Chapter 12 Zak
ZAK
I kick the side stand of my motorcycle in place to prop it up beside the sidewalk. Removing my helmet, I grab the bag of takeout from the handlebars, wipe dried blood off my cheek, and stroll to the front door of the old townhouse.
I don't even knock before my aunt's longtime boyfriend, Melchom, flings it wide open with a dumbass, fang-filled grin. As usual, he prefers speaking in English, since he's been living in this mortal realm longer than my aunt or anyone else I know.
Good thing my English's gotten a fuck of a lot better than it was just a few months ago.
"Hells and bells, look at all that blood!" Melchom crows, reaching up to ruffle my hair.
If my aunt weren't so happy with this fucker, I'd remove his hand and shove it up his ass. No one in the Nether dared touch me outside the arena, but Mel's weirdly touchy-feely for a demon.
Lucky for him, my aunt's clearly got a fetish for smiley idiots.
"Most of it’s not mine," I shrug, lifting the plastic bag of takeout to wiggle it in his face. "Why the hells did you ask for Big Al's fish tacos? This stuff always smells like shit. And what kind of fish taco place is open so fucking early in the morning?"
Melchom ushers me into the dimly lit Compton townhouse, snatching the bag from me to sniff it for himself.
"Mm-mm, that's the stuff! I swear, whoever Big Al is, that guy's gotta be really fucking miserable to make food this good.
Hey—street fighting looks okay on you. Okay as any mutt can look, anyway, all tailless and hornless and whatnot. "
"You're tailless, too," I point out.
He shoves half a fish taco into his mouth, licking some off his clawed fingers. "Ha! Cut off my own tail to fit in with the humans back when we demons were hunted like dogs. You're a lucky little shit that you'll never have to go through that, huh? Must be nice, being a damned mutt."
Most demons call half-demons like me mutts. We're not all that common, since most demons would rather grind their own horns into dust than take in a mortal's essence.
See, demons can only procreate with other demons once every few centuries, but female demons can spawn with mortals anytime…so long as they absorb that mortal's life essence at conception. The mortal ceases to exist, and nine months later, a freak like me pops out.
Fucking brutal, the demoness who birthed me.
She won Lord Amadeus's favor by seducing and absorbing a powerful metal-manipulating elemental monster who dared oppose him long ago in the Nether—spawning me in the process.
To reward her, Lord Amadeus granted my mother a place in his court and "pardoned" my existence, letting me grow up competing for my life in his arena.
Eventually, I became one of his favorite prizefighters.
After the telum left, of course.
Walking to the kitchen sink, I rinse the worst of my last opponent's blood off my face. As usual, the kitchen's a fucking wreck. This entire townhouse is constantly trashed, thanks to the wild-ass parties my aunt and her boyfriend throw all the time with other demons passing through Detroit.
I accidentally knock a half-empty beer bottle off the counter when I go to grab a towel.
It shatters on the kitchen tiles beside several other broken bottles and a broken chair.
Trash overflows several trash cans, and used dishes are piled high in the sink.
The attached living room is filled with blankets, more empty beer bottles, empty lube bottles, and plenty of other random shit left behind from what clearly turned into an orgy.
They have those all the damned time.
But as much of a fucking nuisance as my aunt and her boyfriend and demon buddies can be, they've helped me adjust to this wacky human plane of existence.
I've spent the last several months picking up and polishing my English from them and from the humans and legacies that show up at the underground legacy street fights I've been getting some dough from.
The TV is on and blaring in the connected living room, with some uptight news anchor droning about politics or some shit.
I rub my ears, wondering if I need to poke new holes in Melchom's head for him to hear better.
Clearly, his current ears are fucking useless if he needs to turn things up this loud.
"Hey, Mel. Where's Eisha?"
He burps. "That bitchy, loose-assed skanky fucking whore of a—"
"Yeah, yeah—I get it, you like her," I roll my eyes.
The demon grins, smiley as ever. "Eish's upstairs sleeping off the orgy.
Crying shame you missed it—there were a few scroungy-looking demonesses hanging around who were so fucking pathetic and desperate for cock, they probably wouldn't even have turned down a hornless freak like you.
'Bout time you got your rocks off and stopped pining after the first bitch you ever licked, anyway.
Need I remind you, whoever that prisoner was, she's dead as a fucking doorknob now, buddy boy. "
Yeah, yeah. So they keep telling me.
