by Elena Lawson
“The Infernum court,” he replies in answer to my unasked question. “Belial has always had a dark sense of humor.”
I spin, taking in a market down the way and several other old buildings. Diablim mill about, sneaking glances our way as they shop and drink in the square.
“He’ll know I’ve arrived by now,” he adds. “We should go inside.”
I follow closely at Kincaid’s right side, keeping myself as inconspicuous and out of view as I can—just like he told me to.
Tall wooden doors with iron hinges open before us, as though the building itself knew we were coming, ushering us into a lair of chaos.
A haunting song of jazz violin and drum accompanies lusty whispered vocals that make my skin bristle and my core tighten. Diablim writhe to the sway and pulse of the music, many of them entirely naked, their faces slack and eyes heavy.
These Diablim pay no heed to us as we enter, and the heavy doors sweep shut behind us. Vaulted cathedral ceilings dome us in forty feet above, Latin inscriptions in the beam work have been scratched out and candles flicker in old wrought iron chandeliers. There are two levels, and from down here I can see Diablim are dancing and feasting in the upper level, too, leaning down to watch those below with disinterested stares.
A Diablim swirls into my path, a woman with breasts the size of melons and a waist so tiny it’s a wonder she doesn’t snap in half from the weight of them. On her palm is a black tray with a mirrored surface. Atop it sit little piles of a fine silver powder. It shimmers like glitter in the flickering lights.
Kincaid waves her off, and she goes, offering the tray instead to another Diablim. He lifts a short stick and snorts the powder into his nose violently, his body convulsing as the substance enters his system.
I gape at them all, unsure what to make of what I’m seeing, until Kincaid presses a hand to my lower back, urging me forward to a dais.
Headless statues hide in the crooks of a massive stone structure and in the center, sitting high above the din below, is a man who looks like he could be the devil himself. He has eyes like fire and deep brown hair that waves down past his chin. He’s clad in black robes with a belt of shining gold. Barefoot and bare chested. A thin gold circlet on his crown.
“Brother!”
“Belial,” Kincaid replies with a light in his eyes like I’ve never seen in him before. “Good to see you.”
I keep my head down as well as I can as Kincaid weaves through the throng of intoxicated Diablim, making his way to his brother’s makeshift throne.
Belial descends and they embrace fiercely, but the smile Belial gives Kincaid makes my insides knot. It’s warm enough, but paired with the hellish pits of his eyes, only serves to make him look psychotic.
Like a smile he might give someone before gleefully gutting them and using their entrails as adornment for his hall.
“And this must be the Diablim I’ve heard so much about.”
When Belial turns his attention to me, I’m not prepared. My foot slips on the stone step, and I fall back, knocking into a scalding hot naked body. She screeches as a black tray flies out of her hand, toppling the glittering silver contents so it falls like rain all over me.
I push off from her, cringing when I feel soft breast tissue and a pebbled nipple under my fingers. I choke on the woody taste in my mouth and try my best to wipe it from my face, feeling the sting of it in my nostrils.
“Yes,” Kincaid says, clearing his throat as I pick my way back to his side, absolutely sure that my entire face is tomato red and I’m about to die of embarrassment. “This is Paige. Paige, my brother Belial, Lord of the Underworld and warden of Infernum.”
I want desperately to spit the vile taste from my mouth, but I don’t dare, swallowing it down instead. I catch Kincaid giving me a strange look as his brother steps down to greet me. I can’t be sure, but I think he’s afraid.
And it makes a hollow pit form in my stomach.
“A pretty thing, isn’t she?” Belial says, putting his face close enough that I can feel the whisper of his breath on my cheek.
So much for keeping out of his notice.
“So, girl, what do you think of Infernum?”
“It’s…um…hot?”
Belial arches back with a roar of laughter, his hand pressed against the muscles of his abdomen. I notice golden rings adorn each of his fingers; two are caked with flakey crimson.
“Not a very witty one, is she?” he says, swiping at a tear before leveling the full weight of his stare on me once more.
