Her arm swept out in front of her as she gestured to the curtain. “You are welcome to go find out. I’ll wait for you over here.” She turned and strode to the bed. Once there, she lay down, clasping her hands under her head like she didn’t have a care in the Underworld. “Of course, it’ll be a long wait if the chupacabras find you first. But if you happen to get past the beasts, and the guards, and get to the next prisoner, they may toy with you for a while, depending on whom you stumble upon, but likely not before they rat you out. It’s very easy for us to summon the guards. They have buttons all over the—”
I held up my palm, effectively cutting her off.
I went to the dresser and leaned against it and crossed my arms. “I’ve had enough of your games. I’m not really in the mood, in fact I’m in a hurry. We need to get down to business…” I didn’t know how to address her. “What do I call you?”
“Lily.”
“What?” I shouted, then tried to rein in some of my incredulity. “Your name is Lily?” It was so human. How could there be a demon named Lily?
She smirked as her blonde hair, dappled with its green highlights, spread over the pillow, seeming to dance against the shimmery material. “Demons never give their true birth names to anyone. If you had my real name, you could summon me against my will. Names are sacred in the Underworld.” She didn’t need to end with “duh,” because it was implied. “So you’ll have to settle for Lily, whether or not you deem it demonic enough.”
“Um.” I coughed. “Yes, that does make some sense now that you mention it. You’ll have to forgive my total naïveté about the Underworld. I’m pretty much befuddled that I’m actually here in the first place.”
“While you’re gone investigating the other prisoners, trying to find someone more reputable and trustworthy to help you, I’m going to take a nap and finish regenerating from a nasty bazooka blast to the chest.”
She was shrewd, I’d give her that.
My wolf snarled, still unimpressed. She wanted us to leave the way we’d come. We can’t do that. I can still hear the guards out there. She’s intelligent, but she wants something from us. I’m going to use it to our advantage.
“I’m not leaving,” I said after a moment. Her nonchalant attitude didn’t fool me. She needed my help as much as I needed hers. “Although it sounds very tempting, I’m not going to investigate the other prisoners.” Lily gave off a strange vibe that made my wolf hyper-aware. “I realize you’re playing this all very cool, but you need me more than I need you.” She gave me a bored expression, which I ignored. “As I see it, I’m your only ticket out of Hell. And if the demons are willing to blow a hole in your chest, which didn’t even seem to harm you, and you can tell them to fuck off and they scurry away, it means you’re über-dangerous. I may find another way out of here if I go searching, but you clearly don’t have that option.” I folded my arms across my chest, satisfied.
“I already told you I am dangerous. I’m not trying to hide it.”
“If you want my help, you’re going to have to tell me why you’re in here.” I glanced around the tiny room to remind her where she was stuck. “And I want the truth this time.”
“I’m residing in this cube because I’ve tried to kill the Prince of Hell”—she paused for effect—“often.”
“Why are you still alive? I would think the Prince would obliterate you as quickly as possible.”
Her eyes flicked to the wall and back. “Because he… secretly enjoys the challenge of holding me prisoner. When he can.”
“But this time you went too far? Is that why you can’t escape?” I was grasping at straws, but it made sense. She’d surprised me with her admission, and she held a quiet desperation about herself that told me something had gone very wrong with her last attempt. “You did something so bad the Prince decided to give you no more chances, and you’re biding your time until you’re to be executed?”
“Yes.”
That was all she was going to give me.
“I know I agreed to give you a fair appraisal, and possibly take you back to my plane in exchange for your help, but I have to set up some ground rules before we move forward,” I said. “If didn’t, I’d be a fool. You’re too dangerous and I don’t know you.”
She sat up. “If you want my cooperation, you must agree to take me back to your plane if I prove worthy. There is no other way I will aid you. If you agree to consider this request, I will guide you to your brother, and once we have him, I will lead us to a portal.”
“I have a way back with the witches.” I couldn’t be that dependent on her or this wouldn’t continue to work in my favor.
She shook her head. “A circle will not work. If they haven’t found the way you entered the Underworld already, it means we are the only two left in Hell. They will have masked all communication by now and cut the witches off. But there are three portals on this plane. A regular demon cannot pass through any of them. They are for imps and… others…” Admitting that she was, in fact, other. “We will have to use one of these.”
There was no way to know if what she was telling me was the truth or not, but with nothing else to go on, I said, “If I end up agreeing to bring you back, you would have to swear an oath to me at that time. You would be my responsibility once we arrived in my world, and mine alone. You would stay voluntarily under my control and follow my rules, no questions asked. If you broke that oath, I’d have the right to have the witches send you back here, and you’d suffer your fate at the hands of the Prince.”
Her eyes flickered, the pupil pulsing almost too quickly for me to see. “If that’s what it takes, I will agree to bind myself to you. For a time.”
“Wrong answer. You will bind yourself to me until I decide to change the rules.”
