Sharon Karaa - A Familiar Problem (Northern Witches #2)

by Unknown

  I beamed with pride. Fearless, my demon, absolutely fearless.

  “Yes, yes, all in good time, my boy! You are still mine, aren’t you or did you defect? Can’t remember, too damn many of you these days” he murmured turning away. “Now where did I put that …?” he shuffled things round on the desk then walked round to the front, pulling open drawers and flinging the contents on to the floor.

  “Ahh!” he said, grabbing something and holding it up for our inspection. Damn it if it wasn’t a wand. It looked like a cheap toy from Toys-R-Us. And it was pink. With sparkly tassels.

  “Hold on to your panties!” God said, before waving the toy and transporting us instantly to the mountain range above, what I assumed was, Machu Picchu.

  We landed in the Sacred Plaza, overlooked by ginormous mountains. I looked about me and saw a million little lights as angels lined the buildings around us. Further afield, they sparkled through the mountains. Millions of them. More. The landscape was wall to wall angels. For the first time, I started to smile. This was going to be a walk in the park.

  God appeared beside me and raised his wand in acknowledgement as a cheer went up. Satan scowled and God, catching him from the corner of his eye, popped him one on the top of the head with the wand.

  Abaddon grabbed my hand and squeezed and I looked up at his smiling face.

  “Play nice, ok? No torture, just clean kills,” he said, grinning at me.

  I laughed and kissed his fingers. Zerachiel tutted, petulantly and I rolled my eyes.

  God pulled back his sleeve to reveal a Casio 5000, state of the art and retailing at fifteen pounds, stainless steel watch with a thick, black, leather strap. He raised his eyes, caught me looking at it and smiled.

  “Tells the time in five different worlds, all at once!” he smiled. “Slightly modified of course.” He frowned then peered closer to the screen, squinting.

  “Ahh…five…four…”

  I looked at Abaddon and winked.

  “…three…two…one!”

  God looked up, grinning expectantly. When nothing happened, he looked again at the watch, shook his wrist then placed his ear over the timepiece.

  “Typical woman, never on bloody time,” he groaned. “Probably painting her toenails or some such thing!”

  Just then, the skies went dark and the wind picked up. A vortex swirled in the skies above us, a tornado appearing beneath it, the tail end quickly finding the earth. It thickened as it picked up soil and vegetation, swirling madly and picking up pace. My hair whipped me in the face and I pulled it out of my eyes, not wanting to miss the look on Lilith’s face when she realised she had a welcome party.

  God looked up at the whirling mass. “Ever the drama queen! When will that woman learn?” he said, sighing, and then turning to face Satan. “No taste in women, have you? You couldn’t have picked a nice catholic girl from Wisconsin, could you? Nooo! You had to have the most devious succubus in Hell. What a disappointment!” he shook his head and turned back to the Tornado.

  Satan visibly shrunk at the harsh words from his father and for a moment I genuinely felt sorry for him. Then I remembered. He was Satan.

  Suddenly, the tornado sucked in on itself and with a pop, it disappeared, leaving a gaping hole in the ground. I stood on tip toe and looked over.

  “That should be big enough to get Lilith’s fake boobs through,” I said, squeezing Abaddon’s hand.

  As we watched, a demon hand appeared over the rim and slammed down in to the earth. It was black and furry with long, long and very dirty, fingernails. This demon could seriously do with a manicure.

  “I told you it wouldn’t work, you stupid fuck! I said we’d need more momentum.” Another hand came over the side and the demon pulled itself to the surface, turning back and reaching over the side with one arm.

  “Well grab it, you moron! We have to fix this now or our lives won’t be worth dying for!”

  “Like I said,” said God, siding up to me. “You want anything done, you do it yourself!”

  He straightened up and waited for the demon to pull his partner in crime up over the side then they both turned, looking into the hole and raised their arms, sending energy arcs back down through the ground. They stood like that for what felt like an age but was probably only a couple of seconds. They dropped their hands and stepped back as a gentle rumbling started up, the ground shaking slightly.

