“What?” she said distractedly. She hadn’t heard half the demon’s chatter.
“I asked what you think you’re going to do with your stick. Poke a dragon, maybe? That’ll scare them.”
“Maybe.” She went back to sharpening her spear, fashioned from the femur of a very large animal. Not much of a weapon, but it was all she had. “Or maybe I’ll just poke rude little demons with it.”
“No, you won’t. You’d feel guilty.” Gan looked smug. “Humans feel guilty about hurting things.”
“Some do. Some don’t.”
“Well, you would. You’re that kind. Besides, you like me.”
Lily looked up, amused. “I do?”
“Sure. You won’t let the wolf hurt me. He may have stopped trying to kill me, but he still wants to hurt me.”
Lily’s smile fell away. Twice since her last sleep she’d had to stop Rule from attacking the demon. Gan reveled in baiting him, true, but Rule had been able to ignore the demon’s taunts before.
Something had changed, and it worried her.
“And it’s not that you’re afraid I won’t feed you. I’d have to do that no matter how pissed I was, because I can’t let you die. Besides,” she added, “The dragon told me to keep feeding you. You know that. So you stopped the wolf because you like me.”
“And you like me, too, of course.”
“I’m a demon! I don’t…” She frowned. “No, of course I don’t. I’ve never liked anyone. It’s like eating dead things. Demons don’t do that.”
“Demons don’t sleep, either.”
Gan scowled.
She shouldn’t tease Gan. She might have to ask her for a favor. Lily looked down the beach again. This was Rule’s first excursion without the splint. Over her objections, he’d chewed off the bindings after waking from his last sleep. And he’d been gone a long time, longer than usual.
She couldn’t go looking for him. It was dead dark in those cramped passages, and she couldn’t find her way by scent the way he did. The demon’s sense of smell wasn’t that keen, either, but Gan had an unerring sense of direction, or so she claimed. If Rule didn’t show up soon, she’d have to bargain with Gan to…
A dark shape limped out of the cave. Her breath gusted out in relief.
The demon flung her piece of bone away. “It’s boring here. I can’t believe how long it’s taking Xitil to finish off her guest.”
“Maybe she already has. Would you know?”
“No, but they would.” She waved up at the sky, where two of the smaller dragons circled—their guards and occasional waiters, making their breathtaking dives to drop food on the beach.
Living food. Gan ate hers that way. Rule chased and killed his.
She wished she could remember eating. She remembered all sorts of food—ice cream and rice, fried chicken and pickles. But she had no memory of how those things tasted.
“Have they been talking to you?” Lily asked. “They won’t mindspeak me.” Sam did, when he visited. He was curious about how Earth had changed in the years since his kind left. He and Rule had traded questions.
That is, they had at first. Not so much now. She looked at the dark, four-legged figure headed toward them.
“No,” Gan said, “but things would be happening if Xitil had finished her fight. They wouldn’t… hey, look who’s here. Fur-face. Find any good escape routes lately?”
Rule didn’t even look at the demon before jumping up on the rock to settle beside Lily. She breathed a sigh of relief. He was controlling himself. “You’re limping.”
He couldn’t shrug, of course, but gave his shoulders a roll that had the same meaning.
He’d obviously understood her. Maybe she’d been imagining things. “Gan thinks it won’t be long before Xitil finishes her battle with the goddess.”
Rule gave the demon a glance and growled.
“What?” Gan snapped. “Think in words when you growl, stupid, or I don’t get any meaning.”
Rule yawned, showing how little he thought of the demon’s opinion, then gave a few yips.
Gan snorted. “Dumb question. Xitil wouldn’t eat a goddess.”
Lily frowned. “But the goddess isn’t really here, right? Xitil’s fighting Her avatar.”
“That’s almost the same thing. Eating an avatar would be worse than eating a human. She’d go nuts.”
Lily nodded. Demons ate almost anything except humans. By eating the flesh they consumed something of the person, and they couldn’t absorb a human’s substance properly. Gan thought it was the soul that drove them mad, but she was just guessing. Demons no more knew what a soul was than humans did.
But demons could drink human blood. It was the usual route to possession, as well as a potent delicacy or drug. And they wanted Lily’s. The blood of a sensitive had some sort of special power here in hell.
Lily had questioned Gan enough to have some idea of what happened to her back on Earth. Gan had knocked her out and brought her to hell to sample her blood because it was more potent here. But then it had returned her to Earth. Blood alone wasn’t enough to get past a sensitive’s natural defenses. The demon had needed the goddess’s help to finish the business. Lily wasn’t clear about the details, but the goddess had invested some of Her power in a staff, and someone on Earth had used it to help Gan possess her. It had almost worked.
Rule growled a question at the demon.
Gan rolled her eyes. “I’ve told you and told you. I don’t know why the goddess wanted me to possess Lily. You think we sat down and chatted about Her plans over tea?”
“You’re still convinced that we’re part of a deal between the dragons and Xitil, though,” Lily said. “Sam keeps dodging that question.”
“He hasn’t denied it. And he could.” Gan sighed wistfully. “Because he can lie and all. But what else would he want us for? Well, he doesn’t really want us, but he needs me to feed you. I’m the only one who can do that, because of our bond.” She smiled, pleased with her own importance. “And so far the wolf hasn’t pissed him off enough to get himself killed, I guess.”
“Why not admit it, though?” Lily asked. “Sam doesn’t have anything to lose.”
Rule growled something.
“What did he say?”
Gan shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Gan—”
“I don’t know! He doesn’t trust the dragon. That’s all I picked up.”
Forehead furrowed, she stroked Rule’s head. Maybe Gan was just getting tired of translating and was pretending not to understand. “What do you think?” she asked him softly. Understand me. Please, please, understand me. “Will Sam hand us over to Xitil?”
He looked at her with what she could swear was puzzlement. But then his eyes cleared and he yipped.
“He said there’s a lot of demons,” Gan said. “Not many dragons.”
“Their position is precarious, you mean.”
He nodded.
Okay. It was okay. He’d understood and responded. “What we really need to know is why my blood would be so valuable to Xitil.” They’d asked Gan about that several times. The demon insisted she didn’t know why the blood of a sensitive was important, just that it was. “What am I? One heck of a good bonbon, or does my blood have a practical value?”
“You’re more than a treat,” Gan assured her. “You don’t have to worry about that. No one will kill you because then you wouldn’t make more blood. But Sam can’t be planning to keep you. The others will hear about you, and sooner or later they’ll try to grab you so Xitil doesn’t get you. The dragons won’t want that kind of trouble.”
Lily was startled. “Are you talking about fighting? War?”
“No, no. Wars are for grabbing territory and giving the nobles a chance to gobble up the other guy’s fighters. No one wants war with the dragons because they don’t just eat, they kill, so the princes aren’t going to… hey, look!” She jumped to her feet. “Mealtime!”