“I think these gauchos make it look like I’m trying too hard,” Dwayne fretted as he paced the cozy little home that he and my granny shared. “Maybe a wrap dress and kitten heels would be better.”

“I’m gonna vote for skinny jeans and a muscle shirt,” I said, seating myself on the plastic slipcovered couch.

My granny, a newly minted Vampyre, was going to live a ridiculously long time and she clearly planned on making her furniture last as well. Every piece of cloth-covered furniture was zipped into a clear plastic casing. It sucked wads in the summer. Every time I wore a mini-skirt I became one with the sofa. I was wearing a mini-skirt today.

It was the house I’d grown up in and it hadn’t changed a bit. Granny had more crap on her tables, walls and shelves than an antique store. Dwayne had been positively speechless when he’d first witnessed her museum of a home a few years back and that had been a good thing. Granny took her décor seriously.

And not only did she take the inside décor seriously, the outside was also unreal… and thankfully not covered in plastic.

The charming old Craftsman in Hung Island, Georgia had a front yard crawling with flowers. It was a literal explosion of riotous color and I loved it. Granny hated grass. She found the color offensive.

Dwayne halted his pacing and considered my suggestion. “Skinny jeans with kitten heels or pumps?”

“Combat boots,” I replied. “After all, we’re about to summon a Demon. Won’t there be fire?”

“Who said anything about summoning?” Dwayne asked, confused.

“Don’t you have to summon Belphegor?”

“No. We are not summoning anyone named Bel the Whore,” Granny announced as she traipsed into the living room and dumped her knitting basket on the couch.

Swallowing back my laugh, I shrugged. “I come by it naturally,” I told Dwayne.

“Come by what naturally, girlie?” Granny demanded, pointing her purple knitting needles at me.

She was the spitting image of a tiny Sophia Loren in her younger years. Granny was ninety-five pounds soaking wet, feisty, potty-mouthed, and all mine. I adored every annoying inch of my beloved Granny.

“It’s not Bel the Whore. It’s Belphegor,” I told her, peeling myself off the couch. “He’s a Demon and Dwayne is going to summon him.”

“Damn it to Hell, Bel the Whore will be here just in time for the Hung Peach Festival,” Granny said grinning from ear to ear.

“No he won’t,” I said with an eye roll. “And it’s Belphegor. We’re not summoning the hooker to Hung Island for a peach festival, Granny.”

“Why else would you summon a hooker Demon to Georgia?” Granny inquired as she began to knit up a storm on a hat with so many holes in it, I wanted to laugh.

I didn’t though. Granny had a mean left jab and wasn’t afraid to use it.

“Umm…”

I was at a loss. The mission was top secret, but Granny had been a WTF agent in her younger years. In fact, my entire family had worked for WTF. Recently I found out that my parents were still alive. They’d been agents who’d been used in a horrid WTF experiment.

Now all those responsible for making me grow up as an orphan had been eliminated.

Permanently.

“Tell her,” Dwayne said, as he sauntered back into the living room with at least twenty pairs of skinny jeans and several gold lame tops. “Bobbie Sue needs to know. In fact, I’d say all of our inner circle needs to know.”

“What do I need to know?” Granny asked as she gave up on the hat and started in on what might be a blanket… or a potholder… or possibly a noose.

“Weres are dying violently from Jazz Cabbage overdoses,” I told her. That was possibly the strangest sentence I’d ever spoken. “Fifty have died so far and the Council has no clue how or why.”

“Well, shee-ot,” Granny muttered, letting her knitted atrocity drop back into the basket. “Last outbreak of the Devil’s Lettuce I remember was about forty years ago.”

“Are you saying this has happened before?” I growled, getting pissed at the Bobs for withholding Intel.

Dwayne was no longer interested in his fashion choices. He turned his attention to Granny. “Out with it, Bobbie Sue.”

“Wasn’t as many deaths,” Granny recalled, looking grim. “Happened in Colorado. About ten Werewolves were involved. The Council swooped in and took care of it.”

“How did they take care of it?” Dwayne asked. “Demons don’t play nicely with others.”

“Don’t know,” she admitted. “You’d have to ask the Bobs.”

“I’ll be doing that shortly,” I snapped, grabbing my cell phone. “First, we’re going to have a little meeting with people we actually trust.”

“Have everyone meet at your in-laws’ compound in an hour,” Dwayne said flatly. “More room. More privacy.”

“Done,” I replied.

“I’d just like to go on record sayin’ the key ingredient to summoning a Demon is a lack of intelligence bordering on bein’ too dang stupid to breathe,” Junior announced to the assembled group.

Junior—aka Jacob—held hands with his mate Sandy who was one of my best friends. Since Junior was the Alpha of our pack, he loved to have the first word… and the last word… and lots of the words in between. It was usually something profound… or wildly confusing. He was a brilliant good ol’ boy. This time his assessment wasn’t profound or confusing. It sounded frighteningly correct.