  “That should do it!” said the first demon, turning to the second then turning around and spotting us for the first time.

  “Oh fuck!” he said, as Abaddon separated his head from his body with a sabre.

  I looked at him and rolled my eyes, raising my hand and sending a powerful surge of energy directly into the eyeballs of the second demon, just as he turned.

  “Good shot!” said God, clapping delicately.

  “Since when did we start using weapons?” I asked, turning to Abaddon.

  The rumbling got louder and the ground shook violently. I almost lost my footing as a bright red light appeared above the portal. I watched in amazement as three demons flew from the portal, their black wings curling in-over as then came down to land, bearing Lilith in their arms. Show offs. Why didn’t I get wings?

  Lilith dusted herself off as soon as her feet touched the ground. Her shimmering red dress pooling in the dirt. “Damn those two, where’s the carpet?” she snapped then looked across at the two dead demons. “Serves them right!” she muttered then raised her eyes to Satan. She didn’t have to raise them by much. For a fraction of a second, shock registered, replaced quickly with a look of loving excitement. Man, she was good!

  “Darling! There you are!” she said, sashaying towards him, her fake boobs bouncing as she walked.

  “The gig’s up, bitch!” Satan spat. “We know!”

  Lilith stopped in her tracks and tittered. “You’re confused, darling, this is all for you!” She raised her arms and spun around, coming full circle to face him, smiling. “We bring about the end of days and you can take that holiday we always talked about!”

  Satan stopped, his jaw dropping, and then his eyes lit up. Not in a nice way.

  “That’s sweet of you honey, and I’ve got a present for you!” he said, smiling.

  His eyes glowed red and he zapped her in the chest with his death ray. Both fake boobs popped in synchrony and she looked down and screamed. This woman may well have had fake boobs but boy did she have big lungs. The earth shook and a lightning bolt streaked across the sky in response to the pitch and velocity. She flew at Satan as a stream of demons poured out of the hole behind her. Suddenly, it was man on man and I darted to the left to avoid a particularly nasty energy bolt. Looking up, I saw a hairy demon stalking towards me, his hands raised and his teeth, sharp, gleaming in the moonlight.

  I raised my hands and zapped him, right in the gonads. Worked every time. He dropped like a stone, howling in pain.

  “Clean kills!” Abaddon shouted as he swung the sabre in a neat arc and decapitated two demons at once. I stuck my tongue out at him as I vaulted over the back of a demon trying desperately to rip the wings off an angel and zapped him in the head as I passed, landing safely on the other side of his now twitching, but definitely on the way out, body.

  “Thanks!” said Zerachiel and I smiled, graciously as I back-heeled another demon in the gut then zapped him in the chest. Clean kills really were no fun at all.

  I had seven more kills under my belt, six of them clean and one, well... I just couldn’t help myself sometimes, before the voice of the Metatron almost burst my eardrums. He said one word. Just one. And everyone froze.

  “Enough!”

  God looked up at the giant angel beside him. “Thank you, I can take it from here,” he said, smiling, his arms crossed at the wrists like a little old woman holding on to her handbag.

  I looked around for Satan and saw him standing over the headless corpse of Lilith, her chest still smoking.

  Abaddon walked up behind him. “Someone should tell her
to quit, that shit will kill you.” he said. Satan started to giggle. Like a girl.

  “According to my watch…” said God and everyone turned to pay attention, “…Coronation Street is about to start. Now I don’t know about you, but I really don’t want to miss it! So! How about we agree a compromise and go home for our tea?” he said, turning to Satan.

  “But I only made one kill!” Satan replied, petulantly.

  “Yes, well, what’s one more missed opportunity,“ God rolled his eyes.

  Satan’s face turned purple. In fact it turned so purple it was almost black. His eyes lit up like molten lava and he turned on his father.

