Nothing can happen to Carter.
The tall demon walks toward me and I strain my neck to look up at it. “Fine,” it says. It leans into my ear. “But if Kriegen doesn’t want you then we’re taking you piece by piece.”
I nod, the image of me being cut up into bite-sized pieces clear in my head, and swallow. “Glad that’s clear.”
The demons laugh as they take hold of me and yank me off the ground—arms, legs, one for each demon—and there’s a whistle and a popping in my head that makes me scream. Everything gets fuzzy around me before it fades away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hell is not what I expected.
It’s not flames and fire and pitchforks, it’s white—except for the fact that there’s blood splattered all over everything. The ground, the walls, the demons, the dead. Some of it’s dried and black, some shades of brown. Some is fresh, crimson, streaked, and dripping. The wound from my arm is adding to the decor. Besides the noise of the demon chatter, there’s the occasionally sharp sound of screaming, then silence, made worse because I’m waiting for the screams to start up again.
My demon companions pull me off the ground and my knee gives from the harsh landing. I wobble and the she-devil kicks me. It better be glad I came here willingly. As we walk, I try to see as much as I can, but it’s more like a hospital. There are long hallways and door after door. Everything looks the same, white with the splatters of blood; a stale smell that seeps from the walls as if they painted them with sulfur.
I imagined hell would be more like a carnival—demonic fun and games, food, freaky clowns who kill with squirt flowers—not so still. We continue down a hallway of endless doors. Screams squeeze through the cracks of the closed ones and the open ones feature silent souls. I’ve never seen a soul before, but from my quick glance, it looks a lot like a regular body, only paler. And dead.
One of the doors opens for me and they shove me into a metal chair.
“Tie her down,” brown loafers boy says.
“Really?” I say. “I
volunteered
for this, remember?”
It leans into my face. “We allowed you to come, and you are our guest.”
“This is how you treat your guests?” I ask as punk kid ties the rope.
“No, we treat them much worse,” it says. Everyone laughs again.
I take a breath and try to center myself, to stay focused. I’m quiet as I watch them. All four of them scurry off in different directions, but their attention stays on me. Tall demon is the only one who disappears from sight, up a set of stairs in the corner of the room, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be back with Kriegen. I just need to play along right now.
When Kriegen gets here, then I’ll negotiate.
I tap my fingers along the arm of the chair, since they’re the only thing besides my feet that can move. “So, this is hell? It’s not really what I thought. I imagined more crazy torture and eating of flesh, and less rooms with doors that lock. I don’t even have that at home.”
The girl snarls at me. “It’s not Buffy.”
“You guys get Buffy down here? That’s some great reception.”
The punk kid hisses something at the girl. It hisses back. It sounds like nothing to me down here, just noise. Which is a little weird. Maybe
my
reception isn’t so great down here.
“This isn’t hell,” brown loafers says. The other two hiss at him but he ignores them. “This is De’Intero—the space between earth and hell.”
“Janksow,” the girl snaps. “Shut up now.”
He shrugs. “What? We’re going to kill her anyway.” Brown loafers circles the outskirts of the room, its eyes on me. “This is where we bring the humans we like to play with. Sometimes we steal them from earth. Other times we yank their measly souls from hell and give them some entertainment.”
My skin crawls. I don’t really need much imagination to figure out what they do. The blood and the sound is enough.
There’s a loud bang, the sound of heavy doors slamming shut, and then the tall one reappears. Its eyes are on me as it walks down the stairs, and as soon as it hits the landing, the door opens again. This time it’s the sound of heels clacking on the floor—and I don’t see Kriegen until it starts on the steps.
And it’s in human form.
Its black hair is all I see first. Lots of long, curly black hair. Its skin is pale, paler than most; its lips are very red and its eyes are deep, dark recesses lost under heavy lashes. Then it smiles, and if I hadn’t been tied to this chair I would’ve run away. Even in its human body I can see the evil, piercing evil. Shameless.
“Sorry for the delay. I wanted to find my best body for you, kitten,” it says. It moves toward me, heels clacking, and I see it nails—long and red, sharp enough to stab. I may need to rethink some of my earlier planning. “It’s not every day someone volunteers to come below.”
I shrug. “I was a little bored.”
It laughs, and the others laugh, too. They all stop at the same time. Creepy. Kriegen steps towards me, runs its fingernails over my skin. “No need to be coy, kitten. I know why you’re here.”
