Corpse Curses

by Jen Ponce

  In the case of Lodge 10, the Keepers wouldn’t be much of a threat. They weren’t there because they had any real talent, after all. They hung out and drank more often than they patrolled, though their lack of work ethic hadn’t stopped them from committing atrocities against witches whenever they could.

  The Pig was busy, it looked like, though a few magi trickled out as we watched the front. Losing those few made me sad. I wondered what they would think when they woke in the morning to find that an entire bar full of their friends had met with a brutal and bloody end?

  I turned my attention back to the demons. “Any magic you know that can jam phone signals?”

  Abaddon cocked his head. “Take out your device and attempt to call someone.”

  I pulled my phone and called Alice, knowing she wouldn’t pick up. She always turned her phone off after eight because she refused to allow anyone to cut into her gaming time. It rang like normal until Abaddon snapped his fingers. The ring cut off with a whine and then there was only static. “Perfect. You can block the signals until they’re down?”

  “Have no doubts about my prowess, little mortal.” The feathers on the red phoenix that took up half his chest flexed when he moved, making it look like the bird was flying. It made me want to touch it, touch him, to see if his skin felt as smooth, his muscles as hard as they looked.

  His knowing grin made my cheeks heat. I cleared my throat and looked away. “One thing. We knock out the bartender and wait staff, but we don’t kill them. I don’t mind taking out the magi, but I won’t kill the innocents.” As innocent as they got, anyway. I knew a lot of the magi’s families were just as bigoted as the magi themselves, but unless and until they were accused or caught harming a witch, they were safe from me. “I’ll go in the front and find out how many untouchables there are, how many magi. You two can block the entrances so no one can get in or out. Yeah?”

  Lux leaned in and gave me a kiss that melted me down to my toes, then slapped Abaddon on the arm. “Let’s go have some fun, eh?”

  Abaddon’s eyes gleamed and for a moment, I thought he might try for a kiss, but then they both left me to block the entrances while I walked across the street. I took my mama’s Lodge pin out of my pocket as I went and stuck it on my shirt front. The magic in Poppy’s rune disguise made it look like it was tacked onto a shabby jacket lapel. I hoped none of the demons hanging around the Lodge 10 magi’s necks would pay me any mind.

  I pushed through the door and made my way to the bar, ignoring the scattering of men sitting on stools along its length. I ordered a shot of whiskey and then settled back to case the room using the mirror behind the bartender. Every one of the men—and two of the women—had lapel pins like mine. There was a single woman near the back who didn’t have a pin, and of course, the bartender and one waitress, who didn’t look amused by anything or anyone.

  Three innocents and twelve Keepers. I couldn’t imagine the headlines tomorrow if we pulled this off.

  The Lodge would know someone was after them, after the demons they wore around their necks. It would make Poppy’s and my plans for revenge more difficult and I knew I should call this off … but that dark part inside me couldn’t, wouldn’t say no to this. It wanted it.

  I wanted it.

  I drank the rest of my whiskey, paid for the shot, and pushed away from the bar, headed to the bathrooms and then casually passed them to the back door. Lux was there, his hellhound’s eyes gleaming in the near darkness of the back hall. “Three innocents.”

  “I’ll spell them. They can sleep through the carnage and wake in time to see the aftermath.”

  “The ones without the pins,” I said, and he nodded. I wasn’t sure why I was hesitating, not going back out to start the mayhem. An attack of conscience? Nervousness working with these two and not on my own? It was strange not having Poppy in my ear making snarky comments.

  It was strange not having a solid plan and a clear picture of what these people had done to earn my wrath. I was a killer, had taken out targets without a hint of remorse because I believed that what I was doing made sense. Here, though, I was planning to murder these people simply because they were members of Lodge 10. Sure, I knew tier 2s and 3s hung out here, knew they had more than likely done something horrible but still … were they truly deserving of what would happen next?

  “You okay?” Lux asked, touching my cheek with a rough hand.

  “Yeah. Just psyching myself up for the next step.”

