Blood Debts (The Temple Chronicles Book 2) by Shayne Silvers Page B

well being in the long haul. Like an elevator button, I pressed the power button repeatedly, confident that persistence would pay off. But, like the elevator, it didn’t.
    I looked up, judging how far I would need to walk to catch a cab. I wasn’t necessarily in a spot many cabbies visited of their own choice. That was fine. Perhaps a walk among the Mardi Gras patrons would help sober me up a bit. Give me time to plan my vacation with Indie. Then I hesitated. But I couldn’t go on a vacation now, not with this curse. I scowled at nothing in particular. Damn Jafar.
    I began hoofing it, striding drunkenly along with angry stomps of my feet. Jafar would pay for that, but for now, I merely had to get home. And to do that, all I had to do was make it to a main thoroughfare. Simple. I quickly realized that there weren’t many people on the street, but I could still hear them off in the distance. They had most likely congregated to a more happening place. A place with more bare breasts than Achilles Heel. After all, starving college girls needed beads for food, right? Someone had to provide for them. I realized I was idly searching my pocket for beads, which brought my thoughts back to Indie. She was no doubt at Chateau Falco, wondering why I wasn’t back home yet. I wondered if Gunnar or Tory had called her, terrifying her with my abrupt disappearance. If so, I was in for a rough night.
    I spotted a mounted patrol officer near a streetlight a hundred feet ahead of me and began to walk faster. He probably hadn’t seen me clearly yet. After all, I was standing in a vast pool of darkness between the dim glows of the aged lights. Neighborhoods like this one didn’t have too serious of a relationship with the city’s maintenance crew. More like casual one night stands. I smiled as I sashayed in a mostly straight line towards him. I wasn’t in that rough of a neighborhood if a mounted police officer was standing watch.
    That’s when I smelled it.
    Brimstone.
    The little hairs on the back of my neck jumped to attention as my eyes squinted, trying to retain any night vision I could. How had I missed the odor? Especially after being told repeatedly that I was doused in it. But this time it wasn’t me. This was fresh. I shook the thought away as a dry, raspy voice seemed to whisper directly into my ear. “Does the Master Temple need a ride?”
    I jumped, twisting like a cat in midair, swinging my arms wildly in a carefully orchestrated defensive maneuver. Lucky for him, I missed entirely. But I knew it had to have scared him a little. It was a ferocious display of the pure essence of manliness incarnate.
    “Was that a seizure?” Its voice crackled drily, pretending not to be terrified.
    I didn’t speak as I continued to stare in the general direction of the voice, hoping to get a solid glimpse of what I was up against. In the darkness, a shape materialized out of nothing, as if unshedding the very night from his shoulders. A Demon. He looked similar to a man, but covered in gravel-like skin. Rough and rigid. Not scales, but like hardened, hundred-year old, weathered lava that had cooled off sometime before the ice age. Other than that, he was a beautiful specimen of the health benefits in Hell. I scowled. “No need to act tough. I know I scared you too.”
    “Yes. Very frightening, mortal. Almost made me lose my appetite.” With a puff of ash, he was gone. I took a step back, questing the darkness, and flinched as his voice whispered in my ear again. Behind me. “Almost…” I whirled, trying to keep him in my sights, wondering how he had moved so stealthily. He chuckled, a sound like snakes slithering through dead leaves in the fall.
    Fall . Fallen , my subconscious repeated, remembering my encounter at the bar.
    I shook my head and briefly wondered exactly what Demons were. Were they all Fallen Angels? Or were some just damned souls? I raised my hand. The Demon hesitated, cocking his head before nodding for me to