Pound of Flesh: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Half-Demon Warlock Book 1)

by J. A. Cipriano

  Before long, the crash of music vanished and my humming was all I could hear. That, and the sound of my own heart beating.

  As I walked through this room, now oblivious to the thumping club music surrounding me, I found death sprinkled through the crowd.

  There were some accidents on the horizon. If I was a betting man, I’d have gone with a drunk driver. Then again, when it came to car accidents these days, people seemed just as willing to let texting do vodka’s work.

  There was also a little bit of sickness, which is always sad in a crowd this young.

  But there was only one murder, only one whiff of rancid trash in this club. As my eyes popped back open, I headed toward it.

  I’d barely taken a step when the familiar weight of a mouthy imp landed on my shoulder.

  “Took you long enough,” Gary said, leering at me with a toothy, fanged stare.

  “I ran into some trouble at the door,” I answered, gesturing back to the entrance and the very likely still frozen thug on the other side of it.

  “Did you, Governor?” he asked, his voice taking on a fluty accent. ”The guy you ate was English?”

  “Among other things,” I muttered, realizing my voice had taken on a cockney twist.

  It happened sometimes. I’d keep residual traits of the person I’d just feasted on. They didn’t last long, and they never seemed to be anything too deep or disturbing. Though my hair did turn a deep purple for a couple hours after that night at Lollapalooza.

  “I’ll have to keep my mouth shut for a while then, won’t I?” I asked, sounding like a Ringo Starr who had just finished a plate of bangers and mash.

  “Yeah,” Gary snickered. “God forbid you use that accent to get laid for once. There’s some prime human tail in this play, Roy Boy. I mean, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

  “I get laid plenty,” I answered, zooming toward the source of the murderous energy. It smelled so strong it took all my willpower not to hold my nose.

  “I bet you do,” some long-legged brunette said, winking at me. I grinned at her because it was easier than explaining I was actually talking to the imp on my shoulder.

  Also, because she wasn’t exactly hard to look at. Not by a fucking long shot.

  “Hit me up sometime, Big Boy,” she said, tracing one hand down the V of her low cut top as I moved passed her.

  “Did you hear that, Big Boy?” Gary asked, nudging my neck with his scaly elbow. “She wants you to hit her up. I’d bet from behind.”

  “We’ve got work to do,” I answered, weaving through the crowd. The girl was certainly tempting enough and the idea of ‘hitting her from behind’ wasn’t one I’d toss out of my head most of the time.

  But this wasn’t most of the time. Renee, a bright and good woman, practically a star of justice in Atlanta’s corrupt, demon ridden night sky, was going to die if I didn’t act. I didn’t have time to waste thinking about carnal pleasure.

  “You suck!” Gary said, shouting into my ear. “And not even in the good way. This is why you don’t get laid.”

  “Tell me what happened. Where’s Renee?” I asked, my eyes sliding over to Gary. I gave him my “I mean business” look. Admittedly, it wasn’t usually effective, but I was hoping, just this once, he’d do me a solid.

  “Renee?” He shook his oblong, emerald head at me. “Getting her tight, little ass in trouble. See for yourself.” Gary’s long arm pointed to the left. As I followed the direction of his gnarled finger with my eyes, the smell of murder grew stronger.

  Renee stood only a few feet away, dressed in a tight black dress and high heels. Her hair spilled onto her bare shoulders, bouncing as she ground against some skinny red-haired guy with a big nose and an exceptionally punchable face.

  I was right. She did clean up nice. Real nice.

  But that didn’t mean she was in trouble. At least not at this particular moment.

  Death was definitely coming for her, but unless “death by humping” was a fad I hadn’t heard of, I couldn’t see where Renee was in a lot of trouble.

  So why did Gary call me all frantic and shit?

  “What am I missing, Gary?” I asked, glancing back at him. “Aside from her obviously shitty taste in men. Because it looks to me like all she’s in danger of is doing someone she’s going to regret in the morning.”

