Page 14 of Another Underworld (Good To The Last Demon #6)

Popping eight hundred evil Demons was no walk in the park. It also didn’t work. I’d only been able to take out about five hundred. Impressive, but not the result I was going for. The green goo of the slain was oozing from everywhere—including my hair and my clothes. If I thought about it too hard, I’d hurl. The scent of sulfur was almost debilitating. Any other day, it would have made me pass out. This was not just another day. It was the day that would determine the rest of the days for eternity. Passing out or puking was not on the schedule.

The scream that left my lips before I popped the bastards had come from the bottom of my gut and had shocked even me. Pandora had jumped a foot into the air when the sound rocketed out of my mouth, then played it off as if it was nothing. If it hadn’t been so frustrating that I hadn’t met my goal, I would have laughed at her jump-scare reaction. However, having the three hundred remaining irate flaming assholes charging at us meant there wasn’t a moment to waste for any kind of levity.

“My people. NOW,” I bellowed.

Like a perfect and deadly symphony, my loyal Demons stampeded from the tree line surrounding the castle like demonic avenging Angels. It was an oxymoron, but I stood by my description. The remaining three hundred didn’t stand a chance against my three thousand strong. It was no surprise to me that Fifi led the assault, lobbing grenades left and right. My self-proclaimed bodyguard defined the words batshit nutty badass.

“Go, go, go,” Abaddon shouted over the sound of clashing swords and screams. “Take the opening. We can make it to the castle.”

He was right. My Demons had formed a path leading to the ornate front door that would put us exactly where we wanted to be. Tiny had dropped back and joined the fight. It was Abaddon, Pandora and me going in—three of the most powerful Demons alive. Chub Chub Wang had no clue what or who was coming for him, but he was about to find out.

“Throw a fireball at the door, Stinky Whore,” I insisted to Pandora as we wove our way through the masses toward the endgame. “Five bucks says it’s locked and bolted. I didn’t bring a key.”

“Five million says your correct, Bitch,” she replied as she clapped her hands and created a blazing orb of fire.

She might have missed when she was trying to off me, but she certainly didn’t miss the door. It exploded on impact when hit. Shards of wood and metal flew like a detonated shrapnel grenade. I put my hands over my head for protection and continued sprinting to the charred-out opening.

“There will be guards inside,” Pandora huffed out as she ran by my side. “Keep your eyes open and kill anything that moves.”

“Right,” I said. “Just don’t decapitate Irma, Jonny, Moon, Stella or Corny. Got it?”

“You really think they’re still alive?” she asked, ducking a flying beam.

I didn’t answer her. I had doubts but didn’t want to voice them. All I could do was hope… and I was hoping really hard.

We’d reached our first goal. The opening was still on fire, but there was room to squeeze through.

“Motherfucker,” Abaddon bellowed in frustration as he was magically thrown back as he tried to enter the castle. “It won’t let me in.”

His eyes blazed red, and his fury was hotter than the fireball Pandora had thrown. If glares could destroy, the entire castle should have disintegrated to dust. That wasn’t the case. A game was being played by Chub Chub Wang. The Goddesses of the Darkness were the only two who were able to pass over the threshold. Even the evil guards who’d bypassed my people were thrown back like Abaddon.

Pandora was breathing like a rabid dog. “That bastard wants us to play? Fine. We fucking play.”

I turned to Abaddon and blew him a kiss. His fury had not abated, but he returned the gesture. It was terrifying but somehow right. The two rightful Goddesses of the Darkness had to be the ones who took the false God down. It didn’t matter if I liked it. It didn’t matter if Pandora liked it. It was what it was.

The minute we entered the grand foyer, the screams from the battle outside disappeared. Pandora’s alarmed gaze shot to mine. We could still see the battle raging through the broken door, but the soundtrack had been silenced.

“What the actual hell?” Pandora whispered, pulling on her fire sword and glancing around cautiously. “I think Chub Chub Wang is more powerful than originally thought to be.”

