Free Chaos Rises: A Veil World Urban Fantasy by Pippa DaCosta

hand didn’t tremble now. But as the thing twirled from my fingers, I couldn’t bring myself to drop it and crush it beneath my boot. Not yet.
    My eyelids fluttered closed. I breathed in around the bruises, let the drug melt the ice in my veins, and set the key ring carefully back on the dresser. When I opened my eyes, the girl looking back at me was entirely human and in control.

Chapter 8
    I t was evening by the time I caught up with Allard. Another day wasted. Another day Del hadn’t returned, another day without his hit of PC34A. Restlessness fizzed through my veins. Clearly, something had happened to my brother, and Allard didn’t care. What had I honestly expected from a demon?
    The abandoned high school auditorium played host to a weekly cage fight. Allard didn’t usually visit the fruits of his labor, preferring to deal demons instead of betting on them, but clearly his bloodlust was up.
    Cars lined the street. Few people ventured any further, not with a nw-zone throbbing like an open wound a few hundred yards away and a known demon colony infesting the pier. I eyed the vans, sensing their restless cargo chained inside. Lessers were bought and sold for these fights, and the toughest, those that survived fight after fight, often earned their owners a certain amount of street prestige. Sometimes, humans could be as bloodthirsty as demons.
    A thunderous roar went up from inside the theater, but nobody outside batted an eye. I sauntered through the groups—young human men, mostly. Something about demon fights and testosterone mixed like gas and a naked flame. But there were a few women here, giving my black cargo pants, hiking boots, and slip of a top a wary once-over.
    I made my way through the old high school grounds, into the main theater, and jostled into the seating area. They’d pitted a ventores against a sasori , and by the bloodied state of the sasori , it had already survived several fights. The ventores stood at least seven feet tall, but its wingspan was twice that. With their long, piercing beaks riddled with teeth, they resembled what humans called pterodactyls. This one’s wings had been clipped, as was common practice. The sasori though, squat low to the ground on its oily black scorpion body, wasn’t taking any shit. Its upper half was vaguely humanoid, but that was where the human resemblance ended. Sasori were wild lessers. They roamed freely in the netherworld and were the beasts most likely to rip you to pieces if you stayed still long enough to attract their attention. This one was missing a pincer, but that only seemed to piss it off even more. The thing skittered on its rippling legs, constantly stabbing overhead with its stinger, while its one good pincer clamped around the ventores neck.
    The crowd roared and heaved like a great rippling wave of energy. The air hung heavy and thick with the smell of blood, demon excrement, and the burned rubber smell of the netherworld.
    A shudder ran through me. What few memories I had of the netherworld were broken images, scattered mostly in my dreams. I’d spent only a week there in human time—longer in netherworld time—a week my human mind refused to recall, and I had no desire to dredge up those events.
    The ventores beat its wings, sending up clouds of grit and dust. It gave an earsplitting shriek, and the scorsi hunkered down. Its scales rattled, producing its distinctive hiss. It looked submissive, but it wasn’t. When you put two demons in the ring, there’s no submission to be had. The weakest would be eaten.
    I’d seen enough, and after sending out a little of my element to feel for Allard, I caught the smooth, hardness of his presence nearby but away from the ring.
    I nudged and sidestepped my way through the crowd until finally breaking free near a fire door. I eased through just as the scorsi must have struck its killing blow, igniting the crowd into a sundering roar.
    Relieved to be away from the noise, I headed down a corridor,