Stalker (The Hunt Book 3)

by Liz Meldon

  Chapter Six

  One moment Moira was submerged in that disgusting water, totally panicked at the feel of a clawed hand locking around her ankle, and the next she was being dragged deeper, deeper, deeper, her ears popping, blood pounding thickly between them.

  And then she was on dry land again. Standing. Surrounded by the buzz of a hundred different hushed conversations in a huge echoey space. Face scrunched, she drew her first hesitant breath through her nose. Mercifully, not a single droplet of warm bog water dribbled down her face. Her clothes were dry—her hair was dry.

  “Moira? Darling?” Severus gave her hand a little squeeze. “You can open your eyes now. It’s over.”

  Why did she feel like they were moving in place? Moira swallowed thickly, then risked opening one eye—then the other, both of them stretching as wide as they dared go.

  Severus had told her they would need to go through a check-in process of sorts when they first arrived in Hell, and that it would remind her of an airport’s arrivals terminal.

  He hadn’t been kidding.

  They stood on one step of a slowly descending escalator, one of dozens, all lined up next to one another in a giant hall of mirrors. Ceiling, floor, walls—all mirrors, all reflecting the hundreds of creatures around her. Moira slowly glanced back over her shoulder. About six steps separated her and Severus from the couple behind them, chatting softly, rolling suitcases on the stair in front of them—smiling, laughing, like this was just any ordinary day. Way behind them was a murky grey cloud, which she vaguely recalled Severus mentioning—something about a magic cloud transporting demons from all over the world to this one spot. With that in mind, she quickly deduced that was what they had been dragged out of, because more people—demons, creatures—were exiting by the second.

  And most of them had horns. Honest-to-goodness horns.

  “Severus,” she croaked, her throat hoarse like she’d been screaming for hours, “why do— Oh!”

  Her cry drew a few curious looks from the creatures around her, and she clapped her hands over her mouth, not caring how ridiculous she looked—because Severus had horns too. Not only horns, but his eyes were their full black, just as they had been before they went under in the bog. Now, however, they had a blazing red pupil in the center, giving him a more human look—and yet not, too.

  “Darling, am I really so hideous?” he said with a chuckle, leaning back on the railing as the escalator continued with its smooth ride, its end point still a ways away. She opened and closed her mouth, struggling to form thoughts, let alone words. Because his skin had adopted an ashy grey hue. Claws replaced nails—black, thick, sharp claws. And the horns. Like a pair of thick slate ram horns, they protruded from his forehead and curled back over his head, their full length hidden by his shaggy black hair.

  He had said the hell-gate removed illusions and enchantments, so Moira had prepared herself to see some weird shit in Hell. He had not given her even the slightest indication that his appearance would be altered so drastically.

  Anger sliced through the thick wall of nerves that had hardened around Moira the second she stepped into the bog—anger and interest, because she wanted to do nothing more than trace each horn, to track its rippled patterning and feel the biting edge of its point.

  Instead, she smacked him as hard she could. “What the fuck, Severus?!”

  He exhaled sharply, red pupils dilating as he pushed off the side railing and lurched into her personal space. Moira held him back with an accusatory finger, stabbing extra hard into the same spot she’d just nailed on his chest.

  “A little warning that you were going to change would have been nice,” she hissed, eyes narrowed up at him as he grinned. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Do I frighten you?”

  “Well, a little.” She crossed her arms and faced forward, every part of her tight, tense. “I just wasn’t expecting it. More surprise than actual fear.”

  “Good.”

  “Not good.” She glared at his towering figure, hovering in the corner of her eye. “I told you to tell me everything.”

  One of those thick, sharp claws ghosted across her cheek, then tucked her hair behind her ear. She fought it, but the shudder won, a pleasant sort of chill dancing down her spine.

  “I told you what mattered, Moira,” Severus murmured. “This doesn’t matter.”

  “This is you,” she said, gesturing up and down his body. “Your truest self, or whatever.” A long, relieving breath whooshed out of her, and she rolled her shoulders back. “Of course it matters.”

