“You want me to stay in Hell? Permanently?” I asked, unsure how I was supposed to feel about that idea.
I’d argued for it, earlier. Or, rather, I’d argued that he should come, too, so we’d both be safe. And he’d immediately dismissed the idea. I almost opened my mouth to ask him again to come with me, but I caught myself just in time. If Rans went to Hell, he could never leave. At least, not without signing his soul over to a demon first.
He crouched in front of me, his hand falling from my shoulder and coming to rest on my knee instead. “Want isn’t the right word. But I need you safe.”
I tried to untangle my thoughts and organize them into something coherent.
“What if...” I began, only to trail off. After a moment, I tried again. “Rans, what if you asked Nigellus to bind you? He wouldn’t just randomly decide to harvest your soul one day. He loves you like a son—anyone can see that. Then you could go in and out of Hell as you pleased. You could be safe there—” with me, I didn’t add, “—but if you needed to leave to investigate some lead about the war, or to help Guthrie or something, then you could still do that.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment.
“Zorah, my life for the past several hundred years has, for all intents and purposes, belonged to the demons. I’m not in a hurry to offer them my death as well. At least as it stands now, I can still call my soul my own.”
He opened his eyes and I nodded, chewing the inside of my lower lip. It was the answer I’d expected, after all. And it wasn’t even an answer I could disagree with, on an intellectual level.
“But there’s another thing,” he went on. “Though I don’t know if anyone has ever been crazy enough to test the theory, it seems likely that if I bound myself to a demon, the life-bond would bind you to them as well, by default. Even if I were willing to sign my own soul over to Nigellus... I’m not willing to sign over yours.”
I didn’t even try to argue that I’d already intended to ask Nigellus to bind me—if that’s what it took to get out of Hell and back to Rans. Not only was it obvious that he and I had very different views about demon-bonds; it also appeared likely to be a moot point. If Rans wanted me to hide away in Hell, but he wasn’t interested in coming with me, what more was there to say, really?
“Okay,” I replied. “I understand.”
He stared at me intently, his brows drawing together. “I’m not at all certain you do.”
Then he was on his feet with inhuman speed, whirling away to cross the room, facing away. He rummaged in his coat and came up with his cell.
“Time to go back to... Guthrie’s place?” I asked. Jesus, I’d almost said home.
He nodded, not looking at me directly. “I’ve still got enough battery left to call a cab. Unless you’re in a hurry to spend a night here in the Roach Motel.”
I looked around the room and shuddered. “Yeah... no. Hard pass on that.”
Rans flashed me a ghost of a smile over his shoulder, but I had the sense he was putting up a wall between us that hadn’t been there a few hours ago.
“Good choice,” he said lightly. “When you have the option, always go for the accommodations with the Jacuzzi and the home gym.”
Right, I thought. Awesome. Now I just need to figure out how to give up the crazy vampire I’ve fallen for, so I can go live in Hell with my father who hates me instead.
FIFTEEN
WHEN RANS SAID he’d call Nigellus the following morning so we could meet and discuss details, I hadn’t expected the demon to appear from thin air outside Guthrie’s door less than five seconds after Rans got off the phone with him.
I stared at both of them in mild disbelief. “What would Guthrie say about this?”
“He’d be bloody livid,” Rans replied. “And I can’t really blame him. Which is why I intend for this not to take very long.”
Rans gestured for Nigellus to come in. He did, looking around the penthouse suite with mild interest.
“Moving up in the world, Ransley?” he asked with mild irony. “I can’t say the place really suits you...”
“I can’t say it does, either,” Rans agreed. “But it’s safe, at least for a given definition. Though you ought to know I’m on the hook for the repair bills if anything happens to it while the real owner is gone.”
“You certainly got here quickly,” I said. “And here I’d assumed I’d be white-knuckling my way through another airplane flight to Atlantic City.”
Nigellus gave me a thin smile. “I’d gathered time was of the essence.”
It wasn’t accurate to say that I’d come to terms with Rans’ new insistence that I run away to safety. But I’d at least managed to cobble together some degree of emotional armor overnight. I flopped down on Guthrie’s comfortable sofa, while Nigellus lowered himself gingerly into a chair across from me, and Rans took up pacing again.
I eyed our guest. “So, full-blooded demons can travel anywhere in the blink of an eye, then? No magic portals; no messy slogging from Point A to Point B?” I asked. “That’s handy, I guess.”
Nigellus crossed one leg over the other, leaning back as he regarded me over laced fingers. “Within certain limitations,” he allowed. “We can transport ourselves to a specific location if the directions are detailed enough. We can find individuals or objects if they are bound to us, or marked in a way we can detect. However, we find travel across vast expanses of saltwater difficult, and we can’t travel instantly from a random point in one realm to a random point in another.