Everyone I loved and trusted was here… well, everyone except Dwayne. He said he would arrive after everyone was gathered. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to make a grand entrance or if he was still trying on different outfits to impress Belphegor.

Hank eyed his older brother and raised a brow. “Dude, when you know the entire story, you’ll still think the same thing, but you’ll realize why we’re gonna do it.”

“Roger that, Bro-bro,” Junior said with a thumbs up. “I’ve got your ass no matter how motherhumpin’ fucked up the plan is.”

“Thank you… I think,” Hank said with a shake of his head and a grin.

The power of the group standing in the meadow was insane. We were on the Wilsons’ property. Hank and Junior's parents owned several hundred acres of the most beautiful and lush land on the island.

Magic hung thick in the air and I wrapped my arms around my waist and breathed it in.

Dima, the Queen of the Dragons, stood next to her mate, Nicolai. They’d relocated to Hung Island with their son Daniel after the shit show of removing her father from power. Thankfully the evil asshat was now ash and the Dragons were beginning to tentatively join the rest of Were society. After hundreds of years of tyranny at the hands of their now very dead King, the Dragons were wary of just about everything. This was a bad since the freaks were enormous and seriously deadly. However, with Dima running the show, things were beginning to turn around.

“Well, my nutty friend,” Dima said with a wide smile. “I’d have to say I’m in agreement with Junior on this one.”

“That you have our backs or we’re too stupid to breathe?” I questioned.

“Both,” Dima and Nicolai said at the same time.

“Fair enough,” I replied with a chuckle. “I think we’re off our rockers too.”

“Why are we all wearing black? Did someone die?” Sadie, my mother-in-law, demanded as she joined the group clad in a Prada black evening gown and stiletto heels.

Hank and Junior’s mother’s choice of Demon summoning-wear was slightly off since the rest of us were in all black combat gear, but that was Sadie Wilson to a T. She was seriously fashionable. She was also as scary as hell.

My father-in-law, Jack, was a Werewolf of few words. This was a good thing for their relationship since Sadie liked to talk… a lot.

“No one died,” I assured her.

“Yet,” Granny pointed out as she stood next to my mom and dad who took the scene in quietly. They’d been trapped in feral wolf form for decades by some now extremely dead bad dudes. My parents could take their human forms again thanks to Dima’s Uncle Lenny and Junior. Today John and Annie McGee silently watched the scene unfold. My parents didn’t speak much, due to the torture they’d endured. However, when they did, it behooved all around them to listen.

“That is not a good attitude, old lady,” I said giving Granny the eyeball she’d given me practically every day during my teen years. Now that I was thirty, I felt comfortable giving it right back. However, I took a few steps away from her just in case she felt the need to whack the back of my head.

“Granny has a point,” Hank said, taking my hand in his. “At least fifty Were are dead from the Devil’s Lettuce.”

“Also known as Jazz Cabbage for those of you that might have skipped a lot of classes in high school,” I added not making eye contact with Granny. “And Hank, everyone is mostly up to speed on what when down.”

“Excellent, baby,” he said, squeezing my hand. “Then you understand why we’re doing this.”

“Umm… gonna go with a nope on that one,” Junior said as the others nodded their heads in agreement. “Not clear on why summoning a Demon named Bel the Whore is going to solve the problem.”

“Seems to me that the Whore will only compound the issue,” Nicolai pointed out.

“Okaaay,” I said, biting down on my lips to keep from laughing. This really wasn’t a laughing matter. “Maybe I was talking too fast when I called all of you… it’s Belphegor. Not Bel the Whore.”

“You definitely said Bel the Whore,” Sandy said, not even trying to hide her laugh.

“You did,” Granny confirmed.

“Shit. My bad. It’s Belphegor. Do not under any circumstances call the Demon Bel the Whore. I just don’t see that going over real well.”

“Roger that. Is the whore the one who created the Jazz Cabbage?” Junior asked, completely serious.

I rolled my eyes. I was to blame for creating this monster of a misunderstanding. Junior was MENSA but clearly needed everything spelled out for him today. “Junior, it’s Belphegor. Not Bel the Whore. Not the hooker. No nicknames for the Demon. You feel me?”

“Got it,” he said with a thumbs up.

“And no. Dwayne says Belphegor is far too lazy to get involved with being summoned to sell drugs,” I finished.

“Which leads us back to the original question,” Dima said. “Why are we summoning a Demon who has nothing to do with the crime?”

“Because Belphegor is a necromancer,” Dwayne said as he dropped from the sky mid-flight and landed gracefully in the middle of the circle. “The Bobs want to speak to the dead.”

“Why?” Sadie demanded, paling.

“Because they’re douchebags with a death wish,” Dwayne answered, looking around at the group in surprise. “Why wasn’t I told we’d voted on wearing all black?”

