Redemption of Blood Read online

  “Then what would you have me say to him in response?”

  “Nemesio,” I called, and she appeared at the doorway. “Prepare a fire for Pivane to respond to the prince. You shall say you have not found me, bantlings are getting harder to obtain because the Frozen has new members, and at this time you would appreciate if he could send you a Second with the ability to survive longer than a few minutes.”

  “Are you sure you want another male in the home? Or is that what you truly want, men to—”

  My hand made contact with his face, but I made sure to not scratch his skin this time.

  “You slap like my mated.”

  “I am sure you have felt her fury more than once.”

  “When she struck me it wasn’t from fury, Your Holiness.”

  “The fire is prepared.”

  Pivane sat before the hearth with his legs crossed. Gathering a handful of dried belladonna herbs and tossing them into the fire, the flames went from orange to a blue and a void was created in the center.

  “Your most holy Lucifer the IV, it is I, Pivane of the sixth mouth. I have reported previously of the failure for a Second to arrive, this report was…” He looked at me as if he were to speak of me. “A sad one. I have failed to protect the one you sent to me. I am requesting another if you can get one before the closing. I understand this might not occur. On the point of your wandering sibling…”

  Pivane breathed in and his shoulders rose. His eyes turned up again to me and I feared once again his disloyalty. With a flick of my hand his head shot to the side and he slowly turned back to the fire.

  “I will check with the local brothels. Although with her mother in my care I would assume she may be the one who I could interrogate. Please let me know if I am to torture the truth from the Queen.”

  With that he tossed a second batch of belladonna and the flame returned to orange.

  “Be gone,” I ordered.

  “No praise for being a good boy?”

  “You’re breathing, all praise be to me.”

  When he left I crashed on the chair in the room, rested my head in my hands, and thought of what I’d done. Surely my brother knows of my actions and is planning a counterattack. But I know one thing for certain. My time will be limited.

  * * * *

  PFC James Schmitt

  Flipping the keys to my car on my index finger out of habit I sat with my feet up on the coffee table across from the couch. KK cut her eyes at me. It was bad enough no one had even breathed loud at her questions. Not even Nye.

  “Fine.” KK snapped shut her notebook and stood up. “You want to keep wallowing? You don’t want to get to know each other? Fine, but if you don’t know about each other you can’t care and if you don’t care you’ll all end up dead. And not like you are now. But really dead. No coming back. No resurrection. No return. I don’t even know why you made a deal with Gabriel. Seriously, has any Frozen ascended?”

  The room dropped a few degrees and KK’s lip curled up.

  “So, who wants to start?”

  I wouldn’t say I felt better or worse about myself as a person after an hour. Although I had learned about my fellow fighters…well, the handful that showed up. Nye had to meet with Kiyoshi about the numbers so I stayed behind while KK finished her notes.

  “Do you even know what you’re doing?”

  “Huh?” she asked as she broke her focus. “I did take psych rotations during my Master’s program and I’ve probably read more on talk therapy in the last three months than I did in college.”

  “Reading and doing are two different things. I can read about small engine repair, but you don’t see me working on the lawn mower out there.”

  “Did you know about Bruce?”

  “The guy in the trailer.”

  “How did I not know about him?”

  “Why should you?”

  “Because he’s kind of a member of the household.”

  “Screens?” I let out a slight laugh. “They’re not members. Outside of giving them food and money they don’t interact.”

  “Screens? Seriously, you all have a messed up way of seeing people,” KK replied incredulously. “You have a house with a dozen places where you could come together. Instead you hide in your room and I swear you hunt out when others are in the gym or kitchen so you can avoid contact.”

  “Most of us are here because of contact with people.” I sighed and leaned my forearms on my legs. “I wasn’t asking about the therapy. What do I know if you’ll be able to unlock some mystery and save us all from ourselves?”

  “Then what were you asking about?”

  “The princess. It’s been a few days and we just finished the first quarter moon, we should have a waxing crescent soon.”

  “And?” KK asked as she latched her pen to the cover of her notebook.

  “You promised the princess ashes.”

  “I’m sorry—is there a point?”

  “I guess I have none. You’re an autonomous figure that lives in a void with no other people.”

  KK rolled her eyes at me and flopped back in her chair. “This is the first time Nye left me alone for more than a bathroom break and hunting in days. I need to dig them up, but it’s not like we can take a romantic stroll in the greenhouse with a shovel.”

  “It’s not that deep, I’m sure a trowel will do.”

  KK looked at her watch, then stood up. “Nye should be busy for about forty-five minutes or so, you think we could dig that fast?”

  “I’d start, but I don’t know where you buried them.”

  “Get the trowel and I’ll grab some baggies.”

  KK beat me back to the tree and was sitting with her legs crossed like a grade schooler.

  “Can we make it look like it does now?”

  “Why don’t you just tell Nye?”

  “He’s hyperprotective of me.” KK took the trowel and cut into the soil with a perfect circle to remove the sod on top. “If he knew about the princess, I may never be allowed out.”

  When she removed the coffee can she seemed scared to pop the top.

