Hell's Belles (Damned Girl Book 3)

by Clare Kauter

  “Where’s my seat?” Dick asked.

  “You don’t get one,” said Satan. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t allow you to wipe your exposed genitalia on my furniture.”

  Dick looked unimpressed, but surely that was a problem he came up against a lot.

  “Just start wearing pants, man,” I said. “It would be so much better for everyone.”

  “Oh, sure, like I’m going to listen to the advice of a murderer,” he spat.

  “OK, firstly, rude, and secondly, wearing pants is actually something that I have quite a bit of knowledge about, given that I do it so often, and I would definitely recommend it.”

  Dick opened his mouth to respond, but Satan cut him off. “I’ve grown tired of this conversation. Dick, you should wear pants, and that’s final. Now, to the matter of the summoning.”

  “You mean the murder,” said Dick.

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said Satan. “Demons aren’t like other creatures. I create them all from magic. They don’t really exist, and therefore it doesn’t count as murder. And besides, it was self defence.”

  Dick’s face was going red with anger. “I – I –” he spluttered.

  “Hush now, pony man,” said Satan. “It’s settled. They’re my minions and I’m not pressing charges. Nessa was well within her rights to kill a demon who attacked.”

  “But the way she did it –”

  “Is the way I taught her in our self-defence classes. Have you ever killed a demon, Dick?”

  “No, of course not!”

  He seemed oddly defensive about that, if you asked me, but Satan didn’t seem to notice.

  “Well then you wouldn’t know just what bringing one down requires. Nessa was simply following the necessary steps.”

  “No she was not! Watch the video, then you’ll see!”

  Satan shrugged. “None of the tourists watching managed to get any footage of the incident, so I’m afraid I can’t really give you any more insight on the topic.”

  “What are you talking about? There were plenty of people filming it!”

  “I had my minions ask around. Everyone’s footage and photographs disappeared,” she said.

  “But –” he began.

  Satan cut him off. “It’s fortunate that Nessa was there to fix your screw up. I can’t believe you managed to get a job at The Department when you’re so clearly incapable. After all, you were the one who set the demon free and Nessa was the one who saved all the humans. Maybe it’s lucky there is no footage of the incident. If I were you, I wouldn’t want my superiors finding out about it.”

  Dick opened his mouth like he was going to argue, but shut it again quickly. Even he couldn’t dispute the logic of Satan’s argument. He would definitely be in trouble if his bosses found out that his little blunder had put so many civilians in danger.

  “Ah, Nessa,” said Satan. “I just remembered, I’m going to need to take your summoning kit from you. I might just bind the demon myself, seeing as you have this dead weight following you around everywhere, screwing everything up. And of course, we can’t have an unlicensed medium on the loose with herbs in hand, can we?” She looked pointedly at Dick at that last bit.

  I removed the kit from my bag and handed it to Satan, who dissolved it in a puff of red smoke. While I knew that she’d simply teleported it to the shelves in her study, it still looked impressive.

  “I’m going to the bathroom,” Dick announced.

  “Good for you,” said Satan.

  Dick turned and stalked out of the parlour. When he was gone, Satan gestured to the wine bottle sitting on the table beside her.

  “Can I get you one?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “I can’t,” I said. “I need a clear head for the spell I’m about to cast.”

  Satan raised her eyebrows. “Spell?” she repeated innocently, as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. As if she hadn’t intentionally put the materials in that kit to place the idea in my head.

  I smiled mischievously and knelt down by the coffee table. I only had a second to work my magic before Dick returned from the bathroom. Taking a sharpie from my backpack, I drew a circle on the glass top of the coffee table. I also took a single candle from my bag (I always carried spares for emergencies – this one was left over from Christmas and was scented like pudding and custard) and placed it in the centre of the circle. I’d snagged a lock of hair from Dick’s leg while pulling him out of the pentagram earlier, and I arranged it in the circle along with ten cranberry seeds.

