Page 18 of Hounded (Fire & Brimstone)

18

Loren

I arrived in a wide corridor. Runnered rugs marked the path forward and back, and the black walls were flecked with gold. Sconces provided dim light, but they were different than the ones near Moira’s private chambers, more elaborate. Everything here seemed ornate, a step above, from the embossed brass doorknobs to the stars sparkling in the ceiling overhead.

Moira and Whitney loitered nearby. The demoness draped one arm over Whitney’s shoulder and twirled her finger through his blond locks.

“It’s becoming habit, I fear,” Moira said as I walked toward them. “Waiting on you.”

She leaned side to side, peering around me as though searching for someone in tow. “And no soul to show for it.” She clucked her tongue. “Pity.”

I wanted to argue that it had only been a few days, but that was not an acceptable excuse to someone who had no grasp of how I actually spent my time. As far as Moira was concerned, I had nothing to do but sniff out wayward souls, and it was best she continued to believe that .

“No matter,” she said. “For now, other things require our focus. We’ve been summoned.”

Sometimes I forgot that, as adept as Moira was at jerking me and Whitney around, she was at the behest of a higher power. Nero rarely called on her, though. More often, she requested his attention, asserting herself and hoping he would notice. He did, but his response was rarely pleasant.

Still, she looked optimistic as she looped her arms through ours and advanced down the hall.

We walked for several minutes before finding the end. The last door on the left had a gilded knocker carved into the face of a horned beast with thick red liquid dribbling past the ring that hung from its open maw. Moira pulled free of us and paused before the entry, and a brief flash of uncertainty crossed her features. I remembered seeing her and Nero overseeing the combat ring days earlier, and how he’d run her out of the gala in tears before that. So much went on in Hell without my notice. Whitney was right, I would know more if I was here.

Drawing a breath, Moira fluffed her hair back from her shoulders, squared her stance, then took the ring and rapped it against the tap plate.

The door opened as though of its own accord, swinging slowly into a deep, green space.

I’d never been allowed in Nero’s chambers before, and I was immediately impressed by its haunting beauty. The floor was veined marble, shiny and slick. Ivy vines crawled up the walls and swagged from hanging chandeliers. A trio of tall, arched windows defined the back of the room and admitted light through glass panes stained in verdant shades.

We moved forward with Moira in the lead, and I caught myself watching the vines, waiting for one of them to shoot out and ensnare me.

In the center of it all, Nero stood with his arms barred across his broad chest. He peered down his long nose, his red eyes glowing dimly in the darkness.

Moira stalled a dozen feet away from the archdemon. Whitney and I stood behind her, and I mimicked his at-ease pose with my hands clasped behind my back and my feet set shoulder-width apart.

“Moira?” A question hung in Nero’s voice. “Must you drag those mongrels everywhere you go?”

The demoness tensed, and a vein throbbed in the side of her neck. “My boys are my pride and joy, sir. They are a testament to my work. A sample of the product I intend to deliver.”

When Nero turned his head, the metal tips on his horns glinted. “I allowed your frivolous gala, and I attended that mass brawl in the arena the other day. I fail to be impressed by your—” his lip curled— “ product .”

I felt his eyes on me. He’d seen me throw the fight with Abigail, showing damning mercy. Kindness was not a quality valued by any demon.

Moira shuffled side to side, wearing shades of the apprehension I’d noticed in the hallway.

“What more would you like to see, sir?” she asked.

Nero turned his back on us and walked toward the windows, where his silhouette cut a black hole in one of the emerald panes.

“I hoped for a bit of savagery.” Nero’s voice echoed through the emptiness. “You seem determined to dress them up and teach them manners, but they are animals with fangs and claws. In the arena, they retreat and cower. I want a real battle. A massacre.”

He rounded on us and bared his teeth in a nefarious grin. “I’d wager half your pups aren’t worth the skin that contains them. So, let them strip it off one another,” he said, “while we watch.”

My eyes cut a line to Whitney, wondering how he was receiving the archdemon’s words. His mouth twitched, but the rest of his face remained placid. Maybe in another hundred years, I would be able to guard myself as effectively as he could, or at least give the appearance of it.

Ahead of us, Moira crept closer to Nero. “Perhaps there’s something else they could fight or even kill…”

Whitney let out a rumbling growl. The sound was so unexpected that my head whipped aside, disbelieving while Nero carried on.

“The rest of Hell has no need for glorified house pets or beastly lovers.” He scoffed. “If you can’t find a better use for them, then I believe they should be disposed of.”

Moira stepped back, and her arms spread as though forming a shield between the archdemon and us. “Sir, you can’t—”

“You would do well not to presume to tell me what I can or cannot do,” Nero seethed, barely restrained. “If your hounds do not entertain me, then I shall entertain myself. They are human souls, are they not?” His gesture toward us made me flinch. “They sense and suffer like mortals do? ”

“Yes, sir,” Moira replied.

