by Debra Dunbar
It had been a while since I’d traversed this fast-moving river, but still I noticed the differences. The lush green of Tonlielle had a faded quality, as if the kingdom were on the edge of autumn. Wythyn’s forest showed bare patches of brown. Towns appeared abandoned, and I actually saw small dots of conveyances heading toward the larger cities. Was another war brewing? Were people moving to the more fortified areas for protection? And did this have anything to do with the price on my head?
As the larger cities came into view, I flew higher, rising above the elven-made clouds and into the blistering atmosphere. Better to sweat a bit than be detected by those who might have the magical ability to bring me down.
I flew for hours before the cloud cover broke and I could see the edge of the elven kingdoms—lines of green and gold against the white sands that marked this section of the demon lands. Diving low, I spiraled to scout the borders before committing to a northern course.
There were no landmarks for nearly a hundred miles, just endless white sand. Eventually bits of black dotted the white—lava from a long-dead volcano. Shards of glass joined the black as I drew closer to the city. The eruption had ended with explosive force, heat fusing the sand and melting it to glittering, clear crystal. These grew in size as I traveled north, translucent ponds that weren’t water, monoliths whose facets reflected the setting sun, casting a brilliant rainbow of colors onto the white sands.
Eresh was the largest of all, a cluster of glass and onyx in the distance. Shadows stretched long upon the ground when I landed and concealed my wings. Word had gotten around about them, but it was best to be safe and keep the feathers hidden from prying eyes and grasping claws. I strode into the city, ignored by all but a few Lows, and headed to Zalanes’ house. I was exhausted from my trip, and I had no idea where Swifty would be holed up. It was a big city, just as large as Dis but with unfamiliar alleyways, nooks and crannies. The buildings extended far underground, connected beneath the surface by a network of tunnels and passageways that defied logic and ran completely opposite to the streets on the surface. Looking around at the evening hustle and bustle, I decided it would be better to conduct my search after a few hours of rest.
As the sun set, the scorching temperature dropped dramatically. Eresh had day dwellers who relished the heat intensified by the glass buildings. They were heading for the warmth and shelter of their homes and the radiant heat of lava rocks. Others emerged from underground, stretching in the cool air and blinking their giant, pale eyes. Yes, we could all change forms, but we had preferences, and a city like this allowed us the luxury of indulging them.
I made my way to Zalanes’ house and stood outside the onyx gate, pulling the long furry tail that triggered the demon equivalent of a doorbell. Shadows moved behind the opaque glass, but no one appeared. There were no reputable inns in Eresh, and I wasn’t comfortable taking a nap out in the open. There was a good chance that Zalanes wasn’t home and that his household was reluctant to open the gate to a demon they didn’t recognize, but I didn’t exactly have any alternative. So I did what I do best—made a complete pest of myself until they reached the end of their patience and came out to deal with me.
“Hey!” I screamed. Several passing demons turned to see if I was addressing them, turning away when they realized I was shouting at the building behind the gate. “Zalanes! It’s me, Az. Open the fuck up. Come on, let me in, you troll spawn.”
I shouted until I was nearly hoarse. There was increased movement inside the house but no sign I was going to be allowed entrance. Time to pull out the big guns. I searched around the white sand until I found what I was looking for. Then I threw the baseball-sized chunk of onyx as hard as I could.
The glass splintered with a musical crack. There was a flurry of activity from the shadows inside, and then the door flung open and Zalanes barreled out, steam curling from his nose.
“What the fuck are you doing, Az? You’re paying for that.”
“Your doorbell doesn’t work.” I gave it a few tugs to demonstrate. “And your house is amazingly soundproof. I shouted and shouted, but no one seemed to hear me.”
“Go away.” He’d come right up to the gate and huffed smoke into my face. I smelled the stench of sulfur and tar that Zalanes always exuded and felt a wave of nostalgia at the memories it brought. He’d been a classmate, another imp who occasionally joined Dar and me in our exploits.
“Nope. Let me in or I’ll keep throwing rocks.”