  I caught Satan frowning at me. “What kind of spell are you casting, exactly?”

  “A curse,” I replied.

  She sighed. “When I gave you all of those materials, I was expecting you to go for a slightly larger jinx than this.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want him to be able to trace it back to me. This is perfect. It’s small and mundane enough that he won’t know for sure than he’s been cursed. Besides, a man named Dick who constantly displays his schlong deserves this.”

  Satan nodded slowly. “I guess.”

  “Besides, it’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

  Her face slowly split into a grin. “That’s what I like to hear. My girl Nessa, torturing those in need.”

  I decided not to dwell on the fact that Satan approved of my torturing Dick. With a click of my fingers, I lit the candle. The wick flared up instantly. I picked up the candle, charging it with a little extra energy to make the flame burn hotter. The wax began to melt and I tipped it in a circle around the seeds before setting it back down and picking up the hair. I burned the hair over the flame, dropping the smouldering remains into the smaller circle I’d made with the candle wax before picking up the seeds and dropping them into the fire one by one.

  As I dropped the seeds, I leaned in to cast the spell, whispering, “Give Dick a urinary tract infection.”

  A line of purple energy rose from the outer circle and then the inner circle, disappearing in a puff. The hair, seeds and wax circle were gone. The curse was done. I quickly blew out the candle and threw it back in my bag, hoping it didn’t light anything on fire in there, before wiping the sharpie off the table with my sleeve. I leapt back up into my seat next to Satan just before Dick returned to the room.

  He eyed me suspiciously. “What –” He stopped, his eyes widening, before turning and galloping back to the toilet.

  I smiled at Satan, who handed me a glass of wine. We clinked glasses and each took a sip. Mission accomplished.

  Two hours later, after I’d eaten dinner with Satan (while Dick ducked in every ten minutes or so before heading back to the toilet), I returned to the pub where I’d been staying. If it had been up to me, I’d have stayed with Satan, or maybe in one of the many fancy places on the Hot-Hell (pronounced like ‘hotel’) strip. Unfortunately, since I was here with The Department I had to stay with Dick, and Satan didn’t want Dick staying in her house. The Department didn’t want to pay for an expensive hotel room for Dick either, so I was stuck in a dodgy inn with Dick in the adjoining room. Not anyone’s idea of a good time. Plus I was 99% sure Dick had my room bugged, because every time I opened my door, he stepped out into the corridor at the same time. I just couldn’t escape him.

  When I left my room again that night, though, Dick didn’t follow me. Brilliant. The urinary tract infection curse had worked better than I could have hoped. He was stuck in his room, at least for now, and I was free to roam.

  I hurried out of the pub and made my way down to the beach. I’d always loved spending time there as a teenager and it was nice to be able to return unchaperoned. I didn’t really have any plans for my Dick-free time, other than to enjoy it while it lasted. Removing my shoes and rolling up the hem of my pants, I walked along the shoreline, wetting my feet as the waves lapped up to meet me. The water was pleasantly cool, refreshing but not uncomfortably cold. The tourists were out in full force now, getting drunk and dancing on the sand. The area was illuminated with evenly spac
ed torches lit all along the beach, as well as the occasional bonfire dotting the sand. They were lit with hellfire, of course, so the beach had the same reddish glow as everywhere else.

  After I’d spent some time enjoying the beach, I decided to take a walk through the city streets. You never knew what you’d find wandering through Hell. It was my favourite city for precisely that reason. I dried my feet on the grass at the edge of the beach and although they were still sandy, slipped them back inside my ballet flats. I turned off the main strip, which was located opposite to the beach, and headed deeper into the city. Wandering aimlessly through the streets had often led to interesting discoveries, and I was happy to see where my feet took me.

