Free Of Flame and Promise by Cecy Robson Page A

give me what I came for before you really piss me off, dickhead.”
    “And what happens if I piss you off?”
    It was then that I sensed it, and my vision sharpened. This shop owner wasn’t human. He was something else.
    Well, so was I.
    I flung a finger out, sending a bolt of lightning to strike the closest bottle of vodka. It exploded in a wash of blue and white.
“That,”
I told the stupefied idiot.
    He flung himself over the counter with a fire extinguisher. I leaned on the counter and drummed my carefully manicured nails. He growled over his shoulder.
“What are you?”
    I stopped drumming and straightened. “I’m the mistress of flame and light, the goddess of lightning, and the princess of fire. In other words, asshole, the woman who’ll burn your store to ash if you don’t give me my sake!”
    For all he snarled and bared his teeth, he stood still. “The hell?” he said.
    I thought he meant me, but his full attention was toward the open door behind the counter leading to a storage area. Cases of beer and booze were stacked along the back wall. The room didn’t seem large, but I couldn’t guess its size from where I stood.
    I thought he meant to distract me so he could attack, until something stirred from within the dark room. The
were
—I’m guessing that’s what he was—stilled, and paled.
    I inched back slightly, trying to keep an eye on both him and whatever lurked in the darkness. “What was that?” I asked.
    Flap. Flap.
    No…not that. Not now.
    “What is that?” I asked, this time a little louder.
    “Nothing good,” he muttered.
    I pushed away from the counter, that eerie sensation I’d felt one too many times slapping my skin like a cold ocean wave. The
were
carefully lowered the extinguisher. I thought he’d crouch low and stalk forward, poised to attack—like any other self-respecting guardian of the earth.
    Instead he took a cautious step back, then another, and headed for the exit.
    For a supposedly lethal predator, this guy was total chicken shit. “Nothing good?” I repeated, dumbstruck he was leaving. He nodded, but that was about it, edging further away from me. “Wait—where you going? Start howling and
call
your pack—”
    Something with wings shot through the open door, quickly followed by another something. I dove to the floor in time to see a demon child the size of a raccoon latch on to the
were
’s face and begin to feast—as in
eat his face
…three seconds before a smaller version landed between my outstretched legs and hissed.
    “Holy
God
!”
    There was no grace to my reaction, no strategy.
    Screw grace and strategy, I wanted to live, damnit.
    Blue and white flames fired from my fingertips, igniting a wing. The little freak flew off with a screech, spiraling in circles as he attempted to fly with one wing. He crashed into a Budweiser display, lighting the cardboard cutout of a model with a giant grin on her face.
    I scrambled to my feet, keeping my back against the wall, my eyes darting in all directions and my heart thumping hard against my chest. With a nausea-inducing rip, the
were
tore the famished demon from his face, severing a huge lump of his skin in the process.
    The creature landed before me, greedily swallowing the remains of what resembled a nose. The
were
fell back screaming, a fountain of blood spurting through his hands. But I didn’t care about the shop owner. Not then. The demon child in front of me had my full attention.
    I zapped it with a mini lightning bolt, and another, and another, and—crap—another after that. He skipped away from each blast, stopping to stare at the singe marks I’d left only to flicker his forked tongue…no, make that flicker his
tongues
my way. The little turd had three of them because clearly, he wasn’t creepy enough with one.
    “You won’t touch me,” I told him through clenched teeth.
    He laughed, his tongues slapping and sliding through a row of bloody fangs and his balls swinging in the breeze like