  “KK?”

  “I can’t.” She trembled. “I can’t divide up his ashes. He needs to stay whole.”

  “You don’t even know if you got all of him,” I pointed out. “You killed him on your roof.”

  “I got him all,” she snapped, then placed the heel of her hand on her forehead. “Sorry. Without all of him she can’t raise him from the dead, right?”

  “This is new. I don’t know if she needs a pinch or a pound.”

  “We have ashes in the fireplace.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Ashes are ashes. If she needs all of them she won’t notice until it’s too late, right?”

  “That’s a dangerous thought.”

  “It’s worth the risk.” She placed the can back in its grave and covered it up again.

  She got up quickly and left the trowel by the entrance to the greenhouse. Running her hands up and down on her jeans she tried to clean off the dirt as she walked to the living room.

  Kneeling by the fireplace she pulled a teaspoon from her back pocket and snapped open a sandwich baggie.

  “KK,” I began. “Think before you do something you can’t go back from.”

  “She wants ashes, she can have them. What? Is she going to taste them and say it tastes like oak, not Damarion?”

  I watched as she filled ten baggies with two teaspoons a piece of the finer pieces of ash. She made sure to not place any chunks in the bags. With each tied tight she looked at me satisfied.

  “Put these in your glove compartment.”

  I reached for them hesitantly and clasped my hands over hers. “I still say it’s a mistake.”

  “What’s a mistake?” Nye asked.

  We both turned our heads, but I didn’t release my hands that held hers because there was no way I could hide the packages.

  “My abi
lity to entrance someone.” KK twisted her hand so I could conceal the baggies and pulled her hand from between mine. “It’s a form of hypnotism. I thought about implementing it in my therapy to…I don’t know, go deeper.”

  “Why are your hands dirty?”

  “I was going to set up a fire. Aren’t you cold?”

  Nye eyed us and even if I hadn’t been cold before I was freezing now.

  “Well, I think it’s time I go.” I stood up. “Just remember KK just because you can unlock someone’s brain doesn’t mean there wasn’t an important reason the lock was placed there.”

  * * * *

  Her Royal Holiness, Princess LaDressa, Daughter of Lucifer the IV

  “Have you obtained Damarion’s ashes yet?” Pivane asked as he entered my office. There was something in his tone that noted he was not interested…in fact, he seemed to be mocking me.

  “Did I say you could enter this chamber, let alone speak to me?” I rose with my nails balancing my weight as I kept my fingers extended on the desk. “You take liberties your station does not allow. Did Damarion permit you to speak as if you had a position of power?”

  “You mustn’t confuse the strength you saw displayed by your brother and that of Damarion.”

  My hand raked across his face, leaving a red mark and deep scratches. Blood flowed from the top to the bottom of the marks so it formed droplets by his chin and jawline.

  “Cats scratch, leaders kill,” Pivane growled.

  “Are you asking to be killed?”

  “I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. You need to rethink your hero Damarion.” Pivane moved around my desk and backed me into the wall. “Men should be desired and feared in the same breath. The line is thin between the two.”

  “Yet you evoke neither in me.”

  “That’s why you’re keeping me so close. Close enough you can feel my heat.” He pressed his body against mine and thrust his hardness against my hip. “Closer still so you can enjoy me.”

  “Enjoy?” I queried and tilted my head so I could examine the curvature of his ass and form of his sinewy muscular arms.

  “Oh, Princess, I could make you come in ways Damarion never imagined.”

  “With this?” I grabbed his hardened cock. “This could bring me pleasure.”

  “Yes…” He groaned as his eyes closed and his head fell back. “So much.”

  I tightened my grip and his head shot back up as fear filled his eyes. Twisting my wrist, I wrenched his pathetic organ—which indicated he was a male at one time—until a high-pitched howl came from him.

  “You bitch,” he screamed as he fell to his knees, causing me to have to bend over to keep my grip. “Let go.”

  “But it’s bringing me pleasure. Just like you said it would.” I curled my lip into a sneer. “So much, that’s what you said. This thing would bring me enjoyment.”

  I twisted in the other direction only to have him double over in pain and have to brace himself on his hands. Maybe he was trying to break my grip, but his action caused my hand to pull down. It had to of hurt him more.

  “Now, Pivane, you’ve been…trying my patience.”

  Sweat beaded from his forehead as his eyes pleaded for me to stop. I wonder if this technique should be taught to the Deumos against the Frozen males. My mind wandered until Pivane got my attention again.

  “I apologize for upsetting you,” he gasped, and I released my hold because I wanted to stand again. He stayed down.

  “I should be receiving the ashes of Damarion any day now.” I sat in my chair and turned it so I could place my legs under the desk. With my hands intertwined I kept my focus forward. “I expect your full cooperation when I get them. And all things leading up to them. There will be no more mocking of my plan. I have one goal. His return. After that, I shall leave. You can have this blasted coven and the headaches that go with it.”

  “It won’t work.” He panted as he attempted to stand, but found his legs not strong enough to hold his weight. “You are missing ingredients, that even with his ashes you could not obtain. This is a fruitless venture. The only way he could be reborn would be if you released him on a windy day.”

