by Brook Rogers
Nodding a polite greeting to some of the inhabitants, I walked the main pathway that ran between the ramshackle wood-and-tin buildings. Market carts sold clothing and various wares, and a handful of food stalls offered cooked dishes, their tantalizing scents wafting into the street. A fisherman down the path yelled out his catch of the day. It looked similar to the catfish from back home, if you ignored the extra set of eyes.
Every realm had its own power structures, and Hell was no exception. What set Earth apart was that its governing body was unified over the expanse of the globe. Most Supernatural groups had representation on the Global Council; Supe Enforcement and its many specialized branches were the council’s policing force. Although members of the council were elected democratically, they held those seats for the same reason anyone in any realm held a leadership position.
Power.
Whoever has the power makes the rules, and I needed to figure out who that was in this little town. Had it changed since my last visit? There was one person who could tell me, assuming she still lived here.
My boots thudded heavily on the wooden steps as I climbed to the swinging doors of the Lucky Strike tavern.
It took a second or two for my eyes to adjust to the dark interior. With it being midday, there weren’t many people inside. A dirt-covered prospector sat at the bar, nursing a beer, while a bartender with a skinny handlebar mustache polished a glass, utter boredom pasted across his face. Neither of them even turned my way when I entered.
Taking myself up to the bar, I cleared my throat loudly.
The bartender raised his eyes from his polishing. “What’ll it be, miss?” Up close, I noticed his pointed ears. A Fae of some sort then.
“Does Shereen still work here?” I asked.
Confusion wrinkled his brow. “She’s here . . . in the back.” He half pivoted to go, then decided against it and turned back to me. “Who should I say is here?”
Was he suspicious or just protective? “Tell her it’s Ray.”
He went to the door behind the bar and knocked twice. A woman’s voice responded with a sharp “What?”
“Miss Dupont, a lady by the name of Ray is asking for you,” he said through the door.
For a few moments the young Fae and I stared each other down, trying to gauge the other’s intentions, and then the door suddenly flew open. A dark-skinned, busty brunette sauntered out. When her eyes landed on me and a beatific grin split her cheeks, I released the breath I didn’t even know I’d been holding.
Chapter 9
The woman led the way to the back of the room after grabbing a bottle and two glasses from behind the bar. Wordlessly, she set the glasses on the table and poured what I assumed was peach brandy. She only ever drank brandy.
She sat first, and I followed suit, setting my gun on the table and my backpack on the floor. I studied her curiously and took a sip from my glass; the sweet fire burned all the way down. It was considerably cooler in here than it was outside, but the alcohol heated me right back up.
“How’s life been treating you, Shereen?” I asked when my throat calmed. She’d pinned her hair up in cascading curls and wore a new, good-quality dress—a big change from when I’d seen her last.
“It’s been a good couple of years, that’s for sure.” She smiled. “Last time you were here was when your gram Adella came to take Grace home. Tell me, how is she?”
“Grace?” I laughed. “Or Grand-mère?”
She chuckled along with me. “Grace. I’m not worried about Adella. She’s the toughest woman I’ve ever met—also the scariest.”
“I hear that.” I saluted her with my glass before taking another drink. “Grace is doing really well, all things considered.”
Her eyes misted a little. “I’m so glad. Is she happy there?”
Tilting my head, I considered the question. “She seems happy. You should come visit her.”
Shereen nodded. “If I ever find the time, that would be lovely. I ended up marrying Willy. Do you remember Willy? He got himself shot fooling around with a Gentry girl. When he died, I had to take over the bar. The girls stayed on even though I told them they could go.”
I didn’t cover my surprise well enough, because she hurried on. “They get to keep a much larger percentage of what they earn now, not counting their tips. And we don’t tolerate any sort of mistreatment like Willy did. Most of the patrons have been agreeable with the changes. If they aren’t, Dale takes care of it.” She jerked her thumb at the bartender, who was back to polishing glasses and pretending he wasn’t eavesdropping on our every word. He didn’t look like much, but that didn’t mean anything with Supes. They didn’t have to appear intimidating if they were packing the magic to knock you on your ass.
