After Sam healed and stitched me up, I sat on the healer’s bed and dropped the block on the hellion’s emotions, tuning in. A soft, painless, sleepy hum wrapped around her consciousness. It gave me enough peace of mind not to check on her. As much as I wanted to, I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. Not when every inch of me vibrated with pent-up wrath. I wanted to punish her for being so careless with her life.A-fucking-gain.
When would she learn?
My shadows wrapped around my palms, squeezing with my ire. Rune sat up from the hardwood floors, bumping my hand with her chilly, wet nose.
“I’m fine,” I snapped.
She chuffed in disbelief. Then a muffled cry cut through the walls, tearing my thoughts from Lucille. That sounded like Alexei.
I quickly redressed in my dirty uniform and left the room with Rune. We found MJ standing outside a door with a glowing yellow handle—Sam had locked it.
Alexei cried out again, the loud, pained sound coming from the other side of the wood.
“He didn’t look good, Ro,” MJ said. The worry in her tone, the way she stared at the door like she was losing her best friend, and Alexei’s next cry were too much.
I moved down the hall without a word. Rune started to follow me. “Stay with Lucille and Alexei. I need eyes here.”
She stopped, and I continued.
“Ronen!” MJ called. “Where are you going?”
“To find Cecilee. I can’t stay here and listen to that. I’ll check on him tonight.”
The one thing I despised more than feeling helpless was sitting around and waiting.
MJ strode up beside me. “I’m coming with.”
“I expected nothing else.”
Meltingsnow dripped off the evergreens, and the road we followed puddled with water and mud. We didn’t see a single person once we left the castle, and based on the whispers we heard on the way out, I wasn’t surprised. Half the staff and our military thought the Redemption Circle was ending. When we entered the city, I wondered the same thing.
The upper city of Hoar Hollow usually pulsed with life—angels, whether blood-banded or souls, flying overhead. Hellcats blipping their owners’ sleighs into existence. People walking the streets, laughing, cursing, and yelling. I remembered ordering Alexei to take the hellion to the upper city, to see the beauty of it all. To show her the part of Hell that managed to take my breath away, with its icy, vine-covered walls, sparkling snow, quaint cobbled streets, and the blood-banded and souls living somewhat normal lives.
Now, I didn’t recognize it. Where there used to be snow lay mud. Where there used to be frosted walls was brick. No one strolled through the streets. What sleighs remained looked abandoned. And a warm,whistling wind rustled the papers posted to lampposts lining the empty streets.
“Where are all the people?” MJ asked.
I walked up to a lamppost, ripped down the fluttering paper, and read the blocky black words. “I imagine hiding.” I held out the flyer for her to see.
Warning!
Deadly demon infection spreading.
One bite and prepare to melt into liquefied flesh.
Watch out… the infection could be in anyone.
Your only chance at survival… offer up the souls you harbor.
“Someone sure twisted your words.”
“More than twisted. Someone is pitting our blood-banded against Hell’s souls.” I pointed at the third sentence. “And look at the vocabulary they used. They didn’t get that from my missive this morning.”
“It’s the words you use with our military. But why would one of them make this?”
“Better question—who would benefit the most from creating dissent in our kingdom?”
“Whoever’s leading the infected Damned.”