“What exactly would you have me do? Give you my blood? I will follow your rules. I will behave. I am willing to do this because I need to be free of this land or I die. I have no other choice, it’s that simple.”
There was more movement in the hallway. The demons hadn’t stopped the hunt. If anything, they’d ramped it up. And if they were smart, they’d charge right back in here with heavier artillery, like rocket launchers.
“If you end up saving my life, or my brother’s, you will agree to swear an oath to me, whatever my terms in the end, or there is no deal.”
The demoness knew she was running out of time. “Fine. I will swear an oath, like you do in your world. Will that satisfy you?”
“Yes, for now.” My wolf growled. We don’t owe her anything yet and she’s agreed to help us. It’s the best I could do.
There were noise coming from outside. Lily’s head turned toward the curtain. “They have come back with reinforcements. They did not believe I wasn’t harboring you.”
A strange roaring, keening noise erupted right outside the door. “What’s making that awful sound?” I asked.
“That is the hellhound, it is part of the beast horde. It will devour us whole once it enters. Its piercing teeth skin you alive, and then it laps your blood until you take your last breath. It is the worst beast we have and it is rarely used because it’s so hard to control.”
“So how do we get out of here?” I asked.
“Through the floor,” she answered.
I immediately glanced down. The floor tiles fit together like a big puzzle, some of them with notches that fit exactly with the pieces they lay next to. I squatted down. Do you smell that? I asked my wolf. Air was flowing up from between the two tiles beneath me and it smelled peculiar. I shot my power into them and picked up on something, not attached to this room, but down below. “There’s a catch, right?” I asked Lily, nodding my head to the floor. “It’s like the veil. This room is completely spelled against you, including the floor.” I crouched down and brought my nose close and sniffed, smiling. “But I can get through it no problem.”
Her face changed from shrewd to impassive on a dime. “Yes, that’s correct. But before you get any ideas about going wi
I didn’t need convincing. I knew it would suck down there. I’d already seen my fair share of tunnels today and I was already sick of them. I could only imagine what lurked beneath. The thought of climbing down to another one made my head pound.
I had to remember that there was a big difference between being weary and being dead. I had to survive.
Not only did I have to survive, I had to get my brother back. Even if that meant crawling around in every tunnel in this godforsaken world. “If this is where they bring the beasts up, why didn’t they just send the hellhound up through here?”
There were more noises and shouting from outside. We literally had only moments left.
“Because the hellhound is too big, The hole beneath you is meant for creatures to torment me, not devour me whole.” Several thumps sounded against the door, followed by some demonic howls. “They are having trouble controlling the hound as we speak or they would be in here already. It is a wicked thing with long claws and hideous teeth. They are taking no chances with you.”
I curled my claws around the seam in the floor. The separation was barely there. I had to dig my nails in hard to get between the tiles. Once I got a grip, I tore the piece of flooring up in one pull and tossed it to the side.
I’d exposed a smooth, open cylinder under the floor that appeared to be made of something like PVC. It was white and just big enough for a human to slide through.
The roaring outside became louder. We were out of time. The demoness rushed forward and pushed me toward the chute. “Go, go! You must take a lock of my hair.” She ripped a chunk off the end. “Once you reach the bottom, put the hair in the mouth of the chute and say these words in Demonish: Dys swez kytaf hozz. Do you understand? It’s the only way to break the spell keeping me here.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the hair in my fist.
The door burst open behind us and a vicious howl rent the air. The demons rushed the curtain, their faces furious. Their loathing of Lily was clear.
“Why are they so angry?” I asked right before I slid down.
Her face was grim, but resigned. “Because I am the devil’s concubine.”
7
The ride was short and fast. The chute plunged downward at an extremely steep angle. I landed with a gigantic thud into something soft and squishy. It took me a moment to gather myself, and then the smell hit me.
It was atrocious.
I brought my hands up in horror, shaking the gunk off. “Are we sitting in feces?” I yelled out loud. I couldn’t help it. It was the worst smell I’d ever encountered and it was indeed from excrement of some kind. I glanced around, taking a quick inventory of the place. From what I could gather, before the beasties were shot up this pipe, they must have lost whatever was in their bowels.
There was no other explanation.
I scampered out of the pile as fast as I could, which meant I slopped my way out of thigh-high muck slowly, scraping the putrescence off me as I went. “This is completely disgusting,” I muttered. “And did I just agree to consider making a deal with the Prince of Hell’s mistress?”
A horrid scream echoed from above through the tube.
“Dammit, I forgot to throw the hair in!” I frantically sloshed back through the pile of crap. I’d inadvertently let go of the hair while I was trying to get the feces off me. I pawed at the pile, searching, and then I spotted the long locks half covered in a nearby clump. I snatched them up, hoping it didn’t matter if they were covered in goo and tossed it into the pipe and spoke the words.
Almost instantly Lily came shooting down the tunnel.
She was covered in blood.
“Oh, good gods, are your fingers missing?” I gasped as I took in her appearance. Reddish-purple liquid flowed freely down her arms and onto the heap.
