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

set the demon on me in my crappy hotel room. Most people would have freaked out when they made this realization, but I am not most people. I was pissed off.
“We believe that they seek to kill you and use the secrets locked within your flesh to create another immortal more to their liking.”
I should have known. It always comes down to eternal life whenever I was dragged into something big. And people wonder why I’m so damned anti-social. “Do these items have the power to kill me?”
“Perhaps. But when it comes to you, nothing is ever certain.” It was Bridget who answered the question. Her eyes were full of pity when she addressed me. “If such a thing can happen to you, then death by this means will be the worst torment you will ever endure. You will be grateful for the end, when it comes.”
Shaw regarded me with real fear as he digested the information we had been given. But it wasn’t fear for himself. Shaw was afraid for me.


Chapter 25

“You cannot return to your homes. The police are watching Shaw’s house, and the Disciples of the Divine Inferno are squatting outside Rebecca’s apartment.” Morrigan said. She walked ahead of us at Shaw’s insistence. She wouldn’t stop grabbing his ass.
“I’m not going into that church unprepared,” I retorted. Far Dorocha walked behind me, and played with my hair. Figuring that he would get bored and find something else to do if he didn’t get a rise out of me, I ignored him. I was right. He stopped touching my hair and tried to tickle my ribs. I guess I should be grateful that he didn’t jam his hands down my pants.
“Two Children of Orpheus went to your home to retrieve items for your task and they were incinerated for their trouble,” Morrigan replied. “The Divine Inferno is getting too aggressive, and we don’t want to take the chance that you’ll be captured, nor do we want to give the Conservatoris a reason to confine you.”
On the one hand, I hated that the Fey were telling me what to do, but on the other hand I loved that they wanted to keep the Conservatoris off of my back. That made it hard for me to decide whether or not I was going to do things on my own or let the faerie come along for the ride. I guess I could be amiable for the time being. At least I was out of the safe house.
“Baja and Kootch will give you what tools you require when you meet them.” Morrigan continued to talk as she pushed through big leafy bushes and flowering branches.
“Great,” I said sarcastically. “Will they be coming along on this adventure too?”
“You’ll need people to watch your back and those two are disposable enough that they can be easily replaced if they are killed,” Morrigan explained. “I was surprised when Bres gave them up so easily. He has grown soft from his time with mortals and has developed an unnatural affection for the men.”
We emerged from the foliage to the kitchen where Kootch was eating a bowl of grits soaked in butter and bacon grease while Baja chewed on a sandwich. Both of them looked our way with blank stares of boredom as we entered the room.
“Stop screwing around and get back to work,” Morrigan barked. “Bres says that if you two bugger this one up he’ll hand you over to Mab for retraining, and you do not want to find out what Mab considers discipline.” And then Morrigan and Far Dorocha were gone in a warm breeze that smelled of mint and thyme.
Without a word, the two men stuffed the remainder of their meals into their mouths, hitched up their baggy pants, and headed for the door.
“Hey!” I called after them. “You’re supposed to have weapons for me!”
“We gotta go pick’em up!” Baja called back. “Hurry your ass up or you’ll go in the trunk again.”
Baja drove a nineteen ninety-something POS that had a fancy new paint job and ghetto rims. Baja did the driving while Kootch rode in the front passenger seat with his arm hanging out of the window. I did not end up in the trunk, but was treated to the back seat next to Shaw. Baja drove north on the interstate and then he got off at the Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
I don’t know what it is about streets with Dr. King’s name on it, but they always seem to be at the heart of the worst neighborhoods of any American city that has them. Poverty and violence run rampant there, beating down the hapless citizens until nothing is left of them. Street gangs and other violent criminals prey upon their friends and neighbors, taking whatever pleases them without any regard for the needs of others. From fear of retaliation or for resentment of law officials, the victims rarely report the crimes or step forward as witnesses, and then they bitch because the cops won’t find justice for them. And so a culture of apathy, nurtured by hate and ignorance, is allowed to grow and fester. It’s shameful. Dr. King must be spinning in his grave.
Baja parked in a trash strewn lot at a rundown apartment complex that was identical to any other government housing project found all over the country. I could never understand why these places were so universally crappy. Was it because the people who lived in them were naturally destructive and so they couldn’t possibly keep anything in good repair, or was it the corruption at the local level that prevented the Feds from pouring the needed funds into the properties? My money and experience suggested that it was a little bit of both.
