Faith of the Divine Inferno by Leslie Thompson (e textbook reader txt) 📕

hard way if he wanted to. I planned on doing something more proactive than having my brains melt through my eyeballs again.
Shaw hesitated for a moment longer and then followed warily. His hand kept touching his hip, still searching for the gun he carried on duty. We stopped before the tables; close enough to have obeyed the word of Bres’ command, but far enough away to be out of easy reach. Bres didn’t seem to mind. He continued his bizarre fussing with the potted plants as if everything was going his way. He whispered regretfully in his strange musical language as he snipped bits of leaf and stem and twisted them together with bits of string and copper wire. He set the bundles aside and regarded us with green eyes gone eerie with malice.
“Because you failed to rid the world of Ryerson’s stain, you revealed my existence to him and the host of malevolent creatures that swarm around him. I have to use a great deal of energy and resources in order to protect what is mine, including you.” Bres gave me a hard look to make certain that I knew that I was the beneficiary of his efforts. “Since you and your mortal friend are the source of my sudden vulnerability, you will be the ones who will see to my safety.”
“Are you kidding me?” I snapped, outraged. Bres had enough of his sick mojo all over me. I could feel it like a thick oil coating my skin. I did not want more. “You are Fey; don’t you guys have some kind of group protection plan against this sort of thing?” I felt Shaw jerk at the word ‘Fey’ and take a step away. His fear and confusion was like a thick fog around me, but I did not offer him any words of comfort or an explanation. Even though I had the advantage of being one of the supernaturals surrounding him, all of this was new to me too. I didn’t know what to tell him even if I wanted to try. So I pretended that he wasn’t there quietly freaking out behind his mask of indifference.
“You are over two thousand years old, and you haven’t heard my legend yet?” Bres sneered at me. “Don’t you read? I am a deposed king! I am exempt from the mound’s protection.”
I made a useless gesture. I don’t know how faerie politics work, and I don’t care. Bres glared daggers at me and slammed his stuff around on the tables like a pissy housewife.
“Good grief Bres, pull out the tampon and man up.” I exclaimed in frustration.
I woke up on the floor with my eyes crossed painfully and unable to recall how I got there. I’m sure I could guess if I tried. My head hurt a lot and my chest had wisps of smoke trickling up from it. As soon as I noticed that, I felt the pain of second or third degree burns scorching my cleavage. I couldn’t say without looking. They both hurt the same in the first few minutes after the flames are put out.
Shaw was kneeling over me with a mixed expression of shock, horror, and amusement. It made his face look odd. “I don’t want to know what just happened, but you have balls. Great big, shiny, brassy, balls. I would not have had the nerve to say what you just did.”
“Thanks,” I groaned. Shaw helped me get to my feet and I blearily regarded a furious Bres and his two snickering lackeys. My eyes kept crossing against my will, so it was difficult to focus on Bres as he glared indignantly at me. He held up two tuffs of hair wrapped in gold, one long and dark brown, the other shorter and fairer. I touched my hair at the sight, searching for the missing lock.
“Do not fear for your crowning beauty,” Bres growled, weaving the hair through the cuttings he had taken from the plants. “I took the hair from the nape of your neck. You’ll never know it’s gone.” I watched him work and thought that I would miss it very much by the time he was finished with it.
Bres completed his task and grinned with satisfaction. He admired his handiwork for a moment then holding them delicately in is fingers, came toward us. Even after what Shaw had seen and heard already, he pulled me back and put his body between me and Bres, as if I was the helpless one. I guess that even in the face of imminent, potentially fatal disaster, good socialization and training will always kick in. In the South, good men have the idea that women are ultimately helpless beaten into their skulls. It makes some of them bullies, but it made others heroic. Bres smiled curiously and tilted his head at Shaw as if he had suddenly realized that he liked the man. I suppose it is a good thing since most people, human or otherwise, won’t kill people they like. But then Bres is insane, so maybe it won’t make any difference in the end.
“You want to go first?” Bres asked, his eyes twinkling with mirth. Shaw shook his head and backed up, stumbling as he bumped into me. Bres laughed at his fear and reached for him. Shaw tried to elude him, but I unintentionally got in his way. Bres grabbed the tattooed arm and held the other man easily no matter how hard Shaw struggled. When I tried to intercede, Bres brushed me aside like a bug as he examined the blistered tattoo. “This won’t do,” he muttered. He bent him head and breathed long and hard on the injury, and then he pressed on it with his hand. Shaw let out a cry of pain and his entire body shuddered and his eyes rolled up in his head.
From where I had been knocked on my butt, I watched the blisters and welts smooth and the ugly discolorations fade into the bright tattoo ink. As soon as he was healed, Bres let him go and he dropped boneless to his knees. The air in the room became charged so that it seemed to spark with Fey power as he put one of the bundles against Shaw’s lips and caught his panting breathes with it. Shaw’s wide blue eyes fluttered shut and his breathing moved from frantic to excited. He collapsed onto his back when Bres took the bundle away and he was still.
Bres turned to me with a happy sigh. “Your turn.”
I looked from Bres to the unconscious mortal on the floor and thought, ‘Oh hell no.’ I jumped to my feet and sprinted for the stairs. But Bres is faster than I and he caught me easily and flung me to where Kootch and Baja stood. The two of them caught me and laughed, holding me by my arms between them so that I couldn’t get away. I still struggled; throwing my weight first one way then another while I twisted my limbs in an effort to wrench from their grip. When that proved useless, I took to stomping at their feet. They were wearing thick, sturdy boots that protected them from my efforts and left the bottoms of my feet bruised through my tennis shoes.
“Stop that,” Bres scolded gently. “This isn’t going to hurt you one bit. If you relax it will feel good.”
I cringed from him as he reached out one hand and ran his fingers through my hair. A lustful smile played along his lips as he stroked a thick lock and his eyes moved up and down my face and body. “Are you certain you do not wish an hour of my time? I can promise you pleasure like you’ve never experienced.” I didn’t have to answer him. The grimace of disgust was all the reply he needed. “Have it your way.” He sighed and pressed the bundle against my lips.
I felt electric, like a dozen orgasms were wracking my body all at once. My eyes clamped shut and I was vaguely aware that I would have dropped to the floor like a sack of bricks, but Kootch and Baja held me up. I heard Kootch cackle and Baja’s rumbling laugh, and then I was gone.