We had a bit of a staring match; then Zalanes finally opened the gate, waving a hand for me to enter. I did, and he punched me in the face.
Zalanes doesn’t have much in the way of claws, but he has fists like giant hammers. His blow lifted me from the ground, launching me sideways where I sprawled to the floor. I guess he didn’t have the same fond memories of our childhood as I did.
“You’ve got some nerve, Az.” The demon put his hands on his hips, jutting his chin forward. “You left me in that sandpit, covered with flesh-eating worms. What happened to coming back with a rope, huh?”
Oh yeah. That. “I forgot. There was a party back at the house, and Poh had shoved a rocket in his ass to see if it would shoot him across the room.”
There was a war of conflicting expressions on Zalanes’ face. Curiosity won. “Did it work?”
“No. Idiot blew his legs off instead. The left one hit Daga in the face.”
“Huh.” Zalanes contemplated that then shook his head. “Still, you left me there. And you just cracked the front of my house.”
“Looks kinda cool if you ask me.” I crossed my arms and tilted my head, staring at the building as if it were a work of art. “And you obviously got out of the sandpit. You’re okay.”
“Yeah.” He scowled. “I still hate you.”
“I hate you too.” I grinned and cuffed his shoulder. “So, where do I sleep?”
Zalanes’ household peered at me from doorways as the demon led me down a long series of stairs to a hallway far below ground. The air was dry and stale, smelling like dust and things long dead. Even the demon’s familiar sulfur and tar scent faded away.
“Here.”
It was a large room with a bed big enough to accommodate the largest of demon forms. A pool of water took up almost half the floor space. It was still and black. My skin crawled as I looked down into the bottomless depths.
“What comes out of the water?”
It was a valid question, given the weirdness that existed in Eresh.
Zalanes shrugged, giving me an enigmatic smile. “Nothing, if you’re lucky.”
Asshole. Still, this was a better choice than sleeping outside. Before he left, I recited my wanted poster information on Swifty. It was a long shot.
The demon raised an eyebrow, releasing a smoke ring from his one nostril. “An elf? In Eresh? They hate it here. If there’s an elf hiding out, he’d probably be in the upper city. Maybe check with the Noodles. They’re the only ones likely to put an elf up and not brag about it.”
I closed the door and sat on the giant bed, facing the dark pool. Noodle was the derogatory name given to information demons. They were reclusive, strong in magic but lacking in physical skills. Their greatest asset was knowledge. They knew the detailed history of every race, every blade of grass, every star in the sky. And they were boring. Unless you got them really drunk, then they were actually quite fun. Zalanes was right; if there was an elf hiding in the city, the Noodles would either know about it or be hiding him away to betray for the right price.
I only hoped I had enough to pay that price.
Chapter 8
Something woke me.
My eyes flew open, and I stared straight at the black pool. The surface was still, not the slightest hint of a ripple. It was full dark, but the moon and stars shone into the glass building, light reflecting and filtering down a long shaft to produce a small circle of light at the foot of the bed. My ears strained, but I heard nothing.
Absolutely, positively nothing. The silence
was unnaturally complete. I sat up, and the rustle of sheets against my skin was deafening. Surely Zalanes would have had at least a few night dwellers in his household. It must have been one of them I’d heard.
Still, I was in the house of a rather hostile friend, in a city I didn’t know, with a creepy pool of water in my room. Feeling the need to be cautious, I eased out of bed and walked around the room, checking corners and under the bed before coming back around to the still, dark liquid. Taking a deep breath, I leaned over and looked in.
And saw a face staring up at me—a drowned white face with blank staring eyes and parted lips. As I watched, the skin stretched and twisted, the mouth opening into a psychotic grin. Then I blinked, and it was gone.
Rather than run screaming from the room, I leaned forward, curious. Demons experienced far more terrifying sights while growing up in Hel than a ghostly, drowned figure in an eerie, black pool. My initial impulse was to stick my hand in, but I wasn’t that reckless. Instead, I looked around for a surrogate, ripping what looked to be a metal curtain rod from the wall.
