Dark Days

CHAPTER 28

There was no adequate way to prepare someone for a visit to Hell, so Jack didn’t even try. Pete had seen things that few mages even dreamed of—places like the Land of the Dead, the white nothing comprising the slivers of space between the worlds, a purgatory where things lived that most people couldn’t even have nightmares about. She’d seen things through the eyes of the Morrigan and the Hecate, had even brushed up face to face with Nergal. Jack figured she was a lot better prepared to handle Hell than he had ever been.

Still, her expression when Belial brought them to the waiting room outside the vault wasn’t pleased.

“What in the holy fuck,” she said, “is that smell?”

“Crematory furnaces,” Jack said. “They feed the damned into them, burn them to ash, and mix it with blood to feed the elementals.”

Pete paled, breathing through her mouth. “I am never eating a hamburger ever again.”

Belial took a deep breath. “Smells like fresh air to me, sweetheart.”

The demon tried to hide it, but Jack saw the beads of sweat working down from his hairline, staining the collar of his pristine white shirt. If they were caught, he and Pete would merely be dead meat. Belial would be at the mercy of the Princes, and Legion, for the rest of his demonic lifespan.

Belial glared at him. “You feeling sentimental, Jackie?”

Jack shook his head, gazing around a corner down the long hall leading to the vault. It was the same featureless steel bulkhead as the inside, the only hint that this wasn’t some boring bunker back in the daylight world the three Fenris standing guard over the vault door.

“Where’s your distraction, crow-mage?” Belial grumbled. “About time to start throwing fireballs, don’t you think?”

Jack gave Belial a wounded look. “Come on. I am capable of being subtle sometimes.” He was starting to feel the sweat creeping over his own flesh. It was Hell, it was hot, and they had about three more heartbeats before the Fenris realized they weren’t supposed to be hanging around and ate them for an early lunch.

“Do something, Jack,” Belial snarled in his ear, “or I’m going to.”

Jack was about to turn around, clock Belial in the jaw, and make a run for it when a pop sounded at the far end of the tunnel and one of the Fenris cried out, swatting at his eyes.

Hrathetoth appeared in midair, bouncing from the head of one Fenris to the next, digging its claws into their eyeballs, yanking their hair out by the roots and peeling their skin off in strips.

Three more pops sounded, and Jack saw a trio of smaller, furrier, toothier versions of Hrathetoth appear, setting on the Fenris like piranhas on a prime cut of filet mignon.

“Look at that,” he said to Pete. “He brought friends.”

“He really hates sausage, I guess,” Pete muttered.

The tiny demons took off running, climbing the walls, skittering along the ceiling, laughing and cackling in their demonic dialect. Jack didn’t speak it, but he could tell by the way the Fenris reacted that Hrathetoth had called their parentage, and quite probably their genitalia, into question.

The Fenris pounded after Hrathetoth and its friends, completely ignoring Pete, Jack, and Belial. Jack plastered himself against the tunnel wall until they passed, then hurried to the main doors.

“Big, scary, and dumb as posts,” Belial said when he caught up with him. “You have to love Baal’s best and brightest.”

“Blood.” Jack pointed at the row of three spikes set into the doors at chest level. Belial bared his teeth.

“I’m aware of my part in this.” He rolled up his sleeve and pressed his forearm into the spikes. “You know, you could be a little more grateful. I am spilling my blood for anyone who cares to collect it.”

“You’d also sell me to the Princes in a heartbeat if we get caught, so cut out the martyr song,” Jack said. “I’ve heard it before, and it’s second verse, same as the first.”

The doors groaned open. Jack heard the Fenris howling in the distance, and his chest didn’t unknot until the vault doors had sealed behind them.

“You two have fun,” Belial said, rolling his sleeve down. The punctures had already healed to black spots, Belial’s blood bubbling against his pale shark-belly skin. “I’ll be right here when you’re through.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “How do I know you’re not directing me right into a booby trap?”

“One, because we want the same thing, and if we don’t get it we’re all fucked right up the arse with a pole the size of the O2 Arena,” Belial said. “And two, you don’t. Your choice is to trust me, and get this done, or not trust me like you always have before, and watch things get progressively worse until you’re in shit up to your ears. Again, as always.”

Pete plucked at Jack’s sleeve, which was good, because the rage was coming on again and he was finding it difficult not to take a swing at Belial. Not because the demon was wrong, but because he was right. Belial was a survivor, and Jack had a decent hunch they were on the same side, but he also remembered Belial’s face when Jack had been his prisoner, tortured beyond all endurance.

Belial had enjoyed that. It was a truth Jack could never quite slip away from, no matter how much history had built up between him and the demon since then.

Because it meant he’d never fully put his trust in the demon, no matter how desperate the circumstances.

“Fine,” he said. “But if you try to fuck us, Belial, when I have the blade I’m finding you and using you as a practice run for Legion.”

“I never tire of these little chats we share,” Belial said. “They make me positively glow inside.”

Pete tugged at Jack again, sharper. “Come on,” she said. “Clock’s running.”

Jack turned around. It was the only thing he could do—turn his back on the demon and hope he didn’t end up with a knife in it. He followed Pete down the narrow hall inside the vault, but he still felt the demon’s eyes on his back, and he knew if he turned around he’d see Belial’s mocking grin.