Shereen was the owner of the bar now, not just an employee. A surge of pride welled inside me. Good for her.
She was a spirit walker, able to shift into various animal forms, but several of the waitresses here were vampires. Shereen allowed them to feed on any patrons who were willing—an all-you-can-eat buffet every night—plus they earned a living wage. No wonder the girls chose to stay, and with Shereen at the helm, I had no doubt they’d be well taken care of.
The man who’d owned the place before Willy, a real piece of shit, had been the reason for my last visit. He’d fallen madly in love with a valkyrie, Grace, and when she spurned him, he kidnapped her. Word got back to Grand-mère, and she’d insisted on coming in person to collect the woman. She then proceeded to make an example of the guy that left no doubt as to what happened when someone tried to take a valkyrie against her will.
Thankfully, Shereen harbored no anger over the incident. Only a handful of employees, including Shereen, had chosen to stay on at the Lucky Strike back then. Willy must have stepped in to fill the power vacuum left by the previous owner. It sounded as if he’d made for a slightly better boss, but ultimately how it worked out was better for everyone. Except maybe Willy.
When Shereen refilled my glass again, I dropped a few hints to suss out if she knew anything about the rumors of Fae outcasts in the realm. Unfortunately, she didn’t, but since dusk had fallen, she called a couple of the girls down from their rooms to ask them.
A petite blonde stepped forward, her voice timid. “I spent the night with a fire demon a week ago. He talked about ‘a bloody lot of outcasts.’ Since he’d had a lot to drink, I blew it off. He left the next morning and hasn’t been back.”
I got excited at the mention of a fire demon but tried to play it cool. “Did he say where he was headed?” Any information I gleaned from her was more valuable than gold at this point.
She pursed her tiny bow-shaped mouth in concentration. “He was on his way to meet friends already working a mine claim . . . I’m sorry. That’s all I remember.”
Of course he didn’t happen to say where that mine was. That would have been too convenient.
None of the other girls knew anything that could help me, so they dispersed to get ready. The evening crowd had already started to trickle in.
But I still wanted to know one more thing. Leaning close to Shereen, I spoke quietly. “Does Jack still run the town?”
She frowned. “On the face of things. Jack’s been gone a long time. A pair of dragon shifters moved in, brothers, and they’re the heavy now.”
A member of the growing crowd moved closer to us, and she stiffened warily. Whatever she’d been about to say, she didn’t want to risk anyone else overhearing. Her eyes pleaded with me to leave it alone for now.
“Stick around. No telling who might come in tonight,” she said with a loaded wink, then moved away to play hostess, weaving through the room and stopping to speak with customers as she went.
When I relocated to the bar, the Fae bartender I’d nicknamed Handlebars offered me a bowl of hearty stew, which sounded a damn sight better than the jerky and water in my pack. Cooking was apparently a hobby of his, so Shereen had given him the go-ahead to sell meals as a side hustle. After trying the dish, I co
uld understand why. It really was fantastic.
I sopped up the last of the stew with a wedge of fresh-baked bread, mulling over the mystery that was Handlebars. He wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t an outcast, although he probably didn’t belong to the recent influx. Surely he’d been around a good bit of time to have gained Shereen’s trust. But the Fae didn’t throw their people out for no reason. Just because he’d won Shereen over didn’t mean he was a good guy.
As the evening passed, the girls served drinks and meals. Sometimes they disappeared to their rooms upstairs, smiling prey in tow. People constantly drifted in from the street, and the crowd inside the building grew. I was swapping dirty jokes with two horned demons over shots of tequila when an obvious hush fell over the tavern.
A man had just walked in. His shoulder-length black hair was partially pulled back from a smooth-shaven face, and I couldn’t discern his age. He could be twenty or two thousand. The white sleeveless shirt he wore had brown stains from sweat or grime, and his equally dirty pants were stuffed into tall black cowboy boots.