  “We can wait if you’d like to gather more information on them, but I can tell you this, Korri. They have demons trapped in those crystals around their necks, which means they have used demonic power to hurt others. I can guarantee it.”

  Adam would have told me demons lie; it was their power. Demons convinced us to do bad things because, according to the demons, those things weren’t bad at all. Of course, Adam was an ass-nugget and his god Ventus was a monster. I certainly didn’t think he was a model of ethical behavior.

  “I don’t want to wait. Just getting things straight in my head.”

  “Good. The back door is spelled shut. No one will be escaping that way. Abaddon has the front blocked off and is currently drawing stares. We should go before he has all the fun.”

  21

  Excitement rose in me as we walked back into the bar, not only because I would be opening some throats tonight, but because I was doing it with others, with those who understood the need to kill. It was novel, it was heady, and I wondered what I’d done to deserve such a delightful treat.

  Lux raised a hand.

  The three pinless patrons dropped at a snap of his fingers. The men at the bar looked at each other, at the bartender on the floor, at the strange man standing at the front, shirtless and smiling.

  I wasn’t sure when they realized they were in for a fight. Maybe when Abaddon reached out with a tattooed hand, grabbed the guy nearest him by the neck, and shook him like a dog.

  I pulled my knives and threw one into the neck of the man closest to me. He gasped, hand going to the steel, but I was already moving, knocking another man away from the concealed weapon in his jacket, pinning him up against the wall.

  A scream from someone behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see sparkling energy tear a hole through one of the magi and cleave a table in half. I ripped the medallion off the neck of the man I had pinned then tossed it hard to the ground. It broke, the demon trapped inside boiling free, its scream of rage drowning out the fear.

  I stepped back as the demon turned on its master, diving for his belly, drilling into the soft flesh with claws that ripped and rent.

  I got hit in the back with a powerful thump of magic, which sent me sprawling over two tables and tumbling into another man’s legs. He fell on top of me, then turned, snarling. When he saw my pin, he paused, confused, and I thrust my knife into his gut, feeling the warm blood spill out over my hand.

  “Who are you?” he growled.

  I didn’t answer, just yanked my knife and stabbed again. His hands reached for my neck, but I batted them away and rolled behind him, using his body as a shield. There were two people behind me who might have hit me with magic, one of the female Keepers and a man who looked like he might just shit his pants.

  A new Lodge member? Perhaps we’d spare him.

  Or not.

  I ducked as the female tossed another volley of magic at me. The man I ducked behind screamed as it sizzled his flesh. A bit of the magic caught my elbow too and burned like Hell, but a tattooed hand came down on me and put out the fire in an instant.

  I had a moment to admire Abaddon’s crazed grin and then I was up and running for the woman, tossing another knife at her to try to stop her next spell. She hissed at me, yanking back before the knife could do more than graze her. “Who the fuck are you?” she screamed, then threw more magic at me.

  I countered her attack, then Lux had her. I reached for her medallion, snatching it from her neck despite her thrashing and her curses. “What will this de
mon say about you, I wonder?”

  She went pale. “Don’t! You don’t know what you’re messing with—No!” she shrieked as I busted it with the hilt of a knife. The demon that rose was a god-awful thing, its shape in tatters, dripping black acid that sizzled when it hit the wood of the floor. Its eyes were hollow brands burning with Hellfire. “No!” she screamed as it engulfed her.

  Watching someone get dissolved was not on my top-ten awesome things to do. It was definitely in the top-ten grossest deaths of all time though.

  A crash behind me reminded me I shouldn’t be fucking off right now. I turned to see Abaddon taking on two Keepers, dashing their magic out of his way as if it were nothing. Maybe it was nothing to him.

  A gunshot made me spin, then Lux was knocking me out of the way when another bullet whizzed through the air. He took it in the arm with a grunt of pain, then lashed out with his magic, throwing the man into the mirror behind the bar. It shattered, the glass falling in a cacophony of sound. I yanked Lux to his feet and fussed over his wound until he healed it without a second thought. Right. Demon. They weren’t all-powerful, but damn they were close.

