Darrak put his hands on his hips. “So I’m guessing that this isn’t going to be my night no matter what direction I go, is it?”
“That’s up to you, demon.”
He finally glanced over his shoulder. It wasn’t Theo again, he already knew that thanks to the woman’s voice. But this face was also familiar. A woman, in her twenties, with long dark hair and a beautiful face.
“Selina,” he said.
She put a hand on her hip and smiled. Her lips were red and glossy. “Sort of.”
“Not Selina.” Not the witch who’d summoned him hundreds of years ago. Along with the pain that had begun to infuse his core he was getting a little well-needed clarity.
“Am I on an episode of
Her smile held. “No.”
“How about
“Strike two.”
Darrak’s eyes narrowed. “You’re Lucifer, aren’t you?”
She shook her head. “Wrong again.”
He didn’t speak for a moment. He’d been certain he was right, that Lucifer had brought him here, wherever
“I told you before. A friend.”
“A friend who was going to let two wraiths make a tasty meal of me.”
“They didn’t.”
“What do you want?”
“You’re clinging to the sides of existence, digging in with your fingernails so hard that I thought I’d come and perhaps give you a bit of a hand.”
Darrak blinked. “Thanks?”
She continued to study him with that cool detached look of amusement. “Why don’t you follow me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”
Selina turned and started walking. She wore four-inch heels and a flowing black dress that was low cut in the front and laced up in the back.
The Love Witch, that’s what she liked to be called. She’d written books — self-help books for women who had a difficult time with the men in their lives.
Darrak had made her a black witch back during the Salem witch trials — she’d cast a spell that siphoned dark power from him. She’d wanted the black magic in order to get vengeance on the men who’d put her sister to death.
Selina had tried but failed to destroy Darrak shortly after she’d gotten what she wanted from him, and he’d only recently found her again. He wanted her to break the curse she put on him. It had destroyed his ability to maintain his corporeal form. To break that curse he would have had to tear out her heart.
But he hadn’t.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Thinking about the good old days?”
“Hardly.”
“You didn’t kill me when you had the chance,” she said.
“You know what I’m thinking?”
“I know lots of things, demon.”
He raked a hand through his hair and looked back in the direction he’d come from, but all he could see was darkness now. “Do you know why those wraiths were calling me demon-angel?”
“Yes.”
“Want to share?”
“Actually, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that riddle out.”
“I think I hate you.” He glowered at her. “No… wait. I do. I definitely hate you.”
She cocked her head. “Would you have killed me if you’d been given another chance? Would you have done what it took to return to your normal existence even if it meant destroying someone who had sought redemption for centuries?”
“Sure,” he replied immediately. It only made her smile wider.
“Think first, demon. You’ve always spoken before you thought first. It’s one of your many flaws.”
“Gee, you’re all kinds of charming, aren’t you?”
“Come on, it’s not much farther.”
The farther he walked, the more pain he felt. It was a normal sensation for one who punched a time clock in Hell itself, but it was still something that was best to be avoided. Pain, even for demons, was an indication that something was wrong.
A large black building shielded the view of what lay ahead. Darrak slowed. The pain had shifted to a burning sensation — flames blossoming outward from his chest.
Fire was his element to call, and it never hurt. Fire was such a part of him that he was shielded against this sort of pain. And yet… this wasn’t pleasant at all.
“I have a proposition for you, demon,” Selina said.
“Really. And what’s that?”
“You’ve come to a fork in the road. It’s up to you which path you choose.”
Darrak came to a halt next to Selina at the edge of the building.
“Talk,” he said. “I don’t have all night here. Patience isn’t one of
She leaned back against the black wall behind her. “Do you know where we are?”
“No. I believe that’s why I’ve been asking you that very question since I came to earlier in the bar.”
“Do you know how you got here?”
“What is this, twenty questions?” He fought against the frustration that rose in his chest. “No, I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know what part of the Netherworld this is, only that I’ve never been here before and I’m not too interested in coming back.”
“Do you know what you’ve lost?”
He gritted his teeth and tried to remain calm, cool, and collected, despite wanting to grab whatever or whoever this trickster in front of him was and shake it very hard.
“Do you even know you’ve lost something?” Selina persisted.
“Yes,” Darrak said. “I’ve lost something very important, but I don’t know what it is. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me?”
“Can’t do that.” Selina’s smile changed as her form shifted back to Theo’s again.
“Who are you?” Darrak asked again.
“Someone who has taken a mild interest in you, demon. A
This was ridiculous. Darrak moved past the trickster and went around the corner. He took three more steps before he froze in place. Something cold slithered through him. It felt a bit like clarity.
“The Void.” It was the word he couldn’t think of earlier, but it now came back to him.
The street before him, pavement surrounded by cement curbs and brick buildings just… disappeared. There was a drop-off, like the sheer side of a cliff into nothingness. He didn’t have to look. He knew it didn’t have a bottom to it.
The bottom didn’t exist.
He scanned the area to see that the street picked up a hundred yards up ahead and the jagged drop-off formed a wide, gaping circle. An open, bottomless mouth whose deep black hunger could never be satisfied since it had no stomach to fill.
Welcome to the Void.
“So those fairies—” Darrak began.
“Gatekeepers. Sentries. Administrators. Take your pick. They were on a break when they spotted us. It’s their job to make sure no one strays too close to the Void and to double-check those who do. Don’t worry, they’ll be
