Fiends and Familiars

by Dunbar, Debra

  “Animal control?” Last I’d heard that was a local human government group that didn’t do much beyond scraping dead animals off the roads and picking up lost kittens.

  Lucien scowled. “Yes, animal control. They’ll take one look at your hellhounds then they’ll call in…well, they’ll call in a contractor, and it’ll get back to someone I don’t want it to get back to. If she hears, she’ll want to know what’s going on and she won’t be happy.”

  I was totally lost. “She won’t be happy about us retrieving Faust?”

  “No, she won’t be happy about hellhounds prowling around a human neighborhood twenty miles outside of Accident.”

  I was still lost, but I nodded as if I knew what in the hell the prince was talking about. “So I’ll go in without the hellhounds.” It would be difficult. Faust might slip away while I was battling the witch—or doing other things with the witch. Having my hellhounds there would ensure the fiend didn’t slip out the back door and vanish for another few centuries.

  Lucien nodded. “Go ahead, but I’m still putting Abraxas on this as backup. I don’t want this guy getting away again. Granddad’s been busting my father’s chops over this for centuries now.”

  I winced. “Don’t worry. This time we’ll get him.” And I’d make sure I was the one bringing Faust in—not that slime-nosed, web-footed Abraxas.

  Leaving the house where Lucien had set up residence with his witch, I wandered down the street, musing on how I might accomplish my goal without the hounds. In the time I would need to forcibly break through the wards, Faust could slip away. Plus there was the witch to deal with. I needed a way to get into the house with stealth and to do it when the witch wasn’t at home. Or I needed a way to quickly neutralize the witch and grab Faust before he got away.

  Looking up, I realized my walk had taken me outside of this strange town and on a road that headed toward the mountains. A rustic establishment stood to my right with a sign proclaiming it to be a bar and pub. Pistol Pete’s.

  I was feeling a bit hungry here in a physical form, and alcohol was known to have been the inspiration for many a daring plan. With that in mind, I headed in and sat at the end of the bar. That’s when I noticed that nearly every being inside Pistol Pete’s was not human.

  A troll and a werewolf were holding hands and giggling at a table. A bleary-eyed dragon sat mid-floor, knocking back a shot of tequila. Three fairies were flirting with a satyr over by the dance floor. A bear shifter, a minotaur, and a witch were eating lunch at the bar.

  Wait.

  Not just any witch. This was my witch. I caught my breath, every cell in my body igniting at the sight of her. She was even more beautiful in the flesh than she’d been in her dream. Her auburn hair looked flame-kissed in the ambient lighting. Her eyes were a lighter brown than I’d thought, and her figure was just as enticing clothed as it had been naked.

  I couldn’t accost her here, not with a building full of creatures that could collectively kick my ass. Plus, I’d felt oddly weakened since I’d entered this town. I had no doubt that if I got her back to my bed—I mean, my circle of hell—I could find out all of Faust’s plans, his location, and how to slip through the wards to grab him. I just had to somehow snatch her up without being pummeled by bear shifters and having a dragon fry me to a crisp.

  She looked over and caught me staring, a blush staining her cheeks. Then she smiled, grabbed her glass of water, and made her way over to me.

  “Figures you’d move into town after I left,” she said, sliding into the seat beside me. “You’re clearly not a shifter or a vampire. Fae? Elemental?”

  “I’m the Master of the Hounds,” I told her. It seemed more impressive than just saying I was a demon, and I wanted to impress this woman who’d woven her magic around me in both her dream and now in this bar.

  “Fae then?” She tilted her head and regarded me with a quizzical look. “So you’re in charge of the Night Hunt?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but the hellhounds did hunt for souls, so I nodded. “And you’re a witch.”

  She blushed again, her smile revealing the most entrancing dimples I’d ever seen.

  “Yes. Adrienne Perkins. Call me Addy.” She held out her hand.

  “Typhon.” I took her hand and raised it to my lips, feeling an electric spark shoot through me at the softness of her skin.

  She sucked in a breath, her gaze on my mouth. “Typhon. Ty. That’s a nice name.”