  “Look closer, English Muffin,” he answered and his eyes twinkled. Actually fucking twinkled. “Cause if you don’t get your head out of your ass, I ain’t sure she’s going to have a morning.”

  Gary grabbed my head and turned it forcibly to the right.

  “Really look, asshole,” he said, holding me in place. “Like really.”

  I ‘like really’ looked, and it hit me like a punch in the face. There was energy coming off this redheaded dude… and the guy next to him… and the guy next to him.

  They were all demons, and they had her surrounded.

  Bouts of anger and a sort of responsibility from this woman that I couldn’t quite account for filled me, along with a sense of dread.

  “Oh, bollox!”

  6

  As I stood there watching Renee grind against a demon, I was almost too shocked to move. I mean, okay, she obviously had really terrible taste in men, but that wasn’t why. No, it was because demons aren’t usually pack creatures. There’s usually too much anger, too much pigheaded pride for them to be around one another for more than a few minutes.

  Seeing two in the same place at the same time was odd enough... I could count the times it’d happened on one hand. Somehow, someway, a full half dozen surrounded the seemingly drunk and gyrating Greek ADA. It filled me with both shock and a sort of ‘Fuck it’ certainly that let me know two things for sure. A: getting out of this would probably be difficult and B: ‘Fuck it’ was probably the correct response for something like that. That’s right, I said it. I should have turned my happy ass around and walked the fuck away. Fast. Then I should have driven home and forgotten all about Renee.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” I muttered to Gary, who was three inches away from my face and huffing rancid breaths into my face.

  ”Me either,” he answered and his response scared me on a wholly different level. I mean, okay, I was in the know, but Gary could fit what I knew under his fucking toenail. ”These master-class assholes usually keep to themselves, but something’s not right with them, Roy Boy. And I think I might know what it is.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, running a hand through my sandy hair and letting my thumb and forefinger rest at my temples. This wasn’t good. Not by a fucking long shot, and the music in this place wasn’t helping. Crappy music was crappy. And it was entirely too loud.

  “They ain’t looking over here,” Gary said, crawling from one shoulder to the other and using the back of my neck like a gymnast might use a pommel horse.

  “Do you want them to look at us?” I asked, flexing my shoulders and trying to redistribute his weight. Someone had been going a little heavy on the rodent corpses lately. ”Because I sure as shit do not want that. The way I see it, surprise is the only card we’ve got left to play. Because there’s no way in Hell’s half acre we can take out six demons at once.”

  ”Yeah, but that’s the way you see it, Roy Boy,” Gary said, leaning so far forward, I thought the top heavy idiot was going to careen to the floor. “Why aren’t they seeing it?”

  “Make more sense,” I commanded, my eyes still trained on Renee and the demons. For all intents and purposes, they just seemed to be dancing. There were no signals being passed between the demons. At least none I could see, anyway. And, aside from the trace elements of demonic energy coming from them, they didn’t seem to be too threatening.

  If not for the sheer number of them and the scent of murder wafting around this place like fresh cut farts, I’d have thought they were just trying to blow off a little demonic steam. It’d been known to happen, after all.

  Demons loved seducing humans. It was almost an urban l
egend in the supernatural community. You didn’t think all those garbage “vampire gets the girl” novels came from nothing, did you?

  Still, their numbers bugged me, and if I didn’t act, Renee was going to get murdered. There was no denying that.

  “Don’t you think a homely cop with a green imp on his shoulder should garner at least a cursory glance?” Gary asked, nudging my neck with his pointed little elbow.

  “Dammit!” I winced away. ”I think you drew blood.” Shaking my head, I had to agree with him though. “You’re right,” I said, narrowing my eyes at the crowd. “I mean, not about the homely part obviously, but they should be looking over here. The fact they’re not means--”

  “That they can’t see me,” Gary interrupted. “Yeah, I know, dude. That’s why I brought it up. Geez. Get there faster.”

