Devil's Punch

by Ann Aguirre

  I used Latin when possible because it sounded more impressive, but so long as I had the willpower to drive the desired result, I could say Clap on, clap off, for all it mattered. This spell I had practiced often because we lost power a lot, and so it flared to life smoothly. The result was a white-hot glow at the top of my knife, far brighter and more piercing than anything technology could kindle. The pain I ignored and swallowed, like a large pill down my throat. I’d gotten good at pretending magick didn’t burn me from the inside out like a live coal. This was a small price to pay for using it, and Tia had said it didn’t seem to be doing me any harm. She’d worked at first to see if there was a way to mitigate it, but eventually she just shook her head and said, Everything comes at a cost.

  Chance drew in a breath. “Wow.”

  “I have a few tricks up my sleeve these days.”

  “So I see.”

  I still hadn’t told him about the demon summoning. I should. God, after my lectures about transparency, and how people should have the right to choose, I should be ashamed. He needed to know what I’d done to survive and how it had changed the way the world reacted to me. Then he could make an informed decision about whether he still wanted to be with me.

  Soon, I promised myself.

  The path lay before us, rocky and uncertain. Farther on, it narrowed and became impossible for a car to pass. I’d stopped, in fact, at the last point where a vehicle could turn around and head back. The whole area gave off an abandon all hope vibe. The light made us easier to track, which set my nerves on edge, but I wouldn’t dare move without it. One wrong step could send us tumbling down the side of the mountain. Good thing Butch was opposed to nature hikes; he dozed uneasily in my handbag, as usual.

  To make matters worse, I was stiff from driving, exhausted, and worried. Not in top fighting form. Maybe it wouldn’t come to that.

  “We’re heading the right way?”

  Chance closed his eyes, and the air around him crackled as if with heavy static electricity. When he turned his luck to a problem, he received a sense of whether the set course intersected with the desired result. “Yes. It’s not far. Less than a mile.”

  He took my hand then, interlacing our fingers, and he led the way, sensing that fear and weariness made it hard for me to act decisive. If we took turns leading, as true partners, that’d make me very happy. I focused on walking, picking my steps with care. When we approached the rendezvous point, I had five spells locked in my head. I’d prefer if we arrived first so I’d have time to lay a circle, but from the smell of sulfur and brimstone, I could tell I wouldn’t be so lucky.

  Chance sniffed the air and glanced at me with a raised brow. “Seems like we have company. What do you want to do?”

  “Go forward. We have to, for Shannon.”

  “Do you have any idea what they want with you, Corine?”

  “In Peru I fought a demon. A Knight of Hell, actually. I wounded him pretty bad, stole his true name, and banished him. If I had to guess, I’d say revenge.”

  “A Knight of Hell,” he repeated. “Like the ones my mom summoned to witness her pact with the Montoyas.”

  “Yep.”

  “And you fought one?”

  I flashed him a smile. “I didn’t just fight. I won.”

  His muscles coiled as if in protest of that revelation, but he let me take the lead. I went up the path the last few steps, and found a single demon waiting. It was unlike any I’d seen before, with an odd, marine-animal look. It had gray, scaly skin, side-set eyes, and a tremendously narrow skull with two rows of teeth. The thing was naked and showed no genitals, but its chest moved, breathing the air. I saw no gill slits. Its hands were elongated like paddles, tipped with wider fingers. I couldn’t imagine what purpose that design served.

  The demon offered its hand, evidently knowing that much of our customs, but when it registered my repulsed fascination, it drew back. The face did not change. “You are familiar with our lore, then? I would take nothing uninvited.”

  “Where’s Shannon?” I demanded.

  On second glance, I saw that the broad pads of its fingertips were curved, almost like little suckers. They appeared perfectly suited for draining…something. Best I’d opted not to touch it.

  “I am Greydusk, here as guide only. To survive the descent, you must do precisely as I instruct.”

  The…descent? That did not sound healthy. I glanced at Chance, who stepped forward, both fists clenched. “Where’s our friend? I won’t ask again.”

