in place. “Tell me I’m pretty and I shall point you to the hidden passageway. All our rooms in Hell have one—we’re a paranoid bunch, you know.”
“You’re the prettiest man I ever did see,” I said before he even finished his sentence.
He gave me an arch look. “I said compliment me, not lie to me. I’d wager your statement would be true if you hadn’t yet met my irritating uncle.”
Well, damn. Was I that easy to read?
I bit my lip. “I’d walk into a streetlight while craning my neck to get a better look at you?”
He preened. “That’s more like it. All right, so the secret passageway is never in the same place and has to be summoned. You’ll need this.” With a flick of his hand, he produced a notepad and pen out of thin air and began drawing on it. “That’s the sigil Azazel uses for his rooms, and your chances are good it’ll be the same for yours.”
He handed me the notepad.
“How do I…?”
“We use our powers to draw them, but in your case…” He considered me for a moment. “Blood should do it.”
I might have uttered a sound of dismay.
“There’s power in blood.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure if you also received some of Azazel’s powers when you bonded, but when in doubt, go for blood.”
“That just might become my new life motto.”
He chuckled. “I’d really love to be there when you take him on. Give him hell, girl.”
Oh, would I ever.
“Thank you so, so much,” I said, clutching the notepad to my chest. “I shall tell you how pretty you are every single time I see you.”
“I’m counting on it.” And with a wink, he was gone, the door locking behind him.
I stared at the sign on the notepad as if it held my salvation. If not that, it definitely was the key to my freedom. Azazel could secure the door more tightly than the national treasury, but with this sigil and the secret passageway I could come and go as I pleased, and he’d be none the wiser.
Oh, to imagine the look on his face when he found me strolling down his halls. For the first time since being dumped here, I felt light with elation—and filled with purpose.
Chapter 7
I started with practicing to draw the sigil on the notepad. Before I spilled my own blood for this, I needed to make sure I could write the symbol perfectly.
Once satisfied I could reproduce it without issue, I laid down the pen, found a free area of wall that could reasonably accommodate a door—and realized I still needed something to cut myself with.
My razor. I retrieved it from the bathroom, along with a towel to wad up excess blood, and went back to my spot in front of the wall. Heart pounding, hands clammy, I stared at the blade in my fingers, hovering over my lower arm.
No way was I cutting myself in the palm. While it was the spot of choice in pretty much all movies and books requiring a pact or an offering of blood for a spell or some such, I’d once read the plea of a fiction-loving doctor who argued that the palm was one of the worst places to make a cut—it was full of nerves, much more so than the lower arm, for example. Same was true for a fingertip. And it would be a pain in the ass to heal, what with how often you flexed your hand and used it for grasping something.
So, lower arm it was.
I just had to make sure I didn’t cut any of the veins. I needed a certain amount of blood for the sigil, but not a stream.
My breath was uncomfortably loud in the silence of the room. Hand shaking, I still stared, unable to move, to take that step. I’d never hurt myself on purpose before. It was a lot harder to deliberately slice my own flesh than I’d thought.
I could scratch you.
I froze at the voice in my head. Slowly, I turned to look up at the ceiling, and wouldn’t you know it, the hellcat sat lurking half-concealed in the shadows right above me. The firelight reflected in its luminous eyes, and its tail swished languidly in the air.
“Um, no.” I cleared my throat. “No, thanks.”
I’d be careful. Just a scratch. Its wings flared a little. And I’d lick it clean right after.
“Yeah, no. That’s what I’m worried about.” I gave it some major side-eye.