Damned and Desperate (17 page)

“No, Katherine,” Mar cried, trying to sidestep the snake, who followed her like a cobra in a trance. “This is not a test. I swear it.”

Katherine stomped a foot, pouting. “I would never betray my master. I would never give him cause to feed me to Zahaka.”

Oh boy, here we go again. Another sick master has exploited her with torture.

I’d almost feel sorry for Katherine, if I hadn’t known she was a raging bitch.

“Katherine, listen to me, darling,” Mar pleaded with outstretched arms. “We are here to save you.”

Jeez. Mar’s pleas were kind of pitiful. My sister would have never fought for my release from Hell. She would have probably wished me good luck and taken the first elevator out of there. Actually, she wouldn’t have come for me at all.

“My dear Kate,” someone wheezed from a darkened corner of the room. “You didn’t tell me you had guests.”

The crowd of demons parted as if this guy was Moses and they were the Red Sea.
See, I did occasionally pay attention in Bible class.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to make out who he was through the haze. A gaunt man was sitting at a poker table, five cards in his white-gloved hand. He was dressed rather nicely for a demon, in a satiny tailored jacket, a thin tie, and a crisp white shirt. His hair was slicked back, and his golden moustache was impossibly long and tapered on either end, giving me the impression he’d died last century and hadn’t read any current issues of Demon Vogue. The only accessory that was out of place was a white bead necklace wrapped twice around his neck and hanging almost to his waist. Weird. Maybe he’d just come from demon Mardi Gras.

When he gave the other demons in the room a red-eyed glare, they all scrambled for the nearest exits. This must have been the master, aka the Marshal, aka another sadistic scumbag hell-bent on making our afterlives miserable. Either his moustache was made up of poisoned darts or his hollowed-out eye sockets shot lead bullets. Or else he had a barbed dick with a raging case of herpes. One thing was certain; he hadn’t ascended to the Marshal of Hell by selling the most fundraiser candy bars.

Damn. I could so go for some chocolate right now.
I craved finely crafted European dark chocolate, but I’d have settled for a cheap bar of the American shit. That was how damned and desperate I’d become. Oh, great. I was starting to care more about chocolate than my immortal soul.

“Forgive me, Master.” Kate trembled as she spoke. “I had no idea they were coming.”

The man stood, his necklace rattling like a snake’s tail as he hovered over the table. His demonic gaze bore down on Katherine like a thousand stinging whips as he flashed a wide grin. “I wish to have a word with them.” He motioned toward a chair by the staircase. “Sit and do not speak.”

“Yes, Master.” Katherine fell into the chair as if her legs had given out on her.

I’d never seen her look so frightened. It was as if this skinny devil dude had scared the bitch right out of her.

When the Marshal turned his grin on us, I got a creepy, unsettling feeling in my gut, and no, those weren’t period cramps. They were holy-shitfire-please-don’t-torture-us cramps.

“Please, won’t you have a seat?” he asked with a southern gentlemanly accent, one that was a total contradiction to the hard gleam in his eyes.

I refused to sit in case I needed to fight. Tension radiated off Mar and Boner as they stood on either side of me. Jack’s whimpers from the doorway were the most disconcerting. I knew he was sorely tempted to burst through the tight doorframe. And then what? All chaos would break loose, and we couldn’t afford to take any chances at the moment, not when we still had no idea what had happened to our friends.

I warily eyed Aedan, standing behind him as he tucked away his hammer, pulled back a chair, and sat a good three feet away from the table.

“I recognize you. You’re Doc Holliday,” Aedan said with a mixture of awe and derision in his voice. “You were a legend in our day. I read about your shootout at the O.K. Corral.”

Doc Holliday? I’d watched a movie about him and the Earp brothers once. My ex-boyfriend, Travis, had picked the movie, as usual, because he said chick flicks made him want to burn his eyes out with hot pokers. I vaguely remembered Doc Holliday had some awful disease, maybe tuberculosis. Despite his illness, he’d still managed to get into several scrapes on both sides of the law without getting killed. He’d also had a hooker girlfriend named Big Nose Kate. I looked around for her, but the only Kate in the room had a little nose and a big snake.