I raise an eyebrow, waiting for it to continue. I’m not saying anything yet. I need to know what it thinks she knows. Kriegen leans into me, inches from my face, and for the first time since its appearance, I can see the skin around its eyes turning translucent. Its stolen body is already dying.
“I remember you from the woods,” it says. “You didn’t stay around to talk that day.”
It was there? Which one was it? “I was in a hurry.”
It scoffs, amused. “What’s your name, kitten?”
“Penelope,” I say.
Kriegen smiles and repeats it. My name sounds like poison coming off its lips. I kind of don’t want it back now. It stares sidelong at me. “Why are you here?”
“I’m looking for something.”
Kriegen rolls its eyes. “I don’t know where the yellow brick road is and I’m not feeling particularly chatty.” It turns its back on me and snaps its fingers. “Drain her.”
The demons all chuckle as they circle in. They pull at my ropes, leading me across the room to a round wheel that’s been stained with the blood of other victims. I kick my legs, but the four of them overpower me and force me against the circle. They laugh and my feet are forced in these holders; my arms strapped above and there are chain locks and Kriegen is back at the stairs.
“They can’t drain me!” I yell.
“Don’t worry, kitten, they’re good at it. You won’t feel pain for very long,” it says without turning around. The girl secures the last lock around my wrist and I’m stuck. I have no other choice, but I shouldn’t do it. This is a dangerous card to play. It better work.
“I don’t have an essence.”
At my words, the four demons that were just figuring out how best to drain me—and the most important, Kriegen—all freeze. It turns around, its feet between stairs, and looks back. “I thought I smelled something.” It sniffs and smiles. “A demon halfling.”
The room is silent for a few minutes too long. It’s still. The other demons all back away from me as Kriegen swats its hand in the air. It moves slowly back toward me, and the closer it gets the more my gut tells me this feels like a mistake. It’s in my face again, exploring my eyes. And I’m stuck against this wheel of death, completely at its mercy.
It steps back and inhales the air. “Do you know why you smell so good?”
“Cherry vanilla body wash?”
It snickers. “A witch has a certain odor, a pure spark of the freshest rainfall and the cleanest breeze in the summer all wrapped up—but at its core, at its purest form. Like sugar cane before it’s been diluted. It’s delicious. It’s what draws us in, makes us want you, an endorphin, if you will.” It sniffs the air, moving closer to my face. For a second, I think it’s going to lick me. I hope not, because there are some things that are just not okay.
“But you, kitten, you are the opposite of that. You don’t smell like a spark or rain or a breeze, you smell like power. Pure power, empty and open. You smell like the void, but with whipped cream on top. You are decadent.”
“Thank you.” I smile.
It laughs and wags its finger at me. “I like you.”
I don’t respond and it walks around me in circles.
Think, Penelope, think
. I always get myself into these situations, but I have to get out. What can I do? How can I maneuver my way out? My brain races through the CEASE Squad Handbook. None of the usual rules will work since I’m tied down. I need magic. Magic I don’t have.
I’m screwed.
“You aren’t a usual halfling. No essence, you say? Then despite your decadent smell, you’re pretty useless on your own,” Kriegen says. It walks around me still and I feel like maybe it’s just trying to make me dizzy. “For you to have power, then you have to absorb it.
“I’ve smelled you before. In the woods, right?” Kriegen moves around the room, all her demon lackeys watching her, mesmerized.
“The black demon.”
“You didn’t even try to save that witch, but when you escaped my demons I knew I’d underestimated you.” It wags its eyebrow at me. “You saw the whole thing, so it should make sense to you.”
“What should?”
“You saw what my dagger did to the witchling? How it released her power? You absorbed it. When magic is free it has to go into the nearest void,” it says. Then it wasn’t Carter that day. It was the dead witch. “The void was made to be filled; the essence was made to be released. That’s why witches pull from the elements, while demons create from the void.”
The void helps them create. As in see something and make it happen. That’s how my magic works. “Why didn’t you just take her magic for yourself?” I ask.
Kriegen chuckles, pushes my hair behind my ear. Great, now I’m her doll. “I don’t need her essence. I’m a transformed demon. I have limitless magic.”
“You used to be a witch.”
