Devil's Punch

Ah. It had mentioned castes earlier, how I could break the whole social structure of Sheol. That wasn’t on my to-do list.

“Would you tell us about the castes?” Chance was still looking to increase his knowledge base, and he would use everything he gleaned from Greydusk to prepare for whatever we’d face in Xibalba.

“There is no reason I cannot,” the demon replied. “It is information freely available in the archives.”

Booke would love the sound of that. He was a friend and a research specialist in the UK. I’d never met him in person, but maybe one day that would change. And if we didn’t get back soon, he’d worry when I missed our weekly chat. Then he might call Chuch and Eva. Maybe I should have e-mailed them, but a message like Going to play demon bait, back soon, would only make the situation worse.

“Thanks,” Chance said. “Start with your caste?”

“The Imaron are known as the soul-stealers, but we abide by our contracts. It is death to act otherwise.”

Soul-stealers. Awesome. But at least they were all lawyerly about it. Somehow that didn’t make it better; no wonder humans thought Sheol was hell.

Chance spoke again, sounding pensive; his puzzle-solving brain would help so much on this venture. “Death? Is breaking the contract fatal or is the offending behavior punished?”

It was a good question. Greydusk angled its slender neck in an unnatural fashion to give Chance an approving look. “The former. When we sign a contract, we do so in blood, and there is a magickal ritual. Should I break my word, the blood turns to poison in my veins, and I will perish instantly.”

Wow. The Imaron took their promises seriously. I felt bad for doubting him. Treachery would kill this creature, so I had nothing to fear for sure. While I might question its intentions and its abilities, self-preservation ranked pretty high on the list of things I felt sure of. I thought about that in silence for a little while, listening to our steps scrape over the stone.

And then I asked, “What happens if you fail? I mean, not through a breach of contract, but just… overwhelming odds? Do they hold that against you?”

“Then I am already dead,” it said simply.

It walked on.

If I had a thousand dollars for every time I followed a demon down a dark and terrifying tunnel, well…I’d have a thousand dollars. Because this was a first, even for me, in a weird and unlikely life. Greydusk lost its interest in talking, though it had promised to explain the caste system to us. It wouldn’t happen right now, anyway, as it appeared to be listening as we moved.

Finally I had to ask, “Is something coming?”

That wouldn’t surprise me. I just had to get ready for it.

“I don’t think so.”

“Is it hard to pass the portal?” Chance asked.

“Yes. It requires power and sacrifice.”

Good to know. I hated the thought of anything like the weight-sensitive doors at most major shopping centers, where the minute you approached, they slid open, linking our world to Sheol. But it made sense that these natural portals required opening. Otherwise, the demons would’ve overrun us ages ago. Wouldn’t they? Some of them might be perfectly happy at home, despite what Maury had said. After all, not everybody loved to travel.

“So the more our enemies try to send something through to strike at us, the weaker they’ll be when we arrive?” I guessed.

Greydusk nodded. “Most will be prudent enough to wait until you cross to send their best assassins. It is a calculated risk, of course. Should you choose to ascend, once you reach Sheol—”

“Ascend?”

“It is not my place to explain your choices, Binder.”

Bullshit. Greydusk was just tired of answering my endless questions. I took the hint and trudged on in silence. The deeper we went into the mountain, the more it felt like a subterranean forest with exotic stone trees. My witchlight kept the dark from becoming oppressive, and I ignored the burn in my thighs. It was a lengthy hike, but not one that required an overnight rest, thankfully.

We didn’t speak more. I traveled down, down, down, until the air puffed from my lips in smoky whorls. That wasn’t normal in the caves I had visited before, yet another sign that these weren’t normal caverns. Witch sight revealed shimmers of magick in various crystals, glowing red and blue and silver. The stones would be good for various spells, I knew instinctively. I resisted the urge to dig them out of the walls.

The path became steeper, nearly vertical in places, and I braced my hands against the wall as I fell. Greydusk caught me with a careless arm, demonstrating unnatural strength; its gangly limb shouldn’t have possessed that kind of tensile power. The demon lifted me down in an easy gesture, and I stepped away before my unease could insult the creature further. It had dealt with us in good faith; I had no cause to distrust it other than its obviously alien nature.

“We must climb from here. There will be no more easy path.”

Greydusk tied the trusty rope around a rock formation and indicated the yawning chasm before us. Straight down then, no more path. The sound of water greeted my ears, distant and filtered through the tunnels.

This time, it wasn’t ledges, just an endless slide. I zipped Butch all the way into my purse and then handed it to Chance. It was hardest thing I’d ever done to step off the wall into darkness and just let myself fall. That meant trusting the rope was long enough to reach the bottom, even though I couldn’t see it. Butch whined as I went down, a canine study in misgiving.

When I landed, the demon said, “Not much farther now.”

Chance followed with my purse looped around his neck, and Greydusk reclaimed the rope. With one long arm, it indicated the last leg of the journey. Then he gave me back my handbag, still containing a nervous dog.

We went toward the water we could no longer see; it was almost as if we had passed under the river, descending to the point that I expected to see molten lava at the next turn. To my surprise, massive boulders blocked our progress. I’d expected the gate to look more…gatelike, but this was just impassable rock with a stream bubbling beneath it.

Greydusk produced a shimmering red jewel from his pack; it was enormous and unlike anything I’d ever seen, more luminous than a maharajah’s ruby. I considered asking what it was, but then he whispered an incantation in demontongue, a language that lent itself to quiet sibilance. He set the gem in a small niche on the rocks, and a glow sprang up, radiating outward from the gem to encompass us. It arced down into the water like a laser, drawing a path in the air with each movement. Down below, the water gained a bloody glow, swirling up to fill the space between the scarlet streaks that split the dark.

“Now!” Greydusk ordered. “Dive now!”

Maelstrom of Doom

Into that? Seriously?

Before I could think better of it, I took a running leap and flung myself toward the water, expecting to smash on the rocks, but instead, the sparkling curtain of water caught me as if it were something else, and I passed through it like a doorway. The magick screamed through me, sparking my own gift, and it was like being boiled in oil. I landed, gasping, and I was somewhere else.

Not in the caverns.

I peered into my purse to check on Butch. He popped up and shook himself all over, ears flying wildly. As far as I could tell, he seemed fine.

“You okay, boy?”

He yapped in the affirmative.

I laughed. “Wanna do it again?”

Butch cocked his head as if to say, Are you crazy, lady?

Well, yeah. Maybe. Probably.

A sickly sun shone overhead, but the whole world seemed bathed in ash, sullen and gray, a universe done in