Page 59 of Revelations

Dammit!

A warm breeze ruffled her hair slightly. It seemedodd, being that the bar was suffocating from the lack of circulating air. Turning around, she found the source. The back hall led outside, and the door was propped open with a rickety metal chair.

Bingo!

Did all bars have a sketchy hallway leading out back? A bit of déjà-vu tickled her senses.

She stepped over the chair and out into the equally stifling night air. A long, wooden deck went out as far as the eye could see. Fish splashed in a nearby pond. Frogs croaked almost as loudly as the bullfrogs residing at Gaelic Haven. A symphony of crickets provided a perfect musical backdrop to the scene at the end of the pier.

Two bodies were intertwined, rocking in unison at a fever-pitch rhythm. It was far too late to stop things now, as low guttural moans rose to a roar worthy of a lion on the savanna. The second after, another shriek of ecstasy split through the night, silencing the crickets and anything else that dared to move.

Dammit! I hope that he’s notthat typeof demon, or at least that he used protection.

Greylyn waited in the shadows for the couple to return to the building. Not two minutes later, Rowdy Rick and a tall blonde with her clothes improperly readjusted sauntered back in her direction.

Just as they reached the threshold into the bar, she came out of hiding. “Howdy there, Rowdy,” she purred, gaining his attention.

He practically shoved the other woman back inside. Actually, she fell headlong over the metal chair propping the door open. Without so much as an apology, Rowdy turned toward Greylyn and tipped his hat.

“Well, howdy back at ya, pretty lady. Is there something I can help you with?” The blatant innuendo in his voice, the way his eyes ravished her with a long stare while his hand stroked over his own anatomy, all of it made her stomach roil.

“Just looking for an autograph orsomething elseto remember you by.” Batting her long ebony eyelashes, she hoped her flirting came off sounding genuine. It was not really her forte, and she knew it.

“I’m sure we can work something out.” His tongue popped out to lick his lower lip.

She was sure he thought that he was too sexy for his obviously fake rodeo belt buckle. But to her, he made her skin crawl. Rowdy Rick exuded something else entirely. Demonic creepiness. It came off him in revolting waves.

Purposefully, she stepped closer. Chest to chest now, Greylyn snaked her arm up around his neck and tugged his head down to her level. Considering how tall he was, and her lack of height, the burly singer had to hunch over. Without a word, just an alluring wave of her other hand, she invited him to follow her around the building and into the pitch-blackness covered by a thatch of bamboo stalks.

Just that one touch and she knew what Rowdy Rick planned for later that night, as grisly images played across her mind. His idea of an encore was to decimate every single human life in the bar. No one would have been spared, not even the other band members; blood everywhere. Entrails of the victims traced out a satanic symbol in the middle of the dance floor where Rowdy writhed in demented ecstasy. His tribute to his master—dead, mutilated bodies.

Out of sight of the back door, she shoved him up against the building. Her fingers trickled down his broad chest to his belt buckle.

“You like it rough, don’t ya, darling?” he snarled. Despite just getting off with the groupie moments earlier at the end of the pier, Rick was ready for another go.

“Maybe I do, darling,” she drawled back at him, this time not in a seductive tone.

It took him a moment to notice the subtle change as his slimy grin faltered a split second later. But it was too late. Greylyn’s other hand had already freed her dagger from its sheath at the small of her back.

Stepping up on her tiptoes so that they were eye to eye, she failed to suppress a coy smile. This kill would feel good, damn good. There was no one more deserving than Rowdy, or whatever hellish beast was wearing his skin. Killing monsters was part of the job…and it was fun and oh so satisfying.

“Hey, darling,” she cooed. “Are you into somethingreallykinky?”

His grin grew broader as his eyes dilated with lust. “Oh yeah, baby. Oh yeah.”

He reached around and cupped her butt, grinding his hips into her mid-section. Bile threatened to erupt from her throat, but she fought it down. Just a second more, and he would be gutted, to terrorize no more.

“Then, let’s play.”

With lightning speed, Greylyn swung the dagger around. Its razor edge sliced his throat through to the spine as if it was butter. His face froze with that ridiculous, leering smile still plastered on it. Black blood spilled between his teeth, over his lips, and down his chin. The head clung on by a thin thread to the body, dangling over the muscled, hairy chest. Without another thought, she shoved his limp body to the ground, even as his eyes blinked their last. Using his scuffed boots as leverage, she pulled him over to the murky swamp water pooling under a secluded section of the back deck of the bar.

“Bye, bye, Rowdy.”

Chapter 15 – Last Call

Greylyn cleaned herself up in the now vacant bathroom. The black sludge Rowdy had bled left a stain on her Bon Jovi shirt that probably would not be coming out.

“Another shirt bites the dust.” She grimaced at herself in the mirror.

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