The archdemon stroked his chin. “That could be something. Let the demons have their fun with your invulnerable pets. Tear them apart and watch them put themselves back together.”

Dread pooled in my gut. I’d attended church in my youth, having been raised Catholic by devout parents who made it a priority after arriving in America to find a place of worship. It was the first door we found closed to us, and the last one we expected. But before we’d been banned from the house of God, I learned plenty about Heaven and Hell. Salvation was the only respite from an eternity of torment, and while my existence as a hellhound fit the bill for some form of torture, Nero suggested something worse.

My brain conjured images of shackles and chains and hot iron pokers, then delved into the depths of dank, torchlit torture chambers before a third person entered the dialogue.

“What about hunting?”

Whitney spoke softly, but his accented voice seemed to resound. I whipped aside to find him stiff-backed and staunch, his head level and his eyes fixed on Nero’s.

Not once in a hundred years had I heard Whitney speak out of turn. He was disciplined, a model student in Moira’s obedience school, though seeing him now, I could not deny he was also the bravest man I’d ever known.

Nero’s countenance creased with such rage I thought he might spit fire. “You dare address me unbidden, whelp?”

Whitney stepped forward to stand beside Moira. “ What if not fighting but hunting?” He turned an open hand to where I hung back. “Lorenzo is a skilled tracker. He’s found scores of bartered souls and delivered them to Hell. That has merit. And there are plenty of other things on Earth. Fantastical creatures. I caught the scent of a phoenix a few days ago. If the hounds could be put to work that way—”

“Say that again.” Nero cocked his head, flaunting his massive horns.

Whitney paused. “Sir?”

I gagged, fully choked on the bile that surged into my throat. It hung there, burning while resisting my efforts to swallow it down until my eyes were watering and I was starved for air.

The archdemon closed in, towering a full foot over Whitney’s head. “You found a phoenix?” he asked.

Whitney gave the slightest bend backward, enough that I glimpsed his face in profile and found it pinched and uncertain. “I smelled one… briefly. But I lost track of it—”

Nero jerked aside, shifting his attention to Moira. “Why didn’t you mention this?”

Our mistress stalled, and I wished I could see her expression until the hurt in her voice made her feelings clear. “He didn’t tell me…”

Nero threw back his head in a roaring laugh. Still chuckling, he addressed Moira once more. “Perhaps the problem isn’t the hounds at all, rather your handling of them.”

I hadn’t breathed yet. I couldn’t. Everything was wadded up tight, squeezing at my heart, my lungs, my throat…

“It is a fine idea,” Nero continued while grinning. “Hunting dogs. Let them scour the earth for treasure and claim it for Hell. It will be grand. The demons can pick hounds to be their champions, then set them loose and make it a race. Whoever owns the hound that retrieves the phoenix may keep the bird as a trophy.”

I needed to leave. To crawl out of my body and slink from this room. To run home to Indy and tell him to hide or run far away. But New York was no less safe than New Zealand. Hell had portals all over the world. Sully’s ward provided some security, but not enough.

Nero’s eyes glowed acid green, indicative of the sin he most closely identified with at the moment: greed.

He wanted Indy as decoration for this barren space. He would leave my phoenix to wither and fade in a cage worse than the one in which I first found him. That memory drummed up latent anger, and my hound stirred in response.

Treasure, he said. He sounded as sorrowful as if the battle was already lost.

A few feet away, Moira had recovered and joined in the scheming. “Once the hounds are ready, you can have your pick of the litter to hunt for you and represent your interests.”

Nero stabbed his gnarled finger at Whitney.

“I want that one,” he declared.

My heart stuttered.

Moira followed the archdemon’s gesture. Her scarlet lips fell apart, and her eyes flicked from Whitney to me while panic wreaked havoc on her features. After a startled second, she spun toward Nero.

“Oh, sir, you misunderstand.” The sound that came out of her might have been a laugh, but it was too soft and jittery to be convincing. “I meant one of the new hounds,” she said. “Something fresh. All your own.”

Nero scoffed. “You said I’d have my pick, and so I have. That dog has more experience than all the young pups combined, and he’s already scented the bird. Why should I settle for less?”

I dared a glance at Whitney and found his jaw set and his features rigid. He faced forward so steadfastly I almost believed he was unbothered, but the slight quake in his knees betrayed him.

All I knew of Nero was that he delighted in cruelty, and that was enough to make me wary. Moira had her own claws, of course, but I was familiar with their sting. The enigma frightened me much more. In this instance, the phrase “better the devil you know” applied literally.

Moira shifted and swayed while wringing her hands. “There’s time yet.” She tried for another tittering laugh. “It’s another few weeks till they are fully trained. You can think about it. Perhaps one of the others will strike your fancy.”

