Red Blooded

It seemed we’d just freed some of the Prince’s prisoners and they were pissed.

Is that a… troll? I asked Tyler, still backing out of the way, putting more separation between us and them. Why would a troll be in the Underworld? I’d never seen one before.

Beats the hell out of me, but if it stays focused on the Prince I’m all for it. Let’s keep moving backward.

The troll’s skin was sallow and sagging and its pace was sluggish. This was clearly not its normal habitat and it looked like it had been down here for a very long time.

It was also seven feet tall and as wide as the doorway itself.

“Get back.” The Prince shooed it with his hand. “Go back into your cell, you dirty beast. This fight is not yours.”

The troll didn’t move.

Instead it started to keen and rock, the high-pitched sound coming from its throat surprising me. But before the Prince could use any magic on it, a shadow fell on the open doorway a few paces to my right.

I moved away quickly, not knowing what it was, and collided with Tyler’s chest, his hands steadying my shoulders as he walked us both backward.

“What is it?” I whispered, trying not to call attention to us in any way.

He leaned over and murmured, “I think it might be… a ghoul.”

“A ghoul?” I gasped. “Are you sure? I didn’t think they really existed.”

“Me neither, but look at it. What else would it be?”

He was right.

As the thing eased out of the doorway, it appeared to be haunted—as in just-from-the-grave ghostly. Its skin was gray and peeling. It resembled a human, but a very dead one who had come back to life as something else. Ghouls, from myth, were dead bodies reanimated by powerful necromancers. And once a ghoul came back to life, only its necromancer could control it.

“I thought ghouls were like puppets,” I whispered, both of us continuing to take hefty steps away from the brewing melee. “Only controlled by a master, like a zombie on a leash?”

“Who knows,” Tyler said. “I’ve certainly never seen one before and I don’t know much about them.”

The Prince of Hell roared, “Get back, necromancer! You are not needed here. Go back to your cell if you do not want one final death.”

The troll took a giant step toward the Prince, who was now openly clenching and unclenching his fists, just short of losing it completely.

“Well,” I said to my brother. “I guess now we now know what a dead necromancer looks like. They must come back as a ghoul themselves once they die.”

Tyler elbowed me. “When the troll takes a swing, we start running.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

The troll took a swing at the Prince and we both turned.

Straight into a bevy of snarls and howls.

“Freeze!” The demon guard aimed an ugly-looking weapon at our heads. He yelled in heavily accented English, “Put your hands up.” The gun resembled some kind of mini rocket launcher, and to make matters worse, the demons behind this one were juggling two grown chupacabras on straining leashes, snapping their pointy teeth at us.

They were incredibly massive with huge incisors and spiny backs with lethal-looking points.

My brother and I lifted our arms.

Behind us the Prince of Hell shouted once more, and then a shock of power hit the hallway, reverberating around seismic tremor.

We turned around to see the poor troll give a strangled yell as it crashed to its knees, making the floor jump. It fell prone on the ground and lay there unmoving. The ghoul went next in another rush of power. Its body smashing against the wall as it crumpled to the floor like a bag of rotted bones.

With the troll down I could see the Prince’s face clearly. If the Demon Lord could’ve willed us dead, we would’ve been toast. “These creatures didn’t need to die!” he boomed. “They were of use to me! Now you will pay dearly for their deaths along with all the others.”

“I would happily free your prisoners again,” I called. “They didn’t look like they were enjoying their extended stay in Hotel Hell anyway. I wonder if keeping supernaturals prisoner for this long is against High Law? I hardly believe that troll came to the Underworld on its own looking for trouble.”

I noticed now that three of the other occupants had wisely chosen to stay inside their rooms rather than face the angry Prince, even though their doors had been destroyed.

The Prince of Hell stepped over the troll and came straight at us.

Before I could get another word out, he raised his hands and power shot into the air with lightning speed. I heard Tyler yell in terror as the Prince’s dark essence hit me squarely in the chest, tossing me backward.

Blackness pulled me under, filing me up immediately, until there was nothing else.

12

I awoke with a gasp, my body jolting upward like I’d been shocked. My hand went straight to my chest, where the Prince had blasted me, as blood pounded in my ears, sounding like a rushing ocean with a heartbeat. My wolf paced back and forth in my mind. It was obvious she had been waiting for me to wake up for some time.

What happened? I asked her as I blinked and glanced around, trying to get my bearings.

She flashed me a picture of us being consumed by darkness.

I saw that part, but how did it happen? I had defeated the Prince of Hell’s magic before, and now that I had demon essence inside me, I’d been certain I could defeat him again—or at the very least hold my own in a fight. Where did the blackness go?

I glanced down at my hands like they would somehow give me answers to my burning questions, but of course they appeared perfectly normal. My fingernails had seen better days, but they weren’t falling off or streaked black with demon juice.

I rested one hand on the cool, slippery white floor beside me while I rubbed my other absentmindedly over my chest. Where are we?

After a moment, I stood slowly, turning in a full circle. The room was all white, and unlike in Lily’s cell, there wasn’t a scrap of furniture to be found. No bed, no dresser, which to me indicated no long-term stay.

I was taking that as a win.

There weren’t any doors either, and this time there wasn’t even a cutout where a door should’ve been. The room seemed to be hermitically sealed. I knew this wasn’t true, but it was still unsettling. I had to find a way out.

I paced forward, searching.

That wasn’t an ordinary shock of magic the Prince hit us with, I told my wolf. She didn’t answer. She was too focused on sending our power out now that I was finally awake. Either the Prince has always held out on us, or something else happened back there. I should not have fallen so easily to his magic.