I don’t have all night, Chris. Whatta ya got?” Sammi slouches her elbows back on the warm glass bar, whiskey and salty skin thick on her demon tongue. Lights glow around her in drifts of nightclub smoke, the damp air slicking pleasantly on the pale skin of her human form. The noise grates sweetly in her ears, a pleasant change from silence and black despair.

She shifts her shoulders, enjoying the tactile pleasure of her copper-mesh dress and the slide of wine-dark hair on her back. Too long she’s been away, too long skulking in hellblack holes with the worms, only emerging when the stink of the demon court’s wrath ebbs. No longer. Jinxx is old and stale. She’s young.

Time for a change.

Beside her, Chris Cerulli swallows white aniseed liquor, glossy green eyes unblinking. The drink he offered her sits untouched beside him on the bar. His ravenous banshee would-be lover croons protectively at his side, her vicious blue hair slashing over the shoulder of his pewter-gray suit. Her perfume is pure rage, tainted with corruptible devotion. Chris, on the other hand, smells dry and dusty, of leather and an empty conscience.

Chris jerks his pale chin forward, and the black creature living inside him roils darkly under his skin. “That yellow one? She took your mirror. From Jinxx, no less. Must be quite a thief. Told you this wouldn’t be easy.”

Chris drags lightly on his cigarette, ash glowing, and as he releases the smoke, his white fingers relax on the filter and shiny black webs show, glinting wet.

Sammi’s nipples tweak inside her meshed metal dress, and she scowls. Parente scum. The snake thing is a turn-on. But it’s not enough.

She’d wanted Angelo, their charmingly insane vampire prince, pretty and ruthless and mad like some ancient imperial despot. But he got himself murdered, and this Chris’ a gutter-slinking gunrunner with no imagination. If he’s the best the Parente clan can do, she’s half a mind to leave them to bloody ruin at the hands of their Cruz enemies. But Cruz are Jinxx’s, and any enemy of Jinxx’s is an asset to be used.
She follows his gaze, her shoulders slipping into a lying shrug. “Don’t give a fuck. Okay? We’ve had this discussion.”

Chris shrugs, too, unruffled. “Just thought you might need some help. Now you’re on your own, so to speak.”

“I don’t need your help, little man.” Irritation rains snowy ash from her hair. Jinxx is already weak. She tastes it on the strong summer air, that toxic tingle of freedom and opportunity that fires her black demon blood. She smells it in the sickly stench of honey that drifts like a foul oily coating on the fresh water of willing souls. The old enemy from the sky has returned. Jinxx is under attack. The demon court can go fuck themselves, with their rules and protocols and dusty lore that must be obeyed.

Chris leans back on the bar and shows his unnerving toothy smile. “You’re not supposed to be here. Not in Jinxx’s town without an invitation. You know that.”

She stretches her arms to the light, laughter frothing in her chest as she spins in a joyful circle. “That just makes the air taste better. The demon court can suck my dick. Whatta they done for me lately?”

“Besides throw you out on your ass?” Chris tosses the empty filter away and lights another one, smoke puffing, a lock of soft black hair slipping incongruous from beneath his hat.

Steam hisses from Sammi’s teeth before she can stop it. “How’d you know that?”

Chris laughs, charming. “I know stuff about things, rosebud, and that includes you and your demon pals.

Just because Jinxx acts like a spoiled brat with Asperger’s doesn’t make him stupid or slow. Don’t underestimate him. Look where it got Angelo.”

Anger still boils brimstone-rich in her blood. “Angelo was a fucking idiot,” she snaps, enjoying the banshee’s yowl of protest. “A walking vampire hard-on, all ego and no thought. Couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.”

“I don’t have that problem.” Chris snakes out his free hand for her wrist, and suddenly his lips are inches from hers, his emerald eyes glinting with promise. “Tell me what you want. Anything. I’ll get it for you.”

Sammi inhales reptilian breath, the cold smell of scales and venom, and her skin shivers. Curiosity cools her fury, and she slides a freckled brown arm across his shoulder, pressing closer. “And in return you’d expect what?”

Chris shrugs faintly. “We can be good for each other. I have people, money, resources. If you’ve got ambitions in this town, you need me.”

“I asked what’s in it for you.” She licks plump lips, tempting him. The banshee’s neon hair quivers, a growl rumbling in her chest.

Chris grins, and stretches his neck to whisper, bones popping. His voice slithers in Sammi’s ear, reptilian sibilants hissing. “I want Simon Cruz’sss head on a ssstick. And Peter London. And Erik, and Martin and their whole ssstinking crew.” He withdraws, resting his hand lazily on her hip, smoke drifting from his cigarette. “I assume that’s in the offing.”

“Mmm. Now you’re getting interesting.” She slides long fingers into his lap and clicks her tongue in mock disappointment. “Why, darlin', such feeble ambition. Your dick’s not even hard.”

“That’s because you’re about as sexy as a dogshit sandwich. Don’t doubt my ambition because you don’t turn me on.”

Sammi chuckles, challenge twinkling fresh in her jaded blood. One blink of spell-sparked lashes and he’d be drooling on his knees. Perhaps another time. She flicks a provocative glance to the snarling blue banshee and back again. “What, I’m too powerful for you? Not delicate and breakable enough?”

Chris' forked tongue flickers along his lips. “Something like that.”

