Chapter Eighteen

I sensed the iron around us before I opened my eyes. The air smelled of damp and rot. Unwashed bodies and blood.

Even with my eyes closed, I saw her face. Inmate Peck. Inmate Higgins. Eaten.

Just like mom.

I couldn’t breathe.

This can’t be happening .

My mouth was dry. It hurt to swallow. I knew the sensation well.

The scream.

At least the Sídhe was dead now. Whatever lay on the veil's other side was better than the hell she had been dealt.

Then it hit me.

The scream.

In Behem’s mansion.

My eyes flew open. Bare concrete greeted me, seamless in construction but scored with nail marks. The fourth wall in the room was made up entirely of iron bars. A prison.

Metal clanged in the distance, echoing through the empty cell. I pulled myself up, sitting against the wall and hugging my knees.

Where was Murmur? Malphas? Caim ?

It was the same as before. Sandy Village Correctional Facility. Minus the oppressive Nevada heat and the barked shouts of other inmates.

I’d only been in the SHU once. Solitary confinement.

Someone had tried to take a muffin from my meal tray. It was tasteless, brown, but not chocolate. But it was mine. I didn’t get comissery. I washed with unbranded, unscented soap and tasteless toothpaste—provided by the prison. Muffins were rare. Some bonus treats from a prisoner cooking course.

She’d claimed she was diabetic. That she needed my muffin.

And I snapped.

I smashed my tray over her head.

I screamed, but it wasn’t the death shriek. Just a regular human scream.

And I got two days in the SHU.

Never again.

I couldn’t breathe.

There was a difference between being alone and being in isolation .

Behem was a gluttony demon. There was a genuine possibility that I was being kept in a cell until he decided to eat me. A chill settled into my body through skin, blood, and bone.

Eat me .

The poor women on the table flashed through my mind again.

I’d sooner die than fill that demon’s belly.

I hadn’t even seen the thing. My scream had knocked me clean out the moment the Sídhe woman had died. I knew the moment my teeth had unlocked that we were screwed. Murmur’s face had said it all—my demons couldn’t protect me. Not from Behem. They’d lost their connection to Hell, and while they were demons, it was in name only.

I was going to die.

There wasn’t a single thing in my cell. No shoe laces on my prison-issue sneakers. No waist-string on my jeans. I could strip my T-shirt, but my clothes were demon-made. They wouldn’t rip. I was screwed.

I’d thought about killing myself in the beginning. When I’d been freshly eighteen, sentenced and transferred to my forever home in the prison cell in Nevada. I’d thought about killing myself every time someone nudged my shoulder or kicked my feet out from under me. Or threatened to kill me for looking at them the wrong way.

I’d spent ten years behind bars, and when I’d come to the Red City, I’d told myself that I wouldn’t spend a minute more in prison. And I’d meant it.

I wasn’t fed, but I hoped that meant Behem didn’t plan to eat me just yet. Surely, if he wanted to eat me, it would be a Hansel-and-Gretel situation, trying to fatten me up.

Unless he thought I was already fat enough.

Great. Now, I was frightened and insulted.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood, pacing the concrete cell before the door at the end of the corridor swung open with a metallic groan.

Barely the whisper of a footstep as the two demons approached.

Stolas and Behem.

Had Stolas sold me out ?

The moment the Tailor had said the words ‘Bean Sídhe, ’ I bet Stolas and Seir had been tallying up how much my head would go for on the chopping block. Sídhe, it seemed, were a delicacy amongst demons. Which explained why my kind did not leave the Aos Sí often.

Stola’s hair was unusually flat, his dark eyes were without emotion, and he wore his body as if trying to appear smaller. His Victorian-style long coat seemed to be wearing him instead of the other way around. Stolas didn’t greet me; he hung back by the strange skeletal creature’s shoulder like a good little henchman.

I narrowed my eyes, hoping that Stolas caught my glare.

He blinked slowly and looked away, every inch the bored sidekick.

The other demon hunched over, his head almost touching the ceiling. His body was unnaturally skinny, making him look like a man made of burned, gnarled twigs. His eyes were too big for his face, and his teeth unnaturally square, like poorly fitted veneers. He bent over at the waist, folding like a piece of paper, as he scanned the cell. Pressing his face close to the bars, like a child at the zoo. His wide eyes were yellow with jaundice.

He licked his cracked lips, and his tongue was too long and flat.

My nose wrinkled in disgust, and I stepped away from the bars.

“You came to my home, little snack. Were you desperate to be eaten, or did you undertake the foolish errand of trying to save your kin?”

I remained silent.

“You have to expect these things, little snack.” The demon blinked his round eyes. “Especially when you are so delicious. It is the way of things.”

I gathered the saliva and launched a wad of spit at the bars.

By sheer luck, the loogie missed the iron bars and landed on the demon’s gaunt cheek.

His eyes shone with delight as he wiped the spit from his hollow cheek and licked his fingers. I held back my gag as bile crawled up my gullet, ready to make an appearance.

“You’re kind are difficult to procure.” Behem looked down his nose at me. “We used to spend our whole lives hunting Sídhe, just for a taste. The Red Cities have been a boon. Sídhe are easy to find if you know what to look for.”

The look he gave me was a disturbing mix of lust, hunger, and longing.

