by Debra Dunbar
“Then take my arm and let’s start walking.” And start praying. I wasn’t the religious sort—no demons were—but I often enjoyed incredible luck. I only hoped that particular deity was smiling down upon her favorite imp right now. And that her favorite imp was me.
Chapter 11
Fate did shine on me that night. Eventually Terrelle and I emerged, exhausted and starving, into a noonday sun behind a monolith of obsidian. Glass shards rose like funhouse mirrors around us, the sand a white powder under our feet. I laughed, relieved that we were out of the underground and had escaped Rash without significant injury. Yes, we were starving and I wasn’t sure exactly where we were, but things were looking up.
Terrelle narrowed her eyes and spread her ears as she looked around. Her reflection was oddly distorted by the glass towers. “I know where we are. We can make it back to Eresh by nightfall.”
“I have no intention of going back to Eresh. I’ve gotten what I came for, and once I’m airborne and high enough, I can manage to find my way back to Dis.”
Another scathing look, this one extremely clear in the harsh light of day. “And get shot down by other demons and elves? Rash isn’t without connections, and I’m well aware of the price on your head.”
That startled me. “You gonna turn me in?”
She wrinkled her nose-snout. “For Nirvana? No fucking way. Mozart, maybe. Nirvana, no.”
“I’ve got to get to Dis,” I looked skyward. “Up is my best chance at navigating, as well as my best chance at avoiding both demon and elven attacks.”
The Noodle snorted. “Have fun with that.” She walked away, weaving between the towers of glass.
I followed her, curious. “You have a better idea?”
“Yeah.” She stopped so suddenly that I ran into her back, getting a whiff of honeysuckle from her furry ears. What a weird smell for a demon to have.
“Let’s hear it.”
“Go back to Eresh. You can stay at my house while I pack. Then we use an elf-button to get to Dis.”
The bitch had an elf-button? Why the fuck hadn’t she said that earlier?
“I’m loving the elf-button transport idea, but not the overnight in Eresh. I didn’t exactly leave my former lodging on the best of terms. I’ve pilfered some food from the locals, and then there’s that whole pissed-off-Rash angle. Maybe you can just grab a bug-out bag and hit the button.”
She did that blinky thing she’d done at Spanky’s. “I’m not leaving without securing certain documents and packing important items I’ll need.”
“Then you can meet me later.” I mimicked her blinking. “I’ll fly to Dis, and then you can meet me at the gate there, or I’ll alert the guardian about your status in my household so she’ll let you through unharmed.”
“You’ll never make it.” She smirked. “Or you’ll make it three months from now after fighting your way through angry demons and a dozen united elven kingdoms. Better to delay a few hours and use the elf-button.”
I weighed the alternatives. As much as I hated to return to Eresh, the elf-button Terrelle had was quite a draw. I’d surely be safe in a Noodle’s home. Nobody bothered them, since they never had anything worth an attempted robbery.
“Okay. Eresh it is.”
The walk back to the city was insane. First there was the maze of glass monoliths, then miles of white sand with sharp, pointy, black rocks. I’d been worried about walking through the main entrances of the city, but Terrelle just waltzed on in with me trailing behind. I tried to look nondescript, naked except for my jeans, and breathed a sigh of relief once we walked through the entrance to her home.
Terrelle’s place was weird. She put me up in a room with a narrow mattress and a bowl of water to wash in. The walls were lined with shelves—every one packed with books. I walked over and pulled one out, surprised to see another row of tomes behind it. Double stacked.
Each book was distinct. Human spell books, elven epic histories, dwarven engineering manuals. Layer upon layer. Biographies, chemistry texts, bound and organized sets of newspapers and magazines. There were neatly stacked boxes with labeled rocks and pressed flowers and leaves, books with sketches and carefully illustrated drawings. And this was just one room in an entire house. In that moment, I realized how precious this all was to Terrelle, how important the facts, the history were to a Noodle.
