Red Blooded

by Amanda Carlson

  I slid to a stop in front of the door. It was like something out of an old army barracks. It was iron—or seemed like iron—and covered in rusted bolts. I placed a tentative finger on the handle to see if it was spelled. Nothing tingled back at me, so I grasped ahold and yanked the door open. It swung toward me freely with no resistance.

  To expose a gaping void.

  It was total darkness inside. No walls, no floor. Nothing.

  Where are the walls? We clearly weren’t in our world any longer. This was the best wake-up call I could possibly have had so early in the journey. Thinking the Underworld was like our plane was going to get me into trouble. I had to get my head in the game and take it as the warning it was.

  Something nipped at my leg.

  I’d taken too long and inadvertently let a chupacabra get too close. I kicked it away, and without thinking jumped onto the back of the open door and swung it closed with my body, my sharp claws digging in to keep us attached. I hope the door doesn’t disappear once it’s closed. Falling into another vortex to gods knew where wasn’t my first choice.

  Nothing happened. I clung to the inside wondering what to do next as the beasts growled and scratched on the other side of the door. They knew I hadn’t gone anywhere. If we can get the beasts to jump in here they would disappear into the vortex. How do we do that? We needed bait. Too bad we don’t have any rancid meat handy. The chupacabras aren’t very tall. Maybe we can climb up to the top of the door and swing it open, and then jump over them and look for some meat? Once we find it we can run back here and throw it in and hope they go in after it? Before I could implement my master plan to rid ourselves of the chupacabras, a human-ish voice shouted on the other side of the door, surprising me.

  “What are you doing, you filthy beasts?” it shouted. “Move away from that portal door at once.” The voice was guttural and unrefined. The only demons who would choose to speak English in the Underworld, as far as I knew, were imps. Imps were born on our plane, usually the offspring of human mothers, but many of them came here once they were old enough.

  I could take an imp if I had to. I’d done it twice before. My wolf snapped her jaws in agreement. But showing ourselves would put us at a disadvantage. Did that imp just say “portal door”? I asked my wolf. I glanced behind me at the gaping void. Portal usually meant an easy way to get from one place to another, likely still on this plane, and from what I understood, was different from a vortex.

  It would be risky to jump in and see where we landed. It might send us to a populated area, but it might not. My wolf cocked her head at me. Don’t give me that look. Just because I don’t want to plunge through a portal if we don’t have to, doesn’t mean I’m a wimp. For the moment I think it’s wiser to wait and see what’s going to happen here. This building is probably out of town and we can use that to our advantage. We need secrecy, not public portals that could potentially spit us out in someone’s living room. The imp may leave on its own, let’s give it a second.

  She snapped her muzzle at me, impatient with my humanness.

  On the other side of the door there was a crack of what sounded like a whip and a whine from one of the beasts. “I said get back, you filthy mutts,” snap, “away from that door,” the voice ordered. “We won’t have a repeat of last time. I was flayed for that little stunt. Portals are not for you mongrels.”

  The imp had stationed itself right on the other side of the door.

  My wolf stood at attention. Not a muscle on our body moved.

  “What is that horrid smell?” The imp sniffed at the door like a dog. “Have you been naughty again?” Another crack sounded, followed by a wounded snarl-hiss. It was hard to feel sorry for chups, but they hadn’t seemed overly ferocious. They were just trying to survive in this wretched place, and weren’t we all? “Did one of you get in here and take something with you? It’s the middle of the day out there,” the imp muttered. “If you rouse the conclave by baying in the streets, it will be my head this time, not just my back.”

  Middle of the day was good. Was there a sun here? Demons hated sun. “Baying in the streets” also meant outside, not inside. Outside was good. Outside was not another enclosed space.

  The door handle moved.

  I slid one hand to the lever and tightened my grip to keep it in place.

  “What’s going on? Why won’t this open?” The imp rattled the lever. “Portal doors are never restricted!” More barks and growls erupted.

  Time to make a decision. I think we have to take our chances in the portal. You win, I told my wolf. Even if we fight this imp successfully, once we’re done we have to fight that entire pack of chupacabras to find another way out.

  My wolf snarled in agreement and adrenaline shot through our system, fortifying us for what was going to come next. Reluctantly, I let go of the handle and my grip on the door.

  I heard the imp yell, “You little bastards will pay for whatever you did to this door” as we tumbled backward into the void.

  4

  Falling through the portal felt nothing like spinning through the vortex. It was empty space. Nothing touched me. There was no wind and no pressure—until I hit the ground.

  Flat on my ass.

  “Ooof,” I gasped, my teeth snapping together. Good grief, I thought it would be a longer ride than that. We were in there for less than thirty seconds. My wolf ignored me in favor of scenting for danger.

  I glanced around. We were sprawled in the middle of a doorway, half inside and half outside what appeared to be a low concrete building. The portal exit led into some kind of alleyway. Another building, which looked the same as the one I was currently hanging out of, sat directly across from me.

  I gazed upward. The sky was a strange, muted purple.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but the color was sort of amazing and beautiful, even though it felt threatening and ominous at the same time. Oppressive energy pushed down on me as I studied my surroundings, trying to gauge what to do next. There’s enough light out here for it to be daylight, but I’m not sure if “sun” is the correct term on this plane. Let’s move slowly.

