Chapter 18

It wasn’t in my nature to fuck with the Smurf priest subtly before I killed him. Wolves and demons didn’t play with our food. Only cats did that. Because they were degenerates. But also fluffy and fun to hold like little babies. Yeah, I was conflicted about cats.

The Smurf priest was more complicated than he needed to be. In a perfect world, I could just put him out of his Blueberry Muffin existence. Nah, I wasn’t going to do my Strawberry Shortcake girls like that. Back in the day, you couldn’t just turn on the television and watch anime. You had to drive to the video store and hope they had it to rent. I enjoyed the fuck out of Strawberry Shortcake and I stuck with her every time they tried to drag her out of retirement and give her a makeover.

Hannibal was totally Violet Beaureguarde. They pressed her to get the blue out of her. That used to be this pretty awful medieval execution method. Since these people were acting like we lived in those times and an eclipse meant the apocalypse and you could die from diarrhea, I should totally bring that back.

I should give him diarrhea first because fuck him. He hurt my mate.

I was sitting across from this blue motherfucker just lying through my teeth about how I made my demon dormant and how it broke loose the night I was captured. I was still pissed I couldn’t remember because I had it planned out perfectly. It was a fucking crime I couldn’t remember the reactions when I hit up that Waffle House. I at least wanted to remember someone getting Cas in the butt with a Taser so I could give him a hard time about that. He was a better fighter than me. I was hobbled because I couldn’t let my demon out and end up in the basement.

I did not get my cute little ass Tased. I’m just saying.

“The holy trinity will keep the demon asleep, but I’ve traveled across the world speaking with different holy men and I’ve learned how to inoculate myself so the demons can’t get in at all. I’m planning on using it as soon as you cure me.”

I saw those beady eyes fixate on me. Yeah, I knew where this was going. He was going to claim he discovered it and cut me out of it. Not to mention the holy man he plagiarised it from. I was furious about that and I was actually just trying to make him shit himself in public. He didn’t have to be a little bitch about it and steal my idea.

“Tell me.”

“You have to drink mineral oil in lemon juice first thing in the morning and right before bed. The lemon juice makes your body too acidic for the demon and if they come in anyway, they can’t get their hooks in you because of the mineral oil. It’s the perfect way to demon-proof yourself because it’s all natural. You said it yourself. Food is medicine.”

A demon wasn’t going to be the only thing sliding out. I was hoping he kept it up as his guts revolted on him and he got a little anal leakage.

Because I couldn’t kill him yet, but I could make his butthole leak. Don’t hurt my fucking mate.

“What kind of holy man?” he demanded.

“I can’t tell you because he said sharing that kind of information could get him killed, but he worships the same god as us. They’ve kept demons completely off of their remote island because of this secret. It would make the demons mad if it got out.”

Hannibal sat back, satisfied. Fuck. He totally believed me. He had to know that was a recipe for exploding ass. I mean, the man was in his sixties and smelled like onions and sweat. He reeked like he ate a lot of bad food on the regular. I was sure he got stopped up before and had to figure his shit out.

He was totally going to do it. I was trying not to go full Imp and gleefully laugh about this. Imps were terrible at keeping secrets. I wasn’t going to blow this. I needed to do this for my mate.

“Thank you for sharing this with me. They’ll be targeting me for my good work here. It will be good to be inoculated. I’m not afraid of demons.”

Gag me with a dick that hadn’t been washed in a month.

“Have you thought more about the holy trinity? I really don’t want to relapse.”

My daddy was a red-blooded werewolf from Louisiana. His pack lived in the bayou. The Holy Trinity in Louisiana was sacred. It would fuck up a whole recipe if you didn’t use it. I didn’t know if my parents were still alive and everyone back in Louisiana would be accusing me of blasphemy for using it like this, but my daddy would understand.

“Hrmph. I’m considering it, but not for everyone. It’s going to be expensive. I’d rather try it on a few that show promise first. There are a few in the basement who probably need it more as that’s where we have the worst of them, but I just took over down there after the unfortunate death of Sister Mary Eugene.

“That woman was a saint. She was the most devout of all of us. All she ever wanted to do was cure those poor souls, and they murdered her. They need to suffer. It will bring them closer to god and healing.”

I didn’t know about Sister Mary Eugene and her candidacy for sainthood, but my mate probably had a perfectly good reason for killing her. And fuck, I probably should have been nominated for not rolling my eyes so hard that his ancestors felt it. Those people needed food if not many other things.

I didn’t know how many other ways to say ‘fuck this man.’

So, I just nodded and continued to fuck with him.

“My parents were saints. The demons got them, too. They abused me. Water torture, starvation, and they used canes to beat me. I was just a kid. It’s why I’ve done all this research so it didn’t happen to me. I didn’t land on the mineral oil thing until I’d already been possessed.”

Hannibal looked disgusted. I was now trying not to eye roll so hard that I brought his ancestors back from the fucking dead.

“Abusing children is the worst thing you can do. I’m sorry. It’s going to be dinner soon. Go eat. I’ll make sure you and your friend get what you need to keep the demon at bay. I’ll look into getting it for the others.”

I was trying so hard not to rip this man’s eyeballs out and shove them up his asshole so he could see how full of shit he was. Because it wasn’t demons who did that to me. My demon mama was perfect. She was loving and kind. She never would have done any of the shit his people had done to me. All that shit had happened to me when I was a kid and it was all done to me by people like him.

I set off with my hands in my pocket whistling the Benny Hill theme. Because I had work to do.

I needed to spread the word to the masses that if they got a little garlic, butter, and parmesan with the meal to start pretending like they were human.

This sparked joy.