BLACK DOG AND REBEL ROSE
A NOVEL
By Danielle D. Smith
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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BLACK DOG AND REBEL ROSE
DANIELLE D. SMITH
Published by Solstice Publishing at Smashwords
Copyright 2010 Danielle D. Smith
For Beth Emmerich
Thanks for always keeping me on my toes
Show you the difference ‘tween my gun and my pistol…
~Puscifer
“Dozo”
PROLOGUE
The True Native hung over like a sack of bloody rags, wheezing; she could barely believe that he was still alive. The abuse and torture she had inflicted on him had left so little of him whole. It was only when she bent close and stared into his fire-filled eyes that the fierce wicked life inside of him welled up like lava to the surface.
She crouched down before him, the leather she wore squeaking softly, and her gaze was fearless. Any other woman would shrivel in terror upon beholding one of the demonic races, but for her, this was as natural as breathing. She leaned into him, her eyes narrowed, and he hissed and whined at her like a trapped animal.
“Talk,” she said. He bore his teeth, sharp and steely as razorblades and flecked with bloody spittle. She leaned closer.
“Talk.”
He spat blood at her. Her face was spattered with black gore and her response was lightning quick; her arm swung in a perfect arc and connected squarely with his jaw. There was a gruesome crunch as his razor teeth shattered and flew from his ruined mouth.
The demon screamed and flailed against his bonds.
She leaned even closer, and when he turned his head and stared at her, he saw something in her gaze that made his infernal guts shrivel.
“Don’t…” he croaked, his voice failing him. His mouth was a blood-blackened mess. His tongue was black as sin and forked like an infernal snake’s; it curled painfully around the stumps of his broken fangs.
She wiped some of his spittle from her face, the black slime streaking one scarred cheek. She flicked her fingers at him, spattering him with his own oral offal.
“What?” she hissed. “Don’t what?”
He growled liquidly in his throat and forced the words out in a verbal mush.
“D-don’t kill me,” he wheezed. She laughed harshly, tossing her head back.
“And why not?” she asked.
“B-because I don’t k-know—“
She leaned in again, her upper lip curling into a sneer. “I don’t believe you,” she hissed. He cringed at her fearlessness, the abnormal strength in her lean smooth limbs, and the terrible light in her eyes.
“B-believe me!” he cried in a hoarse stutter. “Would I l-lie to a h-hunter such as you?”
She snorted. “Dishonesty is in your nature, Hell slime,” she growled. He began to shriek in raw terror as she drew a wickedly sharp iron knife from the sheath at her hip.
“Wait!” he screamed, his fire-filled eyes blazing, his body jerking spastically in the old wingback chair she had tied him to. She could smell the Hell stink on him and it sent her belly roiling with hate and disgust.
“You waste my time, beast,” she grunted, but he continued to flop, his limbs wet with fear, sweat, and his own foul blood.
“Wait, lady! If you do not kill me, I can tell you of a great opportunity, worthy of no other hunter!”
She cleaned her nails with the tip of her blade, pondering his offer; as much as she wanted to spill his entrails all over the floor, his offer intrigued her and tempted her vanity.
“Go on,” she said. The demon panted, almost hysterical with relief; he would live to damn another day.
“A nest,” he gasped, spitting out blood and chunks of his own teeth and gums between his words. “The biggest n-nest…you sh-shall ever see.”
“A nest of what? Ghouls? Again, don’t waste my time.”
He coughed. “Vampyres.”
Her eyes gleamed hungrily. “A vamp nest? A coven?”
“Bigger than even a c-coven. Filled w-with Bloods. A s-s-swarm…”
His voice quivered badly and he spat out more blood and gory tissue. Before, she had forced him to swallow pure salt. It was surely burning him up like acid, as it burned all True Natives of the Pit. She licked her lips and toyed with her knife.
“Go on.”
“There is a t-town. Fifty miles out of the city—old f-factory town. D-dried up as old p-p-pig’s shit. B-Bloods began n-nesting there, taking over the old places. Might even be a few g-ghouls to t-t-top it off. Quite a fun time, l-lady.”
He went on, telling her everything he knew. When he fell silent again she smirked humorlessly and her blade shimmered in the night. The True Native began to howl.
“You said you w-wouldn’t!” he screamed. “You said—you fucking bitch!”
Then his voice was cut off by her knife slicing into his throat. The fire in his eyes flickered wildly like a guttering candle flame before dying out in a wash of foul black blood. She leaned close again and whispered into his pointed ear, her soft lips brushed against the folds.
“I lied,” she murmured and pulled the knife through his neck as if it were a column of butter, taking his head off with slick ease. She gripped the head by the hair and chucked it into a corner of the abandoned basement where she had imprisoned its owner. She listened with pleasure to the hollow thwack of it hitting the thick cement wall. The body shuddered grotesquely and exploded in a thick burst of orange light and smoking ash that blackened the old chair in which it was tied.
She stood panting, her breasts heaving, running her tongue over her lips. She had gotten so little out of him—she was no closer to discovering who killed her mother than she was a year ago—but the True Native offered up a tantalizing bit of information nonetheless.