didn’t have any iron on hand…
He shouted, “Come out and fight like a man!”
“I’m not a man.” I reached out blindly, found the ice bucket, heavy with grapes and melted ice. The rim and handle on the black lacquered wood gleamed with a silver sheen. Yes, maybe silver would do the trick. Come a little closer, chuckles. Give me a hug.
“Fight me!” Two voices spoke the same command—the mortal’s ire blending with the demon’s innate wrath.
I gripped the bucket, getting ready for the windup. “Don’t you think two on one is a bit unfair?”
“Fight me!”
“Come here and make me.”
He shrieked his unholy rage, and then I heard him stomp toward me. Charge of the Dark Brigade. I popped up and pitched the ice bucket at the ballistic human, catching him full in the face. The silver handle bonked him about a second before the melted ice and chilled fruit splattered on his skin…skin that immediately bubbled and smoked. He roared in either fury or agony, and then he swatted madly at his face.
Gotcha.
I took a moment to zip up my fly. Then I stepped around the wreckage strewn almost artfully through the ruins of the bedroom to approach the wounded demon. Under my feet, a collage of shattered glass sparkled amidst the chunks of smoking plaster and plywood. Love really was a battlefield.
The man had fallen to the floor, clutching at his steaming face and gibbering in pain. Interesting. The silver handle was nowhere near him, yet he was still reacting so strongly…Ah. Smiling, I scooped up a handful of stray ice cubes. Allergic to water, my, my. If I had any feelings, I would have felt sorry for the creature; having such an elemental sensitivity would crimp any demon’s style. But I’ve never been accused of being compassionate.
Water pooling in my hand, I squatted over the squirming form. “Need a towel?”
Beneath his clawed fingers, the flesh of the man’s face looked rather spongy. Hmm. Hope that’s not permanent. I didn’t think the human would be long on the mortal coil with his face slipping off his skull. The thought of all the red tape associated with accidental slaughter made my stomach roil. Damned bureaucracy would be the death of me.
He snarled, “Bless yourself, asshole!”
“Don’t suppose it’ll help to tell you there’s been a mix-up,” I said, juggling the ice from hand to hand.
Lowering his fingers, the Berserker glared up at me through the human’s red-rimmed eyes. “No mix-up, whoremaster.”
“That’s ‘Mister Whoremaster’ to you.”
He spat at me, but the thick glob sizzled and vanished before it touched my skin. Company perk: adjustable heat aura.
“Bastard!”
“Now, now,” I said, dangling a sweating cube over his face. “Play nice, kitty, or you get a bath. What do you mean, no mix-up?”
For a long moment, he stared his hatred at me, charged the air with fury so brutally raw that my flesh should have been flayed from my bones. Finally he said, “I was sent on purpose.”
“A snafu, then. I’ve got all the paperwork. She’s mine, chuckles.”
“No snafu.”
Oh, really? “Explain yourself.”
“Killers, the man and woman both.”
I’d known about the woman; there was a reason she was a client, after all. The man, though, was a surprise. Then again, I hadn’t bothered to research him. He wasn’t the one I was supposed to fuck to death. “What, they get off on the murder?”
“Thrill of the bloodshed.” His eyes gleamed, and a smile unfurled on his softening face. “The gospel of butchery. The ecstasy of violence.”
“Uh-huh.” I’d heard the Wrath party line before. “That’s lovely. But she’s still mine.”
“No, whoremonger.” He bared his teeth in a parody of a grin. “The flesh puppets, they were to kill you.”
Jaw clenched, I asked, “Kill me?” Humans, attacking a demon? Outside of some wildly popular television shows, that was unheard of. There had to have been a mistake.
“They were to bathe in your blood,” he said with a sigh of pleasure. “Then I was to slit their throats, claim them both for Wrath.”
Blinking, I repeated, “For Wrath?”
“Want I should speak in smaller words, rake?”
I didn’t know which was more insulting: that the humans had wanted to kill me, or that a Berserker was insinuating that I was stupid. A snarl on my lips, I crushed the ice in one of my hands and wiped it over the remains of his forehead. His squeal of pain was almost worth the mess of melted flesh on my fingers.
After his screeching faded, I asked, “Why me?”
Arms wrapped over his head, I almost didn’t hear his muffled reply. “Would be telling.”
I still couldn’t grasp that the mortals had wanted to slice and dice me. Me. That wasn’t in the Demon Playbook. Not that we had a playbook, but still…“She was my target,” I insisted.
“Murder is murder. The more, the better.” Panting, he peered out from his barricade of arms. “Kill two humans, kill one Seducer. All the same to Wrath. But destroying you, that would have given me pleasure.” He chuckled wetly. “You understand pleasure, no?”
I sat heavily on my haunches. Well, this just sucked angel feathers. Where did humans get off, thinking they could actually take down a demon? Next thing you knew, they’d be shooting me with silver bullets and flinging holy water on me. Idiots.
No, my client couldn’t have known I was a demon. To her and her husband—before he’d been possessed—I’d been just another flesh puppet, one whom they could play with and prey on. No more.
The man’s breathing took on a burbling sound. I asked, “You dying on me, chuckles?”
“You Seducers…all the same,” the demon whispered. “Clap-carrying…sluts…suck the fight…out of a body.”
Could I help it if I was a lover, not a fighter?
“Paperwork…keep you bound…for eons.”
“Ah, go to Hell.” I dropped the rest of the melting ice on him.
“Open your eyes, doll.”
My client’s eyelids fluttered, then opened. The confusion I saw staring back at me was like a shot of whiskey burning the back of my throat. Mmm. Straddling her hips, I rubbed against her, just once, just enough to send her body signals that her brain was still too fuzzy to interpret. Beneath us, the ruined bed protested but still held. I was planning on breaking it within ten minutes. Anticipation…
She blinked, tried to open her mouth.