All too soon it seem I was rolling from the warm blankets, rubbing sleep from my eyes. Terrelle stood before me, a pack that any long-distance hiker would be proud of on her back. Staggering to my feet, I slung a blanket toga-style around my front. It looked surprisingly attractive with my jeans. Reaching in my pocket, I felt the curves of three larges gems and the fluffy softness of a yarn ball.
“I’m ready.” I needed nothing else. Well, some breakfast would be nice, but since we were traveling by elf-button, I could always get that in Dis.
Terrelle walked forward and took my hand, the button in the other. “Glah ham, shoceacan.”
Everything tilted sideways, and I felt a wave of vertigo. Buildings appeared in a twisting landscape of dark red and brown. I gripped the demon’s hand, the buildings solidifying. Unlike Eresh, these dwellings were tall and broad, bright in color and surrounded by thorny vegetation. I got a sense of my location and turned to Terrelle.
I found my balance before I spoke. “Sorcerer first, then some food, then the gate.”
Terrelle followed me as we weaved through the streets of Dis. I came to Gareth’s shop with its layers of wards and slowly worked my way through them. Gareth waited just inside the doorway, sorting through a stack of divination cards.
“Got it,” I announced. He jerked, cards spilling in a shower across the floor.
“The gem?” His voice radiated disbelief.
“Well, yeah. Swifty sold it with some other gems to a demon named Rash. I stole them, and here I am.”
The sorcerer ushered us in, re-engaging the wards behind us. I plopped the three gems onto his counter, pocketing the ball of yarn that rolled out with them.
“Color-change garnet,” he said, pushing the red stone aside.
Yeah. I knew that already. Lots of demons were sloppy, but I was insatiably curious. I scanned the molecular make up of everything I touched. It was a compulsion, a habit. Garnets from Madagascar had a mixture of pyope and spessartite that allowed them to show different colors in artificial and natural light.
“Sapphire.” He said, pushing aside one of the purple stones. Wrong. Actually it was a diaspore—a Turkish diaspore, commonly known as a zultanite. Purple now, green to pinkish brown in some light.
“Alexandrite.” Gareth pulled the other purple stone toward him, eyeing it carefully. “I don’t... he may have altered the enchantment, so I’ll need to check.”
“I’ll wait.”
Terrelle fidgeted beside me, prowling the room and eying the variety of herbs and minerals, wands and staffs. I crossed my fingers and waited. When Gareth came back, I could tell by the look on his face the news wasn’t good.
“Five-carat alexandrite enchanted with a doppelganger spell.”
My shoulders dropped. “Maybe he altered the spell on the gem?”
“No.” Gareth looked much older than his sixty years. “He wouldn’t. The level enhancement spell we’d put into the gem was worth far more than this one.”
I gathered the three gems and put them in my pocket. “Then he still has it.”
“Yes.” Gareth ran a hand over his bald scalp. “Can you trace him?”
Damn it all. “He went through the gate in Seattle. I’ll have to track him on the other side.”
Gareth nodded. “I’m sorry. I was hoping this was it.”
Me too. “What magic do the other gems hold?” Might as well know what they were and use them since I risked my life to steal them.
“Fireball on the garnet. Water blast on the sapphire.”
Cool. “I’ll let you know once I have it.”
Gareth opened the wards, layer by layer,
and we left. Terrelle followed me as we made our way to the gate. Depression crashed down on me. I’d chased this elf all over hell. Damn it all; why couldn’t I catch a fucking break?
“We’ll catch him.” Terrelle placed a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll get that gem.”
We. This demon hadn’t been in my household more than twenty-four hours, and already she was doing the ‘we’ thing. Maybe I’d underestimated Noodles. Maybe the coolness we’d always shown this class of demons was because we just didn’t know them, didn’t include them in anything. They weren’t the last picked in games, the Lows were. Noodles weren’t picked at all.
Terrelle had provided a huge amount of information with nothing more than a pass through the gates and membership in my household. She didn’t need to keep contributing, but perhaps the payback was in being included in something for once in her long life.
