Mortal Danger (19 page)

The sky around the dull black cone of the volcano suddenly flared, shooting from dark brass to incandescent orange and gold—sunrise arriving with a bang. A second later, the ground shimmied beneath them, accompanied by a dull, distant rumble, like thunder below the ground.

“Remind me,” the creature whispered, “not to ever, ever ask if things could get worse.”

NINETEEN

Though the man was always with the wolf, just as the wolf remained with the man, the form did make a difference. Instinct was closer to Rule when he was four-footed, words more distant. Which might have been just as well. Being more deeply of the moment than the man, the beast felt little fear for the future.

Not that there wasn’t plenty in the present for alarm. Plenty that made him want to lift his nose and howl… but he’d already done that. The demon, damn its greasy orange hide, was right. It had been a stupid thing to do, but he couldn’t have stopped that howl if his life had depended on it.

Which, of course, it might. Worse—so might Lily’s. There was no saying who or what might have heard him. But in that first terrible second of discovery, wolf and man alike had lost control.

He’d tried to Change. And couldn’t.

Now the beast wanted to act. Food, water, shelter— those needs the beast understood. The man agreed, but where to find any of that in hell?

Rule reined in his sense of urgency. There were no immediate threats. If the volcano was erupting, it was distant enough not to pose an urgent danger. What was it Benedict used to say? There’s a time to act, a time to plan the next action, and a time to gather facts so you can plan.

A puff of sadness ghosted through him at the thought of his brother, who might well be dead. The wolf, more immediate than the man, paid it little heed. If he and Lily survived and managed to return home, then it would be time to worry about Benedict’s fate.

Rule lifted his nose. The air was dry, windless. It carried little scent, and most of that was alien, useless to him.

He looked at the other two. Lily was fingering the nearly healed wound on her shoulder, perhaps wondering where that earlier hurt had come from. Her brows were knit. Her eyes looked lost.

How much was gone? Her personal memories were missing, obviously, but she hadn’t lost everything. She retained language and basic motor skills. Did she remember Earth, even if she’d forgotten her family? Did she know he had another form, even if she couldn’t remember his face? Some part of her knew him. He was convinced of that. Hadn’t she accepted his support earlier?

But he couldn’t ask her. He couldn’t hold her or tend her wound. He couldn’t even speak her name. Rule wanted to lift his nose to that ugly sky and howl again, but that would be entirely stupid.

She was so alone now, bereft even of memory. Unable to offer a man’s comfort, he went to her and touched her arm gently with his nose. And recoiled.

Mixed with her own beloved scent was a whiff of cloves and exhaust. The scent of the demon.

She turned to him, her expression abstract. “Something wrong?”

Terribly wrong. But he couldn’t tell her. Tentatively he sniffed again. The demon scent was faint, but it came from her skin. Yet the demon was obviously separate from her, so she couldn’t be possessed. Could she?

The demon had said something about being tied to her. That tie was what he smelled, he supposed… but he hadn’t realized it meant some part of the creature was actually
in
her. Part of her.

She’d sensed his turmoil or felt the need to ease her own. She reached for him, running her fingers through the thick fur of his ruff, scratching lightly. Relief flowed through him. The comfort of the mate bond was unchanged by whatever tie she had with the demon.

He turned his head to look at it. The demon was jiggling from foot to foot, looking all around anxiously… very much all around, because its head had the range of motion of an owl’s. When it saw that Rule was watching, it said, “You’ll have to take charge. We’ve got to get moving, and she’s missing too many marbles to know what to do.”

Rule bared his teeth.

“Speak English,” Lily said, “not babble.”

He’d hardly noticed that the demon had reverted to that other language. Somehow he understood the creature whether it spoke English or not… and it had seemed to understand him earlier.

Well, it was worth a try. He yipped at it.

“Ask questions later,” the thing said, jiggling. “When we’re in Akhanetton.”

Rule lowered his rump and sat, staring pointedly at the demon. Lily glanced from him to the demon. “I don’t think he’s going anywhere. What did he ask?”

“All right, all right. He wants to know why I understand him.” The demon rolled its eyes. “You people don’t know
anything
. Meanings are one of the Rules.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Not to you,” the demon said morosely and plopped down on the ground. It sat rather like an ape or a gargoyle, though its thick tail caused it to tilt forward. The way its legs were jointed, they naturally splayed to the sides, with the knees pointed straight up—a position that put its genitals on prominent display.

