Chapter Eight #2
“No, that’s not what I mean,” Snake Demon snapped. “It’s not that it’s impossible for them to get into Abaddon. It’s impossible for a witch to get into hell. The bitch would’ve lost her soul when she crossed the gates, and a witch without a soul is just another demon.”
Erlik inclined his head. “Very true. There is no such thing as an undead witch. Even one turned by a vampire leech will lose their power once the change is complete,” he said.
“The only explanation is the witch who has invaded our school is very much alive—alive in the way only a red-blooded mortal could be.”
“Ssssss!” Loud, nerve-wracking hissing sounded from the throats of the vampires—trapping a scream in my throat.
I knew it was just my imagination, but right then, I could’ve sworn all eyes were on me.
“How could a living mortal be in hell?” one of the werewolves—the biggest, blondest, and beardiest—asked.
“Is everything that bloodsucking worm said true? There never was an invasion. Because the wolves and the fae aren’t undead like all you bunch of walking corpses but somehow we ended up trapped in hell.
You’ve been spreading that propaganda bullshit that we abandoned the moon just to waste away in this shitheap, but it wasn’t true, was it?
“We were banished here because you fuckers wouldn’t stop pissing off the mortals,” he flung.
“We got caught up in their psycho revenge bullshit because of you, and now they’re back to finish the job!
Because if witches have the power to send living wolves and fae through the gates of hell, why wouldn’t they be able to cross themselves? ”
I was sweating something serious—eyes flicking from Erlik to the blond werewolf. And for a rowdy and disrespectful bunch, everyone else was staring and listening just as intently.
Erlik’s expression was unreadable. “I don’t know what lies were poured in your ear, wolf, but no mortal—witch or otherwise—is a match for the great and mighty power of a demon.”
A snort snapped my head to the right. The blond fae who called me diseased looked at Erlik with even more nastiness. “This fucker says after a witch gutted five demons in your own house and splattered their entrails for all to see? What a joke.”
“They were weak,” Erlik replied, unmoved. “And like the woman she is, she used tricks and deception to achieve her task. Hiding among us instead of revealing herself to the slaughter she’d receive. Anyone who falls prey to a sneaking, slithering woman deserves their fate.
“But you know all about that, don’t you, fairy boy?”
The grin snatched off Ravenscar’s face. “What the fuck did you just say?!”
Ravenscar lunged at him and had to be held back by four of his feathered cronies.
“My lord Iarla, please, don’t rise to his provocation! It’s what that dead, putrid thing wants.”
Wow. There is no respect for teacher or student in this world.
Erlik compounded this thought by not respecting Ravenscar enough to even glance in his direction as the fae shouted obscenities and fought to get his hands on him.
“So, there you have it,” Erlik dropped. “There’s a witch in Abaddon. She’ll kill you if she gets the chance. Give her that chance, or don’t. That’s your fucking problem.”
“But—” the blond wolf started to say.
“Class begin,” Erlik sliced him off. “Cross the field to the finish line. The winner is done for the day. The losers run five hundred laps around the manor. Cowards die. Everyone, run on my mark, except for you, boy.” Erlik flicked the side of my head.
“Ow!”
“Hang back after I give the go-ahead,” he ordered me. “As for the rest of you— Go!” Erlik bellowed, blowing sharply on his fingers.
It wasn’t just me who didn’t move after he gave the go-ahead.
No one did.
“Hold on, what?” Snake Demon spoke up. “You just want us to race? There’s no way it’s that easy.”
Undoubtedly. The finish line was a good distance away, so it’d be quite the sprint, but Erlik was the original douchenozzle. No, that was putting it lightly. In the worlds of douchenozzles, he reigned supreme. There was absolutely no way that it’d be that easy.
“It is that easy,” Erlik said, smirking so evilly my skin crawled.
“All you have to do is get from here to there.” He cocked his large head, his hoof feet stomping the hardened earth.
“Or are all of you too chickenshit? That’s it, isn’t it?
Hell sent its wimpiest and whiniest to Abaddon this year.
Forget saving you all from being pussies.
“You shitheels aspire to be pussies one day. Better than what you are now. The likes of you are trash,” he barked. “You’re a slug’s slime, and a rodent’s piss. You’re quivering naked scrotums worth no more than my morning dumps. You’re—”
“Fuck you!” half the guys shouted before taking off—sprinting across the field.
Just like that, the real whistle sounded and the race began. The fae took to the air, buffeting a gush of wind that blew my wart hairs back. The vampires disappeared in a superhuman blink of an eye, and Tristan was gone.
