Page 31 of Ruthless Demon

“Your sister,” he murmurs.

I nod. “Yeah. I’m so afraid for her, and I know she must be terrified for me. I disappeared without a trace. It’s only a matter of time before Cassidy starts poking around in places she shouldn’t, trying to find me. I’d bet money that she’s already running the legs off LAPD with missing person’s reports. I hate to think of her like that, worried, wondering, and wasting her time looking for me.”

He gives me a devilish smile, kissing me when I cock my head inquisitively. He swoops me up in his arms and grins. “Well,thatI can do something about.”

And just like that, we’re in the sky again, flying farther from the city, toward the jagged wreckage where the red range meets the black. He dives, swooping down toward the tumble of boulders and dislodged earth, and for a moment I think we’re going to smash right into the side of the mountain. At the last second, I see an opening, almost hidden behind a slanted stone; it’s the mouth of a cave.

He brings us down at the edge of the opening. Peering inside, all I see is swirling smoke. Not wildfire smoke, but more like the thick, white, lazy smoke that pours off cones of incense. Hints of color drift through it, not quite pigmented enough to name. Nervous, I look up at Lucifer. “What is this place?” I ask him.

“Inside this cave, we can communicate with people on Earth,” he tells me.

My heart jumps with joy and fear all at once. Every instinct is telling me not to step into the mysterious swirling smoke, convinced that I’ll fall through the mountain or slide into some monstrous mouth, but Lucifer is by my side, unafraid. He’ll just have to be brave enough for the both of us.

Taking a deep breath, I step into the smoke.

Chapter16

Sophia

It’s thick in here.After only a few steps, I can’t see anything but smoke; not even Lucifer. I feel him, though. One hand on the small of my back, the other holding mine, grounding me and leading me through it. Panic teases the back of my neck and the soles of my feet, but his touch keeps it from sinking in any further. The cave is deep, although I can’t say exactly how far we’ve come; I had attempted to count paces, but I quickly lost track.

“Here,” Lucifer’s voice sounds strange in the smoke, somehow amplified and dampened all at once. “Now, think of your sister.”

I think about her fiery attitude. I think of her gray eyes sparkling, her tan face, her blonde hair swept up in a casual ponytail. Of her sticking up for me when I wouldn’t stick up for myself, of her taking me to task over my choices. I think of comforting her and protecting her every time our lives fell apart, and, just for good measure, I remind myself that I should be annoyed at her for never returning my car.

The smoke thins around us, fading as it’s replaced by images. Only vague shapes and shadows at first, some motionless, some moving. In a rush, the scene brightens and becomes strikingly familiar. Shabby apartments stand behind crumbling brick walls. Palm trees clutter the space between, haphazard and untended. People rush past us without so much as a glance, hurrying to catch the bus. We’re on Cassidy’s street, in front of her building, and there she is! Walking toward us, scowling at her phone.

She shoves her phone in her pocket and looks up. Her eyes meet mine and she yelps, startled. She recovers quickly.

“Sophia!” She runs the last few yards and tries to throw her arms around me, which is one of the strangest experiences of my life. Her arms pass right through me. I watch it happen, but I don’t feel a thing. Come to think of it, I don’t feel the sun, either, and those hyacinths on the other side of the wall smell a whole lot like dank cave and strange smoke.

“Sorry ladies,” Lucifer says. “Cassidy, we aren’t really here. We can speak to you, and you to us, but we can’t interact with this world beyond you.”

“Can’t interact—what do you mean,this world?Are you dead?” Cassidy is as shaken by the failed embrace as I am, and she’s pissed off about it. But, she does raise a good question. Do people go to Hell when they die? If so, am I dead because I’m in Hell? Did I leave a body lying around on Earth, or did I bring it with me? I feel like I should know these things.

“We aren’t dead,” Lucifer tells her.Oh, good.“But we’re in Hell.”

“What?” She turns to me, her eyes wide. “Sophia, what the fuck?”

“Okay, breathe,” I tell her. “Shit, I don’t even know where to start—”

“How about you start with the part where you and your boyfriend are in Hell? Like, we’re talking Hell, Nebraska, right? Or maybe the part where your landlord is calling me trying to figure out where you are because you haven’t been home in ages? Or maybe the part where an entire city block is shut down around your work because of some kind of toxic gas leak that’s making everybody hallucinate gremlins and shit?”

“Okay, so there’s—wait, gremlins? Really?”

“Gremlins.It’s all over Twitter too, and you know damn well they’re going to use this as an excuse to kick off another stupid sequel, which I’m inclined to blame your boyfriend for, along with kidnapping you and keeping thisStar Warsholo-crap to himself. You got hoverboards stashed somewhere too, Mister Billionaire?”

“Hey, come on. This isn’t his fault.”

She raises her brows at me and purses her lips. “Mm-hm. How do you figure?”

“Well, first off, it was his father who kidnapped me. And… no. We aren’t in Nebraska. We’reliterallyin Hell.”

I pause, my thoughts racing like never before. I didn’t think to ask Lucifer how much time I would have to talk to her, but even if I had all the time in the world, I still wouldn’t know how to tell her all this. All I can think to do is tell her the blunt, honest truth.

Rip off the band-aid.

“Lucas’s real name is Lucifer. Demons are real, and Lucifer’s father is using me as leverage to get him to fight in a war against Heaven. B-but I’m totally safe and fine—and it’s not like the movies, you know? Not all fire and brimstone, a-and I’m not being tortured or anything.”

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