Chapter 94

Inside the Graveyard Café, a red-haired Valkyrie stood on her tiptoes to stretch herself over the counter top of the bar like an offering.

“You didn’t see her then?” “That night?” Lucille asked the angry-looking bell boy, a winged faerie with crossed eyes.

“I didn’t see Nun that night.” The fae snapped, shifting his weight impatiently.

“Why don’t you go on back to that little house of yours, thief?” “Ain’t nobody in this goddamned city wanna remember that night!” A buff-looking mobster with a bandana over his bald head clapped Lucille on the back belligerently.

Lucille caught his hand and ran past him, snapping it cleanly as his beef jerky elbow bent over backwards. The man’s scream was music to Lucille’s ears as she clapped him on the face with her fist, breaking his nose as blood spurted freely and the bully sunk to his knees, groaning and clutching his nose.

There were hoots of delight around the bar before the fairies returned promptly to their tea.

“Bloody bastard, don’t you ever put your mitts on poor, defenseless women again!” The red-haired raven screamed, spittle spitting from her mouth.

“Yer poor as a church mouse, aye, but yer hardly a defenseless slut!” The overweight man chuckled, spitting a clump of bloodied teeth at Lucille’s feet.

Lucille gave a shrill scream, knocking him to the dirt-stained ground with a flying kick, before adjusting her clothes and pushing out of the café, ignoring the cold glare of the bell boy.

“Piece of sh*t.” Lucille spat acidically as she shoved an old man, who promptly gobbled up the highway without a second glance. She hated it when people walked slowly in front of her.

Some people had places to be, and she’d be damned if she let a jaywalker stop her.

There was a burning behind Lucille’s rage-tinted eyes that was not there before when she turned the lock to her apartment. It had come like that since the night of The Reckoning—a small, thorny nest that was filled with dark eggs.

Lucille could not stop seeing the prickly vines in her dreams; she didn’t know what to make of them.

The darkness had left something in her after that night, a yoke of some sort that stretched taut every time she slept.

Lucille needed to find the vampire’s family. She remembered that Benedict had said that he’d left the cathedral with Luna. If anyone knew what happened, it’d have been that bloodsucker.

“What is it?” Lucille snapped at Saint, who’d been tugging at the frayed ends of her leather skirt since she returned. He froze at the ice in her tone, cawing submissively.

“Sorry,” Lucille sighed, rubbing her eyes as Saint slowly dug his teeth into her plump ankle.

“I’m just not in the mood, worm; get your canines out of my flesh!” She barked, slapping it on the head again.

The snake harrumphed, slinking off to sulk in the dark corner of her bed. Lucille felt something wet at her feet and sighed again, deciding to clean up Saint’s dinner later.

She really didn’t want to face that siren yet. Lucille wasn’t ready. There were loose ends that needed tying, ends that should be roped into a tight knot so Lucille didn’t trip over them and fall to her well-deserved demise. She needed to get into the vampire’s cave.

Armagetton Vampires were snobbish blue-blooded, white-collared aristocrats with sky-high mansions and fast, shiny cars, as dirt rich as the Demons.

Damon! That was who Lucille decided would be her escort, however unwilling she was when she entered the dragon’s lair.

“Yeah, good luck with that.” Saint snorted before burying his head back in his coiled-up body.

“He might say yes; you never know.” Lucille encouraged him; she didn’t know who was more pessimistic between her and the cheeky thing.

“And I might eat my own tail, you never know.” He huffed, and Lucille chuckled, clicking her tongue at his crassness.

Lucille pulls at the ivory-colored mirror drawers until she finds the red piece of chalk she uses to draw a pentagram on the cold quartzite of her bedroom floor.

It was a summoning spell Lucille had caught their mother doing one night in their garage on Moose Street.

She hissed as the knife sliced a clean line through her palm, the blood pooling and falling into the center of the lines, where it hissed and bubbled open with a splat.

Saint curled into Lucille’s lap as the room started to shake, a thin film of dust falling from the ceiling to coat them with its ashy rain as a dark red portal opened where the shape had been and Damon climbed out, his body oozing black smoke.

“Are you alright?” Lucille gasped, reaching out a hand to touch the lapel of Damon’s burnt coat and withdrawing it with a shriek when it scalded her palm.

“I would be if you’d done the damn summoning right!” “It’s not the most graceful entrance.” Damon sneered, clapping the remnant embers from the open tail of his coat as Lucille and Saint stared, wide-eyed with wonder.

“What do you want?” “And make it quick; I have a show to catch.” Damon grunted, making a show of checking his empty wrist.

“Well, uh, I was hoping you would help me, take me somewhere.”

“Sweetie, didn’t you hear?” I’ve been banished from hell. No more free rides. “Besides, if you wanted a date, you could have just said so; now, you’re pretty and all, but I’m afraid I’d have to decline,” Damon spouted, strutting around the one-bedroom complex as Lucille wrinkled her face.

“What? Ewww! No! “”I was wondering if you could chaperone me to the Vampire Coven.” Lucille spoke quickly, hesitating when the demon threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

She thought she’d seen small black horns peeking from his bush of curly hair.

Lucille knew the horns would grow up to forty times their size when Damon shifted to his real form. His throaty laugh sent shivers up her spine.

She needed to be careful; after all, it was a demon she was dealing with, not a faerie.

“Oh Lucille dearest, you have gone quite mad, yes.” Damon whistled, leveling her with a heated look.

“Please Dam! It’s the only lead I have to find my sister! Lucille pleaded, her eyes dry but her voice shaking with the promise of tears, as she gripped the man leaning casually against the wall tightly on the arm.

“Why so serious? Unhand me.” He seethed, shaking her off as Lucille smiled wildly. She knew it was the tears that had won him over; she had seen the shiny gleam in his eyes before he turned away.

There was nothing a demon liked more than a bucket full of tears.

“Right, first I get dragged off from a nice accident scene with a botched summoning ritual, and now I have to chaperone hot-headed bandits to the bloodsucker clan to look for some escaped teenage mutant who’s probably lying in a ditch somewhere with her guts wrapped around her neck! “Lovely morning to you too, Saint!” Damon grumbled before stalking out the open door, with Lucille hurrying to catch up to him.