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 Four
We killed six of the eight hellhounds. I was covered in blood and other disgusting things when a figure appeared from out of the shadows and whistled.
The last of the hounds slipped back into their portals and disappeared. Cole and I were breathing hard as we faced the cloaked person who’d called them off.
“I see your first assignment is going well,” Zayfeer said. He lowered the hood of his cloak, his angelic eyes glowing in the dim light.
I kept my sword raised, considering if I could get away with slicing him in half and telling Lucifer he was collateral damage during the fight. A glob of hellhound skin and bone slid off the blade and hit the floor with a juicy splat.
He’d be harder to kill than the hounds, though. I went on the offensive, anyway. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Good one,” he said. “Since Hell is exactly where I’ve been, and from the looks of it, I’m still there.”
Cole wiped his knives on his pants. His demon bristled at the angelic mojo and the snippy comment. “You know this guy?”
“Unfortunately.” I used a sleeve to remove blood splatter from my face. “He’s my babysitter.”
Cole studied one of his blades, turning it back and forth to catch the faint light. “Can I kill him?”
I shrugged. “Fine by me. He’s worse than Damon by a long shot.”
“Hey,” Zayfeer protested. His copper colored hair was smoothed back in a ponytail. It bobbed with indignation. “You don’t even know me.”
“You’re an angel.” Cole stepped toward him. “What’s there to know?”
The former nanny had enough sense to back up. “I don’t want to be here anymore than you want me here.”
I put a hand on Cole’s arm. “Any points you make with Lucifer will be forfeit if you kill him.”
“You can’t kill me,” Zayfeer said. “I’m an angel.”
Cole chuckled. “Nothing I like better than a challenge.”
“You two have fun.” I headed out the exit. “I’ll go hunt down my target.”
Outside, Zayfeer rushed to my side. “If you’d done some research, like I did, you’d know this place is cursed.”
I stopped walking. “Cursed by who?”
“Whom,” he corrected, glancing over his shoulder at Cole, who stalked him. “And that I’m not sure about, but local legends claim humans go in and they don’t come out. The fairgrounds used to host a yearly Christian revival meeting in the off-season. The last one raised a dozen demons by accident. One possessed the preacher who wiped out over twenty revivalists, including his wife and daughter.”
“You don’t accidentally raise multiple demons.” Cole shifted his attention from the nervous angel to the grounds. “One, maybe, two, if you’re an idiot. A dozen?”
I nodded. “They opened a portal, and you can’t do that without intent and a whole lot of blood sacrifices.”
Zayfeer’s brows pinched together. “Regardless, the only individual with a heartbeat on these grounds is in the Tunnel of Love.” He jutted his pointed chin in the direction of the entrance to what appeared to be an underground ride. “Go get him, tiger.”
My last experience with a tunnel had been on my way to break into Vatican City. The memory of the catacombs and their ghosts made my guts crawl. I suppressed a groan. “Why don’t you go get him?”
He brushed his hands together. “I’ve done my part. The rest is all you.”
Like all angelic assholes, he shimmered out, leaving us to do the dirty work.
“Think there’s still water in it?” I asked, staring at the dark entrance.
“If there is, it’s teeming with worse things than hellhounds.” Cole strode toward the entrance. “You want lead this time?”
I chuckled, following. “Is the big, bad War demon scared of water monsters?”
“Hell, yes. Give me fire and brimstone beasts any day, but slippery ones where I can’t have my feet on solid ground and my weapons weigh twice as much?” He made a face. “I hate water fighting.”
I did, too. In order not to drown, I had to remove my cape arsenal, and he was right—maintaining your normal fighting stance and balance was out the window. “It’s smart to hide behind a water feature if you’re avoiding humans and supernaturals hunting you.”
He nodded. “As effective as wards.”
The sewer smell emanating from the tunnel caused me to screw up my nose. The pinprick of light sneaking into the opening revealed a stone ramp leading down into darkness. I listened for the sound of water but heard none.
Placing a hand on the wall, I felt around for magic or the essence of water. Only a trickle responded. “Since this place has been deserted for so long, the former waterway is dried up. Some rainwater’s collected in the basin, but it’s not deep.”
“And our guest? Is it our witch?”
The sword handle vibrated in my palm. The lack of wards still bothered me. I rolled up the edge of my cape and secured it with magic to keep it out of the stinky water. “Must be, but whoever—whatever—it is, it knows we’re here. Tread carefully and watch your back.”
