At this point, I bet I can guess what you’re thinking. That I’m a demon asshole who probably killed my little rainbow trout and is now going to kill my new little pet, the hybrid in question witch-zombie.

Newsflash: I may be an asshole, and yes, I’ve killed other creatures before, but I have no intentions of permanently killing my little zombie pet, nor did I kill the weirdly pretty witch with the rainbow eyes. No, that was done by another creature. One even my demon super senses couldn’t track. Which means, whatever flew into that tent was beyond fast. And didn’t have a soul, a rare trait in the paranormal world. Even demons have souls.

While demons may be monsters, we know better than to hang around where soulless creatures are lurking, hence the reason I took off so quickly. I haven’t yet told Ryleigh about her fake sister’s death, mostly because upsetting a hungry zombie could result in me losing my pretty head. Plus, Evalee could still be hanging around in spirit form. At least, that’s what I sensed right before I split. Until I’m certain, I’d rather keep the information to myself to avoid being a zombie’s all-you-can-eat buffet.

Of course, Evalee’s death has ruined my plan of capturing her and keeping her for myself. Still, I did manage to get a zombie-witch who could be a hybrid, as well. Well, an artificially created one, anyway. But her powers could be interesting. And if there’s one thing us demons love to play with, it’s creatures and their powers.

Ryleigh glowers at me with bleeding eyes as my demon acquaintances circle her. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you.”

Her zombie accent makes her words hard to understand. In fact, the demons filling up my living room more than likely have no clue what the hell she said. Fortunately, I’m an expert at zombie gibberish.

“Will you relax?” I step forward from the circle of demons encompassing her. “This is the first step to stopping the decaying process.”

Her blood-filled eyes scan the crowd, then zero in on me. “Do you think I’m stupid? You just told everyone to kill me. And now you have me cornered.” Her fingers slowly curl, her hands resting at her sides. “If one of you so much as takes a step toward me, I’m going to cut open your head and spoon your brains out with my fingernails.”

I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, resisting a chuckle. When I first stumbled across her, she was much more reserved and lost. Now, the longer she remains a zombie and the hungrier she gets, the more feisty and morbid she becomes. If it weren’t for the fact that I vowed a long time ago never to commit to another creature, I’d say she was perfect for me. But I’ll never be in a relationship again. Not after the last time. Besides, I have more important things to deal with than hooking up with a zombie. Like, for starters, killing one.

I flick a piece of invisible lint off my shoulder, pretending to be bored, not wanting her to figure out just how much I’m starting to enjoy her company. “We don’t have you cornered. This is a ritual circle.” I heave an overly dramatic sigh as she continues to scowl at me. “Look, to stop the decaying process, we have to kill you. Well, kill you again. That should temporarily stop the rotting process. But, to permanently stop your entire body from crumbling away into a bag of bones and peeling flesh, and reverse the existing effects, there’s a lot more we must do. And it’s going to take a couple weeks at least. So, you and I are going to be spending a lot of time together.” I extend my hand toward her. “Which means, we’re going to have to start trusting each other. So, how about we make a deal to do just that?”

She eyeballs my hand like it belongs to … well, to a tricky demon. “Shaking hands doesn’t mean anything. You could easily still stab me in the back.”

“Well, that wouldn’t really do anything to you. Zombies can only die by decapitation”—I count down on my fingers—“being set on fire, and frozen to death.”

Her blue lips part in shock. “There’s no way I’m letting you chop off my head or set me on fire.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“So, you’re going to freeze me to death?” She sounds about as enthusiastic as a monotonous demon slug.

I gesture around at the circle of demons. “Did you pay attention to what sort of demons these are?”

She tears her gaze off me and rotates in a circle, taking in the half a dozen cloaked, yellow-eyed demons. “Death Walkers.”

I nod. “Also known as the Chill of Death demons.”

She faces me with her hands on her hips. “How the hell did you find these things? They’re, like, super rare.”

I give a nonchalant shrug. “I have my ways.”

She eyes me over warily with her bleeding eyeballs. Blood trickles down her hollowed out cheekbones, her skin is as pale as a ghost and mapped by blood veins, and her long hair reminds me of a lily. Still, beneath the zombie disease, I can tell she was once pretty. And she’s not ugly right now, either, no matter what she says. She’s just a different kind of pretty. An undead sort of pretty that only demons, zombies, and other types of creatures connected closely to death can appreciate.

Maybe after I help her reverse and stop the decaying process, I’ll keep her.

I promptly shake the thought from my head. No, no more keeping pretty creatures. You made a vow. Never again.

“Look, I get that you don’t trust me, but I don’t see any other choices laying around.” I offer her my hand again. “So, how about we make a deal to trust each other and get this little freezing zombie fest started.”

Her gaze flicks to the Death Walkers that are now breathing clouds of chilled vapor from their lips, then back to me. Her shoulders slump as she sighs and places her cold hand in mine. “Fine, Max the demon, we have a deal.” She shakes my hand and mutters, “I can’t believe I’m making a deal with a demon.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” I take a step back, releasing her hand and slipping my hands into my jeans’ back pockets. “Your fake sister made a deal with me once, too.”

The blood fades from her eyes as she raises her brows. “What sort of deal?”

“An interesting one,” I reply, purposely being vague.

“You promised me I could trust you, yet you’re still being evasive.”

“For a good reason.”

“Because you like my fake sister.”

“And again, you sound jealous.”

When she dramatically rolls her eyes, my lips part with a playful comeback, but the words die on my tongue as one of her eyeballs pops out and lands on the floor by my feet.

“Oh, my evil witches!” she cries, covering her eye socket with her hand. “Did my eye just seriously fall out?”

