by Nadine Mutas
Azazel turned on his heels and marched farther down the hallway. Bouncing with his every step, I glanced back at Azmodea, who jogged to catch up with him.
I grinned and waved at her. “Did you see the flying elephant?”
“Maybe we should knock her out,” Azmodea murmured as she fell into step next to him.
I jerked upright as much as possible. “What?”
“She’d be less of a liability,” she went on as if I hadn’t spoken.
“I can hear you!” I twisted to try to glower at her, but all I accomplished was to bump my butt against Azazel’s face.
“Good idea,” he ground out. “If we don’t, she’ll draw every damn guard’s attention.”
“I’m literally right here!” I wiggle-bumped his face some more for good measure.
Azmodea appeared in my line of vision. “Sorry, kiddo. Has to be done.”
And before I could protest more, she laid her fingers on my forehead and whispered, “Sleep.”
Darkness took me.
I came to with a pounding headache.
Pain throbbed inside my skull with the force of a jackhammer. I tried to open my eyes, but my lids wouldn’t move, as if they were glued shut. Sluggish, my thoughts were so sluggish. God, that freight train in my head, it just wouldn’t stop. What happened?
Voices drifted over to me. An argument in harsh whispers.
“I know this place,” Azazel snapped. “And if we go this way, we’ll avoid them.”
“That leads us deeper into the palace.” Azmodea’s taut voice. “At this rate, we’ll never get out of here. We have to go up and try to find a window that will open.”
“If we go up, we’ll run right into the fighting. We need to go down and around.”
“Through these awesome hidden pathways.” Her tone was dripping with acid.
“Yes. I used them all the time when I lived here.”
“Two thousand five hundred years ago! How do you know they haven’t changed?”
“Why would they change?” he barked.
“Oh, I don’t know…maybe because Lucifer might have done some remodeling in two fucking millennia?”
Jesus, their yelling was splitting my skull. I wanted to tell them to tone it down, but my mouth was full of cotton, my tongue swollen to twice its usual size. Not even mental communication worked—my mind felt like sticky goo and I couldn’t for the life of me get a precise thought together and push it to Azazel.
What the fuck happened to me?
Again, I tried to pry my eyes open, and this time I succeeded. The light stabbed at me like a dagger straight through my eyeballs and into my brain. Ouch. After blinking a couple of times, my surroundings came into focus and stopped spinning.
I was sitting propped against the wall of a gloomy corridor, Azazel and Azmodea standing several yards away, still arguing.
“For all we know,” Azmodea said, “you could lead us straight into Lucifer’s personal chambers.”
“Not if we go down!”
“But at some point we have to go up again! And then what?”
My mouth still wouldn’t cooperate, my brain on the frizz, and waving my arm—almost hitting myself in the face in the process—to get their attention didn’t work. They were too absorbed in their yelling match. Were siblings always so argumentative? I wouldn’t know.
The images of the two girls I’d seen in my dad’s new home flashed through my mind, and my chest ached. I could have had that, though. Sisters. If things had gone differently, if the festering wound inside me could have healed years earlier, maybe I could have gotten to know my two half-sisters. I might have even liked them. Now I’d never know.
And with that, my sluggish thoughts swung toward the very reason we were even here. My dad!
I sat up straighter, wincing at the pain pounding my skull. Did Azazel get him? Had he already gone down into the Pit and gotten his soul? They were talking about getting out of the palace, so either we were now trying to head home after a successful mission…or we were cutting our losses and abandoning the cause in favor of getting the fuck out.
I had no idea what had happened between us entering the throne room and now. When I tried to sift through my memories to figure it out, the pain in my head intensified from the effort. What the fuck? I couldn’t have just blacked out.
