Divine and Dateless (35 page)

“Get in the circle before they get you!”

I arched a brow. “Huh?”

A loud crack rent the air and stinging pain lashed my backside. I yelped as I jumped forward. Rubbing my sore ass, I turned around and nearly fainted from fright. A creature with hooved feet protruding from beneath a black trench coat flashed two sharp fangs before striking the shattered door with a deafening crack of his glowing whip. In the blink of an eye, the door fused together and flew back on its hinges, slamming shut with a powerful
thud.

He waved a hand around the room. The candles lit, illuminating the shadows and revealing two other snarling creatures.

“Holy fuck.” I gasped. “Three demons.”

“I didn’t know angels swore,” the little girl said. I thought it odd she didn’t seem to be frightened.

She probably took my aura, pulsating on high alert, to be some sort of divine glow.

“Sorry, kid. I’m not an angel.” I rolled my eyes. “Not yet, anyway.”

And maybe not ever at the rate things are going.

I nodded toward the snarling monsters, who were circling the perimeter of the room, saliva dripping off their tongues as if they’d been stranded on a desert island and I was a quarter-pound bacon burger with extra mayo. “What are those things?”

“You’ve never seen a demon?” She said this casually, as if she was asking me to choose between chocolate or vanilla ice cream. What kind of a fucked-up life had this kid been living?

I emphatically shook my head. “No.”

I kept my gaze fixed on the biggest of the three, the one with flames for hands, smoke pouring out of his snout, and a spiny ridge of scaly skin going down his back. I got the feeling this was the dragon Sarge had warned me about. Damn. I really preferred my eyes to stay in their sockets.

“They can’t get to us yet,” she said. “Not until my stepmom breaks the salt circle.” She nodded toward the circle of white crystals that encompassed us.

My gaze flicked to the robed woman who was still lying on the floor in a motionless heap. “I hope she stays unconscious for a while then.”

My heart just about fell through my stomach when the sorceress moaned and moved her head.

I threw a glance behind me. The girl was sitting up, her legs dangling over the table and looking like she didn’t have a care in the world.

“What will they do to us if she breaks the circle?” I asked.

The girl didn’t miss a beat. “Take our souls to Hell.”

“I’ve heard of bitch stepmoms before,” I grumbled, “but this one takes the cake.”

“Hey, there,” I yelled at the demons. “Any chance you guys could back off?”

They answered with more snarls. One monster whose head resembled a piranha, revealed a mouthful of hundreds of razor sharp teeth, dripping with ooze I prayed wasn’t venom.

I took a shaky step back. “Okay, then.” Now would have been a good time for Sarge and the crew to come busting through the door to save me. Or maybe one of the three Grims Sarge told me about could start lopping off heads with his scythe.

As if Hoof Creature had been reading my mind, he snapped his whip toward the door. As soon as it hit the dull wood plank, it started oozing this glowing green sludge. The sludge spread rapidly, like a virus, encapsulating the whole door and the adjoining frame.

Well, shit. Nobody was getting inside that way now, were they? My only other option of escape had been reduced to one narrow window, draped in a heavy curtain.

The hooved creature cracked the whip again, sealing the window with the same sludge.

Looked like I was up shit creek, and my only method of defense against three ugly-looking monsters was going to be my wind, a power I’d only recently acquired and still didn’t fully understand. This was going to be fun. I sure hoped Hell didn’t have any blow-dryers.

I angled my head at the girl, who was looking at me with arms crossed and brows furrowed, as if I was a pretend ghoster who had no idea what the hell I was doing. She was a pretty smart kid.

“Don’t you know how to fight them?” she asked.

I looked at the demons. Dragon Demon flashed a devious grin before blowing out several rings of smoke. I gagged as I swatted the fumes away. The gas was so noxious, it made my head swim.

“I never got past yellow belt in Tae Kwan Do,” I said, struggling to breathe.

She turned up her pert little nose while fanning her face. “No, I mean with magic. You’re a spirit, right?”

