Chapter 2
2
“W ell, that’s a pretty ducking rude start to the day, isn’t it?” I said, louder than I’d planned because a wave hit us hard, slamming my ass back into the wooden seat. “Jaysus, Gran, again, why wait till now to tell me I have a murderous cousin on the loose?” Yes, I was repeating my question, but I wanted Gran to give me all the info this time. Not just bits and pieces.
I gripped the edges of the boat and stared at Gran, who had the decency to at least look upset. “I didn’t think she’d ever come back. There have been rumors and stories of her spells and the damage she’s done, but then she always seems to ghost away like she doesn’t exist. I suspect she’s been erasing more memories, whenever she gets close to being caught. When she left all those years ago, she was as sweet as you, so for a long time I didn’t believe the stories could be tied to her. She was, and still is, stronger than the first witch, Fossette, Bree. I don’t think there is any who could rival her in power on this continent at the least. Certainly not anyone I know of.”
The boat began to slow, and I struggled to put the pieces together in my head. “There’s something else you haven’t told me, isn’t there?”
Gran gave a sharp nod. “I think…there are signs that she’s in town. The dampening spell is…it is too much for Missy to have done. Too widespread for any witch I know. And it slowed us all down—exactly as the Dark Council would have wanted while they worked to get Louis out of the land of the dark fae.”
I quickly repeated her words to the others.
“But that could be any strong witch,” Feish said. “Maybe Remy being bad?”
“Spells have a certain feel to them, like a signature,” Gran said. “This one feels like her. I am sure of it.” Gran paused. “There is no chance that she doesn’t know you are here, you’ve been all over, looking for answers, and that’s bound to get back to her. The Dark Council would use her to slow you or fully stop you.”
“What did she say?” Feish grumbled. “I hate not hearing things!”
I told them both what Gran had said.
Kinkly snorted. “Missy would tell this witch cousin of yours without prompting where you are. She’d throw you under the bus and laugh while doing it.”
Peachy, just ducking fabulous. “Lawd help me,” I whispered as I stepped out of the boat. “Should I expect her to show up here at the Hollows? After I came without any of my gear on?”
Not a single weapon, no Robert, no leathers to protect me from being thumped soundly.
Gran shook her head. “Too early in the day. She’s a dark witch, she will be sleeping.”
I repeated her words again.
“Small mercies,” Feish grumbled as she dragged the boat partway up the bank. I reached down and helped her get it far enough up the pebbled and rocky beach that the waves wouldn’t drag it back. We needed our stolen boat to get back to town after our meeting.
I scrambled up the embankment, pebbles and sand raining down behind me. Grabbing the edge of the embankment and a tuft of beach grass, I pulled myself the rest of the way up. Kinkly fanned my face, cooling the sweat.
“Thanks.”
“You need the help. All that running seems to be doing is making you sweat more.” Kinkly sniffed as she flew by my arm. “And smell.”
I sighed and turned to hold out a hand to Feish, helping her up the last bit. “I don’t know, Kink. Maybe it’s my forties? Maybe it’s Maybelline.”
Gran floated along beside me. “Are you quoting old commercials?”
“Slipped out,” I muttered as I started toward one of the bigger trees in the old graveyard. The Spanish moss hanging from the branches of the massive oak nearly touched the ground, creating a curtain around the base of the tree, a cover to sit under while we waited for Marge to show. I pushed my way past it and flopped down onto the cool grass. We had a couple hours before my meeting with Marge at eight.
I stared up into the branches as my mind circled away from my murdering cousin and back to my meeting with Marge—the more pertinent issue at hand. The voodoo queen had a connection to the dead that might give her special insights on the whereabouts of an entrance to hell. But I knew the chances were slim. It seemed like even those who should know didn’t. Like Dr. Mori, or Jacob the necromancer on the Savannah council—assuming I could have found Jacob.
Portals to hell were mentioned in several of the books that Penny and Eammon had worked through, but they’d all proven to be duds.
“Are you worried that Marge would try and trick you?” Kinkly landed beside my head and then reclined on my shoulder to stare up into the tree with me.
Feish joined us on the other side. “Marge is a mud slug, slippery and trickery. Of course, she’s going to try something. Question is, what and when?”
I did a slow blink, the lack of sleep catching up to me. “I don’t think I have anything she wants. I mean, she can keep Alan. She agreed to meet me so quickly I’d barely gotten the question out of my mouth on the phone before she said yes to a meeting. And here, no less. I thought I’d have to go to New Orleans.”