I touched my boots with my fingers, sending waterproof magic to cover them. The murky liquid came up to my ankles, and I swallowed past the thoughts of all the disgusting bacteria and worse that might be floating in it. I worked with a pestilence demon who had spread some awful diseases in his time. The stories he could tell grossed me the hell out.
The scent of urine and dead rodents made me cover my nose. The trek wasn’t long but wound back on itself like a serpent slinking sideways through the terrain. Each time we came to a switchback, I slowed and listened. All I heard was distant calls of crows and occasionally one of the banners or signs banging against a booth or gate when the wind caught them.
At least they weren’t hellhounds. With one hand covering my nose, I kept the sword raised. It acted as a weapon to slice through an enemy as well as protection in case they tried to do the same to me.
The enclosure became too dark to see with ordinary eyes, and I used night vision to scan the walls and water. I could feel the heat coming off Cole at my back and knew he was keeping an eye on where we had been so no one could sneak up on us.
A buzzing grew in my ears. I spotted a gunmetal gray steel plate with a green tinge. I took the hand from my nose and made a fist, signaling Cole to stop before I pointed at it. He joined me, knives raised as he continued to stay on alert for any attack as I placed a hand on the metal.
The buzzing grew exponentially, like a thousand bees inside my head. I pulled back and examined the plate, which was big enough to be a door but had no handle to access to open it. Whatever was behind it was being guarded by a strong ward.
Enduring the buzzing, I ran my fingers around the edges, searching for any way to send my magic through and check it out, but there were no gaps.
I motioned for Cole to follow me, and we moved on. Once I was back outside, I could calculate its location and approach it from a different direction.
We made it to the other end with no surprises, but even after I stepped out of the water, it seemed to cling to my boots. I dried them off in the dead grass as best I could, thankful that my magic kept the water from sinking through the leather.
Cole seemed to feel the same way, grabbing a stuffed animal from one of the old booths and using it to clean his own beefy tactical boots. “That got us nowhere,” he complained.
I’d counted my steps from the steel door and the many turns we’d made beyond it. Now, above ground, I backtracked over the landscape, seeing the tunnel below us in my mind. My feet buzzed with its power when I got within a yard of the underground ward. I stopped and pointed down. “We go at it from this direction.”
“Using what?” He surveyed the area as if hoping a giant backhoe might appear. “We’re not exactly equipped for earthmoving activities.”
“Surely the place has a shed full of shovels and lawn equipment.”
“Shovels? That’s the best you can come up with?”
The sword’s tip rose as if pulled by a string and pointed toward a hill in the distance. As far as I could tell, there was no equipment shed there, nor anything else, but I started walking. “Let’s see where this leads.”
It led us to a limestone wall. Coal shook his head. “I think the sword is defective. I’ll have to find you a new one.”
“It’s not.” My teeth started to chatter from the magic coming from the other side of the wall. “This is an illusion. The sword needed to be primed, but this…” I tentatively placed my hand on the wall and felt the sponginess of it. It wasn’t limestone; it was magic. “This is our final destination.”
“You’re sure?” He eyed what appeared to be the wall skeptically. “Can you tell what’s behind it?”
“A bizarre mix of spells.” That was possibly the reason for the buzzing, each bee one of the spells cast. Whether it was to confuse anyone who came looking or was simply poor casting on the part of our witch was still up for grabs. “It’s both demonic and angelic.”
“Another vitium?”
I shook my head. “Not possible. There are only seven of us.”
“How do you want to tackle it?”
I considered what and who was inside the hill, glancing back to where the underground door was situated. “I don’t want to go in alone, but I’m guessing the metal door in the tunnel is an exit. If I spook our target, they might flee.”
“Where’s that annoying angel when you need him?”
Taunting Zayfeer didn’t work. He remained absent. “Guess I’ll have to tell Lucifer I need an actual team for these missions.” The sword trembled, pointing up. When I followed its tip with my gaze, I discovered Zayfeer sitting at the top. Maybe taunting did work. “Care to join us, or should I explain to your boss why I couldn’t snag this Fallen because of you?”
“According to my scorecard,” he sneered down at me, “I’m the only one who’s done anything productive on this mission. I fail to see what Lucifer needs you for.”
“Guard the tunnel exit,” Cole barked, “or I’ll cut off your wings and feed them to you.” He nodded at me and lowered his growl to a level only I could hear. “Let’s get this over with. Show him why you’re entrusted with this job.”
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Kali is never one to shy away from pissing off angels. Comment and let me know what you liked about this chapter!