28. Chapter 28
I caught a flash of boots disappearing. Probably the body of the guard at the door being yanked down the hallway.
The demon’s head nearly scraped the threshold as he kicked the door shut behind him. Misty gray eyes, light brown skin, a face that was all angles. Naked lean muscles and full lips quivering as he stared at me, knife in hand. The rage in his eyes evaporated like a dream.
He’s one of my brothers, It said. Guess he’s heard I’m home.
The demon looked like he was swallowing back some sort of reaction, trying to master himself. “It’s you?” he said, his voice throbbing as he moved closer.
It was unnerving, watching him advance with a weapon in hand, well over a foot taller than me and unsteady with emotion. “Yes,” I said, since It hadn’t chimed in. “He’s here.”
He looked like he was trying to see beyond me, squinting into my eyes, and I felt It give himself a little shake and rise in his cell. Can I talk to him? he asked, a cold whisper of suggestion tingling beneath my skin.
Of course, it’s your brother.
And I was thrown into his vacated cell in a blink. My face broke into a smile. The demon enfolded me in his arms hard enough to make something in my back give a nauseating crack.
“Shit.” The demon pulled back, hands in a useless flutter about my shoulders. “Did I break it?”
“Her,” It admonished.
The demon flicked a hand as if to say same thing.
He ducked his head, peering into my face as though I were livestock he was considering purchasing.
“At least you got a pretty one. Think how much worse you could have had it. You might have gotten an old man. Your balls would hang to your knees.” The demon paused, debating, a thoughtful look on his face.
A sharp, opalescent incisor needled his ripe bottom lip.
“Is that better or worse than not having any?”
“A question for the philosophers,” It said.
“We can head down to Flame and ask one.”
I felt my head shake. “She wouldn’t like Flame. You didn’t hurt the guard, did you?”
The demon gave an unconcerned jerk of the head.
“He’ll live. It would have gone easier if he’d been reasonable.
I’ve got one of the Fury novices on the door in security armor.
Nobody will know the difference if they’re just passing by.
I was on my way into the pits when Riquin came to tell me you were home. ”
“I saw him in the antechamber when we first got here. It took six guards to hold him back.”
“How did you even make it home?” The demon was weighing one of my arms now, an eyebrow quirking as if he didn’t think much of its heft.
“She grew weary of my company. Was willing to die to get rid of me.”
Its brother ducked his head again, as if trying to find my shape in the dark room I stood in. “I understand completely.”
His name is Valic. An unearthly echo framed Its words. He’s a little older than me, works in Fury. Thinks he’s very amusing.
“And was your mother pleased to see you?” Valic dropped onto the bed, dust exploding everywhere beneath his weight.
“So pleased.” It sank down beside him. “I thought she’d burst with emotion. Can you get us out of here?”
“What are you talking about? You just got back.”
“I don’t want to leave Hell, I want out of this room. I told her,”—he gestured to himself, to me, flapping a hand near my chest—“I wanted to show her something when we got here.”
“You’d better hope the ice queen doesn’t find out.” Valic reclined on his elbows, eyes narrowing into rain-gray slits. “You’re supposed to have learned your lesson.”
“I will never learn that lesson,” It spat, quick and angry.
“You’d better learn to fake it or she’ll never let you out.” Valic paused, staring up at me in a way that made me wonder what my eyes looked like; my face felt quite free of any expression. “Where did you want to go?”
“I want to find someone. He’ll be in Fang or Fury but I’m not sure which. John Dale, have you seen him in the pits?”
I collapsed on the floor of my mind, sighing. Whether he was here or not, I didn’t want to see him tortured. I don’t care about John Dale, I said into my hands. It didn’t answer, though I could tell he did not believe me in the slightest.
Valic’s eyes flicked out of focus. “When have I ever learned their names?”
“Balding, big gut. Watery little rat eyes, blue.”
Still Valic’s face was blank. “That doesn’t really narrow it down.”
“Then take us there and I’ll look for myself. He tried to attack her and she thought I was a monster for killing him.” He said it as if it were something ridiculous, like he’d been unjustly chastised.
