I smell them before I see them—demons. Four of them.
“Well, lookie here,” one of them hisses. They’re all in human bodies, and this one is some punked-out teenage kid with blue hair and a nose ring. I make a mental note that the spiral nose ring can be used to my advantage if needed. I wonder if the demon would feel that. “It’s a little witch.”
I smile and grip the bow around my shoulder. “I’ve been called worse.”
A girl, some poor Non who looks like she could’ve been a model at some point, hisses at me on its approach. “You sure are a pretty thing,” it says.
“I’ve been told.”
The third companion, in the form of an Asian boy with a polo and brown loafers—probably the last thing he expected leaving the house was to be possessed or he would’ve worn better shoes—sniffs the air. “And you smell good. Powerful.”
“I’ve heard that one before, too,” I snap, crossing my arms. The girl hisses at me again, but I don’t respond. “I’m here to negotiate.”
“Now, I’ve never heard that one before,” the fourth one says with a smile, stepping into the only empty space around me. It’s a really, really tall basketball player type. The glare in its eyes also warns me that it could probably rip me in half. Good job picking them, Penelope.
“I’m looking for Kriegen. We have a mutual interest we need to talk about,” I say. All four of them laugh at me, and worry creeps into my chest.
“Kriegen doesn’t talk,” punk kid demon says with a smile.
“Yeah, Kriegen is more of the ‘rip your heart out and eat it’ kind of leader,” the tall one says.
I laugh, which sounds more like a squeak when it comes out. How can I spin this? Spin it, brain. Think.
“I’d like to rip her heart out and eat it,” the girl says, gesturing to me.
“She does smell really, really delicious,” the brown loafers boy says.
That’s it.
“Which is exactly why you should take me to Kriegen. I believe your leader is looking for someone who smells ‘really, really delicious.’ Right? I think that’s part of this witch hunt.” All four of the demons raise their eyebrows at me, like they’re debating.
“You know I’m right. All the hours you’ve put in, what would it be like to get the prize? Just take me in. What’s the worst that can happen?” I ask. The demons look at each other. “Go ahead, talk it out. I’m not going anywhere.”
The demons huddle together and I hear pieces of their conversation. Words here and there, but they’re all talking at once. I’m not sure where all this bravery has come from. All I know is that I need to save Carter, and these nimrods are the only way I can get anywhere near Kriegen.
Nothing can happen to Carter.
The tall demon walks toward me and I strain my neck to look up at it. “Fine,” it says. It leans into my ear. “But if Kriegen doesn’t want you then we’re taking you piece by piece.”
I nod, the image of me being cut up into bite-sized pieces clear in my head, and swallow. “Glad that’s clear.”
The demons laugh as they take hold of me and yank me off the ground—arms, legs, one for each demon—and there’s a whistle and a popping in my head that makes me scream. Everything gets fuzzy around me before it fades away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hell is not what I expected.
It’s not flames and fire and pitchforks, it’s white—except for the fact that there’s blood splattered all over everything. The ground, the walls, the demons, the dead. Some of it’s dried and black, some shades of brown. Some is fresh, crimson, streaked, and dripping. The wound from my arm is adding to the decor. Besides the noise of the demon chatter, there’s the occasionally sharp sound of screaming, then silence, made worse because I’m waiting for the screams to start up again.
My demon companions pull me off the ground and my knee gives from the harsh landing. I wobble and the she-devil kicks me. It better be glad I came here willingly. As we walk, I try to see as much as I can, but it’s more like a hospital. There are long hallways and door after door. Everything looks the same, white with the splatters of blood; a stale smell that seeps from the walls as if they painted them with sulfur.
I imagined hell would be more like a carnival—demonic fun and games, food, freaky clowns who kill with squirt flowers—not so still. We continue down a hallway of endless doors. Screams squeeze through the cracks of the closed ones and the open ones feature silent souls. I’ve never seen a soul before, but from my quick glance, it looks a lot like a regular body, only paler. And dead.
One of the doors opens for me and they shove me into a metal chair.
“Tie her down,” brown loafers boy says.
“Really?” I say. “I volunteered for this, remember?”
It leans into my face. “We allowed you to come, and you are our guest.”
“This is how you treat your guests?” I ask as punk kid ties the rope.
“No, we treat them much worse,” it says. Everyone laughs again.
I take a breath and try to center myself, to stay focused. I’m quiet as I watch them. All four of them scurry off in different directions, but their attention stays on me. Tall demon is the only one who disappears from sight, up a set of stairs in the corner of the room, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be back with Kriegen. I just need to play along right now.
When Kriegen gets here, then I’ll negotiate.
I tap my fingers along the arm of the chair, since they’re the only thing besides my feet that can move. “So, this is hell? It’s not really what I thought. I imagined more crazy torture and eating of flesh, and less rooms with doors that lock. I don’t even have that at home.”
The girl snarls at me. “It’s not Buffy.”
“You guys get Buffy down here? That’s some great reception.”
The punk kid hisses something at the girl. It hisses back. It sounds like nothing to me down here, just noise. Which is a little weird. Maybe my reception isn’t so great down here.
“This isn’t hell,” brown loafers says. The other two hiss at him but he ignores them. “This is De’Intero—the space between earth and hell.”
“Janksow,” the girl snaps. “Shut up now.”
He shrugs. “What? We’re going to kill her anyway.” Brown loafers circles the outskirts of the room, its eyes on me. “This is where we bring the humans we like to play with. Sometimes we steal them from earth. Other times we yank their measly souls from hell and give them some entertainment.”
My skin crawls. I don’t really need much imagination to figure out what they do. The blood and the sound is enough.
There’s a loud bang, the sound of heavy doors slamming shut, and then the tall one reappears. Its eyes are on me as it walks down the stairs, and as soon as it hits the landing, the door opens again. This time it’s the sound of heels clacking on the floor—and I don’t see Kriegen until it starts on the steps.
And it’s in human form.
Its black hair is all I see first. Lots of long, curly black hair. Its skin is pale, paler than most; its lips are very red and its eyes are deep, dark recesses lost under heavy lashes. Then it smiles, and if I hadn’t been tied to this chair I would’ve run away. Even in its human body I can see the evil, piercing evil. Shameless.
“Sorry for the delay. I wanted to find my best body for you, kitten,” it says. It moves toward me, heels clacking, and I see it nails—long and red, sharp enough to stab. I may need to rethink some of my earlier planning. “It’s not every day someone volunteers to come below.”