Page 3 of The Prophet

I read the rough form and let out an annoyed sigh.

When I show it to Johannsson, disgust twists his features. “Cough her up, Lethoba.”

“Consent,” the demon gargles in protest.

“You know that doesn’t matter in this instance.” I snap my baton to full length. “Spit her out, or I’ll make you.”

His eyes roll, and his spongy, red stomach convulses. Then his wide mouth opens, and he regurgitates a naked woman onto the sidewalk.

I nudge her slimy body with the toe of my boot. “You still alive, Vicki?”

She groans and pushes up on shaky arms to gaze up at us through the goopy strings of her hair. “Hey, where are the hot cops?”

I prod at the three stamps on her left arm with my baton. “You’re past your limit on visitations for the month. That means another week added to your no fly list and a fine you have to pay before re-entry.”

She sits back on her bare ass and strokes her hands over her breasts as her gaze fixates on Johannsson. “I’m going to need some help up, officer.”

Johannsson’s lip curls. “I’m not falling for that again.”

Before Vicki started spending time in the Yard, she already had a reputation among law enforcement. Nympho Vicki was frequently caught naked and rolling around in the mud so men in uniform would arrest her, and she could be groped in the process.

I catch Lethoba as he tries to crawl back up into the branches of his home. “You made a contract with someone already on the restricted list. Pay your fine by the end of the week or lose your tree.”

His long tongue comes out to lick his right eye, and he croaks in acknowledgment.

“Aww, don’t blame him for it.” Vicki struggles to her feet, wobbling with blood loss. “I begged him to take me in.”

Johannsson shudders. “You have a serious problem, lady.”

“You ever been inside one of these magnificent creatures?” She smirks at him. “Feels like you’re being licked everywhere all at once.”

Lethoba’s color deepens to a dark red. “Always a pleasure, Vicki.”

She blows him a kiss as he crawls out of view and turns back to Johannsson. “So, you going to cuff me, big boy?”

Johannsson pulls a pair of cuffs from his pocket but hesitates to approach her.

While he figures out that slimy situation, I step forward and slap a warning onto Lethoba’s tree. The spell sparks to life, and the sigil on it burns through the paper to sink into the bark beneath.

Without the counter-curse from the claim’s office, the spell will automatically trigger and destroy his tree. If that happens, he’ll have to fight one of his brethren for a new home.

It’s a strict punishment, but if he kills Vicki—even if she begs to be sucked dry—her death will draw the attention of the human police, and we don’t want that.

Especially since she’s here illegally.

I turn back toward her. “Which guard admitted you into the Yard?”

She bats spiky lashes at me. “Can’t remember.”

The three stamps on her arm should have alerted the officers at the entrances that she had hit her visitation limit.

Either she slipped past or someone let her in. Both are bad and will need to be addressed.

Bringing order to the micro-city has been a laborious process. Not every being who lives here likes the new rules. They left the demon plane to escape all the restrictions imposed on them on the other side of the veil, only for this hell hole to now turn legit under Nickodemus’s control.

The king of the boogeyman foresaw the end of this little kingdom if demons kept killing each other without consequences. Before that happened, he gathered a council of powerful beings similar to the High Court and hired us as the Bone Guard to enforce their laws.

Which means protecting our human visitors. Undesirable ones included.

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