“Hey! Come back!” Shouting didn’t cause the apparition to reappear, and neither did smacking the surface of the liquid with the curtain rod. Adjusting my grip, I stabbed into the pool then lowered the rod until I was holding just a few inches at the end. I still wasn’t touching bottom, so the pool had to be more than twelve feet deep.
The rod was coated with a slick, oily substance when I pulled it out and sat it on the ground. Nothing smoked or began disintegrating, but I still didn’t think sticking any of my body parts in was a good idea. So next went the bedding.
I sloshed the sheets and blankets around the pool like I was doing a form of primitive laundry. They slowly sank. Putting some muscles to work, I pushed the dresser over and dumped it in. It too sank, although more quickly than the bedding. The water remained a consistent level, making me think that either the pool was far bigger than this six-foot area of my room, or there was something magical about it.
Bedside tables followed the dresser, along with candles, boxes, light fixtures, and decorative artwork. The pool remained dark and still. No ghostly face or figure reappeared. I began to wonder if what I’d seen had been my imagination or some sort of hallucination, but I’m not that creative, and I hadn’t tripped acid in several decades.
The only thing left in the room was the bed—the giant, demon-sized bed. It had been made out of heavy wood and a sturdy metal frame. I broke quite a sweat shoving it to the water. One corner tipped in, the bed slid forward, and stuck. A ten-foot-wide bed didn’t seem to go easily into a six-foot-wide pool of water. Standing back, my curtain rod in hand, I watched to see what happened.
Nothing. Now I felt rather foolish about destroying Zalanes’ guest room and half submerging his bed. And I had nothing to sleep on since I’d tossed all the sheets and blankets into the water. Judging it to be a few more hours until daylight, I propped myself against a wall and tried to get a bit more sleep.
My eyes were about to close when the bed shuddered, collapsing with a hideous crack. The pool sucked it in like a wet spaghetti noodle then instantly returned to its flat, black surface. Not even a burp.
I thought the whole thing was cool as shit, but Zalanes didn’t. His four eyes bulged as he came into the empty bedroom and saw me sitting on the floor holding a curtain rod.
“What the fuck happened?”
I pointed the rod toward the pool of water. “It ate your bedroom.”
He glared. With all four eyes. “I was hoping it would eat you.”
“Imps. They’re what’s for dinner?” I stood and stretched, tossing the curtain rod into the pool with the rest of the fixtures. “What’s in there, anyway?”
“A melusine. I brought her from Aerie thinking I could make a fortune selling hybrids, but she eats every demon that tries to mate with her.”
Aerie? How the fuck had he managed to get to Aerie, let alone get back? The world of the non-elf fae didn’t have the gateways to Hel like the human realm did.
“How did you get to and from Aerie?” I eyed Zalanes with a newfound respect. Maybe I wasn’t the only non-ancient in Hel that could create gateways.
“Orias has some piece of fabric he stole from an angel that opens gateways. Is that not cool as shit?”
What. The. Fuck. “Orias? The Orias from school?” He was a war demon—a really shitty war demon. And he wasn’t much older than me. “How did Orias kill an angel?”
Zalanes shrugged. “You killed an angel. Evidently it isn’t such a big deal.”
Insult aside, it was a big deal. I killed an angel by blowing myself up and damn near died in the process. I doubted Orias used my method, or that he had an ancient archangel willing to swoop in and save his ass at the last moment.
“Orias killed an angel and stole an ancient artifact.” I was repeating myself, because I couldn’t wrap my brain around this whole thing. “He’s here? In Hel? With the Veil?”
“No, you idiot,” Zalanes scoffed. “He’s over with the humans. And Aerie isn’t the only place he’s gone to. That fabric thing rocks. It’s better than a chicken wand.”
No, it wasn’t. I thought about the manticore that most definitely was not from Aerie, and the melusine in the pool. Gregory was going to have a fit that Orias was running around opening passageways left and right. “Can you get word to him? Ask him to contact me?” I searched my brain for a good reason. “That melusine is pretty damned cool. I’ll pay double if he can get one for me.”