Alan—my very dead ex-husband who was stuck as a ghost—had been scooped up by the voodoo queen. It had been a relief, honestly. Sure, I’d loved him once, but looking back, I could barely remember why. The longer I looked at the relationship trajectory we’d had, the more I realized that all the red flags in the world had been there, and I’d basically tied them around my eyes so as not to see them.
I blinked a few times and looked over at Gran, focusing on something other than Crash and portals to hell. “How worried should I be about my cousin?”
Gran sunk into the grass beside me, her form even more indistinct here than it had been on the water. The sun had risen enough that I could see right through her. “I think that…if there is no answer from Marge about a way into hell, then you need to focus on the danger at hand. If your cousin is truly here in town, it means nothing but danger for you and for the city.”
I closed my eyes, tears fighting their way to the edges until they spilled down my cheeks. “I can’t give up on him, Gran. I won’t.”
“I know,” Gran said, her voice gentle and soft. “I know it, honey child. But you may have to face the fact that while you’ve been searching for a way to bring him home, the Dark Council has been doing…whatever they’ve been doing. Getting closer to completing the spell. Bramble is strong enough to make it work.”
“You’ve said that,” I mumbled and yawned, sinking into the soft grass. Maybe I should have been looking around, prepping myself for Marge. Yup, I absolutely should have been. Instead, I fell asleep.
Exhaustion and grief are like that—they sneak up and steal you away from the world when you least expect it.
It was the deepest sleep I’d had in the last three weeks, the world of the waking sliding away.
I did not regret it.
Crash was there, waiting where I’d first met him. In his place on Factor’s Row, a sheet around his hips and the forge burning hot behind him. His gold-flecked blue eyes were piercing as he lifted a hand and crooked a single finger at me.
“Crash.”
“Beautiful girl,” he said softly. “I’ve been waiting for you to find me.”
Heart thumping, hope and love bursting through me, I ran to him, throwing myself into his arms.
He disappeared, nothing more than a figment of my imagination. I fell through him and down, tumbling into an abyss that was dark and cold, nothing like the heat of his forge and arms. I didn’t even scream, just rolled with the fall until I stopped with a hard jerk just before I hit the ground. I hovered there for a moment, staring at stone and mud beneath me.
Only then did I fall. I was only inches from the ground, but it still knocked a huff of wind out of me, feeling incredibly real as I lay there gasping.
“Duck me,” I whispered as I pushed to my hands and knees, the mud gone, the stone still hard as, well, stone underneath me. I looked around, not recognizing the place at all. It was a large cavern with golden and silver archways built into it, intricate designs of creeping vines, flowers and thorns etched into the material. They reflected light from somewhere, giving the space an ethereal glow without any apparent direct light.
“You know more of my story now, Granddaughter. I suppose you will not listen as well, as your cousin also chooses to ignore me.”
I whipped around to see the tall figure of my grandfather strolling toward me. He was cloaked as before, but I knew him. “Yeah, well, you liked the ladies, huh?”
His laugh was immediate. “Very few fae can remain with a single soul. Your blacksmith is one of the few who can, in case you were wondering. His kind were always the monogamous type.”
“I wasn’t wondering,” I said even though I totally had been wondering that while Gran shared her story.
“You have been struggling these last few weeks, it is good that your grandmother recognized the spell, she is not completely without her skills it seems.” He snapped his fingers and two ornate padded chairs appeared with a small table between them. “Sit. We will discuss.”
Hell, I knew I was sleeping, but I’d learned with Dr. Mori that much could be learned from my dreams. Sometimes even things that could save your bacon later on.
I made my way over and lowered myself into the chair. “You have some insight for me as to how to get to hell? Another power ball to offer up in exchange for help?”
“That was clever and well done, using the ball as you did.” He dipped his head in my direction and pointed at the table where two chalices now sat. “But it seems that you are at a standstill now, in your search. I doubt Marge will be able to direct you. I can help you a little, but only a little. Rules and all that do still apply to me.”
I leaned forward in my seat. “I will take any help that I can get, Altin. Finding a portal to hell has been—”
“Impossible?” he offered as he picked up the drink closest to him. “Yes. Rather. It is not meant to be found, but for people to be put into for punishment.”
He didn’t extrapolate and I just stared at him, waiting. Surely he didn’t mean that it was actually impossible, did he?
