Courts and Cabals 2 by G.S. D'Moore (warren buffett book recommendations TXT) 📗

reptilian brain’s flee response overpowered my cognitive reasoning that crazy-slugger bitch was back that way.

I didn’t make it far anyway. A tentacle lashed out, grabbed me by the ankle, and tossed me the opposite direction. I went up and over the sharktopus, and smashed against the side of some building that would have made a normal person go splat. It just knocked the wind out of me, and reset the healing process on my eternal concussion. I’d hit about ten feet up, and didn’t even try to brace myself as I flopped back down to the ground.

“Maybe if I played sports, I’d be better prepared for this,” I thought as I just laid there.

The sharktopus wasn’t exactly swift, and its attention wasn’t focused on me. If I had to guess, it was facing off against the chick who’d used me for batting practice. It was critical seconds I could have used to escape, but I was spent. I was battered, bruised, broken, scarred – physically and emotionally – from the last few days. I had nothing left. The tank was empty. It was game, set, match. I could close my eyes now, and not even feel death when it came for me.

“Stop being such a sorry sack of shit!” my brain screamed at me. “Get up off your ass, get moving, and live to taste Lilith’s sweet, sweet pussy.”

My dick gave a throb of agreement, and that made me laugh like a madman. Even if a man was down and out, pussy could still get him moving. One foot in front of the other, I got to my feet, turned to run, and found myself facing a familiar face.

“Hello, Cam,” Aveena smiled sweetly before she slugged me in the face and knocked my ass out.

***

“Finally!” Aveena smiled as satisfaction flooded through her.

Cam went down like a sack of bricks. It took a considerable amount of self-control for her not to put her fist through his skull, but she pulled it off. He collapsed at her feet, helpless; and for the first time in weeks, she felt like she wasn’t about to lose her head.

“Anna, bug out,” she ordered.

The twenty-foot, rampaging selkie snarled in response, but knew better than to piss off the noble Fae. There was an explosion of heat and light as Anna created a distraction and reapplied her human glamour. She didn’t stay around. Before the magical flash-bang finished, she’d already stepped. All that was left of the monster rampaging in downtown Manhattan was significant property damage, and a few pairs of discarded shoes from her midday snack.

“You!” a voice called out as Aveena slung Cam’s limp body over her shoulder.

“I have him,” she sent into the ether, and hoped someone was listening as she turned to face the woman who didn’t look like a contract killer until you looked her in the eye.

“Van Helsing,” she regarded the wicked witch. She tried to look in command, but couldn’t stop a cold sweat from breaking out across her brow. Her backup was gone. It was just her and the witch, and that was a fight she didn’t want to have when she was this close to getting her life back.

“He’s mine,” Van Helsing smacked her staff into the ground and a shockwave rolled across the road. Spiderweb cracks spread out from the point of impact and stopped just short of Aveena’s feet. “We had a deal.”

“We did have a deal. The deal was that you would kill Dupree if I failed,” she jiggled Cam’s dead weight. “As you can see, I didn’t fail.”

The witch’s face looked like it was chiseled from ice as she took a step toward Aveena, and raised her staff.

“Are you about to break your word?” Aveena’s voice boomed with magic.

It swirled around them, creating a tornado of dust and debris. Van Helsing coughed against the onslaught, but the noble Fae’s words had stopped her cold.

“You know not what you do, child,” the witch’s voice was low and threatening.

“I know exactly what the fuck I’m doing,” Aveena spat back.

“Then swear to me,” Van Helsing countered. “Swear to me that Cameron Dupree will never again set foot in this realm.”

“I’m going to cut off his head myself,” Aveena thought with a savage smile.

“I swear it,” she replied easily. If anything was certain, it was that Cameron Dupree was going to die.

“Swear it,” Van Helsing repeated.

“I swear it,” Aveena stated confidently.

“Swear it!”

A low thrum filled the space upon the third invocation. An oath sworn thrice by a creature of magic was binding. To break it . . . Aveena didn’t even want to think of the consequences.

“I swear it,” Aveena confirmed. There was a twang like a guitar string going taught as the magic settled into place.

The witch smiled, and relaxed. “Go,” she commanded.

As if on cue, a kaleidoscope of color blasted into existence behind her. Godric stepped out in his angelic-child form with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“Well done, my lady,” he turned and bowed to Van Helsing, who just sneered at him. “We should be going.”

She didn’t argue. Didn’t hesitate. The deadline was nearly up, and she needed to meet it. She stepped into the whirlwind of color and it closed behind her. She left death and destruction in her wake, but she didn’t give a shit. She was off to reclaim her throne, and no little bastard fetus in her mother’s belly was going to take what was rightfully hers.

Chapter 21

Lilith sighed and drew her finger down the concrete wall. The wards protested the movement for a moment, but quickly registered it as a non-threat.

“It’s all about the tactile application of power,” she mused as her fingernail dug a shallow furrow into the concrete. It had taken her days of testing the wards to figure out how