  I was so damned hard. All thoughts of Faust had left my brain, replaced by visions of her naked underneath me, calling my name with that soft, breathless voice.

  “What…um, what are you doing tonight, Ty?”

  That blush was just as sexy as her dimple.

  “Spending it with you.” Who knew I could be so smooth? I was rather proud of myself for that response.

  “Good.” The dimple made another appearance. “And what exactly are we doing? Dinner? Dancing? Putt-putt? Oooo, can I meet your dogs? I love animals. I mean, I really really love animals. They’re my thing.”

  She clearly didn’t know. She hadn’t connected me with the demon in her dreams. She didn’t know it was my hounds that had been eating her liver treats, rib bones, and leftover ham.

  And “Putt-putt?” What in the hell was that?

  “Awesome! Putt-putt it is. When should we meet? Six? Seven?”

  “Six?” I felt totally off balance, realizing that I’d lost any sense of what was going on in this conversation. “I don’t know where the putt-putt is. Should I pick you up?” I’d need to steal a car, but that was no big deal. Hmm, I should make it a really nice car. Not too ostentatious because I didn’t want to arouse suspicions. No, I wanted to arouse other things. A German sedan? Restored classic muscle car? Sporty two-seater?

  She grabbed a napkin, then pulled a pen from her purse and wrote down an address before shoving it into my hand. “Pick me up at six. Call or text me if you have any trouble finding the house. Oh, and don’t mind the vulture and the squirrels. And the big dog that might be in the garage or in the front yard.”

  The witch slid off her seat and took a step into me, pressing her lips against my cheek for a quick kiss. For a second I was completely immobilized. The warmth of her soft body against mine, nestled between my legs as she leaned in. The aroma of peppermint and lavender as her auburn hair brushed against my face. The nearly painful response of my body to her lips on my cheek.

  By the time I’d recovered my senses, she’d left. I looked down at the address that I already knew on the napkin and the phone number, then tucked it into my jacket pocket.

  “Dude, you are so going to get some tonight.” The bear shifter saluted me with his beer.

  “Yeah, Addy isn’t shy about going for what she wants.” The minotaur nodded in respect. “Kudos, man. You’re golden as long as you don’t fuck this one up.”

  Sadly, I was going to fuck this one up. I was going to let her seduce me, let her bring me inside of the wards of her house, then betray her to grab Faust and haul him back to hell. Part of me wanted to have sex before I did that, but I wasn’t that much of a demon.

  Chapter 9

  Adrienne

  I skipped into Cassie’s office, feeling as if I were walking on clouds. I’d wanted to see her before heading to my next appointment, to let her know the resolution on the hornet situation as well as what was happening with the werebadger.

  And about my date. Oooo, I had a date with a totally hot guy I’d met at Pistol Pete’s of all places. I’d been having lunch there after dropping the squirrels and Drake off at the firehouse to entertain Ophelia, and he’d walked in. Tall, dark, and handsome. And he liked dogs.

  “Hey!” I plopped down in the chair across from my sister and told her all about the hornets and the badger, wondering if I should tell her about my date or not. Probably not. As excited as I was, Cassie would be downright ecstatic. And she’d get her hopes up. I was optimistic, but if this guy turned out to be a total douchebag,
I didn’t want to have to explain all that to Cassie.

  “So this werebadger has been there for months?” Cassie shook her head. “It’s not like any of us have gone up there much since the elves left. It’s all overgrown and wild. I guess if he wanted to live an isolated life where he could burrow up in his animal form for a few years, Savior Mountain would be the place to go.”

  “Except it’s not going to be an isolated life with a rancorous werewolf compound practically on his doorstep.” I shrugged. “He doesn’t want to move. Says it’s a pain digging a sett in that rocky ground. He’d rather just set boundaries with the werewolves and learn to deal with neighbors. Actually I got the idea he was kind of intrigued by my suggestion of Clinton’s pack hosting him for an occasional dinner. I think he’s lonely but doesn’t want to admit it.”

  Cassie’s gaze sharpened. “Is he cute? Hot? Smoking hot?”

