Hell's Belles (Damned Girl Book 3)

by Clare Kauter

  No wonder Satan had wanted me to sort this out quickly – werewolf bouncers were not good for business. Goblins and werewolves fought wherever they were, and with all the dark energy running through Hell, creatures of the night were even more powerful (and hence more dangerous) here than anywhere else. Plus the human tourists would probably not realise this guy was a magical, which would lead to less business. Having a demon out the front of your club was the best way to attract curious non-magical clientele. (Seriously, I had social media polls to back it up. Yep. That was the kind of hard-hitting journalism I’d been responsible for so far on my internship.)

  I rifled through the kit, frowning. Satan had given me plenty of materials to call upon a demon and bind it to the club, but I was confused. She’d also given me some extra materials that I wouldn’t need. Why? I took stock of the other items – there were talismans, including a small locket imbued with dark energy, and various dried leaves and berries, including deadly nightshade and coriander. She’d given me an abundance of materials that could be used to curse someone. What exactly was she suggesting? That I murder Dick?

  “What have you got there?” Dick asked, leaning in to see the box better. I turned my head, trying to ignore the fact that Little Dick was now at eye level. Jeez Louise, for such a little thing it somehow always seemed to find its way into my eye line.

  “I think Satan gave me some extra materials to show you that I know what I’m doing,” I said. “You’ll know that I can choose the correct materials from a selection now.”

  He nodded slowly. I don’t think he bought it, but he didn’t say anything more.

  I sifted through the contents of the box, pulling out the necessary gear: chalk, three candles, some herbs and a knife.

  “What are you doing with that knife?” asked Dick, sounding a little panicked.

  “Well, I have to make a sacrifice,” I said. “I’m going to need to cut myself and bleed into the pentagram. Unless you’re offering to donate your blood.”

  “No chance,” he said. “I’m not letting you weaken me.”

  “What exactly do you think I’m going to do to you, Dick?”

  “I don’t know. That’s exactly what I’m worried about.”

  I rolled my eyes and got back to work, drawing the star on the ground. I placed candles at three of the points and, with a click, lit them. Dick loomed over me, scrutinising my every move.

  “Don’t get too close or your mouth-breathing might blow out the candles,” I said.

  “I will get as close as I like,” he said. “I am examining you, after all.”

  I rolled my eyes and tried to ignore him as I drew symbols inside the star. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to realise that I wanted him to be quiet and he kept asking me questions.

  “Do you find that you have an affinity for light magic or dark?” he asked. I bit my lip and kept drawing while I chose my words. It was a simple enough question, but too complicated for me to answer. I had no idea. I was on the dark spectrum, but I didn’t conform to the traditional dark traits. Trouble was, that was exactly the kind of thing that I didn’t want The Department knowing in case they put me in a cage and performed experiments on me or something.

  “Why don’t you see for yourself?” I answered. Non-committal and vague, but enough of an answer to stop his questions.

  I burned some herbs over a candle and placed the smouldering bundle in the middle of the pentagram. Clenching and unclenching my fists a few times and taking some deep breaths, I psyched myself up for the blood sacrifice. It wasn’t a big deal, really – you only needed the tiniest drop of blood to make the ritual work. It still stressed me out, though.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Dick.

  “Your mum to stop calling me,” I said. He attempted to respond but I cut my finger and let the blood drop onto the pavement before he had the chance.

  It was early in the night (according to the town clock), but even so there were plenty of tourists out on the street who stopped to watch and take pictures of the ritual. To be fair, though, it was quite impressive. The air around us began to ripple and a grey mini tornado sprung up before us, its base planted in the spot where my blood had fallen. The sound of the wind drowned out all other noises on the crowded street. A cloud had formed over the top of the pentagram and lightning shot down from it, accompanied by loud booms.

  Demon summoning was a lot like fishing – you threw in the bait and waited to see what would bite. Judging by the huge tornado before us, I’d hooked a big one.

  I put the finger I’d nicked in my mouth and sucked, trying to take the pain away.

