Chapter 5

Ursula surveyed the wide hall. On one side, a spiral stairwell curved upward. The opposite wall abutted a delicate wooden table, adorned with a display of faintly glowing mushrooms.

Beautiful, but slightly unsettling.

Pulling her robe tighter, she followed the hall into a dimly lit, semicircular room.

A great panel of windows curved in the shape of the tower. Through the glass, she had a perfect view of Nyxobas’s gleaming spire, jutting from the crater like a jeweled spear. Guess I won’t be walking around here naked.

A set of marble statues flanked the windows, each at least eight feet tall—nude, athletic men with curly hair and vacant eyes. Ancient Greek, by the look of them.

Arranged about the room, glass cabinets held clay urns and vases, painted with letters from dead languages and geometric designs. Apparently, moon demons had major hard-ons for the Classical era.

Possibly the hots for human men too, given the choice of statues.

She scanned the walls, eyeing the fine glassware. She tried not to stare at the black velvet couches that were nestled into the corner of the room, or she’d give in to temptation and sleep in one for days.

Water portal travel did a number on a person’s body.

Her eyes lingered on a silver clock on the wall that looked like an antique ship’s clock. It featured a complicated lunar cycle of waxing and waning moons that she couldn’t quite figure out.

Before she could move on to another room, her gaze landed on a portrait, framed in silver. The subject—a woman—had gorgeous dark eyes, and long brown hair that curled over a delicate white dress. She wore a solemn, regal expression. Olive skin, sharp cheekbones, full lips. Beautiful as hell. The vulnerability in her eyes seemed remarkably human.

She wasn’t exactly an art history expert, but it looked like something from the Renaissance. From one of those painters who depicted gorgeous women—Botticelli, maybe.

So maybe Classical Art Demon was into women, too.

Her rumbling stomach turned her attention away from the beauty. I’m starving.

She spotted a small bar tucked in another corner of the room. On it was a platter of cheese, grapes, and a carafe of wine.

Cera might have locked her in here, but at least she’d left something to eat.

As Ursula drew closer to the food, she noticed a beige envelope resting against the carafe. On it was scrawled her name in deep red ink. She popped a grape in her mouth, then snatched up the envelope, tearing it open. She scanned the letter.

I have asked Cera to look after you during your stay. She will be able to provide anything you need. This apartment is yours, and you are free to move about as you wish. For your own safety, I cannot give you free rein of the entire manor at this time. We will speak in the morning.

She crushed another grape between her teeth, letting the sweet juice run down her throat.

Had Nyxobas written this letter? She’d been expecting to meet him here upon her arrival, but now the idea that a god would greet her personally seemed completely stupid.

Then again, she hadn’t quite understood Nyxobas’s power until she’d come here. Now she could see it, visually represented. Total domination over an entire planetary body, not to mention the demons he controlled on the earth.

Grabbing a chunk of bread, she walked over to the window. Nyxobas’s spire glinted in the starlight. She’d been expecting to stay with him, that he had some sort of purpose in mind for her. But clearly, she hadn’t been brought to his palace. So what the hell was she doing here?

A hollow opened in the pit of her stomach. She was in some sort of manor, and she had no clue who owned it. And the first name that came to her mind was Abrax. The incubus had tried to murder her more than once, and she was pretty sure he was a rapist. He’d pulled some kind of mind-control seduction trick on her. At least, until he’d become disgusted by her and moved on to attempted murder. Clearly, the guy had issues with women.

A chill snaked up her spine. Not only did he hate her, but she had an unsettling feeling she hadn’t even begun to witness Abrax’s power.

Suddenly, her appetite deserted her. I want Honjo.

Her hand was shaking as she placed her bread on the coffee table, and her old, familiar instincts kicked in. If there was one thing that came naturally to Ursula, it was self-preservation.

I need to find a weapon in case Abrax shows up. Her pulse racing, she scanned the room for something that could be used for skull-smashing or organ-puncturing.

Bars had knives sometimes, didn’t they?

She hurried across the room and began pulling open the drawers. Coasters, fancy napkins, toothpicks. Bugger all, basically. Not a lot of damage you could do with toothpicks.

She yanked open another drawer. A corkscrew. Bloody hell. I won’t get very far fighting an ancient demon with a corkscrew, but it’s better than nothing.

She shoved the corkscrew into the robe’s soft pocket. Maybe I can find something a bit better.

She crossed to a door off the living room, pushing through into a bathroom. She scanned the gray tile. The silver, claw-footed bath looked amazing, she had to admit, but she found not a single toilet plunger or towel rack that could be used to smash a head in.

She ran back to the front hallway, her frantic gaze landing on the spiral staircase. She bounded up it, two steps at a time. At the top, more doors lined a long hall. She flung open the first and walked into a luxurious bedroom: floor-to-ceiling windows and a large bed covered with a violet bedspread.

