Hell Hath No Vengeance (Vengeance Demons Book 5)

by Louisa Lo

  The innocents settled into the various alcoves and sitting benches, their voices hushed as if afraid that their sudden respite from torment would not last.

  We found Boyce Armstrong kneeling by a rose bush with a trowel and a bucket of plant food pellets, his tattooed arms flexing as he worked at loosening the soil around the roots. Looked like he wasn’t content to sit idle like the rest of them. He looked rather out of place with his studded leatherwear, the same clothes he wore when we took him back to Hell. Since I’d gotten to know him through Vera’s memory, he no longer seem as mean-ass as I initially thought.

  I coughed. “Hey.”

  Boyce stopped the trowel and turned to us, but didn’t get up. “Is it true my girl helped get me here?”

  “News travel fast,” Gregory commented.

  “No, they didn’t tell us anything”—Boyce shook his head—“but I figured it out. Vera never gives up.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed.

  “But she had help, didn’t she?” Boyce speculated.

  “Yeah.” I thought about what Lucifer said about pretty much siccing Vera on us. Every subsequent action took us that much closer to seeing Lucifer. Geeze, that guy sure had a plan. “You can’t leave here, though. Not for a while.”

  Maybe a long while.

  “I know.” Boyce looked around him. “Tell my girl I love her. It’s peaceful here. I always wanted to learn gardening. Maybe when I leave here I’ll know enough about it to turn it into a career. Be truly legitimate.”

  “Good luck,” I said with heartfelt sincerity. Boyce and Vera seemed like such an odd couple. But they seemed to genuinely care about each other, and I hope one day they could be together again.

  Gregory looked deep in thought as we walked toward the exit of the former-torture-chamber-turned-paradise where Lucifer was waiting.

  “How much of this have you manipulated?” Gregory asked once he reached Lucifer. His voice was controlled. Too control. I looked at him, but he only had eyes for the Lord of Hell. Just what the hack was Gregory talking about?

  Lucifer blinked once. Slowly. “Do you really want to know?”

  “I need to. It wasn’t that I was allowed to come along with Megan using her VIP pass. You summoned us both. You’ve been keeping track of us every step of the way.”

  “I had to.” Lucifer spread his hands. “I couldn’t leave here. I could only observe and set the chess pieces from afar.”

  “How far did you go to make sure Megan and I would come here? That I’d be at her side?”

  “All your feelings for Miss Aequitas are genuine. I simply…lowered your barrier so you would overlook a few silly doubts, that’s all.”

  “What the hell did you do?” I snapped. Lucifer’s words were freaking me out. So far I had, like, one and a half dates with Gregory. Not a lot by any measure. Even making it that far was somehow influenced by Lucifer? What did that say about how strong we were on our own?

  “Very well, if you must know.” Lucifer sighed and turned to me. “The issue of protecting Candy should’ve created more friction between you two. When you rendered him unconscious and he caught up with you after, he should’ve made you work harder to earn his forgiveness. Overall, given how his own father walked away, he should’ve been a lot more wary in the relationship. I put a mild filter on all that doubt and anxiety.”

  Oh crap, that was why Gregory never said out loud he thought we were indeed soul mates even as he was all for more dates to happen—he was charmed into not voicing his true opinion on that matter, and every other related matter.

  What we felt on our dates—just how authentic was it anyway? How much of Gregory’s sacrifices were truly voluntary?

  “Make no mistake,” Lucifer declared. “In time, you would’ve found your way through all that I’d filtered out, and the path you took would’ve been the same. Unfortunately, time is something I couldn’t afford. Not with the army growing in strength every day. So I sped things up.”

  “Some things aren’t meant to be sped up.” Gregory bared his teeth. “We’re supposed to have roadblocks and doubts in a relationship. We’re supposed to fight and work through it. What you did robbed us of the opportunities to grow and to find our way back to each other. It’s not right.”

  “War is not about being right or fair,” Lucifer said simply. “You should know that.”

  ***

  Mr. Red Armband was charged with taking us back to the lobby of Hell. Rather than walking, we were going to teleport there. I was glad of the shorter trek, given how awkward it was between Gregory and I after what we were just told. He’d been silent ever since then, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. I had no idea how to get him to open up because I, too, was in shock. We needed our own space. Time to think and process it all. The sooner we got out of here the sooner we could do that.

  How silly was I, thinking all along I was oh-so-lucky that Gregory was the reasonable sort of guy. I even convinced myself that the bond we formed from months of professional interaction must’ve somehow helped us skip some of the nastier fights we could have had. What a joke. Lucifer had been pulling our strings all along.

  The question was, was what the puppet master did horrible enough to make us not want to join his cause?

  No, Lucifer’s intention was sincere, even if his method was underhanded. So there was only one course forward for the sake of Grandma and the rest of the Cosmic Balance.

  Dammit.

