A Hand in Hell

Chapter 3

"New pet?" the bartender asked in a grim, husky voice, eyeing the girl perched on the stool beside mine with little emotion to his eyes. I grinned, more to myself than to him. The human waswearing a leash and collar, after all...

"Something like that," I laughed, my gaze sliding to the human. She sat rigidly on her bar stool, watching me nervously out of the corner of her eye. Her head was stiff on her shoulders, focused straight ahead, as if she were afraid that looking the wrong way might have some nasty consequences — and really, who knew? Maybe they would one day, when I was in the mood for it. Hell, if there'd been an audience, more people in the bar than just myself, the girl, and the bartender, perhaps I would have punished her, anyway, just to put on a show.

"She sure is cute," the man drawled as he placed his massive hands on the counter, the backs of them furrier than any dog I'd ever seen. I'd known the man for a while — a complicated case, really. He'd been a demon once, but he'd pissed off the wrong warlock, and, long story short, he was now more human than demon and less human than dog. Hair everywhere, and a nasty case of fleas, judging by the way he scratched himself. I liked to think about it whenever life got me down. It always gave me a good laugh. "How'd you get her?"

"I'd intended to torture and kill her like all the others, but I was ordered not to kill her and not to let her go," I explained, my tone turning more and more bitter with each passing word. Even thinking about his back story wasn't cheering me up now. "Speaking of, have you heard that there's now a fucking Demon Council? How ridiculous is that?"

His bushy eyebrows rose. "Created just for you, I expect?"

I wrapped my fingers around my cold glass and brought it to my lips — whiskey on the rocks. Maybe that would cheer me up. "How'd you guess?" I asked wryly once the liquid had finished its trip down my gullet, leaving behind only a pleasant tingling and the vague taste of alcohol.

"They only form a council when they have reasonable cause, and your antics as of late have been, well...quite the reasonable cause." If he hadn't pulled the bottle of booze from beneath the counter and refilled my waiting glass, I might have jumped across the counter and strangled him.

"What should I do about it?" I asked, leaning an elbow on the counter. "I mean, I can't just let this go. I have a reputation to uphold, you know? And I'm so pissed off that I could just fucking kill something. These bastards deserve some sort of retribution for stopping a perfectly good system like they did. I just don't know what course of action would be best."

"You could always start by killing her," he suggested, inclining his head toward the human at my side, and I watched with sick joy as her body managed to tense even further. Maybe I'd be happy yet. "Lure them out. Make them fight you."

I continued to smile grimly at the girl as I spoke. "I'm sad to say that I'm not entirely sure that I could take them all. There were three earlier, and who knows how many they have behind the scenes, just waiting for me to slip up?" I paused briefly before asking, "Are you thirsty, girl? You've had quite a trying morning, and I think some booze would help you loosen up a bit."

Slowly, she turned to look at me, twisting her whole torso for some reason. Her eyes were wide in a combination of fear and surprise, and for a moment, I wasn't sure if she was even going to answer me; but then, softly — "I just stopped drinking a few hours ago. I...I don't think I want any more."

"We have food, too," the man pointed out, and I briefly wished that I could remember his name. I mean, I bounced ideas off of him all the time, told him all about the troubles in my life, gave him little tastes of my power every now and again – shouldn't I have remembered his name, anyway? How rude of me.