“Then you’d better keep talking.”

It heaved a sigh. “In the earth realm, you’ve got your laws of nature, gravity, and all that. Here we’ve got the Rules. One of them is that meanings are clear no matter where you are, so everyone always knows what you mean even if they don’t know what you said. Unless you’re really clever, that is—good at hiding one meaning behind another. I’m good,” it added with simple pride. “Sometimes I can almost lie.”

“I just hear your words. I can’t tell what you mean. Or…” She looked at Rule, a small frown tucked between her eyebrows. “Or him.”

The demon huffed out a breath. “It doesn’t work with a sensitive. All sorts of things won’t work right with a sensitive. And you’re wearing Ishtar’s token. Nobody told me about that. You’d think someone would have mentioned…” Its eyes widened. “Maybe Xitil didn’t know! Maybe
She
didn’t tell her! Oh, oh, oh!” It bounced to its feet. “Xitil must be
so
pissed! We’ve got to get out of here!”

“And go where?” Lily demanded. “Where’s better than here? And who is Xitil?”

“Xitil’s the prince of this region. My prince. We need to cross to Akhanetton—that’s the closest region. It’s scary.” It shivered. “All that open sky… but there’s no telling what will happen here. Xitil’s fighting with
Her
.”

“With who?”

“I’m not going to say Her name. Any of her names. She’s a goddess. She might hear.”

Rule growled a question.

“Okay, so it’s Her avatar that’s here, not the goddess Herself. That won’t make much difference to us. Xitil won’t be minding the store with the fight taking all her attention. Up could become down, or it might rain ashes, or—oh, you don’t know anything, do you?” It looked hugely frustrated. “Dis is divided into regions. The regions, they aren’t just ruled by their princes—they’re
determined
by their rulers. Hot or cold, what grows or doesn’t, all the little rules are set by the prince, who’s
part
of all of it because she’s eaten part of everyone. Do you see?”

“She’s
eaten
part of everyone?” Lily said, revolted. “She ate part of you?”

“That’s how it works! You people with your souls are used to death, so you kill too easy, but we preserve life.”

“By eating each other alive?”

“Yes. Can we go now?”

“Not yet. You said my name is Lily.”

It nodded. “Lily Yu.”

“And his name? The wolf’s?”

“He’s called Rule Turner.”

“Rule.” She said it thoughtfully, as if searching for recognition, some snippet of memory. And looked disappointed. “I know him, though.”

“Sure. You have sex with him a lot. Well, when he’s not a wolf, you do. I don’t know if you have sex when he’s like this.” It tipped its head to one side, eyes brightening—and penis beginning to harden. “I’d like to see that if you do.”

Rule growled.

Lily ignored irrelevancies to focus on her questions. “What do you mean, ‘when he’s not a wolf?”

“He’s lupus. You’re human. And I,” it said, penis and expression drooping once more, “am in so much trouble. Neither of you is supposed to—yipes!”

Rule had heard it, too, and had spun to face the new threat before the demon stopped speaking.

Feet. Lots and lots of running feet, headed their way.

The demon bounded to a tall, nearly vertical rock face. “Get her over here!” it cried. “Get her flat against the rock, or they’ll trample her!”

Some kind of stampede? Making up his mind quickly, Rule pushed at Lily with his nose.

“You want me to do like the creature says? I don’t… what’s that?”

Her ears must have picked it up now, too. Rule pushed at her urgently. Whatever was headed their way was coming fast.

She grimaced, but, by using his back to steady herself, managed to get to her feet.

He’d known she was hurt. Though he didn’t remember those last moments on Earth, he’d smelled it when he awoke. But now he saw her wound clearly, and it worried him. Just below her navel was a puffy blister shaped like a fat cigar, but bigger. The skin around it was bright red and weepy.

Second-degree burn, he thought, alarmed. Were there bacteria in hell?

Stupid question. She’d have brought some in on her skin, and he could only hope her system was able to fight them off. The pain would be fierce, the healing slow. She needed medical treatment, dammit. He couldn’t supply so much as a bandage. He had no shirt to tear into strips.

