Page 126 of Demon with Benefits
It was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard. “Yeah. That’s me.”
Remembering their present company, she looked at Belial. “We brought you Valefor so you could kill him, since neither of us can summon hellfire.”
Belial looked at the carcass. “You planned this?”
“I mean, kinda? It got a bit derailed for a sec there, but this was how I was hoping it would turn out, yeah.”
Now the hulking demon was staring at her. “So you purposefully brought your trash into my house to demand I dispose of it for you?”
“Yes... ?”
Bel did not look happy. “And since when am I your errand boy or the dog who barks on command?”
Iris swallowed, glancing at Meph, who was observing the scene with uncharacteristic calmness. It hadn’t occurred to her that Bel wouldn’t approve of their plan. “I mean, I thought—”
“Bel, shut up,” Raum said. “We’ve wanted to off this fucker for years, and now we can. He was untouchable in his lair—his territory’s more heavily warded than Lucifer’s stronghold, and we couldn’t break the rules back then anyway. But now we’re rogue and here he is. He’s already half dead. Quit whining and fry him.”
For a minute, Iris thought Bel was going to attack Raum instead. Then, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath while clenching and unclenching his fists. When his eyes finally opened, they flashed with hellfire. “Fine. Go chop his head off.”
“Do I look like I have a sword on me?”
Bel lifted a hand like he was imagining strangling Raum, his fingers tensed. Then he curled them into a fist and took a few more unsteady breaths. He swung his head around and pinned Iris with a glare. “Well?” he barked. “What are you still standing there for? You want to fry with him?”
“Oh! Um—” Iris grabbed Meph’s bony hand and pulled him out of the circle with her.
Bel marched forward, bent down, and scooped up Valefor’s withered body. Gripping the skull with one hand and the torso with the other, Bel tensed and... pulled. His powerful back muscles rippled and seemed to swell. His enormous arms flexed, and tendons bulged in his neck.
With his bare hands, he ripped Valefor’s head clean off his body.
“Jesus,” Raum said.
Belial dropped the pieces, and before they’d even hit the ground, they burst into flame. Bel’s arms did too, the fire consuming them from the elbow down, launching out of his palms like something from a superhero flick.
“Bloody hell,” Iris whispered, shuddering. It was a damn good thing Bel was on their side. She hadn’t expected him to just... do it right there though. She’d thought they would go outside—
And have a bonfire on the deck for the neighborhood to see? There was no great place to cremate a demon, was there?
The smoke alarm went off in the kitchen.
“Shit,” Raum said. “I’ll get that.”
The smell was awful. Coughing, Iris covered her mouth with her sleeve and went into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind her. Meph slunk along with her.
The blaring alarm silenced and Raum returned. “Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to roast a demon in the house.”
Her thoughts exactly. Except: “Where else would you roast a demon?”
“Take him to the park and make a bonfire out of it, I dunno. Roast a marshmallow.”
Iris snorted and then looked between him and Meph. “Why hasn’t he tried to eat you? He tries to eat everybody.”
She was almost offended. Meph had needed thorough convincing not to eat her, but he hadn’t looked twice at Raum or Belial. What made them so special?
The bedroom door banged open before Raum could answer, and Belial stepped out into the hall, the smell of smoke clinging strongly to him. It was vastly overpowered by the smell of demon carcass coming from the bedroom, however, and they all grimaced.
“Meph’s gonna kill us for doing that in his room,” Raum said. “He’ll be pissed about the ash on his clothes.”
“He shouldn’t leave them lying around if he doesn’t want them to get damaged,” Bel growled. “Besides, I’m going to kill him first for bringing his bodies here for me to clean up. We went over this three hundred years ago. I told him I didn’t care who he ate as long as he stopped bringing the carcasses back to the lair and dumping them outside my chambers.”
