I've got a fun new book out, completely separate from the Mageverse series I think you'll enjoy. In this one, a half-demon succubus falls for a half-angel demon hunter. She's a normal girl, really, if you ignore the murderous demon father, the horns, the imp best friend...and, oh yeah, the evil tail...
Which is why Pointy doesn't approve of her little crush on the hunter. Pointy is her evil tail, which has a mind of its own, and it's thoroughly convinced Rafe is Bad News.
And Pointy does have a…Well, point. Except if Rafe's not careful, he's going to get himself killed, and that would be a damn shame. Especially since one of those most interested in killing Rafe is Zana's psycho father, Jargoth, a Lord of Hell, who'd also like to kill Zana.
And Zana's been thinking.
Wouldn't it be great if she could talk Rafe and his magic sword into an alliance? She can be pretty persuasive…
Assuming she can persuade her evil tail to be a little less evil…
In this scene, Rafe has been bitten by one of Jargoth's demons while trying to save some mortal girls. Zana scoops up his holy sword, using an armored glove, and uses it to slay the demon, then transports him to a protective circle where she can try to treat the demon's poisonous bite. Rafe isn't pleased at being kidnapped.
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Zana
I teleported us to my bubble, a pocket of time and space protected from demons, Hell lords, angels and other undesirables. Rafe materialized spread-eagle in the healing pentagram. He took one look around, realized he was in the center of a working, and tried to leap to his feet. Thanks to the spell, his body refused to obey. Assuming it could, as badly as he was hurt. He swore at me in a torrent of gutter Spanish that made my brows climb.
I eyed him. “Does the Lord know you use language like that?”
He shut up just long enough to give me a vicious glare, panting in pain. I didn’t like his color at all. He was beginning to look distinctly green, and the ragged red wound had darkened to a bruised purple.
I extended a hand to one side and concentrated on what I wanted. The workshop promptly sent a spell book smacking into my palm.
“What in Lucifer’s sweet Hell?” Bazgaz plopped down on my shoulder like a thirty-pound bag of cement. I grunted, staggered, and just managed not to fall on my ass. The imp wasn’t that big, but he was solid -- about two feet tall, with an outsized head, two short horns, enormous red eyes and long, fuzzy ears that made him look like an azure Yoda. A dark blue mohawk jutted between them, running to the base of his skull. His skin was a pale blue that darkened to deep cobalt along his arms and legs. His hands and feet were equipped with retractable claws. Like most Diabol, including me, he had a long, whippy prehensile tail. He also wore a short loin cloth, mostly because I refused to look at his tiny junk.
Baz stared down at Rafe in absolute horror. “That’s a Hunter, Zana! Have you lost your mind? He’s gonna kill us all!” Then he blinked, taking a closer look. “Oh. He’s dying. That’s all right, then. But what are you doing with him?”
“He’s not dying,” I growled, flipping pages.
The imp studied the wound, sniffing the air. “Nope, definitely dying. Smells like Hell drake. Nasty bite. Your boyfriend’s about to be an all-you-can-eat buffet for flies.”
“Damn… you,” Rafe muttered, still struggling to move despite the pentagram’s immobilizing spell.
Bazgaz glanced over his shoulder, where I could feel my tail sketching shapes in the air. I didn’t look around, but I figured Pointy was bitching. Again.
“She is a succubus,” Baz told it. “They take these weird fits about men… Well, yeah, she should have better sense than to chase an angel…”
“Not… not an angel… Neph… Nephilim…” Rafe gasped. Which, I knew, meant he’d had a human mother. Like me. Sort of. “Couldn’t hold me if… if I was angel.”
Pointy jerked around a bit more, but I was frantically reading the index.
There! A treatment for a Hell drake bite. I flipped to the right page and scanned the spell.
Bazgaz leaned down from my shoulder, reading too. My tail curled around to the side, tip pointed at the page as if it, too, were reading. Which, since it didn’t have eyes, was impossible. Probably. Maybe. I think.
“Well, that’s not gonna work.” Baz looked around at Rafe. “Like I said, you’ll be a maggot Burger King in about twenty minutes. No way she can work this spell without ending up char-broiled.” The imp smirked, and Pointy made a gesture that looked downright obscene.
“I didn’t ask for… her… help!” Rafe gasped.
I ignored them, though my stomach sank. Baz had a point. I didn’t even have the materials I’d need. Unless…
I hurried over to Rafe, who glared up at me with his lips curled off his teeth, rage blazing in those stunning gold eyes. I sank to one knee beside the pentagram, pulled my glove off, and extended my palm over his body. His belt smoked at the proximity of my half-demon flesh.
“Yes!” I hissed. Thank Gaia, goddess of Earth, he had what I needed!
I gestured and his armor vanished, leaving him naked -- though for once I was way too preoccupied to notice the view. His utility belt reappeared in my hand.
“Hell… Hellspawn… what are you…”
Ignoring him, I looked down at his chest and swore Baz’s favorite string of filth. Rafe flinched at the demonic curses, but I didn’t much care. The bite looked even worse without armor in the way. Right over his heart gaped the radiating spoke pattern where the drake’s teeth had sunk into flesh. The bite was now black where the teeth had scored, red and gory around the edges. Dark, venomous streaks radiated from it as the poison spread.
If I was going to save him, I had to do it now. There wasn’t time to look for a spell that would be less risky. Hopefully, his Lord wanted him saved. After all, God had kept the Neph alive this long against incredible odds. In fact, He had even allowed my presence. He must have known about me. So this would work. Probably. It had to.
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