“Wake up! Where’s Nate? The blond boy?” The demon stirred, opening one eye and then the other. Her reptilian skin sizzled where Sera’s blade seared it.
“He’sss not here,” she hissed, blood pooling around her black lips. “Azsss … ”
“Not here in Xibalba or not here in this hell dimension?” Kyle asked.
The demon flashed a bloody grin, her yellow eyes full of shiny malice. “Who knowsss? Happy huntingsss,” she taunted, black blood dripping down her face.
“She’s not going to tell us,” Sera said. She turned away in sudden frustration, the fyre winking out, and massaged her aching head. The demon had almost ripped off her scalp. What was with girls always going for the hair in a fight? She grimaced and quickly tied the remaining bulk into a thick braid.
Kyle stared at the demon with morbid interest. It stared back, insolent.
“What are you looking at, half-breed?” She saw his look. “Oh, I know what you are, I can smell it. You think you’re better than I am? Inside, we’re the same.”
“I’m looking at a dead demon,” Kyle retorted grimly.
“I am not afraid to die. Ra’al will only bring me back. I am his favorite.”
“I don’t doubt that, but dying will still hurt,” Kyle said. “Where’s the boy? Where’s the Protector?”
She gave a pained laugh. “Your weak human weapons cannot hurt me as they have the lesser demons. I am Alis, daughter of Ra’al.”
Without warning, the demon swung her right arm toward Sera’s unprotected back, her claws bared and poison-barbed. Kyle didn’t hesitate, swinging the black blade from his bag in a swift movement, over his head and around the side.
“This one can,” he cried.
The demon’s eyes widened just as the blade severed her arm and ripped into her upper thigh, black blood and green ichor spraying everywhere. She screamed in agony, clutching her stump of an arm and crawled backward. Blood dribbled from her mouth.
“Mor … das,” she gurgled, staring at the sword.
“What did you say?” Sera said, but the demon ignored her, staring at Kyle, this time with some sort of strange recognition. “Pri … sss,” she gurgled, and choked, her body arching with a painful spasm, her arm raised toward him. Kyle stepped back, his eyes narrowed. And then the demon died, her body fizzling like a piece of over-charred meat on a spit.
“Seriously, what is this price that these demons want from you?” Sera said. “And what is that smell?” The odor of something putrid rose in the air.
“Dead demons,” Kyle said dryly. “Let’s get out of here.”
HELL AND MORE HELL
They were in another cavern that seemed roofless, as if it just disappeared into darkness, and the air was warm and clingy. Kyle felt the sweat pooling on his forehead and swiped it away with his sleeve. They’d already shed most of their outer layers, and even in shorts, it was boiling as they inched forward.
“Where is all this heat coming from?” Kyle said.
“Ah, I hate to be the one to tell you but um, hell is hot,” Sera said. “I think those pockets of heat are from those tunnels over there.” They both looked to the three black holes carved in the side of the room.
Kyle glanced around. “There’s no exit in here, did you notice?”
“Hang on a sec—” She broke off near one of the steam-filled tunnels and knelt to the floor. Kyle rushed to her side as she dug something from the ground with her fingernails.
“What is it?”
“A gold ring,” Sera said, clutching the item in her hand. “It’s Dev’s, I know it.” She stared around the cavern, as if reconsidering Kyle’s earlier words. “You’re right, there are no exits. So it’s one of these, then,” she said, indicating the three caves.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
She stared at him. “I wish I was.” She extended a gloveless hand to him. “See if you can get a sense of where he was taken.” Kyle repeated the process of trying to detect Dev’s energy, frowning in concentration.
“That one,” he said pointing to the middle cave. They stared at it. It was the smallest and hottest of the three. “Great,” he sighed. “I’m claustrophobic, did I mention that?”
“Stop complaining. The quicker we get in there, the quicker we get out.”
