Page 28 of Hellfire to Come (Infernal Regions for the Unprepared #5)
“You are the one with a flashlight, Davon, so why don’t you tell me.
I’m not playing games when I tell you to stay back.
Look at my face.” I added an additional scowl for good measure, shuffling on my knees to hide the Kishi sprawled a couple of feet away, deep enough in the shadows not to be visible for the moment.
“What about it?” I could’ve laughed at the weariness in that loaded question, but he did stop coming closer.
“Does it say approachable to you right now?”
“It never does,” he muttered, and I grinned at him like a fiend. “This is crazy. You don’t get to boss me around after you dumped me.”
“I already parted with my right boot, and I love these boots. You wanna try the left one? I can nail you in the forehead or in the jingleberries. Your choice,” I threatened while internally freaking out.
Being a bitch to Davon wouldn’t work much longer.
It never did. He would do the opposite of what I told him just to spite me. I could feel it.
“Hello,” a female voice called from the entrance of the warehouse, and I deflated like a balloon recognizing my best friend Sissily.
About freaking time. The demon was dazed, but he wouldn’t stay down much longer.
And if he woke up with Davon here, I had a nagging feeling my body parts would join those scattered around the warehouse in jars.
Courtesy of my grandmother, of course. The demon didn’t have shit on her when that witch got pissed.
“Stop right there. Police.” Davon pointed his gun and flashlight at Sissily’s face. Protecting her poor eyesight with a forearm flung in front of her, she blinked at him as if ready to say something.
“Is this your dog?” I rushed to say before she screwed me over. You never knew what would come out of her mouth. “It might be injured, it almost bit me.”
“Hazel …” Davon started in a warning tone.
“Yeah, oh thank goodness you found him,” Sissily gushed, overdoing it a little, if you asked me. Whatever Davon wanted to say was silenced, thank the goddess.
“If this is your dog, Ma’am, I must report it, I'm afraid. It attacked a civilian, and it’s considered dangerous.” Davon, the good cop he always was, started reading Sissily her rights while she rolled her eyes.
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Oh, shut up human.” Her hand flicked when she had enough of his word vomit, and she zapped him hard enough the poor guy convulsed a long moment before he passed out, the gun and flashlight clattering on the concrete.
Then she turned her blue peepers my way and gave me a once-over.
Although her blonde hair was smooth and all in one place, and her pencil suit was sharp enough to cut a finger off, Sissily had no right to grimace at me.
Someone should tell her “I bit a rotten lemon” was never a good look on a chick. Just saying.
“If you say a word Im’ma boob punch you.” Pushing off the ground, I swayed, and for the second time I failed to glue the ripped silk sleeve together. “Are you alone?” It was improbable, but a girl could hope.
“The others are not far behind me. I had a feeling you’d jump right into this, so I made sure I came before anyone else. What do we have?” She sashayed closer, giving Davon a disgusted look.
“Kishi demon.” I glared at the asshole who finally stirred with a groan.
“How do you find yourself in these situations, Hazel?” Ignoring her, I was still messing with the sleeve, so with a sigh, she took her jacket off and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” Limping a couple of steps forward, I plucked it from her fingers. “And I wasn’t kidding about the boob punch. I’ll even twist your nipple until you scream if you don’t keep your voice down.”
“You do know we’re not five anymore, right?”
“What’s your point?”
I could tell she had so much to say just by the tightening of the tendons on her neck. Her throat worked, her mouth opening and closing until she gave up and shook her head.
Yeah, exactly my sentiments.
“Where’s your other boot?” She followed the elaborate swirl of my finger until it pointed at the demon.
My beautiful, precious boot was sticking out of his throat, covered in black blood and gore.
Then she arched an eyebrow, which should’ve looked stupid on anyone except me, but on Sissily everything looked good.
If she wasn’t my best friend and if I had magic, I would’ve hexed her with warts.
I hoped the girl knew how lucky she was that I loved her like a sister.
