A few of them waddled up to the opening and sniffed, but none of them ventured out.
It appeared they were smarter than they looked.
I had to give them some credit. I didn’t want to go out there either. But before I could toss them out one by one, a tremor shook the ground, followed by a loud hum. It sounded like a hundred elevators had engaged at once. I glanced around me, somewhat surprised. The sun had set and I hadn’t noticed. I’d been too busy trying to free myself from the manacle.
The humming sound whirled for about ten seconds. The piglets began to squeal like never before. Their cries held an anguish I was beginning to feel myself as I watched all the doors across the all the buildings slide open at once.
5
I was frozen into place as I watched hundreds of demons emerge from the newly opened doors. They filed out into the square in orderly rows. They were all dressed alike in the same outfit, a dark-colored jumpsuit with what appeared to be zippers up the sides. They could’ve been strips of metal, but I couldn’t see the small details because the twilight made it too hard.
Every demon exiting the buildings had very precise features. Human, but too sculpted. No flaws, hair perfectly slicked back, skin shiny. They clearly mimicked their leader in their appearance. It was surprising they weren’t in their more reptilian forms. The Prince of Hell had been glamoured on my plane, so here, on their home turf, I’d expected to see the demons in their truest forms. It seemed like a lot of work to be glamoured all the time. But there was no mistaking it, they’d all been ordered to look the same—exactly like the Prince himself.
It was super strange and more than a little unsettling.
My wolf snarled, snapping me out of my stupor. I dropped to the floor of the gazebo. We were out of time. None of them had spotted me, as far as I knew, which was a miracle. But then, they hadn’t been expecting an intruder. Having a fugitive in their midst had likely never happened before. But they would scent me soon enough. I was covered in rancid piglet juice, so that helped. It was weird to be thankful for putrid blood and guts, but at this moment I was. I also smelled, at least partially, like a demon. I hadn’t triggered any of their alarms yet, so it was safe to assume whatever magic had mixed with mine was keeping me cloaked for the time being.
Before I could decide if I should flip the lever in the ceiling, clear liquid started pouring over me from small sprinklers that had just emerged from strategic points around the gazebo. A beat later small drain valves slid open in the floor. As the strange wetness coated me, a voice came over a loudspeaker in a language that was clearly Demonish, followed by English, likely for the imps: “Cleaning commencing. Please wait in an orderly line.”
The liquid flowing over me, however, wasn’t water.
It was thicker and slimier—like water mixed with gelatin. The bits and blood attached to my body coagulated and slid right down the drains, cleanly and efficiently. We have to escape before the cleaning is over. This has given us a few minutes grace period, but we have to move. The piglets scurried around squealing and slipping in the liquid gel as they struggled to find some traction.
I shimmied on my belly, batting them away from me, and made my way over to the TV trays. The hatch was just big enough for my body to squeeze through. It would’ve been nice to know what was down there ahead of time, but it had to be better than what was up here. Right? I didn’t have to worry about convincing myself for long, because there was no way I could take on a legion of demons myself. It was exactly like what I’d told Tyler and Danny when we’d scaled the mountain to Selene’s lair. An army of anything could defeat even the strongest supernatural.
The plastic trays had to have been stacked by something, so that meant a workroom or assembly line below. That equaled places to hide until daylight. The demons had come up in elevators, so their habitat had to be underground. Going below was my only option now that the horde was here for their evening meal.
I grabbed a handful of trays and lifted them out, trying to slide them as quietly as I could under the benches. Instead they shot like Frisbees around the slippery mess and the piglets hissed at the intrusion. I ignored them. Luckily the clatter was covered up by the still-running sprinklers in all the gazebos. The cleaning process was loud, and all the other piglets had started shrieking like never before, knowing dinnertime was upon them.
The trays were piled shoulder-deep in the hole. Once I reached the end of the line, I could see they’d been stacked on a hydraulic lift of some kind. I grabbed the last few off and tossed them to the side right as a red light on the bottom started to blink and a low noise issued from the lift. This thing is going down to refill. Let’s go.
The trapdoor started to close on its own. I dropped my knees in, ducking low, barely making it before the hole sealed up from the top. As the lift started moving downward, I realized a good portion of my hair had caught in the seam. “Ow!” I cried, as I reached up to rip the ends away before it was torn completely out of my head. There was no time to lament the loss. I was away from the legion of hungry jumpsuited demons, so that was well worth the cost of some hair—hair that would regenerate within moments.
I crouched on the lift, making myself as small as I could. But I wasn’t achieving inconspicuousness, because I was dripping wet. Thick, pudgy water droplets lazily rolled off me and plunked somewhere below. If anyone was down there, they would be alerted to something strange by the unexpected shower from above. But I had to admit, it was a relief to be wet and not bloody. Not only had the liquid bathed me, it had also somehow eaten away any blood and guts that had been left behind.
I was squeaky clean.
The lift began to slow. The ride hadn’t been a long one. We take the element of surprise. Before it came to a full stop, I dropped into a small dimly lit room filled with equipment and cages and cages of squealing piglets. I did a full scan, staying low in my fighting stance.
There were no demons in sight.
At my arrival the chatter of the little beasties increased. The lift came to a complete stop, engaging with a long, motionless conveyor belt that went between the walls, likely linking the gazebos together. I crouched next to it and ran through a row of supplies parallel to the conveyor. The room was stacked full of trays and strange-looking implements. The cages lined the back wall. I stopped, peeking my head above a low shelving unit. This room was about the size of a modest living room. The conveyor belt ran the entire length and disappeared through a cutout in the wall.
All at once the thing whirled to life.
I stood slowly, examining it as it started to move. It was more streamlined than anything I’d seen, sleek with lots of shiny metal. Most of the noise it made was drowned out by the continued squealing of the piglets.
Time to make my exit.
There was only one door. As I rushed over to it, I realized it had no handle. Voices echoed from out in the hallway and I ducked behind it three seconds before it opened. From the gap, I could see two demons enter the room, both of them in jumpsuits. They were speaking Demonish and didn’t glance behind them.
They both stopped in front of the lift I’d come down on and started chattering in earnest. The door they’d just entered was closing and I wrapped a single finger around it to keep it in place.
I needed a distraction. The beasties were still making a racket, but I needed more than that if I was going to make a clean getaway. I didn’t have any spells on me and I couldn’t shoot any magic. I could try to throw power into a verbal command, but that would defeat the purpose of being stealthy.
Instead, I plucked a can of something off the shelving unit next to me. It was heavy and that made me happy. We have to make this count. I didn’t have a lot of space to prime my arm, but I was a supernatural, after all. My wolf flooded me with adrenaline as I hurled the can straight at the biggest cage I could see across the room, aiming for the locking mechanism.
The can exploded on impact, sending the contents, which were pea green, splattering everywhere, and popping the door to the cage neatly open.