Page 137 of The Demon's Pet

To my shock, with a rumbling jerk, the altar began to lower, disappearing out of sight.

Orpheus stood and beckoned to us. As we walked over, I saw the platform continuing to go lower and lower, making odd grinding noises until it stopped twenty feet down. Orpheus reached into the opening where it had lowered and pulled something out from the side. It looked like a rope ladder.

Griffin swallowed, staring at it nervously. “Is there somewhere up here we can stay?”

“Samael has never personally sent me a visitor,” Orpheus said. “You must be in grave danger. This is the most secure place to hide. There are some rooms above ground, where the master sleeps and where certain guests are allowed to live. We also have some separate cottages and staff quarters out on the grounds. But this is where you’ll want to be right now.”

Griffin eyed the ladder skeptically, still not convinced.

But I was done not trusting Sam’s advice. He might be a murdering psychopath, but so far, everything he’d told me had been trustworthy.

And the last time I went against what he said, I ended up frozen in a basement with Zadis.

I put my hands on the cold stone and began lowering my foot to the first step of the ladder.

“Be careful,” Orpheus said. “Watch your step.”

The ladder swayed slightly as I put my foot on the first rung. It was dark beneath me, save some dim candlelight from nearby corridors, so I felt a shiver go down my spine as I took another step downward.

“You okay, Cleo?” Griffin asked. “I should have gone first.” He shuddered. “I hate dark spaces. Especially caves.”

“This is merely the catacombs,” Orpheus said. “Cayne has outfitted it handsomely. You should feel privileged to have access to it. No one can hurt you here.”

“Where do the others stay?”

Orpheus sounded confused. “What others? As you know, Cayne likes to help relocate or find work or homes for the creatures who seek him here. We don’t have many long-term guests.” There was a pause, during which I took another step down. “And if we did, we wouldn’t speak loudly or publicly about them.”

“Right,” Griffin said, sounding unsure about this whole idea.

On the fifth step down, my foot slipped off the small rung of the ladder, and I lost my hold completely. I screamed, as cold air was all that existed between me and the ground.

However, almost instantly, I landed on a huge, soft cushion of some kind.

“Cleo!” Griffin shouted, and I looked up in the dim light to see his huge body hurrying down the ladder. “Are you okay?”

I rubbed my ass, looking up and wondering how often people fell off the ladder like I had that they had put an actual cushion here to break the fall.

When Griffin lowered himself and jumped the rest of the way to the cushion, he lost his balance and landed on his butt across from me.

Before we could even look up to wait for Orpheus, he jumped down to us, landing on one knee comfortably and standing with the same imperious grace with which he seemed to do everything.

Then he held out a hand to both Griffin and me to help us up.

Orpheus was strangely strong, pulling us to our feet smoothly. Then he turned and walked to the wall and grabbed a torch that was burning there.

I looked around to see stone beneath our feet and elaborate murals on the walls on either side of us. We were looking down a long hallway with doors on either side.

“Cayne had this place outfitted for those needing a safe haven. I will show you to a suitable room to rest.”

“Who is this Cayne guy?” Griffin asked. “How does he know Samael?”

Orpheus didn’t answer, leading us down the hallway and stopping at a large wooden door on the right with an iron knocker. He drew a ring of clanking skeleton keys from within his robe and selected one from the others, which he placed in the door.

He opened it and led us into a spacious but old-fashioned bedroom, complete with a huge four-poster bed with a rich red and gold velvet canopy at the top.

On the floor was a rug in gold, red, and navy.

There were lamps on the walls, and as Orpheus moved past them, raising a hand, they lit up, glowing a warm yellow, casting the fine details of the rug and furnishings into high relief.

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