Grave Mistakes (Hellgate Guardians Book 1)

by Ivy Asher

  Iceman stares at me for a moment like he’s not sure if I really mean it, but then he gives me a nod and reaches for my hand. I put my palm in his big blue grasp, and he pulls me out of the office toward a back door that leads outside. I can feel the heat and the humidity greedily waiting to get me in their clutches again, and I silently thank fate for giving me the Gate in Sandpiper instead of this one. My hair is not meant to live in this climate.

  “I want you to hang back and observe. Don’t freak out and don’t draw attention to yourself,” Iceman orders as he pulls me outside and around to the back of the bar, our running footsteps pounding over the sagging wood planks beneath our feet.

  “I’ll stay out of the way,” I agree, blowing off his no freak out command. I mean, who can control something like that? It’s not like I love when it happens either.

  We run away from the bar, up a grassy hill, passing pinprick trees that stretch thin and high above us. Iceman never lets go of my hand, and I’m grateful for that, because I would’ve fallen on my ass three times over already. My feet sink into the marshy ground as we hurry, and it’s hotter than Hades’s sauna out here. I’m dripping sweat again, clinging to Iceman’s refreshingly cool hand and wishing I could stuff my face up his shirt and rest my heated cheeks against his cold back.

  At the top of the hill, I notice craggy headstones jutting out from the ground as we run toward a stone building that looks to be the size of a small stable. There’s a sign on the door that says Outhouse and another sign claiming Out of Order slapped over the top. I release an amused snort, but the sound dies when a roar fills the air all around me, and I feel my blood turn to ice in my veins.

  A creepy tittering, like the sound a hyena makes, echoes all around us. But before I can even try to guess what the hell makes a noise like that, the door to the outhouse blows off.

  A startled scream bubbles out of my throat as Flint, Alder, and my other three demons pour outside. Behind them, at least two dozen things come rushing out, looking like taller versions of Cousin It, shiny golden brown hair completely overgrown down to their toes.

  The group spreads out like they’re each claiming their fighting space, and I watch the Cousin It demons as they hyena cackle at one another like they’re coming up with a plan.

  “Stay here and stay low,” Iceman orders.

  I drop down on my stomach, wishing the tree trunks were thicker, but I settle for hiding in the tall grass. I watch as Iceman runs down to join the rest, and his presence does not seem to please the Cousin It demons.

  In another context, the long-haired demons would be funny looking. I keep picturing them with sunglasses and fedoras, and I can’t help but imagine what Grumpy Lurch would do if I brought one back for him.

  I chuckle at the image, but then promptly choke on it when the Cousin It demons shed their long-haired outer layer like they’re taking off a coat to reveal the nasty looking things they are beneath. They look like something out of J.K. Rowling’s imagination. Only these fucked up, life-sized house elves have shiny black skin that looks uncomfortably tight and goat heads with no horns. Add to that the chill-inducing hyena tittering, and I’m a solid six on the freaked out scale.

  Like someone just yelled, “Are you ready to rummmmmmmble?” and then hit the starting bell, both sides of the battle rush each other at the same time. They slam into one another in a flurry of demon bodies, and my mind can’t seem to decide what it wants to focus on.

  Jerif grabs two of the goat fuckers in his bare hands, and they both scream as they start to melt and then burst into flames from his touch. Iceman channels his inner Elsa and throws a ball of blue light at a goat demon, immediately freezing it solid. He then smashes it, shattering it to pieces with his fist.

  Echo is slinking around from one dark patch to another, choking demons to death with their own shadows like a really fucking creepy Peter Pan. He looks like he’s laughing and cheering as he goes, and I can’t even begin to decide what I think about that. Crux...well, Crux is just punching goat demons. I wait to catch a hint of his abilities, but he just looks like he’s in street fighter mode.

  A shout draws my attention, and I bend some grass away to see Flint running straight toward a handful of demons. They try to attack him, but it looks like his skin is as hard as the marble it resembles. He starts bashing in skulls with his rock-like fists, and I look away, not needing that visual to haunt my nightmares late at night.