Doc set down his cards, chuckling before he coughed into his fist. “Lies, most of it.” His voice cracked as he waved at Katherine. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you have her. Only a few short weeks, and I’ve let her get under my skin. What can I say?” He coughed again before picking up a shot glass and tossing the contents down his throat. “I’m a sucker for whores named Katherine.” The scratchiness in his voice abated as he sneered in her direction. “Only the last Katherine I knew nursed me as my disease consumed me. This whore would probably smother me with her venom if I let down my guard.”

Katherine made as if to protest, but Doc silenced her with a look.

“Then you should let us take her off your hands,” Mar squeaked.

He leaned back in his chair, shooting Mar a smug look. “Do you really think
she
will be allowed into Purgatory?”

Mar’s shoulders stiffened, a haughty look in her green eyes. “We’re hoping God allows her if she repents.”

He coughed into his fist again before grabbing a decanter off the table and pouring more amber liquid into his glass. “I’d wager you’ll lose that gamble.”

A tic worked in Mar’s jaw, and I could tell she was having a hard time keeping her composure. “It’s a chance we’re willing to take.”

“Then you’re all fools.” He laughed before downing another drink. His string of beads clacked together as he slammed his empty glass on the table.

I squinted in the low light and got this unsettling feeling in my gut his Mardi Gras necklace was actually a string of teeth. I swallowed a bitter lump of bile when I saw each bead was indeed a tooth, some resembling those of humans, and others looking like they’d come from canines. Oh, gross. I so didn’t want to know how he’d gone about collecting them. Whatever happened to normal collections like coins, bellybutton fuzz, or fingernail clippings? Okay, the fuzz and clippings weren’t exactly normal, but they were far less psycho than yanking out someone’s molars. I only hoped he didn’t have any sinister plans for my teeth. I hadn’t spent a small fortune on whitening strips only to lose my smile to the demon dentist from Hell.

“Where are my manners? Bourbon?” Doc set an empty glass and the decanter in front of Aedan.

Aedan pushed the bottle away. “No, thanks.”

Doc ignored Aedan’s snub, snatched up the glass, and poured bourbon into it anyway. He slammed it back down in front of Aedan, issuing him a challenging look. “Please don’t make me drink this fine spirit by myself. It’s not every day I receive guests from Heaven.”

I watched with bated breath as Aedan and Doc locked gazes in a stare down. Aedan wasn’t much of a drinker, and he needed to keep his senses sharp. Truthfully, I didn’t want him drinking demon bourbon, either. No telling what was in that stuff. What if he lost all his hair or his dick shrunk four inches? Finally, Aedan picked up the glass and took a sip before setting it down.

Please don’t shrivel up. Rubber extensions are so awkward.

I clutched my gut and stifled a groan as a period cramp hit me. Ugh. It felt like the PMS gremlins were taking a chainsaw to my ovaries. Guess that was my karma for worrying more over Aedan’s dick size than his eternal soul.

Aedan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I was made to believe demons dwelled in caves and subsisted on insects.”

“The other dimensions, maybe, but I run a more sophisticated town. With a little luck, we’ve managed to do well for ourselves.” Doc’s southern drawl was smoother than silk. Too bad he was most likely a sadistic psychopath. Only a crazy demon would be put in charge of the fourth dimension.

“How do you do it?” Aedan asked him.

“I do not wish to upset the sensibilities of the ladies.” Doc’s cold gaze swept over Mar and then settled on me.

I turned up my chin. “We can handle it.” Truthfully, after dealing with hammer-head dates, sadistic demons, and asshole creditors, there wasn’t much I couldn’t handle.

“The reality is,” he said as he folded his arms behind him and flashed a sinister smile. “I have an arrangement with a certain dragon. Perhaps you’ve heard of Zahaka. I feed her. She feeds me.”

Oh, I so did not like where this was going. I got the feeling Purina Dog Chow wasn’t on this dragon’s menu. Probably more along the lines of tastes like chicken, looks like human.

“She feeds you?” Aedan asked, the tension in his voice as sharp as a steel blade.

“For every soul I give her, she gives me something in return.” Doc leaned forward and held up the bourbon decanter. “Of course, she will not give up her silver, but that’s why I have a mine. Whether it be a piano, lace, or fine spirits, the dragon never disappoints.”

How generous of her. And all Doc had to do was feed her souls. Something told me the human sacrifice got the shitty end of the deal.