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Red Armband apologized right before we teleported directly to the lobby.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I muttered. We already discussed the parts we would be playing for our exit from Hell. The little piece of upcoming drama was meant to be public, to convey Lucifer’s displeasure of us after our supposedly disastrous confrontation.

  We landed right in the middle of the lobby, which, unlike the entrance leading up to there, was jam packed with guards, sinners, and the bellboys that trailed after them with luggage.

  Once we arrived, Mr. Red Armband pushed Gregory and I onto the ground, our bodies rolling on the soft red carpet. The guard yelled for all to hear, “The boss said you’re not welcome here anymore. And all your freelance contracts with us are now cancelled. Now get outta here!”

  With that, he lifted us up by our arms, dragged us to the threshold, and gave us a heavy shove from the back. I had a brief second of flying down the stairs, with a quick glance at the statue of Santa, before we got transported back to the French restaurant where we came from.

  I sprawled onto the floor. Ouch, the hard tile of the restaurant wasn’t as nice a landing pad as the lobby’s carpet. I turned to check that Gregory got back alright.

  Except he wasn’t there.

  A hellhound with a full coat of black, shiny fur stared at me. My first reaction was to scramble back. Somehow, Mr. Red Armband’s hellhound must’ve traveled back with me instead of Gregory. But why?

  Then I recognized the creature’s brown eyes. Intelligent eyes. Gregory’s.

  This beast was him. His energy signature, though turned more animalistic, still had that sophistication and elegance that I’d come to recognize.

  Damn, damn, damn! What the hell did Lucifer do this time? Was this really necessary? Hadn’t he done enough?

  Gregory twisted his neck left and right, staring at the fur on his shoulders in dismay and rubbing against it as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. Well, that made two of us.

  I quickly glanced around us. Looked like we were still invisible to the humans around us, hence no one was screaming their heads off about our teleportation, or the big-ass hellhound in their midst.

  Looked like not much time had passed on the human plane since we left for Hell. The body of Yelena King was still lying on the restaurant floor, with the EMS guy asking her distressed date some standard questions, the latter having no idea that he’d just dodged a bullet.

  Lucifer’s words came back to me.

  …I’ll make it look like I dismis
s your claim entirely and send you on your merry way. Nobody will know that we’re working together…

  But did that also mean punishing one of us in a visible way for all to see? Was this Lucifer’s way of making sure that the whole charade was believable? So Gregory would be a vengeance demon without his body, and a hellhound without being able to go back to hell?

  Creature of both worlds, indeed.

  I reached out to Gregory and placed my hand at the back of his head—since he was as big as a small bear, I wasn’t even leaning down—and stroked behind his ear, taking comfort in his coarse but warm fur. We had so much to talk about, so much trust to rebuild—or whatever you called strengthening something that was initially inflated—and now he got turned into a dog.

  He tilted his head to one side and gave me a look that said, “Really? You’re going to scratch behind my ear like I’m a puppy now?”

  I grimaced and withdrew my hand quickly. “Sorry.”

  Awkward. Again.

  But wait, maybe for now being a hellhound wasn’t such a bad thing for him. The Council might not dare to touch me because of what I could do for their master, but not when it came to Gregory. He could use the extra protection in the coming days, and hellhounds had their special blend of magic and were practically un-killable.

  Was that why Lucifer did it, or was it only part of the reason?

  Gregory put his paw in my palm, and gave me a short and decisive bark. I didn’t have to know dog-speak to know what he was trying to communicate. Hound or vengeance demon, issues to resolve or not, came hell or high water he still had my back.

  And we still had lots to do.

  I folded my fingers over his paw. “Let’s get out of here.”

  The wrongfully accused were no longer suffering, but not exactly free, either; Grandma was found and then lost again; Gregory was right by my side, yet not in his true form.

  Everything was in purgatory. But I knew that it wouldn’t stay that way. I would face the Council and bring it crashing down if it was the last thing I did.

  Because Hell hath no vengeance like a demon on a quest.

  THE END

  This Is Where The Author Shamelessly Begs You To Leave a Review…

  Did you enjoy HELL HATH NO VENGEANCE? If so, I would really appreciate it if you could write a review on either Goodreads and/or your online retailer!

  About the Author

  Louisa Lo lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband, an aristocratic cat, and more cardboard boxes than she cares to unpack. She decided to write about vigilantes, because it seems like a better life choice than trying to become one and landing herself in jail. She just has that kind of luck.

  You can connect with Louisa on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads or visit her website at www.LouisaLo.com

  Recommended Reading Sequence

  Vengeance Be Mine (Vengeance Demons #1)

  Before Vengeance (Vengeance Demons #0)

  Vengeance Unclaimed (Vengeance Demons #2)

  A Good Vengeance (Vengeance Demons #3)

  Vengeance For Hire (Vengeance Demons #4)

  Hell Hath No Vengeance (Vengeance Demons #5)

  Coming Soon…

  VENGEANCE DELAYED

  Justice comes slowly, but surely…

  Be a Vengeful Vixen!

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