by Renee George
A Streetcar Named Demonic
Madder Than Hell Book 3
Renee George
Barkside of the Moon Press
Copyright © 2018 by Renee George
A Street Car Named Demonic (Madder Than Hell Book Three)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holder.
Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement by the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and storylines in this book are inspired only by the author’s imagination. The characters are based solely in fiction and are in no relation inspired by anyone bearing the same name or names. Any similarities to real persons, situations, or incidents is purely coincidental.
Publisher: Barkside of the Moon Press
Print Date: 06 Sept 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1-947177-22-2
ISBN-10: 1-947177-22-2
Contents
Blurb
Acknowledgments
A Streetcar Named Demonic
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Witchin’ Impossible
More Books by Renee George
About the Author
What happens when you make a bargain with Hell's version of Cupid, and he wants you to play matchmaker to the furry for his own evil purposes? You follow in your sisters' footsteps, and stop his demonically diabolical plans, of course!
Eliza Madder, former ghost and newly minted minion for Demon Lord Leonard, has her work cut out for her when the demon sends her to Hannibal, Missouri to broker a marriage contract between the werewolf alpha of the Ralls County Pack, Grady Conrad, and the daughter of a rival pack. Leonard, who created the original werewolf lines before his fall, wants these two mismatched shifters together and making babies before the end of the month, and he threatens to revoke her twin sister Elise's human existence if Eliza doesn't deliver.
To make the task even more difficult, Eliza finds Grady extremely growly and gorgeous, and the attraction goes both ways. How can a minion do her job when she can't keep her hands off the merchandise? On top of that hellish complication, the rival pack leader has his own deadly plans for Grady.
Eliza will have to use all her resources, including her sisters, the Psychical Society of Paranormal Researchers, and a reluctant bride and groom to thwart the threats and save the only innocent person in her life. What's a minion to do when she's caught between a demon and a heartache? She puts on her big girl minion panties and gets madder than hell.
Dedication
For my sisters
Acknowledgments
As always, I have to thank my BFF, superhero, critique and edit partner, Michele Bardsley for all her hand holding while I finished the story. Same goes for my sister Robbin, who graciously gave up some of her weekend at a blues festival to give this a thorough read and act as an advocate for the reader to make sure all the questions were opened as I brought the story to a satisfying conclusion. I also need to thank my husband, because he kept me in coffee, Diet Cokes, and support, while I wrote my ass off on our weekend away together. He is so understanding! Thank heavens. And finally, I want to thank the readers and fans of the Madder Than Hell series. I have loved each of the sisters' adventures. Thank you for coming along for the ride.
A Streetcar Named Demonic
By Renee George
“I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.”
Marilyn Monroe, film icon
Chapter 1
When my twin Elise and I were thirteen years old, Poppa paid for us to take piano lessons from a local instructor, Mister Jeffrey Bellamy. Jeffery was young and handsome, and he had a way of looking at a young girl like she was the only person in the world. Even at such a tender age, I knew his charm stemmed from a need to not live in poverty. But poor Elise. Well, she thought he was in love with her. Worse, she thought she was in love with him. We saw Jeffrey twice a week for six months, and while he was flirtatious in manner, he was never inappropriate, which for Elise, meant he was truly worthy of her affections. Until the day came when the young musician informed us he was marrying a local seamstress and moving to Tennessee. Elise was devastated. I cried for two weeks with Elise, feeling every ounce of her heartbreak as if it were my own.
I'd been called sensitive more times in my life than I wanted to count, but that was the first time my older sister Olivia told me that I felt too much. One hundred and fifty-seven years later, I was still feeling too much. Like Grady Conrad, the hulking man currently sprawled on top of me and sandwiching me between his body and the cold, stone floor.
"Oh, my goodness," I gasped. "I've never been good with tight spaces." My breath and pulse quickened as the space seemed to get even tighter. I regretted shoving my phone in my back pocket as it dug into my hip. Reflexively, I squirmed beneath him and felt something grow between us. Literally. "Are you getting excited?" I whispered harshly.
Grady gritted his teeth. "If you'd stop moving, my…um, it would stop moving."
The bulge in his pants was pressed against my right thigh, and I tried really hard to stop the shaking that came with panic. The phone was starting to really hurt. "I don't know if I can." I gulped. The small space cut into the cave wall barely accommodated one person, let alone two.
Howls and yips echoed off the walls, punctuating my point. I reached down, grabbed the phone, and slid it out of my pocket. Grady's chest rumbled as he growled. "Damn it, Eliza."
"I'm okay now," I whispered. "This is crazy. They will find us here, and we'll be pinned down." I woke up my no-bars-in-the-cave phone for a short respite from the dark, and bright green eyes stared down at me as oh so kissable lips pursed in tight disapproval.
