What if some enterprising young demon put two and two together, and decided this was the best way to kneecap a newcomer? I hardly knew Maddie, but I felt responsible for her. We’d had a connection—brief, hot, unfulfilled—back in her diner, and making her come all over my face in my subspace had only deepened my need to be inside her, to claim her the way I’d done to Christina and Mareth. My magic was the reason she’d fallen into Hell and gotten mixed up in all of this in the first place.
I promised I’d keep her safe, I thought to myself as the elevator worked its way up to the Subspace Commission’s floor. She told me she was going to make me a home-cooked meal. That she liked fantasy novels with lots of sex in them. I’d be an idiot to let anything happen to a girl like that…
The elevator opened, revealing a smallish office. There was a line to see the next available demon, with a velvet rope wrapping back and forth like at the DMV, but at this time of day there were no students in line waiting to be served. I headed for the nearest booth, directing Oni to sit in two of the chairs, with Christina and Mareth just behind me.
A middle-aged demoness sat behind the counter, her hair done up in a tall beehive. Something twitched in it, and I realized there were actual bees inside of her coiffure—it wasn’t just a style. Her skin was the same yellow shade of the characters on The Simpsons, making her look more than a little bit like Homer’s wife, Marge.
If my experience in the mortal world was anything to go by, this demoness was about to be a royal pain in the ass. Except I didn’t have time to deal with any bullshit; I had to find Maddie.
Chapter 25
I forced a smile to my face, and the demoness behind the counter only looked back at me with a vacant stare, as though I were the last person she wanted to provide anything resembling good customer service.
“How can I help you?” the demoness asked. A nametag on the front of her jacket read Doris.
“Hi,” I said, putting my elbows on the counter. The demoness made a face at that, but didn’t say anything. “I had a person in my subspace this afternoon. A, uh, guest. I came back a few minutes ago and she was gone.”
An elbow jostled my side. “Ask her about the lost and found,” Mareth whispered.
“I think she, ah, might have gotten glitched out somehow?” It felt silly to even ask. “Do you have a subspace lost and found, or something like that?”
Doris’s eyes narrowed. “Are you certain the guest didn’t just leave?” she asked.
I shook my head. “From what I saw, she was in the middle of a shower. The water was running, and she was playing some music. She just...disappeared.”
“Hmm.” Doris reached beneath the counter and pulled out a tablet with a stylus. “Building and room number?”
“Eastern Wing, Seventh Floor,” I said, remembering what Sophe had told me. “Room 777.”
The demoness tapped the screen a few times. Words scrolled across it in a tiny font, and she nodded as if the result were expected. “I don’t have a record of entrances and exits,” she said, setting the tablet down. “The owner of the location hasn’t signed up for subspace insurance.”
What?
“I should have figured Hell would have insurance,” I growled, running a hand through my hair. “Look, where could she possibly go? I tucked her in there for safekeeping, and now she’s gone! This is a mortal we’re talking about—she’s not safe anywhere in the Academy…”
“Please sir, calm down,” Doris said blandly. “Would you like to fill out an official complaint form? If property stored in a subspace becomes damaged or missing, students are entitled to compensation. Generally up to the full market value of the property. Assuming the Academy is found to be at fault, of course...”
I let out a harsh, flat bark of a laugh. “Maddie isn’t property! She’s a human being! All I care about is finding the woman I put in that subspace, okay!?”
“A human woman?” Doris said, her eyebrows shooting to her hairline.
The fist inside of my chest unclenched. “Yes,” I said, feeling like we were finally getting somewhere. “She’s a mortal who followed us to Hell, and she’s in way over her head—”
“Humans aren’t covered under regulations,” Doris said flatly. “Subspace insurance wouldn’t help you either, in that case, other than maybe to identify when the human left the location.”
“That’s exactly what I want to know!” I said, slamming a hand down on the counter. “I don’t give a shit what’s covered or not!” The edges of my vision dimmed, turning red. I could feel that strange second sight welling up inside of me, showing things the way Lucifer saw them. Where before I’d seen opportunity when I looked at Sophe, here I saw nothing but an obstacle. A stubborn, unreasonable obstacle.
“So you want to know who’s been in and out of your subspace, is that it?”
More anger built inside of me. “Yes! That’s exactly what I want to know. Is there a record?”
“There is. But you’ll have to file a complaint.” Doris motioned toward a table behind her, where a stack of complaint forms awaited dropoff and processing. “Once it’s been received, a subspace investigator will be dispatched to look into the nature of your complaint. After a thorough review—normally between two and four weeks—they’ll decide whether it’s worthy of further investigation.”
I stared at that stack of papers, and something broke inside of me.
“Maddie doesn’t have two to four weeks,” I said, the words coming out in
