Fashionably Dead Down Under (13 page)

“Astrid, it’s lovely to see you again,” a
deep goofy male voice said. Neither one of the Hell Hounds mouths
moved. I whipped around to find the owner, but no one was
there.

“It’s me, General George,” the voice huffed.
“I speak through my eyebrows.”

WTF?

“You have eyebrows?” I asked, stepped closer
and noticed the bushy wiry tufts of hair above his beady eyes.

“Yep. All Hounds speak through the
brows.”

He was right. They bounced in rhythm with his
words. Bizarre.

“If you talk with your eyebrows, what do you
do with your mouth?”

“Eat pizza and destroy those that threaten
the life of my master.”

“Right.” As much as I was repulsed by the
duo, my inner slut was telling me a different story. Shit. This was
not happening.

“Um, I was wondering where this door led. Do
you know?” I asked, dying to run my hands over my breasts. I
slapped them to my sides and held on to my pants. I wasn’t
attracted to them last night. Why was I attracted to them now?

“Are you okay?” Bambi’s eyebrows asked me in
a high squeaky voice.

“Not really,” I whispered. “Do you guys feel
anything weird?”

“Always,” General George told me. “Why? What
are you feeling?”

Truth or dare? If I came clean and they felt
the same way this could be a clusterfuck of massive proportions.
Pun intended. But if I lied would they know?

“I’m, um . . . ” I wrung my hands and cursed
Satan for making me stay in Hell. There was no way I could tell
animals that I thought I wanted to do the nasty with them, no
matter how much they smelled like brownies. Omission is not lying.
“I lost something important to me and I was looking for it.”

“It or them?” Bambi’s brows jiggled.

Did they know something? My gut told me not
to fear them, but I was in Hell where nothing was as it seemed.
“Them,” I told her. I was at a dead end. I could feel my little
monsters slightly, but it had faded. “My Demon Babies.”

“Are you speaking of Abe, Beyonce, Rachel and
Ross?” General George’s waggly eyebrows inquired with great
fondness. Hopefully it wasn’t because he’d just eaten them as an
afternoon snack.

“Maybe,” I answered. “Have you seen
them?”

“Oh yes, my dear,” he said. “Abe was quite
sure you’d be coming. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“You have?”

“Yes.” Bambi giggled, if you could call a
snort that spewed slobber a giggle. “We are here to guide you.”

“Why would you help me?” For the second time
in less than ten minutes I wondered if this was a trap.

“Something is afoot and it’s wrong,” General
George grunted, shaking his ginormous furry head.

“I thought you guys were okay with evil
stuff.”

“Oh, we are, but this goes far beyond evil,”
Bambi added.

“Are my babies okay?” I asked, heading for
the door to go find them. I was going to kill those little shits if
they weren’t already dead.

“For now,” Bambi assured me, stepping into my
path. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

I halted and again I considered lying, but
something stopped me. They were trying to help me. They said they
were my guides. Maybe they would be flattered if they knew I
thought they were hot . . . but I didn’t think they were hot at
all. I just had a disgusting compulsion to scratch my itch, so to
speak.

“Well,” I hedged. “I’m not sure and I’m
actually mortified to say this, but I might be just the tiniest
weeniest bit, um . . . ”

“Attracted to us?” George asked, his eyebrows
dancing a jig.

“Possibly,” I muttered almost inaudibly. How
was I going to live this one down?

“Excellent,” Bambi screeched. “The little
Demons were correct. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I yelled. “You’re just going to let
that slide?”

“Yes, we are,” General George said, avoiding
eye contact.

As grossed out as I was with myself, I was
also completely insulted. Clearly they weren’t attracted to me and
I wanted to know why. But how in the world did I broach that
one?

“It’s your chest bumps and your stench,” he
said, intently examining his hooves.

“Can you read my mind?” I snapped. Wait. Did
he actually just refer to my boobs as chest bumps and call me
stinky?

“You need to shut your brain doors,” Bambi
told me sweetly. “And you do smell odd, but so do all
Vampyres.”

“Chest bumps?” I pointed to my offensive
mammaries.