“If we get out,” Kyle muttered. He stared up into the darkness. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching them, something way above where they couldn’t see. He half expected an army of demon-bats to swoop down so placed his hand on his canteen of holy water just in case. Sera had already started to crawl into the tunnel. She’d removed her outer Henley and wrapped it around her head to protect it against any sharp edges. “Sera, wait. Maybe I should go first.”
“No,” he heard her say. “I have hellfyre for light.”
“Hellfyre?”
“Well, it’s definitely not deifyre,” Sera said. “Stay close.”
Kyle removed his own shirt as Sera had done and twisted the sheath of his sword so that it hung under his left arm at his side. He crawled in behind her on his hands and knees, following her muted red light. The sensation of the walls pressing in around his back made him gulp.
“You think there are any demons in here?” Kyle asked. Just as he said it, he felt something wet slide along his leg and he hoped fervently that it was only condensation from the heat.
“It’s widening up a bit,” Sera said, and Kyle saw her peering at the side of the wall. Her mouth tightened on a swift, indrawn breath.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just follow me and move fast. Don’t stop.” After a few more feet, Kyle noticed that she was able to stand hunched over. She was moving fast now that she was off her hands and knees, and Kyle struggled to keep up.
“Sera, wait!” Something stung his face, and he swatted it away. He felt the same thing on his neck and twisted so hard that his forehead scraped a rocky edge. He felt a warm trickle and something fastened on to it, sucking like a leech. He grasped it and ripped it off, tugging at his belt for the grill lighter he’d stuck into it at the last minute. He pressed the trigger and blinked as yellow flame lit the darkness.
He was holding a thin snakelike creature. It wriggled in his hand, struggling to get back to the blood on his forehead. He crushed it, then felt another and another attach to his skin. He ripped them off and held the flame to the wall of the cave. It was covered in hundreds of the leeches, each of them straining toward him, hungry.
His gasp blew out his light and he scrabbled toward Sera, bile in his throat, clawing at the ones that had fastened to his exposed skin. A sudden scream had him almost running as the cave widened.
“Kyle, watch out!”
He skidded to a halt just in time, his heart thudding at the sight of Sera hanging off the edge of a short ledge that had dropped off suddenly, her fingers barely holding on as her body dangled in open space. The bottom had crumbled where she’d been standing, and he shifted to the side of it, flinging himself to the ground just as her fingertips lost their hold.
“Gotcha!” He gripped her wrists above the gloves and she gripped him back. Kyle dug the toe of his boot behind a rock, his arms almost out of their sockets at the weight pulling them over the edge. A scream behind him made him jerk around, only to see something black soaring above them like some kind of huge demon-raptor. All he could see was teeth. It circled lower.
“We don’t have much time. Listen carefully, Sera, pull yourself up, and grab hold,” he told her, gritting his teeth as he shimmied his body back against the jagged stone ground. He groaned with effort as he pulled her up and over the ledge.
The minute she rolled to safety, Kyle was on his feet, the black blade in his hand pointed toward the gigantic creature descending to them, all razor fangs and fury. He swung and it dove beneath them, the wind off its wings blasting them up against the side of the wall. “Sera! Hellfyre. Now!”
She stood, still shaky, her fiery swo
rds flaming from both hands just as the huge raptor attacked. Kyle hacked at one moss-green wing and Sera at its exposed underbelly. Yellow bile spurted from the creature’s mouth and bubbled into the ground at her feet. “Acid! Don’t let it get on you, Kyle,” she shouted. “It spits like a camel.”
“Great. Dragon-camels in hell,” Kyle muttered, dodging the stream that came his way as he sliced a new gash on its wing. The demon’s scream was horrible, echoing off the walls of the cavern. “Sera, you can make anything from hellfire, right? Like other weapons?” She stared at him in confusion. “Arro—” he shouted.
He’d barely gotten the word out when the creature’s tail hit him square in the head, sending him careening into the solid rock wall. He slid against it and crumpled to the ground near the edge where Sera had gone over, and as he looked over the lip, his stomach sank. The abyss was moving. It was a sea of black writhing bodies—a sea of rising writhing bodies!
