16 A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN HELL
A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN HELL
S UNSHINE’S PLAN WAS LAUGHABLY SIMPLE: F LY IN. Create a diversion. Find Raum.
The first two presented the biggest challenges, considering she would have to expose her wings.
She might as well fly a plane with a banner saying “I am an angel!” for how conspicuous she would be in the sky.
It would be difficult to create a diversion when she would already be attracting attention.
But she had an idea for how to make it work.
After safely stowing Naiamah’s amulets in her pocket, strapping on her knives, and lacing up her boots, she tidied the cave and sealed the windows.
Collecting the one remaining cloak, she stepped outside and closed the door, effectively locking herself out as the ward resealed.
It was only keyed to Raum’s blood and she would need him to re-enter, but she hoped they wouldn’t be coming back here at all.
Covering her shoulders with the cloak, she studied her surroundings, picked the highest nearby peak in the foothills, and headed toward it.
The moment her wings were exposed, the element of surprise would be lost. There wasn’t time to waste trekking all the way to the border of Murmur’s territory, but she wanted to at least have a clear flight path.
The hike only took twenty minutes or so.
When she reached the crest, she could glimpse a distant turret.
She had no idea where the boundary wards were located, but she supposed it didn’t matter.
There was only so long she could delay the inevitable, and every minute wasted was another minute Raum was in the hands of an enemy.
Time to face your fears, Sunshine.
It hadn’t escaped her notice that she hadn’t been able to summon the courage to do this when she’d been after the book and her reascension. But now that Raum was in trouble, there was no question.
Pulling the velvet bag from her pocket, she withdrew one of the amulets from within and held it up.
The black stone seemed to absorb any light that hit it, making it difficult to see the lines of the tiny red sigil inscribed on its surface.
She hung it around her neck, dropping the stone inside her shirt.
The moment it connected with her skin, she felt the magic spark to life.
The countdown had begun. Three hours until the spell wore off. Luckily, she had a second one just in case.
She pocketed the remaining amulet, and then, with a slightly trembling breath, she unfurled her wings.
Her bright white feathers spread wide, nimble bones stretching out and rustling downy plumage. One glance over her shoulder and she was nauseous with nerves.
They gleamed . Sparkled like diamonds in the purest sunlight. Here, with the gloomy red sky and desolate landscape, they were like a lighthouse on a dark night. Anyone scanning the horizon would spot her.
They would see, and they would come for her.
But there wasn’t time to cater to fear. Swallowing hard, she crouched and sprang, taking flight. She headed straight for Murmur’s lair, as fast as she could.
It was farther than it looked, but she pushed herself, pumping her wings and tucking her limbs together to aid her speed. Finally, the black stone castle began to approach, and she searched the surrounding settlement for the best place to enact her insane plan.
Far below, she spotted a crumbling courtyard beside a collection of dilapidated huts. Demons mingled about, busy with whatever demons did in their spare time.
She tucked her wings and dove.
When she got close enough, heads began to turn. Even with the wind gusting past her ears, she could hear gasps as they noticed her and pointed at the angel rocketing toward them.
Just before she hit the ground, she flared out her wings and pulled up sharply. A chorus of shouting followed, indicating she’d definitely been seen at this point. A few demons spread leathery wings tried to follow her in the air, but they were awkward flyers and couldn’t match her speed.
Time to make them angry.
She circled a tower and executed another dive toward the crowd. This time, she took a leaf from Raum’s book, swooping toward one unfortunate target and grasping him by the arms as she passed.
The demon was far heavier than he looked, and her flight path wobbled. A spear whizzed by her head, and she only narrowly avoided it. A flying demon lunged at her from the side, but she dodged him too. The demon in her grip struggled violently as she pumped hard to gain altitude.
When she was high enough, she dropped him. He fell with a scream that was silenced as he hit the ground. Wincing, she circled the tower again and prepared for another swoop.
An arrow shot so close by her head, she heard the hum of its fletching.
She dove once again, noting how the crowd had turned more into a swarm, ready to charge at a moment’s notice. As she shot down a narrow lane, low enough that her wingtips brushed the shingles of the buildings, she carefully scanned her surroundings.
