Red Blooded

He shook his head as I reached for another one that was stuck under his shirt collar, and for the first time I noticed he was dressed in a jumpsuit like all the demons.

“No.” His breath hitched as I tugged it off. “It’s been over two months.”

“What?” I leaned back so I could meet his gaze. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I knew time worked differently here, but that was unsettling. If I’d waited another week would he have been gone almost a year? It was unthinkable.

“I’m not. It’s been a long-ass time,” he replied, trying to smile. “There’s a few more of those goddamn things under my shirt. They make me feel weird and they hurt like—ow.”

I took the wiggling thing in my fingers and dropped it into a jar Lily had just produced. The jar held the ones I’d gathered up and discarded on the cart next to my brother as well. As soon as I’d dropped it in, she screwed the lid on. “What?” My gaze was questioning. “Is it going to jump back out at us?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “In fact it will.”

My eyes widened. They were so sluglike, slow and lethargic in their movements. They didn’t look like they could morph into attack bugs.

“They’re drunk on his supernatural blood.” She nodded toward my brother. “But when it wears off, they will want more. These things”—she rattled the jar and they flopped around—“can jump ten feet, and they have fangs, which is mostly what caused your brother’s discomfort. They sucks power from a supernatural like a vampire bat feeds on blood.”

“Christ,” I muttered as I reached down the front of Tyler’s jumpsuit to get the last embedded bloodsucker.

“Who’s the blonde, mildly scary female?” my brother asked, nodding in Lily’s direction. “I haven’t seen any women so far. I was beginning to think they didn’t exist down here.”

Before I could answer him, the ground shook and there were several screams of terror on the other side of the door. Then a familiar voice echoed in my ears like a slimy oil slick.

“What is the matter with all of you fools?” it boomed. “You let them escape… twice. I will see your deaths for this. Now get them out of that room!”

The Prince of Hell had arrived.

And he was pissed.

“Tyler, meet Lily,” I said. “She’s the Prince of Hell’s concubine… and possibly our only ticket out of this crappy inferno.”

10

“How do we get my brother out of these cuffs?” I asked Lily. “And how are we going to get by the Prince of Hell when he’s right outside the door?”

Lily hit a button on the wall and Tyler’s restraints popped open. “It will be difficult to get by him, but not impossible.”

Once Tyler was loose, he staggered to stand. He was a big wolf, blond and brawny, with broad shoulders and sky-blue eyes—the only trait we share. I was happy to see his were clearing and his strength was returning.

I placed my hands around his waist to steady him. “Give it a minute,” I urged. “The demoness said those vampire slugs sucked your power dry. It’s going to take a second to regenerate. How long were they on you?”

He ran a hand over his face.

I let him go and tossed him a rag off a nearby cart so he could mop the blood off his facet. “They put the ones on my chest a while ago, but they added more today,” he answered. “I honestly didn’t think you were going to show. It was hard not to lose hope. Every single day here is like a day void of any joy. This place is fucking miserable.”

“Me showing up was never in question. I’d been training for about five days, trying to get ready for what to expect down here, but I ended up triggering the circle too soon. But there really isn’t a way to prepare for this and it’s lucky I came when I did,” I said. “Did they do anything else to you?”

“No, not much,” he answered, “which surprised me. But these guys are total pussies. They can’t fight worth a damn and every time I growled or flashed my teeth, they scurried out of the room. But they did take blood, hair, and tissue samples ad nauseam, however. I’ve been picked over like a lab rat.”

“The reason they feared you is because those who were tending you were only one step away from imp,” Lily said, somewhat impatiently. “True demons do not work, nor do they do menial labor. Powerful demons live on a different level of this city and rarely venture here. This place is like… what do you call it?” She snapped her fingers. “Ah, yes… a labor camp of sorts.”

“Well, that certainly explains why it’s been easier to evade them,” I said. “And why everyone is wearing a similar jumpsuit?”

“The suits are coded per demon rank and have tracking and stunning abilities.” She indicated the sides of Tyler’s suit. “Those metal strips can fell a demon in its tracks.”

“Great.” My brother whistled. “So they can zap me if I try to run?”

She looked at him appraisingly. “Yes, they can, and they will.”

“We’ll have to get it off you pronto,” I told my brother, scouting around for something else in the room for him to wear, but finding nothing.

There was more commotion on the other side of the door and I didn’t really want to think about the Prince of Hell being out there. “Why hasn’t the Prince blown the door off its hinges and come in after us?” I asked.

“Because I am here,” Lily said smugly. “He must wait until his guards arrive. He won’t risk me harming him while he is hunting you.”

I assessed her. “What choices do we have now?” I asked, starting to pace as I ran a hand through my hair. “We have Tyler, so now all we have to do is get to a portal. That can’t be too hard, right?”

For a second I even contemplated taking him back through the Sholls.

It was an ugly second.

“Wrong,” Lily said. “Not with the Prince standing outside waiting for you. He came for you himself.” She gestured at me. “He’s never in this area, except for a high trial. He didn’t even bother to oversee any of my torture.” Her voice held bitterness, but I wasn’t so sure having the Prince of Hell missing your torture was a bad thing. “It’s too late to squeeze by him. The only chance you have is if I can distract him long enough to give you an edge, but he will be expecting it, so whatever I do has to be big.”