Void Domain, Book 04 полностью

“Little miss Death herself,” Catherine said, quickly recovering from her shock. “Though you aren’t so little at the moment.”

Ylva frowned down at her.

Condescending bitch.

“You are trespassing.”

“Yeah? What’s it to you? This place isn’t yours.”

“Is it not? We find this information… surprising.”

A sinking feeling hit Catherine’s stomach like a dump truck full of bricks. All the cleanliness and the sudden atmosphere change upon entering. It all made sense.

And sarcasm from a hel? Zagan was right, Void is ending.

Catherine took a step back, almost tripping over the chair she had just vacated. She raised her arms in a placating gesture. “Now let’s not be rash or anything. We’re on the same side right? Fighting the evil necromancers and saving Brakket and all the mortals or whatever?”

“We distinctly recall your presence during the rescue of my servant. We do not recall your assistance.”

Forcing a laugh, Catherine said, “you guys looked like you had that in the bag.”

Ylva tilted her head to one side. “In the bag?”

Catherine bit her lip. “Just slang,” she said. Her voice grew quieter as she continued. “I might have picked it up from some mortals recently.”

She made a small hum noise. “In addition, Zagan was at your side.”

Of course, Catherine thought, it all comes back to that bag of dicks.

Ylva took a step closer. “He has made poor choices in dealing with Our property. Now he hides himself from Us.”

“He had good reason to,” Catherine blurted out before Ylva could move any further. Probably not the best thing to say, in retrospect. Denying all responsibility would have been a better choice. In fact, it still was. “I had nothing to do with any of that. The kids in Hell was not my idea and I didn’t even know about it until after you did.” Probably.

“But,” Catherine said–no, pleaded. “I’ll tell you everything I know about his reasons and you let me go. Right? I wasn’t hurting anything here.”

Ylva stared.

Time dragged on in uncomfortable silence.

Catherine didn’t sweat unless she wanted to. She rarely wanted to. At the moment, she could feel a bead of liquid dripping down her forehead.

It promptly froze and fell past her eye, shattering on the floor.

“We will see,” Ylva said.

“I hope this washes out,” Eva said, tossing her sticky hair over her shoulder. No matter how much she tried to strain it out, it was like the gunk multiplied in her hair as her fingers ran through it.

Her fingers were covered in the stuff as well, so she probably was just wiping more through her hair than she was actually cleaning off.

“Better than sand,” Arachne said. She wasn’t even trying to clean herself off. The black ooze added a layer of sheen to her already shiny carapace.

Eva wiggled her fingers. Unlike the annoying grit of sand and large dust particles, the ooze… oozed out of the way as she flexed. Some of the sand left over from Ylva’s beach wound up caught in the gunk and pulled out as the rest of it moved. In that respect, it was somewhat helpful.

A short shout preceded a loud splash into the syrupy liquid to Eva’s side. She glanced over to find Genoa struggling in the liquid.

“Glad you decided to drop in,” Eva said, leaning over the side of the boat.

Arachne moved to the opposite side to keep it from tipping.

Spitting a large wad of the gunk out of her mouth, Genoa let out a sling of curses. “What is this stuff?”

“Something to break the fall,” Arachne answered. “Most civilized demons have something similar. Typically something that the demon has control over but would impede intruders.” A hint of pride entered her voice as she continued. “I use webs, of course. They entrap visitors until I choose to release them. Far superior to this muck,” she said, flinging a small amount of the goop off her arm.

Eva reached her hand over the edge of the boat.

There was a moment of hesitation in Genoa’s eyes before she clasped her hand around Eva’s wrist. An ache jolted through Eva’s back as she started to put weight on her arm. Eva winced, but did not let go.

With Arachne managing to keep the boat steady, Eva pulled Genoa up and into the boat. She lay on her back, ooze dripping off of her as she stared up at the sky.

Eva leaned back against the plank that acted as a bench. She took in a few slow and steady breaths. Zoe might have been more right than she thought. That had been decidedly unpleasant.

After a moment of rest, she followed Genoa’s gaze up to the disturbingly eye-like moon.

“So this is Hell? Not as hot as I expected.”

“That aspect has been grossly exaggerated in mortal culture. Though,” Arachne slid a finger down her own cheek in thought, “I suppose some demons play to that stereotype. Imps and other demons with high affinity towards fire.”

Genoa lurched into a sitting position and spent a moment glancing around. “So what now? This doesn’t look like a theater.”