“Yep. Looks like the decaying process is speeding up.” I crouch down and scoop up her eyeball. “Don’t worry; we can put it back in.”

Her one eye widens, and her jaw drops. “Did you just pick up my eyeball?”

“What? It’s not that big of a deal. I even occasionally eat eyeballs for breakfast.” I wipe the eyeball on the side of my pant leg before stepping forward. “Don’t worry, though; I’m not big on the taste of zombie eyes. They have too much of a sulfur aftertaste.”

Her one eye blinks. “I’m not sure whether to feel relieved or utterly grossed out by what you just said.”

“Considering your eye just fell out of your head, I’d go with relieved.” As I remove her hand from her eye socket, she flinches. “Relax. I’m just going to pop it back in.”

She worries her bottom lip with her teeth. “Doesn’t this gross you out?”

I shake my head as I line the eyeball with the socket. “Why would it?”

She shrugs. “Because everyone else I know probably would’ve thrown up by now.”

“Demons don’t get grossed out by things like lost eyeballs.”

“Does anything gross you out?”

I waver my head from side to side. “Creatures holding hands. Declarations of undying affections. Oh, and unicorns.”

“Unicorns?” She smashes her lips together forcefully.

“You think that’s funny?” I question with my head slanted to the side.

“Kind of.” She takes a steady breath. “I mean, they’re just horses with horns. What’s so gross about that?”

“Have you ever seen a unicorn in its natural form?”

“I thought that was their natural form.”

I shake my head. “Nope. The whole pretty pony with a horn look is just glamour.”

Her lips form an O.

“And what’s beneath that glamour,” I continue, holding up her eyeball, “makes this look like a decadent dessert.”

Her nose crinkles. “How come I didn’t know about this glamour unicorn thing?”

“Because you come from a magical town that likes to pretend there’s actually gold at the end of a rainbow, instead of a rabid leprechaun waiting to eat you. Now, hold still.”

She nods then traps her breath in her chest. I dip my head to eyelevel with her eye socket then push the eyeball back into place.

“There.” I dust my hands off and step back, angling my head to the side as I examine my handiwork. “Looks like you never even lost it.”

She delicately touches her fingertip to her eyeball. “It’s not crooked or anything?”

I shake my head. “Nope. It looks perfect.”

She frowns. “Well, I highly doubt perfect since it’s a zombie eye.”

“Oh, will you quit sulking about your zombie-ness? Your eye looks perfect. And the rest of you isn’t that bad, either.” Before she can respond, I back away toward the Death Walkers. “Now hold still and let the Death Walkers freeze you so we can get on to the next step before you end up losing more important parts.” I wink at her.

Her cheeks flush for a second time. Again, the display of emotion throws me off. Zombies aren’t supposed to blush or cry tears or laugh. Although, I haven’t seen her do that yet. It makes me wonder what else she’s capable of, what sort of zombie she truly is, and who or what in the demon hell created her.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I tell the Death Walkers as I completely slip out of the circle.

Worry creases across Ryleigh’s face as she peers around nervously. Part of me wants to comfort her, but not only will that get me frozen to death, but I’m also a demon. I’m not supposed to want to comfort anyone, let alone a strangely pretty and very amusing zombie. So, I keep my feet planted in place and watch as the Death Walkers breathe freezing death vapor all over Ryleigh until her body petrifies into a zombie ice sculpture. Then I turn away and pour myself a drink, ignoring the foreign sensation of eagerness stirring inside me. An eagerness for my little zombie pet to unfreeze and return to me.

“You can go now,” I command the Death Walkers as I collect the glass of whiskey.

The room settles into silence, so I figure they’ve materialized back into the pits of Hell where I summoned them from. When I turn around, though, the cloaked figures are still crammed into my living room.

“I said you could leave,” I repeat with a sigh. While Death Walkers have their talents, they’re also kind of slow in the head. “And don’t even try to haggle more of a payment out of me. I already paid you enough.” More than enough, actually.

To get their mistress to agree to lend them to me from the pits of Hell, I had to give her a piece of my soul. That means she can summon me for one task whenever she chooses.

Getting your hands on a piece of demon soul is a rarity, since we’re so greedy and usually only think of ourselves. I’m not even certain why I decided to give it away just to keep my little zombie pet from rotting further. Or maybe I do know and just don’t want to admit it. For the sake of not getting utterly disgusted with myself, I’m putting the blame of my decision on lack of sleep and not enough vitamin C.

Yeah, that’s got to be it. Because demons make irrational decisions when they’re vitamin deficient. I roll my eyes at myself.

When they show no signs of leaving, frustration bursts inside me. “Look, I’m not paying you anymore, okay? Tell your mistress she can kiss my pretty demon ass if she thinks she can up the price after I’ve already paid.”

The tallest of the six hooded monsters moves forward. “Time to collect.”

“Aw … shit.” I really didn’t think my bargain through very well, did I? “Does it have to be right now? I’m very busy with other projects at the moment.”

The Death Walker’s eyes flash yellow as it hisses, “Now or die.”

“Well, okay then, when you put it that way …” I down the glass of whiskey, knowing I’m going to need it. Not only because I’m about to endeavor to the pits of Hell, but because I’m about to do a task for the Queen of Hell, a creature that even demons fear. And for very good reasons.

I cast one final glance at Ryleigh, hoping she’ll remain frozen until I return. Then I stick out my hand so the Death Walker can transport me to the evilest place ever known. “All right, take me to Hell,” I mutter, trying not to think about what task I’m going to be forced to do.

Trying not to think about how and why I got myself into this situation to begin with.