Hell's Belles (Damned Girl Book 3)

by Clare Kauter

  As I laid my head down on the table, trying not to let my eyes fall shut, I caught a glimpse of a diagram as the page turned. Frowning, I flicked back. What I saw made me sit up straight. The book was old and fragile, and the ink was beginning to fade, but the picture was still clear enough for me to make out what was happening. A human form lay prone on the ground, bleeding from various wounds. Another figure stood over it with a knife. In the corner of the page, there appeared to be something materialising, but that part of the book was badly yellowed and faded so I couldn’t pick out what it was.

  I stared at the picture, blinking a few times to try and wake myself up. What was this? Some sort of ceremony to summon a demon? If so, it could have something to do with the demons disappearing from Hell. I tried to read the writing on the opposite page, but it was even more faded than the picture. I did manage to make out one word, though.

  King.

  Fucking Ed.

  A noise coming from the staircase startled me and I leapt to my feet, panicked. Ed was coming. I didn’t want him to catch me looking at this picture in case he reacted badly. He had been known to do some violent things in the past, and I still wasn’t one hundred per cent sure if my magic would work on a ghost. Then it occurred to me that seeing as he was a ghost, it didn’t make any sense that he would be using the secret staircase when he could just pop in an out of existence where he liked.

  So who was heading my way?

  Bending my knees, I crouched slightly into a casting position. I wasn’t sure who it was, but for some reason I doubted it was just another person coming here to brush up on their knowledge of magical lore. Judging by the noise, it was multiple someones. I’d never actually seen anyone else use this part of the library, so hearing people coming now made me suspicious. The fact that I’d heard one noise and then they’d fallen deathly quiet made me even more worried.

  My imagination ran wild. Well, it went for a short jog – it didn’t take too much effort to come up with a list of people who wanted me dead. Was it the goblins or werewolves coming to get me because they thought I was helping their enemies? An assassin sent by The Department to take me out because I was costing them so much in quest expenses?

  Their soft footsteps drew closer until finally their shadowy figures were visible at the top of the staircase. The figure at the head of the group stepped forward.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I told you! Didn’t I tell you?” cried the person who’d stepped forward. “Caught red handed!”

  I squinted at the group and leaned forwards to get a better look, recognising the voice. “Dick?”

  He clip-clopped towards me, followed by Hecate, Daisy and Henry. “Sneaking out in the dead of night to perform nefarious deeds. She’s your murderess!”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Dick?” I was far too tired for this shit. “I’m sitting in a library. I can’t imagine anything less nefarious.”

  “Yes, sitting in the restricted section! How did you even know about this?”

  “I – I used to live here in Hell with Satan and she brought me here to – wait, how do you know about this place?” I asked. “Come to think of it, how did you even get in here? Aren’t you all creatures of the light?”

  I knew there had been something weird about Dick’s magic.

  “You need to come with us,” said Dick.

  I snorted. “What, are you arresting me?”

  No one answered, and when I looked to Daisy, Hecate and Henry for an explanation, they all seemed to be avoiding eye contact.

  “Guys?”

  Still no answer.

  “Seriously? You’re actually arresting me?”

  This was unbelievable.

  While I’d been distracted with trying to make eye contact with even one of my so-called friends, Dick had slowly crept closer to me. Now he cried, “Aha!” He picked up the book I’d been reading and strode over to the others, brandishing it in front of him like a preacher with a bible. “I told you. She is the one who’s responsible.”

  “Wait, no!” I said. “I was doing research to try and find the murderer. I’m not involved in this.”

  “And do you have an alibi for either the first murder or the attack on that girl tonight?” Dick asked.

  “I was with you guys when she was attacked!”

  Daisy shook her head. “She was attacked a good hour before Death brought her to us.”

  “Tell me, how did you know she’d been hit with goblin poison if you weren’t the one responsible?” Dick asked. “No one else seemed to be able to pick that out, and you were surrounded by a lot of people far more gifted and experienced than yourself.”

  He had me there. I couldn’t tell him how I knew, because then they would know I’d swum in the ether. But was it better they know that or think I was a murderer? I honestly wasn’t sure. Ether diving was a pretty big deal.

  Dick took my silence as a confession and began to move towards me. “Give yourself up graciously and it will look good for you.”

  “What, like you did yesterday?” I snapped, too angry about what was happening to even enjoy the replay in my memory of Dick being taken down.

  “I wasn’t guilty.”

  “Nor am I!” I protested. I turned to the others, hoping desperately that they would back me up, but Daisy and Hecate were crouching, ready to cast. I looked at Henry and finally we made eye contact. He looked devastated. My mouth dropped open. He actually thought I was guilty.

  I’m not going to lie – I was a little pissed off that everyone had become so convinced of my guilt so quickly. What, so they’d found me in a library and now suddenly I was a murderer? Yes, OK, so I was a murderer, but I wasn’t this murderer. I had only ever hurt people in self-defence. I would never slice open a child’s stomach, pour poison in the wounds and then leave her somewhere to die slowly and in pain. Come to think of it, why had Ed just left her to die? I was sure he had attacked her to use in this ritual, but obviously he hadn’t gone through with it as the girl was still alive. Why had he abandoned the ritual part way through?

