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“When is this ritual happening?” I queried.
“Tonight. With the full moon.”
Damn. That left like no time for anyone to find and rescue me.
“Is it going to hurt?”
“Oh, yes,” declared the demon wizard with a lick of its thick lips. “It requires much blood. Your blood. The question is do I slice your throat for a fountain of it or do I cut you in many places that you might suffer more?”
“Well, that sucks.” I pouted. I know, not the most useful thing I could have done, but fuck me, I had no ideas. I was bloody hogtied. I could rock on my belly and not much else. Maybe I should hump my way into the dirty channel of water and drown. It had to be less painful than what they suggested. The problem being, I didn’t want to die.
Not to mention, killing myself would be giving up without even trying. I had to try. I couldn’t lose hope. Miracles did happen. Look at the Maple Leafs. They’d finally won the Stanley Cup for the first time since the sixties.
The demon wizard spun around at the same time as every other monster in the place. Did they hear something? Because I sure as hell didn’t over the panicked beat of my heart.
The fat fucker uttered a low noise, part growl, part bark, and gray minions scattered, diving into the water to swim through the hole on my left. Only a handful remained behind with the wizard. The rats also dove into the water and disappeared.
Good sign? I mean, why else would so many of his hench-demons scatter unless he was worried? And why would he worry unless someone had come looking? Please let them be looking for me.
The fat demon stood, but he didn’t walk. He floated across to me, the stench of him watering my eyes. At least he’d tucked away his cock.
“I think it’s time we got ready,” he announced. With a wave of his hand, my bound ass floated from the floor and bobbed behind the chunky demon as he glided his way to the hole opposite the one his minions left by.
A hole that had only a few inches of space between its top edge and the water.
Before I could protest, I’d been dunked. I only had enough time to close my mouth and eyes before being dragged like flotsam through the dirty stream. It didn’t take long before my lungs protested, aching to breathe, but I didn’t dare part my lips. In the rare chance I lived, I’d have to douse myself in bleach and take a course of antibiotics to counter whatever microbes had infiltrated my body.
When my head finally surfaced, I gasped and spat and gagged. I dared anyone to not be sick at shit water coating their lips.
I could barely see. Only the faint green glow from the fat demon showed us in yet another tunnel with us skimming above the flowing water.
Getting closer and closer to my demise, but at least I wouldn’t be alive to feel bad about the apocalypse my death would bring about.
19
Vance
Vance grimaced as his foot slipped on something slimy. His shoes would never recover, and just when he’d gotten them broken in. Fucking demon shit not only corroded everything it touched, the stench of it also never fully faded.
“How much farther do you think?” he asked Cain.
“Not a fucking clue. These tunnels go for miles. Who knows where they took her.”
Strange how fate brought them together after so many years of not seeing each other at all. There used to be a time they called each other brother. And then Claire came along. Convinced them both that she loved them, pitted them against each other, had them scrapping to the point Cain had said, “No woman is worth this. You want her, have her. I’m done.” At the time, Vance saw it as a victory until he’d gone to see Claire and found her in the arms of another.
The realization she’d played them didn’t mend the friendship. On the contrary, humiliated and angry, Vance had been unable to apologize to his best friend. Unable to get past the fact they’d let a woman destroy their friendship.
And now here they were, working together again because of a woman. Vance couldn’t say he loved Sadie, but he wouldn’t deny being attracted. An attraction he saw reciprocated in Cain. Oh sure, the big guy tried to hide it, but Vance could see it in the way Cain worried at each intersection. How he snapped when the reapers moved too slow.
He cared about Sadie.
Which meant Vance couldn’t. Not easy, given he’d been intrigued from the moment they met. Her expression had been shell-shocked, and yet she wasn’t a blubbering mess. He’d never been more stunned than to hear her claim she’d seen demons, an admission she’d later retracted. He couldn’t blame her for that. Those who couldn’t see the monsters never believed.
“Dead end,” announced Beau, one of the younger reapers who’d joined them. “We have to turn around.” The tunnel ended in a wall with a channel cut into it for water to flow.
“I don’t think so.” Cain shook his head. “The demon tracks lead here. They must have gotten into the water to cross.”
“Demons don’t like to get wet,” Beau insisted.
