The Vengeance Demons Series: Books 0-3 (The Vengeance Demons Series Boxset) Page 13

  “Uh-ah, you’re not getting this one.” A voice said from behind me.

  I turned, and there was Madeleine Abrianna Lex, her arms folded over her chest.

  “Hello, Maddie.”

  “Don’t call me that.” She snarled, “So the rumors are true. The little half-breed is trying to earn freelance markers.”

  “Not trying, already got most of them under my belt.” I grinned.

  “Then you wouldn’t mind if I take this one.” She elbowed me out of the way. “I could do with some extra allowance. Why should you get all the credits? I became a laughingstock after the ball, thanks to you.”

  “Hey, back off.” I rubbed my ribs. “I harvested this work fair and square. I have the right to this vengeance.”

  “And who’s going to be your witness? Are they going to trust a daughter of Lex or a trickster?”

  Madeleine grabbed onto the doorknob, turned it, and was suddenly flung against the opposite wall of the hallway. She winked out of this plane before she even slid to the floor.

  Wow, I guess the other rumors were true, there were indeed invisible faeries who regulated vengeance rights. There really was a faery for everything.

  Quiet as a mouse, I opened the door and found Curt sprawled on the sofa in front of the still-on television. He was sound asleep, six empty beer bottles scattered around the living room floor, waiting to trip anyone not paying attention to where he or she was going.

  To be on the safe side, I chanted a temporary Multiplier spell to raise the intensity of his inebriation as if he’d taken in eighteen beers instead of six. In other words, he was dead to the world.

  I did mention I’d packed ropes with me, right? Thanks to some rather bizarre online videos on full-body Japanese rope art, I managed to tie Curt up nice and neat. His chest seemed less secured than it should be, according to the video, as the ropes couldn’t exactly crisscross over a cleavage he didn’t have. But overall, I thought I did a pretty good job.

  With the potential threat secured, I went searching for the puppies.

  And found them sleeping in crowded, filthy crates stacked up against the balcony side wall. There were two metal crates in each row and four in each column, which meant a total of eight cases of young puppies exposed in the open without even a single blanket in sight. My upper lip pulled back from my teeth, and I almost couldn’t stop myself from snarling. Poor animals, it did get windy and chilly at night, even in the summer.

  Then at the bottom of the stack I found a crate that broke my demonic heart.

  A mother dog was nursing five puppies, her eyes vacant of hope. But when she saw me, she lifted her head and growled at me. The warning was clear—touch her pups, and I’d get it. I had to respect that kind of grit, even though I was the bad guy in her eyes.

  And could I really blame her hostility? How did it feel, to be forced to become pregnant over and over again? To have one litter after another, bond with them, only to see them taken away every single time? That must suck.

  I gave the mother dog what I hoped was a reassuring look, then I opened one of the top crates and took down a large bowl of murky water with a thick layer of dog hair on it.

  I went into the living room and dumped the water over Curt’s head. He woke with a start, the effect of the Multiplier spell long gone.

  “Curt, or whatever the hell your real name is, it is time to pay for your sins. Please note that the vengeance to be exacted tonight is specific to your role in this puppy mill operation. It does not absolve your guilt in other acts you might’ve committed, towards animals and otherwise. May you endure your Vengeance with grace and contemplation.”

  “What the f—” Curt struggled against the ropes in vain. They always struggled during this part. Nobody liked to take their punishment lying down, no matter how much they knew they deserved it deep down.

  “Oh, and I’m taking the dogs with me.” I added, dropping my formal tone.

  “I’m going to kill you, you little bitch!”

  “Oh, I’m so scared.”

  I gave Curt his Belinda rights, then with great care sprinkled him with the faery dust. Almost immediately his eyes started watering and he sneezed. Hello, severe allergy to cat, dogs, and every other furry animal in the world. Safe to say his career in the puppy mill business was over.

  I jumped out of the trajectory of his very gooey sneeze. “What vengeance I do tonight, I do out of my own free will and as a nominally charged service to the human community on this plane, paid for by the Concord Council.”