  “What am I missing?”

  “You could offer me every Deumos on the planet tied up and ready for sex and I’ll never tell you.” He swallowed hard with his lips still trembling from pain. “If you do not know the rules, you shouldn’t be in charge. I have no problem watching you fail. I will mark it as second only to the moment when Damarion fell.”

  * * * *

  PFC James Schmitt

  The nights came and went fast. It’d been weeks since we’d seen the princess; then again, the reason she offered us the demons that emerged during the crescent moon was because they were slower and usually lost any way. KK didn’t need to give up any of the ashes, not that she was talking about the situation at all.

  “Your belly still bad?”

  “Yes.” KK swished and spat some water from a bottle. “I just hope it’s not making it hard on Nye to fight.”

  “Have you talked to Gabriel about it?”

  “I’m really not in the mood to talk to Gabriel right now.”

  “No one is ever in the mood to talk to Gabriel.”

  “True.”

  “But he is the one who knows all.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “KK?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you always embrace a fight?”

  “No, but I don’t feel like being a drain either.”

  “So by not fighting you feel like a mooch?”

  She looked up at the stars as she sat on the hood of my car.

  “My husband is fighting right now, by himself—”

  “I thought Esther was helping Berlin get trained in tonight.”

  “Okay, my husband has been fighting by himself for the past few nights…is that better?”

  “A little.”

  “And I’m here sitting on your car resting. His adrenaline triggers mine. I’m not even worried about—”

  KK turned quickly and jumped off the car hood. By the time I turned to where she was looking we were surrounded by Deumos. There were so many I wondered if they were even hunting the bantling tonight.

  “Where are my ashes?”

  “Yours personally?” KK’s sarcasm was lost on the princess. “Because if you really want them I’d be more than happy to stab you into oblivion.”

  “You are not amusing.”

  “Shocking.”

  The princess’ mother was staring at KK as if she were carving then measuring every inch of her. I feared she was using some demonic power on KK, but KK didn’t seem to be in pain or stressed more than she should be.

  “Tell me again why I do not possess Damarion’s ashes.”

  “You know how you put something in a safe place and it’s so safe you forget where you put it?”

  I cut my eyes at KK. With ten baggies in my glove compartment it didn’t make sense she wouldn’t just appease the princess and give them to her.

  “I want them.”

  “Quid pro quo, Princess, I’m not seeing some giant increase in bantlings biting the dust.”

  One of the Deumos approached me and I unsheathed my knife to keep her back.

  “Now…now, soldier boy, we wouldn’t want to have any slip ups. I just wanted a little taste of you.”

  “Last I heard I taste like butterscotch,” I retorted.

  “Mmm…Nummy, nummy.”

  “I heard you taste like charcoal and I’m not in the mood for barb-b-q.”

  “Oh come on, Schmitty,” KK teased. “There’s always room for barb-b-q demon.”

  “Not the time,” I growled. Jesus, what is with her tonight?

  “It’s always the time with this one.”

  “What does that mean?” the princess asked.

  “Kiriana, for once in your life could you please shut the fuck up?”
<
br />   “I never thought I’d have anything in common with a member of the Frozen,” the demon that resembled KK’s mom laughed. “You are so like your mother.”

  “You never really knew my mother.”

  “Hmm…” she purred at KK. “Didn’t I?”

  What the hell did KK mean by that? Really knew? As if the two of them were once roommates or something.

  “This is not the time, Mother,” the princess snarled. “I’m upholding my end of the bargain as I speak; this night’s bantling is yours. Now you have one day to bring me Damarion’s ashes or I will rain down horrors that haven’t been seen on this plane of existence in a millennium.”

  That’s a new threat. I tried to gauge if the Deumos appeared different than a month ago. As we neared the closing, their skin would be tighter and their muscles would become pronounced. They lose some of their femininity as they revert to what must be their normal appearance in Hell. Some even turn a slight grayish-blue color.

  The circle of Deumos stepped in closer and I extended my arm so that my claustranima was an inch from the princess’ pretty little nose. She arched her eyebrow, stepped back, then gave a slight bow to her head and they vanished.

  I caught my breath, remembering that breathing required the intake and exhalation of breath. Had I been holding it that whole time?

  “Well, what the fuck did that mean?” KK asked as she crossed her arms.

  “You know I’m trained to notice things, KK?”

  “And yet we were surrounded by Deumos—”

  Both our cell phones buzzed and I pulled mine out. I wasn't surprised to see that the bantling had been killed.

  “Guess it’s time to pack up and—”

  “What did you mean when you told the Queen that she never really knew your mother?”

  “Duh…how would she of ever met my mom?” KK asked as she walked away. She wasn’t looking at me. She might as well of had a big sign with flashing lights saying liar.

  “You said she never really knew your mother…that would mean she had met her at one time.”

  “My mom did like to party when she was younger.” KK got in my car and buckled up.

  I slid into the driver’s seat. The temp in my car was about three degrees above freezing.

  “Tell me, KK, or I’m not taking you home.”