Welcome to the Kali Sweet Chronicles. Sweet Malice is the fifth book in the Kali Sweet Urban Fantasy series. I release a chapter a week here in my Magic Bites Membership, and I look forward to reading your comments! Enjoy!
***
Sweet Malice, Kali Sweet Urban Fantasy Series
©2025 Misty Evans
My mother had been a Seer. I’d never had the gift.
Now, I was glad I hadn’t.
Except Azaria hadn’t been rocking any angel mojo. I hadn’t detected magic of any kind running through her system. How had she pushed those visions—premonitions?—into my mind?
Rad was playing his guitar—naked—on my bed when Maddy and I burst into my apartment.
He jumped up, and Maddy gawked. “Damn.”
I staggered to the nearest chair. Ignoring her, Rad tossed the guitar on the bed and approached me. “What’s wrong?”
“Like you don’t know,” Maddy said, closing the door behind her before joining us. “Do you need saltine crackers? Herbal tea? Pickles and ice cream?”
“Go away,” I groaned, rubbing my temples.
Rad frowned at her, then at me. “What is she talking about?” His eyes grew wide as the words sank in. “Wait. You’re not…?”
Pregnant, no. Homicidal? Getting close. “Of course not. Maddy, find Salmad. I need him.”
She let go of an Oscar-worthy sigh. “Fine.” She marched to the door. “I’ll get Kirill, too.”
“I don’t need a doctor. Just the priest.”
“Whatever.”
She stomped out, and Rad took hold of my chin and forced me to look at him. “What’s going on? What happened in the basement?”
“I saw… I’m not sure what I saw.” I held my stomach, a dull pain throbbing in my gut. “But Lucifer is not being honest with me.”
“That surprises you?”
It was more than that. If what Azaria had shown me would come to pass, it meant that…
The door banged open. Frank rushed in. He held out my father’s book. “Read this passage.”
“What are you doing with that?”
He glanced at Rad’s naked body and gave a sharp squeak. “Have I interrupted something?”
“Yes,” Rad said.
“No.” I forced myself to stand. My legs wobbled. “You didn’t ask permission to take my book.”
He waved me off. “Your father’s work is impressive, and I learned something about the prophecy.” He held the volume out to me, tapping his finger at a section. “Read this.”
It was all Greek to me, literally. “I can’t. I don’t know the language.”
“You’re a demon. Translate it.”
“This may come as a surprise to you, but it doesn’t work that way. I know Italian, some Spanish, and some curse words in French. That’s it.”
He adjusted his glasses with frustration. “Demons and angels can translate any language that exists. You’re not trying.”
I jerked the book from his grip. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Maybe as a Fallen you can do that, but as far as I know, I don’t have an internal translation app I can turn on whenever needed.” I looked to Rad for confirmation, and he nodded.
“English, French, and a little Italian that I learned in order to woo her in Queen Maria’s court,” he told Frank. “That’s the extent of my lexicon.”
Frank snatched the book back, flipping it open to the previous page and tapping his finger on the section again. “The prophecy. About Azaria.”
I wanted to pick him up and throw him across the room. “We already know about the prophecy. Your kind gets to be angels again. Paradise is restored. Yada, yada, yada.” Except in the vision Azaria had jammed into my head, that wasn’t happening, thanks to her father. El porca miseria.
Frank sighed as if dealing with unruly children. “That’s the prophecy that made it into the Bible. These are visions your mother saw that your father recorded. They didn’t make the cut.”
I glanced at the text, even though I couldn’t decipher it. “What does it say?”
Salmad, Kirill, and Damon entered without knocking. “What’s this we hear about”—Kirill cut off at the site of Rad. “Jesus God, put some damn clothes on!”
“My apartment is apparently Grand Central Station,” I grumbled as Rad reluctantly pulled on a pair of cargo pants.
Damon’s face was ashen. The corners of his mouth were tight, and a crease I hadn’t noticed before between his brows looked like a canyon. “Are you with child?”
I sat in the chair with a thud. “No, for the love of all that’s evil, I’m not pregnant!”
All three of them looked relieved. Rad squeezed my shoulder.
“You don’t need medical help, then?” Kirill asked, his keen eyes sweeping over me for any apparent illness or injury.
“She doesn’t look good,” Frank said. “Maybe you should give her a checkup.”
“It’s not physical,” I argued.
Kirill continued his visual probe. “Are you magic sick?”
I’d never heard of such a thing. “What’s that?”
“You’ve been traipsing through different dimensions and hanging out with powerful divine beings. As a demon, that can take its toll.”
“It’s not that,” I assured him.
“Then why did you call us here?” Sal asked.
I rubbed a hand down my face. “I only wanted to speak to you.”
“About what?”
“It’s good you’re all here,” Frank interjected. “I found something in this book by John of Patmos that we need to discuss and bring to Lucifer’s attention.”
“Yeah, no,” I said. “Not him, not yet. Tell me what it says first.”
He read it aloud in Greek first, and I saw Damon’s face go even paler. He was the one who was going to need a doctor again before this day was over.
“Lovely,” I griped. “English, please.”
“And the prophesied One of Worlds, given to them by the Almighty, the Protector, the I am, the—”
“Yeah, we get it. God is great and has nine hundred and fifty names.” I rolled a finger in a hurry-up gesture. “What’s the important point?”
He gave me a chastising glance. “The Beast will rise up in all its evil glory and slay the One.”
“We already handled the apocalypse,” I told him. “The Four Horsemen, the Beast, all that.”
“In this passage, the One refers to the entity that will unite the Fallen with Heaven. The Beast refers to the demon who will sabotage the Fallen’s quest to do so.”