  As I walked, the town clock bonged away in the background. Eleven counts. Of course, I could easily tell the time by looking at my phone, but for some reason I counted the bells anyway. It was 11B. (Since there was no night or day in Hell, they used a repeating twelve hour clock with a different bell for A time and B time. A time was what you would traditionally think of as day and B was night. Of course, none of that really mattered seeing as the shops were always open, but it helped to give things a sense of normalcy.)

  After walking some more, I realised I was in a part of Hell I didn’t recognise. I rounded a corner into a dingy looking alley, wondering momentarily if I should be worried about walking around here alone and then remembering that I’d strangled and disembowelled a monster of a demon earlier that night. I’d probably be fine. It was the person (or creature) who attempted to mug me that should be concerned.

  This was an older part of Hell than the tourist area, and the alley was narrow and paved with cobblestones. The stone buildings on either side looked like they were hundreds of years old and probably were. Their windows were so dirty and covered in cobwebs that I couldn’t see inside, and the light filtering out was minimal. It was so dark, in fact, that it didn’t come as a shock when I tripped and fell over. Luckily whatever I’d stumbled over and landed upon was relatively soft, so I wasn’t injured. I swore and took out my phone, turning on the torch so I could see what I’d tripped on. When my eyes locked on the obstacle, I grimaced. Then I started to panic a little.

  It was a dead body. And it was missing its eyeballs.

  Chapter Four

  The body belonged to a goblin. That much I could tell. His ears were long and pointed, he was short in stature, and there were small cuts all over him in addition to the removed eyeballs, leading me to conclude that whoever had done this was either a bit of a sicko or using the murder to perform some serious dark magic. Almost definitely both. (You didn’t really screw around with this style of magic unless you were seriously messed up or Satan herself – but if she’d done it, no one would ever have found the body.)

  I groaned. Why had I had to fall on him? My DNA or fingerprints or something had probably contaminated the crime scene now and I’d have to admit that I’d been here. That might seem like an odd thing to think, I know, but given the fact that I was already on rocky ground from the demon murder earlier, I didn’t really want to give The Department a reason to suspect me of killing someone else as well. All the times I’d gotten away with murder and now here I was, implicating myself when for once I was actually innocent.

  A noise down the end of the alley caught my attention. I whipped my head around to see what had caused it.

  “What’s going on down there?” called the voice. Whoever it was had slurred his words a little, but the voice was still familiar. I frowned, trying to see who was speaking.

  “I found a body,” I said.

  The figure walked – well, stumbled – towards me, finally passing one of the windows of a nearby building, offering just enough illumination that I could see his silhouette. That was all I needed. I’d recognise that gorilla anywhere.

  “Henry!” I said, letting out a relieved sigh. “Thank Satan you’re here. I tripped over the body and then landed on it like an idiot.”

  “Screwing things up just as much as ever,” he said. “Like murder scenes. And other people’s lives.”

  “Yes, yes, even the dead aren’t safe from my life ruining capabilities, I know. What do I do, Henry?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno. You tripped over the body, you said?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. It was too dark to see in this alley.”

  “You didn’t happen to murder him first did you?”

  “No! Why would you think that? What makes you think I’m capable of murder? That’s an awfully serious accusation, Henry.”

  He raised his eyebrows at my (in hindsight, too defensive) denial.

  “Right,” he said. “Well, seeing as you ‘didn’t murder him’ then I guess you have nothing to worry about.” He formed air quotes with his fingers when he said ‘didn’t murder him’, which I found a little offensive. I frowned at him but didn’t bother denying that I’d killed the goblin again. That was just going to make me sound even more guilty. The one time I don’t kill someone and Henry starts thinking I’m involved. Gah.

  “Do I call someone?” I asked.

  “The police, I guess.”

  “There aren’t police in Hell,” I said.

  “Well that’s where you’re wrong,” Henry slurred, leaning a little too close to my face, breathing gorilla breath laced with whiskey fumes on me and making my eyes water. “Hecate and Daisy are here.”

  “They are?”

