Page 12 of My Demon Hunter (Hell Bent #2)

11

PIT STOP

M ist allowed himself to be dragged toward the Pit by his chains. He’d drifted in and out of awareness while that cursed camel hauled him through the lair to make a spectacle out of his punishment. He might have been ashamed had he not welcomed the chance to regenerate his brutalized heart and broken wing.

Sometimes the smartest course of action was to swallow one’s pride and play dead. Because he had, he was now stronger than he would have been if he’d continued to fight. Now, hopefully, he’d be able to last more than five minutes in the Pit.

He’d still end up as gorath meat in the end, however. Strength or no strength, his future looked bleak.

This is what happens when the rules are broken. This is the consequence of insubordination.

“Oi,” the gargoyle lurking next to Shaheen said. “Time to wake up from your nap, boss. Time for playtime in the Pit.” He chuckled maliciously.

The gargoyles called him “boss” because he’d often used them on his hunts. But, of course, they wouldn’t hesitate to throw him to the dogs at Paimon’s command. No demon in his right mind would. A demon in his right mind seized any chance for violence with enthusiasm.

Mist had recently discovered he was not in his right mind.

Somehow he had managed to escape his fate the first time he’d broken the rules, but evidently, he wouldn’t manage it a second time. Paimon knew he’d betrayed her, and he doubted he would be free to hunt again now that she didn’t trust him.

If he wasn’t useful to her, he was useless. If she ever got bored of torturing him, she’d likely petition to have him destroyed. He was too powerful for grunt work and posed too much of a threat for anything else.

This is what happens when the rules are broken. This is the consequence of insubordination.

He knew this. His entire life had been spent learning this lesson. So why had he been foolish enough to try in the first place?

It didn’t matter, in the end. Whatever his reasons, he was about to end up in the Pit like every other rule breaker he’d tossed in there at his mistress’s command. A fitting end, he supposed.

He was surprised at how little emotion he felt regarding thoughts of his own demise. He had once loved hunting, had lived for the pursuit of prey and reveled in their terror when he caught them, as if they’d actually believed they could elude Hell’s Hunter. He hadn’t even minded the brands so long as Paimon continued awarding him assignments.

But in recent years, he’d been haunted by his victims’ screams and cries for mercy. Knowing they were rule breakers did not lessen his guilt. And his hatred and resentment of his mistress had grown with it, until finally, he could pretend no longer to be something he wasn’t.

“Here we are,” the gargoyle announced, halting the unceremonious progression. With their pig snouts, underbite fangs, and bat ears, gargoyles were not only ugly, but exceedingly dim-witted. Their skulls were exceptionally thick, which was an added challenge in a fight but meant their brains were barely acorn sized.

They were outside the heavy gate to the Pit. Within, he could hear the characteristic squelching of the slimy goraths and the dull hum of the excited crowd. There would be a large one for this. Everyone would want to see the fall of Mishetsumephtai.

“Mistress said to take the chains off so you can put up a good fight, but the cuffs stay on.”

He’d expected as much. Without them, he’d simply turn to mist. Not much fun for the spectators.

Mist held out his wrists dutifully, and the gargoyle unlocked the chains. It grated his pride that this lowly creature could remove them when he could not. Though only a simple locking bolt connected them, the magic of the brands made it so he couldn’t budge it.

The chains disappeared as soon as they were unlinked, and Mist straightened and stretched his wings, discarding the pretense of weakness. He considered his options.

He could go into the Pit and fight the goraths tooth and nail. He could hold his own, certainly, but there were half a dozen of them and one of him, and with the grate over the top preventing aerial escapes, he wasn’t getting out of there until Paimon let him. Eventually he would tire, and the ghastly feeding would commence.

Or he could fight now and escape.

Though he might be free for a time, Paimon would just summon him again. If he ignored it, the brand would eventually kill him.

Not a bad plan, all things considered.

There was a chance Belial might actually be able to find a way to remove the brands. And if not, well, as long as he tied himself down so he couldn’t obey the compulsion, he would escape being eaten by a gorath and die on his own terms.

Flexing his fingers, his claws lengthened, and he struck out at the gargoyle, slicing its thick neck open. It fell to the ground gasping and clutching its throat, but the blood flow dried up in seconds and then it lay still.

He looked at Shaheen, who blinked lazily at him. Just as Mist sank into a crouch, prepared to fight the demonic camel he’d always loathed, half a dozen more gargoyles stepped out of the shadows.

“Mistress said you might try somethin’.”

“So she sent only six of you?” He was almost offended.

“No,” a cool voice said from the darkness. “She came herself.”

Paimon stepped out of the shadows. Standing at full height, she had nearly a foot on him, and her wingtips scraped the tunnel ceiling.

“Are you ready to tell the truth, Mishetsu?”

He said nothing, but he felt his stomach hollow with despair. Until this moment, he realized he’d held on to hope that he would fight his way out of this predicament. Besides Paimon herself, there was no one in this lair that could best him.

But here she was.

“I guess not. It pains me to lose my loyal Hunter, but alas. It’ll make a good show.” She flicked her fingers. “Open the gate!”

Behind him, the metal barrier creaked and groaned as it slowly lifted. The dull hum of the audience increased to a roar of excitement.

“Throw him in the Pit!”

The crowds howled in approval. He was seized around the arms by the gargoyles flanking Paimon and tossed unceremoniously backward. He could have fought, but he was going to end up there either way, and he’d rather do it with his heart beating properly. It had only just regenerated, after all.

He climbed to his feet just as the metal slammed to the ground, never taking his eyes from Paimon, who stood behind the safety of the bars with a cruel smile twisting her lips. Beside her, the camel smiled too.