  I kissed him, then ran at the next Keeper, slashing at him with my blades, making his blood spatter against the far wall, on the tables, the floor. Another Keeper tried to have a go at me, but his boot slipped in his cohort’s blood and he went down on his ass. I landed on top of him, snarling. “What will your demon have to say about you?”

  “The Grand High Theurge will find you and make you—”

  I stabbed my knife into his neck, and he let out a shriek of pain that quickly faded into a gurgle.

  I sat up, panting, and looked around the room.

  There was no one left alive but the newbie Keeper who sat, shell-shocked, at the corner table, his face covered in blood.

  I twisted to look at Abaddon. His blond hair was red. There was blood and Hell knew what else in his beard. His grin was fierce as he stood over the ruined bodies of the Keepers. “They paid for their sins in pain and fear.” He reached down and snatched one of the medallions off a Keeper’s body and crushed the crystal in his hand. A demon, this one more fully formed than the rest, appeared, horns curling up and away from its forehead. When it turned, I saw that this one was female.

  “Thank you for releasing me,” she said, her eyes glowing as red as Lux’s, though darker. They landed on me, interested, curious.

  “Go below and change your name, sister,” Abaddon told her. “You’re free.”

  She spun up into the air and vanished with a pop.

  We released the rest of the demons, most of them mere mist or with barely a solid form. They, too, were sent below to change their names if they could to keep from being summoned by the Lodge. How many demons were enslaved? How many remained in Hell? I made a mental note to ask my new companions next time there was a quiet moment.

  The bar wasn’t quiet, even though no one spoke. Death screamed from every surface. Red smears of color spattered the remains of the mirror and when I picked my way over bodies to look behind the bar, the man who’d been smacked down by Lux lay there, broken glass sparkling around him. I saw myself reflected in hundreds of shattered pieces, my face bloody, my eyes alight with what I’d done.

  What was wrong with me that I’d liked it?

  Hands grabbed my hips and I didn’t have to look to know it was Lux. His hands slid to the front of my pants and undid the snap and zipper, then shoved them down around my ankles. He tested the waters, so to speak, and found them wet, and then, with one quick thrust, he was inside me. I let out a gasp when he entered me, everything going from zero to oh my god in a second. His thrusts were hard as if he wasn’t able to contain his lust anymore.

  Did blood make demons horny?

  Did it make me horny?

  I was gasping out my orgasm but still he filled, filled, filled me, fucking me right there in front of Abaddon and the newbie, right there amongst the bodies. “Oh god, fuck me harder,” I managed, my fingers curling around the far side of the bar as he obeyed my command, driving his hips into mine, making mine smack against the wood. When he came, he came hard, his fingers gripping my hips to the point of pain—good pain, but pain.

  I hoped we wouldn’t get knotted, not in front of Abaddon. He hadn’t knotted me since the first time, had been careful to pull out at just the right time. He eased his cock out of me and I felt a strange disappointment. Surely I wasn’t weird enough to want Abaddon to see me caught on Lux’s cock?

  “You look magnificent when you’re being fucked,” Abaddon said gruffly, his voice hoarse with his own lust.

  I turned my head so I could see him, not moving away from the bar, not yet. I was still enjoying aftershocks, no way did I want to move and disrupt those. “Thank you. You look pretty good covered in blood.”

  He grinned, then pointed to the corner where the newb sat. “What do we do with him?”

  I sighed and shifted, pulling my pants back to my hips. My disguise was still in place, which meant the poor guy just watched middle-aged male me get plowed by a demon.

  That was going to leave some nightmares in his psyche.

  If he walked out of here alive, of course.

  “Can you wipe his mind?”

  “It looks like it’s already been wiped. Any more vacant and he’d be drooling,” Abaddon said. He sidled closer, his sheer power tingling against my skin. “I want a taste, little mortal.”

  There it was. Desire crawled through me at his whispered words, meant only for me. I’d been beginning to think he didn’t have those kinds of desires. “Is it the blood?”