“Yes, dear.” She giggled as her brows
shimmied on her forehead. “Do you find us attractive?”

“Well, um . . . no, not exactly.”

“We find each other very appealing,” she
cooed, nudging a now embarrassed General. “You are not attracted to
us and we are not attracted to you. You are attracted to something
behind the door.”

“Thank Satan,” the General snorted. The ego
part of me wanted to smack him and the sane part of me wanted to
laugh. The laugh won out.

What was behind the door? As relieved as I
was that I didn’t really want to get down on it with General George
and Bambi, I wondered if the alternative was worse. Enough about my
libido. I didn’t plan to satisfy it no matter how horny I was. My
mate was on Earth and I was a one Vamp girl. Period.

“Are my Babies behind the door?”

“Not directly,” Bambi explained, moving her
huge hairy body to the left of the door.

“But they did go in there?”

“Yes.” George shook his head sadly. “I begged
them to wait till you came and we could all search together, but
they insisted.”

“Why?”

They were silent. Not gonna work for me. Had
they lied to me? Did they eat them?

“Why?” I demanded.

The Hell Hounds exchanged furtive glances and
Bambi sighed dramatically. “They said he needed to eat. They were
going in there to sacrifice themselves.”

“What?” I shouted, grabbed the handle and
tried to push the door open. “To who? Who in the Hell are they
going to sacrifice themselves to?”

“I think the name they used was Ethan.”

My world spun and I landed hard on the
ground. The Hounds got me back on my feet, but the ringing in my
ears was deafening and I wouldn’t have known if they had taken a
big chunk out of me. My body shook and real fear grabbed hold of me
and held on tight. Why was he here and why was he behind this
door?

“Where does this door lead?” I asked, wanting
to know yet dreading the answer.

“To all the other levels of Hell.”

“Can you take me to Ethan?”

“That is why we are here. Is he important to
you?” General George asked.

“He’s my world—my entire world.”

The door was locked.

“What the hell?” I groaned and rattled the
diamond and ruby covered knob. “It’s locked.”

“Do you trust us?” General George asked,
watching me with a thoughtful expression.

Did I? Kind of . . . I didn’t really have
much of a choice. They knew where Ethan and my Baby Demons were. I
needed them. Staring at his bulbous head and hairy body, I made a
decision to throw my normal caution to the wind and go with it.

“Yes.”

“With your life?” Bambi inquired, licking her
lips.

That lip-smacking thing didn’t really inspire
undying allegiance, but when in Hell . . .

“Sure.” Dear Sweet Baby Cousin Jesus, please
let me survive this . . .

“Put one of your hands in each of our
mouths,” the General instructed.

What
? “Um, will your slobber lube them
up so I can open the door?”

They laughed so hard I actually joined them.
WTF? I was about to potentially lose both of my hands and I was
cackling like a hyena. I mean, I knew they’d grow back, but that
took time and hands were kind of important at the moment.

“Can I ask why I need to do this?”

“No,” Bambi said.

“Fine,” I grumbled and shoved my hands into
their mouths. Time was of the essence and if they wanted to eat my
appendages, I was quite sure they could do it without my
blessing.

The insides of their mouths were spongy and
warm. The scent of hot brownies grew stronger and I closed my eyes.
If this turned out to be a bad move I planned to conjure up my
black gloves and fry their asses. The light pressure of razor sharp
teeth scraped my palms and rough tongues bathed my hands in what
truly felt like brownie batter . . . ewwwww. Every instinct I had
was to yank my hands out, but their lips had closed around my
wrists in a seal-tight lock.

“Fuck,” I shouted and futilely tried to
disengage as their teeth pierced my skin. A rush of something cold
shot through my body and landed right between my eyes, giving me
one of the worst brain freezes I’d ever felt—black raspberry chip
ice cream had nothing on the Hell Hounds.

Gasping in pain and dropping to my knees, I
lamented my utter stupidity. I attempted to use my varied and
sundry magic on them, but I was blocked. No matter how hard I tried
to call upon my power, nothing happened. My eyes were screwed shut
in agony from the headache pounding in my skull. Prying them open
took everything I had, but I needed to look at them while they
killed me. I wanted them to see how much I hated them.

