Hell's Belle - Eve Newton Page 0,42

my feet and scratch her behind her middle pair of ears. “If only you could help me, Mouse. I feel I’m gonna need it.”

She grunts her agreement and then pads over to where I keep the locker full of fresh meat.

I grin and forget about Annabelle briefly as I see to my hounds.

It is only as I finish up that I see Mouse waiting impatiently for me at the door. I frown at her as it is clear that she wants me to follow her.

Curiously, I do, wondering where she is going to lead me.

Hopefully straight to her Mistress, but my senses have spiked which tells me differently. Wherever we are going, there is trouble ahead.

19

Annabelle

I open my eyes, having the feeling of cloistered darkness. Just like before.

“Dammit! Gregory!” I yell into the heavy blackness.

“Annabelle?” he calls back.

I frown. “Gregory?” I shout. “Are you in here?”

“Annabelle!”

I see Gregory’s face swim into view, and I sigh. “If you’re in here with me, who is going to wake me up?” I complain.

“Little bit more concerned about why I’m in here with you,” he mutters.

“Yes, well, it’s subjective,” I say sarcastically. I turn around in a circle and see a flash of white mist making its way closer to us. “You!” I spit out as it zips over, getting in between me and Gregory and then flitting away.

“Annabelle,” the Night Mare sings. “I told you, you’d come to me.”

“Ugh,” I say with a shudder. “Not to you, not because I wanted to.”

“No,” he answers with a sad sigh. “No one ever comes willingly.”

I blink and look at Gregory. He sounded so full of sorrow.

I’m about to shout at him to fuck off out of my head when his Night Mare form appears right in front of me and he says, “My existence is so lonely.”

“Oh,” I murmur and exchange a look with Gregory.

This isn’t exactly going how I thought it would.

“What are you trying to do to me?” I ask him, for lack of anything else to say.

“Feed on your fears, but you don’t have any,” he replies but then turns towards Gregory. “He, on the other hand, has plenty.”

“Leave him alone!” I bark, pushing Gregory behind me.

“Oh, no, he can feed me until I’m strong enough to get out of this world.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not corporeal. I haven’t fed for hundreds of years.”

“While you were in prison?” I venture cautiously.

“Yeees.”

“Who let you out?”

I feel Gregory squeeze my shoulder, but I ignore him. The Night Mare is talking about himself and I want answers.

“S-s-s-nake,” he hisses.

“A Serpent Demon?” I press.

“Hmmmm.”

“Razor?”

“I have no name, girl.”

“No, I mean the Demon, was he called Razor?”

“I don’t know.”

“You have no name?” I ask.

“I did, a long time ago.”

Okay, now we seem to be getting somewhere.

“What was it?”

“Sid,” he sighs.

I try to keep the look of surprise off my face. An odd name for an odd Demon.

“Why did the snake let you out, Sid?”

“To get to you, of course.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Ask him what grudge he holds.”

No need. I already know.

“But I’m bored,” he whines. “You have no fear, not even of the original Lucifer. I thought you did, I thought the seed of doubt was something that could feed me, but you don’t care. You don’t care about him. You care about nothing, so you fear nothing.”

“Uhm,” I object indignantly. “I care about stuff.”

“Like him?” A wispy stream of mist floats over to Gregory. “He can feed me. Make me whole. He is afraid of everything.”

“Err,” Gregory stammers. “That’s not true…”

“Shh,” I murmur to him, trying to keep the smile from my face.

“Let him go, he is a human, he won’t sustain you for very long.”

“Annabelle,” Gregory mutters upset with me.

“Neither will you.”

“I want to help you, Sid. Let me help you.”

“Why? Why do you want to help me?”

“I am your Queen. It is my responsibility to help you.”

“Your father imprisoned me. Why should I trust you?”

“Show me your face,” I change tactics. “I can’t speak to a wisp.”

“No!” he shouts at me.

“Show me, Sid. I am the Demon Queen.”

“I will revolt you,” he insists, making a keening noise.

I hear Gregory gulp behind me.

“Show me, Sid.”

The wisp twists around like a whirlwind and then I see a presence as the darkness lifts slightly.

I throw up an orb of fire to shed some proper light on us, glad that my powers work.

“Come closer.”

He stays where he is.

So, I move forward.

“No!” he shouts.

“I want to see you. Show me yourself.”

Hesitantly, he steps into the light.

I keep my face