Neither did she.

That was odd, now that he thought of it. Why hadn’t her clothes arrived with her? The Lady’s token had made the crossing, but not Lily’s clothing.

He had no answers, and damn little help to give. He could only pace anxiously alongside her as she stumbled toward the overhang, then place himself between her and the demon when she sank to the ground, her back against the rock. He heard the pounding of her heart—too fast—and her quick, short breaths.

Seconds later, the wave hit.

TWENTY

THEY cascaded over the edges of the cul-de-sac so fast and in such numbers that Rule couldn’t sort out what an individual creature looked like. He had an impression of endless gray bodies with too many legs, and a pungent smell like mushrooms and grapefruit. They hurtled to the floor of the cul-de-sac in the hundreds and kept running, pouring up the other side in a steady stream.

It seemed to go on and on but probably lasted ten minutes or less. As suddenly as the flood had started it was over, leaving a couple dozen bodies behind. Many had been trampled into bloody pulp—red blood, so maybe their metabolism was oxygen-based. A few still twitched.

The demon didn’t move, so Rule didn’t, either. Seconds later two huge shadows glided across the rocky ground. Rule looked up.

Pterodactyls? Giant birds? They were too quickly gone for him to pick up much detail, and his distance vision wasn’t good in this form. They seemed to be trailing the stampeding creatures. Hunting them, maybe.

The demon heaved a great sigh and, after giving the sky a wary glance, wandered out into the open. Hoping that meant the coast was clear, Rule followed. He wanted to check out one of the creatures.

The body nearest him was almost intact. It looked rather like a roach without the carapace, only the size of a cat and with leathery gray skin. The six thin legs were hinged oddly, but were more animal than insect. He could see bone where the skin and sinew was missing. They ended in small, clawed feet. The head was pure bug, however—small, flattened, with faceted eyes and serrated mandibles.

Revolting to look at, he decided, but they didn’t smell half bad. In a pinch, they would do. For him, anyway. His body would throw off any toxins. He didn’t know if Lily could safely eat them—or if she’d be willing to try, short of starvation.

He hoped with everything in him they wouldn’t have to find out.

“Might as well get to it,” the demon said, resigned. It picked up one of the twitching creatures and bit its head off.

Lily made a choked sound. “You were saying something about how
we
kill too easily?”

It chewed and swallowed. “I didn’t kill it. I ate it.”

“Why am I not seeing the distinction?”

“It isn’t dead now. It would have been if I hadn’t eaten it, but now it’s part of me. You people eat dead things and keep the physical stuff. We eat live things and keep the life. Not that
hirug
would be my first choice.” It grimaced at the decapitated body it held and wrenched off one of the legs. “Stupid creatures. But they’re here, and I’m going to need extra
ymu
.”

When it opened that wide slit of a mouth completely, it looked like the whole lower half of its face was hinged. It crunched down on the leg. “You should have told me you were too weak to travel.”

Lily sighed and leaned back against the rock. It couldn’t have been comfortable, but the burn on her stomach probably made leaning forward worse. “Your little snack won’t help me travel. Unless you’re planning to carry me, and I’m not—”

“Carry you? That would be stupid. Better if I give you a little boost and make your wound go away.”

“You can’t do that. You said I’m a sensitive, and that— that feels right. I can touch magic…” Her hand went to the Lady’s talisman Rule had fastened around her throat when she became clan. “It can’t touch me, though. Can’t affect me.”

“How do you think you got here?” it snapped. “By train?”

Her head jerked as if she’d been slapped, her eyebrows flying up.

“We’re tied,” it told her, impatient. “So I can affect you. I can’t get inside you any more than I already am, but I’m partway there. I can give you… English doesn’t have the words.”

“Find some,” she said tersely.

Its brow wrinkled. “Well, when I eat, I take
ymu
and
assig
. Ymu is the energy. Assig is the pattern, the memories and thinking. Not that hirug actually think, but you get the idea.”

Rule did, and he didn’t like it. He moved between Lily and the demon.

“I’m not going to hurt her! I’m going to help her.”

Rule snarled.

“Wait.”

He looked at Lily, startled.

The small frown tucked between her eyebrows reminded him of her mother. “I don’t trust it, either, but he—it—she—” She stopped, frustrated. “What are you, anyway?”

