Devil's Punch

by Ann Aguirre

  Chasm of Despair

  I moved toward the tunnel. The Gorder roused, ready to snarl, but I drew on my full power. Magick snapped through me like a live current, and when I spoke, it gave my voice an odd burr. “You trust me. You love me. You know I would never hurt you or your hoard.”

  It gave a questioning trill, and Butch yapped. The effort of holding the charm hurt. The magick burned deeper as I edged backward. I motioned for the others to follow me. Come on, I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

  To my vast relief, Chance and Greydusk slid past. Butch followed.

  “Stay,” I told the lizard-worm as I exited.

  To my astonishment, it listened to me. The creature didn’t budge as I led the way through the channel, which sloped up toward the surface. I shook all over in reaction. I let the magick drain out of me as I saw the gray light of Sheol. I scrambled out of the hole and waited while Greydusk summoned the carriage.

  “We must hurry,” it said.

  Well, obviously. I cast the demon an evil look as it filled our ride with Klothod. Shudder. I’d never get used to that.

  In short order, we got moving again. The plain descended into a valley that was framed on two sides by rocky bluffs. Dark, red-veined rock didn’t resemble anything I’d ever seen on earth; it was like diabolic marble.

  Greydusk followed my gaze and said quietly, “Don’t let it touch your skin.”

  Since the carriage was whizzing along at a crazy, jarring speed, that wasn’t probable. But still, I asked, “Why not?”

  “This is called the Chasm of Despair for a reason.”

  At those words I took a closer look over the side and saw that bones littered the ground here. Their posture was…disturbing, as if someone had leaned up against the cliff for a rest, and then just never mustered the will to move. Despair, I thought, and a chill rolled through me. There was an insidious power in this place, one that sapped inner strength and hope and made you feel as though it was too much trouble to try.

  Chance wrapped an arm around me, his expression grim. By the look in his eyes, he felt it too. I leaned into him, more frightened than I cared to admit. Even the demon knight in Peru had been a foe I could fight. How do you combat cursed demon rock? Yeah, exactly.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and ignored the rising impulse to throw myself out of the moving vehicle. Because clearly we were doomed. We couldn’t save Shannon. In the end, nothing I did mattered. My mother had died, and I couldn’t help her. I’d hidden like a coward. My father, shit, he left ages ago, probably because he saw I was worthless. I should’ve let Shannon perish in Kilmer because at least it would have been faster than what awaited her in the hands of the demons.

  Heaviness spilled through me, dark as blackberry wine, and I listed, ready for everything to stop. The futility, the struggle, the failure—I wanted it all over. There was no hope. No purpose. No point. I threw myself toward the edge of the carriage, but Chance was there. He caught me.

  His arms went around me, tight as steel bands, and he put his face against mine. “Fight it, damn you. You’re stronger than this.”

  Stronger than what?

  “You don’t know anything,” I said wearily. “I’m a fake and a liar, Chance. Which you’d already know if I wasn’t both those things.”

  “Corine—”

  “You think I’m a good person, but a good person doesn’t do deals with demons, even to save her own skin, maybe especially then. You remember the demon from Kilmer? In Laredo, I did business with it. I summoned its mate in return for help against the Montoyas.”

  Shock tightened his features, but he recovered. “You wouldn’t have done that if you’d had a better choice.”

  “Wouldn’t I? After I summoned Dumah, I forced Maury to give me a better bargain. And then, later, I used her true name to summon her. She’s how I defeated Montoya and his sorcerous brother. I fed them to her.” I heard myself saying these things, and I couldn’t stop. The words were poison that had to be lanced, right then, or I would die.

  “Do you feel better?” he asked.

  But I wasn’t done with my confession. “While you were trying to find a way to win me back, I was with someone else. I slept with Kel in Peru, and—”

  He kissed me. It was a time-tested way to shut a woman up, I supposed. Afterward, he held me. Argued with me. Distracted me. Before I could fight him in earnest, we cleared the chasm, and the effects faded. Just enough for me to realize how stupid I’d been, how much I’d told him, and hot color flooded my face. I had meant to come clean with Chance, but not like that. I could’ve chosen my moment and my words better. Greydusk sat like a statue beside me, carefully not looking at either of us.