“Indeed,” it says. It steps back, its shoulders high, and looks at its human nails. “I was a very good one too, but it was all so boring. So I denounced my essence, killed some poor unsuspecting witches, escaped my overbearing husband, and transitioned. It was a fast transition, only a few months until I was fully changed—but here I am. I’m one of the lucky ones. Only the strong survive that change, you know.”
I need to get it back on track because it obviously has my answers. “You said there were a few ways for me to get power.”
It sighs, like it’s bored. “They’re all the same basically. You’re the overflow,” it says. Kriegen moves around the room and snaps its fingers. Punk kid brings it a tall stool and places it right in front of me. It sits, crosses its legs. It has on Jimmy Choos. A demon with fashion sense. That’s not disturbing.
“Let’s say you meet another halfling.” I give it a look because halflings—the offspring of witches and demons—are outlawed. They’re a complete abomination. Just like Emmaline’s children were. And, technically, me.
Kreigen chuckles. “There are more than you think. Just because the Triad fears that they have too much magic doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen,” she says with a smile.
“The halfling, let’s call him Teddy, would have an essence
and
a void. When you have both, imagine it like two forces at war, oil and water, pushing down on each other because witches weren’t made to hold both. So Teddy meets you, and you have a big hole where your essence used to be and”—it snaps its fingers—“he’s more powerful than before. And so are you.”
“Why?”
It shrugs. “Simple balance system. You would pull from the void, since that’s your remaining power source and because the essence is more powerful. It doesn’t want the void in there. All the pressure is because the essence is already trying to push the void out. So the void would push out and flow into you and Teddy would be freed up anytime you used his untapped magic.”
I try to act uninterested, but my heart is pounding and my head is reeling. That makes sense. It’s why magic with Carter is easier than magic with anyone in my family. My essence is an outline, a leftover glimmer, and the void is what makes me have crazy magic. If this is real, then Carter really
is
like me. He’s a halfling too. God, that makes so much sense. Does he know what he is?
Kriegen looks at me, a cat playing with a mouse. I’m glad I’m so entertaining. “Penelope, kitten, you don’t seem to know much about how your magic works.”
“I don’t,” I say honestly.
It sighs and moves from its stool, back into my personal space. “I could tell you a lot more, teach you a lot more. I know what it’s like to have a power you don’t understand. I can train you.”
“Train me to what?”
“Absorb power—unlimited power. You can harness the void if it’s your truest desire. We’ve been searching for one like you.”
I stare at it. It does sound appealing, to be in control of my magic, but then I wouldn’t need Carter. I mean, I would need Carter because I love him, but what would happen? Could I really get my own magic? Not to mention I’d have to trust a demon, to be trained by one and take down my own people. That’s not happening.
“I have another question,” I start.
“Enough answering questions. I’m bored. I’m going to ask you one.” It looks at me. “Why are you here?”
“I told you—”
It squeezes my chin in its hand. When it’s this close to me, I can see that its human body is starting to melt off under its power; it’s too strong to be contained by a vessel.
“The real reason,” it hisses.
I meet its gaze. “I came to save my boyfriend.”
“Your boyfriend. How pathetically romantic.”
“Yeah, I thought so, too. What with the facing impending death and all.” It slaps me, its claws digging into my face, tearing some of the flesh. It hurts, but I won’t give it the satisfaction of crying out.
“You have a snappy tongue and it’s getting you into trouble,” it says. “What’s this boyfriend’s name and why would we have him here?”
I start to answer, but there’s a crash in the hallway and screaming. Kriegen points at two of its minions to go check it out. As they move, the ceiling falls in on them. I close my eyes, in some lame effort to protect myself. When I look up, I see Carter, smiling at me. Kriegen stands against a wall, not thwarted at all by the intrusion.
“You must be Kriegen,” he says to it. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
It presses its lips into a smile and pushes off the wall. “You’re the boyfriend.”
“Guilty,” he says. He holds out a hand to it. “William Carter Prescott. Can’t say it’s a pleasure.”
It looks at his hand, but doesn’t take it.
“Smart choice. It’s laced with this really disgusting butter spray—and butter has an awful lot of salt,” Carter says. Spray-on butter. I love him.
It’s all very quiet for a second as Carter leans into me on the wheel. “I’ll get you out of this,” he says. His hand moves over mine as he tries to undo the wrist restraint, but it doesn’t budge. His magic, the void, forms in my gut, as Kriegen laughs behind Carter.