  “Just do it, Crux!” Jerif yells out, and I have to work to find them in the melee of bodies.

  “You know I hate it! I’m fine!” Crux argues as he punches another goat fucker in the head, knocking it down.

  Unfortunately, Crux turns away just as the thing snaps right back up and rakes its claws down his arm. I gasp as Crux grits out a yell, and outrage and anger rips through me. Apparently, I don’t like watching him get hurt.

  “Stop being a baby and just do it,” Echo yells out at Crux as a goat head rolls away from him, and the body it was formerly attached to collapses to the ground at his feet. Shadows curl around him with menace.

  “The clean up isn’t worth it!” Crux counters.

  “We’re outnumbered, so stop whining and do what needs to be done to maintain the balance,” Iceman orders gruffly, and I watch as Crux releases an exasperated exhale.

  “Fine!”

  I watch intently, wondering what Crux can do and why he’s so obviously against doing it. He stops, feet planted and hands slightly lifted up at his sides. He seems to take a breath, and then he crushes his hands into fists. At that same exact moment, the five demons who surrounded him suddenly jolt and then...it’s like they get sucked into themselves. One moment, they’re all tight black skin and goat heads, and the next, they’re...inside fucking out.

  Eww.

  I watch as Crux visibly shivers, and the attacking demons around him fall to the ground. With their insides no longer inside of them, it’s...messy. I can see why he didn’t want to do this trick.

  Grimacing, I look away before I get the urge to vomit as the bodies made up of blood and organs fall to the ground with sickly, sloppy noises. I purposely look anywhere else, and my eyes snag on a patch of yellow that’s surrounded by a horde of demons. I can barely make out Alder as he’s attacked, and panic shoots through me. I look around to see if anyone is going to come help him, but everyone is fighting their own demons.

  Did more of the Cousin It bitches come through the Gate?

  It looks like twice the number of attackers than I originally counted, and I’m freaking out. Alder is a Guardian, so what the hell happens to the Gate if he’s killed? Will it break and let things like these goat assholes in all the time? Fuck no. I don’t know what these little shits want to do here in this realm, but it’s sure as fuck nothing good.

  With the scythe firmly in my grip, I push up from my stomach. I want to help, but I don’t have any magical abilities, and I don’t want to be a liability. I debate for a moment about what to do, but then I see Alder throw a bunch of demons off of him like a bull bucking off its rider.

  He looks fucking pissed, and I have to bite back the cheer that wants to burst out of me when he throws more demons away from him. But they just keep coming, more and more, seemingly spilling out from the Gate that poses as an outhouse.

  That’s when Alder reaches up and plucks the flower from behind his ear. He smiles, the look filled with both triumph and promises of pain, and then he blows on the flower in his hand. The entire thing dissolves into fine yellow dust and rides the air, tiny particles delicately landing on the demons all around him.

  In a heartbeat, every demon touched by the yellow pollen suddenly stops. Some of them keel over, while others claw at their throats. Their black heads puff up, like air is getting trapped in their skulls, and I watch as all of them slowly choke to death, falling to the ground one after the other.

  I’m so stunned by the brutal beauty of what he can do that I just stand there and watch as he dusts another half dozen demons a
t Flint’s back next.

  A bellow so loud it hurts my ears suddenly reaches me, and I can practically feel the pain in it. I whip my head around, searching for the source, and my heart stops when I find Iceman on the ground with what looks like a spear in his side.

  Oh, fuck no!

  I’m running down the hill in a blink. I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do, but what I’m not going to do is just sit here and hide while good demons get hurt. I zero in on him, willing my feet to go faster, which, in hindsight, is a big mistake. I trip over something and fall forward, my momentum too fast to stop. My body flips, tumbling down the hill like I’m fucking Jack and Jill, while Newton’s First Law of Motion makes me its bitch. I keep going, ass over front like some cartwheeling freak, every rotation feeling like I’m getting pummeled by the earth and sky simultaneously, plus everything else in between.