  Gods and goddesses.

  “How do you not hate me?” I asked.

  He pulled away slowly, and I missed his warmth, his comfort. “This isn’t the time to talk.”

  Chance couldn’t be happy about the demon summoning or the destruction of human souls, even bad ones. Who would be? Especially since we were in Sheol, the demon capital of the universe.

  “But Kel…?”

  His jaw tightened. “Obviously I’m unhappy about that. It’s a knife in my gut, imagining you with him.”

  Embarrassment kept my cheeks hot; I shouldn’t have crumbled so fast. Maybe that spoke to my lack of fortitude—or it might be the unholy rock still at work in my head. Surely, though, he couldn’t have imagined I’d abstain. I mean, I never expected to see Chance again, let alone have him devoted to winning me back.

  In silence, I linked my fingers together and studied the incredible vista rising before us. The city was…immense. Imagine the biggest human metropolis, like Mexico City or Tokyo, and then multiply it times two. Or four. A sense of spatial relationships wasn’t my strong suit. The point being, Xibalba was an enormous urban sprawl. The demon city looked like a baroque painting with round, classical lines, but a little too vivid, as if it was realer than anything else around it. That impression made me distrust my eyes.

  Tall stone towers rose up from the city center, and a dark, sooty pall hung over everything. It might come from industry, I supposed, though that was an odd thought. Demons, working in factories, demon teamsters—and that sent my brain to places I’d better not go. If I started seeing demons as like humans, who had daily lives and went about them the best way they could, I’d lose the only surety I possessed—that they were the evil, the enemy, and must be vanquished at all costs. Shit. The possibility that all demons weren’t one hundred percent wicked was already lodged too deep to shake out. I was in so far over my head.

  The carriage took us to the walls, where a guard stopped us. A magickal glow swirled around the stone, layers of protection when glimpsed through my witch sight. I cocked a brow at Greydusk while we waited our turn. There were numerous conveyances ahead of us, many of them Gothic or unlikely, straight out of a Tim Burton movie, and the denizens of said coaches were more exotic still.

  “Do you see anything interesting about the fortifications?” the demon asked.

  I squinted. The walls were really tall. I shrugged.

  “No?” But the question made me wonder what I wasn’t seeing, so I switched to witch sight, and the walls glowed with scintillant color. “What’s that?”

  “The light?” it asked.

  I nodded.

  “The Vortex. It keeps undesirables out.”

  By which he meant monsters like the Gorder. I pointed. “And over there?”

  It looked like a shantytown, shacks built out of scrap wood and stone. I glimpsed shambling figures, but they were too far away to make out details. Please don’t let that be a human slave labor camp.

  “Those are the Xaraz, demons who have been convicted of a crime and stripped of caste status.”

  “You don’t have prisons?” Chance wanted to know.

  Greydusk seemed puzzled. “What is the purpose of feeding and housing our criminals? Outside the walls, they will fight to live or die. Some perish. What punishment c
ould be worse than that?”

  “Our prisons claim they’re striving toward rehabilitation,” I offered.

  “And how’s that working out?” The demon scoffed.

  I had to admit, I took his point. “Aren’t you worried they’ll get back in?”

  “They cannot. The Vortex requires each vehicle or pedestrian to possess a rune of passage, or the energy field destroys them.”

  “This one does, right?” I leaned over to look at the front, as if there would be magickal license plate on it.

  “Of course.”

  Then it was our turn at the gate.

  The guard asked something in demontongue; he looked more or less human, except for his tail. It twitched in impatience while he discussed our entry with Greydusk. I could only guess at what they were saying, but the language grated on my ears, simultaneously harsh and sibilant. Then our demon produced some documents and the guard waved us through.

  “What did you say?” I asked, once we passed into Xibalba proper.

  “That I am an Imaron guide in service to Sybella of the Luren. And here are my contracts, providing provenance for the arrival of two specimens.”

  Chance laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called that before.”