  I stood, glancing around me like the fugitive I was, and tugged the portal door shut behind me. I made a mental note of where I was and knew I could find it by scent if I needed to. I couldn’t detect any movement anywhere. Daytime hopefully meant downtime for demons, but I didn’t want to get overly excited until I was sure. It was a lucky break I’d landed now and not in the middle of the night. I had a feeling night would be worse.

  I crept forward, heading toward the edge of the building closest to me. There wasn’t a street at the mouth of the alley, instead a field of lemon yellow grass spread out as far as I could see with a lone tree positioned squarely in the middle.

  Is the grass moving? I bent my head and narrowed my gaze.

  It was in fact wiggling.

  The tree was also strange. It was gnarled with no leaves. Instead it had blood-red flowers dotted all over its massive branches. And it was huge. Bigger than the largest redwood tree in our plane.

  I slid to the very end of the building. Directly in front of me was the field of wiggling weirdness, and behind me and on both sides sat more buildings. All the same, row after row, for what seemed like miles.

  I’d landed at the edge of the city.

  The ground under me was paved with the same flooring as the dump, slick and perfectly flawless. It wasn’t concrete, it was something demon-made and totally foreign to me.

  Tally had been right. This environment was extremely sterile. There was no dust, no dirt, nothing out of place—exactly how demons kept themselves.

  Scenting the air, I couldn’t detect anything particularly strange, because it all smelled strange. The air held a lot of sulfur, but there were also many complicated layers on top. One of which was plum. Why would the Underworld smell like plums? Not normal plums, of course, but acidic, rotten ones. But my wolf wasn’t interested in debating the smelliness of Hell with me. She barked, urg
ing us on. I know you hate it here. I do too, but we can’t leave until we find Tyler. Let’s try and scent him through all the rotten egg plum sauce. If he’s here, his signature should stick out like a wolfy sore thumb. Raw animal smell in the midst of demons should be easy to track.

  With supreme caution, I peered around the corner of the building nearest the field. No one was around. Oddly, the sprawl of buildings reminded me of rows at the supermarket. Each building was the same size and the same distance apart as far as I could see in any direction.

  Tally had referred to the main demon city as She’ol. And something tells me we shouldn’t walk on the grass. Yellow was never a good color. That grass was basically waving a danger flag in front of us that said: “Step Here If You Want to Die.”

  We had no choice but to turn around and head through the buildings and into the city of She’ol. There wasn’t a better alternative. We just had to make sure we did it carefully.

  I stepped out of the shade of the building and into a sliver of sunlight and sharp tingles raced along my skin. The light was intensely hot. I glanced down at my hands and watched as blisters began to form.

  I ducked back flat against the building.

  I brought my hands up. They were beginning to regenerate slowly, but they weren’t clearing up nearly as fast as they should. This is why no demon is outside right now. We’ll have to use the daylight hours while we still can. I don’t think the sun is going to do us any long-term damage, because our skin is already healing, even if it’s doing it slowly. There’s enough shade to weave our way through the buildings. I’m assuming eventually we’ll hit some kind of town center or hopefully a building marked Hostages, but regardless, we have no choice but to move forward.

  I hadn’t felt my connection with Tyler at all since I’d landed. He had to be here, but I wasn’t picking up on anything from him specifically.

  Tyler? I called in my mind, just to be sure.

  Nothing.

  Who knew how our mind powers worked on this plane? I wasn’t expecting anything to work right.

  It was time to move. I ducked along the building, hugging the walls to stay in the shade. Once I reached the end of the first building, there was another one about ten feet away. I raced toward it, the sun barely singeing me because I moved so rapidly.

  Once I was clear, I started to jog. I darted through the sun when I needed to, but it was easy to keep to the shade in between. None of the buildings I passed had any windows. That made it easier not to worry about being spotted. As I ran, I held my nose in the air and my wolf was on high alert.

  Do you see that break up ahead? Looks like the buildings are coming to an end. There was a definite change of scenery coming. Once we make it to the last building, we need to gauge the sun and see how much more time we have left. We’ll need to find good cover by the time it goes down. That’s when Demonville must get active.

  A shudder ran through me. I was not looking forward to seeing a bustling Underworld.

  Once we reached the end, I placed my back up against the side of the building and stuck my head out. The alleys I’d been running through had apparently dead ended into a town square of some kind.

  No yellow grass in sight, instead the entire square was covered in neatly clipped green turf, which I knew wasn’t real grass, but the demons were obviously trying hard to mimic what we had at home. Surprisingly, the open expanse in front of me looked remarkably quaint, but incredibly off at the same time. The town center, from what I could gauge, was roughly the size of two football fields. The far side was flanked by a much bigger building, which looked fairly official. It was about as long as five of the regular buildings, and twice as high, and held a clock tower. I was happy to see it. Official meant I was closer to finding Tyler. To the left and right of the square were more regular buildings, evenly spaced apart.

  But the most interesting aspect of the square, by far, was the number of white gazebos it held.