  His curious stare burned into the side of her face; was it really such a surprise that she would want to know just a few details about him, too? After all, Severus was a part of Hell—a distinct entity, separate from the demon she knew in Farrow’s Hollow. The more she thought about it, however, the more obvious it became why he didn’t think he was important enough to comment on.

  Which was sad.

  Really sad. Moira took another deep breath, willing away her frustrations. They were in Hell—she didn’t need more drama than that.

  “Fine,” Severus said stiffly at last, his growl curving around the word more savagely than she had ever heard before. Deeper. Gruffer. More dangerous. She shifted about, hating that her body responded so eagerly to it, then leaned down to grab her duffel bag, which she must have dropped in the commotion. Severus, meanwhile, continued to watch her, and when their eyes met, he added, “I apologize. I’m sure the change was…startling.”

  “That’s putting it mildly, but sure, we’ll go with startling,” she told him with a grin. “Anything else I need to know before we get to the bottom of this thing?”

  It drew closer and closer with each passing moment, the mammoth escalator dropping all its passengers off on the floor of the enormous glass hall. Ahead, there were lines as far as the eye could see, as long as the bright, airy, sterile hall stretched—looking exactly like a passport checkpoint at an airport.

  Moira pursed her lips, trying to ignore that she felt…disappointed? Disappointed that Hell was just like an airport terminal?

  Actually, it almost made sense: airport terminals were hellish, even on a good day.

  “You mean besides the fact that your physical appearance has also altered?” Severus asked lightly, and her wandering gaze snapped back to him.

  “What?” She looked up, but the mirrored ceiling was too far away to see any minute details. As she adjusted her duffel bag strap, Severus’s hand trailed between her shoulders, settling on the small of her back, a firm, steadying sort of weight that she hadn’t realized she needed.

  “See for yourself once we get you in a line,” he told her, the end of the escalator nearing as the steep slope evened out. Moira clutched the stony railing and focused on the portion where the walking sidewalk disappeared into the floor. With Severus guiding her, she hopped off without a fuss.

  Huh. Kind of anticlimactic.

  “So, what do we have to do?” Some of the fear was back, gnawing at her insides as she took in the hulking horned demons strolling about—and suddenly she was clutching Severus’s fitted suit jacket, not caring if she wrinkled it. Dressed head-to-toe in black, the tailoring of his jacket impeccable, the buttons of his dress shirt tiny white pearls, he still managed to look breathtaking—horns and all.

  Breathtaking and safe.

  Moira gravitated toward him, trying to keep her gaze on him when it wanted to bounce around nervously.

  “We’ll be in separate check-in lines,” he told her, holding up a hand as soon as she started to sputter. “Returning residents and new visitors are handled differently.”

  “But—”

  “Here, go, go, go, there’s a good line,” he urged, steering her through the hall to a comparatively short line of lone creatures. The longer lines on the other side of the hall, where they’d first stepped off the escalator, seemed to have more pairs, even families.

  Once Severus had her settled, he grabbed her chin
and forced her to meet his gaze. “They’ll ask who is sponsoring your visit, which is the Saevitia family. Don’t forget the name—it carries weight.” He rolled his eyes. “After, they will take your fingerprints, which you’ll do in your own blood. Don’t panic. It’s just a prick on each finger.”

  Moira fought to keep her breathing even. “Right. Bloody fingerprints. Totally normal.”

  “Then you’ll sign your full name to a guest ledger,” he continued, his voice calm yet commanding, “and a contract. It’ll be in Latin, but as I recall, it states that you won’t do any irrevocable harm to the realm while you’re visiting. And that’s it.”

  “What, no passport stamp?” Her laugh sounded half crazed, but from the smile on Severus’s face, lips peeled back to reveal a set of sharp teeth, he seemed to get a kick out of it.

  “Once they have your blood, that will be your passport.”

  “Peachy.”

