With a scowl marring my face, I lower my hands and turn to look at whoever dares disturb my work.
A guard. I used to know his name, but in this moment, it does not come to me. Rage blinds me. I turn away from him.
A moment later, he dares to clear his throat. “My Lord.”
Slowly, seething, I drop my hands again, the demon I was creating disappearing into a cloud of ash, and turn around to look at the lone guard. His face is ghastly and sunken in. Nearly skull-like. A guard of the dead. Although his gaze is a piercing blue and as his head turns his mortal features come and go. The cloak he wears is torn but still drags on the ground. It’s edges dirtied from the ash against the light gray coloring it once was. He stands as close to the door as he can get. Does he not know that it makes no difference? The door could not save him if I decided I wanted his soul erased for good. Perhaps that’s his desire.
Anger simmers within me.
He clears his throat again. “She asks for time.” His tone rises a little at the end of the sentence, as if his statement is a question.
The guard must see my impatience, because he squares his shoulders although his voice wavers. “She asks for time, my Lord.”
“Who is she?” I spit.
“Your queen.”
“Our queen,” I shout. My harsh correction echoes off the stone walls.
“Our queen,” the guard repeats quickly, his voice trembling. He stands stick straight, attempting to appear as if he’s not terrified, but it is obvious that he is.
It’s then I remember his name. His story. What brought him to be a highly stationed guard. Swallowing thickly, I know I cannot go on like this for eternity. I know that. But the knowledge only makes me want to end it faster. To be more extreme.
“How much time?” I question quietly.
“She did not say,” he answers. “She simply asked for time.”
His answer leaves me wanting. Snarling, I crave to shout at him. To rage at him. To unleash every barbed word from my mouth onto this guard.
This messenger.
I do not.
“I will not deny her anything she asks for that is in my power to give. In that time, I will continue what I have promised Hecate,” I tell him, then turn back to the window. “Pass along that message to my queen.”
“My Lord,” he says. The door opens and shuts the very next second, and his footsteps fade quickly down the hall.
A shuffling sound distracts me. I stop gathering my power to send another demon to Earth and turn again, more rage lighting in me like a new fire. Was I so unclear to that guard? Does he need me to explain a second time? My queen’s message was simple. Mine was even simpler. There is nothing more to say.
But it is not a guard pushing open the door to my rooms with his shoulder.
It is Cerberus.
He pads in, his head cocked slightly as if something is wrong in the room, but he does not know what.
“Come,” I command.
Cerberus comes, his tongues lolling from his mouths. He pushes his body next to my legs, whining softly to be petted, so I get to one knee and do it properly. I ruffle the ears on each head and stroke his crowns several times each. He has stopped whining by the time I’m finished.
With Cerberus, it is easy. Concentrating on him for a minute has let my rage simmer down until it is embers.
It’s not gone, however. I’m not finished. I’ll take that heat and make the demons burn with it, and they will carry it to the mortal realm.
“Do you see?” I ask Cerberus. “This is what all this has come to. Demons in the mortal world. I will send more and more until Persephone is returned.”
He lets out a chorus of loud barks at her name, wagging his tail.
“Not yet,” I tell him. “Soon.”