As for my father’s soul, there was no way to tell if Azazel had it on him—it wouldn’t show if he did. As he’d explained to me before we embarked on our heist, he’d use a small container made for carrying souls from Earth to Hell. Souls were spirit only, their ghostly forms but memories of their human body. They didn’t necessarily need to be in their full form and could easily be compressed into a smaller shape to be stored or transported. Demons did it all the time when catching and bringing sinners to Hell. Apparently, lugging full-form souls around was too much of a hassle.
When I’d asked, with no small amount of dismay, “You’re going to Ghostbuster my dad?” Azazel assured me it wouldn’t hurt my father’s soul to be squeezed into a box. I was still skeptical about that.
I needed to ask Azazel about my dad, but first I had to get my body to obey simple commands, like speak words, stand up, or stop drooling. Grimacing, I flailed and wiggled in slow motion until my muscles did their thing and I was able to stagger to my feet, using the wall behind me as a crutch.
So far, so good.
I caught my breath for a moment, listening to Azazel and Azmodea’s continued arguing. Something about insurgents blocking the way, Lucifer’s guards, fighting, and someone’s lack of orientation, which seemed to be an established point of contention between the two siblings.
“I’m not the one who got lost in the dungeons,” Azmodea snapped.
“I was five!” Azazel bared his teeth. “And I distinctly remember you couldn’t find your way out of the Dragon’s Tail Garden either!”
“Because it’s a maze! It’s meant to be confusing!”
“Keep telling yourself that, maybe it’ll become true.”
Azmodea looked like she was one second away from strangling him. Oh, no. If they went at each other’s throats, we’d never get out of here.
I opened my mouth to test again if I could finally speak when pain flared up from my ankle. I screamed. Something yanked my leg out from under me, I stumbled and crashed face first into the floor, barely breaking the fall with my hands.
Screeching, I caught Azazel and Azmodea’s alarmed looks as I was dragged over the ground away from them at mind-boggling speed. I scraped over stone and jagged pebbles, my dress bunching up around my waist, my limbs flailing helplessly.
It all happened so fast. One moment I was leaning against the wall trying to get my bearings, and the next instant I disappeared down a dark hole, hauled by something with sharp teeth lodged tight in my ankle.
Darkness closed in, walls streaming by. The beast pulled me farther back while I grasped in vain to get ahold of the walls, the floor, anything to stop my descent into what seemed to be a small tunnel…like the burrow of an animal.
“Azazel!” I cried, hopeless though it was. I’d barely fit through the hole, and the sides of the tunnel touched my shoulders and hips… Azazel wouldn’t be able to come after me, and neither would Azmodea—she was taller than me, the tunnel much too narrow.
I screamed as the beast hauled me around a bend and my back and head hit the walls. Vision blurry, head ringing, I lost sight of the burrow’s entrance. Around a curve again, down another path, turning another corner.
Crap.
If there were other tunnels forking off this path, I’d be wandering this labyrinth trying to find my way back should I somehow manage to fight off this monster.
My entire body ached and burned, my bones rattled, my skin abraded and raw from all the dragging across the ground. No matter. I needed to prepare. At some point, the beast would be far enough into its den and begin eating me. I had to have a plan.
Groaning and wincing, I managed to pull one hand do
wn along my body—which was extremely difficult considering how narrow the tunnel was, giving me little room to maneuver, not to mention the continued hauling jostled me again and again. Hand near my hip, I fumbled for the dagger.
There. Thank fuck it hadn’t come loose in all the commotion. I grabbed the handle, but stilled at the thought of accidentally gutting myself if I pulled it now while I was still roller-coasting over the ground. Given my penchant for clumsiness, an unintentional evisceration was a real possibility. Ugh. Okay, I’d just keep the blade sheathed for now, my hand ready on the hilt.
Another corner, another bump of my head—as if the initial pounding in my skull when I’d woken hadn’t been enough, goddammit—and then cooler air licked over my ravaged body. Unlike before, the sounds of my being dragged echoed in the darkness. We must be in a larger tunnel or cavern now. I flailed with my free hand, couldn’t reach a wall. Did I have enough room to stab the beast? Only one way to find out.
