Page 49 of The Demigod

“As much as I would love you to stay just like that, I don’t think we should be going into the Underworld naked.”

The Underworld?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Daemon

I wanted to stay in Arick’s house, naked and entwined with Nox, surging back inside her each time the need arose.

But she would never allow it. Not with human lives on her conscience.

So we dressed, accepted some protective gifts from Arick, and climbed back into Nox’s car.

“I don’t understand,” Nox said, cuddled under her blanket in the passenger seat. “You just said that the Hellmouths opened because of witch spells.”

“Back before… all this,” I said, gesturing vaguely. The timing was pretty impeccable because we just so happened to be passing a group of people walking, carrying their belongings on their backs, looking like they’d been through something fucked up.

“And now you think it’s different?”

“I pretty much know it is. Minos said that Dale claimed demons are just… teeming around now. The demonslayers have been out in force.

“These are lesser demons. They shouldn’t be able to get out unless someone opened a Hellmouth. Judging by how many arearound now, it seems like they are just… coming out. If they can come out, we can go in.”

“So where are we going then?”

“Back to the Hellmouth I came through with my brother. It was the most recently opened one. Well, aside from the one Lucy came through.”

“Lucy?”

“Lucifer.”

“Wait… really? The devil? In the flesh?”

“Yeah. He came through all pissy because Hades was rearranging shit. He figured it was time to come up here and have some fun. Sucky timing.”

“Do you think I can go down there?”

“I don’t know that part,” I admitted. I knew I could go down. That was no issue. I was from there, after all. And maybe, if Lucifer was still in charge, I would feel more confident. The thing was, it was Hades. He was notorious for never letting anyone back out of Hell. Those were humans, though. Nox was… less human.

That said, Hell was Hell.

Even with some of the demons escaping onto the human plane, there would still be tens of thousands of them down there. They might even start shit with me.

I was back at full strength; I could handle it.

Nox was… delicate. Sure, she seemed a little more revived this morning. Objectively, it was from all the sleep. But I wasn’t above taking a bit of credit for it, either.

I didn’t like the idea of trying to defend her from all the evil intentions of the demons while also trying to locate the damn river.

Maybe I should have left her back at Arick’s place. Sure, he was under intense pressure from the gods, especially Zeushimself. But he was clearly managing to keep his home protected.

It was too late for that, though. Nox was never going to let me turn back when we’d covered so much ground already.

I could make her stay in the car. But then she was unprotected in a tin can. I could think of half a dozen different types of demons who could rip the car to pieces to get to her.

She was safer with me if she could descend. If not, I might have to ask her to use her shadow to defend herself, even if it would drain her.

“This is it?” Nox asked, looking at the woods.

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