It got far too quiet in the room, all eyes landing on me.
There are times in a demon’s life when Hell looks like a vacation. This was one of those times. “It’s not me,” I insisted. “I’m on your side, remember? It must be Tabriss.”
“Why her?” Salmad challenged. “Why do you insist on seeing her in the worst possible light?”
The problem was, I knew it wasn’t her. My visions of the future and this prophecy lined up like two magnets snapping together.
Except for one crucial fact: it wasn’t a demon who sabotaged the quest. It was—
Lucifer appeared out of thin air. “We need to talk,” he said to me.
Oh, goodie. “We sure do.” I motioned the others out. “If you’ll excuse us.”
Rad and Damon were the last to leave, each throwing a glance back at me. I gave nothing away.
Frank left my father’s journal on the chair. I flipped it closed and sat on top of it. “You have some explaining to do, king of Hell.”
He gave me his classic fuck you smolder. “My daughter likes you, I’m told. It’s the only reason I’m sparing your worthless life at this moment.”
He wanted to play that game? Fine. Bring it on.
I stood, going toe-to-toe with him. “And she’s the only reason I haven’t revealed your evil plan to this entire Institute. Start talking and convince me why I shouldn’t do it right now.”
“My evil plan? You’re the one double- and triple-crossing me. I put my faith in you, and this is how you repay it?”
“What are you talking about?”
His reply was to grab my arm, and suddenly, my molecules were being whisked through space.
At first, it had been a novelty, but now I was tired of it. This was more than my meat suit could handle on a regular basis.
Where we emerged was a post-apocalyptic dimension. A marble city sat half buried in sand; the buildings, statues, and obelisk markers surrounding us resembled gravestones.
Whatever had happened here, we appeared to be in the center of ground zero.
Shit. Azaria’s vision filled my mind like tracing paper sliding over my current view. In her version, however, not one of these elements was left.
Nothing moved but drifting sand. I kept an eye out for Micheal, but all was silent and creepy. “Where are we? What is the place?”
“This is where my brother buried most of my friends and family.” Lucifer pointed at the marble columns, crumbling buildings, and eroded statues jutting. “This is the City of Lost Angels. A prison world Michael created. I’ve rescued all of them now, and here it sits, empty, vacant, waiting.”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what he was planning. I shook off the heavy jetlag of our latest trip. “I haven’t betrayed you.”
“According to Faron, you will.”
“Faron told you I’m your greatest ally. Have you forgotten that?”
“Things changed. You’ve made other decisions.”
Had I? If so, it was not a conscious action.
Azaria’s visions—what she had shown me—I hadn’t even thoroughly dissected the first one, much less had a minute to comprehend the second and third. “If you think I’m going to betray you, why not kill me? Why put me here?”
“You might be useful to me as a sacrifice.”
I scoffed. “Who do you think would want me?”
“My brother wants you very much. While you are cunning and strategic, I wonder why you, out of all the demons, have enticed him so.”
“I realize you’re under an immense amount of stress right now. He’s got your principalities, Lilith is threatening Amy, and you still haven’t finished raising your army, but sticking me here defeats everything we’ve been working for when it comes to sabotaging Michael. I bound myself to that bastard for you. I got Frank free from him for you. I am the one who figured out that he’s been working with Lilith to defeat you.” I pounded a fist against my chest. “Oh, and I’m also the one who has made him believe I’m on his side so I have a way of feeding him the wrong information. Who’s going to do that for you now, Lucifer?”
In all my years, never did I imagine yelling at the supreme ruler of Hell. But I was tired—physically, emotionally, and mentally—and let’s be honest, I never make good choices when I’m hangry.
He was itching for a fight, and that’s probably the only reason he didn’t smite me right there. It wasn’t because he wanted to use me as a sacrifice; he simply needed to lash out at someone, and I was his whipping post. “I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone. I can handle this on my own.”
I trudged over to a broken piece of marble and plunked down, massaging the back of my neck. “Be my guest. All I want is for my life to return to the way it used to be. To be rid of this daily dose of archangels up my ass trying to force me to help them. Give me investigations. Let me worry about demons taking advantage of humans. Devise plots to defeat them. I want to stake vampires in the heart and burn witches at the stake. But you know what? No matter what outcome this leads to, I don’t get what I want. So I surrender.” I held up my hands. “Leave me here. Maybe I’ll finally get some rest and a break from listening to your whiny ass complain about your brother.”
He did strike me then, not with his magic, but with his fist.
A right hook to my jaw sent me to the ground. I spit blood from my split lip into the sand and watched it dissolve. Laughing, I rolled onto my back and stared at the roiling clouds overhead. “Feel better?”
He paced several feet away, shaking out his hand. “Oddly, yes. Get up.”
“So you can sucker-punch me again? Hard pass. I’m gonna lay here and stare at the sky. You’ve broken me. Happy? Go back to your family, and good luck with the coming war.”
He stomped up to me, grabbed the front of my shirt, and hauled me up far enough that he could hammer me with his fist again. Then, he released me, and I tumbled to the ground as he vanished.
My nose was broken, and a few of my teeth rattled as I adjusted my jaw. At least I had peace for the first time in days. I forced myself to my feet, wiped blood off with my sleeve, and studied my surroundings. “There better be something to eat,” I yelled, trudging toward the nearest building.
What appeared before me wasn’t the four-course meal I wanted.
In fact, it looked like I was on the menu.
“Alciscor.” Lilith licked her lips as her gaze devoured me. Her thumb rubbed the edge of a dagger in her hand. Two hellhounds flanked her. “So good to see you again.”
Lilith is back. Eep! Kali’s in big trouble now. Or is she?