I flinch when he reaches out, his fingers lightning quick, like the strike of a snake. He flicks his fingers over my cheek, swiping some of the remaining powder from my skin before sticking the two digits into his mouth.
He bites his lower lip when he withdraws them and shivers with delight. “Shall we share her, Brother? Like we used to?”
My face heats again, and I don’t breathe until Kincaid speaks and Belial moves away, letting my breath out in a gush of hot air.
“I’m afraid not.”
“Pity,” Belial pouts. “She smells like a virgin.”
A thick vein in Kincaid’s neck pulses, betraying his fury, but he finds the will to offer his brother a smile. “There’s much we should discuss, but I’m here on an errand.”
Belial puts a hand to his chest as though his brother’s words wound him. “You haven’t come to partake in the glorious debauchery of my court, Asmodeus? Is that not reason enough to visit? You offend me.”
I can’t be certain, but I think, I hope, Belial is joking. I can’t imagine what a demon like him would do if he felt truly offended. I want to giggle at the absurdity of the images in my head. Of a distraught Belial tossing around headless Diablim as though they were toys.
I shudder, and the muscles that’ve been tense in my shoulders for weeks begin to tingle. The mild pain and discomfort ebbs away, being replaced by something soothing and warm.
All of my thoughts have a soft edge to them, a distant quality that makes me wonder if I’m dreaming. I can hear my own heartbeat thundering like the hooves of a galloping racehorse in my chest. The sound drowns out most all the others in the room.
As though from very far away, Belial and Kincaid continue their conversation. Yellow eyes flit my way every few seconds and I want to rub at the knot of flesh between them. Tell him not to worry.
My head is light, and when a Diablim brushes up against my back it’s like being touched by an angel. The woman with bright eyes and tattoos covering her bald head beckons me to dance and I long to go, but Kincaid told me I must stay here. I mustn’t leave his side.
I pull back when she tugs on my arm again, and she snaps at me with pointed teeth. There’s a silvery gleam coating her fangs, stuck to the skin just beneath her nostrils.
The powder.
The drug.
A moment of clarity kickstarted by fear makes my pulse thunder anew. I ingested it. That’s why I feel strange. I ingested the drug.
And its effects are only just beginning. I find Kincaid, my chest heaving, and try to implore him with a look alone that I need to leave. The tingling that began in my shoulders has spread down my arms, and I can’t feel my fingers.
I’m swaying, and I’m not sure when it started. Not sure how to make it stop.
“I’ll return in an hour and we can talk. I’ll take the car.”
Belial leaves Kincaid to slouch back onto his makeshift throne. He waves a beautiful girl with a bright violet hued aura to his side and roughly tugs her into his lap. She grins as he wraps his slender fingers around her throat, grinding her hips into his lap. “Very well, Brother. I expect you’ll have some knowledge of where my vanished kin have gone.”
He says this like a threat and an almost irresistible urge to rip his soul from his bones overtakes me. How dare he threaten Kincaid. Only my demon’s gentle touch as he wraps an arm around my shoulders stops me from trying.
“That is what we are trying to find out.”
; Belial flicks his wrist in dismissal and a gush of outside air rushes into the desecrated cathedral as the tall doors swing open. It’s all I can do to stay on my feet as Kincaid rushes us out.
13
We veer into an alley half a block down from the cathedral and Kincaid presses me up against the wall, jerking my chin up. He stares into me, assessing, and then his gaze sweeps over the rest of my face and body.
“How much did you ingest?”
“What is it?” I ask, my voice coming out slow. Oozing like molasses.
Kincaid releases me, and I let my head droop, tilting my neck to look up at him from beneath the safety of my lashes. They’re so long that I can see the edges of them at this angle. I never noticed that before.
“Angel’s tears.”
“What!”
He curses in another language and continues dragging me down the narrow alleyway, kicking debris out of the way as we go. “Not actual angel’s tears. It’s Belial’s blasphemous name for his creation. I have no idea what’s in it. It’s a guarded secret so he can be the only supplier.”