  “Now, listen, I’ll be finished before you. Just look for me behind the attendant. I’ll be waiting.” He tipped her chin up and stole a long, deep kiss that had her moaning. When he pulled back, the demon lingered, his hand sliding down to grasp her throat. “Calm down. Just think of it as passport control. It’ll be over before you know it.”

  “The guys at passport control are dicks,” Moira noted somewhat breathlessly, her body prickling with heat from the kiss. “Is it the same in Hell?”

  Severus shrugged, slowly backing away. “Sometimes. We aren’t all the same, you know—demons. Rather racist of you, Moira.”

  He shot her a wink before striding into the mass of strange, somewhat frightening figures, presumably off to find the appropriate line. Weird, that Hell would be so orderly. No fire and brimstone in sight. Demons weren’t hacking each other to bits. Most looked bored, actually.

  So. This was Hell.

  Fuck me…I’m in Hell.

  As she stood there all by her lonesome, more of Moira’s nerves crept back in, making her hands clammy and her lips quiver. She tried to keep her gaze moving, always looking, examining the humanoid faces of, what, vampires? Supposedly they came from Hell too, the ones who weren’t made by another’s bite. Still, no matter where she looked, no matter how she tried to distract herself, Moira couldn’t deny it—she was scared. Scared to be alone, surrounded by mirrors and demons. Scared to be in Hell of all places. Just…scared.

  The woman in front of her seemed to share her fears. As the line moved ahead at a glacial pace, the statuesque figure had started to whimper. Bright red hair, green eyes, human in nearly every way save for her pointed ears. She kept fidgeting, twitching, gasping, unable to look up from the mirrored floor. All around them, demons zeroed in on her; some looked annoyed, others exasperated—but a few smiled. Predators. They had found the weakest in the herd. Moira swallowed hard and stood as straight as she could, schooling her features, hiding her fear.

  Don’t give them a reason to pay you any attention.

  You’re in Hell…so what? You’re here for the summer season.

  Whatever that meant. Severus hadn’t told her what happened when demons took the summers off, but she could imagine it involved a lot of blood and gore.

  Time seemed to slow the longer she stood in the line, and, gradually, her fear started to ebb, replaced by the same irritation she might experience waiting in any long, slow line on Earth. As she shuffled forward once more, the line already ten deep behind her, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the floor at her feet—and she nearly dropped her bag at the sight.

  Severus had told her she looked different too, but she’d forgotten all about it once he left her alone. But there she was—Moira, yet not Moira. Her skin had an oddly translucent quality to it, paler than it had ever been. Frowning, she tugged up her jacket sleeves, blanching at the way her bright blue veins crisscrossed and gathered below her faded skin. Not only had she lost more pigmentation, but her hair appeared brighter, wilder, sticking out around her head, straw-like and coarse.

  The biggest change, however, had to be her eyes. She stared at them, moving with the rest of them as the line inched forward, unable to stop staring at herself.

  Her pupils were gone. In their place was just a single light grey orb. Moira blinked down at herself, her mascara untouched from her dip in the hell-gate. With a deep breath, she scrunched her eyes shut, then opened them quickly; the grey orbs responded like pupils, expanding and contracting with the light.

  Was this what the future had in store for her? Was this the end product?

  Hopefully not. It’d be a lot harder to hide pupilless eyes on Earth, but maybe Cordelia could cast an illusion to make her fit in again.

  When the redhead in front of her was finally beckoned forward, she went staggering along, tripping over her own feet, sunglasses falling off her head—just a jittery mess. Moira shuffled ahead and stopped at the thick red line, some ten feet between her and the check-in point. The demon behind the podium, an angular, sharp-featured creature with chalky olive-hued skin and enormous white horns, seemed just as annoyed with the redhead’s skittishness as the demons around her did.