“Yes.” She took in a deep breath and arched her head back, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “It was better to lose them than my neck. They will regenerate. Come, we must go. They must harness the hellhound first, but they will follow soon.” She stood, wobbling slightly. She seemed unfazed by the large pile of crap we were standing in, and waded out without comment.
She’d done this before.
I followed, still swatting the crap off me, trying not to take in too many breaths. Lily walked purposefully to a door I hadn’t noticed before, as it was artfully concealed in the rocky wall.
This level of Hell was covered in charcoal-colored rock with specks of something dotting throughout that looked like flint. Whatever it was made the walls glitter in the low light. Lily placed her broken and bloodied hand onto a flat surface next to the door and muttered something under her breath. After a moment she tried again. Nothing happened. She swore. “They’ve locked me out.” She stepped back. “You must break this ward or we can go no farther.”
“Me?” I said. “How do I break the ward?”
“Your magic signature contains demon essence, as I noted before. It should be enough to break this ward. We are on a lower level of Hell and the security here is less than above, because none willingly venture here. The beasts provide their own security.”
“It’s that easy to break?” I didn’t believe it was. “How can I possibly get through something you can’t?”
“I have done it too many times already.” She shrugged. “They have found a way to keep my magic signature out. But I know you can do this, and you must. They will be arriving shortly, which means we have a limited time to get to the Sholls. If we do not, we die. It’s that simple.”
I switched places with her reluctantly. “So many ways to die, so little time,” I grumbled as I placed my palm on the flat surface as she had done. A strange pulse immediately needled at my skin, pulling and prodding it like sharp fingernails. “What is it doing?” My wolf snarled, wanting us to pull back immediately. But a powerful suction had glued my hand to the wall. If I yanked it back, I would tear it open.
“It’s trying to figure out what you are,” Lily said patiently.
“Then what?” I asked as I envisioned a demon face with very large teeth coming out of the wall and gobbling me whole.
“You must force it to acquiesce.”
“How do I—” A gurgling sound shot out of my throat as I morphed into my full Lycan form. The plate had tugged raw power out of my body so fast it had plastered my palm to it with the force of a cyclone.
“You must push your power against it. It thinks you are a demon, so use it to your advantage. Throw your magic at it,” she ordered. “Hurry, do it now.”
I gritted my teeth. It felt like my hand was being skewered open. My wolf barked, angry at me for doing something so stupid. Instead of griping, help me get our hand back, I told her. Throw our magic at it. Together we shoved magic into the wall. It immediately bounced back and we had to force it outward again. Very slowly magic began to seep into the wall. “I think… it’s working.”
“You must override it now. You will not get another chance.”
My wolf howled and we shot a big burst of power into the wall. The energy exploded into the wall, knocking me back, finally freeing me. The force of it sent me reeling into Lily.
The wall panel was smoking.
Before I could regain my footing, the door slid open like something out of a sci-fi movie, exposing what appeared to be another dark, dank tunnel. I righted myself and glanced down at my hand. It was totally healed. No damage whatsoever. It still tingled a little, but that was minor, especially since I’d thought it would resemble raw hamburger. “What do we do now?” I asked.
“Now we go. And it’s a good thing, because we have no more time to lose.” She exited through the doorway and I followed.
I immediately noticed the new tunnel walls were veined with something other than flint. Instead of being glittery, these walls had long, tubular vessels spreading out in every direction. I squinted. It almost appeared as though blood were pumping through them. “Why does it look like this rock has blood-filled veins?”
Lily grabbed my shirt sleeve and tugged me into an alcove. She punched a button and the same watery gel as in the gazebo coated us, cleaning us instantly.
Lily pressed another button and a fan dried us in moments. “To answer your question, the cave walls are alive and those are veins. They bring nutrients to the rock.”
“What do you mean alive? As in living, breathing, with a soul?” I asked, trotting behind her as she took off down the tunnel.
“No.” She tossed her head back at me in exasperation. “Alive, as in like a tree or a flower.”
“Flowers and trees don’t have blood running through them,” I helpfully pointed out as we turned and ran down another passageway, the creepy veins intertwining all around us. “If the cave is alive and grows, it must constantly shift.” I had to admit it was a little hard to wrap my mind around living rock.
“Yes, the cells here shift,” she said absentmindedly as we ran faster. “They must be maintained, but the benefit outweighs the effort. The beasts housed here can feed directly from the wall themselves, so they require very little upkeep. It is a harmonious pairing.”
Harmonious? How about… strange and… weirdly primal? We started to pass row after row of short, solid doors. Various noises and snorts were issuing out of all of them. I did not want to find out what was inside.
“What’s the plan?” I called. “You said something about going to the Sholls?”
“Yes, we are heading to the Sholls. It’s located the in between and is the only place that will provide us with cover.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I almost tripped. Heading into an “in between” sounded tricky, but going in between the Underworld and gods knew where sounded bad.
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