“No emotions, just facts,” she repeats under her breath. “She didn’t treat me badly when I was small. I don’t remember going hungry until she left. She must have cared for me at some point until the Rebels got to her,” Moni mumbles while using her free hand to play with her tail. She turns to Chester and nods, letting go of his hand and giving him a strained smile.
Flying over to the picture of her mother with a pained expression, she puts her hand on it and says, “This is my truth.” The picture glows with a green light before disappearing, and an opening reveals itself. In the distance is another wall.
“I guess we passed. Congratulations, Moni,” I tell her, patting her back as we press forward.
It looks like I was right. This trial is hard. We’re all going to have to keep our emotions out of this and think logically. Maybe being a robot isn’t so bad after all.
CHAPTER 37
Beleth’s Lair
Rez
Ireally am getting sick and tired of the damn dark. You would think if Beleth was going to keep me in his lair, he could at least have a better welcome party than a pitch-black room. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face, and what’s up with the music playing in the background? I can’t even tell what it is because once I think I start to understand it or maybe know what it is, it changes when it’s right on the tip of my tongue. I hate that feeling.
“Well, I must say, even you surprised me, Nerezza,” a thick mid-Eastern accent imparts with laughter in his voice. “This isn’t how I pictured us meeting again.” His voice comes from my right but echoes around me.
I turn to face in the direction of the voice, not wanting an enemy at my back, but then again, it doesn’t help much since I’m still in the fucking dark here. Wait. Did he sayagain?
“What do you mean again?” I ask, pulling my glaives.
“You can put away your weapons, Nerezza. I will not hurt you.”
“Yeah, right,” I snort. “Then what would you call the shit my friends and I just went through?” I throw back at him, not disarming myself.I might be slow sometimes, but I’m not stupid.
“I’m required to provide tests along the Road of Worth just as you are bound to try and defeat them once you’ve started.” A darker shadow of a creature moves and shuffles, and I circle as he continues to talk. “Or did L.A.M.B. forget to tell you that part?”Is it getting lighter in here, or are my eyes finally adjusting?
“W-what?” I stammer, almost losing my focus. I hear it at the last second, something leaving a sheath, and throw up my shield. A blast of air hits it, along with a small plink. A pregnant silence fills the room before I hear gurgling and a heavy thud.
“What was that?” I ask, my voice slightly shaking as goosebumps rise along my skin.
“Ahhh. They have taught you well, I see.” The room slowly lightens, allowing my eyes to adjust, and I finally get a look at the circular room I’m in. Directly in front of me is a demon with its throat slashed, bleeding out onto the floor. Stepping out of the rapidly pooling blood, I continue to take in my surroundings.
There’s a simple desk and chair on one side of the room, a sofa and lounge chair on the other, and a coffee table and a bar by one of the walls, similar to Lucifer’s decor. But where is my host?
The only place he could be.
It’s a split second as I crouch down and bring my blades up over my head along with another shield. When nothing happens, I slowly glance up and find Beleth smiling down at me from where he’s seated in the rafters. He’s swinging his legs over the beam as if he has no cares in the world. Shit, I guess being a Prince of Hell, he wouldn’t have any.
“You are a funny one,” he observes before slipping off, his iridescent wings flaring to catch him before landing without a sound before me. Standing at his full height, I take in the demon. It’s hard to tell what he is because as he moves, so do his multiple forms. Yeah, you heard that right. It’s as if multiple illusions are stacked over him. Every time he shifts, I get a glimpse of a new form. “Your mother was the same.”
The mention of my mother stops my observation in a heartbeat.
“My mother? How did you know my mother?” I ask, my throat suddenly becoming parched.
“I dare say we were friends. If a demon in my position could have any real ones.” He walks over to the bar and pulls out two glasses. “Care for a drink?”
“That depends. Why am I here? Shouldn’t you be putting me back to work in your one-thousand Deaths chamber?” I grumble, not at all happy with my choices. Yes, I’m glad I saved Lynx, and I would do it over again in a heartbeat, but I want to be with them, not here.
“I already told you, Nerezza. I wanted to see you again,” he proclaims. “How about a Ball Buster since that’s what you did out there? If my minions could procreate, they wouldn’t be able to do it now after you’ve had your hands on them.” Before I can respond, he throws a pink, orange, and yellow mixture together and adds cherry-like fruits to the drink. He does the same to his but adds a shot of something black. “Mine’s a Smokey Ball Buster,” he explains while handing my drink to me. I reluctantly put away one of my glaives to take the drink.
The closer he comes, the easier it is to see through his illusion. He still has multiple forms, but now there are only two. One is a human with white shoulder-length hair and a naked chiseled chest, while the other figure is a cat’s face on a human body covered in brown fur. I wonder which his true form is.
“To keeping a promise to an old friend,” he toasts, clinking my drink and downing half his before I bring my glass to my lips. The drink is sweet at first, but the aftertaste has a punch.
“When was the first time we met?” I ask, setting down my empty glass on his bar and leaning against it while observing him once again. I pull out my other glaive but set it on the bar countertop for easy reach next to my hand as I listen to his answer. Instead of sitting on the sofa as I think he will, he walks over to his desk and opens a drawer.
“We met when your mother brought you here for safekeeping. She thought she was being hunted and needed to hide her tracks.” He pulls out a small pink teddy bear, and my jaw drops. Even though I see it—as in, it’s in his hands—I don’t believe it.