  “Are you a vampire?” breathed a nearby tourist who’d been watching me.

  “Don’t be such an idiot,” I said. “Vampires don’t suck their own blood. If I were a vampire, you’d be dead.”

  The tourist shrank away in terror and a few others took pictures of me. I rolled my eyes. This was ridiculous. When would this internship end? I didn’t mind being in Hell when I was just one of the crowd, but having Dick constantly breathing down my neck – loudly – really put a dampener on the fun.

  Suddenly an idea occurred to me, and while Dick and the tourists were busy watching the demon form in front of us, I removed some of the items from Satan’s kit and pocketed them. I jerked my head up at the sound of a loud thump.

  Then the screaming started.

  Somehow in the two seconds I’d looked away, Dick had managed to trip and fall into the pentagram. I groaned. Great. A standard summoning and he’d found a way to screw it up.

  I grabbed Dick by his hind legs and dragged him out of the pentagram, but it was too late. The damage was done. He had broken the boundary, and now all the energy that had been previously contained in the one area was spilling out, and with it the demon himself.

  This wouldn’t be such a big deal if said demon was a nice, affable servant of Satan who didn’t mind being bound to the front door of a nightclub for the foreseeable future. Something was telling me that wasn’t the case with this guy, though. Maybe it was the swirling vortex of doom before us. Maybe it was the red eyes peering out from the fast disappearing magical cage. Or maybe it was the giant, taloned foot slowly stepping through the hole Dick had created in the boundary.

  For Satan’s sake, why had I had to hook this guy?

  My heart was racing. What now? This demon was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, and I’d met my fair share of Satan’s servants. Generally when you performed a summoning, there was just a tiny red whirlwind. The demon bound at the end would be a little shorter than me and kind of wispy, only threatening if you were a non-magical. The way this guy was eyeing off the crowd I was pretty sure he was deciding who to eat first. If a Satan-sanctioned summoning went wrong and ended in the deaths of tourists, it would be a public relations nightmare. Right now it was just a regular nightmare and I needed to keep it that way. Partly to save the humans’ lives. Partly so I didn’t end up stuck in Satan’s marketing office for the rest of my life trying to correct this monumental screw-up through press releases.

  “Dick, you have truly lived up to your name,” I muttered.

  I didn’t have a choice. I was going to have to break out the crazy purple death magic. Great. The second Dick saw it, The Department would know what I was and what I was capable of (which would put them two steps ahead of me). I groaned. The tornado had disappeared and the cloud of magical energy keeping the demon contained had all but dissipated thanks to Dick. The demon had nearly broken free of the pentagram now, and his clawed hand was reaching for a nearby tourist. I didn’t have a choice.

  I bent my knees slightly, lowering my centre of gravity so that I could maintain my balance while casting. (Sometimes shooting out energy beams could knock you backwards if you weren’t prepared, like when you shoot a gun. I needed to get my stance sorted out, because I was about to break out a bazooka.) I took a deep breath and drew energy to my hands, which were balled into fists. All at once I unclenched my fists an
d shot my energy at the demon. Purple streams poured from my hands, connecting with the demon almost instantly. He squealed. It was a proper high-pitched squeal, too. I guess he hadn’t been expecting anyone to fight him.

  The demon whipped his head towards me, emerging from the last pathetic wisps of his magical bonds, blowing them aside with a heavy snort from his nose. Two giant ram’s horns protruded from the side of his head and his eyes were glowing red. Rather than human-like skin, he had a crocodilian surface – dark, leathery, covered in lumps and spines. His mouth was filled with canine teeth, all sharpened to a point. All the better to rip your throat out with. His feet and hands both had large black talons protruding from them like spears used for hunting. He growled. I gulped. I’d pissed him off.

  I wasted no time in doubling down on my magic, pouring every bit of energy I had into it. The beams snaked around him, wrapping him like a rope. I pulled them as tight as I could manage, pinning his legs together and his arms to his sides. I yanked, trying to pull him over. He snarled at me, licking the place where his lips should have been with a forked tongue, and slowly moved his arms out from his body, stretching my magical bonds. He pulled them so far that I wasn’t sure they could withstand – snap.