“Word,” I said softly, pulling on my own fire swords. I had grenades that would probably be useless other than buying time in my back pockets. The toothpicks were in my front pocket. I had both Cher’s and Fifi’s boxes with me as well. I had a bad feeling we would need them.

“Precautionary pick,” Pandora ordered, pulling out a toothpick and clamping it between her teeth.

I didn’t question her. It was a smart move. If we got hit with death magic and couldn’t get to the antidote we’d be screwed. I popped one into my mouth and looked for a mirror. “I say we get to the tunnels and find the center of the castle from below.”

“Agreed,” she said tightly. “There!” She pointed to a large mirror down the ostentatious hallway on the right.

Staying low and alert, we made our way quickly down the hallway. Trying to pull the mirror off the wall was not working.

“Crap,” I grunted as I pulled on the stupid thing. It didn’t budge. “Is it superglued to the wall?”

“Magic,” Pandora said. “We’re going to have to break it.”

I really didn’t need seven years of bad luck for breaking an ancient mirror, but it didn’t look like we had much of a choice. I didn’t see another mirror anywhere in the vicinity.

“Fine,” I said flatly. “I am so going to burn this place down and sage the whole forsaken area when we’re done.”

Pandora laughed. “I’ll help. We just have to get it done first, Bitch.”

“From your mouth… Stinky Whore,” I said, raring back and smashing the mirror with my fire sword.

Pandora had the same idea, and we shattered that puppy on the third try.

“In,” I ordered, shoving her toward the jagged opening. “We don’t want Chub Chub Wang to see us.”

“Trust me,” she said right before she dove headfirst through the hole. “Chub Chub Wang already knows we’re here. I’m positive the shit stain has been expecting us.”

My stomach tightened to the point of pain. I was certain Pandora was right. I didn’t want her to be, but my aching gut said she was. Now, we just needed to figure out how to get ahead in the game. The rules… hell, there probably weren’t any rules. We were winging this shit.

The tunnel was deep within the building. If we’d been smart, which we hadn’t been, we would have peeked through the damned hole before we dove in. That would have precluded us from freefalling fifty or so feet and landing on top of each other in a tangled heap.

“Get off of me,” Pandora snarled. “Your fat ass is on my sternum.”

“First of all, my ass isn’t fat. It’s awesome,” I hissed as I crawled off my partner. “Why in the hell didn’t my mother put freaking stairs in? This is bullshit.”

I was pretty sure I’d twisted my ankle and gotten a concussion as my head had slammed into the wall multiple times on the way down. Thankfully, I could see the swelling was already going down on my ankle. Pandora had an ugly gash on her cheek and her shoulder was definitely out of the socket.

“You want me to fix that?” I asked, doing my best not to wince. It looked painful.

“Are you a doctor?” she shouted.

“Umm… no.”

“Then that’s your answer,” she growled as she forced her arm back into the socket.

The sound was not good.

I stood up and looked around. As far as the eye could see, it was just hallway after hallway. “I'm not sure this was the right move,” I said.

“You think?” she snapped, gently massaging her shoulder. “And now we’re stuck because Lilith didn’t have the foresight to put in any fucking stairs.”

“Look,” I said, trying not to lose my shit. “We’re fine. We’re not dead. Neither of us lost a head on the way down. All we have to do is find the center of the castle.”

She rolled her eyes.

I rolled mine harder.

She one-upped me and bested me with an eye roll that turned her orbs pure white, beating me hands down. I knew when I couldn’t win a game. The eye roll contest was one of those games.

“The door will be overhead, somewhere in one of these halls,” I said, thinking out loud. “We need to aim our search higher on the walls.”

“And how are we supposed to reach a door that’s over our heads, dumbass?” Pandora inquired. “No stairs. Remember?”

I wasn’t having it with her shitty attitude. The hope I’d seen earlier in her expression had taken a vacation. “We firebomb it.” I gave her a duh look. “Remember?”

