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We followed the woman as she waddled up to the counter, where a single key was waiting, attached to a laminated card with a number on it.
“Room 666,” she grumbled.
Of course it was.
“And don’t take the elevator. Don’t work. All the way up the stairs.”
On the second floor, she explained, which hardly made sense, but there we were. Whoever this woman was probably knew who or what she was working for. The Beauregard was clearly out of service, probably only kept open to accommodate the unfortunate, desperate few who needed to come to Belphegor for favors and contracts. She watched us with hard eyes, taking wheezing tokes of her cigarette as Florian and I clambered up the stairs.
Rickety, naturally, and you had to watch your step because they were covered in that same carpet that was coming off the floor in sheets, curling up at the corners. Up on the second floor, the only light came from windows at the far ends of the corridors. Belphegor wanted to keep an active tether, sure, but I guess no one in their right mind would pay to light a whole unused floor, even if it was only for the rare supplicants who made their way up there.
Room 666 was at the far end of the hall, in a dead end that didn’t have windows opening out into the sunlight, which I suppose made sense for the den of a demon prince. The third number six had fallen off its top screw and hung off the edge of its bottom, so that the room number read more like 669. Dangling that way, it swiveled and squeaked as I unlocked the door.
Florian grunted noncommittally, as unimpressed as I was with the rest of the Beauregard, and with the room. It looked like your standard hotel room, just way dumpier from years of disuse, thick cobwebs hanging like great drapes of silk and dust from the ceiling. Thin shafts of light pierced through the grubby windows, the room’s curtains thrown open and left that way by its previous occupants, illuminating the queen-size bed in the middle of the room.
It also lit up the circle drawn on the floor.
That was arguably the newest thing about the entire building, a geometrically perfect circle inscribed in metallic paint, with the bed as its center. Those were the ingredients for a communion, after all: a circle, a drop of blood, and an offering.
“Well,” Florian sighed. “It’s now or never.”
This was the part I’d been dreading all day, hell, since the night before when Beatrice Rex handed us our instructions. The two of us had to get into the bed. Anyone who wanted access to Belphegor’s hell had to start by throwing themselves onto this musty old mattress. The thick layers of dust were not at all encouraging. The bloodstains in its center, less so.
But get in the bed we did. I balanced my duffle bag on my stomach, then raised my hand to the ceiling, clutching my fingers in time around the shaft of a dagger that I’d summoned from the Vestments. According to Belphegor’s directions, no incantation was necessary to enter the domicile. All we needed was the intent, the instrument for bloodletting, and, of course, a sufficient amount of blood.
I hesitated, the knife over my torso. “I’m still not so sure about this, Florian. What if this is a trap?”
Florian placed his hands behind his head, trying his best to relax despite the utter weirdness of it all. “I doubt it.
You’re far more useful to the Seven alive than dead. I’d be more worried about what Belphegor might try to pull on you when we get into the domicile, rather than the process itself.”
“Fair point.” I stared at the point of the dagger, taking a deep breath as my muscles fought the impulse of what I was about to do. “Okay. See you on the other side. Here goes.”
“See you there, buddy.”
Florian’s breathing made the mattress shift, but it was soothing, rhythmic, a reminder of the small, silent patterns of life. He shut his eyes, ready. I sure as hell wasn’t, but now or never, exactly as he said.
I shoved the knife in my heart.
9
I wish there was some way of telling you what happened next without making it sound so awful, but I also wish that I didn’t have to enter someone’s home by stabbing myself in the chest. Whatever happened to a doorbell, or some brass knockers?
No. I very cleanly felt the bite of divine steel as it cut through the flesh of my chest, then carved down into my heart. I felt the agonizing fire of my heart, the vibration of its beating and thrashing running up the dagger’s point, the hilt faintly throbbing in my hand as the life left my body.
I heard Florian’s soft, sorrowful, uncertain whispers as blood flowed in impossible amounts from the depths of the wound in my chest, as crimson red gushed out of me in horrible waves. I saw the sunlight fade and the world around me blur as I died. I heard Florian drowning on lungfuls of my blood as the both of us sank into darkness, into the wet, warm depths of the bed in the Beauregard suite.
You want to know my theory on why an incantation wasn’t required for that communion? That was a lie. Belphegor got exactly what he wanted, the sick fuck. The gurgling noises I made as blood filled my throat, the desperate inhalations of breath I took as my body shut down and died – that was the incantation.
If all this wasn’t proof enough of the fact that Belphegor was a gigantic asshole, I don’t know what else possibly qualifies.
When my eyes flew open, I sat bolt upright, gasping for air, clutching at my chest for the hole that I’d cut into myself, the gash directly over my heart. But there was nothing there.
My clothes were still drenched in my own blood, though. Next to me, Florian was coughing, sputtering, choking as he spat out great mouthfuls of blood that he’d swallowed from the wound that was no longer in my chest. The mattress underneath us both was soaked through with sticky, warm blood that I was no longer so sure even belonged to me.
You know who would have had fun with all this? Sterling. For sure.
I squeezed my fingers, testing to see if the dagger was still there, but it had returned itself to the Vestments in the brief seconds that I’d passed out and away from the real world. I blinked, rubbing my eyes blearily with hands already crusting over with drying blood, then looked around.
