Chapter 5 Mari
Mari
“Anybody home in there?”
A sharp poke in the shoulder had me blinking and shaking my head to clear it. Somehow, we'd managed a two-mile walk into the center of town, and I barely remembered more than a few steps of it.
A fitful sleep filled with the same nightmares that had plagued me for as long as I could remember had been punctuated by new ones about a demon cloaked in shadows.
One with gleaming dark feathers, so black they were almost iridescent, like my natural hair color, and a face that could’ve been carved from stone except…
I blinked hard, forcing the image of that firm mouth, slightly tipping upward…of those all-too knowing cobalt-colored eyes.
“Smug bastard,” I muttered under my breath. If things went according to plan - and they would - I'd still be seeing the last of Seventhell in a matter of days. The demon’s new king mattered nothing to me.
Then why can't you stop thinking about him?
I shoved the thought aside as Feather poked me again.
“Helloooo?”
I pasted on a smile and whipped my head in her direction. “Poke me again like that and you’ll end up with a broken wing, little Dove.”
“Ouch.” She winced and popped out her bottom lip in a pout. “Touchy touchy. I guess somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
“I know you think I’m crazy,” Tulli said, slipping her arm through mine and tugging me forward to speed up our pace, “but I bet if you entertained one or two of our benefactors each month, you might be a bit less moody.” She rose a winged brow at me suggestively.
“Really?” I replied, refusing to let the dark new king's face glimmer to the front of my mind yet again.
“And which of those benefactors do you think is actually capable of doing the job properly? Is it Cristobal, maybe? Tell me, what is it that you find sexiest about him? The flesh-colored goatee that somehow makes him look both old as dirt and like a man-baby at the same time? Or is it the fleshy lips that look like he robbed them from a codfish?”
Tulli threw her head back and laughed, and Feather joined in.
“Beige facial hair or not, I'll have you know that Cristobal is hung like a Clydesdale,” Tulli said. “And while he may not know what to do with it, I certainly do, so it works out just fine for me. I’m just saying, you’ve been very snappish lately and it doesn’t become you,” she added with a sniff, smoothing her hair like she was a delicate flower.
“Ah, well, please forgive me that I’ve not been as chipper as you’d like, love.
What with trying to get us the fuck out of this place while ensuring we don’t leave the other Doves with a murderer in their midst, it must’ve slipped my mind that I’m also to make sure that I put on a happy face while I’m at it. ”
She let out a low hiss and held up a hand. “Geez, okay. I get it. You’re under a lot of pressure. Sorry for even mentioning it.”
She didn’t mean it, but as long as she stopped whining at me, I didn’t care.
By the time we reached the bazaar-style marketplace, my temper had cooled and I felt bad for being snappish.
I was about to apologize when Tulli waved me off, as if she read my mind.
“Clean slate. Let’s keep our eyes on what needs done, hmm?”
One good thing about “sisters”. Sorries were rarely needed.
Stalls crowded both sides of the road beneath patched awnings dyed in colors that had likely started out bright and punchy but had long given up the ghost and were now muted with soot.
Narrow buildings stood shoulder to shoulder, cloaking the lane in shadows.
A snarl sounded from a nearby alley, followed by a rough and ready roar of laughter.
“Oooh, yummm…” Tulli murmured, her nostrils flaring as she sniffed the air.
The scent of roasting meat and fresh biscuits wafted from the open door of Esmeralda's tavern, rich with onion and fat drippings, but it couldn't quite cover the stale perfume of Seventhell.
Brimstone-tinged air from the lava fountains mixed with smell of old smoke, spilled ale, and the faint copper tang of freshly spilled blood.
An image of a smiling Breona ran through my mind and my stomach turned.
If the rumors of her death were true, it had been bloody and awful.
“As soon as we get what we need from the market, we're stopping at Ezzie's on the way back,” Feather announced with a happy sigh. “I'll get a beef and kidney pie for myself, and some whatever-she's-got in the stew pot for young Jastani. I think the baby will like it.”
Jastani and the baby.
Exactly why I couldn't stomach the idea of eating anything right now, even something prepared by Esmeralda herself. King Malach’s death had thrown a wrench in the works after years of careful planning, plans that had already been derailed more times than I cared to count.
