Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
Send him back. He needs to goback.
His gaze drags over my frame. “Such a shame.”
The last thing I see is another flare of red in his eyes before my neck turns with acrack, and everything goes dark.
4
Lynx
There’s a girl. A human girl. And she’s lying dead at my feet. Beside her on the floor are symbols drawn with chalk. So she summoned me. This wasn’t an accident. Shemeantto bring me here.
Her odd black-and-white hair is splayed out on the rug, her head twisted at an unnatural angle. Some silver strands hide her face.
Her clothes are strange. Nothing like the rags I used to see on people like her once upon a time. Decades ago, actually. It’s been far too long since I’ve left Hell. Am I back on Earth? I take a deep breath and nearly choke on the unfamiliarity. There are no flames, no embers floating around and clogging my throat; there’s no heat. I’m not screwing my eyes shut every time someone drops into the pit with an explosion.
This is Earth.
Has my curse ended?
Unfamiliar excitement pushes me forward. I step over the dead girl, looking around the room for any indication of what’s going on but hesitate before exiting.
Fuck, I didn’t kill a child, did I? I may be from Hell, but I’m no monster.
Crouching, I reach over and move the black-and-white strands from her face, momentarily taken aback by her looks. I shake off the immature emotion and let the strands fall back over her face.
Not a child.
But maybe in her early twenties. Good. My conscience is clear. A shame she made me kill her.
Wiping away the feeling of her on my clothing, I fix the cuffs of my shirt, give her a last once-over so I’m certain she’s definitely dead, and step out of the room.
The place is filthy. Dust clings to the walls and the large chandelier; some of the windows are boarded up, glass smashed across the floor.
I step over the clumps of rat turds and grimace at the smell as I push open another door to find yet another filthy room covered in cobwebs, dirt, and dust, with peeling wallpaper and holes in the wall.
Why the fuck am I here? Where exactlyishere?
I take the steps of the grand staircase two at a time, walk around the corner, and hunt for another portal—a glowing red crack in reality, or a glitch in the room. The more rooms I check—and recheck—in this godforsaken mansion, the more convinced I am that I mightreallybe free of Hell, but I refuse to entertain that thought unless it’s true, given that I still feel demon magic flowing through me.
I lost hope many years ago. It’s a meaningless word that needs to stay the fuck away from my vocabulary and thoughts.
The darkness welcomes me as I push open the door to what I can only assume is a kitchen. It creaks as one of the hinges comes undone, then the door falls onto the floor. Dust smacks me in the face.
“Motherfucker,” I say through a cough. “Are you dragging me back?” I call out to the portal keeper. “She’s dead.”
Still nothing, and I sigh, brushing off my sleeves.
A creaking floorboard on the first floor has me narrowing my eyes, but I shake off the need to go toward it, and search the premises instead.
My gaze lands on a chained-up door. One tug and the chains are on the floor, the clanking echoing around the eerie mansion. Steps lead me to a tunnel, and after being trapped in Hell for far too long, my eyes adjust to the darkness faster than they ever did when I was a human. When I was alive, with a beating heart and a soul and a life.
I tut at my thoughts. “Focus, asshole,” I say to myself. If Tony were here, the wimp would be hiding behind me. Unless he was transformed—then he’d take the lead.
The tunnel carries me beyond the manor, I think—and maybe hope does exist because the ground hasn’t burst into flames and devoured me yet.
I pause when I see the door at the other end. It would take me five steps to reach it; however, on my third step, everything ripples around me, pressure builds behind my eyes, and I hold my breath as my lungs are squeezed.
