Ruby Shadows (27 page)

I tried to push the old memory away. For
years I’d succeeded in burying it completely and it only came out
now once in a great while when I was under a lot of stress and had
a nightmare. But now it was out, front and center and I couldn’t
banish it again.

The only thing that saved me from breaking
down completely was Kurex. I had thought the sight of Laish as a
huge, ravening dragon-snake beast many times bigger than himself
would frighten the big horse to death. But he looked at Laish in
his beast form and didn’t even snort—it was almost as though he was
used to such sights.

Well, he
was
a Demon-steed so I
supposed it wasn’t that surprising. But still, the fact that the
big horse wasn’t freaking out or panicking helped me to be calm
too. I somehow managed to saddle him, with the aid of a step stool
and Laish’s commands, though the huge black leather saddle weighed
a ton. Then I swung aboard and Kurex followed Laish quietly out of
the underground stables where demons were shrieking and running
everywhere by now.

Laish turned once before we left and said
something in that harsh language—not to me but to Kurex. The big
horse’s ears swiveled and he snorted and pawed the ground. Laish
looked at me.

“
Cling tight to Kurex’s
back—he will not let you fall. Now we must flee for our lives—or
yours at least, Gwendolyn. Come!”

We went through a kind of maze—up hallways
and down passages that twisted and turned, always following Laish
who seemed to know the way without a doubt, for he never hesitated
once. There was a hoard of shrieking demons after us by the time we
reached a doorway I thought must lead to a vast elevator. It was
huge—as big as the front entrance in the lobby had been—but with
sliding, shiny bronze doors that reflected our images back to
us.

Laish whipped his snakey neck around and
sprayed the demons crowding behind us with liquid fire. The napalm
type stuff stuck to them and spread, eating through skin and muscle
and burning down to their black bones. The scent of their burning
flesh rose to my nose, making me cough and wretch miserably. I put
my face down to Kurex’s neck and breathed through his mane, trying
to filter the awful smell out of the air. The big horse stamped
restlessly and turned his head around, brushing my shoulder gently
with his nose.

“
All right, boy—we’re
going to be all right,” I whispered to him. But I wasn’t sure if I
was trying to reassure him or myself.

“
This is the gateway,”
Laish hissed at me. “Push the button—open it while I hold them off.
Hurry—soon there will be too many!”

I looked where he was pointing with his
clawed and scaly hand. There was a single gold button at the side
of the door. Reaching out with a trembling finger, I managed to
push it and the doors slid open just in time. But instead of
showing an empty elevator, the scene revealed was that of a
dessert.

A vast, arid waste of shifting sands and
distant dunes greeted my gaze. A blinding white sun was in the sky,
beating down fiercely, making spots behind my eyes at once. In the
distance I saw a pitch black pyramid rising towards the sky and
crawling towards it was either a monster or the biggest scorpion I
had ever seen in my life.

“
What the—?” I began, half
sitting up and pointing at the monster scorpion. But Laish was
right behind me, still breathing flame.

“
Go—go!” he growled in his
deep, harsh voice. He slapped Kurex on the rump and for the first
time, the big horse reacted as I’d thought he would. With a sharp,
terrified whiney, he plunged forward, leaving the basement of the
Hotel Infernal and taking us into the next level of
Hell.

Chapter
Nineteen

Laish

I turned back into my regular human form as
soon as I could—as soon as I was certain that none of Druaga’s
minions were following us. The denizens of one circle are generally
unable to cross to another. Of course, there are a few notable
exceptions such as myself and the tenacious HellSpawn I was certain
was still following Gwendolyn’s scent.

I had felt something as we left the second
circle and entered the third—nothing of great consequence but it
still gave me pause. It was a vague sensation that we were not
alone. That more than just Gwendolyn and Kurex and myself had
passed through into the next circle. I looked carefully to be
certain the HellSpawn had not crossed the barrier with us. This
would have been the perfect time to attack—when we were
disorganized and on the run. To my relief, I saw nothing.

But my relief was short
lived. When I looked back at Gwendolyn, she was clinging to Kurex
as though her life depended on it and watching me with wide,
haunted eyes. Inwardly, I sighed. I hated that she’d had to see so
much carnage—especially with me as the cause of it. My dragon form
seemed to have bothered her much more than I had thought it would.
Not that I am pleasant to look at in that form—I am not meant to
be. I cultivated it to strike fear in the hearts of enemies and
inflict maximum casualties during battle. It had gotten us safely
into
Minauros, the Great Desert, but it
also seemed to have cost me the trust I had so recently earned from
my little witch.

“
Are you well?” I asked
her as I snapped my fingers and clothed myself in lightweight
attire appropriate for dessert travel. “Are you hurt anywhere?
Burned?”

She shook her head, not saying a word. I
tried again.

“
Do you still have your
water bottle?” I hoped that she did. A mortal cannot cross the vast
tract of Minauros—even the narrow area we were going to
traverse—without proper protection and hydration. They are simply
not strong enough to withstand the unending heat and aridity. I
could, of course, make something for her to drink. I had lost my
sacrificial knife when I changed forms but I could call another to
me easily enough. However, I foresaw that getting her to accept
anything like food or drink from my hand in the near future would
be extremely difficult.

To my relief, she nodded again and patted
the brown leather satchel she’d brought with her. I blessed her
presence of mind in taking it when we were leaving Baator. Now at
least I didn’t have to worry about her dying of thirst. Getting her
to take nourishment was something else but I decided to worry about
it later, after we had put some distance between us and the barrier
between the circles. Druaga probably wouldn’t be up to following us
himself but he might find someone who could. I wanted to be far
away with our tracks lost in the shifting dunes by the time he did
so.