  With the punishment properly dished out, all the animals’ suffering and pet owners’ heartbreak caused by the puppy mill through the years, which Curt had been carrying around in his soul, were ready to let him go. See, vengeance was in a way as good for the punisher as it was for the punishee. That was why every now and then a vengeance demon would come across a target who had enough conscience and self-awareness to recognize his or her own guilt, and wanted the vengeance done and over with.

  I took out a small flask and directed the negative energies into it. It was just enough to fill up the single marker bottle. I closed the flask, slid it into my front pocket and patted it. That’d pretty much wrap up the vengeance.

  I went up to Curt’s back and loosened the rope so he could climb his way out of the complicated knots. Eventually. There would be plenty of time for me to get the dogs and be on my way.

  “Those dogs were going to get me a good price. Screw you to hell!” Curt spat.

  You know the kind of target I mentioned earlier, who felt bad about what he or she had done? Curt wasn’t one of them. Not by far.

  Then I saw the empty beer bottles on the floor, took another look at Curt’s swollen-shut eyes, and got an idea. With the tip of my toe I pushed the bottles into a rolling position, directly in his path.

  I wouldn’t call that a display of my trickery side. Just being a little creative with my vengeance, that was all.

  ***

  Something was wrong. I felt it the minute I stepped onto the balcony.

  I approached the crates with caution. At least the dogs inside were all accounted for. But they looked at me through the little metal doors quietly, their ears perked up in alarm, as if they too could sense that something was amiss.

  I looked around me. Streetlamps bathed the small rectangular space in a dark shade of yellow. The sound of city traffic was at an ambient level this time of night. A car honked, followed by someone’s curses. Inside the dark apartment, rope rustled as a sneezing Curt struggled to pull free. Nothing seemed off, but the hair on the back of my neck stood at attention.

  I closed my eyes and sent my senses out. There was an almost negligible energy signature here. Almost negligible because it was at a consistent but low level, much like the city traffic noise being dismissed by the conscious mind. But now that I’d honed in on it, I could tell that it was expertly masking something a lot stronger.

  The essence of a full-fledged vengeance demon.

  Was it Enid, observing my progress? Or someone a lot less cordial, maybe Madeleine finding another way into the apartment or sending Cousin Fred in her place? Spying on a demon during vengeance was considered a major social faux pas, but such rules wouldn’t apply to Enid. Fred and Madeleine wouldn’t care about that in their bids to get back at me.

  Humming in pretended casualness, I proceeded to take care of the post-vengeance cleanup. Professional vengeance practitioners like my dad could call in a cleanup team, but such were not available for a student, not to mention a suspended one.

  So it was a very natural move when I conjured a broomstick and started sweeping the area of any trace of supernatural vibes.

  Except that as I started sweeping, I silently activated a Revealing spell on the broomstick. This handy little spell had been a must-have growing up with my trickster half-brothers. Each time the broomstick hit the ground, the signature of the vengeance demon grew stronger and stronger. The moment I pinpointed the location of my invisible visitor b
y the entrance back to the living room, I pointed my broomstick in that direction and yelled, “Show yourself!”

  A tall figure was leaning against the entrance in a relaxed posture. Upon my calling, it straightened and came towards me, moving into the streetlamp light, revealing itself to be a guy in his mid-twenties.

  A really hot guy. Chiseled cheekbones, long untamed brown hair, and broad shoulders. He was dressed all in black, as prepared for a vengeance night out as I was. Power radiated from him, infusing the room with a steady heat like an ember, yet leaving no question that it was ready to leap up and turn into a ferocious inferno at a moment’s notice. He had the deliberate movements and lean physical build of someone from the older families. Bold in nature too, if his uncamouflaged, wide-spanned, midnight blue wings were anything to go by. My breath caught at the raw male beauty of this stranger.

  Stop drooling, I chastised myself. The guy’s very presence here was downright suspicious.