“Where does she get these things?” Aedan asked, which I thought was weird. It was like asking Doctor Mengele if he sanitized his equipment and scrubbed his hands before torturing his victims. How about asking Doc Holiday why in the fuck he would feed people’s souls to a dragon for a bottle of bourbon? Or how he can enjoy drinking out of fine crystal knowing it was purchased with the unwilling sacrifice of a human spirit? I’ve heard of ignoring the elephant in the room, but Doc’s sadistic ritual was a fucking heard of mammoths.

Doc shrugged. “I don’t know how she does it, and I don’t ask.” He shot Aedan a sideways smile. “Besides, I’ve been reading poker faces long enough to know that’s not the question on your mind. Go ahead, ask me.”

My heart began to beat double-time, ringing so loudly in my ears, I swear I heard every drop of blood pumping through my veins.

Aedan’s spine stiffened as he eyed Doc for a long moment. “How do you choose souls to sacrifice?”

“It’s quite simple really.” Doc’s mouth twisted into a sneer as he slowly stood and pulled back this jacket, revealing a huge pearl-handled gun sitting in a leather holster on his hip. “I sacrifice those who disrupt my law.”

I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know who the lawbreakers were. I guessed we’d disrupted his little slice of Hell when we stormed into his bar demanding his whore. It was obviously time for the drinking and small talk to come to an end, and I knew exactly what to do. Aedan was already coming to his feet, hand on his hammer, when I raised my hands. But I froze when Doc’s arm moved in a blur, producing the biggest, baddest revolver I’d ever seen with bullet chambers the size of Twinkies. How was he even able to hold that thing up? Once small breeze, and Doc would tip over. The gun probably weighed as much as he did.

Still, he didn’t seem fazed as he stared down the barrel pointed directly at my chest. “You can’t out-draw the fastest gun in the fourth dimension, little lady. I see your next move before you do.” He cocked the trigger with a click that echoed across the tavern, pinging against all four walls as my heart leapt into my throat.

Well, holy shit on a fiddle. We were in some deep doo-doo, and I feared the crap was about to pile a whole lot higher. I stole a quick glance at Aedan. He was fingering the medallion tucked beneath the collar of his robe. Damn. I sure as hell hoped he concealed his wishing star. Something like that in the wrong hands could mean big trouble.

“Lower those pretty hands of yours before I place a silver slug in your chest,” the doc taunted, waving the gun at me. “Silver is the strongest substance in Hell, and it can penetrate anything. Bet you didn’t know it could cast down demons. Only two levels, but two levels is all I need. If you thought the dragon in the fourth dimension was sinister, she’s nothing compared to the creatures on six.”

Um, good thing I didn’t plan on sticking around Hell long enough to find out.

Doc let out a high-pitched whistle, and all the demons who’d skedaddled moments ago slunk back into the tavern, bringing a few more friends with them. Well, there was that big shit pile I was talking about.

Doc walked around the table, advancing toward us with a predatory gleam in his eyes. “It seems you angels are only here to cause trouble, which is a good thing. The dragon is hungry, and the citizens of Tombstone would rather it was you than them.”

As if on cue, a roar sounded overhead, rattling the glasses behind the bar and sending my racing heart into warp speed.

Aedan pushed me behind him as he faced Doc with rigid shoulders. “We just want to save our friends, I swear it. Let us have them, and we’ll be gone.”

I peered around Aedan to see Doc Holliday still advancing toward us, his teeth beads taunting me as they swung side to side like little porcelain pendulums. From this angle, he looked like a walking bean pole. No wonder he’d never been sacrificed. He didn’t even qualify as a dragon appetizer. She could probably pick her teeth with him.

His hollow eyes glowed eerily in the dim light. “I heard you say you were looking for two giants. The only giants down here are in the silver mine, and they do the work of ten demons. Why would I let you take them?”

“Because you’ll be rid of us for good,” Aedan answered.

Doc laughed. “I will be rid of you when I feed you to the dragon.”

Though I didn’t necessarily like agreeing with evil, sadistic demons, the dentist had a point.

Mar and I simultaneously gasped when Aedan yanked a gleaming sword from his belt and smacked the gun right out of Doc’s hands.

Doc yelped, shaking his hand as if he’d been shocked. I was certain he’d have a big bruise. The huge sword in Aedan’s grip probably weighed more than Doc did. He looked up at Aedan with a wicked gleam. “Well, I’ll be damned. I didn’t see that coming.”

Neither had I. I’d thought Doc was able to read minds. How had Aedan been able to fool him?