What surprised me more was she loved me back the same, even though I was an asshole. At least most of the time.
“I’ve always told you fashion is a weapon if you learn how to use it. Did you believe me? Of course you didn’t.” My smirk earned me a twitch of her mouth. If anyone knew Sissily they’d know it for the huge win that was. She never smiled on a job.
“Danika is going to lose her shit.” We both shivered at that.
As if saying the name conjured her, my grandmother’s power preceded her presence, filling the warehouse with magic and saturating the air with the strong scent of ozone.
“Hazel Byrne.” I flinched when my name echoed in the silent building, and Sissily copied me sympathetically. “Show your face this instant.” My grandmother swooped in like a hungry vulture honing-in on a roadkill.
Me. I was the roadkill.
Thankfully, the lights came on inside the building, blinding me momentarily as thumps of many feet scattered throughout the warehouse.
Our coven mates spread around the vast space like ants.
I blinked like an idiot a few times until my vision cleared, and that was when I saw the look on her face.
Cold, emerald eyes sharp enough to cut a diamond rolled over me from head to toe, assessing and judging while telling me she found me lacking in many ways.
I gulped and tugged Sissily’s jacket closer.
Then Danika’s unreadable gaze fell on Davon, who took a lesson from the Kishi demon and was starfishing it in the middle of the damn place.
She stilled at the sight of a human cop and stabbed me with a glare afterwards.
“That was Sissily, not me.” The words burst from me so fast I almost spit on my lower lip.
“Snitch,” my best friend hissed, but her chin jutted out and she stepped closer to me.
“Every bitch for herself, remember?” I mumbled behind my hand when I raised it to wipe my mouth in case I was still drooling. Those Manhattans were buzzing in my head like a cloud of bees and making my tongue too thick for my mouth while I swayed where I stood. Oh boy was I screwed.
Sissily snorted but coughed to cover it up.
Her reaction earned me a disapproving look from my grandmother, which I felt all the way to my soul.
The woman saw everything no matter how hard I tried to hide it, and her hearing was better than a vampire’s.
I didn’t have to guess because I knew she heard us.
I was the best fighter they had in our coven.
Hand-to-hand or weapon combat, I could take them all down, and that included our high priest. But thanks to my lack of magic, I somehow always ended up looked down on, especially by Danika Byrne.
Even when I did get the job done. One demon stabbed in the throat with a designer boot, case and point.
“We will speak back at the coven.” With flare, she spun on her heel, her long dress billowing behind her as she stormed out of the warehouse and left me grinding my teeth.
“Let’s go.” Linking her hand through mine, Sissily tugged me along with her because she probably assumed I would run.
And honestly, I thought about it for like two point five seconds.
It was pointless since everything I had was in the house I shared with my grandmother, but it sure was tempting.
I wobble-limped alongside Sissily, glancing at my coven mates as they packed everything, including the Kishi demon I apprehended.
“She will chill out by the time we get back.” My best friend gnawed on her lower lip, not believing her own assurances.
“I don’t care.” My shrug didn’t fool her since I was patting my hair to smooth it and probably looked constipated just thinking about facing my grandmother behind closed doors.
Because Danika Byrnes never chilled. Like ever. My grandmother was born with a stick so far up her ass the goddess herself couldn’t find it if she tried.
She was going to hand my ass to me, and I had no other choice but to take whatever she dished out. A sinking suspicion that it would involve cleaning churned in my stomach right beside the booze.
There was a first time for everything, though. She might’ve grown a heart in the last twelve hours. Or took it from some random jar and shoved it in her chest. My head tilted to the side, I contemplated it for a second.
One look at my grandmother’s disappearing form, with those stiff shoulders and that head held high, killed that hope. There was no escaping a punishment.
With a groan, I followed my best friend into the belly of the beast.
The whole way back to the coven, I kept trying to picture my eyeballs floating in a jar on top of my grandmother’s desk.
They were a nice shade of golden honey, if I did say so myself. I’d have them in a jar too if I didn’t need them.