the near-miss I’d just had crashed over me. The only other time I’d come this close to dying had been with the inferni, but someone else had saved me then.
This time, it was all me. No one around who would have come to my aid. Only me. And I’d just barely made it.
God.
I went to rub my hands over my face, then remembered one of them was mangled and the other still clutched the dagger in a death grip. Exhaling a trembling breath, I looked around, quite uselessly. The darkness was so complete, I couldn’t see my hand even just inches from my face. How was I going to get out of here? I had no idea where the tunnel exit was.
I’d have to feel my way around the ground until I found a wall, and then go by touch from there, hopefully getting to the tunnel. I cringed at the thought of having to navigate the maze-like burrow in the unrelenting dark, not knowing which way would lead back to Azazel and Azmodea.
Going on all fours, the dagger still in my right hand, I favored the left hand and kept my right foot hovering off the floor to not drag the ankle where the beast had bitten me over the ground. I gritted my teeth against the insistent throb of pain in my wounds. I could really use some of Azazel’s instant healing right now.
I’d just started moving when a sound made me freeze. Wings flapping, a whoosh of air, a soft thump.
My heart was in my throat, the dagger in my hand pointed toward the noise. Another beast?
So sad how you lot have to arm yourselves with blades to make up for your lack of claws and fangs, a voice said in my head.
That voice. That voice!
“M-mephistopheles?” My hand shook.
Are you expecting someone else?
I breathed a huge sigh of relief. “How did you get here?”
I’m a cat.
Ugh. “Okay, but seriously, how? Is there a way directly to Azazel’s home? Can you show me?”
A pause. I could have sworn, if there were light, I’d have seen him leisurely blink at me as he took his sweet time to answer. No, he simply said.
“Why not?”
You’re not a cat.
Ugggggh. “Mephisto,” I grated. “Please help me.”
Smacking sounds in the dark.
I gasped. “Are you eating?”
If you wanted to claim your kill, you shouldn’t have crawled away from it. Finders keepers.
Ew. A full-body shudder wracked me. “Can you tell me which way the tunnel exit is?”
Yes.
I waited.
More chewing and smacking noises.
“So?” I asked.
So what?
I rolled my eyes in the dark. “So where is the tunnel exit?”
To your left. But I wouldn’t go there if I were you.
“Why not?”
Because more hellrats are on their way here through that tunnel. I can hear them.
“What?” I almost dropped my dagger. “Wait—more? That thing I killed—that was a hellrat?”
My favorite kind of vermin.
“But—the beast I just stabbed was big enough to drag me. The rats I saw gnawing on those demons in Lucifer’s entrance hall were smaller, like normal rats.”
They grow bigger the deeper you go into the palace. Juicier too.
Crap. And ew. “Is there another tunnel I can take?”
No.
Well, fuck.
But you don’t need a tunnel to leave this place.
“What do you mean?”
You have blood, don’t you? And there’s a nice wall to your right.
It took me precious seconds to realize what he was talking about. Then my eyes widened.
“Will his sigil work here too?” I was already crawling toward the wall he’d mentioned. “Will it get me to his house?”
No. The sigils don’t work between estates.
“Then where will I end up?”
Does it matter? I’d imagine anywhere is better than here. At least for you. I have wings and another way out of here. You don’t, which means you’ll be rat chow in a matter of minutes.
I paused, contemplating the less than savory possibilities of how my situation could get worse depending on where the magical doorway would spit me out. “Couldn’t you help me slay the rats?”
Child, he said with as much indulgence as I’d ever heard from him, no cat in their right mind would fight a whole pack of hellrats.
Okay, magical doorway it was.
As fast as I dared in the dark, I crawled over the ground to my right, swallowing down my rising bile at the crunching sounds and the feel of something hard breaking under my knees and my right hand. I had a good idea what those things were. I felt a sudden, visceral sympathy with Gimli from Lord of the Rings as