His strong muscled legs rippled—carrying him across the expanse. How was it I still found him beautiful even as he partially shifted, covering his form in fur and bending those perfect legs into a wolf’s.
Not only do scars do it for me, but apparently I wouldn’t say no to fur either. Ronin’s heavy eyes shadowed by temptingly long, wet lashes shoved their way into my head. And Hera, help me, but those ruby red eyes are too damn sexy too.
“Uh, sir?” I asked, tearing my eyes off of Tristan. “Why did you ask me to stay back?”
Erlik cocked a brow at me, frowning at me like the answer was obvious. “So that you’d lose.”
“You—!” Fury flared up in my chest and propelled me on. High Lord Douchenozzle!
Bringing up the rear, I took off across the dead, burning expanse. My fellow classmates were way ahead of me—pretty much ensuring my destiny to run five hundred laps around the school—but that didn’t matter. As Erlik said, anyone who refused to run would simply be killed.
But with our deal, if Erlik tried to kill me, Lucifer would be forced to intervene. That intervention might result in Erlik getting killed, and I didn’t want anyone dying because of me.
No matter how pleasant they are.
My lungs huffed and puffed, but I was nowhere near winded. Even though I’d never get used to the constant smoke in the air, I still felt so good, I almost felt like I could run those five hundred laps without breaking a sweat.
I really hope that after I find Dora and we go back, I get to keep this new and improved body. It’d be nice to stop getting winded after walking up one flight of stairs.
“Teehee.”
Something fluttered out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head and our eyes met. Mine fake and glamoured ones... and her bright and shiny purple ones.
Her?
I gaped at her. Stumbling over my feet, I almost pitched over onto the dirt and at her bare feet.
She giggled at my clumsiness, her impossible eyes dancing.
The whipping, burning air tugged at her white, gauzy dress—making the hem shimmy around her ankles.
Long, red hair flowed down her back and around her shoulders, drawing my eye to the smattering of freckles covering her neck and disappearing under her neckline.
There’s another woman here... my sluggish mind supplied.
But how? And why doesn’t she have horns, claws, scales, or fur?
Why doesn’t she have the scars of a battle-worn werewolf?
The lamp eyes of a vampire? Or the wings of a fae?
Why doesn’t she have that dark tinge to her skin from veins full of black blood?
Why does she look like a human mortal woman?
Which is everything a witch must be.
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than a jagged, shining dagger appeared in her hand. Giggling like a maniac, she pierced my gaze, and raised the dagger high.
“No!”
The knife fell.
Laughing louder still, she slashed the dagger across her wrist and gushing, red blood poured from the wound.
My mind had time to scream, Holy shit!, but no chance to send the signal for my mouth to do the same.
Loud, hair-raising hissing ripped through the field.
“Mine!”
I didn’t see them move. All I knew was one second the woman was standing in front of me—grinning that stomach-churning grin—and the next she was on the ground, buried under a pile of vampires.
Biting, sucking, tearing, ripping, snarling—they gorged on her like she was the last piece of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.
“Ahhhh!” I shouted. “Sir? Sir!” I spun around looking for Erlik. “Do something! Stop them—!”
“Huh? What the fuck!”
The shout tore my head up. One of the fae guys flailed and bellowed as an interlocking shadow fell over his body. The net appeared out of nowhere and dropped over him, ensnaring his legs, arms, and wings.
He plummeted out of the sky—hitting the dirt hard.
“Teehee.”
The giggle slipped into my ear, sending a chill up my spine.
“What is that?” I cried, whipping around. “Who is—?”
Half a dozen nets appeared in the sky, falling over the shouting fae and ripping them soundly out of the lead.
They crashed like missiles on the field—taking out more than a few unsuspecting runners, and kicking up a cloud of red dust that assaulted my eyes and lungs. Tears swallowed my vision—but not enough that I couldn’t see everything going to hell.
All over the field, the ground opened up—tearing open holes in the earth that swallowed Snake Demon before the “fuck!” was fully out of his mouth.
Tristan skidded to a halt—stopping mere millimeters before the hole that opened up in his path. He made to veer around it, and then the pie hit him in the face.
“Hehehe.”
My head snapped down. Eyes popping at the small, green-winged creature giggling and staring at me with eyes as big as its horned head.
Fragile-looking bat wings sprouted from its back and it was off, zipping away almost faster than I could see—laughing the whole way.
He flew over the heads of the alpha pack boys just as a succession of cream pies fell on their bellowing heads.