There. A portico at the end of a deserted street led to a door into the castle. She could see from where she was that it was ajar.
She banked back toward the crowd of demons. A spear hurtled right below her wing, parting her flight feathers and missing the flesh by inches. If it had struck, she would have been grounded.
Rising up again, she faked an erratic flight pattern as if her wing was injured. She spiraled around and then stopped moving altogether, her body going limp in midair.
She plummeted toward the ground.
At the last second, she spread her wings and took a sharp turn. Narrowly missing the roof of a building, she cleared the top and dropped to a crouch in the same deserted lane she’d spotted earlier, folding her wings.
She heard the shouts of the mob as they came for her. Reaching behind her, she roughly plucked several flight feathers from her plumage. Disappearing her wings completely, she tugged the cloak hood over her head and made sure her skin was hidden.
Then she raced forward, using her plucked feathers to lay a false trail leading away from the castle just as the first demon rounded the corner.
“It went that way!” she croaked in her raspiest fake-demon voice, gesturing to the feathers she’d dropped and then pointing down the street.
The demon didn’t even look at the feathers. It heard her shout, saw her point, and sprinted in the indicated direction with a battle cry, spear upraised. The rest of the mob followed suit.
She shook her head. She’d plucked perfectly good feathers for nothing.
As the mob raced by, she ducked into the shadows, huddling deeper into her cloak as she hurried down the lane in the opposite direction. When she reached the portico, her footsteps echoed on the paving stones, and she was forced to slow her pace to maintain silence.
At the end of the hall, she found the open door she’d seen before and slipped through.
She was in the lair of the Necromancer. Now she just had to find Raum.
Making her way down the dark passage, Sunshine stopped at each corner to peek around and make sure the coast was clear. It was eerily dark and silent, and the only sound she could hear was the distant dripping of water.
She’d heard stories of the lair’s former mistress. Paimon, a Queen of Hell, who had ruled this land with an iron fist. Anyone who crossed her was thrown into a pit of monsters and consumed for sport before a crowd.
Then, her most faithful servant, Mishetsumephtai the Hunter, had turned on her.
It was said—though gossip from the underworld was often of questionable validity—that when Paimon fed the Hunter to one of her monsters, he cut it open from the inside after it swallowed him.
In retaliation, he fed his mistress to the monsters instead.
Though Mist could have claimed her territory for himself, the promise of freedom appealed to the former slave more than the promise of power. He’d escaped to live as a fugitive on Earth with his human lover, and Murmur had taken possession of the castle.
As for the monsters, they were likely still here somewhere. Sunshine could only hope she didn’t run into them.
The lair was cold and lifeless, and it would have been pitch-black if not for the occasional hellfire torch that burned from sconces on the wall. It was barely enough light to navigate by, but she didn’t mind. The darkness provided cover for sneaking.
It seemed her diversion had worked, as she didn’t run into anyone while exploring the ground level of the castle. She was looking for a dungeon, which was generally a below-ground situation, but as she wandered about, she couldn’t seem to find a single passage leading downward.
Eventually, she came across a spiral staircase climbing up the inside of a tower, and she decided she should at least explore the upper levels. Perhaps Murmur had a prison tower instead of a basement. Maybe he liked to enjoy the view while he tortured people.
She climbed the winding steps as quickly as possible, hating how exposed she was in the stairwell. She found a door to the second level, but something spurred her to keep climbing. She became determined to reach the highest point of the tower.
After what felt like hours, she did, barely believing her luck that she hadn’t encountered anyone, while simultaneously wondering if that wasn’t a bad thing. Here, double doors beckoned, so she opened the latch and slipped silently through.
A short entranceway greeted her, leading to two more sets of rough-hewn doors. She chose the one on the right.
Wincing as the hinges creaked, she peered into the gloom before her. It took a moment to realize what she was looking at.
It was … a bedroom. The drapes were drawn over the windows, but the outline of a large four-poster bed was discernible. The sheets were in a twisted pile on the floor, one pillow at the head of the mattress, the other at the foot.