Huh.
“How much did you ingest?” he repeats, this time in a snarl that makes me want to pull away.
“I don’t know,” I say on a laugh, not sure what’s funny. Nothing, I suppose. And everything. “Not a lot. Just enough, I think.”
“I should take you back.”
“No!”
This time, I do pull against his hold, but not to get away, to make him stop. To bring him closer. “Don’t leave me there, Kincaid. I have to stay with you.”
I manage to bite off the rest of what I’d been about to say, knowing he’d only laugh if I told him it was because I needed to protect him. I may be the only person who has any hope of somehow putting his soul back in his body if what happened to Dantalion and Malphas happens to him.
“You think I want to?” he spits with a glare.
I’m not sure why, but suddenly, I want to cry. My eyes burn. “I didn’t mean to,” I choke, the sadness suddenly evaporating as a new emotion takes its place. “Don’t be such an asshole.”
His nostrils flare, but he says nothing in reply, just jerks his chin to the edge of the alley, where a sleek black car is parked. I follow wordlessly, shouldering past him to open my own door when he tries to do it for me. “I think I can open my own door,” I snap, sliding into the low leather seat.
It’s nothing like any of Kincaid’s cars. His are all roomy and speak of history—character. This is a modern beast of LED lights and muted black leather and chrome.
The seat slides against my slippery skin, eliciting a lascivious response that makes me press my thighs together and bite my tongue. I can’t remember what I was so angry about when Kincaid slides into the car next to me. I lick my lips as he starts the engine, and the purr of it vibrating up through my core makes me want to moan.
“Paige,” Kincaid warns, “Please.”
I remember that I’m supposed to be good, and I fold my hands into my lap, squeezing them tight together to keep them from reaching out to touch him.
Kincaid peels the car out from the side of the street, forcing Diablim in the roadway to flee, screeching and calling after him. I’m sucked back into my seat and I laugh at the sensation. My stomach left eight blocks back in the blink of an eye.
On a whim, I roll down the window and a blast of hot air gushes into the car, battering my face. I press into it, enjoying how it rushes over my skin.
Infernum passes by in a blur as Kincaid speeds through the streets, not paying heed to any traffic signs or the fact that there are Diablim in the road. He drives around them and any obstacles in our path, making my body jerk back and forth in the seat. It’s what I imagine a carnival ride to feel like.
I wonder if Kincaid will take me back to The Freakshow so I can ride the great metal contraptions there, but I don’t ask him. Speaking would ruin this feeling of light and blissful joy, I just know it. And I want to keep it for as long as I can.
When I open my eyes, it’s to flashes of barren darkness and then landscapes of fire. Horrific things and beautiful things. Things I have to question whether are real or simply vivid hallucinations brought on by the Angel’s Tears.
When the flutter in my rib cage begins to slow and I fall against the seat once more, I think it’s safe to talk. The moment of bliss is already ebbing anyhow.
“Where are we going again?”
“Out near the Bayou. Lady Devereaux lives at the edge of the lagoon.”
Right. Lady Devereaux. The Necromancer.
Which, apparently, I am not.
What’s the point of this again? I sigh. Who cares.
A few minutes later, Kincaid slows the car and we continue at a crawl over busted pavement and dirt, bumping along a dark road hedged in by walls of viridian green on both sides.
There’s a distinct tug inside my chest and I gasp, thinking my heart has found a way to leap out with all its incessant pounding. Until I feel it again.
“She knows we’re coming,” I say on a breath, my words so low they are almost lost to the breeze rushing through the cabin of the car. I’m not sure how, but I can tell it’s her.
She’s feeling me out. Drawing me in. The feel of her feeling me is a curious one. Lady Devereaux has extended an invitation. “She’s inviting us to come in.”
Kincaid looks at me like I’ve grown another head when I throw an arm out and shout at him. “Stop. You’ve passed it. It’s through there.”
