Welcome to the Kali Sweet Chronicles. Sweet Malice is the fifth book in the Kali Sweet Urban Fantasy series and will be released to retailers in February 2025. I’ll release a chapter twice a month here in my Magic Bites Membership, and I look forward to reading your comments! *Please note that these are UNEDITED and some story elements may change before the official book release in February. Enjoy!
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Sweet Malice, Kali Sweet Urban Fantasy Series
©2024 Misty Evans
Chapter Six
I threw myself on top of the angel I’d come to save.
Rocks rained down on me, battering my body. “I stand corrected,” I moaned once the dust cleared, blowing a strand of hair out of my face and seeing Cole rise from the debris. “I can be surprised.”
“What the hell just happened?” He offered a dirty hand to help me up.
“Michael.” On my feet again, I wiped blood off my arm and dust from my pants. “The real trap was his.”
“He’s the one who left the note?”
I nodded. “Trying to sabotage my mission.”
Cole kicked at the man at my feet. His head was twisted at an unnatural angle, and he wasn’t breathing. “Looks like it worked.”
Some Fallen were immortal; others were not. I suspected the latter with this one, and outside of giving him my blood to resurrect him, there was no saving him. That was a moot point— I didn’t share blood with just anyone these days, even if it did mean failing at my assignment.
With Michael behind this little maneuver, it was pointless anyway. He’d chosen an explosion for a reason, realizing it would kill the demonologist. “I knew Michael would come back at me, but I didn’t anticipate this.”
Cole dug one of his blades out of the rubble. “Not a bad idea—he foils Lucifer’s master plan and irritates you.” Cole nodded his head as if appreciating the archangel’s strategy. Seeing the demon in my eyes, he chuckled. “But I guess he hasn’t learned to stop poking the bear.”
“He seems to forget that I am, first and foremost, a vengeance demon. For every act like this”—I wiped off the blade of my sword and pointed at the dead man—“he gives me more fuel to seek revenge on his angelic ass.”
Zayfeer appeared out of thin air, brows shooting to his hairline when he saw the destruction and our deceased Fallen. “What in the streets of gold happened?”
As if on cue, the folded note floated down out of the air and landed at my feet. It was pristine, untouched by the explosion, thanks to its angelic mojo. I snatched it up and tossed it at Zayfeer. “Michael was here.”
He unfolded the paper and read the message. “He purposely killed a Fallen?”
“Well, he didn’t use his sword to run the man through, and there’s no way to prove it, but yes. Check with your boss and see what he wants us to do with the body.”
Zayfeer stared at the demonologist as if willing him to take a breath, sit up, and speak. After a long moment when none of those things occurred, he grumbled in Enochian, the angel language, and frowned. “Lucifer will not be happy about this. I’ll be back.”
“Make it quick,” Cole hollered, even though he’d already disappeared. “I’m hungry.”
“Let’s search the rubble,” I said.
“What are you hoping to find?”
I wasn’t sure, but standing around doing nothing wasn’t my thing. “Anything that gives me a clue about our victim and his connection to the archangel or Lilith.”
“Like what? An angel feather? A signed confession?”
Smart ass. I wiped a layer of dust from my face and stumbled back toward the center of the laboratory. It was now exposed because half the hillside had been blown away. “If only it were that easy.”
“How did you know it was going to blow?”
“Just a guess.” It was more than that. My connection to the earth had given me a warning. “The amount of hidden sigils in the trap matrix felt off. Like a kid playing with a nuclear bomb. Volatile and on the edge of erupting.”
“Impressive the way you disabled the demon trap,” he said, joining me.
“A talent Queen Maria taught me when I was fourteen. She liked to subject me to various forms of torture, claiming it made me a stronger and more efficient weapon for her, which I guess it did. After fighting my way out of at least a dozen that she put me in, I developed radar for them.”
“Turnabout is fair play, you know.”
Queen Maria was a succubus and a vitium, like me. Only whatever divine essence she possessed was so tiny that it never made an appearance. If someone could embody pure evil, it was her.
She was now contained in one of the cells in the dungeon under the Bridge Institute, and I had taken the necessary steps to make sure she never got out and hurt anyone again. “You know I can’t take revenge for myself.”