I shrugged an apology. “Actually, I’m new at this whole dead thing.” No sense in pretending I was a seasoned ghoster. I was sure the demons could have seen through my ruse, anyway. The question was, how did this kid know I was a spirit? “How do you know about ghosts?” I nodded toward Piranha Head Guy, who’d created an impressive puddle of gooey saliva at his feet. “And demons?” Thinking back to when I was her age, my weekend hobbies had included dressing up My Little Ponies and taking my Barbies for a ride on Jack’s back. Drooling demons and black magic witches were the furthest things from my mind.

Rolling her eyes, she pulled back her shoulders. “I’m clairvoyant.”

I remembered Basil telling me clairvoyants could see the dead. Weird this little kid had such a power.

She waved toward her stepmom, whose head was now lolling side to side. “Can’t you knock them back like you did Lucia?” Not much longer, and the bitch would wake and break the circle. Then what? I should have knocked her out harder with that door. Then a thought crossed my mind. I could have tried to knock back the demons, but I was too terrified to point my hand in their direction. What if they knew some kind of magic that could reverse mine? As long as Lucia was out, the child and I were safe inside the salt circle. Hopefully, Sarge or Alpha Squad would break down the door and come save us soon.

I lifted my hand and knocked the sorceress’s head back with my wind, causing her to lose consciousness again, but I also sprayed the salt circle all across the floor.

Oops.

When Hoof Creature raised his whip, I blasted him before he could strike, sending him crashing to the ground as the whip flew out of his hand. Piranha Head Guy charged next, his razor-sharp teeth chomping up and down like a runaway paper shredder. My gust of wind hit him straight in his open maw, causing his wide, flapping lips to practically engulf his head as he fell against the wall.

Dragon Demon didn’t seem to be fazed by my powers. His eyes glowed redder than the fiery pit of Hell as smoke poured out of his snout. He eyed me like a snake preparing to strike, ripping up wood planks as he scraped his clawed feet across the floorboards. When he rushed me, I summoned a wind so powerful, it nearly blinded me as a bright light shot out of my fingers. Dragon Demon flew backward, kicking and snarling as he smashed through a wall and landed in a rusty bathtub.

I rubbed my hands down my jeans. My fingertips felt raw and sore, burning as if they were frostbitten, but hot damn, I’d just smoked three demons. I’d earned myself a deluxe manicure. Just as my head and chest started to swell with confidence, the kid screamed and pointed toward the gaping hole in the wall.

Dragon Demon was climbing through it, and the only thing on that ugly hide of his that seemed to be hurt was his pride. If I thought he looked ready to eat me before, that gleam in his ghoulish eyes told me he was going to skewer and roast me with extra spicy barbeque sauce first.

I took a steadying breath as I backed up and prepared to unleash another wind.

The child cried “Look out!” just before a violent crackle rent the smoky air.

I screamed as pain lanced up my hand, and I was yanked to the floor with a
thud
, my head hitting the ground so hard, I saw stars. Four red, glowing stars to be exact. It took me a moment to realize those stars were two sets of eyes; one was Hoof Creature, who had one of my hands strung up in his whip while he dug his hoof into my other hand. Dragon Demon stood next to him, laughing maniacally as I choked on the rancid smoke that poured from his snout.

And just when I thought my night couldn’t get any shittier, I heard the rustling of robes as the sorceress came to her feet beside them. Lifting her hands, she started chanting in some unknown language. I had no idea what she was saying, but her words lanced through me like a thousand tiny spears, causing me to writhe in pain.

My eyelids felt weighted with a thousand stones, and it took all my effort to keep them open, though I knew it was a losing battle. The smoke that filled my lungs was so thick, I could no longer breathe. I knew exactly what was happening. I was dying a second time, only I knew where I was headed would make level two look like paradise.