"This isn't the first time I've hidden from pack down here. My dad used to get violent after drinking. This was the only place he never found me. There are too many stronger scents between the must and bat guano. Even in wolf form, they won't find us. As long as you turn off that phone and quit talking." My thigh rubbed across his groin. He groaned. "And for God's sake, Eliza, stop moving."
Even afraid, I couldn't help but feel an intense attraction to the man holding me down. In other circumstances, I would have already bed him, of that I'm certain, but Grady Conrad had been my job, not my date, and the demon lord to whom I was beholden had had other plans for the alpha werewolf that didn't involve me. But I've been around long enough to know that life doesn't always work the way we expect, and nothing is cut and dry, especially when it comes to matters of the heart.
"Conrad!" a voice boomed, the acoustics of the cave making our predator sound ten feet tall and five hundred pounds.
I balled the front of Grady's shirt into my fists and whispered. "Can you take him?"
Grady looked at me and nodded. "He's strong. He's been around longer than me, but I've been defending my father's territory and running his pack since I was sixteen from bastards li
ke him." The heat of his breath raised goosebumps on my neck. Damn it to Hell, why did he have to be so sexy? I heard him sigh. "But, am I strong enough to take on Bobby Broderick and all his enforcers and whatever those other monsters are?" His hair tickled my cheek as he shook his head. "I honestly don't know."
I steeled my courage. "I'm not all that strong, but, as a minion, I'm hard to kill," I told him. "We could make a stand."
"You think you can survive being digested by a lycanthrope?"
Visions of being pooped out in mushy chunks made me retch. "Yuck. Good point."
"Conrad!" The rocks vibrated around us. "If you don't come out now and face me, you're dead, boy. All that's left is the dying."
I wrapped my arms around Grady as he rolled us deeper into the crevice. I prayed that if there was any justice in Heaven or Hell, that the Demon Lord Leonard would explode into a million demon-y bits for placing me smack in the middle of an alpha pissing contest.
Five days earlier...
As promised, I'd met Leonard at the South County Center, a mall in the southern part of St. Louis. It was far enough away from my sister's farm to keep the demon lord out of Madder business, but close enough for me to drive in less than two hours. I'd picked the spot, but Leonard had chosen the restaurant, if you could call Cinnabon a restaurant. A slender, handsome man in dark sunglasses and an army uniform stood up to greet me. "It's about time you arrived, Eliza" he said. He smiled. "I've already eaten my way through two giant rolls."
There were two boxes with nothing but a few crumbs and icing remnants at the table. In his true demon form, Leonard had three horns, two out either side of his head and one protruding from the back. When I'd first met the demon in purgatory, he'd given me a fright, but his jovial nature quickly won me over. It hadn't hurt his cause that I was lonely and scared. It was the first time in my life and death that I'd been separated from my twin sister Elise. The demon lord made a good case for why I should make a bargain with him, including reuniting me with my sisters, and giving them all a chance to live out the lives they'd missed out on. I have to admit, the prospect of trading in my ghostly self for an actual, breathing body, was darn near irresistible. His promises for Elise are what put me over the edge. He would grant her life, and she would never have to be a part of his demon bargain with me.
The bargain didn't seem so bad at the time either. All Leonard wanted me to do was broker a few love-matches for him. Easy-peasy. I'm very intuitive with it comes to people and animals. And, before I died, I'd actually managed to match up three of my friends to suitors. In return, Leonard would grant my sisters lives, and he would release me from our bargain after one hundred years. At that time, I would be free to live out of the rest of my human existence without interference from him. Eventually, I'd join in him Hell, of course. There's no such thing as a demon bargain without the high price of a soul, but all-in-all, considering my oldest sister's awful bargain with Lord Moloch, I thought I managed a decent deal that would save all of us. Little did I know at the time, that Olivia had already concocted a plan to save herself.
I gave a quick curtsey to Leonard when he pulled my chair out for me. Next, he went to the counter and came back with a colossal roll and a hot chocolate.
"How did you know I like hot chocolate?"
Leonard smiled. "I make it my business to know my minions, Eliza." He pointed to the cinnamon roll. "Now dig in."
"Just tell me what you want. The sooner I can get on with it, the better."
"I love an eager minion." He smiled and sipped his coffee. I saw a flash of red through the mirror of his sunglasses. Demon lords could make themselves look human in all aspects except for their eyes. I was glad. It made it easier to remember that as charming as Leonard was, he was, at his core, evil and self-serving. "After you take a bite."
I looked at the large cinnamon roll. It smelled warm and delicious. "You know this isn't Eden, that isn't an apple, and I'm not Eve."
"It was a pear."
"What?"
