Page 17 of Spit

I banged on the truck bed floor, but the vehicle never slowed. I reached into my pocket for my phone, but there was no signal. Whatever was blocking my magic must have been blocking my cell signal.

The sweltering Louisiana heat was getting to me. The baby hairs at the back of my neck were curling with sweat, and I needed a drink of water more than breath.

We were on the road for hours.

Eventually, once I had given up hope and mentally started preparing a will, the truck pulled to a slow stop. I heard voices through the metal of the cab. The low brusque tones of unfamiliar men. The conversation was short, with a few clipped phrases, but I listened as if my life depended on it.

“Business in the Red City?”

“Supplies.”

“Papers?”

“Here you go.”

“Everything seems to be in order.”

The truck started up again, and I considered banging my feet on the floor and screaming, but self-preservation (as insane as that sounded) held me back.

Mr. Bub had arranged for me to be smuggled into one of the only places on earth where demons were free to roam. No one could enter the Red City without going through the official gates. The magic to keep the demons inside the walls was too strong.

I had seen the demon king teleport out of thin air—he had called it lacing and explained the process as pulling the fabric of the universe together and moving through the gaps. My mind hadn’t been able to contemplate that kind of power when I was a child. I was one of the reasons that I had signed a contract with Mr. Bub in the first place.

Even Mr. Bub couldn’t just magically drop into the Red City, it seemed.

I pressed the heel of my palm to my head. Humans weren’t allowed in the Red City and those that were acted as food or fodder. Several reality TV shows had been birthed simply from the CCTV footage of the harems of incubi and succubi that lived in the Pink Sector—Lust.

Sometimes prisoners were offered to the demons in exchange for a shorter sentence. Sometimes they were simply sent to be hunted.

I had heard all the stories about the infamous Red Cities worldwide. There were two in the continental US. One between Baton Rouge and NOLA and one in the Nevada desert.

If I screamed and got caught on the border, Mr. Bub would most likely kill me.

And knowing the King of Gluttony, it would not be a pleasant death.

I’d likely be stuffing taco Bell into my mouth until my stomach very literally burst at the seams.

No, Mr. Bub wanted me in the Red City, and I was the patsy with too much to lose.

The truck shifted as it went over a bump, and I heard the roll of metal shutters as we drove away. The runes on the cage left me feeling powerless. Neutered.

I didn’t have to wait long before the truck rolled to a stop again. The movement surprised me, and I tumbled forward like a baby horse, unable to stand up.

I winced, rubbing my elbow as I felt a bruise begin to form. Finally, the engine stopped and the metal shutters at the end of the truck lifted. A silhouette stretched into the darkness of the van, a man with a baseball cap and a clipboard.

“Are you okay in there?” the driver called out, his words coated with a Boston twang.

I ignored his question. “Have you got any water?”

The driver cocked his head to the side, studying me as if he couldn’t tell if I was all there in the head before he nodded slowly and trundled off. He returned a moment later with a bottle of water.

He hopped into the cab, surprisingly spry for a middle-aged man. My hunger and null magic weren’t at a hundred percent, but opening the truck door had broken whatever ward kept my magic suppressed. I was lucky the driver was human, or he would have been drained in a heartbeat.

The driver handed me the bottle through the bars, the plastic sweating with cool crisp condensation.

“Smuggle many people?” I asked as I worked the cap and then began to drain the bottle.

The driver shrugged. “I’m just a delivery driver.”

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