Dwayne was not wearing black. His hot pink skinny jeans, sky blue muscle shirt—a size too small—and jeweled flip-flops were not what I’d suggested to our group for the summoning. Bizarrely, Dwayne somehow made his freaky attire work. The Vampyre was otherworldly gorgeous.

“I thought… you know… that it was an appropriate color,” I admitted sheepishly.

“I brought the salt,” Sandy said, holding up a large bucket.

“I’ve got some candles,” Sadie announced.

“I found a wand in my pole dancing costume closet,” Granny said, displaying a glittery lavender stick covered in sequins and feathers. “Doesn’t work any magic, but it’s pretty.”

“Brought some rope for a circle,” Junior said. “Also have a load of two by fours in the back of my truck if you think that would be better.”

“Better for what?” Dwayne asked, perplexed.

“To summon Bel the Whore,” Junior answered and then slapped himself in the forehead. “Goddurnit, I meant Belphegor.”

“We don’t need any of that,” Dwayne said with a laugh and then eyed me suspiciously. “Did you go on the internet, Essie?”

“Is that a trick question?” I asked.

“No.”

“Okay,” I said with a sigh of relief. “Yes. I did. Why?”

“Tell me this,” Dwayne inquired with a grin, examining all the paraphernalia we’d gathered. “When you research Vampyres or Werewolves on the interwebs, what do you get?”

“Umm, bullshit?” I answered, realizing my mistake.

“Yep,” he answered.

“So we don’t need any of this crap to summon the Bel the… phegor?” Granny asked, disappointed.

“Nope,” Dwayne said as he kicked off his flip-flops. “All I need is my cell phone.”

Everyone was silent. Was Dwayne serious?

“You can just call a Demon on the phone?” Hank asked, shocked.

“As long as the son of a bitch hasn’t changed his number in the last fifty years, then yes,” Dwayne replied. “I just need to remember the correct area code for Hell.”

Dwayne stared at his phone and pressed his middle finger to the tip of his nose. We all watched as he began to pace and mumble in a language none of us understood. “For the love Brazilian waxes, I can’t remember which Hell Belphegor lives in,” Dwayne grumbled.

“Call me crazy, but I thought there was only one Hell,” I pointed out wondering if skipping class was going to bite me in the ass once again.

Dwayne paused and glanced over. “Seriously?”

“Umm… yes.”

“Oh, Dollbaby, there are tons of Hells. There’s Hell, California—no creepy hotel though. Hell, Michigan—quite cute. Hell, Grand Cayman—that’s the fancy one. Hell, Norway—cold as hell. Hell’s Half Acre, Kentucky—very polite townsfolk. Not to mention Demons also like Red Devil, Alaska and Seven Devils, North Carolina.”

“Holy shit,” Granny muttered. “Maybe we should have gone to church before this little adventure.”

“Last time I went to church, it was an all nude congregation—back in the 1930s,” Dwayne mused aloud as everyone looked terrified.

Dwayne’s stories from his colorful and very lengthy past tended to leave mental scars.

“It got a little weird when Old Harvey Smarty walked in on that last fateful Sunday. The ancient human bastard had to have been at least ninety-five—nuts dragging on the carpet created so much static electricity that every time he shook someone’s hand he electrocuted them. Blew at least fifty God-fearing nudists sky-high. It was a bloody mess. And that fucker, Harvey Smarty, liked to shake hands. I was the only one that made it out alive. It’s hard to kill someone who’s already dead,” he overshared and then stopped in confusion. “Wait, what does Harvey Smarty have to do with Hell? I mean, I’m sure he went to Hell after detonating all of those Jesus Hesus worshipping folks wearing nothing but their birthday suits.”

All eyes were wide and on Dwayne. No one was courageous enough to speak. We were all too afraid there would be more to the story.

“Nothing. It has nothing to do with it,” Hank bravely assured a still puzzled Dwayne. “So you call Belphegor and he just appears?”

Dwayne sighed dramatically—purely for effect since his lungs didn’t actually function—and shrugged. “If this was a booty call—which it is not—then yes. He would poof right in. Since I’m calling to ask a favor, I have no clue if he’ll show up.”

“You banged the whore?” Granny asked with a laugh.

“Yesssssss,” Dwayne admitted with an eye roll and a delighted smirk. “And trust me, you’ll want to bang him too. Belphegor might be a cheating, devious, lazy evil-doer but the boy is hot and hung.”

“TMI, Dwayne,” I said.

“Well, it’s true,” Dwayne shot back.

Sandy, ever the one to railroad the action back on track, pulled a laptop out of her big purse and began typing away. “I have the area codes for all those places. Which one do you want first?” she asked Dwayne.

“Da-yum, my girl is a sexy nerd,” Junior shouted and smacked Sandy’s ass with reverence and affection.

“Let’s try the Caymans first,” Dwayne said, straightening his starched muscle shirt and looking nervous. “The asshole likes the beach.”

And that was when we watched a Vampyre call a Demon.

The rest?

The rest was unreal.