  “Sheol,” Greydusk answered. At my blank look, it added, “The other side of the gate, where you must also go, if you would ever see her again.”

  The Descent

  “You want me to cross over?” Fear clamored in my head.

  As if in response, Butch whined. I knew the feeling. I should’ve left him with Tia, but there was no chance he’d behave himself. For good or ill, he was my dog. If he couldn’t talk me out of an adventure, then he always accompanied me. So I settled him in my purse and crossed the strap over my body.

  “What I want is irrelevant,” the creature said. “But if you mean to save the girl, you must follow me.”

  I remembered how Jesse said Shannon was so far gone as to be beyond his range entirely. Or dead. If they’d taken her to Sheol, that explained why he couldn’t sense her. That seemed to bear out their claim, but I needed proof it wasn’t a wild-goose chase.

  “How do I know you have her…or that she’s still alive?”

  The demon offered me a small circular object. “This token will function but once. Are you certain you wish to use it now?”

  On closer inspection, I saw it was a mirror. “Yes, show me Shannon.”

  He whispered a word in an unfamiliar language I guessed was demontongue and a magickal glow kindled within the glass. It was dark and shadowed; I couldn’t see where she was being held, but that was definitely Shannon. Her breath sounded quick, distressed with fear, and she was curled up, arms about her knees.

  “You bastard.”

  “I am not responsible for my employer’s actions, Ms. Solomon. Will you come or not?”

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  Greydusk turned and climbed a few steps, its movements too limber and loose, but when Chance followed me, the demon stopped. “My contract provides only for the Binder.”

  That was a name Kel had given me, and then the Knight of Hell I’d defeated in Peru had echoed it. Supposedly, I came from King Solomon’s lineage, which gave me power over demons. I didn’t scoff at that notion as much as I once did. Too much had happened to make me believe.

  “It’s not negotiable,” Chance said before I could reply. “You take both of us.”

  In the glow from my witchlight, his features were fixed, determined. It would come to violence if I tried to hand him my keys and send him away. And with his luck, there was no telling what might happen. If the demon was more ferocious than it looked, and Chance’s life was in danger, we might trigger an earthquake.

  Greydusk considered, weighing factors to which I wasn’t privy. At last, it replied, “The godling may come. I agree to the new terms.”

  Godling? Wide-eyed, I stared at Chance. He lifted a shoulder in a shrug that claimed he didn’t know either. But it opened the book on all kinds of questions, the one foremost in my mind: Who the hell was your father? Stunned, I hurried to keep up with the demon already moving up the mountainside.

  It was a long, steep climb, with less oxygen as we went up. Eventually Greydusk reached a plateau that ended in a sheer rock wall. Above, the trees grew spindly, thinning with the altitude. Below, everything was lush and green, with a blue thread of a brook running through it—or I imagined it would be, if I could’ve glimpsed the view during the day. At this time of night, it was all darkness, with stars glimmering just enough light to render the mountain spooky, and the glow from my athame only added to the eerie atmosphere.

  “This way.” As the demon pressed forward, I saw the gaping maw between two
giant stones.

  This cave mouth yawned so that my witchlight couldn’t penetrate the shadows within; it had to be two hundred feet wide by one hundred feet high, and I couldn’t tell how deep it was. I’d read that Mexico had some of the deepest caverns in North America, and that many of the systems hadn’t been fully explored yet. For obvious reasons, this chilled my blood.

  I asked, “How far is it?”

  “Let’s see…how to parse it so you’ll understand.” This made me think demons used something other than the metric system. “Ten kilometers horizontally, and one kilometer down. There we shall find the entrance to Sheol.”

  Chance appeared to weigh the information. “And what dangers will we face?”

  “Darkness. Terror. The odd hungry beast.” If demons had a sense of humor, and from Maury I rather thought they did, this one was joking with us. Ha ha. “The closer we get, the more likely it is that something may…pass through.”

  “Are there other portals?” I asked.

  “Certainly. Weak places between the planes offer the potential for two-way passage. They also constructed magickal gates at various locales that offer one-way transit. And no, I will not tell you where.”

