“Uh, okay. Can we finish this conversation later?” He reached out and took my hand.
Damn. He’d just spilled his guts to me and here I was running out the door. He probably totally thought I was lying. Which, I was. But not because of that. “I promise I’m not trying to evade our conversation. Something really came up. It was sweet of you to make dinner and everything.” I met and held his eyes for a moment, so he could see my sincerity.
“Yes, and you seducing me and then denying me was a blast, too. We’ll have to do it again sometime.” His eyes shone with mirth.
I laughed, high-pitched and a bit strained. So unlike my usual laugh I felt sure he’d pick up on it and realize something was wrong.
“I’ll go put up the plates,” he said. “You mind if I let myself out after I put everything up?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said distractedly. “I’ll call you soon, okay?”
“You’d better. I don’t cook for everyone.”
I laughed again, a bit more naturally this time. “Good night, D.”
“’Night, Zy.”
I opened the door and stepped out into the empty hall.
She stood silhouetted against the lights, nothing but a dark shadow.
“I’m glad you came,” Anna said.
The bright lights at the entrance to the carousel shone to my right. “What’s up?” I asked lamely.
“Not here,” she said. She turned and walked away from the water. After several minutes of criss-crossing through the streets, heading south into the industrial sector, she abruptly opened a door in a shabby gray building. Glancing back at me, she led the way into a large room with concrete floors.
“Another warehouse?” My eyes scanned the building quickly, taking in the crates on the left and the forklifts to the right.
“It does lack in charm, doesn’t it?” Alexander stepped out of the shadows behind one of the pieces of equipment. “But then, the three of us more than make up for it, don’t you think?”
Anna shot me a smirk and stepped up next to him. “Did you really think I just wanted time with my big sis?”
I shoved down the wave of defeat that roiled inside me. “Well, you lured me out here, so let’s just get to the point. Why am I here?” I growled, tapping my fingers impatiently on my arm.
Alexander spoke. “I wanted to see if you’ve been enjoying our little game. Has it been fun for you?” His eyes sparkled, both with humor and an icy coldness. “Long-lost sister and all?”
“Oh, it’s been a blast,” I purred, purposefully ignoring Anna’s gaze. “But surely that’s not the only reason you brought me here?”
“Has it dawned on you yet, Zyan, that you can’t beat me?” He ran his fingers through his inky black hair.
“No,” I lied. “Because we both know that’s not true. You wouldn’t even be bothering with all this if you thought I had no chance.”
His eyes flickered. Maybe I’d struck a nerve. “I get my fun in a variety of ways. Letting Arianna take the fall for me was pretty amusing. Silly woman. She thought I actually wanted to sleep with her… but we both know she’s not my type, hmm? I like them so much younger.”
I suppressed a surge of rage. “Well, I can agree that arresting her was quite fun. Just for being stupid enough to get involved with you. She should be old enough to know better.”
“Like you. So mature now. I’m sure it drives you crazy wondering why your sister doesn’t see through me like you do.” Alexander’s reciprocal smile was dark and unhealthy like melted chocolate.
“Anna will see the truth eventually,” I said. I did look at my sister this time. “And then she will leave you.”
“What do you think, love?” Alexander asked. “Are you going to abandon me like your sister abandoned you?”
“If I hadn’t left, I would have killed all of you, the whole family,” I said, addressing Anna. “After that first taste of a human’s life force…” I cast my eyes down, looking hard at the concrete floor as I remembered it. “I was pretty inhuman for a long time.”
“Clearly, since you murdered our father,” Anna said. Her words punched into me, and her eyes burned colder than a glacier. Colder than the far, black reaches of the universe.
Could she ever forgive me for killing the man who raised us? She obviously didn’t acknowledge Alexander’s part in the whole tragic story.
“So, Zyan.” Alexander’s voice cut through the band of pain that had washed over me. “Anna and I would like you to take a little stroll with us. We want to show you something.”
“Show me what?”
Alexander sighed. “So many questions. You are a suspicious one.”
“Either follow us or don’t,” Anna said coolly. She turned and walked through a door on the opposite side of the room.
I hesitated for only a moment. The longer I spent with them, the more information I could glean. Maybe I could find some sort of weakness in Alexander’s power that could be used to my advantage.
Gesturing for Alexander to walk in front of me, and getting his slick smile in response, I headed for the door. Anna had already disappeared into whatever room lay beyond. I paused in the doorframe, seeing nothing but an empty room before me. Alexander and Anna had turned and were looking at me. I had a moment to feel a tickle of unease before I felt a stronger tickle all around me. The pull of magic. My eyes widened and I tried to step back. Too late.
Everything went black and I felt the now familiar pull of a shift in dimensions.
CHAPTER THREE
The smell hit me first. Sulfur.
Second, the intense heat. Like I was engulfed in flames. Or maybe a slug under a magnifying glass and a beam of sunlight.