  I’d never seen this vengeance demon before, but a vengeance demon he most definitely was. There was no mistaking that bitter Earl Grey aftertaste that was in his power signature. I took a deep breath and rolled it around on my tongue. Underneath the over-steeped tea, there was an undertone of sandalwood and sage. Another indication of an old bloodline. Respectable and proud.

  Yet there was a hard edge to this man’s jaw and a defiant look in his eyes that made him different from anybody I’d met. There was something ragged and refined about him all at the same time. I had a feeling he wasn’t quite as old as he appeared. He might even be my age.

  The mysterious guy didn’t seem upset at being found out by me. Instead, he gave me a lazy grin, softening the edge of his jaw but not quite erasing the menace it promised. My heart beat faster of its own accord. The damn traitor. “Took you long enough to figure it out.”

  “Who the hell are you?” I demanded. Unadulterated lust notwithstanding, I had a job to do and he was in my way.

  “I’m Pete.” He gave me a mocking bow, the type so perfectly executed that, had it been done without the attitude, it would have been perfect for greeting a Council member at a high society ball.

  “Pete…” I let the name become a question.

  “Just Pete. At your service, m’lady.” His courteous words so contradicted his sarcastic tone that I couldn’t help but give a snort. It was unladylike, but it was alright. He was far from a gentleman. A civilized gentleman would conceal his wings on a first meeting with strangers, female or otherwise. It was basic etiquette.

  “Pete.” I repeated, and raised my eyebrow pointedly at his healthy, glossy blue-hued wings. This vengeance demon was no more a Pete than my Sassy was a common household tabby. Odd—vengeance demons in general took great pride in introducing themselves in their full ancestral glory. Why would this guy tricksterize his own name?

  I shrugged. Whatever his deal was, it wasn’t my business. The fact that he was in my business was. Gotta chop-chop. Curt would make his way out of his bondage soon. “Alright, Pete. What the hell are you doing here?” On my vengeance territory.

  Pete seemed to get the unspoken part loud and clear. It was there in his eyes. “Being nice, of course.”

  “Nice?” I blinked. That wasn’t the answer I’d been expecting.

  “Yeah, nice. Considering I have the right to this vengeance. But here I am, letting you have all the fun.” He curled his thick and sensual lips into a smile, but there was no real humor in it.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Not just a right, I have the first right. My client sent me.”

  “Your…oh.”

  Suddenly, his hiding in the shadow, his single-syllable fake name, his very ability to be here, it all made sense.

  Mercenary.

  I knew I’d been going around acting like working for the Concord Council was the only way of life, but the truth was, for a small segment of the population, it wasn’t.

  Most vengeance demons went to college, or not. Graduated from college, or not. But one way or the other, they all served the Council in some capacity, from the highest-ranking arch demons to the poor saps who scrubbed up after them, or processed their travel expenses, or deducted their payroll taxes. There was, however, a type of vengeance demon nobody ever talked about. The ones who went rogue, who hired their talents out for profit, without caring whether or not the target truly deserved it. Stories of their ghastly exploits had been whispered about since the beginning of commerce, which was almost right after the beginning of time.

  Mercenary was a shameful profession, a last resort. How had a guy from an older family sunk this low?

  “What do you want?” I tried to keep my voice calm. I’d never dealt with mercenaries before. In fact, they didn’t teach us much about them in school except to tell us not to join them. But if I was to guess, by virtue of being for profit, it meant they had to have a business side to them. I had to speak to that side because the murdering nutjob side might be a little harder to get through to. Judging by the pure and strong energy this guy exuded, I wasn’t one hundred percent confident in besting him in a fight.

  Okay, make that not confident at all.

  The guy gestured to the flask in my front pocket that had captured the essence of the injustice addressed. “You can keep that.”

  I nodded cautiously. It made sense. It wasn’t like he cared about the kinks in the Concord, nor would the said kinks fetch him a good price if the Council was the only customer willing to pay for it. “Alright. So what do you get?”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “You’re practical. I like that. Most Rullies I speak to would still be in the outrageously protesting stage.”