  “You know what? I’m sick to death of you always picking fault! Nothing I do is good enough is it? It’s always Jesus! Jesus this and Jesus that! Never a mention for me! You even care more about your precious humans than you do for me! Well, I’ve had it! We will not reach a compromise; we will fight to the death, like it says in your book! Lilith was right about one thing, it’s about time we brought about the end of days! And it’s about time you retired you stupid old bastard!”

  God looked at him. “You do realise, these demons here are fighting for Lilith and not for you don’t you?”

  A curious expression crossed Satan’s face.

  “Thought so!” said God. “They betrayed you, you stupid little man! What do you think about that?”

  Satan’s eyes bugged out of his head and he opened his mouth and roared. One by one, the demons around us started to disappear with a pop. There were pops going off everywhere. It was like a bowl of breakfast cereal at one point and I looked at Abaddon, worried. We were both demons, would we pop? Abaddon grabbed my hand and rushed across to Satan.

  “Master, you need to stop this! These demons only followed Lilith because she forced them to!”

  Satan spun round and faced Abaddon’s stomach, then raised his head.

  Abaddon tried again. “Master, if you kill them all, who will do your bidding?”

  Satan contemplated for a moment then sighed, his face slowly turning back to its normal red.

  “Abaddon, you’re the only demon to stand by me in my hour of need, I won’t forget it. You will now command my armies. We will rebuild! We will claim souls! We will rule worlds and reign havoc down on all of my father’s people!” He smiled, enjoying his little speech.

  I sucked in a breath. Reign havoc? I didn’t like the sound of that! Would that put us on opposite sides?

  God turned to his son. “So does this mean you’ve changed your mind about coming back home?”

  “Yes and you can keep your stupid fucking sheep as well! It does nothing but shit all over the place any way!”

  “Thank me for that!” said God, looking up to the skies. “A man your age, wanting to come home and live with his parents, it’s just not normal!”

  God turned and surveyed the carnage around us. “Well, that’s the balance of good and evil restored, I suppose. You go back to Hell and torture the damned; I go back to heaven and redecorate your room. Again!” He walked forward a few steps muttering to himself.

  “Sports cars! I ask you! Couldn’t even have been pictures of naked women, or torture even, can’t even do evil properly.” He shook his head as he continued to walk then disappeared in to thin air.

  Then he re-appeared, his index finger on his chin and a curious expression on his face. He walked up to Abaddon.

  “You’re welcome back, you know. Any time. Good job today, by the way!” He patted Abaddon on the arm and then turned and disappeared again.

  Satan turned to Abaddon. “You wouldn’t, would you?” he asked, a shocked expression on his face.

  Abaddon lowered his head and a knot formed in my stomach. This could go one of two ways. Shit or shitter.

  “Master, I have served you faithfully, but now, I think I’d like to take some time to re-evaluate what I want, spend some time with my demon,” he said.

  Satan looked at me and smiled. “Ahh, so that came off, did it! I always said you’d make a good couple!”

  He turned back to Abaddon. “Take your time, don’t rush, these things are complicated, I understand.” He winked at him and surreptitiously passed him a tube of KY jelly.

  “Might come in handy,” he said, winking again.

  “Let me know what you decide but you know you’re welcome home any time,” he said, then promptly popped off and disappeared.

  Demons and angels around us eyed each other suspiciously before deciding that perhaps going home for a fish and chip supper was better than ending up missing a limb. Or a head.

  To my left, an angel reached down to the demon lying at his feet and offered his hand. The demon took it and the angel pulled him up.

  “Good fight, mate. Maybe next time!” said the angel.

  “Yeh, I nearly had you there! Nice touch with the backflip thing mind you, might practice that one myself!” The demon dusted himself off and hobbled across the Plaza, jumping in to the still open portal. Other demons started to follow as angels took to the skies.

  Zerachiel walked across to us, one wing bent at an awkward angle and a red gash across his forehead. He stood in front of Abaddon.

  “It was good to fight on the same side again,” he said, looking at him. He lifted his hand and offered it to Abaddon. For a second, I thought Abaddon would run him through with the sabre. Then he smiled and took the hand, shaking it once.