"The fruit of knowledge." He raised a brow. "It was a pear not an apple."
"The point is the same."
"I like your sass, Eliza."
"So, you've said before." More than once. I worried that Leonard had an unhealthy obsession with me that went beyond a Demon Lord-Minion standard relationship. I took a bite and had a to fight off the mmmm-mmmm working its way to my lips. After I swallowed the doughy goodness, I gave the demon a flat look. "Now. What's the job?"
He leaned back in his seat and crossed one leg over the other. "Nothing too taxing. I just need you to ensure a marriage contract I brokered twenty-nine years ago."
"That's a long engagement."
"Both suitors were only a year old at the time."
"You made a contract with babies? That's pretty disgusting, even for a demon lord."
He sneered. "The contract was with their fathers."
"But, still you damned two babies."
Leonard winced. "Do you have to keep calling them babies? They are fully grown adults now, and it is time to pay the demon."
"This can't be right? If they don't marry, you can kill them? How does that work with the Angel Accords?"
"I made them, so I can take their lives if I want to. Creator's prerogative."
Leonard had me broker a marriage between a CEO of a tech company and a geneticist. The CEO had been the one to call on Leonard for help. She'd been an attractive sociopath who tried to stab me when the geneticist gave me an appreciative glance, but he was just as crazy. My ability to empathize with anyone helped me to get the engagement on track. Besides, I'd considered them well-matched, and in my mind, Heaven was never going to get either of them anyhow. But I didn't understand why Leonard needed me for a done deal? "So, why these two? I mean, why do you want them together?"
"Because I do," he snapped at me. Very uncharacteristically. "That's all you need to know."
I pressed my fingers to my chest. "I say, sir, you are abrupt." I didn't really expect him to answer my question, but he didn't have to be rude.
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and glanced at me over the rim of his glasses as he reached in his pocket and pulled out an envelope. "Everything you need to know is in this package." He slid it across the table and stood up. "I'm counting on you, Eliza. Don't let me down."
Before I could respond, he was gone. I looked around to see if anyone noticed. Of course, they hadn't.
The envelope contained names and addresses of the matched pair. A Grady Conrad, age twenty-nine, and a Carol Ann Broderick, also twenty-nine, and weirdly, born on the same day at the end of this month. The same day they were contracted to marry. Grady lived south of Hannibal, in Ralls County, and Carol Ann lived in Hannibal, on the Marion County side. There was a map with clear marks of delineation between the two counties, and the town of Hannibal, which had a leg in both areas, outlined in red. A copy, at least I assume it was a copy, of the marriage contract was signed in blood by Harold Conrad and Robert Broderick. The fathers I assumed. And there were two footprints stamped under Grady and Carol Ann's names. Gross and monstrous. They had made the infants mark the contract with blood as well. As I read through the thereofs and therefores, the words pack and lycanthrope raised my internal alarms.
Werewolves. Leonard, who apparently was their creator, wanted me to play matchmaker to freaking werewolves.
Chapter 2
The next morning, I packed for my trip to Hannibal. It was a three to four-hour trip with stops according to the internet, and I wanted to get up there in time for my five o'clock meeting with the contracted parties. I was a grown woman doing grown woman work. Unfortunately, my family still insisted on treating me like the baby.
"You can't just go traipsing about in lycan business without back-up," my sister Olivia said as she paced the room and bounced her son, Johnny, on her hip while patting his back. Her pink T-shirt had two streams of boob-juice running down the front. "I should go with you. My name still puts the fear into supernatural cre
atures."
"It's hard to be afraid of someone with leaky breasts." Johnny belched. I shook my head. "Finish up the feeding while I pack. I'm afraid you're gonna explode, and I just bought these shoes." I put out a foot to show off my lemon-yellow heels.
Olivia sat on the edge of my bed, lifted her shirt, and let the baby latch on. She winced a little. "I think he's started to teethe. He's trying to work it out on my nipple."
I shivered. "You've convinced me. I'm never having children."
"Ah," she smiled. "It's not that bad."
"Just look at yourself, Liv." My sister's brown hair was combed, but not styled, her T-shirt stained, and she wore a pair of gray sweat pants with a hole in the right knee. On her feet, she wore flip-flops. "You are a mess."
She laughed. "And happy as a clam."
"If you're so happy, why do you want to go with me to Hannibal?"
"I may not miss the shoes, sister dear, but I do miss the excitement. The last time I had any fun was when Charlotte had all that demon trouble in Branson. That was months ago. Besides, plenty of moms raise perfectly well-adjusted children while working jobs outside the home."
"Jobs that don't include stabbing demons in the head," I countered. "Besides, If I need you, I will call you," I told her. I finished packing. "Until then, this is my job, and I'm not dragging you or any of our sisters into it."