This was so fucked up, but she had her priorities. And as much as that awkward little demon had suddenly made her care about the state of Murmur’s territory, she had to take care of herself first.
She locked the door behind her, knowing it wasn’t going to keep out any real intruders. Murmur had given her his entire library, and she was taking the responsibility seriously.Even though he’s not dead.
As such, she found a piece of chalk and spent several minutes drawing a ward on the back of the door. Murmur wouldprobably be able to break it with ease, but regular lesser demons wouldn’t, and it was better than nothing.
Then she went back to his prone body, crouched down and hooked her arms under his, and tried to drag him.
In a low squat, she managed to move him halfway to the hellgate before she had to stop and rest. She was strong, but damn, he was heavy. How much did seven feet of solid-boned demon weigh? Bastard was going to throw her back out.
Didn’t matter. In the distance, the plains outside the lair swarmed with more demons. She hoped the ones here would be able to hold the walls of the lair. She hoped the library would be safe. But she needed to get Murmur the fuck out of here. No one could see him like this, wounded, unconscious, possibly dea—
“Shutup,” she snapped at herself, and then she bent and grabbed him again. “Almost … there …” With a grunt of exertion, she hauled him up and shuffled the rest of the way. She dragged his deadweight across the hellgate … which of course smudged the lines and deactivated it.
She cursed, and her breath caught as her eyes filled with tears. She was teetering on a razor’s edge of falling apart.
Taking deep breaths, she left Murmur, grabbed another piece of chalk, and set about fixing the lines. She retraced them all around his motionless form and then had to forcibly roll him to each side to repair the lines beneath him.
Finally, it was done, and she was able to reactivate the gate and link it back with her apartment. She tossed the chalk piece, stepped into the gate, reaching to grab Murmur’s hand—
And that was when she remembered that an unconscious person couldn’t travel by hellgate.
Which was why she was pretty damn surprised when, a moment later, the world turned on its axis and spun her around like a kernel in a popcorn machine. She found herself standing in her living room on Earth, bending over to clutch Murmur’s ice-cold hand as he lay too still at her feet.
An unconscious person couldn’t travel by hellgate. But a dead one could.
Because a dead person classified as extra baggage. And people could take items through hellgates as long as they were touching them with some part of their body.
Her blood went cold, but she shook her head firmly. “He’s not dead,” she said aloud, not believing the words coming out of her mouth.
But she reminded herself there was such a thing as a temporary death for a demon—they could regenerate from mortal wounds so long as they weren’t inflicted with an angel’s consecrated weapon. It was too early to know for sure.
Even though there were no mortal wounds on his body. Even though the wounds he did have hadn’t even begun to heal, though it had been hours since she’d found him.
“No, no, no,” she whispered, her chest tightening so much it hurt to breathe. But she couldn’t allow herself to think about it yet. She still had one more thing to do.
With monumental effort, she managed to drag Murmur’s body out of the hellgate. Then she found her chalk, repaired the smudged lines once more, and traveled right back to the library. The portal still spun around in the center of the spell, just waiting for someone to step into it.
She ran to Murmur’s desk and picked up the stack of books he’d given her with the folded note still on top. And then she carried the load back through the hellgate to Earth, setting it down quickly and sinking to the ground.
With her final task complete, the adrenaline began to leave her bloodstream, and the shock took over. Her claws morphed back to human hands with blunt nails. They shook visibly. Her skin returned to its natural shade, and her sharp fangs became short, dull points.
She stared at Murmur’s expressionless features. At the sigil carved into his chest that still hadn’t healed. All of her wasshaking now. The silence in her house felt oppressive. She wanted to scream to fill it, but she couldn’t find her voice.
I couldn’t do it. I guess it doesn’t matter why anymore.
The tightness in her chest turned to pain so sharp she gasped.Is he really dead? Am I really sitting in my living room with Murmur’s dead body?
No, this couldn’t be how it ended. Itcouldn’t.He wasn’t gone. She refused to accept it, to even consider it a possibility. There had to be something—
The books.Maybe there was something in the books. Another note, perhaps.
She grabbed the bottom spine, dragging the entire pile closer to her. She didn’t stop to wonder if her actions were rational. All that mattered was keeping her mind busy so she didn’t have to think about the truth or listen to the terrible silence.
She snatched the first book off the top, and her heart lurched when she immediately recognized it.The Book of Gamigin.Guess she hadn’t needed to fight to get it back after all.
That book came too close to making her think about the things she couldn’t face, so she quickly set it aside and grabbed the next, and then the next. She flipped through each with increasing desperation, refusing to acknowledge the absurdity of her hope that she’d find another note from Murmur tucked in their pages, assuring her he would wake up shortly.
A few of the volumes were an overview of Sheolic magic, more thorough than anything she’d find on Earth. There were a couple grimoires full of complex spells she’d need to spend hours studying just to figure out what they did. One tome was a book of curses with a blackened cover that made a chill race down her spine just from holding it.
