Noted.
“I have Gran’s pepper spell,” Cass called out to me, whizzing circles around the beast—to confuse or entertain it, I couldn’t tell which.
Perfect. The pepper spell was super simple yet annoying as hell. Nothing like having an explosion of pepper sweep into your mouth and nostrils to fuck up your day.
“Do it,” I shouted, charging forward with my pathetic stubby knife.
My demon imp partner flew straight at the beast’s face and smashed the glass vial on its forehead.
‘Homerun!’Cass cheered.
I chuckled while the pepper bomb exploded in the apollyon’s face.
It coughed, wheezed, and gagged, swatting at its head. Every variety of gnarly sound emitted from its throat as I advanced on him.
Stab a monster from the underworld in the heart with a six-inch, broken and dull blade … all while careful not to breathe in any remnants of the pepper spell until it fully dissipated … got it.
‘Careful,’Brock warned—yet again.
God, I couldn’t wait to push out this baby so he’d stop treating me like glass.
I weaved in and out of the mess of arms that hung from its body, all of which were busy attempting to brush pepper spell off its face. It apparently wasn’t intelligent enough to realize the spell was a diversion to draw attention away from the more serious threat. Thank God.
I inched forward until I was close enough to strike.
‘Now,’ Cass yelled from atop his hoverboard, and I shoved off from the ground and bounded upward in the mother of all leaps.
Damn, this dude was tall as fuck. I started to drop before I’d even reached its abdominal area. It began to turn its attention toward me instead of the effects of the pepper.
No, no, no. Fuck!
But just as I began to plummet, something bolstered me, sending me racing back upward.What the…?I craned my neck around.
Tianna. Glowing like she was on fire. Hands outstretched toward me. Bless the fae-witch. I was gifting her and Cass an all-paid weekend getaway to Hawaii filled with sexy times—just as soon as we survived this. My bounty from Mack should be wire-transferred to my bank account in the morning.
Positioned right where I needed to be, I pulled my lucky left arm back and thrust the blade into the apollyon’s chest, where I dearly hoped his heart was. The stub of my katana knocked into its chest bone for a quick second with a sharp crack, before he was throwing me back. I strained to hold on to the hilt in my hand around the vibrating that spread through my arm as the demon shook me off.
Shit.
“It’s deformed. Try lower,” Molly shouted.
The demon was sputtering pepper into my hair and trying to kick me with legs the size of tree trunks. I was leaping over its feet in a twisted game of jump rope in an effort not to get punted across the forest, all while working not to breathe in any remnants of the pepper spell.
“Shoot it in the head,” I shouted at Molly. She had a shotgun for fuck’s sake.
“Duck,” she screamed, cocking Gran’s gun.
I didn’t need any other motivation. At her warning, I hit the ground and Cass whizzed out of the way.
The loud bang of a shotgun rang out, and the beast, blinded by the pepper, went down—hard.
She’d gotten him right in the neck.
Gross. Sludge shot from the wound in his neck like a geyser.
He fell over like a tree, rattling the windows of Gran’s cabin when he landed. Thick greenish, black blood bubbled from the wound as he squirmed on the ground.
“It might have healing properties. Best to…” Cass let that sentence linger.
