A frown creased Drew’s brow.“nusquam par domui!”he repeated.
Nothing.
“Why isn’t it working?” he asked, a note of panic in his voice.
Zach stepped up close to him and rubbed his back soothingly, even as Drew let the magic drain back into his internal well of power. “I have a feeling that whatever keeps demons from leaving here is also stoppingus.”
Drew’s eyes widened in horror. “We’restuckhere?” he gasped.
Zach shook his head. “I don’t think so. I just think we need to cross to the borderlands. Only the demons in upper management can get there—lesser demons are prevented from entering them. I think from there, your spell should work.”
Despite their predicament, Drew couldn’t seem to stop smirking at Zach’s habit of referring to higher angels and demons as “upper management.” He was glad he could bringsomelevity to the situation. “How far away are these borderlands?” Drew asked.
Zach looked around, trying to gauge exactly where they were. Sure, he knew they were in Hell, but he wasn’t familiar with thisparticularlocation. “Um . . .” is all he managed.
“Zach?” Drew prompted after he didn’t say anything else. That edge of panic was back and getting sharper.
“I’m not sure exactly how far away we are, but it shouldn’t take us too long,” he assured him.
It looked like it was taking Drew every ounce of willpower not to demand how long “not too long” actually was. “Okay,” he said slowly. “So which way do we go?”
Hesitating for only a second, Zach pointed to the west. “That way.”
“You’re sure?”
Absolutely fucking not.“Of course! Let’s go.”
They’d been walking for half an hour when Zach spotted the first demon approaching. He cursed under his breath and moved so he was in front of Drew.
“What’s wrong?” Drew asked, coming to a halt at his back.
Zach nodded towards the expanse of rocky outcrop to the right of them. “We’ve got company,” he said shortly.
“Fuck,” Drew cursed. “I guess I can’t banish them when we’re the ones on their turf?”
“Yeah, banishing them isn’t going to work.”
“So, what do we do?”
Zach tried not to wince, knowing Drew was going to hate his reply. “There’s nothing else for it. If we can’t talk them into leaving us alone, I’ll have to kill them.”
“What?”Drew cried. “Zach, we can’t kill them!”
“You’re right,” he agreed, never wanting to put Drew in that position again. “We can’t. ButIcan.”
“Surely there’s another way?” Drew begged.
“Look, I’ll try to convince them to leave us alone, but if I can’t, they’ll try to tear us apart.” Well, they’d try to tear Zach apart. He wouldn’t mention what he thought they’d do to Drew. He had enough to worry about as it was.
It looked like Drew wanted to argue some more, but the demon had almost reached them and there was no more time for talk. “Fuck,” he said again. “Just be careful, okay?”
Zach nodded and took a few steps toward the demon. He didn’t recognise the beast, so they were likely one of the lower demons, and given their lack of anything resembling a humanoid form, they were surely a bottom feeder. The more “human-looking” a demon, the higher up the corporate ladder they tended to be. This was because higher demons could access magic, and over the millennia they had evolved to blend in in the human realm. The lower demons could only access a tiny bit of magic, or none at all, so their evolutionary journey had been different, and they more resembled the demons of old. Zach had never actually met the head honcho himself—Lucifer—but he’d seen him from afar,and he looked just like any other human. If he ran into him on a street on Earth, he’d have no idea he was anything other than a simple human.
The demon fast approaching could never be mistaken for anything but a creature from the depths of Hell. Their skeletal torso was covered in thick black fur, and their legs ended in cloven hooves. Two pairs of arms emerged from the shoulder joints, and their crumpled-looking face was dominated by a piglike snout and a large, bushy monobrow that rested above beady black eyes. They weren’t going to be gracing the cover ofPeopleanytime soon, that was for sure.
“That’s close enough,” Zach barked as the demon got within fifteen feet of them. “If you value your life, you’ll stop right there.”
The demon stopped, and then raised its face and sniffed at the air. “Something smells delicious,” they growled in a hoarse, harsh baritone that hurt his ears.
