Red Blooded

by Amanda Carlson

  “It is the only way,” she urged. “Come, we must hurry.”

  “This ‘in between’ doesn’t sound great to me,” I said. “Isn’t there a place here we can go? I came in through the garbage dump and there wasn’t much action there.”

  “In order to lose the guards, we must become undetectable, and to do that we have to leave this tangible plane. Once we are there, we will cross to the courthouse where your brother is being held and go back through a portal. Not only is it necessary to lose our tail, but it’s efficient as well.” There were shouts in the distance. “Very few demons know the way to the Sholls, and once they enter they cannot navigate it. But I am not one of them, so this has just become your lucky day.”

  “It’s not feeling lucky,” I muttered. “This trip has not gone according to any plan we’d formulated.”

  “Really? And what exactly was your master plan? Arrive in the Underworld and defeat five hundred thousand demons by yourself?” She turned a corner quickly and the topography changed instantly. This tunnel had a blue hue and no veins. It resembled water. I wondered if the beasts drank from this rock.

  Tally had never mentioned how many demons lived on this plane, but five hundred thousand seemed like a lot. Most Sects were lucky if they had numbers in the hundreds. “No, that wasn’t the plan,” I answered as I jogged behind her. “But I was supposed to have some of my team with me and, at the very least, spells if I ran into trouble.”

  “Witches’ spells are useless here. They are only effective on us when we are on your plane, because our own magic is lessened there. There are a few demon varieties who will fall victim to a witch spell for a short time here in the Underworld, but overall, they do not affect us much.”

  That wasn’t great news. “How many demon species are there, anyway? It’s tough to see any differences when you’re all glamoured to look the same.”

  “We are in She’ol,” she answered as she turned down yet another tunnel. This one was still blue, but a lighter hue. As I inspected it more closely, it appeared to have small sapphires dotting the walls. “All the demons here are what we refer to as true demons. We have many kinds of demons in the Underworld: fire demons, water demons, horned demons, incubi, and succubi, to name a few, but they all live on different levels of Hell.”

  “What’s the difference between a true demon and the rest?”

  “True demons contain pure blood magic. They can glamour themselves and their blood is potent. Other demons have different abilities. A fire demon can produce fire, but cannot spell. An incubus can seduce, but cannot glamour. We have arrived.” The demoness stopped in front of a bland-looking wall. This particular chunk of rock was brown and dead-looking, unlike all the vibrant blue we’d just passed.

  Multiple shouts in Demonish and fierce growls were closing in behind us. “They’re coming.”

  Lily turned toward me. “Hold on to me, whatever happens. If you let go, you will be lost to the in between.”

  My wolf snarled, clearly uneasy about this plan.

  Lily aimed her already regenerated fingers at the wall and shouted something I didn’t understand. Immediately following there was a pulse of energy that almost sent me flying. The demoness reached out and grabbed my wrist, yanking me into the vortex right as a full-grown chupacabra turned the corner.

  Holy crap! It was five times the size of the ones in the trash heap, eyes glowing, saliva dripping, teeth as long as swords.

  The vortex sucked us in like a vacuum an instant before the beast took a swipe at me with its horrendous claws, howling its outrage.

  The last thing I saw as my head disappeared was a dozen demons rounding the corner, a look of shared horror on all their glamoured faces. I didn’t have time to figure out if they were horrified by seeing me or by seeing that we were entering the Sholls.

  But it was too late to back out now.

  Oh… my gods… I’m not sure we’re going to survive this. My wolf roared her displeasure right back at me, sending huge currents of adrenaline washing through our system to fortify us. I was in my full Lycan form, hands clutching Lily’s waist for life, but it felt like pieces of my body were being ripped apart.

  Then, just as suddenly, it was over and I was on my back, panting.

  The ride had been short, but extremely painful.

  My eyes were firmly shut. I could already tell my mind and body were not on board for the Sholls. The air was thick and musty, and strange vibrations ran through me like physical sound waves, making my insides quiver and jump.