We'd finally been on the cusp of getting the hell out of this place.
And Jastani had been yet another one of the snafus that had kept us trapped here among the Fallen for so long.
I'd seen her walking through town with a few of Kami's more seasoned girls a few months back, and as much as I'd sworn off collecting any more strays, once we'd locked eyes, I hadn't been able to unsee her. Much like the new demon king, her face had been instantly seared into my mind.
Those wide, doe-like eyes, painted in the prettiest shade of blue. Tawny skin that glowed, even here, in the underbelly of the world. A woman-child with a cupid's bow mouth and an innocence that stood at odds with both her surroundings and her dire circumstances.
The kind of innocence that drew the worst kind of demon.
She'd obviously been picked up from that morning's shipment of humans, and I was sure Kami had paid a pretty price for her.
But that was only because she hadn’t realized something I had.
As she’d continued down the street in my direction, I couldn't help but notice the hand that strayed protectively to her stomach as a group of demon males leered at her from an open tavern door. One of them dragged a claw down the frame hard enough to leave splinters curling from the wood.
“Oh ho, Celia,” a lech named Dante had called to one of the girls with a wolfish grin, “tell Kami I've got dibs on that one tomorrow night.”
But demons like Dante would be the least of Doe-Eyes' problems.
It was guys like Aristotle that I worried about. Or those like one particularly nasty demon named Jethro. He had a taste for pain. A chip on his shoulder about the fact that he was impotent, one he took out on the girls whenever he was allowed.
Her being pregnant might be more draw than a deterrent for a male like him.
It had taken me all of twelve hours to scrap our well-laid plan to escape Seventhell once and for all and send a message to Kami asking how much she wanted for the girl.
Ever the shark, she'd quoted an obscene price.
A better businesswoman than me would've waited ninety days until the girl's condition became apparent and her worth plummeted, but the thought of what could happen in those three months made the choice no choice at all.
I'd agreed to her price without haggling.
The girl had been sent to me at the House of Rose and Lantern before midnight that same day.
I’d managed to protect her in the months since.
But soon the baby would come, and there was no way I was letting it be born in this hellscape.
A girl would be destined to be a Dove, and a boy…
a boy would be castrated most likely as soon as he drew close to puberty.
Very few boys ended up in the select breeding programs that the Fallen kept.
None of that mattered now.
Soon, we’d be in the wind.
The four of us–no, five counting the baby.
And I would live with the guilt of not saving more of the Doves for the rest of my life, but at least my sisters would be safe.
I swallowed the bile that rose at the thought of my other girls…
while I was training a replacement madame, Snow, with the same medicines I used to keep the Fallen believing that they had nights of ecstasy, I knew that she was not as careful no matter how hard I drilled her, and it would be only a matter of time before she was caught.
After I finished the job the new demon king had derailed the night before, of course.
“You know killing Aristotle for what he did to Breona won't bring her back,” Tulli reminded me softly.
No point in pretending she hadn’t read my thoughts accurately. We’d been closer than sisters far too long for that to work.
“It won't,” I agreed, untangling my arm from hers and running a hand over my now-sleek blonde bun.
“But I can't stomach leaving him here unpunished. What if another night goes poorly and he does the same to someone else? This will keep everyone safer.” I blew out a sigh and straightened my shoulders.
This plan I had was the best I could do, and the last gift I could give all the Doves.
“Now, no more talk of this. Let's split up and get our supplies so we can get back and start packing, shall we?”
This would be the easy part because Seventhell Market had it all.
Everything from spices, candles, oils, and produce to dresses, leather goods and, of course, a stall for sex toys catering to even the most lurid of tastes.
There were no horses down this deep, but there were plenty of saddles and riding bits.
Cages swung from iron posts. Glass bottles filled with jewel tone liquors and potions caught what little light filtered down between the roofs.
A butcher hacked through bone two stalls over while a nearby blacksmith tested the edge of a knife against her thumb and smiled.
On the face of it, we could’ve been somewhere in our own jolly England, a hundred and fifty years ago. Tech was a struggle to keep up with this far beneath the earth.