Nero strode forward, and his steps echoed on the polished floor. “I’ve made up my mind, and I believe I’ll take him now.” He held out an empty hand, palm up.

Moira sagged as though the archdemon had reached into her and removed her spine.

“Now?” she asked breathlessly.

“The phoenix is out there, roaming free.” Irritation gave Nero’s voice a raw edge. “Why delay? He needs no further training.” He indicated Whitney. “And a slight head start will be my reward for placing my faith in you.”

The room felt cavernous, and we shrunk within it. Moira couldn’t refuse him, just as we couldn’t refuse her. All of Hell was a hierarchy, and that was most evident to those of us on the bottom rungs.

When Moira spoke again, her voice wavered. “Please, sir. Not my boys. You can have any of the others. All the others—”

“Should I take that one, too?” When Nero indicated me, I leaned back, fighting the impulse to make a full retreat. My unchecked fear caused the archdemon to smirk and add, “Perhaps they work better as a team.”

“No!” Moira blurted, then was silenced by Nero’s glare. She cupped her palm to her mouth, and her head hung low. I’d never seen her so defeated.

Nero grunted a satisfied sound. His hand remained outstretched, waiting for the offering Moira had yet to remit. “I will take your pretty soldier and put him to the test. If he impresses me, I may decide to keep him permanently. And for him to impress me would be a boon for you, Mistress of the Hounds.”

Relief came with a chaser of guilt. I had been spared, but Whitney’s fate was sealed.

Moira glanced at me, looking like a mourner at a funeral. Then she turned toward Whitney with her hands fisted at her sides. I imagined she wanted to fix his hair, straighten his jacket, and groom him for his new master. But fond farewells were not exchanged in Hell, especially not in front of hard-nosed archdemons. So instead, Moira opened her palm to reveal a coiled gold chain leash. She fumbled through clipping it to Whitney’s collar, then stepped back and gave a gentle tug.

“Come,” she murmured.

While she led Whitney to Nero’s side, I hung back, afraid to so much as twitch and draw attention to myself. For someone who dealt in binding contracts, our mistress had left this arrangement unclear. It wasn’t an actual transfer of ownership—that required paperwork. This was a short-term lease. A test drive. That knowledge failed to give me peace as Moira handed the leash to Nero.

He gave it a jingle while looking my fellow hound up and down, then his lip curled.

“Don’t you know to kneel in the presence of your betters, cur?” He jerked on the leash, snapping the choke chain tight around Whitney’s throat.

Whitney grunted and dropped to his knees with his hands behind his back and his blond head lowered.

Nero rumbled a laugh. “That’s better.”

I fixed my attention on the floor while hearing nothing but the sound of my own ragged breathing.

Things had happened so fast that I struggled to make sense of it all.

Whitney knew about Indy.

He told Nero.

The hounds would be trained to hunt. To seek out my treasure. To bring him to Hell where the demons would destroy him.

And I… I…

The stomp of Nero’s foot shattered the quiet. “Go on,” he told Moira. “You have work to do if the other mutts are to have any hope of catching this fantastical bird.”

Once the demoness pried herself away from Whitney, she was in a rush. It was reminiscent how she’d fled the gala after Nero shamed her, hurrying to hide her broken state. She beckoned me with a wave, and I followed her out of Nero’s chambers into the corridor.

Beyond the closed door, Moira stalled with her chest heaving and hands trembling. The hallway stretched ahead, but she stayed in place as though caged. At last, she turned to me. A faint mist clouded her eyes, but her features were resolute.

“It falls to you, Lorenzo.” She stepped close and used both hands to tuck my hair behind my ears, then cupped my face in her palms. “Whitney isn’t the only one who must impress. And, with him gone, you no longer have a shadow to hide in.”

A melancholy smile twisted her lips while she brushed her thumbs over my cheeks in slow, repetitive strokes. “I need you to come to me, pet,” she murmured. “Come for me. In my bedroom. It’s been too long.”

For all the feelings that had assaulted me in Nero’s chambers, her statement brought a slew of new ones. I didn’t manage indifference nearly as well as Whitney did and, with the demoness staring deeply into my eyes, I knew she could see my hesitancy.

Her clawed fingers hooked around my jaw. I bit down, grinding my teeth as though crushing the refusal I wanted to give.

I’d never loved her, and I was confident the only thing she loved about me was my ability to follow orders. Even in that, she preferred her “pretty soldier,” but I saw through her now. She’d been defeated, and she would salve her own wounds by opening some in me.

“Yes, Miss,” I whispered.

“Surely that’s not all you have to say.” Her nails pricked my skin. “When a lady invites you to her bed, what is the correct response?”

“Yes, Miss,” I repeated, then faltered, unable to form the words. Finally, they wrenched out of me on the beginning of a sob. “Thank you, Miss.”