by K. F. Breene
“What about the other species with that bloodline? Like elementals? Why couldn’t Lucifer breed an heir with them that would last down here?”
“Each species poses their own challenges for reproduction, but it seems, unlike strictly magical people, humans are able to handle almost anything.”
“We can basically breed with anything magical?”
“A great deal of magical species, yes. As far as I have seen.”
“Weird.”
“Regardless, whatever Lucifer is hiding, I want to know what it is. Vlad is probably already trying to find out. Right now, I am leading the race. I want to cross the finish line first.”
“Ah. So it all boils down to: you are competitive, and want to beat Vlad.”
Darius was quiet for a moment as he ran through the trees, not once flinching despite a couple of last-minute saves from running headlong into various branches and a tree trunk. I, on the other hand, flinched a great deal. I wasn’t used to running at those speeds without the adrenaline from battle pumping in my veins.
Finally he answered. “At the heart of it, yes. But I do wonder what is being kept from me. And how I can get in to discover it without being noticed.”
“Your suit, obviously.”
“I am wondering if the suit does less to hide me than you do. When the clown demon, as you called him, realized someone must be carrying you, he could see traces of me. Until that instance, no one even tried. The suit cannot fully contain what you are, so you’re easily noticed. Before they can look around and notice me, you’re ripping them apart in some way.”
“You really need to stop with that. It was just a couple of occurrences, but I don’t like to talk about…” I chewed my lip. “I hope the rage issue wears away when—if—I get out of here.”
“You will get out of here. There is no doubt. The question is, will you make the situation worse rather than better?”
“Wow. Talk about a truth bomb.”
“If you weren’t with me, I wonder if people would notice me more easily. I’d be granted admission—it seems all one needs to do is get through the fog for that—but I wonder if I’d be met with hostility.”
“And if you were?”
“Magic works down here, so most of the demons wouldn’t pose a challenge. Some of the more powerful ones would. If they wanted me dead, especially if they were willing to work together to that end, I have no doubt they would make it happen. Which would greatly put you at risk.”
“Why? I wouldn’t be here with you.”
“What would you do if a demon killed me?”
A stab of pain pierced my heart and spread fear, remorse, and then, as was usual down here, rage throughout my body.
“Yes, mon ange. You would blow apart the gates of hell and teach them what terror really looks like,” he said softly, and gave me a squeeze. “Which would draw Lucifer to you. You would deliver yourself into his hands, since you are no match for him. Not yet.”
“I’m learning, though. The magic. Their weaves are really complex, but with the memory upgrade, I am building on everything I’m learning. I feel like a bionic woman.”
“Keep analyzing. Learn all you can.”
The landscape changed. Gradually, the dark, muted colors of the forest morphed into tones of purple. The ground lost the grassy look and changed into soft tufts of something like lavender, all blooming. Puddles formed and merged as we traveled, eventually forming a small stream. Strings of leaves dripped down from the trees, some brushing the ground. Instead of green, like a weeping willow, they were all a vibrant shade of purple to complement the overall look.
“Wow,” I said, amazed by the transformation. A haze formed over the ceiling, disguising the overhead rock like a sheer drape, but not covering it entirely. It felt like a decoration, not the bending and manipulation of reality itself, something that made me want to smile.
After another few minutes, glowing lights resembling stars popped into the haze above, glittering and beautiful. The stream enlarged slowly, now about two feet across. The tufts of flowers were crushed when stepped on, like I’d expect, but they sprang up again in Darius’s wake. Beside the stream, the bank and rocks took on a grayish hue to counteract all the purple.
“Wow,” I said again as Darius slowed. “This really is…beautiful. It’s nice knowing that this side of my heritage isn’t as…horrible as I’d feared.”
Not all the trees wept, now. Some climbed high into the sky, the trunks and branches dark, offsetting the vivid purple leaves.
“Ja spoke of these places. They are for travelers to rest or idle.” He stopped at the curve where the stream turned into a lagoon. Small rivulets and currents created movement in the water. “She spoke of them fondly.”
He put me down and took my hand, entwining our fingers and taking it all in. It reminded me of when we were at the hotel in Seattle, sitting above the water and sharing a quiet moment.
Rustling caught my ears. I jerked my head to the side and immediately went on high alert.
“Be still,” Darius said softly. “These are peaceful zones. Fighting is prohibited. If a demon cannot calmly enjoy this place, it must move on.”
“Remember that your information is super old.”
“In a closed-off kingdom such as this, change is very slow.”
Someone emerged from within the branches of one of the willow-type trees. I say someone, because the being was in human form. A man, in his mid-forties, with toned muscle and long, shaggy hair. He didn’t wear clothes, nor did he have hair elsewhere on his body. His arms were a little too long, legs a little too short, and chest a little too broad. To a demon, I was sure those details were minute and unnoticeable. But to a human, it was jarring enough to make the onlooker stop for a moment to try and figure out what was wrong with the picture.
“Why would it choose a human form in the underworld?” I asked softly.
The being moved to the right, making its way around the lagoon.
