"Lovely." I took another step backward, but it was too late. We'd caught their attention. Or rather, I had.
The fiend in the middle crossed the lot toward me, almost bouncing with each step, and two more came on his heels, twitching noticeably every few seconds.
"Snacks?" the second fiend asked, his voice high-pitched and eager, like a child high on sugar. And when he opened his mouth, I glimpsed double rows of sharply pointed, metallic-looking, needlelike teeth, both top and bottom.
They glinted like blood in the red moonlight.
The fiends grew closer, fingers twitching eagerly. Saliva gathered in the corners of their thin gray lips.
My heart lurched into my throat, and to my own humiliation, I yelped and grabbed Nash's arm. I tried to take another step back, but my foot caught on something, and I would have gone down on my face if not for my grip on Nash's jacket sleeve.
One glance down revealed the problem, and pumped more scalding fear through my bloodstream, fast enough to make my head swim. A thin, bright weed grew from a crack in the concrete, red as Japanese maple leaves in the fall. The damn thing had wound around my right ankle, clinging to my jeans with thorns as sharp as the teeth of a tiny saw.
I jerked on my foot, my gaze glued to the fiends still approaching slowly, but that only pulled the vine tight. The thorns pierced denim and speared my flesh in a dozen tiny points of pain. "Ow!" I cried, then immediately slapped my hand over my mouth. The last thing I needed was to draw more attention our way.
Nash glanced down, and in a flash he'd dropped to one knee, a pocketknife drawn and ready. He couldn't fit it between the vine and my leg without cutting me, so he simply sliced the weed out of the ground, and pulled me back before the surviving, grasping tendrils could grip me again.
The severed weed dripped several drops of dark red on the concrete. Or maybe that was my blood. A sick feeling wound around my stomach, tightening like the vine around my leg.
What am I doing here? My ankle burned where the thorns had pricked me, my pulse raced in my ears, so loud I could hardly hear the scrambling of the fiends against the glass anymore.
Was there time to cross back into the human world before the approaching fiends pounced? Because I was suddenly certain that's what they were planning.
"They smell yummy," the third said, followed by a peal of high, maniacal laughter. "Do they kiss hellions?" His teeth clanged like hollow metal when he closed his mouth, and my pulse lurched again. "Do they breathe Demon's Breath?"
"No," the first one said, as Nash, Tod, and I slowly backed farther from the small monsters now clearly stalking us. I wasn't sure if they could hurt Tod, but he obviously wasn't taking any chances. "They are clean."
"Pity…" the second high-pitched voice sang. Then the two fiends in back turned on their small, bare heels and twitch-bounced back to the group scaling the walls of the stadium.
My pulse slowed just a bit, with the threat decreased by two-thirds. But the first fiend still eyed us. Eyed me. He sniffed, tiny, flat nostrils flaring. "Foreign." His left arm twitched violently, as if it were trying to fight free from the rest of his body. Then his right foot jiggled, like he was trying to wake it up. Only, I was sure he hadn't done it on purpose. He was in desperate need of a hit, and his body wouldn't work properly until he got it.
"You don't belong here, humans." He stepped forward as one corner of his mouth began to jump. The fiend eyed me boldly, assessing me, and I realized that though he was clearly in the grip of some sort of withdrawal, he was still thinking and speaking somewhat coherently. At least, more so than his friends. "Stay, and something bigger will surely eat you…."
"We're not—" I started, but Nash squeezed my hand ruthlessly, stopping me from denying our humanity. "We're looking for a hellion," I said instead, and Nash groaned audibly. Evidently that wasn't a good conversation-starter in the Netherworld.
Who knew?
But the fiend surprised me. "As are we all," he said wistfully, and I felt my brows arch almost off of my head. Yet that made sense. They were desperate for a hit of Demon's Breath. Of course they were looking for a demon.
"Um, I mean we're looking for a particular hellion." This time, Tod squeezed my other hand, but I ignored him. If the fiend wanted to bite us, he could already have done it several times over. "Do you know a hellion of avarice?"
The fiend's flashing yellow eyes gleamed brighter, and they may have moistened just a bit, as if with a fond memory. "Ah, avarice…" he breathed, squeaky voice piercing right to the center of my brain. "My favorite flavor."
Excitement traced my veins, chasing out those last, healthy jolts of fear. He knew the hellion of avarice. Or at least, he knew a hellion of avarice.
I dared one step forward, fighting the urge to squat and look him in the eye, and Nash held tightly to my hand so I couldn't go any farther. "Can you tell us where to find this hellion?"
"I can." The creature nodded his bulbous, bald head, and in the reddish moonlight, I got a good look at the dark veins snaking over the top of it, bulging like a serious weight lifter's. "But there is a price."
I frowned. "I don't have much money. Not quite fifty—"
"Kaylee…" Nash refused to relinquish my hand when I tried to dig in my pocket.
"I have no use for your worthless paper currency," the fiend spat, gray lips turning down around razor-sharp teeth. "I will tell you where to find your hellion—for a portion of his breath. Payable in advance…"
"What?" Anger burned in my cheeks. The fiend's nostrils flared again, as if my ire scented the air, and for all I know, it did.
"Let's go…." Tod tugged on my other arm.
"No!" I turned back to the fiend, trying to get my voice under control. My anger clearly pleased him, and that wouldn't help my case. "If we knew where to get a dose of his breath, we wouldn't have to ask you where to find him!"
But the fiend only blinked up at me, tiny hands twitching, clearly unconcerned with how I came up with the payment. Did logic have no place in the Netherworld? How was I supposed to…
I stood straight as a sudden possibility occurred to me. "Is an hour soon enough?" My lips curled up into what felt like a sly smile.
The fiend nodded slowly. Eagerly. "I will wait here. One hour. My time," he said, as if in afterthought.
"Deal." My smile widened.
Nash and Tod frowned at me, but instead of explaining, I dismissed the creepy little monster and rushed across the lot with both guys on my heels, my focus on the ground ahead, on the lookout for anything that could poison, grab, or eat me.
Because the guys were right: If I wasn't careful, I had no doubt this monstrous wonderland would swallow Alice whole…
CHAPTER 17
"Where are we going?" Nash asked from the driver's seat as I propped my right foot on the dashboard, glad to be back on my own side of the looking glass, even if only temporarily.
"I don't know yet. Here." I twisted to toss my phone over the backseat to Tod. Unfortunately, he was no longer fully with us—non-corporeal due to stress, maybe? — and the phone dropped through his body to land on the seat, like it had fallen through a hologram. His rear and my phone now occupied the same space at the same time.
Wasn't an event like that supposed to make the world explode, or something?
The reaper glanced down in surprise, then reached through himself to grab my phone from the seat—which had to be one of the weirdest things I'd ever seen. Even weirder than killer plants and little bald fiends with tails and needle-teeth.
Tod's body solidified, and he stared at me blankly. "What's this for?"