"Right."
"The realm or the… uh.” God, I couldn’t believe I was asking this. “The planet Hell?"
His steps faltered and something clattered to the ground. “You know?” He swore in a language I’d never heard before. “I’m gonna have to fill out so much paperwork when I get back.”
Bad Mother reappeared with a restraint to tie Orion’s hands. I waited for Orion to object. I waited for him to explain or say anything. Why wasn’t he saying anything? He stared down at the floor of his club. He didn’t even object when Bad Mother approached and tied his hands together.
Only one demon was talking. So, even though I wanted to scream at the silent incubus, I questioned the chatty one first.
"What are you?” I guessed, “A demonic dimension-hopping bounty hunter?"
"I solve problems,” the man answered cryptically. “No demon from Hell has permission to be in the forbidden world.”
“Except for you?” I filled in.
“Retrieval agents do what we need to do. It’s my job to bring him back to the sixth circle where he belongs. I assumed you two geniuses were responsible for bringing the demon here in the first place, not like he could get here on his own."
“He can’t?” I was still in the dark here. “Is that how it works?”
“Yes, when you’ve been banished from the planet,” Bad Mother said. “Somebody on Earth had to undo the banishment to let him return.” Right. Orion mentioned Lex’s banishment. That’s why him having a partner hadn’t surprised him. Did that mean someone else was helping him instead?
“So, you thought I helped Lex get here,” I realized. “While I thoughtyouwere working with Lex."
"And I thought you were charmed or terrified or just stupid,” he told me with a smirk. “Then you told me you were going to stop him and I realized the brothers planned this on their own."
“Then it’s a good thing you didn’t manage to kill me, huh?”
He waved a hand as if a little attempted murder was just water under the bridge. "I was warning you," Bad Mother explained.
"With knives.”
He smirked again. "What saysstay awaylike knives? Some danger and bleeding could snap you out of your compulsion and get you out of the way.”
Okay, twisted as that was, it made a kind of sense.
Bad Mother took the Hell to Earth express train to find the demon who escaped, Lex. Orion’s freaking brother. The bounty hunter from Hell assumed I was a willing or unwilling pawn in Lex’s schemes and tried to scare me away.
Meanwhile, I assumed his scare tactics were warning me not to oppose Lex and get in his way. But it turned out we both were against him and were more or less on the same side.
The guy still scared me, but that was probably normal once a literal demon from Hell chucked flying knives at your head. But now that we’d cleared things up, the knives were safely sheathed and he seemed more interested in subduing Orion and recruiting me to his cause.
“Are we good?” Bad Mother asked me. “Your Lex doesn’t belong here anymore and can’t succeed. If you’re over your weird student-teacher fetish with him and want to stop him, then we’re on the same side.”
"Student teacher thing?" I wondered.
“Isn’t that how it started? But I think one of us is translating wrong.”
He lost me there, and before I could ask what the hell he was talking about, Orion finally found his voice again.
“There’s just one problem,” he said,
"What, me?” I stared at him in shock. “I’m the problem here? Because I’m not as gullible as I was the first time?" A cracking sound echoed in the room. Bottles behind the bar shattered. My magic lashed out.
This couldn’t be right. But all the pieces were slotting together in a horrifying picture. Orion even said it himself. Lex and I were tied by our blood, but I knew more about the supernatural world this time. So the first thing I’d do is go to whatever lengths were necessary to break our connection, unless I was given a reason to keep it.
It felt like my magic crashed into my heart and shattered it in my chest like those unlucky liquor bottles on the shelves.
"Rob, let me explain." Orion finally met my gaze and I had to turn away. I couldn’t let myself get sucked back in. “None of this was supposed to happen. I never expected us to sleep together, the risk was too great with your magic and my hunger. I-I… I tried to tell you so many times.”
