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The head cartwheeled, blood splattering, and the twisted body slumped. I stared, catching my breath. “Is it dead?”
Ethan’s glowing charm faded, and he nudged the body with his foot. It rolled over, lifeless. “For now,” he said. “But the damned don’t get off that easy. It’ll rise again with the sun. Best we keep going.”
“Kane’s place?”
He nodded, up the street, and, for the first time, I noticed a blackened tower, looming stark in the distance against the red-stained sky. Lightning crashed, and smoke drifted from the sharp battlements, shimmering in deadly heat. Huge carrion birds—or worse?—flapped lazy orbits around its summit.
I blinked. “No way. Don’t remember seeing Sauron’s fortress last time I shopped in Toorak.”
Ethan grinned. “Nor would you. Kane lives in a town house there. That”—he stabbed at it with his finger—“is a manifestation of his power status in hell.”
I glanced around. Any meaner, more gruesome-looking buildings? Of course not. I sighed. “Demon dick-measuring. Great.”
“Arm wrestling would be more accurate.”
“Whatever,” I muttered, “it’s stupid macho bullshit.” The town house would have suited me fine.
“It’s just a pecking order. It works for them. Until idiots like us blunder in and screw it up.”
Ethan shook black blood from his sword, and together we advanced up the broken street, shoulder to shoulder, only a few feet apart. He didn’t sheathe. I didn’t either. But it felt kinda nice to have him at my back.
At the road’s edges, creatures snarled and paced, hairless hyena-things with skinny bodies pale like sides of meat. They
watched us pass with beady red eyes, their throaty laughter unsettling. Sweat stung inside my corset, down my neck, between my fingers, sucked away to nothing by the hungry air. Scorched buildings threatened, their windows smashed and bloody or melted to dirty globs. Every sound made me jump. Frantic footsteps drew near, then receded, and gunshots cracked, the sounds of a running battle. Screams and insane giggles echoed through the side streets, leaping out at me like unseen foes.
I wristed damp hair from my forehead as we clambered over an upthrusting twist of asphalt that blocked the road from sidewalk to sidewalk, ten feet high and littered with sharp rocks. “So how d’you know all this stuff?”
“I’ve been here.” Ethan hopped upwards, sword still in hand, balanced and agile like a mountain goat.
I sheathed my knives to scramble over the rubble, and the hot rock scorched my palms. My boots slipped, and I scrabbled for a hold. “Really? Never would have picked you for a recreational user.”
“I’m not. But if you want to grow, you have to face your fears.” He straddled the broken top of the slab and reached down for me. “Allow me, madam.”
I rolled my eyes and grabbed his wrist, and he hauled me up.
I sat facing him for a moment, catching my breath, my feet dangling. The stink of brimstone soured my mouth. I peered over the edge. Beneath us, where the road once lay, a chasm gaped, down and down into distant depths crackling with flames.
A fat green snake slithered from a crack in the rock, striking at my thigh with three hissing heads. I flipped out a knife and skewered it at the junction of three necks. Drew the other and sliced all the heads off in a splash of smoking venom.
“Mmm. Tasty.” I flicked the squirming carcass off my blades into the pit. “Fears, huh. Didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”
Ethan watched the snake fall and gave it a mock salute. “Everyone’s afraid of something.”
“Like what?” I scoffed. “Death?”
“Yes. Aren’t you?”
Wow. No evasion. No flip remark. That’ll teach me. “Umm … yeah. I mean, I guess. Shit, look around us, dude. Knowing there’s somewhere to go doesn’t mean it’s all roses after we kick it. D’you think…”
I hesitated, that prehistoric danger alarm growling deep in my belly again. Truth alert! Hide!
But I wanted to know. I took a deep breath. “D’you ever think about damnation?”
“Of course. Not everyone believes magic is good work.” His glacial eyes warmed. “But you do, right?”
My heart did a little somersault. Christ on a double cheeseburger. No man should have such clear, sweet eyes. Not for the first time, I wanted to dive in and drown.
We hadn’t had an honest conversation in years. I’d forgotten how much I liked it. “I guess. What do you think?”
