Honkytonk Hell: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 1) eden Hudson (best book club books txt) 📖

of Jason. She was at least twice as fast as me and who knows how many times as strong. I wouldn’t put my money on Mitzi to win a fight with Mikal, but I’d damn sure give her better odds of surviving one than I would give me.

The only way to get a familiar away from a fallen angel is to kill him, I thought. Fallen angels can only enthrall living things. Vamps are dead.

Desty

 

“‘The last chosen soldier of God must visit death upon his brother before a holy champion can rise and the final battle for Earth can begin,’” Jax read.

“That’s it?” I asked.

Bailey nodded and used the earpiece of her reading glasses to scratch the back of her head. “Prophecies—accurate ones anyhow—are usually pretty short and to the point.”

“You don’t have any notes or alternate translations?” Jax asked. He held up the water-stained notebook paper and tapped the single line of blue writing. “What about historical context, idioms, anything? This is pretty clean as far as straight-from-the-oven translations go.”

Bailey shrugged. “This copy was recovered near the old Baumeyer cabin—”

Jax interpreted for me, “Where Colt was living, before the whole thing with Mikal.”

“Right,” Bailey said. “Which I guess is at least one type of irony, considering Brandt and Raelyn nicknamed it the Whitney Death Prophecy. Anyway, Rian brought it in because Mayor Dark wanted it authenticated. We have the original on file in the server here, and since it’s obviously Sancati—”

“Obviously,” Jax said.

Bailey pointed at the paper with her glasses.

“Don’t get smart with me, Ajax, look at the text,” she said. “They’re one of the few ancient divining sects that used the more earthly ‘soldier’ instead of ‘warrior.’ The Sancati wrote in a coarse language so there wouldn’t be any confusion to future generations.”

“Fucking accommodating,” Jax said, which is pretty much what I was thinking.

“I always did like their practicality and foresight,” Bailey said. Then she smiled at us like she couldn’t understand why we weren’t laughing. “Foresight? No one?” She shrugged. “I thought it was good.”

I looked at Jax.

“Can you cross-reference stuff?” I asked. “Like use words in this prophecy to bring up other stuff you’ve memorized?”

“Let’s do it,” he said. He closed his eyes and the lids started flickering like someone lost in a dream. “Hit on the Hell Windows. They ‘recount the story of the angel who led the rebellion in Heaven. He was cast to Earth where he will bring forth the legions, then rise up against the chosen armies of God in the final battle for Earth. Kathan is represented as a king of earth in these accounts (reference: Whitney papers) and Mikal as his second in command, keeper of the Sword of Judgment.’ That’s it.”

“Sword of Judgment?” I said. “That sounds pretty serious.”

“Yeah, if you think a fiery sword that can send any being, human or NP, to its final destination—i.e. Heaven or Hell—is serious,” Jax said. “It’s kind of what makes Mikal such a badass.”

I didn’t laugh.

“Come on,” he said, bumping my arm. “I’m just trying to make it go down a little easier.”

“Sorry. I guess I don’t research well with others,” I said. “I like to lock on, you know?”

“Then you’re in luck,” Jax said. “There’s nothing more locked-on than the Whitney papers. Tough’s dad wrote them back when he first started that whole thing with Kathan. The guy was pretty longwinded—even for a preacher.”

I remembered. I’d read some of Daniel Whitney’s work when Tempie started getting interested in fallen angels. He was convincing, methodical, and thorough. But then, if you were trying to get everyone you knew to follow you into war against creatures you couldn’t kill, you would have to be.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s lock on.”

Tough

 

There were only a few cars parked outside Tiffani’s when I got there, but it being the tail end of lunch, the bakery was full of tourists and people who worked on the square. Addison Kelley and a couple other girls from our class waved at me from their table by the door.

“Oh my gosh, Tough, what happened?” Addison asked. “Did you get in a fight?”

I snorted. Nodded, but didn’t stick around to answer more stupid questions. You can’t even be sarcastic with people like Addison because they won’t get it.

I got in line behind a fat, Gothed-out tourist who was watching Tiffani’s boobs while she got his order. Tiffani saw me before she finished ringing him up and smirked.

“Looks like someone finally gave you that beating you had coming,” she said.

I pretended to laugh, then rolled my eyes and handed her the note.

I need you to make me.

She barely looked at it before she handed it back.

“Piss off, kid,” Tiffani said and gave the Goth his change.

It was against the law in Halo to make vamps. Not that vampires were real serious about following the law—otherwise Finn would never have gotten made—but they had a pretty sweet setup in Halo with the protection laws and all the vamp-groupie tourists they could suck off of. So, I’d seen Tiffani’s rejection coming. I flipped the paper over.

Name your price, but it’s got to be today.

Tiffani raised her eyebrows at me. “Anything I want?”

I nodded.

“Even sex?” she asked.

I took a deep breath to spike that rib-pain, then nodded again.

Tiffani shook her head.

“Mitzi turned you into such a slut. You ought to be glad your mom didn’t live to see you this way.” Tiffani handed me the note and pointed at the door. “Piss off before I call the big, bad boss man on you.”

I could feel my teeth grinding and metal music screaming in my head, just like when I found out Jason stole my voice, only louder. Mom didn’t live to see this because Mikal stomped her