I conjured a lightweight, white cloth for
Gwendolyn and tried to hand it to her.

“
Here. Throw this over
your head and shoulders. It will deflect some of the
sunlight.”

She shook her head.

“
I don’t want it,” she
said in a low voice. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“
Fine.” I shrugged my
shoulders nonchalantly, though my heart was sore at her refusal.
“Burn then, for all I care.”

She flinched but rallied enough to shake her
head.

“
I have kind of a natural
tan—or didn’t you notice?”

“
Your skin is flawless as
I have seen for myself firsthand,” I said, taking Kurex’s bridle
and beginning to lead him across the sand. “But despite your lovely
creamy brown tone, you
will
burn in Minauros without protection. Everything
burns here.”

“
Stop saying that—stop
talking about
burning.”
She leaned down from the horse and snatched the
wrap from me. Throwing it over her head and shoulders, she looked
straight ahead. Well, at least she was protected from the sun. The
wrap was one I’d had made for her especially to withstand the
Desert of Death as Minauros is often called.

We walked in silence for a long time,
Gwendolyn occasionally sipping from her water bottle and Kurex
plodding patiently under the blazing sun. There was a hand-shaped
mark—a white spot on his black haunch that showed the clear outline
of a palm and fingers where I had slapped him. I was sorry for
that—though he was a dumb beast he had more than proven his worth.
Gwendolyn could not have ridden safely on my back as she could on
his, as we ran through the maze beneath the Hotel Infernal to the
barrier. My skin is much too hot when I am a dragon—or a wyrm as
the ancient texts call it.

At last, after an hour of the plodding pace,
she spoke.

“
You didn’t tell me you
were a fire demon.” Her voice was soft but filled with tension
though she still looked straight ahead into the shifting sands and
not at me as she spoke. “You said you were a demon of
lust.”

“
And so I am,” I answered,
wondering again why this distinction was important to her. “I am a
demon of fire by nature—I can bend it to my will and it is a part
of me—will
always
be a part of me.”

That was because when I was first cast down
and out of the heavenly realm I had landed in the Lake of Fire and
it had infused me with its power. But I saw no need to tell her the
details.

“
My
skill
is lust—my area of expertise,
you may say,” I continued. “So you see, I am both.”

“
You didn’t tell me that
when I first called you.” She looked back at me briefly. “You
should have told me.”

“
Why?” I frowned at her,
wondering at the pain and fear in her eyes. Of course, the things
I’d had to do to get us out of the Hotel Infernal and into the
third circle were not pleasant but they had been necessary and for
her benefit. But she was evasive.

“
You just…should have told
me. I would have sent you back.”

“
You lost that ability the
moment I first laid eyes on you,
mon
ange,”
I murmured. “I could not have
turned away from you for any reason from the first sight I had of
you.”

“
Don’t call me that.” She
looked away again. “No more nicknames—no more anything. Let’s
just…just go. Just get there and close the door. I just want to get
home.”

“
I am deeply sorry that my
other form frightened you so much,” I said, tugging on Kurex’s
bridle to move him past a sand pit—they were everywhere in the
shifting dunes of Minauros. Some led to pits lined with stakes and
damned souls being slowly impaled for all eternity—others to
tributaries of the River of Fire which fed the Lake where I had had
my second baptism and emerged forever changed. “But I could not
help what I became. It was instinct to take the most threatening
form I possessed when I felt you were threatened.”

“
But he couldn’t have
really sucked out my soul, could he?” she asked, casting a sidelong
glance at me. “I mean…you wouldn’t have let him. You could have
beaten him in your regular form—didn’t you say you could flay
people alive with a word?”

“
I did and I can.” I
nodded.

“
So why turn into
that…that
beast?”
she demanded. “Why start spraying fire and brimstone
everywhere? And…and
burning
everything and everyone?”

“
I was enraged at Druaga’s
suggestion that he be allowed to sample your soul. In my rage, I
lost control and became what you saw,” I admitted.

“
You lost control?” She
raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. “But you
never
lose control. You’re always
calm and collected. In fact, the only time I’ve ever seen you
really upset before this was when you came over and told me off for
opening that doorway into the Abyss in the first place.”

“
I was upset then because
I perceived you were in danger. I became upset this morning for the
same reason. And…” I hesitated. “I was also incensed at the insult
Druaga offered you.”

“
Insult?” She
frowned.

“
The taking of a soul or
part of a soul is a very…intimate thing,” I said. “Even
sexual.”

“
Ugh!” She shivered. “And
I thought that hook thing he was waving at me was bad! But now
you’re saying Druaga asking to, uh,
sample
my soul was like asking me
for a handjob right in front of you?”

“
Essentially,” I said
tightly. “Although your example perhaps does not go far
enough.”

“
But what would make him
bold enough to even
ask
that?” Gwendolyn mused. “I mean, aren’t you way
above him in the hierarchy or caste system or whatever it is you
have going on here? Wouldn’t it be like the office manager asking
to sleep with the CEO’s wife? Not that I’m your wife or anything,”
she added hurriedly.

“
I understand your
meaning.” I nodded. “And to answer, I believe that his greed for
the sweet taste of innocence is what overcame his better judgment.
Druaga has always lusted for it—I have even heard him brag that he
managed to snare one of the lesser angels out of Heaven and bind it
to him somehow—although I’m certain that was just a lie on his
part.”

“
How awful for the poor
thing if that was true!” Gwendolyn shivered. “To go from living in
light and beauty to having to be with
him.”

“
Yes, moving from Heaven
to Hell can be quite a shock,” I murmured. “And with it the loss of
innocence and purity.” I sighed. “Doubtless it was your purity and
his greed for it that made Druaga bold enough to try and get a
taste of your soul.”