.

  Heavy puffs of smoke made beelines for the arms of my couch. Crap. That smell was never going to come out of the fifty-dollar IKEA knock-off. I forced my gaze back to the man, and my blood rushed cold. Why the hell did I care about some cheap couch when any concerns should be focused on the well-being of my body? The same body that currently faced the devil of Hell sitting on my cushions.

  His hair was pitch black. Eyes were shaped like small almonds and pushed back behind a gargantuan nose. A thin blue tie peeked out between a dark gray business suit. A hat was loosely held in a rugged hand. Absolutely nothing about him fulfilled my vision of a red fire-breathing horned monster that ate human souls like popcorn.

  “Sebastian Balázs.” His voice rumbled from his chest with introductions, yet still casting a smooth elegance terrorizing my toes into a tight curl.

  The Sebastian Balázs, owner of the numerous correspondences I had received from Hell the past week? The same Sebastian Balázs I’d done a damn good job of ignoring? Except now, I was rethinking how good I'd actually been with that whole good job part. But at least my mental image of Satan could remain firmly intact. Fire breathing and all. Relief should have radiated throughout my entire body that I was being spared becoming a midnight snack by the master of soul-sucking demons.

  Or was I?

  Nope, no relief felt. Only alarm. Not even reprieve. I wished the light back off so I could return to the land of pretend where I was inside Robert Downey Jr.'s house, being chased by Dobermans while wearing his Iron Man suit. Right then, Dobermans seemed pretty tame.

  But no Robert Downy Jr., and no Iron Man suit. Instead, silence filled the room. If I was supposed to speak, my jaw had gone on strike. Mouth remained both rigid and closed. Perhaps Sebastian had it under his control, like my legs? Or perhaps it was fear, not control, holding my legs frozen. Maybe I had the ability to flee freely down the hallway while leaving screams of terror in my wake? A determined grunt escaped my still oxygen-deprived lungs as efforts to turn toward the door were made. Legs stubbornly remained locked in place.

  “As amusing as you are, Ms. Blake, you will not be leaving until our conversation has concluded. Nor will you be wearing this Iron Man suit, whatever that is.” Another puff of cigar smoke and the corners of his mouth turned hard. “Abandon, sit!”

  Hellhound sat. His body hit the floor with a loud thud, resulting in a small earthquake. The tremor was probably felt in India. Hellhound’s plate sized paws covered his face, leaving only a wet nose poking out. His flames burned so low they were almost extinguished, and I realized for the first time that his fur was more a charcoal gray than black.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  How about I don’t? My face stiffened into its best death-defying glare, and I commanded Mouth to work. “You know—”

  Dining Chair got friendly with my butt before I even realized they were dating. My body’s lack of control left me stunned. And it pissed me off. My body. My butt. I had wanted to stand. But self-preservation realized I was in a whole mess of shit right then, and it was best for Mouth to stay shut.

  “It’s your first week on the job, Ms. Blake. You’re a proven failure.”

  A tiny bubble of hope formed. “So I’m fired?”

  “No.”

  Bubble imploded.

  "I must confess, you're an enigma." My uninvited guest leaned forward, closing the gap between us. The nerves on my skin prickled as he studied me. With a small shake of his head, he leaned back. "I have yet to determine if that's to be in your favor."

  "What…” I swallowed. “What do you want?"

  "For you to do your job, of course. You should have been dragged to Hell days ago, but you're the first of your kind, so exceptions were made. Don’t make me regret my decision.”

  "The first?" The first what? I wasn’t the first Praedator.

  "You're not a cambion, Ms. Blake, yet your blood sings of demon. What are you?"

  "I don't know." Druid prophecies seemed best left unspoken at that moment. “Honest, I don’t know.”

  "Only a cambion can accept the role of Praedator."

  "I never accepted anything."

  "But you did, and you're the first successor of a fallen Praedator. It's what makes you so interesting."

  "No other Praedator has died on the job?"

  His stare was intense. "Interesting how that happened."

  "I did not kill her.” My attempt to jump to my feet failed. Butt remained rooted to its seat. Mouth kept working, furiously repeating its words, desperate for the demon to understand. “I’m serious, I didn't kill Olivia.”

  “That’s irrelevant. She's dead, and you're her successor." He stood. “Be thankful, for it is the only reason you’ve been given a second chance. I’m curious about how well an untrained Praedator can do, and one who’s not a cambion. Don’t disappoint me.”

  His words shot panic straight into my gut. “What exactly is a Praedator?”

  “A specially appointed half-demon who sends a particularly marked group of souls to Hell.”

  “I’m a Grim Reaper?”

  “You’re part of a specialized group of reapers, and it is imperative your marks are sent to Hell. They are too much of a danger to remain walking this earth.”

  “Why?”

  “That is not your concern.”

  “How are they marked?”

  His gaze turned hard as a smirk curved his thin lips. “You’ll know your hunt by the symbol on their cheek. Their particular mark has already caught your fascination. I’ve noticed. Why is that?”

  I gulped, searching for enough saliva to get words out of my dry mouth. “I don’t know what it means. What does it stand for?”

  “Again, not your concern. Only know they are marked for me. A word of caution, Ms. Blake. Don’t fail.”

  “I don't want this job.”

  “You do not decide. One week, then your time is up. Your contract must be filled. As a courtesy to your unique circumstance, I will leave you assigned with only your two marks at this time. Either send them to me in Hell, or I'll find someone to send you." His attention turned to Hellhound. “This mutt has become useless. What have you done to him? It's to the meat grinder.”

  Hellhound whined.

  “Don't you dare touch him!” I pushed to my feet. Pain made an appearance as gravity attempted to pry Butt back toward the chair. But one glimpse of Hellhound's dejected face, and I f
ocused on standing until my limbs straightened in agonizing protest. Surprise had flitted across Sebastian’s face for a brief second. When he cleared his throat, his expression fell blank. It left me to wonder if what I’d seen was imagined.

  “The hellhound is yours, Ms. Blake. Hell has no use for such incompetence. But again, you are warned. One week. If I have not received your marks within the next seven days it will be you who is marked, and your mutt turned into that night’s feast.”

  I blinked. He was gone. Poofed right in front of me. Terrifying how easy his access had been. No lock on the door would keep him out. The smell of sulfur lingered. Legs weakened and crumbled, allowing Butt to fall back onto the dining chair. Hellhound stared.

  "I guess you're mine now."

  His tongue rolled out of his mouth in a happy pant, and his flames turned up high. One of these days the damned beast was going to burn the place down. Or flood the carpet in drool. I wasn’t certain which would come first. And, at that moment, I didn’t care.

  My hands shook, and I stared at them. Within a few seconds, I realized it wasn’t just my hands, but my entire body. My head went light as my vision blurred. The pasta dinner that had tasted delicious only an hour earlier… despite Lacey’s smug smiles… now seemed too heavy inside my stomach. I pressed a hand against my tummy in protest to the threatening dry heaves. I was about to be sick.

  One week. No time at all when I didn't know a dang thing about sending ghosts to Hell. One week. My body stiffened in resolve. I could do this. No, I would do this. One week. I had no idea what Logan had done to piss Satan off, but I really didn't care. By the end of the week, Logan's ass would be sitting in the flames of Hell. My life depended on it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Salt to the left. I moved the shaker with a tip of a finger. Pepper squeezed to the right. Salt slid another inch to the left and… damn. Water glass came out of nowhere. Dead. Again.

  I looked up. Hadley stared back. A French fry was stuck partially out of her mouth as she nibbled. Odds were it was the same fry she’d started on five minutes before. Her gaze held unwavering as her jaw worked up and down in silent motion.