A dresser stood against one wall. Candles and a jewelry box resting on the top, but unfortunately, nothing so handy as a knife. She pulled open the jewelry box, finding only actual jewels. Of course. People didn’t tend to keep weapons among their diamonds, but you never knew.

Her pulse racing, she yanked open a drawer, cursing when she found it empty. One drawer after another, each completely weaponless. Not only was this place completely weapon-free, like a psychiatric facility, but she hadn’t even been given clothes.

So much for “providing everything you need.”

She hurried into the hall, flinging open another door to find another bathroom. An enormous tub stood before the curving windows. Not a lot of privacy here.

She crossed to a white porcelain sink, yanking open the cupboard below it. She rifled through a few extra rolls of toilet paper, and some ancient-looking vials of green and blue liquids. Not even a toothbrush she could file down to a point.

Her heart racing, she stood and patted the corkscrew in her pocket. Its thin twist of steel was all she had to protect herself.

Somehow, it did not reassure her.

Ursula trudged down the stairs again. Of course there weren’t any real weapons in the apartment. Abrax, Nyxobas—whoever was in charge here—didn’t want a hellhound able to defend herself. As a hound of Emerazel’s she was simply too dangerous to the night demons.

In the living room, she headed for the bar, then popped the cork off the carafe of wine. She grabbed a wine glass, filling it nearly to the top, then crossed to one of the sofas.

She plopped down onto the rich, velvet fabric and took a long sip. She’d have to keep the glass nearby. In a pinch, she could smash it and stab someone with the shards.

Her stomach tightened. One of these days, she’d like to have a normal Friday night. Though hoping for an ordinary night in the Shadow Realm was probably a bit of a stretch. The alcohol warmed her stomach, soothing the tension from her shoulders.

Abrax or Nyxobas...

Somehow, Nyxobas didn’t seem like he’d have a golden lion mosaic in his atrium or a suite of rooms filled with classical art. She shivered. Abrax seemed more like the type to relish intimidation through luxury. He was also the kind of perv who’d put her in a glass cage so he could watch her every move.

She tucked her feet underneath her. If Kester were here, he’d have a clear idea of what she should be doing. He’d stretch out on the sofa, full of confidence. He’d level his green eyes on her and tell her precisely what spells she needed to be practicing and how to evaluate her true threat. Then again, she’d hardly seen him in the past six months. After she’d saved him from Nyxobas, she’d gone to visit him on his tugboat. And that’s when she’d learned the truth—that Kester was in this to save his sister’s soul. She’d felt so close to him that night, like she’d made a true friend. And yet, since then he’d been a ghost. He’d stopped by the flat once or twice with Zee. He turned on his usual arrogant charm. Flirting, double entendres, references to his prowess with a sword. But when she’d asked what he’d been doing, he’d just shrugged. “On a special assignment given to him by Emerazel,” was all he’d said. And then, he’d disappeared again for another month.

When she’d asked Zee about it, the fae girl had shaken her head. “That’s Kester for you. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. It’s how he operates.”

But that didn’t explain it at all. She and Kester had neither whammed nor bammed. Sure, she’d thought about it. How could she not, given his chiseled beauty? But nothing had happened…yet.

And meanwhile, she’d been missing a mentor. Kester was supposed to teach her how to become a hellhound, but there’d been no magic lessons, no practice sessions in the armory to build her skill. In the last six months, she’d learned virtually nothing new about the job.

Sure, she’d kept busy in other ways. There was the mob boss assignment in Hell’s Kitchen—a first-rate wanker who’d been forcing his thugs to sign over their souls. Ursula had been tasked with hunting down each of the Mafiosi.

Because they’d signed over their souls involuntarily, her task had been to nullify pacts. She’d thought it’d be easy—who actually wanted to burn in the Emerazel’s inferno for eternity? But once the Mafiosi had tasted Emerazel’s power, they seemed to stop caring about eternal damnation. She’d been forced to reap more of their souls than she cared to think about. It had been brutal work, but at least she’d filled a good number of pages in her ledger.

And each page was another step toward freedom. Once she managed to fill her ledger, it was goodbye to the hellhound life.

She took another sip of wine, pushing her worries about the ledger to the back of her mind. Right now, she had more immediate concerns. After the dragon attack and the near-drowning with the Forgotten Ones, exhaustion burned her muscles. She propped her wine against the base of the sofa, then leaned back into the velvet. She pulled a soft, white blanket over her body, staring through the window at a perfect view of Nyxobas’s palace.

The sharp spire glimmered like a shard of glass. And as her eyelids drooped, dark clouds seemed to whirl around its summit.