“I’m called Gan. Your dumb language doesn’t have a word for he-and-she, so you can call me it. We don’t settle on a sex right away. Well, some demons never do, but most—”

“You’re… a demon.”

Gan rolled its eyes. “What did you think I was?”

“Then this place is…”

“Dis. Or hell, according to a lot of you people, but that’s a misunderstanding.”

Lily had already been pale. Now she looked shocky. When Gan started to speak Rule growled at it:
Shut up
.

She closed her eyes and then opened them as if she might be able to change what she saw that way. She looked at the stones, the bizarre sky, the dead and dying hirug, the demon. She drummed her fingers on her thigh. “Okay. You’re a demon and we’re in hell. How did we get here?”

“It was an accident. The sorcerer burned up the staff while I was trying to get into you.”

Judging by the look on her face, the explanation didn’t tell her much. She shook her head. “Never mind. We’ll go into that later. You seem to be right about one thing—this area isn’t safe.”

And some other part of hell might be? Rule made a noise in his throat, frustrated by his inability to speak. And not at all sure they should budge from this spot.

He didn’t know how they’d gotten here, but the staff had disappeared before when She called it to her. That times, Harlowe had been dragged along willy-nilly because he’d been holding it. Maybe that’s what had happened this time. The burn on Lily’s stomach suggested the staff had been touching her when it was hit with mage fire, and Rule had been touching her. So they’d been pulled into hell with it.

But what about the demon? Why would it have been pulled here? And where was the staff? If
She
had summoned it, wouldn’t Rule and Lily have ended up wherever She was, too?

He glanced at the volcano. Not that he was complaining about Her absence. The farther away they were from

Her, the better. But if they’d been dragged here by the staff, they should have ended up with it.

The other possibility was that the destruction of the staff had somehow opened a gate. Cullen had called the thing a rent in reality, so that wasn’t too far-fetched. If so, that gate might be their only way home.

But if Lily remembered the existence of gates, they weren’t on her mind now. She had questions—that hadn’t changed—and only one place to aim them. At the demon. “How do you do this whatever-it-is? And what will it do to me other than make me stronger?”

“I sort of get control of your body.”

Rule growled.

Gan frowned at him. “If you want to say something, you have to think the words. Just making sounds doesn’t work.”

“I think I know what he meant,” Lily said. “You are not taking over any part of me.”

“I’m not talking about possession. If I could have done that, I would have. I was
trying
,” it added, aggrieved. “I mean that I have to take charge of your body temporarily. So I can make it take ymu.”

“This ymu is the energy you were talking about—that comes from living things?” She shook her head. “You’re not stuffing me with death magic, either.”

It rolled its eyes. “Ymu is not death magic! When you eat dead things, is that death magic? Ymu is just energy. You people have all kinds of energy in your world— bombs and electricity and gasoline—only you can’t eat those energies, right? Your body would have to change to take gasoline energy instead of dead animal energy.”

“Yes, but… I feel like you’re pointing in one direction so I won’t notice the card up your sleeve.”

Its forehead wrinkled. “Card?”

“Never mind. How would this ymu help me?”

Its forehead wrinkled even more. “You could say that ymu makes things want to be in their proper form.”

“Then a hirug’s ymu would make my body want to be like a hirug.”

“No, no, no! Ymu is the energy. The pattern is from the assig—which you can’t do anything with. I can.” It looked smug. “That’s why I’m a demon. But you won’t get any hirug assig and your body already knows its pattern, so I just have to get it to take the ymu and it will make itself strong and right again.”

She chewed on her lip a moment. “How would you do that?”

“You could suck me off—”

This time it was Lily who growled.

“Okay, okay, it doesn’t have to be sex. But you have to take something of my body into you. This is still eating. I can’t put ymu in air.”

“I have to
eat
part of you?”

“I’m not crazy about that, either, if you won’t do sex, but…” It scowled, its brow wrinkling as if it was thinking fiercely. “Spit. Spit should work. I can push lots of ymu into it, then push some in your mouth.”

Her face twisted in revulsion.

“What’s that thing you say? Get over it. Yeah. Get over it. If you’re picky about what you eat here, you starve. No McDonald’s on the corner. No corner. Get it? No corner.” It giggled, appreciating its own humor. “Before you can eat ymu, though, I have to tinker with your body. Make things more dense where they should be.”