  “Oh, it’s the blood,” he agreed, then leaned in close, his nose almost, but not quite, touching my cheek. “I want to drink it off your body.”

  Strangely enough, I wanted that too. What the Hell was I becoming?

  “We can wipe his mind, but we’ll have to mess with quite a few of his memories to make sure he doesn’t work his way back to this bar on this night.”

  “I say we let the demon out first, let it tell us if he deserves to live.” I didn’t want to give him another lease on life only to find out he was the worst of the bunch. Appearances could damn well be deceiving.

  Just look at me, after all.

  I took the crystal from around his neck and broke it. The slightest wisp of demon appeared, its form so nebulous I wasn’t sure we’d get anything from it. It was Abaddon who leaned close and listened to words I didn’t hear. When he straightened, he looked the tiniest bit annoyed. “He’s claimed this one has done no wrong and has, in fact, stood up for the witches. Refused to frame a woman the Lodge wanted accused of stealing.”

  “So we wipe him, eh?” Lux asked. “I can do that if you two want to … play.”

  Abaddon took my hand and twirled me into his arms, then twirled me back out to the main part of the bar. My boots slipped in the blood and I would have gone down if he hadn’t caught me up tight against him. His lips burned against mine like a brand, his fingers hot against my skin, as if he were heating himself up.

  I didn’t mind it. Not in the least.

  “You have blood on your cheek,” he murmured. Then he licked it clean from jaw to cheekbone. “I want to taste you, too.” He tipped back my head, exposing my neck. When his lips touched the skin there, I thought I would feel the bite of his teeth, but it was only the burn of his skin against mine.

  “Taste me,” I begged.

  “Yes,” he whispered, then snapped. The music came on, the sensual thump of an island song and he smiled a wicked smile, then gyrated into me. His leg slipped through mine and suddenly I wasn’t wearing a middle-aged man suit anymore, but a dress with a short skirt.

  I wasn’t wearing underwear either.

  “You’re a devil, Abaddon.”

  “Ah, little mortal, you finally noticed.” He spun me out, the skirt whirling up to show off my … assets. When he pulled me back to him, our hips moved together with the music, my breasts pressed up tight to his chest. He g
uided me across the floor with ease, moving me where he needed me to go even though I didn’t know the steps. His hands burned through the thin fabric of my dress and I wanted them on my skin, but he seemed content to dance.

  It was its own pleasure.

  It was only when Lux joined us that I realized he had been waiting.

  Lux pressed up against me from behind, fitting my ass against him as we moved. No more spins but that didn’t matter with two sets of hands on me. Abaddon’s mouth claimed mine again, Lux’s mouth on my neck, both of their cocks pressed against me with a promise they’d be inside me soon.

  When we went down to the floor, they were on either side of me. I was on my back, pressed against the bloody wood, their hands on my now naked body, my hands on their now naked bodies. The world spun around us as they cupped my breasts, their fingers squeezing my nipples, their movements in perfect synchronization. It was a strange, heady sensation. I felt wrapped in magic as everything they did, they did together. Then they moved, Abaddon between my legs, his lips on my inner thighs, his teeth grazing my skin.

  And when Lux’s lips claimed mine, Abaddon bit deep into my thigh. I gasped into Lux’s mouth, my fingers curling into Abaddon’s hair. His bite set off sparks in my body and then lust took over. The lights dimmed, the world narrowed to the two men who were touching me … and then Lux whispered, putting his hand over the crystal on my chest. Yellow light flashed and then Malphas was there, his grey eyes on me.

  “Will he be okay?”

  “Within Abaddon’s circle, yes, and for now,” Lux murmured.

  Dear crow balls. Malphas’s fingers slid into my hair, tightening on the strands until I gasped again. “Oh, love, you are so beautiful.”

  I cried out as his mouth came down on me, as Lux’s mouth suckled at my breast, his fingers finding my clit while Abaddon drank from my thigh. When I came, magic exploded from me and the demons gobbled it up. Power bounced around the room, thrumming through me, echoing off them.

  My head spun.

  “Don’t take too much, Abaddon,” Malphas chided.