Where were Caim and Malphas?

I didn’t know if Behem understood ASL, but I had to risk it.

I lifted my hands and began to sign. “Where are the others? Why are you with him? What is going on? Is he going to eat me?” My fingers moved from sign to sign too quickly, but I hoped Stolas understood.

“What is it doing?” Behem snapped, striking the bars. “Is it trying to fly?”

Stolas shrugged but didn’t elaborate.

I repeated the signs but slower.

“What is it doing?” Behem repeated, growing steadily angrier.

Stolas stepped up to the bars, ignoring the Gluttony demon. “ New drug. Made of Sídhe blood. Demons eating Sídhe. Caim and Malphas in the cell next to yours.”

My shoulders sagged with relief. Caim and Malphas were okay. Or, at the very least, they were alive. Even if I couldn’t see them, I felt comfort knowing they were in the cell next to mine, separated by a concrete wall.

“Stolas!” Behem barked. “Is it mocking me?”

Stolas dropped his hands. “No, Behem.” He dipped his head. “I thought I could comfort it by mimicking its hand movements.”

“Comfort...” Behem rubbed his pointy chin. “Fear does taint the meat.”

“Stolas, fetch that demon of yours. The turkey?” The demon, Behem, I guessed, tilted his head back as he spoke to Stolas.

“Vulture.” Stolas corrected with a drawl.

“That one.” Behem snapped his fingers. “He’s starting to stink up the place.”

Murmur ? I didn’t dare ask if he was okay. He’d been there when I had screamed. Caim and Malphas had survived the scream. I’d hoped Murmur could, too.

“Certainly.” Stolas sighed, drifting down the hallway, leaving me alone with Behem.

Stolas shot me a look I couldn’t decipher as he went. It looked like fear .

Until that moment, I’d believed the skeletal demon to be naked, without genitals, but he reached down and pulled the waistband of his flesh-colored Speedos to the side, revealing an ancient key. With a flourish, the key jumped into his hand, and Behem approached, folding over the lock with all the concentration of a spider wrapping his prey.

I stepped back, but it was no use. Behem was almost seven feet tall, a couple of heads taller than Stolas. His limbs were longer, and Behem’s magic felt like a punch to the gut.

Stolas returned a moment later, carrying Murmur’s limp body.

Luckily, Behem didn’t come closer.

Stolas squeezed past Behem’s body and dropped Murmur’s body in the cell. “You’re planning to eat her, now ?”

“No, no.” Behem shook his head, confused at the question. “A taste, at best, a finger, perhaps? Sídhe have the most delightful quality, Stolas.” Behem rocked back on his heels, distracted. “Gluttony demons have the curse of insatiable hunger. We cannot escape it. To eat only seems to feed the gluttony. Some of my ilk seek refuge with other vices. Anything in excess can be Gluttony, you know. Even sex, though Lust would have you think it belongs entirely to her.”

Stolas didn’t show Behem his back as he skirted the wall slowly, putting himself between me and Behem.

Behem continued. “Sídhe flesh. Sídhe blood. It is so saturated with the magic of the Aos Sí, it satiates. A Gluttony demon doesn’t need to feed for a week, sometimes more, if they eat even the smallest sliver of Sídhe. The voices, the desire, and the drive to consume go quiet. It’s remarkable.”

“Sídhe are rare,” Stolas noted without emotion.

“They are!” Behem’s eyes came alive with manic energy. “Most Sídhe on this side of the Human Realities are mixed with human blood. The effect is diluted, but not by much. It was so dreadfully tiresome to hunt them. The new system is much more effective, though some, like her, slip through the cracks.”

“New system?” Stolas glanced at me, gesturing to the sliver of space in the doorway. He meant for me to run. He was distracting me.

“Sugar would help you.” Behem nodded knowingly. “It is made of Sídhe blood. Perhaps, like consuming the Sídhe fills the yawning hunger in my empty belly, Sugar might plug up that hole inside you. The one left behind by your connection to Hell.”

“Hmm,” Stolas replied, but Behem was too high on his soapbox to notice.

I skirted behind Stolas, holding my breath, careful not to make a sound as I tiptoed to the open cell door.

“Would you like to join me, Stolas?” Behem extended a hand. “The devil was a fool to spurn you. Even without magic, you hold a dozen millennia worth of spells in that head of yours.”

It was clear that Behem needed an answer. He leaned forward, his nose an inch away from Stolas’s.

“Though, your common sense is in question.” Behem purred. “Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you inching towards the door?”

Stolas flashed his teeth. “I hoped.”

Behem sighed. “You’re no good. It would have made my cause legitimate and my reputation beyond reproach if I had Lucifer’s first advisor with me. The one responsible for the Devil’s fall.”

“I wasn’t responsible.” Stolas shook his head.

Behem ignored him. “You were his advisor.”

“I cleaned his weapons,” Stolas said through gritted teeth. “A squire, at best.”

Behem shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’d hoped your presence might gain my new drug acceptance from the other circles. Even with your magic in tatters, your word holds sway.”

“How taxing.” Stolas joked with a drawl.

Behem shook his head, unleashing a put-upon sigh. “I’ll return soon.” He commented lightly. “I can only hope you’ll change your mind. If I can bring myself to forgive you, tricksy old owl.”