. Like Chuck and a Chuglet
“Hello lover!” Honeysuckle giggled yet again, which was becoming rather obnoxious.
Wiggling her fingers with a flirtatious wave, she then pouted her lips and blew a kiss.
“It’s so good to see you again. Did you miss me?
” Her eyes fluttered in a way she probably thought was sexy, but in actuality looked like she was clearing dirt from her eyes.
Frumpy and bulbous like her father, the demon was far from as sweet-smelling and beautiful as her name suggested.
Malachi could barely believe she still thought they were ever an item to start, let alone thinking he’d been pining away for her.
Yet there she stood, simpering and basking in her own cleverness at capturing him.
The disgust he felt almost made him vomit, the gurgle in his throat getting dangerously close to the surface.
His verbal response reflected that acidic flood.
“Miss you? Miss you? Yeah. I missed you. Like a hole in the head. Like a soccer mom misses a bad case of gonorrhea. Like JFK misses Oswald. Well, maybe that’s not a great example, I mean after all I was there and those theories aren’t too far—”
Slapping him, the female demon growled in his face, no longer beaming at their staged reunion.
“Malachi!” She ground her teeth, and the smell of rotting petunias grew stronger.
The leaves that made up her hair trembled with her anger.
“I’m sensing you aren’t happy to see me.
After all the trouble I went through to rescue you and get you back here!
” Her voice was rising in pitch, nearing hysteria.
Rolling his eyes, Malachi snorted disdainfully.
“Happy to see you? Oh, for fuck’s… Look, lady, you are completely and utterly delusional.
Don’t you get it? You’re like the glitter in a Christmas card.
It’s pretty when you first see it, but then it gets messy, and you can’t ever really get rid of it.
You clean, you wipe, you spray, you vaccinate, fumigate, burn it down, and yet when you turn around…
” He leaned forward until his nose was half an inch from hers and lit his eyes with Hellfire.
“There’s another fucking piece of glitter, and you realize then, you hate glitter.
It’s like craft herpes. The gift that no one wants, but it just keeps on giving. ”
He paused and sucked in a deep breath, almost gagging on the swampy odor coming off her in angry waves.
Swallowing bile again, he snorted. “Wait, that implies one liked the glitter at the beginning. You’re more like that three-legged shelter cat that no one wants because it has some weird disease they can’t pronounce and bites everyone that tries to touch it.
Until someone finally has pity and adopts it, only to find out it has fleas and mange, it pisses on everything and tears up your shit. They can’t give it back fast enough.”
She gasped and drew back, sluggish green tears building in her bright yellow eyes.
“It’s your fault my father is hanging on that fence.
I begged him not to turn you into that dog, but he insisted you needed to be taught a lesson.
He wouldn’t listen to me. Said I needed to stay away from you.
We made a good team! The Commander’s daughter and the Lieutenant!
” Her voice was whiny and wheedling, yet another reason she was despised by others.
“Honeysuckle,” he sighed and gentled the disgust in his tone, trying to reason with her.
“I wasn’t the one with the plot to overthrow a Knight of Hell.
Hyacinth came up with that plan all on his own.
Truth is, him punishing me for sleeping with you, which I admit in hindsight was a really bad fucking decision, was just an excuse.
He was always going to end up there. It was never about my one-night stand with you or the bet that I wouldn’t do it.
I don’t think he even knew about that part.
I was a convenient pawn for his long-term plan.
” He shook his head and shuddered. “Flick really is an asshole; I have got to stop making bets with him.”
Her eyes now narrowed with fury, and she shook harder. “You regret me? I was just a bet?” The words were spit through clenched teeth, low and dangerous.
“I said Flick was an asshole, didn’t I? We all felt sorry for you.
All of the legions did, seeing how your dad treated you like an embarrassment.
No one wanted you, so Flick triple dared me on the tip of Satan’s horns that I couldn’t do it.
Jokes on him though. I’m an incubus; I can make anyone desirable.
Even you, a little spell and poof, I don’t even see you. ”
Too late, Malachi’s sense of self-preservation kicked in. It came to him like a bolt of lightning that telling Hyacinth’s daughter—the one who had kidnapped him— that she’d been a pity lay wasn’t high on the list of intelligent things he’d accomplished in the last two centuries.
Leaves fell to the floor as the roots on her head writhed in her anger. “I. Was. A. Bet?” she growled.
“Um...” he shrugged and twitched his lips with an apologetic grimace. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to make you regret that,” she seethed.
“Oh, believe me, I already do.”
A boom rattled the ground and nearly knocked them all over as a bright flash of light pulsed down the tunnel leading into the cavern. The demons holding him captive shielded their eyes from the glow, which grew brighter as the sound of rushing footsteps followed.
