My Funny Demon Valentine (Hell Bent #1)

Chapter 2

2

Flirti n g wit h Disaster

T he ear-splitting bang filled the air, obliterating all else. Eva hadn’t exactly been around a lot of firing guns in her lifetime, but there was no mistaking that sound. Lord knew she’d seen enough movies to be able to recognize it.

She heard people screaming, herself included. Instinct had her dropping to the floor. Ash was there, shielding her body, but his head was lifted to scan around him. His expression was so intense, it was nearly as frightening as the gunshot.

He leaned down. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I—”

Another shot fired and then another. Kyle’s goddamn trap was finally silenced. The emergency lights flickered on. Screaming filled the air.

When the shooting stopped, Ash grabbed her by the arm, hauling her upright. “Let’s go.”

They tried to run through the sea of panicked bodies, but they weren’t getting far.

“Ash!” One of his brothers appeared out of nowhere—the dark-skinned one with the gold-colored eyes. He didn’t look afraid. He looked angry.

“Where are Meph and Bel?” Come to think of it, Ash didn’t look scared either. In fact, he was almost too calm to be normal.

“Coming. It’s here for us, but humans could get hurt if we don’t get out of here, and we’ll be in even deeper shit than we already are. Leave the girl and let’s go.”

Ash shook his head. “I’ll take her outside first.”

His brother opened his mouth to argue, but the gun went off again. With amazing agility, he leapt over the bar to take cover on the other side. Ash remained with Eva.

“What was he saying?” she shouted at him. “Who’s here for you?”

“Never mind. We need t—”

The next spurt of gunfire landed a hit, tearing across his back. He went down, blood everywhere. Eva screamed in horror, dropping to her knees, suddenly rendered useless except for her ability to keep screaming and crying and—

He sat up, cursing. “Let’s go.”

“B-but—”

He scooped her up like she weighed nothing and ran. The next few seconds were so impossible, she must have been hallucinating. With her in his arms, he leapt onto the bar and then up, springing off the side of the wall above the crowd. They landed on another clear surface a good ten feet away, and he sprang off that like a freaking trampoline. The rebounds went on until suddenly they were outside the club, milling through the crowds of people, the night air fresh in her lungs.

“What just happened!” she screamed in his face. “Oh my god, you were shot! What the hell just happened?”

“It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“You jumped— The wall— I saw— You were shot!”

“Eva, I have to go back inside—”

“What? No! You can’t go back in there!”

“I need to help my brothers.”

She barely heard his nonsense. “Let me see your back! You were shot!” There was blood smeared all over his face and neck, for god’s sake.

But the crazy man shook his head. “I’m fine. Eva, I really have to go. It was nice meeting you. Really, I— Thanks.” He flashed the tiniest of smiles and then disappeared.

In the blink of an eye he was gone, leaving Eva standing outside on the pavement amidst the sounds of screaming and sirens, wondering if she was dreaming this whole bizarre night.

She stood there listening to the chaos for a good five minutes before her brain plugged back in and she realized what was happening.

Then it hit her like a ton of bricks.

She’d let Ash whisk her away to safety—in some freak, inexplicable way she would dwell on later when she had time—and then let him go by himself back into the club to find his brothers. What if he got hurt? She was certain he’d been shot in the second spurt of gunfire. She had seen the bullets hit him, seen his blood spray, seen him fall. What if he was already seriously injured?

She had to go back for him.

Charged with purpose, she pushed through the crowds, shoving wide-eyed people this way and that to work her way back toward the club entrance. Flashing police lights lit up the outside of the building, but the cops had only just arrived, so no one was guarding the door yet. She reached it at the right time—the club was empty now save for a few stragglers at the entrance, and once she made it inside, she was free to move around.

She immediately dropped to her hands and knees in case the shooter was still nearby. Crawling behind the bar, she scrambled to the other end and peeked carefully around the structure, searching for Ash or his brothers—

She froze. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open—all the usual stuff that happened when someone was faced with something that was, quite frankly, impossible. Something that shouldn’t exist and yet was there before her very eyes.

Her first thought was that they were costumes. This was Montreal, after all, and this city was full of funky people. It was one of the reasons she loved it here.

But then, why were people in such elaborate costumes hanging out in a club that had been emptied due to gunfire? Wouldn’t they have fled with the rest of the crowds? Unless the gunfire had been staged and was part of some kind of show? But wouldn’t they have warned the patrons? And the police were here, so wouldn’t they have—

With a shake of her head, she quieted the barrage of unanswerable questions and focused on the spectacle before her, searching for some clue to fit the scene into her accepted reality.

Before her stood five... people. If they could be called that. All of them, save for one, were shirtless and had wings. Wings.

The most noticeable person was huge, at least seven feet tall, with red skin, curving horns, bat-like wings, and a strangely familiar waterfall of silky black hair. The man beside him had black, feathered wings like a raven, and the biggest one, a blond who was even taller than the red monster, had wings of pure, glorious white. Like an angel.

The fourth man had no wings, and though he was completely covered in tattoos, he was the only one of the bunch who looked normal.

It didn’t escape Eva’s notice that they looked exactly like the brothers of the man she’d been chatting up at the bar all night—minus the wings, of course—but her brain wasn’t ready to make that connection yet.

And then there was the fifth... thing. Creature. Whatever the hell she was looking at.

It was short, maybe four feet tall, with slate-gray skin, a hunched spine, and enormous elf-like ears that flared out from its flat, bald skull. Bat wings arched above its head, and its face was adorned with a flattened, piglike snout and a pair of fangs that poked upward from a drastic underbite.

