About Taste Test: Horns and Halos

by Dakota Flint, Clare London, and Zoe Nichols
36 pages / 15500 words
ISBN-13: 978-1-60370-508-0
ISBN-10: 1-60370-508-2
Available file types - html, lit, pdf, prc

Who doesn't love hot demons and untainted angels coming together to make with the sin? Horns and Halos has all that and more! In Sinful, by Zoe Nichols, Reverend Lloyd Jamison lives with a sin that's as big as Eve eating the apple. Thanks to youthful foolishness, he has a permanent craving, and the most delicious stalker you could have: lust demon Ripper. Try as he might, Lloyd can't avoid Ripper, but will he be the one with the upper hand in the end?

Deja VU by Dakota Flint sees angel Graham meeting up with his arch nemesis, demon Cale, at the annual "Horns and Halos Bash" held as the one night a year that angels and demons can put their differences aside and get together to let loose. Things between them turn heated, quickly, and Cale gives Graham pleasure he never dreamed of. But what will happen when Graham wakes up the next day? Finally, in Limbo, by Clare London, beautiful, fragile Yoshiel and the strong, fierce Labal have broken the no fraternization rule, and live to pay the price. They seek each other out, realizing their masters have exacted a penalty from them both, a punishment that’s both ironic and cruel.  Will their shocking transformation prove their undoing?

Sample

“Déjà Vu”
by Dakota Flint

“Remind me again why we come to this every year? You’d think Pacer would get sick of the ‘Horns and Halos Bash’ after the first one hundred and ninety years he used that title, but no. He still thinks it’s a riot.” Sarah sounded just as disgruntled as Graham felt.

“Yeah, well, you weren’t the one sentenced to a decade as an overweight teenage female when Goddard realized I was absent from the 1979 bash. Ten years of spandex, glitter, and cheesy pop music were enough to last an eternity. One night out of my year is a small price to pay to prevent something like that from happening again.” Graham suppressed a shudder as he thought about what he liked to call the AAA, or Angsty Awkward Angel, years.

“At least there won’t be any surprises at the party.”

Definitely no surprises. As they approached the entrance to Goddard’s palace, Graham looked around at the decorations. Yep, they were the same ones Pacer and his minions used at the first Horns and Halos Bash almost two hundred years ago, right down to the sign at the door that read ‘Please check horns and halos at the door’ and the party favor mugs with ‘Are you feeling Horny tonight?’ in big red block letters on the front. Graham sighed. The Angels were too nice to tell Pacer the decorations and party favors were corny, and Pacer didn’t trust the Demons when they told him.

Pacer had only held the position of liaison between the Federation of Angelic Beings and the Demonic Republic of Afterlife Beings, or FAB and DRAB as the Angels liked to say, for one hundred and ninety years, about three hundred and forty years less than his predecessor. His sole job was to plan the annual party for the angels and demons of the world, hosted at Goddard’s palace. It was the one night of the year when the battle for souls was checked at the door.

One would think that Pacer would change it up a bit in all that time, but he stuck with the same theme and decorations year after year. He could be heard saying that he knew how to stick with a good thing, and the angels would roll their eyes and the demons would make sarcastic replies that went right over Pacer’s head.

Graham looked around at the other angels and demons while he and his friend Sarah waited in line to get into Goddard’s place. The Horns and Halos Bash was a costume party, but with one stipulation: the demons had to wear something angelic and the angels had to wear something demonic.

This year, Graham could see everything from a baby costume to a representation of human money. Most angels and demons dressed up in their human forms, himself included, a tribute to humans who were spending this night dressed as angels or demons while they celebrated a holiday they called Halloween.