  There were hundreds of them dotted all over the place.

  The small structures appeared polished and shiny and seemed to have been lifted right out of some small town in Maine. The entire area looked like a decent place to take a Sunday stroll—if you were on the East Coast of the United States and not in Hell.

  Look, all the gazebos have low railings. We can duck into one of those. I say we make a run for it and once we get out there, we can see the layout of the square better. They’re also shaded. My wolf was hesitant and a low growl issued from her muzzle. What, do you have a better idea?

  She flashed me a picture of us scaling the side of the building and landing on the roof. I turned and craned my neck up. The walls of the building were smooth, but if I launched myself between the two with enough momentum, I could literally bounce between them and propel myself to the top fairly easily.

  The building was no more than twenty feet high at most.

  You’re always thinking, I praised my wolf as I backed up. Let’s give it a try. The top of the building would keep us concealed if we could duck below a lip, and it would give us a great vantage point to scout the area. I just hoped there was some kind of shade or we were going to burn up. If there’s no cover, we’ll have to make it quick.

  I took a running leap and pounded off one side of the building and jumped to the other, and back again until I was within reach of the top. On the last leap, I stretched my hands up, grabbing the edge. I hauled myself onto the roof and readied myself to spring onto the flat surface, but stopped myself just in time.

  Holy crap, what are those? My wolf howled in distress. The roof was covered in dark cone-shaped structures. They were roughly the size of mailboxes. The sun burned my skin and it started to blister as I stood gaping at the display, riveted in place.

  I turned, shielding my eyes from the sun, and scanned the horizon.

  Every rooftop as far as I could see held the same structures. And the buildings never seemed to stop.

  Then the smell hit me.

  Oh, good gods. These are devil bat houses. They must come out after the sun sets. We have to get out of here right now. I’d come in contact with the dreaded Camazotz already and I’d managed to purge their wicked poison from my veins, but this many would surely kill me. Back to the original plan. We go scout out the gazebos, but it was worth the trip up, because now we know we can’t stay out here. We’ll have to search for a way inside the big building. Come nightfall this place is going to suck boatloads of ass.

  If the distance was right, the sun was going to set in ten to fifteen minutes at most. We barely had any time left to find cover.

  My exposed skin was bubbling in earnest now.

  I turned and jumped, landing cleanly in a crouch between the buildings.

  With a sigh, I leaned back against the building closest to me and gave myself a few precious moments to heal. If we can’t find an easy way in somewhere, we’re screwed. Once the sun goes down this place will be crawling with demons and devil bats and who knows what else. We go out there—I gestured to the gazebos—and try to find a way in or a good place to take cover until nightfall. We have no other choice.

  I took off before my wolf could argue and sprinted across the short expanse, hoping that if a demon spotted me they would only see a blur. I barreled into one of the small structures, hopping the rails in one jump. I immediately lost my footing, slipping in something on the floor and crash-landing under a bench, my body sprawled beneath me. What the hell just happened?

  The smell was putrid.

  I gagged, rolling over, banging my head on a bench seat that ran all the way around the small space. I was covered in gunk. I brought my hands up and grimaced. Good gods, what is this crap? It’s all over. My wolf snarled, her lips curled back to expose her canines.

  We were lying in leftovers of a kill of some kind.

  There were bits of rancid meat and blood all over me and the floor. I sucked in a shallow breath and prayed my breakfast stayed down. This is where the demons must eat. That’s why there are s
o many structures. These are outdoor cafeterias. I lifted myself up, staying low, slapping the big, sticky parts off my body.

  Something chirped above me.

  I didn’t want to look.

  I looked.

  Mesh netting of some kind separated me from what looked to be hundreds of small piglike creatures. They were roughly the size of large rats and they all began to squeal in earnest, crawling all over one another in fear as they spied me peering at them.

  This place keeps getting worse, I complained to my wolf. We have to find Tyler soon and get out of here. I’d only seen a small portion of this world, but I never wanted to set eyes on it again. Why would anyone everchoose to come here willingly? We’d only been in the Underworld an hour and I was totally disgusted.

  The little piglets were covered in scales and a coating of short, coarse hair. As these ones stirred up a racket, more gazebos started erupting in similar sounds. They think it’s feeding time, and we’re here to eat them, which it will be soon if I’m not mistaken. Once the sun goes down, it must be a dinner free-for-all.

  There was no way to quiet them down.

  I poked my head over the rail, scanning the fronts of the buildings, searching for a way out, or at the very least a hiding place that wasn’t covered in bloody bits and squealing piglets.

  Each building facing the square had a row of ten doors. Once darkness falls they must open those doors. I knew without a doubt that was how the demons were released. And we’re standing right in the middle of their dinner party. We’ll have to go back to the chupacabras. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but that’s a safer bet. We can wait there until—

  I spun around to exit the gazebo and crashed to one knee.

  We’re caught in something. I bent over to check, and even though I hadn’t felt it, it seemed my foot had slid into a manacle of some kind. Before I could do anything about it, the floor shook and a small compartment in the middle of the gazebo slid open to expose two rows of stacked TV trays. The same kind I’d seen at the dump. Okay, I’m not liking this.