Altin tipped back his drink. “You should drink too; it will hold you here longer to discuss your little problem.”
I grabbed the cup and snapped the entire contents back like a shot, lowered the chalice, and saw my grandfather’s eyebrows climb to his hairline. The drink had a distinct flavor that burned right to the back of my throat. Spicy lavender was not something I’d been expecting.
He cleared his throat. “I see, that is a skill you certainly did not pick up from me.”
I motioned at him to keep going.
He lowered his drink. “Well, there is a way into hell, but it will not be what you expect. There is no portal door, Breena, no cave, no secret passageway. But…someone could send you to hell, given the right skill set and spell. The timing is particularly tough, but it can be done. Again, there are many factors.”
I scrunched my face up. “So no just stumbling into the right opening? I have to get a witch to help me?” Penny would help, I knew that, but was she strong enough? And maybe…maybe I could force Remy to help when he and Ivan came back from the land of faerie? It was possible maybe, if I really pushed him. He’d absorbed some of his mother’s abilities and she’d been the first witch—strongest of them all if we discounted Bramble.
“Yes, and a mighty powerful witch at that.” His smile was tired. “But that is just the start of what you face in your current situation. The Dark Council of Savannah does not fully understand what they are doing. The spell they’ve been trying to recreate, the one to create an army of young vampires, they have never truly grasped what it entails—the spell they have is only partially formed. That will change now that Bramble is involved, she has a knack for these sorts of things.” He sighed. “I have tried to reach her, but she will not let me in. She has learned to block her mind from visits like this.”
I shook my head. “I can’t deal with that right now. What about the way to hell, and the spell that goes with it? Let’s get back to that, please.”
He swirled his drink, staring into its depths. “You would need Bramble to help you with the portal. She is the only one with the strength.” He leaned forward, his eyes intense. “That is the core of why I met you here now. You are a sentinel , Breena. Do your job, the job that you are called to. Stop chasing that which cannot be found and trust that your path will lead you there when the time is right. Do you understand?”
I grunted as if he’d punched me right in the sternum. “No. I don’t. You just said that there is a spell, there is a way to him, and that means—”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it between his much larger ones. “The path at your feet will lead you to Crash, but you must take your eyes off him. Stop looking for him, and I promise you that you will suddenly emerge on the path that will lead straight to him. Now do you understand?”
I shook my head. “But that would be like giving up, and I can’t—"
His grip tightened. “I can only tell you this. If you wish to have the blacksmith back in your life, you must take your eyes from him. See what is around you, see what is needed of you right this minute. See what you need to see now. ”
I dropped my head into my hands. “He wouldn’t give up on me. I know he wouldn’t.”
“No. But he is not a sentinel of a city, he is a king. That means he has a different path. You have a job, you need to do it, Granddaughter, and I promise you that you will find your blacksmith.” He paused and placed a hand on my shoulder. “This is between us. Celia would…be heartbroken if she knew I’d spoken with you again, and not her. Our time is done, Granddaughter. Do not give up.”
The last of his words hummed in the air as I was jerked out of the padded chair and back through the abyss and dropped onto the ground under the tree in the Hollows Graveyard.
Alan leaned over me, his thinning hair visible even in his ghostly form, his eyes squinted against the light, angular face tight even in death.
“Bree, what in the hell are you doing? Are you sleeping on the ground ? What’s wrong with you? Marge is here, waiting for you! She’s very important, you know, and she has other things to do than to just wait around for you to wake up from a nap!”
His words cut through the last of my drowsiness, and I jerked upright. It took me a moment to orient myself. It had been nearly a year since Alan had had the audacity to wake me up out of a dead sleep, and we’d been married and I had wanted to kill him then. Pity he was already dead.
As it was I flicked a finger at him, pushing a bit of my magic into the motion and making him stumble back to give me space.
“What time is it?” I shook my head and pushed to my feet, groggier than if I’d been drinking all night and was running on an hour of sleep.
“Meeting time,” Alan snapped, his already tight lips pulling tighter. I tipped my head to the side to get a good look at him. My dream with Altin had felt more real than this moment, strangely enough. But I pulled myself together and squinted at my ex-husband.
“Marge decided you didn’t deserve a body anymore, eh? Ducked it up too badly last time?” I forced a smile. My visit with my grandfather was coming back to me in bits in pieces.
Did I trust the grandfather who’d helped me before? Or did I ignore him, and do as I wanted, continuing on my path to finding Crash?