  I knew I wasn’t going to like what I saw when I opened my eyes.

  Beside me, Lily stood. Her breathing was labored. “Come, we must go. There are creatures that lurk here in the shadows. They are not demons. They are other and we cannot linger.”

  I reluctantly opened my eyes.

  I so wasn’t prepared.

  My wolf howled, gnashing her teeth and snarling, urging us to go back the way we’d come—so much so that I fell backward as I tried to rise. The air wavered around us. The sky was a muted gray streaked with burnt orange. Things were off-kilter at haphazard angles.

  We sat in the field behind the buildings.

  I leaped up expecting the yellow grass to be wiggling beneath me. Instead here the ground was cracked and broken, emitting what smelled like toxic gas through the millions of holes the worm-like grass had occupied on the other plane.

  Everything around me looked awful and menacing. “What is this place?” I whispered as I loped after Lily, who had already started to run. My body wobbled with every step as I tried to find my balance on this strange plane. My insides felt heavy and each time my leg hit the ground it felt like my insides were going to plummet to my feet.

  “I told you, we are in the in between,” she answered.

  “That doesn’t mean anything to me. How is an in between even possible?”

  “There are vacant spaces on every plane—” Something large dropped from the top of one of the buildings. I couldn’t see what it was, because it was gone in the next instant.

  But it hadn’t been a winged devil. That was way too big to be a devil bat, I told my wolf, as I crouched low, hands out in front of me.

  Lily had stopped and braced herself against the wall, hands splayed, eyes alert.

  That wasn’t a good sign.

  “What was it?” I asked, panting in the thick air. The beast had evaporated into thin air. I glanced all around me, heightening my senses as much as I could. My body was still undulating on the inside. I put a tentative hand out in front of me and brushed the air back and forth. It moved like invisible smoke. It was barely detectable, but I could see it. It was freaky. “The air is actually moving. I think that’s what’s making my insides feel like—”

  “Shh,” the demoness hissed.

  “I’m pretty sure the smoke monster knows we’re here—” Something had me by the throat. It threw me up against the wall and I gasped, my head hitting the building behind me hard enough to draw blood. My hands scrabbled at my neck in the next instant, but there was nothing there to hold on to. I tried to take in a breath, but I couldn’t. Lily was suddenly in front of me, a look mixed with horror and irritation flowing across her striking features. Then her pupils elongated as she uttered some words in Demonish, her palms open and facing me. Something like static electricity shot out of her fingers and the creature I couldn’t see roared and let go.

  I fell to my knees, gaping in the putrid wet air like a fish. I was so sick of having my airflow cut off. “What… was… that?”

  “There is no time to explain. We must get to the other side of the square. Now.” She yanked me up by the arm and we began to run.

  Up ahead I spotted the gazebos. On this plane they were bent and withered, appearing grotesque in the gray landscape. “Tell me what attacked me.” I panted as I ran, the thick air sticking in my throat. “And if you’re not around next time, how do I defend against it? It had no magic signature that I could sense. In fact, it felt like d
ead air was strangling me.” I couldn’t die if I passed out from lack of air, but I’d be vulnerable to an easy death once I was unconscious.

  “We call them wyverns and you are correct when you say dead air. They are truly dead beings and they only exist on this plane.”

  “You’re not talking about demon ghosts, are you? Please tell me that’s not what you’re saying.” If the demons had an equivalent of a vampire Screamer, this entire foray into the Sholls was hopeless. There was no way we could defeat a dozen demon Screamers.

  “Not exactly,” she answered as we neared the main square and slowed to a jog. “When a demon dies a true death it enters into what we call the Unknown. The Sholls is known. If a demon comes here instead, they have become other after their death… changed. Many believe it’s not a true death, but a half death. Their serpentine side takes over, much as if you became a rabid wolf for all eternity.”

