Page 44 of Expose Me

I pulled a face and echoed his words in a snarky voice, but then I mussed my hair up, took a few fast breaths, and started jogging over. When Zey glanced over his shoulder, I waved at him and called, “Sorry!”

“There she is,” Zey said to the guard, then leaned in close and whispered something in his ear. They both laughed as they watched me run up.

Planning my revenge in my head, I stopped in front of them and leaned my hands on my knees, making a show of breathing heavily.

“Sorry that took so long,” I huffed, standing up straight.

“That’s alright, gave me a chance to get to know Sven here.” Zey winked at Sven. I threw up a little in my mouth but forced my smile to widen. “We’d better get going though.”

“Right.” I nodded. “Don’t wanna be late for the ... our ... thing.”

Talking over me a bit, Zey turned to Sven and said: “So, next Monday, right? Afternoon shift?”

“Yep. I’ll be here.” Sven was pretty much ignoring me completely; he was so focused on Zey. But a quick glance around told me one of the other guards was watching us closely, eyes narrowed. Like he was trying to figure out why I looked familiar, maybe.

“I’ll see you then, Sven.” Zey touched his shoulder one last time and took off for the portal. I fell into step next to him and, to my utter astonishment, we just ... stepped through it and into the land of angels and demons.

Chapter14

“What did you say to him?” I demanded as soon as we were on the other side of the portal.

“Nothing of importance.” Zey shrugged, shifting his features back into his usual appearance. I took off up the path. Better keep moving in case one of those guards realized who we were and decided to report it.

“Those guys all have sticks up their butts—they don’t just let people through portals so easily. Shit, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a portal guard smile! How did you do that?”

Zey turned wide eyes to me. “They havesticksup—”

I cut him off, “Expression indicating an uptight manner.” Gods! Now I was sounding more like him.

“I changed my appearance to what he would find most appealing and employed some preliminary mating rituals. Where are we going?”

“Hah!” I spun to face him and poked him in the chest. “I knew you were flirting!”

Was it just me, or did that come out sounding accusatory?

Zey canted his head to the side and gave me an amused look. He grabbed my finger where it was jabbing into his chest but didn’t remove it—he just kind of ... held it there.

“Are you jealous?” he said, his face splitting into a grin.

“No,” I scoffed and extracted my finger from his grip to keep walking.

Thankfully he decided to drop it, instead repeating, “Sky, where are we going?”

“To Lapsus Manor,” I said, knowing perfectly well that meant nothing to him.

“How far is this Lapsus Manor?”

“Just on the other side of this hill.” I pointed up the path that twisted through the barren landscape.

Celestia—or Soleil, as the demons called it—was an odd realm where physics didn’t seem to apply. All the angels lived in Sky City—a shimmering, ethereal, gargantuan part of Celestia that floated above everything else. All the demons lived in the dark, mysterious Magma City below ground. The lifeless area in between, where the portal had opened and where we were walking now, was called Dead Man’s Land. A few fallen angels and demons lived in this neutral zone for various reasons, but I only knew one.

We were going to meet with him now.

Zey kept looking around as we walked, half like he was wary of our surroundings and half like he was fascinated by it all.

The underside of Sky City, which was more the size of an entire continent, loomed high above us.

In the distance, we could just make out a giant hole in the ground next to some rocky hills. The crater led to Magma City below ground, where the demons made their home. Nothing grew in Dead Man’s Land between the two. Wasteland was an understatement when it came to what the landscape looked like.

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