Crash was not the first man I’d chased. I’d defied the people I loved to pursue Alan, and look at how that had ended. Not well, in case you’ve forgotten. He’d cheated on me, broke my heart, stole my gran’s house, got me framed for murder and then still didn’t have the decency to just die and let me live my life. No, he stayed a ghost and followed me around.
Alan grimaced, snorted in my general direction then spun away, his ghostly form going nearly transparent as he stepped into the bright sunlight.
I stood and dusted myself off, then followed, Feish grumbling as she fell in behind me. I wasn’t the only one who was exhausted. That couple hours of sleep would help us both, though, and give us some strength for the rest of the day.
Even though my feet were moving, Altin’s message was battering at the inside of my head—now making me doubt the wisdom of this meeting.
“Do I believe you?” I whispered it to myself, but Alan seemed to hear me.
He turned around. “Believe me? What are you talking about? Of course Marge is here!”
I looked at him, truly looked and let myself see him for the man he was and always had been. I’d settled for him, but it hadn’t felt like that at the time. I’d gone with him somewhat blindly, not looking around me. Believing in him, in us . Believing that he was the best an awkward, pudgy, lacking confidence, girl like me would ever find.
“Alan,” I paused, and he took a step toward me. I didn’t know quite how to word the question on my lips and finally settled for a simple approach. “How did we ever fall in love? I can’t remember anymore. I mean, I know that I loved you, but what was it that did it for you?” Thinking back, I’d considered him a catch. He was going to be a lawyer, move me to the west coast, and we were going to travel and have children. We never traveled, and there had been no children, of course. I’d lost myself somewhere in those twenty years, believing in a reality that never came to be.
Alan put his hands on his hips. “Are you serious? Why now? You don’t want to get back with me, do you?”
I shook my head, doing my best not to laugh because I wanted him to answer my question. “Humor me. I don’t regret our breakup and I don’t want to be your wife, girl, anything.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. It’s obvious though, isn’t it? We were both single.”
Both single . You know, you wouldn’t think I could be surprised anymore, but you’d be wrong.
Because much as I hate to admit it, my jaw dropped and I struggled to grasp what he’d just said.
Not that I was cute. Funny. Sweet. Not that he thought I’d make a good mother, or partner. Nope. Single.
“That’s…it?” I spluttered. “That’s what attracted you to me? The simple fact we were both single?”
Feish and Kinkly both kind of choked, no doubt shocked beyond words.
He shrugged. “What more is there? We were both single and I wanted a wife.”
I snorted, pulling myself together. “You mean a maid and chef?”
“I’d hardly call you a chef.” He rolled his eyes again, and I took a step toward him, my hand reaching for his ear. He scuttled backward. “Look, we were single. And, at the time, you’re right, I…didn’t want to be alone. And neither did you, you told me that you were afraid no one would want you.” He tipped his head to the side. “Why are you asking me this now?”
Why indeed? I drew a breath and held it a second before blowing it out in a rush. Truth is not always pleasant, especially when it’s wrapped up around your own blunders through life.
“Because I’m afraid of making a mistake again, Alan. I made a massive mistake with you, following what I thought was the best thing that ever happened to me all the way across the country, leaving my gran behind, leaving who I was behind. And it nearly destroyed me in every aspect.”
It was like a light bulb exploded inside my head as the realization hit me right between the eyes. “And never mind the dampening spell, that’s the core of why I’ve been struggling these last few weeks. Because of course we want to get Crash back, of course I do, but…”
“What if it’s another mistake?” Gran offered quietly.
I nodded and put a hand to my throat, feeling like I was being strangled. “I love him. But I loved Alan too. And look at where that got me. What if…what if I’m wrong? What if I do all this and Crash and I don’t make it?”
Altin’s words came back to me. He’d urged me to follow a different path. To serve my purpose as a sentinel of Savannah and let the chips fall where they needed to fall.
It was to Alan’s credit that he didn’t argue that he’d pulled the wool over on me, that he’d been the one to cheat and break what was left of our marriage. Not that I was unhappy about it, in the long run it had been best for me that he’d done what he’d done.
Feish burbled under her breath but didn’t add anything to the conversation. Kinkly fluttered out between me and Alan.
“Crash is not anything like Himself over there.” She pointed a tiny thumb behind her, not pointing at him at all. But then she couldn’t see him or hear him. She could only go on what I was saying.