A low hiss had him spinning around.

And there he was. Face to face with one of the nastiest creatures in all of Hell.

They were like enormous centipedes, with long scaled bodies and hundreds of legs, each a curved scimitar. A circular mouth took the place of any sort of head, complete with countless rows of sharp teeth, spiraling around the death trap.

They caught their prey with retractable tongues that shot forward from their throats and stuck to their victims with a noxious saliva that burned anything it touched. The saliva produced a drugging effect that entered the bloodstream through the acid burns and disoriented the victims.

Most disgusting of all was their eyes. Like a snail, they were on long stalks that extended from the goraths’ mucous bodies. Unlike snails, however, they had exceedingly sharp vision. Their eye stalks could rotate rapidly around, making it difficult to keep out of their sight. And there were dozens—each gorath had at least thirty eyes.

Currently, every single eye on every single gorath was fixed on him.

Nearly two hundred eyes , he calculated in some distant part of his mind.

The creature closest gave a horrific shriek, so loud his eardrums distorted. It wiggled its slimy, scaled body and charged, stabbing blade-like legs forward with its rapid approach.

The tentacle eyes were a gorath’s one weakness. When severed, they grew back quickly, but without their sight, they were useless hunters, for they possessed no other senses. Mist sank into a crouch, flared his wings, and flexed his claws out as long as they would go.

At the last second, when the monster was nearly upon him, he launched into the air, immensely glad his broken wing was healed enough for flight. The beast’s tongue shot out, missing him by inches, so close that several drops of saliva hit him. The sizzling of his skin reached his ears over the monsters’ shrieks and the audience’s screams, but he tuned it all out, intent upon his task.

As he flew past the gorath’s gaping maw, he swiped one hand out with his claws extended, severing a dozen eye stalks in the process. The eyes tumbled to the ground, oozing a grayish slime that was quickly trampled by the next charging gorath.

Flitting through the air, dodging shooting tongues and slurping mouths, he felt like a tiny fly, a mere annoyance to these behemoths. Nothing but a quick snack when they finally caught him.

But if he was a fly, he was a clever one who knew how to fight.

The only way to kill a gorath was by damaging its heart. Oddly fitting after what he had just endured. Unfortunately, there was only one way to get to the heart: from within.

Their outer armor was basically impenetrable. It could withstand all but the most potent hellfire, and Mist couldn’t call on hellfire at will anyway. That meant he had to get inside the creature to kill it.

That meant he had to let it eat him without chewing him up first.

Swooping as high above the monsters as he could without hitting the grate over the Pit, he studied the writhing mass and picked his first target.

His eyes landed on the biggest. Mist was at his strongest now—after defeating one, he would be weakened. It would be best to take that one out first and save the smaller ones for last.

A wave of despair washed over him as he contemplated the monumental task ahead of him. But fighting was his only option, so he pushed it down, studied his target, and waited for his chance.

And then took it.

The biggest monster stretched its mouth wide, rows of teeth flattening against its dripping gums as its long tongue reached toward him. Mist took a breath, tucked his wings against his sides, and dove straight down its throat.

At the last second, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced for impact.

A slimy esophagus closed around him, and instantly, acidic saliva began to burn through his flesh. Down he slid as the throat muscles flexed.

The pain of his skin melting nearly stole his consciousness, but he fought through it and focused. Gathering strength, he maneuvered his hands so his claws were out.

And then he started shredding.

He stabbed and slashed the creature from the inside out, fighting through layers of leathery tissue toward the heart. At some point, a part of his mind switched off and dissociated from reality. He felt nothing. The numbness was likely a side effect of the drugging saliva, but it was to his advantage in this case. If he’d had the awareness to contemplate what he was doing, he might have passed out from sheer revulsion.

And then he actually succeeded. His claws cut into the pulsing organ, and the creature exploded.

He didn’t have to claw back out of the body because when a gorath died, it ruptured like it had swallowed dynamite. Gray blood and gore showered the arena and all its spectators, but that was by far the least disgusting thing he’d experienced in the last several minutes, and he felt nothing but crushing relief as his feet landed solidly on the ground.

His legs immediately crumpled beneath him.

A hush fell over the crowd. No one moved; no one even breathed.

Any other time he would have enjoyed his success, but currently, he was too focused on regrowing his skin. He hadn’t lost any critical appendages or facial features, but he was extraordinarily bloody. And weak. His head was spinning, his vision dancing with spots.

And he still had another five goraths to go.

“Attack him while he’s down, you useless wretches!” Paimon screamed into the silence, breaking the spell.

Mist had just begun hauling himself up when a long tongue shot out from behind and wrapped around his middle. All that work, and he was about to get eaten before he had a chance to fight again.

Several things happened at once.

He sensed the sudden stirring of magic in the air. It wasn’t a familiar magic, nothing he had ever felt in Paimon’s lair. Powerful and deep, he felt it tether somewhere inside him like yet another binding. For that reason, he resisted it.

He hadn’t much focus to spare, however, considering he was currently hurtling with incredible speed toward the gorath’s waiting mouth. And he wasn’t positioned to fight back. His back was to his foe, and he was upright, so the beast would have to chew to get him down.

And then everything shifted.

One moment he was rushing toward certain doom, and the next he was whooshing through space, surrounded by green light. Temporal magic.

And then he was slamming back into his body, back to the world, into the ground...

And landing in the middle of a summoning seal on Earth.

The sigil’s magic tried to constrain him, and he instinctively used every drop of his remaining strength to fight it. Somehow, he felt his ability to turn to mist return, and he did so, pushing with all his might against the barrier until he found a weakness. There.

He burst through like a cloud of death and rushed to destroy whatever foe had dared try to enslave him yet again.