  Moira’s nerves fluttered again, making themselves known as she waited, counting the seconds until it was finally her turn. When the white-horned demon waved her forward, she worried her feet might not cooperate, but there she was, hurrying along—her breath hitching when she spotted Severus lurking in the distance. He strolled forward, casual as sin, a hand in his pocket and his giant bag thrown over his shoulder. When their eyes met, she couldn’t help but smile; knowing he was there, waiting for her, just like he promised, made all of this a little easier.

  She picked up the pace, her hand reaching back for her bag—almost on instinct, as if to pull out a passport. The check-in demon, clad in what she could only describe as a horrific head-to-toe khaki uniform, stood behind his black marble podium, expressionless, and spoke to her in a language she hadn’t even a hope of understanding. Her eyes widened, brain firing on all cylinders as it tried to comprehend what had just come out of his mouth.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “Fucking Americans,” he muttered, shuffling papers about on his stand. “Learn another language for once in your—”

  “I’m Canadian, but okay,” she said flatly, her cheeks on fire when his black eyes, with electric blue pupils, snapped up to her. She cleared her throat, stock-still and heart hammering, then forced a smile. “Not that that means I…speak another language. My French is passable, I guess. I can, you know, ask where the bathroom is, recite all the curse words.”

  The demon rolled his eyes, then produced a small, ridiculously sharp needle, along with a form. With its lines of boxes, it reminded her of a standard fingerprint identification sheet, but Moira still listened intently to his instructions—no blood outside the lines, don’t roll your finger more than necessary, don’t do the same hand twice. From the monotonous, bored air surrounding the creature, his flicker of indignation at her comeback gone, this was probably all very routine.

  Kind of like the people who actually did passport control.

  Setting her bag down, Moira followed all the instructions as best she could, careful to keep everything neat and orderly. The pinpricks on her fingertips hurt like nobody’s business, like that asshole had shoved the damn needle into bone, but she said nothing—literally or with her expression. With Severus watching over the demon’s shoulder, she just wanted to get through this.

  After, she was handed a feather-tipped quill to sign the guest ledger. She needed to list her full name, species, nationality (if human), and sponsor.

  “Angel hybrid?” The demon’s eyes swept over her after he scanned the completed form, her handwriting all jerky and messy courtesy of the adrenaline coursing through her. The open lechery in his stare made her stomach turn. However, he soon stamped the box at the end of the row she had filled out. “Don’t get many of you down here.”

  “I’m not surprised,” she managed, finding it harder and harder to keep up the small
talk the longer he looked at her.

  “Now, this contract stipulates that you will not wreak any undue or irreversible havoc on the realm during your stay,” he continued, speaking like he had spoken the words a thousand times before. “Whatever is left of your human soul will be held as collateral should you be in breach of this contract. Do you understand the terms?”

  “Don’t break anything, or my soul gets tortured for eternity?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Cool.” She snatched the feathery quill again and signed her name at the bottom, annoyed that there wasn’t an English version for her to read—and then annoyed at herself for thinking Hell would provide such luxuries.

  “Welcome to Hell, Miss Aurelia,” the demon droned, slipping the contract through a small slit at the top of the podium. “Please enjoy your stay.”

  By the time Moira had her bag on her shoulder again, the demon was already beckoning the next creature in line forward. Gripping the strap tight, she skirted around him and raced over to Severus, who wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders as soon as she was within reach.

  “So, how was that?” He tugged her bag off and flung it over his other shoulder, holstering it next to his own. “Better than you expected?”

  “Weird, but fine, I guess,” she said, unable to stop smiling—feeling as though she had somehow conquered her first trial in Hell. As they strolled toward the enormous doors at the far end of the hall, she stood up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I feel kind of exhilarated.”

  “That’s my girl—utterly fearless.” Severus flashed those sharp teeth again, the pride in his voice making her heart happy, and dragged her flush against him. “Now, come along… Hell awaits.”

  “So,” Moira said as she held back the lacey maroon curtain, peering out the small window on her side of the creaking carriage, “where’s all the fire, brimstone, and torture?” She shot Severus a smirk over her shoulder. “Hell seems kind of tame.”