That was all she was going to give me.
“I know I agreed to give you a fair appraisal, and possibly take you back to my plane in exchange for your help, but I have to set up some ground rules before we move forward,” I said. “If didn’t, I’d be a fool. You’re too dangerous and I don’t know you.”
She sat up. “If you want my cooperation, you must agree to take me back to your plane if I prove worthy. There is no other way I will aid you. If you agree to consider this request, I will guide you to your brother, and once we have him, I will lead us to a portal.”
“I have a way back with the witches.” I couldn’t be that dependent on her or this wouldn’t continue to work in my favor.
She shook her head. “A circle will not work. If they haven’t found the way you entered the Underworld already, it means we are the only two left in Hell. They will have masked all communication by now and cut the witches off. But there are three portals on this plane. A regular demon cannot pass through any of them. They are for imps and… others…” Admitting that she was, in fact, other. “We will have to use one of these.”
There was no way to know if what she was telling me was the truth or not, but with nothing else to go on, I said, “If I end up agreeing to bring you back, you would have to swear an oath to me at that time. You would be my responsibility once we arrived in my world, and mine alone. You would stay voluntarily under my control and follow my rules, no questions asked. If you broke that oath, I’d have the right to have the witches send you back here, and you’d suffer your fate at the hands of the Prince.”
Her eyes flickered, the pupil pulsing almost too quickly for me to see. “If that’s what it takes, I will agree to bind myself to you. For a time.”
“Wrong answer. You will bind yourself to me until I decide to change the rules.”
“What exactly would you have me do? Give you my blood? I will follow your rules. I will behave. I am willing to do this because I need to be free of this land or I die. I have no other choice, it’s that simple.”
There was more movement in the hallway. The demons hadn’t stopped the hunt. If anything, they’d ramped it up. And if they were smart, they’d charge right back in here with heavier artillery, like rocket launchers.
“If you end up saving my life, or my brother’s, you will agree to swear an oath to me, whatever my terms in the end, or there is no deal.”
The demoness knew she was running out of time. “Fine. I will swear an oath, like you do in your world. Will that satisfy you?”
“Yes, for now.” My wolf growled. We don’t owe her anything yet and she’s agreed to help us. It’s the best I could do.
There were noise coming from outside. Lily’s head turned toward the curtain. “They have come back with reinforcements. They did not believe I wasn’t harboring you.”
A strange roaring, keening noise erupted right outside the door. “What’s making that awful sound?” I asked.
“That is the hellhound, it is part of the beast horde. It will devour us whole once it enters. Its piercing teeth skin you alive, and then it laps your blood until you take your last breath. It is the worst beast we have and it is rarely used because it’s so hard to control.”
“So how do we get out of here?” I asked.
“Through the floor,” she answered.
I immediately glanced down. The floor tiles fit together like a big puzzle, some of them with notches that fit exactly with the pieces they lay next to. I squatted down. Do you smell that? I asked my wolf. Air was flowing up from between the two tiles beneath me and it smelled peculiar. I shot my power into them and picked up on something, not attached to this room, but down below. “There’s a catch, right?” I asked Lily, nodding my head to the floor. “It’s like the veil. This room is completely spelled against you, including the floor.” I crouched down and brought my nose close and sniffed, smiling. “But I can get through it no problem.”
Her face changed from shrewd to impassive on a dime. “Yes, that’s correct. But before you get any ideas about going without me, they house our beasts below. You would not survive on your own. The reason my cell is located in this region, is because, on occasion, they must keep me in line. To do so, they bring the beasts up from there.” She pointed to the piece of flooring I hovered over. “And I can promise you, it is less than pleasant in the bowels of Hell.”
I didn’t need convincing. I knew it would suck down there. I’d already seen my fair share of tunnels today and I was already sick of them. I could only imagine what lurked beneath. The thought of climbing down to another one made my head pound.
I had to remember that there was a big difference between being weary and being dead. I had to survive.
Not only did I have to survive, I had to get my brother back. Even if that meant crawling around in every tunnel in this godforsaken world. “If this is where they bring the beasts up, why didn’t they just send the hellhound up through here?”
There were more noises and shouting from outside. We literally had only moments left.
“Because the hellhound is too big, The hole beneath you is meant for creatures to torment me, not devour me whole.” Several thumps sounded against the door, followed by some demonic howls. “They are having trouble controlling the hound as we speak or they would be in here already. It is a wicked thing with long claws and hideous teeth. They are taking no chances with you.”
I curled my claws around the seam in the floor. The separation was barely there. I had to dig my nails in hard to get between the tiles. Once I got a grip, I tore the piece of flooring up in one pull and tossed it to the side.
I’d exposed a smooth, open cylinder under the floor that appeared to be made of something like PVC. It was white and just big enough for a human to slide through.
The roaring outside became louder. We were out of time. The demoness rushed forward and pushed me toward the chute. “Go, go! You must take a lock of my hair.” She ripped a chunk off the end. “Once you reach the bottom, put the hair in the mouth of the chute and say these words in Demonish: Dys swez kytaf hozz. Do you understand? It’s the only way to break the spell keeping me here.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the hair in my fist.
The door burst open behind us and a vicious howl rent the air. The demons rushed the curtain, their faces furious. Their loathing of Lily was clear.