The love and compassion on their hairy faces
threw me and made me second guess for a brief moment, but the icy
cold shooting through my veins brought me back to my bleak reality.
I had trusted the bad guy . . . or rather bad dog. And then it
stopped . . . The shock of being released was jarring. I quickly
scooted away and cloaked myself in invisibility.

“
Are you alright
?” Bambi asked kindly.
WTF? I heard her voice, but her eyebrows were still. I didn’t
answer.

“
We can see you
,” General George said.
And just as with Bambi, his bushy eyebrows were immobile. “
We
can also hear you, so if you’re going to be rude you might want to
rethink it
.”

“Why?” I yelled. “Will you sink your teeth
into my ass or my head next time?” That hairy bastard had one hell
of a nerve. And how could they see me? I was cloaked . . . and
furthermore how in the hell could I hear them when they weren’t
actually talking through their eyebrows? Shit. Were we connected?
Did the freezing cold bite connect us somehow?

“
It did
,” Bambi snorted gleefully.
“
When we descend to the lower levels, we need to communicate. It
will be the simple difference of you making it out alive or
dead
.”

“So that excruciating chomp was a love bite?”
I snapped, still not willing to let bygones be bygones.

“
Exactly
,” she agreed and rubbed her
big soft head on my leg.

“
You’ll have to stay cloaked and just
think your thoughts at us. We can speak as much as necessary and no
one will be the wiser.
” General George’s voice bounced around
inside my head.

“
Okay
,” I said internally. “
Can I
ride on your back
?”

“
If it pleases you
.” He chuckled.
“
We used to ride Dixie around for hours on end
.”

“
Can she talk to you
?”

“
Oh no, dear
,” Bambi said. “
Not
yet, but soon
.”

It was clear that was as much of an
explanation as I would get from them about who could hear them and
who could not. Whatever. There were far more important things
pressing at the moment.

“
Are we ready
?” I asked, wishing I had
weapons on me. I would just have to defend myself and my furry
friends with magic.

“
The question is, are you
?” George
countered.

“
I was born ready
.” I grinned and
hopped on his back. Bambi pushed the door open with her hoof and we
descended into the abyss.

***

Whatever I had expected, it certainly wasn’t
this. Lines of desks and filing cabinets littered an area roughly
the size of a football field. Harsh fluorescent lighting bathed
everyone’s skin giving it a greenish hue. Demons hustled around in
a business-like manner. Wearing suits and ties and conservative
dresses, they manned computers and phones. Most of the Demons
looked like humans, but there were a few who resembled my father. I
watched in shock as they all worked like a very well oiled machine.
Several of the heinous Demons had human looking hands or hair.
Maybe they were wearing wigs . . . but the hands were real. But the
strangest thing of all was the purple and red and black darts of
light flying around the room bashing into everything. The demons
seemed to take no notice of the spastic lights, but occasionally
swatted them away if they got right in their faces. WTF?

“
What’s the deal with the ugly
Demons
?” I asked, wishing we could get a closer look.

“
They’re trying to redeem themselves. The
ones that have grown back some skin are successfully on their way
to being able to visit the Main Floor of Hell
,” Bambi
explained. “
It takes hundreds of years and raw determination to
come back from the skinless evil they had chosen, but a few
actually make it.
”

“
My father looked like that
.”

“
Yes
,” the General said tersely.

Bambi said nothing, but I was sure they
exchanged some kind of mental telepathy that they chose to leave me
out of. There was a fuzzy noise and I knew they were communicating.
I could care less if they were insulting my father. Hell, I’d had
my Baby Demons eat him . . .

“
It’s okay, you guys. I know my dad was
bad. Don’t hide your thoughts
.”

“
You heard us
?” Bambi stuttered and
stopped moving.

“
Not what you said
,” I answered,
alarmed. Was that bad? “
It was more like a blurry signal. I knew
you were talking, but you blocked me.
”

General George’s head bobbed and his body
shuddered. Bambi gaped at me as I sat astride her boyfriend’s
back.