“I know the gate guardian in Seattle,” I told her. “He should be able to give us a head’s-up on any demon who led him on a chase through the city.” Seattle. Damn it all; I’d planned on going through the nearest gate to Columbia and home after handing over the gem to Gareth. Now I found myself having to go all the way back to Eresh and arrive in Seattle, or deal with a cross-country plane flight.
I could fly, carrying Terrelle and risk getting shot out of the sky, or teleport and take all day getting where I needed to go. Or... .
“You wouldn’t happen to have another elf-button back to Eresh, would you?”
She sighed and reached in her bag. “It’s my last one.”
“I’ll replace them.” Which meant I’d be back in debt to one of the mages. “Well, someday I’ll replace them.”
“Just get me a computer and a cell phone, and we’ll call it even.”
“Deal. So do you know anything at all about the demon Swiftethian hired to act as a distraction?”
“His name is Pouchain. He’s a luck demon who likes to use a female human form. Early twenties. Straight, blond hair that’s shoulder length, dark eyebrows, and dark brown eyes. Crooked nose. The human broke it playing soccer when she was twelve, and the parents didn’t get it set. Slim with a long torso and narrow hips.”
Damn. This demon knew her shit. “Naked, I’m assuming?”
She shook her head. “Pouchain brought over a trunk of human clothing and puts them on before crossing the gate so he blends in better. They aren’t the trendiest outfits. Expect bell-bottom jeans, tube tops, and clogs.”
Which reminded me of something. “I’ve got no shirt at the moment, and you’ll be naked once you change into your human form, so expect a bit of attention from the humans on the other side. We may get arrested.”
Terrelle blinked then reached into her leather bag, pulled out a neatly folded square of fabric and handed it to me. It was a hideous neon-green T-shirt advertising the San Diego zoo. It was extra large. The demon pulled out two folded squares—shirt and pants—and waved them at me in triumph.
“Got anything else in there?” I tried to peer over the edge of the bag. “Volkswagen Jetta? Hand-tossed meat-lovers supreme? The Hope Diamond?”
She smiled that little enigmatic smile then shimmered into her human form. No dramatic explosion, no flashy burst of light, just a blur and silent morphing into shape. Noodles, the weird demons.
Terrelle paused to slip on the pants and shirt sans underwear. I yanked my neon monstrosity over my head, thinking that facing arrest for public nudity would have been a better option. Terrelle’s clothing fit better than mine. The khaki cargo pants sat low on her slim hips and accented the slight curve of her ass. The white shirt clung to her small breasts like a second skin. I eyed them, thinking we might still get arrested, especially if it was raining in Seattle.
“Ready?” Her blue eyes danced with excitement, and I felt a stir of guilt. I’d spent the last day questioning the motives behind her helpfulness, but I was now beginning to realize the reward for her wasn’t just access to the human world, wasn’t just being included in something. This project was exciting. Noodles spent their lives gathering and trading information. Was this the first time she’d ever run blindly through the underground, escaping an angry fish-head demon?
I guess, like all of us, Noodles just wanna have fun.
“Ready.” I linked my arm in hers, noting her blink of surprise.
In a flash, we were in Eresh. A hundred feet or so and we stood before the gate. I loved elf-buttons. I’d probably love teleportation too if I could ever get it to work properly. Motioning Terrelle to stand behind me, I placed my hand on the gate.
Nothing.
“Fuck!” I’d forgotten I was banished. How many times this year had I stood in front of a gate, beating my hand against the air? You’d think I’d finally manage to remember I was banished and couldn’t use the angel gates to leave Hel. Even sprouting giant black-feathered wings hadn’t changed that. I was forever forbidden from using the gates into the human world. Oddly, I could use them to get into Hel. It was a complete pain in the ass having to teleport all over the place to end up reasonably close to my human home when I used to be able to just walk through one of these.
“Do you need me to activate it?” Terrelle’s voice was uncertain. She hadn’t hesitated to treat me with disrespect before, but this was big. Lows were pretty much the only demons that couldn’t activate the gates. I know she was probably questioning her alliance to me at this moment.