  Grunts and groans come out to the tune of my fall as I flip over and over again, and just when I think I’m getting close to the bottom, the scythe—that’s somehow still in my hand—acts like a pole vault by sinking just right in the dirt and sending me flying.

  I scream as I shoot like a rock from a slingshot into the fray. Just as I’m about to crash into a crowd of hyena laughing demons, the scythe that I’m pretty sure has fused itself to my palm seems to come alive, and a massive curved blade slides out of one end and a dagger shoots straight out of the bottom of the other.

  Well, great. I’m sling shooting myself right onto the blade of my own weapon.

  With a girl-scream for the record books, I manage to tip the scythe forward as I go crashing into a group of goat-headed demons. They go down like they’re pins, and I’m the graceless bowling ball that just got really fucking lucky.

  Surprisingly, I don’t break anything on my body, although I don’t think I can say the same for the goat demon I landed on. Panicked, I try to get back on my feet, because I just catapulted my stupid ass into this fight, and now I’m actually going to have to keep myself alive.

  Luckily for me, I’ve got decent bat skills, so that’s exactly how I swing at the first demon who runs at me. What surprises the fuck out of me though, is that the blade on my scythe barely nicks him, but he goes poof! Just like that. The fucker turns to a cloud of ash that falls lazily to the trampled grassy ground.

  Holy shit!

  Shocked, I barely have time to register what I did before I’m instinctually batting at another demon that’s charging me. The evil hyena cackle pours out of its maw as it leaps, and I swing, this time managing to slice the thing’s leg. In another ashy puff, it’s instantly gone too.

  I shove the surprise of what I just did—twice—away and start swinging willy nilly, hitting anything and everything around me. I can’t help the Xena scream that bursts out of me as three more demons turn to ash, and in a flash of swinging scythe and lalalalalas, I’m soon surrounded by a cloud of demon dust as I go to town on the Cousin It motherfuckers.

  I have no idea what’s happening to me in this moment. I can only describe it as an out of body experience as I ash one group of demons and then go hunting for more. I’m ruthless. I’m fast. I’m fucking badass as I vent every murderous, inky black rage I’ve ever had in my twenty-eight years of life, and let me tell you, that’s a lot of pent up shit.

  I take down another group, chest heaving, and turn around just as something stalks toward me out of the shadows. I tense and ready myself, raising the scythe, and move to swing it, only to screech to a stop when Echo screams, “Whoa, whoa, it’s just me!” He puts his hands up like he’s surrendering, and I step back as a whoosh of breath leaves me.

  “What were you thinking? You don’t just walk toward me when I’m in Xena mode!” I chastise. “You gotta call out to me and tell me who you are. What kind of idiot walks straight toward a swinging scythe?” I admonish, but the beaming smile he gives me dampens my irritation.

  “Holy Rings of Hell, you were a force, Delta,” he tells me excitedly as he pulls me toward him. “That was the fucking sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I stretch my arm out to keep the scythe as far away from him as possible, but he doesn’t seem bothered as he wraps his strong arms around my waist until my chest is pressed tightly against his. He presses his hips into me, letting me feel the evidence to bolster his words that he does, in fact, think I’m sexy when I scythe-stab demons.

  I look up at him, and he’s already staring down at me with need bleeding out of his pure black eyes. “Knew you could fucking do it,” he murmurs with pride, and the sound of his voice makes my nipples get hard as waves of desire flash through me, telling my vagina to set thrusters at full speed.

  Echo licks his lips like he’s readying them for me, and I suddenly feel like if he doesn’t kiss me in the next five seconds, I’m going to implode. I lick my lips too, like I’m flashing a green light, but my tongue comes back gritty.

  Ew. I must be covered in ash.

  And that’s when reality hits me...I’m covered in ash.

  “Oh fuck! Ew! Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew,” I shout as I push away from Echo. He looks hurt and confused, and that makes me feel horrible, but the most pressing issue right now is that I have dead demon in my mouth and all over my clothes, and skin, and hair. Fuck. I start spitting and trying to wipe my face, but every inch of me is covered in it. It’s like trying to wipe off lipstick from your face only for it to smear all over.