  He nodded. “They’re still looking for Ed. Apparently they detected an energy flare here earlier that was caused by someone using the Doomstone.”

  I gulped.

  “Is something wrong?” he asked, catching my distress.

  “What? No, nothing. I just don’t like being around corpses,” I said, looking back down at the goblin but not really seeing him. My mind was preoccupied. Hecate and Daisy could track the Doomstone’s energy? Did that mean they could trace it to me? What if it was like a gun and left residue on the user? Then they’d know that Ed had given the gem to me… and I hadn’t handed it in.

  I wondered what I’d be charged with for that. Associating with a known murderer and felon and sneaky piece of attractive crap? (Yes, I know ‘attractive crap’ is a disturbing mental image, but please just go with it. You know what I mean.) Harbouring stolen goods? I knew that the stone was the property of The Department and yet when Ed had given it to me I’d been so intrigued that I hadn’t handed it in. I was just so curious as to why after going to all the trouble of robbing a bank and a police station evidence locker, killing two people and committing suicide to get his hands on it, he would just give it to me. He’d admitted that he didn’t know how to use it, but it wasn’t like Ed to give up on something so easily (see aforementioned crime spree). He was determined, I had to give him that. So why relinquish the stone?

  He’d given it to me as a Christmas present, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. He barely knew me. Sure, we’d shared a kiss, but he was deep undercover at that time and promptly betrayed me to get the stone. Then – days later – he turned around and gave it back. What was I meant to make of that?

  I did have a theory, of course. (Other than the idea that he was hopelessly in love with me and just couldn’t live with betraying me. Not that I wanted that to be true. He was a psycho murderer – not the kind of guy I wanted to date. I mean, OK, so I was a killer too, but that’s beside the point.) Perhaps Ed had given me the stone because he knew that I would be able to unlock its power. As far as I knew, I was the only one who could get the thing to work. Maybe Ed had given it to me so that I could unlock its power and he could observe what exactly it was capable of. Of course that meant that he would be following me around, and yet I hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of him since I’d been in Hell. Surely he would have revealed himself. Last time we’d met, he’d tried to befriend (or refriend) me. So why was he hiding now? Was he even here? Maybe my theory was wrong.

  My eyes came into focus and it occurred to me that maybe Ed had had something to do with the cor
pse I now saw before me. I frowned. Was it possible? Yes, but I couldn’t imagine why he would have done it. Of course, I knew nothing about this goblin, or about Ed, really, so it was still totally possible that he was responsible for the death.

  My mind drifted back to the Doomstone. Not handing in the stolen – and potentially very dangerous – stone wasn’t even the worst of it. Sure, not handing it in when I knew it was stolen was bad, but I also knew Hecate and Daisy were under review for losing it. If I handed it in, I could get them out of trouble with their bosses. They were my friends. That was definitely the right thing to do. But I hadn’t done it. And now that I’d had a taste of the stone’s power, I certainly wasn’t planning on giving it up any time soon. Good luck to the person who tried to make me.

  While I’d been lost in thought, Henry had been making a phone call.

  “See you soon,” he slurred. “Actually, if you get a chance, would you be able to pick me up a coffee on the way?”

  When he hung up, I asked, “Hecate?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, she and Daisy are at a nightclub not far from here. Apparently someone summoned a crazy demon there earlier and they think the Doomstone was in the vicinity.”

  “How do they detect the Doomstone?” I asked as casually as I could manage. The stone wasn’t much good to me if it was equipped with an internal GPS.

  Henry shrugged. “No idea. You’ll have to ask them.”

  Fat chance. Unless they turned up as drunk as Henry, I wasn’t going to risk questioning them about it. I didn’t want to arouse suspicion.

  I knelt down by the body and shone my phone light on it again, trying to see it better. As gross as it was, I wasn’t too disturbed by dead bodies anymore. Not only had I produced a few of my own, but I’d also reanimated a number of corpses in my time. Death was nothing new, and at least this body was fresh.