Invision - Sherrilyn Kenyon Page 0,24
blinked open his other eye to see if he could figure out where in the blessed bog he might be, ’cause he had a bad feeling he wasn’t at home in Caleb’s house.
By the crappy, moldy, pungent, stale stench of the place, it wasn’t St. Richard’s, unless he’d somehow gotten locked in the bottom of the boys’ dirty laundry chute.
And no one had bothered to do laundry in a few dozen decades.
Maybe longer.
“Gah, I’ll never complain about the Daeve’s smell again.” To be honest, he’d rather bury his nose in the smoking pits of Caleb’s hairy arms after his football practice in August than inhale this wretched stench. It smelled worse than the Dagda’s boots after he’d been chasing the Mórrígan around the bend.
The moment he sat up, he froze. Two inches from his nose was the ugliest dog he’d ever seen. It made the Cŵn Annwn look like a swan. All it needed was to have red ears and be howling and he’d know his death was imminent. “Here now, puppy. I’m sure I can find a nice slipper for you to chew on, eh?”
If you hand me a shoe, I’ll shove it up where the sun don’t shine, Irishman.
Dropping his hand, Aeron cracked a grin at the snide tone. “Not Irish, if you want to be technical. And who are you, Scooby?”
Not Scooby …
“Hellhound?”
Mostly … if you want to be technical.
“Snotty little bastard, aren’t you?”
You stay here any length of time and you will be, too.
“And here would be . .?” Aeron let his voice trail off meaningfully.
Azmodea.
Of course it was. Aeron groaned out loud. “I’m assuming we’re on the bad side of the fence?”
Is there a good side?
“Thorn’s.”
I know nothing of a Thorn.
“And that answers that.” Aeron glanced around at the dank, iridescent-black walls of his makeshift prison. They bled like an oozing oil pit. At least he wasn’t bound. Not that it would have done them any good. Hard to pin a púca with shackles, and while he was still a bit chafed at his family for what they’d done to him with their cursing, there was something to be said for it.
Sitting back, he looked up at the eerie blue lights that radiated above their heads. They pulsed like a living creature.
He grimaced at the sight of what he was pretty sure were the remains of a poor beast who’d had a much worse day than his. Thank the gods his innards didn’t glow after death. He’d hate to have his guts used in such a manner.
“You didn’t happen to see what brought me here, did you, boyo?”
Taahiki demons.
Well, that explained the stench. They were the polecats of the demon world. It’d be weeks before he’d get that off his skin. “Now, I’m going to ask a ridiculously rhetorical question.”
No, there’s no way out of here.
“You could have at least given me the satisfaction of asking it. But since you ruined that, I have another. Me master has misplaced his own hellhound. Any chance you might be familiar with him? He’s named Zavid.”
You serve the Malachai?
Aeron hesitated in his answer. One thing he’d learned aeons ago—you volunteer no facts until you knew what side of the matter your opponent was aligned to, and he knew nothing of this new “friend.”
“I don’t serve anyone.”
“Yet you’re the one who said it was your master’s hound.” A low, insidious moan echoed around them from no known source.
The black wolf crouched low and began growling at the wall to Aeron’s left.
“What’s that?”
Noir’s servants. If you are friend or servant to the Malachai, they’re coming to make you regret it.
“And what are you?”
I’m no friend of Noir’s or Azura’s. But if you can show me this Thorn, I will be the best friend you’ve ever made.
Rising to his feet, Aeron stepped away as every warning in his body went off simultaneously. This was a little too easy. “And why would I be wanting to take you anywhere when you’re the one who’d be knowing the way when I don’t? Not like I’ve got a set of keys to the kingdom. You could have left here at any time. Why did you wait on me when you didn’t know I was coming…? Or did you?”
A flash of light blinded him an instant before the wolf became a tall, thin, male demon. “You’re just all kinds of smart, aren’t you? Pity that…”
* * *
“You know that won’t break him, right?”
Noir turned a ball-shriveling glare toward Grim that would have sent anyone else