Had they all gone to Hell?
“Well, this has taken a dramatically creepy turn,” I muttered, taking a step away from the tunnel of darkness. “Can you still hear them?”
Serena let out a low whistle my and shook her head. “No. That’s the strangest thing about this. As soon as we stepped out of that stairwell, the footsteps stopped. It’s like they came this way, but then...”
I swallowed hard and stared into the darkness.
Vanished.
Surely not. There would have been a fight. Lucifer might be the King of Hell, but there was only one of him. He couldn’t just snap his fingers and smite six fully formed adult Princes of Hell. Could he?
“So, where’s this gate?” I turned to ask Priyanka, but she was no longer by my side. Frowning, I whirled on my feet, only to find that Serena wasn’t with me anymore, either. Dread coiled like a snake, ready to strike its venom into my heart. Blood roaring in my ears, I slowly stepped back toward the stairwell, scarcely daring to make a single sound.
Something weird was going on here.
“Serena?” I whisper-called to the dungeon. “Priyanka?”
I didn’t want to shout too loud. One of the lessons I’d learned from watching lots of horror movies was to never, ever wander around a creepy dungeon shouting for your missing friends. That was a great way to catch the killer’s attention.
No one answered my call.
Right. Time to listen to logic. People didn’t justvanish. There was something else going on here. A fae glamor of some sort. The others had run up against it, and it was hiding them. Or something like that. Serena would never leave me alone down here, so I knew she hadn’t raced up the stairs to safety. I doubted Priyanka would have, either. She was a good egg.
They had to be down here somewhere. I just couldn’t see them.
With a deep breath, I paced from one end of the dungeon to the next. I needed some help, and who better to assist with a fae glamor than the fae themselves? I grabbed my phone and punch in the number, only to realize there was no service underground.
Pressing my lips together, I cast a quick glance behind me and headed to the stairwell. I only needed a minute to make the call, and then I’d come back down here to wait on the fae, just in case something happened.
I raced up the winding stairs. My footsteps were loud against my ears, a sudden contrast to the eerie silence of the dungeon. When I reached the top landing, I shoved the door. It didn’t budge.
Frowning, I shoved harder.
It didn’t even crack an inch.
Adrenaline pumping through my veins, I threw all my weight behind my shoulder and slammed against the wood. Pain flared through my left arm, sharp and electric. I stumbled back and stared.
My lungs stilled. With timid fingers, I twisted the knob one more time and pushed. The door would not open. I’d been locked in. No one else was with me. My heart thundered against my ribs. He’d done this. It was the only explanation.
I’d somehow stumbled right into another one of Lucifer’s traps.
He had me right where he wanted.
30
Okay. No need to panic. So what if the King of Hell had sneakily trapped me inside a dungeon packed full of medieval torture devices? It could definitely be worse. For example, there could be horned creatures crawling around down here trying to eat me, and so far I hadn’t seen any sign of that.
Knock on wood.
So what now? As far as I could tell, I had two options. I could keep banging on this door and hoping I could break it down by sheer force of will. My hands might shatter in the process, and there might be some blood. Or I could search the dungeon for another exit.
I wasn’t particularly fond of either of these options. The dungeon was...weird. People kept vanishing. I didn’t know if it had something to do with the gate to Hell, and I really didn’t want to find out. But banging on the door wasn’t going to get me anywhere. Not unless someone showed up at the club to check things out. And everyone who might fall into that category had walked down these stairs.
To the dungeon, it was.
After tiptoeing back down the stairs, I eyeballed the torch-lit path that led to who knew where. It was the only way out of this main room. Before I made my move, I wandered over to the wall and grabbed one of the spikey things. Heavy and metallic, it looked like it could pound through steel.
Let’s see how Lucifer enjoys having this pointed at his face.