  I laughed. “I’m not really sure. He was buck naked when he took on human form and let’s just say it was hard to keep my eyes on anything above the waist.”

  “Hot damn!” Cassie stood and came around her desk. “Go for it, girl. I don’t know much about badger shifters, but if he’s like all the others, you could totally hit that if you wanted to.”

  My thoughts shifted to the guy in the bar. That’s what I wanted to hit.

  “You sound like Sylvie,” I complained. “And I don’t want to hit that. Cassie, he was hung like a centaur.”

  “That’s manageable with enough lube,” she insisted, reminding me even more of Sylvie. “You haven’t had a boyfriend in ages. Invite him to dinner next Sunday. If he’s been up on that mountain for months, then he’s probably dying for a good meal.”

  “From what I gather, his idea of a good meal is earthworms,” I countered. What was it with my sisters lately? Actually, I knew what was up with them. They’d all found love and paired off, and now wanted me to do the same. Then they’d probably start pestering Babylon, if they weren’t already.

  “I’m making lasagna. Tell him to throw on some clothes and join us, then afterward the two of you can go get drinks at Pete’s and get acquainted.”

  I sighed. “Knock it off, Cassie. He’s not my type.”

  She leaned on the edge of her desk, fixing me with a perceptive look. “And what is your type?”

  I thought once more of the man in the bar. Then I thought of my dreams, of a monster with horns and glowing eyes. What kind of weirdo was I? That had been a dream. If I encountered such a creature in real life chasing me through the woods, I wouldn’t be turned on and dragging the guy into my bed or screwing him under the stars in a hay field.

  But the dude in the bar? Let’s just say I was hoping putt-putt ended up with that guy in my bed.

  “I don’t know how to define it,” I confessed. “But I do know that I want to feel that spark of passion when I look at him, not wonder if he needs a shoe horn and a gallon of lube to get it in.”

  “Like Eddy, that guy you dated in college?”

  Eddy. Nice, human Eddy. He was sweet. We hung out, watched television, studied, talked about how many cats someone should have before they got labeled a Crazy Cat Person. Spoiler: it’s seven unless you live on a farm and they’re working cats. Then it’s a dozen. Don’t argue, it’s a scientific fact. And Eddy had agreed. In fact, Eddy had agreed with everything. We were so compatible that our friends expected us to get engaged before we got our diplomas. Instead we’d just drifted away after college.

  I didn’t want one of those relationships where we were fighting all the time, tossing dishes at each other and screaming so loud the neighbors called the cops. I just wanted someone who was a bit like me, but not exactly like me. I wanted to occasionally disagree. I wanted us to argue, then both work toward a mutually satisfactory resolution because our love was more important than whatever crap we were fighting over. Then I wanted us to have mind-blowing makeup sex.

  Yeah. That.

  “I just moved into a new house,” I reminded my sister. “Give me some time to get settled in before you start berating me about being a withered-up spinster.”

  Cassie scrunched up her face. “That’s not what I meant, Addy. I just want to see you happy.”

  “I am happy,” I insisted. “I love my work and my new home. I’m going to a party this week with Babylon. I’ve got four squirrels and a vulture living with me.”

  I have a date tonight. But I didn’t want to clue her in on that until I was sure that Ty was going to be more than just a fun evening.

  “I don’t think your vulture counts.” She glared at the animal who’d insisted on coming into her office with me. “Okay, but if you’re not dating anyone by Christmas then I’m going to fix you up with someone.”

  “Not the werebadger,” I told her with a laugh. “Please not the werebadger.”

  She grinned. “Okay, not the werebadger. Get going. I’ve got work to do and I’m sure you have a house to delouse or something like that.”

  I stood. “Roaches. Then starlings who are pooping all over some dude’s BMW. Then carpenter bees boring into the side of a woman’s garage.”

  “Exciting.” She waved me on. “I’ll see you Sunday. Love you, Addy.”

  “Love you too, Cass,” I told her as I herded my sidekick out the door. “Love you too.”