Heart thundering, fear tightening my stomach, I unsheathed the blade with my right hand. As fast as I could manage, I twisted toward my feet and reached out with my left. I needed to grab the beast’s head, so I knew where exactly to stab.
With only the pain in my ankle as my guide in the pitch-black, I made contact with something furry and warm. Before I could swing the dagger, the beast let go of my ankle with a growl and snapped at my left hand.
Excruciating pain exploded in my fingers. I screamed, but I thrust the dagger forward anyway, aiming for my hand clamped in the beast’s jaw. Even if I hit myself in the process, I was sure to slash the monster as well.
A thunking, wet sound as the blade met flesh and bone, the impact reverberating up my arm. The thing screeched and twisted. Gritting my teeth against the agony, I grasped blindly with my mangled left hand before the beast jerked away. My fingers closed around flesh and fur, and I held tight. Again and again, I stabbed with the dagger.
“I—” stab “—will not—” stab “—be—” stab “—your—” stab “—DINNER!”
Stabstabstab.
It took me a long moment to realize the beast wasn’t thrashing anymore.
Breath heavy and fast, I stabbed it once more for good measure then shoved it off me and yelled out my fear and anger. Adrenaline pumped through my veins.
“You motherfucking bastard!” I screamed and kicked with my good leg at where I figured lay the carcass. It was so satisfying to feel my heel connect with the body.
I was shaking hard, my teeth clattering. The reality of the near-miss I’d just had crashed over me. The only other time I’d come this close to dying had been with the inferni, but someone else had saved me then.
This time, it was all me. No one around who would have come to my aid. Only me. And I’d just barely made it.
God.
I went to rub my hands over my face, then remembered one of them was mangled and the other still clutched the dagger in a death grip. Exhaling a trembling breath, I looked around, quite uselessly. The darkness was so complete, I couldn’t see my hand even just inches from my face. How was I going to get out of here? I had no idea where the tunnel exit was.
I’d have to feel my way around the ground until I found a wall, and then go by touch from there, hopefully getting to the tunnel. I cringed at the thought of having to navigate the maze-like burrow in the unrelenting dark, not knowing which way would lead back to Azazel and Azmodea.
Going on all fours, the dagger still in my right hand, I favored the left hand and kept my right foot hovering off the floor to not drag the ankle where the beast had bitten me over the ground. I gritted my teeth against the insistent throb of pain in my wounds. I could really use some of Azazel’s instant healing right now.
I’d just started moving when a sound made me freeze. Wings flapping, a whoosh of air, a soft thump.
My heart was in my throat, the dagger in my hand pointed toward the noise. Another beast?
So sad how you lot have to arm yourselves with blades to make up for your lack of claws and fangs, a voice said in my head.
That voice. That voice!
“M-mephistopheles?” My hand shook.
Are you expecting someone else?
I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “How did you get here?”
I’m a cat.
Ugh. “Okay, but seriously, how? Is there a way directly to Azazel’s home? Can you show me?”
A pause. I could have sworn, if there were light, I’d have seen him leisurely blink at me as he took his sweet time to answer. No, he simply said.
“Why not?”
You’re not a cat.
Ugggggh. “Mephisto,” I grated. “Please help me.”
Smacking sounds in the dark.
I gasped. “Are you eating?”
If you wanted to claim your kill, you shouldn’t have crawled away from it. Finders keepers.
Ew. A full-body shudder wracked me. “Can you tell me which way the tunnel exit is?”
Yes.
I waited.
More chewing and smacking noises.
“So?” I asked.
So what?
I rolled my eyes in the dark. “So where is the tunnel exit?”
To your left. But I wouldn’t go there if I were you.
“Why not?”
Because more hellrats are on their way here through that tunnel. I can hear them.
“What?” I almost dropped my dagger. “Wait—more? That thing I killed—that was a hellrat?”
My favorite kind of vermin.
