“What’s a Prince of Hell?” Shane apparently didn’t know as much about demons as his wife did.
“First-hierarchy demon,” I explained for her. “They’re the worst of the worst, basically. Even in Hell, they’re the bad boys.”
I was impressed Siobhan was able to recognize what Belphegor was at just a glance. All I knew by looking at him was Goddamn, that’s a big scary demon.
“Do we move in now?” Ingrid asked.
I guess a big bad demon was not a deterrent in her single-minded plan to get Sig back.
“I know you want to run in there, and believe me, so do I. I want nothing more than to turn the place into a shooting gallery. But if we go now, the first thing they’ll do it kill Sig so they can keep using his blood, so we need to be
patient.”
Ingrid looked like she wanted to go anyway, but for the time being she listened, and waited.
The group amassed on the field was in a tizzy. They had come here with the sole purpose of calling up a demon, and before they had even begun their ceremony, one had appeared before them. They must have thought they were really good at this.
“Who called me forth?” Belphegor boomed, so loud and deep it made the earth vibrate under our feet. We were farther away than I’d been the last time I’d heard him speak, but the sound was still skin-crawlingly unpleasant and made my ears ring painfully. Siobhan grimaced and Emilio briefly covered his ears to block it out, but Ingrid was so focused on Sig she didn’t react at all.
When compared to Belphegor’s bone-shaking tenor, the voice of the cult member who spoke up was weak and mousy. “We are the Children of Everlasting Night.”
I made a dramatic gagging noise. Why couldn’t these groups ever come up with a cool name? They always sounded like they were one step removed from being a goth poetry club. Children of the Everlasting Night? Did they all have discount cards at Hot Topic and think the lyrics of My Chemical Romance were super deep?
Cults suuuuucked.
“You use my mark,” Belphegor said. “Do you have an offering?”
He was prowling around the outside of the circle, and I took a sick sort of delight in seeing the cult members twist and turn uncomfortably, scared to have him at their backs. Yeah, that’s the thing, isn’t it? Demons seem super great until you have one of them looming over you with a voice that sounds like echoing tunnels of Hell are opening up inside your skull.
It’s all fun and games until you accidentally summon one for real.
“We have found you the oldest, most powerful blood in the country.” The man indicated the hunched form of Sig. The master vampire was possibly the only one present who hadn’t acknowledged the arrival of the demon. He just kept staring at the ground, bobbing faintly. I wasn’t sure he was in there anymore, really.
“Now?” Ingrid asked.
“Wait.”
I was just as itchy to see what would happen next, leaning closer to the action. This was the most messed-up theatre New York had ever seen, and that was counting the time I’d seen a guy in an off-off-off-Broadway show drink his own urine.
“Do you mean to open a gate?” Belphegor peered at the circle they had created, and the cultists nervously exchanged glances.
“We meant to call you.”
Belphegor laughed, and my skin went ice cold. I felt like I was covered in bugs, with spiders and roaches crawling under my fingernails. My blood turned to acid, and my lungs desperately, achingly wanted to scream and keep screaming until the sound of his laughter was drowned out. It wasn’t a fun sensation.
When he stopped chuckling, I gasped for air.
“No one tell that guy any jokes,” I whispered.
“He’s not really known for his sense of humor,” Harry offered.
“By all means,” Belphegor said. “Do your little ceremony.”
After a long pause of confusion and some muffled muttering I couldn’t make out, the head guy gave someone an almost imperceptible nod. This was all hard to see with only the moon overhead and the burning-ember glow from Belphegor’s eyes, but it was somehow enough.
Another cult member lit a torch and lowered it to the circle on the ground, filling the lawn with sudden warm light.
My heart leapt into my throat, and I bumped Ingrid with my elbow.