Chapter 16
Vannog shotover a drawbridge spanning the river encircling the keep. The guards on the walls shouted and waved as the helldragon flew over the city gates.
“Welcome back, Lord Dragon!”
Mae’s pulse quickened at the sight of the demonic metropolis beyond the fortifications.
It was laid out like a human city, with several wide thoroughfares crisscrossing the streets to form blocks. Most of the buildings and homes were constructed of stone and wood. The smell of roasting meats carried from chimneys and open windows.
I wonder if a city in medieval Europe would have looked like this.
I would think so, Na Ri said. The designson whichFather based the keeps of Hell Deep eventually appeared on Earth in the Middle Ages. I suspect it was the Immortals who refined them.
Mae drew a sharp breath as they passed an industrial district home to a maze of narrow lanes and canals crowded with factories, smithies, and workshops, most of which spouted acrid fumes from their smokestacks.
Wait. So, you’re saying dad came up with the blueprints for Earth’s cities?!
Yes.
Mae was still reeling over this morsel of information when Vannog flashed across a waterway and took them over an area of the city where the houses were bigger and more elaborate, their walls made of bricks and bones.
Nikolai tensed behind her.
Mae’s chest tightened as she studied the palace straddling the knoll ahead. The moment of truth would soon be upon them. And she wasn’t sure what she would do if Armaros told her Hellreaver could not be fixed.
Vannog crossed a drawbridge and the outer walls of the castle before spiraling down toward an immense, sunken courtyard made of black granite. His claws raised sparks when he landed, his enormous wings casting long shadows on the ground before he folded them against his body.
Mae’s pulse quickened at the sight of a large forge where hot coals simmered. Brim, is that where?—?
Yes.
Mae swallowed and touched the pendant beneath her shirt.
Movement drew her eyes. A group of demons had rushed out into the palace forecourt and was hurrying toward them.
“Lord Dragon, you are finally back.” Relief flooded the face of the head demon, a creature who was nearly as wide as he was tall and who towered above the rest. He cut his eyes to a pair of fiends behind him. “Inform the kitchens at once. We must prepare a feast for our noble beast.”
“You know, it’s not like we starved him on this mission,” Astarte said wryly. “He devoured twenty hellboars all by himself just last night.”
“Twenty hellboars are nothing but an entrée, woman,” Vannog rumbled.
The head demon drew a sharp breath at the sight of Astarte. He lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head. “My apologies, Goddess. I did not see you there.”
The servants behind him followed suit.
“At ease.” Astarte landed lightly beside the head demon as he straightened. “I am glad the city is safe, Us’gorith.”
“It is by your grace, Goddess.” Us’gorith peered curiously at Mae and the others as they climbed awkwardly down Vannog’s body. “I see you have brought some unusual guests again.” His eyes flared when he got his first good look at them. “Oh. The woman carries Lord Azazel’s scent.” His surprised gaze found Vlad. “And this one smells like an incubus.”
Astarte made introductions. “This is Mae Jin, Azazel’s daughter. And that guy is Vlad Vissarion, Ilmon’s son. Those two are white magic and Arcane Magic wielders.” She waved a hand at Nikolai and Cortes curtly before indicating the head demon. “Everyone, this is Us’gorith. He is Armaros’s chief steward and the main reason this city hasn’t fallen to ruin.”
Mae and the three men murmured guarded greetings. Us’gorith’s jaw had dropped open. Shocked whispers rippled through the attendants behind him.
The head demon recovered first. “I shall make preparations for your stay.” He caught sight of Brimstone and squinted. “Why do I feel like I’ve seen that fox somewhere before?”
Brimstone jumped out of Mae’s hold and shook himself out into his nine-tailed form.
He towered over the demons, his voice booming across the courtyard. “Hello, old friend.”
Us’gorith gasped, his face brightening. “Lord Sotsuna! You have returned!”
Brimstone lowered his giant head and poked the head demon gently with his snout. “You can call me Brimstone. It is the new name given to me by my witch.”
He wrapped a tail around Mae.
“Where’s Armaros?” Astarte asked Us’gorith curiously while the other fiends crowded happily around the nine-tailed fox. “I thought that damn fool would be glued to his forge as always.”
The head demon’s expression turned strained. “He is…currently entertaining his majesties King Ilmon and Queen Thod.”
Astarte’s expression soured. “So, Ilmon and Alicia are bitching about their lives over drinks and he’s keeping them company?”
“I cannot lie to you, Goddess,” Us’gorith murmured. “I pray that you intervene before an unfortunate incident occurs.”
A loud curse made them all jump. Mae looked up warily. It had come from an upper window of the palace. More swearing followed.
“Not my thousand-year-old wine!” The voice grew thunderous with rage. “Ilmon, you bastard! How could you?!”
The sound of breaking glass ensued. Us’gorith paled.
“Looks like I’m too late,” Astarte muttered.