“But—the beast I just stabbed was big enough to drag me. The rats I saw gnawing on those demons in Lucifer’s entrance hall were smaller, like normal rats.”
They grow bigger the deeper you go into the palace. Juicier too.
Crap. And ew. “Is there another tunnel I can take?”
No.
Well, fuck.
But you don’t need a tunnel to leave this place.
“What do you mean?”
You have blood, don’t you? And there’s a nice wall to your right.
It took me precious seconds to realize what he was talking about. Then my eyes widened.
“Will his sigil work here too?” I was already crawling toward the wall he’d mentioned. “Will it get me to his house?”
No. The sigils don’t work between estates.
“Then where will I end up?”
Does it matter? I’d imagine anywhere is better than here. At least for you. I have wings and another way out of here. You don’t, which means you’ll be rat chow in a matter of minutes.
I paused, contemplating the less than savory possibilities of how my situation could get worse depending on where the magical doorway would spit me out. “Couldn’t you help me slay the rats?”
Child, he said with as much indulgence as I’d ever heard from him, no cat in their right mind would fight a whole pack of hellrats.
Okay, magical doorway it was.
As fast as I dared in the dark, I crawled over the ground to my right, swallowing down my rising bile at the crunching sounds and the feel of something hard breaking under my knees and my right hand. I had a good idea what those things were. I felt a sudden, visceral sympathy with Gimli from Lord of the Rings as he’d gingerly trod on the physical remains of the Army of the Dead in their mountain.
Having reached the wall, I felt my way up and found a flat enough part of it to draw the sigil. With the blood dripping from the wounds on my left hand, I painted the strokes of the symbol as I remembered them. This had worked once before in the dark, I reminded myself. I could only hope it’d work again.
A flash of light. Too bright after the pitch-black, it blinded me for a few seconds as the sigil lit up then faded, leaving behind a darkness all the more stark for the brief interlude of light. I reached out and confirmed there was indeed an opening.
See you on the other side, Mephistopheles said, wry amusement in his tone. Or rather, back at home. A pondering pause. If you make it.
“Ge
ez, Mephisto. Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
You’re welcome.
Sarcasm clearly wasn’t his forte.
“Bye. And thank you for your help,” I said and limped into the corridor. Before the doorway closed again, I turned and added, “If you see Azazel, tell him…tell him I’m not dead. Yet.”
Those are to be your last words to him?
Oh, my God, I was being judged by a self-important cat.
“Fine!” I huffed. “Tell him I—I—” I flailed. “He’s—”
The doorway closed and cut off my flustered sputtering, leaving me in the middle of trying to put into words what I hadn’t even begun to understand.
Breath sawing in and out of my lungs, I stood there in the darkness of the magical corridor for a moment. Now that the threat of the hellrats had passed, my adrenaline ebbing, the very real possibility that I’d never get to see Azazel again was sinking in.
Who knew what awaited me on the other side? What if this time, I wouldn’t be able to fight or sneak my way out of it?
The sharp pain in my chest had nothing to do with my physical wounds, yet it hurt just as keenly. I wanted to get back to him, not just to survive and be safe, but to be with him. He was fun, intriguing, sexy as fuck, and under that smoldering demon exterior beat a heart that was surprisingly…loving. Dammit, he’d grown on me. More than that. He’d snuck under my defenses, right past those walls I usually kept up in my relationships.
I’d been in love before with most of my previous boyfriends, yes, but I’d always held back a part of myself, had never let them see me vulnerable, had never relied on any of them. Why would I, when I never intended for them to become a permanent fixture in my life? To trust any of them with all of me under those circumstances was foolish.
I bit my lip as I considered how different this felt, this…whatever it was I had with Azazel. He’d seen me at my lowest, had seen me break apart, and he’d…taken care of me with a quiet kind of dedication that made something soft and intense curl and twist in my heart.
Did he have any idea what that did to me? How much it mattered?
How much he mattered to me?