It looked like a pug crossed with Gollum. A pig crossed with a bat. A monkey crossed with Yoda who had bashed its face into a brick wall too many times. It was just ugly in every possible way.

Then, while she was still struggling to make sense of that , the red-skinned man turned his head, and she saw his face. It was crimson like the rest of him, and his eyes were completely black, all the way through. No iris, no sclera, just black.

And yet... there was no mistaking those graceful features, that long, straight nose, or the hair falling down his bare back, between those impossible leathery wings.

Ash.

Or should she say... Asmodeus.

Ash scanned the club briefly to make sure there were no loitering humans. It appeared everyone had fled, and just in time too, because the gargoyle sent after them had shifted shape. And so had he and his brothers—for the purpose of intimidating the gargoyle—though Ash was the only one in his full demon glory. Which, in Meph and Bel’s case, was a very good thing.

Meph never shifted because there was a strong likelihood he’d never shift back—a terrifying thought once one got acquainted with the psychopathic terror that was his demon form. And nobody wanted Bel in full demon mode either. Not unless they wanted to burn the building down. Or start the apocalypse.

Even if there were loitering humans, Ash wasn’t worried about them being seen. Otherworldly creatures had a natural glamor to disguise them, and, paired with humans’ knack for explaining away or conveniently forgetting anything that didn’t fit the mold of their preconceived reality, most of the time there were no fears of them seeing something they shouldn’t. But it was still good to be careful.

The gargoyle snarled at them. “Time to come home, boys. You’re in big trouble, you are. ’Spect there’ll be a nice punishment waiting for you when you get back. Something real nasty, I bet. Could be years before they get tired of torturing you.”

“Wow, that’s doing a great job of convincing us to go back,” Meph said.

“You especially,” the gargoyle sneered at him. “We both know who still wants his favorite toy back. It’ll be just like the good ol’ days.”

Raum stuck his face in the gargoyle’s and stared him down until the creature shrank back, ears flattening against its ugly skull.

“I can’t believe it came alone. Stupid thing.” Ash’s words were casual, but he’d tensed at the maniacal look that flashed in Meph’s red eyes. Despite his perpetual dopey grin, Meph was more than a little unstable, thanks in no small part to the shit he’d survived in Hell.

“It’s just a messenger,” Bel said coldly. “It’s a way of showing us how easy we are to find.”

“Damn it,” was Asmodeus’s response.

“What did you expect to happen when we escaped? That they’d just forget about us?”

Meph snorted, successfully banishing his dark side. For now. “Especially you two idiots.” He gestured to Bel and Ash. “Like they’re going to let their top guys go so easily.”

Ash rolled his eyes. He was hardly Hell’s “top guy.” After his curse, his reputation had taken a serious hit.

Bel yawned. “Can we just kill the thing so we can go home?”

The stupid gargoyle must have known it would be easily overpowered by them, but it had come anyway. That was the bullshit thing about being a demon—no say in their assignments even if they ended in death.

“Haven’t got a home yet.”

“Back to the hotel, then.”

Ash took two long strides, grabbed the gargoyle by the scruff of its ugly neck, and slit its throat with a claw. It bled out in a few seconds—gargoyles had very little blood—and then crumpled to the floor. But its body didn’t disintegrate, because it wasn’t dead. There were a few precise steps that had to be taken to achieve that.

Ash looked expectantly at Bel. “Finish it.”

Bel made a face. “Decapitate it first.”

“Do I look like I have a blade on me?”

“I don’t have one either.”

“Just rip it off like you always do.”

“You rip it off. I have to do the next part and it sucks.”

Shaking his head, Ash bent over the still form of the gargoyle, flexed his claws, grit his teeth, and got to work. It wasn’t exactly a quick job sawing through that thick neck, and when he was done, he had gargoyle blood all over his arms and his hands were cramping.

He dropped the head, straightened, and glared at Belial. “Happy?”

Bel rolled his eyes and raised his right arm. It burst into flame from the elbow down. He held his palm out and launched a steady stream of hellfire at the two pieces of gargoyle. This part was Belial’s job because he was the only one of the four of them capable of summoning the flames of Hell at will.

Burning a body to nothing took time. It wasn’t like the shit in movies where it ignited and disappeared in seconds. They must have stood there for five minutes while Bel launched pure, concentrated hellfire at it full force until finally, all that remained was a pile of ash.

And ta-da. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s how you kill a demon.

Bel dropped his arm, flames extinguishing.

“Damn.” Meph kicked at the ash pile. “I can’t believe the little beast actually found a gun to shoot at us.”

“This is America.” Raum shrugged. “Anyone can find a gun.”

“This isn’t America, dumbass. It’s Canada. People aren’t supposed to have guns in Canada.”

“Whatever. They’re basically the same.”

Meph whistled low. “Don’t let the Canadians hear you say that, man. They may be polite, but they’ve got plenty of pride—”

“Will you shut the fuck up so we can get out of here before we get interrogated as suspects for a goddamn club shooting?” Bel snapped.

Nobody was interested in that, so Ash, Raum, and Bel shifted back to human form. Disappearing their wings, they yanked their shirts over their heads, and then all four of them strode across the club to the back room, searching for another exit away from the crowds.

Halfway there, Ash froze, turning back and checking behind him. Thanks to his curse, his senses sucked, but he could have sworn...

He shook his head, telling himself he was imagining things.

They found another emergency exit behind a pile of boxes in the back room. Useless in a real emergency and probably about to earn the nightclub a hefty fine, but it suited their purposes.

Tossing the boxes aside, Ash pushed open the door and slipped into the night, his brothers behind him, leaving the club and the pile of ashes behind.