“Sera, we have to get out of here,” he shouted over his shoulder. “Something big and ugly is coming up the bottom of the abyss.”
Kyle glanced back at the cave they’d come through and it was full to the brim with the leech-like demons, the scent of fresh human blood drawing them out. He shuddered, his blood curdling at the thought of those things sucking the life out of him.
He twisted and saw Sera approaching the raptor demon that had landed on the ledge between them, gripping the wall vertically with its clawed hind legs. Kyle blinked, not believing what he actually saw, but when he looked again she was still flameless and moving closer to the demon, palm outstretched, until he couldn’t see her behind the thing’s neck. A soundless scream parted his lips. What was she doing?
“Sera!” he finally yelled.
Either she didn’t hear him or she chose not to. He pulled himself to his feet, grimacing as stars blinded his vision and pain throbbed in his skull. He inched toward them just as Sera came back into his line of sight. She moved directly under the demon’s neck between its body and the rock wall, her right palm sliding against its hide. Even where he stood, Kyle could see the rune glowing through her skin, her power consummate.
“Sera?” She nodded for him to approach.
“Slowly,” she said softly, her palm still on the demon’s side.
As Kyle got closer, he realized just how big the raptor demon was. Its wingspan was near forty feet long, those wings now folded back against its body. It was the color of green muck and was striped with black markings. Six spikes protruded from its head, with two on the underside of it. It had a long sharp beak with rows of black teeth and a black soulless eye that saw right through him. It snapped its beak when he was within a few feet of Sera, and he jumped.
“It’s OK,” she soothed it, rubbing her palm in circles. “He’s … my servant.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow and quelled a disbelieving snort. If Sera’s new pet could get them out of the rising tide of dead things coming toward them, he’d be its number one fan. Sera looked at him, a half-smile curving her lips.
“He doesn’t trust you.”
Kyle kept his voice low and nonthreatening. “Now that’s just hilarious. A demon with trust issues.” He stepped closer. “What else does it say?”
“He says that you are a boy playing with weapons you don’t understand. He says the sword’s name is Mordas.” Her voice grew quiet. “And he says that you will betray me.”
“And you believe that? The words of a demon in hell?” His rising tone earned him another snap from the demon, one so close to his head that he jumped back.
“The girl demon called the sword by the same name, remember?”
“I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about it saying I will betray you!” Kyle said heatedly. “Sera, can’t you see it’s trying to come between us? We’ve proven already that we’re strong together, so now they want us apart. You have to see that.”
She smiled again, but didn’t reply to him. Her behavior confused him. “Come, Izei will take us to the top.” She climbed on the bend of its hind leg and hoisted herself onto its shoulders.
“Sera—”
“We don’t have a choice, Kyle. We can’t go back, and at some point I need to trust who I am, and that even here, there are beasts and demons who will be loyal to me.” She patted the raptor demon’s neck. “As Izei is.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because he’s marked with my rune,” Sera said. The demon turned its face and Kyle saw the same sigil Sera had on her palm etched into its first horned spike. Its other eye was blood red, and he felt another tremor pass through him.
“What if it’s a trick?” he said, still reluctant to get on behind her.
“Then we die,” Sera snapped, exasperated. “Either we die here with that thing coming up from the abyss, or we die this way. Get on!”
“OK, already,” Kyle said as he climbed on behind her. “You don’t have to be bossy just because you’re the queen of hell or something.” The touch of the demon’s hide was not cold and scaly, as he’d expected. It was almost hot to the touch and felt like lizard skin. He held Sera around the waist. He looked down as the demon circled slowly up the cavern until the ledge where they’d stood disappeared from view, and still they kept climbing. There was no sign of anything above them except more darkness.
Kyle stared at the walls, which were covered in small grotto-like caves. He squinted, disbelieving. “Are those people crawling up the walls?”
Sera followed his stare and shook her head. “Not all of them. Izei says they’re damned to this pit. When they try to escape, he casts them back.”
Kyle felt a shudder surge through him. “Where’s it taking us?”
