Acid burned my tongue as I spit out, “What do you have to say for yourself, you pathetic swine?”
My eyes narrowed into deadly slits as I slowly made my way closer to the damned soul. The soft thud of my combat boots against the tile echoed through the morgue, while Mr. Christenson fumbled his pants on and backed farther away.
“You’re b-breaking and entering,” he sputtered. “If you don’t leave right now, I’m calling the police!”
I threw my head back and barked a laugh, the echo wrapping around us. “Go ahead. I’m sure they’d love to hear why Ms. Jacobs is full of vaseline and semen.”
“You can’t—I wasn’t—” A string of unintelligible syllables followed, as I stopped next to the prep table and ran my fingers along the surface.
My gaze fell on the woman’s face with her jaw wired shut and her eyes closed with glue. She should have looked like she was sleeping, but her pinched expression implied something less peaceful. It wasn’t possible for the corpse to react to pain, not in the human world. But somewhere, I knew her soul was hurting.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered, brushing my fingers over her shoulder comfortingly. “He’ll never hurt you or anyone else ever again. I promise.”
Movement in the corner of my eye snagged my attention, and I looked up in time to see Mr. Christenson running at me with an electric saw. It wasn’t on, but the blade gleamed in the light.
Of course, he’d try to kill me to save himself.
I expected this, hoped for it even.
Lifting my hand, fingers outstretched, I focused on the magic welling in my veins. It was new to me, a gift that came with my role as Queen of Hell, and I hadn’t quite perfected it yet. However, I flicked my wrist, and the funeral director stopped short, the saw crashing to the floor.
His hands instantly went to his throat, like he was trying to pry away invisible fingers intent on cutting off his oxygen supply.
“You’re a sad, creepy fuck. Whatever punishment awaits you down below won’t be nearly enough to atone for your crimes.” My black hair flew out of its braid with the force of the magic surging around us, whipping around my head and lashing chaotically at my cheeks. Tools on the flat surfaces toppled, cabinet doors clattering. “But I’ll do my damndest to try. We’ve got all of eternity to make you pay.”
I paused as I reveled in his pathetic whimpers. He’d collapsed to his knees, pointlessly begging for his life.
“Oh, and I’m taking your Christmas tree, pervert,” I snapped.
In a flash, I closed my hand into a fist, my eyes locked on his until his skull shattered and bits of brain matter sprinkled over the nearby surfaces. Like a demented Christmas cracker.
How appropriate.
His pudgy corpse crumpled to the ground and landed with a sickening, satisfying crunch.
“Good riddance.”
I extracted each soul from their bodies, taking delicate care with Marlene’s, while I had to stop myself from shattering the funeral director’s then and there.
With a final, scathing look at the viscera-splattered morgue, I turned on my heel and marched back up to the funeral home lobby, my heart set on robbing the place of its decorations. I would take them back to the castle and string them up there. Belial would probably lecture me, since this was technically robbing the dead—and we’d been over that—but I didn’t care.
I was getting my festive fucking Christmas, one way or another.
Chapter Two
Belial
I never should have lether leave.
My newly crowned queen was tenacious as anyone could be. Rayven had faced the worst of Hell's monsters—myself among them—and not only survived, but emerged from the flames as one of the Underworld’s most ferocious creatures.
So, when she asked to go to the mortal realm in my place to deliver Judgement to a soul, I’d agreed. If she could survive in the deepest bowels of the Underworld, she could handle herself anywhere in her own world. Besides, the irony was poetic.
The usual protocol for delivering Judgement to souls before I could send them down the River Styx to the deeper layers of Hell was to wait for nature to take its course. But when a soul committed a crime against death itself, I’d expedite the process by ripping their soul out before their body was done using it.
Sometimes their crime was so great, I saw to the matter personally.
That’s what brought me toher.