  I didn’t expect it to. “Let’s get moving, then.”

  The mouth of the cave swallowed us, but my light pushed the darkness back. The demon didn’t ask me to put it out, which was just as well. There was no way I trusted the creature enough to proceed otherwise. Greydusk led, I followed close behind, and Chance walked at my back. I was relieved to have him there because without him, my nerve might not have been sufficient to go on, even for Shannon. Butch squirmed in my bag, no happier than I was, but he didn’t protest. I suspected he understood the importance of the mission.

  In the entrance chamber I shined my light around, finding shamanistic paintings on the walls, shards of broken pottery, and chunks of bone. The floor felt precarious beneath me because it wasn’t one smooth surface; instead it was formed of large rocks wedged together, leaving dangerous gaps where I could see myself getting my foot stuck or breaking an ankle, all too easily. No bad luck, I told myself. Not this time. The passage sloped downward, as I picked a careful path behind Greydusk.

  We walked for half an hour; I amused myself looking at the ceremonial markings that adorned the walls. The longer we hiked, the colder it got. I couldn’t think about what was waiting for me on the other side. I’d focus on this. Right now. By tacit agreement, we didn’t talk. There was nothing Chance and I cared to discuss in front of our guide, and it kept its dark, creepy eyes on the lookout for potential danger ahead.

  It’s for Shannon, I told myself.

  Memories flashed in rapid succession: of meeting her in Kilmer, her riding the bike out to the spooky house we’d rented, and then later begging me not to leave her behind. I’d never done so. Not once, even against my best judgment. I had done unspeakable things to keep both of us safe. To no avail, it seemed.

  Ten kilometers deep, one kilometer down. It was hard to imagine what we’d find, maybe wonders out of H. G. Wells. Logically I knew that was impossible, but what did that word mean when your boyfriend was a genuine lucky charm and you were pressing into the dark with a demon that had eyes on the side of its head?

  Exactly. We had been hiking for a while when Chance touched me to get my attention. “Are you sure about this?” he asked softly. “We can still turn back.”

  For a second, I was tempted. One didn’t travel to Sheol casually. It wasn’t a trip to the mall, and there would be consequences. But I couldn’t give up on Shannon Cheney. I couldn’t. I hadn’t saved her in Kilmer only to lose her now. If I had to die to get her out of Sheol, I would. It was that simple, and by the way Chance’s lips compressed in pain, he knew. He’d always been good at reading me. To my relief, he didn’t argue; he just set his shoulders and went on. He trusted me enough to let me do as I thought best—and it meant everything.

  In the stories, the heroine was always told not to look back or there would be dire repercussions. So no matter what I heard creeping along in the shadows behind us, I didn’t. After a while, though, it became difficult to ignore the flap of leathery wings. Bats lived in caves. Intellectually I knew there were worse things that I ought to worry about, but bats freaked me out. Sometimes it was easier to fixate on small things than to deal with the enormous ones.

  The dark passage widened into a large cavern with a high ceiling. From the artifacts lying around, it looked like this might have been used for religious purposes at some point. More telling, this appeared to be the end of the path.

  “Our first drop,” Greydusk said. “Only seven meters.”

  That sounded like a lot. I took a breath while it made the preparations. Fortunately, it had a rope; it glimmered golden in the witchlight. The demon went first, sliding deftly down.

  “It’s a bit damp, but safe enough. Come along!”

  Chance touched my cheek. “Now you, love. I’m not leaving you alone here.”

  “Don’t move,” I ordered the dog.

  “Why don’t you let me take him?”

  Since he was more athletic and coordinated, that was a good idea. I unlooped my bag and handed it over, which left him with both the backpack and my purse. If I hadn’t been so scared, I’d have laughed over using Chance as a pack mule. He was far too elegant for that.

  I mustered my courage and sank to my knees, then tucked my glowing athame into the back of my pants. That’s fantastic luck, I’m sure. I had no idea if my upper-body strength could handle this. It took all my willpower to edge back off the rock and start inching down. I wanted to wrap the cord around my waist, but Greydusk held the other end.

