Her eyes narrowed to slits.“You play dirty pool.”
“I promise to spend as much time as you can handle making it up to you.”I slipped out my two-pronged tongue and licked my lips.
Her mouth fell open while a flush crept up her chest.After a couple of heartbeats, she shook her head.“Fine.Let’s lead them back to the hellmouth without getting ourselves—or any of the other residents—killed in the process.”
Smiling smugly, I twined our fingers together.“Let’s go.”
Hand in hand, we darted through the alley behind the businesses lining Main Street, heading toward the outskirts, to where the hellmouth sat, normally dormant and unobtrusive.
One of these days, we needed to figure out how to keep it that way, permanently.Clearly, building a moat around it was not the answer.
“Are demons able to walk on water?”I asked when we reached the end of Main Street.“How did they get past the moat?”
“Most of us have wings,” she reminded me with a scowl.
Right.Dumb question.
Also, poor choice of protective layer between town and the hellmouth.Definitely needed to revisit that.Assuming we all survived this.
I could see the cluster of unwanted visitors in the distance, filling Main Street but staying in the road, while the local monsters were all hovering on the sidewalk.The two groups eyed each other, but no one seemed inclined to make a move.
I was glad for that.I wasn’t keen on one of my friends getting hurt.Or worse.
“Stay here,” I heard from behind me.Swinging around, I caught Selina as she tossed a fluffy wolf to the ground.
Courtesy of the moment Daruka and I just shared on the back porch of my bed and breakfast, I’d momentarily forgotten about the little werewolf, and somehow, he’d ended up in Selina’s clutches.
“Hey,” Daruka said, stalking toward her.“What are you doing with Krishna?”
“Saving him, obviously,” Selina said.
Krishna wagged his tail and let his tongue loll out of his mouth.The young werewolf looked like a lapdog.If he were smaller, he’d be the sort that wealthy human women liked to tuck into their purses while they went shopping.
“Saving him?”Daruka repeated, shaking her head.“I don’t buy it.”
Selina rolled her eyes and cocked a hip.“Fine.I planned to use him as bait if necessary.”
Krishna gave a startled yelp and scurried over to cower between Daruka’s legs.
“For what?”Daruka demanded.
Selina flapped her hand at the cluster of demons.“I just want to meet him.The head of all the demons.”
Daruka’s mouth fell open.“You want tomeet the devil?”
Selina crossed her arms and thrust her nose in the air.
We didn’t have time for this.Satan was going to destroy the place if we didn’t get him back to Hell, pronto.“Go back to your coffee shop and stay out of sight,” I said sternly.“It’s too dangerous out here.”
I clasped Daruka’s hand again, gave it a squeeze.
“Come on.Let’s go kick some Satan ass.”
ChapterFourteen
Daruka
With Asmoday and Krishna—still in wolf form, since if he shifted back, he’d be naked—at my six, I stalked down to the end of Main Street.And then I waited for the cluster of demons to notice us.
