I gave the open book my attention again and wrote Lacy’s entire name, just in case:Lacy Marie Gordon.
“How does it know?” I asked the woman.
She slowly dragged her eyes away from her work. “Know what?”
“Who I’m talking about. What if there are multiple people with the same exact name?”
She shrugged, looking down at her wrist to check the time on a delicate gold watch. “I believe it only matters if the person writing the name knows who is being added. Or everyone with that exact name gets added to the list. Either way, whoever you just added is safe.”
The wordsafemade me raise an eyebrow, but I didn’t say anything. It seemed odd. Most demons wouldn’t bother to even consider the safety of a human.
I chewed on my lip, tapping the pen on the paper. Before I could talk myself out of it, I wrote another name on the list:Margaret Christine Gordon. Now Lacy’s sister was safe, too. And in a moment of preposterousness, I added one more name:Christopher Patrick Mitchell. A dead man. I went to scratch the name out, but something stopped me. I instead put the pen down. No harm in leaving it there. I lifted my head to thank the woman, but she had disappeared from behind the desk. I looked around the room and saw no sign of her. Odd.
With relief flooding through me, I turned around—only to find myself face to face with Balores. I flinched, stepping back and bumping into the desk behind me.
Balores, still occupying the body of the blond man I last saw him in, grinned with one side of his mouth. “Tonkitgrol. What a pleasant surprise.” Balores peered over my shoulder. “Hmm. I see you’ve added the meatsuit you stole from me to the list. What an…interestingchoice.”
“Stole?” I asked, playing ignorant.
“Stole,” he snapped, the fury in his voice making me flinch again.
Balores pressed his fingers to my forehead. My gaze shifted up toward the fingers. Next thing I knew, I was inside a cell—and Balores was on the other side.
I looked around in a panic, hands grabbing at the bars. This wasmycell. The same cell I resided in when I was just a human soul in Hell. “What are you doing?” I demanded lowly.
“Putting you in your place,” Balores spat. “I might take this as an opportunity to visit your former vessel. Finally try her out.”
I pulled at the bars on the cell, rattling them, but they stayed locked. “She’s safe. You can’t touch her,” I snarled at the other demon. “She’s on the damn list. No one can touch her.”
Balores shrugged, playing off indifference even though he was clearly pissed, flames burning in his eyes. The list was not just a piece of paper. It was a magical insurance—a shield that could never be broken through. “Eh, no matter. She was too small anyways. Would have gotten annoying after a while, being that weak.”
My eyes grew dangerously dark. “She’s stronger than you and I combined.” I pulled at the bars again, slamming my hand hard on the metal when nothing budged.
“Interesting,” Balores drawled, taking a step closer and leaning in conspiratorially. “I thought you stealing the human was a sore attempt at a power move. Youcareabout her. Is that all? How trite,” he sneered and then disappeared, leaving me trapped.
Fuck. I backed up into the corner of the cell, retreating to the position I had been in during my stint here, curled into a ball, making myself as small as possible. The one thing that kept my mind from spiraling was the knowledge that Lacy was safe. She had her tattoo. She had her charm. She and her sister were both now on the list. She was safe. However, I feared not safe enough. Not while Balores was still out there. I pulled myself out of the ball, rocketing back to the bars of the cell.
I yelled and screamed for someone to get me out of the cage. I pulled and kicked on the bars, but they were designed to never open. My screams were drowned out by all the other souls screaming around me.
Nobody came. Not for days. Perhaps weeks. It was impossible to tell.
My head was leaned against the cell, eyes closed, when a familiar, annoyed voice surprised me.
“Tonkitgrol, what do you think you’re doing?”
I lifted my head to see Garficious on the other side of the cell. Thank Satan. My hands gripped the bars tightly. “Balores locked me in here. I’ve been here since…since I saw you last.” Quietly, I muttered, “You wonder why I never come down here.”
“You gamble with my patience.” Garficious pinched the bridge of his nose. “Balores needs to spend more time torturing human souls and less his fellow demons.” Garficious reached through the bars of the cage and yanked me out by the chest of my shirt.
“Thanks,” I said, stumbling to solid footing. “Where’s Balores?”
Garficious adjusted the cuffs of his shirt then brushed a bit of dirt off his suit. “I would assume Specialized Torture. Why?”
I didn’t want to explain Lacy to him. Garficious was far too busy to care about things he would consider as petty as this, but I still didn’t trust him. “If I were to lock him in a cell, would you promise to keep him in there? At least for the next hundred Earth years?”
Garficious looked at me like he would rather be anywhere else. “No.” He turned away. “Now, I must be going.” He got a few steps away before angling back slightly, adding, “No one ever visits the cells in section R, 300 to 700. Far too drafty.” He was gone in a blink.
That was…helpful. Was Garficious to be trusted? Generally, I’d wager no, but I would assume locking away Balores would mean less demons in his way while he worked on whatever plot he was leading for the Queen.