  “No.” I shook my head emphatically. “That wouldn’t be the right equivalent. An equal comparison to what I just saw would be if I died and became Bigfoot and could turn invisible whenever I wanted. That thing was as big as a dragon. Ten times the size of a regular demon. How can something that big become invisible and have no substance or magic signature?” Whatever had latched on to me was like a ghost.

  “That’s the way it hunts. It has to become corporeal to spot its prey,” Lily answered. “When it is solid for those few moments, it is vulnerable to attack. Then as a ghost it can kill you without worry or harm.”

  “But you took care of it when it was invisible.” We’d stopped by the corner of the last building before the square with all the weathered gazebos. The slabs on the buildings were jagged and decidedly unsmooth. The polar opposite of what it looked like on the demon side. The sky was still dark and nasty and everything was hazy and hard to focus on. The air made everything distorted.

  “That’s because I knew where it was.” She eyed me intently. “It was choking the life out of you. That”—she paused—“and I have a special gift.” She shook her head to steel herself in order to divulge information she didn’t want to, which I knew demons were loathed to do. They liked to keep their secrets close.

  I took in a shallow, labored breath, waiting for her to answer.

  “I alone can banish the wyverns.”

  8

  I glanced at the demoness, my eyebrows arched. She was no normal demon. That wasn’t even up for debate. She clearly had vast abilities. Whatever supernatural she was mixed with made her extremely potent. And by her own admission, she’d managed to charm the Prince of Hell into submission and become his lover.

  “So that’s why the demons looked horrified when they saw us heading here?” I asked. “They can follow us if they wanted to, but no demon wants to die a horrible death being ripped apart by the ghost wyverns?”

  “That is one of the reasons,” she answered, appearing nonchalant. “The other is that if they die here, they stay here in a half death, and none are willing to risk it. But it makes it a perfect place to escape, because other than the wyverns, we can walk here unmolested.”

  I chortled. “I don’t think unmolested is the word you’re looking for. Nor would I deem this a ‘perfect place’ for anything.” I rubbed my aching neck. The thing that grabbed me had a powerful grip.

  “Duck!” Lily shouted.

  I hit the ground with preternatural speed.

  A spell shot through the air above me. “We must go now before more descend.” I stood slowly. Lily kept her hands up, aimed right above me. “The openness of the feeding grounds will make us more vulnerable, but we have to cross them. There’s a portal on the roof of the courthouse that will take us inside to where your brother is being held.”

  “Won’t the demons know where we’re headed and be ready and waiting?” It seemed logical.

  “No,” the demoness answered stonily. “There are several safer routes to traverse. They will be guarding those, assuming we would choose the easiest path. This one is… treacherous, and because of that, few know of its existence.”

  “And why wouldn’t they know about it?”

  “Because anyone who has tried to pass through here has perished.” Before I could respond to that she took off. “Follow or die,” she called over her shoulder.

  My wolf snarled as I ran after her, pumping my legs and arms as fast as I could. You heard her, Tyler is just across these… feeding grounds. I shivered as we dodged our way among the gazebos. We can’t forget why we came here.

  We were halfway through the square when I felt movement all around us.

  The air shifted quickly, back and forth, creating a strong breeze. Running in a straight line was very difficult to manage, even with super strength. It felt like I was inebriated, lunging one way and then another.

  “Stay low and start changing your position constantly,” Lily called.

  “Changing my position is not a problem,” I yelled back. “The air is already doing that for me.”

  In front of me, Lily dodged around gazebos, changing her posture from low to high. I followed, making sure I did the same, varying my pace as much as I could. A few times I felt a huge burst of movement beside me and I wondered how many of these guys we had evaded. I hadn’t seen any of them flash solid again, so they were only guessing where we were.

  “They are coming!” the demoness shouted.

  “What do you mean coming? Aren’t they already here?”

  The air suddenly blinked with more wyverns than I could count. They dotted in and out of existence like bursts of lightning and they were closing in like sharks circling a school of exactly two sardines.