Malachi sighed happily then began to laugh loudly. “Oh, you are so incredibly screwed now. Looks like my prayers were answered.” He grinned, smug now.
“P—Prayers?” Honeysuckle screeched. “Demons don’t p—pray!”
“I did. I do. And they listen to me,” he replied matter-of-factly, slouching in his chair again, getting comfortable. He glanced at Ramsilel. “Got any popcorn?” At the demon’s baffled look, he added, “You wanted a show? You’re about to be the entertainment.”
Shaking his head, Ramsilel grinned. “Oh, you think one puny little angel is going to stop us? I got news for that asshole; his lover isn’t going to save him here.
I’ll enjoy stripping those feathers from his wings.
Maybe I’ll make them into a nice cloak. Or put them in a pillow. I’ll decorate my house with them.”
Chuckling, Malachi shook his head. “Oh no, it’s not an angel.
It’s much worse. I’d know that heartbeat anywhere.
” He paused and listened again, smirking at the sound of an escaped clown screaming along with the pounding footsteps.
“No, my soon-to-be-dead unholy friends, that is Officer Kelly “Chuck” Charles and the Chuglet. And they are pissed. You are well and truly fucked.” Barking out unhinged laughter, he crossed his ankles and flashed his dimples.
Rounding the corner, Chuck and Luna appeared, shotguns held at the ready and aimed. “Hello boys,” Chuck called before she fired, pumped and fired again. Placing two giant holes between the eyes of Ramsilel and the lizard demon.
The Chuglet was strapped to Luna’s chest in Malachi’s baby carrier and growled at Zyrinnia a second before the evil grin spread over Luna’s face as she pointed the gun at her childhood tormenter.
“Miss me bitch?” she taunted before she pulled the trigger.
“She had that coming,” she sighed as she knelt to let Reena out of the carrier.
The demon bodies dropped like granite on the cave floor and quickly dissolved into ash. Chuck turned the gun on Honeysuckle and grinned as Reena loosed a crazed howl of victory. The sound echoed off the walls, bouncing about in unhinged glory. It was music to Malachi’s ears.
Glaring at the female demon, Chuck stared while she reloaded. “That’s why bad guys don’t win. They monologue way too fucking much.”
Roaring, Honeysuckle shot a vine from her palm and knocked the gun from Chuck’s hands. Another vine wrapped around her wrists and yanked her forward, stumbling toward the shrieking demon.
“Kelly!” Malachi bellowed, his voice nearly shredding with how loud he screamed. His fear that she would be harmed choked him with its icy grip.
Luna ran forward, dropping the shotgun and reaching for Chuck, but another vine wrapped around her ankles and dangled her upside down.
Grunts ensued as Chuck wrenched her hands free from the vines and began swinging on the filthy demon.
Honeysuckle cried out in pain as Chuck landed a solid blow to her jaw, then another after a vicious uppercut.
Squealing came from the bulbous demon as Chuck stomped on her insteps and threw elbows into her gut.
The demon was used to fighting with magic and having her father’s support.
She had severely underestimated the human.
Chuck was fighting for her life and Malachi’s. “Let her go, you fucking bitch!” she screamed at Honeysuckle, waving at Luna. “Reena, back!”
Reena was barking wildly and snapping at the demon’s feet. She yelped as a vine wrapped around her middle and lifted her in the air, dangling her upside down.
Malachi whistled low. “Oh, now you really fucked up.”
Snarling, he began to torque his body around, trying to break the chair to free himself partially. He heard an ominous creaking and was sure he was almost there when he heard the return of footsteps in the tunnel. More than just Luna was coming back.
Malachi almost yelled in relief when Jaxon came around the corner behind Luna. A large cut on his temple was held closed with bandage strips, and his lower lip was split. The man looked like hell but had murder in his eyes. “Let her go!” he yelled, pointing his gun at the demon.
Honeysuckle showed a surprising desire to survive and kept her head down, pulling Chuck in front of her so he couldn’t get a clear shot.
She taunted them, “Pathetic humans. Think you’re better than us?
Come in guns blazing, yeah you got lucky, but couldn’t seal the deal.
So here we are, the piece-of-trash human my Malachi left me for. He’s mine, bitch! You can’t have him!”
Chuck stopped struggling then and laughed.
Jaxon also stopped and lowered his weapon as he clapped Luna on the shoulder.
They, too, began to laugh, and Reena joined them with her wheezy chuckle.
She was snuffling around the ashes of the other demons now and squatted over the pile to relieve herself.
She kicked at the lizard demon’s pile, waggling her tail when done.
“What?” Honeysuckle screeched. “What’s so damn funny?”
It was Malachi that slumped in relief when Luna sent him the plan and clarified for his confused captor. “You keep calling her human, but you forgot. She’s not just human.”