That was almost certainly untrue. She was fairly certain that Zagan didn’t care about her in the slightest. The only reason he bothered to drag her around was out of some sadistic desire to toy with her.
The whole situation was his fault. If he hadn’t dragged her off to the nun rally,
Eva was right. Being stuck as the bottom feeder even among the few demons in the area was a nightmare. Even the two security guards were uppity towards her.
Well, the morail was. Lucy, Catherine decided, had a tenuous grasp of reality at best. She wasn’t deliberately annoying so much as she was unaware of what she was doing. Besides, Catherine was certain that Lucy would be extremely susceptible to her succubus wiles and charms.
The worst part was Eva herself. Whatever was being done to her was obviously unnatural. When Catherine had first arrived at Brakket, she wasn’t sure what to make of the girl. Catherine could feel her, much like she could feel Zagan or Arachne. But it was faint. Barely there. Weaker than even the weakest of imps.
That weakness had been steadily turning to strength. By the end of summer, weaker imps might have fled from her presence if she had ever decided to project some anger. By the time all the golems attacked Brakket…
Well, the potential was there, but Eva had a long way to go before she wound up giving Catherine
When she had finished growing, the little girl–the little
And she was going to be strong.
Stronger than Catherine at the very least.
Sighing, Catherine leaned back in her chair while the two argued. Not that it was much of an argument. Baxter was more making polite suggestions than outright objecting to anything Ylva said. Still, it didn’t seem like they were going to kill her–permanently or otherwise–so Catherine was losing interest.
Who knew? It might be fun to stick around in Ylva’s domain. Her cellphone had no signal. It was sure to put a stick up Martina’s ass if she couldn’t get a hold of her.
Though she was missing out on virtually murdering slews of foolish humans. She probably needed a break from that anyway.
Just as things were getting a little heated between Ylva and Baxter, a new head popped into the room. Not someone Catherine recognized, though most humans looked the same as one another.
“Nel says that she
“Thinks? Clarify her words.”
“I’m sorry,” the girl said with a small shudder. “You will have to ask her.”
“Very well. We shall.”
Baxter was, surprisingly enough, the first one out of the room. Ylva left next with the other girl staying just long enough to shoot Catherine a glare before turning to follow.
And then the room was empty.
Except for Catherine.
No guards. They hadn’t tied her down. They had even been so kind as to leave Baxter’s bedroom door open.
Catherine tapped her foot against the floor three times before coming to a decision. After all, if they wanted her to stay then they would have at least said something.
Getting to her feet, Catherine walked out the door. She stopped in her tracks one step out of the room. After glancing left and then right, Catherine sighed. “Damn.”
Of course she would end up in the domain. It would be too easy if the door opened up back to the apartment building. To make matters worse, Catherine was willing to bet that she could check every archway and not find the exit until Ylva was ready to let her go.
Even if the exit was somewhere around, searching every archway sounded exactly the kind of tedious work that Catherine would rather avoid. Ylva and her little entourage disappeared through an archway three arches down. If they hadn’t been there, it wouldn’t have been any different from the rest of the place.
Martina had been asking about Baxter as of late–not directly asking Catherine, more of mumbling about it when she remembered that her secretary was off teaching a class. It was intensely irritating. Getting away from Martina was one of the few positives of teaching the human brats.
Maybe telling her about something Baxter had been up to would keep her complaints down, especially because it appeared that Baxter was doing the job Martina should have been doing–cleaning up after Zagan’s mess. She would have to carefully word her revelation to Martina so as to not ruin her carefully cultivated image of being unreliable and unproactive.
Having low expectations for her meant that Martina never bothered her with much of import. And that was exactly how Catherine liked it.
But she was willing to admit to a certain level of curiosity about the whole thing aside from Martina’s interests.
Following Ylva through the archway led her to a very familiar area. The waters of Hell.
And it was full of humans.