Sammi smiles and sways away from him. “I was wrong about you, Chris Cerulli. You’re not quite the sniveling wormeater I had you pegged for. Perhaps we’ll have a little game, see if we play nice together.”

Chris crushes his cigarette out on the bar and rests his cane on his thigh to dust off his hands. “Whatever you say. What’ll we play for?”

“Why, your famous mirror, of course.” She reaches at last for the drink he bought her, and aniseed burns her tongue. “I chase it; you chase it. Whoever gets there first wins.”

“And what do we win?”

“Well, that depends. If you win, you get me being nice to you for a while. If I win . . .” She swallows the rest, and stretches happily with a warm belly. “I get to eat your skin, of course.”

“Done.” Chris tilts his hat with the top of his cane.

Sammi crinkles her nose at him in a smile. “Oh, and it’s not just the mirror. I want the metalshit scum who stole it, too. Sound fair?” She stalks away, the banshee’s jealous screech ringing out behind her.

The crowd filters around her, unaware, and she inhales, pleasured. Her tall heels work her calf muscles pleasantly. She likes this place, this Unseelie Court, with its seductive sounds and heavy air, rich with the stink of mortality and soulfood. But it isn’t the feast of souls or even Chris that lured her here from her plotting tonight. It’s that blue metal shitworm over by the glass, the one who stole her mirror.

Her glossy violet nails spring to ragged claws, and she swallows a greedy mouthful of flaming saliva. The mirror is incidental, though amusing. It’s the feeling of being thieved, the creature’s blind arrogance that fires her ire beyond reason. Mere slaughter is too painless for him, an eternity in hell too quick. But the shame cracking his eyes in that elevator told her everything. He’ll return the mirror to save his friends, and when he does, she’ll savage their regard for him one agonizing fiber at a time and send them all screaming to hell. When he gets there, they’ll be waiting for him. That’s what hell is.

And then, she’ll eat Chris’s skin. Or not.

Speaking of which, there’s Chris’ golden thief, wrapped in skimpy silver cloth and cowardice. Sammi bristles, black charcoal shards springing from her hair. She doesn’t care if the fairytart stole the mirror or not. She’s Andy’s simpering sunflower girlfriend, bright and soft and vulnerable. Sammi stalked them together in the dark, smelled the raw attraction, the fear, the vivid ozone reaction of fresh lust. Bait for a predator, tasty with childlike fae naïveté.

Sammi licks plump lips and watches the golden one, wrapping herself like wet plastic on a candy firechild, dirty sparkle watering those mad fairy eyes.

He’s fine, her fairy squeeze, his body knotted and succulent, flame dancing along shining crimson wings and flickering in fire-bright hair. Ripe for a rape and a fairyslashing, rip those arrogant wings off and watch his vanity bleed into the dust. Sammi can arrange that. But the air he exhales crawls with crafty deceit, and she hangs back at the bar, pleasured, to watch him weave his lies around her.

Now they’re kissing, hesitant at first like guilty friends and then the full who-gives-a-fuck, tongues mixing and bodies yearning and his fingers wrapping in her sticky hair.

Sammi grins. Andy’s girl, sliding sexgreedy hands over some other guy’s ass. Is he watching? She flickers out soft tentacles, searching the dark air swiftly for iron-laced sweat, but he’s not there. Pity.

A rattling sniff beside her pricks her attention. Blue airfae girl, white dress, flowing green hair tied up in a knot, lime tears shimmering on her cheeks. Pretty thing. Sammi inhales, and tangy jealousy tingles her nose like a sneeze. She follows the girl’s gaze to the dance floor, and delight squirms under her skin at the potential for mayhem.

She leans forward, scraping brown elbows on the bright bar. “Is that yours?”

The blue girl wipes her nose, oddly inelegant compared with her figure. “Huh?”

“Kissing that skinny yellow girl. Is he your boyfriend?”

The fairy tries to smile, starting a fresh wash of tears. “Yeah. Just doesn’t know it yet, I guess.”

“You poor darling. You’re much prettier than she is. I’m sure he’ll see sense.” Sammi exhales and her breath darkens the air, an oily ghost of false trust.

The girl inhales and looks up, her eyes wide. “You’re kind.”

Sammi shapes a smile and paints it with demonic persuasion. “We girls have to stick tog—”

“She’s supposed to be my friend, you know.” The girl hiccups and slurps her sky-blue drink. “She’s meant to be my best friend forever, and she goes and steals him. She always gets everything.” A pretty scowl, dark with indignation and jealousy, but something else sizzles the air on her disenchantment, too, something that pricks Sammi’s fingertips with delight.

The rusty hellstink of a stolen iron ball, mixed with the insane sheen of petulant demon-haunted glass. Another of Andy’s pitiful friends, poisoned by the mirror. It doesn’t get much better than this.

Pleasure wrings Sammi’s belly. Soulfood. Jealousy tastes so good, like skin or a mouthful of hard flesh. And the mirror magnifies jealousy so well. She purrs, vibrations stirring deep in her throat, and leans closer to light sly fingers on the fairy’s slender hand. “Come, dear. Tell me everything.”

Notes

Haaiiiii...so happy rn. schools out for two weeks. yay!!!!!!
Hope you guys enjoy this one.

Stay Weird Baby Bats
-Grimm