  Me either. But I was too weary to take offense.

  In exhaustion, I felt unable to take in all the wonders; the city blurred before my eyes as we clattered over rough stone streets, which seemed to be laid out in concentric circles. After we passed through another set of gates, we were ushered inside a magnificent estate. We waited a while, and then a silent, gorgeous male Luren guided us into a sumptuous chamber to confront Greydusk’s boss.

  Sybella wasn’t just beautiful. She was…I didn’t have a word. Her hair was black silk; her skin gleamed like a pearl. Her eyes shimmered like tropical waters, and her mouth was lush and succulent like dew on a perfect red rose. Shit. I was only looking at her out of the corner of my eye, and I already had an uncontrollable urge to the throw myself at her feet and lick them.

  Double shit.

  Beside me, Chance studied the patterns on the floor.

  Sybella was speaking, but I found it hard to focus on her words. She smelled luscious, cinnamon and candied apples with the richness of a caramel slightly burned, a sugar-sweet scent that made me step toward her, before Chance grabbed my arm. Even her toes, which I was studying intently, were lovely. Her feet were slim and high-arched, alabaster pale and smooth as marble. A layer of polish gleamed in a surprisingly innocent shade of pink, and the effect was…disarming.

  “And so, I am pleased to make you welcome in my home,” the Knight of the Luren caste concluded.

  Unfortunately, I had no idea what words had come before. Not an auspicious beginning. But maybe if I admitted I had been distracted, she might be flattered. Then again, she must be used to affecting people that way, and so it would merely reveal me as a weak link. Damn it. I cast a sideways glance at Greydusk, but its impassive expression gave me no sign as to how I ought to proceed.

  “When would you like to get down to business?” I asked.

  It was a bluff, of course. For all I knew, she might’ve already offered me a deal, but I suspected Sybella wasn’t the type. Such efficiency would strike her as uncouth.

  “You need rest,” she said smoothly, “before you can be expected to begin complex negotiations. I give my word that you will be safe in my house.”

  At this, Greydusk inclined its head slightly. I could trust Sybella to keep her promise. Like most demons, I imagined she would twist any agreement to her advantage, but this was a simple matter.

  So I nodded. “I’d appreciate an opportunity to freshen up and sleep. Chance will share my quarters.”

  “You’re dismissed, Imaron.” The scorn in Sybella’s voice raised my hackles, but I didn’t dare meet her eyes to express my reaction with a dirty look.

  Greydusk planted its feet beside me. “With all due respect, mistress, you lack the authority to discharge me.”

  Sybella went arctic. “Pardon me?”

  “I have completed my contract with you in good faith, and the Binder now employs me.”

  “I…see,” the knight said quietly. She stepped toward me as if to take my arm to guide me somewhere, and I darted out of range. “And you’ve been busy, filling her ears with tales, I see. Not necessarily with an eye toward my best interests, Imaron. I will not forget this.”

  “Indeed.” The demon sounded like it didn’t give a damn.

  Not nearly soon enough, Sybella summoned a lesser Luren to show us where we would stay for the time being. This one smelled delicious too, like nutmeg and allspice; he was golden like a lion, with tawny hair and gilded skin and eyes like layered topaz. He shot me a lazy, gleaming smile as if he sensed my rebellious hormones. I didn’t want any demon to affect me like this, but at least I wasn’t alone.

  This was sort of their purview, after all.

  Balls to the Wall

  The hallways were palatial yet other. On the floor, patterns looked alien, laid in black and bloodred tiles. It seemed like a preternatural path the longer I studied it, but before I could unlock the riddle of where it led, the Luren paused outside an ornate basalt door, etched with peculiar symbols. Greydusk studied them and then gave me a half nod.

  “They are protective sigils.”

  “I am Gilder,” the minion went on. “And I will be stationed outside your quarters for your own protection. In the event our people grow…curious.”

  That wasn’t why. Well, at least not entirely. But I already knew that demons could tell partial truths. He was in charge of making sure I didn’t escape this complex before Sybella got whatever she wanted from me. I pretended I didn’t realize the difference because it couldn’t hurt if they underestimated my intelligence.

