A joke, I thought, if not a funny one. It reminded me of the way a cat licked its whiskers after a mouse. I smiled uneasily.
Chanced stared down at the still-smoking corpse. It was smaller, withered, as if Greydusk had taken more than information, terrabytes of data streaming in magickal light. The exchange set my teeth on edge. I wanted to blind Greydusk, and then let Chance kill it, but then I’d leave Shannon stranded in Sheol. I couldn’t do that, so once again I proved myself willing to work with the devil in order to achieve my own ends. Is this what evil feels like? How it begins? You started with a slippery slide down the slope of good intentions until you were mired in the blood and mud at the bottom, unable to see any light no matter which way you turned. Heart dark and heavy, I wondered how far I would go, and what I would become when I got there.
If you care for no one, a little voice whispered, if you remain firm and steadfast and will not act to save the ones you love, in the name of some abstract good, is inaction not the same as evil? I couldn’t fashion an answer; it was too much, too confusing, but I did, unfortunately, see how good and evil were almost like a wheel, and that if you went far enough down one road, the two became virtually indistinguishable. People had done terrible things in heaven’s name, too.
“What happens to demons when they die?”
“Nothing,” it said.
“There’s no afterlife? No hell?”
It flashed its teeth. “According to your lore, Binder, we’re already there.”
“But Maury told me—”
“Ah, yes.” Its tone became disapproving. “You have…contacts, do you not?”
“I guess. What kind of demon is Maury?”
“He is of the Birsael caste, the bargainers. They are easy for practitioners of your world to call because they long to cross over. They are…playful?”
“Playful?” I thought about what Maury had done in Kilmer, and shivered. I did not want to meet a non-playful demon, but I was on my way to a city full of them.
“Over time—and many summonings—they become attuned to a certain human…trait.” That hadn’t been the word it meant to use at first. “And then they hunger for more of the same.”
“An acquired taste,” Chance put in.
“Just so.”
Maury’s thing was stagnation, as I recalled. Entropy.
“What is Dumah’s affinity?”
“Hunger,” it replied. “Greed. Need.”
Shit. And I’d unloosed her on the world. Hopefully, the way I’d crafted the bargain would keep them from wreaking too much havoc. Guilt plagued me, but Greydusk was saying, “I have no doubt that Maury told you that Sheol is another world. The fact that our citizens enjoy playing in yours has given rise to interesting stories over the eons.”
“You view people as toys?” I was indignant, even if I couldn’t afford to be.
“Entertainment, certainly. To us, it is no different from how human children toy with insects or set anthills on fire.”
“Only bad kids do that,” I muttered.
“Yet I am not here to argue with you.”
“How come it attacked us? I thought the demons wanted me in Sheol.”
“Some do,” Greydusk replied. “But there are…factions in play, and others want different things.”
“Such as?”
“Power. Or to preserve the status quo.”
“What did you learn from that?” Chance nudged the corpse.
“Many things, but the most important? Who hired it. You have enemies, Binder, and some of them prefer you never reach Xibalba at all.”
“Why?” God, it was too much. I just wanted to rescue Shannon.
“Because you presage change, no matter what you decide. The caste structure has been etched in blood and bone for thousands of years, and you could topple it.”
“I don’t plan to topple anything.”
Secretly, I thought I might die, and if that meant saving Shan, then I was okay with that. It was a peaceful thought that she could go back to Jesse, and have the life I’d wanted—holidays with his family, nieces and nephews, maybe children someday, although she was so young that the relationship might not last. At the least, she had to live. I’d settle for nothing less, even if I had to level Sheol to make it happen.
Greydusk watched my face, guessing my thoughts, I half suspected, from the tightness of my mouth and the set of my jaw. “Intentions seldom match results.”
“Maybe not. What is that thing?”
“Aronesti.” It spat the word like a curse. “They are the snatchers, and they have no honor.”
The snatchers. Of what?
Chance asked, so I didn’t have to.
“Flesh. They crave it from the dead. Carrion feeders, the lot of them.”
“Do they ever cross over? I mean, obviously this one did…” But we killed it before it could go out and swoop around the battlefields in a ghastly feast.
Greydusk nodded. “From time to time. It is my understanding that the Nephilim hunt them down.”
Among other things. So Kel might be out there right now, hunting demons, along with killing people he was told would start the apocalypse. How the hell did you trust in orders like that? I wanted to see him, talk to him, shake him. Everything I learned about his world made me understand him less.
“Can they be summoned?” Chance asked.
“Most demons can be called by a practitioner of sufficient skill and power. Aronesti are sometimes found in the bodies of cannibal killers.”
What a horrible thought, but also better, if I could believe many of the ghastly things humans did came from demons. Unfortunately, I didn’t think so. People could be evil without any help at all.