“I think I should explain this,” Alan said, and I motioned for Kinkly to hold on.
“Wait, Alan wants to tell me how it is, and I can’t wait to hear his thoughts,” I said with no small amount of sarcasm.
Alan nodded at me as if we were in court and he was being given the floor. “Listen, here’s the deal. Even I can see that the troll you have a thing for cares deeply about you. Marge even said she thinks the kind of love you two share is rare, which makes it a power to behold in her eyes. So, do I think you and I made a mistake being together? I guess the answer is obvious to everyone here.” He swept his arms wide, but the only two who could see and hear him were me and Gran.
“Get on with it, Alan,” Gran snapped, and he flinched as if she’d hit him.
“And I think Celia here is trying to make up for—”
“Don’t you dare!” Gran got between us, which meant I could see bits and pieces of both of them.
“Trying to make up for what? Gran?”
“Nothing. And if Alan knows anything, he’ll keep his thoughts to himself.” She huffed and Alan lifted his hands in mock surrender. Gran stormed out from under the tree, mad as a wet hen about something.
“Go after your new love, Bree. That’s all I’m saying. He isn’t me, and you…you aren’t the girl I married, not by a very long shot. And—” he cleared his throat, “—I mean that in the nicest way I can. You…were like a shadow all through our marriage and you’ve blossomed now. Even I can see that you’ve grown into a new person.”
With that, he turned and walked away, leaving me kind of stunned.
“I think he just complimented me?” I whispered. “What is this world coming to when Alan gives me a compliment that isn’t a backhanded compliment?”
Kinkly flitted onto my shoulder, and Gran…where was Gran now? I whipped around as we stepped out of the shelter of the big tree, and then I saw her standing near the Hollows Group entrance and the large angel statue with the broken wing and crying eyes. The flame it normally held in its hand had guttered out.
Picking up my pace, I hurried over to her. “Gran, why didn’t you wake us up? And what was Alan talking about when he said you were making up for something?”
“You needed your sleep, honey child.” She motioned for me to go ahead of her. “Marge is down there, waiting. As for Alan, just ignore him, you know that with him that is best.”
She was avoiding my question, but it wasn’t important, not today. Maybe another day we’d talk about what Alan knew that Gran didn’t want me to know.
Taking the steps that led down into the Hollows, I reached for the edge of the wall as I descended. The world went black, a trick to keep people out. Even a flame wouldn’t penetrate this darkness, and it weighed heavy on my shoulders. I felt my way down to the bottom, knowing that the dark would fade. On the last step, the room bloomed into view and I had to blink, my eyes watering in the bright after the black stairs.
Marge had taken the liberty in setting a pit up in the middle of the room and was currently burning whatever she could find that was flammable. The blaze cast off not heat, but waves of cold, blue flames that made me think of water and ice.
I refused to rub my arms, though the urge was strong.
“Marge, I wasn’t sure that you’d come.”
Alan stood just to the other side of her, quiet, his hands tucked behind his back. She didn’t look up at my voice, but she did answer me as she inspected a stack of papers in her hands before tossing them into the flames. “Well, well, Sentinel. How are you? Holding up well? Enjoying the relative quiet of Savannah? Strange, don’t you think, how quiet it is?”
Nope, we weren’t going there. I approached the flames and held my hands out to them as if they were warm and not freaky and blue. Something was off with her, which was…well, that was saying something.
The woman was close to seven feet tall, with a bluish tinge to her skin and a stack of dark blue hair that gave her even more height. Normally she had her counterpart with her, moping along next to her.
“How’s Homer?” I countered, not really wanting to talk about my current state of existence. Besides, I was curious about why she was really here. She was unpredictable, but in my experience, she’d only make herself useful for the right price. Like I’d said, I truly wasn’t sure that she’d even come to the meeting.
“Homer is dead.” She didn’t look up, but I watched her face closely. Her lips and eyes tightened, and her nostrils flared along with the pulse in her throat jumping suddenly. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a glimmer of tears in her eyes.
Well damn. The voodoo queen had some emotions showing up in her.
“I’m sorry for your loss.” I stepped back from the flames. “You didn’t want to bring him back? Like one of your other pets?”
Alan grimaced like I’d stepped in shit, and maybe I had. But Marge was Marge, and it wasn’t an unreasonable question to ask of a voodoo queen who had no problem raising the dead.