  I set my jaw. Fine. If no one was going to believe me, I’d just have to prove my innocence somehow. Even if that meant tracking down Ed and getting him to confess.

  “Wait, guys,” I said, and the four of them halted in their movement towards me. “I know who the real murderer is. It was Ed. I’m sure he’s been here in the library. If you just let me summon him –”

  “Ha!” said Dick. “As if we’d let you summon someone after the demon you conjured up outside that nightclub. You’d clearly just use the chance to call up some beast to attack us!”

  “He did it! You have to let me call him!” I turned to the others. “You’re still looking for the Doomstone, right? Let me call him and you’ll get it back.” Not strictly a lie, although slightly misleading.

  Hecate shook her head. “We already tried summoning him, Nessa. It was the first thing we did. He’s clearly protected himself from being summoned somehow.”

  “But…” But I’d summoned him the other day with no trouble at all. Was that another one of my powers, or had Ed somehow set it up so the witches couldn’t find him but I could?

  “But nothing,” said Dick. “You were clearly trying to convince us to allow you to do magic so you could use it to attack us. I doubt this Ed character even has the Doomstone. We only have your word that he was responsible for all those other murders and the theft of the stone. For all we know, you could have orchestrated this whole thing.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “You really think I could have pulled that off when I was being escorted around by three officials?”

  Dick shrugged. “I have to admit, you’re good. At first even I didn’t realise you were guilty. Perhaps when the others got close to discovering you, you simply clouded their memories with that rather dangerous purple magic of yours.”

  My heart thumped in my chest as I slowly dragged my eyes over to Henry. He was staring directly at me, a look of horror spread
ing over his face. He’d realised what his dual memories meant, and he thought I had been the one to cloud him.

  “Henry,” I said, “it’s not what –”

  “She did it,” said Henry. “Arrest her.”

  “No! Guys, I…”

  But they weren’t listening to me. All four of them were creeping slowly towards me, and I was only going to be able to back away from them for so long before I was trapped and one of them grabbed me. When that happened, my magic would kick in. I would be completely powerless to control it, and no matter how much I didn’t want it to happen, I would murder one of my friends. (Or Dick.)

  I needed to run.

  So I did.

  Turning on my heel, I took off down the nearest corridor of bookshelves, bolting to the other end of the room. I had no plan other than preventing myself from becoming cornered. I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt Hecate or Daisy or, of course, Henry. (Killing Dick I could live with, but I’d definitely end up in prison for that and since that was not part of my life plan, I decided it was best to avoid doing so.)

  I shot backwards with my magic, not aiming at the group but at the bookshelves. Books flew in the air, creating enough of a distraction for me to change directions without the group immediately pursuing me. I needed to get back down to the other end of the room where the staircase was, as that was my only way out. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dick trying to push his way through the books while Henry attempted to catch the books and make sure they got out unscathed. Daisy was a little way back with Hecate, who was doubled over trying to catch her breath after the (roughly) five steps she’d run. I guessed she hadn’t fully recovered from the séance yet.

  I slipped around the bookshelf and doubled back towards the door, hoping desperately to make it there before anyone caught up with me. The trouble was, I wasn’t much of a runner, and Dick – who had already bypassed the book distraction – had twice as many legs as me. I could hear his hooves closing in before I was anywhere near the doorway and, realising that it was pointless, I stopped running. I wasn’t fast enough to outrun him. I only had one option left: the Doomstone.

  I removed it from my pocket. At the sight of it, Dick gasped and screeched to a halt. “I knew it,” he breathed.

  I ignored him. “Come on, you little bastard,” I said, glaring at the stone. “After all the trouble you’ve caused, you’d better be some fucking use to me right now.” And here was hoping that use wasn’t just ‘murder everyone in sight’.

  The stone remained still and cold. No swirling clouds of magic inside it, no sudden burst of energy coursing through my veins. It was just a rock. Dick was creeping towards me, his eyes fixed on the stone. None of the others had caught up to us yet, but when they did, and they saw me holding the stone, they were all going to be sure I was guilty. Great. I’d shown my last card and it wasn’t even –

  The stone began to grow warm and I breathed a sigh of relief. It lit up, the clouds inside it growing brighter and brighter as Dick crept closer and closer. Finally the magic burst from the stone in a purple shockwave that left me untouched but flung Dick back into a distant bookcase – and let me tell you, you have never known true joy until you’ve seen a centaur’s legs flailing in mid-air as they’re thrown back on a wave of purple magic.

  Dick sat where he’d landed, stunned, as the wave dissipated. There was a pop to my left and I turned, finding a confused-looking Ed. Judging by the perplexed look on his face, he hadn’t travelled here of his own free will – the stone had brought him to me. I made a noise of exasperation. Great job, Doomstone. Thanks for summoning the little weasel who’d set me up to take the fall for his murders and who got me in this mess in the first place.