  * * *

  The rest of the day went easy, for once. The roaches were amenable to relocation. The starlings were easily convinced that a nearby shopping center was a better place to hang out, and the carpenter bees liked the nice rotted log I provided them far more than the woman’s garage. I swung by the grocery store and picked up several fifty-pound bags of dog food as well as a dozen bones from the butcher and something labeled as “squirrel feast.” Then as a treat I stopped by the bar where Babylon worked for a drink—well, a drink and to talk to her about my date tonight with Ty. I might be reluctant to talk to Cassie about a possible romance, but Lonnie and I had always been close, not only because we were the youngest sisters, but because our magic was a bit “out there” compared to the other witches in our family.

  Drake and the squirrels had been pissed that they couldn’t go inside. They were even more pissed that I locked them in the truck and hung one of Bronwyn’s amulet wards on the antenna to keep them in. The human world was far less tolerant of animals in business establishments, and I couldn’t exactly pass off a vulture and four squirrels as service animals.

  “Here. Eat up.” Babylon plopped a plate of jalapeno poppers in front of me along with a cold beer, then sat down. “What brings you in today? You look like you’re dying to tell me something.”

  It was Monday and the place was empty aside from a guy over at the corner of the bar nursing a pint. I motioned for my sister to sit down and slid the poppers to the center of the table. We munched on them while we chatted, then I remembered the bone.

  “Hey, I found this up on Savior Mountain this morning,” I told her as I dug it out of my pants pocket. “A huge oak tree had come down. It had a split down the middle with some horrible stinky black oozy stuff in it, and this.”

  Babylon took the bone from me and turned it over in her fingers. “Why would this be in a tree?”

  I shrugged. “I assumed maybe some animal was hiding their food in that crack in the trunk? Dogs bury bones. Squirrels hide food.”

  “But this is weird,” she mused. “At first glance I’d assume it was a long bone from a small mammal, but it’s not shaped right for that. It looks more like a finger bone.”

  A finger bone that big wouldn’t have been a small mammal. “That’s creepy,” I told her.

  She grinned. “I’m creepy, remember? Babylon, the necromancer witch? The witch who loves all things dead?” She stuck the bone in her pocket. “I’ll check it out when I get a chance. I’ve got a spell or two that will tell me what it is, or who it is. Maybe there was a graveyard up on Savior Mountain at one time, and the fallen tree turned up a few bones.”

  She was probably right. There were grav
eyards in Accident, but some folk didn’t like the idea of burying their dead in a designated spot. Some folk didn’t like burying their dead at all.

  I changed the subject to something less ghoulish, and told Cassie about my other adventures on the mountain this morning.

  “I didn’t know badgers had giant schlongs,” she said.

  “His balls were proportionate.” I took a sip of my beer, thinking how nice it was to not be sitting in front of the television with my pajamas on tonight. Cassie was right. I needed friends and I did need a boyfriend. Or at the very least I needed to get laid.

  “It’s not like you haven’t seen most of the shifters in Accident totally naked.” She waved a popper at me for emphasis. “Remember Marcus at the Fourth of July party two years ago?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Marcus gets naked at the drop of a hat. And he screws everything he can get his hands on. I can’t believe Cassie dated him.”

  “Screwable, but not datable—that’s what I always said.” Lonnie stuffed the popper into her mouth.

  I’d never really thought of Marcus as screwable. The panther shifter had always been too smooth for my tastes. Once again, the image of a horned figure came unbidden to my mind. Damn, that had been one sexy dream.

  “Speaking of dates…” I wiggled my eyebrows at her. “Guess who has one tonight? This witch right here, that’s who.”

  Lonnie squealed. “Who? Where? Oh shit, tell me it’s not with the werebadger.”

  I recoiled in mock horror. “There’s not enough lube in the world for that guy, no matter what Cassie says. No, I’m going out with a guy I met at Pistol Pete’s at lunch. He’s new in town. Some kind of fae. He’s Master of the Hunt or something, which means he’s got dogs!”

  Lonnie squealed. I squealed. A dog lover. It was a match made in heaven. Hopefully he liked vultures and squirrels as well.

  “Tell me what he looks like.” She leaned her elbows on the table and put her chin in her hands.