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That fear Lucifer and I managed to chase away earlier is back, fully-formed and irrepressible. I’m out the door in an instant, and the little demon flinches away from me like he thinks I’m going to hit him.
“Take me to Lucifer,” I tell him.
He bows sharply and spins on his heel, marching double-time down the hallway. He leads me toward the family wing, which seems odd. Maybe there wasn’t time to get down to the council chambers, or maybe Cephalus didn’t want to waste time getting dressed before calling in the cavalry.
“Will the others take issue with me showing up during a council meeting?” I ask. Not that I would be dissuaded by that, but I’d like to know who I’m pissing off before I do it.
“The council meeting has ended,” he tells me. “I’m to take you to the point of departure.”
A quick impulse to grab Lucifer’s hand before he poofs out of this plane and hitch a ride to earth nearly strangles me, but I shove it down. I don’t know all the ins and outs of this plane-hopping demon stuff, and as far as I know I could as easily lose my hand as go to Earth. Heck, I could end up in a different dimension altogether, I don’t know.
The unknown dangers do little to dampen the impulse. I’m furious that Cephalus is taking Lucifer from me again so soon, and it’s making me rebel against everything from the arbitrary rules of Hell society to the laws of the universe, or multiverse, itself.
We’ve passed the family wing now. The staircase which leads to the entrance hall is just up ahead, and I take half a step in that direction before I realize that my guide is going the other way. Frowning, I follow him down the long hall which skirts the outer edge of one point of the pentagram.
“Where are they departing from, exactly?” I ask him.
“The departure point,” he says.
“Okay, but where is that? The last time they went to Earth they left via the courtyard.”
“Courtyard is for full ranks. Only a small number are departing tonight.”
“Oh, but you still haven’t told me where they are.”
“This way.”
I’m living in a den of vipers, and I had nearly forgotten that fact because of my worry for Lucifer. My heart pounds and my awareness spikes, like the world suddenly switched to high-definition. I’m in danger. The string-pullers around here have been using me to get to Lucifer since before I even arrived, but as far as I know, no one has tried to use Lucifer to get to me. Until now. The conclusion of that thought pops unbidden into my head as the demon takes me around a corner and down a dimly-lit staircase.
I don’t even know what this wing is for. Not for entertaining important guests, that much is certain. The longer we walk, the more neglected grime and chipped paint I notice. The stewards spend so much time cleaning up the effects of over-indulgence in other parts of the palace, it isn’t surprising that some areas would go untended for longer periods of time. I can’t picture Cephalus walking through here voluntarily, though. He’s fastidious in spite of his surroundings, as evidenced by the full platoon of stewards who always seem to be buzzing around the throne room.
No, Cephalus wouldn’t come here, not without an extremely good reason. A counterstrike doesn’t qualify as a good reason, I don’t think. It’s not like Hell’s army has to contend with war protestors or anything, they could leave from any room in the house.This is a trap.
“Didn’t you say it was this way?” I ask him, pointing back the way we came.
“It was, when we were over there,” he says in a patronizing tone as he points toward the center of the palace. “Now it’s this way.”
“Why would they come this far just to teleport?”
The demon keeps marching and doesn’t answer right away. I hesitate, internally freaking out. The demon isn’t very big, he’s not quite as tall as I am, but he’s a demon. This is his turf, maybe more his than even the King’s, since he knows how to get from one end of the palace to the other without making important people wait. He’s also fast, I’ve seen him deliberately slow his stride to accommodate my frantic pace. I have to assume he’s stronger than I am too. Subtlety and silence are my best defenses. Now, if I can just figure out where we are and how to get back to familiar territory, I might have a shot at getting out of this.
The demon pushes through a door which leads to a long, wide corridor. He quickens his pace, trying to force me to run to keep up—so I won’t notice where we are, maybe? To my right, the smells of recent and violent debauchery are a shining beacon back to relative safety. I follow my guide most of the way across the corridor, then—just as he ducks through a low, narrow archway—turn on my heel and sprint.
With a grating snarl and a blur of movement, he blocks my retreat. For an instant, his face is twisted in a look of pure hatred. He fixes his expression into one of firm politeness, but he’s neglected to adjust his posture. He stands tall and forceful in my path; I’m not fast enough to dart around him before he can stop me.
“I beg your pardon, Miss,” he says without a hint of that affected anxiety. “You appear to be going the wrong way.” His left hand twitches ever so slightly, and a beam of cold light flashes off something near his wrist. Panic beats through my veins as I force myself to acknowledge the weapon—a thin, razor-sharp dagger, held with the calm, casual grip of a person accustomed to using it.
If there’s one thing that’s been drummed in every little girl’s head since the dawn of time, it’s that when faced with a situation like this where an attacker has you cornered but there’s a crowd within shouting distance—you shout. Hysteria has gotten as many women out of as many situations as it’s gotten them in to.
I jump and shriek as if I’ve only just now noticed what he’s holding. “A knife! Why do you have a knife? Somebody stop him, the servants are uprising!”
Frankly I don’t think anybody is going to be interested in my sudden and bloody demise, but they might be a little perturbed about servants acting outside their expected boundaries. He comes to the same conclusion and lunges at my throat with the knife, his face contorted in equal parts fear and fury. I’m expecting it, already dodging before he moves, but I’d need to be psychic to stay ahead of him for long.
He’s off-balance. I elbow him hard in the ribs as I dart past him, hoping to keep him off-balance or even knock him down. I get three steps away before my arm ignites in a narrow strip of blinding pain. I scream, authentically, as I duck and run. He threw the knife and it embedded into the floor after slicing my flesh. I dodge to the left, dropping my uninjured arm down to try and grab the hilt before he does.
My fingers barely brush the cold metal before he flies into my back like a cannon ball, slamming me to the ground. He’s hissing and growling like a cat, trying to strangle the scream out of my throat. Pushing against the floor with all my might, I manage to launch him off me. Maybe he isn’t that much stronger than I am, but he’s fast and skilled, and unless I learn kung-fu right this second, I’m screwed.
Shaking him off bought me a few seconds at most. I’m half-crawling, half-running down the hallway and I can feel his breath on my ankle, my calf, the back of my neck. I’m going to die, right here, right now, and the only thing I want in all the worlds is to see Lucifer’s face one more time before this grimy rat takes me down for good. His name crosses my lips in a breathless whisper as the demon connects with my shoulders, sending me to the ground once more.
