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He ushered me off the tram at the Domain Road junction, where leafy plane trees sprawled over the wide median strip, and traffic lights buzzed amid the nest of electric-tram wires. Across the road, tall buildings loomed in moonlit shadow.
We crossed twin roads to the park, where dead brown grass crunched under my boots. I shrugged my jacket comfortable over my knives, and Ethan adjusted his sword. He’d worn the weapon openly while we sat on the tram, the air slick and sparkly with his don’t-see-me spell, and no one noticed a thing. Me, I just wore a jacket.
Kane lived in one of the more fashionable parts of town. We’d just caught the last tram, and it rumbled its doors shut and carried on, around the corner the same way we were going. “We could have ridden that all the way to Chapel Street,” I grumbled, more for something to say than because I cared. “Did we have to get off so far away?”
Ethan tidied and refastened his ponytail, the long blond ends flicking his shoulder. “Actually, yeah. What do you think would happen if we flashed into hell right by Kane’s front door?”
I scowled. He always had to phrase everything as a question, like he was teaching me. “Umm … I guess we’d get our asses chewed by demon rent-a-cops?”
That sunflash smile. “Something like that. Better to approach from a distance. Keep your eyes open, it’s—”
“Yeah, yeah. A wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious. Thanks for the heads-up, Obi-Wan. You ready or not?” I uncorked my poo brown vial and brought it to my lips, wrinkling my nose against the stink.
He grabbed my wrist, halting me. “Weapons first. Be prepared.”
I sighed and whipped out a knife, just in case. And before he could offer to go first, I tilted the vial and chugged.
The foul sludge hit my tongue, and I gagged. Grit coated my mouth, burning, the taste putrid. My throat squeezed tight, refusing to let the filth in. But I had to swallow, and I sealed my lips shut and choked the feral hellbrew down.
It burned, and hit my stomach like an acid bomb.
Agony clawed my guts, and I screamed. Darkness blotted my vision like evil ink. My bones filled with fire, flesh tearing, tendons popping. Howling split my ears. I struggled, but nothing trapped me, and with a sickening vertigo lurch, I fell.
Concrete smacked against my chest, squashing my breath away. My skull bounced, jangling, and everything was still.
I cracked an eye open, and blood dripped into it. I blinked. Charred buildings, broken concrete, a scarlet-stained horizon beyond dead trees. Acrid smoke stung my eyes. I tried to crawl to my feet, only something heavy and warm held me down.
“Ethan, let go.” I wriggled, and he helped me up, his arm steady around my waist. Even in hell, he smelled like herbal soap.
“You okay?” His murmur brushed my ear, reassuring.
“Sure.” I pushed him away, flexing my fingers around my knife. Nighttime, but dry heat scorched me like sunburn. Ash drifted, but no breeze stirred the parched air. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. Bloodstained clouds boiled low and threatening—how could there be clouds when it was drier than a witch’s corpse?—and lightning cracked the sky, illuminating the street with an eerie flash.
I squinted. It looked like Domain Road after the apocalypse. The same as the real world, only the trees were blackened stumps, the buildings scorched, the road cracked and tilted in chunks as if a mighty earthquake had split it apart. Broken glass and charred metal littered the ground. Thunder boomed, deafening, and across the street, a ruined office building burst into flame, filling the air with ash and the stink of burning flesh. Gunfire ricocheted, and from somewhere, I heard the clash of iron.
“Charming.” I rolled my shoulders, trying to relax. Ethan just stood there, poised and calm. Damn it if I wasn’t glad I hadn’t come alone. “Now what—”
An almighty screech tore the air, and a bundle of leathery skin and claws landed on us in a cloud of fetid stink.
I staggered backwards, instinctively arcing up my shielding hex. My pendant shivered, and protective sparks crackled around me.
But the hellbeast just snarled, scaly snout slavering with six-inch razor teeth, and slashed my hex to smoke with curved claws. It gibbered, its rotting tongue mangling the sounds. “Bith. Eeeyor meet, bith. Meeeet … yummm!!”
I reeled, revolted. Those were words. I think I just got invited to dinner. And Mr. Ugly had opposable thumbs. Lips. Eyelashes. A mutant lizard-thing on two legs, a hybrid of reptile and man.
Steel sang as Ethan unsheathed his sword. The beast laughed, a thick, cancerous sound that made me retch, and spat a lump of festering filth. Ethan dodged, and the stuff boiled and smoked on the broken concrete.
I whipped out my second knife, but somehow I couldn’t throw. I swallowed, sick. “It’s human, Ethan. It’s a fucking person!”
“Not anymore.” Ethan whispered a charm, and the faint lines on his muscles glowed red. He circled away, and his movements blurred, faster than I could watch. “It’s a corrupted soul, and it’s hungry. You want to be dinner?”
No, actually, I didn’t.
I muttered a poison curse and hurled both knives at once. The toxic blades carved a deadly arc, slicing into the beast’s hide. Black blood sprayed, the stink of rotting meat. My bangles vibrated, and the knives ripped free and slapped back into my hands.
The beast howled, poisoned steam hissing from twin gaping wounds across its chest. It swatted at the burns, but they bubbled and spread like acid. I stabbed for its bulging eyes. It staggered back, and Ethan danced forward like a deadly ballerina on speed and slashed the thing’s head from its body.
