Page 26 of Pain

“It’s civilization right away after we get through the range,” Maxar said, returning to my earlier question. “At least, it was last time. This could be a different mountain range for all I know. Though, I don’t think it is.”

“Man, Hell really is just that, isn’t it?” Zandren murmured, dumping a bit of water on his head to cool himself off before handing me back the bottle.

“There’s a reason behind the name,” Maxar said dryly. “We need to keep moving.”

Nodding, I stashed the water bottle back in my backpack and fell in line behind Maxar, who led our little team of explorers.

The temperature was only mildly more bearable now that the sun was down.The rocks that made up the passageway weren’t cool to the touch, like I expected. They were hot, and I had to be careful not to brush up against them and burn myself.

“Lights up ahead,” Maxar called out. “We’ve reached the other side.”

I exhaled in relief, only to have that relief quashed almost instantly by a little voice in my head telling me not to celebrate prematurely. The other shoe had yet to drop. We were deep in the bowels of Hell in search of a grumpy demon who hated everyone. Surely it wasn’t going to be smooth sailing from here.

The little village up ahead had enough light that we didn’t need our torches anymore. So Maxar took them back, and with a snap of his fingers, they disappeared. Would I ever not find that terribly cool and sexy? Hopefully not.

“So, what now?” I asked. “We just start knocking on doors, asking if they know Kenvin Jol and where we can find him? How populated is Hell? Does everyone know everyone?”

Maxar’s expression was amused. “Thisisn’t all of Hell, babe. Hell is massive. This is just a little village. We’ll go to the local watering hole and sniff around, see if we can get some answers. Then go from there. We might need to find a place to hold up for the night though.”

“Hell has hotels?” I fell in line with him as we exited the passageway, hooking my thumbs under the straps of my backpack. “Are the bedbugs massive?”

He snorted. “Not sure, but probably.”

“You should probably conceal the sword,” Drak said stoically. “Everyone—especially demons—knows Moloch’s Sacrifice and they’ll wonder why you have it.”

“Good call,” I said, grabbing a sweater from my backpack and draping it over the pommel so it covered most of it. The hilt and pommel were the most unique and discernable parts of it, the rest was just a blade. So if someone saw the blade, they might just think I was a chick who liked old timey weapons, or I’d just been to a renaissance fair or something. I nodded and checked with my companions. “Am I good?”

They all nodded.

As soon as we stepped foot into the village, it was impossible not to feel theburning gaze of thousands of eyes watching us. We were intruders. Outsiders. A ragtag crew of a shirtless vampire, a naked bear-shifter, a fire-mage with the glint of murder in his eyes, and me—a half-demon, half-human hybrid. They could probably smell the human part of me a mile away and were either boarding up their doors or sharpening their pitchforks.

I’d never really traveled anywhere, but Gemma liked to watch documentaries and travel shows. So I sat with her and absorbed other cultures that way. The little village we were in reminded me of the favelas in Brazil or the slums of India. The buildings were dilapidated shacks with corrugated metal roofs that looked like a mild breeze might knock them down. Some were sturdier than others, with concrete or mud walls instead of wood. Laundry hung from lines overhead, and dogs barked off in the distance. At least they sounded like dogs. For all I knew, they could be another beastly abomination from Hell that wanted nothing more than to play jump rope with my carotid artery before making a meal of my liver with a side of fava beans.

A neon sign with several letters missing flickered overhead, only I couldn’t understand the language. They were the same letters from the Roman alphabet I was familiar with though.

A lightbulb flicked on in my head. Was this the demon language?

Aunt Delia always said that my name—Omaera—meant “rose”in my father’s native tongue. I’d tirelessly searched for that language and came up with nothing. A tickle of joy surged through me. The demons here would speak my father’s native language. I instantly felt closer to him, even though that was kind of stupid. He didn’t even live in Hell when he was alive. Not that I blamed him. So far, this place sucked. Nevertheless, I did feel closer to him.

“In here,” Maxar said, jerking his head toward the door beneath the flickering red sign.

Swallowing, I was about to follow him in, but paused and turned to Zandren. “Maybe put some clothes on, Pooh Bear? At least some shorts?”

He frowned, but nodded, stepping forward to open the backpack on Maxar’s back and yanking out the sweatpants he wore before at Melissima’s. Only he had cut them off just above the knees to turn them into shorts. They barely hidanything—least of all, the thick line of his cock.

“Better?” he asked, already sulking.

I smirked. “Mildly.”

“All right, let’s go,” Maxar said, shoving his hand into the door and leading us into the loud, darkly-lit tavern teaming with demons.

Like a record scratching, all conversation ended abruptly when the four of us stepped inside.

Dozens of sets of eyes focused on us, not all of them curious. Some of them were fixing to fight.

Maxar cleared his throat. “We come in peace,” he announced. “We are merely searching for the demon they call Kenvin Jol. If someone knows where we could find him, we’d be very grateful.”

The demon closest to us with the thick black hair, dark-brown eyes, and hoop piercing through his left eyebrow sniffed the air, leaned toward me and sniffed even harder. “This one’s a mutt. There’s human in this one’s blood.”

---