* * *
Vlad staredat the stuffed head of a hellmammoth mounted on the wall of the wide hallway they navigated. It wasn’t the only monster Armaros had chosen to display on the walls of his palace.
Cortes eyed a colorful tapestry hanging between a hellbear mounted on a stand and a halberd that could probably fell a helldragon. “This place sure is…different.”
The decor was a mix of the grisly and a kind of gaudiness usually associated with the nouveau riche. It was as far removed from the austere and elegant furnishings of Arakiel’s palace as an art shack on the beach was from the Louvre.
“It didn’t used to be this garish.” Astarte grimaced. “Let’s just say a certain purveyor of antique goods and his English friend persuaded a gullible demon to invest in a few period pieces.”
She waved a hand at a vase Vlad was pretty sure he’d seen in a museum.
Mae wrinkled her nose. “So Artemus and Sebastian hoodwinked Armaros into buying their stuff?”
Us’gorith lowered his brows. “This is but a fraction of what those two scoundrels tried to pawn off upon my liege.”
“What kind of idiots must they be to try and deceive a demon commander?” Cortes muttered.
Astarte rolled her eyes. “The kind whose father is an archangel and one who harbors the soul and will of a prickly divine beast.”
Noisy revelry rose from the room they were approaching. Us’gorith opened the door and went in ahead of them. To his credit, the demon didn’t even flinch when a scythe hummed past his face and stabbed into the wall to his right.
“Oops,” the Queen of Soul Reapers mumbled. “Sorry. We were playing darts.”
She swayed a little where she stood behind a couch covered in the hide of a helltigress, her flushed cheeks and glazed eyes indicating that she was well on her way to getting stone drunk.
“I think you will find that the darts are in your other hand, my queen,” Us’gorith observed with the stoic expression of a demon who’d dealt with this shit a thousand times before and had the receipts to prove it.
“Wanna come work for me?” Astarte asked the head demon kindly while Alicia inspected the bone darts in her left hand with a cross-eyed look.
“I best not, Goddess.” Us’gorith’s mouth grew pinched. “I went on a trip once and the city almost burned down.”
“Oh.” Astarte grimaced. “Was that the time your lord organized a fire-breathing contest?”
“Yes.” Us’gorith’s shoulders slumped. “In a city made of wood construct.” He shuddered and covered his face with his hands as he revisited the horrors of that particular incident. “He even got the helldragons to participate.”
Vlad listened distractedly while Astarte murmured words of consolation.
The chamber they’d entered was a reception room, not that anyone could tell right now with how messy the place was. Empty mugs, glassware, beer kegs, and bottles crowded the floor and the surfaces of the furniture. The air reeked of so much potent alcohol he was surprised the fire crackling in the hearth hadn’t ignited the fumes.
His pulse quickened at the sight of the pair of demons engaged in a tussle on one of the couches.
The stout one with the bulging muscles and curved horns tipped with Hellfire was desperately trying to wrench a bottle out of Ilmon’s hand.
“Why,” he grunted and groaned, “are you so ridiculously strong?!”
Vlad presumed the demon was Armaros. To his surprise, his father, who was slumped against the backrest, didn’t even look like he was trying that hard to hold on to the bottle.
He swallowed. Father. I never thought the day would come when I would be in a position to actually use that word. In all honesty, I have long considered Yuliy to have fulfilled that role. He fisted his hands, his chest hot with an emotion he could not deny. It seems there is space left in my heart for?—
“When is my little rabbit going to get here?” Ilmon moped while Armaros huffed and grunted, neck cording as he desperately tried to peel one of the Incubus king’s fingers from the bottle. Ilmon straightened and looked blearily at Us’gorith’s lord. “Did I tell you how pretty my rabbit is? His hair is like ringlets of spun gold and his eyes exude a beauty that could outmatch the brightest sun in their resplendence. Why, just one of my little rabbit’s cheekbones could launch a thousand sailboats into the Styx.”
Vlad scowled.
“You should put that on your resumé,” Nikolai said with a straight face.
Cortes’s lips twitched.
Vlad was about to flip the two sorcerers the middle finger when Ilmon finally noticed them. The incubus energy that bloomed across the room and blasted through the castle had Astarte groaning and Us’gorith flushing.
Ilmon let go of the bottle and jumped to his feet, his eyes bright. “My little rabbit! You’re here.”
Armaros stumbled backward and cursed, almost dropping his prize. He beamed at the bottle before pressing it to his cheek and murmuring sweet nothings to it.
“Your liege is disgusting,” Astarte told Us’gorith coolly.
Ilmon crossed the room, his arms wide open and his expression pure mush. “Come, give your papa a kiss, my sweet little rabbit!”
He puckered his lips.
“I swear to God, I will cut you if you touch me!” Vlad snapped.
Alicia let out a belch that smelled like something that could strip paint. “Pardon me.”