  Ed surveyed the carnage around us. The shockwave had knocked over a bunch of shelves, tables and chairs, and there were still loose pages floating down to the ground from the books that had been thrown around in the explosion.

  “What the fuck…”

  “You need to get me out of here,” I said.

  Ed, despite his confusion, nodded once, took my hand and teleported us out of the library.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It turns out that teleportation is really not a fun way to get around. Imagine the worst travel sickness you’ve ever had – like when you’re trapped on the back of an out of control magic carpet after eating a full two litre pot of pumpkin soup at a particularly harrowing Halloween party (we’ve all been there) – and then multiply that feeling by a thousand.

  “That was awful,” I said, doubling over and trying not to lose my balance.

  “Sorry,” said Ed. He was still holding my hand and before I had a chance to recover he began dragging me along. “We need to keep moving.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I’m new to teleporting other people and I’m afraid we didn’t make it very far.”

  Frowning, I looked around. Oh, great. We were right out the front of the library, at the bottom of the steps. “I cannot believe that frigging rock decided that you were the right person to help me.”

  We took off at a run – OK, slow jog – despite my churning stomach and pounding headache. All the while we were weaving between buildings and making our way further into Hell, away from the tourist strip, I mentally cursed the situation I was in. In order to avoid being arrested for murder, I’d had to run away with a murderer. It would almost have been funny if… well, if it were funny.

  Now that Dick had seen me with Ed, not to mention seen me use the Doomstone, The Department would definitely be out looking for me. I couldn’t have looked guiltier if I’d tried. Not to mention that Henry thought I’d been using him and clouding his memories this whole time, which was probably the worst part.

  Wait, no. Make that the second worst part. The absolute worst bit was that in order to not be arrested, I’d had to get help from the slimeball who’d framed me.

  We’d reached the park/cemetery that concealed the entrance to Death’s home by now, but rather than slip inside we skirted around the edge. The Department would surely have been alerted to my escape now, and since they knew Death was a friend of mine I couldn’t take any chances going to his house in case they already had someone waiting for me there.

  We continued further into Hell, eventually reaching the street where it turned from Hell City into Hell Proper. I hesitated, but Ed kept walking.

  “Wait!” I hissed.

  He turned and looked at me expectantly. “What?”

  “Are you serious? We can’t go down there!”

  “Why?”

  “Satan will kill me!”

  He rolled his eyes. “She’s hardly going to kill her stepdaughter.”

  “If you really think that then you’re even dumber than you look.”

  He sighed. “Then what do you suggest? Back to your room at the pub? Where exactly do you think we can go to get away from The Department?”

  “I don’t know!” I snapped. “It’s your fault I’m in this mess! I can’t believe I trusted you.”

  He frowned. “Sorry, am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?”

  “You used me!”

  He sighed. “I thought we were past that now. Yes, I used you to get the stone, but I gave it back to you in the end.”

  “To incriminate me!”

  He looked genuinely puzzled. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Department thinks I’m responsible for Gnawlack’s murder and Wolf Girl’s attack!” I said, crossing my arms.

  “Who’s Wolf Girl?”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know,” I said. “The girl you sliced up and poured goblin poison on.”

  To his credit, he did look horrified to hear that. Then again, I was all too aware of just how good at acting Ed could be.

  “What are you talking about?” he repeated. “There was another attack?”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

  Now it was Ed’s turn to cross his arms. “Have I done someth
ing to upset you?”

  “Uh, apart from murder a goblin and try to kill a child?”

  “Sorry, when exactly am I supposed to have attacked this kid?”

  “Tonight,” I said. “Before I went to Satan’s house. Everyone thinks I did it because I couldn’t give them an alibi, because my alibi happens to be a wanted murderer.”

  Ed frowned. “Wait, I’m your alibi for this attack?”

  “Yes?”

  “Then how exactly am I meant to have done it, given that I was with you the whole time?”

  Uh…

  “Uh…”

  “Sometimes you’re really dumb,” he said. “Besides, attack a child? I might not be the nicest guy you know, but I’m not a monster.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said. “You did murder people to get away with stealing a rock.”

  “If I hadn’t, you’d be shackled up in The Department’s dungeons right now,” he pointed out. “Without the stone, there’s no way you could have escaped from Phar Lap back there.”

  “That’s an insult to Phar Lap.”

  Ed nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I take it back. May Phar Lap rest in peace. My point still stands, though – without the Doomstone’s help you never would have been able to escape.”

  “Yes, but they would have figured out I was innocent eventually.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Yes!” Maybe! “Whereas now I’ve been seen associating with you, a known criminal – and murderer, no less – on the run from The Department. That Doomstone is really starting to live up to its name.”

  Ed rolled his eyes. “Fine. My point stands, though. In this particular instance, I am innocent.”

  Right. Well. That was good, right? Good that he hadn’t betrayed me. But then again…