She shook her head. “He wished to be left dead after it happened, but neither of us thought it would be so soon in our life together.” She drew a slow breath and finally looked up at me. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears.
My chest was tight, not liking the parallels between her choice and Crash telling me to leave him in hell.
“What happened to him?” I bent and picked up some of the fallen papers. Judging by the chicken scratch, they’d belonged to Eammon. I tossed them into the flames, and they went up in curls of purple and black fire.
“A monster took his life, and nearly mine—something I’d never seen before. It appeared not far from our house. Huge, and impervious to magic that I could see. Claws. Scales. I couldn’t…stop it. It took Homer and left me alive. That’s why I’m here. I followed the monster to Savannah and will kill it.” Marge stopped her burning. “Have you heard of anything that might be roaming Savannah? A monster?”
Well, that explained why she was so willing to meet with me on my own turf. It had nothing to do with me at all, and everything to do with a monster that she’d followed here. But that seemed odd in and of itself. There had been not a single rumble of a monster, and I would think that in all our searching for Crash, we’d have found something. A clue. A rumor.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Are you sure? I’ve been all over, looking for…something else. And I haven’t heard a peep.”
“Quite sure, girly. Quite indeed.” She bobbed her head once as if that settled the matter.
Silence stretched between us as the fire hummed and crackled, throwing off a cold wave of air.
“I had a reason to meet with you,” I said, not sure how to direct her to help me when she obviously had her own reasons for being here. “Would Homer bring you back? If you died first?” I blurted the question, wondering if it was the right thing or not. Maybe not caring.
Her smile was bitter. “Yes. Even though I told him not to. He always said he’d die without me, that the world would be too hard for him to face without me by his side to make it bearable.”
It felt like my smile matched hers—bitter and hurting. “But you’re supposed to be strong enough to face it on your own? Sounds familiar.”
She stepped back from the flames. “You’re looking for a portal to hell. I did hear that rumor. Straight from Death Row when I wandered through.”
Hope burst up in me, like fireworks that I couldn’t contain, but I did my best to tamp the sparks down even as they lit tiny flames all over my body. Just in case this was another dead end.
“I am. But it’s proving to be difficult, a lot of empty promises from people who think they know, but don’t.” I looked into the flames.
Marge tipped her head to the side, her hands gripping the edge of her burn barrel, not bothered by the icy flames. “I know that’s why you wanted this meeting. And I’ll be straight with you, Sentinel, I don’t know any way into hell. No one does that breathes on this plane of existence.”
I did my best not to react, I really did, but I couldn’t help slumping where I stood. “I should go then—”
“However, I know someone who does know. Someone not on this plane. Not fully anyway.”
Her words stopped me in mid-turn. “What?”
Marge let out a heavy sigh. “I know someone who could help, but he won’t give me the information without an…impressive offering. He hates me. It seems that we, you and I, I mean, could work together.”
“Bad, bad idea,” Kinkly whispered in my ear.
“I agree,” Gran whispered on the other side.
Still, I turned all the way back around to face the voodoo queen. Me working with Marge. It seemed laughable, and yet I wasn’t laughing. “Are you sure that you aren’t being lied to?”
Because I’d run into more than one false promise over the last three weeks.
Marge laughed, a short, sharp bark of a sound. “Quite. But…I cannot reach Homer without the man’s help. And, like I said, he is asking for a great deal. A very great deal. He knows I cannot do it on my own. He knows that I need you too. He said as much.”
Understanding took a minute. “You need me to convince this guy, whoever he is, to tell me how to get into hell, and then you want the information too?”
Marge smiled, showing off teeth that were deeply yellow in places. “Consider it a hunting party of sorts. You and me, Sentinel. Going into hell to retrieve our respective loves. After we do as he wishes.”
Feish gurgled and gulped behind me as she grabbed my arm. “I would not want to go to hell with a voodoo queen.”
Marge looked past me to Feish. “You can come too. There are rumors that sections of hell are rife with water. You could be useful, river maid.”
“A deal with a voodoo queen…is that any better than a deal with a demon?” I mused out loud.
Marge threw her head back and laughed, the sound bouncing off the cave walls. A full minute passed before she got control of herself. “So incredibly fitting that you should ask that, of all the questions that you could have asked.” Her eyes narrowed. “Because it is a demon that we need to convince, a demon who has named his price in order to give us help. And, seeing as you’ve done it once before, I think you should be able to do it again.”
Well, shit.