I point at the wall of gnarled and side-bending trees covered in vines like little bushy skirts around their middles. There’s a gap in them, but it’s hard to see because of the angle. “There. We need to go that way.”
I jump out, unperturbed when my feet squish into a muddy puddle and I have to lift them out. The sucking sounds make me grin.
“Na’vazēm, wait.”
“Come on, slow poke. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Kincaid catches up a moment later, leaving the car idling behind us. He grunts something unintelligible and falls into stride next to me.
Following the Necromancer’s pull, I lead us back out from a mossy trail and onto more solid ground, following a maze-like path through the foggy trees. We come upon it after a few more turns, and I have to ask how Kincaid’s henchmen were able to find the place, because without Lady Devereaux’s help, I doubt I ever would’ve.
Her pretty blue house is propped up by a platform on stilts, making it look as though it’s got legs of its own and can move at will. Its twin windows in the front, lashed with red roses, and a matching front door could be eyes and a mouth.
I imagine the white blinds lifting. The eyes opening. And the mouth swallowing us up. I wonder what we taste like.
The stairs creak as we ascend them, and I’m disappointed when the door opens, revealing a very ordinary interior and not the stomach of a monstrous walking house-beast. Too bad.
Not so ordinary, though, is the woman who turns away from the door as swiftly as she opened it, leaving us to stand unattended on her stoop.
“Well, get inside if you must,” she calls, her voice a slightly hoarse utterance of rushed speech.
Kincaid goes in first and I follow him, feeling heavy as I pass over the threshold, like I’ve just walked into a wall of thick air and my legs have to wade through it to keep me moving forward.
It’s spirit energy, I realize, feeling the rap of phantom fingers on the doors to my mind.
The woman with long silvery hair to match her reflective eyes hobbles to a plush pink armchair and plops herself into it, taking up a ball of yarn and knitting needles from a basket beside her.
I giggle.
“Something funny, girl?” she snaps at me, and I shut my trap, clasping my hands together. The picture of composure, just like Kincaid asked. It’s easier now. I think the drug is starting to wear off, or maybe the weight of the energy in this house is keeping it held back. Either way, I’m grateful for the reprieve of semi-cl
ear thoughts.
…but also a little hungry for the bliss of the angel’s tears to return.
“Asmodeus,” the old woman says, drawing out his name as her needles click and clack against one another, forming something new. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“I’m calling in my favor.”
“Are you, now?”
Her reflective eyes find mine, and I jerk forward as she tugs at me from the inside out, nearly falling to my knees. “For this one, I assume?”
He nods gravely, eyes glimmering with warning until the woman releases her hold on my soul and I gasp in a breath.
“She needs training. Her ability is out of control. You will help her learn to wield it. To control it.”
“I will, will I?”
“Don’t test me, Devereaux.”
She sets down her knitting and waves me forward with two crooked fingers. She looks like she’s a hundred years old.
I look to Kincaid for guidance, and he gestures for me to do as she asks, so I do. Clenching my fists, I cross the carpeted and rugged floor and stand before her in her worn pink chair. She grips me by the wrist, and I feel an invasive prickle roll up through my arm.
It searches, gaining speed as she feels out the edges of my soul. It’s an awful feeling and I cringe, making a mental note to apologize to Artemis for using him as practice.
“You’re a strange one,” she says when she lets go and I clutch my wrist to my chest, rubbing out the ghost of her touch. “Not a Necromancer. Not as I am, anyhow. But a spirit-worker all the same.”
“Can you help her?”
“You should kill her,” Lady Deveraux replies to Kincaid, and the sweat chills on my body. “Her power is too great, Asmodeus. I don’t know what she is, but untrained, she’s a danger to everyone around her.”
“That isn’t an option.”
The necromancer grimaces; her eyes, the mirror image of mine, narrow to slits.
“Are you saying you can’t do it?” Kincaid challenges her.
She huffs. “I’m old, Asmodeus. Retired.”
“But not dead.”
“Not yet.”