“Dense?”

“You don’t have the words!” It rubbed its head with the hand not holding the dead hirug. Then it spat out a stream of what Lily called babble—and this time, Rule didn’t know what it meant, either.

Words mixed with images and sensory impressions. He heard “hydrocarbon.” Smelled blood. “Tender wheat” arrived with “liver” and the sound of water dripping. “Eggs” were part of an image of the glowing disc of the sun.

“See?” the demon finished in English. “He doesn’t understand, either. You have to already have the ideas, or you can’t get the meanings.”

She nodded slowly. “One more question. Can this be undone later?”

“Sure.” It looked at the hirug it still held and then tossed it to the ground. Apparently once something finished dying it became inedible. After another glance overhead, it began studying the remaining dead and dying hirug.

Lily rubbed her forehead. “I need to think about this.”

In the distance, the mountain rumbled, though there was no accompanying trembling in the ground this time.

“Think fast,” Gan said, bending to pick up another hirug.

Rule rubbed his head along Lily’s arm, making a low, grumbling sound.
This is a bad idea. Don ‘l do it
.

She ran a hand along his back. “You don’t like it, do you? I don’t, either. But what are my choices? I was barely able to make it out of the open before the hirug got here. I
hurt
. And I can’t travel like this.”

He poked her with his nose and pointedly sat down.

“You think we should stay put?”

For now, anyway. He nodded.

She shook her head. “I think we have to accept that the creature—the demon—that Gan knows how to survive here. And we don’t. If it’s giving it to me straight about needing to keep me alive, or it dies, too… what do you think?”

That he couldn’t answer with a simple yes or no. He couldn’t even write in the dirt. There wasn’t enough of it. Rule made a frustrated sound.

“Never mind.” She sank her fingers into his fur and scratched. “I don’t know why I keep feeling like you ought to be able to answer… anyway, I think Gan’s telling the truth about that part.” She looked at the sky, where the fiery glow near the volcano was fading. “I wonder if you know anything about that goddess Gan says is duking it out with its prince.”

Rule nodded again.

“You do, huh? I wish you could talk. She must be pretty tough if she can hold her own with a demon prince. You think she might help us?”

He shook his head vigorously.

“She’s one of the bad guys?”

He nodded.

“Then it doesn’t matter who wins the fight. Either one will be bad news for us.”

Dammit, she was right—more right than she knew. And he wasn’t thinking straight. If Her avatar survived the battle with the demon prince, She might come looking for Lily.

So yes, they might have to leave this spot, but not right this minute. Lily was letting the demon’s urgency rush her to a decision. Slowly Rule shook his head.
Slow down. Give me time to look for any remnants of the staff, or some trace of a hellgate. To look for food and water, find out if it’s possible for us to survive here
.

She titled her head to one side. “I can’t tell if that means ‘no, we can’t stay,” or ’no, 1 don’t agree.‘ I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s my decision.“

He shook his head sharply. She didn’t have enough information. She couldn’t even consult her own memories, or she’d realize that he’d be bound by what she chose. If she stayed or if she moved on, that’s what he would have to do, too.

But she wasn’t paying attention. She’d raised one hand and leaned her head into it, looking strained and weary. And uncomfortable.

He could help a little there, at least. He moved up beside her so she could lean on him. She gave him a small smile and did just that, laying an aim over his back and resting against him. For several moments neither of them moved.

What would he do if she decided to take the demon up on its offer?

There wasn’t much he could do, he realized. He might like the idea of attacking the demon, but it was their only guide in this world, however little he trusted it. And it claimed to be tied to Lily. He could try to interfere, not letting the demon approach, but that would do little other than make her angry. It wouldn’t persuade her to rethink her decision, and he couldn’t plant himself between them indefinitely.

“Damn,” she said at last, straightening. “I wish I had clothes.” She shook her head. “That’s stupid. It’s just stupid to be worrying about clothes right now, but I don’t like this. I don’t like being naked.”

It wasn’t stupid at all. He was, for having paid no attention to her nudity. Just because he didn’t react to her body in this form the way he did as a man… but why hadn’t her clothes come with her? The Lady’s token had. So had he.