The actual pits of lava and spouts of fire completed the horrible realization.
I spun around, somewhat surprised to see Alexander and Anna standing there, too. “You brought us to Hell?”
“I told you I wanted to show you something,” Alexander said jovially, casually, like we were walking in a flower garden somewhere. “Specifically, someone. My employer, Lucifer, would like to meet you.”
He had to be joking. But his sharp smile told me he wasn’t.
I looked around again, my mind reeling. It was my worst nightmare come to life. Well, staying here forever was. I ignored the glittering points of terror spiking through my stomach. If I didn’t panic, maybe I could get out of this. Maybe.
“So, are we just going to stand here, or are you going to show me around?” I smiled my best and most dangerous smile.
“Of course. I’ll give you the grand tour.” Alexander gave a little bow, then turned and began to lead the way across the stony ground beneath us.
As we walked, my mind frantically tried to piece everything together. It made a bit more sense now. Alexander was working for the Devil. The Devil was trying to assassinate the HR. The Devil was also behind the general societal upheaval—the riot, the speech at City Hall. He was trying to cause chaos, which was just his cup of tea, I guess. I remembered what Franklin had told me about the demon invasion. The dominos fell into place—it was all connected. And now that I realized it, annoyingly obvious.
Alexander and Anna walked in silence ahead of me. Apparently now that they had me right where they wanted me, the taunting banter wasn’t necessary. I cast my eyes all around, morbidly curious.
We seemed to be in a cavern. Beneath my feet lay sharp, uneven reddish stone with the occasional vein of bright red crystal, like the rock had been sliced open and bled. Bubbling pools of lava were connected by sluggish rivers, and far off in the distance I saw a flaming lava fall cascading from someplace high up. Tunnels shot off here and there, black tunnels that smelled of carcasses and seemed to whisper as we passed.
It was when I looked up that I was first surprised. No ceiling of razor-sharp stalactites as I had expected. Instead it looked like outer space. A black, inky expanse dotted with stars white, blue, green and red. The occasional large ball of flame shot past. Actually kind of pretty, un
til I noticed the blacker black shapes swirling around. Dark shapes I couldn’t quite make out, shifting and stretching and devouring each other. I shuddered and looked back down.
What I hadn’t seen was any kind of life form, unless you counted whatever it was in the sky above us. Where were all the lost souls? Where did all the eternally damned supes hang out?
As if sensing my thoughts, Alexander turned around. “Enjoying the scenery?”
“I think Lucifer needs an interior decorator,” I retorted.
He looked annoyed for a split second, wishing of course that I was terrified instead of smart-mouthed as usual, before gluing his smug smile in place. Yeah, terror isn’t a good state of mind when you want to use your brain to devise an escape plan. Plus, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Devil-worshipping dickbag.
We were climbing now, the ground rising in a low hill beneath us. At the top of the hill rose a door, just sitting there in open air, no frame or anything, not even a door handle. It was made of shiny black stone, like obsidian. Demonic runes covered it, jagged scars in an otherwise smooth surface. Backlit by a lake of flames on the other side of the hill, it was a rather impressive sight.
A sense of absolute dread descended on me when I looked at that door.
Anna had reached the door and opened it by pressing her hand against one of the runes, which glowed white briefly. On the other side lay absolute darkness. Blacker than the space above us, blacker than the tunnels we’d passed, blacker than the door itself. Without even a half moment’s hesitation, Anna stepped through, and Alexander after her. I paused. I couldn’t see a thing, not even whether there was ground on the other side. For all I knew I would plummet to my death.
“Aren’t you coming?” came Alexander’s amused voice.
I gritted my teeth and stepped through.
The darkness vanished and I stood… on a beach. Milky white sand scrunched under my shoes and ocean air soothed my skin. I had forgotten how hot it’d been where we were until I stood now in the cool light of a setting sun.
Endless turquoise ocean stretched out to my left, and to my right rolling green hills covered in clover. Straight ahead sat an enormous house which bridged the two landscapes. It wasn’t quite rustic enough to be called a castle, and it wasn’t quite modern enough to be called a mansion. Made of warm, beige stone, it descended from the green cliffs down to the wave-lapped sand. Towers and turrets and parapets and walkways extended out over the sea, and I could see someone standing on one, silhouetted against the sunset.
“Please join me,” a voice whispered in my ear.
Then we were standing on the balcony next to the person I’d just seen.
He didn’t have beet-red skin or goat’s eyes or horns. He had golden hair, radiant pale skin, amethyst eyes and full pink lips. Devastatingly beautiful, so much so it almost hurt to look at him. Lucifer. The Devil.
“Zyan Star,” Lucifer said, and his words wrapped around me; honeysuckle vines, sweet and intimate. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”
I was speechless, for once.
He smiled, and it almost seemed kind. “You’re in shock.” He laughed, and it sparkled on the air like pixie dust. “What did you expect? I am an angel, after all, not a monster.”