  We should have belts and straps and pulleys and things, shouldn’t we? Shit. Don’t think about falling.

  I was halfway down when the bats appeared. At least they seemed to be, only they were more aggressive than any I’d heard about on National Geographic. They dived at my head, my hair, biting and scratching. My hands slipped on the rope, and I cried out as I slid down. Rock crumbled away against my feet.

  Above me, I heard Chance cursing. “I’m not sure the rope will hold us both. Keep moving. You can do it.”

  They’re small. They can’t actually hurt you. Only a fall can do that. My hands were shaking by the time I got to solid ground again. As the demon had mentioned, a thin stream of water trickled down the rock, leaving the stone where we stood slick and dangerous. It was so dark that I couldn’t see without the witchlight. I held it up for Chance, not daring to say a word until he hit the ledge beside me.

  Thank you.

  I threw myself into his arms. He rubbed my back and brushed a kiss against my hair. “I’m fine. You know I always land on my feet.”

  Just like a cat. And so he did. But it would kill me if anything happened to him. Maybe we were still figuring out how we fit together, but he mattered.

  He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me: leashed passion, restrained desire, and tenderness too. I knew him now in ways I hadn’t before. I could read between the lines of that kiss: I’m here, and I care. I want you. Butch poked his head out of my bag—I didn’t think I’d ever seen the little dog so worried, and we had been in some dire situations. The Chihuahua whined a little, but he settled. Chance kept him for me, which was probably just as well.

  “We must press on,” Greydusk said. I couldn’t read its face, but I thought I heard amusement in the tone.

  “Is the route like this all the way down?” I asked.

  “Uncharted and dangerous? Indeed.”

  I swallowed a sigh. “Awesome. What’s with the bats?”

  “They’re demon-touched. Pay them no heed.”

  Demon-touched. Obviously. I should’ve thought of that.

  I realized then that we stood on more a ledge than a proper path, which meant we had to descend again. The demon whispered a word, too faint for me to catch, and then the golden rope uncoiled above us, drifting down to him in a glimmer of light.


  “Would the rope react if we lose our grip?” Chance asked.

  Greydusk nodded. “It offers better safety than all the mundane climbing gear.”

  That was something at least. The reassurance that magick might catch me if I plummeted gave me the guts to approach the edge while the demon tied the rope off again. His knots were impressive, complex and intricate. This time, the drop was deeper, double what we’d done before. Fourteen meters, and I couldn’t see the bottom. Below us, the darkness was absolute.

  Shannon. I built her face in my mind’s eye. Dyed-black hair with colorful streaks. She liked to tip the ends in blue. She had a pretty face, but she always wore makeup to make the most of her pallor and a thick coating of kohl, along with three or four coats of mascara. It made her striking, for sure, and she liked dressing in Lolita-style Goth gear. Her panache made men who should know better take a second look.

  For her, I could press forward. I could. The rope felt cool in my palms and I decided to try the demon’s trick. Magick would catch me if I failed, so…I let myself slide down, and the cord slid smoothly through my hands with an unnatural friction. No rope burns on my palms when I hit bottom, and it was way less terrifying than trying to brace my feet on the rough rock face.

  “Well done,” Greydusk said.

  Chance followed my example, with more alacrity and grace. He was smiling when I aimed my witchlight at his face. This probably felt like an adventure to him, bigger than any job we ever took when we were together. Usually it was pretty mundane stuff—missing persons and belongings, or occasionally somebody wanted to use me as a lie detector, like Escobar had done. Since I could view things as they’d really happened, provided an object with sufficient charge had witnessed the scene, I had done that more than once. Seen a few things I wished I hadn’t too.

  This was something else entirely.

  In this fashion, I clambered down two more drops. These were like stairs cut by a giant inside the mountain, made more difficult to navigate by that trickle that was growing into a cascade the farther down we went. Water streamed from cracks in the rock, rendering them slippery, but the rope simplified our passage.