Read Hell's Gates (Urban Fantasy) for Free Online

amusing. “Ha. Ha.” I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Hilarious.”
    “I didn’t do that on purpose.” He shrugged. “It’s just how the magic works.”
    “Well,” I grumbled. “As long as it’s pointing at me because I’m the Princess of Hell and not because of On High’s definition of ‘impure.’” I hadn’t been “On High” pure for a long time. I mean, I’m six hundred years old. A girl’s gonna go around the block a few times after that long. And there’s definitely no shame in this immortal girl’s game.
    Papa Finn closed his eyes and the rod pulsed with a flash of pale light. “There. It’ll ignore you for now.”
    Then he spun in a slow circle, holding the rod away from his body, waiting for it to react and direct him—us. It became more intense when he faced the back of the house and he carefully moved in that direction. He took one step, then two, then… came up against the rear wall of the kitchen.
    “The wallpaper is impure? Really? I mean, it’s a bit old fashioned, but…”
    “Young lady!” Momma R didn’t seem to care that I was older than her.
    “No.” Papa Finn shook his head. “Beyond the wall.”
    I got to the back door first, fingers itching and ready to face whatever was out there in the darkness. My boots thumped heavily on the wooden porch, and that was followed by the sound of the others joining me.
    Papa Finn continued his search, slow movements taking him down the stairs and… to Momma R’s trash cans?
    “Dammit, Papa Finn.” The wolf wanted me to snarl, but I forced it out of my voice. He was trying to help. “Is there a way to calibrate it a little better?”
    If it couldn’t tell the difference between the Princess of Hell and rotting garbage, we were screwed and the rod was useless.
    “Hold on.” He had that tone, the one all kids know and recognize. Any whining, any impatience a child may experience was silenced by that tone.
    He kicked the can over, spilling the garbage onto the ground, and used the toe of his shoe to nudge things aside. He scanned the empty cereal boxes, empty containers of baby food, a few dirty diapers and a scraped clean pie pan from dinner the previous night.
    Yeah, all I’d eaten for dinner was one of Momma R’s blueberry pies.
    The rod didn’t react to any of it. It remained dormant with every item until… until he got to an empty water bottle. The rod buzzed so hard I could feel it in my teeth, the end practically dancing around.
    “Gimme.” I snatched it from Papa Finn and held it up to the light streaming through the kitchen door. I didn’t recognize the brand, but I figured it was something Momma R found on sale at the grocery store. Just because she was the most powerful witch in the Northern Hemisphere, that didn’t mean she had to waste money when the store brand was just as good.
    “This is it? It’s tainted?” I stared at the few droplets still dancing around in the plastic bottle. “Something that got into it at the bottling plant?”
    I was gonna raze that plant to the ground. Scorched Earth motherfuckers.
    “No,” Papa Finn held out his hands, fingers hovering over the bottle, but not touching the plastic. “This isn’t normal bacteria.” His fingers wiggled as if they dipped into the waves of unseen energy. “It’s cloaked magic; black magic.” He narrowed his eyes. “The kind that only comes from dems.”
    Demons. Hell damned motherfucking, fucking fuck demons. “How the ever loving fuck did dems get tainted water into Orlando?” I waved my arm, gesturing at the city in the distance. “How did no one sense this shit?” How didn’t I sense this shit? “I banished the assholes. If one of them came back to dick with my town…”
    I would burn them to ashes. I would burn everything to ashes.
    “I don’t know.” Papa Finn’s gaze remained locked on the empty bottle. “But I think I’ve sensed this energy before. Today.”
    My mind went back to Sorsha and then Agatha. Others were