Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46785 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Tristan was in a better mood than Mort had ever seen him. He’d only had one beer that day, enough to stave off tremors and other unpleasant side effects of alcohol withdrawal. It was a significant decrease of his usual consumption, which saw at least two six packs being drained down his throat. He was looking sharper, more motivated. He’d even taken a shower and put on a fresh pair of jeans. Still no shirt, which Mort was fine with. He enjoyed looking at the rippling abdominals of his chosen human mate.
Tristan was gathering fireworks now, old fireworks. He was peeling the bright paper off the sides of them and dumping the interior into little paper canisters. He seemed very happy in this task, which Mort still imagined was tidying. Tristan’s hair had been brushed back wet against his head and there was an expression on his face of appealing intensity.
Tristan had been reorganizing the house a lot lately. Mort did not understand the significance of many of the choices he made. Dishes were usually stacked in cupboards, for instance, while cutlery went in drawers. Both of those protocols made about as much sense as firework powder being removed from fireworks and stockpiled in larger containers. Sometimes mortals moved things from big containers to small, other times they moved things from small containers to big.
At one point, Tristan even began cutting not just the plastic rings from the beer cans, but the beer cans themselves, turning the shining silver cylinders into much smaller, irregularly-shaped pieces which he swept quite carefully into a cardboard box. Even to Mort’s inexperienced gaze it was a strange kind of tidying, but it was something that seemed to keep him occupied.
Mort liked seeing Tristan happy, and resolved not to interfere in whatever he was doing.
That turned out to be a significant mistake.
Clip… clop…
Later that evening, another demon did come. This time it was not a Punisher. It was an Enforcer. Hell was escalating through the ranks, with the notable exception of Balthazar, who was above rank and had come of his own accord. Tristan and Mort heard hooves on the porch, too heavy and too large to belong to anything smaller than a horse.
It wasn’t a horse, though it was built like a bull, albeit with the head and face of a man. This big red muscular demon was here for one reason and one reason alone.
To Mort’s dismay Tristan flashed to the window as soon as he heard the steps, peering out between the old fly-marked blinds. What he saw should have terrified him. That would have been a natural mortal response, but Tristan didn’t have a natural mortal response to anything.
Mort heard Tristan utter words under his breath, an excited little fuck yeah. Mort didn’t like them, but he hadn’t known Tristan long enough to know just how worrying those words were.
“MORT!” The Enforcer shouted Mort’s name. “I come to deliver you to your father’s kingdom to answer for your insubordination!”
Tristan slid the window open and stuck his head out into the porch. Right into the physical space of the big red demon.
“Hey, buddy, fuck off.”
Tristan was absolutely spoiling for a fight, or was it punishment? Tristan probably couldn’t tell the difference between a Punisher and an Enforcer. He didn’t know what he was doing. He just knew that he was getting into trouble.
Mort felt something inside him starting to grow, an opposing force to Tristan’s recklessness.
“Get inside,” he said. He didn’t usually speak to Tristan so bluntly, or with so much authority, but this was getting dangerous and he did not want to see his mortal mate hurt.
“No. This asshole is on my porch, so he gets my fucking words.”
Tristan did not have a submissive bone in his body. Tristan was disobedient. Of course his first reaction was to refuse to obey. Mort felt the fingers of his right hand flexing with the urge to take Tristan in hand, but there wasn’t time for that now.
The Enforcer demon was determined to lay his hands on Mort and drag him to the underworld. That, Mort could not allow. The asking-nicely-and-waiting-patiently phase of affairs had well and truly ended. Now they were in the being-forced-against-your-will phase. Mort had known this was coming, but it seemed Tristan had sensed it too — and it was Tristan’s sense of the thing that turned out to be the most dangerous element of the situation.
The Enforcer was not going to wait on the porch. The Enforcer was going to push through the front door and come inside.
Tristan, it seemed, had been counting on that.
Mort prepared to banish the beast, but before he could do anything, Tristan’s plans unfurled in all their glorious carnage. The demon came through the front door, identifying it as the obvious point of entry. It was not locked. It had not been locked in years. If there was a key, Mort had never seen it and he doubted Tristan knew where it was.