  “But they should be able to,” I said, narrowing my eyes. Demons knew about imps, just like vampires knew about werewolves, and mermaids knew about ghosts. It was “Scary Stuff 101.” So what was going on here? “So long as they know about your existence. And what sort of demons don’t know about imps?”

  “We’re about to find out,” Gary said, nudging me with that damned razor-blade elbow again while motioning at the crowd with his other hand.

  That red-headed dumbass had wrapped his arm around Renee, and he was guiding her toward the back exit. Shit was about to get real.

  I had to stop her. If she got outside with this guy, the rest of the demons would be waiting for her. She’d never see tomorrow, and the thought of that pulled at my insides painfully.

  I needed to find a way to get her away from them without arousing suspicion while keeping my decidedly not-homely self out of their combined crosshairs.

  But there was only one way to do that. I was going to have to light this bitch up. I needed to cause a distraction so big and bold, it sent every drugged up hard body with daddy issues stampeding for the door.

  Luckily, I had just the cohort to help me with such an endeavor.

  “Hey, Gary,” I said, tension rising in my voice. “Remember what we did that night in Acapulco?”

  “Tequila?” he answered, glancing toward the bar expectantly.

  “After that,” I said, my eyes still trained on Renee and the flame-haired demon. They were getting closer to the door with each passing second.

  “Oh right. That,” he grinned a devilish, fanged grin. “Okay, but you know what you got to do.”

  “Gary,” I protested, even though I was going to do it, because, well, when you need an imp to do what only an imp can do, you’re not really in a position to be making demands.

  “You want to get the juice, you got to squeeze the lemon. Now tell me what I want to hear.” He perched himself up on my shoulder, ready to jump off as soon as I said the word.

  Unfortunately, the word was embarrassing as hell.

  “Fine,” I muttered while rolling my eyes because Gary was an idiot. “Pikachu, go!”

  As Gary leapt off my shoulder, I scanned the room again.

  He rushed through the club on all floors, looking like some huge, toxic-waste-covered rat.

  When people told the story later, it would very likely be that some horrific rodent or deformed dog rushed through the club. For the poor club owner, it would very likely mean at least temporarily closing up shop. Atlanta had some pretty strict health inspector laws, even for clubs. This story was sure to set them off.

  But that was a price that had to be paid, which to be fair, wasn’t being paid by me, so it was all gravy. Besides, Gary was having so much fun, and I’d have been a horrible person to deny him.

  The dancers’ reactions were slow at first. After all, this place was as crowded as a crappy department store on Black Friday, and the music was deafening in both decibel level and sheer awfulness. But once the first couple of girls started to shriek and run, it was on like motherfucking Donkey Kong. If bouncing around the world has taught me anything, it’s that there’s nothing quite like a good old fashioned stampede.

  Panic cut through this place like a knife through soft cheese left out in the sun as people rushed off in every direction, looking for the door.

  It was chaos but, thanks to my refined “murder sense,” my eyes never left Renee and her red-haired demonic escort.

  I inched closer to them as the hysterical crowd worked itself into a frenzy.

  An exceptionally light nerved group of women with big hair, short skirts, and ridiculously high heels made a play for the back door. In doing so, they broke in between Renee and the demon, separating them for a few precious seconds.

  Bless their collagen protected hearts.

  Seeing my opportunity, I bridged the gap between Renee and grabbed her arm while pulling her sharply toward me.

  “Get the hell off me!” she said, trying to jerk her arm free of my grip.

  She didn’t sound as drunk as I thought she would. Was it possible she had this kind of legendarily bad taste, stone cold sober? Surely not…

  “Calm down,” I said, looking her over, trying to make sure my hand was tight enough on her to keep her in place but not so tight it would hurt.

  Her eyes caught mine, and it was as though she was just now looking at me.

  “Detective Morgan?” she asked, eyes widening in shock. Then she pulled even harder. “Let me go this instant.”

  I couldn’t allow that. For one, we weren’t nearly far enough away from that demonic Raggedy Andy, and secondly, if we stopped now, we’d get rolled over like Mufasa in the Lion King… not that The Lion King’s my favorite movie or anything.