“Sure. I get a finder’s fee, though.” Zalanes walked over and peered into the dark surface. I noticed he was careful to keep his distance. “Hope all that furniture doesn’t kill her. Cost me a lot to get her here to Hel, and the thing wasn’t easy to catch. Luckily it had eaten a few sylphs, and their sisters were happy to give me a hand.”
Damn. I had a whole new respect for Zalanes.
“How’d you get to Eresh without getting shot out of the sky?” the demon asked, still eyeing the pool. “There’s a price on your head. I thought about turning you over last night, but I hate those pointy-eared motherfuckers worse than I hate you.”
“Came up along the Styx. And flew really high.” I cuffed the imp on one of his shoulders, nearly knocking him into the pool. “Plus, I knew you wouldn’t sell me out. Not for the lousy bounty they’re paying.”
He snorted, backing up a few steps. “Some nirvana shit. Stupid elves. From what I hear, they won’t be our problem for much longer. They’re on the move.”
“On the move to where?” Not that I would cry a river of tears if the elves left Hel, but they did have their uses.
He shrugged, turning away from the pool and back toward the door. “Aerie? Although they hate those faeries more than they hate demons. I doubt they’d want to live on Jotunheim with those giants constantly trying to smash their heads in. Maybe since they can’t bring humans here anymore, they’re going to the supermarket itself.”
Well, that was a chilling thought, although improbable. “Right. With the angels providing loving guidance every second of their lives?”
Zalanes closed two of his eyes in a weird wink. “Shit if I know. Maybe they just got a travel bug.” He looked around the bare room. “Now get out of here before I decide to toss you in after my furniture.”
He was kidding. Maybe. I scurried out the door and to the steps, just in case.
“And you owe me a favor,” the demon shouted up after me.
Chapter 9
The sunrise had painted stripes of pink and lavender across the clouds, one moon still visible as it drifted low on the horizon. I grabbed some fried bitey fish from a street-side stand for breakfast then ran like hell because I hadn’t paid for them.
The Noodles liked to hang out in the center of the city in establishments similar to human bars. They had great hearing and gathered all sorts of gossip while there. Plus they could earn extra money by telling stories, or singing epic tales. One was doing that very thing as I walked into Spa
nky’s. Coinage flew across the room, bouncing off the demon’s leathery skin and to the floor as patrons shouted for her to ‘shut the fuck up’. A Low darted about at her feet, scooping the coins into a bag. I stayed out of projectile range and watched. When the bard felt she’d earned enough, she ended the song with a flourish and a bow, retreating to a far table.
I grabbed a couple of full mugs from a waiter, this time actually paying for them, and made my way over to her.
“I’m Az.” I plopped one mug in front of her and sat, nudging the Low aside with my foot.
“Terrelle.”
She took a drink. I did the same, forcing my face to remain bland as I swallowed. Turpentine tasted better than this swill.
“I’m looking for an elf.” I went on to recite my description of Swifty as she sipped her drink. Huge furry ears unfurled from the sides of her head and neck, spreading outward like rippled brown velvet.
“Elves don’t like to stay with demons.” Sip.
“Yeah, but this elf got kicked out of his kingdom because he had business dealings with a free sorcerer. I was told he was in Eresh.”
Sip. “Someone lied.”
Damn it all. “Then who can I speak to who won’t lie?”
She smiled, enigmatic and mysterious as her ears folded back down. “Me.”
Demons lie, but Noodles lied a whole lot less than the rest of us. They had to. Their currency was information, and that currency would be worthless if it couldn’t be relied upon.
“I’d like to discover where the elf has been, any pertinent information about his comings, goings, and associations, and where he is currently located. I’d also be very interested to know if he sold any items while he was here.”
Sip. Blink. “I can do that.”
And now for the big question. “What will this information cost?”
“Something of little value. Something that will be of no consequence for you to give me.”