  “Like you said, I’m practical.” I gritted my teeth. “You can read my signature as much as I can read yours.”

  What he didn’t know was that I’d been observing every weakness he might have, looking for every opportunity to come out on top.

  But something he said made me stop, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Rullies?”

  “You know, sticklers for rules.” He swept his gaze over me in disdain and mimicked. “May you endure your Vengeance with grace and contemplation. Yeah, like anyone’s going to feel very gracious about getting theirs. Now back to my share. I’ll let you keep your precious little bottle, and you get the official marker, but I’m taking one of the puppies. A female.”

  “A puppy? What do you want it for? And why a female?” No way was I going to let him take one of the animals. A low growl from the mother dog confirmed she felt the same way. “And you’re not letting me keep anything. I did all the work myself.”

  “That’s not how it works, hon. My client had prior claim to Curt, and she and I have a contract.”

  I understood now. “So you’re taking the puppy as proof that you’ve done your job, and you collect your fee. Except it isn’t your job. It’s mine.”

  It was his turn to shrug. “As the humans say, tomayto, tomahto.”

  “Even if you promise to give the puppy back after showing it to your client, it won’t do. Why would I trust you? You’re a mercenary, hel-lo?”

  “I don’t intend to give it back.” Pete admitted.

  “Oh.” That was honest in a too creepy way.

  I had to call for help. But how did I reach for my cell without looking too suspicious? How did I distract someone who had the street sense to suspect I might be trying to distract him?

  I was just weighing my options—stalling, charming, dirty fighting, and a combination of all of the above—when an overweight woman in a shapeless, yellow polka dot dress barged into the apartment through the unlocked door. She looked around frantically, spotted Pete, and ran towards him with the surprising speed of a quarterback in offense mode.

  “Pete!” she yelled.

  I almost thought she wasn’t going to stop on time. That she’d go over the balcony, taking my current pain in the butt with her. I should’ve known I wouldn’t be so lucky.

  She stopped dead
in her tracks, merely inches from Pete’s face and struggled to catch her breath. “Is…it…done? Did you…do…it?”

  “Sandra.” Pete had his arms out to steady the woman who I suspected was his client, though as a sign of comfort or self-preservation, I didn’t know which. “We talked about you waiting in the car.”

  “But…I was in the car.” Sandra wiped large beads of sweats from her forehead, and I was happy to see that some of the droplets landed on Pete’s pristine black top. He winced. “Then I felt this…peace. Like I was letting all this anger and hurt go. So I figured you must’ve done your job.”

  I cleared my throat. “Er, ma’am. That would be my job.”

  But Sandra wasn’t paying me any attention at all. Her gaze fell onto the mother dog and her eyes filled. She cried, “Honey Bun-bun!”

  The mother dog responded with a joyful bark and jumped in its effort to greet the human female. It would’ve succeeded if not for the crate.

  “Honey Bun-bun?” I shook my head as Sandra crouched down on her knees to the level of the bottom crate and took a dog treat out of her pocket.

  “When the mother dog was a pup, it was Sandra’s,” Pete explained. “Before Curt, her ex, stole it. He took off and opened a puppy mill. This lady had first right of vengeance, since she was the puppy mill’s first true victim.”

  “That’s why you wanted to take one of the puppies. An eye for an eye…”

  “And a pup for a pup. It’s only fair.”

  I looked at Sandra, who cried as she tenderly stroked the chin of the mother dog, cooing sweet nothings. It was plain that to her, it hadn’t been about revenge. It had always been about getting her baby back.

  I had two choices. I could try to fight my way out of this. But I wasn’t sure if I could win, and the animals would definitely lose. Pete could always grab a pup and run off, and newborns needed their mom to survive. Even if by some miracle I could call Enid or Esme to the rescue, the ensuing legal limbo would tie up everything in the vengeance court for years to come. Years on top of what Sandra had already lost.

  That took me to choice number two.