  Oh. Shit.

  They broke, slithering back towards me looking sad and dejected. I reabsorbed the energy. OK, now I was panicking. How had this happened? I had crazy purple death magic! As if I couldn’t take down one little demon! OK, one big demon. Still! I’d murdered five grabbers (the scourge of the magical underworld) with my purple beams of doom. I shouldn’t have been struggling so much.

  The demon took another step towards me. I sighed. OK, I was about to die. I was surprisingly fine with it. I couldn’t even take down a demon anymore, so it wasn’t like there was any point in living. I was too embarrassed to go on. One stupid little –

  He was right in front of me now. I looked up into his eyes and saw him grinning maliciously.

  “Just hurry up and eat me,” I said.

  His grin widened and he reached for me. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. My life wasn’t flashing before my eyes or anything, but I did feel inexplicably calm. I didn’t feel cold or anything, like my life force was ebbing away. I felt warm, actually. Uncomfortably warm. Well, it was always hot in Hell. There were torches of hellfire everywhere, plus bonfires down on the beach. Even so, I felt hotter than normal. I was used to the heat – I lived in Australia – so why was I getting so overheated? Was it the demon? No, surely not. Otherwise why would my pocket specifically be the source of the warmth? In fact, my jeans pocket was getting so hot that it was just about burning a hole in my leg. I slipped my hand into my pocket and my fingers touched something smooth. Instantly the burning stopped.

  I frowned, momentarily confused, then my eyes widened in realisation as I remembered what was in my pocket. Energy poured into me through my fingertips as they maintained contact with the object.

  It was happening again. The energy flowed through me, taking control of my body. I could feel every cell singing as it was filled with the energy. I was swirling with so much magic I felt like I might burst.

  The demon’s claw had just about made contact with my shoulder. I had a moment to think that this was going to be a good show for the tourists before the first talon made contact. The energy flared up, ready to attack.

  Maybe I hadn’t been totally OK with being eaten alive after all.

  Chapter Three

  The tendrils returned, this time reinforced by the energy of the Doomstone in my pocket. The stone had woken up something inside me, and I felt the all too familiar sensation of my inner murderess taking over my body. My magic wrapped around the neck of the demon, but this time when he struggled to break free, the ropes just grew tighter. While my right hand’s magic was busy garroting him, my left hand rose up to be in line with where his heart would be, were he to have one. I speared him with a beam of energy and pulled down, slicing open his stomach.

  The demon fell to his knees, watching in horror as his entrails plopped out onto the ground, slipping and sliding over each other. His stomach hit my leg on the way down, leaving a warm, wet spot on my pants, but I didn’t let him go until he fell completely to the floor. The thud of the demon’s corpse hitting the pavement knocked me out of my trance. As my energy snapped back into my body, with it came buckets of guilt with a twist of panic. I’d just murdered someone in front of a Department official as well as a gaggle of tourists.

  Shit.

  A round of applause came up from the bystanders. I looked around in confusion. Was this like people clapping when a plane landed? Were they just glad to be alive, or did they think this was some kind of performance? Hoping it was the latter, I decided to roll with it.

  “Thank you, everybody,” I said, stepping away from the pile of guts before me. “I’m glad you enjoyed the show. If you’d like to see more Hell-themed entertainment, I’d recommend heading down to the beach in an hour’s time for the Hellfire Bonfire. Satan herself will be making an appearance.”

  I took a bow. Hey, I had to make it convincing. I sent a small wave of magic out to delete the videos of what had happened from the onlookers’ phones. (Luckily I’d always had an affinity with techno-magic.) The crowd dispersed, leaving just the werewolf bouncer and Dick.

  “Guess my shift’s not up just yet,” said the wolf, eyeing the corpse in front of me.

  “What the fuck was that?” Dick all but screamed.

  “Me saving your arse?”

  “That was you using dark magic to murder someone.”

