“Lys,” Bex said, though she probably should’ve yelled. She was used to not having to raise her voice with her demons. Now that she wasn’t a queen anymore, though, her words no longer carried the same weight. Lys didn’t even seem to hear her as they methodically worked Desh into a choke hold. Bex was about to step in and break it up when she heard a high-pitched screech from down the tunnel right before a small figure leaped out of the darkness and threw itself onto Lys’s still-bleeding wing.
The impact wasn’t enough to actually knock Lys over, but it did make them hiss. They flipped over with a snarl, claws out and ready to fight, but the little creature had already scrambled off of Lys’s wing to throw itself at Desh. The newcomer wrapped their arms around the fear demon’s head with a snarl, showing their little fangs as they defended Desh’s body with a tiny set of dusky-pink, leathery wings.
“What in the Hells?” said Iggs, squinting his red eyes against the low light of Desh’s lantern. “Is that a lust demon?”
“It’s a child,” Bex said.
Lys didn’t say anything at all. They just darted around the new demon and went for Desh’s collared throat. The baby lust demon fought back, their three-foot body flickering through multiple different human girl shapes as they threw themselvesover Lys’s shoulder and started trying to bite through the bigger demon’s wounded wing.
“Whoa,” Bex said, reaching out to grab the baby demon before they chomped something critical. “That’s enough of that. You, too, Lys. Stand down.”
Her voice actually got through this time. Lys stopped trying to murder Desh at once, though they threw a nasty glare at the little demon whipping around like a trapped ferret in Bex’s grip. Desh, however, just looked relieved.
“Much obliged, Your Majesty,” he panted as he heaved himself off the dark tunnel’s rough stone floor. “Looks like I owe you my life yet again.”
“I’ll put it on your tab,” Bex said, tilting her head toward the little demon she was holding at arm’s length. “Who’s this?”
Before she could finish the question, the little lust demon changed back into their true shape to start attacking Bex’s arm with their wings and tail as well. They almost took off one of her five remaining fingers before Bex managed to switch her grip to the child’s sin-iron collar. She was still trying to find a position that would keep everything bitable away from those small but fearsome teeth when Desh burst out laughing.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, turning around to give Bex the charming smile she remembered, though a much rougher, thinner version. “That’s Streya. She’s the one who had eyes on the tower and spotted your trouble. Raced right through all the patrols to come tell me to get the tunnel ready.” Desh grinned wider. “Regular little weasel, that one.”
Streya stopped trying to bite Bex’s hand off to preen at the praise, but Lys was scowling.
“She?”
“Damn right ‘she,’” the little demon snapped, thrashing even harder in Bex’s grip. “I ain’t ever changing into a boy! Never! They can’t make me!”
“You see?” Desh said as Bex finally set the flailing child down. “She’s a born rebel. The overseers were planning to send her to Earth and let one of the mortal warlocks beat it out of her when Gilgamesh locked down all the Anchors. Since they couldn’t ship her off, they chained her on the work line next to me. I was minding my own business, trying to make quota, when Streya made a stone-cold play to kill the warlock watching our section. I ended up helping her do it, and the two of us went on the lam.”
“Went for the kill, huh?” Lys said, looking at the young demon with new respect. “Good work. I was twice your age before I killed my first warlock.”
“They’re easy to kill,” Streya bragged, spreading her little wings proudly. “Stupid old men never think to look down.”
“That’s my little murder machine,” Desh said, reaching out to ruffle Streya’s hair between her stubby horns. “Reminds me of the good old days.”
He winked at Bex, but she could only lower her eyes. Desh was always a flirt, but seeing him wink at her like he used to just highlighted how much he’d changed. He couldn’t have been in the Hells for more than two months, but Desh already looked like he’d lost half his body weight. His once lithe, muscular frame was a skeletal shadow of its former strength. His bones were clearly visible beneath the shapeless, dirty sack of his knee-length prison tunic, and his pale-blond hair was stained gray from the black grime that coated everything down here. His neck had been clean the last time Bex saw him, but just like Streya, Desh’s throat now sported a slave-band tattoo beneath his sin-iron collar. A fresh, dark one that made Bex’s hand close into a fist.
“What happened to you?”
Now it was Desh’s turn to drop his eyes. “It’s not a complicated story,” he muttered as he crouched down to wipeLys’s black blood off Streya’s face. “After our, um,incidentin Seattle, I got caught up in the rush of warlocks fleeing the Anchor Market. One of ’em stopped panicking long enough to banish me back to the Hells, so here I am.”
Despite having just been trying to kill him, Lys scoffed. “Onewarlock was able to banishyou?”
“Little old raisin of a wanker, too,” Desh said with a self-deprecating laugh. “I could’ve taken his head off with a sneeze, but I didn’t see the point. I’d just betrayed everything I stood for in a misguided attempt at redemption. Seemed like the Hells were where I belonged after that.”
“No one belongs here,” Bex said adamantly.
“So you’ve always said,” Desh agreed as he straightened back up. “But it’s amazing how stupid a man can be when he’s feeling sorry for himself. I was good and ready to wallow in some proper misery, but when I saw Streya go for that warlock, my body moved on its own. Next thing I knew, my claws were in his throat.” He shrugged. “What can I say? Old habits die hard.”
“Nice to know you haven’t turned your back on everything,” Lys said, settling their bloody wing—which had finally healed, thank Ishtar—back into place. “Is it just the two of you, or are there other escapees as well?”
“There’s a fair few of us,” Desh said, nodding down the dark tunnel. “There’s always a couple loose demons rattling around back here, but the numbers have been skyrocketing recently.” He turned back to Bex with a determined look. “That’s the other reason I decided to get in on Streya’s escape. It wasn’t just rebellious old habits. The Hells have changed since the last time I was here.”
“What are you babbling about?” Lys asked sharply. “Have you seen the sin-collection floor? ’Cause it still looks like Hell to me.”
“Come off, Lyssy,” Desh scoffed. “How long’s it been since the last time you got banished down here?”
Lys frowned, doing the math. “Not counting today, around two hundred years.”