  “We have to keep moving, Renee,” I said, still pulling her along. This was much harder than it needed to be. Why was she fighting me?

  “My name is Assistant District Attorney Cypress to you,” she spat back, still trying futilely to free herself from my grasp. She could pull all she wanted to. I had two feet and seventy pounds on her. She wasn’t going anywhere. ”And are you English now?”

  “That’s not important,” I answered in my admittedly confusing accent. I just figured we were on a first name basis, given I just watched you shake your booty and all.” I shook my head, pushing out a side door and out into an alleyway.

  The air outside was nippy and stunk of decay, which made sense because we were standing beside a row of dumpsters overflowing with trash.

  “Those men you were with are bad news,” I said, trying not to sound as fed up with her as I felt

  She scoffed at me, and I let loose of her. Part of it was because she was pissing me off, but mostly it was because I knew she wasn’t in as much danger now that we were outside.

  Before I could blink, Renee rushed back toward the door. I threw myself in front of it, blocking her. How desperate was this chick, anyway?

  “Did you hear me?” I asked, my eyes growing wide with disbelief. “I said those douches you had surrounded yourself with are trouble.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” she said, pushing hard against my chest. She was stronger than she looked, fiery too. It was a good thing my back was already pressed against the door. Otherwise, I’d have had to face the humiliation of a girl half my size knocking my ass down.

  “Why do you think I’ve been tailing them for the past week?” She pushed me again. Damn. I really was blind about this wasn’t I? How had I not seen the game she was playing? “Now get the hell out of my way!”

  “Absolutely not!” I growled. Well, I tried to growl and sort of ended up sounding like an English guy who was pissed because someone let his tea cool too much.

  This accent was going to be the death of me.

  Then her words sank in. “What the hell do you mean? Why would you be tailing them?”

  “Yeah pretty,” a voice said from the end of the alley. “What’s the tea bagger talking about?”

  The red-haired demon stood at the end of the alley, his five friends behind him.

  Okay. So this was going to be the death of me. No way was I going to take on this many demons
and see the other side of it.

  Forgoing the fact I had just been called a “tea bagger,” I stepped in front of Renee, blocking her from their line of vision.

  “Pound the pavement,” I said, motioning for them to leave. “I’m not going to ask you twice.”

  Like a reaction to some really horrible American Idol audition, they all started laughing in unison. It started to piss me off because these idiots were really busting a gut about this.

  I mean, come on. I was intimidating. I was scary, dammit.

  I felt a whoosh as Renee rushed by me. I tried to grab her, but she was a slippery little thing, and before I could get my fingers back around her arm, she had pulled a cute little pistol out of her purse.

  “Where’s Nickolas?” she asked, her voice terse and flat as she aimed the gun at the lead demon like she knew how to use the thing. Interesting.

  If my command made them howl with laughter, Renee’s threat might have been enough to send them off into complete blissful insanity.

  She aimed the gun down and fired a warning shot at their feet.

  It was sudden, startling and, to be frank, more than a little arousing.

  “I’ve got more bullets than patience, boys,” she said, moving even closer to the demon herd. Poor thing had no idea just how many bullets she’d need to put even a dent into one of those bastards. “Now somebody better give me some answers, or you guys are about to have a lot of holes where holes don’t belong.” Her next words were a bark. “Where is Nickolas?!”

  The name flashed back through my memory. Nickolas Cypress. It had been on the paperwork she’d dropped back in her office. It started to make sense now. This Nickolas guy, probably her husband, had found himself on the wrong side of these demons. He had probably gotten himself killed, and now his wife was about to meet the same fate. Of course, because I was a raging moron, I was going to follow her headfirst into it.

  ”Doesn’t ring a bell,” the red-haired demon said, grinning wildly as he began to slowly bridge the gap between himself and Renee. “Though, I meet a lot of people, I only remember the ones with an ass like yours.” He chuckled. “Turn around. Show Daddy what you got one more time.”