  I drop my scythe to the ground, where it immediately turns back into the non-bladed stick, and I rip my shirt off. I flip it inside out before trying to use the few ash free spots to wipe my mouth.

  “What happened?” Crux asks Echo as he joins the growing crowd of Hellgate Guardians who are witnessing me lose my shit.

  “I think Echo tried to kiss her,” Jerif deadpans.

  “Har har, asshole. This has nothing to do with me. I think she’s freaking out because she killed a bunch of demons,” Echo supplies incorrectly.

  “No,” I growl out. “I’m freaking out because they’re in my mouth!” I tell him, completely panicked. I spit on the ground, trying to get the horrible chalkiness out, not at all concerned that I’m flashing everyone my bra. “Shit, my taste buds are covered in demons!”

  But as I continue to try to wipe my tongue and shake out the ash in my shirt and hair, it then dawns on me that I’m freaking out about the ash instead of freaking out about the death machine I just turned into. So...I go ahead and start freaking out about that too.

  Turns out I’m not only a demon, but I’m also a fucking monster who turns into a psychopathic scythe-wielder with zero remorse.

  Perfect. Just fucking perfect.

  16

  “Delta, why are you crying?” Crux asks me, his green eyes wide. He looks positively stricken, like the sight of my tears is scarier than the horde of demons that just broke through the Hellgate.

  “I’m just...feeling...a little...emotional right now...okay?” I say, my words broken up between little gulping sobs.

  “Right. Umm…” Totally out of his element, he reaches down and pats my shoulder like I’m a lost puppy. Jerif smacks him upside the head.

  “Look, I’m tough sometimes, okay? I just bitch-slapped some real-life demons with my walking stick blades and didn’t even bat an eye. But now I need to fucking process, and if my process includes some tears, that does not make me fucking weak, alright?”

  “Okay…” Echo says with placating quickness, looking like he swallowed some of the ash that I’m currently dipped in.

  All six of the Gate Guardians are looking down at me where I’m huddled outside the “outhouse,” which is really just an empty wooden structure that happens to be their Hellgate. I’m still shirtless, my arms covered in streaks of gray, and every so often, I sneeze from the ash that’s lodged in my nostrils.

  The guys aren’t much better off. Alder has yellow pollen dusted all over him, Flint’s marbled fists are bloody, and Jerif reeks of sulfur and fire. But Crux? He looks even worse than me, with bits of gore
stuck to him, matting his once blond hair so that the front of it is red. He even has a piece of what I think are intestines stuck to his bicep.

  I sniff and swipe my cheeks with my T-shirt that’s still balled in my hands. At least my tears are helping wash away some of the death dust. “Why do you still look so good, Iceman?” I demand. Flint snickers at my nickname for the big blue demon.

  Despite the visible tear in his suit jacket, Iceman somehow still looks like he could walk into a boardroom and become CEO. He just shrugs at my question and slips his hands into his pockets, showing no signs that he was shish-kebabbed earlier.

  I get unsteadily to my feet and try to shake out my shirt again, but now it’s saturated with both ash and tears. There’s no way I’m putting that back on.

  “Eyes away from our fifth,” Echo growls, and my head snaps up to see that both Flint and Alder are staring unapologetically at my chest. I’m not even wearing a cute bra. It’s just plain purple cotton, and unless you like the ash self-tanner look, hot mess doesn’t even begin to cover my current state.

  Flint rolls his eyes. “Not your fifth yet if she ain’t been inducted in,” he says, which only seems to piss Echo off more.

  The tattoos on his arms start to shift and spin, and just when I think Echo is going to try to strangle the other demon, Iceman steps forward. “Easy,” he says as he smoothly feeds my arms through the sleeves of his black dress shirt. He buttons it up for me, but I don’t miss how he leaves the top few undone. “Thanks,” I say as I roll up the sleeves.

  “You’re welcome,” he replies, slipping his suit jacket back on and leaving it unbuttoned, showing a delicious view of his bare blue chest chiseled with muscles.

  “I killed a bunch of demons,” I say, sniffing.

  “It was only about seven…” Jerif says behind me.