Chapter 15

I woke up in a place I never thought existed and couldn’t identify. I smelled green things and the rich earth, so I knew I was outside. I opened my eyes a slit and looked for some sign of Baja and Kootch lurking nearby. But the darkness was thick and close like a velvet wall, and I could not see anything beyond a couple of feet in front of me. I sat up and found that I was sitting on a small mound of earth carpeted in thick emerald moss that was soft and warm to the touch. Shaw was lying prone beside me, making weak moans as his eyelids fluttered toward consciousness. I gazed upwards in search of the source of the light that bathed the small circle, but the sky was as black as the land beyond.
I listened for some sign of life but other than the noise Shaw was making, it was as quiet as a tomb. With that thought came the idea that we might actually be inside a tomb and I felt a rush of panic. I’ve been buried alive before and each experience had been among the most terrifying I’ve ever endured, and each time I swore that I would rather die than endure it again. Since I cannot die, it always happens again and again. The fear left me quickly as I reminded myself that graves are dark and do not have ways to let in even a small amount of light. Where ever I was, it wasn’t with the dead.
“What happened?” Shaw was awake and struggling to sit up. He sat hunched in a pained posture as he peered around through bleary eyes. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know.” That was the only answer I could give to both questions. Shaw stood up before he was ready to, and he reeled dizzily but did not fall. Once the spell had passed, he took a tentative step forward and reached the edge of the circle of light around us. He peered into the darkness and then he lifted his foot to take another step forward. He stood there on one leg for a moment and then let it drop with a sigh.
“I can’t go further,” he sighed in defeat. Shaw reached out with his hand, and the limb disappeared into the darkness. He jumped and pulled it back with an expression of horror as if he expected to pull back a bloody stump. His hand was intact with no sign of injury as he flexed his fingers and rubbed them against his jeans.
Intrigued, I went to where he stood and I stuck my hand out across the barrier. My flesh went icy cold, and it prickled like it had lost circulation and gone to sleep. I took my hand back, and like Shaw, saw that the limb was fine. Perplexed by the strange phenomena, but unable to think of a single thing to do about it, I grunted and turned away. Shaw had already proven that the darkness would not permit us to step into it, so I didn’t bother to try.