I don’t know. Darius had seamlessly switched to thought-talk. Did you feel any power coming from it?
I shook my head slowly. “But it’s probably too far away.”
I wonder if it’s reminiscing about a joy ride it took to the surface. It would have to be a powerful demon to create a form on the surface, as you know. That or… Darius’s hesitation was long enough to jar my curiosity. I glanced at him. Tightness had formed around his eyes as he looked down at me. Ja told me a rumor about these places. Often they are formed after Lucifer returns from a trip to the surface. Sometimes after he goes to the Realm, and sometimes after a journey to the Brink.
I pulled him to the nearest willow-type tree so I could look inside. “That doesn’t seem like a very exciting rumor.” Certainly not enough for the tight eyes.
He personally creates these places, and it’s said they are fashioned after someone who made an impression on him on one of those visits. Possibly that demon was soaking in the feeling of that person—and he created a form to go with it.
“Was Lucifer into both men and women?”
Made an impression doesn’t have to mean love affair, he thought. But as to your question, I do not know.
It took me a moment to realize what he was really trying to say.
My heart stopped for a moment and an intense longing came over me. “Do you think he made one for my mother? They weren’t together long, especially to an immortal, but do you think my mother is represented here?”
Chapter Twenty-One
I don’t know, mon coeur, Darius thought. He was calling me his heart. That was sweet. His meeting your mother would be fairly recent to an immortal.
I nodded, because even if Lucifer had created one, I wouldn’t be able to see it. The whole thing was nothing but a rumor, so the only way I’d know for sure would be to ask my dad. And clearly that couldn’t happen.
Shall we rest for a moment? Darius looked around the willow tree.
Layers of green-gray moss cushioned the dark brown, almos
t black trunk. Purple leaves fell like a layered waterfall from the branches, creating a lovely sensation of privacy.
But we couldn’t stop to rest just because something was pretty. Just because I hoped one of these tributes had been made for my mom. But for a moment, I leaned against Darius and took it all in, letting the beauty infuse me and unwind some of the aggression that had suffused me. Dissipate some of the rage.
Muscles I didn’t know had been tight slowly relaxed. Tension I hadn’t felt in my shoulders loosened. Darius’s hand let go of mine and came around my body, pulling me close. My feelings for him flowered, filling me with soft warmth. A smile drifted up my face and I put my arms around his middle, soaking in the feeling of contentment.
“Your rage speaks directly to my predatory instinct,” Darius murmured. “As a vampire, it makes me feel alive. Makes me feel powerful. I have found an ally in you. Someone to run into battle with.” He turned me toward him and angled my face up to his. He pulled off his mask and brushed his lips across mine. “But I love this feeling just as much. It speaks to my primal instinct to protect. It makes me feel human. Complete. Through you, I can access both lives I have lived—this one you see before you, and the one I once believed had died in the change. I love you, Reagan, now and forever.”
I fell into his toe-curling kiss as passion flooded my body. I reached up to grab his suit and rip it off, but pulled back at the last moment. Instead, I shoved his chest and made him stagger backward.
“Sorry,” I said, out of breath. I braced my hands on my knees and squeezed my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the new tension in my womanly bits. “I had a strong need to go for a ride, but I don’t want to unravel the magic in your suit. Or, you know, leave ourselves open for attack while thinking about…other things.”
His fangs elongated, and I knew he was barely in control. He nodded slowly, his body taut, fighting the urge to rush me and finish what we’d started.
“Okay.” I threw him a thumbs-up, trying to ignore the hot coiling of my body. I turned to leave. “Let’s keep moving.”
I pushed the cascade of leaves to the side as a shape registered in my peripheral vision. Gliding through the air, silent and deadly, a sparkle of color twinkled against the purple backdrop before it disappeared from sight. A quick glimpse was enough to ramp up my heart rate.
I jerked back and my body keyed up, the serenity I’d felt in this place quickly replaced by battle-ready rage. “Did you see that?” I asked.
What? He moved up beside me and leaned forward, not disturbing the leaves. Which meant he couldn’t see much.
I crouched, and he followed me to where the leaves thinned. The slice of sky that hung above us was purple and empty. “I can’t be sure what it was. A large shape above us. Flying. I thought I saw color.”
“The dragon?”
I clenched my teeth in frustration. “I really want to say yes, but I didn’t properly see it. It could be anything.”
His brow furrowed, like it did whenever he was working out a complex problem. I couldn’t hear anything, though. No thoughts were registering in my mind.
“Don’t fail me now, magic,” I said as sweat wet my brow. We’d be dead in the water if I’d somehow lost access to my powers.
What is the matter? he thought-asked me.
“Wait. I heard that. Why can’t I hear your thinking? Is it my magic, or—”
I have worked out a way to keep some thoughts private, he interrupted, and that came through just fine. Surprise. He resumed his thinking pose, basically ignoring my presence.
“Great, fine. But let’s talk this out. What are your thoughts, Mr. Strategist? Because if you’ve got nothing, we need to approach this my way. That includes busting out of here and killing things in a no-killing zone. Wait.” I held up my hand. “What if it is the dragon? Can it come at me in here, or is it bound by the same rules?”
