Page 71 of Queen of Darkness
Hades’ finger pointed at Fenrir. “And I gave you shelter for so long.”
Fenrir barked laughter. “You’re crazy, Hades. You know damn well that we had nothing to do with this. You’re just pissed off that you’re going to have to do all the work Azazel does while he recovers. And we’re your convenient scapegoat. Trust me, though, you want to hear what the girl has to say.”
“No, I don’t,” Hades said calmly, gesturing at the demons. “My Enkk will gladly kill you if you try to run or fight.”
I glared at him as the demons marched us away. The last thing I heard was Hades barking at Abaddon, telling the demon king to get out to the fighting and stop it already.
Then, we were swept into the bowels of the castle. There, the Enkk held us at swordpoint, while other demons, the hoofed and horned Axotl and the monkey-frog Djinn, removed all our weapons and gear, leaving us with nothing but our clothes. After that, one of them patted us down roughly to ensure nothing was hidden or had been missed.
Convinced that we had nothing left on us that could be of use, the Enkk herded us into darkened cells. The door clanged shut behind them as they retreated, leaving us in near pitch black. There was just enough light to make out the shapes of the others in the cell around me.
“This isn’t the way I thought I’d go out,” Dave muttered once we were alone.
“Yeah,” I said, slumping down against the stone wall, feeling the heat of it warm my back already. “Me neither.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
We’d all been pitched into the same cell, which didn’t leave much in the way of personal space for any of us. We spread out as best we could, most of us using the wall to sit or stand against.
Fred was one of the few who hadn’t done that. He was leaning on the bars, tapping against them, one by one.
“What are you doing?” I asked, watching him curiously. Was he just bored? It seemed more like he was searching for something.
“Looking for the false bar,” he said.
“The what?”
“Each of these cells was built with a way out. Just in case. One of the bars in them is fake and will give way if pressure is properly applied to it.”
“You certainly know a lot about this place,” I said. “Been here before?”
“Something like that,” Fred said, refusing to elaborate.
I cast a glance at Aaron, but he shook his head. Whatever it was, neither of them was telling. By now, everyone was watching Fred with interest as he made his way across the front of the cell, block by block, testing each piece, including the cross-welds.
“You don’t seem to be finding much,” Fenrir pointed out as the vampire neared the far edge of the cell.
“So I’ve noticed. I think they must have removed them, though they don’t look like they’ve had any work done. I—” He cut himself off as his fingers rapped against one cross-weld.
To my ears, it rang the exact same, but he’d heard something different. He grabbed the bar and wrenched it. The metal protested, and Fred grunted this time, putting lots of muscle into it. The metal began to turn with a shrieking sound.
Abruptly, an Enkk was there, its sword moving between bars until the point of it pricked under Fred’s chin. Fred froze, rising onto his tiptoes as the Enkk made its threat clear without saying a word.
“Okay, so we won’t be doing that,” Fred said as the sword lowered, and he backed away from the edge of the cage. “Not while those things are still watching us.”
He made his way to the back of the cell, keeping a wary eye on the Enkk until it simply wasn’t there anymore.
“Damn things give me the creeps,” he said, glaring at the emptiness beyond the bars. “Hate them.”
I laid my head back against the wall, letting it rest against the stone, feeling the slow pulsing warmth reaching out to tingle my skin. I was out of ideas at this point and needed time to come up with something. Perhaps after the battle was over, Hades would come to talk and listen to our offer.
That was about all that I had, which felt an awful lot like giving up, but what more could I do? The Enkk were outside our cell, waiting to pop into existence to skewer us if we so much as tried to escape. Even if we somehow got past them, there was Abaddon and Hades to deal with.
Things were bleak.
“Anyone else feel like this is getting hotter?” Dave asked, lifting a hand from the ground. “It didn’t feel that bad to my hand when I first sat down.”
I put a hand down on the ground. “Feels about the same to me,” I said.
