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Realizing that made him more alert. Dave guessed it was a good thing. He could say he had some survival instincts left, after all.

The first thing he noticed was that he was still in Melchom’s bed. He recognized the soft sheets, and there was still some residual heat from the demon lying there. Where the fuck was he? Fine, Dave woke up often to him gone for his meetings or whatever, but Gaz would still be there. He couldn’t picture his big bad demon walking and playing fetch with the hound.

Dave sat up, rubbing his eyes some more before he finally opened them.

He screamed, then covered his mouth with both hands. “Astaroth?”

He… There was no way he was seeing things right. Right? Dave swallowed. Astaroth, the demon with the scary eyes—the one that had Jordan—was in the room, leaning against the door as if he owned the space.

Dave looked around. There was still no sign of Gaz or Melchom, but he… Melchom wouldn’t leave him alone with the other demon. Dave refused to believe that. Fear still shot through his veins, though. He… He’d started to relax, but he should’ve known not to do that in Hell.

Shouldn’t he?

No, he refused to start drowning in worst case scenarios.

“You think you can address me that casually, David?”

Dave shivered, his voice betraying him again when he asked, “Where are Melchom and Gaz?”

“Melchom was called in for an emergency meeting. He took the hellhound with him.” The demon shrugged, waving his hand around. “That was impressive of you, I must say.”

“Why would he take Gaz?”

Melchom never did. It didn’t make any sense.

“I’m pretty sure he was ordered to.”

“Why?”

“So many questions,” Astaroth trilled, still moving around the room before finally pausing by the foot of his bed. “You’re intriguing.”

“Uh… Thanks?”

Thinking about something smart to retort with was hard—especially when Dave still had no idea what was going on, and he couldn’t get his body to fully cooperate.

Huh.

Was Astaroth controlling his body? Like Melchom did? It didn’t quite feel the same way. Dave just felt… groggy, like there were a few walls between him and the rest of the world distorting the air. It was unnerving in its strangeness.

“You’re sharp.” He guessed that answered his question. “Tell me, David. Why haven’t you gotten Melchom killed already? It’s never been so easy.”

Now, Dave knew there was a game here he was missing critical rules of, something at play he hadn’t been made aware of. But he knew enough to know he was safer if he didn’t speak. That was what the good guys did in the movies. They didn’t speak, and they waited for their opportunity to run away, or to be rescued by someone else.

Not going to lie: Dave was banking on the latter.

Melchom would have to leave his meeting at some point, and he knew the demon went straight to his chambers when he was done. Gaz would… She would feel he was in danger, right? Dogs could do that.

Dave was pretty sure they could, at least.

No, he had to convince himself that they did.

“I don’t need you to talk,” Astaroth snorted. “I just need our dethroned King to show up here and listen.”

“Oh.” So much for just thinking he’d stay quiet and wait. This felt important, though. “So you’re not gonna kill me?”

“Me?” Astaroth hissed. “I just got my hair done. As if I would ever.”

That wasn’t reassuring. It sounded like those villains who wouldn’t get their hands dirty.