“To the top of this abyss, where Ra’al and Azrath are … where Dev is.”
Kyle felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise and he leaned forward, pressing into Sera’s back. “What if it’s a trap?” he whispered into her ear.
“I trust Izei,” she said, and Kyle wanted to kick her for being so obtuse. He gnashed his teeth in frustration but remained silent until he felt the beat of the demon’s wings start to slow.
After what seemed like eons, the demon rose into a black cavern with shiny lights mimicking a starry night sky and alighted. They dismounted, and Sera thanked the beast and then released it. Kyle’s eyes narrowed as the demon-raptor dove off the edge, its blood-red eye lancing into him, and he could have sworn a smile distorted its mouth as it sped past, hurtling down into the pit below. Kyle rounded on Sera. “Seriously, what is wrong with you?” he hissed.
She returned his gaze calmly. “What would you have had me do, Kyle? Say that I didn’t trust a beast while riding it thousands of feet above an endless abyss?”
He stared at her, mute. “I guess you have a point.”
“Of course I didn’t trust it, but we didn’t have much of a choice back there. I recognized the rune that I saw by chance and compelled it to obey me. Izei is an overlord demon of this particular pit. He’s very strong and very smart. He knew exactly who we were and that we’d fought Alis. Information spreads faster than wildfire here.”
“So, does that mean that Ra’al knows we are here?”
“You can bet on it.”
“What’s the plan?”
Sera shook her head, momentary panic darting through her eyes. “I don’t really have one. Find Dev and Nate, portal out. I’m not sure we can do much more than that.”
“But if he knows we’re coming, won’t Dev be heavily guarded, especially if they know he’s Trimurtas?” Kyle guessed that the demons were toying with them, especially if they already knew who they were and why they had come. It seemed more certain that they were being drawn into some kind of elaborate trap.
Sera sighed, shaking her head. “You’re probably right, but I don’t see that we have any choice. The minute we stepped foot here, the reigning Demon Lord knew it.”
“But they don’t know that you’re Sita, so we have some advantage, right?”
Her
lips twisted in a wry grimace. “Even if they don’t, which I’m not sure about, they know who you are and about that gift of yours. We have to assume that whatever Azrath knows, Ra’al knows.”
Kyle stared at her. “We’re going to die, aren’t we?”
She couldn’t help but laugh at his deadpan expression. “Come on, a little optimism, please. For all we know, Dev could be in a room by himself with no demon guards, just waiting for us to spring him.”
“Or, we could die.”
She chucked him in the shoulder and walked toward the center of the huge cavern. For such a large open place, it smelled musty and dark, like a hot attic. Kyle followed her to the back of the room, staring at the fake stars.
“Can you see the patterns?” he whispered. Sera turned and shook her head. “They’re like pictures, like constellations, only demonic ones. Just like the last room. Can’t you see them?”
Sera narrowed her eyes. “I don’t see anything. They just look like white dots to me.” She moved back to where she’d been standing. “There’s a door here. I think we should check to see if Dev’s beyond it.”
Kyle felt woozy, his blood thudding in his ears as the stars above started to blur and the floor felt as if it was spinning. He wanted to lie down and let it all embrace him, to close his eyes just for a minute and savor the feeling of power in this room.
“Kyle? Kyle!” Sera slapped his face and he felt his eyes move thickly to hers. “What’s wrong?”
He gazed into the constructed space above them. “Maybe my mother was right. I do belong here. I haven’t felt like I belonged anywhere ever, and now suddenly… ” He trailed off.
“Suddenly what, Kyle?” Sera grabbed his shoulders and shook him roughly.
He stared at her as if he was seeing her for the first time, her features blooming into sharp focus. “I belong.”
“No.” She shook him again. “Look at me.” His felt his eyes roll in the back of his head, something sucking him back down into that place where he felt good, comfortable. It filled every part of him with power—the darkness he’d been suffocating for months sucked it in like a starving creature. He inhaled deeply, clenching his fingers into fists.
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