Hell's Gates (Urban Fantasy) by Celia Kyle, Lauren Creed Page B

Sometimes I wanted to raise the flames of Hell and cut a swath through the city. It’d cut down on the population and lessen rush hour traffic. If I timed it with tourist season, I could handle overpopulation for a good hunk of the globe all at once.
    Definitely something worth thinking about.
    After a few more minutes of not moving an inch, I got antsy, wolf hating being locked up in a moving box. “What the hell?” I snarled and rolled down the window. I leaned out, trying to see what was holding us up. “If you idiots are fucking rubber necking because of construction, I swear to On High I will rip someone’s spleen out.”
    A few drivers up ahead laid on their horns and a human voice rose above the others—New Yorker through and through. “Hey, kid! Get out of the damn road!”
    Frowning, I got out of the car and headed up the street, winding my way between cars.
    “Caith, what is it?” Jezze called after me, but I ignored her. I broke into a jog, hurrying forward until I could see what the problem was.
    I finally reached the cause of the jam. The traffic stopped in front of an elementary school. A few dozen kids wandered around the asphalt, some shuffling on the sidewalk, others moving in front of the cars. A couple dropped to their butts in the middle of the street, small arms wrapped around their stomachs.
    And fuck me, they all had that same glassy-eyed daze as the patrons back in the bar. The same daze that still covered Bry’s features.
    “Shit,” I muttered and looked at the school. I wished I had Papa Finn here with his dowsing rod. In the meantime, I had to deal with these kids.
    I didn’t even want to think about what was going on inside that school. If these kids were wandering around without any kind of supervision… My gut tightened.
    One of the drivers waved an angry hand out the window, shouting. “Hey, stupid kids! Get the hell out of the road!”
    See, now that I was a mom, I took issue with people cursing at children. It was a thing.
    I walked forward, pausing beside the asshole’s truck. I gripped his middle finger, bending it backward until he was crying like a little bitch. He struggled, fighting to get free, but that wasn’t happening. I smiled widely, not wanting to frighten the kids if they happened to look over. “Lay the fuck off, asshole. They’re just kids.”
    I released him as quickly as I’d captured him and left him there, cradling his injured hand. I got to corralling the kids and moving them out of the street. I tried to get them headed in the same direction, but I wasn’t sure if I’d gotten them all.
    As soon as we were out of the way, traffic went back into motion and it wasn’t long before Jezze drove up and parked along the curb. She got out and helped me get the kids to safety, making sure no more wandered off.
    Jezze stopped short and stared at a kid still standing behind the chain-link fence that surrounded the playground. “Chris?”
    I stared at the boy. He looked to be about twelve, just old enough to be getting into trouble, no doubt. He looked about as dazed as the others, but there was a little something else in his expression. He wasn’t as out of it as the others and he was watching them with a frown.
    Something in the tilt of his head and angle of his jaw itched at my mind. Jezze and I approached him.
    “You know this kid?” I nudged Jezze.
    “Sort of,” she nibbled her lower lip. “Remember that guy I dated a while back? Jacob?”
    I snorted. “Yeah. Human. What were you thinking dating a human? Really?”
    She shrugged but didn’t respond. She was still more than a little pissed at me for banning dems, no exceptions. She understood, but that didn’t mean she had to like it and blah, blah, blah…
    Me banishing dems meant that Jezze’s thelac demon boyfriend couldn’t stay. The leader of her ex’s clan then decided that staying in Florida was pointless and off the thelacs had gone. Long distance loving hadn’t worked for the