Doesn't mean I'll stop looking for her.
How could I? It feels like my whole life was just some pathetic, blood-soaked blur until the moments I spent in her presence. Those were the real deal. If it's the last fucking thing I do in this weird-ass mortal world, I'm going to find her again.
My mouthwatering shifter. All soft, sweet, and tasty. And fucking hells, the way she smelled…
Demons can scent the essences of all other living beings, but they're especially drawn to the scent of what they call merit.
Basically means goodness. The less hellish the person, the better they smell.
It's part of the reason demons are drawn to innocent, kind things—because that scent is indescribably addicting.
They say it's even better with a bit of fear or pain mixed in.
I have a weaker sense of smell than full-blown demons, but my head swims from just the memory of my sweet shifter's delicate, sweet aroma. Thanks to the fucking language barrier, I couldn't get to know her the way I wanted, but she must've been a damn good person to get a scent like that.
I wanted to fucking consume her.
At least I got to devour her sweet candy cunt. Licking and sucking and melting with pleasure over every one of those desperate sounds she made as her fierce heat made her desperate, until she was grinding against my face, gasping and gushing and—
"So, you kill the last guy?"
I blink back to the present, realizing I'm standing at my aunt's nasty-ass kitchen sink with a growing semi in my jeans and water still dripping from my face. Mel's on the living room couch, not a fucking care in the world as he downs another fish taco to the deafening sound of the news.
"What?" I ask, still dazed from remembering some of the best moments of my life.
"You're covered in some other fucker's blood. Did ya kill him, or what?" Mel asks, giving me half his attention as he eyes the last fish taco.
"Nah, I don't get paid if I kill them." Found that out the hard way.
He snorts. "Killjoys."
"Tell me about it. When'll Eisha wake up?"
Mel shrugs, frowning over at me like I'm disturbing his five-star meal as he lights up a cigar that I’m pretty sure he pulled out from between the seat cushions. "How the hells am I supposed to know? What's up your ass that you've got to bother her about, anyway?"
"I wanna try blood scrying again."
The demon groans and throws some demonness's leftover bra at me.
"Oh, you've gotta be fucking kidding me! Listen. Mezzak—"
"Finish my name, and I'll end your infernal lives," I warn.
I may not be a full-blooded demon, but demonology works perfectly fine on me.
I can command infernal dark magic just like any other demon out there, but if someone learns and utters my full name, they could start all kinds of shit.
Demons don't usually use each other's full names for that exact reason.
He scoffs, puffing out cigar smoke, and turns to face me better.
"Whatever. Zak. Look, you're a young demon.
You're living in the mortal world, not getting hunted by the bounty hunters and the legacies and all those other shits who've been wiping our kind out for centuries.
Look at you, covered in someone else's blood and getting paid for it!
You're living the fucking dream, all right?
So just forget about that little tart that stole your balls, go get yourself laid, and stop fucking pining. "
Fat chance of that when she's all I can think about.
It's been eight months since I was forced to fight alongside Amadeus's court, barely escaped the Nether with my singular non-infernal-mutt life, and went into hiding with my aunt until things settled down.
Eight months since I saw my shifter.
That's eight fucking months too long. If she survived the hellscape of that battle that ended the reign of Amadeus, she's in this world.
If she didn't survive, I'll claw my way out of the hells of the Beyond and find her in the next life. Simple as that.
"Maybe we should try soul scrying again instead," I decide aloud, kicking aside a glass bottle to grab a beer from the fridge.
"Ugh. I swear on my horns, there's nothing worse than a lovesick demon," Melchom grumbles, taking another drag of his cigar.
"You're lovesick for my aunt," I point out dryly.
"Nah," he grins immediately. "I'm just pure sick for her, and the only cure for me is her skanky, slutty, wet little—"
I smack him hard upside the head as I sit beside him, grabbing yesterday's newspaper off the armrest of the couch as he swears. Eisha likes collecting human newspapers because she says it's nostalgic to comb back through the years and read about their miserable history.
"Don't make my ears bleed, asshole," I mutter.
Melchom snickers, rubbing his sore head. I skim through the newspaper, bored as I sip the beer and wait for Eisha to wake up. Good fucking thing I can read English now, because the headlines in this are much more interesting than whatever the idiot on the screen is going on about.