  They were about to pick us off easily.

  Lily skidded to a stop and leaped into one of the gazebos. “Hurry,” she called, beckoning to me. “Get inside.”

  One jump and I cleared the railing, but before I could get fully inside, something raked my back. I landed, evading it, and slid in what looked to be the remains of something too big to be a piglet. The wyverns must eat in these gazebos too. Old habits must die hard.

  Jesus, this place sucked so bad.

  “Get behind me,” the demoness shouted.

  “There is no behind,” I snarled. “We’re in a goddamn circle!”

  “Just stay down. We’re going to have to wait until they’ve all gathered. Once they do, I’ll unleash a big blast. We’ll only have moments to get to the rooftop of that building.” She gestured to the side. “Wait for my lead.”

  I crouched low, glancing out into the square. The building she gestured to sat about fifty yards away. It seemed to be faintly glowing, but it was hard to tell in all the moving air. But I wouldn’t have put it past this place to have a glowing building.

  Lily threw her head back and stretched out her arms. She was gathering power to herself and uttering something under her breath. Heady breezes were whipping around us, so I knew the beasts were flying and swooping around. They’d stopped popping into existence for now, but they knew they had us trapped, so why bother?

  I searched around me, trying to find something to help, but could only find old bones littering the floor. I picked up what looked to be a giant femur and tried not to gag. It would probably break on impact if I used it against the wyverns, but it might give me a few seconds—and every second counted.

  The demoness began to move in a slow circle and I inched out of her way. Something shifted to my left, much too close. I sprung to get out of the way, but it was too late.

  It had me in its grasp before I could blink.

  Its claws raked down my arm as it began to drag me out of the structure. I reached out at the last possible moment and hooked my elbow on a pillar as I gave out a strangled howl.

  Before Lily could blast it, it ripped into my arm and blood began to spurt freely out of a gash that ran from my shoulder to my elbow.

  The wound was jagged and hurt like a mother. “Get it… OFF,” I roared, clinging to the side of the gazebo with everything I had as it tried to yank me
out.

  A moment later a sonic boom exploded all around us.

  The power of it almost lobbed me out into the open. My grip failed at the last minute, but the beast had fled and I managed to turn myself inward, falling to the ground inside the structure. I collapsed to the floor and rolled, holding on to my arm. It was regenerating slowly, but it still hurt insanely bad. “What the… hell,” I panted, glancing up at the demoness, who had her hands on her hips in front of me like we hadn’t just been surrounded by a bevy of wyverns waiting to tear us to shreds. “There must be hundreds of those things out there. How can you be so blasé? And how do we make it to the roof from here? You said we only had moments to get there, but there’s no way we can traverse that much ground before they attack again.”

  “I have blasted them soundly back. Some will be injured. When one is injured others will prey upon it. But they will pick each other off quickly, so we have to leave now. Come on, get up.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me about this,” I said as I stood, the pain in my arm subsiding a bit. I shook it out, ignoring the throb, trying to ready myself to run. “And I’m not going out there until I know the whole story.” Which was sort of a bluff, because where else was I going to go?

  “The portal here is unused because it’s in a very bad location.”

  “How bad?”

  “It sits in the middle of their nest.”

  The demoness was out of the gazebo before I could form a rebuttal and I had no choice but to follow. Damn her. As I ran, I glanced behind me and saw the beasts intermittently blinking into existence in a huge circle. They were indeed gorging on one of their own and I was happy it wasn’t me.

  The demoness moved quickly. She was a blur and I increased my speed to catch up. Once she reached the building she began to scale the wall. I was more apt in that department, my animal instincts aiding me, but with my arm still regenerating I was forced to move more slowly. The structure was broken and warped, which made it easier to find the footing we needed. It just would’ve been nice if my insides weren’t quivering like I was in a tiny boat at sea on top of everything else. It made it more difficult than it should’ve been.