That was one of my many thoughts. I was wondering whether, if it is a dragon, it’s the one we escaped from earlier. Are there many of them in the underworld? If so, do they normally stick together, or are they solitary? Do they band with demon sects willingly, or are they trapped? If it’s the latter, can we offer it a way out somehow? What about other potential flying things?
Back to the dragon from the circus, since that is the likeliest scenario, I am calculating the amount of ground it must’ve covered so far, what that means for its speed, not to mention the quickness with which it was able to organize and head out. Taking those numbers, I can—
“Okay. Good call. You need more time to think. I’ll sneak around and try to see it again to cut down on some of those questions.” Before he could stop me, I ran through to the other side of the tree. No wonder the guy wasn’t worried about mind-fuckery. He lived in a constant state of it inside his own head.
Taking care to go slow, I pushed the layer of leaves to one side and looked out, immediately seeing a demon sitting at the base of a different sort of tree, staring up and to the right. It leaned forward a little, to track whatever it was, and I quickly hopped out and followed its gaze. Empty sky.
When I looked back, the demon was surveying me.
I pointed at the sky, not sure if no violence also meant no talking. In this kingdom, it probably did. I took a chance, anyway. “Did you see that thing?”
It pointed at my legs. “Where’d you get human clothes?”
Not important, demon!
I walked beside the cascading leaves, my eyes on the sky, letting silence drift between us. I was hoping its thoughts would give it away. Nothing was coming, though. “Was it a dragon?” I asked.
“Those pants. Those are human pants. Where’d you get them?”
Apparently this thing didn’t realize I was human, which was good news. It also didn’t seem to care about the flying object, which did not help my information-collecting efforts.
I chanced a step out into the open, ready to dodge back in.
“I trade you for them,” it persisted. “I tell what fly by.”
What did it think I was, born yesterday?
Two more steps into the open area between the trees and the visible sky was still clear. Although the slice of sky I could see was small. I would need to get away from the trees to see into the distance.
Or just get the information out of my new pants-loving friend.
I turned to the demon. “These pants are worth more than your paltry information.” I hadn’t meant to sound so rough. “What else?”
“How about that pouch around your waist?” the demon said, standing. “I trade you.”
“Thank you for calling it a pouch. That’s great. But not on your—” I paused, remembering the old pouch I’d stashed in my backpack. The one that had seen me through some tough battles.
It would get a chance to help me out again. What a champ.
“Wait.” I scampered over to my backpack and pulled the pouch out from the bottom of my bag. Lumpy and stained, it was not a prize like the pants, or even the new pouch, but beauty was on the inside, and I’d rip out that demon’s heart if it didn’t see that.
Whoa, girl, I thought, heading back. Don’t kill the thing that has information for you.
The demon’s eyes widened and it rubbed its hands together in excitement as I held out the old pouch. It was clearly not a poker player. It was also clearly keeping its thoughts to itself.
“What do you give me for it?” I asked, shooting glances at the sky.
“I tell you what I saw.” He pointed upward.
I felt Darius’s presence behind me, watching. It was time to go.
“Fi—” I cut off as stars blinked out in my peripheral vision. A shape interrupted the empty purple.
I quickly walked backward toward Darius’s location in the willow tree.
The demon glanced up, and its eyes stuck to the shape overhead. Frustration and disappointment crossed its expression as it shifted its gaze back to me.
Trying to show that I was taking the unintended hin
t, I edged forward until I could get a peek without being easily seen from above. My blood ran cold.
A rainbow shimmered against the background, beautiful to behold. Great wings beat at the sky twice before the creature resumed its silent glide through the air. Straps crossed its chest, and I could barely make out something on its back leaning over its shoulder, looking down.
A clown in a harness on a dragon.
“This place is one giant acid trip,” I murmured.
Clown Demon wanted vengeance. Or answers. Or all my shit. Any of those options spelled disaster for me.
“No dice,” I said, turning.
“Wait! I give this.” The demon grabbed the tail end of a snake that had worked out of its scabby skin on its side. It held it up.
“Good God, no.” I grimaced at it. “Why would I want your pet snake?”
Its brow puckered. “Healer. Fair trade.”
Take the snake, Darius thought. We must go.
I didn’t want to touch the snake, so how was I supposed to take it?
The demon misread my hesitation.
“What else you need?” it asked in urgency, shaking the snake at me. Its eyes shifted to the pouch and it licked its black lips with a green tongue. “What else? Trade!”
Directions, Darius thought. Hurry. We don’t have much time before it doubles back.
After a hasty deal featuring a snake, exchanged information, and the realization we’d been speaking English all along—more evidence that I couldn’t tell the difference between the two when I was hearing and saying words—we ran through the willow tree to the other side and looked up. All clear.
As fast as we can. Stay to the trees.
I ran beside him, doing as he said, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking back. In the sky, floating along in the other direction, was the majestic body of our violent foe. Its wings pumped before it continued to glide, moving like a great bird of prey.