With the tip of an imaginary hat at the room in general, he came to stand beside me at the bar. Handlebars poured him a beer. After his first drink, the crowd’s chatter resumed, but more subdued than before. More than a few patrons looked concerned, and even the tough demons I’d been laughing with shuffled off to presumably give the newcomer space.
This had to be one of the dragon shifters Shereen mentioned earlier. Before I thought better of it, I raised my glass in his direction. “Raywen. Who’re you?”
He stared at my raised hand for a moment before meeting my eyes, seemingly fighting some kind of internal war with himself over how to handle my boldness. A gleeful malevolence backed the gaze he drilled into me—this was a man who took great pleasure in his cruelties—but cowardice hovered there too.
He was nothing but a bully—and I hated him already.
The awkward factor increased until, finally, with the speed of a herd of turtles, he brought his beer up to tap my glass. “John Drake. What’re you in Cycliide for?”
Clearly the brawn and not the brains of the operation. He was confident in his hold on the townsfolk, but that made him stupid too. Someone always had more power. He just hadn’t crossed them yet.
“Got here earlier—headed to the mines tomorrow,” I told him.
He grunted in response, partly mollified by my answer. I was too new to know his reputation yet, so my forthrightness had been forgiven. He leaned back and looked me up and down with a leer, then raised his drink to his mouth. “I was hoping you were one of Shereen’s new girls. Fuck knows we could use some new ass around here.”
My hands curled into fists as I reeled in the urge to smack him for the slur against Shereen’s waitresses. But the struggle was real. “I’m afraid I’d be a big disappointment compared to those girls,” I answered, my laugh brittle.
Like a good bully, he didn’t take the hint. “There ain’t much chance of strike’n it rich at the mines. You should stay here.” He boldly ran a knuckle down the side of my face. “In fact, why don’t we head upstairs right now, and you can start practicing?”
My skin crawled, and the stew I’d just eaten threatened to make a reappearance. With a dip of my head, I successfully dislodged his grimy hand and turned away. “I think I’ll take my chances on the gold.”
Lightning fast, his hand shot out to latch on to my ponytail, and he yanked me against him and snarled, “That pussy is mine if I fucking say so.” His breath washed over me like a rancid meat bath. When his forked tongue snaked out and licked my cheek, anger trumped the revulsion bubbling through me.
I kicked backward, but he dodged my foot and, using the hold on my hair, threw me to the floor. Before I could get my hands up, one of those ugly-ass cowboy boots smashed down on my face with a crunch.
Pain exploded across my nose and mouth, but I managed to heave over into a roll so that his next kick clipped my shoulder instead of breaking ribs. I was about to pay dearly for my earlier decision to store my weapons in Shereen’s office.
Tears that refused to stop blurred my vision as I staggered to my feet. John was on me before I wiped my eyes, landing a solid punch to my kidney. Sharp pain knifed down my side, followed by a cold numbness. He tried to follow up with a fist to my gut, but I got a knee up in time and shoved him back, creating the distance I needed to square up properly.
When he tried to move in again, I gave him a right cross for his efforts. It sent him careening off his feet. That was the second time one of my hits had packed more oomph than usual, but there was no time to contemplate my new strength.
The rabid man gained his footing and slurred through bloodied teeth, “Bitch. You’re gonna pay for that.” Iridescent green scales shimmered on his arms and neck, and his pupils had become vertical slits. His hold on the beast was slipping.
Gods, if he shifted here, it would rip the building apart. I needed to shut this down fast.
John ran at me, slashing down with a clawed hand. I ducked and caught him with a reverse leg sweep, and his momentum drove him straight into the floor. Warm trickles of wetness seeped into my waistband. Damn, didn’t quite miss those claws of his after all.