She scowled at me. “Still doesn’t solve how we get through it and into the throne room, Bitch.”

“Well…” I said in the most condescending voice I could muster. “That’s why it’s called an ass plan. We pull it out of our asses as we go, Stinky Whore. You cool with that, or should I just leave you here while I go it alone?”

“And let you have all the glory?” she said. “Hell to the no on that, Cecily. I will not let you beat me again.”

I’d had it. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re supposed to be in this together, asshole. It’s not a competition.”

“Everything is a competition in the Darkness,” she said coldly. “Learn that now, or else it will come back to haunt you.”

“This is not a game, Pandora,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “It’s not a one-upmanship contest between you and me. The fate of our entire realm...hell, the entire world as we know it, everything ,” I emphasized, “is on the line. Quit being such a scared, selfish piece of shit. It’s not about you. It’s not about me.”

“Screw you, Bitch Goddess Cecily,” she said with a vile laugh that chilled me to the bone.

Unfortunately, she sounded like the Pandora of old. The one I remembered killing my mother. I didn’t like her one bit.

“Tell me what you want,” I shouted.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she yelled back.

My instinct was to electrocute the living daylights out of her. Right now, my instincts were not my friend. Pandora wasn’t my friend either, but I needed her. I needed her just as much as she needed me. Why couldn’t she get that through her head? Running my hands through my hair and coming out with green gooey guts all over my fingers, I sighed. “I don’t understand you.”

“How could you?” she asked, sounding bone tired. “I’ve been alive for millions of years. You’ve been alive for forty. When you live forever, nothing, and I mean nothing, has meaning—not love, not sex, not interaction with others. It all blurs together. It’s an unending stream of days that turn into weeks, then years… then centuries.” She stared at her hands before closing her eyes. “So, the answer to your insipid question is I don’t know. Sometimes, I want everything. Sometimes nothing. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that existing is the best I can hope for.”

“That’s sad.”

She laughed. The sound was hollow. “Talk to me in a million years.”

“Won’t be able to,” I told her.

She raised a brow in question. “Why. Are you going to be dead?”

I rolled my neck to release some tension then looked her straight in the eye. “We’re all going to be dead if we don’t end Chub Chub Wang.”

Pandora looked startled.

I didn’t care. “You done with the tantrum?” I extended my hand to help her up from the ground.

She smiled. It was real this time, reminding me of the newer, less shitty Pandora I was coming to know and care about. “How are you wiser than me?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe because I haven’t lived forever yet.”

“Maybe,” she said, taking my hand. “Let’s go kill that fucker.”

A surge of optimism renewed my determination. “Sounds good to me.”

Hand in hand, we walked through the tunnels. The two Goddesses of the Darkness had the same goal… this time. It wouldn’t always be like this, and I wasn’t fool enough to believe we could truly be friends. But we could be allies—allies when it counted.

Today was one of those times.

“There!” Pandora shouted. She pointed up at a gold, ornately carved hatch that was no bigger than a breadbox. “That has to be it.”

No wonder we’d struggled to find it. The damn thing had been hiding in plain sight. “I won’t be able to get a foot inside that thing, let alone the rest of my body.” I was having seriously nightmarish flashbacks to when skinny jeans were trending. “We don’t need a staircase,” I huffed. “We need Alice’s drink-me potion of psychedelics to shrink ourselves small enough to fit inside.”

Pandora chewed her lower lip for a moment. “If this was my castle, I’d know what to do, but this was Lilith’s, and she had her own rules.”

“That’s it.” I resisted the urge to kiss her. “This was Lilith’s castle.”

“Yeah, I just said that, Bitch. Are you having a psychotic break?”

I smirked. “Possibly...probably.” I stared up at the tiny door. “But that’s not the point I’m trying to make. This was Lilith’s castle...until you killed her?—”

“And I’m sorry for that,” she cut me off. “I’m never going to be able to express just how sorry.”

