“The minotaur,” Randy said.
“I thought so.” Lix sighed as he uncapped his flask and took a swig. When he finished, he shook the last few drops into his mouth before recapping it and setting it on the table. “It’s a bad time to run out of alcohol.”
I stared at the sunlight shining off the surface of the flask as I processed Randy’s words.
“Theminotaur as in the labyrinth minotaur?” Hawk asked.
“That’s what it looks like,” Randy said.
“That’s what itis,” one of the demons said. “I know the minotaur; I’ve seen its pictures on the caves in Hell, and it’s here.”
“The minotaur was behind seal one hundred twenty-six,” Corson said, and his gaze went to the doorway. “Humans got some of its story correct, but instead of the labyrinth being created to house the minotaur,itcreated the labyrinth to trap and hunt its prey.”
“Wonderful,” Wren muttered.
“This town is its holding pen, and its maze is in the mountain, or at least that’s what we assume. It comes down to hunt at night and takes its captives up to the mine,” another demon said.
Bale sat with her back ramrod straight and her eyes on the door. “It only comes down to hunt at night?”
“Yes,” Randy said.
“How often?”
“It’s always different,” the same demon said as he ran a hand through his blue hair. “I’ve been here for three months, and it’s never come down at regular intervals, which is why we think its maze is in the mountain. We think it turns its prey loose to hunt through the labyrinth, and some prey takes longer than others to catch.”
“I’d say that’s a good assumption,” Corson said. “Why don’t you all group together to fight it?”
“We do,” Randy said. “Every time it comes down, we try to fight it, but we haven’t found a way to stop it.”
“It barges in here, we fight it, sometimes someone ends up dead, and it still takes who it wants,” another demon with two tusks curling like a handlebar mustache out of the side of his face said. “Sometimes, it takes multiple people and demons back to its lair. The selection is completely random too. We’ve seen it take people and demons who arrive that day and others who have been here for months. It doesn’t care about sex or age, human or demon. It randomly decides who it’s going to play with next before taking them away.”
“With no pattern, its harder to anticipate its movements,” Bale murmured.
“I can anticipate slicing its head off,” Lix stated as he tapped the handle of his sword.
“I’ve come across many creatures in Hell and more of them since the seals fell,” the blue-haired demon said, “but nothing like this. The thing’s a ten-foot-tall, unstoppable beast.”
“It has to have a weakness,” Hawk insisted.
They all looked at each other, and most shook their heads while a few shrugged.
“It doesn’t like fire,” a man said. “But fire doesn’t stop it.”
“Great,” Hawk muttered.
Nadine glanced at where Oliver sat in the corner tossing a ball back and forth with a demon who had two clear horns on his head. Nadine leaned over the table and cast her voice low. “It took Oliver’s mother a couple of weeks ago and his father before we arrived here. We’ve been taking care of him, and he’ll stay with us if we ever get out of this, but if that thing comes for him…”
Her voice trailed off as tears filled her eyes. Randy took her hand and lowered it into his lap. A sense of panic clawed at my chest while I watched the beautiful boy giggle and toss the ball back.
Despite everything he’d been through, joy still radiated from his glowing, white soul. There was little hope in this world, but Oliver offered so much of it. He was the future and I didn’t care what I had to do, I would make sure he survived this.
“We won’t let that happen,” Hawk said.
“Why didn’t you put up signs or set guards to warn people away from this place?” I asked.
“We have put up signs,” Tusks said. “But the beast tears them down, and there is too much land to cover to place guards all over town. There are still some signs left on the other side of town, and we were going to place more up today, but you arrived before we could.”
Lucky for us.