  Greydusk leveled a flat, black gaze on the other demon. “And I will be guarding the inside of the door. So be warned.” That was all it said, but the tone sent shivers down my spine.

  By this point, I was so tired that I was swaying on my feet. Chance opened the door and we stepped through to a suite that would charm a Turkish potentate. Everything was gold and scarlet, not restful colors but opulent ones. And the furnishings were baroque in the extreme, as if I’d wandered into an old pleasure house. Yet everything gleamed, showing no signs of age.

  “Thank you,” I said to Greydusk.

  It paused in the midst of securing the door. I thought I had surprised the Imaron. “Knights do not thank their servants, Binder.”

  “I’m not a knight.”

  “No,” it agreed. “You are she who could be queen.” It settled on the sofa near the door, guarding me.

  I didn’t have the heart to start the argument over again. It would be fruitless to claim I had no interest in ascending—whatever the hell that meant—and it might undermine the demon’s loyalty. Right now, Greydusk thought it was getting in on the ground floor of my regime. So I inclined my head in what felt like a laughable manner, but the Imaron didn’t react with mockery, as I half expected. Instead, it bowed.

  “The bedroom’s through here,” Chance said.

  I followed, needing sleep in the worst way. It had surely been more than one day in the real world, but it wasn’t like I had a watch that could convert from Sheol to Mexico time. However, my body felt as it had during the worst moments of my life, when I didn’t have a bed for the night and would try to snatch some rest in the bus station while keeping one eye out for cops, terminal employees, and people who had bad things on their minds. The result back then had been this same dry-eyed, bleary exhaustion, so I guessed it had been two days.

  Our room had an enormous bed with heavy red velvet drapes; it was worthy of Henry VIII. Expensive tapestries with disturbing characters woven into patterns made me dizzy, mostly because they seemed to dance before my eyes, as if they wanted to assemble into forms I could understand. Chance closed the door and went around the room, looking for trouble. I could tell he was dowsing from the low-g
rade crackle in the air that raised the hair on the nape of my neck.

  “All clear?” I asked when he stopped by a set of double doors.

  He lifted a shoulder in a familiar half shrug. “Seems to be.”

  Chance flung open the doors, revealing an otherworldly garden. I had no words for the shape of the plants that grew here, but they were dark and twisted, thick with thorns. Their stems shone like coppery metal with a patina of green; each leaf was a sculpted marvel, and the flowers exuded a siren smell, so that I wanted to step onto the stones and bury my face in the petals. At the thought, the foliage shivered around me as if it craved that—needed to slice my skin and drink my blood.

  I stepped back at once, my flesh crawling. The beauty was unearthly, but it was dangerous too. “Butch can use the bathroom out here, but let’s keep a close watch on him. I don’t trust this place.”

  “Me either,” he muttered.

  When I peered into my purse, which Chance had been carrying, I found Butch sound asleep, and despite my best efforts, I could not wake him. He had been fine, after the crossing, but this didn’t look natural. Come to think of it, he should have reacted to Sybella, yapped a warning or something, because she had been a threat. Which meant he’d been out ever since we entered her compound.

  I shared a worried look with Chance. “What do you think?”

  “Not good.”

  Though it was futile, I tried a little longer to rouse the dog. Maybe I had a spell that could wake him, but I was too tired to risk Butch’s safety by trying to cast. Look at how I screwed up the forget fog.

  Quietly worried, I crossed to the other door and flung it open to reveal a bathroom. It was ridiculously posh, even more so than the one I’d used at Escobar’s estate. Even the fixtures were gilt. Whatever. I didn’t care what the place looked like, as long as it had running water. And it did. I thought it might come out stinking like sulfur, but it was smooth and soft, falling over my body in a hot rush.

  I didn’t let the pleasure seduce my senses. I kept myself on task and used the soap and shampoo provided—so odd to think of demons like Gilder bathing. That made them too relatable. Shaking my head at the additional correlation, I stepped out of the tub and dried off. I had no thought to teasing Chance, as I’d done at the old house we rented in Kilmer.