“I don’t want you to be sorry right now, Stupid Whore.” I glared at her. “I want you to shut up long enough for me to finish a thought.”

“My bad.” She held up a hand. “Go on.”

“When you killed her, it became my castle.”

She looked at me as if I suddenly had become very interesting. “Yesssss,” she hissed. “This is your castle.”

“So, what would you do if it was your castle?” I asked her. Now was the time for some much-needed Goddess-to-Goddess advice.

“I’d command to door to make itself available to me.”

“That’s it?” I looked at her to see if she was kidding. Her expression said she wasn’t. “Okaaay,” I sang out. “Let’s give it a try.” I stared at the out-of-reach mouse-hole of a door. “Present yourself to me.”

Nothing happened.

I gave Pandora a what-the-hell expression.

“You said the words like you were asking a question. You are the head-bitch-in-charge. Act like it.” She gestured to the door. “Now, command it to obey.”

“Fine,” I grunted. I put all the menace and authority that I could into my tone. “I command you to present yourself to me, door. Present yourself or be blown to smithereens.”

I expected nothing, but was shocked and surprised when the small door shuttered and grew big, stretching from the top of the tall wall all the way to the floor. I might’ve preened a little judging from the judgy-mcjudgy-face Pandora gave me. Whatever. This was a win, and I was taking it.

“Shall we go inside and face Chub Chub Wang?” she asked.

“Yep,” I said. “No time like the present.” To either win or die. Winning was on the docket.

We each put a fresh toothpick in our mouths and went to slay the dragon… or the Chub Chub Wang.

The door opened, and hand-in-hand, we walked through. Two Goddesses facing down destiny. Inside, on my mother’s throne, was a robed figure in a mask. His presence in this space enraged me.

My sword conjured in my hand unbidden, hot with purple flames. Pandora had the twin in her other hand.

“Get the hell out of my chair,” I seethed. “Or I’m going to turn you into a shish kabob and feed you to all my people you starved.”

“And I’ll be the sous chef,” Pandora added.

There was a menacing laugh from under the mask as the fake God stood up and spread his arms in our direction. I braced myself for whatever attack he planned to throw our way.

Instead, he reached up and slid back his cowl before slowly removing his mask.

Under was a plain, ordinary-looking demon, verging on handsome but with a weak chin. His red eyes were filled with such pure delight that it made me shudder.

Pandora squeezed my hand until I thought she’d break my fingers. I spared a glance at her, and felt sick when I saw how pale she’d gone, the stricken expression on her face gutting me to the core,

“What is it?” I asked her. “Do you know him?”

She nodded numbly. “It’s Decatalian.”

“Who?” I’d never heard the name before.

“It’s him. The one who started all of this.” She shook her head, and this time she had tears of grief mixed with horror in her eyes. “He’s the one.”

“The one?” My stomach clenched as I realized who she was talking about. “The one who cheated on you with Lilith and broke your heart and started your reign of terror?”

She nodded slowly. “That would be him.”

I gripped her hand as tightly as she held mine. I needed her to be strong. “We can beat him,” I told her. “But only if we do it together.”

“You have already lost, little Goddesses,” the cheating bastard said. “You lost the minute you entered this room.”

I tried to step forward, but my feet were stuck to the ground and I couldn’t move my legs. We were flies in his trap. I reached out from my mind for my people. For help of any kind.

No one answered.

Pandora’s flaming sword flickered as the arrogant fake God suffocated all hope.

“No,” I said defiantly. I yanked Pandora to get her attention. “He can’t win. We can’t let him.”

She blinked at me. “We?”

“Yes,” I told her. “We.”

I saw a light spark in her eyes. It was dim, but it was there. Hope. I resisted the urge to cry out. It wasn’t gone. Not yet.

Chub Chub Wang aka Decatalian aka the old gaslighting cheating dickbag was about to go down. I had to believe it. I had a life now, and I wasn’t about to lose my happily ever after in the final act.

We would win.

We had to.

The End For Now…