“Where are we?” I asked, a little breathlessly.
“You are still in the Hell dimension,” he answered.
“I didn’t realize…”
He smiled. “That it could look like this? Hell has many different realms, and can look like anything I want it to look like. For instance, the realm you came into, with the flames and whatnot? That’s simply the doormat of Hell. I’ve made it look like that because that’s what people expect. Long ago, someone created this whole vision of a place of stone and flame, and so I keep it like that. So people instantly know where they are.”
I must have still looked stunned, because he said, “Would you rather something else?”
And everything was gone. I stood alone in an expanse of white, stretching endlessly for as far as I could see. Nothing. No one. For all time. As I looked down at my body, even it seemed to be fading, turning white like everything else. I felt a finger of panic clawing up my throat. Even the flames and the sulfur were better than this.
“No? How about this?”
A roaring sound filled my ears and I turned around just in time to see a wall of water towering over my head. It crashed into me. My body seemed to shatter into a million pieces at the force of it, but no, a moment later I realized I was still whole as it battered me first one way and then the other. The water forced its way down my nose and mouth and into my lungs. They screamed for air. My body burned, aching for oxygen. It was agonizing.
“Some people like to suffer. Can you believe that?” Lucifer smiled at me, the sunset making his hair look copper. “I think it’s odd myself, but I oblige their wishes.”
I looked down at myself, noting that I was dry and whole and not disappearing. Alexander smirked from where he stood a few feet away. Anna looked completely emotionless, disinterested, a robot. So, Lucifer wanted to throw his weight around a little, awe me with his power? I was awed. And I was also getting really pissed. “Why am I here?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I’d like you to work for me, of course. Why else would I bring you down here?” Lucifer made a gesture like this was the most obvious conclusion in the world.
“Then why did you have Arianna send her lackies to kill me?”
Something moved over Lucifer’s face, just for a moment, that frightened me very much. I realized he hadn’t known about that little incident. “Ms. Vega was not following my orders when she did that. I will make sure some of my servants visit her in prison to make her stay more… comfortable.”
I shivered and looked out over the water. The glowing orb of the setting sun was just falling beneath the horizon. Without its warm toss of colors on the landscape, I began to imagine dark things surfing the waves and crawling up on the shore. I blinked. Maybe it wasn’t my imagination.
“Let’s head inside,” Lucifer offered with a sweeping bow.
I followed Alexander and Anna through a set of ornate French doors into an entirely white and crystal room. Smooth blocks of clear quartz stretched beneath our feet; the walls white marble. Instead of a chandelier, the entire ceiling was hung with crystal drops and baubles of all sizes and shapes. Tall flute-like glass vases filled with calla lilies lined an entire wall. The leaves were the only splash of color to be seen.
Lucifer took a seat in a white velvet wing-backed chair that sat on ornate glass legs. “I call this my room of reflection. The absence of color helps me think clearly. Do you like it?”
It reminded me a bit too much of the empty white void he’d placed me in just minutes earlier for me to enjoy it. Lucifer smiled almost as if he could read my thoughts. I sat down gingerly on a white brocade loveseat, opposite Anna and Alexander.
Lucifer didn’t seem to notice that no one had answered his question. He was probably used to people being quiet around him. “Drinks?” he asked. It was clear he wasn’t expecting a response to that either, because half a breath later a crystal tray appeared on a low table between us. It held a decanter of thick yellow liquid and four goblets. As I watched, the liquid in the pitcher began to go down while the four glasses began to fill up, all by themselves.
“Cheap parlor tricks,” Lucifer said with a dainty laugh, looking at me. “You should be able to do something like that easily, Zyan.” The glasses rose up and floated towards us, so I had no choice but to take it. “This is my favorite ambrosia. Please, enjoy.”
Anna and Alexander each took a sip, and feeling Lucifer’s gaze on me, I took one also. His expression went from hawk-like to relaxed once more. The ambrosia tasted overly sweet, but was warm and fizzy going down, like hot tea and liquor and soda all mixed together. I could still feel it bubbling when it reached my stomach.
“So, Zyan.” Lucifer hooked me in his purple gaze onc
e again. “Why is it that one of my children, an Anam Gatai no less, has come to work for the realm of Heaven?”
I took a deep breath. Strangely, and probably having something to do with his powers, I found I couldn’t lie to him. “Well, at first it wasn’t so much that I wanted to help Heaven as I wanted to oppose Alexander. I’m sure he’s told you how I feel about him.”
Lucifer laughed softly. “Yes, he has. Being the ruler of Hell, I certainly understand revenge. Many of those that come here were driven purely by their insatiable need for it.” He paused. “Of course, we’ll have to address your desire to kill Alexander, but let’s come back to that topic later, shall we? I’m glad to hear you had such dark reasons for assisting my enemies. That’s the kind of passion I can use.”
Martinis with the Devil, Part Two Page 3