My last thought before my world dimmed was how sorry I was that I hadn’t listened to Grim. I’d let him walk away before I had time to come to terms with my true feelings. I cared for him, deeply, and now none of that mattered because I’d never see him again.

A violent crash, followed by a thunderous roar sounded behind me.

“Get your filthy claws off my woman!” A familiar deep voice bellowed.

I heard a high-pitched squeal, followed by a woman’s screams. I jerked up, realizing I was no longer bound by Hoof Creature. I scooted back against the wall when I saw the gleaming metal arc of Grim’s blade lop off Hoof Creature’s head.

I screamed as it rolled next to my feet. The glowing eyes were still open, blinking up at me. His long tongue came out and darted at my leg. I kicked the head to the other side of the room as another head landed at my feet.

What is with the dismembered heads?

Piranha Head Guy’s mouth nearly chomped off my foot before I sent it flying through the air with my wind. His teeth bit a gaping hole in one side of the sorceress’s skull, and then his head smacked the ground.

The woman stumbled and fell backward, her brains oozing onto the floor in a puddle of blood.

Freaking gross. I knew she was a bitch, but that was a hell of a way to die.

The little girl ducked beneath a stream of fire, swatting embers out of her hair as she raced to my side. We pressed ourselves against the wall, and I watched my man kick some major demon ass. He was butting the demon in the stomach with the blunt end of his scythe, and I wondered why he didn’t just chop off the monster’s head and finish him for good.

Then the wooden planks beneath my hands started to shake with violent tremors, knocking Grim and the demon to the floor in a tangle of fire and limbs.

The floorboards ripped open, revealing a giant red vortex. A deafening clap rent the air, and then an elevator the size of a phone booth jutted up from the hole.

Flames licked Grim’s hands, and he choked on smoke as he shoved the demon into the elevator. My heart froze when fiery arms reached out and gripped Grim by the collar, pulling him into the elevator, too. The elevator shut with a clap and vanished down the gaping maw.

“Noooo!” I screamed as I pushed myself to my knees and frantically crawled to the hole. What I saw took my breath away. The opening resembled a giant throat, a living, fleshy organ with an endless spiral of circular red rings that disappeared into oblivion, and it had swallowed the man I loved.

I was lying in a fetal position on the floor, sobbing profusely into my hands, when a strange shadow fell over the room. I looked up through a crack in my fingers to see two familiar eyes blinking down at me through the darkness.

“Shadow?” I asked.

“What happened here?”

“There were demons. Three of them.” I nearly choked on a sob as I pointed a shaky finger toward the fiery throat in the center of the room. “One of them took my Grim!”

I watched with a mixture of fascination and horror as the heads of the two decapitated demons rolled into the hole. Their bodies crawled like crabs while dragging Lucia’s corpse, before tumbling into the abyss.

The floorboards started rattling again, followed by the distant sound of rumbling thunder, as I struggled to my knees.

I closed my eyes and turned up my hands in a prayer pose, hoping the Prayer Call Center marked my pleas as urgent. “Please let it be my Grim coming back to me. Please, God, please.”

When the sound of thunder filled my eardrums with a deafening roar, and that phone booth elevator dinged open, I swear the wait to see who would step out from the smoky shadows felt like it stretched out for an eternity. I saw the gleaming scythe first, followed by a familiar pair of impossibly blue eyes.

I jumped to my feet and raced into his arms, sobbing against his chest as he held me tight. “When that demon took you, I thought I’d lost you forever.”

“It’s okay, Ash,” he breathed against my ear before kissing my temple. “I’m the Grim Reaper, remember? I deliver souls to the basement, too.”

Oh, duh. I’d forgotten. He’d probably taken that elevator on a daily basis, but still, I thought that fire demon would never relinquish his hold on him, or at the very least, burn out his eye sockets. I pulled back, examining my boyfriend. He was covered in burn marks and had a few cuts and bruises, but he was otherwise whole.

“Sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner.” He wrapped his arm around my waist as we walked away from the elevator. “This place was infested with demons.”