Lethal Blow: (Succubus Hitwoman Book 2) by Eliza Hendrix (love books to read TXT) 📕

She does.

He’ll be back to himself in twenty-four hours, and that’ll teach him to keep his nose out of other people’s business. It’ll also teach anyone nearby to read the giant sign positioned in front of her tent:

If curtains are closed, KEEP OUT.

Beside the sign is a ticket-dispensing machine. Well, I say ticket-dispensing, but it doesn’t dispense anything. Instead, it’s a little wooden box with a yellow button that says, RESERVE MY SLOT. The wood is so old it looks like it came from the Middle Ages, and for all I know, maybe it did.

I’ve pressed this button before, so it doesn’t come as a surprise when a cloudy blue digit appears on the back of my hand: 69.

I’m about to deliver an immature joke to an old demon with silver hair as she walks by me, but she’s frowning so hard you’d think her face was melting. So instead, I smile to myself and glide my finger across the number.

Under the slot reservation box is cursive writing floating in the air: Now Serving 14. I roll my eyes so hard it makes a sound. “Oh, come on!”

Countless heads turn my way, but I don’t care. This is fucking urgent. How am I supposed to wait for my number? What if by the time it’s my turn, Lucius and his goons have already figured out how to decipher some pages from the Book of Origin?

“Zerachu,” I say aloud.

When nothing happens, I clear my throat. “Zerachu! It’s Alexis. I can’t wait for my turn and I promise I’m not wasting your time.”

Zerachu and I aren’t best friends—I’ve seen her maybe a handful of times. But the few times that I have seen her, the moments were memorable, so I’m certain she remembers me, too.

Taking a step back, I squint. While I might not be touching her tent, nothing is stopping her from casting a spell from the inside. The last thing I need is to turn into a cat.

A shuffling sound comes out of her tent, followed by an irritated grunt. Out through the crack comes a hand full of rings, bracelets, and nails, and then the curtain flies open.

The moment she steps out, I blink.

The woman looks the same as she did four years ago—long scraggly blond hair that hangs over her shoulders and down her back, emerald green eyes surrounded by hundreds of thick black eyelashes, and a twisted frown that translates to, This had better be important.

“What happens after?” comes a shrill voice.

Zerachu rolls her intimidating eyes. “You find out after.”

Every time she speaks, I can’t help but feel the size of a pea. It might have something to do with her thick Russian accent, or maybe it’s that Zerachu has been around for thousands of years—even longer than I have. Her history is impressive, especially the part about having worked for Dracula. Few people can say something like that without lying.

Demon history is like religion these days—there’s always been conflict and war between different groups, and there are always some exceptions who don’t believe differences should interfere with friendships or work collaborations.

What most people don’t know, however, is that countless religious wars stemmed from underground conflicts between fae, vampires, and witches.

It was all hush-hush back then, and it still is.

“B-b-but you can’t. You can’t tell me something like that—”

A scrawny, middle-aged man comes stumbling out of Zerachu’s tent. Thin, frail-looking glasses hang on the bridge of his nose, and an unkempt goatee covers the lower half of his face. His shoulders, sharp and bony, make me think that perhaps he has a set of wings hiding under there.

I sniff the air, catching the scent of dandelion and raw meat.

Yep, a Strikken Lussar. Whoever came up with that name must have been smoking crack, but then again, hundreds of fae names make you feel drunk when you say them aloud (I shouldn’t make statements like that seeing as I’m almost always drunk).

Strikkens are known for being two-faced—literally—and having serious anger problems. On one side (the side I’m looking at), they’re weak, pathetic, and whiney. That’s the side people refer to as the Strikken. When they get angry, though, the Lussar makes an appearance. Admittedly, it’s freaky to see, which is why most people try to talk Strikkens down when they get worked up, otherwise—

“Why are you ignoring me?” the Strikken says, his hands now shaking.

Zerachu gives me a bored look with flat eyelids—a look that tells me she isn’t in the mood to deal with a Strikken’s mood problems. If she were anyone else, I’d fear for her life, but that woman can handle any bullshit thrown her way.

She lets out a heavy sigh and flicks a wrist in the air. “Like I told you, come back later and I finish reading for you.”

But the Strikken keeps at it. “I don’t want—”

His body convulses, and in a split second, he turns around like he’s about to reenter her tent. The back of his head, where you’d expect to find hair, is a face with closed eyes, tight gray lips, and scaly blue skin. Everyone nearby takes a step back; they all know what’s about to happen.

In seconds, the face on the back of his head wakes up. Its highlighter-yellow eyes pop open, and the second it looks at Zerachu, the Lussar frowns so menacingly it looks like its hairless brows are going to crush the bridge of his nose.

That’s not even the freaky part.

What’s disturbing is how his arms and legs reverse positions, making his back now his chest, and his ass now his crotch. Bones snap and ligaments tear. It happens so fast that it sounds like someone stepping on Bubble Wrap.

Without warning, he extracts his two-inch claws and lunges straight at Zerachu.

Several people nearby shriek and scatter, but Zerachu