The awful cracking of bones signaled a body violently changing shape. Horror gripped me as his nose lengthened into a pebbled gray snout, and saliva dripped in stringy globs from his teeth. Within seconds, his huge body was straining against the ceiling, making the wooden rafters groan. Metal screeched; boards popped as they gave way.
The massive dragon growled, dwarfing me.
This was it. I had no way to defend myself. If I could have had a do-over, I damn sure wouldn’t have taken my weapons off. This was some kind of cosmic horseshit.
As my anger built, so did a painful pressure inside my head. My ears popped, and time seemed to slow. At the point where I almost couldn’t take it any longer, the pressure abruptly left my head in a rush, flowing like burning hot lava into my chest and down my arms. Despite the incredible relief once the pressure passed, the sudden heat in my palms now was nearly unbearable.
So ending up a dragon turd wasn’t enough; my own body decided to betray me at the exact moment I was going to die. It was like the ultimate middle finger from the Fates.
The dragon lunged, his jaws open wide.
I threw my mutinous hands up, and a stream of magic exploded out of them in a crackling burst of white.
Chapter 10
The concept of time snapped back like a rubber band. Chunks of meat and bone spattered on the floor around me, and a headless body toppled sideways with a crash.
Fatigue like I’d never known seized me. I was terrified to move. What if every single muscle I had dissolved, leaving me a greasy smear on the floor?
What in the . . . what happened?
Slowly, gingerly, I attempted to get up from where I lay prostrate on the floor. It took more tries than I’m proud of. Once on my feet, I tottered around like a newborn calf. Scattered movement around the room pulled me back to reality as people emerged from their hiding places. The majority of the crowd had fled at the start of our fight, but the vampires and a handful of patrons remained, picking their way through the debris.
The women averted their eyes when I looked their way. Were they frightened of me? Angry? After all, I’d left their livelihood only half standing. Guilt sat heavy on my shoulders. I just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could I? He was a bad man, sure, but maybe the devil you knew . . . ?
Handlebars helped Shereen out from beneath the bar top. I was inching their way when a scream of grief and rage rent the silence. Everyone, including me, searched for its source.
A man stalked through the partially demolished outer wall, stomping over broken pieces of wood and kicking mangled tin out of his way. When he reached the body of the dead dragon—now in human form—he gathered it into his arms and hugged it to his chest.
A pregnant tension held us all still and silent. The man raised his head, an
d I saw the family resemblance. His eyes contained that same unhinged detachment as his brother’s had, but now they were shining with something else.
A visceral need for vengeance.
“I hold you all responsible for this.” His voice cracked with barely suppressed rage. Straightening, he laid the body softly on the floor. “You will die now.”
He zeroed in on me, the closest target, and his dragon’s claws ripped from his hands as he jumped. I could only crouch weakly and watch him come, my blank mind incapable of forming any kind of plan. The gas tank had officially run dry.
BOOM.
His flying body jerked to a stop. Anger gave way to confusion as he glanced down at the gaping hole in his chest. Two more blasts shattered the silence, and the man slid into an unmoving heap.
With no small amount of effort, I turned slowly. Handlebars was holding my smoking shotgun. He nodded at me and placed the gun on the bar, then turned his attention back to Shereen. I could only stare at him, wide-eyed.
Odin’s hairy balls. This trip had turned into the hot mess express.
Miraculously, no one had been seriously hurt when the shifting dragon caused part of the building to collapse. One of the vampires bandaged the claw wounds on my back. She must have fed really well earlier, because the blood didn’t appear to bother her in the slightest. I sighed heavily as I examined my now even more crooked nose. The only way to fix it would be to have it rebroken, and I just wasn’t up for that at the moment.
Already on the task of cleanup and rebuilding, Shereen and her vampires stayed busy through the night. Since her office was still intact, someone dragged in some clean bedding and left it on the couch. I felt terrible about not helping but could barely hold my eyes open. Still covered in disgusting bits of exploded dragon shifter, I curled up with a blanket and went to sleep.