  “Yeah, I’ll see you around, zeekie boy!” he smiled. Zeekie boy? Saints preserve us!

  Abaddon turned and took my hand. “Come on sweetheart, it’s time to go home.”

  15 - No more bottles of beer

  Two days later…

  I lay on the rumpled sheets, still panting and very naked, sweat gleaning off my sated body as I listened to Abaddon singing in the shower. I swear I had to teach him another song. If I had to listen to one hundred bottles of beer one more time my head might explode. Or his. Sometimes it was still difficult to control my temper.

  I lay there, thinking about how I’d changed over the last few weeks. Falling in love had been the tip of the iceberg. I still struggled with my emotional side but Agnes had said I would mature in to it, pretty much like a child who learns not to hit the other kids over the head and steal their toys. Maybe I was developing my super-ego and reigning in my Id, as Sigmund had put it. Developing a moral compass, as Selina had explained. Learning not to be a selfish shit, as Agnes had clarified. I sighed. That was all well and good but why did humans have to have so many emotions? I swear they made up new ones every day, just to make things nice and complicated.

  I listened as Abaddon’s booming voice got louder and louder as he approached the bedroom door. I guess it was my turn for a shower now. The others were all waiting patiently downstairs for us to finally tell them what had happened in Macchu Picchu. We’d had other priorities. For two days. Agnes had become increasingly vocal in her impatience and I could hear her, even now, as she stamped around the kitchen, complaining about bits of plaster all over the place and how some people could learn to be more considerate of the neighbours.

  Abaddon came in to the room wearing a fluffy, white towel wrapped around his waist, droplets of water glistening on his taut abs. I ogled at his six pack as he walked over to the bed, drying his hair on a hand towel, the muscles in his arms bulging in all the right places. I swear I could watch this demon all day.

  His brown eyes smiled down at me and I’m pretty sure the towel twitched. We’d fully bonded now and drinking his blood had been mind-blowingly orgasmic for both of us. I’m not entirely sure but I’d be prepared to put money on that being when the ceiling in the living room had finally given up the ghost. I know it was when the bed collapsed. It meant, of course, that now not only could he read my thoughts, he could experience my emotions as well. And I, his. Right now, he was thinking about how much he loved me. No, scratch that, it was how much he loved my breasts.

  “Say it!” he demanded, his brown eyes twinkling and a loving smile on
his face.

  “I want you inside me, right now!” I replied as he threw his head back and laughed, ripping off the towel and launching himself on to the bed.

  Maybe they could wait a little longer.

  THE END

  (For now!)

  Read on for a free preview of Bite The Big One!

  Dear reader….

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also hope that you identified with at least one of the characters. Which one was it? No, don’t tell me…let me hope that millions of Natalias, Agnes’, Laurens and Selinas are out there, maybe even a Daniel, Zerachiel or an Abaddon or two.

  Seriously, I love hearing from readers and especially love to hear your take on the characters, so if you fancy a chinwag, drop me an email at sharon.karaa@hotmail.co.uk.

  If you will excuse my boldness, I’d like to ask you to please, please review this book on Amazon. Book reviews can really make or break a book and reviews really help to spread the word. You can leave a review by visiting this link – Review A Familiar Problem.

  Rest assured, Agnes and the gang will be back. I am currently working on the third book in the series and at this moment in time, the title is What Goes Around, but that may change. I’m not well known for making my mind up. In the meantime, if you enjoyed this book, why not try Bite The Big One. I’ve added a sample for you to try!

  Best wishes,

  Sharon x

  1 – Look Who’s Talking

  “This is the last straw, Becky McAllister, the LAST straw! You get your arse over here and undo whatever it was you did this time or I swear to you, I will shave my head and join a Buddhist colony!”

  “Chill! I’ll be over as fast as I can, I promise! In the meantime…just…”

  “Just what, buy him elocution lessons?”

  “No, stupid, just don’t let him out in public!”

  I gritted my teeth in frustration then slammed the phone into the cradle and turned to glare at Monty.