“What are we doing here?” Shaw asked. He eyed the environment warily, as if he expected a Latin King or Crip to leap out of nowhere and shoot him to death. There was no threat here, not at this time of day anyway. It wasn’t long past noon, and most of the human monsters that lurked in the neighborhood are nocturnal creatures and would only be stirring a little in their beds so early in the day.
“My Mom has a lot of stuff we can use against the Divine Inferno and I promised that I’d see her today,” Baja growled with an angry, defensive look. I wasn’t going to tease him. I thought it was sweet that the cold-hearted killer still catered to his mother.
The desire to meet the woman who could give birth to and raise a man like Baja overrode any thought of caution I might have had. I got out of the car and gleefully followed Baja up a flight of steel and concrete stairs to an apartment at the back. Shaw was somewhat less enthusiastic about the turn of events, and so he followed at a safe distance and seemed to watch everything at once. Kootch wasn’t far behind him. His head was down and his shoulders were hunched as if he was afraid to be there.
The breezeway had been wired for electric lights, but the fixtures had been destroyed long ago. The wood siding was cracked and covered with graffiti like a crude record of the local history. Rap music pounded from behind closed doors, blending the furious beats and vengeful lyrics with the mournful wailing of a mariachi band drifting up from lower floors. The atmosphere of despair of the dreadful place drove home the point that Hope is a gimpy bitch that functions on vindictive whims.
Baja stopped at the last door and tapped on it with a thick fingertip. It was no different from any of the others lining the hall, save for the fresh coat of bright red paint. Red doors are often associated with prostitution, and in some cultures they were used by thieves and their fences. But in a few small, primitive pockets of the world, the red door was a clear message to anyone with eyes to see: a dark witch dwells here.
I have eyes to see and I did not want to open that door. The smells coming from the other side were strange and pungent, like someone had been messy while slaughtering a pig and burned incense to cover the odor. There was enough of the primitive pagan left in me that I was afraid of the wicked witch. The thought of being hexed within an inch of my life was a frightening thought.
“Come in Baja!” a woman’s voice as soothing as velvet called. “Bring your visitors.”
Baja pushed the door open, and gestured for the rest of us to follow. Kootch and Shaw followed readily enough, but I hesitated. Shaw noticed and turned to me with a worried frown.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. He glanced nervously past the threshold, then moved closer to me as if I was about to whisper some secret to him. Not knowing how to tell why I was frightened by the witch without sounding like a paranoid crackpot, I went into the apartment without saying a thing.
Charlotte Walker kept a clean home. Every surface was gleaming without a speck of dust and the carpets and old linoleum floor were clean enough to eat off of. The air smelled faintly of bleach and a floral air freshener. The odors I had smelled outside were strangely absent inside this place. Most people would have been relieved by it, but it made my anxiety levels go higher.
On the walls were pictures of smiling children and formal family portraits. Alongside the pictures were religious symbols and artifacts that carried all the earmarks of underworld gods and death cults. They were grotesque things, made from dismembered parts of animals tied carefully in bundles with bits of bone and dried plants. These sorts of things were usually used as storage for magical energy or as focuses for particular spells. That Charlotte left these things out in plain view was disturbing to me and made me wonder at her power.
Charlotte didn’t look like a crazy-assed death priestess who talks to angry dead people. She was small and pretty in an ordinary kind of way, with an open face and a smooth caramel complexion. Her tightly curled hair was cut close and had more gray in it than black, she wore no make-up, and her jeans and t-shirt hung loose on her slender body. If she had been a strange woman walking down the street, I wouldn’t have noticed her. What she was doing in a dump like this was beyond me. Maybe she liked it here.
Baja kissed his mother on her cheek and introduced her to me and Shaw. Charlotte looked us over, her small, black eyes moving slowly as if she was peering carefully into our bodies. Her lips quirked at Shaw, but when she turned to me I felt my blood run cold.
“Welcome in Miss Calden,” she said, stepping forward and offering her hand to me. “I have heard much about your troubles. Please, make yourself at home.”
‘Make yourself at home’ is what every wicked witch says to the fat little children right before she eats