Chance sounded thoughtful. “Is that because they sense a sympathetic hunger in the host or because the demon drives the person to it?”
A shrug. “That I do not know.”
This frank discussion of flesh-feasting demons and cannibal killers in a scary cave with a dead thing at my feet? Not. Helping. I decided to get us back on track, stepping over the monster and moving farther down the passage.
“But you’re contracted to make sure I reach Xibalba in one piece.” It was my way of saying let’s go already, but without meaning to, my word choice apparently questioned its integrity.
Its eyes gleamed like onyx. “I will ignore the affront, this one time, but ignorance of our ways does not excuse your discourtesy.”
“Explain,” Chance said.
“Very well,” the demon replied. Stiffly. Its movements were jerkier than they had been. Anger? I guessed so. “As we move, I shall.”
Good going. You pissed off your protection. Given how I’d needled Kel while he guarded me, it appeared I had a knack for it. We started down the passage, leaving the corpse behind us. It was more than a little creepy that everything that had been in the demon’s head, Greydusk now knew. How powerful did that make it, exactly? Not something I cared to fight, if it could unmake me with a touch.
“I am Imaron,” Greydusk said, like I should know what that meant. At my obvious confusion, it added, “That is my caste.”
Ah. It had mentioned castes earlier, how I could break the whole social structure of Sheol. That wasn’t on my to-do list.
“Would you tell us about the castes?” Chance was still looking to increase his knowledge base, and he would use everything he gleaned from Greydusk to prepare for whatever we’d face in Xibalba.
“There is no reason I cannot,” the demon replied. “It is information freely available in the archives.”
Booke would love the sound of that. He was a friend and a research specialist in the UK. I’d never met him in person, but maybe one day that would change. And if we didn’t get back soon, he’d worry when I missed our weekly chat. Then he might call Chuch and Eva. Maybe I should have e-mailed them, but a message like Going to play demon bait, back soon, would only make the situation worse.
“Thanks,” Chance said. “Start with your caste?”
“The Imaron are known as the soul-stealers, but we abide by our contracts. It is death to act otherwise.”
Soul-stealers. Awesome. But at least they were all lawyerly about it. Somehow that didn’t make it better; no wonder humans thought Sheol was hell.
Chance spoke again, sounding pensive; his puzzle-solving brain would help so much on this venture. “Death? Is breaking the contract fatal or is the offending behavior punished?”
It was a good question. Greydusk angled its slender neck in an unnatural fashion to give Chance an approving look. “The former. When we sign a contract, we do so in blood, and there is a magickal ritual. Should I break my word, the blood turns to poison in my veins, and I will perish instantly.”
Wow. The Imaron took their promises seriously. I felt bad for doubting him. Treachery would kill this creature, so I had nothing to fear for sure. While I might question its intentions and its abilities, self-preservation ranked pretty high on the list of things I felt sure of. I thought about that in silence for a little while, listening to our steps scrape over the stone.
And then I asked, “What happens if you fail? I mean, not through a breach of contract, but just…overwhelming odds? Do they hold that against you?”
“Then I am already dead,” it said simply.
It walked on.
If I had a thousand dollars for every time I followed a demon down a dark and terrifying tunnel, well…I’d have a thousand dollars. Because this was a first, even for me, in a weird and unlikely life. Greydusk lost its interest in talking, though it had promised to explain the caste system to us. It wouldn’t happen right now, anyway, as it appeared to be listening as we moved.
Finally I had to ask, “Is something coming?”
That wouldn’t surprise me. I just had to get ready for it.
“I don’t think so.”
“Is it hard to pass the portal?” Chance asked.
“Yes. It requires power and sacrifice.”
Good to know. I hated the thought of anything like the weight-sensitive doors at most major shopping centers, where the minute you approached, they slid open, linking our world to Sheol. But it made sense that these natural portals required opening. Otherwise, the demons would’ve overrun us ages ago. Wouldn’t they? Some of them might be perfectly happy at home, despite what Maury had said. After all, not everybody loved to travel.
“So the more our enemies try to send something through to strike at us, the weaker they’ll be when we arrive?” I guessed.
Greydusk nodded. “Most will be prudent enough to wait until you cross to send their best assassins. It is a calculated risk, of course. Should you choose to ascend, once you reach Sheol—”
“Ascend?”
“It is not my place to explain your choices, Binder.”
Bullshit. Greydusk was just tired of answering my endless questions. I took the hint and trudged on in silence. The deeper we went into the mountain, the more it felt like a subterranean forest with exotic stone trees. My witchlight kept the dark from becoming oppressive, and I ignored the burn in my thighs. It was a lengthy hike, but not one that required an overnight rest, thankfully.