Page 8 of Fallen Demon

Beside her, Killian wore a black suit and burgundy tie, like all the other princes in the castle.

I felt oddly out of place in my tight leggings, vest, and combat boots.

“Any books about the underworld,” I said, pushing those thoughts away. How I dressed wasn’t important. “I need to find out what fiery pits could mean.”

I knew no library would ever match the one at the Great Eternity Hall, but I needed to keep busy. And who knew? I might find something useful in these books.

“We’ll help you,” Killian said. He grabbed a laptop from the long desk at the front and opened it up. “For the last few years, we’ve had some lower-ranked vampires enter all the books in the library in a database. They haven’t finished it yet. There are so many books and there are always new ones, but I bet we can find most of them here.” He took a chair at a squared table.

“Oh, nice.” I sat across from him and Lavinia took the chair to his right.

In no time, we had a list of over fifty books. We each took a third of the list and fanned out to grab what we could carry, bringing the volumes to the tables at the front of the library.

After a few minutes of searching, I glanced at my friends. “Are you sure you two don’t have something else to do?”

Lavinia lifted an eyebrow. “Why? Want to get rid of us?”

“I just don’t want you to waste your time babysitting me.”

“We’re not babysitting you,” she said. “We’re helping our friend.”

“That’s our mission,” Killian said.

My lips tugged up, but before they could stretch too wide, I buried my nose in a book and started working. For about one hour, we skimmed through the books, determining the ones that actually talked about the underworld, not just mentioned it as an afterthought, and also the ones that talked about its structure and space.

The next hour, we choose five or six books from the remaining pile and started making a list of common features we found in them. I thought that we would quickly end up with a lengthy list, granted how big everyone kept saying the underworld was, but it turned out, every book said something different about it.

One mentioned how the underworld was its own realm, accessible only by portals, and how it was so large, we would never be able to explore it all.

Another mentioned how the underworld had several levels, like a tall building, and no one knew how exactly each level was reached. By ranking? By power? By portals? And what granted entrance to each level? It was all a mystery.

A third book said the underworld was fluid and kept changing. Good-hearted supernaturals saw more of it, had more access to unusual places; bad supernaturals only saw a prison. But even then, two different good-hearted supernaturals would see different places. Only a limited number of places were the same for everyone.

“This is crazy,” I whispered, closing the eleventh book that mentioned only those who died could reach the fiery pits.

And even that wasn’t unanimous—so far, some books suggested the fiery pits were a myth, while others said it was a prison, or the real heaven, where dead souls went to rest.

“You’re not giving up, right?” Lavinia asked as she turned the page of the giant tome she was studying. “It’s too soon.”

“Not giving up, but I need a break.” A break and a drink. No, it was too damn early for that, but I could use some water. “I’ll go to the kitchen and?—”

A young page entered the library, his head low. I remembered when I first saw one of these teenagers, I was worried they were slaves, but Drake assured me that there were no slaves.

The teenagers who worked in the castle were either children of the old slaves who didn’t want to leave, or orphans they found and offered a new life. They were humans sworn in secrecy about our world, and one day, when older and deserving, they would be given a choice to join us by becoming vampires and entering the official ranking of DuMoir Castle.

“Miss Ariella, Chef Morris sent me to ask what you would like for lunch,” the young man said, looking at my feet.

I glanced at the time. It was almost noon. “Hm, I don’t know. Why ask me?” Wasn’t he cooking for most of the non-vampires in the castle.

“He said you’re the special guest of the day and you get to decide the menu,” the page said.

Oh, I liked that. “All right, how about one of his famous lasagnas?”

The page nodded and left the library.

“His lasagnas are really good,” Lavinia said. “Shame they don’t taste the same anymore.”

Since she had become a vampire, her taste buds had changed.

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