“Even if you do, I can’t pass. I’m banished.” Damn it all. We’d wasted an elf-button when I could have done this from Dis. I was such a scatterbrain lately. I blame the wings.
Her pink complexion paled. “Then how...?”
I pulled her close, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I make my own. Teleport. Flash, bang, puke-a-few-times-and-we’re-there mode of transportation.”
She raised her eyebrows, impressed. She was about to be a whole lot less impressed.
“I don’t always go where I want to; so expect a few detours.”
The eyebrows crinkled together. “Detours?”
“Yep. Hopefully none of them involve underwater appearances. Do you Own a fish? Because if we wind up a hundred feet down in the Indian Ocean, you might need gills.”
Her mouth dropped open in a good imitation of said fish. I didn’t give her a chance to respond before I thought of Seattle, crossed my fingers, and went.
We didn’t wind up at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, but it was raining in Brussels. Terrelle’s shirt had become transparent, and both of us had soggy, scraggly hair by the time we arrived in Seattle.
The weather in Seattle was lovely. Warm, sunny, with a nice breeze off the Sound. We two demons looked like we’d been for an unexpected swim, or just come from a ride at a water park. The guardian struck a discordant note on his guitar as he saw us. I waved, and he relaxed, pulling the cardboard container of sweet-and-sour pork from where he’d hurriedly stashed it.
“What do you want now?”
A bit more friendly than his greetings to me had been before I’d obtained my Iblis status, but still rude. We had history, this gate guardian and I. Terrelle eyed him nervously, making sure I was between her and the minor angel at all times.
“Nice to see you too, asshole.” I nudged his Chinese food box with a toe. “Get any for me?”
His eyes narrowed as he moved the container safely out of the way. “New household member?” He nodded at Terrelle.
“Yep. She’s helping me out with something. We’re looking for a demon.” I described Pouchain and saw by the twist of anger on the gate guardian’s face that we’d hit pay dirt.
“Luck demons.” He glared at me, as if the whole thing were my fault. “I had him, actually had my hands around his scrawny neck right before the piano fell on my head.”
I checked my snort of laughter, trying to turn it into a cough. “And then?”
“He got away while I was untangling myself from the ebony and ivory. Nasty piece of work had the nerve to come through the gate in his demon form then
change into a human female right in front of me.”
The gate guardian went on about how he didn’t get any respect, and the fact that Seattle was the most difficult gate to guard. I let him ramble for a bit. The guy was lonely, and his success rate was pretty poor when it came to catching demons. It was a wonder Gregory hadn’t replaced him. The angel didn’t usually tolerate such ineptitude.
“So what day did Pouchain cross?” I interrupted when I’d finally had enough of his bitching and moaning.
“Tuesday.”
“What day is it today?” I always lost track of time when I was in Hel. Actually, I would have lost track of time here, too, if it weren’t for my handy-dandy smartphone.
“Thursday.”
Terrelle piped up. “Wait. Two days ago?”
I turned to her. It had to be important if she was risking the gate guardian’s attention by speaking.
“My intel says that Pouchain crossed the gates five days ago with the—” she caught herself. “With someone else.”
The gate guardian popped a piece of sweet-and-sour pork into his mouth, speaking as he chewed. “Tuesday. Could have been another demon with him, though. The high-level ones will sometimes activate the gate then another will slip through behind them. I’m more concerned about catching the ones who can activate than the Lows they let through.”
Two days. The elf had two days’ head start on us, and I had no idea where he’d gone. Motioning to Terrelle, I thanked the gate guardian and left.
“I’m not wrong,” she muttered. “I’m never wrong. Five days, not two. Five.”
Oh for fuck sake. “Two, five, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got to locate Swifty the elf, and I’m thinking there’s two options to pursue. One: was he here to sell the gem? If so, I can dig around and see what high-level demons are here and track him through potential purchasers. Two: is he keeping the gem? If that’s the case, then why is he here? The elves haven’t crossed the gates in over two-million years. Why now?”
“Maybe he’s trying to score those Nirvana tickets?”
