“Yeah, I can understand that. Going to Hell is certainly one way to get away from it all, right?” I quipped in a determinedly light tone. “Anyway, my father’s name is Darryl. You can ask Li Wei for more details—he’s one of the elders in the titheling village, and he’s been helping Dad as much as he’s able. I’d go with you myself and perform introductions, but...”
Edward nodded. “Getting back through the gate can be a challenge,” he finished for me.
Rans gave me a pointed look. “Not to mention the fact that while the warding might prevent Myrial from homing in on us from a distance, it won’t do much good if you’re parading past every demon in Hell with a flashing sign over your head saying, ‘Here I am, come and get me.’”
“That, too,” I said.
“Quite so,” Edward agreed. “Well, I should be off now. Good evening to both of you. I’ll pass on your regards to your father, Zorah.”
I nodded. “Good journey, Edward. Stay safe.”
Rans gave him a nod as well, and Edward left us to get whatever items he needed before he and Nigellus left. I pulled the red-stained towel out of my waistband and dabbed tentatively at the mess on my stomach. The blood had dried and turned tacky while I was flapping my lips with Edward, but the sharp ache of the cuts underneath had already faded, thanks to Rans’ donation of a few drops of magic vampire cure-all.
It was odd to think that I might have just extended my own life by swallowing those few drops of blood. By how long, I wondered?
I shook my head at myself. It hardly mattered. Assuming I didn’t get killed by a vengeful demon—or by a vengeful Fae—additional life for me equaled additional life for Rans. That was all I cared about in the end.
“I should go soak this towel in cold water, since the resident laundry expert won’t be around,” I said, eyeing the stained terrycloth.
Rans raised his eyebrows. “Are you joking, love? What, you think a centuries-old vampire never learned to get bloodstains out of fabric?” he asked, though the humor sounded forced. “I must say, I’m hurt by your lack of faith.”
“Okay. Good point,” I allowed, and headed for the nearest bathroom. “I suppose that’s a necessary skill for the undead.”
He settled a hip against the edge of the vanity while I scrubbed first at my stomach, and then at the ruined towel. As expected, the arcane symbol on my abdomen had already disappeared without a visible trace, the skin completely healed. I thought I could still feel a hint of warmth in the area, though, and I wondered if that was the magic that had been left behind.
After a few moments, Rans straightened. “It feels like they’ve just left. We’re alone now.”
Immediately, I stopped worrying about the towel. “Okay, thank fuck for that. You don’t think he’s got any listening devices planted in this place, do you?”
“Unlikely,” Rans said. “It’s not really how demons think. If he wanted to know something, he could just pull it from our minds by force.”
I suppressed a shiver at the image. An instant later, another rather horrible thought occurred to me. “Do we have any way of knowing he didn’t do exactly that to us earlier, when he had us alone?”
“No,” Rans said grimly. “We don’t. But he’s still helping us, and that’s all I need from him at the moment. Now that he’s gone, though, you and I need to talk about what comes next.”
FIVE
“I FEEL LIKE WE’RE standing in the middle of a war zone with both sides shooting at us,” I said. “And I hate the idea of relying on Nigellus for protection like this, but I can’t think of anywhere we could go that wouldn’t end up putting someone else I care about in danger.”
We’d moved the conversation to the spotless kitchen on the main floor. I sat on a stool at the counter and poked at the meal in front of me, knowing I needed to eat, but not feeling much like doing so. Rans paced, moving aimlessly around the room. It struck me, then, exactly how shut down he’d been since our arrival. Not that I could blame him, when the alternative would probably have been punching Nigellus in the face.
“It’s very much in Nigellus’ interest to keep both of us in the land of the living,” he said grimly. “He needs me, and that means he needs you as well. Personal betrayal aside, his protection is still of benefit to us.”
“I don’t know how you can even stand to look at him,” I said in a low voice. “But you’re probably right.” I sighed and speared a piece of steamed asparagus. “We need a contingency plan, though. I’m not willing to bet everything on Nigellus’ good graces. Particularly if there are multiple factions in Hell with competing agendas, which it looks like there probably are.”
Rans shot me a look of approval and pulled up a stool next to me. “Strategy, eh? You’re learning, love.” He leaned an elbow on the counter and tapped his chin, while I shoveled food into my mouth without tasting it.
“On the positive side,” he mused, “the wards Edward just put on us mean that we could, in a pinch, simply disappear someplace for a few weeks. Singapore... Kuala Lumpur... Minsk... Jamaica. Anyplace suitably random, really. On the negative side, since it’s Nigellus’ power binding those wards, he’d still be able to find us. The spell might be a cloak to other demons, but it’s a beacon to him.”
A frown wrinkled my brow.
“Well, shit.” I swallowed the mouthful of scalloped potatoes I’d been chewing. That made sense, I supposed, as much as anything in this topsy-turvy world of magic and mayhem did. Edward was bound to Nigellus; of course it was Nigellus’ power he’d been using to create magic. “Well... like you say, at least Nigellus wants us alive and safe. The same