  “It was pretty rad,” said the werewolf. I decided that even though he was a flea-ridden idiot, I kind of liked him. OK, so I was a little susceptible to flattery. Sue me.

  “It wasn’t rad! It was illegal!” Dick said. “Not to mention that you’ve completely misled me about your magical abilities! ‘A medium with very basic magical ability’ my rump!” My upper lip curled at his use of the word ‘rump’. I don’t know why, but somehow that was grosser than ‘arse’. “You’re clearly well-versed in the dark arts, and I’m calling The Department immediately to recommend that you be detained. You’re a danger to the people around you!”

  “I saved the people around me, actually, Dick,” I said. Sure, I’d done it by murdering someone, but let’s not get pernickety. “You were the one who put them in danger by tripping into the star while I was summoning a demon. If I hadn’t been there, you and all those tourists would have been killed, and it would have been entirely your fault!”

  Dick harrumphed. “I’m phoning The Department.”

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” came a voice from the sky above us. Satan. She was using her special magical devil intercom thing (like when God speaks from the heavens – except this was the devil speaking from Hell). It didn’t matter where you were, she could find you, watch you and talk to you. It wasn’t any wonder that people found her so terrifying when you thought about it.

  “But – but –” Dick spluttered.

  “The Department is allowed in Hell only by my permission,” said Satan. “You have no power here unless I say so. You will come to my house and we will discuss it like adults instead of you running to tell mummy like a little baby. I’m sorry, like a foal.”

  Dick’s eye twitched with anger, but he was too terrified to disobey.

  Dick and I walked to Satan’s house, which was not far from the town centre. It sat atop a hill, looking down over her kingdom. I strode quickly, trying to keep ahead of Dick, but he had four legs so had a clear advantage. As much as I tried, I couldn’t get away from him. Eventually we reached the high fence surrounding Satan’s house. The huge, two storeys high wrought iron gates swung open as we approached, seemingly of their own volition. We walked through and the gates slammed shut behind us. Dick flinched at the loud crash of them closing, but it didn’t bother me. I was used to the noise. After all, this had once been my home.

  We walked up the path to the
house, and by the time we reached the front door I was puffed and my thighs were burning. Who in their right mind would build a house on a hill? Satan’s hounds were nowhere to be seen on the walk through the grounds, so I guessed the dog walker was taking them out for their twice-daily run. That was another tourist favourite – watching the Hellhounds run along the beach. Satan had a whole Instagram account dedicated to her pooches which had over five hundred thousand followers. People loved the devil’s puppies. (Yes, I’m aware that that sounded a bit wrong, but you know what I mean.)

  The front door swung open by itself, just like the gates had, and Dick jumped again when it slammed behind us. OK, I admit it – I enjoyed seeing him flinch. My mind wandered to the items I’d pilfered from Satan’s kit earlier. I’d certainly be able to make Dick flinch again with some of those…

  My thoughts were interrupted by Satan’s demon butler entering the foyer and greeting us. I didn’t really know why Satan bothered having a butler seeing as her door literally answered itself, but nevertheless, she liked having him around.

  “This way, Madam Nessa and Horse Man,” said Butler. (Yep, his name was actually Butler. Satan named all the demons and she liked to keep it simple with her staff. The only member of her household staff with a normal name was Giorgio, but that was because he wasn’t a demon – he was an Italian chef she’d hired to live with her permanently and cook her delicious, delicious food.)

  “My name is Richard,” Dick snapped at Butler.

  “I don’t care,” said Butler. “I’ll call you what I want, and you are a horse man.”

  “I just call him Dick,” I said.

  “He is also one of those.”

  I’d always liked Butler.

  He led us through the house to the parlour, where Satan was sitting on a chaise lounge, sipping on a glass of blood red wine. (At least I assumed it was wine.) She patted the seat beside her and I sat down. Dick looked around, but there were no other chairs. I was relieved – watching Dick back into a seat with four legs and a free flying wang was not a sight I enjoyed seeing and I had already been subjected to enough of that at the office.