Whiskey Witches, F.J. Blooding [ap literature book list .TXT] 📗
- Author: F.J. Blooding
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“He was on my team!”
Paige advanced on him. “He’s an angel probably hiding behind demons and we don’t have a good enough offense!”
“What if,” Roxxie said, her voice small, “I shielded you?”
Paige and Brian faced the angel.
“An angel?” Balnore asked quietly. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you could scar her.”
“She’s already scarred.” Roxxie bit the inside of her lip.
“Are you serious?” Paige glanced at Brian. “If you are, we have a chance. A chance. If you’re not, though, we’re all dead and that gate opens whatever Mike has planned comes to pass.”
“Right. I know. No. I’m serious. I can do this. I can help you.”
Balnore grimaced at Paige. “It’s imperative we get that key.”
“And what do we do with an angel?”
“If you can handle the demons,” Balnore said, nodding in thought, “I can get Mike.”
Paige thought about it for a second. “Okay. Okay. Let’s go.”
The junkyard was located out in the middle of nowhere. The flat, barren land was broken only by piles of old, junked cars and a single trailer sitting perched on the edge. Lit by street lamps.
Several police cars with several different markings were parked along either side of the highway.
Not a single person was anywhere.
Paige parked Jackie behind Brian’s car. “Roxxie, tell me why you’re helping.”
“Fun factor?”
Paige scanned the area. Where was everyone? She didn’t appreciate being blind. She got out , closing Jackie’s door quietly. “Don’t reach into me and start using my gift. Okay? I know how to do it just fine without you.”
Roxxie nodded over the hood. She glowed softly in the pitch black of night.
Paige walked up to Brian. “Did you call this in?”
“And risk endangering them to fight demons?” He pulled his gun out and checked the safety. Shaking his head, he pointed his gun to the ground. “Another ploy?”
Roxxie lifted one shoulder, glancing at Balnore. “Humans are fodder to angels.”
Balnore raised a dark eyebrow.
Paige steadied her screaming nerves. “Roxxie?”
Roxxie closed her eyes, biting her lips. She spread her hands in benediction and floated off the ground by about two inches.
Brian blinked, but otherwise didn’t react as he kept his eyes on the junkyard.
Paige’s nerves settled as though someone had taken a silk brush to them. She took in a deep breath and released it.
“Better?” Balnore asked.
She nodded. “It’s working. Brian, stay here until I clear the scene. You go in there before I clear it, you’re as good as fodder like everyone else.”
Brian’s jaw clenched.
“Good. Bal, you ready?”
The demon shrugged with his eyebrows. “After you.”
Paige approached the chain-link fence. The gate stood open. The sun crept up to the horizon, shooting small knives of light into the inky blackness.
Great. Dawn. She wasn’t sure how time had passed so quickly, but it couldn’t have come at a worse time. She needed to be able to see.
A thick bank of fog rolled in as they made it past the first pile of cars. It swung out of the way, like a flimsy curtain moving in the breeze.
Demons. Five of them. They laughed, slapping each other in praise.
Three cops writhed on the ground at their feet. She could barely make out the sounds of their cries as the fog parted, could barely discern the howls of laughter from the demons.
“You sure you can do this?” Paige muttered.
Roxxie squared her small shoulders. “Only one way to find out. Go get them.”
Paige called up the power of Hell. She formed it into ethereal clawed hands. She grabbed each of the demons’ souls, maintaining her hiding spot behind the junk cars.
Fear covered their nearly human faces as they turned to face her. They fought bought back, throwing his soul energy at her arms.
Curling her lip, Paige tugged on the flow of power from Hell. Her heart asked questions her mind couldn’t translate. Curiosity. Question. In her mind, she asked one question. Do you want them back?
A portal opened beneath her feet, one her gifted eyes could see. A thinning of the veil between her world and Hell as it answered back. Yes.
She flung the through the portal.
Hell reclaimed them with unabashed glee.
Roxxie cried out.
Power flowed through Paige. Hell beckoned like a lover. “What’s wrong?”
“It—it’s not—” The angel waved Paige on. “I’m fine. I can do this.”
Paige’s nerves went raw, as if she were standing in the middle of a fire. Then they calmed just as suddenly. “Are you sure?”
“No.” The angel’s voice was small.
Paige had to hurry, and she had to figure out to do this without Roxxie if the angel failed. She breathed. This was her gift. It was a part of her. She could do this. She had to. Sounds grew distant as she concentrated her will, turning off all other distractions.
She had to.
One of the men on the ground scrambled to his feet.
A woman ran out from behind a pile of cars. Demon.
Its soul called to Paige, but not as though it were trying to push her out. The way demon souls had always called to her. She reached for it.
The rising cop pulled out his rifle, and blasted the demon.
It laughed. With a flick of the woman’s wrist, the officer fell to the ground.
Paige raised an eyebrow and released her power.
The demon froze, unable to disperse, to move.
“Talker,” a loud, multi-toned voice shouted behind her. “Talker!”
Paige banished the first demon, then reached toward the one that had raised the alarm. With a wiggle of her fingers, the demon returned to the loving arms of Hell.
Her power slithered outward, hunting. In her mind’s eye, the cars, the fog, and the destruction became diaphanous. She saw demons, not as red dots in a globe. She saw their faces, what they were doing, where they were.
She raised her head and walked to the next batch of them, ripping from earthly existence.
“Detective?”
She paused and focused on the man at her feet. “Duke?”
He scrubbed his face with the back of his arm. “What’s goin’ on?”
“I’m doing what I do best.” She jerked her arms back, bringing two more demons to kneel at beside the police officer. “Be gone.”
The two demon souls fell screaming through the portal. Their human husks collapsed to the ground.
Paige stepped over the female. “Get your men out of here, Duke.” The fog wrapped around and between them. “Now.”
He ran on all fours before gaining his feet.
The demons fell back to a central location within the maze of dead vehicles.
Guns fired. People shouted.
Silence.
Paige paused between an old beat up truck and a station wagon with a flattened roof. She peered into the fog. No souls called to her gift. Her ethereal arms poised like snakes, waiting, watching.
More demons attacked.
Roxxie fell to her knees.
Paige sent two of the demons through the portal. “Get up.”
“I can’t.” The angel panted, sweat dripping from her pink hair. “Too many. Must call for help.”
One of the demon’s faces twisted in a grim smile. He balled his fist and slammed it against Paige’s cheek.
Pain crashed through her. She stumbled back, her gift latching onto the demon.
The damn thing pushed at her soul, attempting to take over.
“Roxxie,” Paige gritted out.
The angel’s fingers twitched. Blinding white angel light stabbed the demon in the chest. It exploded in ash, along with its human shell. “I’m going to call—”
“Like hell you are.” Paige doubled down on her will. She couldn’t allow the angels to fight. Her summoner claws flexed. Two more demons gone. “Just concentrate harder.”
“I can’t.”
“Then why the hell did you volunteer?”
“She’s always getting herself into trouble.”
The demons stopped moving, their eyes widening in fear.
Paige’s entire body went cold. “Xael.”
“I told you to call us when
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