Free Demon Lord 3: Blue Star Priestess by Morgan Blayde Page B

lucky, Zero-T’s common sense disengaged as he leered at the Red Lady, spending extra time on her bare white legs.  His gaze finally slid to her face.  “Hey, good-lookin’, can I buy you a drink?”
    She made a shooing motion at him.  A foot of white ice suddenly encased him, his face surprise d under the distortion.
    Hell of a cold shoulder. 
    “Better get your ice pick,” I told Gloria.  “He’ll be running out of air soon.”
    The Red Lady’s stare moved from Gloria’s hand on my arm to the vampire’s face.  “Caine is mine.  He bears my mark.”
    Gloria’s hand jerked away so fast, I thought she might have been burned.  Her gaze went to my perfectly normal neck.  “Your mark?”
    I pulled up the necklace and let the red pearl dangle.  “She means this.”
    Gloria’s stare went from the red pearl to the Red Lady.  “You’re, you’re … Her ?”
    “Ice pick,” I reminded Gloria, giving her a reason to get clear.  Sometimes master vampires can be as dumb as graveyard dirt.
    The Red Lady said, “If by ‘her’ you mean the prettiest death you will ever encounter, then, yes, I am.”
    With my heightened dragon senses, I could smell the simmering rage deep inside Gloria.  She was used to being feared, not casually threatened.
    Time to save the day.  “Hey, Red?”
    The Red Lady’s attention snapped to me.  “Yes, love?”
    “He’s an idiot, but the guy in the ice is a friend of mine.  I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill him.”
    Her eyes flared with a shimmer of power.  “Oh!”
    The ice around Zero-T cracked with a sound like firecrackers going off.  Big chunks fell and he was free, his brown complexion a little gray as he gasped for breath.  He slammed forward, crashing his head on the bar as he shuddered.  A moment later his head came up.   The broken pieces of his ceramic face stayed on the bar.
    Zero-T had been wearing some sort magical mask, allowing him to pass for human.   His real face was a mottle of blue and silver scales.  His pupils were X-shaped, black marks on blue robin eggs.  His nostrils were slashes that might have been made by a knife.  Without the magic mask, his voice came out like someone who’d been breathing helium.  “Thor’s tighty-whities!  I almost died!”
    “If you can’t hang with the big dawgs,” I said, “get off the porch.”
    “Your concern,” he gasped, “is underwhelming.”  He gathered the broken mask, puzzled the pieces together, and poured out a bit of earth magic .  Healing the cracks, he put the mask back on.
    The activity by the bar hadn’t gone unnoticed.  In heroic fashion, Claude the bouncer seized a broom—and headed out the front door to do a little pretend sweeping.  Several of the patrons, reading the atmosphere, followed him out the door. 
    Gloria broke away, chasing after them.  “Hey, get back here and pay your bills!”
    Ignoring all that, I lifted an eyebrow at the Red Lady.  “So, what are you doing here—so far from the Red Moon?”
    “You once threatened to fuck me into submission.  I’m here to hold you to that.”
    “But you’re a goddess-class entity.  That could take a couple weeks and three crates of Red Bull.  Why now?”
    “There’s lightning in the air.  It seemed like a good time.”
    “So, what?  That’s your way of getting me out of danger?  You’ve seen ahead in time and there’s something there for me you don’t like?”
    “You should be naked in my bed where it’s nice and safe,” she said. 
    Zero-T sighed from the depths of his demon soul.  “Why does no one ever say those kind of things to me?”
    “Because you’re ugly,” the Red Lady said, “and smell of cheap cologne.”
    I shuddered violently.   Come on!  Stop looking so fuckable when I’m trying to laugh.
    And then a six-pack of freaks walked through the door in glossy black sun-suits that
    shielded them from the light of day.
    Vamps?  Allies?  Enemies?
    I looked at Gloria over by