I can’t see Fang. I struggled to my feet and up to the bars. It makes me sick to even think about it. I can’t handle actually walking inside.
I felt It waffling, biting back my lip; he wanted out of this room but didn’t want to terrify me in the process. Fury’s all right?
I thought about the laughter, the revelry.
The admittedly horrific violence, but nobody got torn apart by beasts there; nobody hung from walls like ghoulish works of living art.
And Its uncle was there…I couldn’t refuse him that.
I could close my eyes and pretend I were in a tavern for the first time in my life. Don’t get caught. Please.
He was on my feet, flinging open a dusty wardrobe, and digging for a cloak before I could blink. “Fury,” It called over my shoulder to Valic. “I want to see Radax.”
“We’ll have to go the roundabout way. I don’t want to pass through the antechamber with you.
Even in that cloak someone with a big mouth might see you.
Nobody in Fury will talk but we’ll still have to be quick about it.
It’s one thing to knock out your guard because I wanted to see you but I don’t want to get tossed in a Frost cell over a field trip. ”
“Scared of my mother?” It asked, turning to face his brother, pulling a hood up over my head.
“I’d be a fucking fool not to be,” Valic said, as It rummaged through a chest of drawers and unearthed a few pairs of wool socks.
So you don’t freeze on the Frost staircase, It said, when I wondered vaguely what he was doing.
The hallways were cumbersome. The hood may have obscured my identity but my height couldn’t be disguised, and though It kept my face angled away from the demons coming and going from their own apartments, their stilted footsteps and loud, curious silences had me worried.
There are demon children who live here, Des, It said, and not every demon is tall. We’ll be fine.
That was all very easy for him to say, I thought as I paced his well-worn steps in the cell of my mind. It wouldn’t be he who died if his mother decided we’d caused enough trouble.
The hallway dead-ended into a flight of stairs.
With It steering, the steep decline didn’t slow us down much.
You’ll hear more screams soon, he warned, when tendrils of glowing orange crawled like fingers across the stone beneath our feet.
We have to pass Flame, and that’s the loudest circle of them all.
He hadn’t been lying.
A blinding, red-gold inferno, an orchestra of screams above the crackling and popping of the flames.
Blood and fire and scorched meat blasting into my nostrils.
A world of black and flames; my eyes had little time to adjust to see much else as we passed by, and long afterward, bright spots of orange swam across my vision.
Up the next staircase, which grew colder after a time, frost spreading across the walls like gangrene. I was at least a few steps removed from the bitter chill as we approached Frost’s silent landing, and It spared it no glance as we passed.
Laughter tumbling down to meet us as we continued our ascent, the echo of the bonfires spreading across the stone walls.
We turned onto the landing and into Fury, where a pleasure that wasn’t mine burst into my heart.
Even beneath the archway, it was fever-hot, enough to make my head rush.
The swirl in my brain and the joy I felt from It were enough to knock me breathless, lightheaded on the precipice of a Hell that clearly wasn’t, not for him.
My eyes started streaming as soon as we entered, overwhelmed by the heat, the smell, the smoke.
I could taste the bloodlust in the air, the fresh wounds, the sweat brackish on my tongue.
Squeals of pain, ripping flesh, battle cries and primitive howls of victory bled into the backbeat of the demon revelry.
A carnival of gore and bruises and gushing, pulsing wounds, and the only winners were the demons.
These were men who beat their wives, sweetheart, It said grimly, sparing a contemptuous glance at the damned. People who beat their children. Violent bandits, lords who kept slaves. Don’t spend your pity here.
What is it the demons bet? If you’ve no use for coin?
Bragging rights. Unpleasant chores, stupid stunts, work shifts. Anything, really.
Keeping close to Valic, It scrutinized the crowds of demons, the naked, fighting humans fading into the background.
Despite having skin of all colors, they looked identical from behind, strapped with weapons, close-cropped hair.
There were women too, some with shorn scalps, some who wore their hair slicked-back and secured with bits of leather string.
I had never seen women like this, loud and brazen as any of the men, and I watched them with a frightened sort of awe.
And then It pulled up short on the center path and threw off the hood.