“Please don’t be dead,” I whispered to the empty room as I resumed pacing. “Please don’t be dead.”
Cain looked up from grooming his leg, which was apparently filthy by the way he’d been licking at it. Either that, or he’d found some of the catnip Emilia had brought over again. His big green eyes stared at me, condemnation evident. He’d always favored Luc. More than me.
Traitor.
“I know, I know.” Bending over, I stroked his head and scratched behind his ears. “I screwed up again.”
A young female voice came from down below. “Amy? Are you okay?”
I stepped to the edge of the hole and peered into the smoke. I couldn’t see a thing. “Mikayla?”
“Um, little problem down here.” Mikayla was my newest employee, and at eighteen years old, my youngest. She was also a witch, but just coming into her powers. I’d left her to close up the ice cream shop after our day of inventory. “More like a big problem.”
The way she drew out the word “big” made my body tense. “This hole goes all the way through to the shop?”
Below, she yelped. I heard something crash and a man’s voice yelling for her to get down. There was a hissing noise and the sound of shattering glass.
“Demons!” Mikayla yelled up to me. “Lots and lots of demons!”
Demons. Back in the summer, Lilith had sent three demon assassins to kill me. One of them had burned down my apartment, nearly killing my cats and destroying my extensive Dolce and Gabbana shoe collection. No way I’d stand by and let more of their kind hurt Mikayla or damage my shop. I didn’t know why they were there or what Lilith was cooking up this time, but it didn’t matter.
The Mark came to life.
Chapter Three – The Monster Ball
The shop was chaos. A hole that matched the one in my apartment was burned into the floor, a tall column of smoke connecting it to my living room. The smoke swirled and churned and I could have sworn I saw skulls and demonic faces inside it. The entire place smelled familiar. Fire. Brimstone. Sulfur. Yep, it smelled like Hell.
A three-headed demon with a Hulk-like body and a long reptilian tail crouched over a man with long copper-colored hair. The man was muscular and swinging a sword. The sword’s blade glowed with a bright light, highlighting his hair until it, too, seemed to glow.
The demon bellowed and took a swing at him. In response, he dodged out of the demon’s reach and parried. The blade speared the demon’s thigh, causing him to bellow again loud enough to rattle the napkin dispensers on the tables.
There were other monsters. Some looked human, but the dozen or so I counted were far from it.
“Mikayla. Where are you?”
“Over here!”
Night had fallen and she’d drawn the blinds over the plate glass windows, so at least Eden’s residents were missing the Rocky Mountain Demon Picture Show. As I scooted around overturned chairs and broken glass to find her, a yellow-eyed demon attacked me, his slimy hands—all six of them—grabbing parts of my body he had no right to.
I yelped, much like Mikayla had done, and jumped out of his way. “You could at least buy me dinner first.”
Even though he was smaller than the three-headed Hulk, he towered over me, baring his teeth in a disgusting grin. Air puffed from his open mouth, blowing rotten-smelling breath in my face. My magic hissed like I’d poked it with a branding iron. Words came out of the demon’s mouth, but either he was drunk or speaking a foreign language because they made no sense.
My magic, though, responded as if it did understand him and the first lines of a hex came to me.
Take this beast from Hell’s depths untamed.
Trap it and return it from whence it…
No. I shut down the hex. Even though magic came easy, I’d been in stickier situations and not relied on it. That was the whole point of Witches Anonymous. It was easy to be good when things were happy and peaceful. The true tests came when things got ugly. Like now at the monster ball.
Resolved to take care of the demon without compromising my oath, I wiggled my fingers at him. I didn’t need magic to fight this guy. God would do it for me.
Opening his mouth wide, he lunged, ready to have me for a late night snack. My forehead burned, the Mark flashed and…
Bam. Mr. Slimy Hands turned to ash at my feet.
Satisfaction surged in my chest. I’d killed a demon without using magic. Again. That made three for four on the demon-killing score sheet I’d kept since my trip to Hell. Not too bad.
I whirled around to see what else wanted a piece of me, hoping against hope Lucifer might be in the mix. No Luc, but the Mark’s lethal light had gotten everyone’s attention. All fighting stopped, every eye in the place, human and demon, landing on me.