“Accidents happen. I know plenty of supernaturals, along with myself, who would be happy to mete out justice for you.”
Good to know. “I’ll think about it.”
This seemed to make him happy, a smile crossing his lips. He hopped over a sizable boulder. “What’s Michael’s endgame? Was he trying to kill us or keep the Fallen out of Lucifer’s hands?”
I located the spot where the dermatologist’s work table had been. It had been blown to smithereens, and I was surprised the man’s body was still intact after experiencing such force. “Both?” I kicked through some of the rubble, moving it away from Ground Zero. Unlike a physical bomb, there were no materials to examine, only a charred hole in the ground. It oozed and bubbled a lava-like sludge, and I poked the sword into the foul-smelling substance. The blade trembled in my hand, the metal sizzling in response.
I wanted to take a sample to the Institute and ask Damon if he knew what it was, but I had no container to put it in. Light flashed off some metal on my left, and I pushed a crumbled stone off a small blade—the scalpel. It was still bloody but otherwise unharmed. Picking it up, a jolt of magic hit me, making my teeth snap together. The red-hot material turned black as the night and began undulating in waves.
“Look out,” Cole said at the exact moment the sludge morphed into thousands of black beetles.
I tripped over my feet, the ground unsteady as the insects swarmed over my boots and up my legs. As I continued stumbling backward, I dropped the scalpel and swatted at them, swearing and holding in a scream.
Cole didn’t fare any better, the beatles covering his lower body. We exchanged a horrifying look and ran as fast as we could from the epicenter.
When we reached the place where the body had been, it was nothing but a shadow outline on the ground. The only thing left was the man’s glasses and a watch.
I wasn’t one to panic. With my attention distracted by the absence of the demonologist, my brain and magic clicked into place. The beatles still clinging to me, fell away, dead on the ground from the bolt of my magic. Those racing toward us hit the barrier of my protective bubble and skittered back toward the hole. Whatever hive mind the group possessed, they realized they were going to die, and as one, they blended and merged into a moving black train, disappearing into the hole in the ground.
“What. The. Fuck,” Cole yelled, looking down at himself and then at the hole before glaring at me. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
I hadn’t, and I’ve seen a hell of a lot in my lifetime. “Like I said, it’s some weird mix of magics.”
“Remember that time we had to hunt down the human kid who was obsessed with ancient texts and trying to make himself a vampire?”
The kid’s head had a few screws loose, and he’d thought he could mix and match various ancient magics to create a better version of himself. Problem was, different cultures had unique properties and rules for using magic. He’d created a goulash that backfired. A Frankenstein of power that killed everyone and everything he came into contact with.
Cole and I had labeled him Shelley after the writer who’d writeen the Frankenstein story. “You think we have another Shelley on our hands?” I asked.
He shrugged. “That’s the closest thing I can compare this to.”
Zayfeer appeared. “What did you do to the body?”
“We didn’t do anything.” I held a hand above the dark outline, feeling the same sting of angel mojo the scalpel had given off. “Michael did this.”
“Michael took the body?” Zayfeer stared hard at the outline, making a face. “Why?”
I trailed a finger through the shadow, and a zap hit my body, causing my teeth to clench. I drew back. “More importantly, how did he know we were coming after this guy to begin with? Why turn him into…” I poked the tip of the sword at the ground where he’d been. “Whatever this was? He must have assumed we would all die in that blast. Which means he knows we didn’t. He didn’t want the demonologist talking to us, so boom. He didn’t want us to know what he was up to and how he was going about it.”
“Now what?” Cole asked.
I headed toward the carnival’s gates. “We need a new plan.”
“Where are you going?” Zayfeer demanded.
Cole fell into step with me. My insides were turning over on themselves, my mind scattering like the beatles. “We’re going to get some food because I can’t think on an empty stomach. After that, we’re going after the next Fallen on the list.” I stopped and looked back at Zayfeer, who stood staring at the shadow on the ground. “Tell Lucifer things are more complicated than I anticipated. I’m going to need substantial backup.”
“Why?” Zayfeer asked.
“Because Lucifer has a mole in his organization, my dear angel, and Michael is just getting started.”
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The swarming beetles are just gross! Who do you think the mole is? Comment and let me know what you liked about this chapter!