Chapter 84

Lucille’s palm tightened on the worn hilt of the sword buried in the sheath of the bandolier as she approached the end street gates, her heart beating with a tense rap. She had never been caught out this late, if only she hadn’t dallied in the restroom so long.

The End Streets were home for the Plague Witches, the spell casters that’d broken out from under Damon’s hellish tutelage and now practiced their sorcery here, with all the other dregs of questionable society.

There was a large wrought-iron gate that kept the uncanny populace in, the darkness thickening only a few feet inside and stretching as far as the girls’ eyes could see, which was not far at all.

“It’s luck for a reason, knucklehead!” Lucille imagined Saint’s disparaging hiss in her head.

Any other fae would have sizzled to grey dust just touching the barricade, the gate sucking in their soul matter, and the empty husk of their forms.

Lucille was wound up tighter than her buttcheeks from that one time she’d tasted pig brains at Chucky Cheese and had explosive diarrhea.

She was here because Damon had offhandedly mentioned a High Witch who could give her answers in exchange for the Hell Prince’s continued leniency.

Lucille braced herself and leaped over the gate cleanly, only taking a few steps before she was rudely stopped.

“Whom do you seek, girl?” Something hissed behind Lucille, and she fought the urge to whip around and strike blindly at the voice that had managed to creep close to her ear.

It was what she got for not paying attention; that was how people got their skin stolen.

Lucille had a feeling the Skinwalker, who owned the voice, was not at all beautiful.

Benedict had shown her pictures once, mugshots from an especially grisly case file.

The Skinwalker she'd seen, powerful enough to tear through a werewolf, was one of the lesser breeds, as basic as a skeleton with chunks of meat hanging from the greyed bones, so that she had smelt the rot in Benedict’s air-conditioned office. Their eyes didn’t quite catch on film, always coming up hollow and washed out.

Lucille was certain there was a good reason for that; she remembered her mother’s words about never looking a skinwalker In the eye as the last remaining shudders passed through her.

The breathing on her shoulder was steady, almost bored, as if it had expected a more dramatic reaction. Lucille thanked the stars that she hadn’t been hungry.

“I’m looking for the head mage, Franchesca?” She might know where my sister is. Lucille rapped, her knuckles white on the hilt of her trusty sword.

Lucille’s pointy ears flexed in the quiet that followed. She’d sliced many necks and tentacles; she didn’t mind adding a Skinwalker to her nightmares.

The creature seemed to realize this, the breathing on her neck growing faint as Lucille felt it shift before walking past her.

It knew Lucille hadn't gotten her street cred from attending tea parties; reputation was everything in Armagetton, and Lucille would be damned if she chickened out. Literally.

“Follow me, and keep your head down.” The skinwalker sniffed arrogantly before trotting down the unlit street.

Lucille kept her head high and widened her sharp green eyes, her pupils dilating in the blackness.

It was the only way she knew to describe this part of Armagetton, the heart of downtown.

Lucille guessed there were houses on either side of the street as doors creaked open in front of her and the grating, shuffling noises ceased completely, as though whatever filth had been roaming paused to observe her.

Lucille would have preferred the ruckus to the complete silence that now hung over the duo as they trudged along the stretch of unpaved earth and gravel.

She hated being blind and not seeing what was watching her.

“You can relax your hand on the blade now, champ.” Lucille inhaled sharply before halting to a complete stop, nearly snapping her neck as she whipped it to where she thought the voice had come from.

She regretted not waiting on the Alpha werewolf as he’d promised and instead heading off into the abyss alone.

It was just like Lucille Arkavis to dive headfirst into deep, piranha-infested water.

“Any closer and I’ll chop you to minced meat, Goldilocks.” Lucille threatened, unsheathing her sword as she turned leisurely in a neat arc, discreetly shaking out the slight tremor in her wrist, choosing to focus on a point above her in the darkness, imagining she could see hints of bright red orbs watching her form hungrily.

Lucille knew whatever this was, it sure as hell wasn’t Goldilocks. The honeyed voice she’d heard was too friendly, but not friendly enough to mask the venom her trained ears picked up.

“Let the lassie be Baron!” She’s Arkavis meat anyway! You don’t want soiled blood in your gut!” Lucille heard the Skinwalker’s voice in the distance. She wondered if everyone else here could see and if she was the only bumbling idiot, savagely groping around in the dark.

“Get a move on, gingerbread, we’re losing daylight!” The mass of skeletons had grown fatter in the dark as Lucille rushed up to it, panting heavily as they weaved across other mutants.

The Skinwalker's guttural voice made Lucille’s head fill with a white, searing pain; it was like listening to chalk screeching on a blackboard.

“You are faster than I’d have guessed, old bone!” Lucille drawled just as she heard the creature purr. Deceit and flattery were two things her mother had taught her would get her everywhere, and it seemed she’d been right. Lucille shook her head at how the creatures’ bent spine stood straighter, the sag of pockmarked, rotting skin less pronounced.

“Go through there, knock twice, and enter immediately.” If you feel the urge to snoop, do resist it.

The skinwalker spoke slowly beside Lucille, as though it sensed she tended to disobey, pointing a long bony finger in the dark crevice between the two buildings.

Lucille hadn’t noticed the black mist that rose like dust from the cracked soil.

“Hurry, you don’t want to be here when it’s full moon.” It finished heatedly, seeming to dissolve into the blackness as its gravelly voice grew fainter.

“Seven hells!” Lucille cursed, managing to squeeze between the rough barks of the two brick columns that ended in a staircase that led down. The first few steps were illuminated by the single yellow bulb at the entrance; for the rest, Lucille guessed she would just have to feel her way through, promising herself that she would not snap her neck on the fifth stone slab.

It felt like she'd been walking for hours; what time was it? Lucille couldn’t tell, but she was beginning to get stiff leg disease from tightening her quads too much. The silver bullets fitted into her bandolier chakled erratically as she tip-tapped into the stone-walled basement.

“Gingerbread?” Benedict’s voice sounded wrong as it echoed around the foyer, where a striking old woman was sitting naked on the floor, cross-legged.

“What are you doing here?” Lucille questioned the werewolf that looked like he was chagrined; his doe-shaped brown eyes opened wide in annoyed disbelief.

“Ah, just handling some unfinished business,” she said. He stuttered, looking back and forth between the serene-looking hag and the raven-haired beauty. It felt to Benedict like the beginning of a dark fairytale.

“An officer of the law doing business with shady downtown witches?” She primed, but received only his growl in response.

Lucille wondered what else Benedict did in his spare time.

She gulped heavily, wondering—not for the first time, it would seem— just what she had gotten herself into.

Franchesca, high queen of the Plague Witches, was not at all what Lucille had expected.